Get your blab on!

Try to click that button on the right and leave me a voice mail through the computerized network system! I would love to see how this sucker will work! The information superhighway promises much, and delivers (sometimes). Let's give this thing a go. Come on, peeps. chinGO!

Same Guy.

I know it's LESS funny when you have to explain, but that's Liam Gallagher of Oasis.

Pro Video Bandits Destroy! Details Below.

Your 2005-2006 Pro Video Bandits have taken home the Audience Choice Award for their 48-hour Film Project entry, Heartfelt. The first-time entrants were surprised to have won the popularity contest, since their film's "funny parts" elicited so few actual laughs from the crowd. Still, producer Bill Poff was pleased, if not satisfied: "What I want is to win the city. I want to go to nationals." Those type things will be disclosed in two weeks.

Non-winners, at least up to now, are those darned Dallas Mavericks. I am so put out with this non-winning team that I have declared that, for me, the 2005-2006 NBA season is over. I cannot grade the season; I give it an I for Incomplete. I have no plans to watch other games. It is neither here nor there. And I can say, and I hate saying this, but I can say that if the Mavs do pull it out and win the next two games, I will not crow nor tout them as The Champs. They have forfeit that right. That is too bad, but it is my stance.

There were winners, and there were losers. The fifth day.

Who is this guy?

Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentenian revolutionary leader, was driven, at least in part, by compassion and conviction. If you want to see an inspiring (and romanticized) account of his life, see The Motorcycle Diaries. By the way, the word "che" is the familiar diminutive for "you" in Argentina, as in "hey, you!" It's a one-word call of urgency and engagement, and it was his name. Pretty cool.

Zechariah 7:9 This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another

He was a charismatic leader, known for his exploits. He spoke in Cuba several times, beginning in 1964, and people came to see him because his exploits were passed around and he was generally regarded as a folk hero. Castro did much to hype his legend and exploit it for his purposes, which Che was okay with, at least sometimes.

Matthew 8:1 When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him.

People wanted to be around him, but the demands for coming alongside him were huge:

“[Che] believed a successful revolution must begin in the countryside… not in the cities. Any number, no matter how small, could begin it, keeping a low profile while they accumulated recruits, then increasing their daring and their numbers as the movement gained notoriety through its exploits… the leader… would have total command…if it persisted, even a small group of dedicated revolutionaries could overcome great opposition.” -Henry Butterfield Ryan, The Fall of Che Guevara

Luke 14:25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.27And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple...33In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple

Che wanted people in small groups. He wanted them to Go To The Crags. That's where change took place: once people went to the crags, they were never the same again. It was there that they counted the cost, and Che knew that the dynamic in the crags would shape people into the revolutionaries they'd become.

Che didn't believe that he was the revolution; he believed that the revolution was in the hearts of the people--he only wanted to fan the flame that (he believed) was already there in people's hearts. That being the case, he traveled to other countries to help facilitate strategies for uprising. He did this not only in Cuba, but in Guatemala, Congo Kinchasa, and Bolivia.

What did Che have to gain by swooping around the world to help others along then get out of the picture? It goes back to the fact that he was driven by compassion and conviction, not by ego. He didn't care that his name was made great; he cared about people living in (what he saw as) freedom. His dream was to cover the globe with socialism, setting people free from tyranny and oppression.

Matthew 28:18 ...Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

“[Guevara] brings to mind early reformers of the Christian church, with his extensive learning, his disregard of worldly rewards, his devotion to an ideal, his despair over the imperfect commitment of colleagues, and his certainty that he would someday become a martyr for the faith...” --Ryan

"His dedication to his revolutionary beliefs was deeply religious. Che had a missionary's faith in the innate goodness of man, in the ability of workers to dedicate themselves to ideals and to overcome selfishness and prejudices. It was the other side of the coin of his passionate indignation against injustice and exploitation of the humble. He saw the solution in an exalted form of Marxism that would bring freedom and brotherhood. Such men are born to be martyrs." --Herbert L. Matthews, Revolution In Cuba

I'll Not Take This Injustice Without Complaining!

Now I will take an ace/moljer approach: I will rant.

I have whined some about this in the past, but I must report more snobbery on the part of motorcycle owners and shop management. These people act as if a bike over 10 years old is tantamount to litter, to street trash floating by.

I recently crashed my bike, which is an embarrassing experience. It was my first time to do so, but luckily I was prepared by not wearing a helmet, but compensating by wearing only shorts and a t-shirt. I rolled around a little bit in front of several cars and the UPS truck that caused my panic and eventual loss of control, but sustained only a scraped up knee and left forearm/elbow. Small price to pay for about 7 years of riding pleasure. Anyhow, my bike looked worse than I did: on its side, draining all manner of fluids, and not making any hopeful noises when I tried to start it back up. I took it to a shop.

There, the snobbishness was plied with expertise. Basically, these jerks didn't want to work on a 22-year-old bike which, if you ask me, they should be PROUD of. "Our girl's still running strong after all these years! What an advertisement for our brand! How can we help you, sir?" etc. This is what they say to me in my mind, when I go to get my bike worked on.

Instead, I was talked to about how they wouldn't be able to get any body parts for this bike if I'd asked them to do any body work (which I didn't). I was told it ran okay, so why would I want to have them take a look at it (it eventually ran after sitting upright a couple of days and the breather dried out)? When I asked them that, as long as they had it, would they just give it a tune up and maybe change the plugs?, I was treated as if I was impinging on their valuable time and my bike didn't deserve that. I was so annoyed I just asked for the bike back. There's a shop on the other side of town (a much more depressed area, with less snobbery) where they'll treat me like a customer who's willing to pay for a service. I actually even had this exchange with the 'service manager' (ha! misplaced title there, bucko):

ServManaJerk: Couldn't get a new tank or anything for this bike if you needed them. It'd basically be junked at that point.

Customer: I don't need you to do that. If I DID need a new tank, I could get one lickety split on ebay. It's not hard.

ServManaJerk: Yeah, but on those old parts, half the time it's all rusted out on the inside, and the tank cap might not be assembled properly. You're basically out of luck, there.

Customer, in his head: Look I GET that you don't want me to own this bike, asshead. I GET that you'd rather I owned a 2006 Shadow so that you could get me all new chrome parts and every time I walked in it'd cost me $300. I GET THAT. BUT THIS IS MY BIKE. WILL YOU PLEASE WORK ON IT, TURDO?! Also, can I borrow $10? (I would just throw that in there to totally cheese him off, because it's inappropriate, socially, to ask for a personal favor amidst a business interaction, and that would WIG HIM OUT!)

And THAT's the kind of ignominy that Rosie the Motorbike has to undergo, all the time. Prejudice exists, my friends, and it doesn't look like it's going away any time soon. Say "I appreciate you" today to an old-model form of transportation. I'm sure ace will nominate his Toyota if you need an object for your affection.

Smilin'

I'm taking it easy. I'm kicking up and not bothered. Mavs fans around the globe are eating their shoelaces today, but not me. As I said at the beginning of the playoffs, I am a Well-Trained Mavs Observer. SHOULD WIN means nothing to me. BETTER TEAM is irrelevant. I am a modern man, massaged by the years. I have learned to have no emotion, like my leader Dirk, and just say "it's a game. Maybe the team will be better next time." This makes for good sleeping. When you learn well (I didn't say the learning was easy! I said the lessons are thorough), you begin to stop taking the bait. Mavs get extremely nervous in crunch time, and that's all there is to it. And Dirk is like the oven cleaner: Easy Off. He's not like Jordan, who'd become INSENCED when he shot poorly, as if to say "exCUSE me!? How DARE me not shoot the way I'm capable of shooting! I will not cram this ball down somebody's throat!" He's Dirk. He's easygoing. It makes for a more balanced person. And that's good.

Now then. Consider:

SAME GUY



by the way, how great is it that the entire public relations and design teams of the Yakima Mavericks signed off on that logo, leaving the apostrophe in tact? Magic, I tell you. Magic.

Sleep is for suckers

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of working on a project for this thing:

This means that my team received a genre (buddy movie), necessary character (Rev. Paul Schwarz), necessary prop (egg), and necessary line ("That's the dumbest thing I ever heard!") at 7pm on Friday. I and two others (and Jiff's cell phone) wrote a script, due at 7am, at which point my director and producer scouted locations and started doing whatever they do. Then the actors (of which I was one) got together at noon and we shot that mother until like 3 am, then editing, sound, color correction, etc. started happening. We turned in our little love child at 6pm Sunday night, still wet with our kisses.

It's a modern parable, really: two loveably strange men perform a puppet show at a VBS and a brawl ensues. Who can't learn a thing or two from this tragicomedy? Nobody, I tell ye. Nobody.

If the technology exists at some point, I will send you to youtube to see it. I'm going to the screening tonight, where I hope we'll collect massive awards and huge cash packages.


Viva la cinema!

This is the musical world we live in.

Today, in submission to the wishes of my iPod, I listened to Jack Johnson during my 1-mile commute to work. As I was considering his no-frills stylings, I was reminded of my opinion-how refreshing. About 10-years ago, I surveyed the pop/rock landscape and thought that we, as listeners, exhausted. Michael Jackson and others were so grossly overproducing their records that the radio often seemed more like a clattered cacophony of gizmos and clicks than a medium where songs were exchanged. There were also big, angry rock bands out there like Pearl Jam (what is up, CZ), Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Metallica, Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, as well as loud, meaningless rock bands like Guns N Roses, Bon Jovi, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Throw all those guys into the stew (and more--these are off the top of my head), and things are brash, frenzied, and sonically tiring.

Anyhow: what I said many times over, in those days, was "I bet things will change. I think this particular track is at its end. I bet we somehow return to the folksy days of the 70s, where James Taylor and his guitar and a sparce backing band are good enough to get the point across and bring a return of HEART to the landscape. I bet SONGWRITERS will be the new currency, where high-touch, high-vulnerability will somehow be edgy."

I remember Jewel happening, and thinking "I hope this is the beginning (of something better)." It was. Practically all of the emo artists (including the droning Mr. Bland, er, Blunt, Sufjan, Belle and Sebastian etc.), as well as our friend Jack are doing it low-tone style. Foo Fighters released an acoustic album this year! What?! Even Coldplay is less about noise than they are about emotion and connection, which is, as you know, a joy to me.

On the one hand, I am obviously pleased with these developments. It makes my predictions look sagacious, and there's more music out there that invites a dialogue, a conversation, an evaluation. I like that.

On the other hand, where's the fun, kickin' rock band gone? I don't think U2 would still be the presence they are if there were 20 year olds still cranking out great rock music. Not sideline stuff (Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Artic Monkeys), but radio-ready, fun rock music. There isn't even a rock band as big as Creed out there right now--not that I liked them at all, but I just like a crunch band BEING there.

But if that's the price of songwriters, I'll take it. John Mayer wouldn't have made it in the 80s or early 90s, but he is now certifiably cool, and I'm glad. I guess we can all hold our breaths to see if we can have a Police rebirth somewhere. Until then, I kinda enjoy the Curious George soundtrack. It might be simple, but it's trying to mean SOMETHING.

We gotta tear the machine down before we can build it back up again.

Open Question

2 Corinthians 4:4 refers to Satan as "the god of this age". Luke 4:6, Revelation 13:2-7, and Matthew 18 talk about the authority he has to do what he does, by God. Job 1-2 talk about this same thing.

Romans 13:1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.

What am I to do with this, since rebelling against that ruler and his authorities (again, Eph 6:12- "our struggle is... against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil...") is something I'm supposed to do? How can I know which authority is from God and which is part of the devil's system? The book A Tale of Three Kings (wonderful! wonderful! Everybody read this book!) says "you can't know, so submit to them all", but surely I'm not to submit to the enemy's intentions in my life and in the lives of those I'm to fight for.

Any help on this, anybody?

From the Archives

I just thought everybody should see this wonderful photo. May these two have many more exciting playoff series, and may Scrappy lose them all.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say RIP to Charles Barkley's 2006 Playoffs on TNT.

And one last (melancholy) Mavs point for the day: when they were hoisting up that Western Conference Champs trophy, and I was harkening back to 1996, the last time I was rooting for a winner, Didi said very matter-of-factly, having been through the corporate grinder herself: it's going to be a very sad day for Mark Cuban when his team wins the finals. Then what?

I quickly reminded her that, just like the corporate world, the carrot will keep moving. Then he'll need two, a dynasty, etc. etc. Still, I liked her jarring me back to reality that these are two corporations battling each other. Kinda takes the fun out of it, though.

I Cannot Help But Show This Wonder

In light of recent postings, this cannot be debated:


There it is, a wedding day tribute to an Aggie tradition that killed a couple dozen people about 10 years ago. Nothing says "I do" like a confectionary memorial to a fiery death trap, complete with an outhouse on top. Say you'll be mine my dear?

Stealthy Germans that made my weekend fun

and

but not

Mavs Thoughts

* Where was the Eva Longoria Cam in Friday night's win? Maybe she's stopped following the Mavs? I sure hope not.

* In the last 4 minutes of tight games, there are certain teams that just seem to get fiestier, more aggressive, and just like to clamp down. These teams win a lot. I think of the Shaq Lakers, the Pistons, and yes, the Spurs. These Mavs of mine, they are not like that. Where other teams increase in intensity, Mavs just start hoping more. They begin to say "oh. I sure hope we don't lose this game. I sure hope we might possibly make a shot or two, etc." I used to know another team like this--my old Rockets. They begin to get that butt-pucker, take weird shots, don't push the offense, etc. It's a lot like the Prevent D the Oilers have favored. My pal Chris Havard would always say, "yes, the Prevent D works: it prevents us from winning." I always liked that line.

* Same guy, different position:

Same mormony ineffectiveness, same striking whiteness, same sex appeal.

About School Spirit... Again

When I was 17 years old and starting Higher Education, I was pretty jazzed about the whole thing. I really loved the idea of being part of this academic community, where there was a commonness amidst incredible variety. I liked rubbing shoulders with would-be engineers, politicos, and poets, all in a day's span; I liked hearing lectures on subjects that I'd never think about again; I liked there being a gigantic organization that was forever churning out concerts, intramural sports, community service projects, etc. all for my participation and enjoyment. It was good.

Now, having said that, I also understood that what I (and, to a larger degree, my parents) had done was to buy into a CORPORATION. They were a service company that offered educational environments. We could USE the word 'family', we could propagandize some sort of birthright or brotherhood, etc., but our commonality was really on a par with everybody using the same brand of toothpaste. At my particular school, there was a very involved and complex system of expectations and inferences that presumably obligated people to act a certain way (raise your hands over your head at ballgames at specific times, based on what your year is), talk a certain way (always say HOWDY when you pass people on the sidewalks), and even buy into specific moralities (the hallowed "Aggie Code" which means that we never, say it with me Ags, "Lie, Cheat, or Steal"). Looking back, it was bizarre. I think I've chronicled here, before, about the appeal to the Spirit of Aggieland at bonfires and what not and it felt awfully religious and scary. But I now see that this is how institutions work, and communal buy-in is simply a way to 1) control people, and 2) propagate yourself. So we can say that telling your family members about your wonderful experience is just a way for them, too, to get the best out of their collegiate experience, or we can see that this is corporate marketing in a folksy dressing.


Either way, I came away from my university experience having had a wonderful time, loving all that it entailed, but being remorseful that I dropped $300 (or whatever it was) on my Senior Ring, which now resides in a box in our spare bedroom. I will occasionally wear a t-shirt with my old school on it, out of nostalgia or something, but I can't say that I have School Spirit in the strictest sense. I feel no ownership in that particular corporation. And I certainly didn't have a wedding cake that resembled this in any way:

And now for something totally different...

You may think this is "lame" or "pointless" or "megalomaniacal" or "Oprahlicious", but a WHOLE NEW BLOG has been created by yours truly. Think of it! Another page of MMMEEEEEE. Let me tell you all about it:

I do a little teaching thing here in Cincinnati, where I get a few friends together then tell them some stuff I'm seeing God saying in the scriptures and in the world around me. I make them listen to me for hours at a time. THEN, they sometimes insinuate that I haven't COMPLETELY and EXHAUSTIVELY covered a subject (can you believe this?) by wanting to ask QUESTIONS about what I've said. Unfortunately, I manage to be so seldom available for phone calls or conversations that I inadvertantly evade their inquiries. It's too bad, how it is. In any case, it's more efficient (and probably more beneficial to others) to create AN ENTIRELY NEW WEB PAGE ON THE INTERNET so that people can ask questions and throw them around to other people and we can all have input and think aloud, etc. [Yeah, basically, it's just another friggin blog. So throw a parade, already.]


Anyhow, I wanted you peeps to be aware of it. It's asksteven.blogspot.com. I think you'll really enjoy typing in those letters (or copying/pasting them), then pressing return. And, watch out! This page's design features DOTS. Yowza!

So this is what it's like to be Ronnie.

(Oh, I think I need to release some gas. But right here at my desk? Is that appropriate? Okay, I'm kidding. [Bwoop.] Wait a second. That feeling of uncertainty tells me that this could be more than what it as first seemed. I'd better not push... oh crap. I feel wetness around my sphincter... don't tell me. Oh no!)

Man runs out of office. Zoom in on man's rear, which features a growing dark spot of wetness.



So now I'm sitting here, at work on a Monday, literally stewing in my own juices. And I'm not even mad about anything! I am excited, though, to have visited this place:

A Word About This Address

This is ALWAYS a painful subject to breech, but I find myself coming back to it time and again. It's basically this:

Ladies, I like you and all, but this web page is just not for you.

There, I said it. Again. I've had several uncomfortable conversations with the lady folk about this, and I just had another with my friend Rachel Peters, who chipped a couple of comments in last week, to my surprise and sadness. I know people like LeRay and E come here and look in, and I'm really okay with that: it's just the comments that weird us guys out. We need to feel free to speak openly and guyly one to another, and we might feel condemned or constricted with the fairer sex looking in. And that's really it--I want the locker room feel. As I've mentioned this dilemma with other guys, I am universally lauded by them for wanting to speak out about this.

I haven't done this in the past, I don't think, so let me now tell you why this page was born: I have friends hither (see hamster) and yon (see cardinalzen), to (theRod) and fro (Totila) who know me and with whom I'd like to talk more frequently than I'm able. As I see it, this medium simply allows me to scatter my stories over a wide swath at once. That way, I don't have to repeat experiences in Africa on the phone with each person, or tell each person what I think God's saying to me. I can talk to Washington D.C., California, and Texas all in one go. It's nice. Also, I forget a lot of stuff, and this is a good capturing spot. Unfortunately, I find much humor in body noises, my anatomy, etc., and I just want to be able to talk about these things freely with the guys I love, for right or wrong. I want the feeling of being on my back porch with ace, while I drink Sprecher Root Beer, and he drinks actual beer, and we both burp and get honest and not guarded with our words.

I have to say, here, that I might be wrong in wanting this at all, or maybe I want something I can't have. I'm open to correction on this from whoever may be listening in. Really. But I'm just stating my viewpoint. Open and transparent, as Mark tells me to be. Pity me, sure, but don't hate me. Please.

And there it is.


ps- I'm sorry to all onlookers I may have just now offended.
pps- Totila, I'm sorry you were labeled as "Fro". That is not an epithet.
ppps- now I'm feeling kind of... sheepish.

What hath God wrought?

This is a picture of a man so beaten down by life, so utterly destroyed by the banal, the colorless, and the mundane, that he resorts to novelty band-aids shaped like bacon and eggs for some sort of cheap thrill. This is a man who is so starved for activity and meaning in his life that he would inexplicably run a half marathon in a completely foreign state, at the Home of Country Music, just to see if he would still be alive at the end. It's a man who would let his own wife strong-arm him into rising at 4:45am, on a day off, to compete in a sport he doesn't even really enjoy. My God, look at this lump of flesh.

And this is a picture of that same man, with his eyes closed. He would run a respectable 2 hours, and his wife would convincingly beat him by something like 8 minutes.


Here are some of the 23,000 other lemmings that participated.

A dairy tale

My pal Kelly told me this story, and it blew my heart up through my nose:


Kelly has a son named Mac, and Mac can be petulant just like he's a 4 year old boy. Anyway, Kelly takes Mac, sometimes, when she's feeling generous and motherly, to go get ice cream. They have to walk by the United Dairy Farmers store, which, to all of you people out there, sounds like some sort of "tradin' post" where men wearing straw hats and flannel shirts trade with butter and cheese. It is, instead, a popular convenience store that happens to sell ice cream also (think 7-11 with a Baskin Robbins built into it). When they walk by the UDF (as we Cincinnatians call them), Mac throws an absolute FIT, acting like his mother has held out on him, and life is terrible, and my guardian is a liar and isn't even looking OUT for me, oh WOE IS ME!!! kind of thing.


Kelly rolls her eyes a little then smiles sweetly and keeps dragging along this frustrated Mac-boy until they get to the Graeter's Ice Cream place. Graeter's is "Oprah's Favorite Ice Cream"; it is very rich and sweet and indulgent--much better quality ice cream than what UDF has on offer. Also, there's a big park/playground right by the ice cream store where Mac and Kelly can dawdle and lick their cones and swing a little bit--way better than the cigarette butt-littered intersection where the UDF store is situated. It's just a better world, all the way around. But Mac couldn't see that. Mac wanted Cheap and Quick. Mac would sell out INSTANTLY to expediency.


Kids sure are stupid, huh?

About titles

Don't you think it's weird how the guy at the front on Sunday mornings always holds the title "pastor"? Maybe not. I do. I started feeling that way in high school, since that guy had no idea who I was or what my life was like. How could I call him my pastor, since pastor means "shepherd", and shepherds are generally thought to know something about their sheep's whereabouts, health, anxiety levels, etc. I realized that the guy who wore the title was NOT the guy who had the function.

Back off that example, and the same thing happens all over the place. People want titles to compliment their giftings, so that everyone can know at a glance that they're leaders, they're proven, they have some pull. I mean, once you've spent a few years serving people, why go through the whole thing again? Just let your past speak for you via a title, and you don't have to go through the ignominy (and time waste) of serving people that don't know how great you are yet. It's a nice shorthand. Give me a title, and I don't have to prove myself anymore. Trust the title. I AM the bishop. Or the apostle. Or the evangelist. Etc.

Am I sounding negative? I hope not, but I'm quoting bad examples. They ARE bad. What I see more and more is that gifts are really just functions within the body. Functions. Do you receive pastoring from me? Then, as far as you're concerned, I function as a pastor to you. Let me know that, that will help me. But if Bob receives TEACHING from me, then to Bob, I serve as a teacher. And maybe I'm that way to him today, but not as much tomorrow. And that's fine. But if, over years, Dan sees that I serve as a prophetic voice to many people in many situations, then Dan can call out my function there, over time. Gifts are called out by body members, not by people themselves. If somebody tells you "I'm Steven. I'm a prophet," you will naturally be wary of Steven. He will concern you. John wrote that Jesus didn't give any credence to man's testimony about himself. He could see what he was by how he interacted with other people. Here's a snippet from Matthew 23:

6[Pharisees] love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues;
7they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi.'

8"But you are not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have only one Master and you are all brothers.
9And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.
10Nor are you to be called 'teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ.
11The greatest among you will be your servant.
12For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

What planet does Jesus live on? This is NOT the way it works. The whole point of the institutional system, if you traffic in it, is to be Noticed and Given a Platform and Recognized. And that stuff is filthy, absolutely filthy. I don't know if you know how it feels to be introduced as a "great worship leader" or have people say that you're a teacher, or something like that (not like that's your function, but as if that office is Who You Are), but it feels great. Trying to get off that pedastal and back to the Mat. 23 place where we're all brothers is like killing yourself, over and over. And I guess that's the point. But how can we possibly avoid the fact that when organizations label their people with religious terms like Head Pastor, they're in direct violation of this passage? Well, we can't. We're all brothers, and that's where the titles stop.

Here's what Paul said about all this mind-numbing jockeying for honor, in I Cor. 3:

3You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?
4For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men?
5What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task.
7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
9For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.
10...each one should be careful how he builds.
11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
16Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?
17If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
18Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise.
21So then, no more boasting about men!

We're just fellow workers. So we'd better be careful about talking about people as if there is some sort of division between those who're REALLY gifted and "the rest of us". And we sure as hell should be careful if you're ever treated as one of these "specially gifted ones." Hello? Paul also says in I Cor 12 that "those parts that SEEM 'honorable' require NO SPECIAL HONOR." So we'd be wise to get off the high horse that our flesh (and that of others, too!) likes for us to be on, and humble ourselves and get some grace. This titles thing is dangerous ground.

The funny thing is, we're supposed to recognize our leaders--we're told that. And we should look for the pastors, teachers, evangelists, apostles, and prophets. We should know them, since they're gifts to us from God. But it gets sticky when we laud them as something other than us, as a cut above. We ARE to bless them for their service, but maybe not HONOR them. We're to obey them, but not... well, I'm not sure how this all works.

Do I sound a little confused on this issue? Well I am. I'm just talking through the stuff I'm thinking. It's swirled, like the last generation pudding pops that Bill Cosby used to tell me about. I miss those. I really do.