As I have been reflecting on hypocrisy and fake external morality in contemporary culture that gets exposed by the things people do that flatly contradict their alleged self-goodness, I thought of my own many weaknesses and struggles. It’s easy to be self-righteous when looking at someone else’s spectacular public failure - it’s hard to be self-righteous when the presence of God in my heart reminds me of my own many spectacular private failures. I was struck by how many opportunities I have to do “bad” things, things that promise fleeting pleasures, with the added benefit that nobody would know.

I was thinking of these things as I was praying, so I guess when this prayer came to mind it wasn’t totally a surprise, but it was something concise (which is a surprise for me):

I am who I am when nobody’s looking.
God, help me change who I am.

I think this is what is so easy to lose sight of, especially when nobody’s looking - the continual, daily, moment-by-moment need for the life-giving transformational relationship with Jesus, the only One who has the power to truly transform and redeem my sin-stained heart, the power and the will to restore it as a mirror worthy of reflecting His Glory.

There is something creepy about Joel Osteen:

http://www.joelosteen.com

There is something creepy about his church, Lakewood in Houston - recently accomplished as the largest church in these USA:

http://www.lakewood.cc

In my hotel this morning, I figure, hey, it’s Sunday, let’s see what kind of church services are on TV (another detestable aspect of American spirituality - televised church)… I don’t know why I do this, it only riles me up…

But I did see Joel Osteen’s “service”… and, wow, was it ever a cautionary note from God - I can see how my own views on how we Christians need to rediscover grace can easily be seen as resonant of people like Osteen, with their accept-Christ-and-prosper gospel.

Wow, that is one slippery slope I certainly do not want to end up sliding down. To any of you who read my ranting/venting/wrestling and find similarities to Osteen-speak, please know that I am REPULSED by the kind of gospel perversion that Osteen and people like him are merrily deluding people with.

This is exactly the kind of convoluted confused gospel that leads to people like Debbie Lafave coming out of the religious Bible belt of America. Remember her? Newly wed middle-school teacher in Florida, charged with having sexual relations with a 15-year-old boy in her class? They let her go earlier this year - she claimed she was suffering from bipolar disorder. I wonder if the same argument would have held water if the genders were reversed - i.e. a male teacher and a female student.

During her televised and much-covered press conference, she said she was a “strong Christian woman” and that this was just a “bump in the road” in her journey with God. She said God had given her the gift of writing, and that she wanted to write. I can just see the book deals already, and I would not be surprised if she ends up being another Christian author writing about women’s issues - yet another miraculous turnaround in American Christianity.

Disgusting.

Anyway, watching Joel Osteen reminded me of that kind of sheer rampant hypocrisy among Christians in America. It’s odd, the guy isn’t even a compelling speaker - but there’s something so snake-oily about his “message”. I felt so repulsed and dirty watching him and the many telegenic shots of the tens of thousands of people attentively listening to his lame lessons.

It’s Christian porn.

Last weekend was quite fun: On Saturday Alexis and I went hiking, and on Sunday we took Jayne to Mt. Wachusett to snowboard! None of us had ever snowboarded before, and it was a BLAST! I really enjoyed snowboarding, it was a great way to end the ski season. This summer I’m going to look for snowboard sales and see if I can get a board that I can put “reckless passion” on in some funky artsy way!

On Saturday, we hiked around Mt. Toby for a fair bit before finally finding the summit That was a reckless story in and of itself - we initially followed the trail suggested by the hiking guidebook we were following, something written in 1994, well out of date because many of the markers it said to look for were simply gone. So, about half-way, when we were near the summit, we took off bushwhacking straight to the top.

And got lost.
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So Alexis and I are in Peabody this weekend because she has a 3-day certification workshop for her post-partum doula training. It runs from Friday thru Sunday, so we drove up Thursday evening and are staying at a Holiday Inn.

(Which turned out to be really good for me because I got to add a foot to my height overnight:

Aaaanyway, so, yesterday, Friday, I commuted into work from Beverly - which was a saga in and of itself let me tell you. I now understand the sheer madness that people new to Boston experience when they try to make their away around town.
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Couldn’t think of a single reckless prank to pull today But couldn’t let All Fool’s Day slip by without a post acknowledging it…

On an interesting note - Alexis and I got engaged last year on April 2… In retrospect, that was probably the best prank we could have ever pulled - I think many of our friends and family are STILL trying to come to grips with the fact that we’re actually married