"The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer"

I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my
inheritance and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission
to go in at exits and come out at entrances, so be it.
I have planted by the stars in defiance of the experts,
and tilled somewhat by incantation and by singing,
and reaped, as I knew, by luck and Heaven's favor,
in spite of the best advice. If I have been caught
so often laughing at funerals, that was because
I knew the dead were already slipping away,
preparing for a comeback, and can I help it?
And if at weddings I have gritted and gnashed
my teeth, it was because I knew where the bridegroom
had sunk his manhood, and knew it would not
be resurrected by a piece of cake. "Dance" they told me
and I stood still, and while they stood
quiet in line at the gate of the Kingdom, I danced.
"Pray" they said, and I laughed, covering myself
in the earth's brightnesses, and then stole off gray
into the midst of a revel, and prayed like an orphan.
When they said "I know that my Redeemer liveth,"
I told them "He's dead." And when they told me
"God is dead," I answered "He goes fishing every day
in the Kentucky River. I see Him often."
When they asked me would I like to contribute
I said no, and when they had collected
more than they needed, I gave them as much as I had.
When they asked me to join them I wouldn't
and then went off by myself and did more
than they would have asked. "Well, then" they said
"go and organize the International Brotherhood
of Contraries," I said "Did you finish killing
everybody who was against peace?" So be it.
Going against men, I have heard at times a deep harmony
thrumming in the mixture, and when they ask me what
I say I don't know. It is not the only or the easiest
way to come to the truth. It is one way.

-from Farming: A Hand Book, by Wendell Berry

Since I was just discussing poetry earlier today, I couldn't help but put up something by Mr. Berry.

Also, I have used some of my precious bandwidth at box.net to put up two of my favorite Tim Keller sermons:

Praying Our Tears

Praying Our Fears

have fun!

because i will mow your lawn if you tell me what i'm doing wrong

The Fiction Family concert was way better than I expected, and in far more many ways than I expected. They played some sweet covers, including "Keep the Car Running" and "The Man in Me" (which is the 2nd time that I'd heard that song covered at Messiah, since David Bazan covered it back when I saw him there 2 years ago.) They even broke out some of their own songs, like "Your Love is Strong" (which I'd really wanted to hear) and a couple of Nickel Creek standards. All of the songs from the album were performed very well, too, and they had noticeably awesome rhythm section. I have high hopes for future collaborations between Mr. Foreman and Mr. Watkins.

My friend Alex and I have only one code word, and that is for when we see an awesome moustache in public and want to point it out to each other without being rude. Apparently girls have far more code words, and for far more complicated expressions.

My sister was telling me about this earlier and also discussing the ability that she has to have coded conversations with certain friends-- sometimes they are able to cut out important words like verbs or nouns. Or they can apparently just use body language? My sister was a bit cryptic on this point. Alex and I can have meaningful theological conversations just by referencing quotes back and forth from South Park, Arrested Development, or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but I do not think that is the same thing.

in which Matthew displays his complete lack of tact and then rambles on about some other things

I checked and double-checked, and I'm pretty sure no one else has thought of doing what is basically a carbomb with Amarula instead instead of Bailey's (FYI, it doesn't taste a whole lot different than a carbomb with Bailey's, although I haven't figured out what a good liquor to replace the whiskey would be.) Since Guinness is very popular in Africa, I figured why not? Now I just need to come up with a name for it... I have thought of African Car Bomb (not really appropriate), African Embassy Bomb (not really offensive enough), South African Tire Necklace (but I feel like it ought to be a flaming shot then), or the African Child Soldier (which, I think, reaches the appropriate level of horror and offense.)

Opinions?

I listened to the entire Fiction Family album online today, and I am quite excited about the concert tomorrow night. Plus, I didn't really get to hear much about some recent mission trips that went on whilst I was gallivanting across the Mediterranean, so I'm looking forward to that, too.

speaking of traveling and things that I'm looking forward to, I might be going from Mauritania to Morocco or perhaps Syria-Lebanon-Jordan after I take the boards? (Official test date is now June 16th, by the way.) Anyone interested in joining for the 9-day journey can apply within.

Also, I apologize for the post on Thursday-- it was rather hastily assembled and not particularly well-thought-out. I will probably post something a little more refined sometime in the near future.

This winter has been a really good time for a lot of things. Between the IV community dinners, Bible study, my family, and other random friends to hang out with, I've stayed incredibly busy and been in some good community. I've been learning a lot about discipline & grace (another blog post, I promise), and God has been very good in a lot of ways.

Now back to studying for this monster test on pulmonology, hematology, and gastroenterology... the end is in sight!

Roe v. Wade Anniversary-- A New Way Forward?

Today is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and I wanted to mark it on my blog by asking "how do we move on from here?" Right after Obama was elected, I wrote a post with what we ought to do, and I think most people who read that post got the point (not so sure about comment #2, but I guess that's alright.)

"Abortion fatigue" has beendiscussed before, so I don't have to talk too much about that. I imagine that most of my readers feel the same way that I do about abortion politics in America-- incredibly dissatisfied with a party that has produced little significant progress on ending abortion in America and increasingly disheartened with the prospects for change. I'm a recovering conservative and I feel used.

One could argue that the Republican Party's issues with abortion are just one part of its troubles. After all, in the past 8 years the Republican Administration & Congress has reneged on its historical tendency to favor small government, more privacy, less interventionism, and less federal control over just about anything. I have argued before that Christians in America have chased after other lovers and justified their idolatrous pursuit of political power with real issues that need to be addressed by the government. I also believe that these issues have been used to manipulate Christians into sticking with a party that they might otherwise find distasteful, corrupt, and/or wrong.

But where do we go from here? Abortion is still the most important justice issue in America today. No other group of people has to worry about being violently killed by the thousands every day; being alive and hungry or homeless or lacking health care is better than being ripped limb from limb. It's an ugly and barbaric practice that denies a fundamental right to a human person and discriminates unfairly against them. Yet, 36 years later, we've seen little progress.

Again, I'll refer you to my former post for my suggestions, but I wanted to zero in on one in particular that we might even see during the Obama administration: Reducing abortion by increasing social services. I am not in a place to rigorously evaluate the statistical analyses here, but I think it's reasonable to conclude that they're on to something: when women feel more secure financially, they are less likely to choose abortion. Obviously, this conflicts with certain economic principles that most anti-abortion conservatives hold-- but how tightly will we hold these principles when lives are potentially at stake? I think that this is one big concession that conservatives can make to help end abortion in America.

At the same time, liberal opponents of abortion ought to be doing more to demand legal opposition to abortion from their political candidates & parties. I think a lot of progress will come from reducing abortion by means other than outright bans, but it is abhorrent to suggest that basic protections for unborn children might not be a part of our law. Too many Christians, I think, for fear of looking bad in front of others or getting pushed out of way, have stood up and agitated for the rights of the unborn. If liberal politicians never feel pressure from their liberal supporters on this liberal issue of human rights, then I fear that little progress can be made.

Also, I really like the design and attitude of Abort73 more than National Right to Life Council-- and I think that this cultural sea change will come through dialogue, discussion, and slow political progress.

I could write more (and perhaps I will, tomorrow) on this issue, but hopefully there's some thoughts out there already with those two suggestions. Please feel free to comment, suggest, argue with me, or whatever.

[cross-posted on facebook]

and we for the sake of Christ all things bear

I read this poem in a recent Voice of the Martyrs magazine (which you can get for free! it's cool!)

This was written by a young Saudi woman who converted to Christianity and mostly fellowshiped with other believers by phone and internet forums. She was murdered by her brother, a Muslim cleric, but just a few hours before her death she posted the following poem:


And We For the Sake of Christ All Things Bear

...There are tears on my cheek, and Oh! the heart is sad
To those who become Christians, how you are so cruel!
And the Messiah says, "Blessed are the Persecuted"
And we for the sake of Christ all things bear
What is it to you that we are infidels?
You do not enter our graves, as if with us buried
Enough-- your swords do not concern me, not evil nor disgrace
Your threats do not trouble me, and we are not afraid
And by God, I am unto death a Christian-- Verily...
...As to my last words, I pray to the Lord of the worlds
Jesus the Messiah, the Light of Clear Guidance
That He might change notions, and set the scales of justice aright
And that He spread Love among you, Oh Muslims

-Fatima 2008

remember all those songs and the way we smiled

dang. that was a lot of fun recording with Tim & Peter. We only got through 2 songs, but we had a blast. You can listen to one of them here, and more will come later. hopefully we can do a lot more over spring break...






we had to stand up the mattress and hang a blanket so that we could record two tracks at the same time without too much overlap. yes, that is duct tape on the ceiling.






we just used the guitars, mandolin, djembe, and Peter's voice this time around, but future recordings will hopefully include other voices, the egg shaker, harmonica, and who knows what else. i'm still on the lookout for a lap steel or a banjo...

song post #2-- "cairo traffic/sex drive"

for the longest time, i was trying to write a song about a disastrous relationship that resembled a car wreck in several ways. it wasn't until i studied abroad in Cairo, Egypt and experienced the pollution & the traffic that i had the inspiration that i needed. hope you enjoy it-- click away.

if anyone objects to any of the songs on here at any time, just let me know and i'll take it down.

down here where we all scrape to find the faith to ask for daily bread

The answer of the righteous man to the suffering that the world inflicts upon him is called blessing. That was the answer of God to the world that slew Christ on the cross-- blessing. God does not repay like with like, and neither should the righteous man do so. Not to condemn, not to curse, but to bless. There would be no hope for the world if this were not so. The world lives from the blessing of God and of the righteous and by this blessing it has a future.

Blessing means to lay the hand upon the shoulder and say, "Despite everything you belong to God.” That is how we deal with the world that inflicts so much suffering upon us. We don’t give it up, reject it, or despise it; we do not damn it; we call it to God; we give it hope; we lay our hand upon it and say, "May God’s blessings come upon you, he will renew you, blessings on you, you were created by God, to whom you belong, for he is your Creator and your Redeemer."

We have received God's blessing in joy and in sorrow. But we who have been ourselves blessed can do no other than pass on this blessing. Yes, the righteous man must be a blessing, there where he is. Only by the impossible can the world be renewed and God's blessing is the impossible.

-from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's meditation on Psalm 34:19-- "A righteous man may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all."


When faced with the trials, suffering, and evil of this world, it is far too easy to stand back and condemn, or else to ignore and insulate ourselves from them. In fact, we live in a culture that elevates the avoidance of suffering as one of its highest goals or else makes it a god unto itself in art, music, film, and literature. Christian churches, I think, fall into the former category more often than the latter, and we assume that God's special blessing on us is meant only for us and our community-- the people who look like us, believe like us, and love us first. But Jesus point out that this is what the pagans do, and that is wholly a pagan way of thinking. In the Gospel we find abundance in Jesus that transforms us and gives us more that we may bless others.

I was really struck by Jesus' words in John 7 when I read them last night: "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within him." I don't think of myself as someone who could ever have rivers of living water flowing out of me-- but, as one of my good friends pointed out, our potential is really just limited by how much we are willing to yield to God. And this is how we can bless.

[cross-posted on facebook]

why not?

since Peter mentioned it, does anyone want to get together to play (and possibly record) some music together on MLK Jr. Day? I'll have to study, but I don't have school... so we could get together at 4 or so, play some music, eat pizza, drink beer, etc. I don't know if my house is the best place-- there's a lot of noise from the furnace and the street. But we could certainly meet there and then go to a bathroom at school or something.

song post #1-- "emerald eyes"

Peter asked for it, so I'm going for it. this is a song that i wrote back in Kenya in 2006, at the beginning of the summer. it is the first song on the "african romance"/"it happens" album, which is the sort of concept album that i wrote & recorded from june to september of that year. i'm not sure if i'll ever release all the songs from the album on here, but you can e-mail me for the whole thing if you'd like.

it was recorded at my friend Liz's house using her 4-track. i will probably re-record it at some point with the sweet new microphone that I got for Christmas at the recommendation of my friend Joe.

i'm not exactly sure how this'll work, considering that i've written songs about just about all of my regular readers except for Tim & Ryan. but if the masses hate the whole concept, i'll stop. just say the word.

I can't figure out how to make the widget in the post work (help?)-- I can see it in the RSS feed but it doesn't work, and it can't be seen at all on the site directly. for now you can just click the link.

do you like the new picture?

it's kinda big. but i'm not geeky enough to know how to fix it, and blogger doesn't give me a whole lot of options. your honesty is appreciated (no hard feelings about zero comments on the music post), although on that particular post silence meant one thing and here it means another. so speak up!

I have also filled out my profile by copying all my favorite music/movies/books from facebook. I feel like this will now give me the freedom to say snarky things like my friends while having the enormous lists that strained the patience of my facebook friends still safely tucked away on the internet where no one except the bored ones and the stalkers can see it (not that I am arrogant enough to think that I have any stalkers, but one day I might do something important and attract one.)

you should read a lot of things that you disagree with

When I was in community college, I took a class called "Perspectives in Humanities." It was a pretty general survey class looking at art, culture, religion, and philosophy throughout time & history, covering up to roughly 1000AD. It was a fun class and my first serious introduction to the study of the humanities in general and it definitely got my brain thinking quite a bit.

In this class, we talked about a number of different religions. I didn't notice because I sat in the front of the class (and I am also an airhead, so I don't always notice things I should anyway), but some students in the class got up and left or turned their chairs around when Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, etc. were discussed. My professor gave a 5-minute rant about this at the end of the semester, and it made me really sad and kinda angry because I imagine that most of the people who chose to be ignorant did so out of a Christian religious conviction (there aren't very many others in Harford County.)

If you spend a significant amount of time on the internet (and I spend too much), you run into a lot of stupid people. You also run into a lot of otherwise smart people who say things thinking that they are effective arguments for what they think, feel, or believe when they are not. I'm sure that you can all think of your own experiences with this, so I'm not going to bother providing examples. However, if you've never groaned when someone made a lame argument against what you think or believe and you've never winced when someone made a lame argument for what you think or believe, let me know and I'll gladly find a good example for you.

The only way that I've found to deal with this tendency within myself at all is to read things that I disagree with and have discussions with people that I disagree with. I had one of the latter the other night-- and while I offered him some good points, he still asked me a few questions that stumped me. It's not like I hadn't heard them before, but they were phrased in such a way as to really get to the heart of some of the deep inconsistencies of my theological & philosophical position, and I'm still thinking hard about them. It's tough, but it's really good.

Your thinking on a particular subject will usually improve only if it is challenged or if you read someone who thinks similarly but has another layer of nuance or meaning to add to it. And the other person that you read probably got to where they are by having their position challenged. So you ought to read and listen to people that you disagree with to sharpen your own convictions and change them where you need to.

Now, you have to choose the sources of opposition in your reading material and discussions carefully-- if you are an atheist and you only read Dr. James Dobson's dispatches to understand how Christians think, you are probably not going to get any benefit out of it. In fact, you will probably only become more of smug asshole. The same goes for a Christian who decides that they know how atheists think just because they've argued with a few teenage atheists on an internet forum. I think that it's probably most important to read a lot of things written by people that you agree with on the most important things in life, but differ from you slightly-- yet just enough to be annoying. You have to be sure to include people that you disagree with totally, too, but not too many of them. If you always read a ton of very smart people that you disagree with, you'll probably just get tired of it and stop.

Right now my own internet reading material take splits roughly something like this:

20%-- Stuff I totally agree with wholeheartedly and almost never disagree with
30%-- Stuff I mostly agree with on general principles, but still disagree with enough for it to be interesting
40%-- Stuff that's general or harmless enough to not be a big deal
10%-- Stuff that I disagree with strongly

and this works for me. I don't apply the same to books because since med school started I've only managed to read about 10 books a year and so I want to make sure that a book is going to be really worth my while before I read it, and I haven't judged a lot of books that I disagree with strongly to be worth my time (duh!)

So this post has been full of a lot of "you ought"s and "you should"s, but I think you know that I'm not dumb enough to tell you what you ought to read. Unless, of course, it's Wendell Berry, in which case I'll say that OF COURSE YOU SHOULD AND YOU OUGHT TO READ IT.

[cross-posted on facebook.]

which one keeps me up all night and into the day

so it's 6:17AM... and I have been up for 2 hours already. I listened to more Tim (and Kathy) Keller-- they are very funny together. I wrote some music for the song that I wrote when I was in Turkey on another sleepless night. I played "Table for Two" a couple of times, because it is pretty much the greatest song for nights when you're pretty sure you could sleep if you weren't thinking about someone else. If I have time before class, I may try to do some recording, which brings me to a question: any readers interested in hearing some of my music on this blog? I got a sweet new microphone for Christmas, and I want to play around with it.

You don't have to feel obligated to say "yes" (as anyone who has heard it before can attest, it's not exactly about going to win a Grammy or get a high score on Pitchfork.) But then again, I don't think y'all come to my blog to read high-quality writing (unless, of course, you only read the posts with long blocks of text that appear to have been written by someone other than me.) Really, what I need to do is join another group of musicians somewhere so I can actually be challenged...

Also, I've been updating my links on the right-hand side. There are new photo albums from Turkey (plus some old pictures from Kenya 2004), new sites that I read religiously and highly recommend, and I updated my own list of favorite posts. Because I am lame like that.

My sleep's been kinda wacky for a couple of years, and I have to work hard to practice good sleep hygiene. I probably shouldn't expect to sleep well at all after drinking alcohol, period, but last night was Yukwan's birthday and we had to celebrate. Still, as much as I hate suffering through the next day being really sleepy, I've come to appreciate the times when I wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep. When my anxieties and neuroses stack up against me, I can have long and fairly undistracted times of prayer. I read, I listen to good sermons or music, and sometimes (like tonight) I cook bacon and blog some random stuff.

I brushed off some studying to party last night, so I think I'll go deal with that now. I'm still working on some other posts that are mostly other people's thoughts, so you ought to appreciate them. 'til then, stay classy and say "no" when I ask if you want to hear about what I did on Monday afternoon for school.

some things that are very underrated

(among evangelicals, that is...)

Persecuted Church Weblog is one of my favorite blogs and one of the best on the internet in my irrelevant opinion. It doesn't seem to get a lot of love in the blogosphere, though, and that's just wrong. Glenn Penner and Adele Konyndyk consistently report on important news about the persecuted church around the world and offer great analysis on the related issues. Read it!

Andrew Osenga is an awesome singer-songwriter who lives in Nashville (duh) and writes incredible, thoughtful songs about life, love, longing, and alien abductions. He also has given away two FREE EPs, so you have no excuse not to listen to them. The first one is here and the second one is here. And you should listen to them. Today.

Fasting is totally underrated nowadays. I'm not very good at doing it regularly, and I've only been encouraged to fast by a few people and only one Christian teacher. I'm making my own rhythm of fasting for this year, and I encourage you to do the same. If you don't know much about how or why we fast, John Piper has a fantastic series called "Hunger for God" on it.

Frontier Missions/Missions to Unreached Peoples is a term that not nearly enough Christians understand, and that makes me sad. The need is great (just click on that link and add up the millions of people who have never heard about Jesus), the calling is real, and we have more resources than ever to learn, pray, support, and go! I've gotten suspicious of the value of "raising awareness" in recent years, but this is one area where a lot more awareness would help. Once again, Piper can fill you in if you're not sure what's going on.

Additional resources:

International Journal of Frontier Missions

Mission Frontiers Magazine

there is nothing that the road cannot heal

whew! It's been an exhausting three days and I think I have managed to feed the wanderlust beast enough to keep it in check for a few more months. We'll see how I feel after the onslaught of school (starting back on Monday, of course. At least they're starting at 9AM instead of 8 like usual.) I'm already plotting out my next adventure, though, and I think it's pretty much either going to be Damascus to Tehran, Damascus to Alexandria, Nouakchott to Casablanca, or perhaps Mexico City to Panama City. There's my spring break (roughly March 14-22) or after I finish the boards (roughly June 20? to 28?)

I read some great books on this trip (in fact, I just finished the last one... so I will probably buy a new one.) I will blog about them later, I promise. For now, let me say that Peace Child by Don Richardson is an awesome book, and once again I am energized and inspired to do frontier missions... if only I could get to it sometime sooner that 6 years. : ( )

Anyway, on to the last part of my adventure in Turkey! On Thursday afternoon, after unsuccessfully attempting to bring along some of my new friends along with me, I set off for Izmir by bus. I took my friend Onur's recommendation and used Varan, which did not disappoint. There was free tea! And snacks! And water! The driver and the dude who brought me stuff were both very nice. Part of the journey also involved a ferry ride across the Mediterranean at sunset, which was freakin' awesome. Pictures forthcoming.

After such a lovely ride to Izmir that involved a lot of good reading and praying, I was pretty happy and excited. My shuttle from the bus station even went right by the Hilton where I was supposed to meet my couchsurfing host! Everything was going so well...

Unfortunately, then all of my worst faults combined to form a perfect storm of terror: clumsiness, poor planning, lack of common sense, and horrific handwriting. I mistranscribed my contact's phone number and managed to screw up the dialing process at the pay phone, which required a credit card. Apparently I made enough failed calls that my bank cut off my debit card right then and there, meaning that I was unable to call my friend. I left a message for some poor Turkish person who is probably still wondering why someone called them at midnight from the lobby of the Izmir Hilton. I tried to see if the problem was with the phone or the debit card, and got really lost in an abandoned shopping mall looking for an ATM to test it out. Fortunately, I was able to still use the ATM for some reason, and had just enough cash to last me for the rest of the trip. Faure's Pavane was playing in the empty mall, which was strangely comforting and unsettling at the same time. After waiting for a while longer, I decided to strike out on my own. I once again got lost looking for a cheaper hotel (I obviously couldn't stay at the Hilton with a bum debit card.)

At this point, I was wandering around the streets of Izmir at 1AM. DON'T WORRY MOM TURKEY IS A VERY SAFE COUNTRY I WASN'T IN ANY DANGER. I decided to try to ask a taxi driver to take me to a cheap hotel, but the driver I found knew as much English as I knew Turkish (which is 5 words, in case you're wondering. I felt very, very helpless knowing some Arabic but no Turkish.) Fortunately, my taxi driver found another taxi driver who knew what "cheap" meant and we made it to a hotel where I found "House" playing on TNT and then slept in.

I finally called my host at an internet cafe and met him, his friend, and two other American couchsurfers. We wandered around Izmir together and had a lot of fun seeing the sights, etc.

The next day, I managed to follow my host's instructions carefully enough to make it to Ephesus, which is a pretty awesome set of ruins. Again, pictures will be forthcoming. I got lost trying to get out and ended up walking 3km with my full backpack on until I got a ride back to the bus station, which took me to the airport with time to spare. I probably could have spent more time in Ephesus, but it was cold, windy, and raining moderately hard. And I had already stepped into a huge puddle and my right foot was soaking wet.

So ends this meandering blog post. Thanks for following, everyone, and keep checking back for reflections on all the good things I read on the trip!