Education Debate on The Brew; MilkyWay Greenbacks

So...yeah. It's been a while. And I didn't blog. Sorry.

But a debate has begun on The Brew on traditional vs. non-traditional education. The first article by Luke Raad, was posted earlier this week. The second article, by Trent Starnes, was posted today. Each author will also be writing a rebuttal to the other's article. Watch for it and for my 'education' article.

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So I'm part of a writing group at my church. I wrote a little short story for it that turned out like this:

“Hey, Rob. What’s going on?” John asked as one the store’s star employees walked in.

“Not much,” Rob said, taking a nostalgic look around the coffee shop, like he would never see it again. “Who’s working this morning?”

“You, me, Jose and Toni,” John said.

“Awesome,” Rob said, relieved. Neither of the managers were working this morning. He dropped his stuff off in the back and put on his brown apron that featured their company’s logo at chest level. He clocked in and walked behind the counter.

“Hey, could I just work the bar this morning?” Rob asked.

John thought silently for a minute and said, “Sure. Why not?”

“Sweet, thanks a bunch.” Rob thought for a moment. “I kinda just feel like making drinks this morning.”

“Sure, no prob. Hey, so what are you going to do with that new inheritance you just got?”

“Well, I’m not too sure, yet,” Rob said. “I might take some time off to figure it all out. Maybe travel a little.” He paused. “I might just make it up as I go.”

The next hour passed as the other employees came into work and took their spots at the registers. The morning rush customers began to flow in, looking like zombies out of some bad ‘50s horror movie.

The employees at the registers began calling drinks to Rob, who wrote drinks down and prepared the syrups for John, who also had taken a spot at the espresso bar.

Rob saw one customer whom he particularly could not stand walk into the store and get in line. She was more than a little overweight and made a large fuss to insure that her drink was made with skim milk but also insisted that there was extra whip cream on top. This customer soon reached the register.

“Welcome to MilkyWayGreenbacks’s Coffee,” the person at the register greete the woman. “How are you today?”

“Fine,” the woman said impatiently.

“Could I interest you in a delicious chocolate peanut butter almond muffin this morning?”

“No,” the woman said curtly.

“Okay,” the employee said, trained to be unfazed by any amount of unpleasantness. “Well how about a pound of our new Palpitations Roas..?”

“No,” the woman said, cutting him off. She turned to Rob and said, “Large, skim, caramel, almond white mocha with a dome lid and extra, extra whipped cream.”

“Large, Who-Am-I-Kidding’ White Mocha,” Rob called back to confirm that he had received the order.

Time didn’t stop when Rob called out this nickname for the drink because time doesn’t stop for coffee-hungry customers during the morning rush hour and a half. A slight pause was felt by everyone in the small store. Some customers in the back of the line snickered to themselves or chuckled with their associates who were in line with them.

John chuckled, but then shot Rob a look between steaming milk and topping cups with whipped cream and lids.

“Excuse me?!” the woman belted out to Rob.

“I’m sorry, maam,” Rob said. “But you’re not kidding anyone when you get that drink. You might was well shove a couple Snickers down your throat.”

“Well, I never!” she responded.

“Well, maam, it looks like you do pretty often.”

“Hey, you know better than that,” John said. “I know I don’t have to tell you about customer service.”

“You don’t,” Rob said. “I’m being truthful in my customer service. I care about this woman so I don’t want her to go on thinking that her drink is anywhere near healthy.”

A young man in a nice business suit was next. “Medium skim, sugar-free vanilla latte,” was called out.

“Medium Soccer Mom,” Rob called back.

“What?!” the man yelled out.

“This drink must be for your wife, right?” Rob responded. “Next?”

The line kept moving because people didn’t have time to stop and talk to this punk kid who was probably taking grad classes at some art institute. Time waited for no man, especially at a coffee shop. All the customers had to get to work on time and their coffee was the one thing that would help them do so. And besides, there were plenty of other MilkyWayGreenbacks around the city. There was no reason to come back to this one, especially if that non-conformist lackey worked here.

“Are you crazy?” John said. “You can’t keep doing this.”

“You guys couldn’t survive this rush without a fourth person here,” Rob retorted.

“Why are you doing this?” John asked.

They were interrupted with another drink: “Large, half-soy, half skim, two pump almond, three pump mocha with organic whipped cream latte.”

“Large schizo-tree-hugger latte,” Rob called back.

“I think people should appreciate the people who help them through their days,” Rob said to John. “Anyone in the service industry is taken for granted so often these days. I mean, what would happen if coffee chain employees weren’t paid to act like they care about customers?”

The normal coffee shop din continued as the effeminate man who wanted the organic whipped cream stood dumbstruck at Rob’s audacity. Cash drawers opened and closed; milk swished and splattered in the steaming pitchers; whipped cream canisters sputtered as they spat out creamy goodness. The shocked customer was passive aggressively shoved out of the way by the next customer in line, who was already barking out a drink order. There wasn’t time for customers to respond.

Another drink was called out: “Large seven shot latte.”

“Large crackhead latte,” Rob called back.

Audible gasps could be heard in the café, namely that of the slender woman who ordered the drink. “What did you call me?” the woman shouted at Rob.

But the next drink was already called out and other customers were pressing in from behind the woman, forcing her away from the registers and Rob.

“Now that’s it,” said John. “No more drink calling for you. You’re doing the milk and drink hand off station. Now!”

Rob obeyed with a smile, satisfied with himself.

Brew Reconstruction; Quick Recovery; Soul Coughing

So The Brew is under construction. We're working out some technological kinks I'll be reposting August and July this month, and hopefully two more months in October.

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So I had pretty stressful day today at the Coffee Chain That Shall Remain Nameless. Afterwards, I wanted to get some booze, go home, and take a nap. I had overslept and was late to work that morning. So many other things happened to make the day trying: someone not showing up for work; more crazy yuppies wanting their coffee earlier on a Saturday morning; people wanting lots of boxes and 2.5 gallon cambros of coffee; etc.

I was able to manage everything pretty well. People didn't have to wait a ridiculous amount of time for coffee or their cambros. Trouble employees weren't as much trouble during the day. We avoided major blunders and still had our wits about us. The store was still standing when I left in the early afternoon.

And I was okay. I didn't have as much of a need to drink half a six-pack and then doze off on the couch when I got back to my apartment. So instead, I got a couple shots of Crown Royal on the rocks and finished watching Collateral. When the movie ended, I was pleasingly calm and somewhat refreshed.

This seemed to be one of the quickest recoveries from a stressful day I've ever had. I didn't want to lounge around anymore or even have more Crown Royal. One of the first thoughts I had was to do some more writing. Maybe finish that short story about a barista enjoying his last day working at a coffee chain named MilkyWayGreenbacks. I could write another scene in that novel. I could work on another piece for the writing group at my church.

It's cool to realize that you can recover better than you thought. It makes you feel more mature and well-adjusted.

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I've been discovering Soul Coughing, a now defunct alt band from the 90s, though frontman Mike Doughty is still doing solo work. They've got some great, random, obscure songs, like the Coffee Song and Buddha Rhubarb Butter. Tried to find vids on YouTube but with no luck. They're still worth listening too.

New Brew; E-news (without the celeberties)

I just posted "The MySpace-ination of Community" on The Brew by new author Jon Reisinger.

Also posted was the May editorial, which I forgot to link to earlier. The Brew's new look will feature each month's editorial at the top of the page, making it (and the the month's theme) more easily accessible.

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I found some very interesting news on how crazy the new online world can be and how even the military is trying to keep up with it.

A Wired story about the military previewing all kinds of electronic transmissions from soldiers on the field.

The Obama campaign conquers a MySpace page originally designed to support the candidate.

New Brew

I just posted new author Luke Raad's assessment of how Emergent's do theology: "How To Think Like An Emergent." The Brew.

Depression Series # 3

So this next essay was one that I got published on Relevant Magazine's website (which isn't really that hard to do). I think by this time, I'd gotten used to being depressed and was semi-acceptant of it all. This one is a little lighter ( which is good, because it helps balance out the darker, more violent essay which I'll post next week).

1/24/2004
www.relevantmag.com
'Familiar With Depression'

The idea of a depressed Christian used to seem like an oxymoron to me. Why would anyone who is a Christian be sad? I wondered. If a person really were a Christian, they should be able to remember all Christ had done for them, I figured. We really have no reason to be sad, let alone wallow in depression or sink into some lethargic sadness. People like that just need a better relationship with God, I thought. They probably didn’t pray the right way or didn’t even try to get anything out of their Bibles.

There just was no reason to be depressed—Christ has all the hope, joy and peace any person could ever need. It was such a foreign concept for me to understand; yet little did I know, this very problem was fermenting in my own head.

I always heard stories of believers who were depressed. I didn’t understand them or know how to start talking to them. I got some coffee one night with a friend from Germany and learned he wasn’t going to finish his semester at college. His grades were terrible, and he didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t fix them, so he was going to leave. Then he told me he was seeing a counselor for depression.

I was stumped. I told him I’d pray for him because I didn’t know what else to do.


Then there was another guy I knew on my floor at school who was in a similar situation. He hadn’t been doing well and was on academic probation. He told me he got behind because of depression.

Over my years at college, I would come to know many more people who dealt with depression. A statistic began to form as people left every semester either because depression killed their grades or they couldn’t recuperate from this disease while at school. The foreign concept didn’t seem so far away because people I knew and was friends with were suffering and introducing me to what depression really was.

As I became more familiar with depression, I saw how much it affects people and how much it can destroy a life. I saw how people lose all motivation for accomplishing anything or for trying to fix anything. I took notice of their outward symptoms, but was still clueless as to what the inner causes were. But I would soon know these inner causes, because they were slowly coming to a boil inside me.

I began feeling numb to more aspects of life. Small disappointments and unmet standards of spirituality started to accumulate in my daily life. Things just weren’t working, and I would constantly be frustrated with school, church or people. Soon, depression grew like a tumor in my brain, keeping me from functioning and even recognizing that I was slipping into an actual clinical depression that would last two years.

I didn’t know I was depressed; I had no idea what that was like. I just knew time seemed to move much slower and existing just took forever. I didn’t realize I was now one of those people whom I couldn’t comprehend. I was the person who I used to look down upon because I didn’t understand them.

I used to think that depressed people weren’t as spiritually strong because they might have given in too easily to their thoughts or because they didn’t trust enough in God. What I would soon realize is that depressed people are quite the opposite. Many are bastions of faith who have to struggle twice as hard to have any fellowship with God. They are often more reliant on God because they have nothing left to rely on; depression has stripped them of any crutch that would work as a substitute.

There’s no comfort in relationships, no consolation to be had from a good speech or sermon, and not much to believe in or hope for. Worship becomes no more than ink arranged on paper and empty, familiar words spoken with no emotion. There are the countless hours spent wondering what’s wrong with you and why you can’t just be like everyone else?

Depressed people also usually have a keen intellect and critical mind that detects counterfeit or superficial attempts at spirituality. They know this because they’ve tried just thinking positively or wishing they were a better warrior for God and have come up short. Their normally healthy mind can drive itself into despair, can let itself wallow in sadness and even produce thoughts of suicide.

After a year and a half of living as a depressed Christian, the unfathomable became poignantly clear. I was depressed.

I knew what it felt like to not know where God is and to not know how to fix anything in your life. I knew how it felt to be the recipient of the sometimes hollow and distant sympathy, “I’ll pray for you.” I knew what it was like to have no motivation to accomplish anything because I was so consumed with my own problems. I now knew what depression looked like because I could look in the mirror and truly see myself there.

Now I know how real depression is, and how real struggle is in the spiritual life. I can no longer pigeonhole people who are truly suffering as “just not that spiritual.” People who seem to be on the outside of what I think is spiritual are usually the ones who know better than to have such a category. And I can only pray that someday God will bless me enough to be like them.

Miller on The Brew; For Your Consideration

I just posted my review of Donald Miller's two newest books on The Brew.
I also added the first resource on the Emergent Church Movement on The Brew's Culture tab. It's a history and description of the Emergent and Emerging movements by pretty much the leader of it all, Mark Driscol.
I'm going to use The Culture Tab, formerly used for movie reviews, as a resource for all things Emergent this month. If you have any other good articles I can post or link to, let me know and I'll add it.
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Watched For Your Consideration. Had only a couple of chuckles. Or chortles.

Depression Series # 2

So here's the next in my depression series. This article I wrote for a counseling journal I put together for my senior print media project in school. I called the journal, "Issues", and it was pretty well received. I did a reprint a few years later when it became very relevant at my alma mater.
So this is what I was thinking about depression four years ago.


"Living With Depression"

Is this what Hell will be like?
To not have any connection with God
My memories of Him are all that’s left
But the past is gone
The future can’t be reached
And I’m just here

That’s what goes through my head when I’m depressed. God isn’t real and seems like merely a nice idea that a lot of people have. There’s not really a way to contact Him or see a response because you’re just here with all your thoughts to keep you company. And those thoughts are not usually kind.

Thoughts of regret, sadness and guilt were what consumed me for the longest time. I would drown in a tidal wave of guilt because I didn’t complete some small task on time or to the tee. Perfectionistic tendencies still set up shop in my brain despite my having studied Galatians in depth and marveled over 'grace' my freshman year. Forgetting to ‘do my devos’ was one of the largest initiators of guilt because if God was important, I’d make time for Him.

I’d regret not saying or doing something I ‘should’ have done or I’d just feel sad that I wasn’t connected to God. All of this would just create this cloud of sadness that would wrap around me for long stretches of time. I’d just sit and think about how I wasn’t right with God and how bad I felt about what I did 'wrong'.

I’d try to read my Bible and pray more but all these things were just physical acts that had no meaning. There was no God behind any of it. I could read for 24 hours straight and still not be right with God. Something major was wrong with me and I didn’t know what to do to get better.

I could try to do other spiritual things to fix it but my thoughts were still wrong. I could pray and God might have heard me but I was still consumed by wrong thoughts. These thought patterns had grown into me like ivy around a house and could not be cleared away without extensive work.

I was also numb to most everything. I didn’t really connect with people or to sad events that I heard about. Someone died of cancer, committed suicide, or was raped? “Life goes on,” I might think. It would take something extreme, movies like Magnolia or stories by Flannery O’Conner perhaps, to revive my senses to a low-level working order. Existential philosophers, like Søren Kierkegaard, also became geniuses to me.

I ache to be alive again
I ache to feel what feelings are
I yearn to know the experience of worship
I yearn to have the words truly affect me
Does what I’m singing really mean anything?
Can saying what’s true mean something
Even if it’s just an physical act?


I can’t remember when I first started to be depressed but I do remember when God reminded He was still there. Halfway through this past summer, I had a few thoughts that were pivotal in coping with depression: “This isn’t going to last forever. You won’t always be like this.”

I was pretty sure this was from God because my mind could never have produced this during that time. There were no romantic notions or spiritual revelations going through my mind. If the clouds in the sky spread apart and sunlight broke through to warm my numbed skin, it wouldn’t register. I’d see the scene above and think, “That’s kinda nice.” The two thoughts from God were awesome but they didn’t change how I thought.

I’m not sure how long it took, but I started to realize how huge a role my thoughts played. Even if I just finished some awesome time in the Word, the depressed thoughts could still take over and make me waste another two hours sitting and wallowing. I started to ask God to help me with my thoughts. I didn’t know what or how to do anything but I just needed help.

More time passed and I started to realize quicker when I would be depressed. I could almost figure out a specific time of the day when an episode started so I kept praying and asking for more help. I eventually was able to pin point what events triggered the thoughts of guilt, sadness or regret, but only after more time and stretches of depression had passed.

It was about then that I realized how much I truly needed God. I realized how idiotic was the Schuler-esque, American evangelical idea of changing your thinking through your own will power. A person’s thoughts are more powerful than we realize and any self-help fluff you can buy in a Christian bookstore can’t truly fix them. Only a genuine relationship with God, and perhaps some counseling, can really change negative thought patterns.

As much as I wanted to get help from a counselor, I never did, which was probably to my detriment. After almost a year of suffering, I finally was able to figure out my thought patterns and know what triggered a downward spiral of thoughts. Whenever I realized I was in that state, I could stop and ask God for help again with my thoughts.

Sometimes the episodes last a day, sometimes only a half-hour, but they haven’t gone away completely. I've come to realize that this is not just something you can cut out of your life. Overcoming depression would be awesome if all you had to do would be cut out part of your brain. But things aren't that easy. Depression is something you have to live with, but not give in to. It's almost like this sadness, guilt, or despair has to play with happiness, joy and contentment. Joy plays hopscotch with Sadness and cheers him on so he can figure out that he is Son of God. Despair is given an underdog on the swing set by Contentment and is made to laugh and smile.

Yet whenever I do get depressed, I see, yet again, how much I need God and turn to him. God won’t seem real and there won’t seem to be any reason to even consider getting better. But just asking for help, be it from counselors or God, is the only way anyone will ever get better.

Depression Series - #1

So this is the first of nine articles I'll post on depression. I wanted to do this because I wanted to draw some attention to mental disorders. So many people out there struggle with all kinds of maladies of the mind. Besides struggling with depression myself, a friend of mine struggled with obsessive compulsive disorder, one of the possible reasons for him committing suicide two years ago. (For more on this friend, search for Clark Stacy on this blog to find all the posts that are flagged about him).

So this was probably the first essay I wrote on depression while I was in college. I put it together for the Jerry Jenkins Writing contest my alma mater held. So I had to think, "What would the author of the Left Behind books think would be a great essay on depression?" I almost didn't know how to answer that question but here's what I came up with.
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God Isn't Real When You're Depressed

God isn’t real when you’re depressed. He doesn’t reach into your naturalistic life and affect you in any way. All that is real is what you can see and touch and what crumbles in your hand when crushed.

For about half a year, these were the kind of thoughts that I had. Somehow, God became Someone who was extremely distant and didn’t have much to do with how I went to work or how I brushed my teeth in the mornings. Whatever connection that injected divine purpose, or any purpose for that matter, into my life seemed to have disappeared. There only seemed to be the methodic activities that I had to perform each day.

Shaving became a joy, or as much a joy as such an act can be. A Mach 3 triple razor skidded across my cheek, slowly ripping out the stubble that had grown through my skin during the night. The warm, burning sensation on my neck and cheeks from shaving were physical sensations that helped me to feel pain. I was happy for being able to feel anything at all; emotions and other sensations had withered away.

There was once a relationship with Christ that showered me with physical sensations and meaning from some otherworldly mystery. Before I went to bed each night, I could kneel down to pray and just by remembering the events of that day be overwhelmed with how God had worked in my life. I could hardly pray or think straight because I saw how much God loved me and how He had orchestrated what different people had said or done to show me this. I could only cry at knowing how much I was loved and how much I meant to God.

Yet for some reason, I didn’t have that anymore. Those snapshots of faith seemed to be a sort of photo album of the past and not much more than memories. The dynamic relationship with Christ from back then seemed too distant to have any effect on the depression of the here and now. Life was more existential and focused on the table and chair I was sitting at rather than the mystery of God speaking from above the clouds or wherever He truly was.

I knew that God was still there somewhere, yet that didn’t help me with my present situation. I had gradually become numb to anything spiritual and didn’t want to bother trying to figure out why. I was just here and knew that I needed to be somewhere else. My relationship with God had somehow become shredded, if not hacked to pieces, leaving me to merely wake up, exist for a few hours and then go to sleep again. There wasn’t really any reason for doing anything except that I was alive and had to do something.

During those months, one of the best distractions from thinking about how I wasn’t right with God was an online computer game called Super Bounce Out. I would spend hours rearranging colored balls on a screen so that when three of the same color were side by side, they would bounce out, making room for new ones. I made this a sort of priority and cherished the time spent scoring points on something that didn’t matter for anything. I reached a high score of 145,000 points on level 11, where you had to bounce out 175 balls in a short period of time. Somehow, this had meaning for me: I could always get to the next level and this was an accomplishment.

I didn’t know how or why I was like this. My life over the past year was a success story, like many others who get this way. I was editor-in-chief of the school paper and scared some of the administration with an article I wrote. I applied for and became an RA. I went to Africa over Spring Break and helped to proofread a translation of the Bible in a native language I didn’t know. I was a leader in the youth group at my church. I met a girl and started dating her during the spring semester and would spend the whole summer growing closer to her. I had absolutely no reason to be like I was.

These two thoughts did not become a romantic experience where I saw an opening in those clouds and was washed in a warming light that gave life to my cold, numb skin. As great as that would be to experience, I might not even have been able to receive that. My mind might have merely responded, “That’s kind of pretty.” Rather, the thoughts were simple and without flashy lights or sensuous smells to awaken me from my slumber.

“This isn’t going to last forever. You won’t always be like this.”

There was hope in those two sentences because I knew myself so well and knew where the thoughts must have come from. I knew where my state of mind presently was and what had been trickling out of it. A person who is depressed is not so likely to have hopeful thoughts because they are in the habit of dwelling on whatever is wrong. I couldn’t stop what I was doing, take a deep breath, and take a few moments to fix all the wrong thoughts that had been isolating me from God. My mind was still tightly fastened to the existential, natural world and couldn’t suddenly break the roots that held me there. So the idea that what I was suffering through wouldn’t last forever must have come from somewhere outside of me.

I soon began to realize that God was above all that existed around me and had the power to trump the natural laws He had made. He could dig into my grimy, dirt-under-your-fingernails-world to change things and perhaps even help me repair my shredded relationship. I slowly began to learn what ‘supernatural’ looked like in the numbing grind of daily life. A pitiful creature whose faith in himself and his reason to solve things would be shown how little meaning there was in himself and his reason. I saw this lack of meaning and began asking for help.

The hopeful thoughts became a new companion in the playground of my mind.

Unhappiness skipped over hopscotch squares as Hope of Changing cheered it on. Lack of Motivation swung harder on and higher on the playground swings as Hope of a Better Time pushed it. The depressing thoughts would remain like an unwelcome guest despite my knowledge that God had begun to supernaturally fix me.

I thought about reading the Bible and what better book to read when depressed than Ecclesiastes. Solomon, the wisest king of Israel, had gained everything his natural heart could want but, thanks to his wisdom from God, he saw it all as meaningless. All he could build or do was all in vain if meaning was not found in God. I discovered a phrase that Solomon repeated five times throughout the book: There is nothing better for a man to eat, drink, and enjoy his work, for that is the gift of God.

Solomon’s wisdom seemed to affirm my experience with depression. This life was just what it was and nothing else. Any meaning for all of my activities must come from God. In my natural world of tasks and tending to responsibilities, God would supernaturally provide meaning for it all.

This supernatural ability was more and more revealed to me as time went on. Small vignettes of people being put in the right place or circumstances working out to my favor didn’t always look like coincidences anymore. From an existential mindset, God working in our boring, everyday lives can be seen as nothing but chance. However, I can’t accept that anymore. God is supernatural and can rescue us from our naturalistic lives and prove His character through our struggles.

Headline News

The Brew received around 11,400 page views in January, with 1,791 unique visitors. That's freakin' awesome. Word of mouth is picking up steam. If you like The Brew, join the blogring (xanga) or group (MySpace or Facebook) so others can hear about it. (That's my persuasive speech to ask you guys to help advertise The Brew for free.)

I posted this month's editorial on Ambiguity on The Brew. There's lot's of good stuff to come. An essay on The Man Who Was Thursday; confidence in ambiguity in on online dating site; Word abuse and the word 'love' becoming ambiguous; An Exercise in Ambiguity; Finding God in the Ambiguous Future; unclear occupation expectations for young single people in Evangelicalism. And more to come as well. If interested in writing, email eric@caffeinatedstudio.com.

I'm known at my church as 'that single guy from Chicago' to a growing number of people I have never met. The reason this is remarkable is because there are no other people from Chicago there.
Ha! I wish. A single guy at my small Dallas church is more the oddity than someone being from Chicago. I've fielded many a question like, "So what do you think about a singles ministry?"

A friend got me the first six Season 3 episodes of Lost, which I missed. I'm caught up now, both story-wise and it's-all-I'm-thinking-about-now-wise.

Was disappointed with the Superbowl. Bears had one good play but then went downhill after the first two minutes of the game.
Commercials? Anyone else yawn through them?

Chicago's temp today: 5 degrees (w/out windchill). Dallas: 64 degrees.

Writing...

Feb.'s come quickly.
I have an editorial and an article to write for The Brew.
I also volunteered to write four devotionals for my church's Lent Devotional book; and they're due on the 1st.
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Kevin's blog inspired me to share a recipe of my own.
This is a dessert you can get at that one coffee shop. The name has slipped from my memory for the moment but here's the recipe.

Gold Coast Tiramasu Wannabe
Get a French press of the Gold Coast Blend.
Get a slice of Marble Pound Cake.
Get a barista (who tows the company line of "Just Say Yes") to pour a shot of espresso over the pound cake.
Sip the Gold Coast and notice how well it pairs with the drenched pound cake.
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The film "Paradise Now" is intense, heartbreaking and beautiful.

Add Another One To The Lists...

So I got a Facebook site today. It's pretty shnazzy, technologically speaking. So whenever I post here, it will automatically post the same thing on Facebook. Pretty cool, huh? I'd link to my site but I guess you have to have a Facebook to look at other's page. So if you have one, look me up.

As promised, the Real Crime Story is coming.

And I'm thinking of putting together a satire issue of The Brew in the near future. Any takers? Let me know. I'd like the issue to be sharp, and smart. Writing that is both of these is not easy to produce; nor does it come quickly. If interested, email me and let me know.

The inspiration for this is a book I'm reading: Serrated Edge. It's a biblical defense of satire. So all those who don't think this kind of writing appropriate, I stick my tongue out at you.

Pho For All

Had some amazing pho (pronounced 'fa') today after church. It's about the third or fourth meal at a Vietnamese restaurant since I moved here. And there seems to be no shortage of Vietnamese restaurants around the NW Dallas area.

I found out that during the Vietnamese war, Dallas was one of the cities that they evacuated Vietnamese people to. Apparently they settled down in and around Richardson, TX (near NW suburb of Dallas) and there's plenty of restaurants.

My buddy and I were the only white people in there for a while (which means you're in the right place for real Vietnamese food). I had some great coffee, which they drip-brew in a small cup at the table. The coffee drips through a small filter onto a bunch of sweetened, condensed milk, which you mix together while it's warm and then pour over ice. Oooohhh, is it good.

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Got a little frazzled this weekend over Christmas plans. And then I realized that I write best while I'm frazzled, pissed off or depressed. Realized that I hadn't worked on my novel for a while, either; it's probably because I hadn't been frazzled, pissed off or depressed enough recently.

So I stopped by the DPL and picked up some music to help me write. I found Eminem's Curtain Call; Foo Fighter's There is Nothing Left To Loose; and Elliot Smith's From a Basement On The Hill. We'll see what happens. Maybe I'll finish the chapter I started six months ago.

Consolidating...

So I started a Myspace account to help promote The Brew. That makes my blogs three-strong and me content-weak. So I'm not going to try to keep up three (which means neglecting one or the other to maintain them all) but post the same things on all of them.
So if you don't like blogger, I'm at
www.xanga.com/sonofa3

www.myspace.com/sum

And coming soon, how I fared whiled driving to Ohio for Thanksgiving.

Book Makes Reader Blue In the Face

After many friend’s urgings and hearing about how Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller, is the book to read, I finally submitted. While reading it and carrying it around on the el to and from work, I felt like I was part of some club. I felt a little chic, a little part of some ‘in’ crowd, a little like I was part of some group blessed with the special knowledge that comes from reading one man’s attempt at putting his spirituality into book form.

Now all book snobbery set aside, I enjoyed parts of Jazz although I can’t tell you one thing I remember from it. Miller uses and abuses the stream of consciousness writing style where different events in his life lead to reflections on whatever subjects those events deal with. I remember certain anecdotes and things he did, like live in the mountains with some kind of leftover hippie Christians and then returning to the world at large and then speak to the issues that ensue. But I couldn’t tell you any well-put arguments or ideas about faith in the world today and I can’t remember any kind of theme from the book.

Miller gets kudos for pursuing honesty and transparency in his faith and addressing the shortcomings of Christianity, or possibly more accurately, evangelicalism. This honesty is surely what makes this book such a popular read. Anyone who can speak to the hurts, frustrations and disappointments that come with being a Christian today is surely to gain a following since it is becoming rare to find someone who will do so.

But being an aspiring writing, reading the book was in some parts like listening to someone scrape their fingernails down a chalkboard. My beef with Miller, oddly enough, would be his writing style. Looked at as a whole, the book, subtitled Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality, seemed to do exactly what Miller railed against.

One chapter in the book has Miller going to see some “Christian” author of books on spirituality at a Borders-like bookstore. Miller has liked the author but at the current book promo, he listens to the author and is upset to hear the author ‘use’ Mohammedisms and other eastern religious terms to help sell his Christian beliefs. Miller is incensed that the author would need to re-market his books using something that would be more easily accepted by the world at large. I took a step back and thought about this. I thought about Miller’s subtitle, Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality, and thought I saw some similarities. Miller shares the author’s need to re-market his own spirituality to gain wider acceptance.

Now, being an author who has yet to publish, I don’t know the pressure from publishers to market a book a certain way. I don’t know that perhaps authors have to write books with a selling point in mind and have to think of some thirty second tag to sell the book to distributors or book buyers at the Christian Booksellers Association convention. I do not know the evils of the marketing machine that is Christian book publishing. So these criticisms may be thrown at you from the armchair that I’ve been sitting in since I decided to write. But other of Miller’s books, namely, Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance, seems to be a complete rip off of the classic volume on philosophy Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Persiq. Maybe it’s just me but that seems to be trying to again to re-market work for a certain audience.

But Miller’s style still grates on my writing sensibilities. He tries too hard to be ‘random’ like Anne Lamont or Annie Dillard. I hated the two cartoons that were included in the book. I couldn’t stand his obsession with having to make his faith seem exotic and cool. Hence this passage:

“Some of my friends have left their churches and gone Greek Orthodox. I think that sounds cool. Greek Orthodox. Unless you’re are Greek. Then it sounds like that is where you are supposed to go, as though you are a conformist. If I were Greek, I would never go to a Greek Orthodox church. If I were Greek, I would go to a Baptist church. Everybody there would think I was exotic and cool.”

But as I finished the book, Miller addressed some issues that had been piling up through my read. Miller seems like he could be a nomadic-type Christian who isn’t so keen on being part of a local body of believers. He could be a traveling speaker with no real affiliation or be supported by some smaller Body of Christ. I have issue with that, having felt those nomadic longings but then have realized the need for involvement in the smaller Body of Christ at a local church. Miller addresses issues arising out of a nomadic lifestyle in the last three chapters. I was impressed with how he tackled loving other members of the body of Christ and the need for community. Kudos to Miller to wrapping up his book this way but not for making me read through 200 pages to get there.

Check Our the Picayune's Contributing Writers

In order to better serve our readers ( and give props to fellow bloggers) the Picayune Editorial Board would like to take a moment to recognize (plug) our contributing writers.

A Table For One-Master of Creativity and generous blog creator from Boston but living in Chi-town.

backdrop- Smart, grad student in Chi-area (I'll let you figure out where)

dia blogue-Master of a self-run design company who will kill if you mess with Texas

Lesniewicz Weekly-Polish native heading to Uganda but currently interning at the Beach Picayune and doing some other stuff in Chicago

Nelmezzo-Master of Theology (or soon to be) in Chi-town

Pathos From the Mind's Eye-One of many alias for my roommie

Redemption-Produced by Jameson(not the whiskey) but headed for Perth, Australia

seadonkey21-Sweating over espresso in Minneapolis (ask about the name)

Skofinopolis Recorder- Master Yank in King Charles' court

Touchstone-A great magazine

Two Luther's Collide-Yet another alias

New Startup Publication Peaks After a Year

So it's already been a year that the Beach Picayune has been in circulation. And thanks to the solid readership and advertisers who kept the Pic going during a time when the printed page seems to be on the out.

A new year brings new offerings and outlets for the Pic. A plan is in the works for readers to subscribe to the Picayune and receive new issues via email. Keep reading for details. And a new look is also under construction by the New Look Development Department.

Future issues that will satiate the insatiable appetites of the Pic readers include:Adaptations, a review of the book Blue Like Jazz, Reflections on Qtting Journalism, City News Days and further flashy, but never, never trashy, content on the Pic's younger sibling publication: www.xanga.com/Sonofa3.