I started reading blogs again.  I had stopped reading them consistently, mostly because I could not find a way to do it that fit my routine.  I had feeds at the bottom of my mac mail inbox, but they were out-of-sight-out-of-mind and piling up like a guilt trip and fast!!!  But, thanks to this little iphone/ipad gem called reeder that seamlessly merges with google reader, I’m back in the game.

In the process of my blog roll feeding frenzy, I realized something.  I’m not sure who sent out the memo,  but somewhere in the blogosphere there’s wisdom that says, “you should end all your posts with a question.”  I probably would get more comments and better interaction if I did.

This got me thinking.

I wondered where else I would get better interaction if I asked better questions.  Counselors are masters at this.  Jesus was the inventor of this.  Some blog writers have reinvented it. So, I made a list of places I think I’d be well served by asking some good questions:

IN MY OWN SOUL…  it may be the hardest place to get unbiased clear answers to good questions, but it’s a critical place to ask them nonetheless.  Maybe I should ask others to speak into them.

• how am I really? 
• why am I doing what I’m doing? who am I trying to please?
• what should I do right now?  what should I stop doing?
• am I going to regret this decision I’m about to make? 

that’s what Becky said to me right before she ran and jumped in her brother’s arms at Pacific Beach last Saturday evening and I snapped this pic.

I’m going to a lot of weddings these days.  I’m doing a few too.  The process is stirring up in me some stuff I’ve been thinking about for a while. So here comes a couple of things I’d like to change about weddings.

NO FREE LUNCH:  Back in the day, I assume families saved up for weddings.  Back in the day before that day I guess only the family of the bride shelled out big money.  Now a days, here’s how most people pay for them.  #1. Someone relative takes out a big loan or writes a check against a home mortgage.   #2. The couple themselves take out a loan or pay for it because people are getting married later in life these days and you don’t ask your parents to help you like you’re 20 when you’re not. #3. Those people lucky enough to get asked to be in the wedding party will offset some costs and shell out about $1000 each on gifts, clothes, hotels, food, and travel.

• Instead, I think you should have to pay to go to a wedding reception.  Yup, pay.  It’s like getting invited to a private event months and months out and expecting there’s no cost.  I mean really, high school students pay to go to their prom!  Why is a wedding reception free?  That’s ridiculous.  
• I think it should be normal for you to pay $35-50 a plate for an epic party where you celebrate a once in a lifetime moment with friends and family.  Maybe if you invite their kids, you can make exception.  
• Maybe it means people give fewer lame teapots and towels and give the gift of their presence at your party instead.  
• Subtly, it will weed out your casual invites from your friends unwilling to pay to play.  
• Maybe then you could say it’s free to your wedding party.  That would be awesome. 

PRE-ENGAGEMENT COUNSELING INSTEAD OF PRE-MARRIAGE COUNSELING:  Once a couple is engaged, they essentially are married in terms of the pressure they feel.  Facebook messages have been sent, engagement pictures taken, reservations made, save the date cards sent, and deposits given for all kinds of things. The pressure is HUGE!

• I think counseling should not only be about “how to succeed in marriage”, but should help a couple answer the “should we get married?” question too.  The first can be helpful post engagement, the second is a waste because breaking off an engagement is almost as stressful as a divorce.  
• I think churches and counselors should start offering pre-engagement counseling for serious dating couples. 
• I think the only reason we don’t is because no one wants to admit their considering getting married publicly before a ring is on a finger.  That’s just lame cuz everyone talks about it first.  It’s a myth that people just pop the question.  Those who “surprise” their soon to be spouse with a “will you marry me question” are still single.  Everyone talks about it first. For most, the question is a romantic formality of a predetermined result anyway. 

There’s my top 2.  What’s yours?

… is super hard.  Yet lots of people try to do it.

“Christians” try to do it.  It’s a primary bi-product of the “personal Lord and Savior” jargon of evangelism tracts. They say, “I don’t need anyone.  I have Jesus and that’s enough.” (bypassing entire chapters, themes, and books of the Bible that clearly say otherwise)  Nevertheless, in church it manifests itself every Sunday around our country with tens of thousands who are just sitting in a seat, taking notes, maybe even giving… and then leaving.  I blogged about the dangers of this a couple of years ago here. 

“Others” try to do it alone too.  Christian or not, the pursuit of a “solo faith” is popular today.  This crowd claims, “I don’t need others to help me connect with God, my faith is private.”  Perhaps we even affirm this belief when we simply watch “christian church” in our house, hear it on the radio, or live-stream it on the web and call that community… and perhaps it’s even borderline arrogant to claim I don’t need anyone else to help me.   Besides, it’s really really hard to keep a private faith private cuz faith has it’s way of leaking out into every area of our lives.  We bleed our spiritual convictions in our behaviors.  So we might as well invite others to explore them with us anyway.

This has been spurred up in me recently because our entire church has been doing a series called “Jesus Creed” in which we’ve been memorizing and repeating a passage in Mark in which Jesus summarizes the entire Bible in.  In this text, Jesus was famously asked just one question, “What is the greatest commandment?”  To which Mark records:

““The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.””  (Mark 12:29–31)

As I’ve memorized this answer and repeated it and tried to live this call out in my life these past few weeks.  It has become crystal clear to me that while the essential core of “Love God and Love others” is as simple a bumper sticker calling as one can get, it is radically other and intensely hard to honor.  It is SIMPLE. But it is NOT EASY.

… AND I cannot go this thing alone. (obviously there’s a philosophical irony here too, cuz it’s impossible to “love others” alone anyway. That’s an oxymoron.)  I’m radically aware that I desperately need others to do this with or I simply won’t do it.  Loving God with all of me and loving others like I want to be loved, requires all of the grace from God I can muster and all of the help from my community of faith as I can gather.

The other day I saw this article/info graphic on sleep deprivation.

It initially struck my interest because when I ask students these days how they are… especially on Sunday morning… I swear, 95% of them, 95% of the time will give me the same one word answer: “tired”.   So, I got to thinking, maybe this lack of sleep thing is a major problem. Or maybe only a moron would offer church for high school students before noon… but let’s not go there.

In case you’re still asleep yourself and still haven’t clicked on that link… the info graphic says that getting less than 8 hours of sleep is not just a teen Saturday night problem.  It’s a massive adult in America problem.

In fact, getting less than the recommended sleep a night increases your stupidity level, your risk for heart disease, decreases your life span, and makes you on average 14+ lbs heavier.  This explains a lot about me and my gut.  Well, since I quite often can fall in to the orange section of this sleep graphic they creatively labeled the… oh nevermind… you can go see for yourself what they labeled it…. it is suffice to say that I get way too little sleep way too often.  (We’re not going to talk about the fact that I’m typing this at 12:23am and that I have to be up and ready to go out the door by 6am for an all day staff offsite meeting.  Cuz that would be proof of my problem.)

It even said that if you pull an all-nighter, your body behaves like you’re drunk.  DRUNK!?

This would explain the intoxicated feelings I’ve had a few times these last few months.

Ok kids…. let’s just say, it’s time for me to go be friends with my pillow.  I’m already dangerously close to being labeled an idiot by my bodies infrastructure and immune system yet again tonight.  So do yourself a favor… GO TO BED!