LOVE this

I also love the phrase “running amok.”

Passengers sleep on plane after flight cancelled

BEIJING (Reuters) – Fifty-two passengers on a Chinese airliner whose flight was cancelled due to bad weather refused to disembark and instead spent the night onboard before finally leaving to their destination, local media said on Friday. The passengers boarded for their 8 p.m. (1:00 a.m. EDT) flight from Beijing to the eastern coastal city of Yantai, but after more than three hours of sitting on the tarmac, the airline cancelled the flight, the Beijing Morning Post said.

“Most of the about 200 passengers disembarked to complete flight transfer procedures, but a Mrs. Shi was one of 52 passengers who refused to get off,” the newspaper said.

“Mrs. Shi said that she and her colleagues had to get to Yantai for a meeting, they were on a very tight schedule, and could not accept the cancellation of the flight.”

At 3 a.m. the airline finally told them they could take a 7.30 a.m. flight to Yantai.

“The passengers said that in the 12 hours or so they spent on the aircraft, the crew provided continuous service, and all along offered food and drink,” the report said. Chinese media frequently report stories of badly behaved passengers refusing to get off delayed aircraft or running amok at airports following delays, but also criticize airlines for not giving enough information to passengers about delays.

The government and airlines have spent billions of dollars upgrading airports and buying new aircraft, but service standards have struggled to keep up.

Beijing is especially worried about poor service at airports and on airlines as it gears up to host this summer’s Olympics.

OOMFITYSK–#3

Tim Timmons is another One Of My Friends I Think You Should Know. Tim serves as one of the worship leaders at Mariners Church, the congregation where I worshiped in California, and he’s also experiencing success as a singer, songwriter, and recording artist.

Tim’s not only talented, though–he’s also the real deal, kind and humble and fun on stage and off. During my recent trip to Mariners he gave me fruit leather, endured my pestering to share three good things about his day, and took time from a staff meeting for an impromptu, and very meaningful, conversation about spiritual issues.

My favorite song on his newest CD is “Uprising.” Check it out on iTunes and imagine it playing during the cardboard before-and-after moment below………goosebumps.

Your uprising is my uprising……
Uprising from the meaningless
rising from the hopelessness
rising from the stains of our sins

Uprising from the restlessness
rising from the loneliness
rising from the fear within

Uprising from the brokenness
rising from the wandering
rising from prison and rising from the pain

Uprising from the evil one
rising from discouragement
rising from my failures
and rising from my pride

Uprising from the prejudice
rising from abandonment
rising from the worries
and rising from the lies

Uprising from confusion
rising from insignificance
rising from death to life

Uprising to contentment
uprising to hopefulness
rising to freedom
and rising to rest

Uprising to significance
rising to gratefulness
rising to a newness of life

playing their "cards" right

This is a long-but-worth-it video from West Seattle Christian Church. I keep telling you, folks, it doesn’t take money to create powerful worship moments.

the sky is falling

In addition to the usual news headlines greeting me and my coffee this morning–more flooding, fires in California, deaths in Iraq–I was stunned to see this one: “Everything seemingly is spinning out of control.” That kind of gets to the point, doesn’t it?

The article lists decreasing food supplies, increasing prices, natural disasters, water shortages, power outages, airline failures and even the recent writers’ strike as contributing issues. “Midwestern levees are bursting,” write Alan Fram and Eileen Putman. “Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition, and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.”

And unlike recent decades, Americans apparently feel more helpless to fight or fix these problems. Two different reports show only 14-17% of Americans believe the country is moving in the right direction. “The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault,” says the article. “Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country’s sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.”

I’m not happy about any of the inflation, climate change or fighting taking place, but these circumstances do give us a superb opportunity to remind can-do Americans even they can’t do everything. People need Jesus whether things are “under control” or chaotic, and when they begin doubting their own invincibility they’re also more likely to consider His claims. I hope churches seize this opportunity–some “chicken little” thinking is okay if it points to a big God.

skirting the issue

You haven’t really lived until you’ve attended a preschool dance recital. Last weekend I spent two hours watching a parade of little people wiggling, swaying, jumping, and occasionally melting down into scared, can’t-catch-a-breath sobs.

Most of these small dancers were girls, and the recital was full of feminine pageantry—pink princess outfits, butterflies with shiny wings, purple hot pants, swept-up hairdos, and lots and lots of glitter.

Feminists might object to such stereotypes, but these little girls loved every minute. “Look at my outfit,” four-year-old Avery commanded me, her eyes shining as she shimmied her hips. “My skirt is twirly.”

It’s old news, I hope, that men and women are equal in value. But while God created us equally, He also hardwired males and females very differently.

You can observe this by spending just an hour or two in a room of small children. Notice the girls cuddling dolls or pretending to cook while the boys smash trucks into piles or “shoot” each other with plastic guns. (One young mother I know banned violent toys from her home; her son responded by using his index finger as a gun to blow up the bad guys in his closet.)

These differences even show up during play with “gender-neutral” toys like puzzles or games; boys often demonstrate less conversation and more competition than their female peers.

Recognizing these tendencies doesn’t have to mean a return to rigid old-school thinking (“No son of mine will hold a doll!”). Some boys danced in the recital, of course (many of them as chickens, leaving trails of feathers behind suggestive of a large molting episode), just as many girls play sports and climb trees. Any generalizations are potentially unfair, and some should be retired completely for the physical and social growth of both sexes.

But I am suggesting we remember, and celebrate, our unique roles as male and female. Although Avery might grow up to be a lawyer, teacher, or engineer, on Saturday she just wanted to be a princess. It’s an affirmation of God’s plan, not a betrayal of feminism, to acknowledge that desire inside every woman. We deserve equal pay for equal work, but sometimes work’s more fun in a twirly skirt.

read letters

During a recent Barnes & Noble excursion I impulsively bought a copy of
Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children. It’s turned out to be a great read.

A dozen sections, arranged chronologically and by subject, include everything from Thomas Jefferson’s marriage advice for his newlywed daughter Martha to Samuel Clemens’ (aka Mark Twain’s) letter as Santa Claus to his three-year-old daughter Susie.

The letters are endlessly quotable. In one, author F. Scott Fitzgerald compiled a list of things his twelve-year-old daughter should and should not be concerned about. (“Worry about courage. Don’t worry about the past. Don’t worry about growing up.”)

“Consideration of others at all times, be they right or wrong, is an acknowledgment of your own limitations, ” writes fighter pilot Eddie Rickenbacker before sending his son off to the Air Force.

Famous photographer Ansel Adams might just as easily have been an award-winning writer; “I am wondering, in the afternoon of my own life, just what your day will be,” he writes to his son.

In her prologue, the book’s editor mentions letters are dying art forms—the book includes few recent letters because email and telephone calls have replaced them. But I’m old enough to remember life before the internet and cell phones, and my own father wrote me a letter every week I was away at college. (Well, until my senior year, when we both got email.)

I still have a file folder crammed with those short notes and long epistles, plus many of the cards and letters he’s written since. They run the gamut from routine recountings of the previous week to serious messages from a dad watching his daughter grow into adulthood. And many, of course, included Standard Publishing stickers.

During college:
“Did you REALLY email us at 5:53 a.m.? Did you get up that early…or STAY up that late? Take care of yourself!”

“It’s exciting to anticipate how your life will turn out. Of course, I realize the bigger issue may seem to be passing pre-calculus this semester. So we’ll pray about that first.” (I passed with a C.)

When my roommates were noticed more than me: “Don’t feel bad about being ‘in the shadow.’ There’s probably more light there than you realize.”

As I struggled with my first year away from home: “All your mother and I want is for you to have and be and do what’s best for you. A large part of that is finding God’s will, which I’m convinced is often not just one answer. We anticipate that you will always be a source of light, wherever you choose to shine.”

Years later, in response to an email headed “Fun for your Wednesday,” asking for reasons why I shouldn’t date a cuter-than-snot atheist: “I was expecting a funny pass-along email or one of those silly cartoons, any of which I would have called ‘fun.’ This correspondence I would put in another category, something close to ‘life and death.’”

On a birthday card: “What a wonderful thing to call you…our friend! It is wonderful compensation for realizing how old we are, now that you are an adult.”

And always, at the end of almost every letter, “You know we love you.”

I’m a bit biased, but I think some of Dad’s letters rival the best of anything from Thomas Jefferson or Ansel Adams. I’m lucky to have them, and lucky to have him.

Thanks, Dad. Happy Father’s Day.

done deal

I think Obama’s going to take this one. So many people range from annoyed to irate at the (mis)behavior and missteps of George W. that, fair or not, this fall they’ll vote anything but Republican to make a statement.

The current economic situation doesn’t help. Large swaths of both blue and red states are now feeling the pain in their pocketbooks (where it really counts for Americans) and looking for immediate relief. Whether any presidential candidate can actually reverse the current recession quickly is up for serious debate, but a vote for something different feels proactive.

This election also taps into our own self-identities. If I vote for another old white guy, I’m boring and racist. If I vote for a young, charismatic black guy I’m progressive and open-minded. This self-concept issue fed the long battle between Hillary and Obama; for the first time, a vote could implicitly support women’s rights or civil rights—which to choose?

I’m actually neutral on Obama; if you read this blog regularly at all you shouldn’t be surprised that I’m not voting Republican on auto-pilot. I haven’t decided who to vote for yet. But I am saying it doesn’t matter—Obama will win. An axiom of change management is that people will passively and actively resist change until the consequences of the status quo become less bearable than the pain of changing. Obama’s campaign, encouraging us to “vote for change,” hinges on the bet that millions of Americans are hurting enough to try something new.

I think he’s right and, unless a scandal emerges, I’d say the election is already decided; now it’s just five more months of annoying commercials.

screen play

I’m jealous when I hear Lea Salonga sing, or when I read anything written by Bill Bryson or Richard Russo.

Now I’m jealous of Dan Merchant, writer, director and producer of the new documentary Lord, Save Us From Your Followers. USA Today called the movie “a humorous and heartfelt examination of the culture wars,” and its theme can be summed up by one question Merchant asks early on: Why is the gospel of love dividing America?

To find the answer, he interviews Tony Campolo, Rick Santorum, Al Franken, and many others. He dons a white jumpsuit covered with contradictory and controversial bumper stickers and conducts man on the street interviews to gauge reactions. He conducts two liberal vs. conservative Family Feud-style games. He apologizes for his own judgmentalism to dozens of homosexuals in Portland.

Along the way (and sometimes in spite of these stunts), he discovers that even individuals with the most opposing beliefs can find common ground by relating as individuals instead of angry members of stereotyped groups.

“Maybe the gospel of love isn’t dividing—it’s just being turned into the gospel of being right,” he muses. Merchant unapologetically identifies himself as an evangelical Christian to viewers and to interviewees, but he also goes out of his way to listen to those with other worldviews. “I’m finding there’s a translation problem when Christians try to talk to non-Christians,” he says. “We have no idea how we sound to others.”

We can also become insulated by the gospel of being right wing. In both rounds of his Family Feud game the liberals trounced the conservatives by hundreds of points. When guessing reasons a woman might not have an abortion, the liberal group guessed the #4 answer (there is no good reason to have an abortion), knowing that many conservatives feel that way and therefore this answer would appear on the board. In questions about “intriguing” aspects of Darwin’s theory of evolution, the conservatives were stumped.

“We couldn’t get outside of the world we live in,” said Shel Reed, CEO of Good Samaritan Ministries and a member of the conservative team. “They did a much better job understanding us than we did understanding who they were.”

The film goes beyond politics to explore issues of social justice, finding hope in our willingness to work together in feeding the hungry or serving the homeless. It shows very different people—George Clooney and Pat Robertson, a secular radio station and World Vision—uniting around these issues, and discovering each other’s humanity in the process.

The film was didactic and idealistic at times, but I appreciated its consistent return to a central message: we’re all responsible for the polarization of America because we’re all on the defensive, all looking for an enemy, all talking more than we’re listening.

Or as Merchant says, “Outrage is way more exciting than humility.” That’s one of several things in this movie I wish I’d said first. I can’t take credit for it any more than I can Ms. Salonga’s version of “On My Own.” But I encourage you to check out both.