Rowdy Ladies & Live Music

Yesterday I was in Charleston, WV. Kate, our dog (O.Henry), and I jumped in the Saturn and drove down to her folks house for a dinner with the family and then out to the Clay Center for the taping of NPR's Mountain Stage Radio Show, a live music radio show that brings in quality musicians. Headlining the show was the amazing Indigo Girls who played a short set but managed to give the crowd both Closer to Fine and Galileo, 2 of their biggest hits. But like most concerts the headliners don't go on 1st.

Much to my delight the series of performers that led up to the Indigo Girls were great. Two Singer/Songwriters, a Banjo genius, and Jill Hennessy, a former star of Crossing Jordan and Law & Order, who is a gifted singer, played their hearts out but sadly they were not the only ones seeking to contribute to the live taping of this show. About 10 rows back from where I sat 5 or so ladies who seemingly either had too much to drink pre-show or hadn't been in public since the days of the Wild West parked themselves and proceeded to be loud, inappropriate, and tried to converse/comment on everything the musicians said. They were horrible. The folks sitting behind us commented that they were sitting right in front of these ladies and had to move because they couldn't hear the music. Everybody was getting frustrated and to put it bluntly homicidal. The breaking point came when the aforementioned Jill Hennessey took the stage. Hennessey, a former improv actress, responded to just about everything she could hear from these rowdy ladies and took it all in stride. For the entire set Hennessey took what these ladies decided to share with everybody but for her final song Hennessey selected a song about her father and her relationship that was very meaningful to her personally. The title of the song was Save Me, and in the .5 seconds of silence that hung in the air before the song was to start the loudest and by far the most obnoxious of the ladies mockingly cried out "Save Me, Saaaaaaaave Meeeeee." Hennessey looked as though she was hurt.

The story ends with the ladies being taken into the lobby of the Clay Center's Cultural Center and being escorted out. The crowd was relieved and left to enjoy the Indigo Girl's upcoming set. Yet, as the 400+ folks who gathered there that day congregated in the lobby the rowdy ladies was the only thing people were talking about. General consensus was people were left wondering: Why would anyone do something like that?

Why do people to stupid stuff like that? Were they drunk? Is that an excuse? Folks generally hold themselves together in public and while concerts are notorious for human stupidity I am truthfully not too surprised. There is always a reason for the way people act. Craving attention? Live radio show, beaming every sound out to thousands of radio stations nationwide. Perfect venue for those who must be validated. But I have to be honest, I am just like those ladies.

I am the guy who likes to be the last one to stop clapping. I am almost always the last clap you hear. Why do I do it? Control, attention, desire to be noticed? Perhaps, but like those ladies I had a subversive something to add. I recognize the unnecessary in my actions almost universally after the fact but it always seems like a good idea during the concert. Humanity wants something out of everything - wants a piece of whatever is awesome - and to get it we often insert ourselves into the mix at the expense of others. Thankfully in those moments, like today will hopefully be for those rowdy ladies, we recognize the mistakes we have made, the ways that we have taken from others so that we might benefit ourselves, and we can make amends.

So...
Mountain State, I am sorry. You were awesome and I wanted a little piece for myself.

Sermon Video

Thanks to James (Sr. Pastor/Head of Staff) & his Blog for posting the video of my sermon "Saltiness" from September 27th. You can check out the video by clicking on the below link.

Watch the Video

Happy Watching!

Sparkly $2 Bills Win Grandview Kickball Championship

Not surprisingly the Sparkly $2 Bills swept the playoffs and claimed the Grandview Kickball Championship yesterday in the season ending Playoffs. The Sparkly $2 Bills, a team that I have called the Pink team due to the color of their t-shirts, went undefeated in the regular season and was the odds on favorite to claim the championship.

Here is how the playoffs shaped up:

6:00 PM - The Grandview Branch of the Arlington Bank vs. The Bird is the Word
We played The Bird is the Word (Blue Team) the 1st game of the season and The Grandview Arlington Bank (Green Team) the last game of the season. In the end The Green team, who had previously lost to the Blue team fairly handily claimed victory and a place in the Championship game.

7:00 PM - The Buckeyes vs. The Sparkly $2 Bills
The Buckeyes (Grey Team) was our 2nd opponent and defeated Total Depravity by 1 run. The Sparkly $2 Bills (Pink Team) handed Total Depravity a loss in the 2nd to the last game of the season. In the end The Sparkly $2 Bills claimed their place in the Championship

Championship Game: The Grandview Arlington Bank vs. The Sparkly $2 Bills

Sermon: Saltiness - A Reflection on Mark 9:38-50

I come from a family of good cooks. My grandma, perhaps like your grandma, was the best cook in the world, and my Mom makes perhaps the finest Spaghetti on the planet. Their food was awesome and now that I am the chef for my family I look at the stuff I make and wonder what went wrong. I have the right pans, sharp knives, a website with thousands of recipes, but at the end of the day stuff just doesn’t have the flavor like theirs did and even when I am following their instructions something is off. Perhaps it is experience. I try to make up for years of experience feeding families by watching cooking shows on TV. I am not sure it is working but I have been learning a lot. I have figured out that the thing my Grandma used to do with the Pork that ended up in the single greatest edition to the culinary world, something called John Mazetti, was called braising, yet when I do it is awful. Thanks to the TV chefs I know that you can add heavy cream to scrambled eggs and you shouldn’t leave them on the fire for too long but I never saw any heavy cream in my Mom’s fridge and her eggs were incredible. I guess in the cooking world know-how, gadgets, fancy pots, and stuff like it doesn’t stand up in the end to someone who has spent years and years putting flavor into their food. I would trade my German knives and my Calaphon pots for whatever mojo Grandma had to spare.

Seems to me that I am not the only one my age who is searching for the flavor and is not finding it. I have friends who fancy themselves fine cooks but opening cans, boiling water, and store-bought gravy does not a good chef make. I may sound like a snob and I am willing to entertain that for a minute, but I am afraid that kids are going to grow up thinking that Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese, and Hot Pockets are wonderful and are afraid or worse never exposed to flavor of Blue Cheese. The palate is equipped for Blue Cheese. It is out there. Some people hate it and I am fine with that, but I love it and when I order a salad that is what I will be ordering. When restaurants do not carry Blue Cheese dressing, as one I recently regretted going to failed to do, because “it is too strong” a little part of me dies.

This is making me hungry so I will get to the point. Today’s reading is the culinary manifesto of the Gospel. Jesus in what amounts to just a verse blows the lid off the flavorless, the bland, the Mac ‘n Cheese and creates a standard for us based in Salt, creates a standard built on the idea that in order to live in this world we must be like Salt - we must taste like something. It is for this reason that I have begun to ask myself could I pray “Lord, I want to be like Blue Cheese.”

“Lord, I want to be like Blue Cheese, I want to be like Pineapple, I want to be like the Habenero pepper. Help me Oh Lord because today I don’t taste like anything.” The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a strong flavor and as someone who seeks to live in the example of Jesus I too need to be more like Blue Cheese, more like Salt than the comfortable, the universally accepted, the friendly Wonder Bread. The Gospel is an acquired taste – to live it, to consume it, to marinate in it – means that in the great Pot-Luck that is this world, when the party is over there is going to be a whole lot left in your casserole dish when the others have been picked clean. Not everyone is going appreciate the flavor with which you live your life. Not everyone is going to appreciate the ingredients or the manner in which you cultivate the Saltiness of your life. I think that is the subconscious in the words of Jesus when he tells us that in the living of our lives a sinning hand or eye is worth losing in order to insure or maintain the relationship with God. Few folks are going to hear that and not recoil. Cut off my hand? Pluck out my eye? No thank you. Jesus sets up such an example for us to see that the life we live must be about something. What else could serve as a sufficient reason to pluck out your eye? I pluck out my eye, lop off my foot because the life that I seek to live in Christ is so important to me that I would rather live this life without then mortgage my relationship with God. Jesus is laying the framework for the destruction of the flavorless life, the one where faith and action, faith and life have about as much continuity as true Italian food and the Olive Garden. Jesus is telling us that the life that we live must be in line with the faith that we have (this is how you build flavor) but if you lack flavor, if you would rather stay bland so that you could hide on any table without offense, then you miss out on something – the Salt – the taste of a life built on a relationship with God.

Jesus doesn’t want you to cut off your foot. Jesus doesn’t want you to pluck out your eye. But Jesus does wants you to know that it would be better to lose that foot or lose that eye than lose the life spent in relationship with God. This is the Gospel of Blue Cheese. This is the Gospel of Salt. Salt is the flavor, salt is unmistakable on the palate and as we live our life with our relationship with God as the main ingredient we discover that over time the flavor begins to develop and as it is with strong flavors soon enough the way you seek to live out your faith - you become an acquired taste.

See flavor can grow stronger and stronger, and like the difference between my cooking and my grandmas it takes living, it takes experience to cultivate the strong flavors that become the cornerstone of any life of faith. Like my Mom who cooked without a timer telling when the Chicken was done by the way it smelled, you don’t start off learning to cook that way – how could you know what perfect chicken was to smell like? It is only through doing it over and over it is only through practice, experience that your flavors, your faith develops and you can live into the bold flavor that is our faith.

You know this thing about growing in faith, moving from bland to flavorful, is not happening overnight. It is going to take a lot of a lot of things including prayer so I thought I would end my sermon today with a prayer like we do with the children’s message - you repeat after me. Alight, let us pray…

Dear God
I want to be like Blue Cheese
I want to be like Liverwurst
I want to be like Habanero Peppers & Listerine
Like horseradish & Garlic
Like Tabasco & Cough Syrup
Like a Salt Water Popsicle
Help me O God, in this world of Wonder Bread & Pop Tarts
To taste so strong
That the world will need a drink of water
When it gets a load of me.
Amen.

Ecumenical Extravaganza in Louisville

Yesterday I was privileged to accompany 12 folks from Thailand and a handful from our Presbytery (Scioto Valley) down to Louisville, Kentucky. My adventure began at 6:30am in the parking lot of nearby Covenant Presbyterian Church. Our mission/adventure lay before us: Lunch, a tour, and a conversation at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary with Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, the President of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and then from the seminary to Presbyterian Church USA's denominational office (aka. HQ). At HQ we met with David Hudson, the Mission area director for Asia, and had a tour of the place including the magnificent chapel.

So here is a question: why did we do this?
I am glad you asked...
The Presbytery of Scioto Valley has a long standing partnership with Pahk II, which is one of 19 "presbyteries" in the Church of Christ in Thailand. Every 2-3 years a delegation from there or here visits the other with the hopes of strengthening the bonds of friendship between sister churches as well as think about how each group might equip and strengthen the other. Judy Baker, the chair of the Thai Partnership Committee for the Presbytery of Scioto Valley, calls this a "mission of friendship" with emphasis on creating a community with our Thai brothers and sisters rather than going to Thailand with the prospects of building churches or doing Vacation Bible Schools. I was excited to be a part of this partnership.

To be honest, I love stuff like this. God blessed me with many opportunities to travel and I have been fortunate enough to be involved in international mission. Each and every time I travel and have the opportunity to share a meal, worship, or work along side men and women from places that all to often feel far away to us here in the states I am overcome with one crystal-clear reality: we are all in this together. Thai, Kenyans, Mexicans, Chinese, Americans, and everyone in-between, we are all in this life together. We all seek to live well, provide for our loved ones, be happy and healthy, and in the end, feel loved. These are the things that, for me, seem to be bonds unable to be broken by the minuscule things that get lifted up as the apocalyptic differences that shatter any attempts at unity. My life, my faith, and my desire to see the world be a better place united me with the 12 folks from the Thai Christian churches.

Total Depravity Season Ends, Misses Playoffs

Sunday, September 13th was a day that none will soon forget. Two worship services instead of one, the first Fall Fun & Food Block Party, and for twenty men and women the final Kickball game of the regular season. On the line was a shot at the playoffs and the continuation of the season by one week. Yet despite fielding perhaps the best looking and well-dressed team in the Grandview Heights Kickball League, Total Depravity fell 10-0 with play being stopped after only 30 minutes of play.

Perhaps it was the rust built up after a week off. Perhaps it was fatigue after having so much fun at the Block Party. Perhaps it was a lot of things but like our neighboring Ohio State University, Total Depravity couldn't win the big game and were left out of the playoffs in their inaugural year. Yet despite the lopsided score a couple of interesting highlights are worthy of mention including Total Depravity's place in the Grandview Kickball record books as the first team to turn a Triple Play.

With the game already out of hand, the team of Arlington Bank Grandview came up to kick and quickly put two runners on. Bringing up the third kicker of the inning who placed the ball just right in order for Total Depravity's stout infield defense to turn two quick outs. While the ball was still in play Micheal Schmidt, member of TD, quickly noticed that the base runner who at this point had circled the bags had failed to touch first base as he rounded to second. Unaware of this oversight himself, the base runner stood by unaware as the ball was tossed to 1st and the third out to seal the Triple Play was called.

All in all it was a wonderful season filled with lots of fun and fellowship. Stay tuned for a Season in Review where some of the sights, sounds and stories from the 2009 Kickball season will be shared. Thank you for your support!

Brett's Easy Steps to Fall Fun & Food Participation

September 12th might as well be a holiday or perhaps something larger than a holiday...maybe what would happen if Christmas and 4th of July had a kid. September 12th is Ohio State Buckeyes verses The University of Southern California Trojans at the Horseshoe. This football battle (that many commentators are forecasting as a lop-sided affair) has been dominating the news cycle here in Columbus, Ohio. But I am here to tell you of the singular event for the weekend. It is not Football. It is not Tiddly-Winks. It is not even a Cheerleader Car Wash. It is Boulevard's Fall Fun & Food Block Party and it is going to happen September 13th from 2-7pm.

We are going to have a blast playing some games, checking out some Columbus Zoo animals, eating some food, bouncing in the Bounce House and getting our faces painted. It is going to be a blast and you should be there. But you say, "Brett, how do I take advantage of such wonderful fun and free food?" Well, I am glad you asked. Just follow "Brett's Easy Steps to Fall Fun & Food Participation." They are as follows:

1. Wake up on the morning of Sunday, Sept. 13th, shower, and go to church at Boulevard Presbyterian (Church attendance is not required for the block party but I recommend it)
2. Go home, get into some Block Party clothes, do not eat lunch, and grab a lawn chair
3. Arrive at Boulevard Presbyterian Church (1235 Northwest Blvd., Columbus, OH) and park along the Northwest Blvd. side
4. Approach the Block Party fun and excitement boldly. Have some food. Play some games. See the Zoo animals & Listen to the music.
5. Repeat Step 4 as able

It is going to be a great time and with my easy instructions anyone can have a blast. Hope to see you there!

Coffee Snobs & Cups

I try to be like Jesus and love and respect everybody but it is hard. Some folks are hard for me to put up with. Sure I love them as my fellow brothers and sisters but certain folks rub me the wrong way with Coffee Snobs being right there at the top of the list. Do you know a coffee snob? Are you a coffee snob? Scoffing at Folgers for Jamaican Blue Mountain french pressed with spring water in a specially designed cup or stainless steel travel tumbler. Do you drink your coffee black meanwhile ridiculing others who put in sugar, cream or flavors? Coffee is a beverage enjoyed by parts of this world yet I have dear friends that I love who treat their allegiance to "good coffee" as a lifestyle like some speak about adhering to their faith.

You might have guessed by now I am not a coffee drinker and you would be right. I am surrounded by coffee drinkers, I work in a place that coffee is readily available at any time, I live by no fewer than 4 coffee joints all of which have no empty tables most of the day, and yet rarely do I drink the stuff but like most people I own a coffee cup. In fact a quick glance around the room tells me I have 3 coffee cups in my office. I am prepared to drink coffee. I have the cup (the grainy photo taken with my Blackberry is of my go-to Detroit Tigers cup), I know where to get it and I know what to do when I have it yet I hardly imbibe. Surely I am not alone. Surely there are those who have everything ready at their disposal but do not/choose not to drink the very same nectar that others seem to have devoted much of their free time and income to obtaining.

This is starting to sound like a spiritual thing to me. Like those of us who have Coffee Cups but do not drink the stuff that the cups were designed for, we have everything that we need to experience community and a relationship with God yet for whatever reason we do not have an experience of God in community. Furthermore the folks that we run into who are zealously devoted to God and make no attempt to tone it down further compel us not to seek out a relationship with the same God that makes those guys annoying. Could it be that "God Snobs" are keeping folks from exploring a relationship with God just as Coffee Snobs are keeping others from experiencing the joy of coffee?

Fall Fun & Food Update: Yard Signs & Flyer Distribution

As you may know Boulevard is hosting a community block party Sunday, September 13th from 2-7pm entitled Fall Fun & Food. As way of advertising this event we have purchased yard signs that are easy to read, weather resistant and most importantly are NOT obnoxious! If you would be willing to help us get the word out about this FREE community event please let me know and I would be happy to get you a sign! Another way to get the word out is to join with other members on Saturday, September 5th at 8am to help distribute flyers to homes in the Boulevard Surrounding area. Let some folks know about the street closing as well as what is in store! This is going to be a BIG help.

Also if you are interested in helping make this a memorable event we could use all the hands we could get. We have various positions that we are looking to fill ranging from helping with food, to face painting, and a lot in between. This event is going to be awesome but it will only be full of awesome-ness if you can be a part of it!
Come by the church or contact us to sign up to help out. In the mean time check out Boulevard Presbyterian Church's web page for a schedule of event and more information.

Hope to see you there. Stay tuned for more updates