Reading, Lent, and Goals.

"Lent is about renewal, not just removal. God, give us the strength to let go of what's blocking our view of You." - Bob Goff

I'm not Catholic, but every year when Lent comes around I wonder if I'll give up something. Being brought up in Protestant churches my whole life, I didn't know what Lent was. Years back, a church I was attending (my dad was the youth pastor) did Lent, and I understood it to be a time of fasting between Ash Wednesday and Easter. The thought of fasting from something for 40 days seemed fun, but that was about it.

Over the years, I've mostly given up soda. A few years back I gave up alcohol. Both weren't much of a challenge. Still, I don't think I was quite getting it.

Yeah. I'm giving up something. But is that fasting? Or is that just a diet? In that case, I fasted from carbs a couple years ago and lost 20 pounds.

That just doesn't sound right.

I haven't fasted for lent in over three years, and I thought this would be another year of me thinking about what to give up, and deciding to do nothing. Instead, this came up.

As I've said in prior posts, I have a goal of reading at least 10,000 pages in one year, and I've been doing killing it! On March 3 I finished my sixth book, taking my page count to 1669. I'm already off to a great start.

However, I was convicted. Here I am reading all these books, but the one book I say is my favorite, the one I argue and debate with friends about, and the one I base my life around, I don't read at all: I need to read my Bible.

At the start of last year, I started a reading plan to read the Bible in one year reading 3-4 chapters a day and journaling what I read.

I lasted eleven days.

This isn't the first time I tried and failed to read the Bible the whole way through. I once read through the whole New Testament, but had a hard time going through the Old Testament. Before that I started from Genesis and got through half of Exodus. Other than those few failed attempts, reading the Bible on my own has only been to either prepare for a Bible study or find scripture for a worship set, and not just reading it myself.

I recently found an old Bible of mine. I replaced it a few years back because it was falling apart. It was a very important Bible to me, because I took it on four of my five tours with The Continentals, and when I moved to Fresno. I even had my name tag from The Price Is Right stuck on the inside of the back cover. I picked it up, and not only was it worn out, it also had notes all over it. I wrote in the margins, underlined verses, circled words, and also wrote down the date of when I read the chapter.

Why can't I do that again?

Here I am. I was an English/Philosophy Major in college. I wrote all over my textbooks. But for some reason, about the time I started writing in my books, I stopped writing in my Bible.

This year I've been reading a lot, but not my Bible. So for Lent, I'm giving up reading, and reading only my Bible. I'm writing in the margins, underlining passages, circling words and phrases, pointing arrows to linking parts, and basically just wearing out my Bible. I'm not sitting down at a specific time of day, or setting a timer to make sure I read for at least fifteen minutes, or putting so much effort into reading the Bible "the right way", I'm just reading it. If I read one chapter, or if I read a whole book, it doesn't matter. I'll read as much as I can whenever I can. I can find the time throughout the day to read any other book, why not just read the Bible instead. 

I wasn't sure if this sounded pretentious or self-righteous, so I ran it by Michelle. I thought she would tell me how holier-than-thou it sounded, but she was on board! 

"You've been reading so much lately, and it'll be good for you to read your Bible. That sounds like a good plan." (I love my wife.)

I then saw the above quote from Bob Goff on his Instagram, and it helped put Lent into perspective for me. I'm not just removing and replacing something from my life; I'm renewing the passion and thirst for God's Word that I need. I'm not saying "I don't need books", I'm saying "I need more of you God!"

I'm hoping this next month and a half to find that passion and joy I used to have for reading the Bible, while being as intentional about reading as I have with the last 1669 pages.

The Fountainhead and Culture Making

I've been trying to read as many books as I can since I started my "break" from school, and I've been trying to read as many different books as I can. It must be interesting for my co-workers to see what I've been reading on my breaks, since I went from reading The Walking Dead to The Fountainhead, (with a quick detour with Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, which was a great book) and I'm currently reading Culture Making by Andy Crouch, which gets to why I am posting this blog in the first place.

I think it was a wise choice to go from The Fountainhead into Culture Making.

When I started reading The Fountainhead, I had heard the main points of the novel from a lot of places. I heard it was a good book for thinking people, and that most Conservative's see this book as a basis for their political ideas. Since I enjoy philosophy and politics, I decided to jump in.

There's a lot going on in The Fountainhead, but one of the parts I took from it was that an artist (in the case of the book, an Architect) shouldn't compromise on anything they make. When they create (buildings, music, writing), they should be going by what they want, and not creating for other people.

The deeper meaning behind this is to be your own person, and not live off someone else. There's a long speech at the end of the book about how people create something for themselves, and how some will just take what someone else worked on and either add to it and say it's their own, or critique it and say how it's not good enough.

Basically it comes down the idea of the Artist verses the Critic, and The Fountainhead places the Artist way above the Critic.

My thoughts on this topic would take a whole other post, but the idea of being a Creator instead of living life Second-hand is something that stuck with me.

So then I picked up Culture Making, a book I got at Urbana two years ago, and saw some very interesting similarities between the two books.

The main point of Culture Making is how Christians shouldn't try to change culture by critiquing or copying culture, but by actively creating culture. Andy Crouch goes into details about what Culture is, what it isn't, and how it's created, While reading the first half, I came across this passage. I think this is quite an observation about society, and not just the Church.

Just so you know what's happening, he's talking about why creating a worldview isn't enough to change culture.

The language of worldview tends to imply, to paraphrase the Catholic writer Richard Rohr, that we can think ourselves into new ways of behaving. But that is not the way culture works. Culture helps us behave ourselves into new ways of thinking. The risk in thinking “worldviewishly” is that we will start to think that the best way to change culture is to analyze it. We will start worldview academies, host worldview seminars, write worldview books. These may have some real value if they help us understand the horizons that our culture shapes, but they cannot substitute for the creation of real cultural goods. And they will subtly tend to produce philosophers rather than plumbers, abstract thinkers instead of artists and artisans. They can create a cultural niche in which “worldview thinkers” are privileged while other kinds of culture makers are shunted aside.

But culture is not changed simply by thinking.

(Sam's note: Now if only people in Washington could understand this idea...)

That's pretty much it for now. I just really liked this quote.

Work and books and church and stuff

After working at Advanced Medical Imaging for two years, I was finally able to transfer to a new area.

I am no longer a Receptionist. I now work in Medical Records.

It's a little more work. I have to remember more, but it's way less stress. I have a more set schedule, I take lunch at the same time everyday, and I don't have to stay late if we're busy (the file room stops answering calls after 5:00, so I'm free after that).

I've also been reading more. Right now I'm currently making my way through The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I'm loving the book so far, but I'm not sure if it's for the same reasons others do. I was gonna try and tackle Atlas Shrugged after this, but after about 500 of the 752 pages of The Fountainhead, I think I'll read something else before I try to digest the 1368 pages of Atlas Shrugged. But I will try to finish it by the end of the year.

"He must become greater; I must become less."

-John 3:30

"Worship is giving God the best that He has given you."

-Oswald Chambers

Now a quick prayer request.

About a month ago, Pastor Tom (our worship pastor at Church) asked me if I'd be interested in leading worship on a Sunday in August. I said sure, but it wasn't until I got to the car that I fully realized what happened. I think I might have accepted his offer in a way that seemed unexcited, but really I was more in shock.

What I need is prayer that I don't get a big head about this.

I'm used to leading worship. This is nothing new for me. In the three years I've been going there, I've lead worship for the college group, children's Sunday School (both with and without a band), the youth group once, and the Men's breakfast and weekend retreat.

All the time, it's been a small group, with the biggest group being a quick set of songs for a Sunday night Missionary service, where I it's not so formal, and there's no pressure. Leading worship for the main church seems more like a big deal, when it really shouldn't be.

Pray that I don't make this service about me, or trying to impress anyone. My job as a worship leader isn't to have people think about how great that song was, or how good my guitar playing is, or good of a singer is; my job is to lead people into the presence of God so they walk away from the service not saying how great things are musically, but how great God is.

I'm leading worship on August 14, so please pray for me that I don't make this about me. I really debated with myself whether or not to even bring it up to anyone, but I figured that all the people that mattered would read this and understand what I'm trying to say without thinking I'm just trying to plug when I'm leading worship. I know what abilities God has blessed me with, and I only want to return those gifts to Him, without thinking that I'm the awesome one.

Love you all, and thanks for reading!