Sleepless...

In other health news...

I had my first round of tests yesterday, this one a bone scan. Pretty nifty. They injected me with a radioisotope-labelled phosphate solution that would find it's way to the bones in my body. After two hours, I lay under a camera which picks up the gamma radiation I'm emitting (!!!) and transduces it to form a picture of my bones on the computer monitor. Every scan takes three minutes to pick up the adequate radiation to make a clear picture.
On a bone scan, areas of increased ostoblast/osteoclast (the bone cells which digest and rebuild bone after a fracture or injury) activity can be seen as white areas. To my (mostly untrained) eye, there seemed to be no problems with my left leg, the area of concern. I'll keep everybody posted.

Praise the Lord!! Thanks to everybody who prayed for a quick MRI date, I have a scan booked for October 1st, more than six weeks earlier than the earliest date I was told was available.

Thanks for keeping me in your prayers.

Congratulations

A big shout out to my friend Meghan, who just found out after a vigilant 10-year watch for a repeat performance of her brain tumour that she is officially tumor free!! And all around the world, people are raising their glasses to Meghan "No Brain Tumor" Fell...

Yesterday the radiator went on my new (used) Honda Civic on my drive home from my parents' place on the I5 in Washington State. Sad. This morning, while I waited for the guys to install the new rad in my car, I had the pleasure of spending the morning in old town Mount Vernon, Washington. I sat and read from my new book (see below) in the Skagit Valley Food Coop, the best place in Mount Vernon for a cup of chai. Mmm...
This whole modern/postmodern thing is really bending my brain. I am amazed by how much my own brief life has been shaped by modernism. There is a place where McLaren talks about "where the cross meets the dream catcher," and how his main character, a pastor grappling with a postmodern "immigration", differs with an author he truly admires on the inherent meaning of a person with both a crucifix and a dream catcher on their rearview mirror. At first my righteous indignation was awakened and I truly felt that such presence of a dreamcatcher was pagan and meant that the person in possession of it must obviously not be a "real Christian." I wasn't comfortable with the main character's analysis of the dreamcatcher simply being representative of how modern Christian culture cuts the creative and mystical out of spirituality.
After pondering the idea for awhile longer, I was totally shocked at how even his use of the word "mystical" made me uncomfortable. But he might be right. I mean, Christians worship a God they can't see. That's pretty darn mystical to me. God is amazing, his creation is awe-inspiring. So why should we be so afraid of it? Why is it wrong to acknowledge that Christian Culture today might just be missing something? And how did I get so darn modern?

Can we live with this and make it work? This is where the unexpected growth happens, where the unlikely contacts are often made; where the Church is renewed (as it so often is) from the edges, not the centre. We need a positive willingness to see and understand all this - and to find the patterns and rhythms and means of communication that will let everyone share the benefits. That's to say we need ordained leadership which is capable of making and servicing connections between lots of different styles of 'church' - leadership which is therefore very clear about theological priorities, not protective of its status, skilled in listening and in interpreting what may seem very different language groups to each other
-Archbishop Rowan Williams of the Church of England, in his address to synod (via jonny baker).

I started a new book today: A New Kind Of Christian by Brian D. McLaren. I got it from my favourite little bookstore, The Next Chapter, in the town where my parents live, La Conner, WA. I bought it not because I'm looking to become one, but because I'm hoping to become more like an old kind of Christian. I want to be a Christian back when WWJD was a typing mistake, when "Jesus Freaks" was a name without a logo, wayyyyy back when it wasn't very acceptable to be one and you really had to decide to accept Christ because it wasn't a cultural, ho-hum kind of decision. I'm not saying I hope to undergo the kind of torture or abuse that Christians throughout the last 2000 years have had to contend with, just that after following Jesus for five years, I'm finding the Christian culture is obscuring my view of my saviour. I feel weighed down by the expectations of right-wing Christians who have made a liturgy out of criticizing everything that's not their own.

I don't anticipate finding answers in this book; I am simply refreshed to be reading a book by someone who's a little ahead of me on the path.

Thanks John and Sharon for a great cup of coffee! [Hey out there! Try the mocha reader.... yum....]

"That's the convincing logic of the Ark [built to save the chosen from the great media flood]: If a person is going to waste his life cranking the stereo, clicking the remote, reading paperback pulp and chasing diet fads, he may as well save his soul while he's at it. Holy living no longer requires self-denial. On the Ark, every mass diversion has been cloned, from Internet news sites to MTV to action movies, and it's possible to live inside the spirit, without unplugging oneself from modern life, twenty-four hours a day." by Walter Kirn, in GQ

I laughed. I cried. The saddest thing about this article is not any potential insult Kirn makes toward cultural "church-ianity" (as a friend of mine says), it is that in a lot of ways, he's right. What he said to sum up his tongue-loosely-in-cheek, slightly off-colour article gave me shivers and made me want to join a convent in a central American village.

"Ark culture is a bad Xerox of the mainstream, not a truly distinctive or separate achievement. Without the courage to lead, it numbly follows, picking up the major media's scraps and gluing them back together with a cross on top."

I don't want to be a part of this Ark he writes about. I don't even want to have friends on it. But where do I turn? Even in Canada, Christianity is packaged for the easiest consumption possible, making 'Extreme Days' not an experience of true on the edge living like would be lived by those in house churches across mainland China, but a church youth-group slogan.

**again, I apologize and give due credit to two of my favorite bloggers, Wendy and Jordon Cooper, for the tip-off on this article.