I’m waiting for a bride. Many people don’t understand because many people don’t understand “waiting”. People divorce almost as fast as they marry—especially in the Church—the same Church for which Martin Luther wrote 95 Theses, as did I.

“So, Jesse, do you have a girlfriend… or something?” …or something? I’d get that question a lot when I was younger, mostly from Christians. I tried my whole life to follow one of Jesus’ teachings from Matthew 19:12… Some are eunuchs by birth, some are made so by men, others choose not to marry for the sake of the Kingdom. Why would one want to become a eunuch, though? Why did Jesus teach about “becoming a eunuch” as if this would somehow help a kingdom? The answer might come from history.

Eunuchs are not as common in our modern world as they were in the days of kings and castles. They served in the presence of many kings. A eunuch advised Esther on how to become queen—and it worked. That eunuch knew how to play “the game” of power in the palace. Not everyone could read in the ancient world, but eunuchs often did. Philip preached the gospel, in Acts 8, to a eunuch who was an important official in Ethiopia and educated enough to be reading Isaiah.

It is not my intention to be crass, but the three topics of Jesus’ teaching, eunuchs, and asking if someone has a girlfriend relates to a very important topic in human history: penises—the reason that humanity survives.

By not having a penis, nobody understands what a eunuch wants. Jesus taught similar ideas, that lacking something can give you strength—to turn the other cheek, to carry something for the second mile, to give your tunic when someone demands your cloak. By not having something, a person gains great power. Power in governing a kingdom is no different.

Which kingdom do you serve? And what does each person want? These questions are addressed by my 96th Thesis: What do the Church, the Antichrist, and Jesus each want? We know what Jesus and the Antichrist want. But, right now, the Church seems to be voting “Undecided”.

It’s all about the power game. Like it or not, Jesus and Solomon were good at playing it and both taught on it. Most Christians don’t understand the power game. Most Christians like to think that they are “above” the power game—which is, itself, a way of playing the power game. Nonetheless, Jesus gave good advice concerning power games—to not only be as innocent as doves, but as cunning as serpents.

Here is the 96th Thesis: The clerical system is the red carpet rolled out, preparing the way for the Antichrist.

It is not my intent to be shocking, but it all makes sense with some basic reflection on the power game and the nature of the Antichrist. Why do you think the Antichrist will be so capable of deceiving so many? Maybe he won’t have a penis. Or maybe he will look like a pastor. Hitler had both the public image of a celibate and the public support of Germany’s Church, in addition to being an A-student. In pre-WWII Germany, Hitler had the perfect public image that America has of a pastor and, at least in Germany, he maintained that image through much of the war.

Jesus said that, in the last days, even the elect would be deceived, if possible, which means that so-called “Christians” who don’t know their Bibles all that well will loudly hail the Antichrist as “Jesus”. Statistically, this will likely many church-goers. But how could that be possible? How could a dominant portion of church-attenders hail the Antichrist as “Jesus”? That is my 96th Thesis: The clerical system is the red carpet rolled out, preparing the way for the Antichrist.

If you’ve read the prerequisite, 95 Theses of the Clerical System, then you already understand that the “job description” of a professional, trained, clerical, “pastor”, in the modern-traditional sense, is found nowhere in the Bible. And you’d also understand that, while there are many problems with the clerical system, the problem is mainly with the system, not the people.

Pastor’s love people and lead them tenderly, teaching with the gentleness of a shepherd. But, anyone can do that without seminary and without being employed by an elder board or congregation or denomination. The word “pastor” rightly appears in English translations of Ephesians 4:11, but that doesn’t give Christians the right to invent our own meaning, that a “true, valid pastor” leads a non-profit corporation with a tax ID number, an address, and a weekly Christian meeting that almost always conflicts with similar meetings of other local Christians and “pastors”.

I won’t rehash the entire 95 Theses of the Clerical System here, to respect those who already read it. It’s sufficient to reflect on the issues presented, that God did give “pastors” to the Church, but He did not mandate an extra-Biblical bureaucracy for Christian fellowship—and such a bureaucracy is exactly what the clerical system can’t not be.

It is neither fair nor Biblical to require that every Christian participate in large-scale meetings with rigid schedules. Taking initiative to have fellowship with a few other self-motivated Christians is far more beneficial. Organizations, no matter how small, may be corrupt. All are to some extent. God may direct some Christians to participate in corrupt organizations while He may not give such grace to other Christians.

Think about the power of “prayer in the wilderness”. Jesus prayed in the wilderness 40 days—did Jesus attend “church” during that time? Moses was in the wilderness 40 years, growing close to the Lord and learning to lead in the small things. Joseph was in am Egyptian dungeon 12 years based on false accusations. Many Christian leaders would condemn Joseph for being alone with Pottifer’s wife in the first place, saying the dungeon was God’s judgement on Joseph rather than the perfect “wilderness training” experience. Actually, time alone prepares us for the Lord’s work later in life. Paul spent 14 years in solitude to pray. Was Paul in error for not “attending somewhere” for this? The answer depends on who you ask.

The unbiblical demand that all Christians participate in organized, monitored, non-wilderness Churchianity every week, without exception, is persecution against preparation. This imperialistic institutionalism discriminates against obedient Christians who follow Jesus into the wilderness for seasons of quiet preparation. Of course, the devil does not want God’s people to have the benefit of growth in Christ that comes from those seasons of solitude. So, the devil orchestrates Churchianity to oppress and cast out the beneficial wilderness to keep the Church unprepared, weak, stumbling, and prevent us from having spiritual victory.

Following in the same footsteps, no one will mandate public participation in religion more than the Antichrist. Let’s consider some of the similarities between clergy and the Antichrist—which make the clerical job of “pastor” different from the “shepherd” that Paul refers to in Ephesians 4.

Both will make church-going and bureaucracy inseparable.

Both will accuse anyone and everyone of so-called “rebellion” if they don’t assign a physical address, such as a “church building”, to their “religious fellowship”.

Both will take meticulous “attendance” records, which the Bible never demands or even suggests for the Church to do.

Both will ordain and define valid participation in the Church.

Both will maintain a public image of perfection, which easily operates as a shroud for the many kinds of abuse in religious systems as have been known for for the past 1,500 years.

Both will demand that Christians engage in fellowship that can be tracked on paper, which, intentionally or not, allows easy access to lists with names of Christians to be collected in databases, and those lists taken years later for rounding-up Christians for the slaughter. The same was done in Germany with forcing Jews to register and identify themselves so, then the time came, they could all be rounded up quickly.

There are many other similarities between the clerical system and the greater work of the Antichrist. Most professional pastors are well-intended, honest, God-fearing, loving, wise, but overworked and under appreciated. Those good leaders are not the cause of problems in the Body of Christ. They aren’t even the cause of their own problems. The system, not the people trapped in it, is the problem.

Unintended by most clergy and most Christians, participation in the weekly “church” culture, signing the attendance book, and listening through the long monologue every Sunday morning is dangerous. It conditions people to do the same for the Antichrist and gives him a list of names and addresses, through which he be able to will kill God’s people more swiftly than Hitler killed 2 million Jews.

This poses a problem: If weekly Churchianity isn’t the Bible’s plan, then how should Christians have fellowship?

And that’s just the thing: The clerical system is “easy”. If you participate in it, you don’t have to think, just “obey the pastor”. The easy road is broad, many find it, just like sheep going to the slaughter. Few ever manage to escape from it and find the narrow path. The narrow path is safer because it’s not easy. Dogma is easy, especially when we don’t call it “dogma”.

Through the clerical system, we’re allowed to think that a sinful man is perfect, let him tell us who our Christian friends should be so no one can question us, blame all our problems on him, and lynch him when we “discover” that he’s a sinner who bleeds like the rest of us—and feeling better in the process. Through this system, we punch the card every week, think that attendance makes “obedient” to God, get mutual admiration from the mutual admiration society every Sunday morning, get spoon fed so-called “Biblical teaching” without having to work to understand the Bible, and any time we have a problem, just ask the pastor. See, that’s easy.

Compare it to cleaning the bathroom shower. I once asked my aunt how she cleans her shower. “Elbow grease,” she said. Some cleaning solution may be helpful to dissolve residue, allowing your sponge, brush, or scouring pad to last longer. But, “elbow grease” is the secret solution to the success of any cleaning product. “Elbow grease” makes for a clean bathroom.

And “elbow grease” is what any Christian needs to grow in Christ, without being dependent on the “clean it all” crutch of the clerical system.

That’s the most harmful thing about the clerical system—dependence causes dystrophy. It’s hard to learn to walk if you never leave the baby walker. Falling down helps us learn. And needing to strive makes us strong enough to not only “walk” with the Lord, but to “run” in the path of His commands—His commands, not someone else’s.

Just like elbow grease cleans the bathroom, personal initiative is the secret to strong growth in Christ. Not being dependent on the same weekly meeting, it takes constant effort to meet with other Christians. As for me, I talk with lots of Christians as often as I can. Not being spoon fed Bible lessons every week, it takes purpose and intent to study the Bible. So, I study the Bible a lot more than I did under the clerical system. Leaving clerical Churchianity created a “crisis” in my life, causing me to whip out the “elbow grease”, take responsibility, and my friendship with Jesus has never been better.

What “church” do I go to? Well, let me tell you about my church…

It’s really big. The architecture is fashionable. The ceiling is blue most days, dark at night. Sometimes it is lit up with billions of small lights for vigil. The chandelier moves from east to west throughout the day and splotches of white typically move across the blue ceiling. Other times the sprinkler system turns on, enough to water the garden and the animals in it. The service never stops. It has about 8 billion daily attenders. Though most of them aren’t Christian, many of them are “seeking”. My “church” has lots of orphans and widows to whom I can show love. There are lots of imperfect people, including the bossy Christians—God love ‘em—which helps us to practice patience. It has many people whom I can forgive and who forgive me all the more. There is no limit to object lessons from which I can learn more about our perfect pastor. And, the coolest thing about my “church” is that Jesus is my pastor—the best shepherd I ever had. In Jesus’ Church, shall not want.

My aunt was great woman. She knew how to clean and how to cook. She taught me about cleaning bathrooms with elbow grease. She loved horses almost as much as she loved children, but she loved no one as much as she loved Jesus.

I don’t want a woman just like my aunt. But I do want a woman who knows the power of “elbow grease”. I want a woman who studies Hebrew every morning, while I study the Bible in Greek. I want a woman who is beautiful because she chooses to be happy—someone to walk with in the cool of the morning, just like my grandmother and grandfather did every day. I want a women who understands that healthy eating agrees with a lifestyle of prayer and fasting. I want a woman who is respectful, not weak.

This is what I want in a woman. And it seems that this is asking for too much in the minds of many.

Mostly, I want a woman who doesn’t take the easy road in her walk with Christ—who doesn’t depend on an extra-Biblical, bureaucratic system for her growth in the Lord. I want a woman who thrives outside the clerical system and loves Jesus more than anything or anyone else, but who loves other people and isn’t trapped in the small world of faction-fear-based denominationalism.

I’m waiting for my bride. And, frankly speaking, Jesus is also waiting for His. I suppose, for now, He and I will just have to wait together. Is that so bad?

I’m not rehashing the entire Trayvon Martin case. But there are common lessons throughout his story that America shares as a whole, in the home, in foreign policy, and in political Churchianity.

Trayvon and George made very similar mistakes. The difference was that George had a .45 and was eleven years wiser. At any point, George Zimmerman or Trayvon Martin could have acted in self-preservation—early on, rather than waiting until the last possible second. The prosecution made the same mistake: seeking a “murder” verdict, only allowing the more feasible charge of “manslaughter”, again, at the last possible second before the jury deliberated.

If you see a suspicious person, for Heaven and Earth’s sake, don’t go near him!!

George could have stayed in his SUV. He could have chosen not to walk into someone else’s gated community. He could have chosen to run away when he saw Trayvon.

Trayvon could have stayed in the bushes.  · · · →

Pentagon Pentecostal vs Beijing Baptist (mp3)

Is unity too much to ask for? President Ma of Taiwan may think so. And I’m starting to agree with him. It’s not that I’m on the same page with Ma’s political policy. But when competing businesses hear their leaders talk about “unity”, certain terms start floating around—conflict of interest, rebellion, disloyalty, treason, heresy… just to name a few.

I grew up believing what I heard on Sunday morning: Love all people. We are united in Christ. Church is not the building, it’s the people inside. Don’t gossip, talk to people directly before talking about them with others. Don’t let money corrupt God’s good work…

But, when I talked to those “other” Christians across the street, well… The math didn’t add up anymore.

Why am I “rebellious” for rubbing shoulders with Christians who meet under different roofs? Why is it so important where I give my tithes and weekly donations if “money” isn’t as important as “God’s work”? If Charismatics are so evil, then shouldn’t the Baptists want to talk to them every week to persuade them to change?

Maybe the stuff I heard growing up was just a front that hides the money racket of denominationalism. Consider how much money there is in fighting alleged “heresy”. Most every denomination believes that most every other denomination has some sort of “false teaching”. The problem is, in all the denominations I’ve gotten to know, I have yet to see two opponents represent each other accurately.

Christians debate without actually knowing each other. It’s as if they have been divided on purpose—and, coincidentally, all the ink spilled in these uninformed, endless debates have proven quite profitable for Christian publishing houses… almost as profitable as the “War on Terror” has proven for FOX News. Isn’t it interesting that FOX owns Zondervan?

War is business. Turf wars in the inner city pivot on narcotic sales as much as segregated Sunday morning profits from weekly donations. It’s all made possible by “fear of the other guys [whom you should never talk to, just trust what your leaders say about them]“.

I still believe what I grew up hearing on Sunday morning. The Bible teaches the same thing—there is one Church, the universal Body, with one shepherd, Jesus. Gossip is foolish and usually gossipers are the most misinformed of all. God’s house tends to become a den of thieves and needs purging every so often. And for this, I’ve been accused of rebellion and heresy. And President Ma has made the same mistake.

His father’s dying wish was for a peaceful unification between Taiwan and China. But if President Ma had only grown up in American Churchianity, he would know that “unity” isn’t possible—it’s just something leaders say to make the people feel good as they continue to fight. Every pastor knows that.

War is a territorial business, whether its American Churchianity or Chinese Communism. Taiwan is a loyal customer of the United States military buying club. China, on the other hand, is in the Russian dealers gang. The “pastors” at “Pentagon Pentecostal” won’t be happy if Parishioner Ma makes too many Sunday morning visits to “Beijing Baptist”. They’ll likely denounce him as a “traitor” and a “heretic” as defined by the “canons” in the “Saint Washington Holy Potomac Diocese”.

“Unity” makes everyone feel good when we say it in speeches—but actually making it happen? Hah! What a silly idea. If Baptists and Pentecostals became friends or if Beijing and Taiwan united, it would hurt business.

President Ma shouldn’t take it personally. None of us should. It’s strictly business. Christians should easily understand. The Mafia does—they love to go to church. Drug dealers are some of the most loyal parishioners, the best dressed, well-mannered, and the biggest donors.

Why I Write (mp3)

In the wise words of WordPress founder, Matt Mullenweg, Code is poetry. While in full agreement, for me Poetry is code.™

Growing up, I was reputed for endless jabber. It’s not that I enjoyed the sound of my own voice, as some have speculated, but there were so many good things that needed to be said.

In my 30′s, with a plentiful combination of experience and ignorance, I’ve honed my many words. I haven’t run out of things to say. I’m just more picky about who deserves to listen. Writing helped train my discretion.

Nonetheless, creative ideas distract me to this day. And I’m just sure that 50% of them will work… And 50% is a good batting average.

After a childhood in the country, two years of home school, 13 years of acting through high school, four years of college in Chicago, thirteen years of learning to think differently from an old school Amway Diamond, another ten years of getting to know Christians in radically different denominations, living in Asia for five years, playing piano for over 20 years, re-inventing the Circle of Fifths, writing two plays, a novel, and a self-help book, blueprinting a third political party, writing my own “95 Theses” of our day, addressing how Jesus relates to metaphysics, podcasting for two years, dabbling in comics and digital art, designing clothes, managing more than 5 different blogs, drafting a 100 page doctrinal statement, writing 300 articles, editing academic publications, and being syndicated on two different news sites… I decided I wanted to branch out.

I wanted to create my own CMS. As a writer I know my needs—something programmers don’t know, as incredibly brilliant as programmers are. Though I was code savvy in high school, PHP defeated me. I only have one life to live and I’m still praying for an entrepreneurial programmer to cross my path.

I have a particular taste in clothing—particularly that I want good clothes, not just some fancy brand with the same old routine of someone else telling us all how to dress. The problem: Manufacturers don’t know how to return phone calls.

I could invent new clothes with a “thread injector” (or sewing machine as mom always called it). I could learn Ajax and Javascript if I had the time. I could put in the hundreds of hours necessary to make my own graphic novels. The problem is that I don’t have enough time to learn it all. I have solid goals in my life and these things are secondary.

One of my goals is to eliminate the two-party system in American politics. Another goal is to compose symphonies in my retirement years—which is why I reinvented the Circle of Fifths. And I may dabble more in art, programming, and clothing in the future, after I get through all that.

But what will I do until then?

I am a writer. Poetry is my code. Of all the languages to master, English is something I have more practice with than most people in five lifetimes. Ask anyone who knew me—I talked that much. And my childhood reputation of being too talkative paid off.

Rather than coding websites or outlining clothes and action scenes, I shall code and outline ideas. The world needs good ideas, especially today. My best skill is and has always been the art of putting English words together.

Three years ago, I realized that I am a writer. But the idea didn’t settle in until I considered my current project, The End: A Bible Translation of the Book of Revelation. As much as I’d like to cooperate with artists and programmers and clothing designers, the Lord wants me to cooperate with Him.

Wise people have good ideas that need to be published. I can help them express those ideas in such a way that readers will enjoy. Some of those people are professors. My favorite client is God. You see, I’m translating for Him.

That’s what Bible translation is: I’m the editor, God is the Author. I don’t say this with a big head, but a humbled heart. Revelation is a hard book to understand. It has some of the most profound text in the Scripture and some of the most encouraging, yet, from our misunderstanding, it has become a source of unnecessary controversy. I’ve read it over a hundred times and I studied Greek in college. If anyone can help code Jesus’ Revelation into English, I can.

So, even with all the other projects I’d love to pursue, I’ll enjoy other people’s art from a distance. Maybe I’ll write about it. Maybe one day I’ll have the privilege of being one of their clients. But “write” now, my main client is God and I need to write for Him. By following His concept-design, we’re going to make the world a better place, one letter at a time.

Big Circle (mp3)

And here I thought my favorite color was blue…

It started three years ago in a dream. I had just jumped out of thin air to find myself in a dreary, run down part of town. What seemed like an abandoned, empty parking lot lay in front of me, filled with weeds and potholes, lined with yellow paint. Old, congested apartment buildings stood nearby. Decaying cement and spattered thickets dressed the landscape. The day sky was overcast.

For some reason, I couldn’t walk into the “parking lot” area in front of me.

Almost instantly, it began to rain acid. From all around, people ran into an old, nearby building for shelter. Not being afraid, I stepped out into the acid rain and cried to the Lord, “Shine on us! You love us! Shine on us! SHINE ON US!” I kept repeating my cry until tears filled my eyes.

At last, I pointed somewhere in the sky and shouted, “Shine on us!” and the clouds in that spot broke open and the sun began to show. I pointed to another spot, then another. The rain stopped and sunlight began to pierce the darkness throughout the sky.

Finally, a “second sun” appeared behind one of the cloud breaks—ten times brighter than our sun and whiter than the moon. Then I woke up.

It was a dream too vivid to ignore and too impossible to forget. But what did it mean?

About six months later, I found myself in Hong Kong, walking along the river near Sha Tin. I came to a particular bridge when the Lord spoke softly in my head, “You can cross this bridge.”

“I know I ‘can’ cross this bridge,” I responded in my head. “I ‘can’ also keep walking straight.”

“…or,” the soft voice continued, “you ‘can’ cross this bridge.”

Rather than elaborating on the powerful, inviting nature of possibility, I’ll just say that I crossed the bridge. A few steps later I froze. It looked exactly like my dream!

The river had narrowed to one small stream in a vast, cement bed, filled with cracks and weeds, lined with a yellow railing. The surrounding trees and buildings, the clouds in the sky—I dreamed about this place not even knowing the place was real.

No wonder I couldn’t walk into the “parking lot”. I only saw 2-D in my dream. It wasn’t a parking lot at all. It was a dry river bed and I had just crossed it.

Three years later I found myself back in Hong Kong. It was a Saturday and the soft voice of the Lord said, “Read Joshua 1:11 and remember.” I knew of this verse, but not all the details. Interestingly, it doesn’t say, “Jordan River,” but, “this Jordan.”

“…Prepare provisions for yourselves, for within three days you are to cross this Jordan, to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you, to possess it.” Joshua 1:11b, NASB 1995

Three days… That put this on Tuesday. Sunday and Monday were thrilling, but for another story.

Tuesday night, after finishing my main errands in Hong Kong, with a verse to obey, and little else to do, I saddled my pack, crossed a road named Jordan, and headed north toward the place in my dream. At the Starbucks on Jordan Road, I bought a mug to commemorate the event, an orange mug with a rounded bottom, and a big circle on the side, inside the circular handle. It matched my other Hong Kong Starbucks mug at home.

Hong Kong’s MTR (subway rail) had a stop not far from the place of my “river dream” at Tai Wai—at least that’s where I thought it was. Not sure where to go, and not recognizing the place in the evening sky, I wandered toward the river, feeling mostly lost. In the dark, I came to a bridge and the soft voice whispered, “You can cross this bridge.”

“Yeah, I know I can,” I replied, “but I have no idea where I am, and I don’t want to stray too far from…” There it was, the same bridge from three years ago. Since then, I’ve called it the “Can” Bridge—different from Cambridge.

Still not recognizing much on my path in the dark, I wandered until things became familiar. At a couple points I stopped and prayed, rather than walking and praying as I had been. I knew my way to the MTR station by now, but, having gotten lost, I wondered: Was this the same MTR station? Indeed it was. And, though I had been lost, I was back where I started.

On the ride home, I pulled out a map to see where I had walked. Lo, I had walked in a big circle, with a nifty dash top left—made by dots connecting a line between the two places I paused to pray. In the middle of the circle was the name of the city, same as the MTR station: Tai Wai.

“What does ‘Tai Wai’ mean?” I thought to myself. “Tai” means “big”, as everyone knows after a month in Asia. Fueled by curiosity, and empowered by a Chinese dictionary, I discovered that “Wai” means “circle”… “Big Circle”…

That night, I accidentally walked a big circle around “Big Circle”.

But that’s not where the story gets interesting. So far, I had many coincidences, but no explanation. The next day I went back into Tai Wai to understand more about this circular circle, before having dinner with a friend in the evening.

Five hours I walked and saw what there was to see in this land I dreamed about. It was almost as Bruce Wilkinson describes in The Dream Giver when he first finds his “big dream”. It was like Israel entering the Promised Land—not instant wealth, but plenty of possibility, I suppose. The streets were lined with local merchants and small shopping centers. The outskirts towered with family homes and several schools. The place lay in a bowl within in the hills, near the very center of Hong Kong.

After my first hour of exploration, I made my way back to the MTR station. “Someone will give you a flier with a message for you,” the Lord whispered in my head a few days earlier. “Make sure you take it so you can know.” No sooner had I remembered this than I passed Tai Wai station and a lady handed me a flier, which I didn’t want. But, maybe it was a message of sorts. Maybe it could explain what all was happening. I took it, read the cover, and chuckled.

“Walking Man 3:16″ it read across the top with loud colors. The background was orange. The back side had a sidewalk much like the river I had walked along, and the sky had been filled-in with a shining orange design. Orange… Hmm…

The only thing that seemed to stand out that day was the color orange. It was everywhere! I took a few pictures to illustrate. It  was strange indeed.

I grabbed a snack at a McDonald’s where a mother sat down with two children, both wearing orange. After my snack, I enjoyed some pages of Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Golliath—a book with letters that were orange, marking my place with a receipt from two months back that happened to be orange, which I carried in my back back that I recently bought on sale, the last one in stock, which happened to be orange, and my computer case I got a year ago, the only one that fit, with an inside liner that just so happened to be orange.

The bathroom doors happened to be orange. The outside of a house at the T section of a large street was painted orange. The wall of a small shop had a picture of a giant orange. Scarves, coats, and gadgets that sat on shelves typically had a single item shining bright orange.

Shop owners seemed to favor sales stickers that were orange. One watch among the normal watches had a face that was orange. One pair of glasses sat in the front row of a display and its frame was orange. Unlike other parts of Hong Kong, some bricks in this sidewalk were orange. Flair on buildings were occasionally orange. LED tickers, rather than the usual red or some other color, were orange. Often, someone would walk in front of me with a coat, bag, or hat that was orange—a real head scratcher.

As if there wasn’t already enough “orange” in my day, the Lord’s voice, a little less soft, said, “Proceed up that street, stop in front of the McDonald’s and wait. Your friend will call you soon to meet you in the evening.” Seeing many more things along the way that were orange, I made my way to the McDonald’s where I waited and praised the Lord for inventing the color orange. After two minutes of orange praises, my phone rang.

“Jesse, sorry I’ve been so busy today.”

“That’s okay. My day has been interesting enough. You’re call is right on time.”

“See you in an hour,” he said as we finished our call. So, I continued walking.

A candy wrapper lay on my path—it was solid orange. On the sidewalk sat a bicycle, painted orange. On a table sat a tipped over paper cup that was orange. A sign with orange Chinese letters, read in English, “Shine Baptist Church”… “Shine”. That’s what I prayed in my dream.

I soon met up with my friend and the orangeness only continued. A lady passed an orange bench, wearing a coat that was orange. Supermarkets were selling oranges at their entrances. We passed a television showing a music video that was mainly orange, and displayed the word “shine”. All the restaurants were backed up. We came to a tunnel that was orange, took it as a direction from God, went down the tunnel, and found a restaurant with open seats. The sugar packets were red and yellow, which, combined, make orange.

I took a taxi with two men, coming home from the airport, each had a suitcase that was orange, one of them a coat that was orange, as were the souls of his shoes. And the inside of the phone that I used to take all these pictures has a frame that is not black, but orange.

In memory of my orange visit to Hong Kong and the big circle, which I accidentally walked around a small city named Big Circle, I designed a shape resembling my random walk, printed it on paper colored orange, and made my own Starbucks tumbler. I figure this might help me reflect and consider what to make of this orange, big circle.

Four years ago, the color was green. It started when a friend gave me an expensive designer helmet. “Do you like green?” he asked.

“Not especially,” I replied. “I prefer blue.”

Perhaps he misunderstood.

“Okay! Here’s a green helmet from my job. My boss gave it to me to give away.”

Not long after, on my first visit to Hong Kong, I came across a green watch in a side-street shop. “Does it automatically track Daylight Saving Time?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “But you can push this button to change it yourself. Just push the button.”

“Just push the button!?” I thought. Why can’t the watch update Daylight Saving Time for me? But… he was right. I was way too picky.

“You sold me,” I said. “Because you convinced me to change my thinking, I’ll come back in six months and buy that watch.”

Sure enough, after six months, I went to buy the green watch. I loved it so much I emailed my friend about it. He ordered the same watch online and, two years later, we met up in Hong Kong, both wearing the same green watches.

We walked to a particular place on a river, tucked away in the heart of Hong Kong, that I had seen in a dream. The shoes I wore had green insoles. In my apartment, today, sits a suitcase lined with green, given by another friend, on my green floor, with two green chairs.

What does it all mean? Maybe green was the color two years ago and orange is the color now. Maybe God is reminding me of my Irish roots. The Irish flag is green, white, and, of course, orange. I’m still not sure what to make of it, if I’m supposed to make anything of it at all. But it sure has my head spinning in a “big circle”.

As I sorted photos from the recent Hong Kong “orange-venture”, only showing about 10% of the orange things I encountered, I stumbled across a photo from a year ago.

My boss had given me a small orange, which I found to be naturally beautiful. I held it in my hand, grabbed a picture with my orange-inside phone, filtered out the other colors, and posted it on Instagram and 500px.

The next day I showed the picture to my boss as an appreciation for the orange. “Why take a picture of it?” he chuckled. “It’s just an orange.”

One more photo at 500px.com

The Conservartist (mp3)

I was watching Bob Mankoff, from the New Yorker, as he publicly dissected humor. He sifts through about a thousand comics each week to decide which 17 “idea drawings” will appear in the famous New York publication.

As Bob explains, a zoo with a tiger cage that has no tiger is a bad zoo, though it’s certainly “politically correct”. But who wants a politically correct zoo? Like the zoo, humor can’t work with empty tiger cages. The best smiles have teeth and you can’t laugh without both the teeth and the smile. Once you offend no one, you bore everyone. If you entertain most people, you’ll offend most of the rest.

When Rush Limbaugh said something controversial, his sponsors pulled their ads—but it was the sponsors, not Rush, who lost money. Marketing “experts” didn’t seem to get it: Controversy was always the secret to Limbaugh’s success. People don’t pay to see tiger cages without tigers.

With humor, 75% reader satisfaction is the best Bob hopes for. That’s a bit higher than baseball, where hitting the ball 50% of the time is pure perfection. I’m still waiting for academics to connect the jobless graduate rate to their scoring and grading. If schools actually helped people learn, they would gear their curriculum so that 60% would be the line of success rather than the line of failure. One must fail a lot before one can learn. American society has become so obsessed with “success” that they undervalued the “failures” that got them there.

Toward the end of his talk, Bob said something that got me thinking. He commented that, “…in general, people who enjoy more nonsense, enjoy more abstract art, and tend to Liberal, less Conservative, that type of stuff…” He’s correct. But why is that so? Why don’t more Conservatives enjoy more abstract art?

The answer might be connected to gravity…

There are certain rules that govern our universe. Gravity is one of them. If you’re up on any trends in science, you may have heard about the “plasma cosmology” as opposed to the gravity-driven Big Bang. While the establishment never likes to hear the truth, some things don’t change. Even in a plasma-based universe, “what goes up must come down.”

There are other laws in our universe… A man reaps what he sows. If you forgive, you’ll be forgiven. Irish burn their corn fields when invaded. Native Americans wouldn’t work for slave masters; but Native Africans sold their own tribesmen into slavery. Women and men don’t understand each other. Dogs love people, no matter how poorly we treat them. Some jerk always wants to exterminate Israel. People tend to be patriotic toward whatever culture they grew up in—whether nations or religions. Every successful person got lucky and every failure got unlucky—some deserve it, some don’t—but the most successful people “create” their own luck by not giving up—and the biggest failures “created” their own bad luck. Few losers think that the winner deserved to win; but every winner has a different opinion of why he won. And there are many more laws that govern our existence, among them, that Humans are inclined toward Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

Right now, the United States are having some big debates about the “laws” that governed their origin. Some people think that the Constitution reflected “timeless wisdom” and this fueled overall national prosperity. Others think the nation “got lucky” and the Constitution should be changed or abolished.

…and that comes back to what Bob said, that Liberals are more inclined to enjoy abstract art.

Conservatives seem to me as a contradiction. Nothing is as creative and abstract as a prospering economy. Einstein said that, “imagination is more important than knowledge.” Why don’t Conservatives—who value principles of opportunity—value the creativity that allows invention and progress? And why do Liberals—who value the useful role of abstract imagination—speak out against a Constitution that gives them free speech? Why are so many Darwinists in favor of homosexuality and abortion, when homosexuality and abortion are anything but Darwinian? Why don’t Conservative Christians successfully train their kids to be Conservative and Christian? Why do Christians, including pastors themselves, continue to pour time and money and emotional affection into a system of “pastor-led Churchianity”, which is demonstrated nowhere in the Bibles that they hail, and has made no difference whatsoever in terms of divorce, depression, suicide, hypocrisy, bigotry, and an endless laundry list of other grievances?

There are many things that don’t make sense.

Why do so many people contradict themselves, from all sides of every debate?

This isn’t the first time these questions have crossed my mind. And my mind is probably not the first mind that these questions have crossed.

Conservatives and Liberals alike seem to be engaging in their own “big bang” of self-destruction. When a stock trader on Wall Street self-destructs, they call it “blowing up”.

Could there be a connection between Conservative, Christian parents with homosexual children and the fact that Conservatives don’t enjoy abstract art as much as Liberals do? I’m not merely referring to the out-dated superstition that, “art is gay,” and the predictable reaction of artistic Christians, “Then God must have made me gay because I like art!” I’m talking about a problem with modern Conservatives in general…

Bob got my head spinning. And, now, I’m starting to think that, while the Constitution and the Bible reflect different forms of timeless wisdom, most Conservatives and most Christians don’t respect the Bible or the Constitution for their brilliance. Most parents don’t teach their children much about the Constitution at all—to which Ronald Reagan said in his last national address, “…call them out on it.” Conservative Christians respect the Bible because their parents told them to, even though their parents didn’t tell them why. All evidence hath shewn, homosexual Christians became homosexual because their parents told them not to, but nobody in the family knew why.

Conservative Christians seem to fear risk as much as an MBA. To them, 50% is failure instead of success. So, unlike a bird who falls 90% of the way to the ground when he flies the nest, both Christians and academicians punish their young at 50%—before anyone has a chance to actually learn. And the company leader, who succeeds the company founder, can’t help the company succeed.

Conservatism is wise, but few people know why… probably because Conservatives don’t care to understand why they do what they do, just as they don’t care to understand art.

Too many parents don’t care to understand their children unless their children understand them first. But sons weren’t created so that they could understand their fathers. God created fathers so that they could understand their sons—macho and brilliant alike—and help their sons understand their nation, the Bible, how to tie shoes, how to be healthy, how to draw pictures, and a whole lot of other things.

Doing the right think for the wrong reason—or for no reason at all—isn’t reasonable. So, artists abandon dogma, thinking that they abandon so-called “reason”. The result: America today… divided, angry, fatherless…

I’m a proud, artistic, Bible believing Conservative. I don’t like organized religion; but I love God. I don’t like Democrats or Republicrats; but I love people. I think outside the box in a plasma universe and I’m not into “big bangs”, though I love playing with plasma… or “playing with fire” as they call it in Big Rapids. I see the artistic connection between a jellyfish and a galaxy; and I also see their scientific connection: cellular plasma, ionic plasma. Imagination is the basis of science. The Creator God had wisdom behind the laws He created for His artistic “plasmaverse”.

Maybe there’s something we all can see in that.

I have no guess how you’ll take this article. Maybe you’re among the 75% who enjoyed my abstract, logical spiral. Or, maybe you’re among the 25% who think it’s just a bad joke from a twisted mind.

Satan’s Good Intentions (mp3)

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. That’s what dad always said. Maybe that’s because Hell is, in fact, the destination of “good intentions”.

By “good intentions” I mean mere good intentions… as in, when intentions are given greater priority than results.

Jesus said to the Church of Thyatira, “And all the Churches will know that I am the one who searches mind and heart, yet I render to each one of you according to deeds.” (Jesse’s translation from Greek.)

This was the Fifth of the Seven Churches Jesus addressed in the beginning of Revelation. To this Church, specifically, Jesus introduced Himself as the one with eyes like fire. To the Greek mind, that means that His sight pierces every shield and even brings about change.

So, Jesus sees everything. So what? you may ask. And that’s exactly His response: So what! He sees our intentions—every one of them. But so what. He’s concerned about our results. Are we?

Though society is made of different spheres, those spheres impact each other. If there was one problem that the sphere of Church has in common with the sphere of government, it’s the politicians. There’s a lot politicians do in secret, which they think nobody sees. Politicians begin their careers with great hopes, dreams, goals, and… well… intentions. Some politicians lead in government while others lead in the Church.

It’s funny, isn’t it, that corruption, hypocrisy, immorality, dishonesty, manipulation, and illicit financial activity are every bit as rampant in both spheres. Is it possible that society—which is impacted by both Church and government—has extended too much tolerance to leaders who do not prioritize results over intentions? Then again, maybe it’s not so funny.

Jesus said, “You shall know them by their fruit.” Maybe He was on to something. Maybe, since He created us… maybe, He knows that we were created in a world that needs food.

Every favorite restaurant, every good grocery store, and every corner fruit stand—we all know them because of their food.

Food really does make the world go around, in a sense. If you follow Wall Street at all, you may be thinking, “No way! It’s OIL that runs our lives. Oil creates war. Oil raises and smashes economies. OIL runs the world!” But, actually, oil is merely food for our cars, heaters, and plastics. So, again, everyone—and every thing—needs to eat some form of food. But, so what?

That’s where farming comes into the picture. Jesus refers to farming in many of His parables. The Jews were an agricultural society—they were promised a land flowing with milk and honey. The Kingdom of God is like seeds scattered—like a mustard seed that yields a thousand times its investment. God commanded humanity to “be fruitful”, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.

Though we rarely think about the major role farming plays in our jobs, families, and economies, it’s hard to do anything unless someone is farming.

Every farmer knows that there’s no fooling the crops. If you did a good job, you’ll reap a harvest. If you poke around all summer or if you don’t know how to handle your crops, the fruits won’t be so good.

Look at it another way: Apples don’t fall from orange trees. And strawberries don’t grow on cotton. Every crop plant is known by its fruit.

As a side note, every fruit begins as a flower. A good farmer knows the fruit that follows, merely by identifying its flower. But it is fruit, not flowers, that the world eats to survive. Likewise, a farmer’s worth is measured, not by his flowers, but by his fruit.

So what? What’s this got to do with Satan’s good intentions?

Have you ever thought about why he did it—why Satan rebelled against the all powerful, invincible, all-knowing, uncreated God? It probably began with good intentions. He probably thought he could lead creation better than God. When his takeover of the Heavens failed, and Heaven didn’t want his mischief, he resorted to earth—for now, ruling the earth is enough for him… for now, anyway.

That puts Satan in a power struggle against us. We humans were given dominion over the earth, under God, but now Satan wants to rule it. Problem: Satan isn’t human; Jesus is. Only the Lamb of God is worthy to rule the earth. In other words, Satan’s ambitions for the earth are doomed to fail.

Of course, from the beginning, his “good intentions” were narcissistic and insane—lead better than God? I mean, God hasn’t done such a bad job. Molecules keep holding together—unless we smash them and create a nuclear mess. Gravity works for all of us, Satan hasn’t messed that up… yet. Sure, we all have enemies that say bad stuff about us, but we can say stuff in response. Peoples make war with each other—but everyone is capable of standing up for what he believes and sacrificing himself for others, like William Wallace did. Even with evil on the run, Order and Chaos continue.

The Author and Sustainer is sustaining what He authored. God is doing a pretty good job. And ever since Satan gave bad advice to Eve—advice about fruit—Humanity sure made a mess of things… But gravity still works. And that means that God is doing a good job of allowing everything that goes up to come down… including Satan, who will eventually fall all the way down… eventually.

So what? Why would I write an article about Satan, God, fruit, and good intentions, just to compare government politicians to religious politicians? Well, I’m glad you asked. That’s exactly why, in fact.

You see, it’s funny. Or, then again, maybe it’s not so funny… Christians can’t stand government leaders who don’t bear good fruit. RINO-crats and Demagogue-rats are the main disgust of discussion. We re-elect them time and again, but always get the same lack of results and it’s irritating.

They have good intentions. They talk good. They look good. They stand up for our theories, ideals, values, and religious doctrine when they speak publicly. But Christians don’t tolerate it… Well, they don’t tolerate it in government, but Christians tolerate lack of fruit in established religion all the time and without exception or complaint.

Remember the exodus during the Emergent Church “discussion”? In the wake of complaint about all the people supposedly being misled, how many voting parishioner-members fired their well-intended pastors for having bad fruit?  How many parents said to themselves, “Maybe Churchianity doesn’t work. Maybe I should try Jesus instead.”

Could it be that the main stream Churchianity establishment despised Bell, Miller, and McLaren because—whether those authors were each right or wrong—they proved the faulty foundation of institutionalized Churchianity?

Maybe we should be “less critical” of teachers who have no good results to show. Maybe we should march, pitchforks in hand, against unaccomplished pundits who make our lives miserable as their bad advice consumes our time, money, and families, evermore attempting to prove their failed theories at everyone’s expense but their own.

Maybe the failed fruits of Satan’s politics, government’s politics, and Churchianity’s politics each share a common strand—they all have good intentions… and that’s all they have. Maybe the relationship between the three isn’t a coincidence.

Maybe we should reevaluate our teachers and leaders according to the fruit they help us—or do not help us—develop in our own lives. Or maybe the establishment just wants people like you and me to shut up.

Actually pursue Life, Liberty, and Happiness—rather than sacrificing our own corn fields on the altar of kings’ reputations and clergy’s careens? What a silly idea. Who do we think we are, anyway?

Then again, maybe I think too much.

So what! You may disagree with me. It doesn’t matter. At least the path we travel is well-intended.

Entire businesses are based merely on stock market trades. Some people even sit in front of a computer screen all day and do nothing but trade stock… as in, that’s their job. Many of them sit in front of seven computer screens. Imagine that, the computer on your desk, not with one monitor, not two, but seven…

That’s right, the stock market isn’t merely a way of doing business, it is a business—a business all to itself.

Once a company goes public, and starts trading shares on a public stock exchange, that company hasn’t merely changed the way it’s administration and ownership are structured. It actually entered a second business market.

Imagine McDonald’s realizing that it’s not so much in the restaurant and “supersize me” food business as much as it is in the real estate business. That realization hit us all when McDonald’s got more real estate than the Roman Catholic Church! And the Roman Catholic Church is in the real estate business as well. Any brick and mortar organization is in the real estate business, whether they promote themselves as such or not. In fact, everyone who owns land is in the real estate business, for that matter.

Just the same, any company that sells shares on the stock market is in the second business of selling stocks. Is that alright? It may seem okay on the surface. But think…

The way to earn success on the stock market is not the same way to earn success as a local business. Profiting from stock prices heavily depends on following the same academic script that told the world to invest in ENRON. You have to make bean counters say good things about you on TV. The pundits better not carry a grudge against any of your employees. And you’d better hope terrorists don’t attack either. Public panic could cause a stampede, then you’ve got more than your customers to worry about. You’re also in the “business” of placating to the demands of union bosses. One “strike” and you’re out!

You could lose a lost of dough if your gourmet bakery deviates from the recipe MBA columnists are indoctrinated with.

Being a poster boy company on the stock market means following the culture trends, like class elections in the popularity contest of high school. Yes, “Facebook likes” have equal value on both Wall Street and at the junior high dance. You don’t need to actually make money, smell the coming changes in economies, and know what trails to blaze as a pioneer doing what no one’s written a book about yet.

MBA’s don’t have the spirit of entrepreneurialism,  by definition. If they did, they would have taken the drop-out rout of Gates and Jobs and not needed grad school, let alone had the time for it. Academians either think paperwork = experience or they don’t last long in the world of academia. Once you enter the stock market, you need to appear competent to people who aren’t competent in actually creating a successful business from the ground up. That’s scary… At least it should be. The scarier part is, it’s not scary to most people, especially people who buy and sell stocks. I’m sure you’ve heard of the story of the Wall Street big shot who bailed days before the ’29 crash after getting trading tips from his shoeshine boy.

In other words, being in business with the stock market and being in business with a real enterprise can’t not be in conflict with each other. If you don’t do things the way GM does them, your shares fall. If you do things the way GM does them, your business falls like GM’s business.

Ever since Facebook got into the stock trading business, they’re no longer 100% focused on delivering good social media. Now, Facebook is expected to offer loads of advertising space to companies like GM who need poster ads, since GM’s reputation seems no longer good enough to sell cars on its own—and since GM downsized many of its own customers, probably in an effort to make the accountant columnists on Wall Street say good things about their prospectus. If Facebook doesn’t blast us with ads, GM executives talk smack about Facebook on TV and Twitter… and Facebook’s stock value falls. If Facebook listens to GM and the indoctrinated-inexperienced accountants and MBA’s then we, the people, get sick of it and delete our Facebook profiles. “Face” it, Facebook never stood a chance after going public. They were the public, until they went public.

So, if you want in the stock market, it’s best to do the stock market only. Buy seven computer monitors and get the super-fancy-souped-up Scottrade account, if you like. But, if you’re not going that rout, it’s probably best to stick to your original business and not create “conflict” unnecessarily.

Related:

There are officially too many MBA’s

Design the Door (mp3)

There’s something you should know about doors in Asia. They are incredibly strong.

Asia-Pacific sees all forms of typhoons, weather, critters, and other phenomenon of creation trying to penetrate their tropical homes. The doors keep most of it out.

East Asia has been making door keys longer than the West has been making disciples of Jesus. So, naturally, strong doors come with the territory.

One thing that hasn’t seemed to catch-up to the epic doorway integrity of Asia is the frame the doors close within. They aren’t that strong.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. The door frames in Asia are stronger than door frames of the West. It’s just that the doors themselves are so much stronger and heavier… The door frames keep the doors shut very nicely, but if you close the door too fast it can damage the frame. I mean, they swing shut like a city gate that would have rivaled Samson himself. And, that’s the thing… Once a designer pours all his energy into making a door so strong, he no longer has the energy to build a door frame that can handle the door when it closes. So, doors in Asia are secure—but there aren’t many beat-up door frames. That’s because the locals close their epic doors with epic patience.

You see, East Asia is still, largely, a manufacturing and engineering economy. Streets are lined with local machine shops. Department stores sell kitchen pots in “parts”—as in, the pots are there… and the pot handles are over here… and the lids are across the isle… and the lid handles are next to them… You get the picture. Since Asia manufactures so many things for the world, locals are accustom to seeing things disassembled, which, we in the Consumptive West never thought could be taken apart. You know that protective plastic that comes on the front of your refrigerator? Well, many ten year old refrigerators in Asia still have it. That’s how Asia is used to seeing Western refrigerators, most of the time. In a “factory world”, locals have a “factory perspective”. So, doors are enormously strong and they are closed with care.

Is it a good thing? Maybe. But, it may not be so good for business. Manufacturers handle things differently than consumers. The West isn’t familiar with large, heavy Asian doors—and probably for good reason. Factories put plastic on the refrigerators, not for consumer use, but for the factory. That plastic cover doesn’t protect the goods in the home, but from the dust and scratches associated with manufacturing and shipping. Consumable goods must have more than assembly: They must be consumable. Epic doors that require epic patience aren’t consumable—unless you work in a factory that makes them.

Doors and door frames should be made for each other—for normal people to use them together.

In the field of law, it is said that a law must be both enforceable and able to be followed. A city government can outlaw walking, but then there would either be no people in the city or else everyone would be redefined as criminal. In other words, crazy laws aren’t enforceable because nobody can follow them.

Think of the door as society and the door frame as the law. They must be made for each other. Crafting good law takes careful thought, consideration, and research, not just knowledge of legal jargon and rigmarole. If we aren’t careful about traffic laws, for instance, local governments just end up creating a bunch of speed traps. (Many do that on purpose, but that opens up ‘doors’ to another discussion.)

We create laws all the time. Parents make rules for their children. Teachers have rules for students. I’m an adult and my mom still makes me take off my shoes at the door. It makes sense, we need rules—rules that are good, well-considered, and give justice. That’s the amazing thing about Jesus. He’s so brilliant that He can settle the disputes among nations. So, I pray He returns soon.

For now, though, we’ve got to craft our own rules. Sure, we can pray and ask God for wisdom. But we’d do ourselves a big favor to understand just how difficult it is to make good rules and laws. Some people are really good at it—and others… well… not quite so good.

When we choose leaders, we should look at their track record of actually solving disputes and helping people reconcile their differences. That’s one of the big responsibilities of every leader: reconciliation, not reconciling everyone to himself, but to each other. If we choose a leader who hasn’t helped settle disputes between others, and he fails, we should only blame ourselves. Everyone isn’t a “rule guru” and we shouldn’t expect them to be. And when a “rule guru” comes along, it might be a good idea to listen.

So, in the foreseeable future, I’ll stay here in Asia, closing and opening doors with patience. And I’ll keep praying for God to send us the right leaders—and for us to recognize the right leaders when they arrive. If we can find a good match, we never know what doors might open.

I’ve lived in Asia four years and my feelings about China are unconventional and mixed.

China’s international policy seems the same with defense and intellectual property: They claim rights to everything. But, Beijing Communists are not Nazi’s, as the West often perceives. Nor is Chinese Communism the same as Russian Communism.

Hitler wanted to take over the world because he worshiped Satan. Russia’s Communism placed government above God. Beijing, on the other hand, just wants respect—from other nations and from religions inside their country. But, China is still learning how to gain that respect. Maybe they’d have more respect if they settled more and disputed less. No one respects people who boast their accomplishments at every opportunity, yet always attempt to dominate neighbors. China’s no exception. They’ll learn, though, contraire to conventional Western opinion.

As for religion, China is phenomenal. Under Beijing’s Communism, China’s Christian Church grew to become the largest, fastest-growing, and healthiest in the world. The secret, in my humble opinion? They didn’t allow institutionalized religion. In other words: They banned American pastors.

I still don’t understand why American Christians want to send missionaries to China. Beijing assumes American missionaries are spies. Moreover, how could the fastest-shrinking Church (America) “help” the fastest-growing Church (China), other than to “help” it shrink? It can’t. As narcissistic as America accuses China of being—and not without reason—American Christians are more narcissistic for trying to “help” China, rather than learning from the Chinese Church: Jesus didn’t want institutionalized religion. Thank you, China.

Intellectual property? I don’t think the Chinese mind gets the concept, actually. It’s not so much an issue of honesty as it is about culture. Liberals in America keep telling us that wealthy people only ever succeed by stealing. Actually, it’s not true, but maybe China believed them. If theft is necessary for success, let’s steal. What’s to say that this Liberal ideology hasn’t affected China’s policy toward currency and patents?

Generally, I think we all should mind our own businesses. America needs to deal with her own internal problems, focus on her own Church, and encourage the Second Amendment to defend America’s soil on America’s own soil. China’s done great by freeing-up businesses—another thing Communist Russia never did—as well as keeping religious establishments at bay. But, they should apologize for Tienanmen Square and free-up speech, showing their power that they don’t fear truth. And, they should ally with their neighbors. Even if China rightly claims it’s countless disputed islands, give them away to lesser nations to show their power through charity and friendship. Then the Chinese people will support Beijing’s free press policy and the United States wouldn’t have so many excuses to parade her aircraft carriers off China’s shores.

While China and America both have a lot to learn, America likes to villainize everyone with a “Communist” label. In China’s case, it’s not the same Communism. The old labels no longer fit.

Follow @JesselSteele
// Yes—I grew up in a Conservative-Christian circle.

Until my sophomore of college, my father was an Agnostic, though he called himself an Atheist—mainly because he was searching for answers and wasn’t sure where he himself stood on the issue of God.

My mother was Christian, raised by my grandparents who were raised by Christians who were raised by Christians… But, no one ever forced institutional religion on me. Jesus lived in our hearts and we thought about Him and talked about Him all the time. Church was a place we went each week—it wasn’t the only place where we met Jesus. And we loved people, even if they didn’t love Jesus.

We often sang songs like God Bless America and joined See You at the Pole—the yearly morning prayer movement where we’d pray around the flagpole of our schools. That’s how I grew up. It’s what I believed.

Most everybody goes through changes when they fly the nest. I attended college in downtown Chicago, which was a change from back-town, Michigan. Four years ago I moved to Asia, which wasn’t as shocking as my move to Chicago. After a while, change doesn’t change you that much.

Did moving out of town affect my opinions? Maybe a little. For example, it’s easy for many people to equate their country with Heaven itself, even for Atheists and Agnostics who don’t believe in Heaven—or don’t know. It’s called patriotism. Everyone loves their country… I mean, that’s your country. That’s a good thing. And, when we move out of the house, patriotism is one of the many home-grown beliefs we reevaluate.

Perhaps, with more people traveling in America, more Americans have stepped back from patriotism. It’s been popular to talk about how America is not the Kingdom of God on earth. American Christianity does tend toward Conservative ideology, even though the Constitution was written by men—Deists, more specifically—who believed God had abandoned the earth, like Dr. Manhattan at the end of Watchmen. The US Constitution was written with the idea that it had to be every bit as perfect as the Bible. We were our only hope for ourselves—so they thought—because God wasn’t here. He left. That’s what Washington and Jefferson and those guys believed.

As a result, the US Constitution was well-written. I mean, dah. Look at things. Yeah, we all know by now—at least we should—that sin exists in the world. A lot of bad things happened in America. Almost as bad as what happens everywhere else in the world. But, a lot of the bad things were done by people in America, not by the entire nation of the United States themselves. The same is true of American Christians… they are in America, they don’t speak for everyone… So, the good and bad things aren’t always done by the same people, though, often times, bad people do good things and good people do bad things. But that’s another discussion.

So, did God Bless America? Well, He certainly didn’t curse it—even though a lot of people have prayed for Him to. Just like a lot of people have prayed for Him to bless it. But, after living in Asia for almost four years, let me give you a different perspective…

When most people say that God Blessed America, they mean that America is equal to Israel, which is equal to the Kingdom of Heaven itself, and that, while we say that America and Israel are not perfect, we are never allowed to say what those imperfections are. We don’t admit that we think that, especially to ourselves, but that’s what most of us mean when we say God Blessed America. I mean something different, even though I still use the same phrase.

Perhaps America isn’t so much blessed as it is the blessing to others. Usually blessings are, themselves, blessed. Many have been cursed through America, by people in America. But, more blessing has come to the world from the good Americans than curses from the bad ones. And I admit that it’s saying a lot.

Taiwan, for example, is a free country. It’s the nation China could have been. The government of Taiwan was the original Chinese government that was chased-out by the Communists in 1949. I’ve witnessed the harm of America’s pop-entertainment industry in Taiwan, as well as the influx of processed food that isn’t exactly the healthiest. But we’re here. Even after 63 years, the Communists on Mainland China—as numerous and powerful as they are—have not breached Taiwan.

Taiwan is the only body of land that stands in the ocean between America and China, but America doesn’t know much about it. Technically, the two Chinese nations are still at war. If you ask the Chinese, Taiwan is a province of Communist China. If you ask America, they’ll confuse Taiwan with Thailand. Taiwan has been blessed by the power of America, but it’s also been a blessing right back.

But America only knows that they have blessed others. They don’t know who those others are and Americans, especially, don’t know the others who have blessed them.

I’m a Conservative Christian. I grew up that way. I moved out of the house and across the world and I’m a Conservative Christian now more than ever. I’m in favor of Life, just as I’m in favor of many inalienable rights, endowed by our Creator. I vote based on many issues, not merely because a Candidate talks about Jesus. Jesus is bigger than Conservative ideology. He’s bigger than America. He’s bigger than China, Russia, or Taiwan. And He gives me all the reason in the world to be grateful because I know that every blessing I have—and every blessing I give—came from Him. And I try my best to maintain my freedom, not because I think God left, but because I know Jesus is returning.

Has God blessed America? Yes and no. He has blessed Americans through others. And He has blessed others through Americans. But, maybe we shouldn’t pray for God to bless America. Maybe we should pray for more Americans to receive the gift of  gratitude. Gratitude keeps the blessings, after all.

Salt and Yeast (mp3)

In Bible school, I worked in the catering department. Cooking always fascinated me. So, the head chef and I often got into conversation. What might a young Bible student and the head Bible chef talk about? Jesus’ teaching lends itself to plenty of topics… There is always the feeding of five thousand people with nothing but fish and bread, the fact that Mary assumed Jesus would do miracles in the kitchen at Cana, salt, fruit, pork, oil, wine (but don’t tell the Trustees at Moody,) and, of course… yeast.

“Once yeast gets into the dough, you can’t get it out,” the chef would tell me. “And there’s only one way I know of, so far, to kill the yeast once it’s in the dough: fire! And that probably means persecution.”

The yeast of the Pharisees is what we were talking about on that particular day of our Biblical-culinary-contextual exegesis. When Jesus first explained this to His disciples, they thought that the Pharisees actually might have been in the bakery business. Only later did the disciples understand that Jesus was describing the Pharisees’ mis-matched priorities: absolute strictness about things that don’t mater, coupled with absolute compromise on things that matter most. While there is much more that could be said about the yeast of the Pharisees—including the fact that their yeast seems to have worked its way through the American Church—there are two things we know about the yeast of the Pharisees for sure: 1. once it’s in the bread, it doesn’t come out and 2. you don’t want it in your bread!

So, you can see why a young Bible student and a head Bible chef might be curious about yeast. We solved the problem of the Pharisees in the kitchen. Yeast could only be killed with fire. The problem is that, once you fire the bread, you can’t work the dough anymore. Like the goose, the loaf is cooked.

But there was another kitchen-happy ingredient Jesus talked about: salt. If yeast of the Pharisees is the bad cullinary ingredient of Christ’s parables, salt is His secret ingredient.

Salt preserves, purifies, enhances flavor, and includes electrolytes for a healthy body and mind. The problem with salt is that it can be overdone. Salt water is not for drinking: it’s for cooking and healing bruises. And, just like yeast, salt also works its way through food and permanently changes it—for the better.

In a “culture” obsessed with white bread and ethical compromise, “salty people” are a commodity. You know who I mean: people like Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh—you either love them or you hate them. And they have a tendency to persuade even their enemies to agree with them. Salty people never compromise on the truth, even in those times most of us secretly think it’s okay. There are occasions that call for compromise and there are times to stand one’s ground. But salty people arrange those priorities differently from the mainstream. Rather than being hated for rejecting the truth, or accused being wrong about what the truth is, the masses accuse salty people merely of upsetting the apple cart, even when Jesus might have turned the apple cart over. Salt stings… and that’s why we need it.

I never forgot those elevator chats with the Bible chef, just as I never stopped messing around in my own kitchen. A few years after Bible school, I developed my own pizza dough recipe. It took some time… along with flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar, temperature… and a lot of kneading. Experimenting in the kitchen is an adventure unto itself. Recently, I wrote my friend, the Bible chef, about a discovery…

When I used too much yeast, I learned that there was a way to kill the yeast without firing the dough: add salt. Of course, the problem is, if I add extra salt to kill the extra yeast, the dough tastes too salty. That means I have to add a whole lot of everything else… flour, water, sugar… In other words, once the chef does what’s necessary to kill the bad yeast, his only option is to make enough pizza dough to feed about five thousand people.

For those of you in my home town of Big Rapids, who like things explained simply, that means, the more God introduces salty people into the Church, the sooner we may see revival. That’s what I hope it means, anyway. Until then, us Christians in Big Rapids will keep enjoying our pizza. There’s plenty to go around, after all.

Was It the Dog or the Jellyfish? (mp3)

After three years in Asia, this was the first beached jellyfish I’d seen. But before I explain how I rescued a beached jellyfish in Taiwan, allow me to tell of the cockroach who saved my life.

Normally, when a country-born Michiganian sees a cockroach on its back, the first inclination is to step on it. Call me cruel, but I’d prefer the gratification of knowing it just sat there on its back. Yes, I pulled wings off a fly when I was young. But that’s because he bit me when I never did anything to him! All that’s in the past, now, and here I was looking at an Asian cockroach doing the cockroach dance.

When you think of it, cockroaches are quire useful creatures. Imagine how many corners would be so much dirtier if they didn’t clean up! But, despite the creature’s usefulness, all I could think of were the words from that song by Darlene Zach, “Your eye is on the sparrow…” See, I want to be just like my Daddy, and if His eye is on the sparrow—and I never was much of a sparrow fan—then I could at least help a “backed-up” cockroach.

I gave the most gentle nudge of my toe and… FLOP. There he was, dismayed, as any Asian cockroach who gets bumped, but firmly standing on all six of his… well, I think they’re “legs” anyway.

As I continued my evening trek to the corner 7-Eleven, I had a warm feeling inside. Maybe it was the new friend I’d made, who would likely be squashed by a car the next morning or become entertainment for a curious dog… Then again, it seemed he had favor. I’d been walking by at the right moment for him, after all. Did we share guardian angels? Perhaps he’d live to a ripe, old, cockroach age.

With 7-Eleven stock in hand, and returning to the front gate of my apartment, I realized that I’d lost my keys. There weren’t many places I could have left them, yet losing things just isn’t like me. So, I didn’t have much of a history of loss to go on. All I could do was retrace my steps. I was as helpless as… well, as a cockroach on its back. Maybe Daddy would lend His big toe and get me back on my feet. Did I deserve it? Technically, no, but maybe I’d stacked God’s favor in my favor that evening.

The moment I reentered the 7-Eleven from whence I’d treked, the clerk handed me my keys. Not the usual convenience store reception, mind you. Other patrons probably wondered what was going on. Was 7-Eleven now in the key copying market? It didn’t matter. That helpless cockroach let me “pay it forward” so favor would boomerang back only ten minutes later.

So, here I was, two weeks after a cockroach saved my life, catching some rays on a quiet volcanic beach in southern Taiwan… and there it was, also. I hadn’t seen one since I was nine. Of course, grandma and grandpa told me not to touch them because they sting. As waves kept flopping upon the water-balloon-sized jellyfish, I realized, he was a beautiful creature, though, he didn’t belong here.

Beaches are for drift wood and pebbles—sand dollars, clam shells, and star fish… so a little boy can throw one of a thousand back and say, “It made a difference to that one!” This was no place for a jellyfish. He needed to be in the water. But, what could I do?

It was in that moment that I noticed some nails sticking up out of the sand. “How dangerous,” I thought to myself. Perhaps seeking some act of charity to compensate for my lack of jellyfish rescue, I tugged at the nails to unearth whatever hid below the sand. Lo! They weren’t nails at all. This was a wire binding for bamboo rafts. The beach was lined with them. Floating bamboo is part of ocean fishing industry and the round coil they made was perfect for… why, that’s just it! This gives me a handle and a harmless round loop that won’t even scratch our jolly jelly friend.

Wave by wave I nudged our hero. I wasn’t even sure if he was alive. As water came in, I gently lifted him up so he’d go farther out to sea. For a second I thought I saw him twitch. Why hadn’t he moved before? Had he given up all hope?

This gizmo was perfect for the job. I could harmlessly nudge him and he’d move. As waves came, I gently held him from returning to shore, then pushed him through the water toward his home country. Only twice did he manage to squeeze right through the loop, but without fuss. It’s as if this wire coil were made for the job. Finally, in one of the waves, I saw him swim. It was just like on the Discovery Channel. All of his energy goes into a push. He was alive and finding his strength.

After gaining much “ground”, as it were, my new comrade and I came to a mini sand bar which seemed impossible for him to ford with the tide being what it was—and the strong surf being what it was. This was a long, shallow beach, after all. We began to make our way, accidentally, up the beach through something like a channel. As a wave came which I thought to ignore, a voice said in my head, “If he is taken toward shore by this wave, he won’t get back out to sea.” With what I could, I slowed him from the effect of the wave, but he slipped away. I’d helped just enough. One more nudge and he was happily swimming and soon vanished beneath the swirling froth. That was the last I saw of our friend.

I didn’t get a picture of him. There wasn’t time. But I brought home the tool that saved him. The ocean is full of jellyfish. But only one jellyfish saver sat on the beach that day, buried in the sand not ten steps from him. We didn’t have time to say goodbye, but I don’t think we needed it. I’d already given him a farewell only a few waves after I started nudging him out of the sand, “Now don’t sting any humans, okay?”

After a jog down the beach and back, I saw a young family with a husky, playing right where our jelly epic had taken place. Had I done nothing, someone could have stepped on the wires protruding from the volcanic sand. The dog might have become fascinated with the jellyfish, the dog gotten stung, and the jellyfish been in worse condition than Trayvon Martin. But that family saw neither jellyfish nor buried wire. Instead, they saw waves crashing against one of the most beautiful beaches in Asia. And that’s how it should have been.

So, did my pursuit of kindness save the dog or the jellyfish? Both, some might think. Jellies sting us humans. Why should I be so generous? It could be argued that jellyfish help keep the ocean clean, just like cockroaches clean our corners. Did I show grace today? A loop of wire dangerously buried, a jellyfish dangerously beached, and an husky dangerously closing were all wonderful things… in the wrong place. Would I focus on my revenge and defense? Or would I help everything find its proper place? Maybe, I didn’t save anyone today—there was simply a jellyfish on the beach and I helped him get back out to sea.