Now, it’s important to remember that same-sex marriage (the real target of this proposed amendment) is already illegal here in this state in the land of the free.  Statutes already prevent couples of the same gender from being able to live out their love for one another in peace and prosperity.

This amendment question, instead, sets some legislative wheels turning that will make it much more difficult to reverse a ban in the future.  I assume it’s to protect us “youngs” from debauchery in the future – they know what’s best for us, after all.  By altering the state constitution, it ensures no “activist” judge in the state can suddenly declare the same-sex marriage ban as unconstitutional… since the ban will be built into the constitution.

To hell with love people may have for one another.  To hell with personal freedom.  To hell with human decency.  Our representatives are bent on preserving the obviously sacred space that marriage holds in our society. Never mind that divorce rates for “straights” in North Carolina are rising against the downward trend elsewhere in the country.  Even the speaker of the house is predicting any such amendment would be reversed within 20 years.

Sometimes relationships just don’t hold up to the constitutionally-accepted definition of love.

All that to say: 1) everything that I’m reading says that NC residents don’t understand what the proposed amendment actually does (i.e. bans same-sex marriage, and likely all other forms of civil unions pending future judgements) and 2) I don’t see ANY Vote “Yes” on Amendment One placards.

I figure the latter is because it’s explicitly-discriminatory legislative garbage (in my humble opinion) and most people who are going to vote yes on amendment one by secret ballot won’t be happy if their prejudice were to go public.

I figure the former, unfortunately, is because we’re chronically under-informed on so many important topics; this is just another instance.

While it’s tempting to go on here – I won’t….

…except to say in order to protect love and to protect personal freedom, Vote No on Amendment One!

The object of my affection this time around is Scott Harrison, founder of charity:water.  Last week, two of my otherwise separate worlds collided when niche-known, tech entrepreneur turned angel investor Kevin Rose interviewed Scott on the “Foundation” podcast.  In my normal day-to-day I’m a web developer for a non-profit and, so, I’ve been interested in the innovation coming out of the offices of charity:water since day one.  It was during the hour that I watched this interview, however, that my heart began to flutter.

It was the first time I had heard him tell his own story: from growing up in a christian (explicitly not religious) home, to seeing his mother develop complications from carbon monoxide poisoning, through his career as a club promoter in NYC to his eventual emotional bankruptcy.

It was the first time that I connected the goals of charity:water with a Jesus-backed motivation.  To me it was a real-life, vivid example of an amazingly good thing happening, without any explicit mention of faith, but that seemingly had found favor with some celestial deity, somewhere. By all measures of success, they are doing the right things.

There are a number of more subtle cues that they’re doing the right thing, too.  In serving as much as relationship brokers between donor and donee as charity, charity:water is tapping into our need to have emotional and relational connection in our lives.  They are the practical hands and feet of well-meaning givers who likely would drop everything and construct wells in distant countries for their fellow man.  They make every effort to be transparent and to fund operations and programs from completely different revenue streams so that 100% of the money that a donor provides goes directly to providing clean water to another person in the world.

Granted, not everyone who gives to charity:water does so of altruistic motivations: some are poorly-disguised egoistic reasons (e.g. “Look what I/my money/my something did in Liberia,” or “Here are all of the people that I helped.”)  Most, I would assume, are not giving because they’ve heard a little voice from their right shoulder urging them to do so.

What I would say, though, is that every time someone donates, every time someone gives up their birthday, every time that a video from a dig in some remote village shows the faces of jubilant men and women to the world, we are all being connected to something.  Believe it or not, I think that something is that trajectory of restoration and renewal that God envisioned when we hear the story of Jesus and the cross at Easter.   There was a time when we understood that the only way to work towards God-inspired positive change was to become involved with a church and engage service there.  We all thought it went something like this:

1. Come to church
2. Become a follower of Jesus
3. Do things that church people do (serve, give money, complain, become cynical, etc)

All that has changed, though.  In connecting with humanity, in giving clean water to the thirsty, good food to the hungry, opportunity to the oppressed, friendship to the friendless we are tracking with what God (or whatever universal force you think is out there) and his efforts to right the wrongs we have gotten ourselves into, to redeem the desert places of the world.

It is a vastly differently, but entirely valid entry point into this effort to reconstruct, rebuild, and redeem.  It is a statement that the “church” as we’ve come to know it may no longer be up to the task and that it’s time to redefine the concept.  At first church was a generic term that just represented a collection of people that shared a common belief and did things based on that belief – initially, that Caesar was Lord and so Romans did empire building things.  When Jesus followers began to gather after his death, they co-opted the word and used it to describe their own gatherings where instead they said, “Jesus is Lord” and they served the poor and needy on the underside of the empire.

Now, churches have largely become self-centered and self-righteous and self-destructive that are unwilling or unable or uninterested in doing what is right.  This movement that technology has enabled towards connecting wealthy, self-centered people with those from the opposite end of the spectrum is just one of the ways that I truly believe, we are in the middle of a redefining phase of what it means to be a “church.”

There is an entire family of people, not connected by denominational history, family ties, tradition, doctrine, ritual that are loving and serving together.  They’re joined, instead, by the common bond of generosity, of a sense that having billions of people without a basic necessity in the world is both unacceptable and that we have the capacity with our surplus to overcome it.

Many of them are restoring the world, doing what’s right, but do not know or do not believe that they’re doing this for some heavenly being – but they just have a sense that this is what they’re meant to do.

And that’s OK.

There’s not a particular reason why. Until recently, I always tended towards books about God, or tech, or tech gods.  It’s probably no surprise, then, to find out that the first two books of fiction that I have consumed in years were technology oriented.

Daniel Suarez wrote two sequential books a couple of years ago – the first called Daemon, the second called Freedom.  The extremely short synopsis reads: “A terminally-ill, seemingly ego-maniacal video game developer unleashes a self-sustaining computer virus intended to force a new world order.  In choosing between staying the course and surrendering to the ‘darknet’ the true nature of civilization is revealed.’

It you’re a technophile – I’d definitely suggest it.

In the books final conflict, the protagonist elects to sacrifice the valuable ‘credit’ he has earned in this new, game-centric world in order to defeat the terror-bringing villain character – to the elation of all of humankind.

My foray into fiction has left me faced with an incredible question.  How much am I willing to risk in order to do the right thing – not just for me, but for others around me?  Essentially, what battles am I willing to pick, thereby putting my self and my reputation on the line?  I have a list, afrer all.  I wondering how much of my own credibility I would be willing to sacrifice.

Admittedly, on many issues, I have a surplus of relational capital that I can afford to spend or “invest”.  But I’m left wondering if it’s worth it; if I should wait – hold out for something more consequential – the epic battle between good and evil.  I wonder if I would come across as bringing a knife to a gun fight.

Some time ago, when I attended the TEDxCharlotte event, one presenter said (to paraphrase) if you see an injustice, or corruption, or prejudice happening – if you don’t speak up, you are essentially ratifying that behavior.  I’ve been convicted by this almost every day since.

Sometimes on cruelties that I see happening in my city.

Sometimes on global events.

Sometimes on relatively mundane things much closer to home.

And I wonder what I should do.

• The video was 30 minutes long – short videos go viral, not long ones
• Invisible Children spends 30% of their money on videos and awareness pieces and not on direct services
• The problem in Africa is too complex to be narrowed down to one person or one conflict or one resolution
• Kony isn’t even IN Uganda any longer

How did this happen?  How on earth did this video blow up SO quickly.

Here’s the secret: people care.  People get presented with images that pull at their heart strings and they care.  People see children getting maimed and mutilated and they care.  People see an opportunity to be a small voice contributing to something good and they care.

Of course I know that there’s no solution presented in this video.  It’s OK that there isn’t – it’s not about a solution at this point.  It’s a rallying cry.  It’s a call to creativity, to dedicating oneself to something worthwhile.  It’s about harnessing a small portion of the cognitive surplus of kids and adults and to make the statement that, given the opportunity, we would stand between Kony and the next child the LRA attempts to abduct or kill.

When you’re willing to shield kids from this kind of treatment – if you’re ready to die for what’s right – you’re certainly willing to send an email to a congress person, or send money to an agency that’s on the ground in troubled parts of the world.

Do I care that 30% of Invisible Children’s funding was used to make an awareness video?  Yes, I care so much that I wish I could have bank-rolled the entire cost.  73 million people (and counting) are now more aware of atrocities that have gone unpunished.  That’s a pretty amazing accomplishment.  EVERYONE on the internet – from bloggers to the New York Times – are talking about it.  Even the smart people who want to prove their smarts by calling every nuance of technique and strategy into question – they’re contributing to the awareness too.

While watching a panel discuss this very issue, one person said, “No matter what you think about the whole campaign, these are well-intentioned people trying to make a difference in the world.”  This video is not about starting a war.  This video is about rallying people to a cause – inspiring people to care…. about SOMETHING. It’s about taking 30 minutes away from the video games or the television and using that wasted time for something collaborative, creative,and consequential.

Congrats to Invisible Children for standing up for what they said they were going to do, for putting creative content in the world that isn’t about entertainment or ego.

Kony 2012.

I used to live my life as if there were no bounds to my existence. Not in the “your future has yet to be written” sense, I lived as though I had to be everything to everyone. I had the solutions to problems, the stuff of meeting needs, the meaning of life.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that I thought living this unbounded life was the way “it” was meant to be – the thing that we were all striving for. In my mind, we were all meant to be going, and doing, and verbing in any way that we possibly could.

But we are finite.

We have an end. Psychologically, we have an end. Physically, we have an end.

In “Sin Boldly”, Cathleen Falsani says that in order for someone to be filled, someone else has to be broken – it’s the imagery of Christ on the cross. In order for someone else to be restored, I have had to let myself go.

But, while the Kamikaze may be effective – they are effectively for just a short time. It is not my desire meet my end in a dramatic fireball fashion. Instead, I realized that there were times where I needed the same rest, the same restoration, as others. I gave up my Kamikaze ways and instead began to focus on longevity.

This is how it’s meant to be.

And I took some pride in it as well.

So much of my teenage and early adult years have been about marching in lock-step with others around me, albeit superficially.  There are plenty of reasons for this – most of them deal in some way with the blind ferocity with which I approached my then-church. This time of my life, from which I am emerging, was about blending into the crowd, playing each beat where it was expected and where each was much less noticed (imagine playing in a band where one person played notes where they weren’t expected).

Much changed when I realized my quest to blend in was becoming altogether detrimental.  I have a voice, a perspective on life, an approach to the everyday that is my own.  It has to be. I have to be.  Stepping out meant breaking step with the rhythm that I had known and had formed me.

The disorientation that I felt even when just considering that I needed to change the course of my life was overwhelming.  Much like leaving a subwoofer-endowed room, the beats that seem to pound your chest until your heart submitted and synchronized, the residual beats would often ring through. It would neither be easy nor always pleasant.  I also knew it was precisely the right thing to do.

Finding that my voice is my own and not merely an echo of a higher-up has been more liberating than any metaphor can justify.  Finding that voice to be informed, loving, graceful and accepting is surprising; near miraculous some would argue.

I’ve also discovered a vitality in the process, a rekindling of the belief that there is movement beneath the superficial waves of life that is more conducted than dictated, that there is more to explore than what can be seen or read or heard.  Encounters with food and friends are sacred.  Resources enable generosity more than they can provide comfort.  Those that remain in lock step (willingly or not) are people too, they are voices in their own right, that can be heard when listened to closely enough.

I don’t crave being different.  I don’t carry the tattoos or piercings or style that all non-conformists seem to carry.  My offbeat-ness is not about confronting “the man” or making a statement.

My offbeat-ness is who I am, the feelings I was created to have, the words and thoughts I was created to express.  My offbeat-ness is my voice being amplified over the noise; I now realize my voice has both value and an appropriate place.  My offbeat-ness is a recognition of what I truly value about life.  My offbeat-ness is a pursuit.

It’s who I am.

At the time, I was working in a pseudo-ministry role and attended the church for which I worked.  Kristy and I both we part of a small group of young adults that looked, sounded, and acted alike and so, as was the style at the time, began meeting with them for regular Bible studies.  As we studied, we made sure (as in the words fo Cathleen Falsani) that all of the doctrinal t’s were crossed and i’s were dotted.  It was important to have the correct answers.

Also in style at the time was the notion that it was OK to criticize our church, nay, even our movement as a whole for not being the change they wanted to see in the world.  They (excluding ourselves, of course) were not doing enough to help the helpless, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, or save the sinner.

At this point in my history, you must understand that I had been fully won over by the truth.  I had the answers, or at the very least knew where to find them.  I could tell you with pinpoint accuracy the eternal destinations of those in a line-up in front of me.  I had it together.  Jesus may as well have slipped me a copy of the Lamb’s Book of Life.

On one particular night, however, when the fault-finding was particularly succesful, something cracked – like the first kernel of corn that explodes in the microwave.  The details are sketchy; I certainly don’t remember what part of the Bible we were studying.  All I remember is thinking that I’d had enough of the criticism and  someone saying, “Why don’t we do something?”

Astounding in its brilliance and its simplicity, I knew that “doing something” was the answer.

What developed over the course of the next several weeks and months was an utterly simple and utterly perspective altering exploit.  To the spirit of “being thirsty and you gave me something to drink,” we added the notions of warming the cold, and befriending the friendless.  On a weekly basis, a group of four regulars and several others, would load up a mini-van with hot chocolate, cups, and eventually water, blankets, and various beneficial sundries and park at the Charlotte Transportation Center.  In the center of the facility, we would set up our stations and would plainly and simply hand out hot chocolate to cold people.

In the beginning was the notion that what we were doing would eventually lead to the conversion of souls to Christianity – a priority that had been drilled into each of us from the earliest days of our faith. We knew that people needed Jesus and so the agenda was set and the bargaining chip was steaming cocoa.

When reality began to settle in – when we realized that there are answers other than “Jesus” to many of the questions that people are asking – life as we knew it began to change.

Because of “Hot Chocolate,” I learned that there are many more people out there who aren’t like me than are like me and that relying on tangible similarities to serve as the foundation and sustenance for my relationships  was a losing cause.  Instead, I learned that I can have as much in common with the crass homeless man as the people that were in much church pews.

During this time I learned that I don’t have all the answers.  I began to realize that some questions can’t have neatly packaged answers; that it’s often better than they don’t.  These are questions about life, faith, and practical realities.

What I can articulate now that I couldn’t then was the importance of relationships in our lives.  More than resources, position, status, or notoriety, relationships are the foundation for happy lives.  When these aren’t in place – when relationships begin to fracture – everything from your soul to your mind to your home is at risk.

I am tempted to say, here, that actions speak louder than words.  My hesitation though is that they can still speak a very obnoxious, holier-than-thou, Christians-are-superior message.  Instead, I think I want to say that your genuine interest and acceptance are what people sense and respond to.  When the agendas are put aside, and your mind and heart can be fully-engaged with another human being, real change, real conversation, real understanding can start to enter the equation.

While I suppose it’s completely normal, when I consider my past I often question how “I could think like that.”  It’s not an exaggeration to say that I believed that the answers I had were true and solid, that there was no room for questioning.  And at the same time, my past has prepared me with both a heart for compassion and a willingness to act that seem to be rare to find together.  I’m grateful for this.

These cold nights at the Charlotte Transportation Center sometimes seem silly when I look back and read the accounts from what seems like a completely different lifetime.  The lexicon that we used almost seems like a foreign language to me now.

Our group, which later came to be known as “Delta Force” (even our hipster name for it had the underpinnings of agenda), that started as much out of stubbornness and frustration, cemented lifetime friendships and poked holes in my water tight view of who Jesus is and how he loves.

And despite the campiness and awkwardness of our efforts, some amazing things were born.  Maybe reborn.  It’s odd now to hear names and remember people’s stories, to know which construction sites people slept at, what measures they had to take to keep their families together.

It’s comforting, though, to know that we’re all in the same boat.

If you’re interested, you can read all about our wackiness at the bus station at http://charminultra.blogspot.com.

And at the same time as I look back over the past 8 or 9 years I can’t help but admit the stark influence that his teachings have had on me.  When I first heard that a life of faith is more like a trampoline that you invite people too, that has flex and give, than it is a brick wall, I knew that this man had a take on faith that I wanted to explore.

Today, I learned that he is leaving Mars Hill.  I’m sad.  And I’m excited.

For years I’ve downloaded podcasts, I’ve followed his teachings not as a hard-nosed skeptic but as a thoughtful supporter.  I remember being disappointed when Shane Hipps came on staff at Mars Hill because it meant I would get to hear Rob less.  But, if Rob likes him…..

I’m convinced that living graciously is a better way to live.  I believe that living generously is a better way to live.  I believe that a life of faith marked by serious and unanswered questions can be as honoring to God as a life where those questions have been answered without doubt.

To Rob, and Kristin, and the family – your message is revolutionary in that “the way it was always meant to be” kind of way.  Thank you for what you’ve done.  Thank you for whatever is next.

“Why don’t you just close the dryer door?!?!” she questioned.

My wife is not easily aggravated, unless you are her husband and you are doing something that doesn’t make a lot of sense to her.  Such was the case on this fateful and memorable day.

“What does it matter?” I responded.

Like her, I am generally non-confrontational. Often, I’m the peacemaker, the arbiter, the mediator.  However, it should also be noted that I’m often accused of being stubborn.

“The lightbulb is going to burn out, and there’s just NO REASON to keep it open.”

One of the beautiful benefits of being in a long term relationship with someone is that you become intimately aware of each others character.  Here, Kristy was attempting match two pieces of rationale with my voracious need for the same.  For whatever reason, I want to know that decisions are being made, actions are being performed, and doors are being shut based on rock-solid justification.

“I’ll just replace the bulb if it burns out… It’s REALLY not a big deal.”

Apparently, my brain found a weakness in her rationale.  She needed something more watertight than that to get me to budge.

“Just close it!” she retorted.

“Why?” I crossed my arms, hardly acknowledging her latest blow as if to say, “I shall not be moved.”  She was going to need something far more powerful than that to sway me this time.

Kristy turned to walk away.  At the same time, my internal voice started it’s own little victory march with enough passion that it felt as though he had grown into a real boy and was physically patting me on the back.  Another victory for the good guys.

What I didn’t realize is that there was another bullet in the chamber.  My wife wheeled around and let a curious question fly.

“When you’re using the oven to make supper, and you take the food out when you’re done, what do you do with the door?”

My knees went noticeably weak. The hair on the back of my neck stood up tall.  My lip quivered.

“I…. I guess… I close it.”  It was the verbal equivalent of running up the white flag.  Just like that it was over.  Victory was hers once again.

In a lot of ways, what I do is greatly dependent on rationale.  If you can either justify a behavior with a reason that I agree with, or if you can connect the reason for one behavior with an existing one that I already do, then I’m almost certain to start doing it.   A similar situation exists with viewpoints, thoughts and beliefs.

That being said, for a long time, there have been a lot of things that I have done, things that I’ve participated in, even things that I’ve given a lot of my life to that simply didn’t have any good reason behind them.   There were things that I simply never questioned.