REPORT! Here's what's been going on.

Here's the deal. I've made a web album of many of the things I've experienced over the last 2 months... well, except one REALLY important update, that is... I'm Engaged!  I'm so very pumped about this.  Please pray for us!  It is not easy to plan a wedding, and all that when we're so far away from each other. OK, enjoy the web album!  I will also be uploading this album to facebook here.

Blessings, and thanks to so many of you who have helped me out spiritually and financially for this journey that God had me on.  I'm VERY excited for the new pages that he has written for me, and where its all gonna go from here.

Earthquake, Tsunami, .... man, I've got to go!

So, I do have some blog-posts milling around in my head, and I'm so frustrated that I have not been able to stick it down on paper (mmm... punch it in on a screen.  Is that the right description these days? )  But Jesus has had a whole new thing in his mind.  This post is basically about that.

The first thing that probably comes to your mind at this point in time when I say :"Japan" is probably Nuclear crisis.  Well, fair enough, but lets not forget that there are tens of thousands of people still living in School Gyms all across north eastern Japan.  These people aren't being affected by the Nuclear plant, but rather, the place they used to call home does not exit anymore.  There are literally thousands of houses waiting to be rebuilt, and most importantly, millions of aching broken hearts, weeping over their loss, and really needing some hope.

When people say "they lost everything," I think it doesn't quite encompass enough.  Think about it, the first thing you may think about is their earthly possessions. But the fact is, houses can be rebuilt, cars are probably insured, and cities will get to reorganize their streets as they rebuild.  What is not being addressed in the news is that there are so many crushed hearts.

In the numerous video's posted on Youtube,  you can hear the screams and groans in the background as the big wall of water comes and flushes away a town. The comments people are making are cries of help that reaches spiritual levels.  They are pleading to something to stop the water. I can't stop but thinking that their heart was flushed out together with their cities and communities.

I believe God is imploring his followers to get down to the nitty-gritty, and be muddied to the neck.  Both literally and spiritually.  I heard this call after a week of seeing the tragedy unfold on the news.  I had to go.  I could not deny it. It seemed so impossible, but as time passed I realized that I was supposed to be in this battle.  Not to just join and give money to people who are called.

A month later, its been a hard time for me waiting for the right time, but in a couple of days, its that time. I'm going. I will be working with an organization called CRASH (crashjapan.com).  They come alongside local churches in affected areas to be the light in the broken world around them. I am so excited for this opportunity!  Its amazing!  My plan is that I'll be back in 2 months.

All that to say, maybe some of you are reading this, and know that you are supposed to be apart of my journey, and I would love to let you in on it. I need people around me to keep me accountable.  I need to spend every day fully stepping into this plans.  There are a couple of ways to journey with me on this one:

>Follow me on Twitter!  I'll probably not have much time for emails and blogs, but I'm planning to update my folks about what I'm doing, and what God is doing there.
>Encourage me! :)  If you really do care about this stuff, let me know!  I'll try to keep you updated in how you can help, and how you can pray for me while I'm in Japan.
>CASH!  hahahah... I'm not afraid to ask y'all.  I'm not gonna have any income for these 2 months, and obviously there will be expenses. Will I be in trouble if nobody wants to help me out financially? No, but it is a big sacrifice for me, and I think some of you know that you want to share in that sacrifice.  You can empower me and put your heart out there through me. I literally feel empowerment every time I receive gifts, because it is a tangible thing that lets me know that this person really does care, and they're willing to sacrifice for it.

With all that said, I realize I'm leaving in just a few days. If you can't meet me up, I've set this nifty little thing online where you can give straight to my bank account.
Here's the link: http://goo.gl/3AAQF

Snow, AGAIN!? Yes :)

I love it. There’s is nothing more I can really say about all the wonderful things that Snow does to enhance my life. Now, I’m not so stupid to believe that everybody has the same opinion as me about snow. This winter in Kentucky has seen unusual amounts of snow, and it seems like everybody is complaining. Here are some common emotions/ reactions that other people may have about snow... i think:
-Cold
-Dangerous
-Annoying
-Work (if you shovel snow for a living)

Speaking of shoveling snow, not too many of you may know that I’m a well experienced snow shoveler! Well, at least I was when I was in grade school.  I would jump to my feet every winter morning at 5 by the rumbling sound of the snow plow passing by our house (My youngly ability to wake up from my warm bed onto the ice-cold floor astounds me).  I would throw on my snow suit, and 3 minutes later I was outside with my snow shovel. Our neighboring grandpa’s and grandma’s would be out there before me, bent back and all, clearing a pathway for the school children to walk to school.  I joined them every morning.  I loved it.  It was one thing that I had full control over. Nobody in my family cared enough about how I did it.  It was one place where I was allowed full decision making responsibilities. For once, I was not the “baby” of the house. That narrow pathway that I carved out in the waist high snow in front of my house was a great source of pride.

Maybe you’re starting to see why I am so fond of snow. If you’ve not caught on yet, check this.

Let me list a few other reasons why I like it so much when the world turns white:

1. Its dangerous to drive.  I have many found memories of how my father’s eyes would sparkle whenever he got to drive in snow.  I’ve inherited that same DNA, no doubt.
2. Hot Chocolate tastes better than ever (If you need help understanding this concept, read THIS).
3. Ski/Snowboarding, and Snow monsters.
4. The beauty, and meaning of it all.

Lets start with Number 4.  Actually, let’s just ONLY talk about number 4.

You wake up in the morning. You realize that the light leaching through between the curtains is brighter than usual. You stare at your alarm clock until the time comes into focus because you are sure you are late to work. Actually, you woke up earlier than usual; weird... You pull back the curtains and look out the window in squinting amazement that the whole world has turned white. No longer do you see houses and cars. They’ve turned into bumps and mounds in the white-scape.

I can’t help but think of how it covers everything shamelessly, and relentlessly.  And for a moment (usually a very short moment, in Kentucky), everything is clean.  Covered in the one color that symbolically represents purity.  

There’s a lot that could be said about the whiteness of snow. I walked to church this morning in my white shoes I got recently. Snow doesn’t have chemical white coloring or anything to help it be so white and yet, my shoes looked yellow compared to the half inch of snow on the ground. Its so freakin’ clean, fragile, potent, Shameless in its radiance.

There are no spells you can cast to keep snow from falling on you. When it snows, it snows. When it decides to stick, it sticks. It falls like a blanket over hummers and tricycles, tree tops and black tops, over Mansions and Shacks. Have you ever ‘heard’ snow falling? I have no scientific documents for you, but in Yonezawa, Japan, where I’ve spent my childhood years I swear you can actually hear the snow falling on a dead silent night; Big, hefty, silver dollar sized snow flakes stacking on top of each-other. When you catch one of these mother-flakes in your hand, you can almost feel the weight of it before it melts into a puddle in your palm. This results in the most beautiful winter blanket, covering the whole world. White is all that there is. None of the actual earth can be seen through this blanket. It is relentless in its coverage.

Change the topic a little bit.  When you see a piece of art, or some crazy invention, you can start to see some of the characteristics of the person that created that thing.  For example, The Cheeze Shovel.  You’ve might have seen those before, but this little nifty thing was invented by a Norwegian. Let’s see what the cheese shovel tells us about Norwegians.  They must eat cheese.  They must like cheese to be thinly sliced. Maybe they like their cheese to be evenly spread on their bread... etc...  And all this is true... well, at this point I’ll claim my Norwegian heritage and tell you that those things are true!  I’m am a proud owner of a few cheese shovels myself.

If we look at the invention of snow, I believe we can see a glimpse of who the inventor of it is like. Kind of like how we can see who God is through Jesus. He comes to earth, naked and shameless. His potency rattles the hearts and minds of every one he comes in contact with. His relentlessness puts him on death-row. He overflows with passion and love as his fragile human life is tortured to a bloody pile, and left to die. He was vulnerable and risky;Unashamedly exposing all the emotions where it can so easily be trampled, muddied, and shoveled away, just like snow.

Truth be told, the magnificent view from your bedroom window does not last long. By the time you’re done with your breakfast coffee, plow trucks have re-exposed old mundane black strips of road so that we don’t need to miss a beat in our commute. Sidewalks are shoveled quickly to avoid legal trouble with a unsuspecting walker who might slip on a piece of ice. Before you know it its back to normal life, crowned with its own empty productiveness, marked with heavy sins and addictions.  We till the land unswervingly, and the snow doesn’t stand a chance.

The stale old piles of leftover snow is really nothing to look at.  But its a reminder that once, everything was blanketed, and nobody could do anything about it except cancel school.  So, next snow day, why not enjoy it to the fullest? Instead of complaining about its inconvenience, why not accept that His purifying work covered everything, and thank Him for the reminder? And when it comes time to shovel it away into dirty little piles, remember that our own work to clean everything up is futile. In fact, isn’t it part of what turned our savior into a ugly pile of blood?

...and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.  -Isaiah 64

Butter and Faith... And Christmas!

Merry Merry Christmas from Norway to all!


This year, I didn't get around to doing a Christmas letter, so my procrastination has taken me to just blog about my Christmas so far.

In Norway, Christmas has just started! You’ve heard of the 12 days of Christmas right? Well, the 12 days start on Christmas day here. So, I’m good as long as I get this blog down on the first half of Christmas!

To add to my excuse, let me tell you that apparently I come from a long line of procrastinators! My grandpa and grandma JUST put up their Christmas tree today (26th). This happens to be the very day they take all the Christmas trees down in Japan.

Today at breakfast, I was trying to decide what to put on my last little piece of bread when my grandpa asked me “but where is the butter on your bread?” I looked down and realized that yo could hardly see any butter on there. I clearly remember spreading it on thee, but it had melted when I threw some scrambled egg on it earlier. I answered my grandpa “It’s there, you just can’t see it.” He answers just as any butter lover like my grandpa should, by saying “If you cant see it, its not enough!!” I can never get enough of my grandpa’s sweetness of his voice, and cheerfulness of his spirit.

So the breakfast continues as I find some lovely brown cheese to put on my bread. Just before I savor its taste, grandpa adds to his last thought... “If you can’t see it, well, you must have faith in it.”

Unbelievable. I'm sure coffee has not made it to my grandpa’s vein yet, and his first thoughts in the morning are as profound as heaven itself. Its so true, AND so simple. It was so easy for me to believe that there was butter on my bread, and yet, I had to have faith in it. It isn’t blind faith, its experiential faith. I’ve experienced the smothering of the butter. I know its there. You just can’t see it.

As I devoured the last bite of that bread and cheese as I let this truth make its way into my hungry stomach. Faith can be so real and satisfying as a piece of bread. Our faith is supposed to be like that; lived out. It only took my grandpa’s presence at that table for God to let me know.

Actually, its pretty fun. You should try this faith thing some time. Its not all the wackyness that people think it is. The little bit of faith it takes to eat a piece of bread really counts.  Every step you can take in faith is a celebration to be had, because it marks a ever deepening level of relationship with Jesus.
You know, I wouldn’t mind living out a life of faith if this is how it feels.
Meanwhile, the bread tastes fuller, and the room brighter, and coffee stronger. I’m really liking this.

So, all that to say, I hope you are enjoying this late Christmas season!

Paul

(or.. in Norway, Pål Martin)

HIGHJACK!! Pots pots pots!

I'm gonna take this opportunity to Highjack my own blog. Its NOT about writing cute little stories. Today, its all about POTS!  (save your addictive substance jokes for yourselves ;)

I have a mountain of boxes in my room at the moment of Pots waiting to be dealt out.  The story behind this, is that I was gonna have a flea market sale this past September, but these pots did not make it on time.  So it took its time coming through the pipe, and NOW, it is ready.  Please visit the web album and look over if you're interested at all in handmade pottery. These were made by the one and only ME, and fired in an electric kiln by my co-conspire-r potter friend Amy.

These are probably gonna go for real good price, because its gonna be auctioned off!  After some indeterminate time, I will take the highest bidder with a bid thats left on comments section of the pictures.

Oh, and perhaps  most importantly, ALL proceeds from this sale will be given to i2 so pay lots for them, please... 
If you have no idea what i2 is, don't worry about it, its a good cause :)

T.P. stands for Toilet Paper. *don't read with a full stomach

I was going about my day offending people and sinning...etc you know, the normal Christian life.  At the end of the day, I found myself ranting about my philosophical/theological thoughts about TP to my good, not-so-bachelor-anymore friend Jess. He told me that most people don't think this much about TP. Maybe he was trying to infer that I am being psychotic about this. Nevertheless at the risk or sounding a bit abrasive, I took his suggestion and decided to put it on the blog. 

Ok, Toilet Paper.   Have you ever wondered why TP is white?  Some time ago I've heard of some survey questioning what percent of people "look" at the wiped paper before putting it in the bowl. If I remember right, more than half of regular Toilet attendees require visual verification of their wiping skillz. So here's my theory about the white paper: we need a perfectly high quality canvas to start with so that our "art work" will be well contrasted.  Kind of like how artists always start with white washing their canvases so that their brush strokes show up with vigor and crispness in their appearance.  Personally I'd have to admit that when... no, no need to invoke your visuals here...  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't bother, and go to the next paragraph.  Its a lot more important.

In all seriousness though, the regular consumer's choices say a lot about how we entirely take Toilet Paper way too seriously (though arguably, I'm the one taking it way too seriously by writing a blog post about it). If you buy the obvious choices of TP's from your Kroger, what you will pay for is one of those brand toilet papers featuring a big cuddly bear butt on the front of the packaging. As the packaging suggests (or is supposed to suggest), these TP's are ultra soft, thick and cushy. If you are short on cash or are in a pinch (let the reader understand), you will travel half way down the aisle and buy the store brand TP's, which are more of the "gotta get'r done" type. Both types of TP's, believe it or not comes from Virgin Pulp. Let me explain: They cut trees down in both managed AND un-managed forests, process it into pulp,  Bleach it, and Turn it into TP. Now, in Paul world, toilet paper might as well be old news paper, needless to say, I was shocked!  Shocked to hear that quality matters so much to the average consumer when it comes to TP!

Let me try to put this in context a little.  I try to maintain a higharchy of towels and rags that I use for different purposes in my pad. As the rags age, it goes down the ladder to do less respectable jobs. On the top of that ladder is dish drying towels.  When I have dishes to dry, I take a fresh one out of the drawer and wipe the dishes.  When I'm done, I will hang it on the stove handle so that it can be used as a hand towel until another used dish towel replaces it.  Then I have a sink towel, which is used to wash dishes when its new.  Then it stays around the sink to wipe up counter top spills. Occasionally something will spill on the floor and I will take a old sink towel and throw it on the floor for it to do its job on the floor before it goes to the washing machine.  THEN there are the ragged towels that doesn't ever get washed. Rather it lives in my tool box, or get thrown away after wiping up engine oil and brake fluid from my garage floor. Wow, this is turning into a involved analogy.  To me, using Virgin Pulp as TP is equivalent to using a drying towel to wipe up my garage floor. Its a waste!  The same way the garage floor does not deserve to be treated as dishes, my dirty butt does not deserve to be pampered with such finely processed, religiously bleached, state-of-the-art invention!  Ok, maybe that's a overstatement.  I understand that a "wirebrush and water" solution is not going to be popular :) Anyway, my point is that this deed is not worth any destruction of creation.  From what I hear from the rather humorous news report below (I saw it some years ago...), we are literally wiping off some virgin forest in order to make TP.  I'm glad Gods not easily offended.  Me, as a Potter, if somebody used one of my pitchers as a chamber pot, oh man. I would be lethal.



And we all know Fox news always have their facts straight! :)  okkay....  moving on...

Now, Let me ask you this one question.  Does the quality of "art work" we do in the bath room really make a tangible improvement in the quality of life? I can say for sure that I have no TP racism going on in me. By bottom are fully compatible with TP's of any color or hue it comes in (though...  it really comes only in white that I know of...). Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are all precious in MY sight. You've probably never even given one thought on this subject before reading this post, so I'm assuming I'm talking to a reasonable, easily convinsable audience. Now that you have been educated with my surely unbiased opinion, you cannot say "I've never thought of it before, really." So, I will take a risk in sounding political (AKA. Cheesy). Will you stand with me and actually start to care just a little bit when it comes to Toilet Paper? Next time in the paper products aisle, just go a couple steps to the right or left to find the not-so-advertised recycled paper. Join the fight, wipe with recycled.

P.S. I use Marcal's 100% recycled TP.  Same price as the bear butt brand, and a whole lot more peace of mind.

P.P.S.  I know I've made it my resolution for the year 2010 to write something every month and post it here..... As you can see, I've miserably failed :)  I might blog about my failiure some time else, but for now, I think I will lower my bar and permit myself NOT to be thorough. I've found out that writing is like Magic.  I have very little to write before I start writing.  Then I start writing, and 3 paragraphs later, I realized that I still haven't made my point!  ... but then, maybe I'm just long long-winded and boring.

Leonard's Question

Leonard, my dear friend from Sierra Leone came up to me and asked me a question in my dream.  The conversation progressed like below:

L: "Paul, what do you think it means to be a citizen of a country?  Like Japan, or Korea, or Sierra Leone, or Target?
P: What do you mean by "Citizen of Target!?"
L: Well like the store...  I guess I want to know what it means to be  a part of a organization...

Please forgive me for the absolutely absurd progression here with Target and all.*  Remember it was a dream.  I've once heard a friend of mine describing a dream where a bus on the street morphed into a elongated bomb with a lit fuse (the kind you see in Pac-man) complete with tires to roll down the street.  The bomb was blaring threats about the whole city blowing up (no kidding...). 
Anyway, the point is, my dream is a little more coherent than the crazy bomb scenario.  Considering that it is a dream, it made me think of stuff, which is cool.  Ok, lets go on...

Then came his actual, deeper question.

L: What do you think it means for somebody to be apart of the church?

Then I pondered in bed why I was getting asked such a question. In that half awake state, I found myself imagining how his question could be answered.

Then my thought was interrupted by another thought that arrogantly cut in line. Apparently it couldn't sit quietly sit in cue like the other well behaved ones. It exclaimed; "washing machine!" Clearly another absurd incoherent thought....   or is it?

Well, you know, being part of church really is just like being in a washing machine. The more I think about it, the more it comes into focus!  A great big washing machine with millions of pieces of clothes in it.  Not like a Japanese washing machine which can only handle a few pieces at a time. This great washing machine labeled "the church" is an ever expanding washing machine! As filthy articles of clothing get added, it magically makes room for more. This washing machine however, seems to be stuck on a never ending cycle. It is continually going through cycles of wash and rinse day after day. Do you remember those old-school washing machines that didn't require the lid to be closed in order for it to run the washing cycle? For safety reasons and for ease of use, it would only progress into the spin cycle when the lid was closed.  Its kind of like that.  After the countless hours of washes, God will peek into the washing machine and find all the murky gunk is gone. Then he'll close the lid allowing the washing machine to complete its full cycle into the final rinse and spin. He'll later clip us on the clothes line to dry (because He's a tree huggar, and I dont like the tumble dry analogy). Then we will see the prophesies of the old unfold before our eyes.

Am I taking this too far?  well, read this from the Bible: After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands." -Rev. 7:13
-or-
All who are victorious will be clothed in white. I will never erase their names from the Book of Life, but I will announce before my Father and his angels that they are mine. -Rev. 3:5

Lets get back to the wash and rinse cycle.  Have you ever washed one very badly soiled piece of clothing with other relatively clean ones?  I have.  You know, I'm a potter, and potters get oh, so very dirty after a full day of hard production work.  The red clay is especially known for permanently leaving red spots on your clothes no matter how many times you wash it. Throw one of those pieces of clothes into the wash mix, and you have a recepie for a washing machine's nightmare. All the whitie-tities now define a new sort of pink as their white.  I believe its the same in the church.  We all 'rub off' on each other. By rub off, I mean, we get into each other's business. All our stinky, moldy socks as well as our finest christmas sweaters that need their moth ball smell removed all thrown into one wash.  Some of us bring in filthy addictions like porn and alcoholism, and others bring in stale, religious, I am better than thou-ism.  All washed in the same tub of swirling purifying water.

Am I saying that by entering into that washing machine, you will take on the mess of other people? Not necessarily. Consider this: I cleaned my bathroom the other day.  There was dust everywhere, the mirror was all apecked with toothpaste and spit, the wash basin was no longer the original color... it really needed some attention to say the least. An hour later, when everything was clean, I didn't look at all the dirty rags and say "Man, these are dirty!" and walk away. Instead, I walked back into what used to be a wretched, nasty bathroom, and enjoyed its cleanliness while it lasted. See, its not about how dirty we may get in the process. Its about how clean its gonna be. What's even better about our washing machine analogy, is that the clothes don't have the ability to do much.  It sits there and enjoys the ride, creating friction.  Must I say it again?  It seems to be the same in the church. We enter into the family forgiven, but the nasty stuff is usually pretty persistent. The smell of nicotine doesn't just pick up and leave. It needs some water and friction...

Speaking of friction, did you know that it is crucial for the washing machine to have more than just a few pieces of clothing in it? There is such a thing as a optimal water to clothes ratio. If the machine is full of water but it does not contain enough clothing, the cloths don't get as clean as they could get. This is because the clothes rely on each other. Water and soap will clean, but the friction that increases as more pieces of clothing is added to the water is crucial to the cleansing effect of this marvelous invention. I personally take this idea usually to the other extreme. I will practically move my whole room into the washer. The poor washer groans hard as it tries its best to create that friction with no avail. Don't tell my room mates, but once I smelled a burning motor... Yeah, my washer is not magical like the church. It never makes room for more.

For some of you who are reading this, what I'm suggesting may sound like a disaster! God's ways can seem like that at times. Every good boy or girl should know that you are supposed to separate the whites and colors.  We all know that a red Christmas sweater shouldn't be washed together with a table cloth.  In God's washing machine though, I get the impression that it works like when I wash clothes. Not that we should overload the washer (if you remember, we can't overload it, since it magically makes room for more) but that we put everything into the same wash (Sorry mom.  I've quit separating my wash long ago, and never had a problem.). The precise reason why this works is because our goal for staying in this washer is not to retain our own dirt, nor to retain our own preferences, but to be made clean, and to be changed into what He wants us to be. Like it or not, at the end of the day when God peeks in and decides it's ready for the spin and dry cycle, there will be but one color left in that magical washer: White as Snow.

Y'all are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. That is, we are all in a common washing machine of Jesus Christ. If you're in The Washer, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.  -Mostly from Galatians 3

P.S. Thanks Leonard for approaching me in my dream and asking such a great question.  You inspired me :)

*Writer has no affiliation with Target® nor does he really ever go shopping there.  This blog was not written as an advertisement to get holy people to go there. If anything, it proves that a person can still be sane, and dream about Target. Some side effects associated with shopping at Target may include but not limited to: Death caused by traffic accidents involving speeding red shopping carts, nausea caused by licking the bar code scanner, and a tendency to jump towards red objects thinking its gonna have to be a good deal.  Target takes no responsibility for the apparent hypnotic shopping-craze effect of the Concentric Circle Logo®.