IVP - Strangely Dim

Building a Better Giraffe

Depending on your perspective, I'm either really good or really bad with kids. I can get them riled up like nobody's business--get em jumping and screaming and dancing and singing--but I can't get them to stop. I'm the crazy uncle, not the disciplinarian dad.

Usually I'm cool with that. I like to goof off, and goofiness loves company. But every once in a while I like to get serious. This week, for example, I was the master of ceremonies for our church's vacation Bible school: Serengeti Trek (where kids are wild about God!). I've had five straight days of kids screaming at me, climbing on me, dancing with me and running past me. Good times.

The first night I got a bit carried away and tried to pick up a delicately assembled cardboard giraffe. It promptly fell apart, causing no end of trauma to my screaming minions. I made a joke of it and moved on. Good times.

Every subsequent night I destroyed the same giraffe, again and again, like some torturous ritual. You'd think that Presbyterians hate giraffes for all the carnage I practiced. But the kids got appropriately desensitized, and their concern for the giraffe turned into sick, twisted laughter. Good times.

The theme of our last night was "Work for God," and I decided that I could illustrate what it meant to participate in God's redemptive work by repairing the giraffe. Because God loves me, and because God has made right what I made wrong, I can now work with God to continue to fix what's been broken. I can restore the giraffe to life and health. We can fix broken relationships and help our friends and loved ones to give their troubles to God and be healed. Brilliant, right?

So I shared my little metaphor in front of a crowd of fidgety kids, casting a vision of working for God while fixing the giraffe right in front of them. By the time I finished, they were looking directly at a better giraffe, and I led them in prayer. Good times.

As soon as I finished my benediction and sent everybody off for donuts, a kid ran up to me and shouted, "Time to kill the giraffe again!"

I've built a better giraffe and created a congregation of giraffe killers. God help us all.

***

It's official! I'll be serving as chaplain of the Wizard World: Chicago comic book convention from August 4 through August 8. Should be fun; I'll be giving a homily and everything. God help us all.

Keep an eye or an ear out for my reports on the convention at Pop Matters.com, Infuze Magazine and Bill Hogg's radio program in Seattle, Washington.

Name That Index!

All right, time to play the nation's least popular summer time activity:

Name That Index!!!

The following entry is from the index to a forthcoming book from InterVarsity Press. Click HERE to review our list of forthcoming titles, then post your guess to Strangely Dim. The winner gets nothing--which may be part of the reason this game is so unpopular.

And the entry is . . . "Old School Presbyterians, America"

And the forthcoming book is . . . ?

Godspeed.

Consumerism Will Eat Itself

by David A. Zimmerman

I’ve seen a lot of things, but until recently I’d never seen a giant get waylaid by a dwarf. That’s just what happened in my local Walgreens parking lot not too long ago.

OK, just to clarify: when I say “local Walgreens,” I mean one of the three Walgreenses within a short bike ride of my house. And when I say “a short bike ride,” I by no means am saying that I actually ride my bike there. I have a bike but only recently purchased a bike lock, which I have used as my chief excuse for driving all over Lombard and surrounding territories when I could just as easily walk.

I also didn’t see an actual giant or an actual dwarf. Walgreens wasn’t offering a drive-in showing of The Lord of the Rings. Actually I was watching a massive SUV wrestle with, and lose to, a mini-shopping cart.

It started out innocently enough: the driver hiked the long climb from the ground to the driver’s seat of his suburban tank, and in the interest of efficiency pulled forward rather than back out of his parking space. Trouble is, parked immediately in front of his truck was a cute little shopping cart—one of those junior models that fit in the narrow aisles of your local Walgreenses. As the SUV made contact, the cart toppled, as might have been expected. But instead of being crushed (as might have been expected) the cart attached itself to the ramming bars on the front of the SUV and refused to let go.

The driver tried to break free by driving back and forth for a little bit, but eventually he had to admit temporary defeat. He put the truck in park and rappelled down to the parking lot and hiked around to the front bumper, where he and I assessed the situation.

Proposed solution 1: Driver lifts the truck, I pull the cart out from underneath.

This solution failed miserably. The driver couldn’t lift the truck high enough, and the cart had this little piece that had lodged itself deep within the hollowed out ramming bar.

Proposed solution 2: Driver wiggles the cart until it breaks free from the truck.

This solution likewise failed miserably. We couldn’t get enough leverage on the cart to wriggle it loose; the piece that was lodged in the ramming bar was locking the cart in place.

Proposed solution 3: Driver lifts the truck, I pull the cart out from underneath.

This solution was hauntingly reminiscent of proposed solution 1, with essentially the same outcome.

By this time my groceries were starting to spoil and I was getting bored. I also got the sneaking suspicion that the driver was blaming me for my lack of ingenuity while he was hoisting the car two centimeters above its resting position. Fortunately for our relationship, however, two other guys noticed our dilemma and came over to try out

Proposed solution 4: Driver plus two others lift the truck, I pull the cart out from underneath.

It worked! The cart suffered no apparent damage, but the ramming bar—which had only done what it was designed to do—was scratched up quite a bit. We all parted ways feeling quite macho and ready to get on with our lives, but I’ve since been trying to figure out how to justify posting this story on Strangely Dim. I’ll venture a moral to the story, but feel free to post your own.

Proposed moral 1: Bigger isn’t necessarily better.

The shopping cart—with no engine, no steel reinforcements, no ramming bars—handed the big bad SUV its cowboy hat. The driver drove off with his tail lights between his legs.

Proposed moral 2: Consumerism will eat itself.

Combining a lust for the biggest, baddest car on the road with a ubiquitous corporate selling machine that caters to a lust for convenience leads to the sort of outcome we might expect by combining matter with anti-matter, if you are geeky enough to follow my meaning.

Proposed moral 3: “In the abundance of counsel there is wisdom”

or

“Many hands make light work”

or whatever proverb you’d like to apply.

Being naturally geeky myself, I’m partial to proposed moral 2.

***

Next week I'm the MC and songleader for our church's Vacation Bible School. I'm nervous--kids are a tough crowd for me. But we'll have a strong police presence, I'm sure.

The week after that is the Wizard World Chicago Comic Book Convention. I get to go and sit at a booth and (I hope) serve as chaplain for the event. Can't wait to take someone's confession . . .

Go in peace.

Dave

Rocky Mountain High

by David A. Zimmerman

I’ve heard of mountaintop experiences for years now, but I think I finally get what people are talking about.

“Mountaintop experiences” in religious jargon refers to the sense of awe that we experience when we’re away from our normal context and being exposed to challenging concepts about God and his call on our lives. Or something like that. Whatever they are, they’re fundamentally different from our ordinary experience.

My most recent mountaintop experience was in Vail, Colorado, at the national gathering of an organization called the Vine. I interacted with lots of really smart, really deep people interested in “building the City of God” or, if that’s too churchy for you, “infusing our contemporary context with Jesus’ vision for community life.” Either way, I found myself breathless after nearly every conversation, and near-delirious after every session of communal worship.

In the interest of intellectual honesty and full disclosure, however, I should mention that I also found myself breathless after climbing a flight of stairs or even simply walking from the coffee bar to the dinner table. And I found myself near-delirious after lifting my suitcase from the floor to the bed.

This is Vail, people—I was uphill from Denver, “the mile-high city.” And while that may sound insignificant to people who live among hills, for me this was more than a mile higher than I’ve been for an extended period of time ever in my life. I’m from Illinois, and before that from Iowa, both of which are known for their flatness. The air in Vail is quite a bit thinner than the air in Chicago, and so I was oxygen-deprived for most of the duration of the conference.

Along with my breathless delirium, I was also quite often shocked by the things I was hearing from the podium or the panel. But more often than that I was shocked by the elevator button or the metal doorframe or even my keycard as I slid it into the lock on my hotel room. The air is so dry in Vail this time of year that it’s effectively ready to zap you at a moment’s notice.

So what’s a person to think when they’re at a religious gathering and constantly breathless, delirious and charged with electricity? I’m reminded of the swoon, an experience associated with the Second Great Awakening of the early 1800s. I wrote a song about it once. People would hear sermons and faint—and this wasn’t the falling-asleep kind of swooning that goes on in our own day. Some liken the phenomenon to the bewildering experiences of early Christians in the biblical book of Acts; some attribute the swoon to some kind of social psychology. I’m willing to imagine it a bit of both and leave it at that.

In any event, I’m cynical and perhaps humble enough to be skeptical of the mountaintop experience, particularly now that I’m safely back in the eastern suburbs of the Great Plains. Breathlessness and delirium and shock certainly have their place in the life of faith, but day in and day out I’m going to have to walk by faith in plain old Illinois, which, even though it’s flat, carries its own charge with it.

Twenty-First Century Mullett

I woke up this morning wondering if the Caesar cut will one day be counted as the twenty-first century equivalent of the mullet. I'm very concerned about this; I've been wearing a Caesar cut for more than a decade now, and really, how long can a hairdo inspired by George Clooney continue to satisfy the American public?

Trying Something Out

I've never tried to upload a file before, but today's the day. I tried to post a picture of me, my brother and my sister when we were wee, but the file was too darn big. So you'll have to settle for more shameless self-promotion. Speaking of self-promotion, the photo I wanted to upload is included in the book. Buy a farm, get all three--or something like that.

Fun with Doctrinal Statements

by David A. Zimmerman

It’s the beginning of InterVarsity’s fiscal year, which means it’s time once again for me to annually reaffirm InterVarsity’s doctrinal basis. I’m happy to do so, but as my saintly mommy always says, read it before you sign it. (Actually, I’m pretty sure she never said that, but she’d sign it if she read it.)

As I reread the statement, I realized that I hardly ever read anything like it anymore. So I thought it would be an interesting experiment to write something common, ordinary—like our instructions for people who feed our cats while we're away—in the style of a doctrinal statement. Here goes . . .

Ahem.

The Zimmerman Declaration Regarding Care of Cats

We believe in the regular and persistent nourishment of cats who are in our care—that even in our absence they require and deserve, as creations of the Creator God, food and drink.

In keeping with this belief, we keep a stock of both dry and moist food for our cats, which may be found under the sink in our kitchen.

We acknowledge that our cats, who have not been blessed with opposable thumbs, are at the mercy of human beings to negotiate the packages that contain their food.

We therefore expect that whoever pledges to care for our cats in our absence will regularly prepare and serve both moist and dry cat food to our cats on our behalf.

We likewise keep a dish filled with water easily accessible for our cats, and we anticipate that our surrogate will replenish the water as needed from the pitcher in our refrigerator.

We also strive to keep the lid to our toilet down, in order to discourage our cats from drinking water that we hold to be unhealthy, and we expect similar stewardship of the toilet water while we are away.

We believe that the air quality of our home will be compromised by the neglect, over time, of our cats’ litter box.

We further believe that the contents of our cats’ litter box should not be flushed down the toilet, but instead should be bagged and discarded with the rest of our trash on a regular basis.

In keeping with this belief, we maintain a ready supply of bags for use in discarding the contents of the litter box in the hope that our cat’s steward will regularly dispense with said contents.

We have come to accept that our cats will hide under the bed when strangers enter our home; therefore we expect that our surrogate will rarely (indeed, perhaps never) see our cats while we are away.

And while we mourn, on behalf of this faithful friend, the apparent absence of our cats during the tenure of stewardship, we trust in our cats’ prevailing presence, though hidden.

And we wait in joyful hope for our return home and our blessed reunion with our cats, kept safe in our absence.

With Gratitude,
The Zimmermans

Karen Sloan, an up-and-coming (you might say “emerging”) minister I met at a conference, offered this postmodern-esque critique of my doctrine of cat care:

Pet parents in the emerging culture may look back on our declarations (systematic instructions, etc.) as we look back on medieval litter boxes: possessing a real beauty that should be preserved, but now largely vacant, not inhabited or used much anymore, more tourist attraction than holy place. . . . If pet parenting doesn’t bear fruit in a way or rhythm or pattern of life that yields well cared for cats in real measure, they aren’t interested.

Which just goes to show, you can make fun of virtually anything.

***

I can't let pass without comment the two particularly weird advertisements I've seen recently. One is a TV commercial from Mitchum, with all the markings of a beer or hard liquor ad, except that it's selling deodorant: "If you've ever WAITED TILL THE COMMERCIAL . . . [cue hard rock music] . . . to CHANGE A DIAPER . . . then you're a MITCHUM MAN." Even weirder, I think, is the full page sexy ad for Rohto V redness relief eye drops, with the blurred images and the hip font and color changes: "are you ready for the Rohto V experience?" Brought to you, incidentally, by The Mentholatum Co., Inc.

God Bless the Fantastic Four

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: God bless Batman. The film is doing well at the box office and afforded me yet another article opportunity; click here to check out "Everything Silly Is Serious Again."

But one thing I haven't said before is "God bless the Fantastic Four." I'm saying it now though, because it hasn't even opened yet and has already opened the door for me to write an article for Christianity Today online; click here to read "One Fantastic Family."

It's been a nice summer. I got a giant Batman for my birthday, and I continue to meet really nice, really interesting people simply as a consequence of writing about comic books. To quote George Gershwin: "Nice work if you can get it."

The Cedar Journals, Final Entry

I spent a week recently at Cedar Campus, a camping facility associated with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. I was serving as staff for “Encountering God,” a study track for college students. I drove there alone, and I drove home alone, but in between I ate, played and bunked with a bunch of people I’d never met. Being a neurotically social person, I found my transition into camp life difficult, and I caught myself journaling quite a lot. The journal is presented here, in chronological installments, for your own amusement.

Last one, I promise.

Wednesday, May 18
The worst of my anxiety seems to have passed. I’ve learned and remembered the names of the people in my cabin and my small group. I’ve survived the first of my two talks. I’ve gotten some sleep. I’ve read and written myself to the point that I have little left to explore inward.

And yet I still continue to meet new people—to share table with students and staff whose faces are completely unfamiliar to me. That means a reintroduction, over and over again.

My name’s Dave . . . Nice to meet you . . . I’m not with a school . . . I’m with InterVarsity Press . . . an editor . . . I’m on the "Encountering God" track . . .

There are a lot of people here, and they’re for the most part surprisingly willing to share themselves. In that sense they’re a lot like satellite television. I’m overwhelmed by the range of opportunities before me to meet new people, make new friends and witness God’s work on all sorts of college campuses.

But there’s only so many people I can truly get to know here, and in that sense my small group is a lot like TiVo. I set aside time to settle down with them, getting to know deeply whom otherwise I would have only scratched the surface of.

I guess I miss my TV.

Thursday, May 19
Still Water
When the sun comes out
And the wind stops blowing,
The waters surrounding me come to their rest.

As they rest, so do I.
I soak sun and look past waves and currents
To scan the horizon—
My future wide open.
My sky my only limit.

And yet . . .

There are still these waters.
And still or not, these waters must be crossed
Before I reach my horizon.

And who knows what future they bring me.
And who knows how long my strength will hold out.

But for now the water is still
And I am at rest.

Friday, May 20
The Bridge
There is a bridge
in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
It spans the meeting point of two great lakes
And so it goes on and on and on.

We pay for the privilege of crossing that bridge
when we come to it.
Some believe it leads to Shangri-La
Bali Hai
Utopia
Paradise
Mackinac

But I know it leads to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula—
a place no more majestic than the land to its south
a place no more protected from the sins and sons of the earth.

But it does have its bridge,
which goes on and on and on—
far beyond you’d think a bridge could safely go.
Were it not for this bridge
We’d have no promise
of safely reaching our destination
of coming to Paradise
of coming home.

***

If you live in or near McHenry, Illinois, stop by the Borders Book Store there Saturday, July 9, at 2:00. I'll be signing books and would love some company. That's the day after The Fantastic Four opens in theaters across the country, and while I've been skeptical about the film, I must confess I'm now getting giddy.