Thank God I Listened to My Wife Last Night

It's 9:35 on Monday night, and tomorrow morning, I'm supposed to publish my next post on Spiritual Klutz.  It's already finished - a witty, sarcastic piece about a peculiar experience my wife and I recently had with a group of Christians we met for the first time.

About ten minutes ago, I proudly said to my wife, "Let me read the first paragraph to you."

She listened, paused, and said, "I don't think you should post that."

"You think I should delete the whole thing?" I asked, incredulous.

"Yep."

"You haven't even read the rest," I said.

Review: Blue Like Jazz (The Movie)

I was a little afraid when I went to a screening of Blue Like Jazz, the new movie based on the Christian bestseller of the same name.  I've seen my share of Christian-themed movies before, and a lot of them feel like poorly-edited Lifetime movies starring folks from the local dinner theater.  Moreover, unlike real life, nobody curses - not even cops or drug dealers - sexuality doesn't exist, and all the main characters get saved or rededicate their lives to Jesus in the end.

Blue Like Jazz breaks that mold in many ways.

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The movie is very loosely based on author Don Miller's search for God at Reed College, a private liberal arts school in Portland.  Young Don (Marshall Allman, True Blood) is the film's protagonist, who provides just enough narration to give Miller's mantra as the framework: your life is a story, and the arc of that story matters to God.

The conflict begins when Don discovers rank hypocrisy in his small-town, Southern Baptist church.  In protest, he peels out in the church parking lot, storming off to Portland and Reed College.  And thus begins a splashy, colorful, MTVed rewrite of the book, marked by a wise-cracking script that colors far outside the lines of your average Christian movie.

An Open Letter to My Wife

Four years ago, you came down the aisle to meet me with a calm, glowing, otherworldly confidence.  And although I didn't know what I was getting into, I knew it was good - very good.

I was right.

I know it's a little embarrassing for me to publicly thank you for the ways you've been an excellent wife, but it's kind of biblical.  Recall that Proverbs 31:31 says of a virtuous wife, "Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate."

Since city gates have fallen out of fashion in the last few centuries, I figured the next best place for your works to bring you praise is in my writing.  So please bear with me - these are the words of a man who is still very much smitten by you.

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The day of our wedding, I thought you were getting a near-perfect man - then we got home from the honeymoon.  I discovered that in addition to my loving side, there was a self-centered, insecure ninth-grader lurking within.  That side of me was easier to hide before sharing space with a woman whose opinion meant so much to me.