Tuesday, 15 December 2009

  • Christmas with Charlie Brown

     

    I dreamed I spent Christmas with Charlie Brown

    A little skating down on the pond

    Catching some December snowflakes

    I guess a little hope will get us all along...

     

    I dreamed I spent Christmas with Charlie Brown

    I didn't even get one card all season

    I wasted all my money on psychiatric help

    But I think a little peace is all I really needed...

     

    Oh, what's a boy to do

    When Christmas is getting us down?

    We're gonna figure out what it's all about,

    Me and Charlie Brown

     

    I dreamed I spent Christmas with Charlie Brown

    I saw the super-colossal light displays

    1st prize, commercialized dog houses make me believe

    A little faith would go a long, long way...

     

    I dreamed I spent Christmas with Charlie Brown

    The Christmas pageant was doomed from the start

    Everyone was singing and dancing and howling

    But I just couldn't find the heart...

     

    Oh, what's a boy to do

    When Christmas is getting us down?

    We're gonna figure out what it's all about,

    Me and Charlie Brown

     

    Isn't there anyone

    I said isn't there anyone

    Isn't there anyone who knows

    What Christmas is all about?

     

    I dreamed I spent Christmas with Charlie Brown

    I even helped him choose that poor, little tree

    It never would've satisfied the Christmas Queen

    But I've learned a little love is all it really needed...

     

    Oh, what's a boy to do

    When Christmas is getting us down?

    We're gonna figure out what it's all about,

    Me and Charlie Brown

     

    Me and Charlie Brown

    Me and Charlie Brown

     

    --kory // www.korywilcox.com

    Currently
    A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Original Sound Track Recording Of The CBS Television Special
    By Vince Guaraldi Trio
    see related

Wednesday, 18 November 2009

  • Personal Property Tax!

    Dear Greene County Collector of Revenue,

    WOW!  This car is worth way more than my last car.  Oops!  Will you please accept this $30 Barnes & Noble Gift Card as payment for my personal property taxes?  They have a great selection of reading materials, and if you sign up for their Barnes & Noble MasterCard, I'm pretty sure you can get a few coupons and some cash back, plus if you become a Preferred Member, you get substantial discounts, AND you can find some pretty good deals if you sign up for their E-Mail marketing campaign.

    I'm thinking, if you jump through all the hoops, then this Barnes & Noble Gift Card, in theory, is probably worth at LEAST $200.

    I am also enclosing a picture of a starving child that WorldVision sent me.  I already sponsor a child through another charitable organization, so I thought you might be interested.  But if you don't want to feel the weight of the world tugging at your heartstrings, I suggest not looking at the picture.  If you already have looked but didn't want to, I sincerely apologize.

    Your buddy,
    Kory

    P.S. please send my Barnes & Noble Gift Card back to me if you find it to be insufficient payment.  Sarah Palin's new book, Going Rogue, is out and I REALLY want to read it, because sometimes I feel like I'M the rogue. I'm like a secret agent fighting socialism and every moral atrocity. I want to hear from someone who has genuine experience having gone completely rogue.

    P.P.S. even if you don't return my gift card, you can bet your last pence that I will check out Going Rogue from the Greene County PUBLIC Library. You can't hold me down. And don't bother coming to look for me if you're trying to collect; I'll probably be out roguing (it's totally a word.  I looked it up in the American Heritage Dictionary because it's a little less socialist (a.k.a. more American) than the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.).
     
    P.P.P.S. if you don't believe me about 'roguing' and you want to look it up for yourself but you don't happen to have a dictionary, I'm pretty sure Barnes & Noble has some you could probably pick up on the cheap-cheap while all the holiday sales are going on. Here's a tip: check the discount books rack first and see if you can get last year's edition!  Also, I almost forgot, if you send back my Barnes & Noble Gift Card, please don't send back the picture from WorldVision.  I really don't want to see it again.  Thanks!
     
    Currently
    The Resistance
    By Muse
    see related

Wednesday, 21 October 2009

  • Stuck

    I'm so happy.  I'm so happy to be alive, so amazed and thankful beyond capacity of creative expression for everything I have ever been given and for being born in such a wildly advanced age of interpersonal connectivity.  My family is a prudent, successful business family, and I have always wanted for nothing.  I often count on having nothing, but I always seem to end up with an overabundance... often too much.  It's alluring in every way.  I can't even make people stop buying me things, even if I ask them to.  So, instead I take the middle road and make sure they at least know what new possessions probably won't go to waste.
     
    I once got one of several scholarships for volunteering in a learning capacity at a convention in San Antonio. I was required as part of a class to fill out the application, and so when I did, I put down something to the effect of I absolutely do not need this in any way.  Please find someone else who will benefit from this scholarship.  There's no question that I would put the money to good use; however, I don't need it and will come to the convention either way.  I can completely afford every aspect of this trip.  Please do not give me this scholarship.  I'll give you two guesses as to who one of the "lucky" recipients of the scholarship was, and the first guess doesn't count.  I suppose I wasn't direct enough.  Maybe I should have added something like, "if you give this money to me I will spend it ALL on booze.  Every last penny."
     
    Or, I wonder if they would have given the scholarship to me if I would have written "if you give me this money, I will register several hungry, homeless persons for the convention with it so that they can all come in and enjoy some free food."  It was partly hosted by the National Association of Concessionaires, after all.  While I was there, I enjoyed loads of free bratwursts and theatre candy, along with box-seat delicacies, like bacon-wrapped quail.  Let me tell you, these guys know how to put on an industry show.
     
    A part of me feels OK knowing that these are the only likenesses of regret I tend to have.  But sometimes, despite all of this, or perhaps precisely because of all of this, I just feel stuck.
     
    Elizabeth and I went to an anniversary celebration of the Council of Churches of the Ozarks this past Sunday.  We went mainly to encourage and corral our group of Campbell kids who were adding their voices to the 200-voice, multi-church children's choir.  We ended up staying to hear the main speaker, Shane Claiborne, whom I had never really heard of before Sunday.  Pastor Andy stayed as well, toting a copy of Shane's book The Irresistible Revolution, anxiously waiting until after the occasion so Shane could sign it.  Apparently, Andy had heard of Shane before; in fact, he admitted to us that he has a "church crush" on him.  So, while everyone else was warming us up to the main event, I borrowed the book and began to read.
     
    By the time Shane got up to speak, I had hammered through most of the book's introduction.  Subsequently, I was already in dire fear that his message would fall onto too many deaf ears for him to even be here in the Ozarks, where we have been known to turn people away from churches on Sunday mornings (when the most able and willing Christians should be gathered) simply because they are asking for stuff.  I imagine he knows this before taking any speaking engagements.  It's always for the few, right?  It was good.  I'm pretty sure those with ears to hear will be impacted by his message.  But it was short, confined.  So I decided to borrow Andy's freshly signed book and continue listening.
     
    I feel like I could have written the first 50 pages of this book.  I relate so much to the guy, it's downright eerie.  In one section, he talks about how many times he's been born again.  He goes on to speak quite frankly of his and his friends' conceptions of emotionally charged church, youth group velcro walls, the empire of Christian paraphernalia, and high-dollar church building projects.  I always hear pastors talking about reaching the "unchurched."  But I never hear ANYONE talking about reaching the "overchurched."  Except this guy.  He's one of the first people I've ever heard use the expression, and it embodies and summarizes an ache that I've had in my heart for several years now.
     
    Shane's path and my path diverge after those first 50 pages, which have made the next few hundred all the more haunting.  Where I once reneged on my lofty vision of relying on God's people for care and essentially 'circuit riding' with my car and guitar, he laid out a lofty vision to find some real Christians somewhere and just went ahead and did that and ended up living with Mother Teresa for a while (he calls her Momma T).  And my parents thought I was crazy.
     
    Again, I have no regrets about the journey I'm on, but I'm not complacent either.  At some point, Elizabeth and I will be through with any obligations to honor this and that.  I can only hope that when that time comes, with God's help, we will find a way together to truthfully and passionately serve just one master.  People like Shane Claiborne encourage me in this hope.  He writes from a position that many would describe as 'arrival,' but that the wise will understand as 'genesis.'  He's not much older than I am, but he has simply unstuck himself.
     
    On page 219 of The Irresistible Revolution, brother Shane writes, "Rather than do what makes sense to us and ask God's blessing, we'd do better to surround ourselves with those whom God promises to bless, and then we need not ask God's blessing.  It's just what God does."  Isn't that the truth.  Some of my other favorite authors say it in different but equally poignant ways.  In his book Don't Waste Your Life, John Piper writes, "We are wired to risk for the wrong reasons. Without Christ, we are all legalists or lechers at heart-wanting to do our own thing, or wanting to do God's thing in our way to prove our own ability. Since we are wired this way, we need protection. God has given us another way to pursue risk."  Likewise, in the Tao Te Ching, chapter 78, it is written, "The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid. Everyone knows this is true, but few can put it into practice."
     
    I will be the first to admit that I would often much rather rely on our powerful systems, governments, and economies than to rely on God.  They're all so real and close to us and make for much better arguments.  Our systems make Jesus' way in theory look foolish and weak.  Yet, Jesus' way in practice consistently shames our systems and even obfuscates the most charitable and outwardly-focused of churches.  If only we would pay attention!
     
    For those who feel stuck, there really is freedom in Jesus' way.  At least that's what this book has been reminding me.  As I quipped in a Facebook status update recently, I'm encouraged by the reality that most of the people I wish to emulate didn't really start making visible impacts (or rather, their impacts did not really show up on the radar) until they were at least in their 30s.  Add Shane Claiborne to the list. 
     
    My journey into a life of ministry is firmament.  I am so excited to be fully embracing a Methodist identity at such a time, but just so we're clear, I'm really in it for unifying transformations - the kind I seem to only read about - the kind of system-shattering changes that tear down the walls we've erected in the place of what should be a very large banquet table.  Because, like brother Shane, "I'm convinced that God did not mess up and make too many people and not enough stuff."
     
    I'm not even done with it yet, and I already dare you to read this book.  I dare you.
     
    --kory  //  www.korywilcox.com
    Currently
    The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
    By Shane Claiborne
    see related
  • Visit korywilcox's Revelife Site
    • Name: Kory
    • Country: United States
    • State: Missouri
    • Metro: Springfield
    • Gender: Male
    • Member Since: 9/13/2004
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