narrative or absolute truth?

I've been thinking lately about how to read the Bible. Some people read the Bible dogmatically and seem to just be looking for ammunition so they can support their own arguments. The converse option seems to be to look at it as a grand narrative, which is great I think. But then I wonder if that can be harmful as well. If the Bible is simply a narrative or a good story (a true story, but a story nonetheless) then it seems robbed of its power. When we come across something we disagree with or something that disagrees with my worldview then I can simply dismiss it. After all, it's only a story written by men with their own preconceived opinions. So I guess I'm just writing this out to see if there can be a balance; a way to read the Bible and see the grand narrative, but also see it as divinely inspired and worthy of my obedience even if it calls me to different conclusions then those of the world.
These are just some thoughts I'm having and they may not make much sense. What are your thoughts on this subject?

rest in peace...

Author Norman Mailer died at 84.

Don't worry I'm not making a habit of posting only when someone famous dies. This one really broke my heart though. I guess to me Norman Mailer represents the last of a great generation of writers. I know there are still all kinds of great writers, but I think the 20th Century was really the last century in which writers could have such a great impact. Looking at our generation I find it difficult to think any writer will really affect the average American for the sheer fact that everyone thinks he or she can be a writer. So here's to you Norman Mailer and all the wonderful books you wrote, and all that you represent!

fare thee well...

Robert Goulet died today.

the earth is not a cold dead place...

So we're at about two years and counting here in Lawrence. It feels like longer. These two years have amazing/depressing/uplifting/draining/joyful/sad and almost every other feeling in between. We moved here with a couple of goals in mind. We wanted to finish school and I wanted to pursue music with my band, the setbacks. I'm still in school knocking off credits here and there going part-time. The band however has kind of fallen apart. Our bass player left to pursue work doing music production in Arizona and recently our guitar player left for an undecided amount of time.
This summer was hard emotionally. I won't go into details but it left me feeling drained. Things are getting better now and I'm ready to pursue music again in a way I wasn't able to when we first moved here, but now it's down to just John and I. We're playing stuff as a two piece and talking about putting a full band together, but it feels strange and I think I just have too much on my plate right now with work, school, church, and trying to maintain a social life.
I hate using this blog as a forum for my complaints, but I needed to write this down, and I needed to complain just so I could ask any of you who read this to pray for me. Pray for renewal and strength for me.

more secondhand thoughts...

"I think relevance is a crock. I don't think people care a whole lot about what kind of music you have or how you shape the service. They want a place where God is taken seriously, where they're taken seriously, where there is no manipulation of their emotions or their consumer needs."

--Eugene Peterson, Christianity Today

secondhand thoughts for this day...

"When we read more books, look at more pictures, listen to more music, than we can possibly absorb the result of such gluttony is not a cultured mind but a consuming one; what it reads, looks at, listens to, is immediately forgotten, leaving no more traces behind it than yesterday's newspaper."

--W.H. Auden, Secondary Worlds

who is my neigbor?

Josh's post got me to thinking about a lot of things, like Cornerstone and how amazing it was, but something really struck me about it, "I have been spending a lot of time here...and it’s been a lot of fun, and become kind of a new community that I’ve gotten pulled into." It got me to thinking about the communities I've been "pulled into." The one that comes to mind most easily is my community at the coffee shop where I work. It made me think about community and the question of "who is my neighbor?" I ask that question of myself because I see these same people everyday, some of them like clockwork; they show up at exactly the same time everyday and order the exact same thing. I guess I think about that because I realize how little regard I have for my neighbors, these people I see everyday. I learn their names, but only to enter them into our Coffee Club and I know their drinks but only because I'm hear everyday and my brain gets used to the repetition. I talk to some people, but not usually by choice, only because they talk to me first, and most of the time I'm only thinking of a way out of the conversation or daydreaming. I'm at my worst with homeless people (I wish it wasn't this way), I sympathize for them, but at the same time I don't want to do anything for them or enter into their pain. I keep my relationships with people at a distance, I don't know what I'm afraid of, and I really wish I knew better how to love. Jesus told the Good Samaritan parable after the teacher of the law asked him who his neighbor was. He asked this question because he wanted to know what his required of him so he could do the least and still get to heaven. I pray this isn't my attitude. Lord, teach me to love my neighbor.