Rant of the Exiles

While we stayed at my parent’s house (they were gone on vacation), a contractor friend from church and his team completely redid our kitchen/family room in 12 days. It was a frenzied process but they did a fabulous job. Our contractor is overseas-born Chinese and so are all the vendors he works with. The Chinese approach to remodeling has an interesting value premise – to maximize broad appeal at minimal cost. That means a kitchen product should look expensive but be extremely cheap to purchase. The other aspect to status appeal is that the product should be popular - the more common the look, the greater the appeal. Chinese people don’t like being different. For example, the Chinese cabinet store has only five different cabinet styles/colors. We were encouraged to upgrade to cherry-style because guests will notice how classy and costly they look. In response to a color choice, our friend responded, “White is hard to clean. Only Americans who don’t cook pick that”. That’s the las...

I am constantly in awe of how adoption is intricately woven through the gospel. My buddy Travis Marsh spoke about adoption at my church this past Sunday. His family represents three generations of adoption. The gospel is woven into the fabric of his story. He talked about the brokenness inherent in adoption. Without pain and suffering, adoption would not exist. Adoption is necessary because families break - a single mom is unable to care for her baby, birth parents die or run away, or any of a myriad of circumstances can create a need for a new family. In the gospel, we're all from a broken family. The family of Adam is screwed-up. This past week, I realized that I like to lead when I feel competent and like to follow when I feel insecure. I vacillate between those two extremes depending on my mood, which can shift by the hour. My leadership mindset is weak and self-centered. I am dysfunctional and I come from a dysfunctional family. Adoption is the process of leaving one family an...