Rick Mckinley, who is the Lead Pastor at Imago Dei Community, wrote a book titled This Beautiful Mess: Practicing the Presence of the Kingdom of God. This book seemed to me to almost be the sequel to Mike Yaconelli’s book Messy Spirituality. And reading those two books back to back really only seemed to enhance that thought with me.

Where Mike Yaconelli’s book talks about how our spirituality is messy and that is okay, Rick Mckinley’s book talks about how we can take our messy spirituality and enhance the mess we find ourselves in here on planet earth and bring some beauty to it all. Mike talks about fixing ourselves and Rick talks about fixing the world around us.

There are so many points that Rick makes that I could point out, but I will just point to one part that I really liked in Chapter 6 “Already, Not Yet”. Rick talks about how the Jesus says that the Kingdom is already here and also not yet here, and how there is a tension that exists in that. And Rick shares a story about when his son came down with a mysterious illness and had to be hospitalized and through that Rick learned a lot about what that tension means and you will have to read that book to get it, but I want to share one part of the story about his son being in the hospital that stuck out to me….

During those weeks, some well-meaning people gave us the right answers. “God knows what’s happening,” they said. Or, “Josh will be fine because we’re praying.” The right answers seem right to say, of course, and seem right when you hear them, but they don’t help much. To be honest, the right answers began to make us angry. Somehow Christians have a hard time saying things like, “I don’t know why the hell this is happening or how this will end. You guys must be scared to death.” I guess we all need to be able to explain life down to every last detail even when the answers don’t mean anything to us. We just can’t stand the questions. But in the kingdom of God, I have come to believe, it is all right not to have all the answers, and I think Jesus likes it even more when we don’t make up ones that are safe and but hollow.

A big heart “AMEN!!!” on that one.

So if you are looking for ways that you can practice the presence of the kingdom of God where you are at, I recommend this book to you. It is a very easy read and filled with good practical advice.

I have no idea why I took so long to read Messy Spirituality by Mike Yaconelli, but I am glad that I finally did. This book was amazing and has seriously changed my life! I loved the part on the back cover where Mike says….

“I Guess I’m Not a Very Good Christian . . .”

Do you feel like:
I don’t pray enough
I don’t read my Bible enough
I don’t share my faith enough
I don’t love God enough
I’m not committed enough
I’m not spiritual enough

Because that is how I often feel as well. Mike’s book is raw and real. He pulls no punches and tells it like it is, which is what I like in a person. I never really knew much of him unfortunately until after his death, but I can only pray that I can live my life with half the passion that he had.

Much like Jesus, Mike does not care about what you are or do but is more concerned with where your heart is. And mike teaches us that we need to look beyond the superficial things and look at our own heart and the hearts of others and not just judge them based on what we see. Such a simple thing, but it is something that most Christ followers do not get, I know that I do not always.

If you find yourself in the category of not always feeling like you are a very good Christian, I encourage you to read this book. Mike will help you realize that your spirituality, no matter how messy it is (and I hope it is messy), is real and genuine and that Jesus meets you just where you are at.

I heard a podcast from Mars Hill Bible Church where they had a guest speaker named J. Matthew Sleeth and he was a doctor who authored a book titled, “Serve God, Save the Planet”, share during their “God is Green” teaching series. Matthew had encountered so many people that were dealing with cancer and other things that he started doing research and found that there were many things that pointed toward environmental issues that was causing so many of the cancer causes in our country that he decided that the solution was not to search for the cure for cancer, but to search for ways to prevent it. In other words he believed the old adage that an ounce of prevention is more important than a pound of cure.

Matthew’s book is very challenging and really “out there”. He has some fairly extreme stances that he has taken, but he does acknowledge that it is his own families personal conviction and so not everyone will necessarily do the same things. But it does give you some good food for thought on things that you can do to reduce the amount of energy that you use and he even has a little worksheet in the book where you can see how much you currently use so you can figure out how you can reduce it.

He also talks about the food that eat and how those things impact the environment and also even our health. It is amazing to think that the best tuna for sushi is caught of the shores of New York and then it is sent to Japan where it is sold to a restaurant in New York City, so then it is shipped back. How good is that? That is insane when you think about it.

While the book is “out there” it is also very challenging and Christians should read it with an open mind and think about how it is that we can begin to take better care for all life on earth. And also for the life of our earth, so our kids have a cleaner better place to live in.

I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Monday morning at 1:00a and I must say that J. K. Rowling ended the series perfectly. I can not think of any other way to end the series and to leave the fans satisfied with how it ended.

My favorite book has always been Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but this one may supplant that one. Kimmy and I went to the midnight release party at Borders to get our books. It was fun! Then we spent the next day reading it while our kids were at the air show with my parents.

And now for the….

***SPOILERS***

My favorite part had to be in the epilogue when Harry said to Albus Severus that he was named after two of the greatest headmasters at Hogwarts, and that one of them was a Slytherin and one of the bravest men he knew. I cried. I know it was a fairly meaningless scene, but to me it was the perfect way to end that. I always felt that Snape was good.

As far as Harry being a horcrux, that was something that only a few HP fans suggested and most disputed it. But I had a feeling that that was the case. I am looking forward to listening to the next Pottercast, because John Noe (one of the co-hosts) took beatings over his theory on that. And his theory that Voldemort and Harry shared the same blood. He is going to punish Sue and Melissa for teasing him about that at least I hope he does!

I had a feeling that Harry would have to sacrifice himself to have to fully eliminate Voldemort and when he walked into the forest willingly to die, I wondered if his act of love would have some kind of effect.

I was happy that Hagrid did not die, he is my favorite character in the series. I was sad when Fred died, because he and George were such cool characters. I hated to see Lupin and Tonks die, because they had just had a son and were two cool characters.

I loved the one liners during the battle in Hogwarts. Percy saying, “Hey minister, did I mention I quit?” Or Mrs. Weasly, “NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!” Just goes to show you that you never mess with a woman’s kids.

Rowling made these characters so real that you couldn’t help but developing a love for them. It is sad to see the series end, but I get to relive it again as my daughter reads them and then when the two movies come out.