Sometime in the early 1900’s some of my ancestors arrived in the Philadelphia area from Poland. My grandfather, who happens to be another “Ed Cyzewski,” married my grandmother who had emigrated recently from Puerto Rico.

She brought with her beans and rice recipes that my wife absolutely loves, but she also learned some of the recipes from my grandfather’s family. While I have long adored the pierogies she makes for Christmas lunch, I have yet to find an equal for the potato salad recipe she learned from my Polish ancestors.

We call it “Polish Potato Salad,” but I don’t know if there’s anything uniquely Polish about it. It’s just a way of honoring my Polish roots.

This evening I’ll be grilling chicken, boiling corn, and making a salad while on vacation with Julie’s folks. However, the star of the meal, for me at least, will be the potato salad. I made it this morning, and the crunch of celery, sweetness of onions, and creamy mayo still lingers in my mouth.

Potato salad is an essential part of summer meals for me, though my family has it throughout the year for various events. I’d like to share this recipe with you. I hope you enjoy it. If it’s not your thing, don’t tell me. I don’t think my world could handle that…

Here it is, straight from a conversation with my grandmother several years ago:

Cyzewski Family Potato Salad

3 lbs small red potatoes (cut up if big)
put in a large pot of water to boil for 15 minutes (on medium with a lid)
Shut off the heat and let them sit for 10 minutes
drain and cool for a few hours
dice potatoes
cut up 4 stalks celery
cut up 1.5 lg onion
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
3/4 tsp parsley
2/3 to 3/4 c mayo
1.5 Tablespoon vinegar
1.5 Tablespoon sugar
mix together

Then the rain started.

Sometimes it sprinkled a little, but other times it fell in huge, heavy, downpours. When we arrived at the campground it didn’t seem to slow down at all. We drove around looking for a site that didn’t have too much standing water, grabbed our tarp, and then got wet.

When I say that we got wet, I’m not talking about a wet spot here and there. I’m saying we were soaked through rain jackets right to our clothes. My shoes squished and water ran down my head in huge drops as we tossed our rope through tree branches, fought scrubby pine trees, and hauled our tarp up. Here’s a picture of our camp site a few days later so you can admire the tarp:

After setting up our tarp, we still had to set up our tent and haul stuff into it while the rain poured. Oh, and then we had to walk over to the bathroom in the pouring rain. I fished out my umbrella from the car just to keep myself dry while walking back to the tent.

While our drenching was somewhat dramatic, it’s not like we did anything all that wild or dangerous. We just got wet in the rain. And yet, I tend to avoid the rain whenever it falls. I’m rarely ever in danger of getting quite so wet, and yet I often think of leaving our garden once the rain starts to fall.

Perhaps I’m more concerned with finding an excuse to stop weeding rather than actually avoiding the rain.

And so I have found that after facing such an extreme situation, I have a higher tolerance for rain and being wet. I don’t expect to be quite that wet in the near future, but if it happens, I know that I won’t melt away.

I like how facing a challenging situation expands our boundaries a bit, even if it’s something small like staying out in the rain. Facing challenges help us grow as they stretch us and expand the range of possibilities for our lives.

We may not ever have to face the same extreme challenge again, but we will be prepared to handle far more than we would have thought possible.

“I like a lot of the emerging church stuff, but man, it’s just so… white.”

An Asian friend in seminary said that to me back in the fall of 2004, long before Sojourners ran an article in Spring 2010 about the overwhelming whiteness of the emerging church. At the time my friend made this observation, I had just completed the first draft of Coffeehouse Theology, an introduction to theology that included diverse/global Christian perspectives in its method.

I think his comment was pretty much right on, but not necessarily indicative of where Christianity, emerging or not, need stay. I think he would agree.

White Dudes Realize We’re Missing It

If there’s one good thing that’s come out of the emerging conversations, it’s a great deal of humility that is paired with charitable dialogue with fellow believers. What I saw developing throughout the 00’s in my seminary and online is basically a bunch of white theologians realizing they’d been marginalizing other perspectives, whether or not that has been intentional.

Now, think about this. Our seminaries, at least the conservative-ish ones, are filled with lots of white dudes and also some Koreans. So, the white dudes realized we’d been missing out on some important perspectives, and that is a wonderful and commendable thing. We should not minimize or overlook things.

However, the conversations at that point primarily consisted of white dudes talking about the need to be more diverse. That’s certainly where many of us were back in 2004. I know that’s where I was.

White Dudes Will Fix Things

Unfortunately, when those in the majority realize there’s a problem, they may try to solve it on their own and even dictate the terms of the solution without considering the contributions of the minorities involved.

My former professor John Franke gave a wonderfully humble account of this at an event a few years ago. He entered dialogue with an African American pastor and proposed a number of solutions to our white dude problem. In the process he realized that he’d been dictating the terms of the solution, confessed his error, and worked with this pastor on some great ideas that rose from their conversations.

White Dudes Will Give Up Control

The future of all this emerging, missional, and just plain Christian stuff does not rely on white dudes figuring out ways to be diverse, and I think a lot of white dudes know that. Some are more proactive than others to this end, but if we ask ourselves who’s leading and only come up with a list of white dudes, then we’ll know we’re not there yet.

The trouble with this conversation is that white dudes have been in control for so long, that I’m sure those in the non-white dude camp feel like enough is enough: “Just give up control already white dudes!” And then the white dudes who are trying to make things better feel like they’re doing the best they can and just need more time.

My hope is that we can move beyond white dude theology, and I think we are well on our way in many circles. We can start today be asking who we look to as guides for our theology and practice, and if our guides are only white dudes, then we have some searching to do.

I need good critics. We all do. I need critics who will read what I have written, think on it deeply, and then offer suggestions where I may be in error.

Such work is an invaluable ministry. A good critic is a blessing.

Unfortunately, we often run into bad critics. What is the difference?

A bad critic cares more about defending and justifying his/her own views and winning the argument rather than helping you see something with greater clarity. The only way forward for a bad critic is for the one receiving the criticism to yield to his/her superior wisdom.

Bad critics fail to understand fully what they critique, which prevents them from offering truly helpful and redemptive advice. At their worst they can be bullies.

Sometimes we receive critique from a good critic, and we mistake a good critic for a bad one because we’ve had so many negative experiences receiving criticism, that we can’t imagine someone who questions us will also have our best in mind. Receiving criticism is a humbling, difficult process that pushes us into unfamiliar places.

To the extent that it helps us grow and learn, criticism is invaluable. A bad critic will close us off to fresh possibilities and limit the extent of our development.

However, a good critic pushes us to deeper thought, study, and conversation. A good critic is a gift.

During a time of transition it’s easy to settle into some bad habits, such as forgetting to exercise and eating unhealthy and fast food. These oversights impact how we feel physically and our spiritual condition as well.

Paul speaks of our bodies as the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is kind of a strange image. God is dwelling within us?

I don’t get it, but I have learned that the things I do to my body have an impact on my worship. If I care for my body, I create a healthy atmosphere in which worship can take place. Care for one’s body is not necessarily worship per se, but it is an integral part of the process.

Food for the Body…

My step-mother is a vegetarian, and so she always served huge salads for every dinner. My dad said that his body began to react to different foods differently after eating so many greens on a regular basis. After I married Julie, we generally ate vegetarian just to keep expenses low, but I soon discovered that steaks, cheese steaks, and even hamburgers made me feel ill.

I had trained my body to like certain food. To this day a cheese steak and a soda, two things I used to love while living in Philly, make me feel ill. I’d rather eat a Greek or Caesar salad—which feels kind of weird to type.

So now we eat lots of vegetables, fruit, cheese, and bread, and hardly ever eat meat more than once or twice a week. My body feels better now than it did back in high school and college, and somehow, though I don’t completely understand how, I am more physically available to God. I know that some folks may think I’m out to lunch just saying that, but so long as my lunch out involves sliced apples, cranberries, and a good vinaigrette for my salad, I won’t complain.

Exercise for the Body..

Whether gardening, walking, or hiking, our bodies need time outside. For most of humanity’s history, we have been dependent on farming or gardening to one degree or another, and there is something redemptive about digging our hands into the soil, sowing a seed, and watching it grow.

In addition, when we get out for a walk or set to work in a garden, we physically disconnect ourselves from the demands of our homes and workplaces. This places us in a position where God can break through. By doing these things we are not necessarily worshipping, but we are creating space to worship.

A Theology of the Body

As Christians, we need to talk a bit more about the spiritual ramifications of food and exercise. Even if we don’t understand all of the mechanics involved, the treatment of our bodies will impact how we worship God. Perhaps food will drag us into a heavy spirit, or a lack of exercise will fog our ability to concentrate or to break out of certain thought patterns.

I can’t explain this in a definitive or systematic manner, but I can testify that changes to my diet and to my exercise habits directly impact my relationship with God and my worship in particular. When I feel overwhelmed or weighed down, there sometimes are physical reasons that extend beyond what I know.

In a world where right belief is prescribed as a cure-all for our spiritual ills, we need to broaden our range of diagnosis. During a time of transition and change, keep the health of your body in mind as you set aside time to worship God. Sometimes we need to pay as much attention to our physical environment as to our beliefs.

When I was fifteen years old, my dad purchased an unfinished furniture set for me, picked up some stain and sandpaper, and set me to work on it. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about sanding and staining my dresser, night stand, and mirror, and so he often prodded me to keep working on it.

He promised me that I could take it with me when I moved into my own place, and I did. In fact, we still have that set. We also own several other pieces of furniture and household items with similar, if not better stories.

Then again, we also own things with stories such as, “I bought this desk at Staples,” or “We bought this lamp at IKEA.” Many of those things are either damaged or broken, though I don’t necessarily regret some of those purchases. 

While a purchase from a large retailer is sometimes necessary from the standpoint of a budget or the available options in one’s area, every morning I take clothes out of my dresser I have an opportunity to remember that conversation with my dad, to say nothing of my wife’s dresser that my father-in-law sanded down and finished for her.

Buy a Good Product

Our friends have taught us the value of buying household items that are unique and of high quality. They have built their own book shelves, picked up hand-crafted cutting boards, and commissioned a potter to make their dinner plates. While we eat on our scratched up Pfaltzgraf plates, they have sturdy plates that will last longer than our own and come with a great story.

Buying a good story and a good product isn’t possible for every single thing, and I believe that we have sometimes harmed the local movement by demonizing everything we buy from Wal-Mart or Target. In Vermont Local First groups challenged us to buy 10% of our products locally, which provided a good place for almost everyone to start.

Even this small percentage made a positive impact in the local economy, made buying local seem realistic, and actually encouraged me to increase my local purchases once I found higher quality goods in local stores and formed relationships with merchants.

Buy a Good Relationship

As a Christian I believe that we have a very relational God. Scripture moves humanity toward intimacy with God, and it’s no mistake that the Bible begins and ends in very personal settings in gardens. Jesus modeled a way that is very connected with others and

Perhaps one of greatest problems with our consumer society is the impersonal nature of our economy that disconnects us from the people who produce and sell our products and food. When I get to know the potter who makes the gifts I buy or the artists who create the paintings in my home or craft the shelves, I not only buy a quality product and foster a good story. I also make a personal connection and begin a valuable relationship.

This relational connection is one of the ways we can counteract the harmful cycles of exploitation that come about when the market demands lower prices. Trusting relationships are an excellent foundation for sustainable economies.

A Plan for Buying a Good Story

We can’t create a good story for everything we want to buy. In fact, we can’t. We need to be realistic about our financial and local limitations.

However, here’s a thought, until you have an opportunity to purchase something meaningful and memorable, why not make do with an inexpensive version from a yard sale, flea market, or Good Will store? In fact, the hunt may become part of the stories that you integrate into your home. Our kitchen table is a good example of this.

While living in the Philly area we drove by a yard sale at a big, fancy home. The trick with yard sales at such homes is that you can often find some great stuff, but unfortunately a lot of wealthy folks aren’t familiar with the bargain-hunting mentality of yard sales. However, we found a nice wood table with six chairs listed for $60.

The lady there wanted to get rid of it. She helped us load the chairs into our car. The husband, who came out after we wrote the check, was shocked she’d sold the table for so little. That little story became part of our permanent table, even though we just expected it to be temporary.

When we moved to Connecticut we sold that table and began to hunt for another—something that I must credit to my wife. That search took us through three states before we found the perfect table in the Salvation Army down the road from our house.

While it took more time to hunt for our table, we found a nice, cheaper, and more sustainable table at Salvation Army rather than driving to Wal-Mart and picking up a more expensive table that was manufactured in China. There may be times when Wal-Mart is our only option, but given a choice, I’ll take the nicer table with the better story.

We have a choice. Our lives are richer when we integrate stories and relationships into our purchases. We may accumulate less and spend a bit more, but there’s really nothing wrong with that.

You don’t need it.

This has become my new mantra when I enter any kind of store—from Home Depot to the convenience store where I buy our milk. I used to make frequent impulse buys and unnecessary purchases. With a small apartment and a smaller bank account, thanks to my freelance writing income, that has ended.

When I think of what to say to graduates who are just starting out, or perhaps to a friend in a time of transition, I’d offer my simple little mantra: “You don’t need it.”

Treasure in Heaven

Jesus told us to store up treasure in heaven, but most days I have a hard time applying that. Where do we draw the line with this? I trust that we all draw our lines in different places, though God is most likely challenging most of us move away from treasure on earth and toward accumulating treasure in heaven.

I hit on this last week in my post about discipleship as downward mobility. As we decrease in this world, we free ourselves to increase in God’s Kingdom.

In fact, our possessions can become liabilities that occupy us, soak up our time and resources, and distract us from the work of God’s Kingdom. Perhaps the best thing we can do during times of transition is to cut things out rather than adding to what we have.

No Regrets

We used to own a home with a large garage and a few spare bedrooms. Our yard was just shy of 2 acres. I’d spend hours landscaping it, mowing it, fixing up the house, and working to fill the rooms of our house with stuff.

Since we downsized to an apartment in Connecticut, I still miss the flowers I planted, but overall I don’t have many regrets. While I trust that home ownership is the right move for many folks, it had become a burden for us at that season in our lives—one that we didn’t recognize until we were free from it.

I once listened to a talk by Mark Scandrette (of Reimagine) about downsizing his possessions by half, and the freedom that came from that. I’m not sure about percentages, but we certainly got rid of many things in our move. I can’t think of one thing that I wish we’d kept.

The best advice I can give is to prevent accumulating from starting in the first place. I’d suggest beginning with some essential items for your new apartment, but try going without cable or end tables or matching furniture or whatever it is that you think you need but can live without. You may find after six months that certain things are worth having and others are not.

If you’re like me, and you’re well on your way to becoming a pack rat, it’s never too late to learn the “You don’t need it” mantra. Living in the Kingdom demands a certain detachment from our possessions, and teaching myself to say, “You don’t need it!” is one way to challenge the tyranny of money and things in our lives. Whether giving some things away that you don’t use often or giving yourself a 30-day ban from impulse purchases, removing the grip of possessions and spending frees us to be used by God for Kingdom “transactions”.

If You Need to Buy It…

Tomorrow I’ll touch on the kind of purchases that I’d suggest making when it is time to buy something.

I didn’t give it too much thought. I kind of took the “what if” challenge when I committed to writing full time last August. I have since found out that it is really tough to make a living writing full time. I’ve been working on finding the right balance of time between blogging, writing book proposals, querying magazines, looking for speaking/teaching opportunities, and applying for copywriting contracts.

What if I did all of this?

I’d be completely humbled, pushed to my limits, and still digging deep to make something happen. The set backs have been more numerous than I would have ever guessed, but the gains have been real, lasting, and rewarding—just fewer and less frequent.

However, once I read some of the other “what if” lists, I decided to give Bonnie’s challenge a shot. They came to me surprisingly fast:

What if I took a writing retreat…
What if I pursued that volunteer work I’ve been putting off…
What if I focused on my next theology book no matter what the acquisition editors say…
What if I wrote more fiction…
What if I visited my family in Philly more…

I’m moving forward on each of these a lot faster than I would have guessed. A few things fell into place that I’ve been waiting on, and one in particular hit home: writing fiction.

I’ve been toying with fiction for years now. I have a few stories that I’ve started and stopped because the main characters are lame. I wrote all of this peppy dialogue and then I realized I’d just rather kill off the main characters and let random people have conversations. It wasn’t looking good.

Once I began to think seriously about allowing myself some time on the weekends and evenings to write fiction, something snapped inside of me. A story came out that isn’t flat and uninspiring. It’s zany, over the top, and unabashedly silly. The more I played with it, the more excited I became. I had a real character that I cared about in a story that would be fun to write.

Maybe it was a coincidence, but it seems that once I let myself imagine any kind of possibility for writing fiction, I gravitated toward the kind of story that I would read, the kind of story that I would want to tell others.

So it’s just an outline and a few thousand words right now. It’s a tiny thing with a long way to go. But I have something, and I think I may complete it this time without some kind of apocalypse killing off all of the characters…

After a series of disappointments and discouragements yesterday, I hit a wall. It was nothing too terrible, but just frustrating enough and regular enough to make me feel like a mini-Job. Everything I touched yesterday seemed to become either worse or a lot worse.

On Facebook and Twitter I used my Passive Aggressive Status Pass.

I ranted a bit at home. I pouted quietly to myself. And then I laid in bed asking God what the hell just happened.

I was in a mood.

The words of Jesus from the Gospels came to mind, “What do you want?”

Jesus asked that question from many people in the Gospels. They usually had one thing such as, “I want to see” or “I want you to heal my dying daughter.” I had a list of thirty or so smaller things that would make life for us a ton easier if they fell into place as planned. I also had my own nagging insecurities tagging along to keep me in the dumps.

What did I want? Well, in thinking about my day, I realized that I could at least say I didn’t want God all that much. I wanted solutions: accepted articles, writing projects to fall into place, etc. I also wanted security and possibly a little bit of success—you know, not too much lest I get prideful. Wink, wink.

I got to thinking about all of this, and then I thought of my post from last week about Jesus leaving us his peace. I had my own plan for achieving peace, but Jesus has given us peace already. When my own plans for peace hit a wall yesterday, I sensed God reminding me that he wasn’t interested in giving me peace through my own means.

Step away from the wall.

I needed to let go of my own plans and desires, opting instead to rest in him and his peace and letting that be enough. It feels like a cop out to say that in one sense. But when the most important command from Jesus is to love God and to love others, it strikes me that I need to get the foundation right before expecting anything else to fall into place.

Where was God when I hit my wall? Waiting for me, offering me peace, and even loving me. While I kicked at the wall that I couldn’t get past, he was waiting for me to step away from it and to follow him.

Having meditated on the passion narrative and the final words of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels last week, I’d like to take a look at what Jesus left us before he ascended to heaven. I am always blown away when I think that Jesus never left a written account of his teachings.

Perhaps that’s because I’m a writer. Or maybe it’s because I’m a Western guy with little experience among oral cultures that thrive on preserving their stories. However, based on the Gospels, it seems that Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. If he didn’t leave behind a written account, what did he leave us? We’ll begin today with the first of three things: peace.

Events That Were Anything But Peaceful

After the disciples endured a few of the darkest moments of their lives, they received a report that the Messiah whom they’d left everything for and then abandoned in his final hours, had risen to life. They were hiding in a locked room, fearful that the Jewish leaders would come after them next.

They had failed Jesus, and they were at the mercy of the Jewish and Roman leaders. Who could they turn to? They had no other options. They were stuck, and so they hid behind locked doors in fear.

Peace Be With You

When Jesus arrived, the first thing he said was, “Peace be with you.” This reminds me of his words in John 16:33. After telling them about his death and their desertion, Jesus told his disciples that they would have trouble in this world, but that in him they would find peace.

In other words, it’s the normal state of things to find trouble in this world, and so the only recourse of disciples is to find peace in Jesus.

In this moment that began with this proclamation of peace, there is so much happening. In one sense, Jesus is restoring and forgiving his disciples. They now have fellowship with him.

However, Jesus is also recentering their lives around him. After watching their world fall apart, Jesus came to bring them peace. This peace did not stop the Jewish leaders from desiring to kill them. In fact, James the brother of John would be killed not too long after this, as recorded in Acts.

Their outward circumstances changed very little, but with the presence of Jesus came peace. Sometimes God may change our circumstances and deliver us from trouble.

However, our primary lesson in this life is that his presence is enough. We can be with him and experience the peace that he has left us. Until we are convinced that having him and his peace are enough, we will never be satisfied by any changes in our circumstances.

As it write this, I know that I need these words just as much as anyone else…