www.pianoplayingdave.com

Like so many other Americans, I have been immensely frustrated with the situation in Iraq. I’m frustrated by the Iraqi deaths and the American deaths. I’m frustrated at how the world hates Americans in light of our occupation. And I’m frustrated at how some conservative Christians so closely link support of the war with Christian pietism.

But even while I have been frustrated with the war, and at times downright angry about the war, I honestly didn’t have a clue what in the heck was going on over there. I heard about sectarian violence, but I didn’t know who the sects were. I knew a US exit strategy would be extremely difficult, but I didn’t know why.

Well, I suspect there are probably many other cynics out there like me who don’t have a clue what’s really going on in Iraq, and so I’d like to just give a quick overview. I’ve done some research these past few days, and my hope is that whether you’re a cynic or a supporter, that this overview will at least help you be less ignorant. I know I feel less ignorant now, and that’s a good thing.

Here’s the lowdown in elementary, and probably not fully accurate terms:

1. There are three main people groups in Iraq. The Sunnis, the Shiites, and the Kurds. Sunnis and Shiites are two different forms of Islam (think Protestant and Catholic), while Kurds are an ethnic people group (think Italians).

2. Saddam Hussein was a Sunni, and when he was in power, his regime persecuted Shiites and Kurds.

3. When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, our leaders were under the assumption that the Shiites and Kurds would view the Americans as liberators. After all, we were toppling Saddam’s Sunni regime that had oppressed them in the past.

4. However, this “liberator” mentality did not carry through. “Liberated” Shiites resented American occupation just as much “defeated” Sunnis resented American occupation. I don’t know all the reasons for this, but probably the easiest way to think of it is just to imagine the Iraqi army (or any other foreign army for that matter) occupying America. Would Americans welcome the foreign army, or resent it? What if the foreign army had laid seige to America in order to instigate the occupation? I think the widespread Iraqi resentment makes a lot more sense when we put ourselves in their shoes.

5. And so you now have a situation where the Sunnis resent the Americans, and the Shiites resent the Americans. And the Sunnis and the Shiites are at odds with each other too given the history of Saddam’s oppression and a myriad of other factors in their country. In fact, the Sunni/Shiite conflict is so strong, that it has erupted into heightened violence not only against the American soldiers, but even more significantly against each other. Sunni against Shiite and Shiite against Sunni. I just read a very helpful article in the latest Newsweek that explains the rise of Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite militant leader who is fighting both the Americans and the Sunnis.

6. And so basically, as the situation stands right now, the longer Americans stay in the country, the more the Sunnis and the Shiites grow to resent them. But were the Americans to pull out of the country like the Iraqis want, the fear is that the Sunni and Shiite animosity would erupt into outright civil war against each other. In recent weeks, tensions back and forth between the two Islamic sects culminated in al-Sadr’s militant Shiites burning many innocent Sunni civilians alive in a Mosque. Of course it goes both ways, because this attack was in response to a prior attack by Sunni militants on innocent Shiites. My understanding is that the main reason Americans are still in the country is to prevent this sectarian violence from erupting into outright civil war. And so if we leave, and war erupts, this is a terrible thing. But at the same time, the longer we stay, the deeper the animosity against us grows. Basically, we lose if we stay, and we lose if we leave. What in the heck are we supposed to do? After reading up on this, I really have no idea. I could just give a cop-out answer and say, “We never should have gone there in the first place,” but the reality is that we are there, and so that answer doesn’t solve anything. (Take note Democratic political candidates who complain about the fact that we’re there, but offer no solution about how to get out)

So there it is. I’m still frustrated with the war, but I at least understand a little better what’s going on now. I’m still frustrated we went there in the first place, but after reading the Newsweek article, I’m also frustrated that much of the good that American soldiers brought after the initial invasion (pouring millions of dollars into rebuilding schools, homes, etc.) has largely gone ignored and unnoticed.

In the end, what’s my consensus on this all? Well, I guess now that I understand the issues a little better, I’m not so quick to demonize Bush and Rumsfeld (take note Democratic political candidates). I now understand the dilemma of us being stuck there, and wouldn’t consider it outright stubbornness on Bush’s part that we’re still there. But at the same time, I am frustrated at the lack of foresight on this. I think it was wishful thinking to assume that the Iraqis would view a foreign invasion as liberation, and I don’t understand how we could have truly assumed that this would be the reaction. But hindsight is 20/20, and I probably would have seen things just as optimistically if I had been the one calling the shots in 2003.

But all the same, I still don’t understand why we invaded Iraq in the first place. The tie-back to bin Laden and 9/11 is a stretch at best, and it just does not make sense to me. Never has. Plus the international community was urging us not to invade, but we did anyway…

Well, there are my thoughts for what they’re worth…

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have the power, together with all the saints, to know how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all fullness of God.”

-Ephesians 3:14-19

Wow, I really needed to read that tonight. Do you ever have one of those days where it feels like everything that could go wrong does? That was today. Nothing emotionally detrimental or traumatic happened, but it was just completely out of control and stressful.

But then I read this passage. This idea of being rooted and established in love…

I really don’t have any huge insights to speak of, other than to just say that as I reflected on the idea of being rooted and established in God’s love, it was such a re-grounding for me. If you’re having one of those out-of-control days, just pause and reflect on this passage, and the ramifications of what it’s saying. Might shift stuff back into perspective…

As many of you know, I often express myself best in writing. Things so often come out more clearly on paper than they ever do in conversation. Because of this fact, I have for the past year or so been writing e-mails to God. It is often the most natural and direct way for me to pray to him. I don’t do it all the time, but whenever there is something that’s really on my mind, really eating at me, or really welling up in my soul, I like to shoot him an e-mail and just pour out my heart in that way.

I could of course just write my prayers out, and keep them on my computer. But I kind of like the idea of actually hitting send, and shooting them off to another e-mail address, because that reminds me that I’m not just writing a journal, but I am actually communicating with God when I write out these prayers. And so last year I set up an e-mail account for God, and instead of registering the account to the name “God,” I decided instead to register the account to the name “He who is faithful.”

Whenever I write out “He who is faithful” in my e-mails to God, I often like to pause and reflect on what I am actually affirming. I am affirming that God is trustworthy, that He is one in whom I can put my faith, that he will not let me down, that He has a plan that far surpasses my own, that I can simply let go and trust Him. I am affirming the ways I have seen his faithfulness over the years, and I am affirming that He who has been faithful is faithful, and He will continue to be faithful. I can trust Him. I can let go of the reins of my life and hand them over to Him in full confidence that He knows what He’s doing, and He cares about me.

There have been a couple times the last few years, where I have been walking through valleys, and God’s faithfulness has eluded me. I have been down in the shadows, and I have felt forgotten – like somehow God lost track of me and stopped caring, like He just left me to figure stuff out on my own. It’s a horrible feeling. It feels like I’m a plastic sack being whipped around in the wind. Directionless, flimsy.

Those times are tough, but what I have found over and over again is that at the end of those trying periods, God always shows up in such a direct and powerful way, that I cannot deny it. He shows up and He shifts all of the trying times into perspective, and makes it clear that He’s still in control. Two years ago, this happened when I felt directionless after college. After several months of feeling this way, I was hired for my current job after a “chance” encounter with my now-boss in a gas station in a city in which neither of us lived. My boss literally travels all over the world on a weekly basis. He’s infinitely more likely to be in Lebanon or Cambodia than anywhere alongside an interstate highway, and yet somehow he was passing through Fargo, ND when I was passing through, and he just happened to be getting gas when I was getting it, and he just happened to be driving through my home town of Bismarck that evening. He needed a place to stay, he stayed with me, I showed him all my movies, and he hired me two weeks later – leading to a job where I film all over the world, and do exactly what I had felt God calling me to for months and months, but had no idea how it would ever happen.

And it all happened because of a “chance” encounter in a gas station.

When God shows up and reveals himself so powerfully after the periods of questioning, I often sit there and say, “God, why did I ever doubt you? It makes so much sense now. Why did I not trust that you knew what you were doing all along even though I couldn’t understand it?”

When I address God as “He who is fatihful,” it reminds me of the ways that He has been faithful, and it makes me realize that He will continue to be faithful. I need simply to trust.

My prayer is that with time I can have the constant understanding of God’s faithfulness be an ever-present feature of my life.

For anyone who’s interested, I have finally seen all five best picture nominees from last year (thank you Netflix!) and here’s how I would break them down if I had been one of the voting Academy members.

Best Picture: Capote
Runner Up: Munich
Second Runner Up: Crash
Third Runner Up: Brokeback Mountain
Fourth Runner Up: Good Night, and Good Luck

Admittedly, I saw Munich almost a whole year ago now, and watched most of the rest of the movies much more recently…and so if I saw Munich again, I might not rate it as high…

…but all the same, I must say that I was surprised that Brokeback Mountain and Crash were the two films that were all the rage last year. They were well done, yes, but I just thought Capote was absolutely superb, and such a step above those two. Everything about it was solid, and I felt like it came from the hands of a master craftsmen, while Crash and Brokeback had a degree of uneveness to them in my opinion.

I guess I could relate to the theme of Capote quite a bit too, because it was dealing with a very obsessed artist making art about a very tough subject matter (writing a book about a murder). I’ve been there with many of the films that I’ve made in recent years, and could very strongly identify with the emotional toil Truman Capote was going through towards the end of the film.

In any case, the film is rated R and has some language and strong violence, and so I cannot recommend it to everyone. But if you appreciate film like art as I do, it’s definitely one of the better movies I’ve seen in recent months.

I think that there are few things that weigh as heavily on my heart as moral scandals involving Christian leaders. I have known several leaders (and have heard about many others) over the years who have had their ministries compromised due to scandals, affairs, pornography addiction, or whatever else coming to light.

Why does this weigh so heavily on me? I don’t know…maybe part of it just pains me to see someone who others look up to fall. It makes me wonder how many people that I look up to are actually hiding things. It makes me wonder if I could fall. It makes me wonder if I have fallen. It makes me wonder how real a faith can be when so many people who profess it don’t fully align their lives with it. It makes me wonder in what ways I am not aligning my life. It makes me frustrated that we speak one thing and do another. It makes me frustrated that we lack grace for others even when we need grace ourselves. It makes me broken and empathetic for the leader who is being publicly crucified. And it makes me frustrated with the leader too. It makes me feel so many things…and it happens every time news breaks about moral scandals in the church.

Sometimes the scandals involve people I know and love. Sometimes they involve people I’ve never met. But even if I have little respect for the person involved in the scandal, it still weighs heavily on my heart every time.

The foundation of the Christian faith is grace. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) Do we understand and live by this grace? Would the downfall of a Christian leader be such a detrimental thing if we truly understood that we are nothing more than people who God has forgiven?

It might make us more humble. Maybe we wouldn’t come across like hypocrites so much.

I don’t know…no profound insights from me today. My head was just swimming, and I needed to get some thoughts down.

I’ll just close this post though by saying that I think one of the most important things in our life is accountability. We live in a society that is getting progressively more and more individualistic. Everyone has their own phones, their own laptops, their own e-mail, their own cloaked identity in this global online community. And with that ability to communicate and exist independent of others behind the cloaked wall of cyberspace, comes much temptation to do things that we’d never want others to know we’re doing, and that we would never do in the plain sight of others.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

If you have never heard of the program Covenant Eyes, please check it out. It is an internet accountability program, and it is one of the greatest things I have ever used. What it does is pretty simple. You install it on your computer, it tracks every web site that you go to, and then every week, it sends the websites that you visit to your accountability partners. It doesn’t disallow you from going to any websites – it just gives you the understanding that you are no longer operating in secret. Sometimes husbands have their accountability reports sent to their wives. Sometimes pastors at a church have their reports sent to each other. I have mine sent to some close friends and mentors.

Please check this out. We cannot live above reproach if we are operating as lone rangers. We need each other to hold each other up.

www.covenanteyes.com.

-Dave

I was just logging some interview footage of a pastor out in Chicago talking about suburban and urban churches partnering together. I had asked this pastor in what ways that suburban churches could partner with urban churches if they felt like this is something they should do. He listed off a few ways, but then his closing statement was pretty insightful to me.

“When it comes down to it, if you are intentional about this, you will find a way to make it happen.”

That is so true. Not just as it relates to the specific issue he was addressing, but with so many things in life. I think that as humans, we have such a natural tendency to just float through life and then complain about how things aren’t working out right, or how it’s too hard to do things we know we ought to be doing (be that giving to the poor, eating healthy, or whatever else).

Well, let us always remember – if we truly desire to take some kind of right action in our life, and if we are intentional about it, we will find a way to make it happen.

I have found that one of the most natural ways to be intentional about things is to simply contact people who are more knowledgeable in an area I want to grow in and simply pick their brains, ask for their accountability, etc. Find out from them what practical steps I can take in the direction I know I need to head, and have them hold me to it.

A few areas I have done this recently…

1. Intentionality about being more environmentally conscious – contacted my uncle, who is very passionate about this area.

2. Intentioanlity about finances – contacted several older mentors in my life.

3. Intentionality about prayer and deep abiding fellowship with God – contacted a person I met last May in Hong Kong who has a spiritual gift in this area. Through contacting him, this led to him inviting me to come out and stay with him later this month in Tennessee to attend a conference specifically addressing this issue. I cannot wait to grow in this area through the extended time spent with him, and through the things I will learn at the conference.

4. Intentionality about managing my schedule – I have a LOT more work to do on this, but I recently contacted my good friend Ang, and my mentor, and am having others hold me accountable to it too (this one is gonna be a tough one, I can tell already…as I have a lot of bad habits to weed out of my system in this area)

Intentionality doesn’t solve everything. We need wisdom, balance, and a hefty dose of Divine guidance too…but I think we too often err on the unintentional side of life.

If we feel convicted to make a change in our life, then let’s make it. Stop dilly-dallying, and bring on the hutzpah!