Dan Cooley's Blog, page 35

Not a Bathroom Reader

An editor called an author with an idea to make a buck. The idea was to try to live for a year without lying and write about it. Wish he had called me.

I got a copy of To Be Perfectly Honest: One Man's Year of Almost Living Truthfully Could Change Your Life. No Lie. by Phil Callaway (the lucky author who got the call).

The book is kind of a diary or blog of his year without lying. Because of the style, I thought it would make a good bathroom reader. But then my legs fell asleep while laughing on the commode. I moved it to my nightstand.

In the humor of his daily life we learn about his wife and kids, about church, the Mormons he meets and the atheist with the weird job. We also learn about his struggle with life and death in his family, about honesty and integrity.

Here is a typical day from the book:

Day 316. Ramona stuffs our tithe to the church in an envelope once a month and drops it in the offering. I've never liked this method. That leaves three Sundays a month when the ushers and fellow parishioners can see that we are putting nothing in the plate. So today I considered licking an empty envelope and dropping it in. I wonder if anyone else in all of church history has been hypocritical enough to think of doing such a thing.

Maybe I should put FG's name on it."

You have to read the book to know the history of FG, but you get the idea. It's great fun with Phil writing all the things you have thought but been wise enough not to say. Or put in print. Phil is funny, not smart.

The book is most fun for those of us with some church background – we can relate best to the situations he finds himself in, but I would recommend it to almost anyone with a sense of humor. Other than having the longest book-title ever I loved the book. But, to be perfectly honest, I took off half a star for two reasons. One, the title was a hassle to type. Two, Phil got the call.

I received this book free from Multnomah Books for review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. DanielCooley.com

Come Awake

Have you ever been driving along and suddenly wondered where your brain has been for the last 15 minutes? Somehow you are still on the road, shaken but OK.

When I was a courier we called this entering "The Bogel Zone." We named this mental state after the street our office was on in Dallas. The Bogel Zone is an odd mental state where life is unconsciously flying by, you are in danger, and you are without a clue.

The Bogel Zone is responsible for 100,000 police-reported crashes every year. Some of the signs of entering it are:

· You can't remember the last few miles driven

· Drifting from your lane

· Wandering thoughts

· Missing traffic signs

· Narrow misses.

Do you ever feel like the rest of your life is unconsciously flying by? Are you drifting? Thoughts wandering? Any narrow misses?

The risen Christ wants to live through you. Get out of the Bogel Zone.

"Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light." Ephesians 5:14

Come awake.

 

My First Root Canal

"Dan Cooley, survived by four children and one wife (that we know of), portable church pastor and one-book author, tragically dies while pinned to dental chair."

40 years ago my older sister Janice came home from the dentist talking about her root canal. The vivid images of pain seared themselves into my young head. I associated root canals with hell. Thursday I went there.

About three weeks ago my back teeth on the left side started hurting. Thinking it would go away I did nothing. It didn't go away.

A few nights later when I was flossing the floss seemed to hang up on a big filling back there. I was paranoid the filling was coming loose. I started wearing my retainers only every other night for fear one morning I'd pull my bottom retainer off and find my filling inside. After a week or so I decided to call my dentist.

It was Wednesday and his phone machine said, "Thank you for calling. Dr. ___ is at a training seminar in Florida. We will return to normal office hours on Tuesday April 12th." I wonder if they learn anything on the beaches in Florida – well, anything about dentistry. If they went to seminars on Baffin Island they might actually attend. Anyhow, I foolishly decided to wait until Tuesday in order to see my own dentist.

The next day I was popping Advil like a momma Guppy eating her young. I decided to call on Friday, my day off, to find another dentist. Any dentist. A 6-month dental school drop-out who was good would a pair of pliers would do. What I didn't know is that dentist offices close on Friday. I popped more Advil.

I found an emergency dental clinic open on weekends and made an appointment for Saturday night. But by Saturday noon the Advil seemed to be working. Maybe the pain would go away on its own. I canceled and waited.

Advil got me through the weekend, so I went back to plan A, and waited until my dentist came in on Tuesday to get help. Relief was in sight – or so I thought.

The dentist saw me in first thing Tuesday. The teeth cleaning proved two things. One, the filling wasn't loose. Two, there were new levels of pain yet to experience in my lower left jaw. Then came the bad news.

The dentist couldn't locate the source of the pain. The X-rays showed perfectly fine teeth. The pain after the cleaning stretched from my left eye to my knee. There was no way to figure out which tooth it was. I bought more Advil.

On Wednesday I had endured enough pain. No more waiting. I called the dentist back and got the name of a specialist. They said to check out a specialist in endodontics. I asked them to spell it. I called. They took me in on 2:30 Thursday afternoon (the next day). I took more Advil and waited.

I arrived at 2:32. While waiting to be inspected and led to hell I read a National Geographic article on the Incas. They had pictures of their mummies. They looked to have had really good teeth.

It took the specialist all of three minutes to find the bad tooth. I said to myself, "Self," I said, "I bet he doesn't go to seminars in Florida." Then he gave me the option of having a root canal, or writhing in excruciating pain for a few months as my nerve died, and then going through the gruesome procedure of having my tooth yanked out of my jaw. I popped a few Advil and waited.

About 30 seconds later I said "Go for it. Bring your hell!" But not those exact words.

Hell's vestibule consisted of 3-4 shots with what looked to me to be an 8" needle. I had visions of it going through my neck, through the plastic chair cover, and getting stuck in the cotton underneath. Then what would happen when he tried to pull it out? "Dan Cooley, survived by four children and one wife (that we knew of), portable church pastor and one-book author, tragically dies while pinned to dental chair."

Actually, there was less hurt than when my dentist stabs me for a filling. Then they left me alone to shake in fear and try to read about the strong-toothed Incas as the medicine did its thing. Instead I wrote shaky notes down on 3X5 cards so I could remember the process for my blog.

When they came back they gave me lip balm.

And safety glasses

And a bib.

And told me to lift my left hand if I was losing it.

I got up and put my keys into my jacket. I didn't want to forget my jacket in my ecstasy when leaving later. All I could think about was leaving later.

It's a weird process. No pain, but freakishly bizarre. It all started with a lie.

I asked how long it would take. 30-40 minutes they said. That's a long hell, not eternal maybe, but it sounded long to me. And they were lying.

The doctor took out a small grease-gun and started pumping me full of more drugs. No pain, but lots of fear going through my gums with the greasy medicine. Seven times he stabbed me and pumped me full of something. The bad – I feel it today (Saturday). The great – I felt nothing then.

Next they took what looked to me like a 4" square cut out of a lime green hot-water bottle, and stick it over my tooth with some kind of hose clamp thing. The Chap Stick kept the water bottle from sticking to my lips. They even let me take the rest of the tube home. It's my first $550.00 tube of Chap Stick.

Next the doctor drilled through the top of the tooth, stopping often to make certain I felt nothing. Then I saw another needle coming at me. This was a fuzzy needle. All I could do was watch, there was nowhere else to look, and closing my eyes seemed even more terrifying. Why doesn't somebody make a way to broadcast movies into the inside covers of those safety goggles? It would be way better than watching the spit and blood splat on the outside. And better than wondering why the needle looked fuzzy.

Having been foolish enough to read about the process before going to hell, I realized this inch-long fuzzy needle was actually a mini-blender with blades going up its entire length. Into the tooth it went. I wondered if it was coming out the bottom of my chin. Again – no pain but great fear.

OK, this is weird. As I am writing, my tooth which now has no nerve left, is throbbing in sympathy. Bizarre.

When he was done with the porcupine brush, there was cleaning and x-rays, and a temporary filling, and the most painful part of all. The cost.

I could have put new 31" BF Goodrich shoes on all 4 feet of my Jeep Wrangler for what hell cost. Of course, that was less than I would have spent on Advil in the next month.

And they lied – it took 22 minutes.

Janice lied too. Hell it isn't. I'm glad I did it. I'm gladder it's done.

Don't forget to floss.

Danielcooley.com

 

Celebrate

Back before the music died (sometime after 1979) Three Dog Night had some of my favorite songs. One of them is Celebrate (Dance to the Music). I think the Apostle Paul would have liked Three Dog Night.

Paul wrote "Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us. 8 So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth." 1 Cor. 5:7-8 (NLT)

There is nothing more ugly than evil in the church. It's an injection of poison affecting the entire body. Jesus seems distant - worship fake.  Been there. Done that.

And yet, there is nothing as powerful as a group of believers celebrating with sincerity and truth. It affects those who witness it with the love of Christ. It can change the world. Going there. Doing that.

This week we celebrate Passover with sincerity and truth. Now we need to get the band to play Celebrate with a Hebrew beat.

If you miss 1975, here is a link to the song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXI6CdTVJ-0

In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day by Mark Batterson

OK, this book is just too much fun. It's easy to read, encouraging, challenging, and did I say fun?

Here are a few quotes to give you the flavor.

1. The more we grow, the bigger God should get. And the bigger God gets, the smaller our lions will become.

2. God planned for every contingency you might ever encounter, before the beginning of time.

3. First John 4:18 describes the end goal of our relationship with God: "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear." The goal of love is fearlessness! . . . That is the essence of faith.

4. Here is one of the biggest mistakes many of us make in our relationship with God: We focus our energies on telling God exactly what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. In fact, we repeat ourselves over and over again just to make sure God didn't miss any of the important details. But what if, instead of spending all of our energy making plans for God, we spent that energy seeking God?

5. The issue is this: How big is your God?

Wow, I loved this book!

Danielcooley.com

Comeback - by Dick Francis

"I've always found goodness more interesting then evil, though I was aware this wasn't the most general view. To my mind, it took more work and more courage to be good, an opinion continually reinforced by my own shortcomings."

This thought was by the lead character in Comeback by Dick Francis.

Dick Francis keeps his writing pretty clean, keeping the reader engaged with horses, murders, action, and introspective thoughts thrown in. I loved the above thought, and the book. Unlike a movie it was free (public library), and killed two evenings instead of two hours.

Be good.

Maybe you'll be more interesting.

Heads Up

I have a theory. God didn't put prophecy in the Bible to tell us the future. My reasons are:

1 – It would have been a waste of space. About 25% of the Bible is prophecy. It's either stuff that is now long past, or hasn't happened yet. So, if it was put in to tell Christians the future, it's either useless to us now (as it's past) or was useless for Christians in the last 2000 years (wasn't fulfilled in their lifetime). Either way it's an inefficient use of paper. That's incredibly un-green for a Creator.

2 – Revelation 1:1 starts out "The revelation of Jesus Christ." Revelation is the Greek word roughly transliterated "apocalypse." Someone took the Greek word and started using it to describe the end of the world, as the end of the world as we know it is contained in the book of Revelation. But, that's not what the word means.

Revelation means "unveiling." It can even be translated "naked." It fits. See most of us naked and it would be an apocalypse.

The book of Revelation is an unveiling of Jesus. It shows us His love and wrath, His mercy and vengeance. It is God in the flesh unveiled. The Message correctly translates Rev. 1:1 "A revealing of Jesus, the Messiah."

Here's a prophetic heads up - one day there will be a revelation of you.

I believe God put prophecy in the Bible so we will learn about Christ. It's not about looking ahead. It's about looking up.

The Chasm – Pilgrim's Progress meets Frank Peretti

The Chasm's story will remind you of Pilgrim's Progress. The updated writing and spiritual war will remind you of Frank Peretti (This Present Darkness). If you've read neither book, reading this one may remind you of life in Junior High – back when you could see the dark, sinister side of life and realized your need of deliverance. Well, maybe that was just my Jr. Hi.

The Chasm is an abridgement of Randy Alcorn's book The Edge of Eternity. For that reason it's a bit diving into a waterfall. It took me a chapter or two to hit bottom and realize where the book was going. But – it was worth it.

The imagery created clear pictures in my mind, making the good news clearly good. Wacko Christians and wacko false leaders are easy to relate to. Christ is as clear as Aslan. There are study help for leading a small group through the book at the end.

I gave it four stars instead of five because I've liked other books by Randy Alcorn a bit better (The Treasure Principle, Heaven, The Deadline series). That's probably my taste, but I had to leave room to give 5 stars to those books!

I received this book free from Multnomah Books for review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Daniel Cooley danielcooley.com

Rob Bell & Love Wins - what the blogs missed

Much has been written about Rob Bell's new book Love Wins.

But – the motivation was missed.

Yes, he seems to be re-defining hell and trying to find a way to get everyone into heaven.

But – those are the verses. The motivation is the chorus.

The Motivating Chorus

Rob Bell is an excellent writer, and his book reads like a good song. Songs have verses, but it's the oft-repeated chorus that rams the thought home. I found Rob's chorus no less than four times, and I probably missed some. Listen to the chorus as it repeats itself in the quotes below.

1. If "you were surrounded by Christians who believed that . . . you were going to leave someday and go somewhere else to be with Jesus . . . you could possibly end up in a world in which millions of people were starving, thirsty, and poor; the earth was being exploited and polluted; disease and despair were everywhere; and Christians weren't known for doing much about it. . . . That would be tragic." p. 6-7

2. "It often appears that those who talk the most about going to heaven when you die talk the least about bringing heaven to earth right now, as Jesus taught us to pray: 'Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' At the same time, it often appears that those who talk the most about relieving suffering now talk the least about heaven when we die." P. 45

3. "Often the people most concerned about others going to hell when they die seem less concerned with the hells on earth right now, while the people most concerned with the hells on earth right now seem the least concerned about hell after death." P. 78-79

4. "Christians who talk the most about going to heaven while everybody else goes to hell don't throw very good parties." P. 179

Maybe he is right.

But CS Lewis disagreed.

Of course Lewis smoke and drank too, so maybe he knew more than some about how to party.

Lewis said, "If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one."

Everybody has a right to their opinion, but nobody has a right to be wrong in their facts.

They can't both be right. So, who is - Lewis or Bell?

I did a Google search and found the largest private disaster relief organizations are those who believe in a literal heaven and hell, and are looking forward to the next world. Three of what are often listed as the top four (it rather depends on what kind of relief you are focusing on for who is listed as largest) are Christian organizations who are doing just what Rob Bell says isn't done. The top four are: 

The Red Cross

The Salvation Army

The Southern Baptist Convention

The Roman Catholic Church

 

If William Booth, the SBC and the Catholics aren't thinking about the next world, who is? And no one is helping out this world more. No one.

Once you look further, you find that CS Lewis hit the nail on the head. Those who are looking forward to the next world are the most involved in fixing this one. From Saddleback's P.E.A.C.E. initiative to alleviate AIDS to Compassion International, Samaritans Purse, the lists are overwhelming.

In an effort to support a wrong premise (that a literal view of heaven and hell has kept the church from being effective in the present age), Rob Bell wrote new verses to fit his chorus. The verses he changes are Biblical.

If you want a good, fairly complete discussion of Love Wins, check out the Christianity Today article here.

Meanwhile, here are a couple Cooley cliff notes.

Heaven

The chapter called: There Are Rocks Everywhere – This is one of the most beautiful chapters written on the omnipresence of Christ in print anywhere, from any time. Amazing. Rob Bell really is an excellent communicator.

The chapter on Heaven – I thought Rob did a nice job combining the present Kingdom of God and the coming Kingdom of heaven and earth. This was a great read.

Hell

After giving a selection of passages where different words are translated into Hell in some English versions, Rob writes, "And that's it. Anything you have ever heard people say about the actual work "hell" in the Bible they got from those verses you just read."

The second death is never mentioned. The lake of fire is never mentioned. Revelation is never quoted. Only verses the support Rob Bells position are quoted.

Somebody buy Rob Bell a topical Bible.

Hell is spoken about without the word being used, just as prayers are prayed without the word "prayer" being used. No Bible student would consider his study of prayer complete if she only looked at verses where the word "prayer" was used. To leave out entire passages of scripture speaking about hell because the word isn't used is lousy Bible study.

Some hellish verses that were left out include:

Rev 21:8 (NLT) "But cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers, and all liars—their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."
Rev 22:15 (NLT) Outside the city are the dogs—the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idol worshipers, and all who love to live a lie.

Rev 14:9 (NLT) Then a third angel followed them, shouting, "Anyone who worships the beast and his statue or who accepts his mark on the forehead or on the hand 10 must drink the wine of God's anger. It has been poured full strength into God's cup of wrath. And they will be tormented with fire and burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb. 11 The smoke of their torment will rise forever and ever, and they will have no relief day or night, for they have worshiped the beast and his statue and have accepted the mark of his name."

The most complete definition for Rob's view of hell I could find is this: "To summarize, then, we need a loaded, volatile, adequately violent, dramatic, serious word to describe the very real consequences we experience when we reject the good and true and beautiful that God has for us. We need a word that refers to the big, wide, terrible evil that comes from the secrets hidden deep within our hearts all the way to the massive, society-wide collapse and chaos that comes when we fail to live in God's world God's way. And for that, the work 'hell' works quite well." P. 93

Enough Already

I just finished Randy Alcorn's book The Chasm. It was a great read, and refreshing after reading Love Wins. It's time to move on. Thanks for reading.