Stimulus Checks?

Are we the only ones who haven't received ours? Seems like a lot of people we talk to have gotten theirs. Did we miss something?

A Gasoline Gripe

Tonight I pumped $75 worth of gas in our van and I still didn't fill it all the way up. I never knew that the pumps at Kangaroo shut off at $75...that's as much as they let you purchase in one transaction.

Sunny checked Jackson's baby book; when he was born 11 months ago, a gallon of gas cost a full dollar less than what we paid for it tonight. Craziness.

I guess I shouldn't complain. It could be worse; at least I don't have to buy diesel.

Man, I need a car pool partner.

What's My Name?

So I'm coaching Little League at the YMCA. Today the recreation director from the Y called the house to let us know that practice had been rained out. (Little did he know that I'd already notified my parents that we wouldn't be practicing.) I was at work, but Sunny spoke to Dean, a nice enough guy with biceps the size of tree trunks. What was surprising about the conversation, Sunny would tell me later, was that he actually pronounced our last name correctly. "Hi, Mrs. Bybee?" In six or seven conversations with the man, I've yet to hear him pronounce my name correctly. That got me to thinking of the many mispronunciations of my name I've heard over the years:

• Usually, people mispronounce it as "Bibby" or "Beebee". I even got a "Bye-bye" once from a Wal-Mart clerk.
  

• Blake King called me "Jason Baby" in kindergarten and I bloodied his nose.
  

• For about half of my junior year, one of my high school football coaches thought my name was "James Bobby".
  

• Until very recently, one of my co-workers referred to me as "Jason Bivey".
  

• In high school, I used to receive recruiting mail from Harding University addressed to "Jason Bybeck". Not the best recruiting strategy, I might add.
  

• My all-time favorite: one night a telemarketer called our house and asked to speak to "Mr. Bee-bye". I think he was dyslexic. I also thought Sunny was going to wet her pants.
  

What about you? Any of you share the plight of the not-so-common last name?

It Keeps No Record of Wrongs

There's this guy that owes me thirty bucks. I "loaned" him some money a few years ago on the promise that he'd pay me back the next week. That never happened and now, years later, I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that it never will. It's not that I even really care about the money (anymore); what bothers me is that every time I think of this guy, I instantly think of the $30 he owes me. I wish he'd pay me back so I wouldn't have to think about the fact that he owes me money.

The difficulty with loving others is that we're told that love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Cor. 13:5), a concept which I find almost impossible to live up to. I've forgiven the guy for breaking his word and not paying me back, but I can't seem to wipe the slate clean and forget the grievance. Trying to keep no record of wrongs is like trying to un-ring a bell; it can't be done.

I guess all of this seems pretty petty. But I have a good friend who recently had a family member that was murdered and the perpetrator has yet to be caught. We were talking the other night and my friend said, "You know, if they caught the guy and I was given the chance to say something to him, I don't know what I'd say." In this hypothetical situation, my friend said he would be torn between what he would want to say and what he knows he should say.

And maybe that's the point. Maybe we're supposed to feel this tension, the tension between the ideal of 1 Cor. 13:5 and the reality of our humanity. Maybe we're supposed to feel this tension and it's the tension that helps make us better people. I don't know. All I know is that a love that keeps no record of wrongs must come from someplace outside myself, because I'm just not quite there yet on my own.

Maybe feeling the tension is the place where that starts.

I hope so.

Justice and Righteousness

In Deuteronomy 16, corporate Israel receives a charge from Yahweh to be devoted to justice:

"You (Israel) shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the LORD your God is giving you."

Our notions of justice are perhaps incomplete compared to the biblical concept of the term. We think of justice in terms of perpetrators being caught and being "brought to justice" for their crimes. A society where crime is punished is considered a just one; where crime goes unchecked, injustice runs rampant.

While that certainly hits on one element of biblical justice, the term is used in a much broader fashion and is often synonymous with the notion of righteousness. The society God wills is not so much a culture of retributive justice but one that hungers and thirsts for righteousness (Matt. 5:6). In the kingdom of God, this hunger for justice and righteousness will be fully realized. It is the world Amos imaginatively conjured when he wrote, "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream," (5:24).

What is surprising to many is the revelation that justice and righteousness are not reserved for some ethereal, immaterial, "spiritual" afterlife experience. The biblical testimony is clear that God wills for justice and righteousness to break into the present, infiltrating every nook and cranny of this world NOW with activity that bears witness to the One who truly embodies righteousness and justice. The injustices of our present experience seem to leave us with the impression that we can do little to stem the tide of disorder and unrighteousness in our world; the testimony of Scripture illumines another path and imagines an alternative way of being. In the stream of the great prophetic voices in Israel's history, this path is the way of justice and righteousness.

May He continue to empower us to be His conduits of justice in the created order.

American Idol: Final 3

Last night's Final 3 episode was pretty strong, in my opinion.

Round 1: I think all three performers really shined here. The judges picked out some great songs; I especially liked Billy Joel's "And So It Goes" for David A. I know Simon declared Cook the winner here, but I think it's pretty much a draw. Archuleta was great; Cook was masterful on the most difficult song of the round; and Syesha turned in her best performance of the season, in my opinion. Three 10's in my book.

Round 2: In the famous last words of the Dawg, this round was just a'ight. David Cook's song was subpar (by his standards) but it was far and away the best performance of the round. I don't know what Archuleta was thinking with the Chris Brown song. And Syesha's choice of "Fever" was nice enough, but not really viable as a top 40 sound. This round went to Cook, although it was kind of by default.

Round 3: I thought the producers picked some fairly predictable songs here. But this is probably an indication of what sort of songs these artists will be performing post-AI. Archuleta's "Longer" was another stellar effort and Cook's "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" sounded great. (Did Simon really say this was one of the best songs of all-time? Uhh...OK.) I was surprised that Paula told Syesha she didn't think she'd be making the finals. But, I have to agree.

Prediction: David vs. David in next week's finale. Since Cook has been my boy since the Top 24, I'm rooting for an upset. But I don't know if anybody can beat Goliath Archuleta.

By the way, I feel bad griping about how the votes go sometimes when I've never taken the time to vote myself. (At least I vote in the "real" elections!) How many of you actually vote for your favorites?

Cruisin'

Sunny and I had a blast on our cruise last week. She's posted pics over at her blog and she's already done a great job of chronicling our trip together, so I won't try to rehash. I will say that this vacation was honestly the best vacation we've ever been on. It was great to spend time together and we really enjoyed our time with my sister and her family, too. And I'm very thankful that Sunny's parents were willing to come and spend a week with our children so we'd be able to do this.

I was in such a good mood last week, I decided to pose for this pic with "Funship Freddy", the Carnival Cruise Mascot:


Now, it's back to reality (and a much needed diet!)