Exodus 20:7 reads: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”

I’ve been thinking about this scripture recently because a friend asked some questions on her Facebook regarding God’s name and whether or not it was worse than using the F-word.

Now, I’m not here to discuss the F-word, though I’m sure that would be entertaining for some of us. I’m rather going to explain briefly (I hope) why this particular scripture is so misused and how if we understood it better, we would be WAY more interested in keeping that particular command.

You see, as so often happens, this scripture has been misread and abused in a way that belittles it’s main message. The scripture has nothing to do with saying things like, “God Damn” or “GODDDD!!!!” when you hit your thumb with a hammer, or “LORD HAVE MERCY!” when you see some hot chick walking down the street.

Sorry, race fans. It simply isn’t that easy.

To truly understand what is being said, we must put the scripture within it’s proper contextual paradigm and in this case it is similar to a marriage.

In most marriages, when a woman marries, she “takes” her husband’s name. Along with his name, she agrees that she is now a changed person, no longer alone, but one with him and subject to a new life under that reality. The things she was have changed and now she has placed herself under new leadership. (Sorry ladies, but we are looking at this historically, so please don’t get off on a “he’s not the boss of me” tangent. I promise you I already know he isn’t the boss of you.)

As always, the Church has been likened unto a bride. While we certainly see the language more prevalent in NT phraseology, it nonetheless applied even more so in the OT, where this scripture is used. At that time, the idea of “Taking an name” was VERY important. Wives took names. Slaves took names. Children born into a family were said to “Take the name of the father”.

This language used in Exodus would certainly not have been lost on a people group who were said to be “Taking the name of God.” They would have been quite aware of the language and it’s implications.

So, in light of this, when we look at a marriage, let’s say mine, and we say, “April, please don’t take the name of Alderman in vain.” What do we mean?

We certainly don’t mean that April shouldn’t yell “Alderman Damn!” or “ALDERMANNNNNNN!” or something like that, do we? Of course not. We are saying, “April, along with this name comes a certain set of expectations as to what an Alderman is and is not. To take this name and then spit on those expectations is to dirty the name of Alderman.”

Whoa.

Expectation?

God has….expectations?

EXPECTATIONS?!?!?!?!

Yes, my dear friends, he does. And when we take his name, he expects us to take the utmost care with the way we live our lives. It goes beyond saying something silly using the name “God” and into the way we live out our daily lives at all times.

I’m not saying it is good to say God’s name in a frivolous way. Like any word, it tends to loose it’s specialness when we cheapen it. But that doesn’t mean it is ok to devalue a scripture like this and think that if we just learn to use God’s name in prayerful ways that we are fine and dandy, because we aren’t. God has a clear expectation for those who take his name.

Let us not take it in vain.

I can say this – I was tired. Tired of being fat. Tired of having anxiety attacks because I knew I could have a heart attack at any moment. Tired of the way my clothes didn’t fit and my knees hurt all the time. Tired of not being able to run anymore, and tired of being so very tired.

I think that the biggest thing that people miss when trying to motivate an overweight person is that they are dealing with an addiction that is so powerful that it isn’t a simple matter of “cutting back” or “taking small steps towards a healthier you”.

That’s a load of crap.

I’ve never known anyone who lost weight that way. You have to get radical. Scary radical. You have to say to yourself, “I know this diet is insane, but it HAS to be a better idea than dying at 50 of a heart attack.” That’s why Jarrod ate all those Subway sandwiches. That’s why a co-worker of mine spent almost 15,000 dollars on bootcamp trainers. (she is my hero) That’s why people cut out all meat. That’s why people eat ONLY meat. You get the idea.

I first heard of HCG when I noticed that our television producer, Joe Palo must have gotten cancer. Now, Joe doesn’t have cancer. I just said that to recapture your attention for a moment. That fact is that he dropped weight so suddenly that one day I thought, “Joe must have cancer.”

I’m super glad Joe didn’t have cancer. (side note: cancer is awful and I hate it) What Joe DID have however, was a new diet. The kind of diet that had made him shrink up. Where “Big Jolly Joe Palo” had been, there was now “kind of weird looking because he’s so skinny Joe Palo”.

So I started the diet. I didn’t wait forever, but I did research it first. More importantly, I had my dear friend Ken Scott, who is also the corporate medical director for Life Care Centers of America research it for me. He said, “Let’s do it.” so I did.

If you haven’t heard of HCG, you will soon. It’s becoming one of those hot-button items like Atkins diet was years ago.

I’m not here to tell you that everyone out there criticizing the diet is wrong. I honestly don’t know if they are or not. I just know that my personal doctor here in town has been thankful that I did it.

The first few days were tough. I wasn’t sure I could do it. It wasn’t a physical thing. It was mental. After all, I’d been overeating for 37 years. That doesn’t change overnight. Still, my friends and family kept encouraging me, and I found myself sticking to the diet.

Then the weight started coming off. Lots of it.

By the end of week one, I’d lost 12 pounds. 12 pounds in a week. What? Yes.

Now, I’m 80 pounds lighter and 10 inches smaller. My kid tells his friends, “My dad is so skinny!” which isn’t true, but makes me feel absolutely awesome. The best part is that it isn’t coming back. I’ve kept it off.

One month ago, I gave away 90% of my wardrobe to a homeless man. I can’t tell you how good that feels.

So, are you sick of feeling horrible? Are you done being afraid that you’ll die of a heart attack? Want to know what it feels like to not hurt when you walk? Are you ready for something that isn’t easy, but works?

If so, email me at robalderman@gmail.com and tell me you want to and we will get started.

Love you,

Rob

I could tell you it was horrible and that I never liked it anyway. I could tell you it was a dungeon and that no one should ever have to be subjected to it. I could tell you it was a poor fit and that I never really felt like it was home. I could tell you that I was never really good at it.

I could tell you all of those things, but that would be a lie.

I loved every minute and wouldn’t trade the experience for the world. I was darn good at it and made better every day by the fantastic people around me who pushed me to better myself. It wasn’t a dungeon. It wasn’t unfair or ridiculous.

I could lie to you.

I could tell you I’m terrified. I could tell you I pace the floors wondering what to do. I could tell you that I’m not excited and that gloom hides around every corner, haunting each moment like a ghost on a mission. I could tell you we don’t know what to do and that I’ve lost faith.

I could tell you all of those things, but that would be a lie.

I am not afraid. I pace the floors, listening to great music and coming up with new creative things to do and say for people who want to pay me for it. It is not gloomy here, the music plays loudly, the laughs come easily and the future looks as bright as ever. My faith has not been shaken, but has rather been strengthened by the provision of hands and a plan much bigger than mine.

Yes, I could lie to you. But at this point, it is simply much easier to tell you the truth.

As a creative type human, nothing is more important to me than listening to the right music at the right time. This is especially important this weekend as I head to St. Louis to see Matthew Sweet on his special 20-year anniversary Girlfriend tour. This tour is going to blow the minds of those of us who remember Sweet’s battle against grunge music and how he ultimately won that battle. A boy from Nebraska invented power-pop, and boy are we all thankful.

To be honest, Sweet thinks of himself as some sort of Beach Boys/Neil Young hybrid, and while that may be true, to those of us who have been in love with his music, he certainly superseded both of them. not in album sales of course, but in making music that remains melancholy and beautiful.

I first heard Matthew Sweet when I was living in Indiana as a high school senior. The Girlfriend album had just hit, and “I’ve been waiting” was making the indie rounds in the Chicagoland area. I went to Lollapalooza with my two best friends, and we ended up sitting near Matthew, who wasn’t a star, and to be honest didn’t even seem like a star in the making. He was cool, fun, liked comic books and hot girls, just like we did. I remember being shocked when the local tv station who did a late night music show, pulled him aside in the row to the side of us and began interviewing him. Who was this dude?

Well, “that dude” ended up being the most influential musical influence on my entire life.

Now, while critics properly hail Girlfriend as a remarkable achievement in music history (the first proper, and still the best, power-pop album of all time), it was really the follow up to this record that impacted me most.

I’m talking about Altered Beast.

If Girlfriend was the album that endeared Sweet to the world, it was Altered Beast that showed the world that rockstar darlings are not to be trusted. you see, just when you think they are going to hand you more of the same old crap, the best of them do something completely different. Altered Beast was like some sort of candy-coated haunted house, with dark imagery playing just beneath the jangly guitars and vocal harmonies. While Girlfriend had documented Sweet’s divorce, Altered Beast seemed to tackle the issue of the evil side of humanity in general, which is much more ominous than one man’s failed love life.

Needless to say, I loved the album immediately.

To this day, it remains one of my favorite albums of all time, and alongside Rich Mullins’ A Liturgy, A Legacy and A Ragamuffin Band, my favorite Fall album.

Like Altered Beast, Fall is a candy-coated haunted house, you see. While the leaves turn gold and red and fall beautifully from the trees, we can’t help but feel a bit awkward since we know that in their beauty, the leaves are also in the throes of death itself. As each track plays, you tap your foot and hum along, pleased with the gorgeous layered guitars and harmonies, but what is that twinge of horror you feel? Oh yeah, it’s the fact that Sweet isn’t letting you forget that underneath it all, he’s dying.

And so are you.

Did you know that I used to be an adventurer? It’s true. I once traveled to Europe with nothing more than $100, my guitar and a small backpack of clothes. I played music on the streets of Salzburg, Lucern, Berlin and Venice to buy my food.

With Typical Sloan, I traveled the country for years, playing music and living on “love offerings” from churches. We slept in our van, on the floors of people we’d just met, back rooms in bars and in church basements.

These days, road trips are in short supply. They can no longer be spontaneous, and instead require the approval of many different entities. Want to go to Montana?  Better be sure that you have the time, money and spouse approval. (and trust me, getting those three things to line up takes an act of God himself)

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m 37 years old, and I accept the fact that my life is no longer my own. Raising my kids and supporting my family is priority, and it isn’t hard to love doing it or anything like that. The fact is that I have a very charmed life. I live in a home in a nice neighborhood, I have a good job, great kids and a loving wife.

I guess that I’m just beginning to understand what it means to have a “mid life crisis”. I am longing for fast cars, rock and roll and adventure in foreign lands.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go pick my kid up from school…

Well, this trait alone separates the great ones from me, though there are certainly other qualities those great writers posses that I do not.

Still, this little corner of the internet is mine to keep as I see fit, and keep it I will, in shambles if I must.

Is it horrible of me to admit that I’ve been far too busy to write to you, my dear readers?

Perhaps you would believe me if I said that the amount of energy it has taken to work towards rebuilding Bradley County in the wake of the April tornadoes has left me completely empty of artistic feeling. The fact is that it is true, regardless of whether you or I believe it. I’ve wanted nothing more than to talk to you, but night after night I find myself incapable. It is for this reason that I’ve decided to write on my afternoon breaks, and this my friends, is the first attempt.

What if I told you that the people I care about most, rarely read my musings? What if I told you that they often believe that they know me so well that reading what I write here would merely be redundancy? That is also true. I can write almost anything here without fear, because the internet masses are far removed from my inner circle. This has often proven to be wonderful and terrible as you can imagine.

I find myself on the brink of many things lately- pulled in many directions, most of them good, but all of them time consuming. I’m quietly looking…watching…waiting… For what, you ask? I’m not exactly sure, but believe you me, I’m going to pounce when the moment is right.

And what about you? How have you been? The kids seem to be growing like weeds. Why yes, I did hear that your daughter won the spelling bee. How wonderful! Little Tommy was runner up in his swimming competition? Lovely! You got a promotion at work? I always knew you had it in you. The stress may be more, but at least you are climbing that ladder, man. That’s how we do it here in the land of the free.

Well, I’m glad we had this time. I feel so much closer to you again. Let’s talk again soon, ok? Nothing too deep. Let’s keep it surface and talk about stuff that doesn’t really matter. After all, there is no need in pretending that we are real people with real problems. It’s much nicer to sit and stare and smile and look at our kids photos on facebook.

Bigger fences, ya’ll. Bigger fences. That’s how we do it here in the land of the free.

One of my best friends recently shared with me that during her prayer time, she felt like God told her, “Let simplicity feed you.”

She took the message to heart and stopped going out to eat. Instead, she would go home for lunch and eat a simple meal of lentils each day. I could see a difference almost immediately. She would return from lunch and there was a quiet calmness about her that had not been there before.

Seeing her this way made me a little jealous, so I began trying to simplify my own eating habits and have been surprised with the results. My first change was simply to begin eating by myself every once in a while. This alone was a huge challenge as I almost always have a lunch meeting of some sort. In general, I find great joy in sharing meals with friends, so being alone at lunch feels foreign for sure. Still, I’ve begun to enjoy my alone time and the peace that seems to dominate my thoughts when I eat quietly by myself.

Now, I’ve begun simplifying the food itself, and what a revelation it is to eat simply. This evening, instead of a big meal, I had peanut butter and blueberry preserves on stone ground wheat bread and a glass of water. The taste was amazing, and it made me wonder, “When did I allow myself to forget how great peanut butter was?”

I think we end up this way about a lot of things in life. There are so many wonderful, simple things and we often forget about them.

I’m planning to continue simplifying my food, but I’m also considering all of the ways I can simplify the other areas of my life too. There are many nooks and crannies that have become complex beyond measure, and it would be nice to calm them.

Are there areas of your life that you’d like to bring under control? Does your heart yearn for simplicity?

Start with a peanut butter sandwich.

I didn’t need The National Weather Service to tell me about the tornado though, because I was in a boat with two of my best friends, drifting down the South Holsten river, fly fishing in it.

There was golf ball sized hail, lightning, thunder, and wind strong enough to push us upriver despite our efforts to row downstream. At one point, things got so bad that we put ashore in a field somewhere and sprinted to a shanty where we took refuge with some strangers who had also been caught on the river. Mother nature showed us once again that she can, at any moment, do with us what she will.

Later, once we were dry and relaxing over a well-deserved hot meal, we laughed and joked and retold our favorite moments of the day. What got said the most? “I’m glad we fished anyway.”

Now you may think that’s crazy. After all, what intelligent group of humans would desire to fly fish in a tornado? It’s insanity!

Well, I can tell you who. People who have an unrelenting passion for stories, adventures, community and catching trout- that’s who.

As I get a bit older I’ve discovered that I am making a more concerted effort to spend time doing the things I love. Family, friends and fly fishing seem to dominate the landscape of my life now more than ever before.

The secret to enjoying life is living out what you enjoy. Allow yourself to do something with all your might and see what happens. You will surprise yourself and the people around you. Against passion, even a tornado pales.

So tell me. What are you passionate enough to do while dodging golf ball sized hail? What do you love enough to brave danger, fear and the elements? Think about that for a moment.

Got it in your head? Good. Now here’s the last thing…

Whatever you thought of? You aren’t doing it nearly enough.

I know a man who once came to the brink of losing everything he had. Money, home, marriage and faith on the teetering edge as a result of the stress of losing his job. Through it all, he continued to counsel others in the most compassionate of ways.

I know a woman who went through a brutal divorce that she tried to avoid. She is a single mother, raising her daughter, going to work, cleaning house and finding time to be kind to everyone she meets….everyone.

My own mother cares for my frail, elderly grandfather. Every day, she changes him, bathes him, feeds him and sees to his every need. Oh, I almost forgot to mention- She also cares for my children during the day and often my brothers kids too. If you were to bump into her at the store, you would never know it. All you would see is her smile, easy laugh and cleverness.

All around you are people who possess fortitude. Perhaps you are among them, entrenched in some situation that most people couldn’t begin to understand. They surround us. They are us. They are more than us.

So tomorrow, when you get cut off in traffic. When someone is a bit more curt with you than they ought to be. When someone doesn’t laugh easily. Pause for a moment and extend a little grace, because you never really know what is behind it all, do you?

Either you want to argue with him or you want to embrace him, but regardless, he is one of the most dynamic figures of the Christian community to have emerged in many, many years.

In seminary, I had a professor who was upset with Bell because they were supposed to debate one another twice and both times, Bell cancelled. I guess that’s the thing about Bell. He’s going to say and do whatever it is that he wants to, and if you are good with that, you like Bell. (NOTE: I’ve always felt that Asbury Professor and NT Theologian Extraordinaire, Ben Witherington, has been Bell’s best critic)

But why? Why is it that Bell has such an effect on people? I’ll tell you why.

It isn’t that Bell has a bad theology. It is simply that he isn’t afraid to express a theology at all. And THAT is precisely why Bell has so many followers. The world is starving for pastors who aren’t afraid to have a thought-through (if sometimes a little questionable) theology.  To have a pastor with strong theology is so rare that one can certainly point them out. Bell, Driscoll, Piper, Boyd…the list is a short one.

In a world filled with self-help, everyone can figure it out themselves, wishy washy pastors, Bell is a giant.

Long ago, a professor made a note on a paper I’d written. It said, “Rob, don’t be afraid to have an opinion. This is YOUR thesis. Make a decision on the material and stick to it. That will make people want to read your work, even if they disagree.”

I took the advice to heart and have tried my best to do just that ever since, and when people ask me how I can have so many readers, I point out that I never expect them to agree on what I’ve written. I simply try to have an opinion. I write from a place of authority. I am the supreme authority on the subject of Rob Alderman’s opinion.

In the case of Rob Bell, we have a pastor who clearly loves God and loves people. This alone sets him apart from the vast majority of theologians. Most theologians could care less about people, and this puts the common Christian in a quandary- Sit in a church with a pastor who loves me but doesn’t know the scripture from a Joel Olsteen self-help best seller, or spend time with cranky theologians who is just waiting to point out my mistakes.

With Bell, they don’t have to choose. They can have both. This is what makes Bell remarkable. This is why Bell is on Good Morning America.This is what makes Bell better than most pastors.

So perhaps we should spend less time critiquing Love Wins. (says the guy hosting a Love Wins discussion group) Perhaps we should instead begin the process of asking our pastors to care a bit less about 3 point anagram sermons and care a bit more about having a solid theology.

Perhaps the problem isn’t Bell at all.