"how do you prove a negative?"
(hannah and caroline and me, part eight)


you really can't escape this roger clemens stuff, can you? even if you pay far less attention to sports than i do, it's everywhere. and it's past annoying isn't it? i don't feel bad for roger clemens. i just wish he would go away. retire already. you no longer take part in the games and the pastime that will begin anew in a little over a month, so just hide away. pull a mark mcgwire. run from your lies. we'll forget eventually.

anyway, that's not what i wanted to talk about this morning. i was watching espn's first take about an hour ago and, as part of their clemens coverage, they had on, as a guest, a body language expert. she proved, to me, to be the only interesting commentator concerning this months-long mess that i've seen. part of her job is to watch, learn and study a person's behavior while giving testimony and see if they show any "tells" while they are speaking that might prove the words that are coming out of their mouth aren't entirely truthful. and she ripped roger clemens apart. even from the very beginning of the hearing yesterday, by watching the rocket's mannerisms, she could tell that he was preparing to deceive. it was quite fascinating to witness her dissection of the hearing and how the "hall of fame" pitcher differed in his "delivery" when compared to brian mcnamee. one thing she said, though, stood out to me and and sent my brain in a new and more relevant direction.

i am paraphrasing, but it was something like...

"in my opinion, the difference between a person that is lying and a person that is telling the truth is whether they are trying to convince or to convey. roger clemens was very convincing. he did a wonderful job at trying to make the committee believe that what he was saying was truthful. but when you are conveying, you don't have to "prove a negative". you just have to tell the truth."

do you know what the first thing was that popped into my head when the body language expert uttered these words? it was humc's choir director stopping the congregation and pleading with us to "sing louder." "don't you fools get it? god, himself, is looking down on you and can not be one bit happy at the volume of your collective voices. now clear your freakin' throats and let's raise the roof off this motherscratchin' sanctuary." <cue kirk franklin's revolution> (note: the second quote played more in my head than in reality.) you are right, allen. fuck this introspective shit i am trying right now. margaret, play something that we hear all the time! it's time to get loud up in here.

and i couldn't help but think that this is why we are failing at the buisiness of being a church. and why sarah and julie and the rest of the children's place advisory board have their work cut out for them when it comes to trying to convince huffman united methodist that the daycare is worth it's weight in "apples" and worth the time and energy that is being poured into it by an incredibly small percentage of our membership. because we are too busy trying to convince ourselves and, to a lesser degree, trying to convince others that we are christians. and that's not to say that we and i aren't, but who, exactly, are we trying to convince?

case in very simple point. we can take hannah and caroline to church. we can read the bible together. we can read scripturally based books. we can watch and sing along to veggietales. we can find tons of reasons and ways to convince our offspring that jesus is the way, the truth and worthy of following. and if that is all that we do, in twenty years, they will be no more close to a true relationship with their creator than they are now at four years and five months old, respectively.

as a church, local, and a church, universal, who are we trying to convince that we are christians? the unchurched homeless families across town? really? why not the "angels" and their families that live right next to us and travel through our parking lots after school or, god forbid, the ones that come through our door five days out of the week? listen, i am all for mission and experiences outside of what we know, but can we truly claim to take care of others if we can't take care of ourselves? who are we trying to convince?

and that's just it. this convince vs. convey problem, for the moment, makes me loathe the idea of going to church. i am sure my sunday school class and others can read it. sarah tells me that you don't have to be a body-language expert to know that something is off with me. but i feel like i am drowning inside a place that, as a collective, is having a hard time conveying the love of christ because we are too busy convincing each other and "others" of our christian love.

of course, there are individual exceptions. many, in fact. of course, not all is lost. this is where i am. today. but it's also why cuss words and the like don't mean much in the grand scheme of things. hannah and caroline will ultimately decide for themselves what type of faith they subscribe to. i wouldn't have it any other way. but they will also know, in addition to their secular and christian education ( both of which are not only important, but vital), that i love them and that i love jesus. it won't be something that i have to prove. it will be there on the surface, conveyed to them and for all to see.

i'll just have to tell the truth.