My Seattle pastor and our church Mars Hill is being featured in this Sunday's Seattle Times Magazine.

Check it out here. If it gets moved, try this link.

It seems fitting that I should be writing my Note on prisoners and their religious rights.

At IJM this past summer, our group of interns had looked to the plight of Min Ko Naing and other such political prisoners (i.e. charged with nothing other than political dissent towards the authorities) in Burma. (See 8/20 and 8/21 posts in August 03 archive.)

I had also started reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison last summer (after a very long hiatus). It chronicles the letters he sent to family and friends (and their letters to him) while imprisoned for suspicion of participating in a plot against the Nazis. I picked up Letters again today, and it caused me to be thankful. There isn't much theme to these snippets, but it raises my spirits beyond the drudgery of the here-and-now.

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"Simply being near to you matters a great deal, even though one is continually aware with gratitude how little outward separation has to do with inward togetherness."

"Joy is a thing that we want very badly in this solemn building, where one never hears a laugh - it seems to get even the warders down - and we exhaust all our reserves of it from within and without."

"Prison life in general brings one back, both outwardly and inwardly, to the simplest things of life... But I wonder whether one's understanding is not affected by the restrictive nature of life here?"

"That the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel, as a result of which people can no longer understand each other, because everyone speaks a different language, should at last be brought to an end and overcome by the language of God, which everyone understands and through which alone people can understand each other again, and that the church should be the place where that happens - these are great momentous thoughts."

"Fritz Reuter puts it very well: 'No one's life flows on such an even course that it does not sometimes come up against a dam and whirl round and round, or that people never throw stones into the clear water. Something happens to everyone, and he must take care that the water stays clear, and that heaven and earth are reflected in it.'"

"However certain I am of the spiritual bond between all of you and myself, the spirit always seems to want some visible token of this union of love and remembrance, and then material things become the vehicles of spiritual realities. I think this is analogous to the need felt in all religions for the visible appearane of the Spirit in the sacrament."

"I had another very nice letter from Susi, which pleased me very much. She is quite right; this time of separation first makes it clear that often we take too little trouble to get together in normal times. Precisely because we do not feel it necessary to 'cultivate' the obvious family relationships, many things are often neglected, and that is a pity."
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The last one prompted me to write a note to my family today. I won't be spending the Thanksgiving holiday with them, which is a first. I've been rather neglectful of many relationships this past quarter, but it's particularly unforgivable towards one's own family, I think.

Happy Thanksgiving to you!

I got another haircut! Short hair is day-to-day low maintenance, but month-to-month it's high maintenance (needing frequent cutting.) I wish I had a digital camera to post, but the best I can describe is that it's kind of a pixie haircut. I'm happy with it.

I took my clothes to the drycleaner (finally), who is a nice Korean man. He thought I was Korean. Huh! I don't get Korean too often. I must be particularly white these days. What do you think, Grace & Ellen? :)

A maelstrom of thoughts and feelings tonight.

Gratefulness - how fortunate I am to be given a brain and eyes for reading about interesting issues and cases. Tiredness - the daily grind continues. Loneliness - waking up from a nap and it's suddenly dark outside; I ought to do my work with others, perhaps. Nostalgia and homesickness - wishing to be home and wanting what was, a book titled "Home is the last place you left: yearnings only Jesus can fill." Discontentment and shame - Why me? and yet, why grumble when I've been given so much? Community - online virtual ones and the physical neighbors you barely see much less know. Fellowship - huh? Sabbath - have allowed the rat race to define or conform me, living under the illusion of control and effort. Bubble world - I live in one. Hope - sleep now, tomorrow is a new day. Procrastination - will stop writing now.

C.S. Lewis died on this day forty years ago. His contributions, to both believers and non-believers, still continue to resonate and ring true.

Here's a great quote from the column (and you can read the full NY Times article at A Mind That Grasped Both Heaven & Hell):

"If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next," he wrote in "Mere Christianity," one of his best-known works. "It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this."

Hmm.

There's snow on the ground! It was a beautiful and crisp winter day, but SOOO cold. The kind of cold where, upon walking indoors, my glasses steamed up and blinded me.

Hey guys - I'm going to NYC!!! I did it... confirmed my acceptance for next summer's program. I suppose now I will become a lot more popular and will have folks clamoring to visit me. :) Better book early...

I asked my friend Steve, a classmate, if he's been experiencing violent mood swings. Perhaps he wasn't the best law student to ask, given his email address is "mellow_guy". I started wondering if perhaps I was the anomaly. Was I the only one on a roller-coaster of both extreme joys and despairs? However, he didn't disappoint. He assured me that, yes, he too does go through highs and lows. Though he tempered it with, "but maybe not as extreme as you" or something to that effect.

So today was a rather low day - my workload grows, while the time runs out.

However, I did recognize my need to repent of my complaining and whining. It's so easy to just gripe about how bad it is and how I'm just barely "hanging in". I note the stark contrast of Paul (the apostle)'s encouragement to the philippian church to "rejoice always! i will say it again, rejoice! let your gentleness be evident to all. the Lord is near. do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. and the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" with my self-absorbed, woe-is-me mentality. i'm not up for any martyr awards, that's for sure.

The Lord is near! I need to give up the anxiety, pray, be thankful, and trust the Lord's peace will guard my heart and mind (which is so prone to wander and idolize myself and my accomplishments) in Christ.

After staying locked in my apartment for the last 30 hours or so, reading tons of cases and law review articles, and praying like mad that God would be kind and provide a source of inspiration - I think I may have found my topic and unique legal argument!

This may be of little interest to most of you, but here's a synopsis:

The topic is about the provision in the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) applicable to prisoners. The RLUIPA basically protects prisoners' rights to exercise religion by establishing a high threshold for prison regulations to meet if they wish to abrogate those rights. However, for other First Amendment rights (e.g. free speech rights) the threshold is lower.

So does that mean there is a favoring of religion over irreligion? Or is it only an accommodation for prisoners to the free exercise of religion? Does the higher threshold for religious rights induce prisoners to become (or pretend to be) religious in order to secure those benefits? Does that constitute a government advancement of religion?

One federal court of appeal ruled that this provision is unconstitutional because it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (which prohibits Congress from making any law to establish religion). My Note will argue that it does not violate the EC because it is an accommodation of religion. Why? Well, I can't tell you because if word gets out, I might get preempted. :)

I think I shall sleep much better tonight.

I'm absolutely dumbfounded, shocked, speechless. The NYC firm offered me a summer position! I am absolutely sure that this was God's Hand alone. I'm feeling pretty humbled. Wow.

Francis Schaeffer on Luke 14:7-11

"Jesus commands Christians to seek consciously the lowest room. All of us - pastors, teachers, professional religious workers and nonprofessional included - are tempted to say, 'I will take the larger place because it will give me more influence for Jesus Christ.' Both individual Christians and Christian organizations fall prey to the temptation of rationalizing this way as we build bigger and bigger empires. But according to the Scripture this is backwards: we should consciously take the lowest place unless the Lord Himself extrudes us into a greater one.
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Let me suggest two reasons why we ought not grasp the larger place. First, we should seek the lowest place because there it is easier to be quiet before the face of the Lord. I did not say easy; in no place, no matter how small or humble, is it easy to be quiet before God. But it is certainly easier in some places than in others. And the little places, where I can more easily be close to God, should be my preference...

Quietness and peace before God are more important than any influence a position may seem to give, for we must stay in step with God to have the power of the Holy Spirit. If by taking a bigger place our quietness with God is lost, then to that extent our fellowship with Him is broken and we are living in the flesh, and the final result will not be as great, no matter how important the larger place may look in the eyes of other men or in our own eyes. Always there will be a battle, always we will be less than perfect, but if a place is too big and too active for our present spiritual condition, then it is too big.
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I am not talking about laziness; let me make that clear. That is something else, something too which God hates. I am not talking about copping out or dropping out. God's people are to be active, not seeking, on account of some false mystical concept, to sit constantly in the shade of a rock.
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The second reason why we should not seek the larger place is that if we deliberately and egotistically lay hold on leadership, wanting the drums to beat and the trumpets to blow, then we are not qualified for Christian leadership... I have said on occasion that there is only one good kind of fighter for Jesus Christ - the man who does not like to fight. The belligerent man is never the one to be belligerent for Jesus. And it is exactly the same way with leadership. The Christian leader should be a quiet man of God who is extruded by God's grace into some place of leadership."

- Francis Schaeffer, No Little People

I made it to NYC! After much waiting and waiting and waiting. (Check-in line, security line, rain delay, no ramp for our plane to dock, baggage took an hour to unload, shuttle line, etc...) I shan't complain - after all, I do have my luggage!

I'm interviewing tomorrow (or today, rather), and I waver between feeling pretty good ("okay, this can be done! it may even be enjoyable") and deathly, deathly scared (on the plane during heavy turbulence: "I wouldn't mind so much if Thy kingdom came RIGHT NOW, because then I won't have to interview..." and "WHY GOD WHY did I decide to do this? Kill me now. Please.")

Thanks to those who are praying for me. It means a lot to me. Pray that the Lord's will (and not mine!) be done. :)

P.s. In order to kill even more time on the internet, I've joined the Friendster bandwagon. I obviously don't have anything better to do with myself! :) Don't forget to be my friend!

The slate is wiped clean. The old topic is dead. All that's left are the (bad) memories. It's going to be a big work weekend, the roll-up-the-sleeves-and-get-dirty kind of work weekend that begins tonight. Here's hoping a new topic will just drop into my lap! Sigh. Why did I ever sign up for this?

Happy Halloween all. I want to hear about all the creative costumes. The coolest thing I saw among law students was Abe Lincoln. Come on! Bev? Don't let me down. Avery? Sam? Oh, I know... Salina? Anybody???