Grumbling Over Gratitude

November 6, 2015

With Thanksgiving falling at the end of the month, a number of Facebook people have apparently decided that during November they would write daily posts about the things for which they are thankful, to the disgust of some who see this as an affront to those whose lives may be less than satisfactory. I've read their complaints that those who write about their blessings are merely bragging about what they have. At first glance this may seem little more than Scrooge's "Bah! Humbug!" making a seasonally early entrance on the stage, and it may be little more than our human tendency, seen too often, of using the anonymity of social media to criticize and complain without fear of reprisal. On the other hand, there is some legitimacy in this complaint. It would seem easy for those less fortunate in life and love to read of someone else's happiness only to note by comparison their own relative misery.

And yet...

When I began my gratitude journal nearly three years ago, it was not with the intent of making anyone less fortunate feel bad, but instead was a desperate attempt to free myself of a nagging melancholy that had dogged my steps for as long as I can remember. In a sense, I had to do this to save my own soul. I hadn't known that there was a cure for this spiritual disease from which I suffered until the day someone told me to start giving thanks, no matter what. Looking back, it still amazes me how I managed to miss this for all these years. After all, it's plainly written in Scripture: "In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." The command to give thanks is woven into the very fabric of God's Word, and if you look, you find that the practice of gratitude is woven into the fabric of life itself. How could I have been so blind as to have missed this for so many years?

Just the other day I read from my devotional the following words: "Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as thought something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings..." (1 Peter 4:12). The folks complaining about the November posts about thankfulness have a point. Gratitude isn't something you do when things are going your way. It is a way of seeing life itself-the good, the bad, and the ugly-that transforms it by seeing it all as a gift from the hand of a loving God. When I write about the situations of life that no longer throw me under the bus of depression, I know that these irritations that used to drag me through the mud are just that-irritations that are the proving grounds for greater trials that may come. By seeing them in a different light, they aren't transformed. I am. And for that I am truly and deeply thankful.

Stuff

November 7, 2015

A couple weeks ago, I bought three floor lamps, only one of which works. Today I rewired the best of the three, but first I had to pick up some wire nuts and some flame-shaped bulbs. Check. I couldn't find the mogul bulb I need to finish the job, and still need the milk glass torchiere shade, but I know where to get them. Whether it's Home Depot, True Value, or any other local hardware or electrical supply, there's not too much we can't get for whatever project we have. In some circles, it's fashionable to demonize capitalism, but it has raised the standard of living for more people than any other system. It's not perfect; as a theoretical ethical system, socialism is superior, but as a pragmatic economic system, socialism eats capitalism's dust. Those who praise socialist states should try buying even simple basic repair parts for just about anything in places like Cuba or Mongolia. I've done it, and even simple projects become virtually impossible because of the lack of parts.

I'll finish my small wiring project before the next week is done, without wondering if I can actually   find what I need to do it. It's not the sum of life, but it does make ordinary living easier. That's not what I'm thankful for, however. I am thankful tonight for the Gospel by which I order my life. The easy availability of stuff is nice, but it's not enough of a foundation on which to build a life. Jesus is, and the Gospel promise of forgiveness and hope holds steady through the storms and difficulties of life that are far more significant than a few wire nuts.

The Kingdom of God

November 5, 2015

Reminder to self: Don't forget to share the other motorcycle stories from Alma. In the meantime, something more important occupies my mind tonight. Jesus said we must become like little children if we are to see the kingdom of God. We often quote this text without really understanding what it means. We speak of simple childlike faith, but I don't think this is what Jesus had in mind. And it certainly wasn't how children behave. Like the adults they become, children can be rude, cruel, vindictive, and selfish. Their infant innocence fades pretty quickly as they have to be taught to be kind, to care for others as they do for themselves. I've said it before: It's a good thing those little bundles of joy are so cute; otherwise we wouldn't tolerate their demanding, selfish ways. If everything doesn't suit their pleasure, they cry. They get us up at night (Who was it who had such a lapse of sanity that they talked about "sleeping like a baby?" At 66 years, that's what I'm doing, and I don't like it one bit. Like a newborn, I'm waking up three or four times a night to go to the bathroom-not the restful slumber we imagine when we use that phrase. At least I'm not back to wearing diapers!)

When Jesus spoke of becoming like little children, I think he was thinking of their ability to find joy at every turn. Unless a child is victim of abuse, they have an innate ability to find joy in just about everything. A two-year old is able to amuse herself with dragging pots and pans out of the cupboard and banging on them. The bodily pleasure of being tickled or cuddled is relished, and kinetic play is their stock in trade. Somewhere along the way, this delight in life itself fades with the awareness of responsibility and/or sin, and the slow regression into ennui often results. I've often been amazed at the transformation that takes place in a child between pre-school and middle school. The adventurous excitement of going to school often quickly yields to a boredom or even distaste for learning. What is it we are doing to our children that has sucked the wonder of life from their souls?

For years, I had lost that joy and wonder. It took a deliberate decision and daily determination to recapture it. My daily discipline of gratitude has brought a return of that joy, which I have come to believe is a foundational component of God's Kingdom. Today I had the pleasure of accompanying my wife, daughter, and granddaughter to a huge Christmas craft show in Hamburg, NY. I am not a big fan of "craft" stuff. Much of it is nice stuff, but I don't need any more stuff. The show itself-I could take it or leave it, but spending the time with three women I love is always a joy, although I have to admit I lost track of them a few times.  When we got home, little Gemma wanted to come to our house, so she did. She jumped on the trampoline while I blew leaves out of the yard. As I neared the trampoline, she confided to Linda that she just knew I was making a pile for her to jump in, which I did, to our mutual joy. I am grateful tonight for that childlike joy that reminds me of who I am and what I have in Christ.

Back Room Bike

November 4, 2015

When Linda and I were first married, in addition to pastoring a small EUB congregation, I pumped gas at the Minute Man just north of Wellsville, NY. One of the other employees was a short, pudgy guy we nicknamed "Waddles." If you have any imagination at all, that nickname would enable you to pick him out of a lineup. Waddles was perhaps eighteen or nineteen, and loved old Harley motorcycles. He even had managed to find a '48 Panhead police bike which he proceeded to chop, old-school with raked forks made from old Model A radius rods.

My folks were both pretty conservative about most things in life. Our vehicles were practical four-door sedans, basic model only. Motorcycles were "too dangerous" for us, and were strictly off-limits. So when Waddles showed me his bike one day, I was hooked. It was massive, bulky, and just plain cool. The next town over was a little run-down hamlet named Bolivar. There wasn't much there; a couple bars, a gas station or two, a store, a bunch of houses, and a Harley Davidson dealership. This place was like a page out of the past, a small store-front business with access to the shop through an alley that led to garage doors out back. There wasn't really a showroom, just an old wooden-floored Gasoline Alley garage that happened to deal in Harleys. The guy had parts everywhere, in boxes on creaking shelves, stuff hanging from rafters, with the smell of oil and gasoline that seemed to emanate from the floor and walls themselves.

As it turned out, he happened to have a 1953 Panhead engine he had recently rebuilt and was holding because the guy who had him do it had run out of money. I managed to track the owner down, and $350 later, I owned what amounted to a brand new Harley Panhead. Another $150 bought me the rest of the bike, literally in baskets. Most of the rest of it, anyway. I began assembling it in the little shed of a garage behind the parsonage until winter set in and it was too cold to work in an unheated space. Fortunately, we had a back room off the kitchen that we weren't really using, so I brought everything into the house to finish up. I don't think Linda or I will ever forget the evening I kick-started it for the first time. Blue smoke billowed into the kitchen, the dishes in the china cabinet danced and rattled as this glorious machine growled in that back room.

Did I mention that I married a very patient and long-suffering woman more than 45 years ago? It's true. She never once complained, although I'm sure she was more than happy the day I removed the handlebars so I could roll it out the front door and back into the garage. I used to drive it on the backroads until it quit, which it did quite regularly, me not having worked all the bugs out. The rides were great while they lasted, but pushing an 800 pound machine uphill (it seemed to always die in a valley) reduced me to a sweating, weak-kneed wimp in short order. I sold that bike to pay for seminary, but it turned out I needn't have. Many's the time I wish I still had it, if for no other reason than a '53 Panhead is worth about $20,000 today. This little cartoon sent to me by a friend reminded me of this old story; I am grateful for good memories, for Waddles who got me started on a love affair on two wheels that time has not abated, and for all the friends these old motorcycles have brought me over the years.

Practice

November 3, 2015

"Practice Makes Perfect!" So goes the saying. "Not so," said John Maxwell, pastor and leadership speaker. "Practice Makes Permanent." That little correction popped into my head this evening as I was practicing my bassoon. Like most wind instruments, the scales follow a regular and mostly logical sequence. Unlike other wind instruments, the bassoon has a three octave range, and the highest octave's notes have no rhyme, reason, or pattern whatsoever. The fingerings jump all over the place and simply have to be memorized. An hour's repetition of a four-note sequence has so far resulted only in fouled-up fingerings and odd squawks and squeaks. I have about two weeks to get it right, so I keep working. I don't want to be the one to mess up the ensemble.

Life is often like that; you just keep going over and over the same thing till you get it right. We can settle for almost right, or give up entirely, but if we do, the work of the others in the ensemble is spoiled. They are working hard too, and are depending on me to do my part. None of us is in this business all by ourselves. The success of the whole depends on the success of the parts. Earlier today as I was putting the new lug nuts on Linda's car, I noticed the back rotors didn't look quite right, so I checked the brake pads. They were almost to the metal and had begun to score the surface of the rotors. We haven't had the car long enough to have worn much of the brake pads, so I know they were pretty well shot when we bought it. It passed inspection at the dealer, but it shouldn't have. Someone wasn't doing their job, and we were the ones to feel the repercussions. Off to Auto Zone for a new set of pads so I could finish the job. Anyone who has done brake work knows things aren't that simple, and after struggling for an hour to depress the piston so I could get the new pads installed, I had to concede defeat. I'll try again tomorrow, but may end up taking it to the professionals.

The quality and integrity of our work has consequences far beyond our own small circles. I am grateful tonight for those in my life who understood this and refused to cut corners. Instead, they kept at it till it was right. My parents did that; my pastor did it, teachers and professors refused to settle for almost right and refused to let me do it, either. I'll never be a virtuoso on the bassoon or any other instrument, for that matter. But I will continue to do my best because it's the right thing to do, and it's what gives honor to God. "Whatever you do...do it as unto Christ," the Scripture declares. That's what it says, and that's what I'll do.

Top Shelf Salvation

November 2, 2015

Everything was carefully planned out; the half inch socket, extension bar, and a couple different sockets were in the trunk along with an old mechanic's quilt to help keep the car clean. Linda and I were headed to Rochester to pick up a set of winter tires all mounted and ready to go that I had found on Craig's List. All the paraphernalia was insurance just in case the wheels didn't fit our car. Did you know that sometimes even the best of our planning is for nought? That's right!

After dropping Linda off at my mother's so they could visit, I headed the rest of the way into the city to meet the gentleman selling the tires, arriving without incident. There was a nice private parking lot at his place of business, and he even had a floor jack he let me borrow so I could mount one of the tires to make sure the clearances were OK. It was just about then that I realized that the sockets I had chosen only fit a short way over the lug nuts. Steve, the seller of said tires, checked through his not inconsiderable supply of tools for the correct socket, to no avail. So I eyeballed the clearances as best I could and took a leap of faith handing over the cash in exchange for the tires and rims. The lug nuts puzzled me, however.

I was anxious to make sure everything fit, so as soon as we got home I dragged the floor jack out into the driveway, jacked up the car and began to work on the lug nuts which resolutely refused to budge, mainly because I couldn't get a socket on them. I ended up hammering the socket onto each lug nut, wrenching it loose, then having to drive the lug nut out of the socket with a hammer and punch. They were pretty well buggered up by the end of it all. I've never seen anything like this, so I called the Ford garage to ask what size the lug nuts actually were. Turns out I had the right sockets, but to save money, Ford in their infinite wisdom fitted a thin tin sleeve over the actual lug nuts, and in the process of removing them, the sleeve would often separate from the core leaving an off size core. The thin walled lugs often swell when tightened down. Ford knows this, but chooses to do nothing about it. All because actually chroming the steel was deemed too expensive. The mechanic with whom I talked said he had called Ford on numerous occasions to complain about this, but never heard back. I guess they save their money for the recall on the steering mechanism bolts that tend to rust through, as ours did.

A trip to Auto Zone and thirty five dollars later, I have a set of lug nuts that should solve the problem. I'm just thankful I didn't find out about this issue by having a flat tire out on the road, only to discover there was no way I could get the lug nuts off.

A new Fusion like ours probably goes in the neighborhood of twenty five thousand dollars. That's just a guess, but it's close enough for my purposes. If I paid thirty five dollars for decent lug nuts, Ford can probably get them for less than a third of that. So for ten dollars they mount crappy lug nuts on a twenty five thousand dollar car; it doesn't make sense. For me, it's a minor irritation; but I remember all too well the Challenger space craft that exploded mid-launch, killing all on board, victim of a failed thirty-five cent O ring. Millions of dollars and five lives for thirty-five cents. Shortcuts are rarely the best option.

I am grateful that God spared no expense and cut no corners when he provided our salvation through Jesus' death on the cross. Jesus was given plenty of opportunity to take salvation shortcuts. In the wilderness, the devil told him he could gain all the kingdoms of the world if he would only bow down and worship him. As he hung on the cross, the religious leaders said they would believe if he came down and saved himself. But he knew the depth of our sin and the price it was necessary to pay to break its power over us, and he didn't flinch. There is nothing cheap or chintzy about salvation. We were bought at a price, the precious blood of Christ. Our salvation is top shelf, all the way!

Jesus is...

November 1, 2015

"Halloween has been pretty quiet around here since our boys grew up." Linda and I were talking as we waited for our grandkids to show up after their evening trick or treating. Living as we do on the edge of the village, the goblins are pretty scarce around here. We used to live right in the center of town where on this night every fall we dished out candy to between two and three hundred kids. After the little kids made their rounds, the teenagers would begin to prowl the streets in the shadows just beyond the streetlights. Back then, Halloween was typically consummated with streamers of toilet paper hanging from the power lines, pumpkins smashed in the street, tires burning in the main intersection just down the road from our house, among other shenanigans. We always made sure all our eggs were accounted for before we let our boys out of the house, but we did notice after they graduated and moved on to college that Halloweens seemed to settle down into a rather sedate and even dull routine. I wonder why.

This morning as we drove into the church parking lot we were greeted with the fruit of some unknown Halloween pranksters who had a little fun at our expense. I can't remember the original message from which certain letters were pilfered, but I don't think anyone will forget our church sign boldly proclaiming, "Jesus is Anal!" Ha! I have to admit, we have some pretty clever pranksters out there, to whom we must give due recognition. Maybe God is tweaking my nose just a bit for my post of a couple days ago concerning a sister church's sign. Or maybe it's someone from that church...

Never one to miss a good opportunity, Pastor Joe called our attention to this message that greeted our people, reminding us that Jesus truly is anal about certain things, such as our salvation. He is not casual about our salvation, going even to the cross for us. As he spoke, I couldn't help but think of Genesis 50:20. "You meant this for evil, but God intended it for good." So said Joseph to the brothers who sold him into slavery in Egypt, after he had risen to power, rescuing the nation and his own household from famine. God has a way of turning things around when we least expect it, and this morning a Halloween prank was redeemed and turned into a Gospel message. How good is that?