Blessings

October 13, 2018

In the old comic strip “Pogo,” Porky the porcupine was quite observant of Friday the Thirteenth. “It came on a Tuesday this month,” he would intone. Well, this month it came on a Saturday. Today. And nothing happened in this neck of the woods. You just can’t depend on superstitions! Perhaps I shouldn’t say, “Nothing happened;” we made great progress on my son’s bathroom remodel. Two small pieces of cement board and one section of green board, and we’re ready to lay the floor. The hard work is almost done. Taping and muddling the seams, laying tile (which I love to do), paint, and install toilet and vanity. The finish line is in sight, and the worst thing that happened was me bashing my thumb with a hammer.

That all being said, I am tempted to declare that I am blessed, but I am reading Jesus’ words in his Sermon on the Mount, and they are giving me pause. In Matthew 5:11-12 he says, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

I can’t say I’ve been horribly persecuted, or even mildly persecuted, for that matter. I’ve had people betray me, curse me, and spread falsehoods about me, but I’ve never been threatened or assaulted due to my faith. Jesus takes one of the worst scenarios we can imagine and instead of commiserating with, and comforting us, he tells us to whoop it up, to sing and dance for it. Strange words, indeed, and hardly the kind of stuff we think of when we think of blessings. 

Our church is in the final stages of a Sacrificial Giving Campaign for the new addition we want to build, so there is a lot of talk about money in our circles. Whenever that happens, there are always those who get offended and make themselves scarce. “The Church is always talking about money,” is a common charge laid at our feet. I never shied away from money talk; it’s in the Bible, and our attitudes towards money reveal a great deal about our spiritual state. People who give generously are rarely offended when we talk about money; it’s the stingy ones who get mad.

Talking about money is only problematic for me when preachers imply that if people give, God will give back in greater measure. There are Scriptures that hint at such thinking, but God’s idea of giving back and blessing is not always the same as ours. Some people will give generously and have the bottom drop out of their lives. Some will give sacrificially and still struggle financially. Many people will do many good things and still be persecuted, vilified, and slandered. God’s ways are not our ways. 

Tonight’s reading from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is not an easy pill to swallow, but if I am to be faithful, swallow it, I will. And even when the storm breaks over me, I will praise him, even through tears and gritted teeth. And I will bow before the greater Wisdom of God, and with the hymn writer Horacio Spafford, sing, “It is well with my soul!”

Done

October 12, 2018

Halfway to Harry’s house it occurred to me that he hadn’t called to confirm our riding to band rehearsal together. I pulled over and punched in his number. His wife Beth answered. “He’s out shopping,” she replied to my inquiry. 

“I seem to remember that there wasn’t any rehearsal today due to Fall Break,” I said. Harry’s absence confirmed my recollection, so I drove back home. It was the second time today. Earlier, I got to the library for our Writer’s Group before I remembered that this weekend was their retreat at a local Christian camp. That first unexpected surprise made it possible for me to help Linda move our bedroom furniture to the newly completed downstairs bedroom. 

The second surprise was a much appreciated reprieve. After moving two beds, dressers, and assorted other items for five hours, I wasn’t certain I’d be able to stand for two hours. My recently sprained ankle which had been on the mend is swollen and painful, and my hip and back are definitely making their presence known by way of protest.

But the job is done, we are in the room, and I am thankful tonight that we were able to finish, and that I didn’t have to stand another two hours at band. II love playing, but today was a good day to have off. God knows I needed it!

A Change in Plans

October 11, 2018

The bathroom remodeling has been going pretty steadily, if slowly. Until today. Last night Matt called to tell me about a design change they wanted. It required removing the drywall and cement board on one wall, pulling out the tub, building a half wall, and repositioning the shower head and tub spout. They weren’t being picky; it was the right thing to do, something I should have thought of earlier in the project. It took me the best part of the day to undo what was there and do it right. At the end of the day, I was almost back to where I was yesterday.

It would have been frustrating except for the life lesson it afforded me. We often are quite anxious to move ahead in our lives and in our walk with God. We imagine that all we need to do is get started, but in our human limitation, we don’t see the design flaw in our plans. We’ve thought it through, worked carefully, but before we can move ahead, stuff needs to be removed, replaced, and relocated. We thought God took care of that once for all in the beginning when we repented and trusted in Christ, and we were conscientious and diligent in our efforts, only to have God call us up and order a design change. 

We can get frustrated over it, or we can listen to what God has in mind and recognize that it’s a better idea than what we had. We may not like backtracking and undoing things, but sometimes it’s impossible to move ahead till we move backward. Tonight I’m grateful for the day’s life lesson, and for the times I’ve actually listened to God’s design change ideas. They are always better than mine.

Writing

October 10, 2018

It’s not always easy, but I like doing it, shaping sentences, wresting words from my mind till they conform to my bidding, telling a story, illuminating a familiar scene till it glows with a new light conveying hidden truth that’s been waiting to be revealed in subtle splendor. It takes time though, and time is often in short supply around here. 

Nothing worth doing gets accomplished in spare time. Rather, time is carved out of busy schedules; other tasks are relegated to positions of lesser importance. Priorities are rearranged. Discipline dictates doing it whether or not one is in the mood. Writing is like that. I don’t always feel like writing, but when I see words, sentences, and paragraphs that weren’t there moments before dancing across the page or screen to the rhythm I created, a contented satisfaction rises up within me. 

Christian theology tells us that we are made in the image of God, but while the Scriptures affirm this, they don’t explicitly tell us what that means. I believe that in part, it means that in human creativity, we mimic that of the Original Creator, and like God himself, as I write I create something out of nothing; ex nihilo, as the Church Fathers put it. I’ve been developing a story idea for about a month now, but unsure of how to begin, I haven’t really done much with it. Like most endeavors, there isn’t a perfect time, so today I began. I am thankful to be able to do what I do and hopeful that when done, it will have some value in telling the Redemption story. 

Born Again

October 9, 2018

One of the banes of American Christianity is the culture that has been Christianized to the point where those who aren’t atheist, agnostic, or a member of some other faith system see themselves as basically OK and heaven bound when they die. I have no desire to condemn anyone to hell; my understanding of Scripture in this regard is actually somewhat different than traditional Evangelical Christian teaching. But the belief that we are Christian because we were born and baptized into a particular branch of the Church has created lots of “Christians” who have never genuinely encountered Jesus Christ. They are good people, may worship regularly and give generously, but genuine faith in Christ doesn’t come through osmosis and isn’t genetically transmitted through family lines. 

In John’s Gospel, Jesus told Nicodemus, who was a very pious man, that one has to be born again to enter the Kingdom of God. Although trained in the law, Nicodemus had no frame of reference for such talk, and didn’t understand what Jesus was trying to communicate. 

I was only present for the birth of one of my children. Nathan was born in the middle of a flood. They took Linda in and didn’t even give me the option of being with her. We suspect the attending physician wasn’t even there because at one point he was evacuating his house. Jessie was born during the Annual Conference session where I was to be ordained. Linda kept telling me she was coming, right up until about ten minutes before she was born. I tried to get there in time, but couldn’t. I was however, there for Matt’s entry into this world, and I can say with absolute certainty that birth is not a gentle and innocuous process. It is painful, bloody, and after much labor, sudden. There is no question about what happened.

New birth into the Kingdom of God isn’t much different. People who think they can gently slip into Christian faith don’t understand what it’s all about. It is a transformation from one mode of existence to another, a sudden and often violent transition. I suspect that much of the weakness and flaccidity of modern American Christianity is due to a deficient understanding of the New Birth. I am grateful tonight that the people who brought me into this New Life understood what being born again was all about. They left nothing out, nothing to chance, and no room for uncertainty. I can even today nearly sixty years later, point you to the exact spot where I was born again. It was the beginning of a whole new life that continues to this day, and into eternity.

Less is More

October 8, 2018

Sometimes, less is more. Less stuff, more life; less electronics, more real connectedness. Less talk, more listening. The list could go on, but tonight less writing means more time with Linda who is home from a long weekend with her friend in Massachusetts. She is home, I am happy and thankful. That’s enough for me. It’ll have to be enough for you, too.

Daybreak

October 7, 2018

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”

The ancient Hebrews looked at life a bit differently than we do today. These words from the very beginning of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures reflect that different understanding quite well: “The evening and the morning were the first day.” Even today in Judaism, the day doesn’t begin at sunup, but at sundown. It begins in rest. I don’t suppose there’s much chance of changing our culture, but beginning our day at rest in the evening isn’t a bad idea, unless we cram our evenings so full that rest is not possible. Of course, that is exactly what we do. 

This weekend has been as stuffed full of activity as any I can remember. It’s all been good stuff, but it’s not been restful stuff, and tonight, I am grateful to finally be able to rest. People who study such things tell us that it only takes a few days of sleep deprivation to actually kill someone. I believe it. It only takes a single late night to throw me off track for days on end. It’s been dark for about four hours now. The new day has begun, and I am going to sleep. It’s a good way to start.