Thankful Thursday #4

I am thankful for music.  I was reading an article about music therapy this week, and learned that music contributes to mental health.  Healthy activities are often unpleasant, and pleasant activities are often unhealthy — but music is one of God’s great gifts, both healthy and pleasant.  So I turned on the radio yesterday and was carried off by Shostakovich’s Festive Overture — what a blessing!

Thankful Thursday #3

Today I am thankful for the rain and resulting cool (for late August) weather we’ve had this week.  I have enjoyed driving with the windows down and feeling the fresh air rush past.  And I’m thankful for my trusty old pickup.  My wife’s car is still at the body shop, and while sharing a vehicle in this town is inconvenient, it’s way better than having no working vehicle.  Hopefully her car will be finished today or tomorrow, and I’ll be thankful for that too!

Thankful Thursday #2

I have many things to be thankful for today:

First — drum roll, please — I got the job!  I start August 31, and I’m very excited.

Second, my dear wife is unharmed.  She was driving on the highway today when the car started to vibrate more vigorously than usual, and the tread separated from the left rear tire.  Fortunately, the tire did not blow out, and she pulled over without incident.  I am also thankful for AAA towing the car back.

Third, the Toffee Poke Cake my wife baked last night.

Toffee Poke Cake

My doctor would advise me against eating it, but I say you should live before you die.

Finally, we had some larger tomatoes in our garden that have been green for weeks with no sign of ripening.  When I got home, one of them was red!  We are novice gardeners, and I am very thankful for the success we’ve had this season with our small planting.

Thankful Thursday

I was recently reminded how important being thankful is.  So, I’m taking advantage of alliteration to launch a “Thankful Thursday” feature on this blog.

Today I am thankful for the job interview that I must rush off to in a few minutes, so I will close my post here!  Say a prayer for me!

Letters — We Don’t Get Letters

Letters — We Don’t Get Letters

Years ago, before most people had e-mail, I wrote — and received — letters.  Letters extended several of my high school friendships almost through college, and some of my college friendships into my working years.  Letters also nurtured the relationship that became my marriage.

Now we have e-mail.  And social networking sites.  And blogs.  And cell phone texting.  All are so much faster and easier than letters.  But for me, they leave something significant to be desired.

A letter takes minutes (maybe hours) to write, days to deliver, and a week or more for a response.  So when writing a letter, a person carefully considers the content.  The content may be light-hearted, but the purpose is serious.

I don’t get letters anymore.  I tried sending letters after the e-revolution hoping that someone would reply, but no one did.  Neither, in my experience, do people respond to letters disguised as e-mail.  At least, not in kind.

I suspect that people have become uncomfortable with the depth a letter calls for because of how much our modern, urban, technological culture has isolated us from each other.  It’s ironic:  these technologies that boast of bringing us closer and these cities that bring us together physically have discouraged us from deeply knowing each other.

I still get “snail mail,” but the senders are interested not in me but in my money.  The mailbox has lost its charm.

Letters have not been replaced, but displaced.  We haven’t stopped needing depth in our relationships.  And for that, no high technology is necessary:  paper and pen, an envelope and a stamp will do.

Years ago, before most people had e-mail, I wrote — and received — letters. Letters extended several of my high school friendships almost through college, and some of my college friendships into my working years. Letters also nurtured the relationship that became my marriage.

Now we have e-mail. And social networking sites. And blogs. And cell phone texting. All are so much faster and easier than letters. But for me, they leave something significant to be desired.

A letter takes minutes (maybe hours) to write, days to deliver, and a week or more for a response. So when writing a letter, a person carefully considers the content. The content may be light-hearted, but the purpose is serious.

I don’t get letters anymore. I tried sending letters after the e-revolution hoping that someone would reply, but no one did. Neither, in my experience, do people respond to letters disguised as e-mail. At least, not in kind.

I suspect that people have become uncomfortable with the depth a letter calls for because of how much our modern, urban, technological culture has isolated us from each other. It’s ironic:  these technologies that boast of bringing us closer and these cities that bring us together physically have discouraged us from deeply knowing each other.

I still get “snail mail,” but the senders are interested not in me but in my money. The mailbox has lost its charm.

Letters have not been replaced, but displaced. We haven’t stopped needing depth in our relationships. And for that, no high technology is necessary:  paper and pen, an envelope and a stamp will do.

Rainbow

This song lifted my spirits this rainy morning, and I thought I’d share it with you.  (This is how I remembered the words this morning — hope I got them right.)

He set His rainbow in the clouds
A bright reminder for us all
About the goodness of our God
About the hardness of our fall
About the death we should have died
Because we filled His heart with pain
He set His rainbow in the clouds
He will not flood the Earth again

He set His rainbow in the clouds
Oh may He help us understand
No hint of goodness in our hearts
Persuades our God to stay His hand
But just the promise that He made
Although He knew which way we’d bend
He set His rainbow in the clouds
And He’ll be faithful ’til the end

He set His rainbow in the clouds
Oh sinner, see it and rejoice
That such a righteous, holy God
Had depth of love for such a choice
So take your hands and raise them high
Shout out His name from shore to shore
He set His rainbow in the clouds
Our God be praised forevermore

So take your hands and raise them high
Shout out His name from shore to shore
He set His rainbow in the clouds
Let Him be praised forevermore

“God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists”

I saw a bumper sticker on my morning commute that read, “God doesn’t believe in atheists.”  Chuckling to myself, I immediately thought, “There’s my next blog post!”

Turning well-worn phrases on their heads is often humorous and is a staple of bumper sticker technique.  Occasionally, the result even contains some truth.  How about this one?

The phrase “believe in” has at least two meanings.  When atheists say they don’t “believe in” God, they mean they do not believe He exists.  This is also generally what we mean when we talk about “believing in” Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, extra-terrestrials, and so on.  However, when Christians say they “believe in” Jesus, they do not merely mean that they acknowledge His existence.  James makes this distinction clear:  “You believe that there is one God.  Good!  Even the demons believe that — and shudder.” (James 2:19)  The demons believe in God’s existence, but they have refused to align themselves with Him.  To “believe in” Jesus is to entrust oneself to Him, to believe that what He says is true and that what He requires is good, and therefore to live in obedience to Him.

God is certainly not in denial about or blithely unaware of the existence of atheists.  Nor does God entrust Himself to any man — He has no need to, first of all, and He is well aware of our propensity for selfishness, deceit, and misunderstanding.

But there is a third meaning for the phrase.  When one person says to another (often with a full heart and moist eyes) “I believe in you,” it is a word of encouragement — a shorthand way of acknowledging good intentions, noble character, and a certain amount of skill in whatever is about to be undertaken.  It is an expression of confidence in the better elements of a person’s capacities.  In that sense, God does ”believe in” atheists, just as He believes in all of humanity.  He evidently thought we were worth saving.   He does not (usually) strike down those who speak and act against Him, but He waits patiently, and in His mysterious way, He woos them.

So, is it true that God doesn’t believe in atheists?  Well…no, yes, and no again.  But I hardly think the second sense is really what the bumper sticker meant.  Maybe it’s a twist on the first sense — saying that God, knowing what is truly in a man’s heart, understands that even atheists really believe, deep down, that God exists.  As the saying goes, “there are no atheists in the foxholes.” 

Well, only God knows if that’s true.

The Duchess

This weekend I saw the film, “The Duchess,” and it has me reflecting on what makes relationships work.

In the film, an 18th-century English duke chooses a bride and, as my wife likes to say, “mayhem ensues.”  The “mayhem” in this case is mostly relational:  marital tension, infidelity, and a very small (by 21st-century film standards) amount of violence.  It’s not a happy marriage.

So, being a good 21st-century American, I naturally have found myself trying to decide who is to blame for all this unhappiness.  In so doing, I had to re-examine my own theories of what makes a marriage happy (after all, one has to have an idea what the machine looked like when it worked before one can see what’s wrong with it). 

The film presents a relationship in which the man has virtually all the power.  So, one tends to blame the man.  One also tends to blame the society of that time and place for giving the woman so little power.  But I see that many 21st-century American marriages are also full of tension, infidelity, and violence — and as far as I know, women have never been more empowered.  I think a war metaphor makes this clear:  If Nation A and Nation B are at war, and Nation A has vastly superior military power, then Nation A will get its way and Nation B will not.  Nation B will, of course, continue to have some kind of resistance movement doing damage wherever it can, but it will mostly have to live under Nation A’s rule.  But what if Nation A and Nation B have similar military power?  Well, then their war will be very bloody and will last until they arrive at a compromise in which each gets only some of its desires fulfilled — or until they have destroyed each other.  But even when the shooting stops, the tensions that caused the war will continue and the shooting will begin anew just as soon as one thinks it has the military advantage over the other.

So, it seems that the tension and fighting are not caused by the difference or similarity of power.  Well then, where do they come from?  In a word:  selfishness.  It is as James said:  “What causes fights and quarrels among you?  Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?” (James 4:1).  In the film, the Duke’s desires were portrayed as 1) maintaining his position in society, 2) passing that position to the next generation of his family, and 3) gratifying his own sexual desires.  The Duchess’s desires were portrayed as 1) expressing her creativity, 2) being “loved” (or, perhaps more accurately, being liked), and 3) being with her children.  The reality of a person’s desires is more complex than what can be portrayed in a film, of course, but this is what I saw.  The point is that the Duke and Duchess pursued their own desires without regard for the other’s.  I think the Duke might have treated his wife with more respect and still obtained most of his own desires, but his focus was so much on his own desires that he utterly disregarded his wife’s.  The Duchess, for her part, only helped the Duke because of her own lack of power in the situation.  She wasn’t getting what she wanted out of the relationship, and clearly would have preferred to leave him.

The Christian ideal is not like that.  What is it like?  Let’s look at what Jesus had to say:

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducess, the Pharisees got together.  One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:  “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied:  “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it:  ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  (Matthew 22:34-40)

“Love your neighbor as yourself,” He says, and the term “neighbor” certainly applies to one’s spouse. 

Now, while selfishness seeks the well-being of oneself, love seeks the well-being of others.  Imagine for a moment a world in which everyone seeks the well-being of everyone else.  In such a world, I don’t need to look out for my own well-being because everyone else is doing that for me.  Forget the clouds and the harps — this is what heaven is. 

Now imagine a world in which everyone seeks his own well-being without any regard for anyone else’s.  In such a world, can anyone really be happy?

And so, the Duke and the Duchess are both to blame (the Duke probably more so, but it can be tough to get a fix on proportional blame).  And so we are all to blame, to some degree, for all the unhappiness in the world today — because who has eliminated selfishness from his own heart?  I certainly haven’t.

Going, going, gone!

I am happy to announce that over Labor Day weekend we successfully negotiated an agreement with a buyer on Shelby’s house.  Of course, the house will have to be inspected and all the paperwork will have to be satisfactorily completed, and so on, so I’m not uncorking the champagne just yet.  But I have no reason to expect anything to go wrong.  The closing will be in about 45 days.  I thank you all for your prayers!

Whom Would Jesus Bomb?

I recently saw a bumper sticker that read “Who would Jesus bomb?”  A rhetorical question, obviously, and the rhetoric has some power.  The writer has invoked Jesus, whom we in 21st-century America do not typically think of as a political or military leader like Dwight Eisenhower, but as a gentle and compassionate leader like Ghandi or Mother Theresa.  Therefore, our unreflective response to the question “Who would Jesus bomb?” is “no one.” 

But is this impression of Jesus accurate?  Is there no circumstance Jesus would use force to address?

In Joshua 5:13-15, a man appears to Joshua “with a drawn sword in his hand” calling himself “commander of the army of the LORD.”  He accepts Joshua’s worship, and says that the ground where they are standing is holy.  He is not named, but it seems likely that this is Jesus.

All four of the Gospels give an account of Jesus arriving at the temple and driving out those who were selling animals for sacrifice there, overturning their tables.  The account in John 2:13-17 adds that he “made a whip out of cords.”  This doesn’t sound like Ghandi.

And then there is this passage from Revelation 19:11-16: 

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True.  With justice he judges and makes war.  His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns.  He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself.  He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.  The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.  Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.  “He will rule them with an iron scepter.”  He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.  On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:  “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” 

This can be no one but Jesus, and he doesn’t seem to have come for afternoon tea.

So, the questions is not whether Jesus would approve of forceful methods, but under what circumstances would he do so.  Jesus obviously didn’t get his “meek and mild” reputation by behaving like Ghengis Khan.  One of his final commands before going to the cross was “Love each other as I have loved you,”(John 15:14) and love does not usually express itself in the dropping of bombs.  So, one would expect violence to be used rarely and circumspectly — if at all — by Jesus’ followers.

So, what does it mean to “love each other”?  It means acting for the benefit of others.  If I see person A acting with the obvious intent to harm person B and I have the power to stop person A from doing so, would it be loving for me to refuse to stop him?  What if the only way to stop him was to harm him, or even kill him?  What if, instead of persons A and B we were talking about nations A and B?  (I do not claim to have all wisdom regarding these questions, but I do think they deserve consideration.)  Revelation says, “With justice he judges and makes war.”  And for the sake of justice, I believe we too must use our judgment and that may mean making war.

[Just to be clear, this post is not meant to be a defense of any particular war or use of force.]