I Miss You, Mom Randy McRoberts and locdog (sorry the permalink doesn’t seem to be working) both have touching posts up about their moms.
This is a day late (part of my Sabbath rest is staying away from the computer), but I want to honor my mother, too. She died in 1995, at age 80, and a day doesn’t go by but I think of her in some way.
She was an old-school Croatian Catholic, and she made sure I was brought up in the church. She saw me through five years of Catholic school, took me to Mass every Sunday, and bought me a Latin-English missal so I could understand what was going on. She didn’t quite understand it, but she loved me anyway — when I left the Catholic Church and began worshipping in a non-denominational evangelical Bible church. She didn’t realize it — and I didn’t know enough then to tell her — but her faithfulness in teaching me laid the groundwork for my coming to faith on my own.
Her service was a model for me. Even in her later years, before a stroke robbed her of the ability to do everything she loved, she served in the Altar Society of her parish and helped the nuns sort and distribute canned goods, diapers and other supplies for the church’s food pantry.
When I got sick with kidney disease, she must have been terrified. But she kept most of those fears to herself and encouraged me to believe that I would get well and everything would work out OK. She worried when I told her I was expecting a baby, but found some of the greatest joy in her life with the only grandchild she would ever have.
Mom loved to work with her hands, sewing and making crafts. She taught me how to make my own clothes. She taught herself tole painting, decoupage, knitting and crocheting. She made so many little dresses and sweaters when Amy was small. Her dad and I have kept them all for the day when she has children of her own. When she ran out of stuff to make for Amy, she made things to sell at her church’s rummage sale. Mom also loved crossword puzzles, especially the daily New York Times (an addiction that I have inherited).
Mom wouldn’t have had a lot of patience for the long theological discussions that I love. Her faith was in her hands and her heart. Serving or worshipping, faith was always active. I could do much worse than imitate her.
Macker from Pray Naked Experience wants someone to e-mail him when they have this postmodern stuff all figured out. The best way to understand it is to read people who are involved, folks like Jordon Cooper, Darren Rowse and John Campea.
I stumbled over this article while exploring The Shelter, a Francis Schaeffer site. Written by musician and teacher John Fischer, it has some insights into the differences between the world Schaeffer was speaking to in works like “Escape from Reason” and the world we live in today. Here are some excerpts and my comments.
“The God Who Is There” assumes that people care enough to do something about God should it prove to be a rational thing to believe in Him. … Would that truth meant enough for people to lament its absence.
The point being that people today consider truth and knowledge to be relative, and so rational thought has been completely discounted as a way to approach God or to understand the universals.
“The God Who Is There” is about as relevant to today’s thought processes as Francis Schaeffer’s knickers. Not that the truth is no longer true, it is just that the postmodern mind does not possess the thought-forms necessary to grasp truth as absolute.
Schaeffer would dispute this. Postmodern or modern, man is still man, made in the image of God, which includes a rational mind. Denying the rational, postmodern man has become even more alienated from the way God made him to be. He denies the rational, and yet he is denying a part of himself that he cannot truly escape. He may claim that there are no absolutes, but that is not the way he really lives. For example, when he says that something is beautiful and another thing is ugly, he is comparing it to some absolute or ideal of beauty in his mind.
We keep hearing how the postmodern mind cannot grasp the idea of absolutes. Well then, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the postmodern mind is incapable of grasping the idea of God.
Actually, I don’t think any finite mind, modern or postmodern can grasp the infinite.
People, in order to grow in their understanding and relationship with God, are going to have to somehow graduate from a God they once met on one level, to a God who demands they stretch their minds in order to meet him in ways they have never thought of before.
We all do this as we mature in Christianity. I think it’s called sanctification.
Will Christians still love God when they find he can also be irrelevant and old and sometimes difficult to follow?
Difficult to follow? Yeah. Irrelevant and old? No way. Not possible for the Alpha and the Omega.
If people no longer have the thought-forms to grasp absolute truth, then we have to teach and challenge them until God forms in them a new mind.
Yep, sanctification. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind …” (Rom. 12:2)
He is the absolute we will all eventually bump into, regardless of our ability or inability to conceive of him.
We can’t dress up the Gospel or change who God is just to appeal to people. That’s what false prophets do. But the difference is how we offer this Gospel to people. A rational argument based on philosophy or science doesn’t cut it. But when non-believers see real people grappling with life’s problems and putting into practice what we say we believe, that demonstrates the truth of the God Who Is There.
Writing for slate.com, Daniel Gross advocates getting rid of the JOA (Joint Operating Agreement) arrangements that became legal in 1970 via the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970. Amen. Detroit, where I live, has had a JOA between the Free Press and the News since the late 1980s. As Gross mentions in the article, circulation for both papers has plummeted since the days before the JOA.
But the JOA isn't the only reason circulation for the papers is in the tank. A bitterly divisive strike in 1995 hurt both papers badly, as Detroit is a fiercely loyal union town and subscribers who were union members canceled subscriptions to the papers in droves. But, strengthened by the JOA, Gannett and Knight Ridder were able to break the strike, replacing striking workers (including yours truly) and causing many of the top reporters to find other work in other cities. Many readers feel the quality of the papers hasn't been the same since. And circulation has never really recovered. This paragraph in the slate piece is most telling:
If the newspapers in JOAs had to compete financially—instead of just editorially—presumably advertising rates would be lower, or subscriptions would be cheaper. Or editors and publishers would try to make the newspapers so good that one would attract a larger audience and people would pay a premium for the product, and to advertise in it. And then everybody would benefit.
Rachel Cunliffe has posted an extraordinary interview with one of her friends who is Christian but has decided not to attend church meetings. The answers to Rachel's questions may surprise you, or not. They may make you angry, or hopeful, or sad. But you will learn something. It's so easy in our churches to use the next fad formula for increasing membership and/or attendance. And we forget the simple, but difficult, things that started the Church in Jerusalem some 2000 years ago. Check out this interview. And may God take the scales from our eyes.
It's going to be a big day, musically, at church on Sunday. The teen choir is singing "Down in the River to Pray" from the "O Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack. Daughter Amy has the opening solo and I couldn't be prouder. She'll sing it for you now if you ask, anytime, anywhere. I'll be holding up my end in the soprano section of Chancel Choir as we do "Lord of the Dance" (arranged by John Rutter) for the anthem. Rehearsal tonight. I need it.
One of my favorite bloggers, Bible Geek, is back to his own blog, Cruciform Chronicle. He's been posting over at The Gutless Pacifist too. Now that he's back to his old stomping grounds, guess I'll have to add him to my blogroll. Check him out.
Another blogroll addition is Clutter from the Desk of Telford Work. (Yes, that's his real name and you can read about it over at his Web site.) I have been reading him for months, so this addition is long overdue. I am in awe of his clear thinking, wisdom and writing ability.
Over at Martin Roth's place, he's posted his new novel "Prophets and Loss," a Christian thriller. I know the first two paragraphs he's posted on his home page make me want to read more!
Update: Thanks to Alicia the Midwife for the nudge -- we've got more than one new novelist among the Christian bloggers. Kathryn Lively recently posted her new mystery, "Saints Preserve Us," on her site. Go take a look.
According to research by Barna Research, nine out of 10 parents under age 13 believe they have the primary responsibility to teach their children about spiritual matters and religious faith. And two-thirds of the parents surveyed attend church at least once a month, and take their kids with them. However, the majority of parents don’t spend any time during the week talking with their kids about spiritual matters. They leave it all up to the church — which has their kids, maybe, an hour a week. Here’s a depressing statistic:
“Of the 51 million children under the age of 18 who live in the United States, more than 40 million of them do not know Jesus Christ as their savior, which suggests that there are some basic unmet spiritual needs that parents are overlooking.”
The survey results point up the huge need for churches to offer training for parents, as well as teaching children in Sunday School. Our churches need to offer help for parents in communicating their faith to their kids. Not just parenting classes, but basic discipleship for adults so that we can teach our children the how’s and why’s of our faith. Many times, the parents themselves don’t have a very solid grounding in their faith. As Barna said:
“When it comes to raising children to be spiritually mature, the old adage, ‘you can’t give what you don’t have,’ is pertinent for millions of families.”
If I want to be a disciple of Jesus so that I can disciple others, what better place to start than with my own child?
The New Testament sees the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:20 — “For you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body.” Paul is talking about sexual immorality in this context, but the overriding principle is to use our bodies to glorify God. By justly compensating a donor for their organ, am I violating that principle? Am I forcing them to dishonor God? Am I misusing the gift of the body? The same God who created the body also gifted the surgeon with the knowledge and ability to perform transplants. I do not think it is dishonoring God.
The Third World donor is voluntarily offering the organ for sale. Or does the donor’s very poverty itself exert coercion? Is it coercion to offer to pay someone for something they are freely offering for sale? The choice begins with the donor’s decision, not the recipient.
Does it violate the law of love? True, people can be given food; they don’t have to sell body parts. But by receiving this person’s organ, and paying them for it, I am forever connected to this donor. It gives me a personal opportunity to make other positive contributions to this person’s life, to have a relationship with him or her. Something that few charities can do.
Is it better, or more moral, to allow end-stage renal disease patients to live indefinitely on machines or home dialysis? Those options aren’t pretty, they aren’t cheap and they don’t give the patient much quality of life. Approximately 52,000 people in the United States are waiting for kidney transplants. Currently in the U.S., Medicare (Health Care Financing Administration) pays for a portion of the patient’s expenses for dialysis and transplants.
One RazorMouth commenter offered that the sixth commandment against murder also includes doing any physical harm to another person. And that putting a donor through the risk of surgery and living with only one functioning kidney (as kidney transplant patients do), violates that commandment.
But the risk of donation is decreasing all the time. According to the NYU School of Medicine, the most common problems associated with living donor surgery include pain related to the surgery, bleeding and infection. There are risks associated with any surgery. The main risks include pneumonia, blood clots to the lung, deep vein thrombosis, and side effects from anesthesia and infection. The risk of death from the surgery is estimated to be less than 1/100 of 1%.
New laparoscopic surgical procedures make the donor’s surgery much less invasive than previously. The surgery requires four small incisions, resulting in reduced recovery time, less pain and a shorter hospital stay. Many transplant center have been doing laparoscoping surgery for living donors since 1998; approximately half of living donor surgeries are done this way.
Living donors also worry about whether they can get by on only one kidney. A healthy person can live a completely normal life with only one kidney, indeed, some people are born with only one kidney. If a kidney is removed, the remaining kidney increases slightly in size and capacity and can carry on the function of the two. Lifestyle is not affected and normal work can continue.
And then there’s this: In 1998, Johns Hopkins Hospital performed its first "altruistic stranger" donor kidney transplant. The donor was an organ procurement nurse. She hoped, by her example, to demonstrate that being a live kidney donor was a safe and rewarding way to help the thousands of patients who wait for a kidney. Since her donation, there have been over 100 individuals who have expressed interest in donating their kidney to a stranger and four additional altruistic stranger donor transplants have taken place. These altruistic donors are deemed extraordinarily generous.
Is it more moral for the living donor to be an altruistic stranger? Does the exchange of money make the donor a victim or a beneficiary? Does it make the recipient a benefactor or an exploiter? Why is the paid donor a victim rather than “extraordinarily generous”?
Alicia the Midwife at Fructus Ventris shares an e-mail she received ... 1 Corinthians 13 (the love chapter) paraphrased for moms. I share it because I shouldn't be the only person sitting at my desk this morning with tears streaming down my face. Permalinks don't seem to be working, so look for today's first post.
I've added a list of Christian web magazines to the blogroll on the left. Some of my favorites. A couple of them, like Relevant and Boundless are written for a college-age audience (but I still feel like I'm 20 -- does that count?
It's storming here and the thunder and lighting has freaked out Gidget the Kitty. Typing with a cat on my lap is a challenge.
An interesting discussion over at RazorMouth began with an article about the morality of buying organs from Third World donors. The article prompted some comments that organ transplants themselves are immoral, based on proscriptions in the Bible against ingesting blood.
This hits close to home for me. I received a kidney transplant more than 22 years ago, from an unrelated donor. I was only 24 and one sick young woman. Would it have been better for me to have died rather than lived these last 22 years? Ask my 15-year-old daughter, whose birth would not have been possible without it. Ask my husband. You can’t ask my parents, who would have lost their only surviving child after losing their son in Vietnam. I buried my dad in 1986 and mom went to be with the Lord in 1995.
Here’s the New Testament reference against ingesting blood — Acts 15:29. It’s in the letter from the Council of Jerusalem to Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia. “You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.” In the Old Testament law, Leviticus 3:17 says, “This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live: You must not eat any fat or any blood.” And Lev. 7:26 — “And wherever you live you must not eat the blood of any bird or animal.” You get the picture. No fat, no blood. They belonged to the Lord under the OT sacrificial system. If Christians are supposed to abstain from animal fat, look out McDonald’s.
I don’t see anything in either of these Scriptures that considers blood transfusions or organ transplants to be unbiblical today. “Nothing that goes into a man defiles a man,” Jesus said. The injunctions in Acts relate to certain Gentile practices that would give offense to the Jewish brethren. The Gentile believers were asked to abstain from blood and strangled animals to avoid giving offense.
I would like to address the issue originally posed in the article — is it moral to buy organs from people in Third World countries? — in a post later this week after I have some time to research and think about it. It is not an easy question.
Pen writes, “There are some jobs a Christian should not do. An executioner would be one of those.” He and I disagreed on whether a Christian can be a soldier; in some ways, it is the same — both the soldier and the executioner are agents of the established government. Both of them are carrying out justice in the name of the state, which God has granted the authority to punish wrongdoers. Seems like we’re still talking about the issues of Romans 13:1-7.
Capital punishment raises some of the same questions as war — when is it just, if ever, in this fallen world? Can anyone but God judge someone’s guilt or innocence? Is the death penalty justice, or vengeance?
Human beings are finite, not all-knowing as God is. Yet he has given us the responsibility to exercise his justice in this world. There is not a crime so vile that the mercy of the cross cannot cover it. But crimes (sins too) carry temporal consequences. (Telling a lie may cost you a friendship. Adultery may cost you your marriage. In some churches, it may cost you your membership.) The death penalty is justified in the vilest of crimes because it is a natural consequence.
As I pointed out in a comment over at Pen’s site, as children of God, we are to be zealous for God’s holiness and love. Crime is an outrage against God’s character even more than it is an outrage against society. Justice and mercy combine that zealousness for God’s holiness and his love.
With a sometimes-heated debate going on over the faith of prominent Catholics like Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, Amy Welborn weighs in with a post (April 30) that puts it all in its proper perspective. Whether we are Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox, we would all do well to take her words to heart.
Mark Byron’s post today continues the postmodernism discussion. (Permalinks are goofy — look for the April 30 post titled “Pomos, Moonies and Bears, Oh My!”
From my reading, I am convinced that the postmodern movement does not want to toss out sound biblical doctrine; it is founded on the same Reformed principles found in the creeds. Learning sound doctrine from the preaching and teaching of the Word, and personally experiencing the presence of God in worship and community are not mutually exclusive. They are inextricably linked in the Christian’s walk.
I cannot possibly hope to embody agape love and Christian community unless I am empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit. While my personal relationship with Jesus Christ is not mechanical, there are some practices a young believer needs to know as a foundation for his moment-by-moment walk, the process the theologians call sanctification.
As a new believer, I needed to understand that Christ’s death on the cross was a completed work, once for all, for my sins and the world’s for all time. When I sin as a Christian (and I did, mightily, and still do) I need to know that I can bring that sin under the blood of Jesus and know that I am forgiven. I need to know that I can once again bow before my Creator and accept his grace, and continue to walk in the Spirit. This is true, no matter how I feel — emotionally I may feel a burden lifted, or I may feel no different.
I need to know that the basis of my forgiveness is not a matter of opinion. I need to know that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and rose bodily from the dead (as Schaeffer would say, in space and time history) to give me new life. As Mark writes, “I'm not sure how you can inculcate a respect for the Bible as the Christian's constitution in people who are raised to reject absolutes.”
Randy McRoberts over at Upward Way Press proves once again that I should have added him to my blogroll from the beginning. That oversight has been corrected. This post is more personal than usual, but it really brought home for me the point that it is so easy to take for granted the relationships closest to us. It’s easy to get sloppy and careless and forget to “speak the truth in love” to the people we love most. In our marriages, in our families — that’s where forgiving one another becomes more than just words we mouth in the Lord’s Prayer.
The other addition to my blogroll is University Blog, written by Aakash Raut. I first met Aakash over at Josh Claybourn’s site, and started reading his blog regularly because of his astute and thought-provoking comments. In today’s post, Aakash catches up with the Dixie Chicks — Entertainment Weekly apparently wasn’t the first time the group posed nude, but you probably won’t ever see that first photo — unless you check out his post. And yes, that is a shameless tease.
From postmodernism to the aging church. But Martin Roth’s latest essay on the church’s youth orientation hits close to home. My own church is an aging one. I’m 46 and considered one of the “youngsters”. Many of our members have been there for 50 years and more, raising families in the church, with three and four generations sometimes accounted for among the membership. Funerals outnumber weddings on the church calendar.
Roth’s essay quotes Dr. George Lazenby, the Baptist minister, who just turned 90:
“People over the age of 50 often comprise the greater part of the congregation. They have their special needs. Many are facing the closing years of life – and with it the prospect of sickness and death. To their needs many churches seem deaf.
“Subjects that come within the category of aging and death would be regarded as morbid and consequently avoided. The elderly are left to work things out for themselves without hearing what the word of God has to say about these matters.”
One of the ministries our church has begun in the last couple of years has been to our seniors. We remember their birthdays with cards and visits, give them transportation to church if they are able, and honor them on Anniversary Sunday. We work at a nearby Presbyterian Village retirement home, delivering lunches. But we need to do more than this.
Amid our church’s efforts to reach out to younger families, we are also trying not to forget the faithful people who laid the foundation for us. So, sometimes, the traditional Sunday morning worship doesn’t always cut it for me, musically. Big deal. When I want to sing praise choruses, I can go to our “boomer-oriented” Saturday night service.
And when I get discouraged with the older voices that are reluctant to change, I remind myself that Jesus charged me to “Feed My sheep.” Not just feed the sheep who are my age or younger. Feed all of His sheep.
Rachel Cunliffe asks about the postmodern movement in the Christian church. What is it, what does it mean and what fruit is it bearing? Check out her post and especially the comments section. These are questions that I’ve been wondering about, too.
I am about halfway through “The Younger Evangelicals” by Robert E. Webber, which tries to define this movement in the church. But Rachel’s post and the comments attached lead me to believe that maybe “postmodernism” may be just a convenient way to label people with a certain mindset about how to “do church.” More than that, it seems to be a reaction to the general cultural attitude that truth is relative, there are no absolute truths or objective facts. Therefore, communicating the Gospel to this generation requires a different approach from the one our 20th century evangelical leaders used. It is valuable because it is trying to speak the Gospel to the present generation, not the generation of 25-30 years ago.
Some of this reading, though, makes me feel like a bit of a dinosaur. I feel stuck in the rational apologetics that I learned 25-30 years ago. But at the same time, I agree with those who say that the rational apologetic simply doesn’t work with a culture that insists there are no absolute truths. (I have tried it with my non-Christian friends and it is like talking to water as it runs through your fingers.) I also agree that an authentic living-out of the Gospel among the body of Christ in the universal church and in the local body of believers is the most eloquent “proof” of the truth of the Gospel that we can give to our generation. (Although I have also seen non-Christians who know Christians living a life of faith and who still insist that “Jesus works for you but he doesn’t work for me.”)
I'm still reading and sorting this all out, but I'd like to hear from my readers about this.
“What should be our own perspective on military preparedness?... From my own study of Scripture I would say that to refuse to do what I can for those who are under the power of oppressors is nothing less than the failure of Christian love .... This is why I am not a pacifist. Pacifism in this poor fallen world in which we live — this lost world — means that we desert the people who need our greatest help.”— Francis A. Schaeffer, “Who is for Peace?”
It helps to understand Schaeffer’s position by placing him in his historical context. The context of post-World War II tensions, Cold War politics, in which the Soviet Union and the oppression of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe was a real and present threat to the United States. Schaeffer died in the 1980s, before the fall of the Berlin Wall. But I believe his keen mind would have understood the implications of the post-9/11 political landscape. Tyranny and fascism wears a different face now, in some places. It wore the mask of radical Islam under the Taliban in Afghanistan. It still goes under the name of communism in North Korea and China. And Iraq was your basic old-fashioned fascist dictatorship.
I don’t think that Schaeffer’s position stated above means that the United States should go to war against every oppressive government on the planet. To do what we can for those who are living under oppression must begin with strong diplomatic pressure. But military preparedness, the credible threat of force, puts teeth into diplomacy. Otherwise, the words “serious consequences” are just meaningless words.
“So instead of loving what you think is peace, love other [people] and love God above all. And instead of hating the people you think are warmakers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed — but hate these things in yourself, not in another.”— Thomas Merton, from “New Seeds of Contemplation”
I have written extensively about the theology of war in previous posts. I share this quote with you because it dovetails nicely with the thoughts of Martyn Lloyd-Jones regarding the roots of war in our society. While on vacation, I steeped myself in Francis Schaeffer’s “True Spirituality.” One of Schaeffer’s key points in that book is how our thought-life is central to our moment-by-moment walk with God. Every sin that is expressed externally begins internally, in the thoughts. In a sense, the 10th commandment against coveting is the root of all the previous nine commandments, coveting against God or men being the internal sin that gives rise to the external sin.
So Merton has it right in that the real battle is a spiritual one, not external.
Merton’s quote also alludes to a false peace, “what you think is peace” but what is in reality a worshipping of external personal comfort and security. Merton’s call to take the plank out of your own eye first comes down to this: You can’t make external peace the central thing that you base your life on. Make the central thing your relationship with God and loving other people. When you hate the injustice, tyranny and greed in your own soul, the thing to do is to bring those sins under the blood of Christ and accept the forgiveness purchased by the finished work of the cross.
So the Christian’s work for peace in the world — real peace — lies in sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with people and building disciples. That’s the mission of the church for peace — changing the world one person at a time.
Just when things start getting fun around here -- I'm leaving for a week. Packing up the whole family for sun and fun in Myrtle Beach. I'm sure I will miss blogging, but I'm a scribbler, so you can be sure I'll come back with some new stuff for the blog.
Meanwhile, you guys behave yourselves while Mom is away. Don't answer the door. No more than one friend over at a time. No food in the bedrooms. Clean up after yourselves. Read the good folks on the blogroll until I get back.
As humans, we have a tendency to forget. God knows this and, throughout His dealings with His people, He has given us reminders.
In Joshua 4, the stones at Gilgal were set up as a memorial to God’s faithfulness to the Hebrews in bringing them through Jordan River on dry land.
At the Last Supper, Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of Me.” How easily would we forget even the Lord’s sacrifice of His body and blood on the cross, if we didn’t have this sacrament to remind us? Josh has a very nice post on his site today about the meaning of this holy day.
I have significant milestones in my own walk with God, which I try to remember from time to time. The notes in the margins and the back of my Bible help me to remember things that I learned as a young believer. Remembering certain Scriptures that have changed my life — Isaiah 55:2 and praying Psalm 51 from the heart one dark night.
One of my favorite gospel songs is on a CD by Alison Krauss and the Cox Family, “Remind Me.” The chorus goes something like this, if memory serves:
“Roll back the curtain of memory now and then.
Show me where you brought me from and where I might have been.
Just remember I’m a human, and humans forget.
So remind me, remind me, dear Lord.”
So tonight, when I take Communion at church, I will be remembering where He brought me from and where I might have been. I will be remembering what it cost Jesus to set my feet on solid ground. And I will also be thinking of all of you — scattered around the world, but made one by the sacrifice of His blood, unified as we sit together at this table of grace.
Do we have a right to ask God to heal someone — or is the illness in His plan? Are illnesses, trials and suffering just something that we have to accept because "that's the way it is"? How dare we ask God to heal someone that He is ready to take home, or rescue someone that He wants to grow through an experience and does not want to remove from that experience just yet?
These are some of the questions troubling someone very dear to me.
I think God wants us to ask Him for stuff like that. Because it's never God's will for people to suffer. Jesus’ death on the cross is effective for healing all of the effects of sin — alienation of man from God, man from man, and man from himself.
So we ought to ask God to give us a significant experience of the reality of the healing that Jesus brought about. Audacious faith pleases God. The gospels give us lots of examples of people who audaciously asked Jesus for healing — for themselves and for others — the Roman centurion, the guys who lowered their lame friend through Peter's roof, and the woman with the hemorrhage who just wanted to touch Jesus' robe. So ask. Ask boldly. Remember the Spirit prays for us with groanings too deep for words, so even when you can't find the words, the Spirit prays for you.
I heard on NPR this morning and read in the paper that young Ali Ismaeel Abbas has been airlifted to a hospital in Kuwait City, where doctors are treating his severe burns. He will have skin-graft surgery and is receiving antibiotics, pain relievers and fluids for dehydration.
Didn’t anyone tell the U.S. commandos that the war in Iraq was supposed to distract them from the war on terrorism? Didn’t anyone tell them that Saddam Hussein didn’t harbor terrorists in Iraq?
What to do with Abul Abbas, the alleged planner of the Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking? The PLO says that he cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed before the 1995 interim agreement between Israel and the PLO. Abbas insists that he has not practiced terrorism in recent years. But Israel says he has been funneling money from Saddam Hussein to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. And arms including rocket-propelled grenades were found in raids on his Palestine Liberation Front hideouts.
Charges in the U.S. against Abbas have expired, although they may be reinstated. Also, Italy is trying to extradite him.
Leon Klinghoffer, the man the PLF murdered during the hijacking in 1985, has two daughters living in the U.S. After 18 years, they deserve to see justice done.
Spring has been slow in coming to Michigan this year. Last weekend’s ice storm and snowfall just added to everyone’s depression and longing for warm weather. But God seems to have flipped the switch on summer. It’s been sunny and warm all week.
So it is time to take stock of the garden. The crocuses planted last fall by the front door are in bloom. Tulips have put up leaves, but there’s no sign of the hyacinth or daffodils. Did they survive — or are they just biding their time?
My rude daisies are spreading outside of the border — got to yank some of them out. The serviceberry is budding, as is the lilac. Remnants of last year’s cleome, sweet pea and marigolds accuse me of eating the bread of idleness last fall. Hey, I just nibble at the crust once in a while!
My garden looks scruffy now, but there’s life out there. With patience, sweat and attention, it will be a delight to the eye in July and August. Weaker plants will need protecting, while aggressive ones will be reined in. (Some have accused me of gardening like Slobodan Milosevic. I say that’s not ethnic cleansing, it’s weeding.)
Gardening is such a beautiful illustration of the Christian life. I bet I look pretty scruffy to God — I know I used to. But the Holy Spirit is a patient, if not always tender, gardener. Unlike me, the Spirit gives this scruffy garden a choice: “Do you want to be a delight to My eyes in the fullness of the season?” Of course I do. “Well, then, we’ve got some weeding to do.”
The USS Constellation is coming home. That's bound to bring a smile to Missy's face, now that her boy Jay is coming home safe. There's an answered prayer.
A princess is a delicate thing,
Delicate and dainty as a dragonfly’s wing.
You can tell a lady by her elegant air,
But a genuine princess is exceedingly rare.
So went the lyrics from the theme song to “Once Upon a Mattress.” It got me to thinking about the difference between the way the world sees a princess and the path Jesus has set out for the daughters of the King.
The world’s princess lets a mere pea disturb her slumber.
A daughter of the King commits her mind to the Lord, meditates on His word and sleeps peacefully.
The world’s princess sees other people as her servants.
A daughter of the King is the servant of all.
The world’s princess sees her own beauty.
A daughter of the King sees other people’s beauty through the eyes of Christ.
The world’s princess is squeamish about getting her hands dirty.
No work is too humble for a daughter of the King.
The world’s princess is wealthy.
A daughter of the King “opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy.”
The world’s princess dines on sweet fruit picked and prepared by her servants.
A daughter of the King bears fruit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness …
The world’s princess gets her nails done.
A daughter of the King serves the One who chose to endure the nails for her.
The latest addition to my ever-expanding reading list is John Adams' fine blog. A young man currently living in Haiti, he brings a unique perspective to everything he writes, including the comments he leaves on a variety of blogs I have visited. And he brings a little bit of the outside world into my humble digs here.
Slate.com is on a roll today with this article by Stephen E. Landsburg. He examines the looting in Iraq from an economic and a moral perspective and asks, “What’s so wrong with it?”
The civil chaos in the wake of Saddam's fall has been distressing to see -- even though I am confident it will be short-lived. This article brought to mind a conversation my husband and I had the other night while watching the news. I wondered aloud why the people would plunder their own history by looting ancient artifacts from the Baghdad museum. Patiently he explained, “You see, honey, they can pull it out of their attic when the ‘Antiques Road Show” comes to town, and explain how their grandfather picked this up at a yard sale for 5 bucks …”
I swear, I think he just likes to see me rolling on the floor in helpless laughter.
Update: I don't mean to take these losses lightly. However, maybe when people settle down a bit and some local police authority is put in place, a general amnesty can be offered for the return of ancient artifacts to the Baghdad museum. Offer, say, $1,000 no questions asked for every item returned. I don't think the Iraqi people really want to see their noble past in ruins.
In an earlier post, I expressed the opinion that it would be best to see Saddam Hussein captured and put on trial. I received the following e-mail response from a friend who is an astute political observer and print columnist in his own right:
“I fear you are totally wrong about Saddam. Putting him on trial would just anger many Arabs. They really all want him dead or disappeared. There is no threat that he will return to power; he is a secular not a religious bad guy.”
And in a comment, Josh Claybourn agrees with me that alive and on trial would be best. I am not convinced that Saddam would not attempt a return to power. He is nothing if not a survivor. Have the major Ba’ath party officials fled to Syria to spend the rest of their days on the beach? I also believe that a trial at an international court such as The Hague would answer the outcries from some on the left that the U.S. is acting without regard to the opinions of the international community.
Over at Josh Claybourn's place, he's posting daily Scriptures for the events of the week leading up to Jesus crucifixion and resurrection. Edifying stuff. Go take a look.
You'll notice I've added a link to a blog named Pray Naked Experience. (No, the title is not what you're thinking ... get your minds out of the gutter!) It's written by a guy named Macker and he's celebrating his one-year blog-iversary. His post about why he does it and what he's learned from blogging is pretty close to my own feelings about it:
I am humbled, shocked and awed by the number of people who have made a point to click on whatever link it was that brought them here.
And this:
And every one of the blessings I count online is a person on the other end of a phone line, willing to take the time to consider my words and share a few of their own with me in return.
I think it's the connection I feel with my readers (all two of you) that motivates me to come up with fresh things to blog and share some of the things God is teaching me.
Today's worship simply blew me away. Starting off with one teen girl's bold, unwavering voice:
Here I am to worship
Here I am to bow down
Here I am to say that you're my God.
You're altogether lovely,
Altogether worthy,
Altogether wonderful to me.
The Offertory soloist had some people in tears with a song taken from Psalm 22 -- just a wonderful lament echoing our Lord's words from the cross and everyone else who has ever felt mired in sin and abandoned by God.
The main text of the message was from John's account of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The key point that stuck in my mind was how Jesus came in triumph -- he was already the winner of the battle. And all that was to come was only because he allowed it to happen. Am I willing to let him have that same sovereignty in my life?
I received another long e-mail from my old high school classmate, Kevin. He had some more thoughts regarding my brother's death, which I posted about earlier. Kevin let me share a bit of that e-mail here. Not just because of the comfort it gave me, but because we've been thinking and praying for our troops in Iraq, and thinking of the families of the men and women who have been lost in this war. Kevin wrote:
After thinking at great length about your brother yet again after all these
years, I don't believe that you have any idea of just how great a hero he
was. The Marines do not expect medals regularly nor do they hand them out
as "chest candy" or a nod of the head to a grieving family. They are an
outfit that is now, and always has been, about doing the job to which you
are assigned. The citation on your brother's medal carries far more weight
and honor than I think you could ever imagine.
I cannot tell you how many hundreds of citations I have written in my career
(nor do I care to tell you how many I have dismissed with a "YGTBFSM"). My
rules were simple - recognize those who should be recognized - and, dammit,
I want this person's mother to cry when this is read in public. Don't tell
me how they developed a budget with valor - I want this to tell the story of
how they went the extra mile.
By the way, YGTBFSM is one of those semi-unprintable military acronyms similar to FUBAR. According to Kevin, it means "you got to be f***ing s****ing me." I had to ask.
