One of the things that I love about blogging, maybe the thing I love best, is the chance to interact with other people. To discuss things that really matter with people who are smarter than I am, who have a deeper walk with God, who can challenge me to think. I’ve been involved in many different discussions at various blogs, some of them quite passionate. But sometimes, unfortunately, things can get out of hand, people get hurt.
One such dust-up occurred over at Josh Claybourn’s blog recently, beginning in a post concerning the execution of Paul Hill, who murdered an abortion doctor. Angry words were said, people were hurt, and Josh got a lot of the blame.
Josh defended his position in this post, and other bloggers took up the discussion on their sites. Christian bloggers all seek to create a safe place for discussion, but we are all human, and sometimes our words get carried away with our strong feelings on certain "hot button" issues.
Not related to the Josh brouhaha, but related to the topic of this post, Le Sabot Post-Moderne made a humble (and humbling) confession on his blog when he went too far in a debate.
I try to create a general atmosphere of openness, welcome and safety here at "such small hands." That doesn’t mean I don’t have passionate opinions about what I write here. But I want my readers to feel safe to disagree with me, to call me out when I am wrong. However, it is my site. And as if it were my home, I ask you to mind your manners and speak to others the way you would like to be spoken to. Disagree strongly, but always be civil. Knock the ideas, not the person. Always remember there is a real person behind the names in the comments. If posts are profane or libelous, I will not hesitate to delete them. If someone persists in such behavior, I will not hesitate to block their IP address.
The Christianity Today Weblog linked to this interesting survey of religious and non-religious folk. If I sound a bit snippy, well, I apologize in advance. It’s just been that kind of a day. Guess I should just “try harder.”
Let's look at these survey results. A vast majority of Americans (93 percent) believe that adultery is wrong. But 58 percent think is OK to have sex with someone before you are married. Consistently, 51 percent think having a baby outside wedlock is morally acceptable. Not surprisingly, 66 percent of Americans who are pro-choice think having kids out of wedlock is just swell. What is it that Mark Shea always says? Show me a culture that despises virginity and I’ll show you a culture that despises children? Something like that.
At this point, I should be surprised that 84 percent of Americans believe in sin. But considering their above answers, is their idea of sin limited to adultery? Maybe it includes that heinous 21st century American sin — eating rich, calorie-laden desserts, which seem to be universally described as sinful. Such sinful behavior will certainly, if repeated often enough, make the sinner fat and will perhaps shorter his or her life. While the above-mentioned morally acceptable acts hurt no one at all.
In the terrifying days immediately after September 11, 2001, 75% of the Americans surveyed said they were praying more. That number has dropped to only 52 percent who are on their knees more since the war with Iraq began. What’s up with that? We feel so safe and warm and cozy that we don’t need to call on the name of the Lord? We can handle it from here, Lord. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
Relax, Lee Anne. Breathe deeply. Think thoughts of tolerance, diversity and compassion.
Trouble is, my thoughts of compassion remind me of the last verse of Jonah: “But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left … Should I not be concerned about that great city?”
But then, who am I to tell someone which hand is their right and which is their left? That'd be mighty condescending of me, wouldn't it?
"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." -- C. S. Lewis
God's plans for me are better than anything I can possibly imagine. So why is it still so hard to trust Him sometimes? Especially when He knows what I need even better than I do. Especially when Scripture says this:
"O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me. Thou dost know when I sit down and when I rise up; Thou dost understand my thought from afar. Thou dost scrutinize my path and my lying down, and art intimately acquainted with all my ways." -- Psalm 139:1-3
I'm adding a link under Zines to The Christian Monitor, an online magazine that keeps tabs on the persecuted Christians around the world. Many thanks to Australian blogger Martin Roth for this. He refers to it many times, and I have come to respect and admire his heart for our Christian brothers and sisters around the world who are not free to worship as we are. I hope this will help me (and you) to remember these people in our prayers.
Ken and I bought new bikes today! They are just so cool!! "Comfort" bikes by Trek, they have wider seats (for our tender, wider parts) and 21 speeds to make hill-climbing a breeze. We tried out the ones Ken's sister and brother-in-law brought up to Lost Lake last weekend, and it didn't take long for us to decide we really wanted some of our own.
My old bike is practically vintage. It was my high school graduation present in 1974, and my pride and joy at the time. A 10-speed racing style bike in yellow. I went everywhere on that bike; it was like part of my body. But now my body really doesn't handle that bent-over riding position for very long.
Ken will enjoy the break from walking, which is his usual cardio routine. So will I ... something different from the step aerobics I usually do. And something fun that we can do together.
Mark Byron has moved his site to Typepad, and Bobby Allison-Gallimore has a new domain name for The Rattler. Tim VanAlstyne, the erstwhile Michigander, has changed the name of his blog to Stranger in a Strange Land.
In a post below, I asked how you guys share your faith. Got some good insights, too. Thanks to Bene, Camassia, Bryan and John.
Let me tell you how this all started. I found an article from a commenter over at Jordon Cooper’s blog. Jordon had blogged about the Burning Man festival, and there was this link to an article by an Ohio pastor who has gone there to give away bottles of water and live and talk and share the Gospel.
My friend Jim had mentioned Burning Man; his son went this year. So I shared the article with him, via our high school class’s Internet message board. In part, he responded: “I think it's great that his church tries to embody and act on a bigger-than-average idea of what it means to be Christian, instead of just preaching the usual reductionist line and not living the larger principles at all. Ultimately, though, his view of Burning Man impresses me as God-awfully condescending.”
Condescending in that Jim thinks that any effort to persuade someone that their beliefs may not be truth is belittling and wrong. Basically Jim feels that any Christian who takes the Bible seriously and believes Jesus meant it when he said, “I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me” is a fundamentalist.
I responded that I didn’t really see that the pastor in the article was being condescending or trying to foist his beliefs on people, he was just giving honest answers to honest questions.
The give-and-take started to get wide-ranging at this point, but part of Jim’s response was this: “… Your bit about offering 'a fresh perspective on an institution that has been rejected by many people before they really know what it is they are rejecting' — I worry about what 'really know' means in that sentence. The evangelical Christian assumption is that if anyone 'really knew' the paradigm they were rejecting, they wouldn't reject it. Again, the assumption says: 'My paradigm is better than yours.' It's juvenile spirituality: My God can beat up your God. If you can't see that, I don't know that I can make it more plain. But that's where the condescension comes from.”
Me: “I don't expect to change your paradigm. However, I do humbly submit that there is the slightest hint of condescension on your own part by inferring that those who have a different worldview from your own are mired in the Middle Ages. And if we would just get with it and be cool like everyone else then the Age of Aquarius will dawn and peace will rule the planets, etc. etc.”
Jim: “The whole thing about being stuck in the Middle Ages is to point out what that pastor (and anyone else who can't separate being a Christian from evangelizing) seems blind to: That as long as you insist that there can only be one ultimate truth, and that you're the one who has it, and that everybody else should accept it, too, the Crusades continue. … And again, the whole basis for this crazy evangelizing jones is a Middle Ages interpretation of scripture that refuses to see the mythic threads that bind those stories to those of other religious traditions.”
Me: “Actually that crazy evangelizing jones goes back further, to the first century, to folks like Peter and John and Paul. To the day of Pentecost, in which, according to Acts (penned by Luke, whose source I believe was Peter) some 2000 folks repented and believed in Christ. It is warp and woof of the faith. And you are absolutely correct about orthodox (small o) Christianity's truth claims. It is uncomfortable, in this age of political correctness, when intolerance is a greater sin than molesting children. And today tolerance doesn't merely mean that I put up with people doing things that I believe are wrong, but I must condone and celebrate them. We have come a long way, we pagans and Christians, from the days when we were killing one another. I won't mention the ravages of Diocletian and Stalin and Mao and North Korea (oh, sorry ... Christians are still being killed for their faith there) if you'll stop bringing up the Crusades. Let's declare a truce. It is, as I said, uncomfortable. And most Christians would prefer to make those truth claims eat in the kitchen where decent folks won't see them. But there they are. And Christianity wouldn't be Christianity without them.”
Jim: “Maybe you've heard of these Biblical scholars (a bunch of them, evidently) who agree on the dubiousness of Jesus ever having said that bit about 'fishers of men' — that it's right up there with Jews as Christ-killers and Moses' horns in terms of spurious interpretation. I always think of this stuff when scriptural literalists doggedly cling to their presumed woof. But you're telling me, Lee Anne, you're really telling me, that the assumption that all non-Christians are wrong and that they must be converted, is not just a quaint old tradition, but both the warp and the woof of your faith? Both? It's warp AND woof? It can't be, like, one of those faded abrasch thingies that signifies the age of the wool or something? It has to be the very structure of your entire faith? Ye gods. I'll bet the shroud of Turin would have a good laugh at that. I'm almost sure you've overstated your case there, but if not, we have nowhere to go. I can't think of anything else to say. Wait, I thought of something: I know Christians who live their faith and think converting people is bullshit. In fact, the one guy who impresses me as the most Christ-like person I've ever met (Brother David Steindl-Rast) deplores evangelism. Whew. There IS hope.”
At this point, the people who feel uncomfortable about faith discussions started pleading for a change of subject, so I backed off. Here’s what I said: “I won't debate and discuss any more ... but please be assured that because I disagree with Jim doesn't mean I don't respect his views and love him. I would never have this sort of discussion with someone I didn't respect. But for me to say nothing would be to deny who I am. To be silent would deny you the chance to get to know me -- or am I presuming too much? If you look back through my posts, I think you will see that I am not trying to force anyone to change. What you do with anything I say here -- whether you think about it or toss it off as 'fundie' ramblings -- is completely up to you. I'll never need to know. I am merely trying to explain and discuss what I believe about God and Christianity and how that impacts the 'stuff' of daily life, maybe in a way you haven't heard before. Please believe it is not my intent to offend or be combative.”
OK, maybe I did overstate the case with the warp and woof comment. But I’d like to respond to a couple of the tangential issues Jim raised … about the so-called biblical scholars questioning Jesus’ words, and about the whole bogus issue of the Jews as Christ-killers. I’d like to explain that my sin, our sin, is what nailed Jesus to the cross; that who did the crucifying is insignificant in comparison to the one who was crucified. But like John said, I don’t want to turn people off by getting in their faces.
Amy Welborn has a well-reasoned post about the Revolve New Testament, which I posted about earlier. I thought it was a neat way to make the Gospel more relevant to young women. But she and her commenters have a different take on it.
Do we evangelicals run the risk of trivializing our faith by trying to make it more relevant to 21st century culture? Does a hip, magazine format make this New Testament as disposable as last month’s Teen People?
I think there’s a lot more to developing an enduring faith as a young person than whether your Bible has a bright, flashy cover or a plain black leather binding. For my own walk as a teen Christian, it had a lot to do with having older mentors who could model for me how to walk with Jesus when times were bad.
It was good to get back home again from the weekend. I brought back some kind of allergy or summer cold, because my nose is running like a faucet and I'm even more fuzzed-out than usual.
I had a wonderful time. Learned how to play euchre. Ken saw a bald eagle. We think we saw four otters in the lake one morning on our walk. And the heron. And the loons.
Amy's weekend wasn't so good. Her girlfriend backed out at the last minute and we couldn't get anyone else to go. So she had to put up with us old people some of the time.
While I was gone, I thought a lot about the opportunities at Alpha, and my own efforts to share my faith with non-believers. And I wondered, is sharing the gospel an integral part of the Christian faith? Is it warp and woof of what we believe? What do you guys think? How do you share the gospel with the pre-Christians you know?
Tomorrow morning I will be joining the migration of downstate Michiganders to the paradise we call “Up North.” My lucky husband, his sister and brother, and their spouses are headed up there as we speak. I’m envious. But I must hold down the fort for one more night. Tonight is the first varsity football game for Amy’s high school and her dance team is performing at half-time.
She’s going to be wonderful. I can’t wait.
“Up North” encompasses a huge area, something like the upper third of Michigan’s “mitt.” Our particular getaway is Lost Lake Woods Club. It’s 10,000-plus acres of pristine Michigan forest, with five small lakes scattered around the property. Badger Lake is the biggest, with a small beach. No motors larger than a small single-engine job are allowed.
So folks fish, or sail, or paddleboat. They listen for the loons and watch for the great blue heron. They walk the hiking trail around the lake. They go out at dusk and count the deer. Ken’s packing his fishing gear. I’m taking books and a bathing suit. Amy’s taking a girlfriend along, and probably is planning to make some new friends, or meet up with someone she met last year. Like last year, we’ll probably drive the trail out to Deer Lake and watch the sun set one night. It is so quiet, the silence is palpable. In such a place, it is a bit easier to hear the voice of God.
I have refrained from commenting on the furor in Alabama over state Supreme Court Justice Ray Moore’s campaign to keep the monument to the 10 Commandments displayed in the courthouse. Today, the 5,280-pound granite chunk was hauled out.
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing.
On the one hand, I think there should be a place for the expression of religious faith in the public sphere. I believe that the foundation of the rule of law rests on the character of God and the Commandments, and our nation would be the better for acknowledging that.
And yet … we worship a living Lord, not a monument of stone. We celebrate our redemption by grace, not merit through the Law.
Previous legal decisions have allowed phrases such as “In God we trust” to remain on U.S. currency. The reasoning has been that such phrases are so vague as to have no meaning, therefore they cannot be offensive.
No meaning? To Christians, the word “God” has specific meaning, referring to the infinite-personal Father, Son and Holy Spirit who created and sustains the universe. If the only way for God to have a place in the public sphere is for Him to be vague, meaningless and inoffensive, then I’ll have no such public displays.
I don’t worship a vague, meaningless, inoffensive God. Let God be true. Let Him be displayed in our spirits and in our love for others. Let people see God for who He really is.
My church is getting ready to run the Alpha Course in a couple of weeks. Along with the other people in our small-group Bible study, I’ve volunteered to work with the small-group segment of the course. We started our training and preparation last week.
Overwhelmed and inadequate are good words to describe the way I’m feeling right now.
Last week, the pastors handed out job descriptions for each of the different roles people will play in hosting Alpha. Here are the qualifications for small-group leader:
“A growing Christian; has at least the beginnings of the gift of evangelism; is good with people; sensitive; understands the work of the Holy Spirit; is “full of the Spirit and wisdom” (Acts 6:3); understands from where non-churchgoers or non-Christians are coming; non-judgmental; and has a servant’s heart.”
My daughter, who was at the training because she will be helping with the child care during the Alpha sessions, scanned a critical eye over the list. Big mistake.
“YOU’RE NOT SENSITIVE! YOU’RE NOT NON-JUDGMENTAL!” she proclaimed.
We had an interesting, if loud, conversation on the ride home.
As far as I could determine, my judgmental attitude consisted in not jumping up and down for joy when Amy (briefly) got back together with the same boy she had broken up with back in this post. And that I flat-out told her I would not approve of her going out with another boy who smokes weed and drinks.
To me, that’s not being judgmental, that’s being a responsible parent. It’s like throwing myself in front of her if she were about to step into the path of a freight train.
The committee investigating the space shuttle Columbia disaster has released its findings in a report that is sharply critical of NASA itself. The report goes so far as to partially blame the culture at NASA for the accident.
The physical cause of the accident was a piece of foam striking the underside of the shuttle’s wing, creating a breach in the heat-reflecting tiles on the shuttle’s skin. But the panel concluded that an important contributing factor was NASA’s lack of a coordinated, across-the-board safety process for the space program.
Low-level management was charged with developing safety processes, but these were never coordinated. Basically, I don’t think I’m too far off by describing NASA’s safety policy as flying by the seat of their pants.
This method worked successfully when the astronauts of Apollo 13 and a tireless ground crew led by flight director Gene Kranz brought the crippled lunar capsule safely back to earth in 1970. The story makes for stirring film-making, but only because it was a “successful failure.” It’s disastrous public policy.
Flying by the seat of our pants is not nearly enough if the United States plans to pursue manned space flight with any sort of seriousness in the future. Space exploration captures the modern imagination with the same sort of passion that circumnavigation of the globe captured imaginations in the 15th and 16 centuries. Heroes who attempt such feats deserve more support from the people who send them out than a haphazard safety program.
Our small-group Bible study met all day Saturday for a sort of retreat. We’ve been going through the Willow Creek series on spiritual growth, and the latest study on Groups. The last session had encouragement as the theme, or “Being For Each Other.”
The Bible study centered on how God is for us, using Romans 8 as the main text for that. Then we looked at how that fact leads us to being for each other, and encouraging each other. And all of the different forms encouragement may take — exhortation, comforting and even sometimes reproving or rebuking.
Late in the afternoon, we took about an hour of solitude time to reflect on Romans 8. If we hadn’t done it before, we also were supposed to write down one thing about each of our fellow members to complete the sentence, “One thing I appreciate about you is …”
I can’t go into the many encouraging things that were said about each person; it would violate our pact of keeping what is said in the group within the group. But let it suffice to say that after the first person started, the hostess directed me to grab a box of tissues from inside the house and put it on the table where we were sitting. There was not a single dry eye when we were done.
When it was my turn to be the “encouraged one,” I was so totally amazed and utterly humbled by the things people said — ways they saw God working in my life that I had no idea were showing on the outside. The whole exercise served to strengthen our commitment and praise God for His gracious love toward us.
It’s so easy to forget, or to become so self-absorbed (like me) that we don’t even notice an opportunity to encourage. But the value of just a word or two to cheer somebody on is immeasurable.
Bill Luse of Apologia tears into a recent issue of Glamor magazine with keen insights into the American culture that glorifies indiscriminate sex and excuses killing the unborn, all in the name of the all-mighty Self. Here’s a sample, but go read the whole thing:
“All I know is that hell has a home on earth. If we can just come up with the right perspective, find the right name for it, call it by what we want it to be rather than what it is, we can live there quite comfortably. If we "examine" our religion long and hard enough, we can lose it or remake it in our own image. It comes to the same thing. God's way is my way, and if there be no God, my way is the only way.”
“Wives, submit to your husbands as unto the Lord.” Ephesians 5:22.
Alicia the Midwife has an outstanding post about her own struggles with this “hard saying” from Scripture. I bet there isn’t a woman raised to adulthood in the last 50 years who hasn’t struggled with rebellion over this. Alicia shares her struggles with obedience to her husband, and her victories as well. And if you think she’s a doormat — watch out. You are so wrong. Go read it and find out what she says about being a godly wife.
Theologian Guy has arrived at his seminary in Abilene, Texas. As soon as he gets a laptop of his very own, he promises to keep us updated on his doings and what God is teaching him.
Bryan of Clarity Amidst Chaos gives his own teen sex rant, and echoes many of the sentiments I expressed in my own rant a while back. Here's the part of Bryan's post that gets me where I live:
“Parents who are successful in teaching abstinence (and make no mistake about it, it is the parent's responsibility) aren't successful by scaring the bejeebers out of the kids. They don't do it with a litany of statistics, facts, and data. They don't do it by hammering it in, day after day. They do it by loving their children, by establishing and affirming the worth and value of their children before God day after day, teaching them not to compromise themselves for anything less than God's perfect choice. They hammer when necessary, give the stats when necessary, and even occasionally scare (but not manipulatively) when necessary. But parents are most successful when they treat this idealized experience in very real, consequential terms with their children.”
I’ve had to do a little hammering myself, lately.
And on the same subject, there is this post from Susanna Cornett, about a pair of Wisconsin 14-year-olds whose adventure between the sheets has landed them in court. The boy’s attorney is defending him on the basis of children’s privacy rights. And that such rights include the right to make "important decisions."
Heaven help us when 14-year-olds are deemed mature enough to make decisions such as when to make babies.
We talked about long-range planning at last night’s Session meeting. The need to look ahead to the church’s future, our previous attempts at planning, our successes and failures. We barely scratched the surface.
Pastor Roy made a couple of good points that I pondered on my drive home. One, that the world is moving so fast, we couldn’t possibly keep up with it; by the time we’d come up with a “future strategy” it would be obsolete. (And that probably goes for the post-modern church strategies we are seeing now. Where will they be in 20 years?) Second, that our future is more assured by being the unique church God wants us to be, with our unique gifts and ministries.
He mentioned the incident in Acts 13:1-3, in which the Antioch church was worshiping the Lord and fasting, when they were led by the Holy Spirit to send Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. Here they were, all together, fasting and praying and worshiping — basically doing what they usually did in their life together. The Spirit moved them to single out Paul and Barnabas … and the church’s direction changed.
Note that the text doesn’t say, “while they were discussing long-range planning …” Not that the Spirit can’t use committees to direct a church. He rejoices in doing the impossible. But I wonder what would happen if, as a Session, we spent 10 minutes of our monthly meeting praying about God’s direction for our future instead of planning it.
Salam Pax of Where is Raed? has this to say about the people who car-bombed the U.N. Mission:
“… this is not about American presence in Iraq. these attacks have nothing to do with the so called resistance. These are f---ing idiots who destroying all the efforts to help this country get back on its feet. The f---ing Governing Council could not control this mess. The moment the Coalition Forces move out we are plunged in chaos. We have entered a dark dark tunnel and we have no idea what will happen now.”
The coalition simply cannot lose heart. We must succeed. Or else we abandon Iraq to a fate that may be even worse than Saddam — radical, violent Islamic extremists. Can you say, “Taliban?”
On a related note: My good friend Laura’s son, Dan, is being shipped out today for Iraq with his unit of the 82nd Airborne. He was last in Afghanistan during the war. Please pray for his safety.
This article from the Christian Science Monitor looks at some upcoming TV shows for fall that have a spiritual focus. One of these new series is “Joan of Arcadia,” in which a teen girl sees and speaks with God in the form of different people. A quote from the article caught my attention:
"Joan" creator Barbara Hall suggests Jung's concept of the "collective unconscious" may explain the synchronicity, saying, "There's something in the zeitgeist right now that people are thinking about this." Without question, she says, the events of 9/11 deepened people's willingness to talk openly about issues of life and death, God, and fate. "For whatever reason, there is something in the air that people are willing to take a look at or have a discussion about spiritual issues," she says.
Something in the zeitgeist? (roll eyes)
I don’t expect the latest replacements for “Touched by an Angel” to be much different from their predecessors. Feel-good warm-and-fuzzy stories about people having their lives changed by a single bolt of selfless love.
The music industry seems to “get it” more than TV. Christian musicians like the couple mentioned in this article (thanks to Bloggedy Blog for the link) are taking their music to a secular audience, in hopes of getting the message out to the people who need to hear it most. Breaking out of the Christian music ghetto is risky. Bands like Switchfoot have managed to get airplay for songs that ask spiritual questions without offering direct answers. Even Evanescence (which sort of flip-flopped from calling itself a Christian band to denying that classification) pounds out throbbing electric guitar licks to lyrics like this: “Am I too lost to be saved? Am I too lost? My God, my tourniquet. Return to me salvation.”
Teens can identify with this pain and questioning; the music resonates with their own searching. But who’s there to give them the answers to their questions?
I guess I should be happy about this. At least it’s getting people to talk about spiritual things, right? But when TV offers its audience such a pale, shallow imitation of the God who sent His only begotten Son to die for them, should I be happy? Should I be satisfied that people are being fed a diet of Slim-Fast when what they really are hungering for is the seven-course feast?
My mom would have called it “cutting off your nose to spite your face.” That was her rather quaint way of describing how some people will do things to hurt someone else, and end up hurting themselves.
That’s what the holdout Baathists in Iraq are doing with their campaign of sabotage against the country’s oil industry and fragile infrastructure. The latest example is the bombing today of the U.N. mission in Baghdad. The U.N.’s work in Baghdad is not military or civil — it’s humanitarian. It’s working to get food, water and medicine to people who need it.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman sums up the situation well in this column. You should read the whole thing. Besides the self-defeating sabotage, there’s this:
“There's a word I've heard here that I did not hear on two previous visits since the war: "humiliation." This is an occupation. It may have come with the best of intentions, but nobody likes to be occupied.”
There just aren’t enough U.S. soldiers to protect the power lines, the highways and the oil refineries. Maybe we should just forget the search for Saddam, forget the hunt for WMDs and put all our resources into rebuilding Iraq.
If we fail at building a democratic government, WMDs and Saddam won’t matter anyway.
Update: Mark Byron has mixed feelings about the bombing of the U.N. mission in Baghdad. His heart goes out to the families who lost loved ones ... and yet there is still some lingering resentment over the U.N.'s foot-dragging after Resolution 1441. Now it may be even harder to get U.N. buy-in on the rebuilding of Iraq -- international cooperation I believe the U.S. needs to help shoulder the burden of civil and humanitarian reconstruction.
The finger-pointing continues. The Ohio energy company at the center of the investigation says that it couldn't have been its fault. This schoolyard behavior isn't accomplishing anything. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (former U.S. senator from Michigan) has more on his shoulders than he bargained for, I bet.
Meanwhile, the worst we are having to cope with in the Detroit area is a ban on drinking the water. A mere inconvenience, really. No coffee here at the office, unless you brought your own from home. Some folks were smart and brought bottled water, but oh no, not me. So I'm sitting here with a Coke.
The local TV stations are struggling to make hay from this "news." Last night's promo went something like this: "The boil-water order means bedtimes take even longer! Find out how one metro Detroit family is coping! Film at 11!" Seriously. I did not steal this from Scrappleface.
Ryan Reynolds, blogger and writer/editor for the Evansville (Ind.) Courier-Press has this article out about blogging. My two favorite Indiana bloggers, Josh Claybourn and Paul Musgrave get a well-deserved plug in the process.
I woke about 7 a.m. No use trying to go to work. Cloudy, humid, already getting hot. Walked to the grocery in search of milk and bread, but no luck.
The night before, our neighbor had come over, offering to let me plug our refrigerator into his gas-powered generator. God bless him. At least we could keep the food cold and fresh.
I spent the morning counting my blessings -- we had water, and hot water, we could cook on the gas stove by lighting the burners with a match, we had cold food thanks to a generous neighbor.
I watered the garden, but I needn't have. A couple of solid rain showers took care of everything for me.
Amy woke up, ate a bowl of cereal, and went back to sleep on the living room floor for about an hour and a half.
She was so desperate for something to do -- ah, but I promised I wouldn't tell.
Finally, I was so bored, and hot, and sticky, I proposed a drive north of Royal Oak in seach of someplace with power so we could buy a few essentials. Great! About 30 miles north, signs of life. A long line at one gas station -- not there. Farther on we came to a grocery store and Kmart. Saved. Bought a few things and stopped for dinner at the busiest Arby's in the state.
Once home, Amy's desperate boredom brought out the Monopoly game (we call it Monotony). We played until all the properties were sold, then she tired of that and we switched to Clue. Which is fun, but not very challenging with only two players. After four rounds of Clue, we were both tired of that.
Then Amy had the ingenious idea of using the surge protector from the computer to link the generator to our fridge plus her laptop and the aerator for the aquarium (fish were gasping!) We hooked everything up and voila! We were in business. She plugged in the DVD of "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" and we were both set.
Ken dragged in about 9 p.m. Fed up with airports and hotels and glad to be home.
I crashed at 10, only to be rudely awakened by the smoke alarms screaming. No fire, probably just a reaction to the power failure (they are not battery-operated, but connected to the house wiring). Frantically, I dragged a chair around the house, disconnecting them. Dragged myself back into bed.
A few minutes (it seemed) later, another rude awakening -- the bedside lamp beaming into my face. Power restored at midnight! Praise God! Another round to settle the smoke alarms down, shut all the windows and turn on the AC.
A little tidying up this morning, and the Millinger household is back in business.
Thursday had me out of the office all day at a video shoot. I love to go on video shoots. Normally, they are the most fun I can have at work and still be on billable time. The food is outstanding, the company jovial, and we're usually outside in the summer. Except there's no Internet, and I wanted very much to check on my blog.
When I get home, I thought.
I left our shoot location, about 30 miles from my house, at 4 p.m. EDT, expecting an hour-long drive home. A few miles down the road, the traffic light was out -- then another, and another. It was a really hot day, and this part of Oakland County loses power frequently. Maybe the lights will come back a little farther down the road, I thought.
My radio was tuned to "All Things Considered." About 4:30 they came on with a report of a massive power failure across the Northeast -- New York, Toronto, Ottawa, Detroit, Cleveland. What's going on, Lord? Of course my first thought was of a terrorist strike on some key power facility. Officials were denying any connection, but still I felt doubtful.
Tried my cell -- home, Amy's cell, Ken's cell -- no good. Eventually Amy called me. Where are you? You're supposed to take me to dance!
Do we have power at home? No.
Then I explained about the huge blackout in NYC and other Eastern cities. You won't have power at the school. You won't have dance practice tonight. I'll get home soon as I can. Traffic is awful.
It took 2 hours total to get home. One of those drives when I was really sorry I drive a stick. Leg muscles crying out for a rest.
Home at last to discover a very bored, irritated and vocal teen-ager. No TV, no computer, the only phones that work are the cells and the old corded thing in the basement.
Stores? she asked. Probably all closed -- no AC and cash registers don't work without power, I said. Aaaaugh! What did people do before electricity? Uh, talk to each other?
Yeah, right, mom.
So she wrote in her journal by candlelight and chased poor Gidget the Kitty with the flashlight.
With Metro Airport closed, Ken was stuck in Milwaukee for another night, with nothing to do but watch CNN.
Some of you think I am brave by writing on this blog. Let me tell you in all seriousness, I have absolutely nothing on this young man. Nothing. In Palmer's Jounal, he tells the hopes, fears and agonies he and his family have experienced as his wife battled inoperable cancer.
Her name is Jennifer, and she died yesterday.
The few times I have visited Palmer's site, I have come quietly, almost reverently, as if walking on holy ground. May God surround him and his daughter with comfort. I hope he knows that people he will never meet this side of heaven are praying for him.
As I mentioned in a post below, the religion columnist at the Detroit Free Press, did a very nice column about yours truly and this blog. The column appeared on page B-3 of the print edition, and also got an above-the-flag Page 1 promo referring readers to the article inside. Very cool. Too bad they didn't put the photo in the on-line version. You guys will just have to miss out. ;-)
What's encouraging to me about this whole episode is not just that "such small hands" gets some ink, or that Christian blogging in general gets a boost in public awareness. I'm encouraged that a paper like the Free Press is making some obvious changes in its coverage of religion in general and Christianity in particular. When so many of us Christians complain that our voices are not heard accurately in the media, it's encouraging to see a major metro daily like the Free Press try to change that.
For some naive reason, I thought heated debates over contemporary vs. traditional hymns were unique to us Protestants. Was I ever wrong! Head over to Amy Welborn's Open Book and read the comment thread on this post. "Amazing Grace" isn't Catholic theology? I never would have thought it. And that's just part of the discussion.
Here's what I think the renowned Anglican writer would have to say about the Episcopal Church USA's confirmation of the Rev. Gene Robinson, its first non-celibate bishop:
"What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, 'What does it matter as long as they are contented?' We want, in fact, not so much Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven -- a senile benevolence who, as they say, 'liked to see young people enjoying themselves,' and whose plan for the universe ws simply that it might be said at the end of each day, 'a good time was had by all.' Not many people, I admit, would formulate a theology in precisely those terms: but a conception not very different lurks at the back of many minds. I do not claim to be an exception: I should very much like to live in a universe which was governed on such lines. But since it is abundantly clear that I don't, and since I have reason to believe, nevertheless, that God is Love, I conclude that my conception of love needs correction."
This applies to so many issues of purity, not just homosexuality. Conservatives emphasize the holiness of God to the point of legalism. Liberals emphasize God's love to the point of laxity. Both are worshipping false idols. God's love is pure holiness. His holiness is shot through with sacrificial agape love. We can't pick and choose between the two. God's character hasn't given us that option.
Due to an unexpected surge in my workload, blogging may be sparse for the next day or two. We'll have to see what the Lord provides. Meanwhile, enjoy the fine blogs listed to your left.
Update: If Rev. Mike's House of Homiletic Hash is dedicated to the Barthian principle of preaching (blogging) with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other, then this blog is dedicated to the Sandwichian principle of blogging with a mouse in one hand and lunch in the other! I'll try not to get the keyboard sticky.
