Monday Morning Music Ministry

4-15-24

This week I received a shocking response to a routine e-mail I sent to a friend. He told me that he had been sick and underwent surgery during which cancer in another organ was discovered. Factors have prevented chemotherapy treatment, and other palliatives evidently have failed. No number of his LOLs could mask the prognosis: perhaps mere months to live.

I pray, of course, that the diagnosis and timeline may be wildly off. But the news rocked me; and – as sometimes happens, “bad news coming in bunches” – I also learned this week of the passing of two professional associates. Sad for the quick and the dead, sad for their families. Sad for myself… as we tend immediately to internalize such news.

Thinking of mortality, I remember another friend who recently sustained two heart “episodes” that were dangerous and still threaten her. And I had a flashback to my own experience last Fall at an appearance for my new book, where I collapsed in front of some dignitaries and C-SPAN cameras (not yet rolling). I am fine, yet I still dwell on mortality, especially again this week.

Mortality is the title of Abraham Lincoln’s favorite poem. He committed William Knox’s verses to memory during one of his melancholic periods. Some of its quatrains are:

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud? / Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud / A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave / He passeth from life to his rest in the grave….

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain / Are mingled together in sunshine and rain; / And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge / Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

‘Tis the wink of an eye – ‘tis the draught of a breath / From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, / From the gilded salon to the bier and the shroud: / Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

The poem indeed reflects Lincoln’s periodic and famous melancholia. He committed many things to his memory; we all do – for instance, song lyrics. I suppose we are attracted to lines and sayings because they appeal to our natural inclinations. This basically applies even to Bible verses. We are intrigued, or sometimes by God’s providence convicted, by passages. We not only want to, but need to, “hide them in our hearts.”

To return to the concept of mortality. I think it is true that when we hear of a friend’s bad health or mortal illness, or death, if we are honest, our thoughts are in a sense “selfish.” Self-ish. We have regrets for things we might have done. Or words never spoken. We think of chances we missed. Lost opportunities for visits or trips. We think of how we will miss the person. Our perspective.

I am reminded, especially this week, of resolutions I have broken: There are conversations – such as with my friend who shared his news – I never got around to having. There are calls I didn’t make and notes I had wanted to send to my children and grandchildren, that I postponed… again and again. There are relatives, and old friends, I have wanted to connect with, even for no specific reason.

Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, months turn into…

It is a short step from having mere regrets to condemning ourselves, which is the devil’s greatest trick. It is easy for any of us to fall into a mindset where we think we are lazy friends or bad parents. Self-condemnation can turn into self-fulfilling identities. It is the path of least resistance to keep traveling those byways… but those paths are really two-way streets. God allows U-Turns, as my friend Allison Bottke calls her ministry.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you are unworthy of family or friends, or yourself, or our Lord once we have accepted Him. Because that acceptance makes us worthy. You are issued a new ID card when you invite Christ into your life.

A new friend, Heather Renea Heaven, this week shared a truth: “God did not make a mistake when He created you.” Wow. Sit up straight!

Yes, God created you. You are His handiwork. He created your family members and friends too. It is your job – no, your glorious opportunity! – to fill in what is “in between” you and me and others. So many gaps to fill! Friendships, relationships, fellowship, concern, sympathy, support, nurture, encouragement, love.

We lose many things in life, sometimes forever… including a lot of things that we do not have to lose, yet we do. Money, we can cope with and regain. Jobs? We move on. Homes? We re-locate. Health? More serious, but we often can forestall, or manage, or battle. But…

Time – and some “relationships over time,” as the phrase goes – cannot be retrieved. When gone, forever gone. Does our priority become clear?

Cherish. While you can. Cherish what you have, who you are, and those whom you have. Hold them close, let them know. While you can.

And do not let loose the most important relationship of all. You might lose your friends, a great sadness. But remember that you will never be alone. You have a Friend who never leaves you… and that is a start toward redeeming what was lost!

+ + +

Click: Never Alone

4-8-24

America once was called the Land of Many Churches. In many places, it still looks like that.

Whether it is the Land of Many Christians, compared to the past, however, is an open question. I will not count or recite statistics about how previous standards have fallen, or that fewer people believe in God these days. But the dissolution of traditional faith among the general population is one matter. That traditional faith has declined in many churches and denominations is something to note with alarm.

Whether the decline in faith has brought societal decay, or vice versa, is open to question. It ultimately is a silly question… or I should say frightening, because it is a condition, not a riddle, that confronts us. Nevertheless it is interesting, especially considering the historical sweep of Christianity, that the Christian faith might be retreating in Europe, the UK, and America; but it is growing and thriving south of the Equator. Contrary to common belief, it is, for instance, growing faster in Africa than Islam is.

Further, it is the case that African churches are sending missionaries to Europe, the UK, and America – the opposite of centuries-old paradigms – seeing mission-fields needing to learn about Christ.

This situation in America occurs to me when I receive letters or when people talk to me, usually in response to blog essays I write. I am eager to talk to people who have fallen away from their faith; reaching such people is one of my goals. Sometimes when people have spiritual crises, it is not because of intellectual debate, or other varieties of belief, or the siren-calls of the world’s temptations. It grieves me that there are people, and I’m afraid a lot of people, who have been turned off by… churches themselves, and other Christians.

Many churches, and whole denominations, have abandoned the essentials of the faith. Relativism, secular values, and the denial of Biblical truths – even the Virgin birth and Christ’s divinity – have crept into pulpits. Many churches conform to the world instead of trying to redeem the world. Of course people will begin to wonder, “What’s the point?” and children will ask, “What’s so special about Christianity?”

Is this not everywhere? No, it is not. But it should be nowhere.

Worst of all, however, is an age-old cancer on the church that is virulent today. Its adherents think they are defending orthodoxy and spiritual purity – and sometimes they do – but very often they show themselves as judgmental, censorious, exclusionary, and hateful. In our midst as Christians, we have today some very learned and influential leaders who argue – yes, sometimes, hatefully – about fine points of theology.

Quickly, I say that matters of faith – regarding salvation, sin, sacraments – are essential. But angels dance on the heads of pins when Christian leaders thunderously intone against “wayward” beliefs about when the Tribulation will take place… whether History unfolds as literal Dispensation we can discern from Bible study… whether the Gifts of the Spirit were valid only in Apostolic days. None of these things – or, more pertinent to many people, social policies and current events – affects anyone’s salvation. That is, knowing Christ, and knowing that your eternal home will be in Heaven.

A letter I received, responding to a recent Easter essay here, illustrates how these malignant attitudes are repelling people, not drawing them, to Jesus. I summarize the heartfelt letter:

The Old Testament followers rejected him because they were expecting a military-type leader, not a forgiving, all-inclusive loving teacher. I’m afraid many so-called Christians today have reverted to the earlier kind of thinking. They say Jesus of the New Testament is too wimpy and “woke”. They are not following Christ. I realize I am opening myself up to angry criticism. So, bring it on, Haters. I hope, rather, that you may immerse yourself in serious introspective thought with the utmost of humility and God’s Grace.

I was compelled to respond. Summary:

My own experience through all the years is that there are probably roughly equal percentages of people who love Jesus but can be “mean,” even haters, and those who hate Jesus and can be “nice,” each by the world’s definitions.

One problem with religion is that people frequently use it as a tool – or a weapon – to attack others according to their settled prejudices. As if they know, or really care, about what Christ said, or taught, or died for, or Who He was. One-tenth of the effort to criticize the “other” side in such arguments, if channeled instead to love, would lead to a better world and better people, more harmony. More forgiveness, more understanding.

But life (literally) is about more than peace and understanding. It is “all about,” or should be, what Jesus said, and Who He is: not what people want to weaponize, even friendly tools like social harmony. Another Easter comes and goes with so many people using Jesus… instead of surrendering themselves to be used BY Him.

There are Christian haters, sure. As with the religious leaders in Jesus’s day, they can be as vipers. Whited sepulchers. I have often stated that organized religion, not only self-righteous leaders, might have sent more people to hell than half of Satan’s demons. Hypocrites abound in our churches.

But… there is always room for one more. It is a tragedy when it becomes easier to hear the Haters than to see the Loving Savior.

Do not reject Christ because some of His followers are flawed. Do not avoid faith when some people practice their faith badly. Do not cheat yourself of the blessings of walking with the Savior when you might feel so empty… and He is opening His loving arms

Remember the words of Jesus, who still suffers abuse in His name:

A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another as I have loved you. By this shall all people know that you are my followers (John 13: 34,35).

+ + +

Click: They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love

Easter, 2024

Every Christmas, Handel’s Messiah is Top-Ten in peoples’ lives. In concert halls, churches, and community sings; on radio and TV we hear the oratorio, or at least the familiar “For Unto Us a Child Is Born” and the “Hallelujah” Chorus. Even if only once a year, this is a good thing, culturally and spiritually.

Handel’s masterpiece encompasses, as its simple title proclaims, the entire life of the Savior, from prophesy to Resurrection. Handel lived his life in Germany, in Italy, and thence to England where he generally is embraced as a British composer. Messiah actually was first performed in Dublin. I was privileged to see his writing desk on display in the Writers Museum in the Irish capital.

More provincial than Handel was his landsman Johann Sebastian Bach, born the same year, 1685, only a few miles away, although the two musical titans never met. Bach’s musical reach, however, arguably is greater than Handel’s geographical realms; as great as that of any mortal who ever hummed a tune or wrote a melody.

They may be compared – just as Christmas and Easter may be compared in the business of our lives – but if their works may be compared, it is unfortunate that Bach’s supernal religious works probably are less celebrated than Handel’s Messiah. Anyway, less “familiar” to the ears of average folks, especially during holidays. This is regrettable, because Bach wrote music of astonishing power, musically and of deep emotional import. The B minor Mass; Magnificat; more than 200 cantatas; motets; and two Passions, St John’s and St Matthew’s.

It might seem like I have begun with a predictable tangent before I have even begun this Easter message. But, no; I want to draw attention to the amazing way the human race’s greatest composer presented the Easter story. I wish it were better known to people: more familiar.

For Holy Week vespers services in Leipzig, Germany, Bach wrote the St Matthew Passion and the St John Passion, which were each performed in the St Thomas and St Nicholas churches on alternate years for decades. Three other Passions apparently have been lost. Bach wrote about 1800 pieces of music in his lifetime, and about 1200 are extant. Approximately half of his output was Christian music.

His Passions were series of cantatas to be performed during Holy Week, and in parts during services. They were similar to oratorios or operas but without costumes or drama – singers were assigned roles, and there was a musical “narrator.” The straight biblical narrative was distributed among soloists (evangelists and individual figures including Jesus, Peter, and Pilate) and choirs (various crowds, high priests, Roman soldiers, and Jews). We can appreciate the spectacle that the congregation beheld: a combination of church and theater, Greek-style drama and opera, music and voice, emotive performances.

Two broad categories commend Bach’s favored Passion (possibly the work of which he was proudest of all his compositions), The Passion According to St Matthew.

Musically, it is a succession of amazing melodies, alternating gentle beauty, then tense drama, then profound emotion. It has musical motifs and phrases interlaced, reflecting the underlying themes and meanings of events during Holy Week. The combinations of solo instruments and voices; unique combinations and harmonies; and grand choruses of voices and full orchestral power are impressive.

All is outpaced, of course, by the spiritual message, the meaning of every scene and biblical phrase, and the skill of dramatization – the masterful presentation of the events – and the spiritual significance of every element. This is not a mere recitation of happenings, or a reading of Bible verses. The “Narrator” guides us, but Bach’s composition is a stunning re-creation of the agony and ecstasy of the Crucifixion story. By the verses and voices, the St Matthew Passion provides the points of view of all the participants and observers – including God, by quoted Bible prophesies; Jesus, by His words; and even us, dramatically through the eyes of the crowds in Jerusalem.

History came to call Bach “The Fifth Evangelist,” the accolade bypassing even his spiritual mentor Martin Luther, because of his clarity of spiritual understanding and the power of his musical talent. Some 15 years ago I wrote a major biography of Johann Sebastian Bach, and with every fact I researched, every work I listened to (and listened again and again) my awe increased. He was, in the end, a theologian who could write music, the greatest that humankind has produced or heard. It will be savored as long as men have ears, in the words of H L Mencken.

My friend the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Edmund Morris wrote me a note wherein he called my Bach biography superior to his own study of Beethoven, if you will permit me a little boast (well, I don’t give you a choice). However, he averred that I painted a portrait of Bach as being too much of a Christian; that spirituality was not a major component of Bach’s character. I am afraid that this opinion reflected more of Edmund than it did of Johann. For all of the old German’s success, Bach confessed that he was proudest of being a follower of Christ; then, a husband and father in his community; then, a music-maker.

And here we meet the Easter theme. We must all be proudest – first importance in our lives; the focus of all we do – of “knowing Christ and Him crucified.” The Easter story, the dramatic Passions, should be read and listened to and meditated upon, every week of the year, not only during Holy Week.

Indeed, the message of the cross, the Resurrection, the Ascension, should be the themes of our lives. Church “days” are useful to help us focus, motivating our faith and devotion, reminding us of how the Savior of our souls suffered on our behalf. His sorrows and pain were endured to fully identify with broken humanity. His death was a substitute for the punishment we deserve as sinners.

God became flesh and dwelt among us, a sublime mystery. And – you know the story – His Incarnate Son’s resurrection from the dead is to show the promise of our eternal life. Unspeakable glory awaits us.

You can experience the story in what may be a new way. I recommend that you set apart a couple hours, open the link to the music video below, and let the story of Passion Week, the genius of J S Bach, and the mastery of conductor Karl Richter bathe your soul. The artistry of the performance matches the innovative music of Bach. Orchestra and choir are in a stark setting here. A giant cross above and behind the musicians changes its position amid bright and dark lighting, reflecting the tones of the unfolding Biblical text. I pray that you find the time to savor this.

And have an even more blessed Easter.

+ + +

Click: Bach St Matthew Passion BWV 244 Karl Richter in parts

3-25-24

Mama, I just don’t understand the things in Jerusalem this week. There are strange things happening every day. I am scared, very scared. And just a week ago, on the Sabbath, I was wild with joy, as I wrote you afterward. I write to you now about more recent events.

Maybe you have heard all these things. Or maybe not; maybe it will all be forgotten in a fortnight. I don’t know.

You remember how I wrote about this man called Jesus, the preacher and healer everybody talked about – some called the Messiah, including himself – how he finally entered Jerusalem. I wrote how the people, almost the whole city it seemed, welcomed him and cheered him.

Yes, I was in that happy crowd. I called his name. I put my cloak on the ground before him. I waved palms to honor him. Maybe you heard – he rode on a donkey. Some thought it strange, but you and I talked about how many ancient words and prophecies were fulfilled in his life and the things he did. Too many to number! And this was one of them, the humble king choosing to come as a servant.

Then. Day after day, it was like a nightmare. The Jewish elders accused him of blasphemy. Some people started to doubt who Jesus said he was, and made up stories about the miracles. The religious leaders made demands that the Roman rulers arrest Jesus. They threatened a revolt in the streets.

Pontius Pilate went along with their demands, and the people became a mob, convinced of all the lies being told. The Romans arrested Jesus, but that was not enough. Pilate offered the mob to pardon Jesus, but that was not enough. Jesus was thrown in jail, but that was not enough. In the public square, Jesus was stripped and whipped until the skin on his back was like bloody ribbons, but that was not enough. Usually, for the Romans, that is a virtual substitute for the death penalty, but that was not enough. The religious leaders and the mob screamed that Jesus be nailed to a cross until dead.

Pilate made a show, washing his hands of responsibility… but that was not enough.

No one spoke for Jesus. His mother wept, but all his friends scattered and claimed they never knew him. I am ashamed to say that I hid, too, and was silent. You know who else was silent? Jesus himself – he just quietly suffered. Mama, I just don’t understand.

I did watch as he carried that heavy cross to the Hill of the Skull outside Jerusalem. I watched as they nailed his wrists and his ankles to the wooden cross and raised it. I watched for three hours as he writhed in pain. He finally spoke a few words. You will be interested in things he said – he prayed to God that his tormentors be forgiven, for they know not what they do.

There were two other crosses, one on each side – condemned men. One mocked Jesus; the other called him Messiah, and begged forgiveness. Jesus uttered that the man would be with him in Paradise.

Jesus looked down on his mother, and said “Behold, your son.” Her sorrow was wrenching. Then he looked, it seemed, into my eyes too! And it was like he saw into my soul. It was like he saw all humanity. It was like he looked toward eternity.

Just before he died, he said, “It is finished,” and I wondered whether he meant his life… or his mission, his purpose. Maybe we will never know. Will this all be forgotten? It looks like the religious leaders, the government, maybe Satan himself, have won.

Mama, I don’t understand any of this. A week ago, the only things that many of us could think of were his teachings, his miracles, his healing. His love. And now… this. Please don’t condemn me. I went along with the crowd. They couldn’t all be wrong, could they? I went along with the government rulers. They couldn’t all be wrong, could they? I went along with the religious leaders. They couldn’t all be wrong, could they?

I must go to you, and let us search the scriptures together. For I seem to remember that he foretold that he would overcome death. And we have been taught that the Messiah would suffer the punishments for sin that we deserve. And he said he would rise again.

But, Mama, I have to tell you that he did die. I saw it. The skies turned dark and the earth trembled. It felt like all of creation groaned. A Roman centurion looked up and called him the Son of God. But they took his dead body from the cross. They prepared it for burial. They put him in a tomb, and they sealed it.

Mama, two days have passed, and he has not come back to life.

There are strange things happening every day, but Jesus rising from the dead is not one of them. Mama, I just don’t understand.

+ + +

Click: O Sacred Head, Now Wounded – Bach’s St Matthew Passion

3-18-24

There is an “Irish Shop” a few towns away from where I live. It sells imported items and offers annual tours to the Ould Sod. The American-born woman who operates the shop with her husband always seemed to appreciate our visits, and, like my late wife, is a kidney transplant recipient, so there was never a shortage of conversation.

Once my daughter Emily, who has lived in Northern Ireland for 20 years, visited with us. She shared the reasons she move there – visits as a missionary to street kids in the “troubled” neighborhoods wracked by sectarian violence and the well-documented ancient hatreds; how her ministry was scrupulous about being “Christian,” not Protestant or Catholic in its outreach; about the many severe dangers in neighborhoods they entered with hot coffee and warm words. And how, soul by soul, hatred is dying and love is rising. Her heart is with those people – so is mine, especially now that I have two Irish-American grandchildren.

One time I entered the shop alone, and by way of introduction – for she has many customers – I said, “I’m the guy with the daughter who works with the street kids of Derry…” She remembered and said, matter-of-factly, “Oh, yes. Teaching the Protestant kids to hate Catholics.” No tongue-in-cheek. She was not kidding. Automatic reaction. Despite having heard testimonies, even having talked with Emily.

That remark, that attitude, knee-jerk prejudice, taught me anew about the lingering presence and power of hate.

I am sadly reminded that hatred and prejudice persist in this world. Some people seem happy only when they hate. Some people are virtual professional haters about causes and issues halfway around the world, even when they have never been to those places. These tendencies are in the news every day. For me, I still nervously listen to short-wave radio newscasts from Londonderry/Derry, on the border of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, where, yes, bombs still explode.

St Patrick knew about hatred. He was not a legend; that is, he really existed, unlike some other “saints” who nevertheless are celebrated. He lived in the late 400s, born in western England and kidnapped by Irish marauders when he was a teenager. As a slave he worked as a shepherd, during which time, somehow never despondent, his faith in God grew. He escaped to Britain, became learned in the Christian faith, and felt called to return to Ireland. On that soil he converted thousands, he encouraged men and women to serve as pastors, he worked against slavery, and helped quash Druid paganism and heresies. Among his surviving colorful lessons is using the shamrock to explain the mystery of the Trinity to converts.

He left Ireland on occasion… to travel through European lands, preaching, sharing Christ, explaining the Gospel, establishing church communities. Four hundred years after Christ, it is notable that even when the mighty Roman Empire adopted Christianity as the state religion, it was Patrick who first preached to alien and hostile tribes and barbarians. Roughly contemporaneous with St Augustine in Northern Africa, he was the first great missionary since Saint Paul himself.

Today, almost 1600 years later, in an odd way St Patrick is more of an American saint than Irish or universal. Why do I have that opinion? In America, not Ireland, cities hold massive parades, dye entire rivers green, and festoon homes and schoolrooms, even those of Blacks and Jews and Hispanics, in green. I once was in Dublin on St Patrick’s Day, and in the Temple Bar section of the city there were uncountable drunks in funny green hats, green vests, and “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” buttons. To a person, they were all… American tourists.

The Irish, north and south (and in the Anglican Communion too) revere St Patrick in a more proper and reasonable manner. My son-in-law Norman McCorkell, Emily’s husband, shares some thoughts here. He is a BA (Hons) graduate of the Irish Bible Institute in Dublin, and is passionate about discipleship and mission.

Patrick passionately embraced the best of Irish culture, redeeming it for the Gospel by firmly standing against elements that were incompatible – ending the slave trade; reducing tribal warfare and murder. His life was an example of a new and different kind of courage – one that lived fearlessly and peaceably through God’s promises in an atmosphere containing daily threats of those horrors: murder, betrayal, and enslavement.

Despite the violent, and even magical, opposition from locals (Druids and chieftains), and criticism from church leaders (conventional bishops in Britain), Patrick used his lack of formal church training to work creatively within his context. Instead of employing church structures used by the civilized Roman Empire – based in cities, where bishops were supreme – Patrick formed an ecclesiastical model more like the Irish, who were rural and tribal. The inhabitants of Ireland had no settled towns, roads, currency, written law, government bureaucracy, or taxation. Society was decentralized, and organized around tribes led by local “kings.”

With Patrick’s influence, monasteries were established and developed as places of spiritual devotion and learning. Young men who had once given their lives to clan feuds were now transformed by the good news of Jesus Christ. Monasteries became “sending centers,” noted church scholar Steve Addison: “the Irish church took on the character of a missionary movement.” And thus Ireland became a glowing spiritual base for sending out monks into western and northern Europe to “be pilgrims for Christ.” This made Celtic monasticism “highly flexible, adaptable, and able to be transplanted – everything that the Roman Empire was not.”

“Sending Monasteries” grew rapidly throughout Ireland and Europe, bringing with them unprecedented prosperity, art, and learning. These population centers on the continent would eventually develop and become cities.

And by the way, Monasticism became bastions of civilization and Christianity during the long “Dark Ages.” I thank Norman for these words from “the Ould Sod” itself. These are lessons for today: what we can do, too, even by ourselves and against great odds, to bring the revolutionary message of Christ’s Good News to others. Love, not hatred.

Patrick was a saint for all, and is a Saint for today. He taught us not to drink green beer, but how to overcome challenges, hear the Holy Spirit, formulate a vision, and change the world. Not just his land but the world; and the world ever after.

Click: St Patrick’s Breastplate (Be Thou My Vision)

3-11-24

Certain phrases catch the public’s attention all the time, appearing and disappearing. Some legitimate ideas have names that fade; some casual terms become part of the language. Among the latter, I was reminded this week as I wrote an essay for RealClearPolitics, is “ticket” – as in a political party’s slate of candidates.

Until 1888, generally, the separate political parties printed the ballots that voters used at polling places. This was less for the sake of convenience than it was to influence and, especially, hold voters under the watchful eyes of party workers at polling places. Those printed “tickets” were large and colorful and could be seen as voters inserted them in glass bowls (further eliminating secrecy) and in some districts voters were obliged to state their preferences aloud!

Times have changed. Coercion and corruption might be as pervasive, only subtler, today.

Anyway, “State Of the Union” is a phrase that is uttered uncountable times around this time every year. The Constitution uses the term, but not capitalized, as it urges but does not require the president to deliver what is, in effect, a corporate report on the government. Article II, Section 3: The president “shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

For more than a century the information was delivered as an “Annual Address,” although it was transmitted only in writing until 1913. Occasionally, presidents skip the report… but recently, of course, it has become an elaborate production with applause-lines, guests to be introduced, and as a prime-time televent.

Routinely the presidents have assured the country that “the state of the union is sound.” But it has morphed into a shopping-list of priorities and legislative wishes. Occasionally, as this year, it is a virtual convention-style rally and an opportunity to scold political rivals.

Since the phrase is bandied about these days, I propose thinking about the state of the union in terms that presidents no longer confront.

The state of the union – let us say the spiritual state of the union; the real state of things; the health and well-being of our society – sucks. I apologize for using that term, but its general acceptance (as you will note unless you don’t watch TV or read newspapers or overhear little children chatting) actually illustrates my point. Our standards have been lowered; our discourse has grown coarse; our self-respect is disappearing. Otherwise I apologize.

But it is almost impossible to use words and phrases or point to shocking news and statistics in order to make my point about the real state of the union. Crime is rampant. Drug use is widespread. Almost half of births are to single mothers. Many school districts are “graduating” students who are functionally illiterate. Half of marriages end in divorce. Neglect, abuse, addiction, suicide, and such malignancies touch almost every family.

Such problems have been trending, if not cascading, in recent years. But newer pathologies are parts of the state of the union. The government’s excessive spending sprees will bankrupt our children. And foreign wars bankrupt our resources. An invasion by hordes of Unknowns is changing the state of the “union” in incalculable ways. A tsunami of drugs kills millions. Smash-and-grab crime and unpunished criminality make daily life a dangerous proposition in cities and towns. Censored thought, a “cancel culture,” inhibits free speech, free association, free thought.

America has always faced challenges and problems, even occasional crises, but by no measure can we claim to live in a Land of the Free anymore. The economy is unstable; daily activities are danger-filled; the future is uncertain. Such is the state of the union.

Oh, yes, a majority of the population no longer believes in God. In this case, we may ask, which is the chicken and which is the egg? No matter: it is a rotten egg.

My weekly essays promise to “put a spiritual song in your heart.” Today, am I committing false advertising? Well, things are rotten; and things s… stink. Neither wishing nor lying about our state of affairs will make them different. Students of Bible prophecies can discern some news about End Times that we might see, as through a glass darkly. The anti-Christ? We see signs. A ten-nation confederation? That might be the European Union. The “Kingdom of Rosh”? Russia, perhaps. But we see no hint of the United States in those scriptures. Will there be an America in the world’s next days?

I am glad that the Bible is ambiguous about certain things. For instance, there will be a period of Great Tribulation, and scholars are unsure at what point Believers will be “raptured” – taken to Heaven, as predicted often throughout the Bible. But it will happen.

Worldly people believe all manner of things, some of them nonsensical. I used to be Editor of Marvel Comics; I know what kids are eager to believe. Adults, too: Many people have “itching ears” for lies and nonsense. But the End Times – the “Midnight Cry” – is not strange in the sense of being un-believable. It is very believable… indeed is to be hoped, and embraced. At midnight there was a cry made… watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. – Matthew 25:13.

In the meantime, let me say: If you don’t know Jesus, you can go to hell.

Ah. For this phrase I will not apologize. Because you will go to hell. When He comes at the End of Time it will be too late to alter your destiny. The Bible tells us to recognize the “signs of the times.” It is not a difficult thing – look around you, at the state of the union.

As we work to make things right again, whether we succeed or not, it is our calling. And as we work, seeing the Right as God gives us the vision, knowing that we will meet Jesus in the air, we can have a spiritual song in our hearts.

+ + +

Click: At the Midnight Cry

3-4-24

Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus.

+ + +

Immediately after a devastating tornado hit his house, but with his family safe, a Kentucky man was able to praise the Name of Jesus.

Click: There’s Something About That Name

2-26-24

I am going to take you on a brief tour of some surprising places. I have had the wanderlust all my life, and have discovered that some legendary places (the “Room with a View”) can be mundane; and some very memorable sites greet us unannounced.

For instance, strolling around Venice (yes, one can walk around that city), I once turned a corner and came face-to-face with a plaque identifying a modest building as the birthplace of composer Antonio Vivaldi. It seemed to me like holy ground.

In Rome I stood in the plaza in front of the meticulously preserved Pantheon, where once stood the Temple Agrippa. Inside are the tombs of the artist Raphael and the composer Arcangelo Corelli (I think one of the most beautiful names ever borne by a person) but the plaza is where St Paul, having arrived in Rome by foot along the Appian Way, first shared the Gospel in the seat of the Roman Empire. I stood where he stood. Holier ground.

In Ireland, at a roadside stop by a modest chapel, I saw in its even more modest cemetery the gravestone of the great poet William Butler Yeats… revealed by no special markers nor arrows. By pure serendipity I found myself on holy ground, as it felt to me; secular – but you may know what I mean.

I had a similar experience at the other corner of Ireland, so to speak. A friend and I had traversed, roughly, the perimeter of that wonderful island over two weeks. Near the vacation’s end we sought lodgings outside Belfast. Rather by chance – without, that is, any premonition of another “holy ground” experience in the offing – we found ourselves in a little village called Crawfordsburn in County Down. There was an ancient Old Inn (it calls itself), rambling and half-timbered. It had charms and, most importantly, a room to rent and a restaurant.

I was startled to read an unpretentious plaque on the wall when I registered. It stated that decades ago members of the legendary Inklings group occasionally met there (otherwise, more famously, in Oxford, in England). That was the famous circle of literary friends that included C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien. Moreover, since its establishment in 1614 the Old Inn had been a meeting place for writers including Swift, Tennyson, Thackeray, and Dickens. Holy ground, of sorts, for me, a writer.

Most pertinent, or compelling, according to the plaque, was that the Old Inn was where C S Lewis and his wife Joy Davidman spent their honeymoon.

Most readers will be quite familiar with Lewis’s classic stories in the Chronicles of Narnia books. I had not read them (almost alone among my friends and my own children). I hope that you readers are familiar with Lewis’s life and his tragically short marriage to Joy; there have been books and movies about them. Married late in life, Lewis was a former atheist who came to a saving, and influential, relationship with Christ. He fell in love with Joy, an American Jewess who died of cancer only four years into their marriage. Shadowlands is one telling of their remarkable and bittersweet life together.

The feeling of a presence on “Holy Ground” was scarcely related, I have said, to The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe or such classics. But C S Lewis was also known for his writing (and BBC broadcasts) as one of the greatest of all Christian apologists of any era; he was gifted to explain the Gospel in logical, layman’s terms. (By the way, Lewis’s favorite poet was Yeats; what a trip of “coincidences” that was for me!)

I am only one of millions whose faith has been awakened, challenged, informed, illuminated, inspired, and fortified by the simple truths C S Lewis powerfully explained and gently shared. Of his many works in the field (The Screwtape Letters; A Grief Observed; Surprised by Joy) the thin collection of essays Mere Christianity is the enduring classic.

I can paraphrase his powerful refutation of the common human tendency to acknowledge (really, dismiss) Jesus as “merely” a great teacher:

I want to prevent anyone from saying, “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.” That is the one thing you cannot say! A man who was merely a man but made the claims Jesus did would not be a great moral teacher; he would either be a lunatic – like a man who says he is a poached egg – or evil. Or the biggest of all liars.

You must make your choice. Either this Man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon… or you can fall at His feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.

He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Such is the beginning – perhaps, even, the culmination – of arguments you can make about this Jesus with atheists, agnostics, skeptics, scoffers, and, actually, your own self when you have moments of doubt.

C S Lewis brilliantly allowed us to relate to the Incarnation of God Almighty. Mighty? Yes. Distant, unapproachable? No. We can know Him as the Lover of our souls.

And, knowing Him… we can stand on holy ground.

+ + +

Click: Jesus Lover of My Soul

2-19-24

This essay is published mid-way between the birth day of Abraham Lincoln and the homogenized American consumer-holiday called Presidents Day.

The imports and legacies of great Americans like Lincoln and Washington cannot be ameliorated by the elevation of three-day weekends and used-car commercials with buffoons dressed in stovepipe hats. But the unrelenting trashing of American traditions continues in uncountable ways, from legislation and court decisions, to entertainment and media content, to re-branding the formerly solemn regard once paid to icons of our heritage.

Yet figures like Abraham Lincoln survive.

Lincoln is the closest we have had to a civic saint: certainly a secular saint for his wisdom, words, and actions. I think so partly because he was not exalted, except by ballots, but more as he was the simplest of men; common; honest. Literally, a typical American.

Theodore Roosevelt (whom readers know I also revere) framed his assessment of Lincoln (and George Washington): “There have been other men as great and other men as good; but in all the history of mankind there are no other two great men as good as these.”

More than anything, we are struck by Lincoln’s humanity. He was forever patient. He arrived at policies amid anguish, but he executed them firmly. He knew firsthand the turmoil of broken families, brothers fighting brothers; he suffered all these painful tests and duties. We know he kept his sense of humor. But what I have come to admire as much as any other trait is Lincoln’s faith.

It is a matter of debate how “religious” Lincoln was; whether he accepted Jesus as the Son of God; whether he believed in salvation or the need of personal salvation. It is not a matter of debate that he seldom attended or joined churches. It is a matter of record that he read the Bible his entire life, quoted even obscure verses often, and laced his speeches and writing with Bible quotations, scriptural allusions, King James cadences.

We cannot judge most of these things: some close friends like his longtime Illinois law partner Billy Herndon claimed that Lincoln was a gnarly heathen – but Herndon’s relationship was always rocky, and he wrote a biography of Lincoln after the assassination that sniped at a hundred minor particulars. However, Lincoln’s personal secretary John Hay (another hero of mine, by the way; a neglected figure in history), testified to Lincoln’s spiritual struggles, and his reliance on prayer in the White House. This was a time, generally, of private expressions of faith, when many Christians thought that respecting Christ’s teachings was more important than publicly affirming His divinity (this is not a recent phenomenon!), and when Old Testament lessons were preached more than New Testament parables. And many babies received Hebrew names.

Yet it was also a time, despite these anomalies of private beliefs and public expressions, of latter-day “Great Awakenings” as they are called, when waves of revivals spread throughout America, and when conversions to Christianity led to movements like Abolitionism, against slavery.

There are aspects of Lincoln’s faith in Christ that are beyond doubt. The pressures of holding a country together, and prosecuting a horrendous war, coincided with Lincoln’s growing faith. It is inspiring to read of this evolution (and I have read more than 65 books on Lincoln, including his complete letters and all his speeches), but most inspiring is to read his own words.

Lincoln, during his last years, displayed a steady progression of appeals to God… invocations of Providence… references to Jesus as Savior… seeking the Lord’s guidance… biblical quotations… allusions to Bible history… setting aside national days of prayer, as well as fasting, humiliation, and thanksgiving; a multitude of times; and with increasing clarity and spiritual contexts. By the end of the war, the speeches and proclamations of President Lincoln resembled actual sermons, always beseeching God in humility, never presumption; always inspiring.

It is this Abraham Lincoln we remember today.

Some of his quotations included his reference in the first inaugural address to “a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land.” In the second address, “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” And of course his reference in the Gettysburg Address that this “nation shall under God have a new birth of freedom.”

A proclamation:
It is fit and becoming in all people, at all times, to acknowledge and revere the Supreme Government of God; to bow in humble submission to His chastisement; to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and to pray, with all fervency and contrition, for the pardon of their past offenses, and for a blessing upon their present and prospective action. And whereas when our own beloved country, once, by the blessings of God, united, prosperous and happy, is now afflicted with faction and civil war, it is peculiarly fit for us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals, to humble ourselves before Him and to pray for His mercy.

In private communication, 1862:
We are indeed going through a great trial – a fiery trial. In the very responsible position in which I happened to be placed, being a humble instrument in the hands of our Heavenly Father, as I am, and as we all are, to work out His great purposes, I have desired that all my works and acts may be according to His will, and that it might be so, I have sought His aid.

About his “dark” moments when Lee’s army invaded Pennsylvania, Lincoln wrote:
When everyone seemed panic-stricken… I went to my room… and got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed… Soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul that God Almighty had taken the whole business into His own hands….

During the war, Lincoln responded to someone’s wish that “the Lord was on the Union’s side.” Lincoln responded:
I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.

Lincoln said about the Bible:
In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say I believe the Bible is the best gift God has given to man. All the good Savior gave to the world was communicated through this Book.

And other reflections:
I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.

God loves us the way we are, but too much to leave us that way. I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.

Imagine, if you will – and we ought to – an American president who would write or speak, or believe, such things today. Lincoln was reviled then, and often now, as an “agnostic, deist, infidel.” But by their fruits ye shall know them.

+ + +

A country-flavored version of a favorite hymn – well, Lincoln WAS from Kentucky – but with a true story of the President’s exercise of Christ-like compassion:

Click: Abraham Lincoln – What a Friend We Have in Jesus

2-12-24

It seems lately that I have a disproportionate number of friends (Don’t stop there! Keep reading…) a lot of friends who are going through tough times. Hard times, financially; various personal crises; health challenges. It is everyone’s lot to endure such things, and maybe I am just more aware of conditions – not that I am immune, either. Believe me.

The Bible, for all of its wonderful promises, tells us – assures us; warns us; almost promises us – that tribulation will come. “The rain falls on the just and the unjust.” In fact, in the short run and the long run, the righteous shall experience persecution and tribulation.

Nevertheless it is proper to ask relief from such things in life. Of course. And we learn from suffering. God never sends sickness or disease, but there is sin and corruption in this world. In general and in particular, we bring many things upon ourselves. As we overcome, God is glorified. “All things work for good to those who love God and are called according to His purposes.” It doesn’t mean all things are good; we must work to make things right. To turn the devil’s oppression back on him; to redeem aspects of those tough situations; to glorify God. By relying on Him, more than ourselves.

This is His plan. We must see this through our moments of torment and pressure. There is a mystery, therefore, in suffering. “Redemption draweth nigh.”

Don’t take my word for it. Nature itself, all around us, provides examples.

The beautiful, iridescent pearl, so rare and lovely and prized in jewelry and fashion, begins its life as an irritant – a speck of sand that worked its way into an oyster and attracts mineral coating. What began as an annoying invader ends as a precious thing of rare beauty.

Then there is that empty oyster shell itself, or other colorful or mother-of-pearl or iridescent shells like conch and abalone and cowrie and sunshine shells and volutes and miters and snail shells and varieties of scallop shells and complex, wondrous nautilus shells… all are, simply, empty husks of what they once were. They housed living mollusks, and are now dead skeletal remnants. Yet we prize them for their beauty, their new lives. What they became.

The greatest example of this principle, this view of new life, second chances, redemption, and benefiting from great pressure, is the diamond. Those rare and precious and beautiful gems all began their lives as chunks of coal. What plays some of the roles in their transformation? Time and… pressure.

It matters not at all whether we bring problems and crises and pressure upon ourselves, or not. Tough times are tough times. It is not having been in the Dark House, but having left it, that counts, a wise man once said. God has told us to be more than “overcomers.”

Listen. I surely am aware of the cautions, and the implications, in the story of Winston Churchill during the London blitz. Probably apocryphal, but as the bombs were falling on the burning city, an aide supposedly said: “This might be a blessing in disguise.” Churchill’s legendary response: “Some blessing. Some disguise.” A reaffirmation: we are to look beyond circumstances, past our tough times.

We can be “more than conquerors.” Billy Joe Shaver put it in a song – “I’m just an old chunk of coal… but I’m gonna be a diamond some day!”

+ + +

Click: I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal

2-5-24

I was pulled over on the Interstate recently, according to the officer, for “going 75 in a 55 zone.” My defense was futile but worth a try: “Isn’t 75 the new 55?” Actually this is a parable; it didn’t happen.

Technically, it is a fib, not a parable, but at my age that’s the best I can do. Speaking of age, I have just passed that “milestone,” the three-quarters of a century mark. For those of you not blessed enough to have gone down life’s pathway that far, I can share that I almost had, not a Senior Moment, but a Typo Moment. That is, some milestones seem like millstones.

Actually, that is another fib. I move a little slower, and my joints, when they move or bend at all, sometimes creak and moan. Oh, I forget things occasionally, but I always have; don’t we all? Maybe it’s been more frequent lately. I asked my doctor if I should be concerned and I related three instances. “How long has this been going on?” he asked. “How long has what been going on?” I responded.

We all have moments in the supermarket when we forget why we drove there (Right? Don’t we? Please say Yes!) but I have to admit it is worrying when I find myself in the bathroom and forget why I’m there.

But God has blessed me with reasonably good health. As for my “mind,” I might have just exploded, here, any claims to clarity and sanity. But I am as busy as I ever have been in the fields the Lord has assigned: writing, reading, drawing and painting, researching. The coincidence of having just published my 75^th book in, now, my 75^th year is a convenient coincidence: When I forget one number, I simply recall the other.

The apocryphal “Chinese Curse” – “May you live in interesting times” – has always seemed like a blessing to me. My curiosity and numerous interests have made me a polymath (as well as a pauper) but I continue to discover old things that are refreshingly new, and I turn new things into old friends, as a reader and collector. God has led me to accomplish a few things; I am proud of my children; I have met many of my heroes and even encountered colorful scoundrels along the way. Travel, jobs, hobbies – a rich mosaic.

I have learned that repeated readings of God’s Word, and ever more intimate praying, make my relationship with the Savior more alive, not old and tired. He created the universe, yet He cares for me, enough to sacrifice His life. I have grievously sinned in uncountable ways, yet I have repented and asked forgiveness, and He has forgiven me. In the words of the Gospel song – it is all richer, deeper, fuller, sweeter as the days go by.

And the days do go by.

My old friend, the late cartoonist Dik Browne (Hagar the Horrible) and I had a mutual friend about whom Dik would quietly say, “That boy hears voices.” It was an old-fashioned and polite way to say that the fellow was a little odd at times. Delusional folks can claim inspiration from phantoms, but it can be otherwise. Joan of Arc heard voices, or claimed to; and people held her in reverence.

My late wife Nancy, in our moments of grief when we lost our first child, heard God’s voice, seemingly audible: “You will have multiple healthy children.” A peace came over her and, despite her fragile health, we subsequently had three healthy children. The voice, and that peace, were as much miracles as the healthy births.

One last story (I can hear “hoorays,” almost audible) – a parable, finally, along these lines.

A guy heard a voice he believed to be from the Lord: “You are going to live a long, long life!” The fellow was so convinced it was from Heaven that he went into overdrive, preparing to live it up. Or long-live it up. He got a new wardrobe of slick duds to impress the chicks; he got a tummy tuck; a dentist gave him capped teeth; a doctor gave him a facelift; he colored the hair that was his own, and some miracle-worker gave him hair plugs. Then when he was slick enough to hit the town, he got behind the wheel of his expensive new sports car, and…

… he was killed when a big dump truck ran into him. Up in Heaven, he looked for God and asked, “Lord, you said I would live a long life…”

He received this answer: “Frankly, I didn’t recognize you anymore!” The guy had remembered the promise, but forgotten the Promise-Maker. God forbid that any of us let that happen in our lives.

Life must be about quality, not quantity… or length. All the learning I have accumulated in my 75 years, and all the exciting things I still yearn to discover have, in the end, not fogged my vision. I have learned a lot – book-lessons and life-lessons – but when it comes to God Almighty, who created me and even knows the number of hairs on my head, He knows “what is needful and best” for me, and that is fine. It is good to know God’s Ways; I don’t need to know His Whys.

What fills in the (many) gaps when our understanding is faulty? God provides… Jesus teaches… and the Holy Spirit gifts us… with Faith. Walking with my Savior is like a 24/7 birthday party. Only better. In fact richer, deeper, fuller, sweeter. Life with Jesus is like a long, long party. How’s that for a parable?
+ + +

Click: Sweeter As The Days Go By

1-29-24

These thoughts were shared by a friend of a friend a few years ago. They are perspectives on a timeless thought about the Ultimate Friend:

One day Satan and Jesus were talking. Satan just went to the Garden of Eden and he was messing and laughing, saying:

Yes sir. I just took a world full of people out there. More than I ever have! I set them up, used all sorts of bait. I knew they couldn’t resist. They are all done!

What are you going to do with them? Jesus asked.

Oh, I’m going to have fun with them, Satan replied. I will teach them how to marry and divorce, how to hate and abuse each other, drink and smoke and do drugs, and of course I will teach them how to invent guns and bombs to destroy each other. I’m really going to have fun!

And what will you do when you get tired of them? Jesus asked him.

Oh, I’ll kill them, Satan said with a look full of hate and pride.

How much do you want for them? Jesus asked.

Satan answered: Oh, You don’t like those people. They are not good. Why would You want to take them? You take them but so many hate You. They will spit in Your face, curse You, and kill You. You don’t like those people!

How much? Jesus asked again.

Satan looked at Jesus and answered sarcastically: All Your blood, Your tears, and Your life.

Jesus said, done!

And that’s how He chose to pay the price.

God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:8

+ + +

Click: Mozart: Ave Verum Corpus

1-22-24

Quick: Word-Association. I say “Life,” you think – what? An old magazine? A prison sentence? A breakfast cereal?

This week the annual March For Life occurred in Washington. Somewhat ironically it was held during a brutal, raging snowstorm – thousands and thousands of people figuratively shaking their fists at Cold Death, and affirming Life.

Half a century ago Roe vs Wade became the law of the land – or, more properly, it swept away many laws of this land. It was consequential, and the Supreme Court ruling can be seen as defining an “era.” Then, recently, another ruling reversed much of Roe’s finding, and now we live in a Post-Roe Age.

Rather than outlawing abortion, the recent Dobbs Decision essentially lets the individual states decide policies regarding abortion – matters of sanctions, “pain thresholds,” gestational life and viability, coercion of medical staffs, etc. It was inevitable that fifty, or more, bitter debates would emerge from Dobbs. As people dispute the beginning and the end of life, the debates about abortion will not end.

It was recently calculated that the Dobbs decision likely has resulted in more than 50,000 births that otherwise would have been ended. In the political numbers games, that will be compared to millions of babies murdered (excuse me, “terminated”) under Roe. Having just employed both euphemisms and incendiary words, I am aware of the emotionalism that inevitably attends this discussion. Like many people, from President Trump to neighbors and relatives, I once was pro-abortion, or indifferent to its horrors; and have repented. Some of those neighbors and relatives gave birth instead of aborting. Some, in fact, are people whose mothers decided against aborting them at the last moments.

“Life.”

It is more – we need to remind ourselves above the din and clamor of political debates – than magazine titles or breakfast cereals; and surely more than merely escaping the abortionist’s tools. But when we cheapen Life amid arguments about scientific data, and “hardships on pregnant woman,” and a mother’s right to privacy vs a baby’s right to life, etc, we also cheapen the value of Life-beyond-birth. It is no coincidence that during the Roe era there was a precipitous rise in child abuse; neglect and abandonment; the dissolution of the nuclear family; and, at the other end of the line, growing acceptance of elder abuse and neglect, and (call in more euphemisms!) “mercy killings.”

Twenty years ago I interviewed Norma McCorvey, the woman who was the “Roe” of Roe vs Wade. The simple and shy women seldom granted interviews, so I was fortunate to glean first-hand impressions of her crises, the manipulation she endured, and her transformation to anti-abortion advocacy.

My late wife Nancy became an expert on Life, so to speak – having received, at death’s door, a transplanted heart. She also received a kidney transplant, and endured diabetes, strokes, cancer, celiac disease, amputations, and other challenges. She wrote about her encounters with Life:

I was diagnosed with heart disease when my three children were 15, 14, and 11. After three heart attacks in 10 months the doctors told me that I would not survive a fourth. This news came on my 42nd birthday. Within the month I was transferred from our local hospital to Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia and put on the transplant list for a heart; and for my failing kidney as well.

Events moved quickly, and I really didn’t have much time to think about what was ahead. As a diabetic, I had assumed that at some time I might need a kidney transplant – I had never thought about needing a new heart! I also assumed that the whole process was like changing a battery: take out the old and put in the new.

Not quite. Because my doctors could not guarantee my survival at home for longer than two weeks, I had to stay in the hospital, with heart monitors attached to my chest, and an IV tube continuously feeding me medicines that kept my heart working at its maximum possible efficiency.

In the beginning of this process, I think most patients in my “group” of potential organ recipients were, like me, a bit naive. We didn’t know about some of the complications associated with the surgery. Strokes, blood clots causing the loss of limbs, and blindness were just some of the potential problems. Our group of approximately 16 patients was relatively healthy or at least stable, but every now and then reality would strike.

Without warning, people “coded” (heart stopping); sometimes they could not be revived. Other times those who had received transplanted organs would return to the hospital with rejection (the body fighting the new organ).

We all know there are no guarantees in life, but no matter how young or old, we tend to take some things for granted. However, when hospitalized in a heart-failure unit, never knowing what the next minutes might bring, I developed a deeper sense of what was important to me.

I prayed for more time – time to be a mother to my children, for us to be together as a family. I cried out to God, “How much longer?” He answered in the words of I Peter 5:6,7: Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him; for He cares for you.

And I learned to trust Him. Just as He was taking care of me, He would take care of my family. And each time I asked “How much longer?” He would remind me of a promise I made to Him that I would stay for as long as He wanted me to. And God gave me His total peace.

In all ways my hospital stay – eight weeks before organs became available; then three weeks after the operation, until I could go home – was a good experience. I came to know God in a more intimate way, to learn to trust Him and His ways, and to appreciate all that He has given me. I began praying for the other patients on the floor; first for those on their way to the ER, then weekly Bible studies, then prayer-support groups. We started a family ministry that lasted more than seven years.

I have seen all three of my children grow up. Heather became a youth minister; Ted is a television news producer [now in Washington DC] and Emily moved to Ireland after doing missions work [and has started her own business of American-style foods]. And I have four beautiful grandchildren. I am very proud of them all.

At one time I did not have real hope, leaning on my own view of life. But as Psalm 119:50 says:

My comfort in my suffering was this: “Your promise preserves my life!”

Nancy lived 16 years after her new heart and new life. There’s life and there’s Life. There’s Life, and there is Living. There is extended life… and there is Eternal Life. Go ahead and embrace the euphemisms! God lives in them and we can too.

+ + +

Click: I’ll Have a New Life

1-15-24

I have shared the story many times, but not here, of my mother’s passing; or to skirt the euphemism, her death. She would have been a hundred years old next year, and died a couple decades ago. The circumstances attending her death were fairly remarkable, but all the times I have shared the story my contexts were medical, statistical, and with emotions bouncing like a pinball between sad and astonishing and humorous.

But a friend recently saw them in a spiritual context. Through the years I certainly appreciated the spiritual component, but not the lessons worth sharing. Cue Paul Harvey’s “Now you’ll know the rest of the story…”

My parents had moved to Florida as many retirees are wont to do; my two sisters and I remained up north, visiting on occasion. The occasions grew frequent, however, when Mom’s health slipped precipitously. She had been a lifelong Christian, church-going and always devoted to Jesus. Not affecting her salvation but affecting her health were also unfortunate lifelong devotions to cigarettes and booze.

Smoking and drinking accelerated her decline from various ailments, although, oddly, her lungs and liver were about the only things that worked right as she eventually was placed on a hospice list. I hope it is not a “spoiler” to any reader to share that hospice is not a get-well regimen: it is, formally, a recognition that the patient is dying, and is designed to make those final days or months comfortable, not expecting a cure.

Mom was put in home-hospice care with visiting nurses; my sisters and I rotated visits to Florida to help Dad and say our good-byes. Stubbornly, it seemed, my mother got weaker, and stronger; she grew foggy, then lucid; she wasted away but hung on. Each of our “good-byes” were in fact “so longs,” as my sisters and I returned again and again.

During one of my visits a kindly neighbor said, “It must be hard to lose your mother…” I replied: “It’s almost impossible!”

However Mom did go downhill until she was barely conscious. In a virtual coma. We were able to put a chip of ice or bit of Jell-O between her lips, only a few times a day. She exhibited several of the “signs of impending death” the Hospice booklet listed. Finally for two solid days there was not a sign of life from her beyond a weak pulse.

Then one night – I slept on the living-room sofa next to her hospital bed – she made a faint gurgling sound. No other signs or movement. Almost 24 hours later, she mumbled; no discernible words, but an apparent attempt. On the next morning, there were words, but random and unconnected.

Over the next days she managed more ice chips and Jell-O and even broth. And she spoke words. Sentences. They made sense. I’ll tell you how much sense: they were Bible verses. Fragments at first, then random, then full verses, but as if in her sleep.

Bible verses! Mom was not opening her eyes or making eye contact at first; but she was reciting passages from the Bible. Soon she recognized us, spoke our names… but rather than asking where she was, or why we looked so concerned, she just recited Bible verses. Eventually, lines from hymns.

I will leap ahead, so to speak. Mom recovered her strength. The bed was put aside. She resumed a life, slowly (she moved around the house, but with a walker). She gained some weight. She never had eaten much, but now she did eat and even cooked – we all had a Florida Thanksgiving reunion where she prepared a full meal. She did not resume drinking, and I was grateful that my kids were able finally to know their Oma – sober, and tender and funny, as I had known her in my own childhood.

She lived almost a full “bonus” year before a natural death overtook her. Hospice nurses said that patients were known to live maybe six months after being “listed,” but they scarcely knew of bounce-backs like Mom’s, much less of a full year.

But when I told Mom of her “bounce-back” while she seemingly was unconscious… she was as incredulous as nurses or neighbors were. I have said that she was religious all her life, but she knew that she never had committed all those Bible verses to memory.

“Rick, some of them I know, of course. And I’m sure I heard them all in Sunday School and church, or have read them, but I never memorized all of them! I never tried to!” I read to her the verses she recited from that deathbed… and try as she might, she could not recite them from memory again. But there had been many, and they had risen from her lips, complete and correct.

This was the story I often have told – shame on me, almost like describing magic tricks or a trained-seal act. My friend refreshed me with the spiritual lesson. What had sustained Mom when medicines did not? What “filled those empty spaces”? We witnessed an example of “the Lord worketh in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.” What lessons should the rest of us learn from this?

Psalm 119 talks about “hiding the Word in our hearts.”

I had known that verse, and always assumed it was a recommendation to memorize Bible verses. It is. But more than that, it tells us (in Isaiah 55) that “My Word that goeth forth out of My mouth shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please.”

The power of God’s Word blessed my mother, even when it had been heard and processed casually. It accomplished things in her. It blessed us, and may it bless those who hear this story.

“Faith comes by hearing…” There is no seed that when planted cannot grow in mighty ways, multiply, and feed others. Let us just be the fertile soil. God will plant; the Spirit will nurture; Jesus will be glorified. Please be encouraged to keep the things of God close, even in “casual” ways, whether words, messages, songs; open to lessons the Bible offers, or Christian music you can listen to. Absorb. Share. Hide in your heart.

In the end, it wasn’t hard to lose my mother. She was ready, after a few more tasks – even if she did not fully know the assignments – at the End of the Way.

+ + +

Click: When I Get To the End Of the Way

1-8-24

Some cultural critics and many traditional Christians lament the state of things today. “Things”? Maybe almost everything… everywhere we look… even the future is despaired of. Believers “know the end of the story,” the glorious promises of God, yet among those promises are trials and tribulations, we know. “What kind of world are we leaving for our children?” is often asked.

This angst and pessimism – or realism? – is not exclusive to the traditionalists and religious people, however. This is an age of discontent: radicals, revolutionaries, the “Woke” armies likewise are weary, or rebellious, against the current System and what brought societies to this point.

It is the Age of Discontent, which term is the title of a book of observations by Sigmund Freud. More pertinent is the earlier essay by Brooks Adams, The Law of Civilization and Decay.

Of all the isms that plague us these days, and no matter your place on the philosophical and political spectrums, the strongest is Incrementalism. Surely it is the most insidious. Most of the things that upset most of us were not advocated by us, not designed, not forecast. Yet often we act surprised that certain identifiable decisions were wrong, horribly wrong.

Our temples gradually have crumbled; our swamps quietly have risen and spread. Surely, we – all of us – have been blind and careless, we have grown sloppy about commitments, and dismissive of standards. Like fallen civilizations of the past, we have a subliminal sense of security that we somehow are immune from decline and self-destruction.

In this we are, of course, fools.

If analysis might be useful and lead to course-correction, we should reject the idea that we (let us focus on “Christendom,” so-called Western Civilization) have “lost faith.” It is a point of view automatic among the religious; and it is mistaken. Oh, church attendance is down, and we are confronted by statistics that are alarms to those of who work to resist the drift. But a recent book The Secular Age cited polls claiming that more than half the population does not belong to an organized religion, only a third believe in life after death, 16 per cent in reincarnation, and only half believe in a higher power. (And of course “higher power” these days can mean gods invented on the spot. Or as my daughter says about the current pathology of those who switch genders every week, “choosing to be, or believe in, a hairbrush.”) And so forth, as we all know.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Our problems do not stem from our peoples’ lack of faith, but the situation that people hold to faith in many, many, many things. Indiscriminately. Irresponsibly. Incrementally.

Of course my critique is that Christendom has abandoned Christianity. The “Faith of our fathers” has largely become as attractive to broad swaths of contemporary society as the ties and dresses, dance steps and home décor of previous generations. Christian dogma is seldom asserted in many of our churches. Worship conforms to the latest (and changeable) tastes and demands of audiences. The Biblical “givens” that underlay government, schools, courts, even the entertainment media… are no longer a priori assumptions.

Indeed, Biblical standards routinely are rejected, mocked, and suppressed. So what should we expect? People who believe in everything… effectively believe in nothing. When a society has no standards, we must expect that even “right” and “wrong” are obsolete concepts.

We have a natural tendency to feel overwhelmed by the forces of evil. We are tempted, despite our faith in Jesus and the promises of God, to fear that all is hopeless, at least outside our own spheres. I am reminded that when the Communist Whittaker Chambers found Christ and became a patriot, he wrote that he believed in God, but that – as a citizen in a decaying American society – he was joining the “losing side.” His soul would live in Heaven but his country was doomed. Do you have those feelings?

What I cling to, among many truths and revelations, are the verses about God adorning the lilies of the field, and caring even for small sparrows. Yes, we must know the Truth. Yes, we must fight for our faith and families and future. Yes, the enemies of Christ are many, and are wily and vicious.

It is worthwhile, and daunting I know, to resist. But how often do we stop and remember that it is His fight? God will equip us; the Holy Spirit was sent to strengthen our… faith. Faith. We cannot cast about to find new faith in new remedies. God’s answers are in front of us. If your simple faith in God and His promises sometime go weak, remember that the Gift of Faith is one of the Spiritual Gifts that He has promised, and we can access at any time.

Asking God for more faith, purer faith, mighty faith in Him, is not a sign of weakness. His provision of the Holy Spirit must not be treated as a futile act unless you respond feebly.

Our world might be drifting, and in directions we hate. As we do battle – for we must! – how typical of God that He can encourage us with the simplest, gentlest assurance that His eye is on the sparrow, and we know He watches us too. Let us be happy warriors. The battle is the Lord’s!

+ + +

Click: His Eye Is On the Sparrow

1-1-24

I wonder what the “over / under” is with New Year resolutions that are kept; that is, let’s say, kept by most people beyond the third week of the year. Or third day? Most of mine are history by the third hour. Resolutions are stronger than intentions, and I shudder when reminded that the road to hell is paved with the latter…

Nevertheless, many of us make New Years resolutions… or we intend to. If in the process we make an inventory of our shortcomings and prioritize our goals, we have accomplished something after all.

This has prompted me to speculate on whether God makes Resolutions. Without being presumptuous or blasphemous or outright ignorant (have I headed everyone off at the pass?) I know that everything in the Bible, indeed His workings as revealed in history, from the Commandments to the Incarnation to judgments and miracles, are reflections of His resolutions… but let us wonder for a moment. 

If God would compose a list of resolutions, at least to remind us of how He works, and what He desires, what would they be?

I think God would resolve not to give up on His people. He is swift to judgment, yet long-suffering.

Salvation is free but will continue to be offered at a precious cost; God will ever grieve for those who reject Him.

God, who revealed Himself through Jesus Christ, will continue to act amongst us, and in us, through His Holy Spirit.

The eternal “I am” will resolve as always never to be the “I was.”

Among other resolutions of God, if we might put His will into our words, would be:

He always will be Without end… He will never change… He will keep every promise… He always will be – He only can be – Holy… He will be righteous, compassionate, and just… He will be faithful in His resolutions and promises.

How will He act? God resolves to communicate with His people through prayer… He will be “the God who healeth thee”… He will punish sin but ever remind us that “He chastises those whom He loves”… He will affirm His rules for a satisfied and joy-filled life through Resolutions already shared, from the 10 Commandments to the teachings of Jesus.

God resolves that His character will not change. We may be secure in knowing that He is omniscient, He is omnipresent, He is omnipotent… He does not only love; He is love… He is trustworthy… He is good all the time, and all the time He is good… He extends Grace to those who love Him – while we were yet revels and sinners He provided a way to be reconciled to Him.

You might notice that none of these resolutions are new. I did not have to “stretch” or imagine attributes of our Heavenly Father. He has revealed Himself; He is Unchanging; He is – let us say part of his job description? – “from Everlasting to Everlasting.” 

We make resolutions to correct our mistakes and try to do better.

God has made resolutions, affirming that He cannot make mistakes; when all is said and done, this year and every year, He is the best that we can imagine.

Let us hereby resolve, ourselves, that we praise His Holy Name and dedicate ourselves to serve Him. 

Happy New Year!

+ + +

Click: Great Is Thy Faithfulness 

12-25-23

“Wars and rumors of war.”

The Bible foretells of the End Times, and signs of its imminence. God keeps us on our toes, because wars, like the poor, we always have with us. Has there ever been a good war or a bad peace, as many have asked through the ages? I say yes; there may be just wars, and the willingness to do battle is irretrievably part of a nation’s soul.

“If I must choose between peace and righteousness,” Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “I choose righteousness.” Nevertheless, lately I am persuaded to settle for a long wait if people want to find a war to be joined…

Humankind seems not to have “advanced” much through the centuries; neither with children on playgrounds nor adults on battlefields that once were playgrounds. We congratulate each other – that is, fool ourselves – that “progress” is the hallmark of our times. Yet the bloodiest death toll from wars, in any century of the earth’s existence, was in the Twentieth Century, more than in all previous centuries combined. We brag that we – “civilizations” – have finally ended the scourge of slavery; yet there are greater numbers of slaves today than ever in human history. The numbers now are not the faces that flash in our minds: bondservants. But, instead, all manner of children, women, minorities, homeless, voiceless, migrants, the anonymous.

As long as there are power elites; as long as greed outpaces love; as long as hypocrisy can always find a nicer name, humankind will be (in the Bible’s phrase, Proverbs 26:11; II Peter 2:22) like dogs returning to their vomit. Think about what changes have occurred, really, when science develops new ways to save lives… as it also invents new ways to end lives. What a spectacle, when people march to save baby seals and whales, and march for the right to kill babies.

Well, Merry Christmas, anyway. Let the holiday sing.

Some wars are years, or generations, festering; some start on a random morning, or so it seems. But one thing we seldom encounter is peace breaking out. In the midst of a raging war, interrupting a bloody battle. Yet it has happened. Not many people know about the Christmas Truce. It was a virtual miracle during the first Christmas, in 1914, of World War I – the so-called Great War, surely the most useless of history’s many useless wars.

A few months after war was declared in Europe, by almost every big and small nation on the continent, almost a million soldiers already had been slaughtered. Christmastime was come, and soldiers were mired in trenches that were to become so established that for more than two years the battle line never moved more than 30 miles one way or another. In that unlikely hellhole a miracle occurred.

Minor details differ but the dispositive facts are acknowledged: Peace broke out.

Soldiers of Germany, England (Scotland, actually), and France, at night, spontaneously sang Christmas carols… and were joined by their “enemies” who could hear across No Man’s Land… nervous soldiers climbed from trenches to greet their foes, and shake hands… gifts were exchanged, even little trinkets, but also pastries and wine sent from home. They shared pictures of wives and children… more hymn singing… fireworks, intended to illuminate battlefields so to aim the cannons, were now shot skyward in celebration. There were tentative, but successful, attempts to communicate.

Of course they communicated. The languages that night were hymns and Bibles and chocolates and cigars. Handshakes and smiles and tears.

A Merry Christmas. A Holy Christmas. Peace on earth… at least in that narrow 27-mile-long battle line, south of Ypres and east of Armentieres, site of the song about les Mademoiselles, that night.

A British soldier recalled the Christmas Truce almost two decades later: We stuck up a board with a Merry Christmas on it. The enemy had stuck up a similar one. … Two of our men then threw their equipment off and jumped on the parapet with their hands above their heads. Two of the Germans did the same and commenced to walk up the river bank, our two men going to meet them. They met and shook hands and then we all got out of the trench.

We and the Germans met in the middle of No Man’s Land. Their officers were also now out. Our officers exchanged greetings with them.… One of their men, speaking in English, mentioned that he had worked in Brighton for some years and that he was fed up to the neck with this damned war and would be glad when it was all over. We told him that he wasn’t the only one that was fed up with it. (Frank Richards, “Old Soldiers Never Die,” 1933)

Another history records: [The British] Brigadier General G.T. Forrestier-Walker issued a directive forbidding fraternization: “For it discourages initiative in commanders, and destroys offensive spirit in all ranks. … Friendly intercourse with the enemy, unofficial armistices and exchange of tobacco and other comforts, however tempting and occasionally amusing they may be, are absolutely prohibited.” (Stanley Weintraub, “Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce,” 2001)

How much different would the next day have been – how much different would the world be today – if the Truce had held?

Note that chocolates and cigars were only the presents. The GIFTS were hymns and Bible verses – they brought the soldiers out of trenches; not the prospect of snacks or smokes or a soccer game in the snow.

Christmas. God did not intend for Jesus’s Incarnation, the spirit of that Christmas Truce, to be a one-time miracle, but to be everyday life. He intended that we know-and-show that love and fellowship can be normal, not rare. We can be changed by the Holy Day, not be annoyed by yet another holiday.

“You started it!” “No, you did!!!” Wouldn’t it be great if we all exchanged those words happily, about starting love, sharing affection, and living in Heavenly Peace?

Who “started it”? God did.

+ + +

If your YouTube video opens in anything besides a man playing a bagpipe, then you need to switch to a desktop to play the video. There is a problem we have not solved yet with the videos on pads and phones.

Click for an excerpt of the motion picture: Joyeaux Noel

12-18-23

‘Tis the season to be jolly, but there are some things about Christmas that manage to rankle us. It is not the fault of the little baby Jesus but let’s be honest, a lot of us register annoyance about a lot of things a lot of times around Christmas. I’m making a list and checking it twice.

“Christmas is just getting too commercial.” “Why do the stores start putting Christmas stuff out earlier and earlier?” “We have to fight the crowds again?” “Oh, gosh, half the lights are out!” “Where did we pack the decorations?” “Wasn’t it our turn last year?” “Oh! I forgot to get her a present!” “Those dumb songs on the radio again!”

… and so on. Notice that none of these familiar complaints is about God becoming incarnate to live among humankind, to offer us a means of salvation, eventually to die for our sins. No recorded complaints from Mary and Joseph, who found no place to stay, no clean or comfortable place to give birth. We know that story.

I have a version of that story, not in the Bible but plausible – that there was “no room in the inn,” or any inns in Bethlehem, not because the town was crowded during tax-season. Perhaps the innkeepers did not want a girl who was pregnant before she was married staying in their establishments. If that is the case, we can add that such indignity to Mary, the virgin miraculously bearing the Son of God Almighty, brought forth no complaints from her.

A manger is something unknown to most contemporary folk. It was not a place where animals lay, as this Baby would, which would be humble enough. It was where animals ate; so in the straw where Jesus was placed there was spittle, chunks of old food, and bugs.

Yet that familiar scene is abstract to people today; or at least it is sanitized. Our mangers are neat folding cribs in displays. The stable is an organized crèche in paintings. The animals are now depicted as Disney-like four-legged witnesses; but at the time they were smelly creatures that left their droppings on the nearby ground.

So it all seems abstract, despite the best efforts of Hallmark cards and inflated-plastic front-yard arrangements. The abstractions are seductive: 2000 years ago; a faraway land; donkeys as transportation. Not to mention the history and theology: how would most of us react if a poor couple showed up at our doors, the young unmarried girl about to give birth; perhaps even claiming to bear the Savior of humankind?

I invite you to think of this familiar-but-abstract story in another way.

Women can imagine, but scarcely identify, with Mary. We know from her prayer called the Magnificat (“My soul doth magnify the Lord”) that she could hardly comprehend the miracle. Some men might be able to identify with the surprising news that confronted Joseph, that his girlfriend was already pregnant. However, he and Mary both knew what the angel shared; and they knew Scripture (as recorded later in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Mary and Joseph had separate bloodlines, of course, but each fulfilled ancient prophesies about the ancestry of the coming Messiah).

But I suggest that the easiest member of that young family with whom we can identify is not Mary, not Joseph, but… Jesus Himself.

The birth of Jesus was foretold. God planned for that Son to be born.

God knew each of us, too – before we were formed in our mothers’ wombs.

Jesus was the Son of God.

We, as Christians, are the Children of God.

Jesus came to earth with a Holy Mission to fulfill.

Each one of us has a calling, too; God has a will for our lives.

Despite coming from Glory, Jesus was a Man of Sorrows, destined to suffer and die.

As followers of Christ, our lot is to endure persecution for His Name’s sake.

Jesus’s Kingdom is not of this world; He prepares a place for you in Glory.

“This world is not our home”; we trust in life eternal, in Paradise with the Savior.

We might not have been born in mangers, yet during this Christmas season let us more closely identify with “our elder brother Jesus.” He came to earth, after all, to identify with us… to know temptation and pain and suffering and sorrow. Being without sin Himself, that Holy Child would eventually reach out and take our sins upon Himself.

Marys can’t do that. Josephs can’t do that. Even angels can’t do that. Jesus did. Jesus does.

Imagine the Savior of your soul in the virtual manger next to you. The only difference? He is the Son of God. But imagine at the same time something not so abstract: We have the opportunity to have Jesus live within our hearts. The Messiah came to earth, born a humble Babe, in order to reconcile you in that matter too.

+ + +

Click: Jesus At the Mall

12-11-23

As Christmas celebrations draw closer, people tend to think more about Jesus than they do at most other times of year. … or, anyway, what He might have looked like and acted like during His earthly ministry.

Speaking personally, I am grateful to movies like Passion of the Christ and TV series like The Chosen because, if nothing else, their producers dared show a Jesus who was realistic (as we must assume) – laughing, crying, feeling pain, experiencing betrayal and suffering.

In the Year of our Lord (giving credit where credit is due) 2023, however, the impressions of our childhoods persist. People can be forgiven, to coin a phrase, if their conception of Jesus is of a fair-haired, well-groomed, moon-faced, smiley guy with children always nearby to sit on His lap. Artwork on Sunday-school pamphlets told me so.

Throughout my life I have heard Christians and skeptics alike ask why Jesus “had” to come to earth 2000 years ago – so far back in time, so far away. Believers say their faith would intensify if they could just see Him. Non-believers and agnostics have a similar desire – that if they could just see Jesus, they would believe.

Well, we should remember that the Apostles who lived and ate and walked and talked with Jesus for three years, hearing His teaching, and witnessing miracles… if they betrayed and denied Him, and scattered when things got a little tough, would we be much different? Get real. Remember what Jesus said to Doubting Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe.”

But Christmas displays have got me to thinking. Not that Jesus is a plastic Savior-figure for sale at the Dollar Store; nor a blow-up plastic baby-in-the-manger for a lawn display; nor a face on T-shirts of the worship band at the new church down the street. But I wonder what Christianity would be like if Jesus had come to earth in our lifetimes. How would Jesus present Himself?

• We don’t have many “Lords” and “Ladies” any more, so those terms might have to be altered. What is the modern-day equivalent of Lord? It would sound strange – “President God”? Would we be told to address Jesus as “Boss”?
• Very few guilty criminals are put to death these days, and when they are, the Cross is virtually obsolete. Would Christian gift shops sell trinkets of syringes, if that is how Jesus would be put to death, by lethal injection, today?
• Would people wear necklaces with little electric chairs instead of crosses?
• The Great Commission – “Go into all the world and preach the Good News” – would be the same. But today, the spread of communications (and, I’ll admit, employing some 20-20 hindsight in my scenario here) might alter the message of the Apostles and evangelists.
• Today the Disciples would be seen as recruiters and motivational speakers. But if they could know what becoming a follower of Christ entails, even modern sales techniques would present some challenges. Consider:

– Become a Christian! When you commit to follow Jesus, your family might resent you, friends might leave you, strangers might persecute you!

– Become a Christian! Share what you believe and you might lose a job! Neighbors will regard you as nuts!

– Become a Christian! If you heed His call and perhaps go into missions work, you can be harassed, even martyred, like so many Christians in history… and still, today!

– Become a Christian! Among the perks – not certain, but very common – you will be misunderstood, criticized, ridiculed… sometimes by those you love the most!

Those are some of the “perks” of being a Christian. They are not much different than any time in the past 2000 years. But I would suggest, if you think about “Lord” versus “Boss,” and symbols of crosses versus electric chairs, that today’s evangelistic “sales pitch” might be more challenging than in times past.

In fact, everything is more challenging than in times past. As we slouch toward Gomorrah – in the words of the William Butler Yeats poem and the book by the great Robert H Bork – as our culture is ever more engulfed by moral relativism and secularism, the challenges of being a Christ-follower are increasingly stark.

Generally, we live in a post-Christian age. Thank God, literally, the DNA of the twenty-first century church seems to be healthier in the southern hemisphere. Christianity, as it always has, thrives in lands of persecution; believers, that is, one by one, refined by fire. Africa, once the destination of missionaries, now sends missionaries to apostate societies in Europe, the United Kingdom, and North America.

There is hope.

And by the way, regarding the premise I posed at the beginning – “If Jesus were alive today…” Here’s the dirty little secret, which is not so dirty; not so little; not so secret –

Jesus is alive today.

+ + +

What does it cost to be a Christian? What DID it cost 2000 years ago, when Jesus was born? Remember the “Slaughter of the Innocents” – the command to slay all baby boys under the age of two; the Establishment’s effort to deny the coming King. Hostility threatened Christianity then… today its stark enemy is indifference.

Click: Rachel’s Lament

12-4-23

Friends have asked me for my opinions on the violence and bloodletting in the Middle East, and I know people are asking each other the same question. I have realized an anomaly in the situation – in the Christian and conservative communities in America there seems to be near unanimity on the “issues” – Israel is right on every aspect of the conflict; Palestinians are wrong. Yet many ask their friends, earnestly, what their opinions are, as if doubts are nagging them.

Of course, the repeated questions might not indicate doubts, although facts are elusive things. And we must all realize, even subliminally, the wisdom in the ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus’s dictum that in any war, the first casualty is truth. Yet conservatives and Christians largely hew to the Israeli versions of events, not always exercising discernment, nor caring to.

As I am asked for my opinions, I do have some. I am persuaded that so-called Replacement Theology might be valid – that Jews were the Chosen People because they were chosen to be the bloodline of the Savior. I believe the prophetic words that Jews who have rejected the Savior will, in the End Times, be reconciled with their Messiah. (More systematized than Replacement Theology, without getting too much into weeds, is Dispensationalism, whose Supersessionist origins are not recent theories but can be traced back to St Augustine.) I find nothing in Scripture that persuades me that in these in-between times those who reject Jesus and even persecute Christians “get a pass” in this life or the next. “All who believe and are baptized shall be saved… oh, also, Jews who deny Christ and denigrate Christians…” Not saith the Lord.

Christians who think that Jews do not need to know Christ tacitly approve of consigning them to hell – which is, in its way, the most bigoted act of hatred we can imagine. When this attitude extends to other “free passes,” on national platforms, greater misery follows.

Naturally I will say what I should not have to say – except to knee-jerk folks who are myopic. The nightmarish atrocities described in the October Seventh attacks are repellent and to be rejected and condemned. Period. American TV news anchors occasionally have shown videos of devastation and mangled bodies in Gaza after Israeli raids – “unless these are faked videos.” Never are Israeli videos similarly questioned.

As a student of history I remember the Irgun and Stern Gang terror movements that bombed the King David Hotel and school buses; who carried out the “Night of the Beatings” where British soldiers were kidnaped, beaten in public. Or other incidents where people were hanged and their bodies booby-trapped; or the Deir Yassin massacre of a Palestinian refugee camp where children and the elderly were mutilated and women violated. But (?) those Israeli gangs were on a crusade to drive the British from Palestine so Israel could be established. Closer to our time, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and (with the assistance of Lebanese Christian gangs, the Phalange) massacred as many as 3,300 refugees who had been driven from their homes in Israel. I remember videos of children strapped to the fronts of IDF jeeps – “human shields,” like we hear about today.

Many of these terrorists in these gangs, by the way, became “statesmen” and prime ministers – Yitzhak Shamir; Menachim Begin; Ariel Sharon – some even received Nobel Peace Prizes years later. In Egypt, a terrorist named Anwar Sadat who was twice jailed (and escaped) as a terrorist opposing the king, also won a Nobel Prize years later, as President.

Yet among common citizens – those “fortunate” to survive these endless acts – the tears of mothers are the same, no matter who cries, from either “side” of the conflict. But mourners do more than cry. I recall that Jewish leaders like Albert Einstein compared the Irgun terrorists to Nazis; I recall that Osama bin Laden wrote that Sharon’s atrocities in the Shatila refugee camps “inspired” him.

I am aware that some Jewish sects, some Orthodox scholars, do not believe that the present “state” of Israel is the Zion promised in Scripture. I am aware that, at the other side of that discussion, there are contemporary Zionists who believe that Israel should extend from the Nile to the Euphrates or beyond. I am aware that multitudes of people would be happy if the nation of Israel would be “pushed into the sea,” and all the murderous implications thereof. God forbid; God forbid; God forbid. Such matters manage to make the current crisis fade in significance: they have historic, apocalyptic implications.

My opinions? I wonder about “equivalency,” a word we often hear. Responding to the brutality of 1400 murders on October Seventh, and those kidnaped – by killing 13,000 civilian citizens of Gaza, so far? I wonder whether years of Israel letting only 11 per cent of Gazans to leave the Strip; rationing clean water; and limiting electric power to several hours a day can be considered not an excuse but an explanation for violence.

I don’t wonder, however, that any of this can be filed under WWJD – What would Jesus do?

+ + +

This year, any observance of Christmas has been canceled in Bethlehem. Despite, at this writing, the indiscriminate bombings occurring mainly to the north and south of Bethlehem – which is not in Israel but in that “no man’s land” of the Occupied West Bank, just as Gaza is not a country or a part of another country – leaders fear that bombs might explode in Manger Square or other areas.

There also is a desire among Christian leaders in Bethlehem to make a statement about the situation in Gaza. “Madness,” Pastor Munther Isaac, of Bethlehem’s Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, called it. “This has become a genocide with 1.7 million people displaced.” Speaking for leaders of other Christian denominations in Bethlehem including Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Armenian, he challenged American politicians: “God has placed political leaders in a position of power so that they can bring justice, support those who suffer, and be instruments of God’s peace.”

Speaking of opinions, the president of Bethlehem Bible College, Jack Sara, noted the opinions of many American Christians who conflate Israeli politics with Biblical eschatology. He quoted an American church leader who called for Israel to “reduce Gaza to a parking lot.” Among the damaged buildings in Gaza, by the way, were some of the oldest Christian churches in the world, dating back to the days after the Resurrection.

+ + +

Concerning Manger Square in Bethlehem, there is a powerful song about a heart-wrenching story that was in the news a few years ago. Britain’s Independent newspaper reported then: “For 30 years, Samir Ibrahim Salman had made his way dutifully to his task as bell ringer and caretaker at the fortress-like stone and wooden church revered by millions as the birthplace of Jesus Christ.”

Samir “crossed Manger Square to get to the church to climb the steps to the fourth-century bell tower” as he did every day of the year. One day, “Samir was struck by a bullet in the chest. It was an hour before an ambulance could reach him but by then, he was already dead. The Palestinians claim he was killed by an Israeli – the Israeli army says they did not fire a shot near the church. Samir, who was mentally disabled, may have been unaware of the danger.” Medical crews feared an ambush.

Another death. Should our opinion be altered? Whether 1400 die, or 13,000 – or one – are mothers’ tears any different? Was there anyone who even wept over Samir? He was a Palestinian, but not Islamic; he was a Christian. Does it matter, Christians? He had been beloved of the town, and special to the church, because he rang those bells as a volunteer every day of the year for decades, different bells for different occasions, serving Christ and his neighbors.

Who pulled the trigger of the gun that killed the simple Christian Bell Ringer of Bethlehem? To those of us who are ignorant of the issues, who blindly perpetuate stereotypes, who support missions we don’t understand – and don’t support missions we ought to – those of us who have opinions not based on knowledge or facts – we can shudder at the thought that we might have been closer, in commitment of spirit, to the triggerman than to the Bell Ringer that awful day in Manger Square.

+ + +

A note. A friend who sometimes reviews my essays made a “hit me like a ton bricks” comment. She pointed out something we all know but need to know better: Neither “side,” for the most part, in this eternal conflict, knows Jesus. Yes, Christians have been involved in wars, many wars we may judge as unrighteous. Yes, we remember Jesus’s words: How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite! But where is Jesus these days? As neglected as His bell-ringer? Reminders need to be… re-minded.

Please listen to the song about that Bethlehem Bell Ringer:

An ancient church in Bethlehem, A target in a battle of men, Stands on the ground where Christ was born Trapped inside the eye of a storm…

Soldiers move from door to door; Mortar fire, it’s all-out war. Army tanks patrol the street, They treat civilians with conceit.

Samir Ibrahim Salman fulfills his task the best he can. Each day at dawn he tolls the bells, While all around the army shells.

He walks across the Manger Square; For thirty years he’s lived near there, A simple man who spends his time In quiet prayer at Jesus’ shrine

Upon the roof a sniper aims His bitter heart with hate inflames Samir walks slow, his back bent low And is struck down by the bullet’s blow….

An ancient church in Bethlehem, The bells of peace won’t chime again. The people now all live in fear, Grieving wails are all you hear.

Oh Jesus, please, help Palestine. Turn all that blood back into wine. Oh Turning Wheel, Divine Design, Please bring peace to Palestine.

Click: The Bethlehem Bell-Ringer

11-27-23

We in the United States have celebrated, if not observed, another Thanksgiving. Like other holy days… holidays… long weekends, it has begun to endure the onslaught of secularization. No longer are there widespread expressions of thanks to Almighty God in schools, from the White House, and, yes, even in churches.

It is beneficial for us to remember that Thanksgiving, as a holiday, is not really traced to the Pilgrims, as thankful as they were “24/7,” in many ways formal and informal. It was a lowly politician – in proper view, the closest we have had to a saint in Washington, President Abraham Lincoln – who conceived the idea of setting apart a day for government and citizenry to beseech God for mercy and forgiveness, and literally count our blessings.

His Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1863 began a tradition that held, until recently. He wrote in part after enumerating some of the gifts God bestowed upon America:

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens… to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them… ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings….

We can fast-forward to now, when a supposedly Catholic president dutifully issued a proclamation, but included no mention of God. Even simple logic, if not religion, should have suggested to Biden that if you urge people to be thankful, you should mention to Whom they should be thankful. His 2023 proclamation instead distorted history and denigrated faith by claiming the Pilgrims merely “honored the harvest” and expressed gratitude for the “Wampanoag people who made it possible.”

The current president then stated that Americans would gather this year to “celebrate the love they share and the traditions they built together… grateful for our Nation and the incredible soul of America…. I encourage the people of the United States of America to join together and give thanks for the friends, neighbors, family members, and strangers who have supported each other over the past year in a reflection of goodwill and unity.”

The current White House surely knows how to pinpoint things it advocates or hates. But “being thankful,” a passive, neutered term – instead of giving thanks – is a willful avoidance of a worldview that acknowledges God and His role in our national heritage and current affairs. When Biden gives thanks for “Friends,” he might well be talking about the episode where Joey gave Chandler a goat.

This is a symptom, of course, of the country at large; certainly the popular culture. But also of the Party in power. That party and its allies would be suing or censoring Abraham Lincoln for engaging in “hate speech” in the Proclamation.

This New Ingratitude trickles down to everyday speech and social interaction. Take note, this coming week, to how people express and receive Thanks. Remembering that words mean things and are significant, listen in stores, food counters, and dialogue on TV programs. “Thank you” is still uttered, but usually “Thanks” is the grandest form of sincerity.

Moreover, these days “You’re Welcome” is a virtually obsolete phrase. The response, rather, often is something like: Sure… You bet… No problem, or No prob… You got it… Sure thing… Back atcha…

Words have consequences. To paraphrase William Butler Yeats, we are slouching toward a society of ingratitude, or, worse, indifference. Americans – and I include much of the church – know how to complain; what to hate; whom to resent; when to lose patience. But we have lost the capacity to be grateful; to acknowledge good happenings; to share credit; to… thank God, not just our own work or luck, for blessings.

Almighty God does not demand gratitude and thanks from us… Well, yes, He does, actually. He is a “jealous God” and through the Bible we are told, by Him and His prophets, that gratitude and thanks are due Him. Our worship liturgies remind us that it is “meet, right, and salutary that at all times and in all places we give thanks to Him”… “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever”… “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”… “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name”…

At one time we were a people who knew that God was the source of good things, and that He was worthy of praise and thanks. Now we are a people routinely expecting entitlements.

I want to view the Lord and Thanks-giving in one more way. It is proper that we have an attitude of gratitude. But through the Bible, God does not only demand our thanks, praise, and obligation. We should also recognize that Christianity is a two-way street, so to speak.

What I mean is this: God thanks us, too. His blessings are “thanks” for our faithfulness. His amazing Creation was given, a gift, to humankind. Answered prayers are “thanks” for our devotion and supplications. The Gifts of the Spirit surely are His reaching down to bless us. The very fact that He became incarnate flesh to dwell among us and offer a plan of salvation is a manner of advance-thanks.

God demonstrated His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

Was there ever a more heartfelt “Thank You”? The Lord considers us worthy of thanks, this verse says, before we would even deserve it. Thanks for believing on Him; loving Him; serving Him. The challenge to Christians is how we return thanks, how we give life to “You’re Welcome, Lord.”

But respond we must, with sincerity and purpose. Gratitude. And a spirit of giving Thanks.

+ + +

Click: Thank You

11-20-23

Our post-Christian culture has become, rather, so anti-Christian that it sometimes has to distort the past to justify the brave new world. Here are examples of notable figures from history whose relationships to Christ have been suppressed, and will surprise some people.

Vincent van Gogh is generally regarded as the greatest of artists, or among the few supernal geniuses who put brush to canvas. His works are respected and valued, yet his private life often is viewed as sad and twisted; that he was a disturbed figure to be pitied; that cutting his ear and committing suicide are evidences of an unbalanced mind.

Vincent’s life was troubled, certainly. Of many hundreds of paintings, he sold only two in his lifetime. He continually relied on friends and his brother for money. Once when especially despondent, he drank too much and was almost institutionalized.

Yet. Vincent was the son of a pastor, and brother of another. He aspired to be a minister himself, but was turned down by a seminary. He visited missions and charity halls, even once traveling to London to minister to the poor. He was almost as beset by what he felt as his inadequate service to Christ, as by his paintings’ lack of acceptance. I have just finished his Complete Letters – three massive volumes; how did he find time to write so much and paint so much? – and they are filled with Christian references. Until recently his Biblical-themed paintings were sublimated, but there are many, and they reveal his profound faith.

His brother Theo was the recipient of most of Vincent’s letters. In one typical example he wrote of his heart and his art: to paint men and women with that something of the Eternal which the halo used to symbolize, and which we seek to convey by the actual radiance and vibration of our coloring. Among Biblical scenes he painted, many people see allegorical compositions in paintings like “Cafe Terrace at Night,” elements of which echo the Last Supper.

To much of the world today, van Gogh is thought of as a crazy man who cut off his ear. Modern studies have concluded that he did not commit suicide but was killed by a stray bullet. But a genius who was passionate about Jesus and wanted to reflect God’s glory in his art? Our age does not want to know that van Gogh!

Another figure from history whose persona is firmly established is Oscar Wilde. Playwright, poet, aesthete, epigramist, he also shocked Victorian England as a homosexual and proud pedophile. Only after the father of Wilde’s most consistent lover grew enraged, was the writer lambasted in public and convicted under Victorian statutes against immorality. Subsequent to a colorful public prosecution, Wilde was thrown in jail.

There (in Reading Jail, or Gaol as the Brits spell it) he might have rotted. Well, in fact he very nearly did rot. But he did not buck the system nor shake his fist at the bench or the heavens. In books like The Ballad of Reading Gaol and De Profundis he reflected a recognition of his sins – personal and social – and evinced a respect for Jesus Christ. He sought out clergy; he expressed his need for absolution.

Wilde wrote, near the end of his life: That is the charm about Christ, when all is said: He is just like a work of art…The little supper with His companions, one of whom has already sold Him for a price; the anguish in the quiet moon-lit garden; the false friend coming close to Him so as to betray Him with a kiss; the friend who still believed in Him, and on whom as on a rock he had hoped to build a house of refuge for Man, denying Him as the bird cried to the dawn; His own utter loneliness, His submission, His acceptance of everything… the crucifixion of the Innocent One before the eyes of His mother… the terrible death by which He gave the world its most eternal symbol; and His final burial in the tomb of the rich man, His body swathed in Egyptian linen with costly spices and perfumes as though He had been a king’s son.

Oscar spent his last days in exile in Paris, destitute and sick. He had not lost his trademark wit, even self-deprecatory. He complained of the cheap boarding-house room in which he lived: “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.” Modern studies have focused on Wilde’s earlier aggressive iconoclasm and flamboyant homosexuality, but not much on his embrace of the Savior. Oh, not in these times.

I nominate a third person, or people, who can be in the category of “those we didn’t know were Christians.” Myself. I will explain:

I was at a party a number of years ago. Cartoonists and writers, folks I knew fairly well, but I was chatting with a friend’s wife I barely knew. The subject of a recent project was raised, and she said, startled, “Oh! You’re a Christian? I didn’t know!” Now: she was a committed believer too; and the statement was in the mode of “Oh! You’re left-handed?” or “You’re a vegetarian? I didn’t know that!”

I am neither one of those people; however the point is relevant – I immediately was “convicted,” a truth brought home to me. She knew the professional-Rick but not the Christian-Rick… and there should be no difference. Van Gogh and Oscar were, respectively, celebrities wrapped in eccentricities or end-of-life controversies; and whose reputations were “protected” by those who cared little about publicizing their spiritual rebirths.

You and I, on the other hand, are – I hope and assume – alive and kicking. If we are Christians, that fact should not take anybody by surprise. “They’ll know we are Christians by our love,” a song goes. We don’t wear signs around our necks, and should not have to wear jewelry or lapel pins to announce or prove our faith-commitments to anyone.

We must not be ashamed of the Gospel. We can show love. We can forgive. We can share the words of Christ. We can serve the needy and the sick, the broken and hurting. We can – first of all – confess Jesus as the Son of God; believe that He rose from the dead after sacrificing Himself, taking our sins upon Him. The Holy Spirit will then see that we bear fruit as Jesus intended.

… And soon we will be saying to each other: “Oh! You’re a Christian too? I knew it!”

+ + +

Click: Vincent – Starry, Starry Night

11-13-23

I was talking with a new friend this week about worship – how it has changed in the church; radically changed, even in our lifetimes, but also radically through the centuries. Does worship follow the culture… and should it? should it readily conform to contemporary trends? There is the legitimate caution that if a worship style slavishly follows styles of music and communication and – dare I say it? – entertainment, then a church risks alienating as many people as it attracts.

Is the function of worship music to attract worshipers? Or is it the role of worshipers to gather, and seek God, and praise Him, and celebrate His worth-ship (a theory about the word-origin)?

I have long been tempted to wonder if contemporary worship music is scarcely neither worship nor music. That extreme view can be found in the virtual book, Rick’s Epistle to the Curmudgeons. But I am far from alone. My late wife and I were… well, literally late for a service at a church we attended in San Diego. As we passed through the lobby, we saw an elderly lady sitting alone on a bench with her walker. We asked if she need assistance to enter the service, which was loud enough to indicate it had begun.

“No,” she said. “Every week I wait out here until the music is finished. It is too loud; I can’t understand the words; and the leader always insists we clap and jump. I cannot manage.”

This poor lady was robbed of a worship experience because she was, frankly, made to feel unwelcome for a part of the service. Alone, in fact. And she was alone. Was she, in a way, outnumbered, or out-voted? I began to notice that many people in the congregation (there and at many churches I subsequently visited) seem uncomfortable with reading from screens, jumping on cue, smiling when the worship leader says, “Good morning! Say it louder, like you mean it!!!”

There was a time in church history when people gathered to worship in diverse ways. Sometimes believers gather to “be still and know that I am God.” Sometimes to bow heads, or lie prostrate before the Lord, and not jump or wave. Sometimes to cry; not always to laugh.

How many people, in churches today, are more focused on the worship than the One who should be worshiped? Or respond to the music – the instrumental riffs, the drum beats – more than the message? Or who regard the entire service as entertainment? – how many leaders, not only the “audience” – feel that way?

I think what is at play is that the contemporary church recognizes a pervasive problem in modern life – let us categorize it as alienation – but reacts in a completely inappropriate way. Megachurches, “big box” churches, mass worship are superficial attempts to draw people together… have them share experiences… bond with each other. Yet, largely, these types of gatherings merely assemble strangers as at a pep rally – prompted to cheer, respond in unison, be audiences and not congregations, and applaud when the show is over.

Contemporary worship accelerates the problem, instead of solving it. And it is a problem. The church should resist these tendencies, not perpetuate them. These church services often can be gatherings of people who gather “as one”; but many of them are rooms full of people who feel terribly alone, even sandwiched in the seats. Worse: feeling as alone when they leave, as when they arrived.

Alone. Ironic in busy churches. Ironic in a mass culture. Ironic in crowded cities and neighborhoods, schools and offices. It is recorded and reflected in statistics: More and more people seek counseling because they feel unconnected. Murderers and criminals invariably are ID’d in press reports and police statements as “loners.” We jostle people on city sidewalks and packed lunchrooms, yet unprecedented numbers of folks desperately turn to internet dating sites, or “virtual” web friends, looking for fellow strangers… other lonely people.

The answers surely are explained by psychoses, not demographics. When the landscapes were sparsely settled, and before towns became teeming cities, people are recorded in history as being relatively alone, but not lonely. Folks dealt well with distant neighbors. It was only in the Twentieth century that social scientists began to recognize the “Lost Generation” and “Disillusioned Youth”; pervasive cynicism, ennui, and resignation. Then, the “Beat Generation”; radicalization; the secularization of society. How many people today really know their close neighbors? Or want to?

I think it is all a symptom of the condition that Contemporary Man simply does not like himself. And the church neither recognizes it, nor tries to solve it, except by superficial and futile means.

My friend told me about her church which institutionally encourages neighborhood groups that meet for fellowship, study, and… worship. Meeting regularly, in small groups, arranged by interests, professions, personal challenges, geography, whatever. But common care is visceral; bonding happens, and fellowship is genuine.

This was a paradigm of the First Century church. It was real. It was precious. Did it “work,” as church leaders today would calculate the numbers of “people in the pews”? Oh, yes. Christianity grew and spread, People wanted what it had.

Let’s pray, church friends, for common sense. If feeling alone is today’s deep-seated cultural problem – how is that best overcome? In a mass setting where people are instructed to worship like robots… or in circles of friends who develop authentic, intimate relationships?

+ + +

Click: No, Never Alone

11-6-23

Christianity was berthed in Jerusalem as a vibrant, living body of believers. It moved to Greece and became a philosophy. It moved to Rome and became an institution. It moved to Europe and became a culture. It moved to America and became a business.

Somewhere in there, Christianity the Religion was corrupted and became synonymous with the Established Order. “Be ye in the world, but not of the world,” a command of Jesus Christ, has become obsolete in the post-Christian West. This week was the observance – scarcely observed any more, actually – of Reformation Day. It has caused me to wonder how many steps forward Christianity has made since Martin Luther’s day… and how many steps back.

In his times, Luther was not the first Christian to dissent from practices, corruption, and wayward theology in the Church. For more than a hundred years, believers had been tortured, imprisoned, and burned alive for questioning doctrinal inventions of Rome, and daring to translate Scripture into languages of the people. Luther, a monk, nailed a list of his complaints to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. He too was persecuted, excommunicated, chased, went into hiding… and translated the Bible into the language of his people, the Germans.

“Reform” became the Reformation. “Protest” became Protestantism. But what have the movements since become?

Luther sought reform, not revolution, yet revolution occurred: half of Europe caught fire with the belief that faith alone, by God’s grace, actuated salvation; and that people needed no intercessor with God except Christ; not saints (many of whom were fictional inventions), not Marys, not purchased “indulgences.” As doctrines, “Faith Alone,” “Scripture Alone,” “Christ Alone,” and “Grace Alone” were themselves resurrected.

The Reformation finally caught fire after the accumulation of martyrs. Other Reform denominations were founded. Luther, who never intended to break with the Church much less see a denomination established with his name, had to rein in his followers, the radical among whom had begun to destroy statues and Christian art. At the other extreme, Luther rode the wave, often manifested in secular art, of the Renaissance. Because his Reformation respected literacy and inquiry, local ecclesiastical and political control, and the dignity of the individual, the whirlwind he unleashed effectively led to the printing press, the Enlightenment, and Western democracy.

(For another essay we must examine the seeming contradictions in Luther’s rejection of Modernism – he can be seen as the last of the Medievalists – and remember his dictum that “Reason is the enemy of faith.”)

But, for those of us who commemorate the “birth” of the Reformation, let us think about the denominational movements, collectively called Protestant. Historians know what was protested 500 years ago. What do they protest against today? “Christendom” – the Western Church, certainly the American church in virtually all its corners — is in dire need of reformation again.

Many Protestant churches have become as secularized, money-oriented, and social, as the offending Roman churches were 500 years ago.

Many Protestant churches emphasize “works” – rewards, incentives, trying to please God through good deeds – no less than the Papacy did when Luther was disgusted by it all.

Many Protestant churches ignore the tenets of the faith, deny the Divinity of Christ, and question essential doctrines of the faith… to an extent worse than Luther beheld in Rome.

Christians must live in this world protesting – that is, not accepting the world’s standards, not conforming to the ways of the world. We must either offend the world-system or be a sweet savor; but NOT become like the world. Jesus did not “go along”! What does Protestantism protest against any more?

The Reformation succeeded in part because the larger culture enthusiastically embraced, for a time, the melding of Christian and social, civic lifestyles. But now, upon the altars of inclusion, pluralism, and multi-culturalism, Western societies increasingly eschew even mentions of Christianity and its standards, much less respect them.

Martin Luther accepted martyrdom for his beliefs, even to the point of his rescue. A letter on display at the Museum of the Bible, written the night before his trial, displays how accepting he was of his fate… and how ready to defend his conscience, to die for His Lord. He said when he was called on trial to recant his beliefs and writings (under the threat of death), Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can not and will not retract [my writings]. For it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.

The time is coming in this contemporary world when Christians will have it demanded of them to renounce their faith; in fact, it has begun. That this is already a time of anti-Christian persecution is abundantly clear. Not only in pagan and Communist lands, but our own. Believers daily suffer indignities and are asked to compromise their principles and forced to sublimate their voices.

Some day soon Christians will have to suffer no longer in silence, and will lose the luxury of withdrawing into small groups and communities of believers. The Bible does not merely warn… prophets did not just threaten… but God foretold and promised this holy challenge to the saints of God in the End Times.

We must, like Martin Luther, embrace our faith and moral integrity, at all costs; and find the spiritual strength to say:

It is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other.

+ + +

A clip of Niall MacGinnis’s iconic portrayal of Martin Luther:

Click: Here I Stand

10-30-23a

I recently have had cause to “describe what I do.” Because of a flurry of interviews and articles, I am being asked to list the activities and high points, such as they might be, of my career.

Some books, various jobs, a few awards, and lengthy prison terms (= three truths and a lie) routinely have been accepted, but I have had “pushback,” occasionally, about activities I label as “Christian apologetics.” Apologetics is something that has been exercised since the Resurrection of Jesus, and this blog site’s fare – my 14 years or so of sharing these thoughts every week – is an example of the form.

Some people evidently misunderstand the term, which infrequently is used except in the religious context; and less often even in that case. Because of similarity to “apology,” the word can carry the connotation of being defensive about our faith. Or whining about elements of theology. Or making excuses for Christians who commit offenses. No.

Christian apologetics is derived from the Greek word apologia, which simply means offering an explanation or a defense. In other words, it is a method of presenting the Gospel. One might think that all sermons or religious writing does that, yet that is hardly the case. Since the Disciples’ time (“the Apostolic Age”) and down through the centuries, writers and speakers also (or alternatively) have concentrated on teaching, or exhortations, or correction, or evangelism, or social action, or…

I have chosen in several books and these blog messages to know Christ and to make Him known, in the words of the motto of a church in which I worshiped years ago in Connecticut. This “calling” motivates me perhaps because that is what I needed most at points in my life – and still, often today. That is why in these essays I share my thoughts more than preach from a platform. I sometimes am encouraged to collect some of these essays in a book, and I would title that book Eavesdropping on God, because I have learned His truths by paying attention when He acts; and then sharing (“experiential apologetics,” to be precise).

Beyond the basics, no form of sharing the Gospel (“Good News”) is superior to the others – their utility and efficacy depend more upon the hearer than the speaker. Yet some of the great giants of the faith over 2000 years have been apologists: St Paul at times; early saints of the church, cited by the amazing historian Eusebius, who defended the faith during days of Roman persecution; Justin Martyr; Origen; Augustine of course; Anselm. History tends to persuade people today that philosophers and scientists of the Enlightenment were “enlightened” because they developed intellectual arguments against Christianity, but the opposite was true: they largely discovered scientific proofs and arguments for the truth of the Gospel.

The philosopher, scientist, and essayist Blaise Pascal was one who defended the form of apologetics when he wrote: Men despise religion; they hate it [because they] fear it is true. To remedy this, we must begin by showing that religion is not contrary to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for it; then we must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally, we must prove it is true.

In our day, perhaps because the world is desperate for it, many have chosen to help people know Jesus by adopting methods of apologetics. C S Lewis, most powerfully; G K Chesterton; Francis Schaeffer; my old friend Mike Yaconelli; Josh McDowell; John MacArthur; R C Sproul; Father Robert Barron; Jimmy Swaggart; and of course Billy and Franklin Graham.

Having explained the explainers and explanation, however, there are some who wonder why God Almighty does not make Himself known more directly. I have a friend who is a fervent Christian, but going through some personal crises. She cries out – as we all have in certain moments – why God does not make Himself appear to us, perhaps physically or audibly. Why faith is required when, for instance, the Disciples could see and talk to Jesus. “The Gospel of Jesus is easy to understand; but the person of Jesus sometimes is hard to know…”

Sharing the Gospel, employing apologetics, is the challenge and the privilege afforded to those of us who serve Him when dealing with such “assignments.”

• One reason I cherish story is because we can only “explain” and “defend” so much; ultimately the person of Christ, has to be met, not only described. We try, but there is no substitution.
• Do you yearn to see a physical Jesus? His Disciples walked with Him for three and a half years, yet when things got dicey, they denied knowing Him, and scattered. Would we be any different, in the midst of our problems?
• Thomas literally could not believe his eyes when the risen Savior approached him. When he beheld the wounds, Jesus said, “You believe because you see. But blessed are those who believe in me but who have not seen.”
• I employ apologetics when I bypass theological arguments and fire-and-brimstone, and simply explain to people that “I know that I know that I know.” We all can identify with such inner assurances. I have met Him – no; He has met me – in times of trouble and crisis. And no less in times of confusion and anguish. And joy. A difference between head-knowledge and heart-knowledge.
• I have witnessed miracles. And for all the glorious physical mysteries I cannot explain, least of all can I explain what He brings – “the peace that passeth all understanding.” The world can’t give that; the world can’t take it away.

So I bring no apologies for bringing apologetics to you. I can attempt the methods of historicity and theology and teleology and familiar threats of eternal damnation and promises of eternal life in Paradise – all courses of the same meal, as it were. But I have chosen to know Jesus and make Him known by sharing what He shows me, and what He has done in my life, and what I see He does in the lives of others.

Can I introduce you to my best friend? I’ve got a story or two to tell you…

+ + +

Click: Do You Know My Jesus?

10-23-23

Two weeks in a row, a “life story” with a practical message and a spiritual meaning. This one obviously is personal, so I should get it right, despite being barely conscious during some of it.

Some of you know that I write more than a weekly blog. Other blogs; roughly one magazine article a month; newspaper columns and op-eds; and books. It was my seventy-fifth published book that took me to New York last week. I have been doing interviews, recently the Charlie Kirk and Rita Cosby national radio shows / podcasts. The semi-official Book Launch of The Most Interesting American, Post Hill Press, my third book on Theodore Roosevelt, was scheduled on the campus of Long Island University / C W Post College. Close to Sagamore Hill, the Oyster Bay home of TR.

In addition to LIU, the events – press conference, reception, book signing, speech, public Q&A – was to be covered by C-SPAN for broadcast on its Presidential Books series. The events were co-sponsored by Theodore’s Books, the terrific Oyster Bay shop run by former congressman Steve Israel. For all the resourceful people involved, the real angel was Bernadette Castro, one of the nation’s great natural resources – furniture heiress; onetime New York candidate for the US Senate; 12 years the New York State Parks Commissioner in charge of historic preservation; and an amazing role-model of civic virtue and activism.

In short: I woke up woozy the morning of the events (forgive the technical and medical terms), but I had not eaten much in several days except for a grand dinner the previous evening; I had flown a hurried trip the week before; deadlines plagued me… who knows. It could not have been “stress” about my speech, because I have always said that I could talk about Theodore Roosevelt in my sleep. Inadvertently, here was to be my chance.

At the event, I stumbled in late; I half-realized I was signing my name one and a half times, or just scribbling; I needed help getting to the dining room. It was all a strange sensation, but more so for those who beheld this, ahem, esteemed author. I am sure that the guests (many and distinguished) thought I was drunk or having a stroke. Bernadette assured them that I was quite sober, and if I were sentient I could have assured them… well, in fact, I was not sentient. Medics arrived; then an ambulance; and I blinked back to consciousness in the loving arms of St Francis (the wonderful hospital bearing his name in Port Washington, NY).

When the dust had settled, so to speak, the consensus was not demon rum (I scarcely drink) nor a stroke but a “simple” case of hypoglycemia. My blood-sugar level had dropped to 37. I am on two meds as a pre-diabetic (“pre”? I am never early for anything) and maybe the disruptions of the previous days put those meds into overdrive.

(I only had problems with hypoglycemia once before, but that was in a spelling bee in sixth grade. Seriously, my late wife had diabetes since age 13, so I should be aware of some of the collateral issues. I am more aware, again. I am dropping jokes here as often as nurses who wake you up to ask if you are asleep… but for the first time in my life I thought I was going to die.)

Several days in the hospital; canceled appointments to see old friends and hoped-for business partners; and, having been rushed from my events, no books or papers or laptop or even a phone-charger. But the word had gotten out, and almost 700 well-wishers reached out, between phone calls and texts and e-mails I eventually received. In my case, “well-wisher” usually means people who wish I would fall down a well; but this was very special, really touching.

Among all the outreach, my daughter Emily called from Ireland, once for 45 minutes. And my son Ted drove up from Washington DC, where he is a TV news producer, to “hang with Pop,” and drive me to the airport after a day in Manhattan, just like old times.

To the impatient reader who wonders where is the “practical message, the spiritual meaning,” it is here, thicker than a dose of glucose syrup. Jesus was real to me through this. Not only my faith and grounding, nor that I was in a Catholic hospital. He truly was present in myriad ways.

I had a friend who was a professional skeptic (a.k.a. wiseguy) who once challenged me after some troubles I had. He said, “You keep giving Jesus the credit for the help you got. That wasn’t Him… it was all your friends! Wake up!”

OK. Chapter 2: For all of our conversations about politics and TR, and common work on causes like fighting the attack on historic statues… my greatest bond with Bernadette Castro is when we share personal stories, frequently centering on faith. She showed her character again this week.

This week could have been National Anti-Cliché week, because many of those messages and e-mails were from people who left fervent prayers and shared encouraging verses… as we all are to do, sincerely; not throw off Hallmark-like “Feel Betters” in circumstances like these.

A new friend in Michigan had volunteered to drive me to and from the airport (of course not knowing these things would transpire), saving me parking fees for a week and – surely – a shaky solo drive home, otherwise. A blessing. A friend from another state, who had sent a “love offering” to help with expenses… could not have known how useful that card would be. A blessing.

The hospital staff… well, ‘nuff said. I had interaction with so many people those days who showed Jesus, it was a reinforcement about the Healer, our Ever-Present Help in times of trouble. The Holy Spirit, you see, is the means and the motivator when we share the Jesus who lives within us.

So, Chapter 3. To skeptics like my old friend who said it was not Jesus but merely nice friends who show themselves in such crises (and as he, sadly, must have learned by now) –

It is Jesus who “works” in these situations. The Savior often chooses to work through His people. What better way? – win-win for everyone who is touched. I was ministered to; friends yielded themselves to share Christ’s love; and – I pray – others who hear this Gospel message may be blessed.

Yes. Let’s “wake up!” indeed.

+ + +

Click: Where No One Stands Alone

10-16-23

This following is not a parable; not at all. It is a true story I heard and pass along with names changed to protect the innocent, and blessed, parties.

I will call the principal figure Charlie, who just observed his 50^th anniversary with his wife Sally, as we will call her. Their sons threw an elaborate and surprise anniversary party. There were guests old and young, from old times and recent, attending from far and wide. There was a lot of love in the restaurant room.

This story – remember where you are reading this – has a spiritual component. This aspect was not planned, nor even noticed by all the guests. But it is an example of how God does not always shout – He often whispers. The Holy Spirit can virtually shove us sometimes! But He can also tenderly, gently tug at our hearts.

Charlie and one of the “farthest drive” guests were college roommates all those years ago, and were not particularly religious. At the party they shared some of the fun times, funny stories, and practical jokes. In the subsequent years Charlie’s friend Rich as we shall call him, has grown in his faith and sometimes shares encouraging messages with people.

Among the memories that popped up was a recollection from those college days about another friend named David, let us say, who in intervening years experienced a crisis; and that Charlie suggested that Rich talk and pray with David. It seems this was an uncharacteristic thing for Charlie to do, at least back in the day. But evidently those prayers had some impact, and since then David has been following Rich’s occasional encouraging messages. Now they are brothers in Christ.

Charlie had, and has, a real brother who could be called George and is known as an impressive brainiac, sharing the love but not the politics nor faith of Charlie. Nevertheless, as Rich learned in surprise, Charlie has been forwarding his messages in those two areas… and George made a point, at this party, of expressing his appreciation and discussing some thoughts. Charlie the evangelist? Some would be surprised.

In another story, or backstory, Charlie and Rich had never met each other’s children through the years. Yet Charlie was so upset at the rupture in the relationship of Rich and one of his daughters that he often volunteered to call her out of the blue and try to heal the situation. Which eventually he did.

That is not the most surprising aspect of that particular story. Charlie’s niece, who could be called Connie, is one of the most active Christians in that family. She works, through her church, with missionaries. Making friends with Rich, she spoke of a concern for Uncle Charlie’s faith. But she was surprised to hear the story of his intervention in the father-daughter problem… and especially her uncle’s reassurance, through the years to Rich, that he “prays for them every night and for their heartache.”

To the extent that Connie was surprised is the main reason I am sharing this story.

Friendships endure, or grow cold. Families grow closer, or drift apart. Seeds of faith are planted, and sometimes sprout and grow; in fact that often happens – no surprise. But as all this – for the lack of a better term and for the sake of this story, let us call it life – happens, deepening faith and learning to share Christian love, gets manifested in myriad ways.

This Charlie fellow is not like the cousin of a friend of mine whose own faith has been growing despite (or because?) of a great crisis with her son. My friend’s cousin is a Christian of comfortable means, and gives greatly to charity. How do we know that? He brags about it. Oh, it comes out in small talk, or anecdotes, or references to details… but everyone knows how “good” he is.

The Bible – our Lord Himself – firmly tell us not to be like that man. Have you heard the words? Not to let the left hand know what the right hand is doing (don’t do things for praise). Not to utter the loudest prayers in places of worship. That the widow’s mite is more meaningful than ostentation. When Jesus talked about not hiding one’s light under a bushel, He meant that our faith should shine as a glowing candle; but works, our deeds, may be in secret.

Who sees the good works? The giver, who surely is blessed; the recipients, who benefit; and God, who knows.

Well, as stories were loudly shared during that anniversary party, so also were stories of different sorts — privately, of faith and witness and love. No surprise: that’s how life ought to be. A mosaic of experiences, friendships, memories. Often, memories that bring tears to our eyes.

But it sounds like at that surprise party for Charlie and Sally, there were two kinds of tears flowing. Some of them like showers of blessing. We also have an illustration of the saying that we should always “share the Gospel… sometimes even using words.”

+ + +

Click: There Shall Be Showers of Blessing

10-9-23

Toe-stepping alert. Some will be offended here; maybe a greater number of you than usually happens. But as they say in legislative debates, I rise on a Point of Personal Privilege. Or, I don’t know… what cats do with hairballs.

Recently I wrote about how Jesus was treated in the days leading to His crucifixion “by us.” What I mean was that there is no reason to think that any of us would have acted any differently in those horrible days than the people who, just days before, welcomed Him with Hosannas, or even His closest friends who abandoned and denied Him despite three years spent in His entourage, seeing miracles, knowing His love.

Yes, we can be fickle. We often revere the most common things in life. And we often are casual or even dismissive of the holiest.

Exhibit A: It is amazing – and to me, personally, annoying – how many people, even nominal Christians, who refer to God Almighty as “the Man Upstairs.”

It is almost like a superstition, a fear of calling the Most Holy God, Creator of the Universe, Love of our souls, by any of His many proper names. It seems like trying to hold two like-poles of a magnet together. But it is, in reality, an insult.

Would it be much different than God referring to us as “Those little fleas down there”?

Except, maybe, as matter of degree – like physical abuse or cruder insults – disrespect is disrespect, we might be dangerously close to acting like those abusive crowds in Jerusalem. Even those of us who have repented of our sins and asked forgiveness were, as it were, virtually among those crowds who despised and rejected Him, when we choose to continue to live in sin; when we choose to show proper respect before Him. Which we always are: before Him; in His presence.

Do I paint an extreme picture, go too far? You don’t think so? Would you have acted differently back then? Are you as resectful of the Savior… as He deserves? Even His disciples mostly scattered like autumn leaves in a windy street when things got rough, before our Savior was mocked, kicked, and spat upon, betrayed, seized, jailed, accused, tortured, and killed. And then “we” hid in fear for three days until He rose from the dead and had to show Himself to us.

You know, sometimes I wonder – if such a thing could be measured – whether “Jesus Christ” is uttered more as a curse than a blessing or in prayer across the United States every day. Possibly so. Shame on us.

The “Man Upstairs” must be awfully disappointed.

When He comes again in Glory it will be humankind’s second chance. Will He be despised and rejected by us again? Take your pulse, as it were – will we hide our faces from Him? Will you “esteem Him not” (as Isaiah predicted 700 years before Jesus was crucified)? When He returns will He be kicked and punched again? Will you spit on Him?

Will He be called names?

Yes. He will.

Will it be “Son of the Man Upstairs”? Will it be “Je-sus Christ” as in some bitter curse? Or… will we call Him King of kings, Lord of lords; Savior of our souls?

+ + +

Click: Rise Again

10-2-23

I have come through a stretch where friends, or acquaintances of friends, have died or observed anniversaries of deaths, or have faced serious life-threats. There have even been sad stories of different people’s similar ailments, tempting one to think they are more than coincidences. Have you ever noticed such trends?

We wonder at those times: Is there something in the water? Conspiracies afoot? Phases of the moon?

There is something called apophenia – confirmation bias – that can fool our perceptions; self-fulfilling prophesies in our minds. Examples are when we take note of weather trends like global warming; or crime statistics; or cancer and other diseases – are things changing, or is there only better reporting?

Nevertheless, we sometimes want to toss statistics (whether affirming or contrary) and “expert opinions” out the window. For instance, when we see more children exhibiting signs of autistic behavior; or know of more folks dying of cancer than in, say, Colonial days; or hear about examples of more auto-immune diseases than existed years ago. If these are just perceptions, or heightened awareness, we can point to another adage – what the Romans called omne trium perfectum – that things come in threes. (Like my lists in these previous paragraphs!)

In fact our minds often run in threes. There are sayings that both good things and bad things happen in threes. The Bible, beginning of course with the Trinity, points to 3 as the number of perfection. Writers are taught to have three main “peaks” in a storyline; fewer are dull, more are confusing. Similarly, orators and pastors are taught to hold audiences with three main points. Homiletics: explanation; illustration; and application. (“Tell them what you’re going to tell them; tell them; tell them what you told them.”)

So… our minds want to “see” patterns in myriad ways.

Yet, to return to cancer. The disease does seem to be on the rise, at least in its horrible varieties… more than three, sadly. For all the accounts of “thank God it was detected early” – and we do thank Him in such cases – there are counter-balance stories. In my case, an old church friend whose husband was “opened up” to search for the cause of stomach discomfort… was quickly “stitched up” when many cancers were evident; he died soon thereafter. Another new friend’s son-in-law was diagnosed but surgery seems to have “caught” the suspicious lymphatic glands. But another friend’s husband went from diagnosis of brain cancer to death in five quick weeks. “Mercifully short”? Clichés are of scant comfort…

Cancer – the “Big C” – looms larger in our collective minds than almost all other diseases; perhaps more ominous than international crises or environmental challenges (which, in fact, might be closely related to the cancer epidemic), touching almost every family and neighborhood. The “Big C,” people call it.

It’s a little odd how humankind makes light of dangers. You know, phrases like “acts of God.” Jokes like “The devil made me do it!” Back to cancer again – smokers who cynically call cigarettes “C-sticks.” In fact, if we insist on reverting to shorthand or nicknames, let us adopt another use of the term “the Big C,” and apply it to the real Big C – Christ.

We, the human race, had our chance one time when Christ “became flesh and dwelt among us,” as the Bible refers to His earthly ministry. Seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, the prophet Isaiah prophesied and predicted, and even described what Jesus would look like… and how He would be treated by us: Despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. We hid our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

Yes, the “Big C” came to earth, to teach and heal but mainly to Save – to offer Himself as the sacrifice for the punishments we deserve as rebels against our Heavenly Father.

He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and by His stripes we are healed. Full circle back to cancers and afflictions? Does Christ, by this, always heal as we would wish? Not as we would wish – my wife was miraculously healed of thyroid cancer… yet despite fervent prayers, she had to receive heart and kidney transplants. However she faithfully believed she was healed by the miracle of surgery, God’s chosen answer in that circumstance. And she was given a testimony to share.

If there are lessons through all these mysteries, it is that God is sovereign. We trust Him to answer prayer as He will. We praise Him at all times: that is faith. God’s “Big C” – our elder brother, Christ Jesus – is bigger than cancer and any other problems we face.

No matter what we call the challenges, we should call Jesus by Who He is – Christ, our Savior.

+ + +

A beautiful, pertinent song by cancer survivor Janet Paschal, written by her and her half-sister Charlotte Ahlemann.
Click: You’re Still Lord

9-25-23

The Holy Bible is comprised of many books written by many hands over many centuries in many locations. Most of the writers did not know each other; neither did they dream of how their texts would be joined or bequeathed through subsequent history.

In fact some of the books were written frankly to record events; some were written to inform and instruct other believers; some were written in the clear belief of writers that they were transcribing God’s words and warnings and commandments.

All the writers, however, were inspired. Consider that word literally: in-spired; as per respiration and other words, the root is “breathing.” So the Holy Spirit of God, by common belief of all the scribes, believed that the Lord “breathed in” to their hearts. As our Creator-God, He did such things. In these later times and by other ways, He still whispers His truths to us… He speaks to us in answered prayer, and inspired thoughts. Like no other deity in other “religions,” His words are confirmed multiplied times over, through the ages.

The “harmony of Scripture” and “unity of the Gospel” are therefore truths that reassure believers, and astonish mathematicians, among others. Think about the probabilities of disparate people agreeing with others whom they did not know; or confirming facts about which they had no tangible clues; or sharing predictions and prophecies that happened, as it turned out, “to the letter.”

These people “recorded” as the Spirit of God dictated to their hearts, things that sometimes made no sense, or seemed irrelevant at the times… but of course have powerful relevance to humankind. Scientists and archaeologists today are discovering places and persons in ancient Scripture that were recently thought to be poetry or fantasy or fiction… but – we discover that those kings, those battles, those cities were real.

The Bible tells us so.

So, despite the stubborn secularists and agnostics who regard it all as a fable or insider-conspiracy or poetic nonsense, we stand in awe of the Holy Bible as history (“His story”); as wisdom and guidance; as a Love Letter from God Almighty. Between its covers are not random contents and disputes and admonitions, but exceedingly precise, intentional words for our comings-and-goings. And for our lives.

There are nit-pickers, some of whom seem sincere, and some of whom have huff-and-puff scholarly manners, who tell of minute differences between, say, accounts in the Gospels – just how many things did Jesus say when hanging on the cross? Or renewed skepticism when their “proofs” against, say, a Great Flood or the actual existence of an ancient Biblical kingdom, have been upended. If they spent one one-thousandth of the time studying the truths in God’s Word, as they do searching for contradictions…

They, and the world, might be better off.

If we look hard enough, anyone can see what they want to see, or miss what they want to miss. I was on the editorial team of the republication of the 1599 Geneva Bible, which was in fact the translation of John Calvin that (among other significance) Pilgrims brought to the colonies; not the King James version. It lives in history as the “Breeches” Bible because translators handled the account in Genesis 3:7, where Adam sewed fig leaves together to cover his nakedness, and called the garment “breeches.” Somehow mankind seemed to pay as much attention to that, as to the entirety of Scripture.

There are other tempests in teapots – or angels dancing on heads of pins. The Apocrypha is, or is not, regarded as canon; and portions of Daniel and Esther are regarded by some Christians as “Deuterocanonical” – added or discovered at dates later than “accepted” Scripture. Martin Luther doubted the authority of the Book of James. I recently have been studying the movement of the early church father Marcion, who held unorthodox views on the relevance of the Old Testament, and establishment of the Apostolic church, to Christ’s mission and message. Some view him as heretical, but without his movement, we might not have some of New Testament Scripture and traditions.

Again, my point – and my willingness to raise such issues – is that we as humankind are face-to-face with God’s existence, Jesus’s reality, and the Holy Spirit’s essential role in our lives. Yes… the devil can be in details, sometimes.

We need to keep our eyes on Heaven, and our feet on the ground.

I know Jesus is real because I have met Him. He mightily has intervened in my life, and that of my family. He has worked miracles that no other person, no other power, could do. Can I explain this to skeptics. No, not really… it is for everyone to experience. And I would say that it is not so important that we love Him – it is to our salvation; yes, but what is most important to grasp is that He loves us.

If we had to order a priority (and it is not really a priority: both things are true and essential), but I would plead to those who have not yet accepted Salvation to grasp the fact that God so loved the world that He allowed His Son to take our sins upon Him… that we may be one with the Father. That makes the Bible – however else the world debates it – a thousand translations; the source of debates; the essence of holy wisdom; a handbook for conducting one’s life; a record of miracles; prophecies of end times – when all is said and done, a love story.

I think we cannot fall in love with God fully until we are aware of the awesome fact that the Creator of the Universe knows and loves you and me. The Bible is God’s love letter to us; love is in every word, every verse, every chapter, every book.

Yes, Jesus Loves Me. The Bible tells me so.

+ + +

Click: Jesus Loves Me

9-18-23

There have been a few small denominations that discouraged music in worship, just as there were sects that outlawed sex. For similar reasons those groups seemed to perish, disappear… and are missed by few.

Music is a part of humans’ souls. Mysterious in its way because not everybody has the talent to create tunes… or perform well… yet we all respond to music. Those who “can’t carry a tune” (and some people cannot) still enjoy listening. The most hardened people find their hearts softened when they hear a familiar melody. Songs are composed to win lovers and to send boys to war; to bond and to bind; to remember… and, by diversion, to heal and forget.

I am not aware of a survey, but I figure that 95 per cent of songs are love songs. Tennessee Ernie Ford once was asked why he sang so many Gospel songs and not more love songs, and he answered, “Gospel songs are the greatest love songs of all.”

Instrumental music is, to me, the most mysterious, and profound, of all music… all of all the arts. Abstract, yet specific in intent. And musical notation is a language all its own – a universal language. Composers who begin their work with blank staves… and finish with “sounds” that can move us literally and also move us to tears and smiles… perform a kind of miracle.

Johann Sebastian Bach took those blank pages, and before beginning to compose any work, wrote “Jesus, help me” at the top of the first page. When the composition was finished, he wrote “Thanks be to God” on the last page, acknowledging his source and strength of inspiration.

Quirky denominations aside, all cultures, in their social and religious practices, have relied on musical expression. The Bible overflows with descriptions, and endorsements, of joyful music. In Genesis 4 Jubal is identified as the ancestor of “all those who play the lyre and pipe.” Elsewhere, Elisha commanded, “Get me a musician,” wherewith a blessing was delivered. David, the “Sweet Singer of Israel,” ministered to Saul by playing music at night, much as Bach’s Goldberg Variations were composed to soothe those who sought rest.

Martin Luther, the great reformer and preacher, was also a composer (for instance of A Mighty Fortress Is Our God) and he defended music in church: “The devil does not need all the good tunes to himself!”

Some of the most important American historians are those who have studied and recorded (including literally) the folklore and folk music of the American past. I was privileged to know (and play music with, even past his 100^th birthday!) the legendary Wade Mainer, whose banjo-picking style influenced Earl Scruggs years before the Bluegrass Sound was born. To hear his stories of rural North Carolina, and hear the songs he and his wife Julia (whose stage name back in the day was Hillbilly Lilly) sang together was like walking through history.

A friend recently reminded me of the excellent book and movie Songcatcher, about those who kept those musical traditions alive. One of the characters mused about the “thread” of a favorite song, perhaps “a touchstone with the past – a remembrance of all the singers who had ever kept a story alive on the strength of their music, and that singing the ballad was a chance to join that chain of voices stretching all the way back to across the ocean to the place where the families began.”

Yes, music hath charms. It is the case, of course, with mighty hymns as well as humble folk tunes. May I provide an example?

Here is a video of a performance of the hymn Nearer, My God, to Thee, which was composed in 1841. Its meaningful words were set to music by several people through the years, including Sir Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame). Its words were on the lips of President William McKinley as he died of an assassin’s bullet – imagine an American president today having this as his last thought? – and by legend, as The Titanic sank, Theodore Roosevelt’s former military aide Archie Butt directed the ship’s musicians to play it.

In this video, André Rieu conducts his Johann Strauss Orchestra, plus 400 brass players and a hundred singers in a performance of Nearer, My God, to Thee. The audience of thousands is a mixed, international group in an open square in Maastricht – and the hymn is performed without words, the singers chanting. Does the audience miss the significance? Not counted by the emotions, and tears, on listeners’ faces!

To hear this hymn, even once, impresses the powerful words on one’s mind, carried by the music. And the reverence of this elaborate performance… confirms the Power of Music.

In words written in 1697 in William Congreve’s play The Mourning Bride, “Musick hath Charms to soothe the savage Breast, To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.” And it can lift souls, and carry us somehow Heavenward too:

Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee! E’en though it be a cross that raiseth me,
Still all my song shall be, Nearer, my God, to thee; Nearer to thee!

Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down, Darkness be over me, my rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I’d be Nearer, my God, to thee; Nearer to thee!

There let the way appear, steps unto heaven; All that thou sendest me, in mercy given;
Angels to beckon me Nearer, my God, to thee; Nearer to thee!

As Bach, “the Fifth Evangelist,” said, “With devotional music, God is always present in His grace.”

+ + +

Click: Nearer My God To Thee

9-11-23

“9-11” will never lose its meaning in America; maybe it will have evocations as long as the world lasts. More than a mere “event,” it is one of those moments in history that people will always associate with where they were, what they were doing, when the news of the terror attacks occurred.

It might not lose its meaning, but will it lose its significance?

My son Ted was an intern at one of the major cable news networks at that time. Its studios are across the Hudson from lower Manhattan, and every day – before 9-11 – he could see the Twin Towers from the station’s parking lot. On that day he put in extra hours, working non-stop on the breaking news, correspondents’ feeds, editing video footage, some of which, featuring falling bodies and splattered corpses and collapsing monoliths, have still never been publicly shown.

I frequently have challenged audiences in some of my speeches if anyone could state, even approximately, the number of victims of terrorism there were on 9-11. Hands go up, and the invariable estimates are around 3,000. And my invariable response is this correction:

No. There were approximately 3,000 victims of murder on 9-11. The victims of terrorism are about 330-million… and still growing.

If there were “silver linings” to the clouds of smoke and dust on 9-11 it was that America was briefly united, even unified, in our response, grief, and resolution. Skeptics worried that clarity, patriotism, and some common purposes would be short-lived.

Of course, the skeptics were right. Many young people responded by volunteering for military service. American adventurism, however, has led to ambiguous results if not Pyrrhic victories. A Patriot Act inherently is flawed, perhaps compromising as many rights as it purports to protect. According to elections, surveys, and streets filled with spilled blood and broken glass, our citizenry is more divided than ever.

The terrorists are following an agenda. But who wrote it?

We are in this state not because of a few hijacked planes on 9-11. There were attacks before; many since; and 9-11 only represented the most palpable and perhaps symbolic of the threats America faces. In fact, as with the Roman Empire and all empires and decadent societies throughout history, such attacks are virtual metaphors for the self-destruction that essentially plagues us.

America has invited this situation by our abandonment of core values. Our society – indeed the West in general – is a Post-Christian culture. Among those who might say “I told you so” are the “great cloud of witnesses” described in the Bible (see Hebrews Chapter 11) and, by the totality of His Word and Commandments and Judgments, God Himself.

For further commentary (“Don’t take my word for it!”) I will commend some reflections by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He was the Soviet exile, a man who fought Communism and somehow survived persecution and prisons (the gulags) and escaped to the West after his writings were smuggled out of Russia; they won praise and Nobel Prizes.

I will quote him briefly but wish I could share his thousands of pages. Find his books! His analyses – his warnings – are dispositive today. They are not mere critiques of monstrous Communism. They recognize the Bureaucratic State that threatens “democracies” today. They attacked all of the decadent West. They recognized that the Crisis of the Twentieth Century was not confined to the Communist State into which he was born.

The infection, he said, is not Communism per se – although, of course, Marxism is alive in American education, media, and party politics – but secularism. The rejection of God. Therefore he attacked not only Stalin of the past but the Bidens of the present; not only the Soviet apparatchiks but the American Dark State:

If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than… “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”…The failings of human consciousness, deprived of its divine dimension, have been a determining factor in all the major crimes of this century.

We are witnesses to the devastation of the world, be it imposed or voluntarily undergone. …sucked into the vortex of atheism and self-destruction. This plunge into the abyss has aspects that are unquestionably global, dependent neither on political systems, nor on levels of economic and cultural development, nor yet on national peculiarities.

It was Dostoevsky… who drew from the French Revolution and its seething hatred for the Church the lesson that “revolution must necessarily begin with atheism.” That is absolutely true. But the world had never before known a godlessness as organized, militarized, and tenaciously malevolent as that preached by Marxism…. hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions.

Through decades of gradual erosion, the meaning of life in the West ceased to stand for anything more lofty than the pursuit of “happiness”, a goal that has even been solemnly guaranteed by constitutions. The concepts of good and evil have been ridiculed for several centuries; banished from common use, they have been replaced by political or class considerations of short-lived value. It has become embarrassing to appeal to eternal concepts, embarrassing to state that evil makes its home in the individual human heart before it enters a political system.

Atheist teachers in the West are bringing up a younger generation in a spirit of hate for their own society. Amid all the vituperation, it has been forgotten that the defects of capitalism represent the basic flaws of human nature, freed from all limitations just as the various human rights are; that under communism (and communism breathes down the neck of all moderate forms of socialism, which are unstable) — under communism the very same flaws become completely unbridled in any person with the last degree of authority; and that everyone else under that system truly does attain ‘equality’ — the equality of destitute slaves.

Instead of the ill-advised hopes of the last two centuries, which have reduced us to insignificance and brought us to the brink of nuclear and non-nuclear death, we can only reach with determination for the warm hand of God, which we have so rashly and self-confidently pushed away…. If we perish and lose this world, the fault will be ours alone.

From more than 50 years ago Solzhenitsyn speaks to us. Prophesies fulfilled before our eyes. Solutions under our noses.

Several correspondents have written lately to me about so many “gloom and doom” subjects in these messages, when I promise “a song in your hearts.” Well, yes. But I am a reporter of Biblical things and current events – I try to eavesdrop on the Lord. So these messages convey the facts of our situations, not fantasy.

God, however, writes “between the lines”! Turning to Him, repenting and reforming, will heal our land and dispel gloom and doom!

It is not too late – as individuals and as a nation!

For I the Lord will hold your right hand; Fear not! I will help you! (Isaiah 41:13)

+ + +

A dear friend has written that this is a song not in our hearts but to our hearts:

Click: Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand

9-4-23

The unofficial end of Summer: This weekend there will be the sounds of parades, the colors of flags, the sights of smiling friends and family, and if nothing else… the aromas of barbecues. Particularly dear to me as, these very weeks, my daughter Emily, who lives in Northern Ireland, is amping up her American-barbecue business in Ireland and the UK; the BBQueen of Derry. Appropriate Cultural Appropriation you can taste!

I have told this story before about summer get-togethers. When I skip it, I get letters asking “Where was that great song you post every summer?” On this Labor Day weekend, I remember a simple barbecue, but one of the most profound days of my life. A holiday far away from my home… but very close to my heart. It happened on a summer holiday almost 30 years ago.

And it always makes me wonder, Is an America we once knew disappearing?

I lived in East Texas back then for a few months, conducting interviews and research for a book I was writing. Once settled, I took out the Yellow Pages (remember them?) to chart the location of nearby Assembly of God churches, intent on visiting as many as I could through the summer. East Texas was in every way new to me, and I wanted to experience everything I could.

Well, the first one I visited was in Cut and Shoot. That’s a town’s name; you can look it up. A small white frame AG church was my first stop that summer… and I never visited another. In that tiny congregation, it was, um, obvious in three minutes that I was not from East Texas. I was born in New York City. Yet I was treated like family as if the folks had known me for decades. A fellow named Dave Gilbert asked me if I’d like to go to his farm for a barbecue where a bunch of people were just going to get together and “do some visitin’.”

I brought the biggest watermelon I could find as my contribution to the pot-luck. There were dozens and dozens of folks. I couldn’t tell which was family and who were friends, because everybody acted like kinfolk. When folks from East Texas ask, “How are you?” they really mean it. There were several monstrous barrel barbecue smokers with chimneys, all slow-cooking beef brisket. (Every region brags about its barbecue traditions, but I’ll fight anyone who doesn’t agree that low-heat, slow-smoked, no sauce, East-Texas barbecue is the best.) There was visitin’, surely; there were delicious side dishes; there was softball and volleyball and kids dirt-biking; and breaks for sweet tea and spontaneous singing of patriotic songs.

I sat back in a folding chair, and I thought, “This is America.”

As the sun set, the same food came out again – smoked brisket galore; all the side dishes; and desserts of all sorts. Better than the first time. Then the Gilberts cleared their house’s porch. People brought instruments out of their cars and trucks. Folks tuned their guitars; some microphones and amps were set up; chairs and blankets dotted the lawn. Dave Gilbert and his brothers, I learned, sang gospel music semi-professionally in the area. Pastor Charles Wigley of that local church, during the summer had opened for Gold City Quartet at a local concert, playing gospel music on the saxophone.

In some churches, in some parts of America, you sing solo every once in a while. You’re not only expected to – you want to. So into the evening, as the sun went down and the moon came up over those farms and fields, everyone at that picnic naturally sang, together or solo or in duets or quartets. Spontaneously, mostly. Far into the night, exuberantly with smiles, or heartfelt with tears, singing unto the Lord.

I sat back in the folding chair, and I thought, “This is Heaven.”

I have grown sad for people who have not experienced the type of worship where singers, and people who pray, do so spontaneously. From the congregation. Moving to the front. Sharing their hearts. Crying tears of joy or conviction. Loving the Lord, and each other, freely. If you have not… then visit a church where this is commonplace. Even witnessing it is an uplifting balm to the soul, where there is freedom and joy in singing spontaneously.

I attach a video that very closely captures the music, and the feeling – the fellowship – of that evening. A wooden ranch house, a barbecue picnic just ended, a campfire, and singers spontaneously worshiping, joining in, clapping, and “taking choruses.” Smiling, hugging. There were cameras at this particular get-together, but it took this city boy back to that holiday weekend, finding himself among a brand-new family, the greatest barbecue I ever tasted before or since… and the sweetest songs I know.

And I think to myself, nervously shedding a tear… “THIS is the America we are losing.”

+ + +

Click: The Sweetest Song I Know

8-28-23

Nothing in the Holy Bible is an accident. Every word of Scripture has application to our lives. That we are not nomads or shepherds is irrelevant. Truth, sin, purity, love, and God’s sovereignty are matters as pertinent to us today as to any people through past centuries and many lands. The smallest details are as important as the larger narratives.

In that perspective I invite a look at the first of Jesus’s miracles. In the second chapter of John’s Gospel we have the account of the Wedding Feast at Cana. It is where Jesus turned water into wine as the feast ran short.

This is the first of Jesus’s recorded miracles. We may marvel, as the wedding couple and the guests did. The important point is to focus on the miracle, not specifically the wine (for all its symbolism, I suppose Jesus might have made a miracle at the wedding feast of bread or fish or… wait; that’s for later). But The miracle itself was intended to impress the guests. Jesus’s actions have significance. His presence as a “mere” guest affirms His own humility, the “servant king.” And so forth.

But let us pause with those who focus on the role of wine at this event. Many people – and multiplied-more others – have lives that are scarred by alcohol abuse. It was the case in my family, and probably the same with most of you readers. It is a weakness in the human condition; and although specific to wine and liquor, I am persuaded that many people are basically addicted to being addicted; alcohol is the tendency or “flavor” or option of many self-destructive life-choices.

Virtually every addict, no matter the frequency or pleasure of the “highs,” regrets the addiction… sometimes (or repeatedly) seeks release… grieves over the consequences. Relationships, jobs, family, career, health, life.

Stick with me, please. The focus of the Water-Into-Wine miracle should not be the food or wine, nor even the miracle itself… but the Miracle-Maker.

Let us say that you have an addiction. We all do, in myriad ways, even to the common addictions to sinning, transgressing, pride, not fully serving God. Many believers – and I address well-meaning Christians – often pray that we be freed from bondage to this or that temptation. But those prayers are often in this context: “Help me be strong, Lord, that I can battle these problems. Watch me!”

As God reads our well-meaning hearts, we often mean: “Get me to that point, Lord, where I can resist these challenges on my own.” And it’s likely we really mean: “I want You to be proud of me, Lord. Give me wisdom and strength that I can overcome these temptations by myself.” And we are in effect wanting to get to the point of saying, “Thank you, Lord! I will take over from here!”

That’s spiritual maturity, right?

No, that is spiritual immaturity.

Let us never forget the Biblical reminder that “we can do nothing except through the Christ who strengthens us.” Remember that Jesus wants to run with us, not watch us hand off the baton and then cheer from the bleachers. Why did God send the Holy Spirit except to be our constant Guide and Comforter and Wisdom and Strength?

Was Christ’s work on the cross something that we should regard as “finished” when we think we know how much to receive from it?

In the case of our focus here, sometimes for addicts the greatest miracle is not to be free of the alcohol… but rather to become addicted to Jesus. “I’ll take it from here, God…” is self-swindling. A greater personal “overcoming,” a greater miracle, is to change our lives that we learn to be dependent, not independent. To be dependent on Jesus instead of the bottle, our own wills.

We are impressed by the account of that miracle at the Wedding Feast, turning water into wine. In our own lives it would not be a matter of weakness, but of strength, if we were to plead for a different miracle. Many things we simply cannot do on our own. God, please turn the wines of our lives – our tendencies to sin; our disobedience; our addictions – back into water.

+ + +

Click: Wine Into Water

8-21-23

The pictures and videos of the devastating fire in Hawaii, in the city of Lahaina on the island of Maui – much less the bare news and statistics – are nightmarish. Arising spontaneously; whipped by bizarre winds; approximately 3000 structures destroyed almost instantly; many people literally incinerated. Death tolls of more than a hundred folks are sure to rise, as many hundreds are unaccounted.

We tend to use words like “unprecedented” when we hear of such disasters, yet we sadly and too easily can recall other natural disasters like Pompeii 2000 years ago, or the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, when upwards of 8000 people died.

When the news of the fires broke, I called a friend in Seattle. He has a home on Maui, about two miles from the fires, as I learned. He has been reassured that his home was safe, yet he wept as the memories of familiar and favorite neighborhoods – and, of course, possibly many friends and neighbors – might be among the horrific losses.

Our minds might go back to another legendary fire, the Chicago Fire of 1871. Debates still rage, virtually as heated and wild as the flames themselves: Was the fire’s origin of “man-made” causes? How responsible were poor city planning or faulty responses in Chicago… or in Lahaina? Or are such disasters (for instance, in great forested lands) inevitable and cyclical? My webmaster, who is formatting this message, recently was on a car trip half a continent away from a burst pipe in his basement. Family heirlooms and uncountable photos were ruined. That sort of a flood can be as personally tragic as the 1889 Johnstown Flood.

My friend with the house on Maui shed real tears for the disaster in “paradise,” despite his own property being spared. And yet – I am not naming him to protect his privacy – his tears of compassion were being shed despite the immediacy of his current situations. He is dealing with two very serious medical problems; and his wife is very sick, too, at the moment.

How quickly beautiful oases of serenity and security, like Lahaina or suburban Seattle, can become virtual “valleys of the shadow of death…”

A prosperous Chicagoan in 1871 had lost properties and much of his wealth in the legendary fire. Horatio Spafford was further devastated by the Wall Street Panic and Depression of 1873. With meager resources he decided to have his family – his wife and four daughters – live for a spell, frugally, in England. Attending to final arrangements, Spafford sent his wife and daughters ahead, intending to join them soon afterward.

But a cable arrived from England with news that their liner had collided, mid-Atlantic, with a Scottish freighter. His four daughters were among those who drowned; more than 300 souls in all. Even in an ocean there are “valleys of shadows of death.”

As Spafford sailed for England to join his wife who survived, the captain of his vessel slowed the ship at one point and announced to passengers that, as close as he could reckon, they were at the approximate spot where that “famous, recent maritime disaster and loss of life occurred.” Can you imagine the anguish of experiencing fire and flood (so to speak), so personal, and even floating on ocean waters where his dead daughters might have been below?

Spafford, a devout Christian and supporter of the noted Chicago evangelist Dwight L Moody, reacted in a way that only the Holy Spirit could embrace and give strength – anyway, I am not sure I could have had the spiritual courage… to write a poem in reaction. That poem became the words of one of the great hymns of the church: “It Is Well With My Soul.”

When peace like a river attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll, Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, “It is well, it is well, with my soul.”

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, Let this blest assurance control – That Christ has regarded my helpless estate, And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin – oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! – My sin, not in part but the whole, Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more! Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul!

It is well (it is well) With my soul (with my soul); It is well, it is well with my soul!

It would seem to take superhuman faith to compose such words at that moment. In fact – whether with this background or not; the Hawaiian wildfires on the news, or not – it takes great faith to read these words, sing that hymn, and believe that truth.

Because whatever befalls the believer, it is well with our souls if they are in Jesus. Even in the worst circumstances… health or status… self or family… things of the moment, things of the future… even loss of jobs, of homes, of friends, of lovers… “let goods and kindred go,” in the words of Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress”… God is yet the Captain of our ship, our souls.

Impossible to accept, believe, embrace? That’s what faith is.

• Sometimes friends are revealed as inconstant; and we realize that in a situation, we had hope in a person, instead of faith in God.
• Or we pray and plan, and yet the programs fail; and we realize that we sought direction from everyone and everywhere except the One who orders our steps.
• We know what we want; and then we are reminded that God knows what we need.

There are mysteries in the Ways of God. I do not believe He sends disasters or disease, even to “teach lessons.” He is not a child abuser. Yet there is sin in the world, and our sins have corrupted the beautiful world He created, and sometimes obscure our vision of the beautiful life He promises.

God’s love does not depend upon our understanding of it. Even receiving it does not depend on our total understanding of it! As His ways are mysterious, His love is profoundly without limit. We trust and obey; there’s no other way. And – even in the face of circumstances seemingly to the contrary – it will be well with your soul.

+ + +

Click: It Is Well With My Soul

8-14-23

(A guest message by our sometime contributor and all-time friend Leah Morgan)

My apologies to this bee.

I’m so sorry, that’s false fruit. You may be salivating for pollen, but you’ve just received some miscommunication. There’s no nourishment here.

Our own bodies are so magnificently engineered with such heightened perception, they can mistakenly respond to false stimuli too. Our nervous system perceives danger and reverts to a sympathetic condition that propels us in to a fight-or-flight response. High alert! Adrenaline pumping! Physically ready to react! But… it was just political news. Or… it was just someone’s relational chaos we insist on listening to.

The hazards of living in this sympathetic state of perpetual high alert – or stress, as we more commonly know it – are devastating for us physically, mentally, and emotionally. We are meant to immediately revert to operating in a parasympathetic nervous state after dangers pass.

It’s the opposite of fight-or-flight; more like rest-and-digest. But if there are perpetual false alarms, and we continually fatigue our brilliant system, essentially crying wolf, we teach our bodies to never feel safe.

We won’t rest well or digest well, when our nervous system is locked into focusing on danger, real or perceived.

It’s why a particular declaration in Psalm 23 is so profound and such a paradox. He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

Our nervous system downgrades the priority of resting and digesting, when an enemy is present and a threat is imminent. It reserves its energy for allowing us to escape through confrontation or retreat. Fight or flight.

Eating a prepared meal at a table as an enemy lurks nearby, not mindlessly grabbing a snack on the run for our lives, is a startling portrait. It contradicts how we’ve been wired to live. It invites us into a relationship like this with the Good Shepherd who provides for our thriving in every climate, even under duress.

What kind of sheep can rest and digest when a wolf is near? One who is led by love, not driven by fear. A sheep who is confident that every wolf has to first pass through the gate – a sheep with a Shepherd so good he becomes the gate. He positions His body at the entrance and the wolf has to take out the Shepherd before he can ever get to the sheep.

That has been attempted. You might have heard of this great showdown outside the city gate. It commenced at Calvary and culminated in a garden. The mouth of the gate of the tomb was rolled away to reveal the Shepherd still capable of protecting the sheep and defeating the wolf. Hell itself is no competitor against Him.

So when He prepares a table for us, we eat. We are able to eat. To rest and digest. And we never believe it to be our last supper.

(www. Leahcmorgan.com)

+ + +

Click: That’s The Power

8-7-23

Alienation.

It is one the most prevalent, and serious, of problems in society today. No… not an “alien nation.” That controversy – or threat, or mystery, or conspiracy of silence – I am persuadable is a manufactured distraction from real, honest, terrestrial dangers.

But we do hear a lot about people who are “alienated” from society, from their families, from neighbors and co-workers. It is ironic and therefore true (irony always derives from truth) that the more crowded our society is… the more “inter-connected”… the more “welcoming,” “accessible,” “integrated” we are – the more alienated people have become.

Alienation, isolation. Many people – again, despite the crush of neighbors and the menu of diversions – are convinced of having arrived at the end of the line. Their lines… their lives. They know nobody; they trust nobody; they have nobody to turn to.

How can they know if we don’t tell them? That situation is a lie from hell – they are not isolated; they don’t have to feel that way.

OK, your family has left you. But Jesus hasn’t.

Your friends have betrayed you. Hey, it happened to Jesus too; He knows. He will not betray.

Counselors have been worthless? Don’t trust in people.

Government outreaches are… Let’s not even go there.

Calling out to God is a prayer that never goes unanswered. Opening a Bible will lead to Comfort. Finding a Christian to talk to, pray with, share things… will never come up empty.

Prayer cancels alienation.

Lonely people already have an answer, even if they do not know it. “When two or three are gathered in My name…” You can be the loneliest person in the Lonely Spot in the middle of Lonelieville… and there will be two gathered when you seek the Lord. The Holy Spirit is promised to be with you in those moments when your heart cries out. You are never alone.

The Bible also talks about the “Great Cloud of Witnesses” in Heaven who watch us… and cheer us on.

In my life, I went through a period of doubt, who hasn’t? and my father said he trusted me. My mother always prayed with me. But my mother’s brother, Ed, and his wife, my Aunt Mildred, had strayed from the family’s Lutheran roots and became “religious nuts” (in my parents’ view) – they went to a Billy Graham crusade. And, horrors, they were more committed Christians.

Aunt Mildred used to phone me out of the blue and encourage me – no “hard sell”; she was praying for me, that’s all. Uncle Ed, when he visited Washington DC when I was in college, arranged lunches and reminded me… that he was praying for me. In the midst of my wise-ass doubting stage, I never was offended, but… I never forgot these gestures either. When my cousin Irene went to college near me outside Chicago the year I worked there, I almost felt like I would catch some strange spiritual disease from her…

Well, eventually I became more of a religious nut than they (um, a Pentecostal reference). Eventually I delivered one of the eulogies at Uncle Ed’s funeral. And Reni is my dearest cousin.

Eventually, you see, I realized the power of prayer… was not always my prayers, but even the prayers of people I didn’t know were praying for me.

Allow Captain Obvious to share this: God is sovereign. He can do what He wants. He does do what He wants. Yet… He has instituted the “channel” of prayer – the language; the means of communication. Can prayer influence God? Well, the Bible has examples of that; yes. Does He answer every prayer? Yes. But… sometimes in “His time.” And sometimes His answer is No.

That’s where faith and trust come in. But it all pleases God. Prayer is the key to Heaven, but faith unlocks the door; do you know that song?

And in the meantime… friends are praying for you. Strangers are praying for you. The hosts of Heaven are watching and cheering. And, as I said, when you pray, you are never alone.

… and, hey – in the meantime, what happened to “alienation”? Praying people are in the Family of God. Not alone. Will never face challenges alone, or problems alone.

Once upon a time there was a group of men, gathered from far and wide, risking their lives to make momentous decisions. Gathered in a hot room – this was in the middle of summer in the 1700s, and they kept the windows closed – but they suddenly felt frustrated, at odds, arguing, almost alone in their deliberations.

It was the Founders of our Nation, the brightest and bravest, but all of a sudden in a confused crisis… can we say alienated, not knowing which way or ways to turn? Benjamin Franklin stood up and suggested that they do something immediately that the group had not done yet… and do it every morning henceforth: Pray together.

The fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much (James 5:16).

+ + +

Click: Prayer Is the Key To Heaven

7-31-23

I have been thinking a lot about candles recently. Maybe it’s because it’s the wick-end. Maybe I’m just thinking of an old flame. Perhaps I am just waxing nostalgic…

OK. That’s out of my system. Honestly, I have been thinking about candles. I have a new friend who is “into” candles, for all the right reasons – in these hurried times, they represent serenity; they release fragrance; their glow is peaceful. And with other friends – and in my own moments of meditation lately – I have been longing for traditional, “older” forms of worship. Older for me; older in history’s unfolding.

Candles remind us of when churches were lit by candlelight. Of matins services, of Christmas-Eve candlelight worship, when the soft glow of many candles enveloped us in gentle light. I have been in cathedrals in Europe where the glow of uncountable candles is as central to the spirit of worship as the echoing strains of an organ, and the distant voices of a choir.

… complementing, of course the sharing of the Word, the message of a sermon, the presence of the Lord. No candles or choirs or architecture can substitute, only complement. But, oh, they do!

I increasingly yearn for quiet, reverent, may I say “glowing,” worship these days. I have been blessed by exuberance, unallayed joy, excited praise… but no less by seeking – and finding – the Lord in those quiet places.

There are some religious traditions that use candles in worship. Older faiths turn them into formal elements of service and even offerings. There are newer faiths that almost make fetishes of candles, creating “mystery” environments that are parts of multi-media experiences with video screens, smoke machines, and such. In both cases, worshipers ought be careful not to let candles or any other human-manufactured props substitute for the actual presence of the Holy Spirit; or the real, not symbolic, “mystical presence” of Jesus.

But let us return here to appreciate candles in all their variety and what they bring to our lives. What they can add! Yes, their moods and aromas and beauty; but what they represent too. For instance, it is not necessarily New-Agey to see tens of thousands of candles at a rally, or during a concert’s closing song, or during a patriotic moment, waving in unison. A single candle, placed in honor by a casket or during a memorial event, can be profound. Candles at home, or in a hospital room by a picture of a departed loved one, touch our hearts.

Moreover – you knew this was coming – we easily can see spiritual messages. Jesus told us, recorded in John 8:12, I am the Light of the world, and surely He is. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness.

You must know the verse too: Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:15,16).

I have always been impressed by this graphic truth: If you were in the blackest of black places, say the darkest night, no moon or stars – “pitch black” – you know that if a single candle, a dime-store candle, were lit, miles away, you would see it flickering, piercing the blackness.

But if you were in a place of blinding light – let’s say a parched desert under a midday sun – and you held up something dark, let’s say an open box on its side, you could not see its dark interior more than a few dozen feet away.

This little light of mine…

Remember that song? Yes, about candles… about light… and what we do with them. In the same way, about the flames of candles, another lesson:

As the wax melts away, candles might go out, but that is a function of the wax, not the flame itself. You can light candle after candle after new candle, “passing along” the flame of that first candle… and those acts do not shorten the life of that flame… nor dim the candle’s glow.

Be candles. Be light. Be the flames. Share your flames. Glow until others are lit too, and warmed. Be fragrant! Light the way for others. Pierce the darkness.

The Holy Spirit would have us do something more than just be lit, so to speak; or to shine only where we are. Step out of your candle-holder, climb down from your candelabra. Walk – no; run – into the darkness.

This world is a dark place, and growing blacker, darker, all the time. People are stumbling, lost; sometimes they simply cannot see. Light their way!

Carry your candle, run to the darkness

Seek out the hopeless, deceived and poor.

Hold out your candle for all to see it,

Take your candle, and go light your world!

+ + +

Click: Go Light Your World

7-24-23

Last week’s metaphorical garden walk evoked great response. Among the characteristics of pretty and seemingly fragile flowers are, frequently, a tenacity that can inspire us to persevere against life’s onslaughts.

Perhaps the most opposite of objects to a fragile flower that we can think of in nature is a mountain. A giant rock, a monolith, an “immovable object.” Oh, yeah?

When I was a young teenager I visited Italy. I was interested, who isn’t, in Renaissance art, and I was grateful to be able to visit the legendary marble quarries of Carrara. It is an area where primeval formations during the creation of the world caused a wide swath of mountains to be composed of marble. Marble has unique properties – it is a rock (metamorphic carbonate), to be sure, hard and heavy, but at the same time malleable and in some conditions, a virginal pure white.

Michelangelo coveted the marble from Carrara and Seravezza for his planned façade of San Lorenzo in Florence. Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici and Pope Leo X indulged him, but Michelangelo knew his marble, having sculpted the supernal “David” and “Pieta” several years earlier. He was so intent on moving that marble of Carrara to that city of Florence – hundreds of miles down the Mediterranean coast, thence east into the boot, through Pisa to Florence – that he put aside painting and sculpting and architecture to oversee the “quarrying” of marble and moving gargantuan slabs down the sea and across lands. He became like Leonardo during those many months, inventing rigs and carts and boats and bridges.

Allora. Yes, to get to my point. I was fascinated, as a teenaged tourist, to learn how giant pieces of marble were secured – separated from the mountains that held them. Dynamite existed at the time, and primitive explosions might have been tried… but were not. Many workers with sledgehammers? No. Beasts of burden strapped with great ropes affixed to peaks and outcroppings? Not at all.

The giant chunks of marble were instead separated from the mountains by mere modest slivers of wood.

Wedges. It is a property of some stone, especially marble, that it can crack under pressure (hmmm… like many people do, but that is not my message!). Small cracks were found, or made, in the great marble monoliths, and Michelangelo, studying and planning properly, had narrow wooden wedges tapped into those cracks. Then water was applied to the wood, which expanded slightly from the moisture.

On the next day, after the engorged wood had, unlikely as it seems, pushed the marble monolith apart ever so slightly, other wedges were tapped in – a little larger in size, and soaked again.

This process was repeated, day after day, until (again with forethought and examination for the planned “capture” of the marble that was figured to break free) eventually the marble broke free. Making sure the chunks of rock were “caught,” not to crash down, they were lowered, then to make their serpentine way to Florence. No easy tricks themselves… but compared to the separating and securing of tons of precious marble from a massive mountain?

Now, I made reference to people cracking under pressure. Surely that is a simile if not a metaphor. But the real lesson – a valuable and quite appropriate lesson to learn – is similar to that provided by tenacious little flowers! Can you picture what I described in the quarry-process? “Moving mountains”… The power of planning, patience, and persistence… Being content with slow but steady results… Accomplishing a seemingly impossible task… and using seemingly absurd ideas and tools in order to succeed greatly.

May I suggest further: as beautiful as those snow-white chucks of a mountain were, they still were only pieces of rock. But in a master’s hand (and in the Master’s Hand) they became stunning façades of cathedrals; and lifelike statues of Moses and David; and of Mary holding her crucified Son. Living, breathing, miracles can emerge from cold stone. “The rocks cry out!”

Finally, before we forget the mountain itself: We think of Sisyphus, his impossible task being to push an impossible rock up an impossible mountain. We recall Moses smiting the rock. We remember God’s promise that with prayer and in faith we can move the metaphorical mountains that stand in our way. We remember hymns like A Mighty Fortress and Rock of Ages – that God is our refuge and strength.

But we remember too the fissures in mighty rocks and mountains. Remember how Michelangelo utilized the cracks – the “clefts” – that certainly play their own roles.

When we need it, as God assured us in His Word, those rocks can provide refuges too. He provides safe havens when we need protection from the world, even for a spell. Mountainous rocks can provide hiding places from the world’s attacks and storms, where we may regain strength and courage.

What promises! Move those mountains… and, when needed, find those safe places where God invites you to pray “Hide Thou Me.”

+ + +

Since we shared much here about Michelangelo, I would like to close with lines he wrote toward the end of his life:

Neither painting nor sculpture will be able any longer to calm my soul, now turned toward that Divine love that opened His arms on the cross to take us in.

+ + +

Click: Hide Thou Me

7-17-23

I never have taken the trouble, either when choosing classes in college, or casually consulting the Google gods, to know the actual definition of a weed.

Occasionally in my life I have owned properties large and inviting enough to grow gardens, and I have attempted their cultivation. That is, until realizing that… I have a “black thumb.” I have a friend, an ex-pat from England, who has the natural British ladies’ gift for planning, planting, growing enormous Technicolor and fragrant flower gardens with pathways, benches, little oases. Whidbey Island, now North Carolina: wherever she lives, gorgeous flowers grow and thrive.

It might not be only a British thing. Another friend is American-born, and lived some years in the Netherlands – oh yes: a nation synonymous with floral splendor – and returned to the US and to a second career as a floral and garden consultant. In any event, this gift is not a Marschall thing.

My disinclination, or deadly thrall, might have originated in fifth grade, when a teacher asked me to use “horticulture” in a sentence. A budding (ha) wise guy, I innocently declared, “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.” Compounding my personal War Of the Roses, the afternoon I spent in the Principal’s Office was, ironically, next to a large vase of flowers.

Anyway, my working definition of a weed is, simply, an unattractive or inconvenient flower. That works for me. This theory does not prevent me from being fascinated rather than put off by the middle ground (literally) between beautiful flowers and pesky weeds: Wildflowers.

With all due respect to British garden-architects and those who make living rooms and lobbies resplendent with colorful and fragrant arrangements, “Mother Nature” (I choose to regard her as Mrs God) can outdo them all.

• When I lived near deserts in the American Southwest, I marveled at the times – maybe only one day every year or two – when the slightest rain-shower “made the desert come alive.” Then, those barren landscapes miraculously bloom with carpets of strange and brilliantly colored flowers.
• In the same mysterious ways, nature’s ambassadors – random breezes, hungry insects, and wandering birds – carry seeds and pollen far and wide. They cause pretty wildflowers to grow in unexpected places like highway medians and roofs of urban apartment buildings.
• One of the miracles of wildflowers is their resilience, matching their beauty. Seeds found on millennia-old ancient fabrics or in Egyptian tombs will still sprout and bloom when watered.
• Delicate wildflowers, counter-intuitively, are as hardy as they are beautiful. Seemingly fragile flowers, no matter how tiny, grow in inhospitable places – between barren rocks, in cracks of city sidewalks, sometimes sideways out of brick walls.

I believe that God has not only chosen to array His creation – that is, His gift to us, a beautiful world – in blankets of colorful, often surprising, beauty and fragrance, but He desires that we see lessons: a larger purpose.

Some people look at flowers that struggle, plants that die, wintertimes that leave trees and plants barren, as signs of a hostile universe; death is at every turn. But for every Winter there is a Spring. Every seed will sprout. Every desert will bloom. In a version of the “glass half-empty or half-full” paradigm – another proposition I never understood – we can know the answer to the question, “which prevails in the cycle: death or life?”

We know that Life prevails. Jesus – “the Rose of Sharon, the fairest of ten thousand flowers” – proved that.

This truth represents more than a nice metaphorical garden to walk through, or a bouquet we can put on our table. It is a promise. It confirms life and the renewal of life. It allows us to view life optimistically. What we may grieve over today; what we cannot see for a season; what we might cling to, despairing of any results or answers… are like seeds.

Seeds will sprout, in their own time and with patience and cultivation. And they will bloom. And bless. As flowers, they will produce more pollen and seeds. Life goes on… beautifully. And when it appears most fragile, we are reminded that life is real, life is earnest; life is determined, life is triumphant.

In my naïve folk-wisdom, I see those vagabond reminders of life triumphant, wildflowers, as floral counterparts to another of God’s colorful promises, the rainbow.

I listed some strange and hostile environments where wildflowers “take root.” But people are wildflowers too. Wild flowers. We know them; we should be them, in some form we can choose. At one time in history it was common that children left their homes in their early teens, sometimes losing all subsequent contact with their families. But they took root, blooming, blessing.

The histories of races and peoples can be traced today through the evidence of seeds and plants that were carried and cultivated in migrations of centuries past. The Virgin Mary, it is estimated, left her parents to be with Joseph when she was barely 14. My daughter moved to Northern Ireland almost 20 years ago, and is thriving faraway with her husband, children, and a wonderful career.

Be willing to be a wildflower seed. Eagerly await where God’s breezes and the flights of His birds and bees may carry you.

“Be fruitful and multiply”? Also take root, bloom, and be a fragrant and beautiful flower – not one of life’s weeds – to be blessed, and to be a blessing, where you find yourself. Wild flowers don’t care where they grow.

+ + +

Click: Wildflowers

7-10-23

My good friend Gordon Pennington, a remarkable and accomplished man, has moved on in his life from several successful careers — not abandoned but “graduated” — and today is a motivational speaker, conference guest, lecturer, organizer… and evangelist. In his latter role he is not connected to a ministry, nor associated with a movement – other than the movement to witness to people who have not yet accepted Christ. He is a recruit, a volunteer, and a worker in the pursuit Jesus would have us all to fulfill, the “Great Commission.” Winning souls.

Gordon has a remarkable gift for engaging people on sidewalks or waiting rooms or over coffee; comfortably making friendships; discussing their “situations”; and sharing the Gospel. Uncountable people have accepted Jesus – and most importantly have changed their lives and “stuck” with their Christian walk – because he exercises that gift. He does as all believers should do, in our own ways of course. The opportunities are always there.

How many of us respond to that prompting of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, to act on the command of the Great Commission? How many readers are yourselves in a good place because someone shared the Good News with you? How often do you feel that spiritual revolution in your soul that is as “new” today as when you first experienced it?

Have you had a “religious experience”? Experiential events are important in life, and often are vital parts of emotional, even intellectual, breakthroughs; but they also can be seductive. They can prove temporary. Life changes need to put down roots in our minds, hearts, and souls; not be mere refreshing breezes.

A challenge is the oft-stated and dispositive distinction drawn between Religion and Relationship. Christian denominations – and there are hundreds – can be caught up in divisions and disagreements, interpretations and inclusions (and exclusions!), rituals and rules. On the other hand, true Christianity (or “Mere Christianity” as the reliably brilliant C S Lewis defined it) is no more and no less than a relationship with Jesus.

That relationship – friendship, intimacy, trust – is all that is asked. A question posed not only by C S Lewis, but by Jesus Himself. No frills, no conditions, no membership requirements or quizzes! Belief that He is the Son of God, that He rose from the dead, that He loves you ineffably, beyond our ability to understand… but not beyond our ability to accept. And to embrace.

There are skeptics, or examples we know, of people whose faith wavered. Folks who have had bad experiences with religion (there’s that word again). Cynics because of religious experiences proven hollow, or religious people proven flawed. And there are hypocrites aplenty in, probably, every church we can visit.

But there’s always room for one more.

On the other hand, it is refreshing to discover new-born Christians (oh, yes: “Born-again Christians”) whose conversions and new lives, while genuine, did not change every single aspect of their old selves. It does frighten some converts – “Do I have to start wearing bow ties, mow a suburban lawn, and go to Sunday School picnics once a week?” Converts like Alice Cooper, Bob Dylan, Chuck Norris, and Robert Duvall looked the same and remained in their professions, even while the great Interior Decorator worked on the inside aspects of their lives.

Let us remember that Jesus “hung around” with some unsavory types — the people He most needed to reach. And remember that St Paul was determined to “be all things to all people” in order to interact with those who would not otherwise be in a place to hear the Gospel.

If you, or someone you know, has been curious to know Christ; or tempted to yield to cynicism about following Him – I invite you to think a little harder about the question, Have you had a religious experience?

And then I would remind you that Jesus Himself had a religious experience:

It was religious people who rejected, accused, tortured, condemned, and killed Him.

Keep in your mind the wide difference between joining a religion and becoming a follower of Jesus. Respect tradition, but always be open to questioning traditions and rules and social pressures that are empty or misleading.

We are well reminded to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. But never forget to yield to God the things that are God’s… and that includes your very soul.

+ + +

An example of a Christian’s change of heart being sui generis – important unto itself, not relying on arbitrary sets of external rules, or other peoples’ opinions – is the German punk queen Nina Hagen. After a life of drugs, rebellion, artistic experimentation, political extremes, and wild performance art… she met Jesus. She was baptized. She reads the Bible to audiences while on stage. Little changed in her outward self; she is however evidently much changed inside, where – after all – her Savior lives. Here is a clip from her Personal Jesus tour, singing an American Southern Gospel song.

NiNA HAGEN – This World Is Not My Home – Personal Jesus Tour, PARiS

7-3-23

I once made a deal with my late wife that we would split the duties facing us, the issues we had to deal with as a couple. I mean, it was a sort of a deal. My plan was that she would handle the minor things like utility bills, car payments, and house repairs. I would concern myself with larger issues like world peace, nuclear disarmament, and the energy crisis.

It seemed like an intelligent plan, to me.

The human mind, or in my case the “mind,” has an infinite capacity for self-deception. Beyond that, self-delusion. Even further afield… well, you see a pattern. And recently, here, we considered the matter of “Progress” as a false god, evanescent at best; a cruel chimera at worst.

I invite us to switch our consideration from material miseries to those pathologies of “self,” as we started listing above. Self-ishness can be a positive motive when it inspires prudence, protection, and preservation. As with airplane safety procedures, we can best care for others when we properly tend to ourselves.

In a Christian context, I frequently remind believers who are active, very active, in ministries and missions, that Jesus came to earth to save them… individuals… you and me… not (primarily) our programs, plans, and priorities. Those things will follow, but He died for our sins, not those of some committee or organization.

Is that “selfish” in the pejorative sense? No – especially if we identify it as Jesus’s point of view. Is it selfish, grabbing glory for ourselves? Heaven forbid. In fact when we truly consider who we are, it is, instead, very humbling.

Of all the things increasingly in short supply in the world today, I say that Humility is the most threatened of resources. Being humble. And the opposite of Humility is Pride. Ah, Pride – which I consider the deadliest of the Deadly Sins, and which to me is the wellspring of all other sins. From back in the Garden, down to every hour of every day in our own spheres.

Pride preceded rebellion against God: “We know better than Him.” Pride: “I can ignore God’s commandments; I’ll bet He spares me the punishment.” Pride: “If God is good, how can He keep me from Heaven?” Pride: “I am not as bad as a lot of horrible people around the world.” Pride: “I give to charities; I care about the poor people. Isn’t that enough?” Pride: “Why should I bother God with my problems?” Pride: “Thank God I am not like other people…”

To be filed under “Unconscious Irony,” Pride Month has just ended. By proclamations and the movement’s very flag, this Pride is not about academic achievement or conquered diseases or even material advances, but the celebration of sin. It is as if a month, or special holidays, were devoted to cheating on one’s taxes or betraying marriage vows or abusing children. Yes, my seat belt is fastened; these are incendiary remarks these days. But this new, branded Pride also encompasses choosing to ignore or overrule or endorse things that the Bible condemns, over and over.

Humankind’s Pride assumes many forms, many of which are not so obviously toxic; but sin is sin. I remember debates some short years ago when computers played chess matches against humans, and sometimes won. “Is this the end of humans’ dominance in the world?” people asked, with some prescience. My reaction was that if computers won such competitions… computers had been created and programmed by humans, so didn’t “we” win after all?

The same “long view” is needed in the current discussions about Artificial Intelligence. This bundle of Brave New World technologies (and projected consequences) has dominated a lot of research and development; is actually fueling some stock-market booms; and animates a lot of hopeful dreaming. But it is prompting apocalyptic fears, too.

It is my opinion that if “machines” become able to fool us, influence our decisions, steal our independence, and lull us into deadly slumbers… this will not be a perversion of liberty, but the natural consequence of unbridled liberty. The history of humankind – our natural tendencies; “human nature” – has been a chronicle of fooling each other, influencing unsuspecting people, and stealing goods and ideas. In the 21^st century we merely have better tools.

So the fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

With the Bible as our road map, so to speak, throughout history, we can know the way forward. History’s second best-seller, The Pilgrim’s Progress, is a brilliant if thinly veiled metaphor of life – its pitfalls, detours, dangers, and its ultimate joy-filled destination. Some people “get it”; that is, wisely choosing between Pride and Truth. But even John Bunyan himself learned it after mistakes, failings, and persecution – he wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress from a dank jail. John Newton only was able to write Amazing Grace after almost suicidal remorse for being a slave-trader.

Those experiences qualify as major ingredients in Humility, as discussed above. It might seem unfortunate, but nevertheless true that Wisdom usually follows stupid decisions. Liberation cannot come except from bondage. Salvation is from sin. Joy is measured against misery. Are these paradigms in fact unfortunate? No, it is a way that Life works. Let us learn.

And let us pay attention to words, the way we express our understanding. Artificial Intelligence: we should be a little skeptical – humble – about what constitutes Intelligence. And we need to respect the qualifier, Artificial. Some things we don’t understand; some things we never will understand.

That is God’s way. There is “Intelligent Design” – I think God planned Life so that for all the manifold things we cannot understand, we seek Him.

For the Lord gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding; He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk uprightly (Proverbs 2: 6,7).

+ + +

A precious example of someone who has had a right to ask “Why?” and want to understand things in life is Joni Eareckson Tada, the talented singer, artist, speaker, and paraplegic. I interviewed her at Billy Graham’s retreat center The Cove a few years ago. Here, with Joni and her mom; and Cliff Barrows and George Beverly Shea of the Billy Graham Association. Please click on Joni’s brief testimony and song:

Farther Along, We’ll Know All About It

6-26-23

This is the Age of Grievance.

People these days are eager to assert claims about the hurts they suffer, the wrongs committed against them, the compensations they are owed. In this land of plenty. During this period of prosperity, despite blips on the economic graphs. “I know my rights!!!” yell protesters in street riots – even when most them do not know or understand the status of laws and statutes. “Rights” versus “wrongs” they might commit themselves.

People these days are not happy unless they complain. And, too often, about bogus complanints.

In this litigious society, lawyers stand ready to monetize the wrongs you think you have suffered, or have been convinced that you have suffered. Rather than moral palliatives, the “solutions” always translate to money, not explanations or apologies or corrections. Actual, direct damages cease to be legitimate justifications for picking others’ pockets.

The Slavery Reparations movement that first flourished in the Radical ‘60s has blossomed again in our day. Formulas for how much money contemporary Black people should be paid by White people – all non-Blacks, essentially – are calculated. Brazenly, the enormous sums are “due” to brothers and sisters who were not slaves (obviously) but also to those whose ancestors did not live in slave-era America. Or cannot substantiate their bloodlines. Or do not “suffer” any related effects. Proponents in California, with pens poised over other citizens’ checkbooks, dismiss these points as irrelevancies.

Similarly, the “Holocaust,” past which fewer and fewer people are alive, has partly become a Reparations movement. Dr Norman Finkelstein, whose parents survived Nazi concentration camps, has written a book, The Holocaust Industry, in which he documents his claims that “a repellent gang of plutocrats, hoodlums, and hucksters” routinely engage in virtual blackmail-by-PR campaigns. He documents the flow of money to “lawyers and institutional actors” instead of putative survivors. Yet TV commercials depict starving Jews today, even supposedly in Israel itself, pleading for money.

So forth and so on. It seems like every group on the landscape is aggrieved; every mendicant may choose a reason to whine — like “Pin the tail on the guilty,” down to virtual blindfolds. It begins with “hurt feelings” of invented groups and genders; and ends with threats of arrest if you do not surrender yourself to the Compassion Police. And it ends with transforming your value system, if you let them; and ponying up money. The paradigm is common these days. Every aggrieved person and every assembled group climbs aboard the bandwagon.

Almost every person and group, that is. It is still safe in America and the post-Christian West, to be prejudiced against Christians.

With increasing rapidity, followers of Jesus are proscribed, ridiculed, sanctioned, silenced, and discriminated against. By governmental laws and regulations and court decisions, Christians are becoming second-class citizens. In popular media they can be criticized as, say, Jews or Muslims or homosexuals cannot be. In government schools and on state media, many perverted ideas once regarded as taboos are endorsed, even encouraged – while Christian ideas, traditions, expressions, even innocent decorations are forbidden.

So forth and so on. Yet – unlike every other group of whiners across the spectrum – Christians are not seeking Reparations. Grievances are not new; for two thousand years Christians have been persecuted. The blood of martyrs has soaked many a soil; and still today there is prejudice and abuse of believers, all around the world. Have Christians committed sins too, through history? Yes, against some groups filing grievances today. But are Christians demanding Reparations for old grievances?

The answer, generally, is no; and the reason, specifically, is this: For all the promises of peace and the assurances of Heaven… the Lord Jesus Christ told His followers – us – that persecution will come. We are to expect resistance, opposition, and tribulation in this world. We should not be surprised by hatred. The world hated Him first, after all.

We have been told that believers might be “trouble” in their households. Friends and family might actually despise us. The Jesus you see in paintings, standing amidst the lilies? That same Jesus told us He comes with a sword. He told us about the things we must be prepared to put aside – to sacrifice, but also to endure – if we follow Him.

Jesus died on the cross to fulfill His mission, taking upon Himself the sin-punishments we deserve. But He did not free us from the rejections and persecutions He experienced. In fact He not only predicted such treatment… He virtually promised it. It will come. If it doesn’t… perhaps we are not doing our job as Christians.

Who will save us? Surely not the government: we are seeing that. The churches? No: remember that it was religious people who demanded that Jesus be crucified; the religious Establishment. Remember that.

The Christian’s “Reparation” will not come in this world, in our lifetimes. It cannot. We should be suspicious if it is offered. Our Reparation – our rewards – can be earned now (and only by His Grace, not our works) but realized only in Glory.

My sin – oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! –
My sin, not in part but the whole
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul!

Thus is Reparation paid. In full.

+ + +

It Is Well With My Soul

6-19-23

It will not surprise those who know me that I went through a rebellious streak in my younger days. I remember it well – it lasted 15 or 20 minutes back in the…

No – of course, no. Anyone with a pulse experiences certain changes. Winston Churchill supposedly said that anyone in his 20s who is not a liberal has no heart; and anyone older who is not a conservative has no brains. Well, I was never a liberal, but I get his point. We do evolve… because the world around us revolves.

I suppose, if “rebellion” has a cousin, I have always been a contrarian.

Back in my high-school days I did go through a cynical stage. Recently I recalled to a friend that when I was a high-school junior I memorized about a third of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, as beautiful but as cynical, worldly, and secular a group of quatrains one could find under this inverted bowl we call the sky. (Oddly, I then rattled off several dozens of them, despite not having thought of them in decades. “Oddly,” because half the time I go to the supermarket these days I forget what the heck I needed to buy…)

But during that mildly cynical phase of my life, it was time go off to college. I was allowing skepticism to creep into my faith, and I wanted to discuss it with my father. Our conversation is vivid in my “mind” because it was a Saturday afternoon, and he was flat on his back, a captive audience, fixing something under his bathroom sink.

“And why are you telling me this?” he asked.

Now I realize that I really wanted him to talk me out of my doubts, but I shared the other reason: “I have these thoughts on my own. I don’t want you think down the road that college filled my head with these ideas.”

Did he get angry? Did he laugh at my youthful foolishness? Did he sit up and reason with me?

No, no, and no. He hardly moved an inch, except to tighten the valve or something. “Oh, it’s a phase,” said. “You’ll grow out of it.”

I almost felt offended. Years later, I identified with Elaine Benes: “Don’t you care if I go to hell?” But at that moment, I asked, “Dad… Don’t you believe in Jesus?”That’s when he sat up.

“Of course I do. You know that. I believe you do, too, but if you don’t test your faith it won’t grow stronger. I’m not worried. I trust God, and I trust you.”

He asked if anything triggered my doubts. There was one book I recently had read, a disputed Mark Twain book that was anti-God, not funny, and featured a character named Satan. He had begun The Mysterious Stranger three times through his life, its final version (perhaps doctored by someone else after he died) written after his daughter’s death when Twain was more cynical than he routinely was.

I told Dad about the Mark Twain book. Then he chuckled. Despite my processing of its valid challenges to Scripture, Dad said, “I think you’re safe.”

Then he went back to the monkey wrench. And I went back to… my thoughts. I think I was insulted that he didn’t go full-bore and call the Scriptural Rescue Squad. We used to debate everything – politics, philosophy, literature, classical music. Why not this, I thought.

He trusted me.

And he let me know that God trusted me. Now, you might think that was a risky strategy. But it was a winning strategy. I felt respected; honored; trusted. That trust meant more, and stayed with me, than a weekend full of arguments, than a briefcase full of tracts, than weekly calls, tracking my behavior.

When it comes to it, our Heavenly Father trusts us too. He has revealed His Truth; He has sent teachers and prophets; He even sent His Son to die so that we might live.

He loved us first, before we loved Him.

In fact, He trusted us before we trusted Him.

Does that inspire love, and trust, in you?

Remember, on Father’s Day, that we should honor… love… and trust… our Heavenly Father too.

+ + +

Click: Like Father, Like Son

6-12-23

Progress. We may conclude after the lessons of history, over uncountable generations, and every civilization that has dedicated itself to the ideal… that Progress is a false god. Perhaps a worthy goal in the abstract, but little more.

The challenge inherent in “progress” is the fact that it is an abstraction. A chimera: literally something honored in the breach, a dream whose precise realization is an illusion; something impossible to define or finally achieve.

If we judge and celebrate Progress by prosperity, we ignore the poverty, starvation, and misery around the world. If we call the triumph of diseases “Progress” we ignore cancers, plagues, epidemics, and self-initiated ways of dying. We think it Progressive that humanity is proving itself more compassionate and welcoming… yet dysfunction, abuse, addictions, suicides, failed marriages, depression, and wars touch every country, family, and household we know.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

We think we know better than all of previous humankind – “we” being contemporary, liberal, secular societies – that we have, progressively, learned lessons from previous cultures; we have built on the discoveries of wise people; that science guides us ever upward. Indeed we are aware of many lessons of history – triumphs and disasters – but that does mean we learn from them.

In infantile fashion, we pick and choose from the annals of history, not to learn and see more clearly and improve our ways, but to craft new justifications for our original, base inclinations. The pattern is called Human Nature; the inclination, theological or otherwise, is called Sin. The result is called Self-Destruction.

Of course, it masquerades as “Progress,” so we congratulate ourselves.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

The West is undergoing a radical transformation of attitudes and codes these days. Under the name of Progress, the roles (and even functions) of the sexes are being redefined. Millennia of foundational spiritual beliefs and attitudes are being denied and even outlawed. Totalitarian practices have permeated national governments and local councils, supplanting authoritarianism, which in its turn had supplanted freedom of thought and expression. Murderous Marxism, tried and failed so often, is being recommended in myriad forms… to be tried one more time. And another, and…

We can look to the French Revolution, among many spasms of Progress, for similar experiments. Discontent led to radicalism so severe that the Church was abolished and its properties confiscated. Members of the monarchy, then the aristocracy, then the middle class, were slaughtered: the revolution “ate its babies” before the factions began slaughtering each other. New governments started foreign wars to distract – and conscript – the public. Fiat currencies were invented; a new calendar was devised; women’s rights were proclaimed and quickly suppressed; and new religions were fabricated to replace Christianity – “The Cult of Reason”; “The Cult of the Supreme Being;” and so forth.

Ultimately, this eruption of Progress, like the Chinese “Cultural Revolution” and myriad others that followed, accumulated its most dispositive statistics by the numbers of people persecuted and slaughtered.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

The 20^th century saw history’s greatest advances in knowledge, discoveries, inventions, medicines… and was by far the bloodiest century of persecution, death, and wars of any century. Innovations dedicated to killing. Progress? We believe ourselves kinder to animals; we no longer kill baby seals or slaughter herds of buffalo. Yet we slaughter babies at rates unprecedented in the history of “humanity.”

As the French say, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – The more things change, the more things stay the same. Really, a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes. So perhaps the millions of aborted babies are merely the “new” version of infant sacrifice practiced by “primitive” societies. But in this Age of Progress, we sacrifice to the gods of self-indulgence, convenience, and a “wiser” form of progressive morality. We know better.

In the post-Christian West, our orgy of selfish delusion lives on borrowed time, existing more and more tenuously on the inertia of expired sanity and fleeting prosperity. Our homes were built on solid foundations, but are crumbling. A few people have vague memories, inchoate awareness, of history’s lessons. But… collectively we are different. We know better. If there is a God, He will forgive us; He always has. Right?

I believe the most serious of all sins, theologically and practically, is the Sin of Pride. It precedes all other sins, and enables all other sins. We know better than our consciences. We know better than history’s examples. We know better than God. But…

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Ultimately the human race and, yes, much of the Christian world, has put itself in this dreadful situation. For individuals, where sin abounds, grace abounds much more; yet surely judgment is coming to this world. I am reminded, if you will indulge an extreme shift of reference, of a 1952 movie, Ma and Pa Kettle At the Fair. It was one of a series of movies about a family of rural nitwits, very popular at the time.

In this movie, Ma and Pa were tossed in the town jail, framed by the village harpy. Even the jailer was sympathetic to their plight, and he repeatedly left the jail cell unlocked or ostentatiously dropped his keys, so that Ma and Pa could escape. More dumb then honest, each time they called, “Oh, Sam! You dropped your keys!”

When Sam sighed in resignation and shuffled away, Pa slowly lamented, “I wish we could figure a way to escape from this old jail…”

We find ourselves in cultural and moral prisons these days. Jesus provides our way to escape; He leaves us the keys; He is the key. And we – deserving the jail cells wherein we find ourselves, often of our own making – nevertheless we wish we could figure a way to escape. The keys are in front of us. But…

There is nothing new under the sun.

+ + +

The Contemporary Christian Music singer and songwriter Rich Mullins sang this (caught on amateur video) at the end of a 1992 concert. A few short years later Rich was killed in a highway accident.

Click: Rich Mullins – This World is Not My Home

6-5-23

We know what we want; God knows what we need.

Jesus, your best friend, would ask – not how many friends you have of your own, but how many people cherish you as their friend.

Our society is doomed when Christianity becomes a habit instead of a passion.

God is not dead. He is merely unemployed.

Evil triumphs less when people hate the pure and holy, than when they are indifferent to such ideals.

God does not care that you are successful; He desires that you are obedient,

What matters more to God than your salary or your bank account – is how you acquired your resources, and what you do with them.

Men have forgotten God. That’s why all this has happened.

Equity is not Equality. Uniformity is not unity.

God fervently desires that we talk to Him. If you reach out to Him mostly when hard times come… I’ll let you finish that thought.

If the Lord does not wreak justice on America, does He owe an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah?

“All things work for good to those who love God…” does not mean that all things are good; but surely it means that nothing is good apart from God.

Never be in the position to say with regret, “I never had the chance…” when in fact you never took the chance.

The God of the mountain is still God in the valley.

If it were against the law to be a Christian, would there be enough evidence to charge you?

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” Jesus will never barge into your life. He knocks because He requires that we invite Him in.

+ + +

Click: When I Get to The End of the Way

5-29-23

The followers of Christ were frightened and confused. Their Jesus had been tortured, killed, and buried. On the third day He rose from the dead. He was with them for 40 days, then left them again. He ascended bodily to Heaven. But among the words He left were two specific things. He said it was “better” that He leave them, because “One would come” who would give them each, individually, “power from on high.” None of them understood. He also told them to “wait.”

In the meantime, for the harvest commemoration called Pentecost, Jews from “every nation on earth” were gathered in Jerusalem, many with the Apostles. They waited… for what? They were confused, nervous, choosing a replacement for Judas, anxious, wondering…

… until, suddenly, in an upper room of a house where they waited, a “mighty rushing wind” blew through. On their foreheads were strange sights – “tongues as of fire” appeared on those gathered. Then (some began to remember) as Old Testament prophesies and words of John the Baptist had foretold, the men and women were “filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

So this is what they were told to wait for. Was it merely a strange occurrence, a bizarre one-time event, with incomprehensible meaning? Some people, in subsequent generations, have attempted to obscure this event, but it was crystal-clear.

This was Jesus’s Promise fulfilled. The Holy Spirit – the next manifestation of God on earth; the third member of the Trinity – had come to reside in the hearts of believers in Christ. For that day, and for the rest of humankind’s history.

Many things changed, profoundly, that Day. The fear and confusion among the Disciples evaporated. Peter, who had always been an impulsive and sometimes foolish Follower, was suddenly mature in faith and leadership. He became the head of the newly organized church.

Yes, this was the birth of the Church.

Those who had gathered from other lands likewise were filled with Truth and Power, and returned home to spread the Gospel. Members of the Twelve became missionaries who visited them, and other lands, to establish groups of believers. So the acceptance of Jesus as Savior, and His Church, spread. Before the year 70 A.D., there were even Christian fellowships as far away as England.

The second chapter of the Book of Acts recorded these events of Pentecost; and so did secular reporters of the day, and contemporary historians like Josephus. But in ancient Scripture, it had been foretold. And in the last days, God says, I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; your sons and your daughters will prophesy; your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.

All through the New Testament are accounts of how God subsequently poured out His gifts. St Paul listed them succinctly in his first letter to the Church at Corinth: Words of wisdom; Words of knowledge; the Gift of supernatural faith; Gifts of healing; the working of miracles; the Gift of prophecy; the ability to discern spirits; speaking in tongues; and the interpretation of tongues.

After two thousand years, these Gifts still sound strange to some people, but scarcely are stranger than Jesus, and His followers, making the blind to see; raising people from the dead; and – perhaps most audaciously – forgiving people of their sins in the Name of Jesus. Oh, that’s not for today? Then the Savior Who promised these things is a liar.

Further than that – if you might be someone to whom these things sound like fairy tales or delusional rants – I have experienced many of these Gifts. I have seen them exercised by others. I have seen healings; I have been at exorcisms; I have found myself praying over people things that I had no way of knowing – not in a trance; nothing like that, but just aware what God wanted me to share. My daughter prayed over my wife who was diagnosed with three types of cancer, somehow aware that God had healed her. Indeed the doctors found no cancers the next day. It was not my daughter’s prayer that healed, but she had an inspiration to share what God had done at that moment. That is a Gift.

Manifestations of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit – Pentecostalism; the Charismatic Movement; Holy-Ghost Revival – never died, but since around 1900 have exploded around the world. There are major denominations in America. The Underground Church in China is largely Pentecostal. There are more Pentecostals than Catholics in Africa and South America. The Assemblies of God has more adherents in Brazil than in the United States and Europe combined. Think of news stories you have recently heard of “revival” breaking out in Kentucky and elsewhere…

Readers, you might know and be already at home with many of these things. Or maybe they are foreign to you. Or are rumors you have heard; or perhaps are unknown to you. Your salvation does not depend at all on whether you accept or reject the Gifts. You might respond – or not – with ecstatic worship. There are no rules! My own “prayer language,” when exercised, is in private.

But just think about the Gifts of God He offers you through the experience of the Holy Spirit. I invite you think back on any Christmas morning, or birthday. How many wonderful gifts were given to you by your loving parents; how many times that you said… “No… not for me.”

Really?

+ + +

In the chance any of this intrigues you, please contact me and I can offer you information, and will prayerfully answer your questions.

+ + +

This is not a church service; just worship time:

Click: Cleansed / Look What the Lord Has Done

5-22-23

If you live in a city, you can see the moon and a few stars in the night sky. In suburbs on clear nights you can find Venus and Mars and maybe the famous constellations. In the Great Plains or on ocean cruises, look up at the night sky and you will never lose your wonderment at the blanket of planets and stars, twinkling like sparkles on a pretty date’s dress and shoes. If you are fortunate to have beheld the Milky Way, you know it more resembles a magical, glowing ribbon than a band of individual stars.

The James Webb Space Telescope is treating us to pictures of billions of stars; galaxies previously unknown; “events” in space calculated to have happened billions of light-years ago (or away, take your pick of terminology) – that actually might have “burned out” by now, despite their images traveling 187,000 miles per second and only coming close to our view now.

Whether you believe the universe is 6000 years old or sixty-skillion years old, your hair may start hurting now over such thoughts.

Speaking of stars. And hair. I got a chuckle this week from a review of a book called Observer by a “scientist,” Robert Lanza, co-written with a science-fiction writer. Not really a review; rather, a collection of quotations and self-congratulations on Lanza’s own website.

Breathless endorsements suggest that the authors have kissed the Face of Truth in their construction of themes – like the serious-sounding quantum-physics hoodoo – basically, that our thoughts can influence the physical universe. An MSNBC “Science Editor” claims that “special relativity and quantum mechanics have provided solid grounding for the idea that the act of observation has an effect on external phenomena.” (Why doesn’t he “visualize” better ratings? …but I digress.)

A few years ago Dr Jim Garlow and I co-authored The Secret Revealed in which book we took the New Age best-seller The Secret to task. Besides peeling back its absurd claims and century-old rostrums, we applied logic on one hand, and a little detective work on the other. For instance, the author’s blatant misquoting of supposed experts in “thinking and realization” like Winston Churchill. She quoted Martin Luther King, and we reached out to his niece Alveda who denied that Dr King ever meant, or said, the things attributed to him in that book.

Yet The Secret “spoke” to a million itching ears, promoted on Oprah and elsewhere. And today its author is working on a sequel, and, surprise, endorses Observer as a book of substantial import. She is cited as a “#1 New York Times bestselling author,” not a fabulist, but she says that Lanza “has taken the gigantic step of incorporating his ideas into a science fiction novel…. Often-complex concepts are illuminated through a riveting and moving story.” She claims that Lanza’s previous work has “backed up everything I knew to be true on a spiritual level…. It is the leading-edge scientists such as Dr. Robert Lanza who will help take humanity out of the dark ages and into a new world.”

The authors say about themselves that “if life and consciousness are really central to everything else, then countless puzzling anomalies in science enjoy immediate clarification…. The simplest [?] explanation is that the laws and conditions of the universe allow for the observer because the observer generates them.”

Obviously this book and its proponents and its promotion do precisely what the contemporary world does – blurring lines between science and fiction; intelligence and “Artificial Intelligence”; and truth and lies. The phrase I used above, “itching ears,” is from the Bible, about people who crave unreality. A country-music song title captured the impulse well: “Lie To Me.”

The extensive review and promotion, just as with The Secret and myriad other manifestations of today’s culture, addresses the most serious matters and questions about reality – existence; the physical universe; our roles in life – but never utters one word about God.

How we got here… why we are here… who created the billions of stars… who created, well, us? Forget science fiction or this book specifically: those questions, and their answer, are seldom addressed seriously any more in media, in schoolrooms, in education… sadly, less and less in churches. Hint: The answer is God.

Authors and movie-makers and Oprah can speculate – and even believe – all their nonsense all they want, but I am still thrilled by quotations from another Book:

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars that You have ordained, what are mortals, that You should be mindful of them; mere human beings, that You should seek them out?

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father seeing. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than sparrows!

I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesmen to the world.

No two snowflakes are alike. We cannot survey the uncountable stars. We contemplate the numbers of grains of sand on the earth’s shores. And yet the Creator of all this, of the universe seen and unseen, has created us too… and knows everything about us.

More than that: He cares more about you and me than about everything else in His creation. That’s what He tells us. Is someone like Him going to lie? He cannot.

No fiction in His Book.

+ + +

Click: His Eye Is On the Sparrow

5-15-23

Traditional liturgical formations in worship are not universally followed these days. Their separate parts once represented the essential aspects of Christ’s ministry and significance, just as His life on earth was comprised of separate, meaningful acts. That is, lessons for us, to understand Him better.

When Mary conceived, it was the fulfillment of many prophecies. When Jesus was born, it was the long-hoped Incarnation, God in human form. When He preached, He explained the ways of God. When He healed, it showed the power of God. When He forgave people – how presumptuous, except as the Son of God – He shared the love of God.

When Jesus gave Himself up, He became the sacrifice for the penalties our sins should be ours to pay. When He was betrayed, He understood our sorrows. When He was tortured and He suffered, He understood our pains. When He died on the cross, He fulfilled His mission – “It is finished.” When He arose, it represented the promise that we too may overcome physical death and have life eternal.

Traditional church services similarly would focus on aspects – for instance, the “Agnus Dei,” the “Lamb of God” to remind us of the sacrifice of this Sinless Man. And so forth. Losing this structured reminder of the Savior’s ministry is a down-side of contemporary, free-form worship.

I invite you to see the life of Christ, even for only a moment, in perhaps a different light than you are used to.

All of the familiar events in Jesus’s life, even the uncountable prophesies fulfilled, even the powerful miracles, suggest that He was the Son of God. Suggest? Only suggest? Is this blasphemy? No… stick with me. Of course we know the prophesies, the signs, the wonders, represented His anointing. Of course we know and respect His claims. Of course we know the confirmations that He rose from the dead; let us remember that so did Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus; and they are not regarded as Saviors of humankind.

What I am asking us to remember is the half-forgotten holiday of the church calendar, Ascension Day.

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be My witnesses, telling people about me everywhere – in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” And after saying this, Jesus was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see Him. As they strained to see Him rising into Heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. They said, “Why are you standing here staring into Heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into Heaven, but some day He will return from Heaven in the same way you saw Him go!”

This account is from The Acts of the Apostles, the very first chapter; the history of the Early Church. This was the confirmation – the final puzzle-piece, if I may – that Jesus was not only a teacher or a healer or a prophet; not merely a persecuted good man; not just one of history’s misunderstood and saintly persons. He was physically lifted to Heaven… reunited with His Heavenly Father… promising us that He will live in our hearts in the Person of the Holy Spirit of God. The heroes of faith of the Old Testament appeared at the scene to seal the event, and His promise.

The bodily Ascension of Jesus confirmed that He was indeed the Son of God. Messiah. God-with-us.

That act, Ascension, which is celebrated this week – 40 days after Easter – as well as the promise Jesus made, the Gift of the Holy Spirit (on Pentecost, soon to come) should not be forgotten by the church, or by His followers. For centuries, in fact, the Ascension Of Our Lord virtually was the most important observance-day in the church year. In some countries (do Americans know this fact?) it is still observed as a public holiday.

The sobering challenge we face in the 21^st century is not whether we identify as Christians. It is not how we justify our social views based on what we think the Church says (or used to say). It is not whether Christian traditions “inform” our life choices.

It is whether we believe Jesus is Lord. One with the Father, Creator God, Lord of all creation. If you don’t… stop playing around; be honest; and go over to the other side. If you do believe Jesus is God, has saved your soul, and will return again in Glory… act like it.

“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” These words of Jesus (Revelation 3:15,16) are what He will say when He returns.

Are you “standing here,” even “looking up to Heaven”?

He ascended. Now it is our turn, our time, to do His will on earth.

+ + +

Click: Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise

5-8-23

“Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent,” ran the opening line of a crime series in the early days of black-and-white TV. In the stories here, names are neither given nor relevant, but the situations are sadly too common in contemporary life.

They concern parents who are among my most precious friends; and precious children.

In the case of the first family, a family of strong Christian faith who show joy to the world about them and are upright in every way. One son had hidden demons, so to speak – episodes of emotional struggles and bouts of what the world calls mental health crises – and were that, indeed. Spiritual crises, too, but only episodes, because most of the time he was happy; a good friend and brother and son; strong in faith. But there were threats of suicide, and then prayer, therapy, meds, counseling. Then, evidently, victory. Then… suicide.

No more to be said, here anyway. Unimaginable grief, unending questions. Precious memories remain of the good times, of the good kid; for he was. Suicides are not new in humankind’s history… but why are they so common today? And among teens? And in a “comfortable” society, in happy homes?

In the other family, a son born with a proverbial silver spoon has periodically turned to drugs. The family is of conventional Christian background, and no social situation – other than the contemporary pattern of drug use so common – suggested that addiction was a prediction. Yet each episode was part of a vortex of more serious self-harm… then absences… and then bare escapes from disasters. Check-ins to programs and farms were accepted by the son every time… until he invariably checked out or went AWOL.

In this situation, currently, the parents are in a frenzy because the son has disappeared, evidently homeless and desperate, but by occasional accounts more addicted then ever.

In both of these cases, by some inner strength and faith, the moms neither gave up hope for their sons, nor faith in the One who can deliver… even amid the storms, even when the world screams, “Defeat!!!”

At this moment in history, in this rotting structure of a once-solid Christian society, I could be writing about other families, other children, other parents’ grief. Don’t we all know friends, relatives, neighbors with similar situations? Or… our own households?

The world grows crazier by the day.

And the world’s answer to the challenges of children who doubt is… to add more doubt.

The world’s answer to fear is… to provide more fear, to focus children’s attention on hopelessness and futility.

The world’s answer to craziness is to introduce more craziness: lies about gender, about patriotism, about tradition, about loyalty, about life, about faith.

Many of peoples’ problems in life are caused by their own sins. But many of today’s problems, I believe like those mentioned here, are the result of society’s evils visited upon vulnerable children – lies we are told; lies they believe; lies dressed up as truth.

Mental illness is real. Addiction is real. Does society – the “system” – provide help? Often, no. The culture, too often, is the enabler-in-chief. Music, entertainment, the media, Hollywood, education, even the church, too often provide excuses instead of solutions.

Are there solutions? If you believe the ills we face are bedrock spiritual crises… then, logically, the solutions are spiritual.

Shakespeare paraphrased Deuteronomy 32:2 when he wrote,

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It drops as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:
It blesses those who give and those who take…
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God Himself.

… and I suggest that, as the quality of mercy is not “strained,” neither are the qualities of love, and anguish, and grief, and a parent’s heartache. Neither a child’s needs, whether recognized, acknowledged, or silently screamed.

Only with God’s help can we end these cycles of horrible choices and frightening situations. They are cycles, for these situations described here are not random. This is contemporary America. This is our Post-Christian society. This is the world.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever (I John 2:15-17).

+ + +

This is a song written by the grandfather of my friend Daryl Coats about a “wayward” child and a parent’s love.

Click: The Greatest Gift