Have You Seen a Five-Legged Dog Recently?

 

I don’t know when or why he said it – context can be crucial. However, its common sense quotient is refreshing: 

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?  Four.  Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.  ~Abraham Lincoln

 Just because [they] say it doesn’t make it so, has been a handle I used to evaluate the accusations and excuses an alcoholic  I know once made – but it’s one I forget to apply when I hear talking heads pontificate about pornography.

We could defuse arguments about pornography by depicting Christians who object to its uses as puritans: You know, people who are haunted by the fear that someone somewhere is having fun.  Or, we could agree with Garrison Keillor  when he described his ancestors, Puritans from England, [who] came here in 1648 in the hope of finding greater restrictions than were permissible under English law at that time.  But even secularists aren’t laughing so much about the cultural fall-out from everybody – including young kids --  being one-click away from hard-core material!

Some may see access to pornography as their their Constitutional right; others see it as an industry rich enough to help wipe out the US debt, and deadly enough to ruin and destroy generations of people. One source states: Every second - $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography. Another source declares:

A growing body of research suggests that the habitual use of pornography—especially internet pornography—can damage people of all ages and both sexes, negatively impacting their relationships, productivity, and happiness, as well as their ability to function in society.

The debate over the growing dependence upon pornography could just be a debate secularist values versus religious  values. Religious citizens who call pornography a societal evil may seem to citizens whose values are secular as mistaken as those who would call a dog’s tale a leg. My worry however is what we are calling pornography within the Christian church.  (Audio link on a talk I gave on sexual purity )

Things haven’t gotten better in the three years since I prepared the teaching on 1 Thessalonians 4 & 5.  Nor have our excuses:

–      I need to know what the culture is saying or doing so I can be a better minister of the Gospel;

–      It is after all, art . . .

–      I am living a chaste life – abstaining from unbiblical sexual relations;

–      High school is R-rated;

–      I just want to know what my husband (or, boyfriend) is watching

–      It’s not hurting anyone but me;

–      I can handle this . . . 

We can call our use of pornography a ministry tool, an aide to abstinence, the reality with which we all must live, or even a harmless pleasure we can manage. But the reasons we give for enjoying pornography don’t change its nature or power. Malcolm Muggeridege knew he couldn’t handle it:  How do I know pornography depraves and corrupts? It depraves and corrupts me.  (The power of pornography )

Calling it art is as silly as calling that dog’s tail a leg! That dog won’t hunt!   (What the Bible Says about Pornography )

Being “mature” is no more an immunization against pornography’s downward pull than innocence is a safeguard.  Clicking through the TV movie guide the other night, a jaw-dropping and graphic sidebar preview of the movie shocked me; I looked at it, and so burned an image in my mind that was not edifying.  But I didn’t open it. (That time)  Its thorny memory reminds me pausing on any slippery slope to enjoy a view isn’t safe or smart.  

It is impossible to tell the full result of sin, just as it is impossible to tell which snowflake will cause an avalanche (The Daily Walk Bible)

Whitney Elizabeth Houston

Whitney Elizabeth Houston

(1963-2012)

Whitney Houston’s mom took people to church for a longer length of time than many of us have spent there in the last month – four hours.  It was not simply a four-hour memorial to her daughter’s talent  -- but to how she lived, loved, struggled, failed and kept getting up and giving, until she died.  How she died, although the subject of hours of TV/cable/tabloid speculation, was not chief to the celebration – but it was a compelling reason I watched her home-going commemoration.

She said her faith was in God; (I Look to You) – but, gossips insisted she found help in drugs and alcohol.  Her friends described with spoken and unspoken words every Christian’s nightmare: professing faith in the finished work of Christ, we [can] resist the refining work of the Holy Spirit to whom we must needs give our idols – those objects of affection to which we cling. 

Why do we cling so?

Maybe Christians do not trust wholly God can and will be for us what we think the idols are – personal sources of help and love. Now, Ms Houston has finally been delivered from this lie. “Death appeared to win,” one pastor said, “But Christ fought him took away its sting and Love won. God is love.”

No commercial interruptions -- hours of worship –   And I saw the help that God never failed to provide her, even though Ms Houston died. Yes, she stumbled publically – but these were fewer times than I have stumbled out of the public eye.     

If the Lord delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand. (Psalm 37:23-24)

But, throughout Whitney Houston’s memorial service, I saw the ferocity of the roaring lion, which devours those who will not remain alert or practice self-control. (1 Peter 5:8)    Nobody gets a pass on His battlefield – that I even have another day to live – an hour -- is mercy all.  And I saw the battle from which God delivered Whitney Houston remains as real for me as it was for her. 

Thank you Mrs. Houston and your family for having your dear daughter’s memorial service in your church – it was time very well spent! I got the message: Prioritize! Don’t put off until tomorrow what needs doing today.  (Matthew 6:25-33)

 

 

New Ways of Saying Old Things –Part I

  . . . I have a problem with religion or anything that says, “We have all the answers,” because there’s no such thing as “the answers.” We’re complex. We change our minds on issues all the time. Religion leaves no room for human complexity. (Daniel Radcliffe, aka Harry Potter, Parade, January 8, 2012.)

In my twenties, I wanted to have answers – answers to racism, poverty, and war. I seriously thought my generation could and would end all the pain.  So much for not knowing what God said about man and his complexities. (See Ecclesiastes, or Proverbs 30.)

Religion seemed impotent – having  no answers to human complexities I saw: the riots and Vietnam war – or the fall-out from “Free-love.”  Of  course I couldn’t say for sure how irrelevant it was, for I rarely attended any church. But when I did, I heard an Episcopal priest in Union South Carolina, a former IBM executive who had recently been ordained, speak of preparing for life after life.  That’s all I heard. 

Human complexity, meet death. 

Slowly, I came to grips with my mortality. Having read Dante, I knew about Hell and Purgatory. Was there no “Get Out of Jail” card?  Which religion offered the best price for such a card?

I attended the Episcopal Church again – even though its search of relevancy drove me nuts. Who in their right mind thought the General Confession needed a contemporary rendition?

A General Confession.

¶ To be said by the whole Congregation. after the Minister, all kneeling.

ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer 1928)

What I needed to hear in plain language was The Declaration of Absolution, or Remission of Sins.

So, I wandered on – looking for a connection to religion and my life. But keeping it all to myself, lest I demonstrate ignorance on matters that never seemed to bother all those complex people in my life.

Because of family issues, I wound up in Al-Anon, and there met folks for whom a higher power was real, and operated quite apart from organized religion. This higher power, the god of their understanding, had no trouble sorting out the complex problems these folks faced. My new friends suggested I borrow their higher power until I found one for myself. 

Later I screwed up the courage to go to Bible Study Fellowship, looking for answers to questions my “complex” life generated. I still wanted to know what would happen after death – and how could I help our son avoid the snares into which I stumbled as a young person: drugs, sex and rock & roll. The Bible had the same answer the program did: I can’t, God can.

Maybe that kind of simplicity answer exasperates Mr. Radcliffe? It annoyed me when I did my first Fourth Step.  It still bothers me. But like Peter, where else could I go, but to God? (John 6:68)

 Solomon and Agur  -- (Ecclesiastes and Proverbs 30 and 31) -- didn’t pretend they had all the answers. But they had a few -- their simplicity explained many of the complex issues of the 1960’s, and a few of the personal issues that upset my family:

  “ . . . If you play the fool and exalt yourself,
               or if you plan evil,
                           clap your hand over your mouth!
For as churning cream produces butter,
               and as twisting the nose produces blood,
                           so stirring up anger produces strife.”  (Proverbs 30:32-33)

• ·      Whenever a man talks loudly against religion,-always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions which have got the better of his creed.--- Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy.
• ·      Most people are bothered by those passages in scriptures which they cannot understand. But for me, I always notice that the passages in scripture which trouble me the most are those that I do understand. (Mark Twain)

Artwork  by Jim Sutton

Telling the Truth While There is Time

Last week he said he was hacked; he didn’t do it. This week, Rep. Anthony Weiner   broke down and said he did do it.  He takes full responsibility for sending compromising pictures of himself and thus harming others. He will not resign his public office however, because he doesn’t believe he broke the law.    

We have invented technology to help us serve mankind but we use it  to sin deeply against each other and God.   We can take pictures while sinning – That’s something King David couldn’t do.  (2 Samuel 11)

Pornography and all that flows from it is a river as mighty as the Mississippi – a river that has churned up so much chaos in recent weeks. That river’s source appears tranquil, pristine. Its end into the Gulf of Mexico is often fraught with angry, muddy floods. So, too, the source of sex is good: God.  Sex is a good, and pure gift from God – never meant to be a source of shame, or pain.  But because we choose our own way, we use His gift selfishly. What was intended for procreation and pleasure is too often a source of death and grief, and a powerful moneymaker.    

The psalmist urged God’s people, if they love God, hate evil. (Psalm 97:10) Strong language for a generation of Christians who are trying to appear non-judgmental and reasonable. But God’s bluntness shook David out of his denial. (2 Samuel 12, Psalm 51) 

Watching Mr. Weiner, I ached for how I think he felt.  There is no satisfaction in seeing people fail. It was another warning to me. Not that I have done what the disgraced U.S. Congressmen, and others, have done with technology. But I have flirted with and courted dumb stuff – wrong stuff – that would leave me as humiliated if I were caught in the excuses (a.k.a lies) I wove to protect myself.  

Confessing privately to God now how wrong I have been is a great privilege. Owning my full responsibility in the privacy is a great blessing. But being publicly humiliated  -- even in a smaller circle than a press conference – is a distinct probability for refusing to look at what I am doing wrong.    (2 Peter 4:17)

The important thing is to stop lying to yourself. A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself as well as for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal, in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying- lying to others and to yourself. FYDOR DOSTOEVESKY, The Brothers Karamazov

Image courtesy http://www.officeclipart.com/

Making Lent a Way of Life

In the church, Lent is a  time of preparation for Easter – the celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection for the dead; it is marked by prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self-denial. I grew up in a church that observed Lent. Whether it was their teaching or my obtuseness, I could not understand the point – it only showed me what a weak-willed so and so I am.  So, I gave up Lent long before I left the church. 

Decades later, though, when I began looking into what Scripture really said,  I made it through one Lenten season, faithfully abstaining from two pleasures. At the end of those forty days, abstinence taught me more than I bargained for.  I became a Christian and with Christ, I had the courage to face my addiction to alcohol.

I learned that Scripture commends fasting – but in a better way than the one to which I was originally  introduced. Fasting isn’t about just giving up, but it means taking on – becoming active in opposing evil and producing good. (Isaiah 58:1-14) So, a different slant on Lent might be seeing it as a continuing time of learning, changing, doing – not simply as a time of going cold turkey off simple pleasures. Forty days of no chocolate isn’t enough time to make me a  life-giving garden in the 21st century deserts of our world.  And it isn’t enough time to learn contentment with who and where I am.  (1 Timothy 6:6)

 Paul gave up and took on many things and at the end of his life could say, "I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content." (Philippians 4:11)

    These words show us that contentment is not a natural propensity of man . . . Paul says, “I have learned . . . to be content;” . . . Do not indulge the notion that you can be contented with learning, or learn without discipline. It is not a power that may be exercised naturally, but a science to be acquired gradually.  (C. H. Spurgeon)

 Learning contentment is key to recovery – and it is key to growing up in Christ, daily.

    . . . Living one day at a time;
    Enjoying one moment at a time;
    Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
    Taking, as He did, this sinful world
    as it is, not as I would have it;
    Trusting that He will make all things right
    if I surrender to His Will; . . . (From the Serenity Prayer)