Sunny & Seventy: Mas O menos

That’s what Doug and I just about average age-wise – and we felt sunny this first day of March!

O! Today! When Texas weather is good – it is very, very good; and the two of us walked about our neighborhood before lunch – spotting jonquils, tulip trees, and lawns turning green in the sunshine. We were as covered up from the sun’s rays at noon as some of the same flowerbeds were later covered for the coming frost. By dinnertime, wispy white coverings on many pots and beds meant some folks  do believe the weatherman. 

Some front is sweeping in,  that will plunge us back into winter’s chill and dampness in the next 24 hours. But, having a day in which I can open up the windows and feel sunlight – and smell the hope of new life . . . may these moments stay firmly planted in a retrievable data bank in my aging brain!

·      Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.  ~From the television show The Wonder Years

·      One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
~Emily Dickinson, "Time and Eternity"

·      It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.  ~Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

(Quotes from the Quotegarden.com)

Limitations on Choice

So, in preparation for the motor trip that wasn’t, I collected eleven audio books from the local library: mysteries, histories and biographies – and J. K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy. Three days driving each way: well, we would have a variety from which to choose, even if we didn’t go through all of them.

Choice is a valuable exercise – enjoying what we would prefer exercises our minds, and refreshes us. And it is often as rare as it is delightful.  Therefore, on last Friday afternoon at the doctor’s office, we were startled how suddenly we lost the choice to travel by car – airplane, or any other conveyance. We were not simply delaying our departure, when we learned that the antibiotics we hoped would clear up Doug’s cough would be administered by trained medical personnel, as into the hospital he was quickly admitted.

Now I know a more precise connotation of blindsided.

But, the blessing of having lost our choice about how and where we would be spending our weekend, is we were given the gift of doctors, nurses, aides – in clean and comfortable surroundings, and care that has been good. Most of the world does not enjoy this limitation.  (See Sodo Hospital. )   

The window in Doug’s room has been similarly a sharp reminder not to whine about what we “lost” this weekend, for it looks out on the helicopter pad at Baylor hospital’s expanding campus. He and I can see the folks who may have been as surprised as we were to be in a hospital, and some with more complicated problems than ours.   

One good thing is that we have many good books to engage our imaginations during Doug’s recovery.

Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time.  ~Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Risky Walks

AP PHOTO RICK BOWMER

Nik Wallenda walked across the Grand Canyon – well, not really. He walked across the Colorado River. But that in itself was an amazing feat.  As was his explanation for taking such a risk:  

“No, I don’t believe that God’s invisible hand is holding me up on the wire,” he wrote. “But yes, I do believe that I am strengthened by the steadiness of my faith. I do believe in a God whose steady love is unshakeable and eternal. That belief allows me to get beyond my apprehensions and ignore what otherwise might feel like my limitations.” (Article)

This got me thinking about better and worse ways to magnify God. I did not watch this event -- I am having enough trouble trying to live out my faith with both feet planted firmly on the ground – in a world cold to Christ Jesus and His word. I wanted him to stop this stunt because human life is a terrible thing to waste, especially when he is a father with children. To see a Christian deliberately risk his life in such an endeavor boggles my mind, when so many people lose theirs just going about their daily lives. Christians in hotspots around the world are getting beyond their apprehensions and ignoring what otherwise might feel like limitations just by walking out their front door!  

I am glad Mr. Wallenda did not harm himself. However, walking in Christ’s footsteps is not like walking across a two-inch wire with no tether – although living in this world may feel like it.   

I am currently reading about the effects of another man’s walk that will never get the coverage that Mr. Wallenda did. Pastor Ken Smith, from the Syracuse Reformed Church, wrote a kind and inquiring letter to an English professor, whose criticism of Promise Keepers in a local newspaper garnered all kinds of feedback.  He took a risk, gently and quietly, and he engaged a woman’s mind and heart with courageous diplomacy.

Pastor Smith and his wife offered friendship to a self-proclaimed radical feminist lesbian and so opened a window so that she might see God’s steady and unshakable love.  They took quite a risk! But, Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, in The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert describes the reward. She showed me a better way to walk in uncertain times – and I commend this book to those who wonder how relevant the Gospel is in today’s world, and how personal and persistent God is.   Her book reminds me that kindness, respect, and offering a cup of cold water are not beyond my capability.  Practicing them is a good way to stay steady in uncertain times. (Isaiah 33:6)

What to Think About

 

Where to direct my brain for exercise nowadays is tricky. Use it or lose it, the saying goes. We live in interesting times – a description some think to be to be a colorful curse, and I don’t like wasting resources that might be waning!  Reading is a super workout for the little gray cells – However, as much as I like a good read, I love a good movie. And this year we had aplenty!

Unfortunately, the annual self-congratulatory party the movie industry throws itself was enough to make me swear off future viewing. I sure wasted some wits watching the 2013 Oscars! Oscar night has not been the most edifying TV viewing for several years – or entertaining. The years when the movies had “too much ‘Good Friday’ and not enough ‘Easter’,” a description used by Martin Scorsese’s priest, I skipped Oscar night.  This year though, I had seen three of the films, and liked them. (Spirituality at the Oscars) So, I tuned in and taped it. 

I understood the host’s humor would be edgy – but he was never that good. Though a current cultural icon, I don’t remember his name – and won’t try to retrieve it.  He was a regrettable case in point of how miserable the modern propensity of mocking plays. (The Last Laugh)  None of his verbal skewers were much above the bathroom or gutter humor, until a zinger about John Wilkes Booth  and Abraham Lincoln took it lower, made me recoil.      

Yes, I am about to wrap myself up in robes of righteous indignation. But please bear with me.

That an American could mock the assassination of the 16^th President of the United States, given the powerful movie in the running this year for so many awards, floored me. That any in the audience would laugh shows how poorly we grasp the history to which the movie, Lincoln, referred! How could anyone joke about gun violence – much less, we laugh about? And what are we thinking about if we laugh?

Am I missing something?

Yeah – I am missing about the hour and half that it took me to fast forward through a disappointing and depressing extravaganza. 

^8-9 Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies. (Philippians 4:8 The Message)

The 2013 Oscar Awards

The Race Today

Malcolm Ritter, an AP science writer really cheered me up this morning.  Not that he said I can get myself ready for the next Olympics – but according to him, that I can make better use of my time exercising, practicing principles that flow from common biblical sense. (Article) Three points stuck out:

Don’t worry about the consequences of failure – do your best.

He quoted a coach who said: “In general . . . it’s best for athletes to focus on what they can control in the game.”  And another who said: "You've got to discover for yourself ... what level of anxiety or relaxation works for you."  

Anxiety doesn’t ever work for me – even though it is a too frequent companion, especially when I worry about what if.  And I am still learning I have control over only myself.

Lest this realization become just a tiresome adage, I commend watching the recent Olympic gymnasts whose concentration on their own bodies made for some breathtaking routines.  They have disciplined themselves, denied themselves and developed control over their bodies so that they appear to literally fly – as if without effort.  Success is wholly a function of their own determination to control coordinate their bodies, minds and spirits.  And they have the support of their families and coaches, enduring separation and hardship for the hope of a gold medal.

Do any of them seem to think the medal is their right, an entitlement?

Is it me, or have too many Americans lost our zest for competing and winning, going for the gold? And have too many Christians forgotten we too compete for a prize?

The first of this month many of us showed up to support a businessman’s right to speak his mind, even though what he said annoyed others.  Today, how will we face a hurdle that others are erecting?

I pray nobody on our team shows up unprepared, undisciplined, or without love. I pray we run this race, mindful of Who are audience is -- like Eric Liddell, we have been created for a purpose and when we run, may we feel God’s pleasure. (Source quote)

The tragic irony of this grand movie, Chariots of Fire, about his life, recently released because of the 2012 Olympics, is that the actor who portrayed Eric Liddell, Ian Charleson, died of AIDS. He studied the Bible intensively for his role, and wrote Eric Liddell's inspirational speech to the post-race workingmen's crowd.  

People may show up at a local Chick-fil- A for all kinds of reasons – but for the Christians who show up, I hope we remember our calling – ambassadors of the Living God.  Just as  the character, Eric Liddell preached in the movie  – my prayer is that commitment to Jesus Christ will make a straight race for those who run. 

You came to see a race today. To see someone win. It happened to be me.

But I want you to do more than just watch a race. I want you to take part in it. I want to compare faith to running in a race.

It's hard.

It requires concentration of will, energy of soul.

You experience elation when the winner breaks the tape - especially if you've got a bet on it.

But how long does that last?

You go home. Maybe your dinner's burnt. Maybe you haven't got a job.

So who am I to say, "Believe, have faith," in the face of life's realities?

I would like to give you something more permanent, but I can only point the way.

I have no formula for winning the race. Everyone runs in her own way, or his own way.

 And where does the power come from, to see the race to its end? From within. Jesus said, "Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you. If with all your hearts, you truly seek me, you shall ever surely find me."

 If you commit yourself to the love of Christ, then that is how you run a straight race.

“Nobody Expected the Spanish Inquisition” (Monty Python)

We are still hampered by ice and cold – as news reports detail riots in Egypt, demonstrations in Yemen, and a cyclone in Australia. I watch on TV in comfort and relative safety. The end of the world hardly seems probable – but we are twenty-four hours closer to it than we were yesterday.

I grew up amidst fears of a nuclear holocaust; “On the Beach” was a movie that haunted my imagination for decades – until all the players who had bombs seemed to learn how to play together. But now new players have joined the game – and I have begun to think a bit more about how quickly life could change – or end.

Have you considered from how much you have been shielded – just today? Each day I am stunned!

Over centuries, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and man-made cataclysms have destroyed millions upon millions of souls. Christ described two times that people were caught unaware – in the days of Noah and in the days of Lot when disasters destroyed them all. (Luke 17:26-29) Our hope is God, who knows how to rescue us! (2 Peter 2:6-7)

Some people lived through the holocaust, the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima; some survived the 2005 tsunami, and 9-11. But His plan of a rescue doesn’t mean my life won’t change, though my life is spared. In the 6th century BC, when the Babylonians marched the women of Zion into captivity they lived through a horrific siege – never to participate in Temple worship again.

When Isaiah saw the coming Babylonian exile, he urged the people to look away from disaster and consider God:

And He will be the stability of your times,
A wealth of salvation, wisdom and knowledge;
The fear of the LORD is his treasure.
(Isaiah 33:6)

Recent news has reminded me of “Fire and Ice” – a poem by Robert Frost, who pondering the end of the world, wondered whether it would be preferable to die by fire or ice – passion or hate?

When my world is upended, it doesn’t matter how I will die – how shall I then live?

Noah and Lot did not expect a flood or a firestorm; yet, in their own ways were preachers of righteousness in a world very much like our own – though our sin seems on steroids! The women who were marched to Babylon didn’t expect that would happen in their lifetime. But they kept their faith in the coming blood sacrifice.(Isaiah 53) And they trained up the generation who went back to Jerusalem, rebuilding the walls and eventually the Temple.

Tomorrow when I open the papers, the news may be as unexpected as street riots in Egypt, the 1933 hurricane that reshaped waterfront property in Annapolis, or the planes that hit the Towers and the Pentagon on 9-11. Or, I may get unwanted news about loved ones or my own health.

How shall I then live?

But how can people call for help if they don't know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven't heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it? (Romans 10:14-15 The Message)

Image Source

Serendipity

Ten years ago today we visited a church in Dallas, and heard a sermon on the very passage that was  this morning’s Bible study: John 2:1-11. In my Bible I saw I had noted the date and sermon topic and preacher: September 12, 1999, “The End Points to the Beginning,” Skip Ryan.  What are the odds, I would open my Bible to study a passage which was the text for a sermon in a church of which I never expected to be a regular worshiper?

Ten years brought surprising changes for the pastor and for us. The most surprising: our nation was attacked almost two years to the day, September 11, 2001, changing us forever, whether we lived in Maryland or Dallas. In this decade, Dr. Ryan stepped down from the pastorate and we moved from Maryland to Dallas and are now fellow worshipers of a church we never imagined joining that morning. Both our children married; we enjoy grandchildren and renewed relationships with family and new friends.  And I am very aware that I am 3650 days closer to the Beginning than I was ten years ago,  listening as Dr. Ryan  urged us not to be “closet drinkers” – we must not be dainty with the wine of the new covenant. (George Herbert)

That “Beginning” is the feast that the wedding at Cana foreshadowed – and one whose prospect thrills and scares me. Wars, rumors of war, earthquakes – tsunamis – Christians stumbling, friends battling cancers, people dying  young, financial setbacks, news of addicts relapsing: ten years of pain and problems, and that feast sure looks good. I hope we see each other there! God bless you dear reader until we do.

On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine--the best of meats and the finest of wines. 
On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, 
the sheet that covers all nations;            
 he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; 
 he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. 
The LORD has spoken. In that day they will say,
"Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us.
This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation." (Isaiah 25:6-9)