SPACEFARM

Wow. More than a year since I last posted.  It was a really hard year - to ask me to say more is asking a lot. If you follow me on FB, you know that the past seven months have been the worst of my whole life so far.  It's been so bad that "so far" feels like a necessary qualifier.  Jesus knows how I feel about this, and I'm not sure He disagrees.  He's not arguing with me as far as I know.  

On February 29, on my first morning home after major surgery, My Gift From God kissed me goodbye on his way to coffee and asked me if I wanted anything from the store.  An hour later a stranger used his phone to call me and tell me the EMTs were trying to revive him.  Ten hours later I told the doctors to stop trying.

What can I say about these seven months?  The first two or three months are a fog.  I remember the whine of the defribrillator as it recharged.  I can hear it so vividly it still wakes me up in the middle of the night sometimes. I don't remember who visited me.  I barely remember the funeral.  The only thing I remember about it was how mad it made me, and I am still mad. Covid isolation.  Lawyers. Physical therapy. Grief counseling. Burning through money. Real friends.  

When people ask me how I'm doing, I know that some are just being polite and don't really have the time to listen - and I know that listening too often can wear other, kinder, souls out - so I have taken to responding, "'One flesh' is a real thing."  Some people know what I mean and those who don't can Google it and get religion.  

There are the people who feel obliged to comment clever things like, "Aren't you afraid to live out here by yourself?" ("Gee, now that you've mentioned it, do you mind checking the bushes for ax murderers for me before you run off?") My answer is always no.  I used to be afraid when MGFG went off on a trip and I stayed here alone, but since the day he died, God removed all that fear.  I am fine here, because everywhere I put my foot, every cupboard I open, every window I look through, when I change the temperature on the thermostat, when I mow the grass - all of it is here because MGFG put it here himself and he did it for me.  It's like living in a hug. 

I am better now, but it seems like it was was actually better when I was in a fog of pain. Even though I was terrified that I would never feel better again, it was the intensity of the pain that kept me connected to MGFG - like trying to grip someone's hand at arm's length and feeling the stretch as they are being pulled away by a current.  Now that the days aren't so unrelentingly painful, I miss it, because nothing has taken its place - he has slipped away and there's nothing to hold onto.  There is no point in swimming. There is no land in sight. All I can do is float and try to keep breathing.   

Lately I've been watching a subscription series about a woman commander of the first mission to Mars. She has left her husband and daughter behind on earth for the three year round trip. Halfway there, the water system aboard the spacecraft fails and the crew has to go on reduced rations.  Soon everyone is suffering the effects of dehydration: muddled thinking, clumsiness, irritability, fear.  They rally a bit on the morning that they are expected to land and meet the supply ship that's supposed to be waiting on the surface, only to learn that the space center has lost contact with the supply ship and they are uncertain if it landed safely.  Their only choice is to go ahead and land, and face the possibility of certain and slow death if the supply ship broke up on landing; or to abandon the landing altogether - the focus of their adult lives and within sight of the pinnacle of their careers - and turn around and head in the opposite direction to dock with a second supply ship and then return to Earth.  The last episode I watched had the commander gazing out a window into the inky blackness of space, at that moment less a commander than a helpless passenger, encased in a metal box hurtling at 30,000 mph in an uncertain direction, waiting on coordinates and instructions from the Space Center on Earth.

When that episode was over, I turned off the TV and went out on the porch before locking up and going to bed.  I was struck by the blackness of the night sky and it felt like I was part of that fictional dehydrated crew in all of their muddled, irritable clumsiness.  The night sky always makes me feel small, reminding me that I am just a microscopic speck of dust, living on a microscopic planet in a vast universe, a helpless passenger hurtling in an uncertain direction, waiting on Someone Else to send me coordinates. The supply ship is delayed and the round trip could take years. 

"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?" Ps. 8:4

Jeremiad. This blog may not be for you.  Or maybe it is.

Marty Allen sock puppetry responding to the Prophet Amos. 

Sock, craft foam, hot glue, marker, Photoshop 2018.

The name of this blog is “Pastor Obvious.”  The “Pastor” part is what I used to do, but I no longer serve a particular congregation.  Sometimes it’s hard for former pastors to ditch the preaching piece of their ministry and this sabbath morning is one of them, because our poor, beleaguered nation has suffered three mass shootings between this sabbath and the last sabbath. People want answers: they want a prophet. 

Too much prophetic preaching is bad pastoring.  “Too much” means almost no prophetic preaching.  “Too much” means you should invite a guest pastor in to throw their bombs while you go to the beach,  and stay away for two weeks, so people have time to forget before you come back.  Nobody wants an Elijah, a Jeremiah or even a John the Baptizer in the pulpit every week.  Nobody wanted Jesus to stick around after he cast out demons, either (Mark 5:17). Congregations can’t take it.    

But today I am giving in to a bit of prophetic bomb-throwing, even though I am not a prophet.  Jesus was the last prophet, and we are told that in these last days God speaks to us through his Son (Hebrews 1:1-2) and through the Scripture.  So, although I am not a prophet, I do have something in common with the Prophet Amos, who testified: “I never set up to be a preacher, never had plans to be a preacher. I raised cattle and I pruned trees.” (Amos 7:14 The Message).

You may not want or need to read this.  But we never know what the reach of the internet is going to be, or who will take it to heart.  I don’t have a pulpit anymore, and no church can fire me for offending folks, which is a great freedom, so here goes:

We are reaping the whirlwind because we have sown the wind (Hosea 8:7).  By “we” I mean the West generally, but the United States particularly.  We have sown the seed of a culture of death that has been carried by the wind to every aspect of our common life like noxious kudzu. 

God is a jealous God. We are commanded to have no other gods besides him; we are not to worship idols (Exodus 20:3-6; 34:14; Isaiah 45:5).  Yet we have become a nation of idol worshipers and the idol we worship is ourselves.  Unlike the Hebrew nation who, in Moses’ absence, forgot God and made a golden calf to worship, we have not forgotten God.  We are in daily, active rebellion to God.  We push back, every hour of every day: incremental  rebellion is never enough; we are never satisfied.

Pope John Paul II coined the term, “culture of death” in his 1995 "Evangelium Vitae," ("The Gospel of Life”), which addressed the immorality of considering abortion and euthanasia matters of individual rights.  "Choices once unanimously considered criminal and rejected by the common moral sense are gradually becoming socially acceptable,” he declared.”  He viewed it – rightly - as a “war of the powerful against the weak.”  Our self-worship allows us to declare our lives more valuable - and our personal choices more important – than the lives of those weaker than ourselves.  Marriage changed from being a gift from God as a Christian witness for sexual expression and children into an unnecessary restraint, birthing the Sexual Revolution of the 1960’s and ‘70’s. Divorce became “no fault.” But sexual freedom wasn’t enough: birth control depended on personal responsibility, so abortion was re-cast from murder to birth control and “reproductive rights.”  But still, we weren’t satisfied: abortion must be available to the point of infanticide, and 66 million abortions later, blood and treasure is poured into the preservation of the individual right of the powerful to murder the weak.

But still we aren’t satisfied:  If we can kill the unborn and infants because they hold back our self-idol worship, then we also have to able to kill the depressed, because they’re no fun to be around; and the infirm, because they cost too much time and money to care for; and the elderly because, well, they’re old, their time is short, and money and resources can be better spent on the young.  But it still isn’t enough: We assign untrained bureaucrats the power of life and death decisions when it comes to our access to medical care.  Strangers get paid to decide if we’re worth saving.

We deny that humanity is created in the image of God (Imago Dei).   God is sovereign over all of human life.  We can fertilize human eggs in a petri dish and implant them in a female womb, but we can’t create the egg or the sperm or the DNA.  God creates human beings marked with God’s image.  As long as we tolerate the presence of infants among us, newborns and small children only highlight our own perversion.  Their softness compares unfavorably with our hardness.  Their innocence stands in witness against our sinfulness.  

Their mere presence reminds us that we are not, in fact, in control of the consequences of our actions.  Their presence reminds us of our shortcomings and failures.  Therefore, tolerance is not enough:  newborns and children in the womb must be declared “not human,” and “not persons” so we can tell ourselves that we – not God – are in control of their right to life.  But still, we aren’t satisfied: When we allow them to be born, instead of seeing them as a gift from God, they are treated as simple commodities.  We freeze fertilized eggs “in case we want them later.”  We “rent wombs,” and buy infants from surrogates to sell them to same-sex couples.  But why stop there?  If they are “things” and not people, why not throw them in a trash bin or abandon them in the park if we wait too long for an abortion?  Why not buy and sell them for sex?  

We deny human exceptionalism.  Our active rejection of God’s sovereignty over human life and the imprint of Imago Dei is further evidenced by the growing insistence of environmentalists that human beings are not in any way exceptional and are equal to – or more likely, lower than – other creatures as well as the natural environment.  Human beings are portrayed as being rapacious consumers, feeders, polluters and destroyers, while animals, reptiles, fish and even trees and glaciers are promoted as superior to humans and worth the sacrificial expense of human life.  This is not to say that humans are not responsible for exercising good stewardship in the management and preservation of the creation God declared “good” (Gen. 1:31)  But the excessive elevation of the created order over human life exceeds the God’s charge to humans to  care for the earth (Genesis 2:15) and animals (Proverbs 12:10), because they belong to God (Deuteronomy 10:14; Psalm 24:1-2).    

We are erasing men and women.  That God determines sex before birth is on parade several times a day with every diaper change, denying our claims that sex doesn’t matter and gender is “assigned,” or “chosen.”  We can abort girls and prefer boys, but we can’t create boys and girls by choice.  If adolescent girls are feeling sexually pressured by boys, it’s so much easier to get a breast binder and pretend to be a boy than it is to be a late-blooming flat-chested girl in the midst of a class full of buxom promise.  If a mother who wished for a girl birthed a boy instead, who can blame her for imagining that those long eyelashes, blond curls and rosy lips were really meant to belong to the daughter she was denied? If a young man who is a mediocre athlete wants to win medals and fame, why not claim a different sexual identity and bulldoze a few female champions at their game?  We’ll let them, after all.  If both men and women are reduced to only anatomical parts which are interchangeable at will, we effectively become a race of Mr. and Mrs. Potatoheads. 

Three- and four-parent birth certificates are becoming more common. Colorado does not identify an infant’s sex on birth certificates.  Oregon’s birth certificates allow three “gender” choices.  California will change birth certificate sexual designation with a simple request.  All but three other states will change the sex designation on a birth certificate upon presentation of a court order or medical affidavit.  Only Kansas, Ohio and Tennessee will not change the sex identified at birth. 

In California – and other states – public school curricula indoctrinate children as young as kindergarten  with detailed descriptions of sexual deviance, and the National Library Association endorses, promotes and stages “Drag Queen Story Hours” in local libraries for young children and toddlers.  Again, in California, public schools assist children who say they want to transition to the opposite sex, while maintaining confidentiality from their parents.

We encourage violence against women and children.  This is the culture of death war of the strong against the weak again.  If women are the same as men – and men sometimes use force to get their way – then there is no reason to spare women the imposition of male force.  If women are taught to hate men, some men will believe it gives them the right to retaliate.  If women reject men’s children via abortion, then men learn to hate women.  If children are only “things” and not people, then some men believe they are justified in coercing a woman to abort to escape the responsibilities of fatherhood.  If women and children are sexually desirable – yet weak – and men are more powerful, then there is no bar to sexual abuse and sex trafficking.  And if pregnancy is only a female’s responsibility and promiscuity only the female’s fault, then legislators – both male and female – are bound to legislate to “protect women’s reproductive rights,” while at the same time allowing them to ignore appeals to criminalize FGM (female genital mutilation performed to as a way to control women’s sexuality).

We celebrate sexual perversion.  The loss of the Christian witness of marriage as an earthly picture of the relationship between God and God’s people has opened the way to an ever-expanding array of sexual deviation, promoted as “orientation” and “expression.”  “Orientation” is a behavior-word, not an identity-word.  By that I mean everyone chooses a sexual orientation with every sexual encounter.  Orientation is changeable and capricious.  “Expression” is the same.  We choose to express how we experience sex and how we want to be perceived by others.  Expression is not an identity, it is a contrivance with a deliberate goal.  In the war of the strong against the weak, child brides are a prize.  Young boys and even infants are simply sex toys to the pedophiles who abuse them in the name of “unchangeable orientation.”  NAMBLA (the North American Man-Boy Love Association) whose motto is “Sex before eight, before it’s too late,” lobbies Washington for the removal of laws against pedophilia and pederasty.  Polygamy (more than one wife) is a topic of prime-time television and polyamory (more than one husband) is promoted as simple equality for women.  Sex-game shows pretending to promote romance and marriage, instead match strangers for casual – and public – sexual encounters.  

Pornography is on the rise.  Once considered a deviant vice and societal corruptor run by mobsters, the use of pornography has been normalized as a shame-free sexual add-on.  Nadia Bolz-Weber, a female Lutheran minister, promotes “responsibly sourced pornography” as a harmless pastime, as though “sex worker” is a legitimate career and no exploitation or drug use is involved in its production.  However, as long as sex is disconnected from marriage, women are viewed as weak and fair-game for exploitation, and healthy relationships between the sexes remains compromised by confusion, ambivalence and outright animosity, pornography is by far the “easier choice” over and against real-life intimacy.

We celebrate death and desensitize to violence.  We celebrate death in books, television, movies and video games.  Murder mysteries, television crime shows, horror and action movies and video games all show ever more gruesome violence.  Torture and sexual abuse scenes are routine.  The more blood the better.  The player who kills the most people wins.  In war we use the same techniques to defeat the enemy in “combat”:  Modern warfare is rarely hand-to-hand combat – soldiers never see the opponent’s face.  We kill anonymously with IEDs and drone and bomb strikes, and then we bring our servicemen and women home and ask them to slip seamlessly back into the life of the community and see others as human persons again – but the culture around them at home is the same culture of anonymous death that they knew in the war zone.  What’s the real difference?     

Why are we surprised at the violence?  If culture and laws treat people as commodities, while ignoring humanity and personhood; if self-actualization is the highest cultural virtue, allowing only for “survival of the fittest”; if we are determined to reduce humanity from a common race to nothing more than collective diversity; if our only relationships are with our screens and others with anonymous usernames;  if we continue to celebrate death and desensitize young men to violence; if every person’s individual desires crush every other person’s desires, why are we surprised by the violence of the past week? 

As long as we continue to blame weapons – whether guns, knives, bombs or fists – or drugs, mental illness and racism for the consequences of the culture of death, rather than our personal idolatry and sinful ways, the violence will continue to escalate unabated. 

As long as we hate God so much that we don’t simply forget God, but rather, make active rebellion against God’s sovereign desire for flourishing human life our 24/7 project, no legislation will succeed.  No public shaming will stop the flow of blood in our streets and the abattoirs of Planned Parenthood.

There is only repentance.  There is such a thing as national repentance, and we need that.  But even national repentance only happens when the citizens of that nation personally repent.  Only a humble surrender of ourselves to God; only an exchange of this life for Christ’s life; only turning from our desires to God’s desires will release the head of steam the culture has built up to an explosive pressure. 

Is the violence we are experiencing a “severe mercy” allowed by God to turn us away from evil and back to God?  Read about the Egyptian plagues in Exodus 7-11 and the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart; then read all of Judges about the bloody brutality of life when everyone did what was right in their own eyes (Judges 17:6; 21:25).  Read about coming plague-reprise in Revelation 15-16 and see how God intends that the calamities will turn people away from their sins and back to Him.  And then read how humanity will stubbornly refuse to repent and how instead they’ll curse God for the suffering they’ve brought upon themselves.  Read all that – you can do it in an afternoon - and then decide for yourself.  But do not delay.

So now you know what a “jeremiad” is. 

What is our hope?  We know that God is merciful to those who show mercy (Matthew 5:7; James 2:13-18); and that God doesn’t want anyone to perish but all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:8-10).  We know that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:16-18).  We have the assurance that if we seek God with our whole heart and soul we will find him; that God loves those who love him, and those who seek God will find him. (Deuteronomy 4:29; Proverbs 8:17; Jeremiah 29:13).

There are none so blind as those who will not see.  If you are an idol-worshipper do not delay in coming to repentance.  If you are a believer remember your First Love and do again the things you did at first.  (Rev. 2:4-5)

Window on the World

“Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’” Ecc. 7:10

                Pastor Obvious hasn’t been up to doing much writing in recent months – somehow I have managed to develop a chronic autoimmune disorder that requires a constant rotation of doctors, because their response to each manifestation of a symptom is, “That’s not my specialty – you need to see a __________ about that.”  Since I have 6 symptoms I have 6 specialists and a GP who mostly just nods and smiles reassuringly.  Dr. __________ is usually located in the next county in the middle of some vast maze of a medical complex where you have to pay to park a couple of miles from his office.  Three times a week there is an hour and a half of physical therapy just to keep what I have.  I am thankful for good insurance, but so far no one has come up with a time reimbursement coverage.

                I said all of that to say that my Pastor Obvious ruminations have been curtailed because walking any distance is no longer an option.  Walking around the house and garden is do-able, but I have to go slow, watch my step, use the railing  and mind where the garden hose is.  Hoses are like snakes – they lie in wait and then they strike.  Earlier this spring, (before I had Sufficient Respect for the Hose), I fell off the porch in a really Homer Simpson way – d’oh!  I am now one of the wheelchair queens in the airport.  Wheels are not dirt-road friendly, and I’m not bad enough to get one of those fancy tank-track models, so I am reduced to spending a lot of time in the kitchen looking out the window.  The Breakfast Burritos are good with this, because it means I am usually cooking. Hanging around in the air-conditioned kitchen when it’s hot outside is fine with them, since there is the possibility of dropped delicacies and the alternative of chasing toads under the house is overrated.

                At first, I was hugely frustrated by hitting a mobility wall – I loved my walks and would love to have them back – but I am slowly coming (see what I did there?) to appreciate the benefits of standing still and just…looking.  There are all kinds of things happening around us when we aren’t determined to get somewhere.  We can’t see what we move past, even when we’re strolling.  When we’re moving, even with no particular destination, life is viewed in a peripheral way:  we might be aware of birds and plants and animals we pass; we might hear their swish as they move away through the bushes or hear their songs above us or catch a glimpse of whatever-that-was along our route.  But we don’t really see them in any meaningful way.  Walking along is a bit like swimming in a soup of noise and color.

                But there is a world of activity just outside my kitchen window.  This is where the hummingbirds gather in the morning – the ones I wondered if they were back because I missed seeing them when I was ranging the countryside.  The ash tree that I thought was spindly and trashy turns out to be a place where butterflies like to spend the night.  Where else would I see Beba the Barn Cat wait behind a bush for at least a half hour just to ambush Roger MacKenzie Cat when he ambled into striking range?  And it turns out I like watching spiders weave their webs much more when I am safely protected by a pane of glass.   

                So I am learning a little bit of what Paul meant when he wrote, “I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances may be.  I know now how to live when things are difficult, and I know how to live when things are prosperous.” (Philippians 4:11, JB Phillips)

God's Gift of Community

(L) N. Sentinelese man aiming an arrow at a helicopter photographer

(R) Missionary John Allen Chau

    By now you surely have heard the sad story of the young missionary, John Allen Chau, who lost his life to a native arrow while trying to approach the people of North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal.  The 15-400 people who live there have pronounced themselves "off limits" by their own violent behavior, ratified by the laws of India, which prohibit approaching within three miles of the island.

     The responses in print and social media to Chau's evangelism and resulting martyrdom, have been especially caustic. Some deny that he is a martyr, judging him "stupid, arrogant and reckless." One blogger noted that the Life Magazine coverage of the similar deaths of Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming and Nate Saint in 1956 was at least respectful of their heartfelt desire to bring the Christian gospel to the isolated, violent and cannibalistic Ecuadorian Auca tribe.  Little of that earlier era's tolerance has been offered to Chau, who has been criticized for "colonial behavior," and "exposing the tribe to disease."  They blame the victim for "inviting aggression" and "asking for something to happen" (#MeToo notwithstanding). Their vitriol is reminiscent of the cruel remarks after the death of college student Otto Warmbier at the hands of the North Koreans.

     Perhaps most shocking have been the comments from some Progressive Christians and "enlightened evangelicals" who exhibit no shame in scolding Chau for being "ill informed" (how would they know?); for not spending "years studying their language" (how could he?); being "arrogant and unethical," (such judgment from eyes blinded by their own logs).  They wag the bony finger that Chau "lacked humility," and come close to blasphemy in their certitude that the Holy Spirit would never lead someone to approach a culture in such a "direct and unwelcome" way. In the Bible that I read, Jesus was direct in his approach to  a diseased and corrupt culture - and was so unwelcome that they killed Him too.

     The four main points of agreement from all camps seem to be (1) that the Sentinelese are some kind of second-generation, pure-of-heart Adams and Eves living an idyllic life in a romantic Eden that is worthy of being "protected" - even at the cost of human life - from the horrors and pollution of the modern world; (2) that the Indian government is justified in using the force of law to keep the rest of the world from contacting them; (3) that the Sentinelese were justified in using lethal violence to "protect" themselves from a young man, coming in peace, "armed" with only a Bible; and (4) that Chau was "reckless" in exposing the tribe to his germ-laden presence, which would surely lead to the extermination of the tribe.

     This weird romanticizing of the person and life of the "noble savage" has been at the forefront of every effort to marginalize and steal from non-white cultures since the dawn of Western civilization.  What are we stealing from the Sentinelese?  For  starters, besides the Gospel:  unheard music and unseen beauty, the miracles of modern medicine, literacy in their own language, the unknown history of their fellow human beings, the concepts of justice,  mercy and fidelity, running water, electricity, ice-cream, the Aurora Borealis and peace with The Other.  

     And how are they being marginalized?  India has declared itself to be the self-appointed protector of a people who use murder as their main point of contact with the civilized world. Why is the government of a civilized nation protecting a group of people - not, mind you, a civilization - that has demonstrated that it is a petri dish for a human vice that humanity has sought to eradicate in all cultures?

     And what of Chau's disease-bearing recklessness?  Perhaps medical science could mitigate any long-lasting harm, but that will never happen without the Christian influence, because India is a Hindu nation.  There is no provision in the karmic thought world and way of life that aids the sick, helpless and downtrodden. Reincarnation must be relied upon.  Suffering must not be alleviated, lest in the next life the sufferer will be consigned to an even lower state, as if that were possible.  But perhaps Chau took a calculated risk that the Christians of the medical world would not leave them without aid.

          The reason the romanticizing of the Sentinelese is cruel and not kind, is that telling the truth in love means pointing out that the Sentinelese - like all human beings, no matter their location or situation - are already diseased unto death.  This is a Christian concept, but their behavior should prove its objective truth, even to the secular world.  

     Perhaps their tiny island is exactly like Eden - polluted by the Fall, evidenced by their lives of narrow scarcity, intolerance, exclusion and violence.  To stretch the point, like the original Adam and Eve, what is needed is expulsion from living in their own rot.  This is not a pretty picture, but human beings are not malleable according to our imaginations - they are real and they are suffering, and the world is forming a virtue-signaling circle around them so that they will not have to touch them.  Remember, India is also the home of a class of people known among the cultural elite as the "Untouchables".  

     The main thing denied to the Untouchables is community.  Clearly, the Sentinelese are being treated as Untouchables, even as it is coyly called, "protection." They are being denied the community of humankind, because humanity refuses to deem them "human like us," when in fact we are more like them than we are willing to admit.  Give me a spear and a line in the sand and watch me prove it.  

     The mere presence of the suffering tribe serves as an unwelcome reminder that, as fellow human beings, we share every deviant, exclusionary, violent trait that they have, we also aim our weapon towards the sky, and we all deserve to be banished to a desert island to protect the world from us.

     Do I go too far?  What about the refusal of the ruling elites and celebrities of the Western world - especially those who insist that they know better than their Creator - who refuse to acknowledge that the unborn child in the womb is a human being, with the same origins, proclivities and destinies that they have?  What about their unwavering insistence that those millions be isolated forever by death in the womb, so that we will not be reminded that we also were once where they are, distinct in our selves and secure in our superior destinies (as opposed to simple luck)?  What about the pearl-clutching eugenicists who insist that they are "protecting" the unborn from being born and unwanted?  Unwanted by whom?  Unwanted by them, because as long as the "originals" are allowed to exist, by comparison they are exposed as the imposters they are. We aim our weapons at the unborn because the very purity of their existence exposes our depravity.

     The Gospel compelled Chau to go to the isolated tribe bearing the gift of human and divine community.  The gift of welcome into the circle of humanity, the gift that invites everyone into eternal fellowship with God.  It is the Gospel that compels us to welcome The Other - all other members of the human family, born and unborn - because it is not good for us to be alone.  We are neither strangers nor orphans.  We are those whom God so loves.  Without God, we should not fear disease because we are already infected and born dead.  We are in need of healing and rescue.  We need no protection from God nor babes. It's time to lay down our weapons and call out from the shoreline, "Hosanna! Save us, we pray!" (Psalm 118:25)  Jesus saves.

        

        

Back From Sabbatical

Time flies.  Pastor Obvious is back from a well-earned 60-day sabbatical that was not in my contract.  Actually, I have no contract with unemployment retirement, but since in nearly 50 years of employment I never had a sabbatical -  that's what I decided to call my two months of slacking.  It took two months because it took that long to have a five-year-old's birthday party, drive around Montana and get home in time to watch all your plants die in the heat.  

So, pretty much a typical summer.  We did acquire a new investment-cat from the animal shelter on Clear the Shelter Weekend.  We'd decided that Beba-cat was eating too many butterflies and not enough mice, so we thought we'd get her some help, and now we have Roger MacKenzie.  Roger is much friendlier than Beba, but that's probably because he came to us already "fixed," while Beba still remembers what we did to her and blames us.

I call him an "investment-cat," because he was free and already vaccinated and neutered, so we thought we had a good deal until we invested in special food, a new carrier, some eye salve and antibiotics for a welcome-home  eye infection. 

Roger also came to us already named.  I had to look it up,* and found that Roger Jeremiah MacKenzie is a character on the TV series Outlander.  It turns out that there are lots of similarities between Our Roger and TV Roger.  Our Roger is a black cat and TV Roger is a "black Celt."  Both are curious.  Both have green eyes, TV Roger's mother's eyes were green and so are mine.  Both Rogers are Presbyterians.  Both Rogers were orphans who were adopted by Presbyterian ministers.  The Rogers' middle name - Jeremiah - means "YAHWEH has uplifted," which I think is a nice touch.  TV Roger's favorite music is Gaelic hymns and our precocious Roger has already memorized Be Thou My Vision, which I sing to him every morning after the daily Psalms.

Clearly this was a match made in heaven!  

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Ps. 37:4

*http://outlander.wikia.com/wiki/Roger_MacKenzie

Shipwrecked With Jiminy

This was a quiet morning with fewer shiny things to distract me from my prayers.  I chalk it up to the cooler weather - no bugs to swat, no uncomfortable sweat, just blessed coolness that made me grateful to God for surviving the fiery furnace so far.  Just call me Shadrach.  

I try to make the most of these moments by praying about the things I don't always get to day-to-day - like people around the world who are coping with wars and poverty; persecuted Christians; people in prison; our national government; the challenges facing the wider church - the people and things that really need our prayers, but are lower on our list of urgency than our daily prayer punch list of family, health, the grocery list, whether I want more brown streaks than blond streaks, wondering if the guest room is big enough for a queen size mattress and what day my eye appointment is.  Squirrel!

Today I got to thinking about all the chaos in the world and toting up all the things that I never thought I'd live to see; things that would have been preposterous 24 hours ago, let alone preposterous since the beginning of time.  I won't list them, because it will offend some of you, and you'll quit reading.  I'm sure you have your own list anyway.

One of the things that frustrates and puzzles me is how quickly the wider church - which has always agreed about most Things That Matter, no matter how the different stripes felt about dunking, sprinkling and wine versus grape juice - has capitulated, and in many cases, joined in to support and celebrate what Scripture (God's Written Word) has called Sin, and who have been equally quick to condemn what God has called Good.  It also flummoxes me that in the secular world, associations of educated professionals - historians, lawyers, sociologists, physicians  and other scientists, (otherwise known as Groups of Smart People Who Should Know Better) - now collectively agree that the naked emperor has a nifty suit of clothes.  

One of the (very) few friends with whom I can safely have conversations says the reason these folks have folded like cheap suits is because "their consciences are seared."  What a vivid phrase that is!  Who hasn't had a nasty red mark after touching a hot iron or stove, or grabbing a hot skillet?  We sear steaks over high heat to seal in their juices. Searing brings something in contact with the heat longer than a quick touch.  It brands, cauterizes and desensitizes.  So people with seared consciences are those who have disobeyed their innate moral consciences so much over time that they are desensitized to right and wrong, reality and fantasy, and have closed their minds to reason and morals.  The world has been here before: "In those days there was no king in Israel: everyone did that which as right in his own eyes." (Judges 21:25)  If you want to know what that looks like, read Judges 19, but make your kids leave the room.

Tasked with being Pinocchio's conscience, Jiminy Cricket instructed that to solve his dilemmas the wannabe boy should, "Give a little whistle," and "Always let your conscience be your guide." These days we would call that "following your heart."   What was missing then - as now - is the warning of Paul to young Timothy: "Some have refused to let their faith guide their conscience and their faith has been destroyed like a wrecked ship." (I Tim. 1:19 GWT) It seems that before we can be guided by our conscience, our conscience must be fed by God's Word - otherwise, we can only be shoved out into the open ocean, headed towards the rocks without a rudder to redirect us to a safe harbor.  

For their part, Mainline churches (which have been mainlining culture for decades now), have been fond of quoting the doctrinal version of "follow your heart," which is "God alone is the Lord of the conscience..." which is part of the formidable Westminster Confession of Faith.  But in the same way they tend to leave out "...according to the Word of God," as the second phrase to the boast of being "Reformed and always reforming...," the appeal to God as the Lord of the conscience is usually put forward without its subsequent qualifying paragraph.  For the uncatechized members and seminary graduates (as I was), and those whose catechisms preceded the discovery of dirt, the schematic for the workings of the Christian conscience follow: 

"ii.  God alone is Lord of the conscience, and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in any thing, contrary to His Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship.  So that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience: and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also. 

"iii.  They who, upon pretence of Christian liberty, do practice any sin, or cherish any lust, do thereby destroy the end of Christian liberty, which is, that being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we might serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life."

Westminster Confession of Faith, XX.ii.iii 

      

Surprises

Once I started looking for them, I find little surprises from God every day.  My favorites are cardinals.  Besides being able to pick them out from their flashing red color, I can identify them from the way they zip like rockets when they fly, and when I can't see them I can hear their clicks and calls.  Some folks might scoff that their sightings are entirely random, but I receive them as little encouragers throughout the day.

This morning's birds were bigger - just as the sun was rising, I looked up and saw two parasails floating overhead. It was an excellent morning surprise!  These parasails had small motors to give them a boost when the updrafts and winds weren't enough to keep them aloft and going in the right direction.  I am never going to hang from one of those things, but if someone tied me to one involuntarily (what are the chances?) I think a motor that I could hear with my eyes closed (!) would be encouraging when I regained consciousness.

We don't get or give enough encouragement.  The apostles - who were relentlessly harried from pillar to post - appreciated Joseph of Cyprus' encouragement so much they nicknamed him Barnabas, "Son of Encouragement."  Luke wrote Acts to encourage Theophilus, and he recorded that several times the beleaguered Paul was rallied by a personal vision of Jesus or a word of direction from the help and comfort of the  Holy Spirit.  Paul passed that encouragement on to the impoverished church in Jerusalem by taking up a collection for them; he boosted the crew on his sinking ship with a pep talk and a meal; he encouraged young Timothy in his ministry; and he nurtured the new Believers in their faith.  

I've noticed at the beginning of our walks that the Breakfast Burritos are invigorated and step out faster when I sing with enthusiasm or recite some scripture with EMphasis and some arm waving for punctuation:  "...SURELY goodness and mercy will FOLLOW ME all the days of my life and I will dwell in your house FOREVER!" is guaranteed to get them moving. Encouragement is necessary to keep our four miles from taking two hours!  

But when we get to the top of the last hill, I don't have to sing and recite.  All I need to say is "Home," and they're off like a shot, knowing that they're headed for water, shade, air conditioning and a cat to torment in Burrito Heaven.  Just the thought of what's waiting for them is enough to get them trotting along.

We all need some encouragement and vision as we walk our dusty roads, and on the days when we need an extra lift, and when the wind is in our faces instead of pushing us along in the direction we need to go.  It really helps to have a motor sputtering along beside us, directing and encouraging us.  

For the flagging Christian, the encouragement we need comes from four places:  praise, Scripture, the assembly of Believers, and a vision of Heaven.  God inhabits our praises and lifts us up as we lift God up; God's written Word gives us the direction we need; the assembly of Believers gives us the encouragement of a community traveling on the same road; and a vision of Heaven is our incentive to focus on what awaits us when we finish well.  

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

Words: Dallan Forgail (8th Century)