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)

Bait

We had four new calves born just last week.  The are about twice as tall as the Breakfast Burritos and haven't learned to run away from them yet, so everyone is having a good time.

New calves bring coyotes, though, and for the last few days I've seen one in the pasture across the road later in the morning than I ordinarily would.  Fortunately, like the next-door horses, they startle to a rousing chorus of "Zip-a-dee-do-dah," so we can continue unaccosted.  (If you ever hear of a bear singing Zip-a-dee-do-dah, you'll know he ate me...)

This morning, though, there was coyote poop (I am an expert on poop if you need one) in the middle of our lane, up near the house.  Coyotes do their business in the middle of the road, which was probably the inspiration for the collisions between Wile E. Coyote and the Acme truck.  Anyway, I'm told that coyotes leave their poop in the road as a message - a warning - to other coyotes (works for me too).  

A vet told me once that the way a pack of coyotes trap domestic dogs is to send a single decoy out as bait to where the dog will see it and give chase.  The rest of the pack waits in tall grass or trees for the decoy to run into the center of the circle, and when the dog follows, the pack closes the loop and the dog can't escape.  Desayuno Burrito.  That's Spanish (surely all coyotes are bilingual) for "Breakfast Burrito."

This is how The Enemy operates too.  He comes around when we're (figuratively) sleeping, distracted by the worries or the shiny things of life.  Our brother, Peter, warns that we should keep watch, because our Adversary walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Like our coyote friends, The Roaring Lion sleeps during the day and stalks by night, and leaves scat (temptations) behind in the middle of our path.  The Lord pointed out to Cain that he should focus on not stepping in the poop, because Sin was out to get him and ready to pounce.  We can follow temptation into the trap and be lost - or we can resist the urge to chase after it.

So the way we keep from being eaten like one of the Breakfast Burritos is to plant our feet and sing really loud (I suggest "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms," which can be sung just as threateningly as Zip-a-dee-do-dah), and the Devil will flee from you like a frightened coyote.  

The coyote in the pasture disappeared into a grove of trees, but as we kept walking, we could still hear him and some of his friends barking.  And that's the thing with The Enemy too - he never quits barking at us to come and show him what we're made of, which isn't really all that much more than a Breakfast Burrito with six-inch legs.  We need to remember that while resisting is always necessary, we are also advised to flee while the going is good.

  

What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the everlasting arms?
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

Leaning, leaning,
Safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

 

Letter from Abraham's Bosom

Pastor Obvious has been on a sabbatical of sorts.  Since I am not getting paid, I guess you could also call it house arrest.  It's been HOT and while Pastor Obvious can handle hot, I don't do HOT well.  HOT means grasshoppers in your face and the unceasing roar of cicadas in your ears, which God got right when it came to Plague Designing Day.  ("On the Ninth Day God sat in His recliner with a mimosa and spoke grasshoppers and cicadas.")  

So, no, we haven't been taking any walks, because it's been 95 degrees at 5:30 in the morning and the Breakfast Burritos weren't having any.  We'd get 100 yards down the road and then they would lie down and refuse to get up unless I used the word, "home," which was fine with me.  

HOT takes on a new meaning when you don't have garbage service.  Us po' folks burn our trash and we're now in our third week of a burn ban.  To keep us from becoming elderly hoarders, MGFG sneaks a grocery sack of trash into the dumpster behind the coffee shop on the highway in the mornings.  He figures garbage-for-garbage is an even trade for the quality of their brew.  One day I will probably have to bail him out of jail for it.  

I am an unpleasant person to live with when I have cabin fever. At first I spent all day in the kitchen trying to cook new and exotic things, but then I realized that because I wasn't using up any calories, I shouldn't be eating fondant potatoes, which made me crabby.  So I started a new diet, which made me crabbier.  Then I thought I would tackle the stack of books waiting to be read.  Halfway through the third one, I began to think that books were stupid.  

There is television, but we only have antenna TV and there are only so many plots to old reruns of NCIS, NCIS Los Angeles, CSI Crime Scene Investigation, Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, Law & Order Criminal Intent, Criminal Minds, Private Eyes, and every Dateline Mystery of every Texas blond and blue-eyed cheerleader unknowingly married to a coach or a pastor who turns out to be a meth-head murderer. After awhile I locked up the kitchen knives, because, after 30 years of marriage, how much do I REALLY KNOW about MGFG?   

And I didn't write, because every time I tried, all I could think to write about was Hell.  The Bible has a gazillion verses about Hell, or at least about the judgment of God and a fiery penalty.   

It isn't popular to preach about Hell these days, and every time I did it made somebody mad enough to say so, particularly if I admitted that I had a short list of shady candidates ready, if anyone happened to ask for it.  But whether folks want to hear it or not, not preaching a warning about Hell probably earns us mouthpieces our own special spot.   

Theologians argue about whether Hell is a final extermination or eternal punishment, but the metaphor of fire is the limitation of language signaling that whatever it is, we don't want to go there or touch it.  My research shows that it is some combination of heat, loud, jumping insects, involuntary diets, bad writers, and antenna TV.  And if you ask MGFG you must also suffer my presence. Trust me, you don't want to go there.

“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

“But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

“He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’  

"Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’  

"He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”  Luke 16:22-31

 

 

Good Shade

I really hate getting up early to walk in the summertime.  I have to hit the floor by 5:00 or 5:15 to be up long enough to  get a cup of coffee, get dressed and be awake enough not to trip over the threshold or veer into a ditch.  This requires going to bed like a geezer around 9:00 or 9:30 the night before - otherwise, I get up too late and start walking too late the next morning.

Starting too late in the summer means anytime after 6:45.  It's light enough by 6:30, but as soon as the sun climbs over the trees it starts to heat up, and it'll be pushing 85 degrees or more by the time we get home.  A late start means not a fitness walk, but a hot trudge with a miserable finish.  A dogs-stay-on-the-porch morning.  So I try to get an early start, but on days when I don’t get up soon enough, we do what we have to do because we're tough and we can take it! (Imagine me with an upraised fist and two dogs headed in the opposite direction.)

There is very little shade at the beginning of our walk - a half mile of gravel changes to a mile of asphalt, and by the time I'm ready to turn around, the pavement is almost too hot for the dogs' feet. We get a little relief when we hit the gravel again, but we save the best for last.  At the other end of the gravel is another half mile of packed dirt.  There's no gravel to poke your shoes or paws.  It's just a wonderful, fabulous, soft surface that stays deliciously cool because of the hackberry trees that shade from both sides.  When we hit the shade, we all breathe a sigh of relief and slow down to enjoy it.

Grouchy folks speak about shade in a negative way:  When someone disparages another's good idea, good fortune or happiness, we call it “throwing shade." Nobody wants drapes anymore: We want big picture windows and skylights to bring light into our indoor living spaces.    Light = good/warm; Dark/shade = bad/trouble/cold, at least in our current polarized way of thinking, where everything has to be all one thing or one way against another. 

It's even a zero-sum game in my garden: some plants come with labels that direct me to plant it in "full sun" and others specify, "shade."  Full sun will fry a shade-loving plant and full shade will kill a sun-dependent plant. Then there is the always-confusing category that requires "bright light," like a Christmas cactus (those are the ones destined to die not by frying or wilting, but by drowning.)

Those of us who are sensitive to the heat appreciate shade the most.  We look forward to it.  When we find it we run to it and stop.  We put patio furniture under it and refuse to leave for any reason.  The Roman stoic, Seneca, is my soul-brother: he added a grove of trees to Homer's sunny Elysian Fields, because apparently it's hotter in Italy than it is in Greece, and when his time came to die, his idea of heaven wasn't an open field.   

The Bible puts a premium on shade.  The desert-dwelling Hebrews were suspicious of both sky-lights - in the Bible, both the sun and the moon were associated with pagan worship - so they opted for being grateful for shady oases: "The Lord is the shade at your right hand. The sun will not harm you by day nor the moon by night." Ps. 1  It must have been great to be nearing the end of a hot journey to see some palm trees waiting just beyond the next ridge.  Jonah so enjoyed the shade under his vine that he was suicidal when a worm wilted it overnight and the sun beat down again.  I totally get that. 

Micah prophesied that one of the perks of the coming of the Messiah was that everyone would get to sit under his own vine or fig tree.  I tried to start a fig tree cutting this spring, but it died, a la Jonah.  But the Passion Vine is coming along.

It's hot outside: Come, Lord Jesus!

Acedia

The fur-burritos have me figured out.  They know that every morning I am going to roust them out of the air conditioned house and call them to walk off some of the kibble, chicken and biscuits that threaten to collapse their six-inch legs under the weight of their lazy butts.  I am walking off my own share of chicken and biscuits for the same reason and my misery wants their company.

Once the weather got hot they got sneaky.  Rosie is an old girl.  She'll play Camille, placing a paw on her forehead and falling on her fainting couch, maintaining her vigil as she waits for My Gift From God's truck to come into view as he returns from coffee.  She thinks it's her duty to bark him down the road, lest he forget where his beloved waits.  

Frankie is a conflicted teenager.  He wants to explore and he wants to be with me.  But gee whiz it's hot.  So he will follow me a quarter mile down the road, falling behind little by little, until he gives up and goes back home, and I turn around to find the road empty.

Today both burritos decided to stay on the porch from the get-go.  MGFG was having none of it.  As he left for coffee he loaded both burritos up in the truck and drove off to find me.  When he did, he stopped and opened the door and dumped them out on the road and sped off for town.  They sat gazing at his dust as the truck grew smaller and finally disappeared from view, and then trudged after me the rest of the way.

Once I heard someone comment about Psalm 23  ("The Lord is my shepherd...surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life,") that the sense of being followed by goodness and mercy is something like being herded along by a couple of sheepdogs nipping at our heels.  Ever since, I've thought that Goodness and Mercy would be good names for a Christian's dogs; certainly better to call, "Come to me, Mercy!" instead of "C'mere Dammit!"  

The burritos are good once they finally get moving, but beforehand they are the poster-curs for acedia.  We don't talk much these days about acedia, but it means "spiritual sloth, mental laziness."  Wikipedia calls it "a state of listlessness or torpor, or not caring about or being concerned with one's condition or position in the world."  Yep, that's them all right.

But sometimes it's us too, especially in the summertime.  A lot of the time, we just don't want to leave the porch for our spiritual walk.  We show up to church less often, because we are "worshiping God on the golf course in nature."  We don't study the Bible every day, because we don't want to be "legalistic" in our devotions.  We say, "I believe in grace, not works! And didn't Paul write that, 'God would finish us off' - um - 'complete what He began in us?'" Once in awhile we'll get inspired to mission, and be hard at it until we run out of paint or sing the last VBS song, and then we snap right back to the porch as though our walk was done until next year. 

And like a rabbit by the bar ditch distracts a dog, screens and technology catch our eyes and our interest and swallow our time and desire to focus on the Divine.  It's so bad that in some congregations pastors even try to engage parishioners by encouraging them to text questions to the pulpit during the sermon.  Sometimes church youth leaders will have all their kids sit together in the first couple of rows in the sanctuary on Sunday morning as a way to corral them, keep an eye on whatever they're doing during the service and encourage them to participate in worship. More than once I would look down from the pulpit to see ten heads bowed - but not in prayer - only to see they were all looking at their cell phones.  I found I could discourage this after worship was over by saying, (within earshot of their parents and friends), that I'd noticed that they'd spent their the whole time in worship staring at their crotches and wondered what it was that so held their attention!    

If you can't drag yourself off the couch, you would do well to lay your hands on Kathleen Norris' book, Acedia and Me for your summer reading.  And I would be remiss if I failed to mention that acedia (spiritual sloth) is one of the Deadly Sins that call for intentional repentance and excision from our lives.  The traditional prescription for this is: a balance of prayer and work; perseverance/endurance; and meditation on death.  Meditation on death sounds both efficient and sufficient.  You should probably try that first.

The Hound of Heaven chases after us.  Unleash the Hound! 

"Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent, for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen."  Book of Common Prayer