Category Archives: history

The Stories We Tell Each Other

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I am up too late looking for Jesus.

A friend of mine has lost someone she loves and I write about this kind of loss, knowing I tread on hallowed ground because I have walked there before, myself.

Took my shoes off and wept there. In the valley of the shadow of death.

I look at words, priceless words, captured in time by social media and I think of Malachi 3:16–one of my favorite verses and the verse that defines my faith in the power of us, telling our stories.

Malachi 3:1,7-8,10,16-17 (NIV)
“See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty. [7] Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty. “But you ask, `How are we to return?’ [8] “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. “But you ask, `How do we rob you?’ “In tithes and offerings. [10] Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. [16] Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name. [17] “They will be mine, ” says the Lord Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him.

I find and grab more than I was looking for.

Sure, I need sleep. But I need Jesus more. We all do.

For the Pagans

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Been working on the Sermon on the Mount. Tonight it was:

Matthew 6:32-33 (NIV)
For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. [33] But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

I look for signs of God in the world. I look for signs of love. But I also carry with me the people I love.

Some of them are pagans.

So now I have my touchstone verse–for the pagans.

If you read the whole passage it is hard to ignore.

All our pagan hearts.

When God Moves Away

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Matthew 4:12-17 (NIV)
When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he returned to Galilee. [13] Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali— [14] to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah: [15] “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way to the sea, along the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— [16] the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” [17] From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

The Character of God

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Have you ever had a friend who you trusted completely? For reasons of time and circumstance you thought–this person has my back.

Or something…

Most of us would like it if God were a glorified Santa Claus, providing winning lottery tickets and easy answers.

He is not. He is “not a tame lion.”. And this is a dark world.

But if you get to know Him well, you learn something–God is completely trustworthy.

Lucky for us His love never fails.

The Day After Christmas

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The first question this morning: when will it be Christmas again?

365 days can seem like forever. A long time to wait for Christmas.

It has been about 736,570 days since the first Christmas. And it was about 1.46 million days of recorded history before the first Christmas.

Suddenly a single year doesn’t seem so long. To wait for a Savior? To wait for hope?

The good news of Christmas is the gift of a child–precious, poor, unlikely, who shed his light over us.

Every day Christmas when Jesus is with us.

How will you celebrate salvation?

Happy singing in the fields!

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When I was in the fourth grade I had an Alabama history textbook that would have been a real hoot if I didn’t have to actually slog through the antiquated images and commentary about happy slaves singing in the fields.

I mention this because I am fascinated and repelled by revisionist history and our fear of real free speech.

In the 1970s Jimmy Carter was mocked for comments about lust published in Playboy.

Right. Because the faithful readers of that mag are really interested in fidelity.

So now Phil Robertson has mouthed off in GQ–another bastion of women’s rights and conservative photo shoots–and he has gotten his burly, duck-tricking wrist slapped.

For the wrong thing! If the offensive, airbrushed, hypersexualized images of women in magazines like Playboy and GQ are considered free speech, then why not Carter’s and Robertson’s clumsy moralizing within the same publications?

Go nuts boys, but don’t expect me to respect you for your poor choice of words or venue.

But that stuff Robertson says about only experiencing happy, singing field-hands in the glory days of the 60s in Louisiana?!

Ridiculous. Ridiculous and offensive. Life in the south for African Americans is still no picnic, but back in the day you could get lynched for being black and poor in Louisiana

Offensive.

Not just that he said it, but that no one seems to be listening to what really matters and truly should offend.

I don’t really believe in the “real” in reality tv. But I know the answer isn’t to suspend Robertson.

How about adding some new characters to the show?

The gay, lesbian, African American, and other minority neighbors of Mr. Robertson he needs to get to know better.

No One Is that White

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I have clung to this verse rather feverishly through the last 4 years:

Isaiah 53:12 (NIV)
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Because I am a transgressor
And he was numbered with me

It really does not feel good being a transgressor. First there is the spiritual malaise of sin. Then there is the divide it creates between me and God. Next there is this fun fact: while all regular humans are sinners, we pretend we are not.

Jesus was no regular human.

He was poor, dark, and hated. His nickname was “bastard.”

He bore our shame.
He bore my shame.

Isaiah 53 is a chapter as hard as obsidian, so painful, so crucial. And it was written by a guy who walked around naked for 3 years just because God told him to do it.

I figure the naked walking was God’s writing seminar. Not fun or pretty, but soaring, redemptive, essential.

Do you know Jesus?

If you do, you know the only color that matters when describing him is blood red. Blood shed for me, one miserable transgressor.

And if you don’t? Walk that road, that narrow road he lights for us, to the Cross that sets us free.

Isaiah 1:18

Nelson

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When a great man dies it is fitting for the rest of us to stand in his honor.

So I do.

But it is even more worth noting that Mr. Mandela was just an ordinary man who stood when it cost him.

Stood when others ran.

Stood when sitting, hiding, turning, leaving would have been easier.

He paid in minutes, days, hours, years, indignity, and heartbreak for a freedom that should have been his birthright.

What ordinary men do…

12 years a slave

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At the risk of exciting the attention of the NSA or the IRS, I am not impressed with “justice” and “diplomacy” in recent years. The decisions at the federal level seem to be so politicized and capricious as to render the term “justice” moot.

Kenneth Bae is languishing in North Korea for being a tour guide and Obama has done nothing to help him.

Similarly the DOJ has failed to do its job in defending federal laws if those laws get in the way of either the nefarious antics or political disposition of the POTUS.

That is not how it is supposed to work, of course, and a rare show of basic decency the SCOTUS has told Holder to respond to a German family being persecuted for homeschooling.

I admit I am doubtful they will do the right thing and let this family stay. But it is time for us to face the truth: this administration has done harm to its citizens and the cause of justice by not acting.

Ignoring injustice is a fine means of promoting it.

The Formula for Attachment Disorder

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Of course I have wracked my brain about this–has it always been there?

Have there been generations of attachment disorder kids? I don’t think so. I think that RAD is a mostly modern problem, ushered in with the advent of formula for infants, ushered in as quickly as nursing mamas have been ushered out.

Up until the invention of fake breastmilk everyone had assumptions about the survival of infants: for at least the first few months someone with breasts was required.

We see nursing mothers (and surrogates) in great art and ancient sculpture. The baby who survived survived at the breast, able to spend crucial hours close to the face of love.

Attachment disorder is the opposite of that.. At the very most crucial time in a baby’s life, detaching a child from a consistent, nurturing presence is deadly–if not for the body, then absolutely for the soul.

Lots and lots and lots of people have been nurtured and loved and bottle-fed. But make no mistake–the advent of bottle-feeding is at the heart of the change that has robbed our poorest and most vulnerable babies of the love that would grow their souls.

The easiest way to “solve” the problem of attachment disorder is to make nursing a priority in our culture, and start valuing the power of nurture–breast or bottle, babies need snuggle time and a regular source of love.

There is no substitute for love.