Christmas

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. Luke 2:7 KJV

Weddings and Christmas have a lot in common. There is all this anticipation and excitement over a 2-3 hour event that takes weeks and weeks of preparation. All the while, there is a picture perfect image that drives us with an idealized vision of how it should happen. Both are multi-faceted events where one has to worry and plan for guests, location, decoration, gifts, ritual, and, of course, food. Ordinary hot dogs and beans will not do. There has to be coordinated menu with some unique features that give the aura of individual creativity. Where most men would be happy with a pork chop and gravy, women fuss over what kind of sprinkly spices to drop in the egg nog or the punch. Ordinary china will not suffice either. We have a complete different set just for Christmas. Better Homes and Gardens would be pleased.

In all the planning, we also create in our minds the ideal words, looks, and excited thanksgiving that we would like to see come forth from all our loving family. We dream of that land where never is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day; or so we would wish for at least one evening. The children will all be grateful and, oh, so helpful. Husbands will be sensitive, thoughtful, and read the minds of their wives. The in-laws will not be rude and will walk into your house with pure and overflowing admiration for all you have done. Even the dog will cooperate and not spill his water dish or worse (much worse).

The tension builds because we do not live in a perfect world. Dogs eat ornaments, children pout or get pukingly sick, husbands totally misread telepathic communication, in-laws say the darndest things, and mom discovers she is not Wonder Woman. Weddings are likewise remembered for the things that go wrong instead of all the things that go right. Candles go out, cakes tip over, attendants faint, and wardrobes fail all to the chagrin of mothers from the beginning of time.

Living with imperfection is a daily challenge for any family. We would like to have everything in its proper place and our children all tidy models of circumspection and genteel deportment. Alas, it doesn’t always happen. Over all, I am very impressed with your children arriving every day, freshly scrubbed, bright eyed, and for the most part, on time. I brag on you regularly. On the other hand, I know you are quite human simply by the things that fall out of your cars along with your children. There are shoes and rubber snakes, McDonald’s cups and crayons, beanie babies and old socks, and even groceries. I mistakenly opened the wrong door a few weeks ago and out poured the contents of two or three grocery bags. You would have enjoyed the sight of your administrator chasing cans of beans rolling down the driveway. I never know what I will encounter as you drive up. There are friendly dogs, occasionally a yipping dog, and once I found a complete plastic leg in the back floorboard. Then there are the days of sick kids with feverish looks wrapped in blankets. Today, one drove up holding a cup having just lost her breakfast.

It may be a wonderful life, but it is not easy, clean, convenient, ordered, and certainly not perfect. It never was. When we compare our discomforts and disappointments with those of Mary and Joseph, our complaints must be seen as so trivial. I take great comfort in the Christmas story, a tale totally immersed in imperfections and riddled with pain and conflict as well as glory. God works in the detritus and anguish of everyday life His wonders to perform. Struggle defines the Christmas story. He not only can use it to amplify His message, He came to share this messy existence with us and to share our discomfort and pain. May we not let our less-than-perfect cloud or obscure the glory that is Christmas.

Thanksgiving

“In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” 1 Thessalonians 5:18

In a recent issue of Christianity Today, Cornelius Plantinga Jr. made a chilling observation by commenting, “It must be an odd feeling to be thankful to nobody in particular.”[1] We have all just witnessed plenty of that, I am sure, with last week’s national Thanksgiving holiday celebrated by Christians and atheists alike. Any tally of the mention of “God” verses the mention of “turkey” in our daily media would have shown a great imbalance in favor of the bird. Plantinga pointed out, however, that being thankful “in general” is very odd. “It’s a little like being married in general.”

Before dismissing for the holidays last week, my Spanish teaching wife brought out in her class that Thanksgiving is a truly unique American holiday. No other country has anything quite like it. With that said, she ventured out onto thin ice and asked her class who the first celebrants were thankful to. There was much awkward silence followed by timid expressions of pilgrims being thankful to the Indians for bringing food. Yes. That was it. The pilgrims were thankful to the Indians for bringing food. This was the sage consensus of high school sophomores and juniors from a rural area of Knox County in the heart of the Bible Belt. It was enough to make a grown teacher cry. She went on to remind them of the Jamestown and Roanoke colonies, two failed experiments with which they were at least familiar. Can anyone say, “survival?” The survivors of Plymouth Rock had a lot more on their minds than a mere harvest feast and Indian game. They were thankful to an almighty God for their basic existence after their first devastating winter of this new land was behind them.

One of the first declarations regarding the day of Thanksgiving comes from the State of New Hampshire in 1782 and reads, “The United States in Congress assembled, taking into their consideration the many instances of divine goodness to these States:[...] Do hereby recommend to the inhabitants of these States in general, the observation of THURSDAY the twenty-eight day of NOVEMBER next, as a day of solemn THANKSGIVING to GOD for all his mercies: and they do further recommend to all ranks, to testify to their gratitude to GOD for his goodness, by a cheerful obedience of his laws, and by promoting, each in his station, and by his influence, the practice of true and undefiled religion, which is the great foundation of public prosperity and national happiness.”[2]

No ambiguity there. Clearly, such a clear-cut and stark statement of religious faith today would send deep shivers across our sophisticated sensibilities that have demonstrated here-to-fore impossible capacities of tolerance for the bizarre and profane but not, indeed, for “the practice of true and undefiled religion.” We have the zealous promoters of a “secular” and “inclusive” society to thank for that. They have waged a carefully articulated war against the mixing of the sacred and the secular seeking libertine license for themselves while denying that morality has anything to do with “the foundation of public prosperity and national happiness.” Not content with their victory in judicial and political precedents, they have moved to expunge even the memory of our religious heritage as a nation. How do you do that? History is subverted to tell us that Pilgrims were thankful to Indians for bringing food. Evidently they have done their job well.

The telling of our nation’s history is critical to our sense of identity and the continuance of our values. It is the front line of our culture wars. Don’t assume anything. Question everything. Beware of strangers bearing texts published after 1970. Don’t drink the cultural water. We are in a fight, and the enemy takes no prisoners.


[1]Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., “Assurances of the Heart” Christianity Today, Vol. 39, no. 13.
[2]Thanksgiving Proclamation State of New-Hampshire. In Committee of Safety, Exeter, November 1, 1782

Mom

“When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? Then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land.” - Joshua 4:21-22

I have heard them and so have you. They are those stock-in-trade, generic, one-size-fits-all, funeral sermons that abound in clichés and clichéd scripture passages that tired pastors pull out of file cabinets. There is little or nothing said of the deceased, but instead, flowery phrases fill up the time and space as the clergyman attempts to perfume the air with feel-good nothingness. In many cases, such perfunctory phraseology is the only alternative because there is nothing much to say about some non-descript lives that have floundered halfway between here and nowhere, registering not even a blip on God’s kingdom view screen. Pity the poor pastor who has to stand and officiate over such a one when to tell the truth would be in plain bad taste or uncomfortable to say the least. But many times, pastors fumble to find concrete terms with which to describe the lives of even good people because there is no hard evidence to tap into. Nothing frustrates a biographer more than to attempt to tell the story of someone who leaves no written record.

I had feared that in the rush to generate a funeral message for my mother that the pastor, who had not known her long, would pull out one of his stock sermons and give it his best generic shot. To try and head it off, I placed in his hands a journal that my mother had written in her latter days. It was really just a daily planner, and her entries were without form and scattered throughout the book in no particular order. Most of her entries were comprised of quotes from other people from books and sermons and wherever. But she had copied them laboriously by hand in her faltering style, and they instantly betrayed her heart and deeply held values. There were quotes from Max Lucado and C.S. Lewis, Charles Swindoll and Billy Graham, plus others not acknowledged. They covered topics such as the role of the Holy Spirit, how to study the Bible, and the amazing story of the change wrought in the HMS Bounty survivors of Pitcairn Island through the discovery of a Bible.

I was pleasantly surprised the evening of the funeral to discover that the pastor had found the journal entries compelling reading. He basically used little but these various entries to paint a picture of my mother’s life for they revealed the things she held most dearly. There were not that many pages of writing in this simple book, but it offered ample evidence with which to obtain a verdict and a conviction. Her’s was a life centered on the things of God. Little else needed saying. In death, we look for the essence of a person’s life, what interested them, what drove them, what made them who they were. I was amazed how little it took to accurately, I thought, reveal the simple and all-consuming direction of her life. For those who looked at her to admire certain character qualities and traits, here was explanation enough for everything found admirable within.

It need not be long, it need not be eloquent, it need not be profound, and it need not even be original. I left there that night wanting to tell everyone to be sure to leave something behind that will reveal to all who pause and wonder just who you are and why you lived the life you did. Leave tracks, so that others may follow. It may be margin notes in a Bible, a simple journal, a life story, or heartfelt poetry. Whatever the means, make it clear and make it loud if you want folks to know that God’s love compelled you to follow Him and that He did, indeed, change your life.

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” -C.S. Lewis (found in mom’s journal)

Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!

“It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.They are new every morning” - Lamentations 3:22-23

(The following is a reflection penned the night my mother died after I found out how a nurse’s aide had stayed by her bedside in the final hour or so of her life. This unsung stranger talked calm words and read the Scripture to my mom who could neither hear nor respond except in some unknown way. And so I paused to think of how our lives are marked by mercy from beginning to end, how we are defined and molded by mercy, and how it flows from a thousand unacknowledged sources to fill the hours of our days. May we marvel at its mighty and majestic work and be the willing agents of its spread.)

Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!
How vital to each individual human soul,
God’s rain to quench the drought,
That stretches back to Adam’s folly,
Falling patchwork style,
Upon garden hearts that look to unseen skies,
And wait precariously on mystic clouds,
Grown dark with promises of grace,
While mercy drops kick up the dust of our loose-lived lives,
With the portent of showers and floods to come.

Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!
How vital to each human heart,
From birth’s first cry for human touch,
To childhood needs too plentiful to count,
Where mother’s love and father’s care,
Sustain the fine thin line between,
The fruitful life or blasted barrenness,
And even in the grown-up land,
Grace must do its daily work,
Pulling sap to dizzying heights,
To keep the hillsides green and winter in its place.

Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!
How vital to each human end,
When houses, lands lie fallen by the way,
And life is narrowed to a single bed,
One closet with a week’s apparel,
And one small board stuck with colored pins,
That hold some frames of a life gone by;
Grace descends three times a day,
Where crusts of bread become as prized,
As bags of gold or grandpa’s watch,
And a dear one’s voice is gift enough,To keep alive the will to live, if only one more day

Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!
How vital to all human-kind,
Where total strangers mingle in,
And leave their mark in gentle ways,
They stop by bedsides, filling gaps,
In final vigils, or with simple acts,
They guide the floating bark as it departs;
One wipes a brow, one changes sheets,
One for pay, another just because,
Grace compels which no logic can explain,
To speak soft words, to read the Book of Books,
And thereby spend, the final hour in dark of night, alone,To keep an appointment set 93 years before.

orthodoxy

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” – James 1:22

If you like scary things this time of year, I’ve got a good one for you. It is a hobgoblin of a most frightening kind that none of us like to talk about or admit that it keeps company far too close to home. It is the foreboding specter, the ghoulish ghost, of “consistency.” Let me explain.

This past week, I, too, went afield and traveled up to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, into the heart of Amish Country. The horse drawn buggies were in generous profusion, and it was interesting to watch the world’s buffet of general tourists who are drawn with a certain amount of fascination to all things Amish, me being one of them. If it truly is a gift to be simple as goes the song, the Amish abound in many ways. They certainly have no electric bills to worry about, nor car insurance or TV’s that break down, and the problems of Vista are far from their minds. We loved the clothes lines on pulleys that lifted the family laundry proudly up in the air for all to see, flags of defiance to Maytag and all their kin. They marked the Amish farms in clear distinction to any other well kept farm of the community. There is an enforced simplicity here that makes us all pause and wonder if we are truly better off with all our modern claptrap.

Being a woodworker, I snooped around the tourist shops hawking “Amish made” furniture - peeking at the joinery and noting designs. It led me to inquire and follow a trail that led me to an off-road farm a good way from town to Mr. Stoltzfuss’s chair shop. The family dog tried to announce my presence but no one came out. I followed my ears to the sound of a motor running in a back building. What I discovered was a fairly large woodworking shop humming with business. Mr. Stoltzfuss graciously welcomed me and showed me his upstairs showroom and all around his mini-chair factory. It was a family business that involved grandpa and the whole family as they turned out about 3,000 chairs a year. There were no light bulbs in the shop, no electricity of any kind, but I discovered some of the most sophisticated and up-to-date woodworking machinery available today. These machines were driven by either hydraulic fluid or compressed air supplied by a large diesel engine running continuously in an adjoining room. Preformed wood came by way of shipment from commercial suppliers, and these folks were shaping, sanding, and finishing these parts together in a model of home-industry efficiency.

I couldn’t help but let my mind pitch wildly back and forth from the diesel engine and hydraulic motors to the theology of it all that prohibits one form of modern convenience but allows another. I tried to picture a meeting of the Amish elders sitting around and deliberating the worthiness or unworthiness of power driven machinery, which kinds, and how much. To further the picture of seemingly conflicting systems of thought, I stopped by a roadside scene and took a picture of a team of six horses pulling a single row corn picker as it made its way slowly through the field. As it approached me, I suddenly recognized that a gasoline engine was mounted on the corn picker driving the whirring mechanics of that machine. Evidently it is permissible to mount an engine on your corn picker but not on your buggy.

Being careful not to mock this, to us, a glaring inconsistency, both my wife and I confessed that being consistent is, indeed, a difficult thing for us all. It is the hobgoblin of all Christians who profess a high and holy standard and yet struggle each day to live it out. We say that church is important and then skip at will. We would shun worldliness and then let ourselves and our children watch the unthinkable. We say it is better to give than to receive and then consume untold wealth on ourselves. We hold up the great commission but then flee to the safety of the suburbs and our Christian subculture. Scary, isn’t it, how we can so easily hitch gasoline engines to our horse drawn corn pickers and still feel so orthodox?

Education Ends

Esteem her (wisdom), and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will honor you. - Proverbs 4:8 NIV

So where are we going with our educational treadmill? That has been somewhat the focus of our past few issues. It is a question we need to keep in mind as we direct and encourage our children to put forth the effort every day to keep up their rigorous pace. How we answer it will in large part determine their future and the extent and direction to which we pour our time and treasure, college or no.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the realm of public education is rapidly losing its way. The threat of an a-moral, secular, Darwinian education is now being surpassed by the corrosive effects of the no-child-left-behind mentality which is spawning a wasteland of mediocrity and intolerance of standards of any kind. (Ask your friends in the public schools about the new minimum grade of “60” for all student work.)

But where are we going and what do we want to maintain as the ballast in the bottom of our educational boats? If you want to tie your thoughts in endless knots of increasing complexity and confusion, there is no quicker way than to pick up some books on education. Just thinking about all the curriculum options available to Christian homeschoolers now is enough to give one a headache. Go to your university library and the volumes of opinions on education rendered over time require a whole wing. In light of that, I have come to appreciate the utter beauty of Proverbs 4:7 which so quickly reduces so many of our endless, human dialogues and all of our continual striving with its one, easily grasped truth: “The principal thing is wisdom; therefore get wisdom.” You have heard me beat this drum before. And you will again. It is our north star guiding us from infancy to adulthood. It influences our K5 curriculum choices and the “if” and “where” of sending our children off to college.

As such, we teach literacy because it is the key to reading the Book of Ages, the fountain of all wisdom. The wisdom of Scripture, in turn, tells us to subdue the earth and so we teach mathematics and science to restore, in part, the damage caused by the fall. As a dividend, Math gives us the discipline and exercise of logical reasoning and thinking. Science causes us to sit and ponder the majesty and mystery of creation and our creator. Scripture leads us also to examine History for it compels us to examine our ways and what we have done with our knowledge of good and evil which we so dubiously chose in the garden. Will all this show up on a SAT test? Only in small parts and pieces.

But regardless of test results, our goal is to bring our children to the point of being able to think clearly and rationally developing a passion for God’s Word as a touchstone of basic truth for all of life. We want them to be more than Bible ‘spouters,’ however, for God’s wisdom should propel us to be not only morally redemptive agents in this world but to be redemptive agents of change for all aspects of this world’s fallen-ness. We fight disease because it is an unintended but natural result of sin. We fight hunger, pollution, political deadlock, corruption, animal cruelty, poverty, crime, and urban blight because God’s wisdom compels us to, out of His love for all men. We are our brother’s keeper. In this, we are tested everyday.

Whether we learn this in our Sunday school classes or the second grade classroom or at our mother’s knee or as David did, out in the sheep pasture, it is of little consequence. The big picture is that we develop a passion for God’s wisdom and play it out to its logical end in the thousands of our daily choices, our places of service, our priorities, and our stewardship of time and treasure. God’s truth, taken to its logical conclusion, is the stuff of what great families, churches, cities, and nations are made of.

college

But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. 1 Cor. 7:17

This is “thin ice” material for an administrator of a traditional, academic track school to be writing. I am not alone in giving voice to this concern, however, and think I find myself in good company. Janie B. Cheaney brings up the subject once again in the Sep. 20 issue of World Magazine. A previous article in the Spring about the “diminished returns” of some college degrees evidently stimulated a strong response. Cheaney writes, “The subject seems to be a hot-button issue among Christians of a certain age: young adults or older adults with teenage children. The ‘Go-To-College’ steamroller that gained traction after the G.I.Bill has begun to slow down as the cost-effectiveness becomes more questionable. Charles Murray, author of Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s School Back to Reality, put it bluntly in a recent Wall Street Journal article: ‘For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time.”

Most of my familiarity with this issue stems from discussions with and observing the lives of a number of early 20-somethings. These went dutifully off to college, successfully earned their degree, and now are back home, rootless, and struggling to find both themselves and a real job. It seems there is not much of a market for psychology majors, English literature majors, or History majors. Even business majors are struggling. These newly minted graduates, who did everything we asked them to do, are now waiting tables, working at Panera Bread, or treading water with two or three part-time jobs. They live cheaply with friends or family, sleep over garages or on front porches, and spend their spare time “hanging out” with friends in similar situations. And they wait. They wait for fate to carry them someplace they know not where. In the meantime, they have college loans to pay off that make my first mortgage look like a football wager.

College can be a formative experience and a gateway to a professional career, no doubt. But far too many wander down that lane with no plan or goal in mind. They emerge burdened with debt and no marketable skill. In the mean time, there are numbers of clearly focused youth who discover that there are many skilled trades that offer worlds of opportunity and only take half the time and expense of a traditional four year degree. This is not the same world as when I went off to college. Today, there are a number of different angles to be worked in preparing for a fully independent life of service and blessing.

Janey Cheaney highlights just a few of these. Homeschoolers and fast-trackers can now explore opportunities for dual credit in the latter high school years. CFC is looking closely at this as we contemplate adding our high school program. Testing out of pre-requisite courses and dual credit can drastically cut the cost and length of an academic program especially through the use of a low cost community college. But even then, a plan should be pre-eminent in thinking about the future. What interests are best pursued? What is the end goal? What would be the best path to get there? Cheaney notes a web site, CollegePlus.org, that offers assistance by assigning a coach to each student to develop a plan. In so doing, one may quickly discover that an associate’s degree is all that is needful to enter a certain field.

Another major choice involves the quickly proliferating technical schools that are now available. These quickly focus on specific skills and occupations that can rapidly propel a student into the workforce with a very marketable skill. In conjunction with this, one should never overlook the path of apprenticeship. The U.S. Department of Labor has an actual Office of Apprenticeship, as does every state. Check out doleta.gov and nastad.us to see if these can open the doors of interest and opportunity especially suited to your student. There are opportunities out there to learn and to be paid while one is learning. What a concept.

The biggest challenge of formulating a plan is that youth are seldom blessed with a clear vision for their lives. I firmly believe that having a variety of work experiences is the best school master for helping a young person find their first love. This points out the value of summer jobs, internships, days-with-dad or other family friends, and, yes, even school field trips. Sometimes it takes the actual fire of a welder’s arc or the artful stitching of an open wound to awaken the desire and vision for a young person’s life. My daughter’s experience as a CNA (a short 4 week course through Red Cross) confirmed in her the leading towards a career in nursing. And when they find that spark that can ignite a life-long passion, we will do well not to demean it as less than satisfactory. Diesel mechanics make much more than school teachers from what I hear. The bottom line is that we not measure the worth of any calling by the money or worldly status attached to it. The important thing is to find a calling whereby we meet a need in society that will afford a living suitable to our needs. And regardless of the days spent or not spent in obtaining an education, God still reminds us that wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. That, of course, puts everything in proper perspective.

This will preach!

"And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow." Matt. 13:3

Poets and preachers ply much the same trade. They rummage about in old sheds and ploughed fields always casting a keen eye for odd bits of iron or stone, trinket or toy, broken or whole that tell a story. Picking up the oddest specimens of the everyday, the common, the familiar, they discover them to be treasuries of meaning; Rosetta stones that unlock mysteries of morality and truth. They look beyond the obvious to translate for us the tales of significance and value locked in their earth worn covers much like the bilingual person can read to us from a cast off book written in a foreign tongue.

Jesus was pre-eminent among them taking sheep, bread, wheat, and wages and unleashing from them pictures for the eyes of our imaginations that leaped the barriers of literacy, prejudice, status, or age. Olive trees became discourses and wineskins, dissertations that conveyed truth down into our souls with a sweetness and ease that disarmed our defenses and silenced the critics of our hearts, at least for the moment. Caesar’s coin in the hands of the carpenter’s son defeated even the most devious of minds and most relentless of foes and left them silent, their entrapments in shambles, their arguments destroyed.

Long after the terminology was lost, the picture remains, burned into the memory like the heat and brilliance of a grand fire. Grandma Shown was good at it, too. When the children unwittingly tripped us up, she would sermonize succinctly and simply: “When they are young, they step on your toes. When they are old, they step on your heart.” She had known both, in spades. Herman Melville was a master at seeing the universal in the particular and proclaimed doggedly, “And some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell by the cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass in the Milky Way.” His masterpiece, Moby Dick, is awash in moralizing at every turn with deep reflections on life taken from the everyday experiences of a whaler, in all their beauty and terror.

For one, Melville takes considerable time to describe the careful path of the harpoon rope laid about in the whale boat before it followed its mark with a whizzing that could take off a leg or arm or snatch one into a watery grave. It actually lay across arms and shoulders as it trailed from its coiled lair, innocent as “the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatal powder, and the ball.” It was the thing which carried “more of true terror than any other aspect of this dangerous affair.” But why say more, he adds. “All men live enveloped in whale lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.”

Following the tradition, I continue to exclaim for all to hear at every cluttered closet and tangled garden hose, “Chaos always descends from order! Order never descends from chaos!” (A pox on Darwin and all his kin!) Come to my woodshop and you are likely to hear, “If you work with wood, you will get slivers. If you work with people, you will get hurt.” Young preachers (& teachers) need forewarning. Can we see the eternal significance in those things that surround us each day and point them out to young ears as lessons for the heart? “Go to the ant, thou sluggard, and consider her ways” the Scripture says, and so we look beneath our feet and see wisdom for the taking. Through eyes of faith and vision, we, too, can see the treasure in the common and exclaim with sudden discovery and joy, “This will preach!”

Scouting

“Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.” -Pro. 20:11

I may have told some of you this story but now I want to write it. A friend of mine has a son who has become a very specialized and skilled doctor because of an opportunity he was granted as a newly minted surgeon. It seems that there was a highly respected team of doctors who were offering a fellowship and a chance to bring some new blood into their specialized field. Numerous applications made their way in to seek after this rare opening. After the selection process had run its course, my friend’s son was amazed and thrilled to be one of the two individuals to be chosen for the program. Some months later after having come on board, he asked just how he managed to be chosen out of all the resumes representing all these other highly credentialed candidates. His mentor told him that he noticed that he was an Eagle Scout and, hence, pulled his application and put it on top to be examined first.

It is somewhat staggering to learn that what a young man had accomplished as a student in junior high school and the first years of high school mattered more, with regard to getting noticed, in landing a prestigious fellowship than all of his college and medical school grades or accomplishments put together. Obviously the one could not stand without the other, but it still is remarkable that obtaining the rank of Eagle Scout, scouting’s highest honor, speaks so strongly and clearly about the character and mettle of a man that years later others would still care and notice.

The road to Eagle is not easy and few there are who make it. Yet it is obtainable for anyone who dedicates himself to steady accomplishment and submits himself to the meticulous training regimen in which a young man first learns to take orders and, eventually, to give them. While others are out playing at whatever the teen culture affords, looking for easy fun and fast times, scouts are working on badges, learning new skills, or building endurance through hikes into the wild. They go out of their way to find hardship, heat, sweat, and obstacles of all kind. But out of that old world crucible known as scouting comes character; character that is noticed and appreciated the world over.

In a day and age in which families are under pressure to teach their children to read at an early age just so they can get a leg up on their peers in the race for college scholarships, I find it odd that scouting for boys is so easily overlooked. Here is a proven program that magnifies both true values and opportunities way down the line and yet it gets by passed for things such as sports or part-time, minimum wage jobs, neither of which have shown themselves to offer much return for the time invested in them.

What sparked this article today was my chance stumbling across a plaque I discovered the other day in the basement of the annex. It showcased all the Eagle Scouts who have come through the ranks of Troop 530 here at West Town Christian Church. I was amazed when I saw that they had promoted Eagle Scouts every year, some 22 Eagle Scouts in all over the past 16 years. Some troops never promote an Eagle and some only occasionally. Whatever this troop is doing, they are doing something right. I have to suspect that they have some great leadership and dedicated scouts involved to make this such a successful programs. If I were a parent of a pre-teen son, I would definitely want to check this opportunity out. It could result in somebody’s resume going to the top of the stack someday.

colors

“For the body is not one member, but many.” 1 Corinthians 12:14

Our God, as revealed in nature, is a God of incredible powers of creativity and variety. And yet there is unity. I loved the Olympics for it calls forth people from every country of the globe and then shows us how much alike we are. And yet no two are exactly the same. We are as unique as snowflakes.

Even more so, the mystery of personality is a maze of fascinating twists and turns. Many have tried to give us a grid to help us understand ourselves and those around us. I would hesitate to ascribe to any of them in terms of absolute truth, but I find them intriguing and helpful in grasping just some of the complexity and diversity of the human psyche that invests us all. One of these is a system of four colors developed by Carolyn Kalil under the publishing name of True Colors. I would like to resort to this model as it lies at my fingertips and does a well enough job as any in portraying something of just how fearfully and wonderfully made we are.

I take this little side journey because there are bound to be times when you or your children will find themselves bonding in strong and familiar ways with certain teachers and not with others. If you ask every student to identify their favorite teacher, some names would crop up more than others, but there would never be 100% agreement. My point is simple. Students are not all created alike and neither are teachers. Because all students are not alike, we do not want all our teachers to be alike either.

Ms. Kalil categorizes personalities in four colors as being green, blue, orange, and gold. Gold people are typically first-born, dependable, responsible, loyal people who value order, tradition, and security. They love structure and are very driven by a sense of duty. If you need someone to organize your company or keep your books, you want one of these folk. Many of these people go on to become teachers and, as such, they value achievement, punctuality, exactness, hard work, and the tried and true method of the classroom lecture. They aggravate the rest of us with their insistence on correctness and detail.

Orange personalities, on the other hand, are spontaneous, daring, creative, entertaining, and skillful people for whom “adventure” is their middle name. These folk make great drama teachers, firemen, salespersons, and independent business owners. They will annoy us at times by their desire to test the limits, be the class clown, or with their impatience over routine tasks. But they make great leaders with their flair for creativity, finesse, and charisma. Orange teachers value physical activity, the unusual, cleverness, energy, creativity, and hands-on learning.

Blue personalities are relational people. They are sensitive to others and love authenticity and honesty. They love freely and want to be loved in return. They are compassionate, encouraging, vivacious, and affirming. We enjoy having these people in our lives because they make us feel good. They despise and flee from confrontation and conflict. The Blue teacher is a born nurturer, desires harmony and good feelings, success for everyone, likes cooperative learning and people-oriented concepts and activities. Many elementary teachers have a strong “Blue” streak because of their desire to be nurturers. But they can be annoying on a committee because they value good feelings above actual work or progress.

The Green personality is most complex and, perhaps, the most easily misunderstood. They love to analyze, take things apart, think in abstract terms, and use precise language. They often exude a calm and cool exterior as they seek after and solve complex problems. They make great scientists, inventors, and chess players. But they can be irritating in their questioning of assumptions, insistence upon perfection, or their detached presence. “Green” teachers value freedom of thought, ingenuity, independent mental activity, independent projects, and inquiry-discovery methods of instruction. Every board or company needs one of these folk to ask the hard questions nobody else thinks of or dares to bring up.

We conducted a sample self-test one year among our teachers and discovered that most were either gold or blue in regard to their predominant personality trait. If your child has a Gold personality, they will typically love being in class with a Gold teacher. If they are predominantly Blue, they will naturally gravitate to a Blue teacher. Not all students are gold or blue, however. We need the full spectrum of teachers to, at least one time in their lives, spark and give value to those personality traits waiting to come to life in your child.

That is why we value all of our teachers and the differences they bring in ministering to such a diverse body of students that you regularly contribute to us. If you have trouble “connecting” or even agreeing with the way a particular teacher does things, please remember that there are others out there who are probably loving it. Part of the school experience is to learn how different we all are and to develop both the patience needed to deal with other personality types and the appreciation of how they contribute to the life and diversity of the hive. All have value, all have strengths, all have weaknesses, and all are needed.

- Mr. Moe (a self confessed ‘green’ who has learned a lot by being married to a flaming ‘blue’ for 42 years)

Personal Finance

"And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." Psalm 1:3

First of all, let me assure you that the idea behind today’s article has little or nothing to do with anyone I have talked with in the past weeks or months. It was prompted long before any of you were late with a payment or found yourself in financial difficulty. I have been mulling this for a year now. CFC families are great but are still typical of any large representation in that they struggle periodically with the things that most people struggle with. Finance is just one of them.

We all have experienced lean times at some point in our lives. A whole world of reasons can put someone in that squeeze. Some are unavoidable. The bad news/good news, however, is that many situations are avoidable with proper planning and discipline. I may have lost some of you already at the mere mention of those words, “planning” and “discipline.” For those of you still with me, I will get that other nasty word out on the table right away as well: “budget.” Okay, that is about as painful as we are going to get. The rest is not near as shocking or dreadful.

We discovered the joy and freedom of budgeting quite a few years ago. Yes, there is a bright side to this discussion. The average person lives with a bogeyman in their closet. He is red with horns, has an awful grimace, and will steal everything not nailed down in a heartbeat if he gets out of the closet. His name is “Shortfall.” Every time the car breaks down unexpectedly, a doctor bill comes crashing in by surprise, or the heat pump dies, old “Shortfall” awakens with a vengeance, breaks into the room and raises pure havoc. When times are good, folks still live in the fear of old “Shortfall” and even small pleasures such as dinner and a movie can be laden with guilt and fear of our old nemesis. “What happens if tomorrow should bring a startling and sudden need for this $35 we are spending on our night out?” Anyone who has lived from paycheck to paycheck knows the fear of sudden reversals. It stalks even the purchasing of clothes or new shoes for the kids. The ever present question is, “Can we afford this?” to which there are no answers.

Budgeters, on the other hand, have a pretty good idea how to answer that question and keep “Shortfall” safely contained. They realistically and thoroughly know their income and expenses and have made a commitment to live within their means. It is always amazing how many folks with six figure incomes do not know either of these nor have they made that commitment. And old “Shortfall” continues to make their life miserable. Most of us, however, are instead tempted by the old excuse, “we don’t make enough money to be able to budget.” Whoever the folks are that feel that way are exactly the folks who have the most to gain by learning to budget. It was a wonderful feeling for us to know at Christmas time that we had $300 to spend because we had saved it and that all our other obligations were covered. Guilt free shopping. How much better does it get?

My prayer for all of us is that we will be that tree of blessing that prospers even in the midst of drought. I pray each family will have three months living expenses in the bank. I pray we will be able to give generously to the Kingdom out of our carefully husbanded resources and to our brother’s need. I pray we will be known as people who pay their bills on time and in full as a witness to God’s work in our lives. To learn how to do this, I urge you to consider attending a course in Financial Freedom. Taking even some simple steps towards financial freedom can change your life.

Total Depravity

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. - Psalms 51:5 NIV

Starting points are so important. And so we stand at yet another one. As much as we wish at times that time would stand still, that our children remain children, that their cuteness and innocence be preserved forever, they will continue to grow and press on to maturity. Each school year is a recognition of life and growth pushing us on into new territory where we have not been before. As you prepare to lay down another large stone in your children’s lives, I pray you may be at peace with that and that we all may be equal to the task. We are moving on. God help us. Amen.

Another starting point that matters in a huge way is our concept of human nature. We start from a viewpoint that says that all of us have sinned and have gone astray. There is none perfect, no not one. Romans tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We believe in the absolute necessity of regeneration by the Holy Spirit for Salvation because of the exceeding sinfulness of human nature. This comes straight from our statement of faith. It is known as the doctrine of total depravity; that man in his natural state is totally depraved. This language may be frightening but simply means that our natural bent, our original condition upon birth, is sinful. We are inclined from birth to selfishness, slothfulness, deceit, and defensiveness, among other things.

Our founding fathers, acting from a Christian consensus, believed this and so created a Constitution that did not entrust power to any one person or branch of government. This is the foundation of our system of checks and balances. The French Revolution fell sway to another way of thinking; that man in his natural condition was good, but that man’s weakness and corruption was due to society and all the damage it inflicted upon the young from birth. Rousseau and others popularized this viewpoint and attempted to build systems of government upon it. They failed. Ours is still here, though this optimistic viewpoint of the nature of man keeps returning in the wishful minds of people who are extremely uncomfortable with the whole concept of sin.

I spoke last week about the travails of our public school system. I believe what we are witnessing is an attempt to bring about a system that will produce upon command students that will learn, absorb, and graduate. Failure is not an option. It must be the system that is wrong: not the student or the home from which they came.

It has been said that never was there more evidence for any Christian doctrine than the natural depravity of man, but never was there a Christian doctrine that was more unpopular and despised. We love your children and think they are sweet, but we also believe that they will require training and discipline to develop the potential within them. Their natural bent is not to be studious or organized or even respectful of those who wish to teach them. This may be a dour perspective, but it is a huge advantage in beginning any educational adventure because it happens to coincide with reality. We enter this arena of struggle full knowing that it is an uphill fight from the start. In order to win it, we must be armed not only with God’s love which sees the potential in each life but also the rod of truth, the word of God, which is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit…a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb. 4:12). Add in the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit and you have a potent mix for success. Marshalling these, we have a great starting point for a great year.

Brave New World

I am also including a piece I have submitted to our local newspaper in response to a fellow who wants to legalize assisted suicide for the elderly. It might not make a whole lot of sense if you have not read his, but I include it at no extra charge. Feel free to respond anytime. Thankfully, your rotten tomatoes cannot travel through cyberspace.....

Al Westerfield is not alone, unfortunately, among those who in a fit of Brave New World mentality propose suicide as a surefire cure for the ills of old age. No, there are no laws against suicide. Prosecution poses serious problems. And suicide certainly meets all the criterion of purely utilitarian reasoning. I have a great book for those who are enthralled with such thinking entitled The Nazi Conscience by Claudia Koonz. It details all sorts of utilitarian solutions for social ills, all imposed with great ulterior aims and braced by philosophic arguments of the highest order.

Anyone making a case for legalizing suicide must first dismiss the antiquated values of the Christian faith. Westerfield does this, as many before him, by hiding behind the flimsy veil of the doctrine of “separation of church and state.” No one, we are told, should be allowed to impose their religious beliefs on all. In one fell swoop, he dismisses all Christians from participating in the Democratic process because they are tainted with religious belief. Effectively disenfranchised, we evidently should be content with allowing only atheists and agnostics to form the laws of our nation. However, slavery could very well still exist if it were not for the abolitionists who led the fight to impose their Christian morality upon the South.

The idea of legalizing assisted suicide seems so innocuous when confined to discussions of the terminally ill. This animal does not observe nice fences, however, and quickly invades the body politic creating all sorts of malicious mischief. Eager heirs are always standing ready to jump the gun. The medical profession can easily be corrupted to make decisions of life and death based upon the bottom line. Our culture can soon be seduced to evaluate life in terms of “meaningfulness” versus “cost to society.” It is a slippery slope leading back to the Spartan culture of old where babies were inspected upon birth and the weak thrown off cliffs.

Most insinuating of all, this talk of the “nobility of suicide” becomes a black hole that sucks those suffering from depression, no matter what age or medical condition, into its irreversible grasp. I have lost three friends to suicide already. Only one was suffering a terminal illness. Depression is a disease of worthlessness, a feeling that one is a burden to family, friends, and society. I am glad my 93 year old mother did not read Mr. Westerfield’s article. She is making a valiant effort to cling to her dignity and sense of worth through her declining days. The last thing she needs is a voice telling her to end it and save us all a lot of trouble. How cruel.

Assisted suicide and the mentality supporting it puts man in the role of playing God. That is a burden no man was meant to bear. We aren’t doing all that well at running a County Commission let alone take on the task of deciding who is meant to die and when.

holy ground

"And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” 2 Kings 6:16

The servant of Elisha scaled the wall of Jerusalem to look out upon the armies surrounding them and was afraid. He saw everything that you and I would have seen that day: an opposing and powerful foe with a lock on the situation. Elisha prayed that this servant would get a glimpse into the spiritual world that we do not normally see. That prayer was answered, and he saw still another army encircling the first that filled the mountains round about with horses and chariots of fire. Fear of the enemy turned to pity for the enemy who unknowingly stood in the grip of the God of the universe.

We have traveled through another school year together. Together, we have experienced joys and sorrows, triumph and travail, laughter and some tears. The joy is not to be overlooked but celebrated, cherished, as one who finds a polished stone or a lost coin. It is a rejoicing that we share together as one person’s joy should lift all our hearts. The pain that some of you bear and have borne is also something that we must equally share as we sojourn along in common paths. It is my distinct honor to have known some of the suffering that many families have experienced this year. I have felt the load you carry, seen the worry in your eyes, and heard the strain in your voice. And yet, you go on in faith and confidence that this is the right course and that there is a God in heaven who knows and sees and has you in His view.

I have scaled the walls of our limited vision with you, and as we look out, there is cause for uncertainty and even fear. But even though there are many obstacles ringed about us, we must press through with eyes of faith to see the bigger picture. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” is the heartbeat of our God toward us. He is there in the midst of all our besieging problems with spiritual forces that out weigh and out number anything our enemy is able to throw against us. And not just with token sentiments or wishful thinking. We are talking “chariots of fire” stuff here. He “is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” His power is unlimited. How easily we forget that.

We still walk through valleys, however, experience pain, and suffer loss. It is our lot. But even in this, we somehow walk away the winners. I was struck by a phrase used to describe Franklin Roosevelt’s political comeback after several very dark years where he fought the crippling effects of polio with everything he had. It is said he returned to the political scene “cleansed, purified, and illumined” by the pain he had experienced. He re-emerged into the world of politics with a depth to his character that was not there before. I pray that all of us can embrace our trials as something that will cleanse our souls from the stains of this world’s tripe that would otherwise rock us so gently to sleep in ease and comfort. We, too, can rise stronger and lift up a life message that will honor our God with a banner of wisdom and truth and light the way for others to follow.

It has been my privilege to experience the reality of God’s presence as I have seen it through your lives this year. Thank you. I admit, it is a bit of an unusual postscript to write – “thanks for sharing your pain.” Yet it is the memory which burns clearest as we call this year to a close. I trust we will all be faithful to lift up one another’s arms as we go through times of spiritual warfare together. And may we receive occasional glimpses into the realm of the spiritual to see the other reality swirling around us everyday. We have walked and do continue to walk … on holy ground.

young stories

Barbara Walters has a new book out entitled, Audition; a story of her life. In it she makes one statement about her famous interviews over the years that reveal one of her strategies. She always makes it a point to inquire about the subject’s childhood for she feels that much of our life is shaped by our young and growing up years. For herself, she tells how she was raised in a somewhat dysfunctional home where her parents’ marriage was weak and, at one point, extremely tenuous. Her father was seldom home due to a successful career managing nightclubs that sometimes brought her into contact with the rich and famous. She had a special-needs older sister for whom she felt a keen responsibility. She developed some negotiating skills just holding this family together. It was not an easy life as one might suspect.

I’ve been reading a book, Makers of the Modern World, by Louis Untermeyer, which fills in some short periods of solitude with quick reads regarding the various movers and shakers of our modern age from Herman Melville to Karl Marx to Mary Baker Eddy. I find that it is richly informing the way I view these famous personages.

Melville suffered a traumatic change of familial circumstances around age 11 when his father’s business failed. Never recovering from this reverse, the father became physically and mentally ill eventually dying of a stroke while in his forties. Herman struggled to finish school, tried his hand at teaching, and finally signed up as a cabin boy at age 20 on a ship headed for Liverpool. It was here that he became enthralled and repelled by a life at sea. Another trip in 1841 took him on board a whaling ship which he later declared to be his Yale College and his Harvard. Jumping ship at a tropical waypoint, he lived among cannibals for a while until escaping to another whaling ship, suffered through a full mutiny, and ended up joining the U.S. Navy. At age 25, he finally headed home to live with his mother and began to write. At age 31, he began his masterpiece, Moby Dick, and went on to live a life of relative obscurity, financial hardship, and general unhappiness.

Walt Whitman was the 2nd of nine children born to a country carpenter and illiterate mother, a family distinguished only in fruitlessness. His schooling was over at age 11 and at age 12, he was a printer’s apprentice and soon migrated into newspaper work. His early writing was described as “turgid” and “lurid” and his poetry even worse. He turned out hackwork and bounced around from job to job. Finally, at age 35, his experimentations with free verse took root, and he came out with his first version of “Leaves of Grass.” He cultivated a new image of the common man and battled poor reviews with his own self-promotion. Critics called his poetry a “mass of bombast, egotism, vulgarity, and nonsense.” They equated him with “some escaped lunatic raving in pitiable delirium.” Whitman redeemed his image through service as a nurse during the civil war, but soon fell into old age riddled by poverty and illness; living out his last days in a dingy room next to a railway crossing, kept alive by the charity of others.

These stories make me want to go back and pick up their writings and read them through entirely new lenses. Everyone has a story, and it has in large part shaped the person they have become. I rejoice at the happy childhoods I see around me everyday for these will be the solid ones when others are losing their way. Take time to share your story with them so that they, too, will see you as more than just “mom” and just “dad.” It will bond them closer to you and help them understand much for knowing your journey.

Expelled

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Ps. 139:14 NIV

Who are the dangerous ones, believers or unbelievers? This was just one of the questions explored on screen in the new movie released this last week, “Expelled,” with Ben Stein. It is not a movie for everybody. No crashing helicopters, no daredevil exploits by daring stuntmen, no chase scenes, or glamorous Hollywood starlets. But, if you are one of those odd few who like the chase of ideas presented in graphic first person interviews with some of the most brilliant minds of our time, this is your movie; this is your Indiana Jones equivalent thriller. “Expelled” is a documentary laced with comic relief supplied by entertaining footage from dozens of old films, both historical and dramatic. Ben Stein, a tantalizingly dead-panned provocateur, dares to tread where no man has gone before. He takes on the challenge of the evolutionary establishment who presently have a choke hold on all the positions of power within academia. It should be required viewing for every pre-college, Christian student.

The over riding issue is freedom. Is there any room for divergent thinking within the realm of science to any other explanation of origins? The evidence he mounts has got to be embarrassing for he brings before the world the plain spoken words of the proponents of materialistic evolution from their own mouths. He gives more than ample time for the prestigious representatives of Darwinian thinking to spill their hard bitten prejudice against any and all who would dare question the sanctity of standard evolutionary dogma. The enemy is not simply any Christian or creationist, for whom they reserve their greatest scorn, but also against any who would argue a case for intelligent design, even from a non-theistic base.

Ben Stein takes one on a journey as he explores the avenues of his questioning down some very significant paths. Who are the dangerous ones? Many secular thinkers classify religion as the source of the greatest danger to world peace. Yet, Stein takes one on a trip through the history of eugenics built squarely upon evolutionary thinking. His visit to the edifices of Nazi-ism were especially haunting. As he listens to a guide explain the workings of a Nazi hospital where the weak and handicapped were routinely executed, he asks the guide, “So what would you say to the Nazi doctor in charge of this hospital if you could?” Her ready answers came to a screeching halt as she could offer nothing, no pronouncement, no judgment, no warning, no rebuke. Her speechlessness made me gasp. It was postmodernism at its naked worst.

This helped frame the whole question as to what is at stake in this war of ideology. If the origin of life is pure chance, all morality is capricious choice. Human freedom is a myth. Purpose is made void. Death is final. Man is not special. These implications were brought forth in clear relief even by an unbeliever. But most of all, the integrity of science itself is forfeit if it becomes prisoner to a particular world view. And apparently, this is what has happened. Materialistic evolution has become the mantra of the establishment because of a secular world view that finds life without God quite liberating.

The Achilles heel of evolutionary thinking, however, is found within the realm of science itself. If a single, self-replicating cell, known as the foundation of life, was understood in Darwin’s day as complicated as an automobile, scientists now know that it is as complicated as a Saturn V rocket or even a galaxy by comparison. The DNA of a single cell contains so much information that chance is no longer a viable explanation. God has imprinted enough mystery in nature to confound the wise even into our time.

anybody listening?

But if I say, "I will not mention him or speak any more in his name," his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. Jer. 20:9 NIV

Have you ever wondered if anyone is listening? Teachers suffer this trauma on a regular basis but manage to put it out of their minds or else they will all become used car salesmen. Parents have to wonder, as well, when simple tasks that should be automatic go undone by their children. Wives know for a fact that husbands cannot recall a thing said over breakfast but that they can recall Roberto Clemente’s life-time batting average. Men would not notice if their male counterparts wore the same shirt 5 days in a row, which is comforting if you are a man. But it is maddening if you are a woman who labors over her choice of a daily outfit only to be totally ignored.

The truth is that someone is always listening, always observing. We have so little clue as to who that is and what gems are being stored away in another’s hard drive of memory. I post a Scripture verse out front most every morning and have wondered if anyone ever reads them. The other day, Mary C------ walked in the front door and made reference to the daily Scripture verse and knocked me off balance by saying, “I read those every day.” I felt as if I had been thoroughly and soundly rebuked!

A wedding invitation came in the mail the other day from a student I had ten years ago in a Bible class during a year of teaching that was permeated from start to finish with spiritual struggle that left me utterly drained. I have put much of that time out of my memory because of the daily fight to keep the plow in the ground and my eyes straight ahead. Doubts flooded over me regarding my ability, my calling, and my message. There were some good times, but the bad times are always more livid in our memories. Anyhow, I felt somewhat awed that I was even remembered with an invitation from a student way back then, but also, there was the scrawled note in the corner: “I can’t believe it’s been 10 years. I still have fond memories of playing guitar with you in Bible class (we sang Scripture songs). Thank you for teaching us God’s truth and striving to prepare us for the real world of ‘not-so-Christian world views.’ I will never forget you. It would be great to see you in May.” A ghost out of Christmas past would not have had any less effect upon me as those few lines. My Scrooge-like memories lost their hard-bitten edge as I was transformed by the thought, “Yes, somebody was listening.” But from there, it is one small step to reflect upon the notion that if my “widow’s mite” worth of witness touched another soul, then how much more could I have done or should have I done with the time and opportunity that were granted?

Once when I was working for TVA, a fellow employee relayed to me how someone else thought I was a bit crazy. I wonder that about myself quite often so I was quite ready to hear additional evidence. Instead, the explanation left me both pleased and scared. It appeared that one of my fellow workers was standing in line behind me in a hardware store as I made a few small purchases. Among those items were some small flashlight bulbs. His conclusion was simple. I must be ‘nuts,’ for anybody could simply walk away from TVA with all the flashlight bulbs they would ever need or want. Why would anyone go out and buy them? That episode haunts me to this day. Someone was watching. They caught me in a good deed for which I was thankful. How many have watched me when I was less than at my Christian best?

Yes, Virginia, there is someone listening, watching, observing. The reminders may be few and far between, but they are there. Our duty is to be faithful regardless of the crowd, the recognition, the response, or those spells of dull and defeating silence. Even a little light defeats darkness. Nay, pierces it.

comparisons

“See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.”- Isaiah 49:16 NIV

We are in the midst of interviewing new families enrolling students for next year. It is one of the joys of my job to sit and get to know so many interesting people, each with their own unique story to tell. I glance over their applications and can form a mini-judgment before I even see them. Then we meet, and I usually have to discard those expectations as I see someone totally different walk through the door. Even my first impressions upon meeting are often thoroughly shaken by listening to their life stories unfold.

I am learning again and again not to judge a book by its cover. How often it is that I see someone I think worthy to admire, yea, even envy, in terms of their personal polish, achievement, position, marriage, and wealth. And then I learn of great personal burdens they bear or great pain they have experienced. There goes that picture perfect family. I have come to wonder if there is such a thing. Just when I think I have met the Ozzie and Harriet ideal,* someone loses a job or a close loved one, is struck with a debilitating illness, or faces other untold catastrophes. I have seen just about everything so far here at CFC.

Apart from learning caution in making judgments, what do I take from this? For one thing, I surely do not ever dare envy anyone ever again. I have lived a relatively simple and obscure life up to this point. Very few have ever been able to pronounce my name let alone be impressed by it. Financial security was never a “given.” Our first couch came after 4 years of marriage, cost $10, and had a good sized cigarette burn hole in the middle. We never had to worry about our children’s eligibility for “gifted” classes, but all made us proud, eventually. Both of us contend that the other got the worst of the bargain in marrying into families of class and status. I have never been voted “most popular,” “mister personality,” “most handsome,” or “most valuable player” of any group, class, or team. I was always picked last in sports and had a lock on right field when I could get it. I felt trapped in dead-end jobs most of my life where recognition was a finite and rare commodity. Yet, I now know that I have been blessed beyond all measure and would not trade this hum-drum life with anyone.

When tempted to compare lives, I look around and see that none of the precious fences of status, accomplishment, privilege, or wealth have ever been able to keep out random agony or tragedy. The first high school classmate of mine to die was a relatively ordinary girl who had metamorphasized into a college homecoming queen. Stalked by a madman, she was shot five times at close range as she sat with friends in the student union. My boyhood friend parlayed a piece of fairly worthless property into a million dollar windfall, surely the envy of many who did not know him. Stricken with cancer, he took his own life within weeks of the sale. And if ever I really get to feeling sorry for myself, I think of my cousin, Eugene Nordmoe, whose young life was ended by a Japanese bullet before he ever got off the landing craft at Iwo Jima.

These are the extreme cases, but nevertheless, they are potent reminders of how precious and blessed is my mundane and average existence. Discussing the highs and lows of the life of Chistopher Reeves this last week with one of our 7th graders, I posed the question: “Which would you rather be: someone who was stage-beautiful, a celebrated film star, rich, well married, but paralyzed at 43 and dead by 52? Or to be a completely unknown, relatively poor person living an ordinary life well into old age?” She chose the latter. I could have saved myself a lot of morose introspection had I come to that conclusion at her age.

Work

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him;” Genesis 1:27

Occasionally I will entertain myself by imagining odd uses for everyday implements. What would it be like to use an axe as a fly swatter, a tooth brush as a weed wacker, or a golf club for a windshield wiper? You get the idea: the more ridiculous, the greater the entertainment value. All these tools and implements that surround us and infest our closets and garages have specific tasks for which they are designed. And when we misapply them to inappropriate tasks, such as using a lawnmower as a hedge trimmer, we get in serious trouble or look awfully ridiculous at the very least.

Is it fair to think for a minute as to what we were designed for? Christians everywhere ascribe to the simple statement of faith that we are made in the image of God. That should give us some major clues as to what end we are intended. The first thing we learn about God is that in the beginning He created. No doubt about it. Our God is a creative God. A fresh look about us should be sufficient proof for anyone. From the ant to the elephant, we are surrounded by creatures that defy the imaginations of generations of the most gifted of artists or engineers to ever contemplate designing or building, even if they could do such a thing. Bees that turn pollen into honey, creatures (fish) who thrive only under water, and giraffes who seem almost made for the fun of it; all fill us with a sense of wonder, each in their own right. If that is not enough, just look at humankind. Each of us are so alike that modern medicine works consistently well around the world and yet each of us are so different as to make individual identification a fairly simple process. Identical twins are all the more marvelous because of their rarity yet their own mothers quickly become quite adept in telling them apart.

If we are made in the image of God, we are meant to be creative beings as well. God’s handiwork is a hard act to follow, but each of us, in our own unique way, I believe, is wired with an inbuilt need to be a creative being. Look at children. We dare not even think of locking them in a bare room with nothing to do, like cattle in a stall. Even they, as soon as they can crawl and walk, desperately need something to do with their hands and minds, and so we give them toys, books, and balls. Punishment in our society is to confine children to corners or to their rooms while adults are sent to jail cells. Each of these prohibit freedom of choice, movement, and action which we find horrendous. Animals are often treated this way every day and yet very few suffer any ill effects. But fiction and history are rich in stories of men and women who find themselves locked in cells and dungeons who manage to find creative things to do with their minds in a desperate effort to keep their sanity.

Creativity comes in many forms. We tend to think of creativity only in terms of the arts. I insist that it is much broader than that. To be creative is to be productive. Even the assembly line worker can take pride in a pile of any number of widgets created at days end. Plumbers, auto mechanics, coaches, tailors, housewives, all have one thing in common with the artist: they bring, or create, order out of chaos. God moved upon the face of an earth that was without form and void replacing chaos with order and beauty.

We, too, are meant for that end: to bring order out of chaos, to be productive. To seek a life of lottery-winning ease, to become enthralled by our culture of entertainment, to shun work at any opportunity is to thwart the very nature of our created being. It is to use the axe as a fly swatter, etc. Something will come out damaged in the process for sure. Work is our friend; idleness our enemy.

Manchester

“When I was my father’s son,…he also taught me, and said to me…” –Pro. 4:3-4

One of my 25 cent books from the Friends of the Library sale grabbed my attention and imagination last week and ended up to be an engrossing read. Goodbye, Darkness is a memoir of the Pacific campaign during WWII by William Manchester, an author I had grown to admire for his biography of Douglas MacArthur. In the 1970’s, Manchester revisited the places he had gone ashore in battle against the Japanese as a young Marine. It was on Tarawa, known to many as “Terrible Tarawa,” that he pondered as to where the courage, dedication, and steely discipline came from as he recounted how wave after wave of U.S.Marines suffered terrible casualties in taking that small but well fortified island. His conclusions staggered me especially as they came from a man who was not naturally inclined to patriotic flag waving or righteous grandstanding.

He had to admit that the America of WWII was different from that of today, and there was no way of understanding the way its sons threw down their lives so willingly and almost carelessly without understanding the culture of that time. He describes the United States of pre-WWII as a tightly disciplined society with rigid standards and where “counterculture” did not exist as either a word or a concept. And here is the lengthy quote which came so unexpectedly:

“The bastion of social stability was the family. Children were guided, not by radar beams picking up trends and directions from other children, but by gyroscopes built into their superegos at home. Parents had a tremendous influence on them. If adolescents wanted to read pulp magazines, or smoke, or listen to Ben Bernie or the Lucky Strike Hit Parade on the radio, they needed parental permission; if they wanted to see ‘The Philadelphia Story,’ their fathers decided whether or not it would be bad for their morals; if they made money shoveling snow or cutting lawns, their fathers, again, told them whether they should save it for college, or, if it was to be spent, what they could buy. There was no teenage ethos; indeed ‘teenage’ meant ‘brushwood used for fences and hedges.’ Young people were called ‘youngsters,’ and since the brooding omnipotence of the peer group had not yet arrived, children rarely felt any conflict between their friends and their families. No youngster would dream of discussing familial conflicts with other youngsters. An insult to either parent had to be avenged. …Fathers had always ruled like sultans, but the Depression had increased all family activities over which patresfamilias reigned; a study of over a hundred families in Pittsburgh discovered that a majority had increased family recreation – Ping Pong, jigsaw puzzles, checkers, bridge, and parlor games, notably Monopoly. There was also plenty of time for the householders, the doughboys of 1918, to explain to their sons the indissoluble relationship between virility and valor.” (p. 247, copyright 1979; Little, Brown & Co.)

There; a long quote but one which so many of you should find encouraging. I see you doing these very things today; instilling those “gyroscopes,” attempting to shield your children from the “brooding omnipotence” of modern teen culture, instilling “absolute” notions of truth and morality, and keeping your families together at all costs. Some of you may have thought you were alone and bordering on the bizarre. Take heart. You stand in the grand tradition of those who raised what Tom Brokaw has labeled “The Greatest Generation.” I grow increasingly impressed with what those young men did who pushed back the forces of evil in WWII at such great expense. I have high hopes for our young people, as well, in standing against the Evil One who comes to kill, to steal, and to destroy. Keep up your good work.

Spring Break

The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. - Job 33:4

So what did you do with your Spring Break, Mr. Moe? The gift of several days free time is an awesome gift that brings with it awesome responsibility. I cannot help but judge myself for how well I spend such free time. I have wasted enough of it to know that doing so leaves me feeling empty, spent, angry, and cheated all at the same time. “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of,” so says the old American sage, Ben Franklin.

Some of my time was commandeered by forces outside of my control. There were daily visits to the hospital as my mom struggled through some surgery. I dare not bear resentment over the constraints of obligations bearing upon my time for no man is an island unto himself. Only the totally self-consumed are so and condemn themselves to shriveling souls that hoard their time like secret gold. And so, there were still duties to perform which tested whether or not I viewed my time as strictly my own. Any and all vacations should start there: a living gift placed upon the altar and precious all the more when it is given back in whole or part. There is nothing like gratitude to awaken the senses.

With the remainder (and there was plenty), I purposely set about to give refreshment to body, soul, and spirit for each have needs unique unto their own. For the body, I elected replanting a number of dead shrubs about the house and mulching them accordingly. Not very glamorous, I admit, yet there is a certain amount of satisfaction from turning the earth, restoring nature, and pure common labor. It did please others and could have been considered one of the above obligations, yet my body felt refreshed from working it so, and I rejoiced for having the strength to accomplish these mundane tasks. Later in the week, I broke free of all obligations and hiked up the Rich Mountain Loop Trail above Cades Cove. My lungs and legs strained under the load of pack and winter fat as I slowly climbed the miles up to a lofty campsite. My spirit was refreshed as well by luxuriously lunching while laying in a bed of leaves with my face to the warming sun. No expensive restaurant was ever so rich as that hillside spot in a quiet wood. And then to sit around a dying fire while the moon rose to bathe our little company in its magic light was pure joy.

For the soul, my wife and I indulged ourselves in some hours of kid-in-the-candy-shop pure fun at the Friends of the Library Book Sale. It was the last day and books were going for $5 a box. We poured over hundreds and hundreds of books rejoicing each time we found a “keeper.” We finally left with five boxfuls feeling like lottery winners. The joy continues as we have been able to delve into our new treasures and feed upon stories taking us to far places and times and consider whole new worlds of ideas.

It is hard to tell where the soul ends and the spirit begins. Some would laugh and say it foolish to think them different. Of little matter, I guess, but the Easter Season enriched my break as indeed it always used to before our calendar keepers turned so secular. A special Maundy Thursday service left us reeling from the beauty of such sweet sacrifice. And this, followed by the smashing power of the resurrection. Rich!

There were other things too, a couple of movies, catching up on correspondence and bills, a couple of lazy morning breakfasts, some family dinner parties, several good bike rides, three birthdays, sadly a couple of funerals, a car washing, the stopping of a leaky faucet, and lunch with some friends. In the end, no regrets; no looking back on wasted days. I take it as the proof of loving life; most satisfactory.

hike report 3/24/08

Hate to put it to you this way but you missed it.

Friend Caleb and I ventured up the Rich Mountain Loop Trail on Friday amidst glorious sunshine and balmy temperatures. There was sufficient exercise going the long way to #6 campsite and plenty of views of both Cades and Tuckaleechy (sp) Coves. We got in early enough to do some reading before dinner. Plenty of firewood and also some good company from Georgia. Some folks on the trail just shy of the campsite said a bobcat had just crossed the trail scowling at them. A pair of does wandered our campsite in the morning looking for salty tidbits. The night sky was gorgeous with a full moon bathing our site. Air was breezy but warm through the night. Sat. was perfection with warm and sunny weather all the way home. Only bummer was that the Lazy Daze Campground ice cream machine is not up and running until Apr. 15.

This trip was about next to perfection as it gets.

Hope to see you next trip.

Poisonous Roots

If there was one thing that Francis Schaeffer tried to teach us, it was that ideas have consequences. It was a short step from Rousseau’s desire to follow nature to the Marquis de Sade and his treatment of women because nature had made men the stronger of the sexes. After Darwin burst his idea of survival of the fittest upon the world, many quickly bent it to their purposes and thereby justified all sorts of inhuman treatment of their fellow man. And when one convinces himself that he speaks for the proletariat, the suppressed masses of the world, no crime becomes unthinkable.

Schaeffer was quixotically tilting against powerful windmills, however, for his message matured just as the West was in the process of dumping the very idea that truth existed in a relativistic, post-modern fit of righteous self-cleansing. Tolerance replaced truth as the supreme virtue. All would have lived happily ever after except for the inconvenient truth of 9-11. We were rudely shown that there are still some very powerful and dangerous ideas running amok out there for which many would gladly sacrifice their lives in balls of flaming death falling from the skies.

It should be no surprise that our leaders and the elite of our society seem powerless and ill-equipped to deal with this threat. They were raised on the pabulum of tolerance as virtue and can’t understand why all men of reason do not respond in kind. But fight they must, and so they have committed us to a war of weapons and treasure with some lip service given to freedom and democracy. But we are up against a people that are interested in neither freedom nor democracy. There is not enough money to buy them nor can we force them to be free, a very un-democratic action, indeed.

There is a missing component in this war, and it is that of ideology. Compare our behavior in Iraq with that of our forces in Japan at the end of WWII. Gen. MacArthur entered Japan with near dictatorial powers and with a clear vision for going down in history not as a great general but as someone who brought “the solace and hope and faith of Christian morals” to the land of a vanquished foe. Japan was a tradition-directed culture where the individual was subsumed into a collective mindset not seen in the West since the middle ages. The Emperor was divine, women were inferior beings, peasants were sharecroppers shackled to the land, and Shintoism promoted martial virtues and the inferiority of other races. There were no civil rights or liberties and power was wielded by the gumbatsu (militarists) and the zaibatsu (11 industrial families). Japan was a totalitarian society more akin to ancient Sparta than any modern nation.

MacArthur suspended the Emperor’s functions, brought freedom of the press, instituted civil liberties, released all political prisoners, demanded women’s suffrage, and informed the public of Japan’s war crimes. Most importantly, he sought to turn their idolatry for the warrior class into hatred and contempt by removing all militaristic propaganda from school textbooks. He established academic freedom, forbid all discrimination, and opened schools to women. In a new constitution he virtually dictated, the armed forces were abolished and war was renounced as a sovereign right of the nation. Dozens of other drastic changes were made, far too many to mention here.

As a result of his cultural meddling, the national income surpassed pre-war levels in just 5 years, 90% of land ended up in the hands of people who farmed it, cholera was wiped out, and the life expectancy of men increased by 8 years and women 14 years. Most importantly, the Shinto, militaristic, and totalitarian mindset disappeared. Eight years after VJ Day, Theodor Geisel (“Dr. Seuss”) visited Japan and conducted an extensive survey of Japanese children who were encouraged to draw pictures of what they wanted to become. Every profession was noted from doctors to wrestlers, but only one child drew a soldier. And he wanted to become a MacArthur.

Contrast this to our war in Iraq which targets Al Qaeda fighters but not the philosophy and mentality that propels them. For every one we kill, there may be two or three willing to take their place. Our troops have to wind their way through dangerous streets while mosque loudspeakers boom forth anti-American tirades over the heads of those sent there to protect them. We dare not enter a mosque where they are busy inculcating another generation with the poison of anti-Israel venom and Arab imperialism through Jihad. Terrorism is not a deviant of misplaced Islamic fundamentalism. It is part and parcel of Jihad which is clearly understood in the Arab world as holy war, not an internal struggle.

While Christianity suffered from the hands of extremists in the middle-ages, witch burning and the inquisition were doomed from the start because they were so against the grain of Christ’s teaching. These practices pale against the crimes of Jihad today which sanctions the killing of infidels and glorifies the assassins with sainthood: all this very clearly consistent with the teachings and practices of Islam’s first and greatest prophet.

The main goal of much of Arab education is to instill a rabid commitment to destroy Israel. Everything from nursery rhymes to textbooks teaches children about Jews being pigs, dogs, and devils out to steal their land. “May God bless us with shahada (martyrdom)” is their prayer. A totalitarian control grips their lives with fear used to direct blind vengeance against the Jew and the forces of modernism that come from the West. The Muslim faith is assured through fear, shame, intimidation, imprisonment, or death. Women lead second class lives, fatalism is endemic to the culture, personal responsibility is a foreign concept, and lying to protect family or culture from outsiders is considered a virtue. Preserving family honor is more important than happiness or a healthy life. Hate speech pervades Arab TV and the mosques. Contrary to common perception, Islamic radicalism is not a product of ignorance and poverty even though Arab lands boast some of the highest illiteracy rates in the world. The majority of the radicals are coming out of the upper classes and medical schools. These zealots are simply acting out what they have been taught from childhood: kill infidels, Americans, Jews, and Christians and gain the rewards and honors for those who die in Jihad.

Unfortunately, our state department does not want to get involved in ideological warfare. They have been educated in America where we do not want to make judgments involving cultures or religions. Our president has called Islam a “religion of peace” and said that he worships the same god as they; two statements which are greeted with incredulous unbelief in the Arab world as hopelessly naive. But in this wishful thinking, he is well at home among the campuses of America where non-judgmental relativism reigns.

We are caught on the horns of a terrible dilemma. We have engaged the most radical believers of Islam in armed conflict but do not have the heart or conviction to tell them that they embrace a false and horribly self-destructive world view. Without curing the cause, we are condemned to continue the conflict with no end in sight. As someone has said, “We have the means to destroy them but not the will. They have the will to destroy us but not the means.” The possession of those means, however, is only a matter of time.

The answer is not to destroy them first. We can, however, address the cultural imbalance that exists between us and the Arab world. We can demand access for access, freedom for freedom as the price of doing business with the Western world. We grant them religious freedom here. It should be matched by equal freedom within their nations. My friends can’t even take their personal Bibles with them when traveling to Saudi Arabia. For every mosque built in America, they need to permit the building of churches in Mecca and around the Arab world. If American wealth and blood are being spilt to renew Afghanistan, we should insist that they guarantee Christian believers the right to life and limb and make freedom of religion a foundation of their law.

Secondly, we need to challenge Islamic clerics and intellectuals to save Islam through reform. They will either reform it or risk starting WWIII. The Jihad needs to be renounced for the relic of the middle-ages that it is. On that point of belief we could easily discover who our friends are in the Islamic world. Without that renunciation, we face an intransigent foe. If Islam is the religion of peace promoting understanding as many of them say, it needs to be taught to their own children. That is the proof we need.

MacArthur realized we needed to change Japanese culture from the ground up and the ideas it was built upon; not just defeat them in battle. Without that change, the death dealing pilots of 9-11 could just as well have been the descendants of the kamikaze suicide bombers of old. Ideas do have consequences.


Sources: American Caesar, William Manchester, Little, Brown and Co, 1978.
Now They Call Me Infidel, Nonie Darwish, Sentinel, The Penguin Group, 2006.

Prosperity

"By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life.” –Pro. 22:4

Last week I left you with a question to ponder: what does the inclination of humans to forget God in the midst of prosperity have to do with families and children? One answer can be found in a book entitled, The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids (HarperCollins) written by Madeline Levine, a practicing psychologist in Northern California. Her target study group were families enjoying 6 figure incomes, but what she learned is applicable to all. She discovered that: a) 30 to 40 % of affluent teens experience significant emotional problems (3 times the national average), b) depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse and psychosomatic disorders are higher among affluent teens than among teens in any other socioeconomic group, and c) affluent kids feel less close to their parents than any other group of teens. Levine concluded that these parents are trying to fill their children with the wrong things – material goods, super achievement, worldly success, and status. At the same time, the importance of values, character, unconditional love, and a work ethic are neglected or short-changed.

Betsy Hart, who reviewed the book (News-Sent. 1-26-08), argues that “too many of our kids have been abandoned to a secular culture and have little or no transcendent spiritual values being imparted to them.”Both highlight the need for balancing the need for academic achievement with the experience of success and satisfaction that comes from being a contributing member of the family group and acquiring a strong work ethic. The inference is that instead of a steady diet of soccer, violin lessons, ballet, and little league all on top of honor-roll level homework, there should first be a substantial portion of taking out the garbage, digging flower beds, washing dogs, vacuuming under furniture, and mowing lawns. From these things, they learn the value of good deeds, the ability to cooperate and be a contributing member of a group, and the accumulation of daily living skills.

There was a day when I did not look so kindly on those ideals. My experience growing up on a farm included any number of daily chores many of which I found highly odious. But we knew that our living was directly tied to the strength of Dad’s back and Mom’s arms. To not assist them would be nothing short of criminal. And when the barn was filled with hay at the end of a summer and when the corn cribs bulged, there was a sense of pride, satisfaction, and security that touched even my often dulled, teen-aged mind. I also learned how adversity could be overcome every time the decrepit old, family hay-baler broke down in the middle of the field. Dad found a way to fix it even if it took the rest of the day and several trips to town. We learned to endure adversity when the market prices plummeted. And we learned to share the joys of fresh strawberries in season topped with mountains of whipped cream from the milk of our own cow, the same cow I herded up from the fields every day after school.

I am always thrilled when I see our CFC families working together as teams, where each child lends a hand in some capacity or another. It is a valuable part of their education. Levine backs you up on this but also stresses letting kids work through frustrations and adversity instead of us constantly solving all their problems for them. Add to this a lesson in letting them know that parents have needs, too. But above all, love the kids you have, not the ones you are trying to create. In so doing, we can avoid the traps created by excessive prosperity. No, affluent kids do not have it all. And we certainly do not need to emulate their dysfunctions. Work, teamwork, affection, life skills, adversity, and eternal values are time tested ways to remove the poison from the prosperity in which we stand knee-deep.

Haiti

“I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, ‘I will not listen.’” –Jer. 22:21

Several weeks ago, a riveting photo was run in the newspaper of Haitian women making mud cookies for their hungry children. Scarcity and inflation were pushing these poor to turn to a mixture of mud, salt, and vegetable oil, baked on a hot roof, to satiate the hunger of themselves and their little ones. I cringed with that photo burned in my mind as I stood and scraped leftover food into the garbage can after our Wed. night church dinner. The disparity between our two countries is beyond belief. How can this happen? I think the more appropriate question is, “How did this happen?”

Anyone at all familiar with the history of Haiti knows of its dance with satanic voodooism. When the sugar plantation slaves rose up in rebellion against the French, the rebels actually met and made a pact with the devil telling their dark lord that their new country would serve him for two hundred years if he would help them throw off the French yoke. They were successful, and the French sailed off leaving them to their ways. Cultural anthropologists tell us that if you want to know what Africa looked like 200 years ago, travel to Haiti, not Africa. They have preserved all the raw and primitive practices of that formerly “dark” continent.

Jeremiah says that those who turn away from the Lord will be like a bush in the desert and will not see prosperity. Their dwelling place will be a stony waste and a land of salt (Jeremiah 17:5-8). If that is true, Haiti is exhibit “A” with the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children, generation after generation. They stand in marked contrast with the other half of their same island, the Dominican Republic which boasts a decent standard of living by comparison and a modern economy. I am convinced that Christian values and morality bring prosperity in their wake regardless of the blessing or curse of natural geography. For that reason, the gospel is the most radical form of economic aid we can give.

The trouble with this is that once affluence abounds, we become self-satisfied and our hearts grow cold. We have no needs. Today, the church of America tortures itself with trying to find new strategies to reach the lost; a source of endless debate and huge investments. Family life centers, seeker-friendly services, contemporary music, electronic wizardry are tried in endless variety to entice the un-churched to come in and to make them feel comfortable. The ironic truth coming out is that while we are trying everything new under the sun to make church attractive, the persecuted Christian church in China and the Sudan is growing exponentially. In the midst of Southern Sudan, a predominantly Muslim country, there are, by some accounts, four times as many Christians today as there were before persecution broke out 20 years ago. World Magazine published a photo of a thatched hut where 500 people were now meeting at Daga Post where only 5 years before there was no church at all.

In the midst of pronouncing blessings and curses upon those who either followed or rejected the Lord, Jeremiah also complained about speaking to his generation in their prosperity but they said, “I will not listen.” Let’s see, now. The gospel brings prosperity, prosperity brings unbelief, unbelief brings suffering, suffering and persecution bring people to the Lord. When will we ever learn? (Need to write a song about that.) What has this got to do with families and children? I am going to deliberate a little before going there. But for now, I would invite you to consider the question and see where it leads you.