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.