The Road Not Chosen

Pregnancy As Punishment

Have you heard the one about the politician who thought pregnancy outside of marriage was a punishment? Is that what kind of God we serve? A God who punishes by giving life? That doesn't even make sense does it? Barack Obama, in a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania on Saturday, said the following in response to a woman who asked him to "stop these abortions":

"This is a very difficult issue, and I understand sort of the passions on both sides of the issue," he said. "I have two precious daughters — they are miracles."

But politicians must trust women to make the right decisions for themselves, he said.

"This is an example where good people can disagree," the Illinois senator said. "The question then is, are there areas that we can agree to that everybody can get behind? We can all agree that we want to reduce teen pregnancies. We can all agree that we want to make sure that adoption is a viable option.When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence education and teaching the children -- teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn't make sense to not give them information."

He's tired, I'm sure. Maybe not thinking clearly. He probably would have chosen a different word than "punished" had he thought about it. I think, however, that the use of that word in connection with pre-marital pregnancy and STD's is revealing. Those two things are a "consequence" not a "punishment" and there is a difference between the two. If you chose to do action A, then result B can happen. No one is forcing result B on you. It happens as a result of you choosing action A.  A consequence can certainly result in a subsequent punishment from an outside person or institution but it all began usually because of a choice freely made.

Does it say anywhere in the Bible that children are a punishment? No. In fact, the Bible is very clear that God is the one who opens & closes the womb, He is the one who decides when a child is to be born. (Gen. 30:22, Ruth 4:13) Not us, even though we'd like to think with all our scientific advancements that man is the creator of life. That's just not true.

Are there more optimum circumstances a child can be born in than outside of a marriage relationship? Sure. But I personally know several people conceived outside of marriage and God has a destiny for them because He has a destiny for every human He puts on this planet. God, unlike man, does not judge us on whether we were born to legally married mom's & dad's. If a human is on this planet, it's because GOD WANTS THEM HERE! That means handicapped or not, illegitimate or not, cute or not.

And, while we're at it, I don't think that God punishes people with AIDS or other STD's. Again, they are a consequence of a chosen action. (Actually of millions of people's chosen actions over the course of centuries.) How do I know? Because I have yet to get an STD for swearing or being angry or eating too many Oreo's. If everyone on the planet had remained a virgin until marriage & stayed faithful in that union, there would be no STD's. Period.

My closing thought on all this is why is it so popular to want to erase, excuse, abort, or otherwise try to get rid of consequences in today's society? If that was taken to its logical conclusion (you can do anything you want) the result is anarchy. It makes me think of a quote from Cormac McCarthy's book The Road. In the midst of nuclear holocaust chaos reigns but a father teaches his son that they must choose to do right because "someone has to carry the fire". I pray that we will have leaders who will truly carry the fire.

Outrageous Faith

I subscribe to a Catholic journal called First Things. I don't remember how I originally came across it, but I liked what I read. Their by-line is "The Journal of Religion, Culture & Public Life." Intrigued I signed up and what I have found is an interesting look into not only the Catholic Church, but at devout people digging into the Bible and their theology, arguing sometimes, agreeing sometimes, but always thinking about how to bring a knowledge of Christ into our culture. Every month I get at least one thought to mull over, which to me is worth the price of the subscription.

At the end of each journal, the founder & editor, Fr. Richard Neuhaus, writes an article. After the article is done he throws in several things he's been reading about, talking to people about, thinking about, basically very stream-of-consciousness in an organized intellectual way. Below is an excerpt from the article The Possibilities and Perils in Being a Really Smart Bishop by Richard John Neuhaus in this month's issue:

The comedian Bill Maher recently delivered himself of some rather decided views on religion in general and Catholicism in particular. He said, “You can’t be a rational person six days of the week and put on a suit and make rational decisions and go to work and, on one day of the week, go to a building and think you’re drinking the blood of a 2,000-year-old space god. That doesn’t make you a person of faith. That makes you schizophrenic.” He added that anyone who is religious is schizophrenic, “sort of.” ... (We) might ask whether the Maher's, at least at times, do not, however inadvertently, render a service in pointing to the astonishing nature of Christian truth claims. Astonishing if they are not true, and more astonishing if they are. We are not schizophrenic, but we are keenly aware of the tension and, at times, the conflict between the gospel and culturally conventional understandings of reality. Christianity is indefatigably dialogical but never without an edge. Matthew Lickona puts it nicely in his memoir of a young Catholic, Swimming with Scapulars: “Let’s be open and clean. Let’s drag this out into the light and discuss. Let’s not be shocked and resentful; let’s love the lonely. Perhaps, coming from a fanatic, the message of God’s love will regain some of its wonderful outrageousness. ‘Listen. I have a secret. I eat God, and I have His life in me. It’s the best thing in the world; it leads to everlasting life. But first, you have to die to yourself.’” **

The quote from Matthew Lickona really grabbed me & got me thinking. As Christians our tendency can be to not really talk about the outrageous claims in the Bible. We try to make it more "acceptable" or "palatable" for those outside the faith. We sometimes act as if parts of the Bible are the crazy old aunt we love but don't really want to bring around our friends. Those parts embarrass us by their bluntness or political incorrectness (sorry, Mr. Maher). We want people to love Jesus like we do, but part of us thinks that if we hide certain parts of Him, people will like Him right way & later on, when they are as madly in love with Him as we are, we'll take them out to coffee & explain the whole "eat my body, drink my blood" stuff and we are sure that they'll understand by that point.

I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Lickona. Let's just let God be God, let the Bible be the Bible, and not apologize or "tone down" any part of the message God has given to the world. After all, God gave the scriptures in total to us for a reason. He in divine wisdom put it all in there: the parts that soothe us, the parts that cheer us and, yes, the parts that shock us.

Barack Obama has a book titled "The Audacity of Hope". The definition of audacity is:

• Fearless daring; intrepidity.
• Bold or insolent heedlessness of restraints, as of those imposed by prudence, propriety, or convention.

I suggest we have the "Audacity of Faith". Let's dare to believe that generations numbed by overexposure to sex, violence, consumerism, etc. can be shocked out of their complacency by the "wonderful outrageousness" of the Gospel.

 

** Copyright (c) 2000 by First Things. This data file is the sole property of First Things. It may not be altered or edited in any way. It may be reproduced only in its entirety for circulation as "freeware," without charge. This data file may not be used without the permission of First Things for resale or the enhancement of any other product sold.

Birth or Resurrection?

I read an article this week in which an atheist was musing over the fact that Christians make a bigger deal of Christmas than Easter. After all, he observed, coming back from the dead is a much bigger deal than being born so all the big hoopla should happen at Easter.

At first I though, "He's right." Then I realized the main flaw in his observation. In order for Jesus to be born, Christ first had to decide to leave the comfort, peace & security of His home in Heaven, and come to Earth in the most vulnerable of human forms, an infant. Christ had to decide to come to our world and endure what all humans endure: pain, hunger, tiredness, conflict with each other, sadness, etc. That had to happen before Jesus' crucifixion & resurrection could ever take place

Jesus birth began with a decision, just as our spiritual birth as Christians begins with a similar decision. It's a decision to leave all that is familiar and comfortable for something that is unknown, at times difficult, sometimes wonderful and ultimately glorious. Glorious because it is not just about us, but about the plan of God to redeem all humanity...beginning with the birth of a child.

In short, the birth of Jesus is a bigger deal because that is where our salvation began. No sky full of angelic choirs or big star in the sky announced Christ's resurrection, only Jesus' birth. So let's go ahead and celebrate with vigor the birth of our Savior and in doing so, let's remember Christ's decision that came first: to fulfill the will of the Father so that humanity could be reconciled to God.

A Sabbath's Day Journey

Saturday's are the one day of the week that I am most acutely aware that I am a work-outside-the-home woman. That is the day of the week that I am trying to cram all the major chores into one small time frame. There's the vacuuming-dusting-washing-mopping-tidying that needs to be done. Not to mention grocery shopping, yard work, & whatever else we can throw into the day. It has always seemed to be the only day to get those things done.

My mom was a career woman, so when I was growing up this is what Saturday's were like in my house. Well, after my parents got saved anyway & we started going to church on Sunday. Before that our cleaning was spread over the whole weekend. Unless we were in the desert camping. Or at the beach picking around the tide pools. Or visiting family in another city.

Four Saturday's ago I went on strike. I was so tired all I wanted to do that day was read a book. So I did. Oddly enough, neither Harold or Evan asked "Hey, when is it time to clean the house?" They didn't seem to miss it and I had a wonderful time with my book. I even felt strangely rested when I woke up on Sunday morning, not exhausted like I normally do.

So I did the same thing the next Saturday & the next & the next. You may be wondering if my home has become a landfill. Oddly enough it has not! I worked out a system of doing chores a bit at a time each evening except Saturday. Laundry is being done on Sunday & Monday evenings. Grocery shopping is on Thursday. So far so good!

The word "Sabbath" means literally "to cease". We now have an actual day we "cease" in our home and it is wonderful! Last Saturday evening Harold observed that he hadn't done one thing he "had" to do all day, just what  he wanted to do, which included writing & recording a new song. I have read three books & all my magazines. Evan has puttered, taken pictures & had a grand time. As a family, we are happier & more connected to each other.

On the website Judaism 101 I found this comment about the observation of the Sabbath. It "frees us from our weekday concerns, from our deadlines and schedules and commitments. During the week, we are slaves to our jobs, to our creditors, to our need to provide for ourselves; on Shabbat, we are freed from these concerns, much as our ancestors were freed from slavery in Egypt." It reminds us that God decreed that the Sabbath was to be a special weekly time to focus on our families & our God.

I know we always thought that was what we were doing on Sunday's but really, when your husband is a pastor or worship team leader like mine is, Sunday is a work day, not a rest day, for the family. And I am not complaining about this in any way. I love being with our church that day, worshiping God together, catching up with each other over long lunches. I wouldn't change Sunday's at all. Except for more restaurants in our small town, maybe...

Do you have a Sabbath day? Or even a Sabbath half-day? Our family is really being blessed by taking this time to recharge physically, spiritually & mentally. Ask God to show you when & how you can set aside a time of ceasing during your week. Let me know how it goes!  

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What I've Been Clicking

Occasionally I make lists of sites I've found interesting or useful. Here's my list for this week:

A geek blog which has the unusual name of The Dead Console Society has a great page called "The Writer's Haven". That page has some of the most wonderful links to writing resources that I've ever come across. Everything from Lynch's Guide to Grammar & Style to the hilarious Urban Dictionary (caution: can contain some obscenity) can be found. Believe me, I've wasted lots of time here!

Philosopher.org explains complex philosophical ideas in terms that even I can grasp. It's also a lot of fun (for me anyway) to see what the human brain will come up with to try to either explain, replace or do away with the existence of God. Having been a fervent existentialist from high school until I became a Christ follower at age 22, I still have an interest in different veins of philosophy. A lot of Christians shy away from learning about this topic but when the Apostle Paul argued with the great minds of his day on Mars Hill, he was effective because he knew what they believed and thus knew how to show them a better way. Jesus does tell us to be "shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves" (Matt. 10:16). So get smart & check this site out!

Librarian Chick is another great site for links to other sources. You can find sites about Math to Foreign Languages to Poetry and much more here.

I will admit being a huge fan of beautiful (computer) wallpaper. Digital Blasphemy has amazing photos that you can save to your computer. My current favorite is "Sakura" which is so lovely, it makes me feel peaceful just looking at it. They have a section for free photos or you can pay to have a membership. (They will not spam you, by the way.)

Need a reminder of how amazing & powerful our God is? Check out the Hubble Site for images of stars, nebulas and galaxies that will (hopefully) make you shout "hallelujah!" and give glory to Whom it is due.

There, I think I've given you enough things to help you waste what is left of your day. Have any good sites you've visited lately?

Peace & Security In My Lifetime

Doesn't that sound wonderful?  Isn't that what we all want, peace & security in our lifetime? No one wants to live with war and turmoil.

I've been a Christ follower for 26 years, been in several churches and on staff at most of them. I've seen good pastors, great pastors, & evil pastors. Unfortunately, I've experienced church splits and been in churches that would have been better off closed. I've been on staff at a large Word of Faith church where the pastor was greedy & corrupt. I've been in a church where the pastor was compassionate and kind. I've been in a church where the pastor started out kind but turned manipulative & cruel. I've pretty much seen it all when it comes to churches.

When we've been through tough times as Christians something in us wants things to just be fine, with no conflict, only calm. Unfortunately sometimes we knowingly, or unknowingly, compromise to get that peace. King Hezekiah, in the Book of Isaiah, had seen God do amazing things, from delivering Israel from the Assyrian's to being healed of a deadly disease. In fact, soon after being healed, Hezekiah had visitors from Babylon. He showed them all his treasures: the gold, the weapons, the palace. After they left, Isaiah asked him about the visitors & what they had seen. Hezekiah said "I showed them all my treasures!" Isaiah then tells him something that should have made Hezekiah fall on his face & beg for mercy. The prophet says the Babylonians are going cart everything away, even the king's own descendants. Not only that, but they will become eunuchs & slaves! What does Hezekiah say? "Well, at least there will be peace & security in my lifetime." (Is. 39:8)

Sometimes I'm like King Hezekiah. I want people to see all my cool stuff. I want to live a nice, quiet life. I don't want to think about what happens after I'm gone. The only hitch in that is that I'm a Christ follower, meaning I'm suppose to follow in His footsteps & example. One thing Jesus didn't have was peace & security in His earthly lifetime! He wrangled with the Pharisee's, the Roman's, His own family & friends. The one thing He did do all the time was to declare the Kingdom of God had come. Oh, and that means that warfare has come, by the way. He promised us that we would have to fight, a lot! Matthew 10:34 say "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."

But wait! Didn't He also say He'd give us peace? Yes, but let's read that promise again: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." (John 14:27) When we want peace & security in our lifetime, that can tend to be peace from a worldly perspective, not a heavenly one. Our job is to "fight the good fight of faith". There is an enemy who would like nothing better than for us to be lulled into complacency during our lifetime. That enemy doesn't want us to fight or to make sure that the Kingdom of God not only advances during our generation, but also during the following generations. Psalms 145 (one of my favorites) says it like this:

Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised,
         And His greatness is unsearchable.
One generation shall praise Your works to another,
         And shall declare Your mighty acts.

And also:

They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom
         And talk of Your power;
To make known to the sons of men Your mighty acts
         And the glory of the majesty of Your kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
         And Your dominion endures throughout all generations...
The Lord is righteous in all His ways
         And kind in all His deeds.
The Lord is near to all who call upon Him,
         To all who call upon Him in truth.
He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him;
         He will also hear their cry and will save them.

So today I ask the Lord to help me not be like King Hezekiah, but to fall on my face & cry out to the One who can not only save me, but save the world. And to that end, I pray with King David:

Praise be to the Lord my Rock,
who trains my hands for war,
my fingers for battle.

Tolerance Rant

No, not mine, although I agree with everything you're about to see, but Pastor Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Couldn't have said it better myself!

What A Mess!

I am the first to admit that I love organization. Seeing things tidy & in their proper place makes me a happy woman. My bent is so much this way that I can get a bit out of sorts when others don't have the same inclination that I do. I was moaning to my friend, Patty, the other day that I wished sometimes that I didn't see the "out of place" things. I always feel compelled to either "tidy it up" myself or to point out to someone else what they should do about it. Neither inclination is always the right thing to do. Sometimes I'm just being a "Martha" instead of a "Mary".

Later on in the week, as I pondered, well, really stewed about, the state of certain things, I realized something: life is messy. Think about it for a moment. How we are born is messy as any mother can tell you. Our babies come out of us all goopy & wet & not looking at all like the pretty newborns on TV. Death can be even messier than birth. Not to be too graphic, but at the moment of death our muscles relax and release, um, certain things from our bodies. Everything in between those events rarely occurs in a tidy, neat way. Born messy, live messy, die messy seems to be the way of things.

I know, God is a god of order. We, however, have been born into a world tainted by sin that is no longer the perfect creation it started out as. Man is not the perfect being God created him to be in the beginning. I think sometimes when I feel the overwhelming longing for order the most is when I am probably the least focused on God. With all my energy going into trying to fix, straighten out, or problem solve, I often fail to stop to see what the Lord wants done with the situation. Sometimes He just wants the mess left alone. Other times it's not mine to do something about.

The past few days I have been trying to slow down and ask the Father what, if anything, He wants done. Focusing more on Him and less on "the mess" helps me be more at peace. (Everyone repeat after me: "Duh!!") I am also continuing on my life-time lesson of realizing that things won't be perfect this side of Heaven and I am no less valuable a person for not trying to make everything so.

I leave you with this thought from Thomas Merton:

"Each one of us has some kind of vocation. We are all called by God to share in His life and in His Kingdom. Each one of us is called to a special place in the Kingdom. If we find that place we will be happy. If we do not find it, we can never be completely happy. For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God's will, to be what God wants us to be."

There's A Wind A Blowin'

I love thunderstorms, the drama & power of them, the smell of the air as it's about to rain, how the temperature suddenly drops & you know something big is about to happen. Last night a violent thunderstorm hovered over our region for several hours. Wind speeds reached 64 mph. It was great! (No damage was done to any homes by the way.)

I guess I love storms so much because in my homeland of Southern California we never really had thunderstorms like we have here in the Midwest. In fact, we were lucky to get rain at all! When we moved here I developed an intense fascination with these amazing events. I really feel like they are a glimpse into the power of our God. Revelation 4 says "At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it...From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder." Wow, talk about awe-inspiring! The return of Jesus is spoken about in the Book of Luke as happening like a "flash of lightning".

One of my favorite lightning passages is found in Psalms 135:5-7:

I know that the Lord is great,
that our Lord is greater than all gods.

The Lord does whatever pleases him,
in the heavens and on the earth,
in the seas and all their depths.

He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth;
he sends lightning with the rain
and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

That certainly describes the feeling I get as I watch a thunderstorm, a sense of the greatness of our God. It stirs up in me a great sense of anticipation as I wonder what God is going to do next in my life, in my church & on the earth. I am reminded of His omnipotence & my frail humanity. It is a sign to me that there truly is One who is worthy of all praise, all honor & all glory. So let the storms come & the rain fall, for my hope is in Him alone.

 

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God Is So Cool!

Don't you love seeing stuff in nature that makes you say, "Wow!" Here's something I hope to see one day (click on picture to really go "Oooooo"):

June 19, 2006—It looks like a rainbow that's been set on fire, but this phenomenon is as cold as ice.

Known in the weather world as a circumhorizontal arc, this rare sight was caught on film on June 3 as it hung over northern Idaho near the Washington State border.

The arc isn't a rainbow in the traditional sense—it is caused by light passing through wispy, high-altitude cirrus clouds. The sight occurs only when the sun is very high in the sky (more than 58° above the horizon). What's more, the hexagonal ice crystals that make up cirrus clouds must be shaped like thick plates with their faces parallel to the ground.

When light enters through a vertical side face of such an ice crystal and leaves from the bottom face, it refracts, or bends, in the same way that light passes through a prism. If a cirrus's crystals are aligned just right, the whole cloud lights up in a spectrum of colors.

This particular arc spanned several hundred square miles of sky and lasted for about an hour, according to the London Daily Mail.

Check this story out (& see a better view of the picture) at National Geographic News.