Sabbath Again

I wonder about the Sabbath. 

We always had Sunday rules as a boy and I never thought they were onerous or unreasonable. We chafed, of course, at the Sunday nap but somehow I never remember bucking the idea of taking a break on Sunday. Maybe my memory is poor.

For some reason(s) the American church no longer observes the Sabbath in what we might call traditional ways. I leave the "seventh day" discussion aside without meaning to disrespect the remarkable work of SDA around the world. I am fine with designating Sunday -- Resurrection Day -- as Sabbath, and love to remember that the most obscure "blue law" (a law forbidding various Sunday practices) is silent testimony to the reality of the Resurrection.

Be that as it may, Sabbath is a gift and I love gifts. But this one is hard to observe because it kicks us right out of the driver's seat. It requires us to ask, per Dr. John Oswalt, "Who meets my needs?" 

If we answer that question wrongly, we neglect the Sabbath. If we answer it correctly, we learn to rest. For the very word Sabbath means "break." As in, "Stop the norm of activities. Let the body, mind and spirit rest. Quit the everyday stuff of life. Quit!"

Again, why do we neglect this gift? Because we are sure if we do not take care of our needs, no one else will. 

To the contrary, God says, "I made you. Your every breath depends on me. Without me you couldn't take care of yourself at all. Let Sabbath remind you of this."

Rules about buying and selling, rest instead of work, refusing gainful employment except for necessities and mercy -- these matter because they help us do something we need but are loathe to do.

Sabbath -- the rejected gift. 

"Help me, Lord, to receive and observe with gladness and gratitude."

On the Debate

The last time I heard a presidential debate was via radio in Fall 2020. I could almost take you to the place on the road where I turned off the radio, disgusted and embarrassed. No one thinks political debate will be Plato meets Shakespeare. But maybe candidates could serve the American people with an honest discussion of what matters. What a concept!

So I wasn't going to watch this debate, much less write about it.

Full disclosure, I have never voted for a Democrat unless you count the 6th grade classroom poll in which I selected Jimmy Carter. I grew up in a salt-of-the-earth Kansas family with roots in farming, education, and church. We always leaned conservative and I never knew how to think otherwise though I've spent a lifetime trying to learn to listen to alternate views.

So when I finally decided to watch this debate I was reluctant. Can I stand the mudslinging, the cringe moments, the hyperbole, the truth warp? Will it be as bad as commentators are saying? Or as good? What is this new surreal of candidates older than Reagan when he left office? Or the clear denial of fact when the emperor's wardrobe is missing?

I waded in.

President Biden wasn't as bad as I feared, though the obvious incoherence in the early going was shocking. The spans of coherence were shocking as well. And many times his rejoinders were clear and direct, as when he said, after claiming Trump would promote a law banning abortion after ten weeks: “He'll sign that law; I'll veto it!”

As for Trump, I've never known what to do with his, shall we say, hyperbole. Truth is full of nuance and most of us know how to shade it in our favor. And, as already noted, this is no academic truth inquiry. But “worst economy we've ever seen” and “everyone, both Democrat and Republican wanted Roe returned to the states” – you can't take those statements seriously without contorted qualifiers.

In this way I think Trump almost trolls the fact-checkers. Folks run to check the data as if that is what is really at play here.

But this is about how one sees the world, not data points to support a political position. And this seemed to play out when President Biden rolled out the weary affront to critical thinking: “there were good people on both sides.” In that well-trampled Charlottesville story Trump clearly meant there are good people on both sides of the statue question: “Should Civil War statues of, say, General Lee be left standing or should they be torn down?” Good people have honest disagreements about that.

But, as always, Mr. Biden and others of his persuasion use the story to smear Mr. Trump as if he meant there are good people in the “cross-burning, white-supremacist-Nazi camp” or some such.

Of course all people would be right to wonder about former President Trump's relationship to the truth. The question leaves me aghast with all of life, and especially with politics. To imagine I myself would always be truthful to the best of my knowledge requires embarrassing chutzpah. But I hope I would try.

We have to insist on a standard of truth and knowledge that “comports with reality.” And it never does any good to call people liars. I've been let down so often when I “knew” people were lying that I often just give up the question.

Was Trump often lying? Since I believe a lie requires intention and volition, I honestly do not know. (I'm not lying.) Do I think he said many things that are not true? Yes.

Do I think the same of President Biden? Yes.

Why don't I provide evidence for both claims? Three reasons, or four.

One, we believe what we want to believe and it is driven by assumptions so deep we seldom are aware of them, much less able to change them.

Two, the quantity of commentary is vast beyond belief, no one gives much care to what I say, and you can find “proofs” on both sides with casual searching.

Three, close behind number two is a re-configuration of number one: the “proofs provided” are easily debunked by sincere people who simply cannot accept a different perspective. The hope of being fact- or evidence-driven is just that – a hope, although it is a laudable goal and I would be self-refuting if I said I was not seeking it as I think and write.

Four, when one approaches almost any statement with charity there is a way to contort it such that it comports with a reasonable fact base. This happens all the time with statistics. It always shocks me to see how easily opposing viewpoints can use the same statistics – or fact-bases if you will – to reach alternate or even opposing positions.

To quote a man I never thought I'd quote (see “trying to listen to alternate perspectives” above), Bill Mahar said, “You can hate [the candidate] but you can't hate all those who are voting for him.” Most of those doing the voting are fellow Americans of reasonable good will and hope for the future. All who disagree with me do not “hate America” or “want to destroy democracy as we know it.” Ugh!

Where does that leave us? We need wisdom. Yes I have some strong opinions. I think one of the candidates will do great harm to our nation in the long run, and I think the other may do great good. I resort to prayer, for I believe in God. And I ask that righteousness will prevail and our nation will continue to be land of the free and home of the brave.

Thankfully, that hope is bigger than any election or any so-called debate.

Medium, Message, and Gnosticism

I wonder if I'm becoming like the hammer who sees everything as a nail. I am seeing everything as a teaching tool regarding gnosticism. Indeed, I have made steps toward entering graduate studies and if I do I am very inclined to study this particular -ism.

Gnosticism means at root an emphasis on knowledge. As such it has full play in the zeitgeist. My late beloved Bible college Dean, Dr. Edward Palm, once asked us, "What is the dominant, controlling idea today?" Befuddled 20-somethings that we were, I am not sure how or if we answered. His reply was simple. 

"The dominant idea of today is that science, or knowledge, is the most important thing."

I have pondered this in the intervening years and am sure he was right. What else accounts for the countless colleges and universities, to say nothing of the assumed certainty that the world wide web would make us better because more information is available to all? We never question such assumptions.

Gnosticism values knowledge over meaning or substance (the philosophical expression would say "epistemology versus ontology'") In fact, its primary expression is illustrated in the life of the famous Augustine of Hippo. He was taken with the Manichees, a gnostic sect who made much of the body being evil. If the body is evil what matters what I do with it? Spirit is the only reality, flesh and blood will pass and as such are of no real account. "This is great," Augustine concluded, along with, to some extent, everyone who has ever lived. "I can do what I want." Such a notion gave rationale to the libertine sexual morality for which he was known before his conversion.

In the Scripture and in the early church this gnostic view of the body was countered with the very life of Christ. It became crucial to see the incarnation as a real taking on of flesh. For if the Creator can take on flesh then flesh is made holy and good, even if one thought it was not so before. (I admit to being dull on this logical connection but I know it is the classical formula so accept it as valid.)

I am fully aware that theologians far-better schooled than me may find this faulty. I hope I will learn the errors in time. For now I am trying to work it out. And here is where I believe gnosticism connects with medium and message.

The incarnation means the body -- and by extension, material substance -- is good, valid, imbued with the image of God by virtue of Creation. When God wished to reveal Himself did He use knowledge? Of course, implicitly so, for there is no awareness without knowledge. They are one and the same. 

But he used more, or perhaps we should say, something more basic. God used the very human body wed with the Creator to, in some right sense, reveal the ordering principle of all things: logos. This is His medium. Christ -- fully God, fully man: all of Creation embodied and thus able to redeem all of Creation through bodily sacrifice. This particular body born of a woman was the very Son of God. He ate, slept, wept, walked, talked, felt, suffered, jumped, ran, laughed, labored. He was a fully embodied human. This the church fathers worked out in creedal language.

If the body is the medium, what is the message? Doesn't the message matter most, medium of no real account? Why didn't God save from heaven, use power as medium? Why not learning: He could require us to pass some kind of cognitive test.

No, the medium was vital and central to the nature of God and thus subsumes the message within it. If Christ were not human, humanity could not be saved. He assumed all it means to be human. And the ancient formula has it: "Whatever is assumed is thereby redeemed." If Christ were not human, humans could not be saved. The medium rather matters.

Better minds may fault my use of medium in this way. Perhaps they are right. I only mean to say that the question of medium and message goes to the heart of reality and it is a folly to dismiss it as trivial.

And because it deals in reality there are countless applications in everyday life. 

The Incarnation subsumes message into medium and lets us know there is something primary to knowledge. 

Sabbath [100WW]

How to do the work that beckons? When best to stop and come away, lest one lose all sense of bearing and body unravel? Dramatic? Yes, a bit. But how does one keep balance with obligations?

Many questions. The Jews say, “We keep the Sabbath and the Sabbath keeps us.”

Sabbath teaches sanctity of time. Observing it “sanctifies” our time. Is this mystical alchemy, translating to wisdom? Almost. God knows us and gave the Sabbath to help . We neglect it to our hurt.

“Our time is in His hands.” It is a fixed fact.

Sabbath helps us remember.

Alaska Summer II [10MTu]

Yesterday I meandered through some comments about the toll Alaska summer takes. I feel it now as I write. Worn out. It seems nuts that one would long for winter, but I do.

It is true I love the summer here. It is magical and I am not complaining. I love the long days too much and that is the problem. Because one can work ridiculous hours, one does. Because the light makes it easier to awaken in the middle of the night, one does, and pays for it.

I remember driving home from the airport in June 2019. Some of the "red eye" arrivals are at 2 AM and there was a luggage issue so it was 4 AM before we turned off the four lane highway for the last half mile before home. The sun was bright directly in the windshield and I looked down at the dash. It told me we were heading N.

N as in North. But I am staring at the sun! What gives?!

Google knows everything, or something like that. So I googled and found this:

"Azimuth," it turns out, means (layman's terms) the degree of the sun on a 360 flat layout. In this case 180 would be perfect due north (or south) and the sun at peak is only .01 degrees from that.

Except this is a winter photo and he is showing the opposite from summer solstice. Degrees would be the same, only opposite.

Now I am out of time and I am not sure I have this right. It is hard for me to believe the sun actually rises and sets at all-but true north or south at the solstice. But it may be. 

I know it is close. I saw it.

Beautiful, wonderful land of the Midnight Sun.

[Correction] I think the issue is the sun peaks at due north or south, depending on which solstice we are dealing with. It does not follow that it would also rise at opposite degree. I need to study this more. All I know is it rose pretty close to true North and that was mind-warping.

Alaska Summer [Monday Meander]

When I began writing daily 6 (!) months ago I designated Monday as "Monday Meander" -- meaning on this day the writing would wander, much like free writing or what we call stream of consciousness. I've not stuck closely to that but I am grateful to have written so regularly for this long.

I do wonder what is lost when I write just to meet the quota. It seems there is a wash. Though much is lost or displaced, I have still gained from regular writing.

I have little else to say because Alaska summer.

What do I mean? This.

Alaska summer is magical. From early May until early August you can walk outside any time of night and it will not be black. 

The world is making up for the long winter nights and every fiber feels it. 

We have blackout blinds to help sleep, and that is good because the light calls you out of yourself and you do more than you should attempt. Day after day of short nights, too many projects, flinging yourself through the window you know will close too soon. This takes a toll.

You have to walk this road to know what I mean. It is a special kind of fatigue and for me it finds its apex around the first of August. By then I am ready for snow and the long winters that give back all the body and soul expended.

So I rest as best I can, though awakened at 2 AM and writing. I will sleep reasonably well until 6 or so and then launch the day, knowing better but somehow unable to resist the primal call.

So if writing is wan and thin there is a reason. Writing reflects soul and body and mind: and all three are wan and thin (with "thin" taking on a peculiar figure of speech in this application.) 

Because Alaska summer. Tomorrow I'll say more about it, wan or no.

A casual photo from our back window at 3 AM
three days after summer solstice.
3 AM and the sun will soon rise in the North.
Yes, the North (well a few degrees off dead North, but still not even NNE.)
Alaska Summer.

God of Mercy (Ps. 106:1)

 Praise ye the Lord. O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. (Ps. 106:1)

The gifted spiritual writer of the last century, A. W. Tozer, makes much of the importance of a right view of God. He says, "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us."

C. S. Lewis takes a somewhat opposite view in his famous sermon, Weight of Glory: "[Some say] the fundamental thing is how we think of God....[But] How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except in so far as it is related to how He thinks of us."

I can't square this circle, but maybe Lewis does it for us. When I read the above verse this morning I felt its importance is indeed in "how He thinks of us."

How did the Psalmist think God thinks of us? His view puts the lie to the notion that the Old Testament pictures an austere, unapproachable God and the New gives us love and friendship in the person of Christ. One can argue the incarnation changed everything, and it did. But it is an expression of God, the very God of the Old Testament who is not disconnected at all, but reveals his care in coming to earth to be one of us and to give himself on our behalf. That is who the God of the Old Testament is -- One willing to be incarnate.

"The mercy of God endureth forever." This is a well-trod theme in the Psalms, and it comes from the Hebrew chesed. This means something like loving-kindness. 

How might this view of how God thinks of me change my daily outlook?

I have a friend who works in the finance world and he once made a mistake that caused a client to potentially lose one million dollars. My friend was devastated at first and then he remembered: God's view of him was not based on his performance. He was safe with a God whose "mercy endures forever." So he picked up the pieces, walked the hard road, with faith and peace not only intact, but stronger.

I remember not understanding it very well. Performance matters, doesn't it? Indeed. But do we really live in a world in which the most important things about us is how well we do or whether we fail or not? What's that old expression about death beds? "No one ever says I wish I had spent more time at the office."

I readily confess this is beyond me. I can only cite (if you will) the dogma. It is a fixed notion about how God thinks of me. His thoughts toward me are loving and kind; he does not kick me to the curb when I mess up.

In the emphasis of the holiness tradition we sometimes struggle with the distinction between faults and sin, foibles and moral character, mistakes and ethical breaches. Surely this is a common difficulty: in our eagerness to judge things rightly we don't want to give ourselves a pass too much, and we certainly don't want to give an offending party a pass. We too easily judge ourselves on our intention and judge others on their action.

But I dare to believe that no matter how deep the sin or how painful the mistake, "God's mercy endures forever."

His character is the fixed point. He Himself is solid, to be relied upon. All things, not least human persons like you and I, are contingent on the Creator. If He is not good we are done for. 

The Psalmist has the answer: He is good and what's more, his attitude to us is one of mercy. That's good news for all I face today and in all of the unknown tomorrows.

[100WW (on Fr)]

[100 word Wednesday is Friday this week, a symptom of managing an Alaska summer while still managing to post M-Sat. Not sure how long this will (should) last. :)] 

I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O Lord, will I sing. (Ps. 101:1)

To read the Psalms rightly and regularly is a life-gift. It offers an entry into the life of God.

Sing?

When we rightly sing we can worship. Music is otherworldly, like fire. Try to analyze it, pin it down, tell what it means: good luck. It ushers us outside ourselves. And when we join voices with others we create a transcendence. Address that mysterious human and body/spirit reality to God and you enter the world of worship. More than music, yet somehow inextricably joined.

R. P. George: Central Tenet of Marriage

A given view will have identifiable consequences and, in view of those consequences a government cannot afford to be neutral (were that possible) in its laws.

A central tenet of the traditional view of marriage is that the value (and point) of sex is the intrinsic good of marriage itself which is actualized in sexual acts which unite spouses biologically, and thus interpersonally. This does not mean that procreation and pleasure are not rightly sought in marital acts; it means merely that they they are rightly sought when they are integrated with the basic good and justifying point of marital sex, namely, the one-flesh union of marriage itself. (Robert P. George, Clash of Orthodoxies, pg. 82)

Sex is intrinsic to human persons, not an instrumental function. Therefore, the way we conduct ourselves sexually matters, and implies something about what we believe ourselves to be. Thus, if complementarity does not matter, then organs are purely subjective to the will. Therefore, gender is mutable, malleable; and there is no moderate realism whatsoever about masculinity and femininity. These most basic of human realities are now somehow subject to the human will and feelings. This can, I believe, be traced directly to loss of a sense of Creation. For Creation means intent and purpose and design and coherence. No creation means we can ultimately decide for ourselves since by some pure chance we have what we understand to be will and we further understand it to be autonomous and within such literally folly-ridden notions we lose all bearing completely because we make ourselves the beginning, end and all between. There can be no greater folly, no greater lostness. And its most stark demonstration is in the disintegration of sexual mores or norms.

George's definition of marriage: A one-flesh communion of persons consummated and actualized by acts which are reproductive in type and perfected, where all goes well, in the generation, education, and nurturing of children in a context -- the family -- which is uniquely suited to their well-being.

Alternate view as he sees it: Marriage is a mere convention which is malleable in such a way that individuals, couples, or, indeed, groups, can choose to make whatever suits their desires, interests, subjective goals, etc.

He then suggests the self-evident truth that a given view will have identifiable consequences and, in view of those consequences a government cannot afford to be neutral (were that possible) in its laws.

"A sound law of marriage is not one that aspires to moral neutrality; it is one that is in line with moral truth."

Life, Memory, and Our Search for Meaning

Life is a bank of memories that pays priceless dividends forever. Or at least for as long as our memory holds.

I remember our neighbors across the street when I was a boy. Their home was large compared to ours. A back entry with carport, a small front porch, maybe an upstairs dormer, and a cellar. This was 1969 in the farming, college, and railroad town in North Central Kansas called Miltonvale. The neighbors were David and Mary Allen, well into their years to my boyhood eyes, but not yet 60. David worked for the DOT and it seems Mary was a seamstress – I cannot remember. I was only four.

There was nothing of particular note I reckon, though everyone’s story is noteworthy if we have time to listen and they are willing to tell. These were common folk like most of us who share the wonder of life. I remember David loved his garden. It filled the entire backyard and graced many other tables in town. I remember David being kind, slow spoken, interested but a bit reserved. Mary seemed worried and maybe hurt somehow – it is amazing what a young boy will sense in his elders.

In later years I wondered if there was sadness because they had never known the joy of children. It does feel that way still in my memory.

We moved away in ’71 and then once, maybe after David retired, they drove to Western Kansas and we met them at a park in Garden City. This was a big deal. We drove 60 miles to meet them and we had a picnic. I sort of remember potato chips, hot dogs, store brand pop, and the dreaded potato salad. Mom never made me eat it so that was ok. It was nice to see the Allens. There was something right about my folks connecting with these elder neighbors from our former home.

Then in 1979 we moved back to the Miltonvale area. It seems they were still living but had slowed some. Mom and dad stayed in touch with them and when my Dad died in 1993 I’m sure David and Mary came and paid their respects. Old family friends mean a lot that way. In 1998 David died and Mary joined him in 2001. I was married with children, living many miles away and may not have even heard the news. And when I looked it up on line I could not find an obituary.

What does this mean? No one talks much about death. Least of all when not dramatic or in a war zone. Most of all we just don’t talk about it. Life passes, we come to grips with it (or not), we feel devastated when someone dies, we consider our own coming demise, and we go on living.

A beloved friend died last Spring, leaving a wife and four kids. He was far too young – 53. What does it mean? Is that all there is to life? Live, love, suffer, die. You could take out the love, but philosophers would say you never live if you don’t love so the first two would cancel out. But we know we suffer and we know we will die. Are there any answers, any clues to all of this?

Solzhenitsyn said, “If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die.” Touche’, or something like that.

Why are we here? Maybe there is no purpose. Except, no one believes that. Parade all the strident atheists along and hear them say all meaning and purpose is a charade, wishful thinking,  make-believe. I call foul. They don’t really believe it or they would surely stop living. Maybe some of them do.

And then they die.

Ecclesiastes is perhaps the most philosophical book of the Bible. Ecclesiastes says the quiet part out loud: David and Mary live and die and are forgotten. Most who knew them will soon also be gone until, in time, no one alive will remember them or have seen them. The garden, the house, the cared-for kitchen and well-stocked cellar – all gone in time – if not gone already. And no one ever to care for it like they did.

So what was the point? Nothing lasts. All is vain, or as one translator put it, “Life is like chasing after wind.”

I don’t buy it as the final answer though. And in the end, neither does Ecclesiastes. The Preacher, as the author is called, gives no modern answers, no self-manufactured meaning, not even a self-help or boot-strapping motivational talk. Instead he goes to the very core and thunders a question and answer: “What is the point of life? Fear God and keep His commandments.”

We can’t hear this today, but we need to. A serious look at our mortality might help. Ecclesiastes, as writer Peter Kreeft puts it, describes life if there is no God. It says if God is absent then all of life is multiplied by zero – and you don’t have to be Einstein to do that math.

It is true: all we love and live for will someday be gone and no one will really care. But if we live for the eternal, if we dare to believe there is more than this life, if we surrender our lives to One who holds it in His eternal hands, then there is a point, a purpose, happiness – even Joy beyond our imagining.

Without this faith, memories mean nothing, nor does life. With it, I can love David and Mary Allen for the beautiful people they were and it will be real. And I can even hope to see them again someday. Nothing better answers the surpassing wonder of this life, picnics in Garden City, a full backyard garden.

Nothing better gives a clue to the yearning we know deep inside.

Knowing Why [10'TU]

So I set the thing called "focus" and begin my little habit of writing at somewhat random for 10 minutes. One could say this has no point and one might be right. Why talk, why write, why think? Why ask why?

My beloved Bible College Dean, the late Rev. Dr. Edward Palm, once told me: "Don't get enmeshed in the why questions. If you do you'll wind up old and crotchety and unhappy." Something about that was right and Dr. Palm knew how to avoid the pit of asking too much "why?" I watched him age some and his joy became more evident and sweet.

I wonder why that was?

It is true, I think, we can ask why too much. And the answers seldom fully satisfy. Or at least they are elusive. They keep us running, and maybe that's why we like them. Asking why is a perpetual incitement to keep going, to know there is an answer around the bend. Or maybe a train on the other side of that light in the tunnel.

We're not sure we care as long as we find the answer. But it might kill us. That's a dour proposition.

I think maybe the ultimate why question is unknowable and leaves us with the only thing we can know, which is faith. Philosophers have this fancy word epistemology -- the science of knowing. This is curious for the very word "science" is about knowing.

But knowing is oversold. It promises more than it will ever deliver, and that is the modernist experiment -- and failure -- in a nutshell.

I'm in for faith over knowing. And someday, I believe, we will know why and we won't care. For our faith will have become sight and all the why's will dissolve into something more real than we ever thought possible.

Loving Fathers

There is a common saying: "The best thing a father can do for his children is love their mother." This speaks to the bonding unity so vital for stability in life. Children need it at home as the foundation for everything else. It is vital their parents are devoted to one another, that the sexual bond from which came a child be expressed in daily realities of committed care. Something like that.

But we should add to the saying above. Might this also be true? "The best thing a mother can do for her children is love and respect her husband."

This opens a can of worms, I guess, for I found it impossible to leave out the word respect. Why "respect her husband," when the same word was not used in the other saying?

I considered various explanations and can only land here: men and women are different and it seems the need for respect is written in. The reader can do with that as he or she will. It is just what seems true.

I mention this on the day after Father's day with a more general idea in mind. Encourage fathers. Love them. They want to do well. They are human. They feel their lack. They do not want to be coddled. In some real sense, suggested above, they don't even want to be loved. But they want to be appreciated, valued, honored, respected.

Is this a weakness? I doubt it. It simply is, and I confess to feeling a bit awkward saying it since I am a father and it can seem self-serving. But I am not going for the "poor-me," or "please understand."

I am merely saying Fathers need encouragement. Tell them. Let them know they matter. Remind them how much their children need them.

This is vital for our culture and for any family.

The best thing a mother can do for her children is love and respect their father.

Everyone a Poet

One day the Maker in glad triumph will make all good come true. Then we will all be poets.

Everyone is a poet. Even the talking on paper that throws in a few rhymes, meter forgot, all contrived and construed and given a moniker. “Want to hear my poem?”

At the other end of the spectrum are Shakespeare and many others, and it is good to know truth and beauty exist to spur us on, to give us that reach exceeding grasp.

But I was saying we are all poets for we all live, and the dullest among us wonder what it means. We find ourselves singing even if mute, running though lame, yearning though bound. The human heart is more than blood and muscle: it is an otherworldly something that will not die entire. Poetry is one of its voices.

This is strange because most of us struggle to write a sentence that gives our heart full voice. Yet it is there whether we write it or not. Writing is secondary to logos, to heart, to mind. Maybe even secondary to being human, though that is hard to conceive because the two seem hopelessly intertwined. After Creation, Adam wanted to write, I am thinking. He wanted to tell the story in a way others could read. But papyrus was not a thing, though cave walls were coming.

Speaking may be better. Writing may be an artifice, an artificial coinage, counterfeit because added, lacking voice, inflection, face, touch, person.

Now we write with machines – “time-saving” we say, on a long list of benefits. Carmudgeons refuse. They keep the touch and feel of pencil on paper, leaving the buzzing machines for those who know the machines are better without really knowing what or why.

Be as it may, on this good morning I attempt a poem, for the wild and urgent beauty of life falls on me, calls me, shocks me, fills me, overwhelms. There is nothing here except everything, and One day the Maker in glad triumph will make all good come true. Then we will all be poets. Though some plain and pedestrian, all beautiful: “Knowing as we are known,” seeing with vision clear and whole.

It is the beatific vision and my longing leaves the world of words behind.

Waiting

Waiting...

...until you hear without effort;
...until a word births itself;
...until hope appears, uncontrived.

In the stillness we find Him. Only in waiting we find what is worth waiting for.

Why are we so slow to wait, to get quiet, to listen? Our trials take us there, but not always. We are recalcitrant.

I have known in rare days the sweet grace of waiting, of being still, of knowing.

Waiting is the ellipsis, the too many dots that seem wasted space and time. Is waiting for God wasted time?

The reward is worth the wait. Hold on.

He is worth the wait.

First Year: An Ode to Alaska

Nearly nine years ago, Jane and I moved to North Pole, Alaska (along with our two sons and our dog, Oreo) to serve as interim pastor at the North Pole Missionary Chapel. It was an adventure we never imagined would happen, and we were scared enough to be judged sane.

Half way through the year I found myself in Cordova, a small but historic fishing village south and east of Valdez, accessible only by air or water. It was January. It was wonderful: boats in the harbor, gentle rain, snow-covered mountains around, moss and evergreen to color my walks through town. While there I found this poem in my heart to say something of what the year was meaning to us. We are very grateful for the blessings of being here in this wonderful place and with the wonderful people who have received us as family.

I hope you may feel with me the happy joy we discovered to grow year by year.

First Year

First year, new home;
Mystery, puzzle, wonder.

People here, but not.
Houses somewhere in the trees.
Summer garage sales, selling out;

bargains passed around again.
Here and there the homes that were;
wished for, now gone.
Beginnings ended too soon.

Downtown feels old with new places, new people;
inviting, different, winsome, strong.
“Distance comes with the place,” they say.
“We'll know you soon, but hold you loose.
Little lost if soon gone.”
I feel it without knowing.
More leave than stay. Their loss.

The roots of some –
not slowed by frost or gravel –
go down to deeper things:
Freedom of place and space.
Rigor calling forth vigor.
Boundless boundaries speaking verdant hope –
the landscape not mute.
The eyes hear this happiness,
the soul knows well the speech
and dares to shout, to rest, to stay.

How to know the snow and birch and boreal;
mountain, sun, and hidden road;
runway, slough, and bitter cold –
would steal into the heart and find a welcome?

Alaska Summer [100WW]

Alaska summers stretch mind and body, light abating but never gone, the unrelenting call of tasks comes forth from voice long dormant in winter freeze. There is something primal. The body wants to do all the sun allows, conquer the clock, start in on more than one can do but believing this year it will. Winter comes too soon with all its muted happiness, and the year waits until the new, and month's horizons promise another summer to get it done. And the heart dares to believe, again, there will be joy and triumph before the snow finds the earth.

God is a Help in Trouble [10"TU]

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. (Ps. 46:1)

This timeless verse has echoed in the souls of believers for millennia. What does it mean?

We know immediately what it means. God is reliable. He will help us. There is a place to go in the troubles of life.

I often wonder how folks in abject suffering deal with this. The objection I implicitly infer goes something like this: "Where was God when my grandchild drowned? Or when my nephew died in a hunting accident, leaving 3 young children? Where was God when that lecherous fiend did as he wished with his young niece? For years? If 'God is our refuge and strength' is it ok if I wonder about the lack of application? He was no help to me in my suffering!"

The first answer is a long pause, perhaps an "I don't know," and certainly a word to feel with the suffering of the person at hand.

This is ten minute Tuesday but I am taking my time. The question is perennial. And it has reasonable answers.

One I have worked with, which I believe only goes so far, is this: "We live in a fallen world and bad things happen. Some are unspeakably bad. God never says He will remove all bad things or potentialities. He only says He will help us in the midst of it all."

That seems fair, and goes a long ways. And time is up (which may be a clue.) I will hope to re-visit this soon.

A Friend and a Lost Child

We will only love our children as well as our own life is in tune with God.

Prodigal son comes home.

  

A friend I knew in bygone days has lost his way, if such a thing can be said. We know a thousand things are wrong, chief among them what we call racism, or loving the orange man, or drawing a line. But for  someone to "lose their way" requires a moral imagination we have tried to expunge.

We say: 

"Anyone can do anything as long as it doesn't hurt someone else."

"All choices are equally good." 

"Who are you to judge me?"

"That question (no matter what it is) is between me and my God."

In this case I should say my friend's child has lost her way, for that is indeed the case. But I cannot say how, for such would be deemed quite judgmental, and indeed it is easy to be so.

F. F. Bruce said so well: "Theology is grace; ethics is gratitude." So whenever anyone loses their way we can rejoice in grace and remember that right behavior is a secondary good of the Gospel. There's a mouthful and I do not pretend to have it figured out. Just this. Jesus came to save us from our sins -- so said the angel in Matthew 1 and so we believe. He saves us because He is able and He is good. He sets us on the right path and we begin to live the happy and blessed life of those who love God.

When anyone loses their way it means they have lost God's good for their life and are mired in the sin that would beset us all. What to do?

I pondered the pain of my friend. His child is deeply lost, broken, bewildered yet loved by God. An arresting grace would find her where she is, turn her heart to repentance, and deliver her to love and life and wholeness. Only God can do that.

I have long believed grace comes to us in pain, not least in the pain of our children. When they go astray it is like a death. We would do anything to restore and make whole, but instead we often must watch and pray as they go through the same trials we encountered at their age.

This is grace because it puts us on our knees, draws us to the only One who can heal, and puts our own needs front and center. Children are a means of grace because as we love them, we learn to seek first the only One who can do for them what we so long to see. 

We will only love our children as well as our own life is in tune with God.

This seems true no matter the case and I pray for my dear friend as he walks this most painful road of grace.

Doldrums

I often wonder about doldrums. I mean those times of life when you feel like everything is of no real count. This can even happen regarding things we love most, most of the time.

Church, or other perfunctory things we do from habit, seem most susceptible. We go, we sit, we see, we do: very little changes. Does more, or new, or different, or exciting make better? What is the "it" we seek that makes the doldrums go away?

One of my favorite teachers, Dr. Bill Ury, once talked about the difficulty of grading. He was diligent and caring, never one to make us think we were a bother. He only meant to be honest about life, and he was probably answering an overly-serious question with grace, as was his frequent role in life.

I understand now, by-the-way, how difficult grading must be. The best of students produce worthy material as do the most mature and wise. But even then there is the "too-much-said," "the over-weaning," "the missed-the-point." And most of all the plain drudgery of dealing with familiar material once again requires a discipline that must be akin to that required for eating dirt.

As he reflected on it, though, he used a sweet turn of phrase: "You must do the drudgery if you would have the ecstasy."

We love ecstasy, that which brings us out of stasis, that which saves us from the doldrums. But I am not sure "saves" is the right way to think on it. Setting all that aside -- and Dr. Ury is right as far as it goes -- I think doldrums are necessary and unavoidable, and they develop in us a willingness to press on if ecstasy never comes.

This is too much for me. I hate feeling down, ready to quit. But it is the pit that brings me to my knees, that lets me know again what matters, that helps me re-orient my life. The doldrums help me cry out for the true and good and beautiful. They make me ask God again to tune my heart to sing His praise.

The point? If you skip church because of the doldrums you coddle the sickness while ignoring the cure. God is the cure for all that ails us. Yes, all. Neglect His house, the place dedicated to turn your attention to Him, and there will be far more cause for doldrums.

That's how it seems to me. I need excitement, I suppose. And I need to be healthy in mind, will, and emotions. But most of all I need God, and it does me good to remember that on this happy doldrum day.

Little League Lessons: Some Things are Better Left Unsaid

The Little League field in Ulysses, Kansas was the best. Edge of town, just beyond the fairgrounds, at the end of a dirt road that turned off Patterson Avenue and ended in the parking lot a few hundred yards later. My Mom once let my sister drive our old Mercury on that road when she was twelve, but I shouldn't tell because my Dad was a Highway Patrolman and it was probably against the law. Maybe the statute of limitations has expired.

Whatever the case, I loved our field at the end of that road. We had bleachers, 10 cent pop at the concession stand, even an announcer in the booth behind home plate. And when a foul ball left the field you could always run it down and turn it in for a dime. Good days.

The memories are many, as life goes, and at 58 maybe I am learning long-term reminiscence makes up for all the daily forgetting. I don't mind too much because the memories are good and happy, with the occasional trouble, as today's memory brings to mind.

We were all people, of course, having no other option, and faults and foibles come out. Sometimes anger, sometimes loud mouths. One time there was a major disagreement and umpire flip-flop at a playoff game in another town. The umps had a tough job. 

And there was always the game chatter. When we were in the field and a batter was ready we would settle into that competitive cadence: “Hey batter, batter, batter” – repeating until the pitch reached the plate and we would yell, “Swing!!” I can still hear the youthful chorus of voices trying to throw the batter off.

There were also voices from the dugout intended to trouble the pitcher, though they were not as common. I can't remember any of them right off, except one. It fell my happy lot to pitch one night and as I worked through the inning I heard some noise from the opponents' dugout. And then it seemed like my coach, always low-key in my memory, was objecting to the ump about something.

The inning continued and then I realized the problem. Someone in the opposing dugout was yelling a sort of juvenile slur: “Pitcher stinks!” I don't know how many times they said it. I was absorbed in trying to get the ball across the plate. And then things came to a head. Turns out it wasn't just anyone yelling at me. It was the opposing coach.

I can still see his face, and I sort of remember the confrontation near the plate. After warnings, the umpire had kicked the coach out of the game. But the coach was having none of it. He stormed out and confronted the ump, who stood his ground. Next thing I knew the coach was leaving the field in his car, spewing a cloud of dust. They had to finish the game without him and I have no idea who won.

This is pretty tame compared to some things that happen at games. And for my part I was all but oblivious. But I am glad the ump believed in a sort of decorum that means the coach can't taunt the young pitcher with personal slurs, even if they are mild. Baseball teaches life if we let it, and sportsmanship is a big part of that.

I felt bad for that coach and didn't see him much after that. I'm sure it was rough – most of us have been in the ditch of hot-headedness and errant words. And the ump had his job to do as well. In all the joy of a summer baseball evening we all learned some lessons: people matter, young people need good examples, we all answer to someone, and when we get out of line someone has the tough job of setting us straight.

In that beloved Little League field we learned this and a hundred other life lessons, and it will always be happy in my memory.

Nothing

"Nothing is nothing"
philosophers say;
rock thinks of nothing 
its consciousness may.

"Beyond us is nothing"
non-theists intone,
conscious that nothing

can even be known.

"Who does the knowing?"
I hear myself ask.
The knowing-things agent
is wearing a mask

that covers his visage,

or is it a she?

The meaning intrinsic

is too much for me.

Home>Travel [100WW]

Chesterton reminded us, as any wise grandmother might, that travel may serve a purpose but it can never bring more excitement than home. Travel is escape from excitement. Rightly considered, the real excitement of life, the honest stuff right where we live, that which demands the most and gives back more, is right at home in the normal everyday living. Go away for a new view, to gain perspective, to know again how much home matters. Then dare again to give your all and find home is more real and wonderful than all the travel this beautiful world can offer.

Writing: A Five Month Journey [10'TU]

When one muses for reasons -- reasons at random or otherwise unknown -- one never knows where it may go. And one who is musing in print may muse about that musing. Such is the self-reflection that can be it's own dead end. Or not.

Perhaps it is OK to reflect on this writing journey. It is personal, for sure. The door has not crashed in with money as an incentive to write. But somehow, spurred by the encouragement of a loved one and a friend, I have managed to write in my blog 6 days a week for over 5 months now. Yes, perhaps 10-20 of those posts were re-use of previous writing. And many of them -- who knows how many? -- might should have been left in the latent mind of the attempting writer.

But I have deeply enjoyed the journey and do not know all it means. As a young man I heard a dictum attributed to Mark Twain: "Three words of advice if you would be a good writer: 'write, write, write'." For some reason that triggered a response in me. I knew I would love to write more, but lacked the discipline and focus. But I would still write from time to time, with some pretty good occasional success back in the day when letters-to-the-editor were a thing and people read daily news and etc. in real paper news publications.

When blogging came along a friend helped me do some. And before that I had a wonderful class in Seminary that scratched the itch in particular, while all the other classes did it in general. Before that I had a nice piece published in a church magazine and was told they only accept 2% of unsolicited submissions. So that was sweet to me. And a long time before that -- Why am I going backwards? -- I was deeply encouraged with a high school essay that a competition judge rated at 100%. And -- in forward order now -- there was "Advanced Composition" in my beloved Bible College days with a teacher I will always appreciate for her skill, breadth, and love. In those 15 weeks I continued to scratch the itch and learned a lot that stayed with me.

So this is 10 minute Tuesday and a rumination of writing. I feel a connection with readers even if I have none. But it is ok. As there is a joy in the journey, there is a joy in the writing that only writers know. I guess I am one of them now. For 5 months anyway, and today for 10 minutes (plus a bit).

Knowing is Impossible: Living is Doable

Some things are true to the way the world is and some things are not. And to deny this truth is to embrace a deadly irrationality.

The gurus -- their ilk burgeoning -- who tell us screen life is killing us, are right. And I say so while typing on a (perhaps) more benign version of the killer.

In an obscure satirical book from the 1980's – A Modest Proposal for Peace Prosperity and Happiness – people were depicted with those old computer monitors in place of their heads. I never finished the book, but one Harold Fickett and one Franky Schaeffer were the authors. Franky is the son of the late renowned author Francis Schaeffer and is himself the author of numerous NYT best-sellers.

But I digress. Screens will do that to you.

Of course we now carry those monitors in our pocket and see the world through the screen. And maybe it is ok. Times do change.

But this change is collapsing our world. I mean this literally. And I also mean it is a leviathan which to wrestle with is to die. We all die of something and we are wrestling this match whether we wish to or not. So here's my best amateur analysis, knowing vaguely I am in the broad and learned wake of folks like Marshall McLuhan and Jonathan Haidt.

Reading widely in news and analysis and perspective, including the infinite world of common comments, collapses my conceptual world. I no longer know what I believe, or I believe it less firmly. And the zeitgeist rejoices that I believe less and, it is alleged, know more.

What do I know? That the world is full of competing ideas, that what we call atomization expands incomprehensibly in the digital world where everyone is a publisher. Like what I am doing now. I am begging to make sense of it all. And I am arguing for a kind of fundamentalism that will do so.

The world collapses not just because I see all these views, but because I have no tangible relation with any of the purveyors or commenters, to say nothing of the publishers or those who manage the algorithms that manage me. At the end I am left distraught, knowing a bit of what “doom-scrolling” is, longing for peace, stability, sense.

I think for me and countless others this can only lead to a return of fundamentals and yes, fundamentalism. Did I say that again?

Whatever else fundamentalism means it means you believe some things just because. I DO NOT mean you believe in an irrational way, though that is always the accusation.

I mean something like this: knowledge, so called, is oversold. What we believe about reality is always intermingled with faith. Our conclusions will be rattled and shook by countless counter-perspectives. Many of which have merit. Any of which, if we could see more clearly, may have merit far more than we can know.

But how does anyone sort through the myriad views and discern that which is right? And this does not even address the question of how one determines truth in fact-bases.

Take the most recent former president. Ok I went there. The vitriol I see is shocking. And the viewpoints run the gamut. He is worse than vermin and anyone who disagrees, same. Or he is our only hope for stability and hope as a nation (conviction be damned.) This is helpful. Not. I have my own considered views on the subject which I will share with you now at great length. Again, mercifully, not.

Wiser people leave this impossible continuum alone. Wiser and more healthy. And, I dare say, more fundamentalist.

Fundamentalism has become it's own four-letter word, identified with radicals from Topeka or Somalia, meaning, always, an extreme expression of fixed notions opposed to all things modern. Something like that. 

But I mean it like this: you cannot survive unless you have some fundamentals that define and govern your life. You have to know what you think is true and live by it or you go crazy. The screen will drag you there, so one of the fundamentals it to get rid of it.

So why don't I stop typing now? Good question. Because I think I can manage a certain measure of screen-dom. That's one of the fundamental notions that also guides my life. And no, I can't prove it to you.

The morass of ideas on all things political and cultural is distressing. At the end of the day I am left with what seems true about the world. I believe in God. Of course I cannot see Him or pretend to prove Him to a materialist, or anyone else for that matter. And, perhaps more stretching but also fundamentally, I believe in something I call the “human metaphysic.” And for any readers who have not yet given up I will try to describe this and then be done.

I mean by “human metaphysic” something similar to what is often called natural law: those things we “can't not know.” I believe these are values that are not up for grabs and if we undo them we undo ourselves. This is the idea of objective moral value. Some things are true to the way the world is and some things are not. And to deny this truth is to embrace a deadly irrationality.

Terms are strange and we should try to be clear and basic with ideas that define life for us. Fundamentalism goes there but has been maligned as something equivalent to irrationality. “I just believe the Bible” can be helpful but needs both context and real human community. So how do we cut through the mess?

The only answer I know, as an expression of my belief in God, is that all which is true aligns with Him, the infinite personal God who can be known (Schaeffer again, the elder). And we do best when we try to walk as Christ, knowing we will someday die, holding life loosely and, perhaps, our ideas more loosely still. In the end, if there is a God and we trusted Him, we will be safe with Him. If not, it didn't matter anyway.

I believe “it matters” – even this meandering attempt to make sense of it. And I am walking into the day with loved ones, co-workers and friends, reveling in the gift of life, holding loosely what I think I know, learning to give my life away.

For in all my uncertainty, that idea is one that seems as safe as any, and may even have real merit.

It may even be a fundamental.

At Random

We hear "as you were" or "at ease"; do we ever hear "at random"?

In spite of the billions of bytes in blogosphere, each one meaning my contribution is worth less, I am reluctant to post "at random." Few see, it matters to less, so why?

Many reasons, but to explicate them would move me out of the random territory. It is enough to say sometimes one needs to speak. 

That is all.

As you were!