I’m off to Illinois for a week or so on family matters, so just talk quietly amongst yourselves till I get back.
Jun 30 2008
Looking for Wisdom Interpersonally
“Make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding.” (Prov 2:2, NASB)
One of the most worthwhile pursuits for the Christian is wisdom. James says that if you don’t have it, ask, and you will receive it. So who am I to refuse something good offered by God? It’s encouraging to find it in unexpected places, but then again, very often God reveals things to you in places and times of His own choosing, and I’m good with that. With that said, here are three people who have shown me great wisdom. (I think this will be the first in a series of posts on the topic, so this one deals with wisdom in interpersonal relationships.)
- Karen at Only Sometimes Clever. She is a homeschooling mom who happens to be a believer. On a daily basis she deals with celiac disease and various food-related conditions within her ever-growing family. As a blogger she deals masterfully with trolls who object to homeschooling, folks who don’t understand (or care about) the above-mentioned food conditions, and any number of other topics. What I appreciate is her gentle spirit when she smacks someone upside the head who desperately needs it. My favorite Karen post: The Great Divide, Jr. or Where I Stand on the OEC/YEC Debate.
- Deb (I think), at Ukok’s Place. She is a convert to Catholicism and I am a convert from Catholicism. Needless to say, we have widely differing views on the subject. She has shown me that it is possible to be a Catholic and a Christian at the same time. Her ability to deal with those who, ahem, strenuously disagree with her shows a grace and wisdom that I envy (but in a good way). My favorite Ukok post: Why Protestants can’t receive Communion in the Catholic Church. That one is now up to 169 comments and you’re sure to find something to disagree with, but I encourage you to show the same grace as your bloghost. Did I mention that she likes bacon.
- Nick Hipa, guitarist for As I Lay Dying. Beside being an incredible shredder, he shows an incredible common sense and wisdom that, well, just isn’t common in this day and age. He’s been with the band for about four years and he – and the band – have figured out that dealing with personal differences, especially in close quarters on tour or in the studio, requires constant communication of the sort that subordinates individual pet peeves. My favorite AILD tracks: I Never Wanted and An Ocean Between Us from the Ocean Between Us CD.
The thing that these three folks have in common is their understanding that people matter to God, and that they can express themselves in a way that respects the often-hidden spirit of God within others. That’s cool.
And not that it matters, but I’m directly related to two of these three…
Jun 26 2008
Books That Changed My Life
Which books have changed your life? I’m not talking about good or even great books, or memorable ones, or favorite ones. I mean books that altered your behavior, changed your mind, redirected the course of your life. These books added something permanent to me – an insight, a vision, an attitude.
Here’s my list, in roughly the order they entered my life:
- 50 Short Science Fiction Tales
, edited by Isaac Asimov and Groff Conklin. This one opened my eyes to the incredible possibilities of sci-fi and speculative fiction. I’ve read this one many times over the years.
- Worldbook Encyclopedia. Okay it’s not a book. I used to pick a volume and just start reading. I discovered that there is knowledge outside my sphere of experience.
- Flap, novelization of a Clair Huffaker screenplay. An eminently forgettable 1960s movie starring Anthony Quinn as a drunken Indian. Mom saw me reading it and was aghast that I would read such a thing at my tender age. The incident (not the book) made me understand the power of books to influence – and offend – others.
- The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R Tolkein. This was my first introduction to the concept of exceptional talent in an author. It made me a dyed-in-the-wool bookworm.
- Illusions, by Richard Bach. Everything is an illusion and we create our own reality. I ran into this New Age mumbo-jumbo in my teens and it screwed me up for years.
- Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. Showed me the destructive decadence of modern liberalism. Rand is a tediously self-important writer, but her concepts blew me away.
- Razor’s Edge, by Somerset Maugham. Another one that screwed me up for quite awhile. The story of a disillusioned WW1 fighter pilot who seeks enlightenment. He finds Buddhist ‘wisdom’ on a mountaintop. I found this book when I was searching for The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. I should have read Douglas Adams instead.
- The Bible, by God. I didn’t know any better, so I started at Genesis and read to Revelation. I’m glad I did.
- Wild at Heart, by John Eldredge. Eldredge is frequently criticized for his answers, but not for his questions, namely, why are Christian men wimps, and what are you going to do about it?
- Stand Into Danger, by Douglas Reeman (writing as Alexander Kent). The second or sixth or eleventy-twelfth book in the Richard Bolitho series of nautical fiction set in the Age of Sail. It was while reading this book that I decided I could write at least as well as the author.
- On Writing, by Stephen King. Exceptional insight into what it takes to be a writer.
What’s on your list?
Jun 26 2008
A Political Post – and a Disclaimer
First, the disclaimer: as Christians, our hope is not in leaders or in governments, but in Christ. If we put our hopes anywhere else, we’re guaranteed of disappointment.
Secondly, I caught two interesting articles today, one on the Supreme Court’s decision in the Second Amendment case, and the second on the possibility of evangelicals staying away from the elections this fall.
The SCOTUS decision was interesting in that it showed that the court was willing to address such fundamental issues. From YahooNews:
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices’ first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.
The court’s 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact.
The Constitution does not permit “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home,” [Justice] Scalia said. The court also struck down Washington’s requirement that firearms be equipped with trigger locks.
What’s troubling is that it was a 5-4 decision. The next president will likely appoint 2-3 new justices to the court; what happens if the wrong guy gets elected and those new justices are Ginsberg or Souter clones? Hard times for civil liberties…
That leads to the other article, also from YahooNews, which suggests that evangelicals might sit out this election because John McCain is hardly a social conservative.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – If Christian conservatives stay on the sidelines during the fall campaign, presidential hopeful John McCain probably stays in the Senate.
Christian conservatives provided much of the on-the-ground, door-to-door activity for President Bush’s 2004 re-election in Ohio and in other swing states. Without them, the less-organized and lower-profile McCain campaign is likely to struggle to replicate Bush’s success. And so far, there’s been scant sign that the Republican nominee-in-waiting is making inroads among these fervent believers.
“I don’t know that McCain’s campaign realizes they cannot win without evangelicals,” said David Domke, a professor of communication at the University of Washington who studies religion and politics. “What you see with McCain is just a real struggle to find his footing with evangelicals.”
Family groups in Ohio outlined their doubts about the Arizona senator in a meeting with McCain’s advisers last weekend. They’re concerned about his record on abortion rights and on campaign finance laws that they believe limited their ability to criticize candidates who are pro-choice on abortion.
McCain is damaged goods as far as many (including me) are concerned, but he’s all we have. Hopefully, he will choose a good social conservative VP, like Sarah Palin or Bobby Jindal. If you’re concerned that future Supreme Court decisions could go the wrong way, hold your nose and vote for John McCain. Damaged goods are better than no goods at all.
Jun 25 2008
A McCain/Palin Ticket?
There are lots of rumors floating around regarding Cranky-Old-Man’s choice of running mates, but he couldn’t do better than Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (previous post here). There are several ‘Draft Palin” sites that have been drawing traffic, including PalinforVP.com and Draft Sarah Palin for Vice-President. The ‘official’ logo has the names reversed, but I like this one better.
By the way, go here for an AOL News VP preference poll.
Jun 24 2008
The Great De-Commission
The good folks at Good Coffee pass along this bit of Twitter. This pretty well sums up my grief with the whole emergent/missional/post-modernist movement so popular today.
“Mission” then:
get out there to talk
get out there to teach
get out there to judge
get out there to save
get out there with a closed posture of protecting myself
get out there to bring back into the church“Missional” now:
get out there to listen
get out there to learn
get out there to accept
get out there to be saved
get out there with an open posture of Christ
get out there to be the church
‘Missional’ is perhaps the latest buzzword and it rightly implies that we are sent forth to a lost and dying world with the Gospel. Something gets lots in the actual implementation of that concept, though. The ‘Missional Now’ version sounds very passive.
Christ told his disciples in the Great Commission to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matt 28:19-20a) When Jesus commanded his disciples (and us) to go into the world, it was a very proactive, directed commission. He didn’t say to go listen to people, to learn from them, or to be saved. We can listen and learn and ‘be the church’ as we implement the great commission, and that may indeed help us to save the lost, but let’s not change His words.
Jun 20 2008
Cliff (of the sort one may plunge over)
Man and dog survive cliff plunge
Authorities say a man and his dog survived a 200-foot fall down a remote cliff face in Dorset.
Coast guards say the man’s car went over a cliff near the town of Swanage early Sunday morning.
They say the man was found barely conscious near the crumpled wreckage of his vehicle. The car had crashed onto a large ledge on the cliff face. Both the man’s legs were broken.
Local police believe the man was thrown clear of his vehicle when it fell halfway down the 400-foot cliff.
The coast guards say the man’s dog, a black New Zealand sheepdog named Zin Zan, could not be found at the scene – but the dog later made its own way home and was discovered underneath the kitchen table.
(HT: Metro.co.uk, by way of Drawn Cutlass) As Cutlass points out, the interesting point is the caption, which would lead you to wonder if there are cliffs of the sort over which one might not plunge.
Jun 13 2008
A Forehead of the Hardest Stone
Jeremy at Parableman posts some thoughts on Ezekiel 3:4-9.
He then said to me: “Son of man, go now to the house of Israel and speak my words to them. You are not being sent to a people of obscure speech and difficult language, but to the house of Israel — not to many peoples of obscure speech and difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely if I had sent you to them, they would have listened to you. But the house of Israel is not willing to listen to you because they are not willing to listen to me, for the whole house of Israel is hardened and obstinate. But I will make you as unyielding and hardened as they are. I will make your forehead like the hardest stone, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house.” [Ezekiel 3:4-9, NIV]
I’ve long been accused of having a thick head, but I don’t thick my skull is as thick as Ezekiel’s.
Jeremy makes an interesting point that God foreknew that Israel would reject His message and His messenger. To prep Ezekiel for his mission, God said He would make Ezekiel ‘as unyielding and hardened as they are.’ Why? If they are opposed to the message, the messenger, and the Sender, why bother at all? I think it speaks to the overwhelming love of God, that He would continue to send His message with the knowledge that, a) some would hear, though most would not; b) that even the most obstinate was not beyond His care and needed His love; and c) that He would send His messenger prepared in a way that only God could.
I see the Book of Ezekiel as an encouragement as we face a postmodern, post-Christian society hell-bent on self-destruction. We need to be as persistent as Ezekiel in getting across the message of Christ’s sacrificial, redemptive love to a society that could care less.
Next Page »
My problem with the whole missional/emergent/postmod movement is its deconstructive nature. All that has been learned or said or done in the past is by definition wrong, and is to be deconstructed or abandoned. Now we’re deconstructing the Great Commission as well. Great. What do we eliminate next, prayer? Atonement? Christ himself?