A Holy Day
Growing up Catholic, December 8 was one of those Holy Days on which all the practicing faithful were required to attend Mass. Its been about 30 years since I left those beliefs and became Reformed. As I was reflecting this morning, I realized that this day has once again become a "holy" day for me. The word holy has its roots in something being set apart, normally for some religious purpose. This day is holy to our family, not because of any belief about Mary, the Mother of God, but because it is the day our beloved Andy departed this veil of tears for "that big house up above." Today is the twelfth anniversary of that most painful day. Dianne and I were talking about it as we drove back from St. Louis recently. I told her I have an almost photographic memory of all the events of the day (something very remarkable for me). This day is one of less than a handful of days that have radically transformed my life. Just as the birth of Christ marks the division of world history, December 8, 1996 divides my life. I had experienced loss before but nothing like the real, physical pain that settled in my chest for days. I had faith before, but realized on that day it had been much more head knowledge than a complete loving and trusting relationship with my heavenly Father. I believed in heaven before but now I live every day with one spiritual foot firmly planted there. But for all this transformation and the maturing it has wrought in my life, I still miss Andy so much and long to see him face to face.

Thanksgiving
"The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance." Ps 16:6 This is one of my favorite verses from the Psalms. The "lines" are boundary lines and the picture David is painting for us is that of a beautiful and fruitful field or farm. The farm can be seen as our lives. As children of God we can look around at our lives and see countless blessings and abundance. It is for these that we are called to be thankful and full of peace and joy. I think we are also called to be discerning with respect to those things in our lives which are not easy for us — things that are hurtful, even devastating. A farmer knows that his farm is good and productive even though it may have a sinkhole or two; a boggy area unsuitable for crops; or a rocky field that is impossible to plow. There can also be droughts which are severe enough to dry up our springs for a season. Yet, the farmer is still thankful for this pleasant place for he knows the drought will pass and the bounty will return.

I am very thankful today and see God’s blessings in so many places in my life. I have walked through a few boggy spots this year but today I stand on the firm Rock and know that Jesus calls me his friend. Though I am thankful, I am also grieving with my friends. Luke and Christy Davis lost their son, Jordan, this week. Eric and Kelly Scherrer lost their infant son, Beau, this week. Allen and Gillian Peabody lost their son, Joseph, in August. These are the sinkholes we fall into and which God, by his grace and comfort, pulls us from. We know because we have been though it ourselves.

This week as I have reflected on all this sorrow I remembered our son’s homegoing service and the song one of our pastor’s sung. It’s an old Red Foley song (Steal Away) and it captures so clearly the message God would have us hear during these "sinkhole" times. I found a video of Foley singing it on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czvX07wZUy8

We See So Little Yet Desire So Much

"If only the veil could be torn away and our eyes strengthened to bear the luminous brightness of divine glory! It is so plain, from what we know so well of ourselves, that this would be a hopeless dream. What are our bodily eyes to demand such a vision when they miss so much of things as obvious as the unclouded sparkle in a child’s eyes, the freshness of sky and countryside after a spring rain, or even the triumph of artistic coloring in a single petal of a rose? We see so little of the bodily things for which our eyes were made; we can hope for nothing from them of the invisible and unlimited splendor of God. Our minds plunge easily, even eagerly, beneath the surface of physical things to the intangible realities that enrich and nourish our minds; yet how much we miss of the courage of little men, of stubborn hope, of dreams, regrets, loves too fine for the rough wrappings of words. These things our minds can see for they fit into the finite limits of a concept — the wedding garment essential for every guest of our minds. Not so for the infinite perfection of divinity." — Thomas Aquinas

The Demise of Journalism
My cousin uses a quote from Mark Twain as a tag line in his emails: "If you don’t read the newspaper, then you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed." This Twain-ism has taken on new meaning during the 2008 election cycle. Journalism, in the classical sense, may have completely retired from the field. I remember one of my "vacation things" when the kids were growing up was to purchase a copy of the New York Times daily and read a good portion of it. While I did not agree with the editorial policy of the NYT, I did enjoy the depth of the articles and the high standard of English composition and grammar. Even twenty years ago, our local newspaper was full of typos, misspelled words, sentence fragments, poor grammar, and a general disregard for the King’s English. Reading the NYT daily was a refreshing break from all that sloppy writing and editing.

Today, those vacation memories seem like a myth. Other than the Wall Street Journal I have not picked up a newspaper this year that did not look and feel like a tabloid. I’m not saying that there is no good reporting to be found in newsprint — its just very hard to find. More importantly, the subtle bias of yesteryear has been replaced by in-your-face political propaganda written into almost every article. Maybe the worst, (I say maybe because there was so much other stuff I just refused to read) were the attacks on Sarah Palin. These went beyond the pale in every respect.

It was announced a few weeks ago that the Christian Science Monitor will cease producing a newsprint copy of their publication in the near future. The publication will still be available online but the only thing you can hold in your hand is your laptop. Our local paper, the Tennessean, shrunk its page size a couple of weeks ago and it is beginning to look like some third world rag. The response of the journalist establishment to decreased circulation is to "dumb it down another notch." Sounds like the same approach our professional educators apply to the school system. All this seems like we bidding farewell to a thinking America. (Check out this blog http://www.twistimage.com/blog/ )

Post Election Short Thoughts
1. I’m glad its over. Even as an old cynic I was disgusted with much of what occurred during the campaigns — and that includes both parties.
2. My New Year’s resolution (a couple of months early): no more talk radio!
3. God remains firmly in control of His creation (I guess this one should have been #1).
4. My gut feeling is that an era has passed and we may never be able to return to an America many of us thought existed. It may not have existed for a long time but some of us were unable to discern the signs of the times.
5. I am going to pray for our new president and give honor to him and his office.
6. I think its time for Christians in America to stop chasing moonbeams and focus our energies on doing the work of the kingdom: worshiping in Spirit and truth; feeding the hungry; comforting the grieving; visiting the sick; and, living like we are the light on the hill.

A Joyful Day!
Andy’s best friend, David Ferriss is getting married today. I would so like the opportunity to talk to Andy and get his comments. I suspect one of them would be "David, you really reached above yourself this time — Chelsea is something very special!" We will be celebrating with David and Chelsea this afternoon and suspecting that Andy will have found some way to look in on the ceremony (and the party afterward). All our prayers and best wishes to the new Mr. & Mrs. David Ferriss!

Andy Blog
Its very difficult to imagine Andy at 28! Today is his birthday and for the 12th time we are celebrating it without him. All week our thoughts have been about him and we have probably chuckled as often as we have shed tears. We have been planning to plant a tree today (a memorial we have used before) but have had a difficult time finding the tree we wanted. Dianne and I both remember the tree we had at the house on Anchorage. It was a beautiful flowering tree that we had been told it was a tulip tree. It turns out that is was actually a type of magnolia that grows to be larger than we want in front of the bedroom window. (We learned about the magnolia after Dianne visited the Anchorage house and clandestinely removed a small branch to take to the nursery.) As were discussing the tree and the Anchorage house, we remembered how much Andy loved that house and being close to his best friend, David Bell. One of the first things Andy would ask each day was about the possibility of playing with David. They had many great adventures together. Since we are thinking about planting a tree today, the one that came to mind was the treasure hunt. They had seen or read about pirates and buried treasure which set their active imaginations loose. It seemed perfectly reasonable that they too should have a secret treasure buried somewhere. So, Andy and David snuck into David’s parents bedroom and cleaned out his mother’s jewelry box. Their vegetable garden had been tilled for the spring planting and this seemed like the perfect place for the treasure. For some reason they decided that each piece of jewelry should be buried in a separate hole. This occupied them most of the day and their parents most of the following week with a metal detector. Here comes another chuckle!

Low Country Haven
We’re spending the week at the Snow’s wonderful house on Edisto Island, SC. If there ever was a place in God’s creation to recover from the stress of the world, this is it — and we haven’t even been fishing yet! The photographs were taken out the picture window in the bathroom of the master suite. You can sit in the tub looking out over the saltwater creek and the marsh and begin feeling like The Prince of Tides. We are planning to spend the day in Charleston and I am looking forward to my first visit.

I ran across a passage from Thomas Aquinas last week that has caused a good bit of reflection and encouragement. "‘All the ways of a man are open to His eyes.’ (Prov 16:2) Our feet cannot carry us beyond the vision of God. The most wayward heart is still within reach of His understanding eyes. Triumph and failure, faded dreams, the ebbed courage, the flicked insults of ingratitude, and all the tantrums of childish rebellion do not have to be explained to God. He knows us, knows better than we can ever know; and loves us infinitely from the infinite depth of that understanding knowledge. His image is in us, however deeply buried under the debris of our living, and heaven is never beyond the reach of our fingers."

The Lesser of Two Evils?
I can’t remember a presidential election year that I didn’t hear someone say "I guess I’m going to have to choose between the lesser of two evils." I believe that for a Christian choosing evil is, in itself, an evil act. So, if we believe that the two (or more) candidates running for president are evil men (or women), then we just should not vote for any of them. But let’s take a look at what we mean by evil. When we are talking about "two evils" are we talking about two sinful people? If so, then the only possible candidate for president we can support is Jesus! Every person who has ever sought the office of president has been a sinful person. Some of those are redeemed sinners — some are not. If we are not talking about garden variety sinners when we call them evil, what we are we talking about?

I’m not exactly sure what we meant 40 or 50 years ago when this expression was used and I am not completely sure what unbelievers mean by it today. What I want to consider is what us right-thinking, conservative, evangelical Christians mean. There was a time in the late 1970's and early 1980's that evangelicals rediscovered their identity and became "radical." Just before I was a believer, I marched with Christians in downtown Nashville against adult businesses which had a thriving trade in that part of the city. There was a relatively large crowd that night that almost filled the Downtown Presbyterian Church. It was not too much later that I was part of a growing group who picketed in front of abortion clinics and attended every pro-life rally in town. Christians were taking to the streets on many fronts. Christians were aware of culture more so than the preceding few decades. Many Christians were being influenced by the reconstruction movement which was teaching an optimistic view of God’s Kingdom on earth. Books about restoring (or building) Christian America were extremely popular. It was a giddy time for many of us. It was during this period that the Religious Right became a political entity. Ronald Reagan was elected president and there was an upbeat attitude in the evangelical community.

To my parents generation, voting was a civic duty. I remember listening to them discuss the candidates and the political parties. Sometimes they disagreed — those were the more interesting conversations. I also remember (1950's) sitting as a family watching the national conventions and listening to the speeches. In some ways that was a blessed time as we had not yet learned about "sound bites." In any case, after the conventions, speeches, and campaigning, my parents, and a substantial number of their peers, went to the polls and voted. They understood a very fundamental fact of our political system — someone was going to be elected president and lead the country for the next four years. They believed it was their responsibility to have a say in that decision.

Today, evangelicals have a different view. Over the past thirty years , we have been encouraged to believe that voting is giving our stamp of approval to the ideological views of one of the candidates. We have subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) been trained to compare the views of candidates to a list of litmus tests provided by the various conservative/Christian leaders: abortion, gay rights, immigration, etc. Every vote is now an ideological decision. If a candidate does not score well on our litmus tests, then he is an "evil" and we look elsewhere. If all available candidates come up short, then, according to some of our "leaders", we stay home and don’t vote. There is an unspoken assumption that voting for an "evil" is probably sin on our part. And that is where we are today in this election cycle. Both Democratic candidates are de facto "evil" and the Republican candidate has been found lacking by many of the leaders of the Religious Right. Consequently, we are being counseled by some to just "sit this one out." I’m not going to do that. I’m going back to that fundamental truth: someone is going to be elected. I believe that Christians living in a democracy have a responsibility to vote. I also believe that our decision process needs to move beyond a list of litmus tests. Among other things, we need to look at what Scripture tells us about the role of government and consider not only a candidate’s view on our hot button issues but how we perceive he will assure that justice reigns, particularly to the poor and disenfranchised. God is much more concerned about the poor than He is about a wall on our borders. God is much more concerned about those who have to choose between food and medicine than He is about the growth of our 401k accounts. God is much more concerned about people having jobs in order to feed their families than He is about America competing in the global economy. And God still holds the heart of the king in His hand.

The Shack
I know that men much smarter than I will probably make mincemeat of the theology presented in William P. Young’s The Shack. I found a lot to question as well. That being said, I enjoyed the book and it made a significant impact on me. My lovely bride will confirm to anyone who asks that I am a non-relationalist and probably one from birth. What is a "non-relationalist" (if there is such a term)? It is someone who is so focused on the analytical that he usually misses most of the relational aspects of life. I don’t necessarily like this about myself but do confess it to be true. It is not that I don’t want relationships — I want them very much. Its just that I don’t naturally gravitate to the "feelings side" when I can camp out on the more familiar (and safer) turf of the "thinking side." This proclivity of mine has not been limited to earthly relationships but also applies to heavenly ones. I have to be in a pretty desperate state of mind before I open up and pray for God to really touch my life rather than just fix the problem.

In The Shack Young’s treatment of the gospel as it is worked out in our lives is life-changing, at least for me. Without being a "plot spoiler" The Shack is about Mack whose daughter is kidnaped and murdered by a serial killer. Four years after the murder, he receives a note inviting him to meet with God at the same remote shack where his daughter was abused and murdered. Though he thinks it is a crazy idea, he goes and spends the weekend with God, all Three Persons (all dust jacket or Amazon information). What particularly grabbed me about the book was the way the author treated the relationships among the Trinity and how that relates to us as God lives in us. For one of the few times in my life I felt like I understood what true relationship looks and feels like. I will probably read the book again in a few weeks just to cement some of the encouraging parts in my mind. I would caution that as this book sweeps through the Christian (and non-Christian) community, many are becoming devotees and are uncritical of some of the very incomplete theology in the book. Read it with caution and expect to be challenged at some points. I think this is a great book for a discussion group.