Thankful to spend some time in Arkansas with soldiers, veterans, and military contractors whose hospitality and service were displayed.
The commander drove me around, narrated more of the history of the post to me, and took me out into the woods to show me more training areas and hunting areas.
Not sure what it is about landscapes but once I have a picture and memory in my mind of a place, I can associate things and ideas with it incomparably more effectively.
When we were at range control, I was struck by this garden bed … of sorts. It didn’t grow azaleas or roses or any other southern plant. Instead it was the resting place of racks and skulls and bones of some of the deer harvested.
Some might think it macabre; I found it wonderful: a testimony to the care and appreciation with which the soldiers and vets here tend the garden of creation in their neck of the woods and the ways their caretaking is repaid via bounty.
Happy Thanksgiving to these men and their families. May your tables abound with venison and benediction.
Thanks to my friend Jim again for the pictures: a cardinal, a chickadee, a blue jay, and a __________?
If you observe, then study, then contemplate the intricacies of these creatures, how could any intellectually honest person ascribe these–and all things–to chance, to matter in motion, to flotsam and jetsam adrift on waves of randomness?
Um, nope.
Scripture says that we all know God is the Author and that God is the Creator and that God is the One we are to revere: “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20, ESV).
The book of creatures (creation) is designed to point us to the Book of the Creator (Scripture) and to the Author of life (God himself).
Have been watching the does lately. They’re in estrous now. And the boys know it.
The bucks push their noses in the air aggressively, scenting the females’ urine and estrous scents. Some of the bucks’ racks are broken off from recent fights with other bucks as part of vying for breeding the does.
I was flying today through Texas and into Arkansas to check on soldiers here that I’m blessed to serve now, and my wife texted me pictures of some the boys back home.
Glad to be here with fellow soldiers, but there’s no place like home.
Alternative– [noun] a choice betweeen two or more propositions, choices, or options.
Illustration: Early this morning I was reading through the Gospel of John again. I came to the place where Judas Iscariot betrays Christ and where Jesus is arrested in the garden across the brook Kidron and hauled before Ciaphas and Pontius Pilate. I saw again how familiar the story is of the ultimate alternative–truth or lies–and of how the pagan world system chooses to go (cancel/kill/aim to destro–the truth).
One could picture it this way:
Truth vs. Lies
Christ vs. Chaos
God at the Center vs. Man at the Center
Objective Morality vs. Subjective Preferences
God vs. Gulag
The Context: In John 17 Jesus prayed his High-Priestly Prayer in front of his disciples and for all believers. He began by saying aloud “the hour ha[d] come” (John 17:1 ESV). The time of the Passion of the Christ was about to unfold in its ultimate purposes of redemption. All of the following and more were being played out in accordance with the plan of God: the works of betrayal by Judas Iscariot, the false brother; rejection of the Messiah by the Jews; the mocking of Jesus by the crowds; the denial of truth by Pontius Pilate (John 18:38); Jesus’ torture; crucifixion; burial; and bodily resurrection.
And as I read the story of the Passion yet again I saw how nothing has changed, in at least this sense: the world system hates the truth. The world system loves itself. The world system demands that the truth be cancelled/killed/destroyed.
What do I mean? Judas was a thief. Remember when Jesus was in Bethany and Judas pretended he was concerned for the poor? He was not concerned for the poor. He was a thief:
But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the money bag he used to help himself to what was put into it. (John 12:4-6 ESV)
Sound familiar? One who pretended to be good was actually a thief, Satan’s soldier, Christ’s enemy, an enemy of the truth.
When Judas sells out Jesus, he (Judas) comes to the garden with soldiers, chief priests, and Pharisees and kisses the Lord Jesus. What should have been a gesture of friendship and loyalty was actually a sign to Judas’ conspirators who they were to arrest, the Lord Jesus (Matthews 26:48-49). Even the most hard-hearted atheist might be moved by such treachery.
Jesus, the only innocent one, was being betrayed by a false brother and the secular world system of which he was a disciple.
Alternative: The alternatives for Judas were money or the Messiah, the crowd or Christ, lies or the truth.
So the soldiers arrest Jesus, haul him before Ciaphas and then to Pontius Pilate. The accusation by the Jews is that Jesus had claimed to be God, the King of kings.
And Pilate interrogates Jesus:
“So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world–to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” (John 18:37 ESV)
Then Pilate utters one of the most crucial questions possible:
Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” (John 18:38 ESV)
That’s always the question, of course. Who’s telling the truth? Was Judas? Was the crowd? Were the soldiers? The sanctimonious Pharisees? Pilate? What was the truth? Who was bearing witness to it?
The answer, of course, is the One who was being sold, betrayed, spat upon, flogged, whipped, rejected, and nailed to the tree.
Connection: When I survey our day and see the unfolding events, it’s as if it’s all been played out before. As Leonard Cohen penned in his song “Everybody Knows,”
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed Everybody knows the war is over Everybody knows the good guys lost Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich That’s how it goes Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking Everybody knows that the captain lied Everybody got this broken feeling Like their father or their dog just died Everybody talking to their pockets Everybody wants a box of chocolates And a long-stem rose Everybody knows
And everybody knows that you’re in trouble Everybody knows what you’ve been through From the bloody cross on top of Calvary To the beach of Malibu Everybody knows it’s coming apart Take one last look at this Sacred Heart Before it blows Everybody knows
The alternative remains: Christ or chaos. Truth or the lie. Jesus or the Judases of the world.
Pilate asked the question, “What is truth?” but I think he knew the truth; he just didn’t like it. He preferred the glory of man more than the glory that comes from God (John 12:43).
I wonder what it will take, I really do.
It could be argued that the world preferred apathy and lies to courage and truth. But it does not have to be so.
If you appreciate the works of George Herbert, George Whitefield, and C.S. Lewis, this is a book to read. Then go back and reread the works of Lewis, Whitefield, and Herbert.
Poet (Herbert), preacher (Whitefield), and scholar-novelist (Lewis) are giants still.
Grateful for this volume by Piper reminding us of the treasure we have, and of how God raises up particular writers as part of heralding the truth to a world in love with lies.
A couple of years ago I discovered the writings of Charles Baxter. He is a professor of literature and writing in Minnesota. But he does not exude the hubris of many professors. When I read Baxter, I sense a man who makes much of the proper things rather than of himself. His posture is invariably one of humility. And his zeal for literature overflows on each page.
Remember how pompous Harold Bloom was in his views? Well, Baxter comes across as the opposite of all that blustering. With Baxter, the focus is invariably upon the language, the power of the story, the figurative language used by masters of the writing craft. Every time I listened to Bloom, I grew more convinced that Bloom’s favorite sound was that of his own voice.
My copy of Wonderlands is all marked up now. Below are a few samples of passages I marked up. In the first passage, Baxter was addressing charisma that characterizes so much of mindless pop culture, politics, and Hollyweird, etc.
“Someone who gives up common sense and leads a go-for-broke crusade has got to be wrong–this is the settled position of the ironist who sees through every blind faith. For such an ironist, however, there is no such thing as a hero, and no such thing as heroism, For the ironist, everybody sooner or later proves to be a hypocrite. Everyone traffics in fraud” (154).
Baxter is a skeptic of the meta-anything. His stance is one of, “I’ll just wait and see.” His lament resonates with his readers because they, too, have grown so accustomed to being lied to that they’re simply weary of it all.
Here’s another taste of Baxter’s observation and awareness:
“At the time of writing this essay, I found myself in an elevator in downtown Minneapolis with approximately six other people. I was the only person on the elevator who was looking at the display indicating which floor we were approaching. Everyone else was gazing downward at their iPhones. Gertrude Stein once said that the only thing that changes from generation to generation is what people are looking at. Every time I see someone tapping away at an iPhone, I think of Gertrude Stein” (49).
Baxter has the poet’s eye to see “what people are looking at.” By noticing and understanding how people spend their time, the talented writer portrays the human condition.
In a passage entitled, “Things About to Disappear,” look at how keen is Baxter’s observational eye:
“The quiet bars of my youth, dark and mournful, whose tables were polished with the tears of the clientele, have given way to noisy sports bars with multiple TV sets, where the patrons shout raucously to each other. It’s another, newer way of being lonely” (54).
And here is one more from his chapter titled “Lush Life”:
“Transformative love is often a feeling of joy. We may also feel a negative fullness in panic states. And this fullnes stands against what many of us feel these days most of the time, which is emptiness and skepticism. Irony and flat assertions are the signal tonalities of emptiness. A feeling combining cold removal, withdrawal, suspicion, and barely suppressed anger is this style’s magnetic north. Irony is a form of protection, and it’s possible that we’re now all overprotected” (91).
When I read Baxter’s stories, novels, and essays, I become even more convinced that literature has something magical about it that gets to the heart of the issue like no other art can. “A word fitly spoken,” Solomon wrote, “is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” With Baxter the setting merits orchards of silver heralding such apples.
MIND & MATTERS 