“Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.'” (Jeremiah 6:16)

The context of the preceding verse is the imminent destruction of Jerusalem during the lifetime of Jeremiah due to the sins of the people. God sent Jeremiah and other prophets to call people to repent, to turn back to God, and to live according to God’s ways. But just like in the Garden of Eden, the people chose to believe the serpent. They believed a lie and the father of lies, the devil. They thought they knew better than God. They thought they’d be just fine without God at the helm of their lives and as the anchor of their souls.

God was gracious to send prophets like Jeremiah and others to speak forth the words of God. To do what? To plead with people to “ask for the ancient paths.” That is, to seek wisdom, to obey God. And to do what when those ancients paths are revealed? To walk in them. To apply that theology. And what will come if people walk in wisdom? Rest for their souls.

But if there’s one characteristic of the fallen human heart it is this: obstinacy. “We will not walk in it,” (Jeremiah 6:16b). That’s fallen man’s posture. The shaking of the fist in the face of God and gritting of the teeth and rebelling.

And so when you see leftist cities overrun with crime, when you see godless governments go from working for the people to canceling people, seizing their assets, and incarcerating them, you should not be surprised. It’s symptomatic of spiritual rebels screaming, “We will not walk in it.”

I have to laugh when I see biological men compete as women and then naturally dominate the sporting events. Why complain? You said there was no difference between men and women, right? Non-binary, you said.

When you defund police and then watch as your cities degenerate into Thugville, why complain? You got what you asked for. “We will not walk in it.” That’s your mantra. Behold, the fruit of thy ways.

It’s an old story but one which most refuse to learn. And so the headlines and obituaries and persecutions and cancellations continue. The state grows bigger; governments squash the individual because the individual will not govern himself.

Obstinacy against wisdom, against the ancient path, against God, has consequences. But most refuse to listen.

And when it comes to your doorstep, it’ll be too late.

Meanwhile the prophets have been canceled or worse. Because the people chose obstinacy and now they are reaping their rewards in full. Lord, have mercy. We have lost our way. Obstinacy vs. redemption via the gospel. We are reaping the whirlwind.

In no particular order below are some glimpses from my miles today with my hiking poles, hiking boots, a Faulkner novel, a journal, a pencil, and other items, but most of all, I simply beheld what my eyes saw, what my soul responded to. I hope you enjoy.

How one views scenes like this reveals clues to one’s theology. In a universe devoid of a sovereign Creator, why would such a scene exist? Why would men have designed the fence such and such a way? And why would streetlights be placed a certain thought-out number of meters apart? And why would we manicure our lawns and plant shrubs and cultivate them for aesthetic appreciation if the universe is a cosmic accident? It seems clear that intention and design–divine and human–pervade the universe and all creatures. Why would cosmic accidents entertain themselves via intricate design? After all, animals don’t design fences, plan the architecture of a running track, place streetlights, and plant and preserve timber. No, those are intentional acts by intelligent creatures who owe their own particular giftings to their Builder, too.

I jogged a bit more and returned eventually to my car and drank the remainder of a gallon of water I’d kept on the floorboard. Something caught my eye. I looked up on a pine telephone pole. A red-headed woodpecker was circling the pole and pecking away. His colors were magnificently bright. I could have named him “Patriot” because he was red, white, and blue. He ascended and descended the pole, pecking away at the pole, that red head moving faster than I could capture with my eye. Amazing. LIke the tree, the bird captivated me. Why such beauty? Why the eyes to see it? Why the sun to provide light? Why the ability to sense beauty and want to appreciate it and share it?

Later I returned to my place, tired and hungry. While I prepared my supper, I returned to a book I’m reading this week, Stephen Nichols’ Heaven on Earth: Capturing Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Living in Between.

Just because this world will burn does not mean that we should leave it rotting on the vine. God put Adam and Eve in the garden to cultivate it. As they did, the garden would reveal the presence and the glory of its Creator at every turn, displayed with the dawn of every new day. Though this world is fallen and sin-cursed, it remains God’s world. He desires that we cultivate it, and even that we enjoy it (48).

Since we find that we live in an intelligible world, and we have the means not only to apprehend it, but also the abilities to cultivate, shepherd, and tend it, do not all these realities clearly suggest and imply not only the existence of a Creator, but also that He delights in beauty, and in making it for us to enjoy? Why? It is possible that He intends beauty as a conduit for our delight in its Author? And sometimes that could be as simple and yet spectacular as a hardwood in winter, a red-headed woodpecker, and a theological worldview that acknowledges the masterpiece we tread upon.

The picture is blurry because I took it with my phone through the kitchen window. A mom is cleaning her girl.

It is moving to watch their soft eyes, their silent communication, their understanding of interdependence.

Family is a theme among them, too.

Salmon and orange above. Bathing all. For those who saw, it snatched the breath.

A bird unclasped his talons. Pine bark chipped from the brown-shingled limb.

And feathers flew towards the light as the brown-shingled limb rose and sank rhythmically with a bird’s leaving.

Some days the air is brisk, the sun smiles, the trails beckon, and Brewster’s ready to be on point. Again we take to the trails and it could not be better. He’s an old boy now, but he still presses on, as we rack up the miles.

This week a friend of mine sent me this quote from Davies. My friend is a reader, too. He understands the gift of good books. He understands the power of the written word. He understands lasting value in a world shot through with kitsch.

As I thought on the Davies quote, it encouraged me to share with fellow bibliophiles (and future bibliophiles) a handful of books I have read recently that have become some of my favorites:

1. Annie Dillard: Holy the Firm
2. Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist
3. Larry Brown: Tiny Love
4. N.D. Wilson: Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl
5. Ted Geltner: Blood, Bone, and Marrow

I gain nothing from sharing my thoughts except the encouragement of fellow readers, those who are likewise mysteriously drawn to the power of the written word. In a world of Youtube, and all visual media that assaults us, I cannot explain how good books still endure but they do. And I, quite literally, thank God for that reality.

It staggers my mind how folks can spend their lives in video after video after video, and feel no guilt. How do they not sense their lives flowing away, like so much sand being washed from the shoreline of their allotted days?

But somehow, thankfully, writers press on in their solitary crafts and good books get written and some publishers take a chance, and literature continues. And I, for one, am grateful.

Here’s a very brief assessment of each of the five pieces I listed above:

1. Dillard is a masterful wordsmith. This piece of hers is a blend of Christian allusion, pantheistic motifs, solitude, and contemplation. Her wordsmithing is as striking as the nature she describes. Read it slowly. Read it aloud. Then read it again.
2. I must show my cards with Dickens. I am a disciple. For characterization, ear for dialect, and capturing of human foibles, Dickens remains for me a treasure in literature almost unsurpassed. I read my first Dickens novel as a high school student, and I was hooked for life. In Oliver Twist, Dickens takes on human greed, the exploitation of children, and the beauty of compassion.
3. Larry Brown is one of my favorites, too. He writes of the “rough South,” Mississippians mostly, who are down on their luck, prone to drink and violence, persistent, lonely, and yet loving. If you like Cormac McCarthy, William Faulkner, William Gay, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O’Connor, you’ll probably like Larry Brown’s collection of short stories.
4. N.D. Wilson is a brilliant thinker and imaginative storyteller. This is one of his most important books, in my opinion. The upshot of this book? The world is magical. And we have forgotten that. And that is a big problem. I love this book.
5. The last book is a bio of a writer I adore: Harry Crews. Crews’ works are not for the delicate. He spares nothing. He writes of brutality, usually by way of the “freakish.” Like Flannery O’Connor, he is demonstrating the hypocrisy of which we are all guilty. We wear one face for the world; meanwhile, our faces, if seen truly, are grotesque. Crews’ stuff is tough. You’ll be shocked at some of the episodes in his fiction. But he wrote truthfully, and that can be often ugly. Geltner does an excellent job in this bio of Crews in explaining what Crews wrote about and why he wrote about it. A touching, balanced, compassionate treatment of the brutal life and brutal works of Harry Crews.

Question: “Is the LORD among us or not?” That is a question that Israel asked, in the form of testing God, after having been miraculously delivered from Pharaoh and the Egyptian military. It is a question that Israel asked after having been preserved through the ten plagues God sent upon Egypt. Israel was spared; Egypt was judged. Just as a reminder, Israel had been preserved and delivered while Pharaoh’s Egypt was judged by way of the following: 

1. The Nile River was turned to blood
2. Amphibian invasion: frogs 
3. Gnats
4. Flies
5. Death of Egypt’s livestock
6. Boils 
7. Hail
8. Locusts
9. Darkness
10. Death of the firstborn 

Answer: Ten answers were not enough for Israel. Those were insufficient. They persisted in their unbelief, all the while paying lip service to believing the Lord. 

Ten empirical eyewitness answers were not enough. 

Then there was this little event of crossing the Red Sea. Just a small thing, of course. The nation of Israel, slaves under pagan Pharaoh, walked across the floor of the Red Sea, and watched God cover Pharaoh’s military in salt and brine and drown them as a judgment for their rejection of the truth of God. 

And of course God rained down manna from heaven (Exodus 16) while they wandered through northern and eastern Egypt. And of course He provided water from the rock (Exodus 17). Israel’s daily bread and water were provided by God. Just a small thing, of course, after having crossed a sea, and seen God send judgment after judgment upon Egyptian unbelief and rejection. 

The question remained with them: “Is the LORD among us or not?” (Exodus 17:7). 

Takeaway: This is the beauty of the  Question and Answer format. 

The people asked; God answered—over and over again.

And then of course, there was this small thing of Jesus, nearly 2,000 years later, taking on flesh and fulfilling precise predictions about His birth, His ministry, the effects it would have upon Israel and world history, about what His haters would do to Him, about how He would be rejected, sold, betrayed, mocked, pierced, crucified, buried three days and nights just like Jonah, and raised again for all to see, just like Jonah—who made it to Nineveh, after all—and that He (Jesus) would build His church—that even Covid, mask mandates, and big government politicians could not put out.

You see, God answered Israel in the 1400s B.C. and He answers still. How? Through the historical transforming power of the truth: He is the God who provides.  

If you grew up in a nominally cultural Christianity as I did, it was not uncommon, then or now, to hear homilies taken from verses in Proverbs 31, especially around Mother’s Day. In this section of Proverbs the king pens an encomium. He praises the blessings of a virtuous wife.

But it’s not Mother’s Day in our culture, one might say. True. But aren’t you glad that the virtuous wife in your life (if you have one) doesn’t just embody that one day a year, but lives it over and over again, often with very little thanks? And are you perhaps like I am–way too seldom thankful, in word and deed, for her and to her?

Scripture reads this way about the excellent wife:

An excellent wife who can find?

She is far more precious than jewels.

The heart of her husband trusts in her,

and he will have no lack of gain.

She does him good, and not harm,

all the days of her life. (Proverbs 31:10-12)

And these words, too:

She looks well to the ways of her household

and does not eat the bread of idleness. (Proverbs 31:27)

I don’t say it or show it enough, but you are a blessing, CJ, God’s blessing in my life.