Made it home a few moments ago and had some girls behind the house to greet me:
For the almost-50 folks coming to our Monthly Fellowship this afternoon at 5 p.m. we will see you soon. Taco bar, with all the fixings.
Plus, Carrie Jane and I have the communication course scheduled to lead us through tonight. You’re going to have a blast.
For Sunday’s time in Scripture we will be in Matthew 8:14-17.
See you soon.
This week when I was in the Midwest I read a book that arrested me via its singularity (pun intended). The book was actually recommended to me in another book about polymaths, thinking for oneself, and trusting your instincts. I bought Thiel’s book because it sounded interesting. But it was more than interesting; it was wise.
I now have notes, annotations, underlinings, stars, check marks, et al throughout.
If you want to see what a genuine intellectual/writer/lawyer/billionaire/businessman/inventor/capitalist can teach the teachable, I cannot recommend this book heartily enough.
When I fly I love to read on the plane. Most folks in my experience prefer to pop in ear buds and watch movie after movie, or pay for internet and scroll, scroll, scroll. Image after image, video after video, till the plane lands. But so it goes.
This week during work and plane trips I read a short book entitled Leaning Into the Liminal. By liminal, the author means threshold, rite of passage, or phase. Limen in Latin means “threshold.”
The book is written for those of us in pastoral care who are charged oftentimes with shepherding people through spiritual thresholds in their lives due to, for example, death of a loved one, illness, separation, financial change, combat/war, or trauma in its myriad manifestations.
Here are a few nuggets I found helpful in the book:
“Liminality is about ambiguity, transition, and transformation. Death (in all forms) embodies these elements. It marks the end of life as we know it and the beginning of something different and unknown. Like other liminal experiences, death compels us to confront our mortality and question the nature of our existence” (p. 69).
“The archetypal symbol of a healing passage is the pilgrimage. The notion of spiritual pilgrimage takes on great iportance as one figuratively moves from one state of being to another. In pilgrimage, an extended and often difficult journey becomes a process of separating from the given, everyday world. Pilgrimage entails stepping away from daily routines and expectations and moving with special deliberateness toward a place where one might be changed . . . . Movement away from the given world and toward a distant goal can create a wide threshold of transition and transformation” (p. 60).
“One of the fundamentals of narrative theory is the idea that people have many interacting narratives that constitute their sense of self, and that the problem story they bring to therapy is not limited to this sense of self but is influenced and shaped by cultural and contextual discourses about identity and power” (pp. 9-10).
As one who believes fully that stories are soul food, I find the last quote quite moving. The stories by which we live and are informed shape and reshape our lives as long we tell them and carry them, or to use my favorite writer’s words, as long as we continue to carry the fire.
I am in Indiana this week. While here a buddy of mine from back home sent me a picture of an owl that appeared to be looking right at him. My buddy thinks this is a short-eared owl (I don’t know; my bird book is at home). All I know is that he’s arrestingly beautiful and somewhat menacing, too. He just looks indomitable. I had to include the picture.
Second is a picture I took this morning as the fog blanketed the endless cornfields of Indiana. I never tire of pastoral scenes. They speak to me in ways that remain deeply mysterious and inescapable for me.
The story is that there actually is a story, and every story has an author. A tale is being told because there’s a coherent narrative.
What is it about a tune? I was rolling along and then … Bam! Journey’s “Still They Ride” came on. And I was back. Back to where so much began.
Small-town life, where I walked the railroad track and used a week’s worth of saved quarters from lifting couches and loveseats to purchase a bottle of Mountain Dew and a Snickers from the gas station. It’s a Circle K now, but when I was a tyke, it was not that, but a little country store where the lady in a black tank top and raspy smoker’s voice knew me and my cousin, Robert, as we came with our quarters to drop into the slot for Asteroids and PAC-MAN, then bite into our Snickers for which we’d saved all week.
Seems silly sentimental now, but it was all so real then … and as I rolled down the road and Steve Perry’s voice launched me once again into nights riding the blacktop country roads, blasting Journey and dreaming of girls, smelling girls’ perfume in the skating rink that was but a tin tent but that we thought a haven of damsels. It washed over me again. The power of music in youth. Still they ride … through the night.
Jesse rides through the night
Under the Main Street light
Ridin’ slow
This ol’ town, ain’t the same
Now nobody knows his name
Times have changed, still he rides.
Traffic lights, keepin’ time
Leading the wild and restless
Through the night
Still they ride, on wheels of fire
They rule the night
Still they ride, the strong will survive
Chasing thunder
Spinning ’round, in a spell
It’s hard to leave this carousel
‘Round and ’round
And ’round and ’round
Still they ride, on wheels of fire
They rule the night
Still they ride, the strong will survive
Chasing thunder
When I travel I tend to read books from genres I would not ordinarily read. I prefer classics, history, and theology. But this week it was Thiel’s Zero to One.
In it he (and/or his co-author) penned this zinger: “Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.”
Because of my spiritual concerns for those I care about, and because I have remaining loyalties to ground-up, local, individual religious liberty and sanctity of human life convictions, this zinger struck a deep chord.
Who do you know that is a man or woman of courage and conviction in action? The question answers itself.
I was reading Scripture this morning. In Psalm 125 the writer uses imagistic language to contrast two ways of living: restless evil vs. enduring peace.
In verse one the poet writes, “Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever” (Ps 125:1 ESV). The literary stage is set via imagery. One type of people (the godly) are pictured as a city on a hill, abiding forever.
The implication of its opposite should be clear to readers. The wicked (the ungodly who hate God) are restless and unsatisfied unless they’re tearing down and disrupting. They have to steal, kill, and destroy. That is their nature.
Here’s a line of poetry that should shake us to our core: “For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong” (Ps 125:3 ESV).
Connection to Our Day: When I read that universities are now canceling graduation ceremonies because the mobs of imbecility are tearing the schools down, I have to go, “Well, yes, what should you expect? You’re surprised that godless, useful idiots loot, demolish, scream, and behave as hoodlums. That’s what you’ve raised them on–nihilism, godlessness, solipsism, atheism, and feelings. Not truth, not the understanding and knowledge of the holy, not Scripture, but just hate, emotion, entitlement, and nonsense. You’re reaping the whirlwind you have sown, and you want us to be surprised?”
https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/may-6-anti-israel-protest-colleges-campus-police-arrest
Be encouraged, Christian pilgrim. Your lights will become more evident as the darkening tides of secular hate cover the lands.
When a civilization rejects God, rejects the Christ of God, chaos eventually ensues. It’s been the same pattern since Genesis 3.
And when the purple-haired urchins scream for lunch money but cannot articulate a coherent thought, just know that they’re reaping what they’ve sown, and all they know how to do is destroy everything. Their drug is wielding scepters of wickedness.
I have a buddy who is uncanny in his ability to send me a text with words of wisdom at opportune times.
Sometimes it is possible to grow discouraged, we would all surely admit, especially as we see the continued disintegration and imbecility of our times. And I am so encouraged when my buddy sends me texts like this one he sent me yesterday: “It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in a war.”
I am not for certain who said it or penned it. For all I know, he did. He has some zingers. But this one put wind in my sails. Here’s why.
I think we’re at a crossroads in our day. For Christians, it is my view that we are not to retreat. We are to “go into all the world” because Christ has all authority (Mt 28). We’re to disciple the nations, not retreat from them. We are not to do this by force like Islamists do it, but by modeling and heralding the law of God and the grace of God in the gospel. We point people to God’s holiness, our sin, Christ’s person and work, and our need to flee to Christ in repentance and faith, and in Him we find welcome and rescue and restoration.
I’m not a political person at all, frankly; I despise politics. I’ve had to shake the hands of bureaucrats, and it is akin to handling reptiles. That is also the imagery Scripture uses to describe evil and soldiers of Satan (dens of snakes; broods of vipers, etc.).
We are to bear witness, however, to the gospel, not hide the light of the gospel under a basket. We are to be salt and light. How clear is this in Scripture! The fact that we need to even stress it is an indictment. The gospel is to compel Christians to bear witness to its power in our daily lives.
But the church, what about the church? The mission of the church, as I understand it from Scripture, is multifaceted. Here are some of the church’s directives from Scripture: worship; service; observance of the sacraments; prayer; fellowship; evangelism; discipleship, etc.
We’re at a crossroads in our day. The temptation is for some believers to cower rather than to call upon the Lord. When David went to battle with Goliath, the unbelieving world scoffed at David. How could a mere boy slay a giant of a man, a tested warrior? But David did not purport to be a political savior or a John Wick of the 900s B.C. No, he was God’s man who knew God and knew God’s power. The sling and smooth stones were just the means that the King of kings used through the obedience of David. That’s the key: obedience to show up for the battles but in the power of God. It’s dominion God’s way, but God’s way calls for courageous warriors.
Jesus is the Lion of Judah as well as the Suffering Servant. Gentle and lowly, yes, but also the King who walked out of a tomb, stilled the seas, raised cadavers, spoke light from darkness, granted sight to the blind, caused the lame to walk, and cast demons into hell. He’s the One before whom the demons tremble.
We need discerning and courageous soldiers for Christ, that is my view. Paul knew it and lived it; Stephen knew it and lived it; Peter knew it and lived it; David knew it and lived it; Esther knew it and lived it; Daniel knew it and lived it; the apostle John knew it and lived it; John the Baptist knew it and lived it.
Did they all fall short many times? Of course. Who doesn’t? Just one, of course–the Christ of God. That’s the point. He’s the Hero of the story of redemption, the metanarrative of all narratives, the Lamb and Lion, the Logos, the Anointed One, the Holy One of God. He’s the Warrior and the Gardener who calls His people to take dominion and herald His saving message to all who will hear and come to the table prepared for them.
I had to reschedule my flight. What was originally a 9:00 a.m. departure turned out to be a 7:30 p.m. departure. With many hours to spend in the airport, I hunkered down and completed the reading of a biography of Dickens.
I don’t remember precisely the author that hooked me initially, but it happened when I was raging with hormones in ninth grade or so, thought about little else but girls, Army culture, fantasies of nature-roving, and writers that captured me. One of those writers was Charles Dickens, especially his Great Expectations and David Copperfield.
I cannot explain adequately how much Great Expectations and David Copperfield meant to me–then and now. I read them first as a boy, and discovered in them an Englishman who delighted in the English tongue. He swam waves of language. He crested with repetitive clauses; his names manifested character–Pumblechook, Magwitch, Pip, Drood, Pickwick, Oliver Twist, Fagin, Uriah Heep, Scrooge, et al, and his heart and mind spilled over the lip of a pint of Newcastle.
I remember reading Philip Caputo and Tim O’Brien novels about Vietnam and then reading Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens right after. I devoured them all. Caputo and O’Brien wrote from experiences of serving in Vietnam. I remember listening to Jim Morrison’s haunting lyrics in “The End” and “Riders On the Storm” and other classic tunes, and reading Caputo and O’Brien’s memoirs and novels, and trying to convince myself I’d been in the SE Asian trenches, and smelled the flesh from napalm-burning bodies and the sound of Huey blades cutting the humidity. But my own times in uniform serving in hostile lands were still ahead for me, but they came. And Caputo and O’Brien were often proved correct. But it was Dickens and Hardy, different worldviews notwithstanding, whose literary fingers clutched me. Well, they didn’t have to clutch; I took to them as ships to Kent and Dover, as walks through Hardy’s Dorset.
But I had settled down in a chair in the terminal, reading another Dickens bio. I’d read so much and was so tired, that I got up from my chair, removed my reading glasses, rubbed my eyes, and walked towards the coffee kiosk. A man in his 50s, with a barrel chest, Columbia shirt, and grizzled beard, came up to me. He was smiling.
“Thanks for your service, Chap.”
“Thank you, sir. You prior service?” (I don’t have to explain it to fellow Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, or Marines. But we can spot one another from a click away.)
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I repaired turrets on a reconnaissance vehicle we don’t even use anymore. But I’d do it all over again. I was at Bragg my whole time, except when I was stationed in Germany.”
“That’s great, brother. How was Europe?”
“Loved it, Chap. Traveled everywhere. Brought my mom and sisters over from North Carolina. Took them to Rome, Venice, Switzerland, London, Paris, Austria, and even walked much of Spain and Morocco. It was amazing, Chap. We still talk about it,” he said.
“Understood, brother. It’s a beautiful continent to travel. Nothing teaches like travel.”
“Exactly!” he said.
“Where you headed?”
“To the Midwest to check on some Soldiers,” I answered.
“I appreciate you, Chap!”
“Thanks, brother; likewise.”
He shook my hand, stepped back a pace, then saluted and nodded at me. We’d become buddies. And he walked away.
In my imagination, I’d been in Dickens’ England in the 1800s in my mind for hours, and had been contemplating a large black coffee that I smelled brewing in the terminal’s coffee kiosk, but this brother had brought me back ’round to service, to my years abroad, to travel, to the importance of family, and the unparalleled education of travel, and I was a different person suddenly. I was lost in thought, trying to explain to myself how I could be with Dickens on foggy ships in Kent, and hear the clanking cryptic foreshadowings of Magwitch in the graveyard, and also be a chaplain, one thirsty for black coffee in Terminal C, and talking to a brother who knew more about turrets than I’d ever know.
Suddenly he reappeared. He stretched out his hand with a brown flat paper bag with a clear plastic front.
“Every chaplain needs a sugar cookie. Enjoy, Chap!” he said, and again he saluted. We shook hands and embraced.
All in all, it had lasted less than five minutes probably. But he changed my whole trip.
Wherever you are today, SGT Espinoza; I appreciate you. I don’t care for sugar cookies, and so I won’t tell you that I didn’t give it away to a young girl in a pink dress whose mother looked exhausted, but our time in the airport was nonetheless sweet for me, due in no small measure to your service, kindness, and conversation. Salute.
I was reading tonight and found myself rereading a few verses of biblical poetry over and over again, because once again my memories returned me to Iraq and to a series of messages I heard when I heard another Bible teacher preach words I’ve read many times. Follow me.
Question: Can suffering be a good thing?
The question, of course, demands more explanation. What is meant by suffering? And what is good? What’s the definition? Who defines the value dictionary, in other words? Is it in flux, just anyone’s whimsical definition? Or is the meaning fixed, because it’s rooted in the transcendent and holy? Can ostensibly ‘bad’ things/events/people be used for ‘good’ and/or usher in the good?
It’s a deliberately complex question. But here’s the story…
The Story: I was in Iraq. I had been teaching for months through the 21 chapters of John’s gospel. And the Lord had grown the footprint for gospel inroads through the expositional teaching of Scripture–just one verse after another through John’s gospel. I was seeing men and women from Iraq, Uganda, Kenya, the U.S., Denmark, and more come to be gripped by God and His gospel of redemption.
But I was physically exhausted. I either preached and/or oversaw eight services every week. I was in my element, and it played to my strengths for hard work in ministry, but I was physically and emotionally spent. My body was telling on me, as my dear grandmother was wont to say. “Your bones will talk to you, Rooster,” she’d say. And as with almost everything Momo ever taught me via her godly and country ways, she was spot on.
So, to return to the story, I was tired; my bones were talking to me. I asked another person to teach for a few iterations. And one of the verses my substitute Bible teacher focused on was, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71, ESV).
Tonight as I read this verse and the context of Psalm 119, and especially the TETH section of the Hebrew psalm, replete with its puns and literary excellence, the thrust throughout the whole poem is the beauty of the King of kings and His torah, His law/statutes/Word.
And yet here’s that verse, saying it’s ‘good’ that the believer is afflicted. Why? That he might learn God’s statutes. In other words, wisdom and practice. To know God, to know God’s ways, but also to live those ways out, to not hide wisdom under the basket, but to teach it, herald it, live it out, and to transform lives via the words of the only wise God. It’s to know God in one’s bones.
Summation via Scripture: For a long, long time now, one of the books to which my Bibles fall open (not just Ecclesiastes, believe it or not) is 2 Timothy, especially chapter 4, and verses 9-18. I will paste them below and then draw this to a close for now:
9 Do your best to come to me soon. 10 For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. 11 Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. 12 Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. 13 When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. 14 Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. 15 Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message. 16 At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! 17 But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. 18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Concluding Thoughts: These were among the last words Paul ever wrote. After this, he was beheaded under Nero’s reign in Rome, Italy. Last words are important.
Paul says, in essence, it was ‘good’ he was afflicted. Why? Because through that affliction, in that crucible, through that suffering, he came to know God more profoundly and was more fitted for ministry to others. He was “rescued from the lion’s mouth” (2 Tim 4:17b) again and again via the sovereign mercies of God.
Encouragement: The Christian worldview does not gloss over suffering. It admits it head-on and speaks to it on page after page of Scripture. Affliction can indeed be a good thing when it’s understood as a means of God refining His people through the fires of trials. Be steadfast, pilgrim. Trust the Lord. Do good. And know that God really is good–not just some of the time, but all of the time, even and especially in the crucible of suffering.
MIND & MATTERS 