Soul - Eternal Piece of Private Property?

Modern Christianity, then, has become as specialized in its organizations as other modern organizations, wholly concentrated on the industrial shibboleths of ‘growth',’ counting its success in numbers, and on the very strange enterprise of ‘saving’ the individual, isolated, and disembodied soul. Having witnessed and abetted the dismemberment of the households, both human and natural, by which we have our being as creatures of God, as living souls, and having made light of the great feast and festival of Creation to which we were bidden as living souls, the modern church presumes to be able to save the soul as an eternal piece of private property. It presumes moreover to save the souls of people in other countries and religious traditions, who are often saner and more religious than we are. And always the emphasis is on the individual soul. Some Christian spokespeople give the impression that the highest Christian bliss would be to get to Heaven and find that you are the only one there—that you were right and all the others wrong. Whatever its twentieth-century dress, modern Christianity as I know it is still at bottom the religion of Miss Watson, intent on a dull and superstitious rigmarole by which supposedly we can avoid going to ‘the bad place’ and instead go to ‘the good place.’ One can hardly help sympathizing with Huck Finn when he says, ‘I made up my mind I wouldn’t try for it.’.

-- Wendell Berry

Among other things, an interesting adjective is used here, in an effort to make a strong and (I believe) well-intentioned, if not astute, point.  Note the use of the word 'modern' Christianity...as opposed to something else.  Given the voracity of these charges, what is the Christianity that became modern?

There is risk here.  A risk that such things take on a philosophical transcendence from which a return to the utility of daily living never occurs.  What action is needed?  What action is required?  What keeps this from just being another amusement of intellectual controversy?

We Don't Know

We don't know what any given day will bring. Unexpected pleasantry, joy. Devastating news for ourselves or someone we love. A success; a failure. Significant inconvenience or relief. Perhaps today will simply be more of the same than something different.

Without knowing what, but knowing that anything is possible today, how do I want to live it?

Even if I do know of something significant today, how do I want to live it?

The greatest privilege God gives to you is the freedom to approach Him at any time.

-- Wesley L. Duewel

Anxiety About Losing the Next Generation

Another helpful read from Christianity Today addresses the generational concern about the transmission of faith.  Citing what might at first blush appear too simplistic, Stanley Hauerwas says:

The future of the church is not found in things like this; the future is doing the same thing Sunday after Sunday.

...some may have heard enough already.  But a more careful consideration is warranted.  The article's author, Anthony Baker, goes on:

If young church-goers are coming of age thinking they can trade the gospel message for participation in social causes, and demean the creeds and Communion as disposable husks, then something is indeed broken.

We are misguided, if we assume that getting acculturation right depends on constant novelty.  Teaching children and adults to work with the gospel's words about God, to speak the traditional yet constantly new language of the Christian faith, is the only real "fix" for what ails us.

What children today desire, according to research, is "the realness of authenticity of faith".  What we give them instead is a hastily painted undersea mural.  In the memorable words of Kenda Creasy Dean and Ron Foster, young people "look to the church to show them something, someone, capable of turning their lives inside out and the world upside down".  Most of the time we have offered them pizza.

Read more here...

Wonder and Trust

Wonder with the heart and trust with the mind,
until you can do both with both.

Christian Meditation

How unfortunate that we today know so little of the vast literature on Christian mediation by faithful believers throughout the centuries!

While Foster notes meditation is:

...utterly, utterly up to God.

He also laments:

...if certain chambers of our heart have never experienced God's healing touch, perhaps it is because we have never welcomed the divine Scrutiny.

-- Richard Foster

Gospel is Nothing...Until

The gospel is nothing until I hear it addressed to me.

-- Martin Luther

Prayer - Descending

To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart.

-- Theophan the Recluse

What do we really mean when we refer to the 'mind' and the 'heart'?  What distinguishes these two things?  How would you describe it?

...with some of that work in hand, how would you then relate it back to prayer?

Leonard Cohen -- Old Ideas

Click image to take a listen to a couple of his new songs...

Here is a link Andy Whitman's review...a worthy read.

Poetry

We have a splendid heritage of Christian poetry in English that most church members live and die without ever reading or hearing about.

-- Wendell Berry

Faith and Reason

Many people today act like a someone created a peace treaty between reason and faith after reason won the war.  Reason cedes territory to faith, as long as faith relinquishes its rational claims.  Reason is in the realm of public, objective truth, while faith is relegated to the realm of private experience and personal therapy.

We live in a world that assumes that reason is unbiased, when in fact our reason itself is enslaved to naturalism:  a denial of the world's dependence on God for its creation and preservation, much less redemption.

When it comes to faith, you can believe whatever you want, as long as you don't think it's true for everyone else. You can have faith in whatever makes you happy, as long as you don't presume to evaluate my faith.  After all, it's mine: deeply personal and not open to public inspection.  We have all experienced a culture that identifies reason with naturalism and faith with feeling.

Religion and spirituality are all about what we feel and think deep within our precious, delightful, individual souls.  While the true God calls us outdoors into a history that sweeps us into it wake.

-- Michael Horton

More from this good article here...

Secrets and Truth

You are the God from whom no secret can be hid,
and we are a people with many secrets,
    that we want to tell for the sake of our lives,
    that we dare not tell because they are deep and painful.
But they are our secrets...and they count for much;
    they are our truth...rooted deep in our lives.

You are the God of all truth,
    and now we bid you heed our truth,
    about which we will not bear false witness...
        The truth of grief unresolved,
        the truth of pain unacknowledged,
        the truth of fear too child-like,
        the truth of hate, as powerful as it is deep,
        the truth of being taken advantage of,
            and being used,
            and manipulated,
            and slandered.

We trust the great truth of your wonderous love,
    but we will not sit still for it,
    UNTIL you hear us.
Our truth -- heard by you -- will make us free.

So be the God of all truth, even ours,
    we pray in the name of Jesus,
    who is your best kept secret of hurt.  Amen.

-- Walter Brueggeman, January 14, 1999

Let Hope Run You Over, too

I would encourage you to read this post.  It is familiar to the human (and my) experience...not constantly, but at one point or another, very common and seemingly universal (not necessarily the exact circumstance, but the perspectives we all share when we are in deep pain).  I have experienced it...the depths of wondering how to go on in midst of pain and the depths of knowing the joy of a redeemed perspective of that pain (and the tears of both).  I continue to think about the role of pain in our lives...what it does to us, what it does for us.  This adds to value to it.  Read it.  Save it.  Share this hope...and let it run you over, too.  ...you have been or will be in both places described, at one point or another in this life.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

-- John 16:33 

Penalty of Affluence

The penalty of affluence is that it cuts one off from the common lot, common experience, and common fellowship.

-- Arnold Toynbee

This is really worth thinking about, especially since it is the 'common' that we have become so driven to get away from. Why? What do we believe this distance achieved will afford us?  Something better...than everyone else gets?  

More often than not, affluence seems to foster distance between people.  Having it often makes me feel better than you, not having it often makes me feel that you are better than me.  'Better than', either way, is a problem...it is an illusion.

Parenthood - TV Show

Wow, another pretty excellent episode this week.  Really hard not to recommend this program - profoundly human.  This one will make you wince, laugh, and cry...like many episodes do.

Reputation / Character

Your reputation is who people think you are, your character is who you really are.

-- John Wooden

Dalai Lama on Humanity

In light of this, are there any changes you would like to make this year?

Breathe

Just breathe.

...sometimes you just need to take so many breaths...just to breathe again.

When I run, for example, I often bring my tensions and anxieties along (who can set them aside?).  And, it takes about half a route of running...breathing -- in-and-out, in-and-out -- before I start to get a sense of things again.  Even hearing myself breathe, helps me slowly realize something significant is going on.

And, then, it occurs.  I start breathing again, metaphorically, breathing again...shedding the thinking and things that often end up encumbering my being.  I rediscover the natural rhythm of things; relaxing and breathing...as the things of life start to go back to their proper place, order, and orientation.

Just breathe.

Thoughts on Asking for Forgiveness

Do you need 'forgiveness' in 2012?  To receive it?  To offer it?  Here is an interesting read from Donald Miller's blog on forgiveness, a topic which always seems to generate lots of engagement (note the comments after his entry).

...seems loosely connected to my recent entry on enemies.

Anyway, what about you and forgiveness...in the year ahead?

The Enemy is not Your Friend

The enemy is not your friend.

Well, that seems a bit self-evident, doesn't it? But, think about it a bit. Don’t we often see those who are our 'friends'...as the enemy in things that we are feeling about life? For example, we act like our spouses are sometimes the enemy. Someone at work or church, or a neighbor; we sometimes view as an enemy. Many times whoever is not cooperating with my sense of how life should work to benefit me...is thought of as someone to oppose, like an enemy. Someone we need to stand up for ourselves against. And, we can live a long time with such a view of others. But, what if 'they' aren’t really the problem we can often think they are? What if they are being used by a real enemy to keep our attention distracted from where the real battle is?

We all have a sense of things we need to fight for...some are good and some aren't.  But, what if the object of our fight is not the other person, at any given moment?  What if the battle is really at a much different level?  What if we are simply being led to believe the problem is with the other person...to keep us focused on a level of fight that we think we can win, with our own effort, with our own ingenuity?  Believing that if we could just change them, if they would just change, if they would stop or start doing this or that, then everything would be OK.  What if the real struggle, though, in them or in us is really with something else, but we live largely unaware that this is true?  What if the nature of our effort could really be more about what we turn to than about who we turn on?

Perhaps, the enemy is not really...our friend, after all.

50th Wedding Anniversary

Love seems the swiftest but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.

-- Mark Twain


 To my parents, today; on their 50th Wedding Anniversary,

When I think about 50 years, of just about anything, it pretty much seems like what it sounds like...a long time.  Of course, whatever one would assess as 'long' would have to compared to something.  Compared to all history, compared to the time since Christ ascended, etc. 50 years is not so long.  Compared to one's life span or with many marriages these days...well that seems like a different story.

At the very least, 50 years is longer than my little life...and that, at least at the moment, seems like quite a while.  And, working at a relationship for that long seems...note-worthy, especially in an age of instants -- instant upgrades, instant trade-ins, instant new... of nearly anything.  So I'm impressed by longevity when I see it still happening.  For one thing, it helps me reconsider my own sense of a long time.  It challenges me to consider alternatives to giving up, to quitting when things get difficult.  It provides a context to consider lots of things that short time-frames don't seem to allow much for.  Further, when considered in the context of relationships, even greater pause is provided.  I am grateful that I have paused to consider what I'm seeing when I feel the appeal of the 'shorter route'.  I am grateful because some of that same longevity I increasingly respect in your marriage is benefitting my own. 

Growing old together, while not as fashionable as it used to be, has many wonders; many graces that God knew about long before we learned to agree with Him about it.  I'm so grateful for the example you have laid in front of me -- the joy of longevity, of willingness to stay at something to learn about the surprise of the depths of God's goodness.

Now, it should likely be noted, that longevity in and of itself may not be all that it is cracked up to be.  It, in fact, can be a great cloak over many evils.  But longevity seeking something much better and deeper than the benefits to self is a different matter.  And, that greater calling, to seek the source of loving others provides for something that 50 years together only begins to tap into.  And, I want to thank you, Dad and Mom, for helping me imagine those possibilities by doing the same yourselves. 

50 years together, seeking God, the best you know how...is a wonderful gift to me, a son.  One that keeps on giving as I seek the same in my relationships, and thereby give to our own children.

Praise God for enabling your faithfulness to Him all these years.  And, thank you.


Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

-- I Corinthians 13:7

Snippets

Sometimes, the things that help me identify most with a song are the little snippets or phrases tucked within them.  For example, I really like this song, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, noted on a friend’s blog this Christmas, because of these phrases:

Born to set Thy people free;
    From our fears and sins release us,
    Let us find our rest in Thee.

It hints at what true freedom is really about.  It is really more about what I learn to rest in than in what I am able to get away from or what I can overcome (both of which tend to be very wearying).  I'm grateful for the meaning of these words for my friend and for the reminder they are to me.

Sometimes it is the smallest of things that catch our eye or our attention, that port meaning to and from our lives.

Advent

God, the God of Israel, is not a God that we can force to conform to our purposes. For as Isaiah makes clear, we have been created to conform to God's purposes. This, moreover, is extremely good news because it means that the world as we know it is not without purpose. It can only appear without purpose if we persist in viewing and acting in the world as if God does not exist.

The question, therefore, is not does God exist, but do we. For whatever it means for us to exist, we do so as creatures created, as the universe has been created, to glorify God.

So it matters what sort of persons we are to be if we are to be a people who know how to wait. This is Advent. This is the time of a hastening that waits.

—- Stanley Hauerwas

Oh Holy Night

"Long lay the world in sin and error pining"

Earlier this month I referenced one of my favorite Christmas songs, which is filled with phrases that ring so deep it can almost hurt to take their truth fully in.  I think the phrase above sets the stage so well.  There is something about 'pining' that seems so accurate and so descriptive of our fallen state -- pining away...for what seems like forever.  And, not just in sin, but in missing the point of so much in life; in other words, error.

"Til he appeared and the soul felt its worth"

Have you ever felt your worth?  What if we could...truly know our worth?  What would that be like?  And, he came in order that we could know what he has made us to be.  Without his coming, we would never know and would just 'pine' away.

"Let all within us praise His holy name"

Advent Waiting

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes … and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.

—- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It strikes me that something gets freed from the inside, as one learns to wait for it from the outside.

Christmas in Colorado

Click here for more pics....

Politicals

Since I'm on vacation, I've let myself stop and think...about politics.  Wow, why bother, some might say.  Even when I want to, it's a bit hard to avoid the political arena of life, especially these days.  And, there are spots of decent drama, even though they seem to be perpetually overwhelmed by what isn't (decent drama).

I often wonder how this is hitting the next generation.  Forgetting, in the doing of that, about how it is hitting me. I think my leader thought above (I used the word 'avoid') comes from the sense that almost none of the stuff being bantered about seems real.  It feels much more like a lot of posturing about things that aren't real, than substantive work.  I guess I'm just not that into 'positioning' in order to get things done (it doesn't seem very effective anyway) and more interested in having serious conversations about differing points of view and then actually getting things done.  I get the sense that I am not alone in this.

The other challenge is that politics seems to be an awful lot about sweeping generalizations and the search for truth up there somewhere, when it seems to me that the truth is quite simply and much more on the ground.  So, at the risk of sweeping generalizations, here are some of my more specific political thoughts:

1. I have a hard time with the Republican political disposition because it seems to me that it is rather snobby, particularly as it relates to the poor.  This is a serious problem for me, as the heart of the more significant things in life is concerned with the poor.  I see very little room for snobbery.  And, I don't like the 'pull yourself up by your boot-straps' mentality that always seems to be within arms reach for Republicans to swing against the poor.  "Do it yourself; I did"...is a gross misinterpretation of what anyone really has ended up with.  When you're down, this is not what makes the difference.  And, it's not an explanation for why, when you are up.
2. I have a hard time with the Democrat political disposition because it seems to me that it believes that government should solve all the problems, of the poor and of most anything else.  Let's make a law about everything that's wrong.  And, when it believes that, it ends up believing that money is the solution...and that it just needs to be applied more appropriately.  I don't think government is the solution, though I do believe it has a key role in protecting people from some of the really ugly results of capitalism.  Capitalism will crush people with its greed.  Government, in theory at least, can help protect the victims of greed.  But, I also have a hard time with the unconstrained spending of money as the answer to people problems.  Money, in many cases, may actually be the problem.  But, people's problems are deeper than what government exclusively can and should be dealing with.

So, what to do?  Where does that leave me.  Like in a lot of things, I think I need to just stay in it.  Don't disengage.  Do my part...every day.  What about you?  How do you respond to politics these days?

The rhetoric will blow away in a day anyway.  But, probably just not for a while...more later on the people, process, and details (it may be much later...which may not disappoint too many of you).

My Top Christmas Songs 2011

Well, two years have passed since my 2009 version of this, but I must say that not much changed; the ones then are still my favorites this year. Click here.

Collisions

We spend a good portion of our lives colliding with things that we do not comprehend -- like running into things that jar us from our own sensibilities about things.  I remember several collisions along the way:

1. Getting really mad at things during my high school years...not knowing why
2. Questioning whether my faith held muster during my time in Europe and then especially after I returned
3. Realizing that marriage wasn't as awesome as I'd hoped it would be
4. Several situations along the way where I really wasn't letting others be themselves...realizing I wanted them to be more like me
5. The first time I lost a job
6. The second time I lost a job
7. Learning to let God be in charge of my kids

I have noticed similar collisions occurring in the lives of my kids, in my friends lives, in the lives of people I don't know that well.  Makes me think that this is much more a regular part of the design of life than I had originally imagined.

It’s the colliding that gets our attention and us contemplating what all else might actually be going on (like quite Ahas).  It’s starts us on the road of self-discovery, which leads towards one of three paths:

1. Endless and confusing collision – from which we learn nothing...we just plod on, running into one thing after another
2. A belief that we can organize our lives to avoid collisions (life) –  leading us to arrogance of one kind or another, believing that the problem is 'out there' and largely something simply to be solved
3. A recognition that we are dependent (not independent afterall) and not all that self-determining  –  allowing us to accept and offer grace like we have received to others

In time, collisions become more about running into ourselves as we run into others as we learn that they offer us more opportunity than threat (though it is often the threat we feel that provides the opportunity).

Disappointed with Intimacy

The Bible does promise that we can have true intimacy with Christ. But this intimacy, which is mediated through the Holy Spirit, is unlike any other relationship with which we are familiar.

-- John Koessler

It's What We Hide

Reminded me of a beautiful experience yesterday with some dear friends who chose not to hide...and helped give me the permission to not hide either.

...from Donald Miller's blog.

The Sound of Twinkle

The trail peaked out this morning at a point along the stream that compelled me to stop.  To stop and look at what lay before me.  To listen...to the sound quietly filling the air around me.  To take something in that had been just sitting there, almost waiting for my presence to observe it.  Not for my sake, but for its own.

But it ended up being for my sake, too.  I noticed the tiny little berries, red and Christmas-bulb-like dangling from the twigs now surrounding my head.  They lit themselves against the background of that unspeakably beautiful mix of snow and wood in the forest behind them.  I slowly counted...realizing as I did, that the stream had joined the scene with the most complementary sounds.  Its water was positively 'twinkling' as I observed its 'mini-light' friends.  What a wonderful idea, I thought.  Who made all this?  And, why?  The latter didn't matter, I was just thrilled to again take it in.  The sound of visual...in the form of a twinkle.

I'm glad I stopped...or that it stopped me.

2011 Album of the Year - Bon Iver

I love it, too!  Thanks, Blake, for connecting me with Bon Iver.  See Paste Interview.

From a prior post, take a listen.

Smallness: A Shot, a death, and so much...

...I cannot know.  Read the story here....

Sometimes our smallness overwhelms us.

Fences

We all need someone to help us reset our boundaries from time to time.  Prone to wander...so the saying goes. While we tend to resent it at first, there are times when we can see how grateful we are for fences in our lives.  They free us to live within our appropriate limitations.

Ranking Friendship

Ranking friendships is dangerous business.

There is something inherently unfriendly about it -- it reduces friendship towards one thing...me.

Every Generation

Each generation is reacting to the one before and it usually takes about a full generation to realize that's what it's doing, fix things and seek to perpetuate it's repairs on the next one...which kind of keeps the cycle going.

You see it in higher education.  You see it in religious life.  You see it in the way we parent.  This can be frightening, enlightening and freeing, all at the same time -- we don't have quite as much ingenuity as we think we do.  What goes around, comes around....

Every generation blames the one before....

-- Mike & the Mechanics

Staggering...either way

Sometimes I think we’re alone. Sometimes I think we’re not. In either case, the thought is staggering.

-- R. Buckminster Fuller

Christmas Season

The deeper we grow in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the poorer we become the more we realize that everything in life is a gift.

-- Brennan Manning, "The Ragamuffin Gospel"

Cyber Monday

Ads have a tendency to promote narcissism while portraying our lives as dull and ordinary. They trade on natural desires but in a way that heightens our dissatisfaction and creates unrealistic expectations.

-- Jean Kibbourne, media critic

Adversity

If thou art willing to suffer no adversity, how wilt thou be the friend of Christ?

-- Thomas à Kempis

Dare I pray for this kind of friendship? My spirit is willing, but....  Fortunately, he is a far better friend to me than I to him.  He will take me where I need to go, through adversity or not.

Thanksgiving - Honesty and Hope

There is something about the sweep of things, if we're honest...that illuminates day-to-day goings-on. 

It also takes an honesty about the day-to-day, lest the 'overview' of things become the Christmas newsletter where only the good things of life are mentioned...to leave an impression about something that isn't really true...like how well our lives are going.

Looking back, at times like Thanksgiving, gives us the opportunity to be honest about what isn't yet, about our need, about our longings for more.  It is also reminds us about what is true...that God is calling us, that God is with us, that God is guiding us...and, therefore, that we have hope in Him in the day-to-day of our lives.

It's a good circle.

Joy in giving

There is a surprising joy in giving to others.

We Are All Pilgrims

The Pilgrims made 7 times more graves than huts.  It might be said that no Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.

All of us at one point or another don't realize that it is through suffering that we become thankful, for what we do have, for what we have been given.  No one expects this truth on the front side, but on the back side, those who have experienced it, recognize the truth of it.  How ironic, then, that we so vigorously avoid what we fear will take our lives, while all the while it is the very means through which life is given to us.

I must say that I am thankful for pilgrim-suffering (whatever the form may be) in my life.

Education & Creativity

I think it comes down to money (which is really a question of values). People would say that economies of scale of manufacturing have had to be put in place in education, in order to afford it...thus largely the 'system' we have today. That sounds OK on the surface, but when you consider the amount of other money being spent now on other things by school systems, parents, etc. that are really only somewhat connected to education (sports might be a good example), it makes you wonder whether the argument of not enough money really holds water. It seems more like a matter of priorities, of cultural values, of how we like to spend money...for the enjoyment / experience we connect with it. I wonder if the current system can be broken...without being forced to do so by some outside factor. Ironically, that could be economics after all.

Thanks for sending, Cliff!

Us

My children, my grandfather said, you'll never see anything worse than yourselves.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

...seems hard to believe, doesn't it? We're so used to it, we don't see ourselves clearly.

What Is vs What Ought

We must lay before Him what is in us not what ought to be in us.

-- C.S. Lewis

Because

Many people believe in God because of what they think He will do for them....

I didn't know it, but I have been one of those people at times in my life, too.  It's when God doesn't seem to work with the plan we've ended up for Him that things get interesting.

Nature's Christmas Lights

Wow!  What an awesome morning to be alive.

Perhaps due to an extra hour of sleep or perhaps due to a call I couldn't resist, I was able to enjoy a run in the woods this morning.  What a time!  What startling beauty.  The receding green has now almost completely given way to the emergent color falling everywhere.  The paths of hardened dirt are softened with a carpet of color padding every step.  You can see more, with less leaves at eye level and above, and the texture of all that is alive in the woods makes quite a chorus of joy to the eye.  A deer bolted across the stream right in front of me.  And around the next bend, one of my favorite 100-yard stretches of path was lit up this time with what seemed like the Christmas lights of nature -- a whole row of straggly and overgrown fire bushes reaching for the forest sky blazed red with the morning sunlight streaming through them just above my head.  It was one of the more beautiful sights of the morning...one that nature had organized and that quite out-shines the man-made versions we'll be seeing a lot of in a month or two.  I marveled as the phrase 'Repeat the Sounding Joy!' echoed from my head towards my throat. 

Today is one day I'm thrilled to be alive.  What a gift.

Do People Change?

Do you think people change?

I'd like to explore this question in subsequent posts.  I'd enjoy your thoughts / comments, too.

Breathe a little more deeply

I don’t know about you, but in this part of the world when the leaves take the long dive, and the nights grow longer, and a chill comes into the ground beneath our feet, music starts to sound different. And feels really, really good. And if that music is happening on a warmly lit stage in front of a room full of people who came in out of the cold and have braided the songs into the soulful stories they are writing with their lives, it can positively help one breathe a little more deeply. See this imperfect, beautiful world with new eyes.

-- OtR

‘But the poet says we must praise the mutilated world, we’re all workin’ the graveyard shift: we might as well sing along. All my favorite people are broken.’

...do yourself a favor and see these beautifully talented and humble people this year. You won't regret it. You will get your breath back eventually....

Purses - Reflections

I've been reflecting a bit on Hugo's thought (see post below).  At first blush, it is easy to disagree...we need money.  We have more fun when there is money.  Our futures are more secure when we have money.  ...or so goes common legend.  And yet, it seems undeniable that something else goes on when we accumulate 'money in the purse'.  Something shifts.  A grip tightens.  The need to protect it goes up.  Time shortens.  ...and we miss out on something very significant. While we gain certain things, others begin to pass us by. In retrospect, I would admit that I've been more alive, more open, more aware of others and the goings-on inside myself, more human, more dependent...during the times when I didn't have money.

But I suspect Hugo is really on to something more than simply the bane of mammon.  Perhaps he is speaking as much about the virtue of emptying oneself, the blessing of giving ourselves to others, whatever the currency might be.  Does he know about the value of being empty, of being emptied, of allowing God to fill us...rather than doing it for ourselves? I'm guessing he's pointing to a great surprise awaiting all of us through our willingness to be emptied for the sake of someone else...whether monetarily or otherwise.

Them or Us

...our sense of material entitlement has had a profound impact on the financial choices of American families.

Thanks to Jim for sending this my way.  While it's easy to say it's 'them', perhaps it's really 'us'.

Carpet of Color

Purses

As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled.

-- Victor Hugo

David's People Dancing?

I found this leaf today and became a bit enthralled by it...the symmetry, the intensity, the verigation of color.  I held it up against the sky for this pic.  I stared at it for quite a while.  Where does such beauty come from?

...and then I became a bit more mesmerized.  Is that one of David's people dancing in the dark spot at the right? ...click pic to see close up.

Confession

A friend asked me how I landed on my recent thinking about confession.  Here was my response.  I want to remember it:

First of all, I was struck when you confessed a while back.  I sensed a sincerity, a strength, and a humility as you did it.  It left an impression on me.  Since that time, I've thought often about why that happens so little, so infrequently.  And, this became some of the genesis of thinking for me about who we truly are, which returned me to Nouwen's thoughts.  Who are we really?  And, then, why we don't act like it?  Tom reminded us (confessed) of the truth of our more common commitments, which I translated into our individual and shared commitment to filter what is revealed about ourselves. Hiding significant parts of ourselves from view, from others, from ourselves.  And, so the question emerged, why?  Why do we live out of something other than we are?  Especially when at the right moment, none of us really wants to? 

At this point, I wanted to take this further, to push a little harder on it, by saying that we don't confess very much.  But then your image came to mind and I realized that we do confess.  You did.  I did a bit more...acknowledging what is true about me because you acknowledged your truth.  And, so the idea of invitation introduced itself to this concept and overtook the spirit of chastisement I was headed towards about myself and others.  We are simply invited to confess...and we do well to take up the invitation.  So you were on my mind as I prepared and it become more clear what you did as I spoke -- both intended and spontaneous.

This is the great surprise that we aren't yet familiar with...such things are a joy, powerful, and freeing rather than the version of whatever holds us back from 'jumping from the precipice'. 

So I thank you, for giving me the permission to explore this within myself these last few weeks...because of your confession.

By the way, the last lines of the Lord's Prayer are confession, too:

"For your is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever."

When we acknowledge what is true, we confess just as much as we do when we acknowledge our sins.

Thanks for asking....

Confession

So, a response to a question posed in a recent post.  The question was, "What is hiding's opposite?"

Of course, there is not just one answer.  Like most things, it's not just a "for this, do that" proposition.  It's not a formula per se.  But, all caveats aside, I'm thinking that the opposite of a life committed to self-protection through hiding is contrasted by a life that God seems to recommend to His people -- that is, a life of confession. 

Confession is a term that makes us rather quickly feel something we don't like.  We don't like the idea, as least at first blush.  Perhaps it is what we believe makes confession necessary that we don't like to acknowledge -- that we've done something wrong and need to apologize for it.  This, of course, means that we have to admit it.  We have to admit it to ourselves and we have to admit to someone else.  This is against the notion of keeping others away from the parts of us that aren't nice, tidy, and clean.  Thus the reason we work as hard as we do to filter ourselves in front of others, so that are darker sides are not seen. 

But the problem is that we forfeit something in this commitment to protect ourselves.  We forfeit the opportunity to be known, to be embraced, to discover a level of acceptance that we're afraid we won't get, to live freely...faults and all...with those around us.

God recommends confession throughout the Scriptures, from the design of how to handle things when we do sin against someone, to the practice of asking God to reveal to us where we hurt Him and others, all the way through to fighting the good fight of faith -- described as the 'good confession' -- by the way we live our lives.

Confession really is quite simple.  It is acknowledging what is true.  Both the good and the bad.  It is acknowledging our need.  It is recognizing our dependence on something besides ourselves for our well-being, our dependence on God.  2 chronicles 7 says that confession will lead to healing.  1 John 1 says that confession leads to cleansing, to being pure.  Psalm 51 says it will lead us to health and strength, even joy.

So whether specifically or through our general style of life, God recommends the less-worn path of confession, particularly in constrast to the well-worn path of hiding ourselves.  Perhaps this is why Jesus simply recommended this prayer to be on our lips on a regular basis:

Our father, who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy name;
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done.
On earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our debts
As we have forgiven our debtors;
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
And the power,
And the glory,
Forever.

This is confession; it is acknowledging who is in charge and aligning ourselves with the implications thereof.  I think it is the opposite of hiding.

Wiser

Keep praying, but be thankful that God's answers are wiser than your prayers!
 
-- William Culbertson

Hiding's Opposite...?

We spend a lot of time hiding. Whether choosing to withdraw from relationships, simply being silent, or working really hard to promote ourselves, we spend a lot of time and energy maintaining what is and isn't presented. Using Facebook or not...we all have, for a long time (beginning of time?) fostered a deep habit of hiding.

So what is the opposite of hiding?

Money

Money has a high price-tag on it.

Blessing of Opportunity

At times, God blesses us simply with opportunity.

Freedom, Authority, Community

Authority is not only compatible with freedom, but it requires it, since the continued existence and excellence of the community is possible only by forming and perfecting new members. Yet freedom is not an end in itself, but the necessary condition for a community to come to a more truthful understanding or itself and the world.
 
-- Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character

Funny how we often think about such words in isolation of each other, even in contraction or competition with each other. I like how Hauerwas puts them, as partners with each other.

Humbled

Has there been any truly great human...that has not been humbled along the way?

Let Your Soul Catch Up

The myth of our modern world is that our lives get better the more we do. Actually, the opposite is true:  we become more real, more human, more here, the less we do.

Today, find a bench or stoop to sit still, if only for ten minutes. To sit still is to stop. Literally. To take a break and spend time with God. Practice going to this spot at least once a day just to stop, to quit, and to let your soul catch up with your body.

  -- Unknown

GO TIGERS!

Fall 2011's Choir of Color

What a day...click here.

It was as if creation were singing at the top of its lungs, through its choir of color!

Image of God

Within each of us exists the image of God, however disfigured and corrupted by sin it may presently be. God is able to recover this image through grace as we are conformed to Christ.

-- Alister McGrath

I Don't Care

"I don't care anymore" is a veiled attempt to avoid hurt. 

The problem is that it only adds to the hurt by lying to ourselves...because, in fact, we do still care, whether we want to or not.

Hope

If you do not hope, you will not find out what is beyond your hopes. 

-- Clement of Alexandria

Half my life, I didn't even realize what I was really hoping for.  Thank God for the other half.

UM vs Minnesota 2011

Who Yearns and Waits...for Us

 ...and thanks to my friend Holly for forwarding this today. I am grateful for the right description of things. I had read some of Walter's works years ago. This reminds me to look into what he has been doing lately...more teaching and writing, I presume.

Change

When you're finished changing, you're finished.

-- Benjamin Franklin

We really don't like change too much.  Why do you think that is?

'Ben' essentially said change is a constant. I tend to agree. It must have something to do with how we are made; how what has been made is.  I wonder if we don't like change because we want to control things...for our own purposes...especially things we become used to.  So perhaps the design of things, including change, is for our own good.  ...so that we can't rely too heavily on this desire to use things exclusively for how we would like things to be, for our purposes, for our comfort.

How we react to change seems important.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

-- Reinhold Niebuhr

Dancing Pine

What do I see that speaks to me of God?  As I contemplated this today, I found myself standing before the undulating pine tree. It was as if it was doing a slow, barely detectable dance...one you couldn't see from very far away, but quite mesmerizing up close. It appeared that there was no wind, even as the living stack of verdant branches was 'doing its thing'. It didn't seem to care whether I noticed it or not. It just moved in a living rhythm, seemingly for it's own pleasure (or for the One who made it).

After a drenching rain, nearly each pine needle seemed to be oozing droplets of water, which graced like diamonds the waving branches which so proudly displayed their tiny wonders. The pine aroma aroused a deep affection as shadowy memories of color, texture, and scent wafted over me. I was in awe...of what stood before me, the past it grabbed swung around like a scarf and the nostalgic sense of future anticipation proffered an amazing coming of something that you can only feel by being surrounded by the natural world.

I stepped back as its liquid descenders leaped to land somewhere upon me.  As I turned away, another coniferous wonder confronted me; this time with fronds of green that were like exact duplicates of the the finest feathers I've even seen.

I knew in that moment that I could never capture the enrapturing nature of that with which I was now overcome, even as I attempted to do so with my far inferior camera of my cell phone. I had the sense that this moment was something more for me to share between me, the tree, and God than with anyone else. Though I nearly burst to tell of it somehow...what I am doing here.

One comment eeked out a few minutes later, 'wonder and worship are sometimes like siamese twins'.

Losing Things

At times, it takes losing things in order to really find things.

I have noticed in my life that I have had to lose things to discover that I am really hanging on to them.  And, that it was necessary for me to lose these things in order for me to find the things I really need (want) to be hanging on to.

...like my identity.

No king is saved by the size of his army;
   no warrior escapes by his great strength.

-- Psalm 33:16

I have tended to think things like this may be true for the big stuff...you know, like in war...national stuff.  But what about the small place where I live?  Is the place where I live really under the same kind of control?  The same kind of interest...on God's part?  But, where does such logic come from?  Isn't it usually the case that if the big stuff is covered, that the small stuff is, too?  Because it's the big stuff that we use (or gets used against us) to believe that things really are out of control; that the strong are getting away with things (and, somehow, at my expense)...because of their power or strength.  And, so, again under such logic, my small situation is even more susceptible to the power of the strong.

But, even though this view is pervasive, it remains illogical, deceptive even.  Nothing happens outside of God's purview, not even the activity (successes) of the powerful...corporate or individual.  Nothing happens that God does not allow.  That may not be comforting at times when my sense of things is 'at risk'.  But that really is only my perception...because the truth is that nothing, no one, does anything...on his own.  Big...or small.  At war...or in my small and normal life.

I am grateful for this simple truth about kings and warriors.

More on Forgiveness

There is a hard law...when an injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive.

-- Alan Paton

Forgiveness

He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.

-- George Herbert

GO BLUE!

Wow! What a game!

Saturday Morning

Perhaps it's time to for me...to remember the original goals of my 'Saturday Morning' efforts. ...which were largely to create some space in my life to reflect on...it. My life. The pace of things, life's seemingly endless demands, the multi-variate (is that a word?) directions of it...all seem to point to something that has increasingly become more reactionary, than planned. I'm not saying that is all bad. In fact, for me, I discovered many good things about it. My 'planned' life preferences aren't all bad either, but they do seem to introduce more possibility that I live 'outside the moment at hand'. And, there are many benefits to acknowledging and living 'in' the moments of life as they cascade upon us (me, anyway. You?).

But there is also a sense of 'go with the flow' that I continue to find leads me away from things I value, things I need...as I constantly end up seeking to satisfy the moment. I lose track of something along the way, and often it is the process, the destination. I become engrossed in meeting other's expectations and lose track of who I am...largely becoming defined by something external, rather than something internal. I lose track of my identity. More significantly, I notice a parallel track of these rails that leads me to lose track of God. He doesn't really go anywhere, but I seem to. I end up relying more and more on my own efforts, which leads me toward stress and towards a demand from others to 'cooperate' with my efforts. Something 'not good' happens on these paths. And, the noise of perpetual motion seems to contribute to it. I need to make time to stop. I need a few moments on Saturday morning each week to do so.

This is why, at least in part, I renamed my journaling (blogging) to 'Saturday Mornings', a time to stop each week and reflect on what is going on, what is guiding me, who I am leaning on. Re-connecting to God in my life, while ceasing - at least for a few moments - my striving. Oddly enough my computer screen, from which I write, has a quite glossy finish...which when I look at it less for the words being typed and more at its reflection, seems to show a somewhat shadowy image of my face...an image of me. When I look at, really looking at it, I see myself again and I am prompted to ask who I really am. Who do I see in this reflection? Is the me I see really who I want to be, or more of who I tend to become...an impersonal endless effort to 'keep up' in this world.

So, it's Saturday Morning and I'm catching back up with the real me...by slowing down enough to notice.

Bon Iver - Holocene

Believing

If we cannot believe God when circumstances seem be against us, we do not believe Him at all.

-- C.H. Spurgeon

Being Outside Leads You Inside

Coming off of a youth retreat this weekend, I am reminded that there is something profoundly true about how being outside leads you inside.

I have seen it over and over and over again.  The natural world calls to our hearts like nothing other.  Not unlike (and perhaps the same thing), the Creator calling to the created.

If you can't get inside yourself...go outside for a while.

Lead by Following

It is by what you follow, that you lead.

Put more succinctly, who you follow.  We're not following anything, except when we're following God.  And, we're not leading anything (or anyone), except when we're doing the same thing.

I used to think that you lead by...leading.  Now, I believe you lead by...following, when you're following God.

Identity

I didn't know who I really was until I could no longer define who I was by what I did.  It was when I thought I wasn't good enough to do anything, that I learned who I really was.  I am not what I do.  I am whose I am.

My acceptance of myself was really based on what I did and how well I did it and that was largely based on how others evaluated what I did.  But when others abandoned that process, I really didn't know who I was any longer.  All I had was theories about life, about myself, but no real belief...because my acceptance of myself was based on the acceptance of others.

My employment situations a few years ago were a big part of both sides of these realities.  The irony is that it was when I lost the identity I had through my employments that I really began to learn where my acceptance was really found...not in what I did or accomplished, not in what others said about me.  It was in the acceptance I had in God, regardless of what I was or was not doing...even when it appeared that I was doing nothing.

I learned this through nearly 2 long (yet relatively short) years of not being able to understand myself through what I accomplished in the eyes of the world.  And, I am eternally grateful for the true identity I found during this time.

I particularly enjoy the way Henri Nowen puts things...regarding our identity..

Prayer in Life's Tensions

Recently I found myself praying something familiar...for 3 things, really 4...when facing something about which I feel tension:

1. Wisdom -- that I would see what really needs to be seen, not just what looks familiar to me (based on my own experience).  In other words, for more of what God sees.

2. Courage -- that I would move towards things, speak into things that I might otherwise avoid due to my human inclination to take the path of least resistance.  And, that I would have courage not to move / speak when needed...to allow God to do His work.

3. Strength -- to be willing to stand in things when resistance comes, to not shrink back, but to be willing to stay...even when I become the object of the resistance.

...and, yes, a 4th thing:

4. Love -- that God would grant me love for those in the situation, for as the Scriptures note, without love (even if granted the 3 things above) I have nothing.

Following God

What does 'following God' really mean?  We could probably find a thousand answers, if we want to look.  But, the only one that seems to sustain us is the answer in any moment of our lives that is pretty concrete and pretty personal.  I like the abstract ones, particularly the ones I can relate to.  But I find that, like many other things, I've forgotten more of those than I will ever remember.  The one that is alive, that feels real at any given time, is the one that expresses something quite personal, something tangible, some real example of what it looks like right now.

For example, I have had to make a difficult decision of late, one that I wish I didn't have to make.  After sorting through all the debris surrounding the 'issues' involved, I really end up at one place; what is God asking me to do?  When I make the decision, I have to in some personal way satisfy the question of following God in it.

So I think the real question is somewhat closer to something like, what does it mean for me to 'follow' God right now?  In what I am facing?

...from there I decide whether or not to continue developing the habit of turning to God with what I am facing or turning to other things, other explanations, other theories, even other people.  For me, at this point in my life, 'following God' means asking Him about the situation I am facing and being willing to wait for an answer...as I continue with what is front me to do today.  When everything else has been exhausted, it gets back down to me and God, our conversation, our wrestling, my openness (even as He opens me), my not choosing diversions...a submission, if you will, to a long-term answer to this questions in spite of what I want in the moment.

Enslavements in Life

One of Hebrew literature’s nouns for salvation (“yeshuwah,” related to the name “Jesus”) comes from a verb root that accents wideness or openness. God’s liberation gives us plenty of room—breathing space, deliverance from our tight anguishes and confining bondages. Moreover, God is continually doing this for us now, not only in a far distant future. Do we recognize his gracious snatching as he rescues us and delivers us from our various enslavements in life?

-- Kent Denlinger

Do we trust Him to do this? This Physician analogy seems a propos, especially from a distance (from a painful thing in our lives).  Do we trust Him?  ...or, are we more interested in making our own medications.

End and Means

In the end we’ve got to say that if God thinks the glory-filled end justifies the grief-laden means, then the choice is clear: We can trust God and justify him as we make our pilgrimage through this wilderness life, or we can tell him we aren’t prepared to accept his redemptive schemes and rage against him at every turn.

-- Jim McGuiggan

Well if you put it...that way.... While there are times I doubt the process of the former option, I must admit I would rather choose it than the latter. And, actually, knowing what I know now about this, I would gladly choose it!

Shame

Do you remember how on earth there were things too hot to touch but you could drink them alright?   Shame is like that. If you drink the cup, drink it to the bottom and you will find it nourishing.  Try to do anything else with it and it will scald.

-- C.S. Lewis

Regarding Strength

Borrowing a bit on yesterday's post, why is it that those pretending to be strong cast down the weak?  While the truly strong don't do so....

It would seem that strength is not often what it appears to be.  These beautiful ladies (Help) were very strong in their dignity, in their service, in their respect towards those who didn't deserve it.  From the lens of history it would seem that what was going on in the south was really a kind of sanctioned, society-level bullying in the grossest of degrees.  I wasn't a part of it, but I am still ashamed of it.

...and it does make me wonder what I am a part of today, that I am blind to.

the Help

I would highly recommend this movie -- for history, education, and humanity.  Some of it made me sick, some of it made me mad, some of it made me laugh, some of it made me cry.

Bearing in the mind the risks of sweeping generalizations, the following seems true:

Wherever there are weak men, there are ugly women.

...and, I'm not referring to anything physical.

See if this isn't found in this one, too. To me, this is a 'must see' movie.

More on blindness...and sin

After my thought the other day on the relationship between blindness and sin.  Another one crossed my mind regarding sin and the blindness it creates in us.  How does it do this? 

One of the ways is that sin seems to create a kind of self-consciousness within us.  When we are free from it (self-consiousness), we don't often feel the constraints it piles on us, wondering about what other people think, worrying about my status in a relationship, working for acceptance from those around me.

However, when are not free from it, we do seem to spend a lot energy on these kinds of things.  I wonder if our sinful choices foster a 'need' for these things.  A need that binds us, rather than freeing us to live towards another person.  Self-consciousness turns our eyes towards ourselves and the protections we must seek to survive or prosper in our relationships with others.  In a way, blindness is a from of what we are looking at or not looking at.  When I am only looking at myself, brokering for myself, navigating for my own interests, competing for attention from others, I'm not really able to see much of what is going outside of myself.  I am, in fact, blind to it. 

So I've noticed that, among other things, sinful choices lead me in this direction...towards myself.  It forces itself on me by plunging me towards the questions of 'am I OK?'  'What if I'm not?'  'What do I need to do about it?'  'How can get others to see me the way I want to be seen?'  Because sin is involved, there is a portion of truth to the fact that I am not OK.  I have violated something about myself; I have sinned.  And, here is where sin gets violent with us, it turns our face away from life, away from our true acceptance.  It grabs our chin and as it jerks us, says 'look at you...you are terrible'.  It leads us away from God, inward, turning on ourselves.  It creates demand from others to make us feel better about ourselves.  Our need becomes greater than anyone else's.

The path back is straight and short - confession is remarkably easy.  Forgiveness is bountiful.  So, the only thing sin can do is to try to keep us from turning towards God, from where our true acceptance comes.  In other words, to keep us blind (enslaved) to the truth. 

Self-consciousness is part of how sin blinds us.

Alan! Alan! ...Alan!

She Made It!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amazing! And the stories...ah, the stories of people's lives. What a mess, what a wonder. Click here (or the image above) for more pics.  Here are some that a good friend, Cliff Staton, took (here, too).

The Demands of Sanctification

There is always a battle royal before sanctification, always something that tugs with resentment against the demands of Jesus Christ...."If any man come to Me and hate not his own life, he cannot be My disciple."

The Spirit of God in the process of sanctification will strip me until I am nothing but "myself," that is the place of death.  Am I willing to be "myself," and nothing more--no friends, no father, no brother, no self-interest--simply ready for death?  That is the condition of sanctification.  No wonder Jesus said:  "I came not to send peace, but a sword."  This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us faint.  We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus on this point.  "But it is so stern," we say;  "He cannot wish me to do that."  Our Lord is stern; and He does wish us to do that.

Am I willing to reduce myself simply to "me," determinedly to strip myself of all my friends think of me, of all I think of myself, and to hand that simple naked self over to God?.....He will sanctify me wholly, and my life will be free from earnestness in connection with everything but God.

-- Oswald Chambers

We balk at such things don't we?  I think Chambers is probably right and I recognize within myself some disappointment, even as I admit the truth of it.  But, what would Jesus have otherwise meant if he didn't describe things as taking up our cross and following Him?

The Sunset Limited

What a powerful story of some of the largest dialectics of life.  I highly recommend this one.  Thanks, Blake, for inviting me to watch it.

Part of what is good about the movie, is that it is provoking.  I'm still rolling it around in my mind.  I think it has affected me personally, in some of the ways that it did for Jackson's character.  It makes you ask questions...about your point-of-view in life and why you have reached the conclusions you have.

Here are some of my reactions, as I wrestle through what I believe:

If God is not personal, then He is largely just an idea…just another explanation of things, and there are many of those.  All you can do then, is pick one...or try not to.  But, even that is usually picking one.

But, when we get personal with God or when He gets personal with us, God just as an idea evaporates.  He becomes very real…because He becomes very personal.  And, this 'personalization' often happens through the pain of this world.  Not an abstract pain, but a personal one.

Both characters obviously knew some of the pains of life.  But, that was about it; from there, they took really different paths.

This is what struck me about ‘the professor’:  We never really got the (personal) details of his experience.  We were only confronted with his conclusions in theory form, not in personal form.  And, we weren’t drawn to him because of the lack of personal nature of his conclusions (though they were obviously personal to him).  He kept those things hidden (even when invited over and over to reveal them), perhaps as much from himself as from us.  This is also what was drawing about Jackson’s character.  …we could see the personal part of his story.  It was clear to him and to us; where he ended up, what he needed, why he turned to what he did...and in sharp contrast to Jones’ character.

I've said before, and it seems true again:

God isn't personal, until He's personal.

Until that happens, He is largely an idea...capable of indifference and rejection, just like every other 'idea'.

I'm Proud of Her

I am really proud of my wife for doing this.  Today she starts a 60-mile walk with a few thousand others in Chicago.  Thank you all for making this possible with your generous contributions.

She's been walking for months getting ready.  Bless her.

Forgiveness

Is the greatest lever in my forgiving someone else, the specific knowing of how I have been forgiven?

...I suspect a low awareness of where I have needed forgiveness leaves me generally unable to offer much of it to someone else.

Strength of Faith

Over the years (millenia?) there has been much debate (discussion) about the strength of our personal faith.  Like, do we have enough of it?  As my own journey of faith continues, one thing that appears to be increasingly clear is this:

The only thing precarious about the strength of our faith is our perception of that strength.  And, whatever is lacking there, both publicly and privately,  is more than covered for by God.  ...He is way ahead of us as He guides to our final destination with Him.

Seeing

In darkness there is no choice. It is light that enables us to see the differences between things; and it is Christ who gives us light.

-- Mrs. C.T. Whitemell