iMonk Classic: Jesus, the Glory of the Christian Journey

Through the Trees. Photo by Thomas

Note from CM: Here in the season of Epiphany, we present Michael’s testimony about his spiritual journey, one which encourages us to know that God is still revealing himself to us through Jesus.

• • •

Jesus, the Glory of the Christian Journey
A Classic iMonk Post from 2009

I can’t speak for anyone else, just for me.

When I became a Christian in 1974, I was immediately taught to define myself three ways.

First, did I believe that I was a sinner and that Jesus died for my sins so I could go to heaven?

Second, was I doing the the things my church taught me to do: attend worship, pray, read the Bible, tithe, “witness”, come to Sunday School, be a good Baptist?

Third, was I not doing the things my church taught me were sinful: drink, dance, use drugs, watch R-rated movies, listen to rock music, have sex outside of marriage, use profanity, work on Sundays, marry a Catholic?

That was the menu. Simple. Comprehensive. Understandable.

Jesus wasn’t absent. He was the door in. But then he seemed to vanish into the background.

God had other plans for me, however. One of my school friends introduced me to books. Christian books. He was reading C.S. Lewis. I didn’t get what that was all about.

Then he gave me a copy of J.I. Packer’s Knowing God. It’s a weighty book now, and it certainly was then. I read what I could, and that wasn’t much, but it was enough to reorient my understanding of the Christian life if two ways.

First, Packer impressed upon me that the Christian life was a relationship with God- “Knowing God.” I’d never heard this before. There was some “knowing” in my faith, but it was primarily about doing. Coming to me at a time when I was starting to awaken intellectually and grow personally, I was drawn to this new way of thinking about the Christian life.

Secondly, Packer’s book demonstrated that being a Christian was a much bigger project than I ever suspected. God touched on everything, not just in the sense of “being a witness,” but in the sense that everything was a way to worship God, serve God or experience God. Suddenly, all of life, not just witnessing or listening to sermons, became part of the experience of knowing God.

I took the book to my youth director and asked him if he’d ever heard of it. He looked at it, and read the title. He told me that being a Christian was about how many people you could get to go to heaven, not about knowing God. The book, he said, sounded off track and I should avoid it.

For the first time in my life, I realized I was being led in the wrong direction by one of my spiritual leaders. It was an uncomfortable place, and I was, for a moment, torn about what to do.

I’d gone a long way down the road of identifying with my church’s way of being a Christian. I won’t recite some of what I did to try and be a good witness, but it was between comedy and the sort of travesty that is exceedingly painful to watch.

My church specialized in certainty. They were certain that the Bible absolutely would lead anyone reading it to become exactly what we were, and anyone paying attention to the Bible would do exactly what we did exactly the way we did it.

Now here I was, a teenager, still in high school, a relatively new Christian, holding a book by some Anglican guy I’d never heard of, feeling drawn by the Holy Spirit toward a new direction in understanding God. Somehow being drawn, in a way I could never explain, toward Jesus; a Jesus to whom I felt like a stranger.

Here I was feeling that maybe it wasn’t about door-knocking confrontations, dress codes, sin lists and repeated trips down the aisle to finally surrender “all.” God was reaching out to me, and showing me more of himself. To know him, I would come to know Jesus.

It was the beginning of a journey. It would take me to the Catholic charismatic movement where I learned that Jesus was much more generous and amazing than I ever had been told in my church. It was a journey that took me on to a Methodist revival team called the “New Disciples for Christ,” where I learned about calling people to follow Jesus.

It took me to college where I gave up on the rapture, and into the first suspicions that I may not have ever truly known the Father-heart of God. A longing for Jesus began in me; a longing amplified when my fiancee dumped me and I began to see myself as a man.

There have been times in my life that I did not move forward with God, but camped where I was, convinced I was finally surrounded by the “real” Christians with the “final” answers. Always, God moved me on, toward a deeper fellowship with Him. Always, moving me toward Jesus.

That journey wasn’t constant. In my years on church staff, I forgot about Jesus and focused on the church. I wanted to be successful. Jesus would always be there, creating his special kind of tension with the normal expectations of ministry in a large church. Under the influence of Tony Campolo, I began taking students to eastern Kentucky and into the inner cities of Chicago and Boston. In those experiences, I began to see and sense Jesus again. I began to grow past the approved, safe Jesus of the suburban church, and to understand that Jesus was a trouble-maker; a revolutionary turning the world upside down.

In 2006, God told me to leave a church situation I’d been part of for 12 years. The result, 3 years later, was my wife going to the Roman Catholic Church and my journey with God going into the evangelical wilderness, where the same God is beckoning me on. This wasn’t where I expected to find Jesus, but I should know better. It’s always him, making me his disciple, surprising me, taking me out of the safe places and putting me where he emerges more wonderful than ever.

It is, always, the same God I heard calling me in the pages of Knowing God. I haven’t chased every wind of doctrine. With the exception of a foray into Calvinism for too long, I’ve always been much the same Baptist believer I was when I started this journey. Jesus has shown me that he isn’t a franchised product of some denomination or the spokesman for some program or cause. Jesus is the source, the head, of his body. He’s present in all the places Christians seek him, but he’s present in some many more places and in so many more ways that we ever suspect.

The constant is that God isn’t through with me, and the older I get, the more excited I am about Jesus. The more I come to see glimmers of what it really means to know him and be known by him. I now have few doubts that God is at work in my life for his glory and my benefit, but the journey won’t be a standstill. It will be new discoveries and new adventures.

In the midst of knowing God through his Son, I’m discovering that I am a member of the human race, deeply connected to all other persons in my humanity and my sinfulness. I’m discovering I don’t need to make a demonstration of what I know about anyone else’s life or how God works. I simply need to learn humility and understand that God is surprising us constantly in Jesus. I need to be open to Jesus and not turn him into the sum total of my idea of what it means to be a Christian.

Every so often, things I’ve learned, but not connected, will powerfully come together, as they did today in finishing Andrew Marin’s book, Love Is An Orientation, and I’ll see the presence and power of Jesus and the Gospel in ways I haven’t before. I’ll discover that all my experiences with Jesus are preparing me for an epiphany. There is no controlling or predicting where or when or how Jesus will show up in my life. I only know that now, after 37 years, I am starting to see Jesus in magnificent new detail.

I’ve come to understand my journey in new terms.

The church is about Jesus. The Bible is about Jesus. Christians are about Jesus. The creeds are about Jesus. A lot of great ministries, preachers and teachers are about Jesus.

But none of us- NONE of us — nowhere, no way — have Jesus captured and commodified. He is, by the power of his Spirit, more than all of this and leading us to himself.

Everything we have that brings Jesus to us is ultimately used by Jesus to bring us to himself. We are always moving forward; always experiencing the Spirit remaking and revealing, empowering and epiphanizing…Jesus.

I have discovered that the maps, as important as they are, will run their course. The wise men are not as wise in the wilderness as they are in the safety of their sanctuaries. The way is lonelier, the companions more precious, the views and vistas more breath-taking.

Onward and upward, to Jesus. Into his Kingdom, and to greater glory and treasure. Always, no matter how much we know, discovering that we are only children, invited to trust more than understand.

Today, as I closed Love Is An Orientation, Jesus appeared again, out in front of me, familiar yet strange. Always beckoning me on. I know less and less what is before me, but I am ever more certain he is the way, the truth and the life.

So I beg your pardon friends. It’s time to travel again.

• • •

Photo by Thomas at Flickr. Creative Commons License

Saturday Brunch, January 6, 2018, Politics-free edition

Hello, friends, and welcome to the weekend. Ready for some brunch?

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Let’s start with some nice sporty news. The NFL regular season ended on Sunday, and the alphabet officially has more W’s than the Cleveland Browns. I think what happened is the following conversation:

2016 Browns: “Well, we finished 1-15. Can’t really get worse than that”

2017 Browns: “Hold my beer!”

I’ve also heard the city is going to re-name them The Cleveland Brons… No, not because of Lebron, but because the Browns have no Ws.

How did you spend New Year’s Eve or day?  Here are some pictures from around the world of people from different cultures celebrating the New Year. What a wonderful, diverse world we live in.

Red Square in Moscow
Maasai tribe members perform a traditional dance on Nungwi Beach in Zanzibar, Tanzania.
Fireworks light up the sky over the London Eye in central London.
Performers look at selfie photos before going on stage at a countdown event marking the arrival of the New Year in Beijing, China
People in Kim Il Sung Square watch fireworks light the sky above the Taedong River in Pyongyang, North Korea.
Vikings from the Shetland Islands hold lit torches during the annual torchlight procession to mark the start of Hogmanay (New Year) celebrations in Edinburgh
Pakistani people prepare to release lanterns as they gather to celebrate the new year in Lahore
Sydney, Australia
A woman prays in front of lanterns to celebrate the New Year at a Buddhist temple in Seoul, South Korea.
Taking the plunge during the traditional San Silvestre Swim at La Comandancia beach in northeastern Spain.
Performers parade through the streets as part of the annual Joburg Carnival in Johannesburg, South Africa. Many of the costumes are hand-made each year for the event.
Muslim faithful of the Ya Lateef Islamic Society sit as they pray into the New Year at Ibafo, Ogun State in southwest of Nigeria
Lights and fireworks are seen at the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Shinto priests walk in a line to attend a ritual to usher in the new year in Tokyo
Lazer light show at Burj Khalifa, Dubai
People dance during the New Year’s celebrations on a beach in Mumbai, India

 

(Photo by Billy H.C. Kwok/Getty Images)
Taipei, Taiwan.
Nepalese people from ethnic Gurung community wear traditional attire as they dance in a parade to mark their New Year also known as Tamu Losar in Kathmandu.

If you lived in most areas of the U.S. you may have notice things got a little chilly this week. In fact, in some places it was colder than Mars. This, of course, does not invalidate global warming. In fact, it may be a sign of it:

 For the past decade or so, climate scientists have noticed that when the Arctic has an especially warm winter, the northern continents become especially cold and snowy. A plethora of studies in the past three years have seemed to confirm the connection: When the Arctic is extremely warm, it seems to loose cold air across the world, and northern North America suffers an extremely cold winter. Why? Scientists aren’t sure yet, but they think it may arise from a destabilized jet streamor a weakened stratospheric polar vortex.

Just this past July, a team of researchers found that frigid winters, driven by a warm Arctic, were already reducing the productivity of American agriculture. They estimated that this warming has already cost Texas a 20 percent decline in corn production for some years.

In Boston, record high tides and extreme cold produced this effect (so maybe don’t complain about scraping your car windows tomorrow, eh?)

Also, off the coast of Nantucket, there were “slurpy waves”:

Perhaps things will warm up a bit, now that Elsa has been arrested:

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In any case, this might be a helpful reminder:

The Pentagon confirmed last week that it had spent 22 million dollars on a program to collect data on UFO’s. Just think, instead of wasting it like that they could have bought a couple dozen toilet seats. Ross Douthat at the Gray Lady uses the occasion to opine on why we are so fascinated by the possibility of alien contact, though we have no hard evidence for it:

…our alien encounters, whether real or imaginary, are the same kind of thing as the fairy encounters of the human past — part of an enduring phenomenon whose interpretations shift but whose essentials are consistent, featuring the same abductions and flying crafts and lights and tricks with crops and animals and time and space, the same shape-shifting humanoids and sexual experiments and dangerous gifts and mysterious intentions.

Jacque Vallée suggested that contemporary U.F.O. narratives are of piece with stories about Northern European fairies and their worldwide kith and kin — and that it’s more reasonable to think that we’re reading our space age preoccupations into a persistent phenomenon that might be much weirder than a simple visitation from the stars. . . his arguments for the basic continuity between folklore and flying saucers are quite compelling, and I suspect he’s correct about the commonality of these experiences …

Sometimes our own elite opinion seems to be shopping for a new religion: I have read books in the last year pitching versions of Buddhism, pantheismand paganism to the post-Christian educated set. For such shoppers, the striking overlap between U.F.O.s and fairy stories might eventually become an advertisement for an updated spiritualist cosmology, not a strike against it — especially if woven together with multiverse and universe-as-simulation hypotheses that imply a kind of metaphysics of caprice.

Meanwhile those of us who remain Christian — and yes, this is a Christmas column, U.F.O.s and all — can be agnostic about all these strange stories, not reflexively dismissive, since Christianity does not require that all paranormal experiences be either divinely sent or demonic or imaginary.

Thoughts?

I knew it: Well, this is embarrassing. A Nobel Laureate has retracted a 2016 paper in Nature Chemistry that explored the origins of life on earth, after discovering the main conclusions were not correct. Even though the paper was published only 18 months ago, it has already been cited by 26 other papers in the scientific literature. Why? Because it appeared to solve a very serious problem in what is probably the most popular origin-of-life scenario.

The origin of life hypothesis you were likely taught in school (the prebiotic soup theory and the Miller-Urey Experiments) are now relegated to the ash-heap of failed theories. But what mechanism, then, can account for non-living materials giving birth to life? After all, one of the fundamental laws of biology is bio-genesis: life comes from life.

One possible scenario is the “RNA world” hypothesis. In this view, life was not initially based on DNA. Instead, it was based on a similar molecule, RNA. But it has many difficulties:

One of the many problems with this origin-of-life scenario is that in all studies so far, RNA needs enzymes in order to replicate properly. Other RNA molecules could, in theory, do the jobs that enzymes are doing now, but no mechanism by which this happens has been found. That’s where the retracted paper [by Nobel Laureate Jack W. Szostak] comes in. It reports on a series of experiments that seemed to demonstrate a possible way in which RNA could be replicated over and over again without the help of enzymes.

But in subsequent experiments this year, Tivoli Olsen — a member of Szostak’s lab — could not reproduce the 2016 findings. When she reviewed the experiments from the Nature Chemistry paper, she found that the team had misinterpreted the initial data.

The errors were “definitely embarrassing,” Szostak told retraction watch:

In retrospect, we were totally blinded by our belief [in our findings]…we were not as careful or rigorous as we should have been (and as Tivoli was) in interpreting these experiments.

Jay Wile (Ph.D in nuclear physics) writes about this:

This happens a lot in science. Scientists aren’t unbiased investigators who don’t have any stake in the outcome of their experiments. Generally, when we do experiments, we are looking for some result. If we aren’t careful, that can make us see things which aren’t really there. In this case, that’s what happened to the authors of the paper.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not writing about this to insult Dr. Szostak and his team. In fact, I applaud them! Not only did they step up and do the right thing (regardless of the consequences), but Dr. Szostak even freely admitted the reason for the error.

I am writing this so that people understand there is no such thing as an unbiased scientist. We all approach science with our inherent biases, and those biases affect our results. The problem isn’t the bias. The problem is that so many scientists (as well as science journalists and science educators) pretend that it doesn’t exist!

In Somersworth, New Hampshire, two very different symbols now share space. At ground level, a monument of the Ten Commandments, and just above it, the “atheist flag” will blow in the breeze.  It seems last summer the Ten Commandments monument here was either intentionally knocked over or fell over, no one’s really sure. The City, which owns the traffic island, suddenly had to make a choice. Should it be moved to private land? Or re-erected? It stirred intense debate. In the end, the City decided to put the monument back up, but also add two flag poles. One would fly the city’s official flag, the other would be a rotating flag to honor Somersworth’s diversity. That’s opened the door to a rather unconventional request. In January, the town will fly the atheist flag over the Ten Commandments.“The City wants to celebrate diversity, and I don’t think you can get much more diverse than putting an atheist flag over the Ten Commandments,” says Richard Gagnon, a local atheist, who put in the request. Okay then.

Oh, you didn’t know the atheists had a flag? Thought it was “not a worldview or belief system, but simply a negation of a certain belief?” That’s sweet.

Is the scarlet letter intentional?

That led me thinking: which religions/groups have the best and worst flags? Here are your choices (note, most of these are non-official, since religions are not countries):

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Christian Flag; You may remember it from your VBS or AWANA days
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Hindu Flag
Flag of the Greek Orthodox Church.svg
Greek Orthodox Flag
PHA flag #2
Humanist Flag
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Sikh Flag
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Muslim Flag
Buddhist Flag

Some Oregonians are struggling with a new task: pumping gas. On January 1, a new law went into effect that brought Oregon into the latter half of the 20th century:  Gas no longer has to be put into your car by an attendant; you can now pump diluted dinosaurs yourself. The transition has not been. . .seamless:

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Lastly, the legendary author of Lord of the Rings would have been 116 this week – so why not end with some LOTR memes?

 

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Another Look: Epiphany and the Days to Come

Epiphany Times Three, Burleson

No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us. (John 1:18, NLT)

• • •

Kathrin Burleson’s painting, which accompanies today’s post, portrays three revelatory events traditionally associated with the Feast of Epiphany, which the church marks tomorrow. The water pot in the foreground recalls the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, where Jesus turned water into wine. The star in the distance was followed by magi from the east, who ascertained by it that Israel’s Messiah had been born. And the glorious light outshining the star speaks of the Babe to whom that star pointed.

Epiphany and the season that follows celebrates God making himself known to us through Jesus. It is the season of revelation.

In the movement of the Church Year, Epiphany brings the Christmas cycle to its climax. In Advent, we long for God’s appearing and remember his promises. In Christmastide we celebrate the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. In Epiphany, we mark various ways that Jesus manifested God’s glory to all people. Though Eastern and Western churches mark the time and days somewhat differently, in both cases we are celebrating the dawning and brilliance of the Light of the World.

Scriptures and emphases in the time after Epiphany include:

  • The baptism of Christ
  • The calling of the disciples
  • The teaching and training of the disciples
  • The ministry and miracles of Jesus
  • The transfiguration of Christ
Baptism of Christ, Giotto

This covers the first major part of the Gospel story. Epiphany is a season in which we reflect on something evangelicals have often placed less emphasis upon — the life and ministry of Jesus — in order to focus on what they perceive as the more propositional, doctrinal teaching of Paul and the other apostles. In contrast, ministers in the historic churches usually preach the Gospel text from the lectionary on most Sundays. I have come to prefer that and find that it helps keep Christ at the center of our worship. I wrote a post arguing that Christians, like Jews, have a “canon within a canon,” and that the Gospels are the most fundamental texts of our faith. What the Torah is to the Hebrew Bible, the Gospel (as recorded in the Gospels/Acts) is to the New Testament.

Here is Matthew’s description of Jesus’ ministry:

Jesus traveled throughout the region of Galilee, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. News about him spread as far as Syria, and people soon began bringing to him all who were sick. And whatever their sickness or disease, or if they were demon possessed or epileptic or paralyzed — he healed them all. Large crowds followed him wherever he went — people from Galilee, the Ten Towns, Jerusalem, from all over Judea, and from east of the Jordan River. (Matthew 4:23-25)

Epiphany and the days to come will lead us on a journey with Jesus through this ministry and take us to the beginning of Lent. Epiphany ends with a remarkable revelation of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17). And that marks a turning point in his ministry: “From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead” (Matt 16:21).

The second major movement of Jesus’ ministry that starts at that point focuses less on the crowds and more on the disciples, teaching them what it means to follow Jesus to the cross. This is the journey we will take in the Lenten season — an ascent to Jerusalem with Jesus, a descent to Golgotha.

But for now, in these days following Epiphany, it is time for one remarkable Jesus-prompted surprise and delight after another! Our minds boggle and heads shake at the insightful words Jesus speaks. Our jaws drop in amazed wonder to see him exercise power over nature, bring wholeness to broken lives, and restore vitality where death once reigned. Fear and dread knot our stomachs as cosmic conflict erupts. But Christ speaks with authority, and all is peace.

These days also remind us that Jesus came to spread the light of love of God to everybody. The visit of the magi begins to answer the prayer of Psalm 72:

Procession of the Queen of Sheba (detail), Francesca

May the king’s rule be refreshing like spring rain on freshly cut grass,
like the showers that water the earth.
May all the godly flourish during his reign.
May there be abundant prosperity until the moon is no more.
May he reign from sea to sea,
and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth.
Desert nomads will bow before him;
his enemies will fall before him in the dust.
The western kings of Tarshish and other distant lands
will bring him tribute.
The eastern kings of Sheba and Seba
will bring him gifts.
All kings will bow before him, and all nations will serve him.
He will rescue the poor when they cry to him;
he will help the oppressed, who have no one to defend them.
He feels pity for the weak and the needy,
and he will rescue them.
He will redeem them from oppression and violence,
for their lives are precious to him.
Long live the king!
May the gold of Sheba be given to him.
May the people always pray for him
and bless him all day long.
May there be abundant grain throughout the land,
flourishing even on the hilltops.
May the fruit trees flourish like the trees of Lebanon,
and may the people thrive like grass in a field.
May the king’s name endure forever;
may it continue as long as the sun shines.
May all nations be blessed through him
and bring him praise.

Calling of Peter and Andrew, Duccio

Therefore, Epiphany is a wonderful time for the church to focus in a special way on the Missio Dei: God’s mission in the world. Hearing and seeing our Savior at work, we long that he would call us to join him in bringing salvation and shalom to others. We jump at the chance when we hear him say, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men” (Mark 1:17).

Leaving the “holy huddle,” we go out into the neighborhoods, towns, and cities where we live to relate, listen, befriend, help, comfort, support, and share Good News with those around us in Jesus’ name, in the authority of his Kingdom, and in the power of his Spirit.

An Encouragement for Epiphany

Gold from Ophir is too slight,
away, away with vain gifts
that you break from the earth!
Jesus wants to have your heart.
Give this, o Christian flock,
to Jesus for the new year!

Text by Paul Gerhardt, from Bach Cantata BWV 65

Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible- by John Polkinghorne, Chapter 2- Development

Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible – by John Polkinghorne

Chapter 2- Development

In the Anglican lectionary, the reading for the sixth chapter of Joshua ends at verse 20, the triumphal entry of the Israelite army into the city, and omits the verse that follows.  That verse states, “Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep and donkeys.”  In 1 Samuel 15, Saul is rebuked by Samuel for not “wholeheartedly” obeying the command to “utterly destroy” the Amalekites, and loses the privilege of being King of Israel. Psalm 137:9 says, “Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.”

Now, just for my own amusement, I googled several apologetic sites to get a sense of how verses like these are explained.  If I had to summarize these explanations in one word that word would be “context”, which immediately brought to mind this video .  Yeah, let’s be honest here, there is no reconciling this picture of a vengeful God with the one given us by Jesus, who tells us to love our enemies:

 Matthew 5:43-48 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?  And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Here is a little montage for you to meditate on as we picture swinging these babies by their feet while we smash their heads against rocks.

There is simply no “context” where this isn’t barbaric and attributing this to the “will of God” presents a dilemma to an apologist that goes far beyond any rabbit-cud-chewing or bat-is-a-bird conundrum.  It goes to the very heart of who God is.  Here is Polkinghorne’s attempt at explanation:

I believe that response to this dilemma demands the recognition that the record of revelation contained in Scripture is one of a developing understanding of the divine will and nature, continuously growing over time but never complete, and quite primitive in its earliest stages.

The early Israelites had grasped the exclusive nature of the lordship of God, the One who whose claims denied the possibility of serving other gods.  The first commandment of the Law, after all, is “you shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).  Polkinghorne points out that in the earliest strata scholars can discern, the belief of Israel is “henotheism” or the idea that Yahweh is uniquely the One whom Israel worships and to whom it owes exclusive allegiance, but at this stage the deities of the surrounding tribes are treated as having some kind of reality as well.  It isn’t until the time of the writing of the second half of Isaiah, the so-called Deutero-Isaiah, that henotheism has uncompromisingly become monotheism.  Scholars place this time as being around the exile into Babylon.

In Polkinghorne’s opinion, ancient Israel could conceive no better insight than the use of force against unbelievers as the expression of its faithful following of Yahweh.  He says their interpretation of “you shall have no other gods before me” was a divine command to destroy the followers of false gods in the Promised Land by a ruthless holy war against them.  But by the time of the exile in Babylon and Deutero-Isaiah, there developed the idea of a deeper understanding as reflected in the “Servant Songs”, much different from that delivered from Samuel to Saul.

The four “Servant Songs” are:

  1. Isaiah 42:1-4
  2. Isaiah 49:1-6
  3. Isaiah 50:4-9
  4. Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Cristo na Noite by Chagall

The first of these songs speaks of the Servant as “one who will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench”.  This Servant is not a powerful military figure, like Joshua or David, who would reject the weak and ineffective.  The second song speaks of the Servant as being “a light to the Gentiles” and the last two songs clearly speak of a suffering Servant.  One who “offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting” (50:6).  And finally: “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed (53:5).  Polkinghorne says:

Clearly very great development had taken place in between Joshua and Second Isaiah, and who can doubt that it had resulted from a deeper and truer understanding of God and God’s way?  Accepting this enables us to acknowledge the crudities and atrocities present in early Scripture without being drive to discard belief in the spiritual value of the Bible.  We can recognize within it an unfolding process of insight and understanding as God’s nature was progressively revealed.

Another example of this development in Hebrew thought, according to Polkinghorne, relates to the nature of individual responsibility.  Primitive society tended to think in collective terms, with the family spread out over successive generations as the primary unit.  Hence the second commandment can speak of God as a “jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me (Exodus 20:5).  The example would be Achan, convicted of stealing forbidden booty, his whole family is stoned and burnt with him (Joshua 7:22-26).  By the time of the exile, an individual understanding had replaced this terrible way of thinking which condemned the innocent with the guilty as shown in Ezekiel 18:20,

“The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.”

It seems clear that before the Hebrew Bible reached it final form there was a long developmental process, involving reworking much that had been inherited from the past in light of the understanding and experiences of the present.  Yet the editors who assembled the final text apparently did not find it necessary to smooth out the differences present in the sources they used in order to produce the appearance of a single consistent text.  This exploration of the past was not to be totally obscured from view.  As Chaplain Mike said in the comments to my last post:

“And what I see is that Scripture is clearly an ancient book, written by ancient people in ancient settings according to ancient forms of literature. It is not only a divine book but a divine book inspired through those kinds of human channels. I have to take the humanity of the Bible just as seriously as I do its divine status. And if God chose to work that way and bring us his perspectives in that manner, then I have to read the Bible with that in mind and interpret what I read accordingly.

If I don’t do that, if I just sit back and say, “Well it’s God’s Word, therefore it must be this or that,” then I am not being a faithful steward of the mind God gave me.”

Likewise, in the New Testament, it is significant that the Church preserved the multiple perspectives offered by the four Gospels, rather than attempting a conflated harmonization.  Polkinghorne notes that the unfolding process of developing theological understanding that we find in the Bible has continued beyond the confines of Scripture itself.  The experiences and insights of the New Testament period led to the Christological and Trinitarian conclusions of the Church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries.  These council understandings arose from engaging with the testimony of the Bible, for example, from the way the New Testament writers, despite being monotheistic Jews, used language of divinity that produced an obvious tension unresolved in the New Testament itself.  Those of us who believe in the continuing work of the Holy Spirit (John 16:13) should not find this surprising.  As Polkinghorne concludes:

The role of development, within Scripture and after it, depends upon the fact that revelational disclosure is primarily personal rather than propositional, living and not petrified.

Some Favorite Photos from 2017

Eagle Creek Path Fall 2017

Some Favorite Photos from 2017

Before I introduce this year’s favorite pictures, let me say that I am looking forward to reading a book I received as a gift for Christmas. It’s called Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice, by Christine Valters Paintner. Perhaps some of our readers who enjoy photography would like to read it along with me. Look for posts to come on this subject.

Here are a few of my favorites from the shots I took in 2017 with my Olympus Pen-F. They span the seasons of life here in Indiana and the Midwest, with a few New England pictures thrown in for good measure. I’d love to hear your feedback on which ones you like.

Click on the thumbnail to see a larger image.

Jeff Dunn: My Best Books of 2017

My Best Books of 2017

I know that you have been waiting patiently to know what I consider the best books I read in 2017. I know that your fingers are itching to put these titles in your Amazon shopping cart and push “Checkout” so you can receive them in two days and begin to read like I have read. I know this because I know that somewhere deep in the bowels of your heart (so to speak), you want to be just like me.

Well, friend, your patience has paid off.

Here now, are the top five books I read in 2017. Notice I did not say books that were released in 2017. I can be a bit slow on the draw.

5. Vacation Guide To The Solar System: Science For The Savvy Space Traveler! by Olivia Koski and Jane Grcevich. Are you making vacation plans now for 2018? Why not include a visit to the moon or one of the planets in our solar system rather than boring old Disney World? This is just a very fun book that teaches you a lot about the planets in the guise of a tour guide. You won’t look at the night sky the same again.

4. Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance.  This memoir of a self-professed “hillbilly” growing up in Middletown, Ohio hit a soft target with me. I was born in Middletown. My mom’s side of the family all came from Middletown. Vance’s people, however, were what we called “briars”–transplants from Kentucky. A briar may have moved physically from Kentucky, but not in the way they lived. Vance sheds light on those he grew up with in a very honest and merciful way.

I was reminded as I read how my aunts and uncles worked so hard to be sure others knew they were not briars, and yet they acted just as hillbilly as anyone from Kentucky. Vance’s tale made me look at how I have tried through education and employment and what I own to look different than those in an economically lower class. Just today, I went to get an oil change outside of my upper-middle class neighborhood in Tulsa. In the waiting room were people who could just as well have come from Middletown, Ohio–dressed shabbily, overweight, driving beater cars. Part of me–a not very good part of me–wanted to stand up and say, “I’m not from here. I’m not like you.” Oh, Father, have mercy on me.

Reading this book made me realize I have been thinking that everyone should change to be like me. Now I pray that they don’t.

3. Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy With God by Timothy Keller.  Ok, this is a bit of cheat. I didn’t technically “read” Keller’s book. I listened to it as I drove from Oklahoma to Ohio to celebrate my parents’ 60th anniversary. But really now, read, listen … I learned from Keller’s book that I have a lot to learn about prayer. I have been walking with the Lord for going on 45 years now, and I feel like I am a beginner when it comes to prayer.

Keller gives some background of praying from different cultures and different religions before settling in on Christian prayer. He is, in typical Keller fashion, at once practical and philosophical in his subject.

I have determined that the two areas I want to focus on in my personal study in 2018 are poetry and prayer. I am a rank amateur at both. Keller’s book awakened a hunger in me for deeper intimacy with and greater awe of God. Read it, listen to it–but absorb this important book by a great teacher.

2.  The Vatican Trilogy by Morris West. The three books that make up this set are The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963), The Clowns of God (1981), and Lazarus (1990). These books follow the lives of three successive popes and how their election and and execution of their office affects the Church around the world. In the first book, the man selected to the papacy is a former actor from a Slavic country; in the second, the pope abdicates the throne of Peter; the third book features a pope who wants to make changes in the Church that anger conservative Catholics. Did you catch the dates these books were written? Do you see that West seems to have been prophetic?

The action of the plots in these stories are not as memorable as the interaction of the characters. You don’t have to be Catholic to enjoy these tales–but if you’re not, you just might find yourself becoming one.

1. The World, The Flesh and Father Smith by Bruce Marshall. Good luck finding this. There are only a couple available on Amazon. It was written in 1945 and has been long out-of-print. Set in Scotland in the first half of the 20th century, Marshall follows the life of the fictional Father Thomas Edmund Smith, pastor of two parishes in small, working-class towns in forgotten areas of the British Empire from the beginning of the century until the early years of World War II. We see Father Smith perform the mundane duties of priest, hear him counsel his flock, listen to sermons by other priests as they rail against the encroaching culture, watch as church politics play out–all in a well-paced, personal, intimate way.

Do you remember the spell for “the refreshment of the spirit” Lucy encountered in the magician’s book? (You have read Voyage of the Dawn Treader in the Chronicles of Narnia, haven’t you?) Lucy read a story that left her soul feeling clean and refreshed. This is how I felt when I reached the end of Marshall’s book. I said to myself, “This is what it means to be a Catholic.” I know I will re-read this book often, as often as my soul needs refreshing.

(After you finish this, look for another book by Marshall: Father Malachy’s Miracle. Oh. My. Goodness.)

BONUS!

The best album from 2017: Freedom Highway by Rhiannon Giddens.

Giddens is one of the three members of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, an extremely talented musician and singer who is the ultimate definition of “soul music.” Freedom Highway will take you on a ride through the days of slavery, repression of civil rights, and ordinary, everyday struggles each of us must face, but do it in a way that does not load you with guilt but, strangely, with hope. Prime cut: Birmingham, Alabama. Get this, listen, weep, pray, enjoy.

You may have heard that I am now helping with the St. Paul Evangelization Society, a Catholic apostolate (a parachurch ministry in Protestant terms) that serves the bishops in the United States as “fishers of men.” A big part of this service is our web site, www.spesinchrist.com. I am looking for a few “reporters” and writers who can share thoughts and experiences of evangelism. Things that work, things that don’t work. You don’t have to be a Catholic to be considered. If you think you would like to help, please email me at imonkpub@gmail.com. The pay? You will be richly rewarded in heaven, I’m sure! (Hey, this is a ministry after all.)

Now, get on Amazon and start reading so you can be like me.

 

New Year’s Odds & Ends

A Favorite Photo from 2017: Sunrise at Gethsemani Farms

Happy New Year!

Just a few notes today on this first day of 2018…

First of all, a hearty “thank you” to all you who read and comment here at Internet Monk. This remains a vibrant community of conversation. If you read regularly but don’t comment, I’d like to invite you to join in. We always need and appreciate new perspectives and insights.

Second, I word of appreciation to those of you who have gone the extra mile and have contributed financially to help keep Internet Monk going. We don’t have high expenses, but we do have to pay to keep our site online, functioning well, and protected from the generous amounts of spam and hacks that get thrown our way. We don’t ask for money regularly, but once or twice or year I put up a little reminder like this that every little gift helps us provide a daily place for folks to come together in the Great Hall.

The easiest way to donate is to use the “Donate” button on the top right hand of the page. Another way to help us is to click on the links we provide for books and other materials. We are an Amazon Associate site, and if you enter Amazon through Internet Monk, a small amount of anything you buy will support our site.

• • •

Here’s a new favorite quote, and a good one to start 2018:

“Piety, piety, but where is the love that moves mountains?”

• Sister Maria Skobstova

Read about Sister Maria in this article in Plough.

• • •

A few favorites from 2017:

Favorite books I read:

Favorite music I listened to:

• • •

The Mercers are moving! We sold our historic home and are moving to the country. Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be packing, loading and unloading, and getting settled into a new place about fifteen miles away, out from town and close to the church where I’ve been preaching on Sundays.

That may mean that original material may be a bit rare for the first part of 2018, except for Mike the Geologist’s Faith and Science posts, Dan’s Saturday Brunches, and perhaps a few guest authors.

As for me, ibuprofen is and will be my best friend for awhile, but we are looking forward to the change and the adventure of a new home!

• • •

A Prayer for the New Year

Let us now pray for God’s blessing in the new year.

Remember us, O God;
from age to age be our comforter.
You have given us the wonder of time,
blessings in days and nights, seasons and years.
Bless your children at the turning of the year
and fill the months ahead with the bright hope
that is ours in the coming of Christ.
You are our God, living and reigning, forever and ever.

Amen.

 

 

Christmas I: Sermon for an Odd Sunday

Presentation of Christ at the Temple. Giotto

Sermon Christmas I 2017
Sermon for an Odd Sunday

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord’), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.’

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,

‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.’

And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

• Luke 2:22-40

• • •

The Lord be with you.

This, to me, has always been an odd Sunday on the church’s calendar. Because of our culture and the way we have come to celebrate the holidays, most of us are thinking, “Christmas is over!” We may be breathing a sigh of relief, we may have already taken down the tree and decorations, the family has gone home, the gifts have been put away and are being put to use, and this week, these days, this Sunday seems like an anticlimax to the big celebration that took place on one day after a long season of advertising, shopping, and preparing. What we had looked forward to for so long has come and gone, and is now past.

On the other hand, we are thinking about the future. On our calendar, tomorrow begins a new year. Tonight we’ll count down to midnight, raise our glasses, embrace our loved ones, and celebrate the possibilities that lay before us the next 365 days. “A new year has come!” Perhaps we’ve been pondering resolutions, working on our 2018 calendars, looking forward to particular events that we are planning during the months to come. A blank slate is before us, and a spirit of anticipation is in the air.

So we look back and in our cultural habits Christmas is past. We look forward because we find ourselves on the doorstep of a new year. And yet today, we have this Sunday that seems to lie between those two realities. On the church calendar it is the first Sunday in Christmastide. For the church, Christmas doesn’t end on Christmas day, it just begins then. The twelve days of Christmas carry on the celebration until Epiphany, January 6. So it’s still actually appropriate to say, “Merry Christmas!,” to sing Christmas carols, to keep our decorations up, and to celebrate the birth of Christ. Everybody knows that the day a baby is born is just the beginning of expressing our joy and enjoying the new little one among us. On the other hand, we are people of a particular culture as well, and we follow the same calendar as our neighbors. It’s New Year’s Eve! Time to close the door on 2017 and open the door to a brand new year.

I think our reading for today has a simple lesson we can take for an odd Sunday like this, when we feel in between Christmas and the new year.

In today’s text from Luke, it is now forty days after Jesus’ birth. After eight days, Mary and Joseph, who were faithful Jewish parents, had Jesus circumcised and named in accordance with the law. Now, thirty-two days later, we see his parents again performing their duty as they return to the Temple, this time in order to offer a sacrifice and to present their newborn baby, Jesus, to the Lord. There they meet two older saints, a man named Simeon and an woman named Anna. These strangers approach the holy family and make some profound statements about who Jesus is and what he came to do.

Most of the time, when reading this passage, we give our attention to these two people and what they say about Jesus. And, indeed, Luke wants us to hear their remarkable words. To them, Jesus was the fulfillment of all they had longed for and waited for. They recognized Jesus as the Messiah, the King promised to Israel, the One who would come from God and bring his people redemption. Their words here are the answer to the Advent hymn we sang each week, “O come, o come, Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel.”

But I want you to notice something much simpler and down-to-earth on this Sunday, as we look back on Christmas and forward to a new year in 2018. Observe with me that these encounters Mary and Joseph had with Simeon and Anna took place in the temple, their place of worship. Notice that Mary and Joseph had taken Jesus there, to fulfill their duties as faithful Jewish parents, according to God’s instructions. Note that Simeon apparently was a person who listened to scripture, who knew God’s promises well, who had been trying for many years to live his life according to God’s word. And notice that Anna, who had sadly lost a young husband, had devoted herself afterwards to serving God in a religious vocation.

Let me say it as simply as I can: these were people who practiced their faith. They were people who walked in this world with daily, ordinary faithfulness in response to God’s love and grace.

If I were to talk about this in terms of our lives today, I would say: these are people who made it a priority to go to church, to do their duties as pious people and parents. They maintained a religious life. They read their Bibles, they prayed, they worshiped with God’s people regularly. They sought to raise their children within the community of faith. They knew God had blessed them and made them God’s people, and so they responded by trying to do, as the last verse of our text says, “everything required by the law of the Lord.” They sought, by God’s help, to be faithful people, who made following his instructions and living with grateful devotion the pattern of their lives.

They were simple people. They are not known by having done great and spectacular things. In their own day they were not celebrities or people who were honored as leaders or movers and shakers. Just ordinary folks, fulfilling their ordinary duties with a spirit of reverence and thankfulness to God. They trusted God, they took their kids to church, they read their Bibles, they prayed, they served the Lord and their neighbors.

I realize that’s not a sexy message. It’s not some deep spiritual insight that will turn your world upside down and send chills of spiritual experience running up and down your back. Hearing it is probably more like being told to eat your vegetables than being given a big piece of pie a la mode.

That’s okay. I’m not here to give you a spiritual thrill ride. I’m here today to help us all learn to walk, to walk in Christ, to walk in the path of wisdom and love. And it all starts with a simple path: the straight-forward way of simple, daily faithfulness we see here in Mary and Joseph and Simeon and Anna.

Yesterday I officiated the funeral service of a man 97 years old. He died on Christmas Day. His wife had died just a couple of weeks earlier. They had lived and died in the same small town. He had taken over a business that has been in the family since 1888, providing a very important service for their community. His son now runs that business. This man and his wife had been married about 70 years, had family of children and grandchildren who were all at the funeral along with many neighbors and friends. Always went to church. Served in various capacities in his church and community. Started the Little League baseball program there. Founded the town’s annual parade. Served his country with honor in WWII. Took care of his family and neighbors.

In my funeral sermon, I said that one of my favorite movie characters is George Bailey, from It’s a Wonderful Life. Never did George Bailey achieve the big splash of fame and fortune he dreamed about. Instead, he remained in the little town of Bedford Falls and achieved something much better: contentment, joy, doing good and meaningful work that helps others, a loving family, lots of friends, a spirit of public service, enjoying the good things in life and trusting God and helping others through the hard times in life.

People like George Bailey and the friend I eulogized yesterday won’t get their names in the history books, but they are the bedrock upon which our lives, families, and communities are built.

As we look back on Christmas and forward to a new year, let’s take it a day at a time, and make each day a day of ordinary faithfulness. Let’s awaken every day, receiving it as a gift from God, thanking him for our salvation and all the blessings of life. Let’s walk each day as the prophets teach us:

“He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Amen.

Saturday Brunch, Year-end Extravaganza

Hello friends, and welcome to the weekend. Ready for some Saturday Brunch Year-end Extravaganza?

Image result for year end brunch

Well, too bad. The title lies. This really isn’t an extravaganza. I don’t know how to do extravaganzas. Heck, I had to look up how to spell extravaganza. I’m Norwegian, man! To us, toast is extravagant.

But Chaplain Mike suggested the title, and I have learned it is never a good idea to disobey someone who takes Luther so seriously; the last time I did I found my door marked with 95 feces.

So, here we go; Let’s take a look back at 2017. It may not be an extravaganza, but it will hopefully be an above-average-vaganza.

Let’s start with the fact that 2017 was the weirdest year that I can remember. It was like an over-eager waiter at aBrazilian Steak house, who keeps serving you more weirdness before you’ve had a chance to chew on the previous weirdness. . A bizarre event would occur, and it would be all over the news, but before we could wrap our minds around it, another bizarre event would occur, then another and another. How are we supposed to remember the weirdness???

  • Did Evangelicals really help elect a foul-mouthed, thrice-married Casino owner, even after he bragged about sexually assaulting women?
  • Were there really thousands of people marching around Washington wearing vagina hats?
  • Did we really almost start a new civil war about whether football players should have to stand for the national anthem?
  • Did the sitting Secretary of State really call the sitting President of the United Sate a “moron?
  • Did Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway really announce the wrong winner for the most important Oscar?
  • Did the sitting president of the United States actually tweet out a video clip in which he body-slams a wrestler with a CNN logo superimposed over the wrestler’s head?

And who can forget Covfefe? The golden shower dossier? Alternative facts? Scaramucci? Antifa battling the Alt-right for violent-totalitarian bragging rights? Fidget spinners?

Yeah, what a year. Let’s at least start off with some satire.

Top Headlines of the Year from the Babylon Bee:

What are the top challenges today’s church faces as we move into 2018? Here is the (condensed) take of the Gospel Coalition leadership on that question:

The challenges facing the church and the world today are many and multifaceted, but which of them represent, from the perspective of The Gospel Coalition’s leadership, the most troubling threats to the church’s health and the most significant obstacles to the gospel’s advancement? Here are five:

1. Sin

“The most significant obstacles are the ones we’ve always faced,” said Kevin DeYoung, of the issue (sin) behind every issue. “The world is worldly. Sinners and sinful. And the heart is deceitful. Which is to say, God is not surprised by what we face, and the gospel is not impotent to make all the difference.”

2. Division in the Church

Following the larger culture’s media-intensified polarization along every imaginable line—from guns to marriage to kneeling NFL players—the Christian church is replete with internal division at the close of 2017. “It can feel as if we are more divided than we have been in a long time—divided by race, by politics, and by our approach to a changing culture,” DeYoung said.

3. ‘Evangelical’ Identity Crisis

What does “evangelical” actually mean in 2017? Is it a political voting bloc or a theological coalition? Tim Keller wrote recently in the New Yorker about this debate, observing, “In many parts of the country, Evangelicalism serves as the civil or folk religion accepted by default as part of one’s social and political identity. So, in many cases, it means that the political is more defining than theological beliefs, which has not been the case historically.”

4. Poorly Formed Christians

Behind the evangelical identity crisis is a crisis of formation. Largely cut off from history, biblically illiterate, and catechized more by cable news than by the creeds, today’s evangelical Christians are naturally being shaped more by the ideological zeitgeist than by theological orthodoxy.

5. Extremes of Pietism and Partisanship

Keller sees two tendencies among evangelicals that pull in different unhealthy directions. One is pietism, which is a “completely inward” Christianity oriented toward “Jesus just wants you to be happy” prosperity.

“Pietism says my Christianity is fully inward and has nothing to do with the way I live in the world,” Keller said. It tends to retreat into the self and make no difference in the world. But the other extreme, partisanship, errs by politicizing Christianity according to rigid partisan categories that demand “package” deal alignment: you cannot be a true Christian conservative or progressive unless you tow the party line on every issue. This partisanship tends to shoehorn Scripture and Christian practice into one or the other political boxes.

“It’s not easy, because if you resist the partisanship, you look pietistic, as if you think Christianity has nothing to do with the world and is completely other-worldly,” Keller said. “But if you resist pietism, then you look like you’re basically trying to be a culture warrior, to impose your values on people.”

Legit question: what would you label as the top five challenges facing the church?

Here is 2017 as seen by our cartoonists:

Dec. 28, 2017

Editorial cartoon on Hillary Clinton and 2016 presidential election

Editorial cartoon on Berkeley protests and freedom of speech

Dec. 28, 2017

Editorial cartoon on Sean Spicer

Editorial cartoon on Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and the DNC

 

Editorial cartoon on House Republicans and health care

 

Editorial cartoon on United Airlines

Editorial cartoon on Wisconsin and congressional districts and Republican Party

Editorial cartoon on CIA and technology and privacy

Dec. 28, 2017

 

Editorial cartoon on hackers and Equifax and cybersecurity

Editorial cartoon on Civil War and Confederate monuments

 

Editorial cartoon on sexual assault

Editorial cartoon on Jerusalem and Israel

Political Cartoons by Tom Stiglich

In spite of all the weirdness there was a LOT of good news in 2017, which mainly continued the good news of the last 10 years:

As far as the economy is concerned, just about everything has continued to get better in 2017 at just about the same rate things have gotten better since the Great Recession ended in 2009. Job growth has continued at a slightly slower pace, gross domestic product growth and Wall Street profits at a slightly faster pace, wage growth at approximately the same pace. The trade deficit that Trump has vowed to erase has grown, too, but that’s also a sign of prosperity: It’s growing because Americans have more money to spend on imports.

And it’s not just the economy:

  • Scientists have found a way to successfully rebreed sections of the Great Barrier Reef.
  • The snow leopard has been taken off the endangered species list.
  • The teen pregnancy rate is at an all-time low.
  • Abortion rates also continue to decline, and are now lower than when Roe V. Wade was decided.
  • Crime has decreased by 2.7% this year. Today’s violent crime rate is less than half it was in 1991.
  • The number of people facing hunger in the U.S. declined last year to the lowest since 2007 as unemployment fell and some states strengthened child-nutrition programs.
  • Child labor rates have declined over 40 percent since the year 2,000.
  • Honey bee populations have increased in 2017

So this raises the obvious question: Why on earth are Americans so pessimistic and negative about the world we live in?

The National Geographic just released its collection of the top nature photographs of 2017. Here are some of my favorites. You can see more, and get the story on them all, here.

Well, that’s it for this week. Enjoy your weekend.

The Fifth Day of Christmas

Readings for the Day

Isaiah 49:5-15
Psalm 148
Matthew 12:46-50

❄︎

Collect for the Day

O God, who makest us glad by the yearly remembrance of the birth of thy only Son Jesus Christ: Grant that as we joyfully receive him for our Redeemer, so we may with sure confidence behold him when he shall come to be our Judge; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

❄︎

Poem for the Fifth Day of Christmas

and what was this day like?
day five.
i have had four of them —
four of those days when you have lost count
because you can’t get one damn hour’s sleep.
your head is fuzzy and foggy and bleary and blurred,
your world constricted to an unruly sea of blankets, sheets, and pillows
with a firmament of shadowy ceiling above,
and this wall then that wall as you pace back and forth
trying to calm the wailing one.
and now his diaper needs to be changed, so let’s do that
and mom cries for no reason and because her nipples hurt
and i, dad, feel numb and helpless and almost walk out a couple of times.
friends bring a meal or two and coo over the baby
and you love them and you wish they would just go home
because this is the first time the little bugger has slept
since you can remember and oh how delightful it would be to just close your eyes…

i’ve never heard a minister preach about the fifth day of christmas.
maybe this is why.
maybe it is too human for us to bear.
like a three a.m. feeding
like “he needs changing again?”
like the smell of sleepy soft debris where
a woman groaned and pushed until she gave birth
and now two exhausted people stare at the dancing shadows
and dread the sound of the slightest squeak
coming from the crib beside them.