For your pleasure and contemplation, I am posting an original photograph and a corresponding poem each week on Sundays. May these offerings help lead us to a deeper place of rest on the Lord’s Day.
Click on the picture for a larger image.
• • •
The Sound of Trees
I wonder about the trees.
Why do we wish to bear
Forever the noise of these
More than another noise
So close to our dwelling place?
We suffer them by the day
Till we lose all measure of pace,
And fixity in our joys,
And acquire a listening air.
They are that that talks of going
But never gets away;
And that talks no less for knowing,
As it grows wiser and older,
That now it means to stay.
My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder
Sometimes when I watch trees sway,
From the window or the door.
I shall set forth for somewhere,
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I shall be gone.
Hello, friends, and welcome to the weekend. Ready to Ramble?
1963 Rambler American
Please keep the Orlando victims in your thoughts and prayers. I don’t know i have anything to say that hasn’t been said already this week, but you are welcome to discuss this tragedy in the comments if you wish.
What do porn stars, the East German secret police, Harvard University, forged Aramaic documents, Christian feminism, duped auto part executives, angelic authors, and Jesus’ wife have in common? Well, you will just have to read this long article from the Atlantic to find out; trust me, it is worth your time. The TLDR version is this: it is now almost beyond dispute that the much ballyhooed “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” is a hoax perpetuated by a crackpot, second-rate antiquity scammer which Harvard bought hook, line and sinker. This is perhaps the best piece of investigative journalism I have seen in years.
Pro-abortion activist groups are planning to fly a drone carrying abortion pills into Catholic-dominated Northern Ireland next week. Women on Waves, the Netherlands-based abortion group heading the “abortion drone” pill drop, said the drone will fly into the country from Ireland at 10 a.m. on Tuesday. Women on Waves is calling it: “an all-island act of solidarity between women in the north and the south to highlight the violation of human rights caused by the existing laws that criminalize abortion in both the north and south of Ireland except in very limited circumstances.” The Catholic Church says it will be ready:
The 2016 Presidential Primaries are over!!! And we have the first female presidential candidate from a major party in history!!! This is a very historic moment!!! Why is no-one talking about this???? Seriously, whatever you think of Hillary, isn’t this more newsworthy than the attention it has received?
The Southern Baptist Convention marched bravely into the 20th century this week when it told its members and churches to stop flying the confederate flag. Even better, amid calls to restrict Muslim immigration, the Southern Baptist Convention approved a resolution encouraging member churches and families to welcome refugees coming to the United States. “That we affirm that refugees are people loved by God, made in His image, and that Christian love should be extended to them as special objects of God’s mercy in a world that has displaced them from their homelands,” reads the resolution.
An Oregon man tried to steal a bike from Walmart, and was caught in the parking lot. By a man on horseback. Who lassoed him. You gotta watch:
A Japanese man noticed a urinal with a disconcerting way to celebrate his “contribution”.
The Playboy mansion has been sold. The buyer? The owner of Hostess Brands (you know, the Twinkie makers). The Playboy mansion has 12 bedrooms, sits on five acres of land and comes with a cave-like grotto and a zoo, according to the listing. Besides bunnies, the property includes monkeys, cockatoos, peacocks, African cranes, and about 1,500 strains of chlamydia. Hugh gets to stay till he dies, which, if he gets hold of some of those Twinkie preservatives, might be in another hundred years or so.
Suggestion for Hostess man: Fill this pool with bleach for about a year.
I suppose we should not be surprised antisemitism is still around, lingering like a stale fart at a banquet. What is surprising, at least to me, is that the smell is getting worse. Much of this is caused by the alt-right. Haven’t heard of the alt-right? They are the online mob sprouting anti-immigration slogans to each other, increasingly tinged with jejune racist, sexist and antisemitic ranting. They have now taken to placing three sets of parentheses around a Jewish name, like (((Cohen))) or (((Goldberg))), like an online yellow star. Or sometimes they will use the parenthesis to slyly imply Jewish control or influence.
Mark Pitcavage, an expert on right-wing extremism who also maintains the Anti-Defamation League’s hate-symbol database, notes that symbols and memes are part of the dna of the the alt-right. “There’s now an unlimited number of white supremacist memes, just like there’s an unlimited number of cat memes . . .The white supremacist movement is very visually and symbolically oriented.” Just like 4 year olds.
Sick of the neighbor’s late night parties? If you live near Portland, this Craigslist post may have a solution: a 20 foot trebuchet. I imagine a few barrels of flaming oil ought to shut the party down.
But watch out for their heavy cavalry
On Tuesday, the Senate approved an expansive military policy bill that would for the first time require young women to register for the draft. The shift, while fiercely opposed by some conservative lawmakers and interest groups, had surprisingly broad support among Republican leaders and women in both parties. Under the Senate bill passed on Tuesday, women turning 18 on or after Jan. 1, 2018, would be forced to register for Selective Service, as men must do now. Failure to register could result in the loss of various forms of federal aid, including Pell grants, a penalty that men already face. Good idea, imonks?
Theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku is featured in a video titled, “Is God a Mathematician?” Kaku, one of the founders of String Theory, believes He is. “The mind of God we believe is cosmic music, the music of strings resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace. That is the mind of God.” Sounds much like Tolkien’s description of creation in The Silmarillion “Before the Creation, Eru Ilúvatar made the Ainur or “holy ones”. The Universe was created through the Music of the Ainur or Ainulindalë, music sung by the Ainur in response to themes introduced by Eru. This universe, the song endowed with existence by Eru, was called Eä”. Here is the video:
Computer troubles are for everyone. In Virginia this month, a computer crash wiped out a decade’s worth of U.S. military data. Fortunately, the Chinese government called and said “no problem, we backed it up.” And Russian hackers broke into the Democrat National Committee computers and stole all their opposition research against Donald Trump. I think the only reason they were caught is that 200 terabyte data transfers tend to get noticed. The Russian Government categorically denied any involvement.
“You owe me, Donald”
A new academic study analyzed the vocabulary and grammar of recent presidential candidates. Trump’s vocabulary, the paper concluded, was at a middle school level, while his grammar hit the fifth grade. Trump responded by calling the paper’s author, “a poopy-head”.
Lithuanian Police released dashboard camera footage last week of a harrowing high-speed chase where the driver attempted to use a smokescreen and spikes against police. The video ends with the police car pinning the Volvo against a roadside barrier. Police did not identify the suspect or the original reason for the pursuit, but it is believed he was heading to his super-villain lair.
Meth production is down in our country. Which is a good thing, I guess. But other drugs have filled the void rather easily. Including a new one: Imodium. Apparently intense ingestion of the anti-diarrhea drugs is giving some users a heroin-like high. The Annals of Emergency Medicine recently published a study detailing the dangers of loperamide, the primary ingredient in Imodium, which is sold over-the counter. While the recommended dosage is between 8 milligrams and 16 milligrams per day, some people have taken as much as 300 mg in one sitting. That would be expensive, of course, but one would presumably save quite a bit on toilet paper.
Tired of road work in your neckof the woods? At least you don’t have to commute to downtown Ottawa, where a massive sinkhole sucked in four lanes of road.
Duck tape will fix that
Of course, this being the internet age, a few people tweaked the photo:
Not to be outdone by sissy Canadians, Texas officials announced this week that their sinkhole was not only a lot bigger, but soon might collapse and become truly gigantic.
This is before the potential collapse
Astronomers at Cornell University said that it may take 1,500 years before aliens respond to our radio signals from earth and respond. Which sounds like some customer service phone calls I’ve experienced.
Japan’s first “naked restaurant” opens in Tokyo next month. But there’s a catch: you have to be between 18-60, have no tattoos, and, ummm… how to say this? . . . not be pudgy. In fact, prospective diners will be weighed and ejected if found to be too fat. “If you are more than 15 kilograms (33 pounds) above the average weight for your height, we ask you refrain from making a reservation”. You know what, I didn’t want to eat there, anyway.
So here’s a headline you don’t see every day: Noah’s Ark crashes into Coast Guard Ship. But it happened. The 230-foot long Ark replica collided with a Norwegian Coast Guard vessel as it arrived in Oslo, Norway on Friday, causing damage to both ships. The ark, built by Dutch carpenter Johan Huibers after he dreamed of a flood in his home town, was being towed into Oslo harbor when it somehow lost control and crashed into the moored patrol vessel Nornen.
Watching the video its hard to tell exactly what happened, but photos posted by Norwegian media show a big hole in the side of the Ark’s wooden hull.
The Ark is now owned by the Ark of Noah Foundation, which was planning on bringing it across the Atlantic for the Rio Olympic Games this summer, which sounds like a really, really great idea, seeing how well it sailed in the harbor. Fortunately, no animals were on board.
American teenagers are having less sex. A lot less. This is the finding of a study conducted every two years by the Centers for Disease Control. The survey found 41 per cent said they had ever had sex, after it had been about 47 per cent over the previous decade. It also found marked declines last year in the proportion of students who said had sex recently, had sex before they were 13, and students who had had sex with four or more partners. The reason? No idea. “We’re trying to look at reasons why this might be happening,” said Dr. Stephanie Zaza of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who oversees the survey. One possibility: “It may be that parking at Lookout Point has given way to texting from your mom’s living room couch.”
The survey also found declining rates of smoking and alcohol and drug use among teens. Fewer than 11 per cent of the teens smoked a cigarette in the previous month — the lowest level since the government started doing the survey in 1990, when the rate was more than 27 per cent. Just under a third had at least one alcoholic drink in the 30 days before the survey, down from 35 per cent in the last survey and down from 45 per cent in 2007. About 63 per cent had ever had a drink, down from 66 per cent in 2013 and 75 per cent in 2007.
Well, that’s it for this week, my friends. I leave you with some opera. Why? Because my wife and I were able to go see Carmen last week, and I’m feeling all cultured and sophisticated. So here is the Met’s version of L’amour est un oiseau rebelle. Enjoy!
I hope you have enjoyed, as much as I have, this week of highlighting authors who write for us here at Internet Monk. I am blessed to partner with many fine, gifted, and faithful writers, who have written books we are happy to recommend. For those of you still getting familiar with the site, you can always find some of these books listed on the right sidebar of the page, under “iMonk Authors.” The books pictured there are linked to sites where you can purchase them and support these folks in their craft.
Pictures this week are from our friend, David Cornwell. Visit his Flickr page to see more.
Today, we feature an excerpt from a new book by our dear friend and former IM administrator/writer Jeff Dunn. Without Jeff, there would be no “iMonk Authors.” He was Michael’s agent for Mere Churchianity, and was instrumental in providing opportunities for Damaris, Lisa, and me to become published writers. More than that, however, Jeff is an accomplished author of his own, who writes with grace and humor to encourage us all.
Swimming instructors will tell you that even for advanced swimmers, learning how to float can be very difficult. Fr. Thomas Green, the author of When the Well Runs Dry, tells of living in the Philippines and trying to teach Filipinos, who grew up knowing how to swim, to float in the water. “When we do have a picnic and I try to teach these people of the sea how to float, it is puzzling to see what a difficult art floating really is—difficult not because it demands much skill, but because it demands much letting go,” writes Green. “The secret of floating is in learning not to do all the things we instinctively want to do. We want to keep ourselves rigid, ready to save ourselves the moment a big wave comes along—and yet the more rigid we are the more likely we are to be swamped by the waves; if we relax in the water we can be carried up and down by the rolling sea and never be swamped.”
Swimmers have goals; floaters allow the current to take them wherever it will.
Swimmers are in control of their actions; floaters let go of their actions.
Swimmers put forth effort to get from one place to another; floaters just, well, float.
Dr. Claire Weekes applied this idea of floating to dealing with anxiety. Weekes was an Australian doctor who helped many people learn to work through anxiety through her clinics and her books. Weekes discovered that doing things to try to reduce or eliminate worry actually makes things worse. When we try to fight anxiety, it is like throwing gasoline on a fire. And when we try to run from our anxiety, we find our anxiety can outrun us every time. So she came up with a new approach. She called it floating. Instead of running from our anxiety, or using techniques to fight it, we need to lay our head back and float through it.
When we put forth our own efforts to fight anxiety, we are actually fanning the flames of the fire we want to put out. We are calling attention to what we want to go away. Our efforts to fight anxiety actually make it worse. It is paradoxical to think that the best way to overcome worry is to just let it be, but that really is true. Do you remember those little bamboo finger tricks we had as kids? You would put one index finger in one end, and your other index finger in the other end. Now, try to take it off. Your first instinct was to pull your fingers out, right? But the harder you pulled, the tighter it became. The way to get it off was to relax your fingers and push them together—just the opposite of what we would do naturally.
Worry is the same way. The harder you pull on it, the more power you give it to bind you, to keep you ensnared in its trap. To overcome worry, you need to stop pulling. You need to stop fueling anxiety with your efforts. You need to float.
The psalmist lifts up this cry of the Lord when he writes, “Be still, and know that I am God!” (Psalm 46:10, NRSV).
Other translations put the “Be still” in more direct words.
“Let go of your concerns” (God’s Word)
“Stop fighting” (Good News Translation)
“Stand silent” (Living Bible)
“Step out of the traffic” (The Message)
“Stop your striving” (New English Translation)
“Be calm” (The Voice)
What all of these translations of this familiar passage have in common is a call for us to stop our efforts and trust God. Again, let’s remember the only way we can please God is by trusting him. And trusting God goes against how we think we are to act. As Fr. Green writes, “The problem is we must decide whether we want to swim or float.”
We have been taking a break from some of our usual posts to highlight authors who contribute here at Internet Monk. I am blessed to partner with many fine, gifted, and faithful writers, who have written books that I’d love for you to know about. For those of you still getting familiar with the site, you can always find some of these books listed on the right sidebar of the page, under “iMonk Authors.” The books pictured there are linked to sites where you can purchase them and support these folks in their craft.
Pictures on these “iMonk Authors” days are from our friend, David Cornwell. Visit his Flickr page to see more.
The Most Adorable Commandment
An excerpt from Go Small, by Craig Gross with Adam Palmer
In Genesis 2, we read the story of the creation, when God calls everything into existence and makes the entire world. And then God plants a garden in a place called Eden, an ideal land full of perfection and grace and natural wonder. It’s everything a person could need—lush greenery to keep it shaded, a diverse collection of fruitful trees for food, and four different rivers that provide ample clean water for drinking and bathing.
When we think of the word paradise, the picture that leaps into our minds is probably something falling remarkably short of the garden of Eden. This place is heaven on Earth—a glorious spectacle of nature that has all the great stuff about the outdoors (pretty scenery, delicious food, refreshing water) and, presumably, none of the bad (predatory animals, rough weather, mosquitoes).
Amid this grand natural beauty, this perfect paradise, God plunks down Adam—the first man, the pinnacle of all creation—into the garden. Then what does He say?
God tells Adam to take care of it.
Isn’t that hilarious?
Have you ever stopped to consider what that even means? I would imagine that most of us don’t pause there, because the very next sentence focuses upon the singular action that Adam isn’t supposed to take—the part where God tells Adam he can eat from any tree in the garden except the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It is very typical of us to look out for the rules to follow, to try to find what we’re not supposed to do so we can make sure we don’t do it.
But I want to back up and look at the command God gave Adam, what He specifically said to do. Because that is absolutely a riot if you look at it closely. It’s the cutest li’l commandment in the Bible.
Again: God told Adam to take care of the garden. What do you suppose that would look like, in reality? Was he supposed to mow the lawn? Trim the hedges? Spray pesticide on the fruit trees to keep the bugs off? Sprinkle some Miracle-Gro on the tomato plants to make them nice and juicy?
See what I mean? It’s laughable! Because God gave Adam the easiest job in the world—to take care of a garden that was the utmost paradise. The thing could run itself without Adam’s help. Adam couldn’t make the trees grow tastier fruit or make the rivers run clearer or more efficiently. He couldn’t make the animals get along with each other or implement a growth strategy for regional, national, and then global success.
Nope. I believe the way God meant for Adam to care for the garden was simply to use it. To enjoy it. To romp and play and just do nothing. Eden was created to be a playground for Adam to enjoy God’s creation and then, once a day, hang out with God. It was a place where Adam could do pretty much whatever he wanted—except worry about right and wrong. He didn’t even know about them yet!
It was an extraordinary place to do a bunch of really ordinary stuff.
It’s the very picture of God’s acceptance, of His love, of His grace.
And check this out: all the agricultural tricks to having higher-yield crops—you know, working the ground, planting seeds and reaping harvests, tending crops, and all that—all that work, was the first curse God laid on Adam after the fall.
In case I lost you, let me back up. In the creation story, after God put Adam in the garden, He then made Eve and put her in the garden with Adam. Then the two of them hung out for a bit, just having the time of their lives in God’s playground. Then the devil showed up in the form of a serpent and tricked Eve into eating fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which she handed over to Adam so he could partake as well. Their disobedience got them booted out of the garden and into the wilderness we now call the real world.
Once they were kicked out, God cursed all three of them. The devil was cursed to eat dust, and God threw a messianic prophecy on top of him for good measure. Eve, on the other hand, was cursed to have pain in childbirth—sorry, women of the world.
And Adam? He was cursed to have to work. To sweat and toil in the dirt and grime in order to make a living.
Think about that for a minute.
Is it possible that our desires to do something big for God come from the notion that we can improve on the garden of Eden? When we get into work mode and start hoping to achieve big things for Jesus, are we actually reaching back for a time when Adam was cursed for his disobedience?
Are we uncomfortable just playing in the garden to the delight of the Lord?
Don’t get me wrong—I believe in hard work; that’s part of how things get done in this world. It’s a fact of life and society, and it won’t change soon.
I’m just wondering if maybe we need to get back to an Eden-guided viewpoint on work, placing less emphasis on the doing part and instead getting back to the God-breathed, God-ordained life of being.
Since my books were released last week, I thought it might be a good time to highlight some of the authors who write for us here at Internet Monk. I am blessed to partner with many fine, gifted, and faithful writers, who have written books. For those of you still getting familiar with the site, you can always find some of these books listed on the right sidebar of the page, under “iMonk Authors.” The books pictured there are linked to sites where you can purchase them and support these folks in their craft.
Pictures this week will be from our friend, David Cornwell. Visit his Flickr page to see more.
Today, we feature an excerpt from one of the devotional guides our friend Lisa Dye has penned: 30 Days with 30 Saints. Lisa wrote this particular day’s meditation on someone one who stands out to her as a woman who is relevant to our time and to whom the average person can relate.
• • •
Louise de Marillac Putting Up with Everything
St. Louise de Marillac (1591-1660), brought practicality, hard work, a pleasant demeanor, and patience with others and with herself to her service for God.
Louise married and had a son. Her husband was ill tempered and sick during their years together, but their relationship was stable due to Louise’s patience. When he died, she suffered a long depression. During this time she received spiritual direction from Pierre Camus and St. Francis de Sales, and she also met St. Vincent de Paul.
Louise entered into Vincent’s work helping the poor. As she gained his trust and developed her organizational talents, the two worked energetically, founding the Daughters of Charity and training the sisters to care for the poor and sick, fostering support from the community’s wealthy, overseeing multiple charities and hospitals, and developing children’s literacy programs.
“The mark of charity in a soul is, among all other virtues, this ability to put up with everything.”
• • •
✙ Scripture
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1Corinthians 13:7
✙ Prayer
Christ Jesus, your great love has borne the whole history of this world’s trespasses. You carried them to the cross and died for them. Now, by your Spirit, you strengthen me to endure life’s daily drudgeries and put up with all the annoyances that come in a community of family, friends, and coworkers. You even promise grace to withstand devastating events, the painful actions of careless or cruel people, and also the terrible disappointments that come from personal failings. Help me to remember that by your help, I truly can bear all things. Amen.
✙ Practice
I will remember that the love of God for me, within me, and through me is enough for every situation I face.
Since my books were released last week, I thought it might be a good time to highlight some of the authors who write for us here at Internet Monk. I am blessed to partner with many fine, gifted, and faithful writers who have published books. For those of you still getting familiar with the site, you can always find some of these books listed on the right sidebar of the page, under “iMonk Authors.” The books pictured there are linked to sites where you can purchase them and support these folks in their craft.
Pictures this week will be from our friend, David Cornwell. Visit his Flickr page to see more.
Today, we feature an excerpt from Damaris Zehner’s wonderful book, The Between Time: Savoring the Moments of Everyday Life. Damaris and her family have been friends for many years, and I have always loved her combination of profound intelligence and down-to-earth common sense, characteristics developed over a lifetime of adventures around the world, but which are displayed in daily faithfulness to people and place.
• • •
From the essay titled The Shared Life
I ’m not really a Luddite. I am, after all, typing this on a computer. When my husband buys me a kitchen appliance such as a toaster or a rice cooker, I do use it. I’m also not Amish and have never wanted to be, but I appreciate how the Amish weigh technology to determine if its effect on their community will be positive or negative. I like how their decision whether to use it is based on the community, not the technology. Cars, for example, can be ridden in if needed but generally aren’t used, because too much mobility draws people away from each other. People who sit and stare at television screens are not talking to their friends and families or working outdoors in nature, so the Amish don’t have TV. Instead they have a community.
People seem to agree that community is something we all need. At least it’s one of those feel-good words that get added to advertisements and political rhetoric to evoke an unthinking positive response. Although many of us spend our days in cars staring at roads and in cubicles staring at screens, we still have the idea that community—whatever the word means—is a human requirement and that we need to get it somehow. But what is it, and how can we make one or find one?
According to one dictionary, community is a group of people living in the same place, and a feeling of fellowship with others as a result of common attitudes, interests, and goals. Community involves physical proximity. It involves bodies. It involves land and shared space—not just cyberspace but rooms and parks and churches. It involves shared experiences, good and bad, that you can’t edit or delete. In community, people sit down to eat together and get up to work together; they don’t gulp fast food while faxing a memo. Genuine community grows, with all the painful and awkward stages of any human growth. Community isn’t a website, despite the term “online community.” It is also not something that can be constructed by developers, planners, or advertisers. It can’t be bought. If we want to find, or make, a community, we have to do several things:
Stay put.
Stay slow.
Stay simple.
Stay connected and vulnerable.
True community must involve bodies because God took on human flesh; God did not just become a cyber-idea in e-space. Community means submitting ourselves to one another out of reverence for Christ. Community means eating together, celebrating the source and renewal of our life, both physical and spiritual, and our gratitude for it. Community must involve land because God made this earth for us to inhabit, and when the kingdom of heaven comes in its fullness, we will occupy the new heavens and the new earth — presumably with dirt and rocks and trees and animals, not just clouds and harps. Community as I’m describing it here is the result of the two great commandments: to love God and to love our neighbor. And it seems to me that any technology, worldview, or lifestyle that gets in the way of it is just not worth it.
Since my books were released last week, I thought it might be a good time to highlight some of the authors who write for us here at Internet Monk. I am blessed to partner with many fine, gifted, and faithful writers, who have written books. For those of you still getting familiar with the site, you can always find some of these books listed on the right sidebar of the page, under “iMonk Authors.” The books pictured there are linked to sites where you can purchase them and support these folks in their craft.
Pictures this week will be from our friend, David Cornwell. Visit his Flickr page to see more.
We start today with reminding everyone that Michael Spencer, the founder of Internet Monk, completed a book just before his untimely death. It is called Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality. Today, we feature an excerpt from this encouraging and helpful book, written for those who find themselves in the “wilderness” of churchianity.
• • •
From the chapter, “Jesus, the Bible, and the Free-Range Believer”
One of my favorite stories in the Bible is Peter’s vision of ritually unclean animals being lowered from heaven on a huge sheet. The animals were mentioned in the Old Testament book of Leviticus as absolutely forbidden for any Jew to eat. But Jesus declared all foods clean. Peter, of course, was invested in reading the Bible the way his mama and his pastor had taught him to read it. So the Holy Spirit gave Peter a vision — a repeated vision, in fact — during a nap. Peter saw a sheet covered with unclean animals, such as pigs and lobsters. They were being lowered from heaven. Then the Holy Spirit told Peter to eat!
Imagine this. God’s Spirit was commanding a follower of Jesus to do something that, according to everything Peter had been taught, was forbidden to the children of God. You talk about a dilemma.
If Peter had run down to his local church and asked for assistance in understanding what God was saying, he almost certainly would have been told that he was mistaken. He must have heard God wrong, or maybe he simply mistook a nightmare for a vision from God. The preacher would have insisted that the Leviticus passages had to be taken as God’s settled and uncompromised command to ensure that his people are different from other nations. The Jews do not eat unclean animals, and under no circumstances would God ever contradict Scripture.
Peter wasn’t a man without strong biases and prejudices in this area. He felt a lot more comfortable supporting the Jewish bias against Gentiles — the “unclean people” — than he did considering Paul’s insistence in Christ there is no Jew or Gentile. Jesus had told Peter and the other apostles that the Holy Spirit would lead them into all truth. Jesus had told Peter that there were “other sheep” who needed to come to the great Shepherd. So the dream involving unclean animals was not the first time Peter had encountered a bold challenge to the old idea of uncleanness.
Peter had learned from Jesus to listen for what the Spirit of God might do that was very different from what Peter and the other disciples had already been taught. Peter, after seeing the vision of the unclean animals and being commanded to eat, got the message. He preached the gospel to a Roman soldier’s household and baptized the entire family. As you think about that, realize that the soldier and his family were completely outside the circle of acceptability to a practicing Jew. They were Gentiles, the “unclean people” whom Peter had always been taught to avoid.
But Jesus changed everything. The Holy Spirit applying the truth of Scripture to one person, in this case Peter, is what made the message clear for the whole church.
The impact of Peter’s vision and his subsequent obedience to God is still felt today. The vast majority of people around the world who will ever believe in Jesus owe it partially to Peter’s vision of the sheet full of animals. It was an inexplicable encounter with the Holy Spirit totally outside the bounds of safe church teaching. It was an experience with God that got through to Peter and helped form his Jesus-shaped life.
I’m not suggesting God will send visions to everyone or that every vision is as revolutionary or as world changing as Peter’s. The apostles were in a unique position, but over and over again, I hear about God’s Spirit lifting the Word of God out of our safe, church-regulated venues and using it to change and empower people. God shakes off the dusty interpretations and applies his Word in fresh, new ways to unreached places and people. How desperately we need that kind of prayerful, expectant Bible hearing today!
Even with all the risks that are involved in giving one brand-new Christian a Bible, the risks are worth it. So go ahead, all you free-range Christians. Open up the ammo. Let’s blow something up. Like the safe, expected idea of the Christian life.
For your pleasure and contemplation, I am posting an original photograph and a corresponding poem each week on Sundays. May these offerings help lead us to a deeper place of rest on the Lord’s Day.
Click on the picture for a larger image.
• • •
Lord, give me blessed fear
Lord, give me blessed fear,
And much more blessed love,
That fearing I may love Thee here
And be Thy harmless dove:
Until Thou cast out fear,
Until Thou perfect love,
Until Thou end mine exile here
And fetch Thee home Thy dove.
Yes folks, yard work and gardening is in full swing here in the Midwest these days. I suspect that I’ll be making multiple trips to the home improvement store this weekend, loading up on outdoor essentials. Too bad we couldn’t just call Mr. Bushie and have him deliver what we need in his sharp 1951 Nash Rambler “Deliveryman” vehicle!
Oh well, in between the times you spend rambling around on errands this weekend, I’ll hope you’ll join us as we ramble through some of the interesting flowers, vegetables, and weeds growing in things we’ve read this past week.
• • •
“He was a drug addict, an astrologist, an alchemist, a member of one or other esoteric sects,” writes Brent Plate at RNS.
Plate is referring to Hieronymus Bosch, who died 500 years ago this year. Two major exhibitions in Europe about Bosch are expected to break attendance records, as crowds flock to view his remarkable works. He notes how “Bosch painted in radical new ways for his day,” that he was an “apocalyptic” painter, and that “Bosch gave us many of our modern visions of hell.”
Based on the amount of time visitors spend peering into the nooks and crannies of Bosch’s hells, there’s little doubt the nightmarish scenes are what lure most spectators: human bodies broken open, half-human/half-creature devils scurrying about, scenes of torture, disfigurement and dismemberment. Much of it isn’t for the squeamish, even in today’s horror-bathed media culture.
Let’s be clear: “The Simpsons” and “The Exorcist” didn’t borrow Bosch’s scenes of the idyllic Paradise or images of Jesus, but images of demons, flying fish, bodily torment, a cryptic tree-man and a great bird-devil who consumes humans and then defecates them into a gaping hole in the ground.
Paintings such as “The Garden of Earthly Delights” triptych (permanently installed in the Prado) and the “Temptation of St. Anthony” triptych (on loan from the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon) are large, colorful visions of life on earth, with its sins and temptations, and a potentially tormented afterlife. One could stand for hours and sort through the figures that litter the landscapes, trying to make sense of them, as audiences and art historians have been doing for years.
Imagine a page of “Where’s Waldo?” but with darker colors and beasts scattered around a surreal landscape of dead trees, burning cities and ruined castles.
Brent Plate observes that Bosch died the year before Luther posted his 95 theses, inaugurating the Reformation, and that his horrific visual depictions of judgment may “demonstrate why the Lutheran doctrine of grace might have been so attractive at the time.”
Speaking of visual depictions, Jesus may get a sequel.
According to Dana Harris at Indiewire, Mel Gibson is working on a sequel to his successful 2004 film, The Passion Of The Christ. The article notes that the first film “earned $612 million worldwide and is acknowledged as the most successful independent film of all time.”
Writer Randall Wallace, who was a religion major at Duke University, told the Hollywood Reporter, “I always wanted to tell this story,” he says. “The Passion is the beginning and there’s a lot more story to tell.”
Well yes, there certainly is more to the story. However, in my personal opinion, visual media such as TV and movies have never been good vehicles to showcase the biblical narrative.
Michael Spencer agreed. The iMonk wrote a post about the Narnia films, in which he discussed how visual media tends to “shrink greatness to fit the screen,” saying:
…an evangelicalism that trades books for movies will be diminished. Film cannot take us inside the human experience in the same way as literature, and the recreation of beasts and battles with CGI is a purely temporary pleasure.
What do you think?
Illusionist David Copperfield is trying to help get Congress to pass a resolution that would that would recognize magic as “a rare and valuable art form and national treasure.”
According to NPR, House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, Republican from Texas, is leading the effort. But there has been some pushback.
Another supporter, Wisconsin Democrat Mark Pocan, acknowledged that some may see this resolution as bad optics.
“Unfortunately, it got introduced at one of the peak periods of congressional inefficiency,” he said. “And so I think it was easy to say, ‘Oh look, they’re going to recognize magic as an art, but we can’t pass a budget?’ Yeah, that could sound on its face kind of ridiculous.”
For Pocan, a former magician, it has been a useful tool to communicate with his constituents. He hosts a regular YouTube series, “Magic Mondays” in which he performs simple tricks and talks about what’s happening in Washington. He does magic when he visits schools back in his congressional district, and he hands out pamphlets on how to do magic tricks to kids he meets on the campaign trail.
Hey you guys, maybe we could get a little magic to get Congress working again? Or I know, here’s a great idea: why don’t you find some magician who can make Trump and Clinton disappear?
It seems Jake Strotman, a 23 year-old hockey fan, went to see the Cincinnati Cyclones play the Fort Wayne Komets on a Saturday night in January. He was well-lubricated and in good spirits when, after the game, he approached some Baptist street preachers who were, as he puts it, condemning him. He started bantering with them.
Long story short, a few others got involved too and before you know it, it was a regular Batman and Robin Bam! Pow! fracas. Strotman found himself under the pile and allegedly assaulted one of the preachers.
Here’s how things went at the trial when the judge asked Strotman for suggestions about how he thought he should be sentenced:
“Your honor, if I may, I would be more than happy to serve a church of your choosing.”
Mallory: “Time out. We may have an answer here.”
He addressed his thoughts to [the preacher Strotman had assaulted].
“So for his penance, what if I make him go to your church a number of Sunday services?”
Strotman would be sentenced to attend 12 consecutive Sunday services at Morning Star Baptist Church. He was ordered to attend each entire 90-minute service. He must get the weekly program signed by the minister. That’s 18 hours of solid Baptist teaching.
He also paid $480 in court fines and a $2,800 lawyer bill.
Depending on your point of view, that’s either a light sentence or unacceptable torture.
John Piper must have visited many families after the births of their babies. I wonder if Piper, who believes the Bible teaches that babies are utterly depraved, ever saw evidence of that at the time of the blessed event? Naked Pastor cartoonist David Hayward drew an illustration of what that might have looked like if he had:
Modern warfare destroys the brain.
Robert F. Worth’s article in the NYT, “What if PTSD is More Physical than Psychological?” explores the implications of a new study by neuropathologist Daniel Perl that found “a distinctive pattern of tiny scars,” a “brown-dust” type pattern, which suggests that the bomb blasts of modern warfare injure the brain in ways not sufficiently understood in the past.
Previously, scientists assumed that traumatic brain injury in warfare affected the brain like concussions or automobile accidents.
Perl and his lab colleagues recognized that the injury that they were looking at was nothing like concussion. The hallmark of C.T.E. is an abnormal protein called tau, which builds up, usually over years, throughout the cerebral cortex but especially in the temporal lobes, visible across the stained tissue like brown mold. What they found in these traumatic-brain-injury cases was totally different: a dustlike scarring, often at the border between gray matter (where synapses reside) and the white matter that interconnects it. Over the following months, Perl and his team examined several more brains of service members who died well after their blast exposure, including a highly decorated Special Operations Forces soldier who committed suicide. All of them had the same pattern of scarring in the same places, which appeared to correspond to the brain’s centers for sleep, cognition and other classic brain-injury trouble spots.
Then came an even more surprising discovery. They examined the brains of two veterans who died just days after their blast exposure and found embryonic versions of the same injury, in the same areas, and the development of the injuries seemed to match the time elapsed since the blast event.
…If Perl’s discovery is confirmed by other scientists — and if one of blast’s short-term signatures is indeed a pattern of scarring in the brain — then the implications for the military and for society at large could be vast. Much of what has passed for emotional trauma may be reinterpreted, and many veterans may step forward to demand recognition of an injury that cannot be definitively diagnosed until after death. There will be calls for more research, for drug trials, for better helmets and for expanded veteran care. But these palliatives are unlikely to erase the crude message that lurks, unavoidable, behind Perl’s discovery: Modern warfare destroys your brain.
Finally, this week in music…
Paul Simon, one of our greatest singer-songwriters for the past half century, has a new album, called Stranger To Stranger. On it, Simon continues to explore a broad range of rhythms and melodies in the service os strong lyrical content. In his NYT review, John Pareles calls it, “a set of songs that crack jokes and ponder questions about love, death, spirituality, baseball, economic inequality, brain chemistry and music itself,” adding, “It’s the latest ambitious, tuneful installment in a career that has had far more to do with curiosity than crowd-pleasing.”
Here’s the first single from the record: “Wristband,” a whimsical song about a singer getting locked out of his own show, turned social commentary.
Note from CM: My new book, Walking Home Together, has two companion booklets. Today, I present an excerpt from one of them: Guide Them Safely Home, Lord: A Caregiver’s Companion. The booklet consists of 4 weeks of readings (5 days each week), designed to give encouragement to those who care for others.
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Bearing (and sharing) burdens
Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ.
• Galatians 6:2
Sometimes as I deal with my patients and their caregivers, it’s the religious people that befuddle me most. One cliché I have heard repeatedly from caregivers who are people of faith is, “I just try to remember that God tells us he will never give us more than we can bear.”
I hate to burst your bubble, but God never said that. Never. Said. That.
I’m not sure where that cliché came from, but it is not in the Bible. Jesus didn’t say it. Paul said something like it in 1 Corinthians 10:13, but if you check you will see that he is talking about our common temptations and how God provides the means we need to escape them. The text does not say, “God will never give us more than we can bear.” Nope. Somebody made that one up.
The plain fact is that there are burdens in life that are too heavy for any one person to carry.
For some reason, many well-intentioned folks don’t want to accept that. So they try to handle challenges that are simply beyond their ability to deal with alone. The results usually aren’t good.
That’s when I direct them to another verse in the Bible that is clear and unambiguous: “Bear one another’s burdens…” Is not this verse telling us that everyone needs help sometimes? There are loads that are too heavy for one person to carry, and we can’t do it all by ourselves. So, help each other out! That’s pretty clear, right?
One more thing: I also won’t buy it if you tell me that since God helps you carry your burdens, you don’t need other people to assist you. This is the same God who said that it is not good for us to be alone. God created us to live in relationships, families, and communities for the very purpose of loving and supporting each other. God wants you to get help from others!
Instead of what I often hear, I’d love it if more caregivers would say, “God regularly gives me more than I can bear. That’s why I love and appreciate his gift of others in my life so much.”
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. Lisa wrote this particular day’s meditation on someone one who stands out to her as a woman who is relevant to our time and to whom the average person can relate.
. Damaris and her family have been friends for many years, and I have always loved her combination of profound intelligence and down-to-earth common sense, characteristics developed over a lifetime of adventures around the world, but which are displayed in daily faithfulness to people and place.
. Today, we feature an excerpt from this encouraging and helpful book, written for those who find themselves in the “wilderness” of churchianity.
. The article notes that the first film “earned $612 million worldwide and is acknowledged as the most successful independent film of all time.”
The Internet Monk Archives 