A picture-perfect parable

What a great snapshot of life. What one sees first and foremost is the raindrops on the windshield. It's hard to see anything else really. In fact, one tries hard to see through the rain drops even though it is impossible to do so. A closer look at the picture shows that one can see the dash of the inside of the car. That does help create a little perspective to know that the picture was taken from inside the car rather than outside. Noticing the dash also helps to see the foliage on the right side of the picture. Palm leaves make a person recognize how nice the scenery outside must be. But then, there in the middle of the picture, obscure almost to the eye, is what the picture was taken for. It is the centerpiece even though there are so many distractions to seeing it. The cross.

The picture is a great parable, just not in words. Life brings a person quite a lot of rain. It's easy to focus on, for sure. A person definitely realizes (s)he is looking from the inside out as life brings its rain. One barely notices the paradise (s)he lives in. If it weren't for a little reminder now and then, it would be easy to overlook something like palm leaves from one's vantage point. But how central is the cross in one's life? Small but there nonetheless? The brightest object in the center? The last thing to be revealed because of all the distraction? Hardly noticeable?

The cross. In the midst of rain. Seen only from the inside of a different world. Light piercing the darkness. Always. And forever.

Let's scrap working by the clock

Some days don't have enough hours in them even with good planning. Some days seem long and intense. Others days are dedicated to doing what makes a person happy. Some days just move along at their own pace and allow one to be spontaneous.

Of course it's not the days that are long or short, intense or lazy. It's the person who makes those days that way. As the person makes the days, so go the days. That really means the wear and tear of the day is experienced by the person. Time is an arbitrary measurement anyway. So, going through a day should be measured in terms of the wear and tear on a person rather than in hours. That's why a half day should be measured not in terms of a half day, but in terms of what feels like a half day. A wear and tear measurement should be created. People would be fresher and more likeable people if they would work according to their biorhythms, their peak times for alertness, their times of waking and sleeping, their times of tension and anxiety, their times for action and meditation.

A change to this way of thinking will probably not happen in my lifetime. So, I'm stuck working by the clock. Alas. Such is the path on the way to the next life.

Facing the next tornado

The picture is of the edge of a hurricane.

It's not so fun to face an uncertain future when the uncertainty requires you to walk blindly. You don't know if there is an ambush ahead, a green light, or a ride out of town. People build their lives on foundations, then proceed to construct what beauty they can given their circumstances. But, Life so many times sends storms with tornadoes to knock out the beauty you have built. Next thing you know, you're starting to build with your hammer in hand all over again. It allows me to understand the Teacher's words with a little better clarity after a life full of tornadoes.

"Anyone who listens to my teaching and obeys me is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse, because it is built on rock." (Matthew 7.24-25, NLT)

It's not that the foundation crumbles. It's always intact. It's that the house with its accoutrements are being torn to shreds. But, it is the foundation that counts the most. If it is ever gone, I guess I am in Heaven.

The Tide tube

There's a Tide commercial that features soldiers lined up for inspection by a drill sergeant. One of the soldiers has a stain on his T-shirt. The drill sergeant is all over him with insults. The other soldiers pass a tube of Tide stain remover down the line of soldiers in order to hand the berated soldier the tube. The drill sergeant turns his back on the berated soldier for just about two seconds to look at the other soldiers while he is still dressing down the soldier with the stain. At that second the soldier next to the berated soldier slips the tube of Tide stain remover into his hands. The berated soldier has just enough time to rub the stain out of the T-shirt. When the drill sergeant turns back around he asks the soldier about the stain. The soldier replies, "Sir, what stain, sir?" The drill sergeant looks down and spins 380 degrees on his heels and shouts back, " Oh, what do we have? A dadgum Houdini?"

I love the commercial just because the underdog wins. But, I also know that it is a great "parable" about what God does for every soul while the world looks on, blinks, and looks again at us. Once we get a stain, he hands us the Tide tube so that the world really doesn't know how we Christians can stay nice people, sustain terrible tragedies, bounce back after Life delivers us a black eye, or seek a higher purpose for living. The world does chalk it up to magic in the form of "good inner self talk," or resilience based on how our past has trained us to be.

But the Christian knows better. The Lord's Prayer is a good example of the Tide tube in action.

Our father in heaven, we honor your name... Forgive us what we have done wrong as we have forgiven those who have done wrong to us...

The sun sets on our wrongdoing. The next day's dawn allows us to begin afresh. We're not Houdinis, just forgiven followers of the Son of Man.

I could not disagree more

Sometimes I wonder about the passage in Acts 26 in which Paul was on trial in front of King Agrippa. As he told his story of conversion to Christianity, he mentioned that God had raised Jesus from the dead. At that point, Festus, the governor, shouted out, "Paul, you are insane. You have studied so much that it has made you crazy!"

There is no doubt that Paul was at the top of the educational food chain for his day and time—the equivalent of a PhD. King Agrippa also was an expert in Jewish beliefs and customs although he probably did not practice any part of Judaism. But I hear the refrain in my mind often, "You have studied so much that it has made you crazy!" In part that is due to people thinking that I have left my childhood faith. That means something different to me than to them. I certainly have left my childhood faith. But, I haven't by any stretch of the imagination left my faith. I hope my childhood faith tutored me to accept a more mature faith. Also, in part, I hear the refrain because friends and family caution me not to take my learning too far because it might affect my faith. I hope my learning does affect my faith. It should enhance it beyond what I could otherwise grasp.

I guess I am protesting the "warnings" given to me. I love to read about historical contexts and the milieu of other literature that coexisted with the Bible. I think it does not lead away from the stories in the Bible, but gives it a richer context by which to consciously acknowledge that the Creator reached out to His creation. His creation recorded His encounters with them accurately. Because of that I can project ahead from the times recorded in that book to my era and see much more precisely how the Maker of all has decided to continue with the human race even though He might think His creation has made a total mess of things.

Our age is the same as the ones we read about in the ancient Biblical texts. The names have been changed, and that's about all. Wider reading about ancient literature and customs helps decipher more clearly what the Hebrews might have been doing. Seeing that Job correlates to Sophocles' plays, or plays a little earlier than that, gives me greater appreciation for the beauty of Job. Knowing that Israel kept chronicles of their kings correlates beautifully with what kings from other cultures did. That instills more confidence in the chronicles that come down to us. Knowing the early flood, creation, and lineage stories' correlations with other civilizations' equivalent stories strengthens the fact that a Creator tried so very hard to convince His creation very early on that they should respect Him. Ad infinitum.

So, although Paul was more educated than I, the learning I have received may to others seem as if it has driven me crazy. I could not disagree more!

Just an object

Recently I stepped out of my shell. I thought I wanted something, which I did. My mistake was that I asked the Creator to go before me into this place I wanted to step into. He did not go before me. I have more here to fulfill. I keep thinking my time will come when I have finished all I have been asked to do in this place. That's what I get for thinking. So, even though it wears thin on the trust, I stay—and hope and trust some more. I'm just not ever in charge of the big picture. It sure keeps me humble in the true sense of the word, not the false humility variety. I'm not the maker, but the object being carved.

A stalwart cliff wish

Once, I thought I knew what was right and wrong, black and white. Now I wonder anymore if nearly everything moral is reletive. It seems that good is tainted with evil and evil tainted with good. It seems that if I have something moralistic to say that I actually stand as a hypocrite if I let the thoughts have voice. I understand the human condition well enough to know that people make mistakes and that I am no different.

The ancient Hebrew philosopher who wrote Ecclesiastes knew this 2900 years ago (7:20-22).

There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.
Don't pay attention to everything people say---you may hear your servant insulting you, and you know yourself that you have insulted other people many times.

Truly, there is nothing new under the sun. I know that not everything goes in a society. But, I am only in control of my own actions—and then only inconistently. It drives me insane, except that I know everyone else is in the same condition. I wish I could be a cliff standing out for all to see how consistent I am.

But, I'm not, so I better pick a different analogy. Maybe, a primitive cluttered third world village without much insight into modernization would suffice.

No, not this one

When I was young, I remember thinking what a great mystery the Holy Spirit was. After I had attended college a year, I remember having a long conversation with my dad about what function a spirit might have or what role (s)he would play in religion.

Over the years, of course, the Holy Spirit's function and role has become clearer. But, if I was ever in doubt at this point in my life, I wouldn't be after today. What I saw happens only in movies that are not real.

I was sitting on an interview committee for 6 grueling hours asking questions of those who wanted this particular job. The last two to interview were known to be the strongest candidates. One came in and answered every question just like you would want her to. Every answer was the classic script of the way to get a job. The second came in. The answers were simple. Yet, the answers were penetrating at the same time. The answers were born of passion in the soul for what the job was about. But, they were bare of the classic scripted answers.

Discussion ensued. It appeared that the classic answers had won the day. But there was a spirit present. The issue could not be dropped. What should we as interviewers do with a person of such deep, noticeable, wrenching passion. So, one by one, to the person, the interviewers began telling of encounters they had had with this interviewee. Although not the most articulate, no one could let go of her penetratingly simple answers that represented everything the other one had crafted so well to say with many words. The spirit would not turn loose of the right person of the job until every person clearly had dealt with why the second person should get the job over the first person. It was a 180 degree swing from the way the discussion had begun.

The setting was secular, not religious. But, the wrong person for the job was about to be selected. Someone, somehow, called to the heavens and said, "You've got to intervene." Oh yeah, the right person got the job after people's minds encountered a passionate spirit.

I will ask this interviewee if she believes in God when she is settled into her job. I plan to tell her that intervention happened on her behalf. I'm just the messenger, but I hope the news will touch her life, so that her spirituality is strenthened, and that many can be nurtured by her good and helpful spirit.