Somebody Else's Thoughts, No. 2

The Lord feeds some of His prisoners better than others.
It could be said of Him that He is not a just god but an
indifferent god.
That He is not to be trusted to reward the righteous and
punish the unscrupulous.
That He maketh the poor poorer but is otherwise
undependable.
It could be said of Him that it is His school of the germane
that produced the Congressional Record.
That it is His vision of justice that gave us cost accounting.
It could be said of Him that though we walk with Him all
the days of our lives we will never fathom Him
Because He is empty.
These are dark images of our Lord
That make it seem needful for us to pray not unto Him
But ourselves.
But when we do that we find that indeed we are truly lost
And we rush back into the safer fold, impressed by His care
for us.

Reed Whittemore

True North

I recently took a brief excursion to Canada. Of all the places I travel, I always feel quite comfortable in British Columbia, probably because it's not a rural country place or in the South.

On one of the evenings I was sitting alone in a steam room at the hotel when one boy popped his head in the door. "Um. Hello," he said awkwardly, as he came in followed by a crew of other boys, ranging from 6 to 16. After intermittent conversation with each other, the room was silent. One of them greeted me in an attempted obnoxious fashion, "Hi."

"Hi there."

"What's your name?"
I responded.

"Are you a traveler?"

I figured maybe I should pretend I'm student roaming around, and I responded so.

"Where are you from?"

"America"

"You don't look fat like an American. Not that you're fat or anything, or Americans are fat. or.."

"No I understand. I have these premonitions of Canadians as well. Do you put maple syrup on everything?"

And we continued from there.

They told me about the polar bears they had to ride to school from their igloos, and admitted they joked that Americans live in McDonald's restaurants, all while purposefully concluding their sentences with something that sounds like the first letter of the alphabet. I'm not sure.

One of the more intelligent ones explained that Canada's right-wing is not as right as America's, which is why homosexual marriage is legal there. I was at least glad they approved of Obama, while showing contempt for his predecessor.

I was getting tired of acting like a foreign journalist talking to children in an underprivileged country, so I excused myself. A younger Canuck quipped back, "Come back and we can ice fish at my igloo eh?"

Somebody Else's Thoughts, No. I

Yes: wisdom begins with fear of the Lord,
which comprehends the power that made the seas,
the earth, the shimmering dawn, the unexplored
unfathomed skies, the moon, and the Pleiades.
Which also know Who comes to judge our shoddy
little failing lives, knowing full well,
we need not fear the one who kills the body,
but only He who condemns the soul to hell.
Which also knows it magnifies the Lord,
defying the demon, being the only release,
oddly enough, from fear, being its own reward,
which is also wise, is faith, is hope, is peace,
is tender mercy, over and over again,
until, at last, is love, is love. Amen.

William Baer

Lost and Found

When I was going through a problem, my psychologist asked me, “Ryan, are you good or bad?”

I replied, “Well I’ve done some good, but I know I’ve done evil…”

“Are you a success or a failure?”

“I sure feel like a failure right now, but to other people’s standards…”

“Are you a sinner or a saint?”

“I…don’t know.”

The answer to all of those questions, he told me, was yes. He then went on to quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer who said something about how when we come together as the body of Christ, we are altogether sinners and saints.

Morning has broken

A friend of mine recently stated that the definition of God (or the Biblical definition) for a day is "evening and morning", rather than "morning and evening", and that our definition should be likewise.

I was rather bothered by this idea. I didn't get the point of such observance, even though as an Adventist I observe the Sabbath from evening to evening. But why on earth should we observe everyday, at least from a spiritual aspect, as evening and morning? It seems as if the entire world begins in the morning and ends at night; the pulse of humanity starts in the morning and dies down as darkness sets. Do we have anything to gain from believing our day starts the evening before?

Recently I came across these two Protestant evangelists on a cable channel discussing Jewish beliefs that can be observed by Christianity, and they brought up the evening and morning concept, underlining it with a quote by Eugene Peterson:

"This Hebrew evening/morning sequence conditions us to the rhythms of grace. We go to sleep, and God begins his work. As we sleep he develops His covenant. We wake and are called to participate in God's creative action. We respond in faith, in work. But always grace is previous. Grace is primary. We wake into a world we didn't make, into a salvation we didn't earn.

Evening: God begins, without our help, His creative day. Morning: God calls us to enjoy and share and develop the work He initiated. Creation and covenant are sheer grace and there to greet us every morning."

What an idea. We are conditioned to the rhythm of grace. I would say more, but I believe Peterson made sense out of this.