On Discovering Home

I was saying last week that, having never experienced homesickness in my life (not having a home in particular), I recently discovered that I have become homesick for an entire country. Maybe it's because my friends and family are spread out all over it, maybe it's because I grew up in several widely separated parts of it, maybe it's because I've traveled through the large majority of it and seen it from so many angles. Whatever the reason, I am excited to set off Thursday to reacquaint myself with several of my favorite bits of 'home'. However, the territory my heart knows to call home having been enlarged to encompass Utrecht as well as the United States, I am also setting of on something of an adventure. Knowing Dave as I do, I am sure it will be a most exciting and enjoyable one. That combination of sentiments (like most) is captured better by Chesterton, so I defer to him for the moment:

I have often had a fancy for writing a romance about an

English yachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and

discovered England under the impression that it was a new

island in the South Seas. I always find, however, that I am

either too busy or too lazy to write this fine work, so I may

as well give it away for the purposes of philosophical illustration.

There will probably be a general impression that the man

who landed (armed to the teeth and talking by signs) to

plant the British flag on that barbaric temple which turned out

to be the Pavilion at Brighton, felt rather a fool. I am not

here concerned to deny that he looked a fool. But if you

imagine that he felt a fool, or at any rate that the sense of

folly was his sole or his dominant emotion, then you have not

studied with sufficient delicacy the rich romantic nature of

the hero of this tale. His mistake was really a most enviable

mistake; and he knew it, if he was the man I take him for.

What could be more delightful than to have in the same few

minutes all the fascinating terrors of going abroad combined

with all the humane security of coming home again? What could

be better than to have all the fun of discovering South Africa

without the disgusting necessity of landing there? What could

be more glorious than to brace one's self up to discover

New South Wales and then realize, with a gush of happy tears,

that it was really old South Wales. This at least seems to me

the main problem for philosophers, and is in a manner the main

problem of this book. How can we contrive to be at once

astonished at the world and yet at home in it? How can this

queer cosmic town, with its many-legged citizens, with its

monstrous and ancient lamps, how can this world give us at once

the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honour of

being our own town?

So you see that all this talk of my peregrinations was really just a clever ruse to reference Chesterton, giving me an excuse to post the link to the Chesterton site I mentioned to Gerben last night. And here it is.

Enjoy.

Tangency

Yesterday, 7 September, I was baptized in the Rhine. I thought I'd test whether anyone is following this blog by posting the poem I read at that occasion. And also because I actually do want to share it with you...

-Hans Peter

Tangency

When photons curve;
when all ends succeed in meeting;
when tangency is not defined
as touch so briefly fleeting
but schoolchildren learn its definition
as the eternal intersection
of the surfaces of two spheres;
or, more richly,
"tangency (touching): the wiping away of tears."

This will be the presence
of the Present One,
changing everything.
The leopard and the fawn,
the Lion and the Lamb;
a great and glorious dawn,
the knowledge of I AM.
A ubiquity of plowshares,
for nations do not train for war
and need their swords no more.

But now Earth - our round Earth -
wrapped up in decay,
in misery and pride.
Spinning recklessly,
not wanting to be touched,
rolled up like a scroll and
sealed with the folly of human
selfishness. Few realize
that there is none to stop
this dizzy turning, none
who can unravel evil,
none who can break the seal.

But blessed are those who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.
Behold! The Lion of the tribe of Judah,
the Root of David, has conquered!
And he is worthy to open the scroll,
and to break its seals.

And the Lion stood before the enthronement
of the ever-present One,
A Lamb, to all appearances dead,
slain and bled, bred only to be sacrificed, except -
in its eyes flashing! the Spirit of God,
the Lamb that was dead but is alive!

as vast as the universe may be,
it does not exceed the mystery
of this Lion-Lamb.
God poured out, Immanuel,
the servant utterly obedient,
the beginning of the righting of wrong.
Blind see, lame walk,
when He who Is is with us.
We live rightly, one toward another,
when Christ makes right
what has been broken -
for he came and loved. Greater love has not been seen:
that he gave his life for us.

Let my life
be a manifestation
of your salvation (making whole),
and a following of your word:
let me live in right relation
to my neighbor and my Lord.

Give thanks!
Give praise, go forth, your world
turned right around,
living at the intersection
of heaven and earth.
Belijden is doen;
doen is liefhebben,
let me need and know no other
than my Lord, my all in all.

When photons curve;
when all ends succeed in meeting,
whan tangency is not defined
as touch so briefly fleeting
but I AM is with us,
then he shall wipe away our tears.
Till then let me live
always at this intersection,
by the power of your breaking through
loving men and loving you.
Come, Lord Jesus,
world without end,
Amen.

No Survivors

I saw on CNN when I got home today about the plane crash in Sudan. Over 200 passengers on board, and the first estimate is that only about half survived. It was a horrifying thought, but as they kept showing the live footage of the burning wreckage, going to commercial and returning with new details, repeating the details that had been stated earlier, showing more footage of the burning wreckage, my perspective began to drift a bit.

This happens to me quite often when watching all-news channels these days. I know that as soon as the fire is put out, they will start replaying the video from when the plane was on fire. And I know that all I am likely to hear about for the rest of the day is this plane crash. And I wonder - there are over six and a half billion people in this world, and for the next four or five hours, the most important thing to talk about is the facts surrounding the accidental death of about 100 of them.

About three years ago, I was back in California for a friend's wedding. While I was there I visited my old church, and they had a guest speaker named Steve Haas, who works for World Vision International, a Christian missions organization. He proceeded to give one of the most powerful sermons I have ever heard, but the only thing that I consistently remember about it was the first story he told. He was talking to a guy who had just taken what was widely regarded as a step backwards in his career and was trying in his reserved, emotionally challenged way, to make this guy feel better. And the guy hands him a pamphlet that says, "A 747 ditches today, and 424 people perish. What would the newspapers say?" This hits Steve pretty hard because two months prior, he was living in Washington DC when a plane crashed into the Pentagon very near to his kids' elementary school. The pamphlet goes on, "The next day, another 747 goes down. And the next day, and the next, for 365 days a year. Now multiply that by 20, and you have the number of people lost to AIDS in the year 2000. " What would CNN say?

This has happened to me several times since that Sunday. There's a warehouse fire in Cincinnati; two students on vacation in Spain have gone missing; just this weekend a man stabbed seven people to death on the Tokyo subway. And then, for several hours, the news networks follow the story. Is this really the most important story in the world? I try to imagine the response if, a little over an hour later, word comes in that another plane has crashed. Split screen footage of flaming wreckage. Conflicting reports. Unprecedented TV sensation. An hour and a half later, another plane crashes. There are no survivors. Before they even have time to recap the information available, another crash, and another, and another.

How long would it take before the usual pattern got shaken up? How long would it take before they bumped off the phone interview with a former pilot talking about factors that contribute to air accidents? How long before some newscaster lost their objectivity and started yelling, "Oh my god! What is happening!? When will it stop? Is there anything we can do?" I wonder. And how long after that - how many days - before the continuous coverage with its own logo started to fade out and turned into a daily update, then weekly, then occasionally?

The point of the sermon was that the numbers get your attention and make you realize the magnitude of what's going on, but what really motivates you to action are personal connections. He told several stories about people he had met who had been impacted in one way or another by AIDS. He also told of the statistics that said that evangelical Christians were less likely to give to a charity supporting children who were orphans due to AIDS than those professing no religious belief. He talked about a lot of stuff that was really powerful and thought-provoking. And he talked about the example of Jesus, who loved first, and with no expectation of repayment. And Jesus calls us to love as he loved. But if He loved first, how can we do that? How can we love Him first, when He beat us to it? By loving others first. By loving others who can do nothing for us even after we have done everything we can to help them.

I read the news, and I only occasionally wonder if these are really the most important stories in the world. But sometimes I am reminded that they are probably not.

The Potter's Hand

After reading this devotional ("...Although God has the ability to directly give us understanding, His usual method is to teach us through His Word and then allow us to see the application and gain wisdom through our experiences"), I thought it was the right one to start my postings in this new channel so we keep in mind the purpose we wanted to reach and that prompted Michael's technical contribution in the first place.

Maybe Darlene Zschech' song or any Jars of Clay's would be the best background as you chew the following words =)

Hope to see you all around often!


The Potter's Hand

About 2600 years ago, God taught the prophet Jeremiah what it meant to be a sovereign God. He taught that His plan WOULD be fulfilled - one way or the other. Either His children would submit to His gentle guidance, or He would bring discipline to teach them the need for obedience.

Although God has the ability to directly give us understanding, His usual method is to teach us through His Word and then allow us to see the application and gain wisdom through our experiences. In order to give a clear understanding of His sovereignty, God told Jeremiah to go to the potter's house and wait for His message.

Jeremiah 18:3-6
"So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the Word of the Lord came to me: 'Can I not do with you as this potter does?' declares the Lord. 'Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand.'"

Jeremiah understood that God was the Potter and had total control over the shape of the clay. How foolish it would be for the clay to complain or rebel; "Can the pot say of the potter, 'He knows nothing'?" (Isaiah 29:16). The Potter will continue to mold the clay. If the clay begins to
harden in its unfinished state, the Potter loves the clay enough to crush it down, sprinkle it with water and begin anew.

The only way for us to become all that God desires is to yield and remain moldable. We have no ability to shape ourselves! The Potter is creating something eternally beautiful - we are being "conformed to the likeness of His Son" (Romans 8:29). Oh, if we could only trust that His shaping is so much better than anything we could ever create. How prideful to think we can do better!

There may be times when we have rough edges which must be removed. There may also be times when we need to be crushed down so the shaping process can start over. But we must trust the Potter and believe the results will be worth any pain or discomfort; "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us" (Romans
8:18).

Our Heavenly Father is in complete (and loving) control. Let's daily be filled with His Spirit and commit our lives to His shaping process - a process which undoubtedly will last a lifetime! Let's remain moldable clay and yield to the shaping of the Potter's Hand.

Have a Christ Centered Day!

Steve Troxel
God's Daily Word Ministries

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The Poverty and Justice Bible

So it would have been perfect if something had happened to me on my ride home from Bible study tonight that I could write about. But it didn't. So instead, here is a link that Mauro sent me recently.

http://www.povertyandjusticebible.org/

Which reminded me of Shane Claiborne. He spoke at my church in Atlanta last year, and he talked about one of his friends who went through a Bible with a pair of scissors, cutting out every verse that mentioned the poor, the oppressed, and the outcast. By the time he was done, the Bible was in tatters, and they used it as an illustration when talking about their faith. Of course as a symbol of how important caring for the poor is in God's eyes, a lot of people probably learned more from it afterwards than before. His book, Irresistable Revolution, is also pretty great.