Category Archives: Journal

Wilderness Wanderings

Wilderness is a popular theme in stories of great leaders. Abraham Lincoln came out of the wilderness to usher the United States through the Civil War. George Washington suffered in Valley Forge before eventually bringing American troops to success . Winston Churchill knew his wilderness years when he lost political power for a decade before emerging to guide Britain to victory in World War II.

Jesus is no exception. After all, he was afflicted like one of us. After the blinding glory of his baptism, the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. Who hasn’t known wilderness days, sometimes years? Christian leaders like Charles Spurgeon and Amy Carmichael struggled with depression and illness over long periods.

What are these seemingly fruitless periods so many of us experience? We may ask the age-old question, where is God?

Jesus heard that his friend Lazarus was sick (New Testament, John 11), and we would expect him to rush off to heal his friend. After all Jesus healed in an instant others who came to him with illnesses. But though John tells us that Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters, he stayed where he was for two days before finally traveling to the family and ministering to them. He loved them, but he stayed.
Oswald Chambers, in his classic My Utmost for His Highest, uses this passage to talk of God’s silence. The silence, Chambers says, is something God trusts us with. We receive no audible answer; perhaps we are in a wilderness of sorts and—nothing. Chambers suggests that the first sign of God’s intimacy may be his silence.

His silence isn’t a lack of love, but a tough love that trusts us.

 

Tide Tables and Moral Choices

I learn from my beach walks why we moderns so often forget God. We are not many of us farmers or fishers anymore. Our lives and livelihoods are no longer directly bound to sun and rain, weather and seasons, tides and storms—forces we cannot control.

When we are hungry, we buy food at the grocery store; when we want light, we flip a switch; when we want clothes, we shop at the mall. The temporary abundance of the industrialized world has deluded us into believing we are in control and can do as we want.

Before I stroll on the beach, I should consult a tide table. Otherwise I risk, if not actually drowning, a slippery climb up crumbling bluffs to escape rising water. For the tide, as the saying goes, waits for no one. And therein lies its fascination. No matter how the times of the tides inconvenience us, we must abide by their immutable goings and comings.

Consequences of moral choices may not intrude so abruptly as consequences of physical ones. The effects of moral choices can be subtle, over years of tide turnings. For decades we chose bigger cars, bigger houses, mindless entertainment, and instant relationships. Then one day we realize gas is no longer affordable, the house is being foreclosed, world events that we have ignored threaten our country, and the problems of our neglected children overwhelm us.

In my beach wanderings I consider the lessons of history, biblical admonitions, my own choices and consequences over a lifetime. I ponder and am convinced that God’s moral laws are as sure as the running and turning of the tide.

 

Memories of Tunisia

I lived in Tunisia, the small North African nation now in the news for its civil unrest, from 1997 to 2000. I served at the U.S. embassy in Tunis, the capital city. At that time, a tour there was an enjoyable assignment for U.S Foreign Service officers choosing the sometimes unsettled Middle East.

Young women dressed in the latest Paris fashions. I don’t recall any of them wearing a head scarf. Many were students in Tunisian universities. Our friends and family from the States visited us for trips to the Sahara and to stroll the nearby ancient city of Carthage. We took them to see the desert movie setting for the original Star Wars films. We boarded the train in downtown Tunis for the short ride to Carthage and a visit to the cemetery for American military personnel killed in Tunisia during Second World War campaigns against the Nazis.

The embassy during my assignment was located in downtown Tunis. On weekends, I would drive to the Embassy and park, then walk from there into the old city to worship in a centuries-old Christian church. The walk took me past a Muslim mosque and a Jewish synagogue. The Jewish settlement in Tunisia was ancient; some said it began with refugees from the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 605 B.C.

During the week, work load permitting, I enjoyed riding the bus from my home to work. Once in a while, for exercise, I walked all the way. We ate in local restaurants and visited ancient ruins scattered throughout the country. Tunisia at that time was perceived as a stable, progressive country, its beaches a destination for tourists from Germany and other countries. Golfers played on the links in Tunisia’s mostly sunny weather.

Now the tourists are being evacuated. The U.S. embassy moved to a newer facility in a safer location out from Tunis after the terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in east Africa. I notice from news pictures that some of the women appear to be wearing head scarves. The train station where my friends and I took the train was burned by rioters. The Tunisian president fled to Saudi Arabia.

What happened? Why the sudden changes?

Unemployment and economic needs are cited as reasons. However, more than the economy is involved. Hard economic times can be endured if all perceive the suffering as shared. In Tunisia, for years, as average citizens struggled for decent jobs, the country’s rulers lived in luxury and used their power to grab wealth in corrupt business deals.

In the over half a century since Tunisia gained its independence from France, the country has had only two presidents, the last, Ben Ali, seizing power in a bloodless coup. Only one political party was allowed to rule, jailing and sometimes torturing any perceived opposition. Now the country has need of leaders not tainted by the old regime, but few have had experience in governing a country or understanding the democratic process.

How much better if those in power govern justly, not using their positions for their own gain, but understanding their responsibility to serve. Best if they rule in humility, allowing others to participate, realizing that no single group is all-wise. Both the political system and the economic one should be perceived as fair.

 

Lessons From Ignorance

When I was about three or so, I thought little people lived inside the radio that grownups listened to and made the voices that I heard from there. At that age, I had no capacity to understand radio transmission waves. Little people inside a radio seemed reasonable based on my knowledge that people made voices.

Perhaps that is why, today, I suspect that all our theories and discoveries and knowledge are akin to those of a three-year-old trying to understand how people speak through a radio. God gave us brains and the ability to explore with our minds. To do so surely is one of our joys. We should advance our ideas, however, with much humility. Whatever ideas we advance are finite explanations dealing with the infinite.

The only thing I’m certain of is the value of what the Greeks called agape love. Jesus the Christ, whose birth we just celebrated, modeled this love. It values another as one values oneself.

One can’t have agape love if one doesn’t love oneself. Do remember, Jesus didn’t want to die. Not for him the self-loathing of suicide bombers or those whose rage leads them to murder fellow workers or strangers in a crowded restaurant or school children. His death was for others, out of love.

Jesus loved life. He turned water into wine so a marriage feast might progress. He spoke of his Father’s kingdom with metaphors of feasting and banquets.

Jesus knew the Father’s love and could love himself and know himself of worth and carry out the purpose God had for him. It seems to me that’s the pattern laid out for us: somebody loves us—God, if we will accept it. When we realize that we are of value, we can love ourselves, then love God, then those around us, and, if we allow God’s love to grow in us, even our enemies.

 

Called TO as well as FROM

Jesus came, not only to call us FROM our sins but TO a new life of purpose, meaning, direction.

Whether from the lure of drugs or prostitution or from the entanglements of anger or envy, Jesus calls us away from them, surely, but he gives us new tasks.

Releasing the exploited from the grip of the exploiters is not enough. Many revolts against despotic regimes flounder once the despots are gone. Too often the liberators become the new despots.

To simply “free” people is not enough; they become like the person in Jesus’ parable who was freed of unclean spirits only to have other spirits take over in the vacuum left by the departing evil. We need nurture as well as salvation, to discover, in community, our particular gifts and talents, a lifelong journey.

 

Why I Don’t Go All Out For Christmas

I spent my first Christmas away from my family when my job took me to an assignment in a foreign country, beginning in early December. Christians were a hidden minority. They didn’t worship openly, but I found a house church.

Our celebration of Christmas was probably nearer the first Christmas than the ones I celebrated as I was growing up. Certainly the scenery resembled the first one. Nobody dragged around Christmas trees or watched movies about a white Christmas or Rudolph or Frosty the Snowman. This scenery included desert scrub and flocks of sheep and even camels if you ventured far enough away from the city.

A British couple invited me to Christmas dinner. I learned about those party favors that you pull apart to make a snap sound. I don’t remember what we had to eat, but it probably wasn’t a turkey, and ham was forbidden in that country. Mainly, I enjoyed the fellowship with new friends who shared my beliefs about the reason for Christmas.

The next year I asked for leave during the Christmas holidays and traveled to the U.S. to spend the season with my family. I couldn’t wait to attend a real Christmas Eve service with carols and a real choir and evergreens and children dressed in bathrobes and all the other trappings of my religion at Christmas.

Being with my family was wonderful, but I was disappointed when I didn’t receive the high I was expecting from the service. It was nice, but I guess I’d built myself up for it too much.

In the years ahead, I spent other Christmases in lands that didn’t officially celebrate the holiday, where, for the local folk, it was just another work day. Forget open Yuletide decorating—not advised because it might offend. I chose gifts from catalogs and let Amazon or Lands’ End send them to family members. No rushing around crowded malls to become jaded by hearing Jingle Bells for the 1,000th time. Instead, I remember a carol sing in a private home and a clandestine Christmas concert.

Today, back home, I just can’t get into the swing of the normal Christmas. I keep remembering celebrations of simple gatherings to fellowship and remember Christ’s birth.

 

Creators and Free Will

Who hasn’t pondered why God, if he is good, allows evil? We, desiring justice, want God to intervene when injustice happens. Our innate wish for good, C. S. Lewis said, and our belief that evil should not triumph is one argument for the existence of God.

Nevertheless, the question remains, why?

As a writer, I have some thoughts.

An idea comes to me. Out of the idea, I create a story. I create characters to populate the story. And then the characters act according to their natures. I have created them, but having done so, I must let them act according to who they are. They are separate from me.

As many writers will tell you, characters take off and do things you did not intend them to do, things you don’t want them to do. Eventually, you finish writing the story, leading to the ends you desire. Sometimes you must bring in other characters that weren’t in the original story to get to the end, or other plots, or other insights—but eventually you, the creator, end the story.

This illustration is merely that, an illustration. I do think, though, that God, having created us, must give us the freedom to act, else it’s not a story. And God has created a story of sorts, with us as characters who have the freedom to be sub creators and choose our own story.

But, I believe, the story is God’s. He will lead it to the end he desires. We may decide to choose to be a part of the end God is leading toward, or not. We are free to choose.

 

God’s On Our Side, Right? Well, Maybe Not.

The question for the TV panel, a collection of famous Americans, including one religious leader, was: “Whose side is God on if the different religions all say God is on their side?”

The panel members stumbled to answer, but I think the question is invalid because it assumes we have a “side” and God comes at our beck and call to join us.

The question, it seems to me, should be “Who is on God’s side?”

We don’t set up our own little worlds and invite God to bless them. It’s God who sets up the universe and we either choose or don’t choose to go along with his way of doing things.

So what is his way of doing things?

As a Christian, I’d say we’re headed in the right direction if we judge a society by how well it takes care of the widow and the orphan, that is, those on the margins, those with little power.

Amos is one of many prophets of the Old Testament who castigate a society where the rich loll in luxury and slant the rules their way so the poor don’t have a chance.

Jesus appears to be concerned about the vulnerable as well. Remember his story of the rich man and the poor beggar, Lazarus? The rich man ignored Lazarus’ needs and was condemned for it.

Another rich man thought only of building bigger barns to store his wealth. God called him a fool.

In Jesus’ parable of the last judgement, justice is meted out on the basis of whether one
has fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, given clothes to the naked, and visited the sick and imprisoned.

I see nothing wrong with material success for work well done, for new ideas and entrepreneurship.  But what do you do with your wealth? Is it just the wealth and what it can buy, ad infinitum? Once you have food, clothing, shelter, and a few toys for fun (nothing wrong with an occasional banquet), why more? Warren Buffett and Bill Gates (senior and junior) have the right idea, I think. Once you reach a certain level, use the wealth for the good of society, for our fellow creatures.

How well do we take care of the vulnerable, those with little power? If we’re concerned that our society be on God’s side, that’s a good place to start.