How's Your Network?

I am not crazy about Verizon Wireless but I do like their commercials. You know, the ones where the person's "network" is always right there where ever they go? Sometimes it is just nice to know who is in your corner looking out for you.

How about this for support? "If God is for us, who is against us?" (Romans 8:32).

Now, what do we have to fear? What do we have to lose? Who is against us that God is not aware of? Unlike Verizon Wireless, there are no "dead spots" and we are never out of range of His help.

The single most difficult part of that passage is really believing that God is for us!

Today, just say it whenever you need too: God is for me.

And then live like it and live for Him. We live because He lives in us.

The Secret to Aging Gracefully

I am reading in 2 Corinthians this morning about the difference between the fading glory of the old Covenant brought through Moses compared to the glory of the new Covenant we have in Christ. Moses veiled his face so the Israelites wouldn't stare at the fading radiance that came from being in the presence of God. Then Paul concludes by saying "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the lord, who is the Spirit." (3:18)

Later, I am running, watching the sun rise with it's "ever-increasing" light and it dawns on me (no pun intended) that we as Christians always live in the sunrise of a new day that never fades.

Then I try to think of one thing on this earth that does not have a glory that eventually fades. Just last year the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. This year they will not even make the playoffs. Their glory began to fade the moment it was acheived.

Can you think of anything on this earth that has an ever-increasing glory?

Only people, filled with the Spirit of Jesus, in the process of transformation, have a glory that is increasing. It is a glory not attached to our achievements or records or success, but to our submitting to God's work of transforming us into the likeness of Jesus. It is the glory of Jesus within us, the bright and Morning Star shining through us.

As I get older, the implication is that I should become more glorious. The longer I live the more I should be transformed into the nature of Jesus.

Maybe that is the secret to aging "gracefully." That by the time I am old and frail, I should be as full of the Spirit and glory of Jesus as I have ever been. That while I am "decreasing" in vigor and strength I am "increasing" in the glory of the Lord.

Feeling old today? Good! Becoming more glorious? Great! Thanks be to God for turning clay pots into golden Vessels.

The Ultimate Protestant

"I am, I suppose, a difficult man. I am, maybe, the ultimate Protestant, the man at the end of the Protestant road, for as I have read the Gospels over the years, the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields an sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of rivers, into the houses of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here. Well, you can read and see what you think."

-Jaber Crow, Barber of the Port William Membership

by Wendell Berry

Hello, still here.

Testing, Testing, Anyone out there? Long time no blog. But I have been doing some great reading lately. Here are the titles that have kept me absorbed all summer:

The Suffering of God by Terence Fretheim. This will shake your foundations.

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson

Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis

Jaber Crow by Wendell Berry

A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken

On deck: Evil and the Justice of God and The Challenge of Jesus by N.T. Wright

Good books are such a blessing. Today I honor Mrs. Pruit and Mrs. Goss, my first and second grade teachers who taught me to read.

See Mark run. Cya later.

Reunions, Scabs and Scars.

Almost two months have passed since my last blog, which was actually written in June, 2005 but never posted.

It seems like I have been living my life in a car most of the summer. I just got back from Tennessee today and leave for Milwaukee in the morning. Sometime in between I had better do some laundry. I already checked my tomatoes.....still green, but getting bigger. I might pick one and fry it up.

Colleen and I was in TN attending a retreat at a resort on Kentucky Lake. This little gathering is quite unusual in that there is about 150 of us that annually make the trek for three days of fellowship, sharing, worship, food and fun. Jerry Jones started it 21 years ago and except for a few years spent in bleachers watching our children play some sport we haven't missed very many. We have forged some wonderful relationships during this time-relationships that have endured and blessed us in good times and bad and rescued us on those occasions when my sin left us and others on the precipice of destruction.

There is a very loose agenda to our time together. We pray. We sing (with Jerome Williams and Keith Lancaster leading we simply cannot stop). People share pain and joy. Some have lost someone close to them. Other's have screwed up their lives and come because they have no place left to go. Many have had wonderful years and come to celebrate. It doesn't matter, the microphone is open to all, and we rejoice and mourn appropriately. Acappella sings one night and the last night is a hilarious talent (or lack thereof) night. Jerry tells the same jokes, but we still cannot help but laugh. I treasure it because I always get to spend time with a man who is truly my Father in the faith, Albert Lemmons. I love him and his wife, Patsy dearly. They have a remarkable ministry of prayer and healing.

Brandon came for the last day and took Colleen back to Arkansas with him. I think she and Kim (Brandon's fiance') had some wedding planning to do.

That left me with six hours in the car to reflect. I listened to music. I prayed. More music. More prayer. I thought about how quickly 21 years had past. My life is not where I thought it would be. I am not doing what I thought I would be doing. I am not sure about my future and not real happy about the past. I have done some good things and some things I thought I would never do. The only real constant has been God, who has shown me unfailing love when I was nothing but unloving failure. I do know one thing: I love Jesus the Messiah more at this point than I ever have. He has rescued me from me and brought healing to those I love. He kept me alive.
I have scars-mostly self-inflicted ones. But as Albert pointed out, a scar is something to be thankful for, because it means the wound is healed.

I thought about that and I thought about the difference between a scar and scab. A scab can still be picked, it can still be painful, still bleed, still get infected and get worse. The more you pick at it the bigger the scar it leaves. A scab is necessary, it is part of the process of healing but it is not the final product. Only when there is a scar is one healed.

Find a scar on your body. I bet you can remember exactly how you got it. I have one from a hunting accident, a couple from motorcycles, some from surgeries, etc, etc. Each has a story, some pretty ridiculous. Imagine though having a scab for ten years....and telling people how you got it and why you keep picking it off. Who would do that? The body heals itself when it learns to protect the scab until there is a scar. As the body of Christ, do we protect our scabs or do we keep picking at them?

I am thankful for my scars. Some are really ugly. Some embarrass me and I want to hide them, but they serve as reminders to live obediently before God and try my best to never hurt anyone, including myself, again.

Amazingly, my God is scarred too. But, for the life of me, he cannot remember who gave them to him.

Blood moon

I saw a bleeding moon last night
Rising wounded in the eastern sky
Draped in mourning cloths of
Clouds and vapor,
Hiding in shame
Its pale glow giving it a dying face.

The moon will turn to blood before
The great and terrible day of the Lord.
Is it bleeding because it sees all in the darkness?
Or is it simply reflecting
What we do to each other?

I saw a bleeding moon last night
And for the first time that I can
Remember,
I felt sad and afraid at the appearance
Of an old friend

What's going on

The last few months have been a blur, so here is what has been going on.

My Mother had valve replacement surgery last April. At 78 it has been a challenge but she is slowly improving. But, I have had to be gone a lot. It is hard when she is 6 hours away so when I go I stay as long as I can and always feel guilty when I leave. I want to be there for her and my Dad but also have to make a living. So, I feel unsettled there and anxious here, but am so thankful for the amazing skill of Doctors and nurses who can stop a heart, put in a new valve, hook everything back up and get it started again. And of course, I praise God from whom all healing originates.
If only our spiritual hearts could be mended so quick.

Brandon graduated earlier this month with a degree in Bible and Religion. The Bible department at Harding had a special ceremony where they presented each graduate with a small ceramic basin and towel and then a Professor led a special prayer of blessing over the graduate. It was a great way to admonish them that their knowledge is for building up and not for puffing up.
I am so proud of Brandon. He has worked at least thirty hours a week managing a restaurant while taking a full load of classes and has maintained over a B average.
Somehow he also found time to ask his girlfriend to marry him two weeks ago.
I got him a new shotgun for graduation, a Mossberg 12 gauge with synthetic stock and fully camouflaged, designed for turkey hunting. Now maybe he will give mine back.

By the way, she said yes.
And it had nothing to do with the shotgun.

Micah also graduated with her Associates degree and received an award for being outstanding student in her department. She will finish her degree and softball career at Illinois College starting next fall.

Carden graduates this weekend and will be attending Illinois State in the Fall. So, officially we will have three kids in college this fall. I feel old. Especially now that I am selling my plasma to pay tuition.

So, that is what is going on....burning up as much gasoline as possible going south and north and occasionally east and west. In all this road time I have had some time to reflect and I am convinced that I am blessed beyond what my life deserves and the only thing I can figure out is that God truly is an eternal spring of love and mercy.

Five to Go Please, Hold the Disco.

What songs do you have to have? I mean you can take five with you when you go. Rock and Roll is the only qualification and I hope that saying Rock and Roll doesn't antiquate me, but if it does then it gives me some kind of twisted authority. Have you noticed that during the NCAA tourney that every time a financial planning commercial comes on it has music from the sixties and seventies? That's because somewhere a baby boomer is retiring and the only thing that can stir him out of his laz-e-boy coma is IN A FRICKIN GADDA-DA-VIDA by Iron Butterfly.
So he wakes up from his flash back and thinks, "Good Grief, is my 401k in order? Where's the love man?

Born in '58 I am the tail of the baby boomer generation. I protested against Disco. Not really a boomer not really a buster, our contribution was flannel shirts, Levi 501's and hiking boots. Good grief! I love John Denver AND U2! Everyone was worn out by the time it was our time. We were the margin. Who cared? Just get a job and let it go, cause the Yuppies will soon arrive and beach their Honda Accords and release their chocolate Labs on our shore.

So tonight, after one of my son's friends taped up my blown Polk audio speaker so it no longer rattled my teeth, I kept the tv off and listened to music. I loaded up the old Sony CD with my music. Alone, except for the dog, who obviously doesn't appreciate "my generation" and our music, I cranked it up and absorbed it like an albino in a tanning booth.

Music is a journey. I remember being mesmerized by a 45 on my sister's cheap mono-speaker turntable. Somehow Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild" was encoding itself on my 10 year old brain. And the Beatle's "Revolution"? I still feel the song more than hear it. I love the music of the Doors but choose not to listen to them because they make me want to do things that are illegal. By the time I reached HIGH School the fight was over and everyone just mellowed out with the Eagles, Marshal Tucker, the Doobies, Jackson Browne and Poco.

College in the late seventies was just weird...everyone was confused. There was Black Sabbath AND the Pina Colada song. The overly tightened spandexed Bee Gees AND Peter Frampton. What were we to do? Go back to the basics....the Eagles and the Doobies. Ok, in a pinch- remember the doobies.

Do you realize our place in history? After years and years of the human struggle to achieve a better way of life it was my generation that finally gave us stereo?

So tonight, I am not disturbing anyone but the dog, who has escaped to the basement muttering something about that #*!@ bass boost, and possibly the neighbors since I realized it is pretty late for the tired old boomers in my neighborhood as I crank up "China Grove" by the Doobie Brothers.

And I wonder, If I can take five with me when I go, Which ones would they be?
WELL......tonight, at least, at this moment, for now, the way I am feeling, could be these, if I could only have five for the trip......Five songs to go....

Peaceful Easy Feeling....the Eagles (I like the way your sparkling earrings lie......)
Take it to the Limit.....the Eagles (pure, raw emotions)
Still Haven't Found What I am Looking For.....U2.... (well said)
Your Wildest Dreams.....Moody Blues (Great music, great lyrics, great vocals)
Against the Wind.....Bob Seger (poetic and true)

And.... as a bonus carry on...."The Long and Winding Road" the Beatles. Simply Beautiful, transcending all generations.

S0....what would be yours?

Catching up

I am looking out my window this morning and watching the grass turn greener by the minute. While running the trail yesterday and avoiding the flood waters I also saw purple violets spreading themselves across the ground like a fresh spring comforter. And of course, the true sign of spring....the sight and smell of worms offering themselves up like a buffet to gluttonous robins.
It is Sunday morning and I should be going to church somewhere but after Albone's recent post on Church and barbeque sauce I am more confused than ever. Do I feel like spicy this morning or sweet? Sweet Baby James at least has a biblical name but I am not sure when services start. Either way I will probably get grilled.
It is just me and Carden this morning, Colleen and Shane took advantage of spring break and headed south to Arkansas where they are visiting Brandon at Harding. They went to church already this morning and Colleen called me from services just to let me hear the singing..."Awesome God" and it was awesome.
It has been a long time between posts and a long time since I have read any blogs. I have been pretty much buried in studying for securities licensing, which I passed last Thursday. Plus, this year I had to fill out three different FAFSA applications since in the brilliance of our family planning (or lack thereof) I will have three kids in college or grad school this next fall. So, of course that means doing taxes first which is always fun and coincides with March Madness or is synonymous with it. It all has something to do with brackets and I hope I didn't get them confused, since I had one eye on the computer screen and the other on the TV. If my 1040 comes back because I claimed Bill Self as a dependent rather than myself, I will know I should have focused on one or the other.
Oh, plus we went to state in wrestling. Shane, our eight grader, was the regional champion and ended up making it to the semifinals in State, finishing seventh. The top six earn a medal so he fell just short, losing in overtime or he would have secured a possible third. He had a great season, finishing 32 and 9 overall and his team took second. Now he gets to eat again, which he has been doing quite well. I bought him a summer sausage to take on his trip and I doubt if it made it out of the city limits!
Well, maybe I should get going this morning. Please keep my Mom in your prayers as she undergoes a heart cath this Tuesday. She will probably need valve replacement so I might be headed for Missouri in the next few days. Her heart is 78 years old as of Friday so hopefully things will go well.

May you be blessed by the warming sun on your face, the vibrant colors of spring in your eyes, the smell of new born flowers in your nostrils and the sounds of love struck birds in your ears.

Spring Ready

I am ready for spring.
I am ready for the snow to melt away like the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz. It was beautiful at first, a blessing, a forced Sabbatacal from God to stay home and watch him paint the world pure white.
But, like our lives, as soon as it lays still a few days it starts turning brown, becoming the color of whatever falls on it.
But we played in it a few days, making snow angels, leaving tracks, throwing it at one another, sliding down little hills, eating it.
But the roads were soon cleared and we left the crystal city and melted back into our routines.
But now I am ready for green, that fresh, brilliant green against blue skies.
I am ready for spring storms, thunder, wind and flashing lightning.
I am ready to head south and chase a turkey through a valley filled with redbuds blooming and the fragrance of lilac bushes.
I am ready to find mushrooms and think about fishing.
I WANT to mow my lawn now.
I am ready for spring.
Are you?

Abram, Who?

Who was Abram? I find myself reading Genesis through the lens of the New Testament, and I think it distorts a proper view of this man and his times. As I mentioned in my previous blog, I am studying the life of this "Forefather" of our faith and also leading our house church discussion covering this topic. I think that I have viewed him looking through the big lens of my own culture and faith rather than seeing him as a man of his own time and place, sort of like looking through a telescope backwards which shrinks the subject rather than enlarging it.

Read Genesis 11:31 through 13:2. Was Abram's roots rural or urban? What was Ur like? Haran? I have often imagined him basically sitting under a tree in the desert waiting for his wife to get pregnant, eating figs and curds keeping the flies off himself until God appeared as he occasionally did with another hint about Abram's future.

I don't think that was the case. I have benefited enormously by reading several books about Chaldean and Sumerian culture and religious practices that makes this ancient figure even more alive than before. God's call to him did not come in a place barren of history, religion, government, education or wealth. By the time of Abram, Mesopotamia was already an ancient civilization. Much living had been done by many in this part of the world. In fact we have more information left to us by this culture and the Egyptians than we do from the little strip of land in between that is so important to us.

This understanding incarnated Abram for me. It put flesh on him. The choices he made became more important. His listening to this God that simply "appears" to him and speaks became hinge points in history for me. Read the text, grab a bible dictionary, do a little research, tell me what you see. And enjoy! More later....

New Year, New thoughts about Old Things....

It has been some time since I have posted anything so I am not sure if anyone will read this blog or not. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and the new year is treating you well. We had nineteen at our house for Christmas so it was a little crowded but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Between Colleen and Brandon some pretty awesome meals were prepared and Colleen's Mother brought twelve home baked pies....so now I am running through the snow feeling like I am dragging a railroad tie with me. Like most things in life, putting burdens on ourselves are much easier than taking them off.

I have to be in Chicago for the rest of the week for a regional meeting. I am taking the train and staying downtown with some other people from our office. I know I should be looking forward to it but I don't do cities very well. But, this time I am determined to be impressed rather than overwhelmed. I might even wear my Cardinal's cap. And, I can with all sincerity say, "Go Bears!" when I need to.

I hope to share some thoughts about Abraham in this blog over the next few weeks. I have been studying his life in order to better "know" this ancestor who is the prototype for our faith. Part of my motivation for looking at his life is to attach myself more closely to those the Bible describes as our "ForeFathers". I think knowing where I am going and what I want to leave for my children has something to do with knowing who came before me, not just through my physical lineage but also spiritually.

What about you? Do you see yourselves as part of a great lineage? Do you feel connected to the household of faith through the witness of the Spirit? What impresses you most about Abraham? What "ancestor" do you most feel an affinity towards? Your ideas and thoughts would be greatly appreciated!