You and Me Against the World?

An early church leader in the city of Alexandria by the name of Athanasius took a fierce stand against a heretical teaching--Arianism--which was becoming extremely popular among the churchmen of his day. It is said that on his grave marker were the Latin words Athanasius contra mundum. Translation: "Athanasius against the world."

I was challenged by a recent sermon at my church to consider my own ability to stand against the world when what the world has agreed is okay, is actually wrong.

I've often seen myself as a loner and a maverick...not one to follow blindly after the crowd either in matters of fashion, or ideology, or morality. My own family members would sometimes consider me a bit "flaky" when my creative bent asserted itself in ways that marched to a novel drumbeat.

The spooky thing is that I so often catch myself conforming to the pattern seemingly laid out for me by the surrounding culture, or even by whatever local ad hoc group of peers might be handy. It is often very easy to let others do the thinking for me and just automatically--and unthinkingly--fit in with what the crowd chooses to do.

Even for an odd duck like me, who has a strong non-conformist streak, the gravitational pull of the herd mentality exerts itself all the time. And the disconcerting thing is, that magnetic force isn't generally tugging me toward something good, true, or otherwise worthwhile. It's usually just the opposite.

What the authors of the Bible often refer to as "the world"--as opposed to the kingdom of God--is the combined anti-God characters and proclivities of the people and cultures and institutions surrounding us that would just as soon forget or ignore or deny God's existence. "The world" in that sense, is the mindset that happily leaves God out of all equations. Kind of like...

...(in biology class) "The universe and everything in it began with a humongous explosion, after which all the stuff you see around you came to be via an astonishing process of random mutations."

...(in philosophy class) "Truth is defined by the consensus of what the most people believe at any present moment, as influenced by the people wielding the most political power. There are no absolutes when it comes to morality...that is, no absolutes except the fact that there are no absolutes."

...(in a lot of churches) "Jesus was a great teacher but he might not have really said everything or done everything that his followers reported that he did. The whole idea of his death being an atonement that satisfied some angry supreme being, is no longer necessary in our enlightened society, and his resurrection from the dead is simply a helpful metaphor about self-renewal."

...(in sex-education class) "If both people enjoy it, go ahead, it's okay. Any unwanted consequences can be dealt with either with surgery, medicine or psychotherapy."

...(in entertainment and the arts) "Standards of beauty and propriety are only determined by the appetites of consumers. Fantasies about sex, violence and escapism have no bearing on real life behaviors."

There is a definite pattern that connects all these areas of human life. The choice to leave God out of the picture allows me to play make-believe and to devise a substitute "god" for my own universe. And when push comes to shove, there ends up being no more attractive candidate for the job...than myself! I can then be the sole arbiter of what is true, good and beautiful, with no pesky God to plague me with a bunch of rules and restrictions on my freedom and autonomy.

I think it was Immanuel Kant (the father of modern philosophy) who bemoaned the fact that without God, morality would have no meaning; therefore, even if God doesn't exist, we must live and act as it He does. It turns out that this was wishful thinking. When philosophers opened the floodgates to God's non-existence to the world, most people were more than happy to embrace the idea with both arms.

If this is the way the world is pulling you and me, with all the glitz, glamour and gadgetry at its command assisting it in its tug of war, what hope do we puny individuals have to fight against the force of its gravity? Sadly, I have enough sinful impulses left inside me, even as a Christian, to make the allure of the world's message highly attractive.

This is where Paul's words to the Roman believers come in so handy and practical and profound: "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God...Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:1-2).

It is so comforting to know that with every tug we exert against the downward pull of the world, we have a supernatural and infinite Strength...the Holy Spirit speaking through His holy Word...right there pulling alongside us. God never expects us to win this contest on our own!

Our visitor from Switzerland, Bertrand, said something very profound today in Sunday School: "Fallen man would rather be a god in a human-created world, than be a created being in a God-created world." This encapsulates the mindset of the anti-God world around us.

Which end of the rope are you pulling on in this cosmic tug of war?

Traditions, Traditions

Human beings have a love-hate relationship with their traditions.

On the one hand, we cling to and depend on the feelings of permanence and familiarity that they give us in an all-too-volatile and uncertain world.

On the other hand, if you are like me, you often find yourself impatient, resentful, pinched and chafed by the inflexibility of the burden that traditions lay upon us.

Traditions connected to family are a case in point that crops up on our radar screens at least once or twice a year. The rose-tinted glasses side of me looks forward to the idea of gathering all the kinfolk around the old homestead and catching up with all the far-flung goings-on that have taken place since we last got together to feast and play games and watch TV. But then...when the glasses get smudged by the catty remarks and the one-upsmanship and the brotherly advice that feels more like a kick in the groin...

...at that point, we might long for a tradition that requires us to skip a year. Or two or three.

Traditions can often feel as if they are carved in stone like the Ten Commandments:

THOU SHALT VERILY SHOW UP WITH THY JELLO SALAD IN HAND

YEA, THOU SHALT NOT MENTION THY SISTER'S DISAGREEMENT OF 1988

REMEMBER WHO DESPISETH WHOM AND TO WHAT DEGREE

ETC.

 

But then again, many family traditions are totally flexible, to the point of not having any structure at all when reunions take place, and having the whole group's agenda determined by whose opinions are the loudest, or whose physical ailments take precedence, or whose preferences as to activities give in the soonest due to strain and/or exhaustion.

 

I suspect that the traditions we feel most at ease with are those handed down to us by people whose character or memory is most loved and respected. If I was treated lovingly by a parent or grandparent who passed on their legacy of traditional practices to my generation, I would tend to honor those practices and continue them myself. After all, why mess with success? It worked for them in their day, why go to the trouble of reinventing the wheel?

 

And there lies one of the major tensions that come with traditions. More and more in our progressive culture, the traditions of the past have been and will continue to be challenged by the younger whippersnappers who come along. And traditions will undergo a definite shift: sometimes merely uncomfortable...all too often with the force of a pair of crash-cart paddles.

 

Think of the practice of church attendance as an example. Not very many decades ago, most businesses closed up shop on Sundays, not so much out of devotional piety, but because most all the consumers those businesses relied on were busy with non-commercial activities like dressing up and singing hymns and listening to sermons and eating large family meals together and taking naps.

 

In our day, the vast majority of people I work with might visit a place of worship for a wedding, a funeral or an occasional holiday...if at all. Sunday traditions for them have more to do with tailgate parties, big-screen TVs or fantasy sports leagues than the holy Trinity. There has been a definite shift in cultural traditions that has affected at least half the people you rub shoulders with every day.

 

The fragile thing about traditions is that, even if they are the glue holding a society together--think Tevye doing his "Tradition" dance down the street in Fiddler on the Roof--the individualistic desires and preferences of people can and do change according to the winds of the prevailing culture. For Tevye, the crisis came when his daughters began to insist on choosing their own mates rather than relying on fathers and matchmakers to get them hitched. Love of the incidental sweetheart began to trump their respect for and love of tradition.

 

What tradition-bound people too often forget is that the more a practice is based on simple repetition and longevity, rather than rooted in truth, goodness and beauty, the less likely that that practice will endure through the times and tides of cultural shift. Tevye was finally pushed to the limit when his third daughter insisted on marrying a husband outside of her faith. For him, this was unthinkable and nearly caused him to permanently disown the daughter.

 

The question he--and the audience--was left with in the play was: is this requirement to disown his own flesh and blood a requirement of his faith...or only one of tradition?

 

Traditions can comfort us...they can guide us...they can anchor and often annoy us. But only our beliefs rooted in truth and moral absolutes can bind our consciences to the point of no return.

 

Enjoy your traditions if you can...but find your faith in One far higher, deeper, eternal.

 

Blessings!



Reflections on C.S. Lewis

It is hard to be original regarding a Christian icon about whom so much has already been written and said...but here are some thoughts straight from my heart.

Like a vast host of readers, I became acquainted with "Jack" Lewis (as he is known by his intimate friends and relatives, never really liking his given name "Clive Staples") through his children's stories about an enchanted land called Narnia. Captivated by his on-our-level author's voice that never talked either down to children or over our heads, Lewis convinced me that those snow-covered woodlands, far-flung Lone Islands, forbidding deserts, battle plain, stone table and lofty Cair Paravel were all actual places, that badgers and bears and mice and squirrels...as well as a particularly dangerous and good Lion...could actually talk and interact with very human children who magically happened into Aslan's realm along with their sense of wonder, their childish and adult-ish foibles, and all their untapped and untaught potential. How is that for a run-on sentence?

Narnia and its unforgettable, inimitable characters was only my delightful baptism into the sphere of Jack Lewis's genius. Because of his great learning and his great heart, he obviously longed to share with others the beautiful and poignant insights God had given him about his Christian faith. Lewis did so with an unaffected warmth and honesty that is still winning him friends fifty years after his entrance into glory.

Peter Kreeft wrote a very clever book a few decades ago called Between Heaven and Hell that supposes a meeting in the afterlife anteroom between Lewis, John F. Kennedy, and Aldous Huxley, three men of very divergent beliefs who all died within hours of one another in 1963. In this book, Lewis is the proponent of his own "mere Christianity" while the other two awaiting their eternal destinies speak out in favor of humanism and pantheism, respectively. I like to think that this little book captures something of the wit and friendly urgency of Lewis that he infuses into all of his writing.

Time and space would fail me in elaborating on all of Lewis's books that have influenced my own life and my own writing. His Space Trilogy is a particular favorite of mine, as it is aimed more at an adult audience and succeeds in reviving what, for so many oldsters, is a hibernating capacity for fanciful imagining. His approach to science fiction addresses so many moral and sociological dangers that other sci-fi writers tend to gloss over due to their secularistic mindset. I am doing my best, hopefully, in imitating Lewis's approach in my own futuristic efforts.

Actually, the third book in his trilogy, That Hideous Strength, is a fictional treatment of his philosophical piece entitled The Abolition of Man, another of my favorites. He wrote this book, apparently, in response to a new English textbook that had been introduced in the public schools in the UK. The purported approach of the text's authors was to "debunk" the genuineness of all expressions of value in the writing examples they included in their book. Their thesis was that any expression such as "that is an awesome waterfall," rather than saying something real about the waterfall itself (which is in reality merely lots and lots of water falling over a cliff), is actually describing the writer's own subjective feelings and nothing more. Lewis answers this thesis with a masterful and cautionary counterargument that we all must be taught to assign values to everything we experience in the world around us. Values that truly reflect the worth of the realities they describe. He then goes on to foretell the fate of a humanity that insists on subjectifying all value, namely, the loss of all that makes us human.

And what else can I say...about the haunting, hilarious, holy pages scorched by the fiery pen of the senior demon Uncle Screwtape? about the heartrending journey from hell to the outskirts of heaven in The Great Divorce?  about the book Lewis wrote about the nature of the Four Loves? his treatise on miracles...on death and disease...his magnum opus Mere Christianity?

All I can do is praise our God for saving the soul of a young atheist and gifting him with the ability to reason, imagine, believe, and thankfully, to write.

Suffice it to say, fifty year later, Jack's inklings live on. My advice to all...immerse yourselves in them.

Daughter of Zion

Willing to surrender
even to the death demanded
by a father's foolish vow,
she climbed into the mountains
to mourn with tearful maidens.

See the sacrificial dance,
O victorious Jephthah,
and enjoy your bitter freedom
so dearly bought, so dearly bought!

How much rather
would I be bound, body and soul,
to the One whose grace
that ancient judge
seemed scarcely to know...

How much sooner
would I welcome my daughter's defiance
in the face of my prideful vows,
binding her to duty, daring
to speak where God is silent.

Let her voice surrender praise
and let her feet be joyful
upon the sacrificial hills
of the slain, victorious Lamb!


(for Heather's 25th Birthday)
MNA
March 22, 2013

Lord, Teach Me to Pray

Lord teach me to pray,

Not merely the how but the why—

For I so easily forget prayer’s necessity

Here in the soul-choking fog of my self-satisfaction.

Lord, teach me to pray,

Not only its duty but its direness—

For I so often succumb to a peacetime mentality,

Blind to the bullets and bombs of sin exploding around me.

Lord, teach me to pray,

Not just its privilege but its purpose—

For I am so prone to be moved by selfish desires

When it is only Your will and kingdom You’d have me seek.

Lord, teach me to pray,

Not as recreation but as labor—

For I mustn’t treat intercession as a game or a pastime

When I’ve seen you in Gethsemane sweating drops of blood.

Lord, teach me to pray,

Not conveniently but continually—

For my need of Your saving, sanctifying, sustaining grace

Will not end until the presence of sin is banished forever.

I need You, Lord…

O teach me to pray.

MNA

November 5, 2011

New Wine

We die not for love of  Wisdom,
nor for the cool comfort of dark closure
that creeps up and snatches
the aged from their cradles.
Yet, a dying choice proves sweeter
than the giddy ball of this age that spins
and twirls its way into madness--
a madness that finds no asylum.

We dress instead in beggar's rags
and are dragged from distant byways
into grace's feast. We die united
to the Feastgiver, to the Winemaker,
to the Vinedresser who reaps and tramples
once all the nations have ripened--
when all the laughter ends--
and begins anew.

Love Ablaze

Too often…

Love dies upon my lips

And never lasts

Beyond my fingertips.

A fire burns

Deep in a core of stone

But fails to warm

Or brighten those who dwell alone.

Love blazed long

In triune hearts divine

Before it spilled

Onto this soul of mine.

Their passion-plan,

What suffering it would cost:

God as a man

Would love me with a cross.

I repent

Of love devoid of form,

For by a curse

And selfless acts my soul was born.

New fire burns

Sending hot sparks abroad

To kindle flames

In darkened hearts to blaze for God.

MNA 10/21/13

Name I Love

Name I Love

Jesus Christ--it's the name I love:

Precious Savior, Teacher and King...

Jesus Christ--lowly Lamb of God

Who will one day rule everything!

Jesus Christ, whom the prophets saw

In the types and shadows of old...

Jesus Christ, faithful Shepherd who

Sought this wand'ring sheep for His fold.

Jesus Christ's supernatural birth

Caused the choirs of angels to sing...

Jesus Christ's death upon the cross

Made His people's death lose its sting!

Jesus Christ--God in human flesh,

He alone true goodness achieved...

Jesus Christ gives that righteousness

To each guilty soul who believes!

Jesus Christ--loving Bridegroom who

Left His heav'nly home for His bride...

Jesus Christ braved the jaws of hell

So that I could dwell at His side!

MNA 10/25/13

Hear and Tremble

To err and to be human—not the same…

For I was made to glorify the Lord

By loving and by counting on His name,

Heeding His voice and trembling at His word.

What—you suggest a cosmos came to be

Without a Maker? With no grand design?

That chaos brought about complexity?

That nothing birthed a world so vast and fine?

The One who made me owns a ruler’s rights,

Yet took the pains His wisdom to express

And even stooped to earth from Heaven’s heights

To earn for me a saving righteousness!

How can I shame Him then, who loved me so—

Ignore one single word that He has said?

Can I be false—my faith not but a show

When only by His words daily I’m fed?

Does my obedience suit my own desire

With mere convenience sovereign over all?

Or is true, loving gratitude a fire

That drives my soul to heed His voice’s call?

I fear displeasure in the ones I love

And those who hold my wages in their hand—

I tremble if to judges I must prove

My innocence of flouting some command…

And conscience plagues if elders are distressed

At mischiefs done with no intent to wound;

Should I not fear to wound the One who best

Embodies all respects on earth I’ve found?

My Lord—the loved, and Lover of my soul

Who holds rewards of grace which never fade…

The Judge whose mercy swallowed justice whole

Because a debt of wrath had to be paid…

Each word, each syllable, each dot and stroke,

Each saying from His lips I shall obey,

Though scoffers sneer and learned jesters joke;

All will tremble at His word that final Day.

Weep No More

“Woman, why are you weeping?” Jesus asked Mary Magdalene as she sat grieving and puzzling over her Master’s missing body.

The worst had happened. The ultimate tragedy of her beloved Messiah’s crucifixion had been cruelly compounded by the removal of his unanointed corpse from the tomb. Not only had the former prostitute been separated from her Teacher by a murderous death, now she had also been denied the comforting dignity of ministering to his remains using the spices and ointments she and the other women had so lovingly prepared.

“I don’t know where they have laid him,” she told this stranger through her tears, this intruder whom she assumed was the keeper of the garden where the sepulcher was situated. Mary’s emotions were crushing and debilitating. All she could think of was: “Where is he? Where is the One who saved me from my evil past, who understood and forgave me, who looked beyond my sullied life and loved me? I don’t care if he’s dead…I just want to be with him one last time.”

“Mary,” the stranger said.

And with that comforting syllable all of the woman’s grief and agony began to evaporate. Beyond her wildest fantasies, the voice she heard breathed her dead hopes to life again. For there he was. There he stood. Her Master was no longer dead. He was alive again, just as he’d promised.

“Why are you weeping?” If Jesus asked you or me that question, how would we answer?

Death? Disease? Insecurity? Laboring in vain? Unanswered prayers or desires? Violence or fears? Boredom or loneliness? Felt absence of God—distance brought about by guilt?

Weeping prevails when hope is missing. Anticipation of a brighter tomorrow is what holds off the flood of tears pent up within our struggling souls. And the divine promise of the ultimate bright tomorrow is the very capstone that hold the strong arch of the Christian faith together—that assures us it will never collapse in ruins around us

“I will create a new heavens and a new earth,” God promises in at least four major passages throughout the pages of sacred Scripture. Two in the Old Testament and two in the New. The Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah was written to Jews who were about to be overthrown by the armies of Babylon and enter into a bleak and desperate time of captivity and exile away from their beloved land. Much of the message God had assigned Isaiah to proclaim was one of woe and doom and impending judgment on those who had forsaken their God and His laws.

But in the midst of those oracles of woe were seasoned in some refreshing promises of revival, restoration, re-patriation and a brand new creation, foretelling not only the end of the Jews earthly exile in Babylon, but the saving mission of the world-encompassing Savior: the long-awaited Messiah, Jesus Christ.

In the coming of Messiah, the centuries-long hope of all the patriarchs of the faith would find ultimate fruition—the ultimate payment for our sins, the guarantee of eternal peace with our Creator, the new hearts that would embrace Him and His laws with unending delight, the return to the Paradise of God that our first parents lost because of their original disobedience.

In chapter 65, Isaiah summarizes the future utopia that God has planned for all who embrace His Son by faith and enter into His new covenant. It is a world free of weeping.

It is a garden where tears are a thing of the past. A place of unending joy where Jesus is never missing. Are you ready to enter this haven of rest?

The Leap

This sinner sat before his board of keys

And there he tapped to form some simple lines

That hopefully would make his reader smile

Or hold a pleasant picture in his mind.

So, tapping, tapping, out the stanzas stepped

Onto the cyber-page all black and bold

As each idea leapt from sinner’s brain—

From darkened depths to soil a field of white.

Oh why would such a wicked typist toil

To render written recipes just right?

Perhaps to purchase up some wrath’s release

Or earn a flagon in Valhalla’s halls?

No, sinner long ago had heard the truth:

The favor of the Reader’s not for sale;

It rather cost far more than we might pay

With wages earned a million lifetimes more.

So, happy to fulfill his given task,

So happy that One perfect paid the price,

This sinner tapped his midget masterpiece

And with it leapt into the arms of God.

MNA 9.29.13

Let All Things Now Living

(Original lyrics by Katherine K. Davis--1892-1980; New third stanza by Mark Aikins)

Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving
To God the creator triumphantly raise.
Who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,
Who still guides us on to the end of our days.
God's banners are o'er us, His light goes before us,
A pillar of fire shining forth in the night.
Till shadows have vanished and darkness is banished
As forward we travel from light into light.

His law he enforces, the stars in their courses
And sun in its orbit obediently shine;
The hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains,
The deeps of the ocean proclaim him divine.
We too should be voicing our love and rejoicing;
With glad adoration a Song let us raise
Till all things now living unite in thanksgiving:
"To God in the highest, Hosanna and praise!

Yet God’s greatest treasure, the Gift beyond measure,
He gave when our Savior was sent from above;
Through earth’s humble portal, divine and yet mortal,
Christ came to poor sinners with grace and with love.
Amazing salvation, a brand new creation
To all who believe Him He’ll freely bestow;
Now His resurrection points us to perfection—
With joy let us serve and His love ever show!

Revival

Revival means to live again,

To leave one’s grave behind:

The buried past is left at last

For treasures newly mined.

From childish dreams to child-like faith

I’d bid my soul to wake;

From tiresome toys to endless joys

An upward trek I’d take.

Too long my thoughts have been entombed

In pyramids of pride,

And beauties fleetly seek to cheat

My heart and blindly guide.

This suffocating sepulcher

With golden idols filled

That ever try to satisfy

A lust that won’t be stilled,

Must be demolished and denied

For daybreak to arrive…

Death’s selfish night gives way to light

When sons of God revive.

Skyarid (fiction excerpt from The Gods of Heavenforge)

Four

Skyarid

Colin stood up and walked across the edge of the saw-toothed plateau with the confidence of a young god newly sprung from the head of Zeus. In a hazy, dusky corner of his mind he was still aware of who he was, or used to be, humanly speaking. But for some glorious reason, Dr. Dutko had had greatness thrust upon him.

The vision that began his new life had come to him in an instant of time beyond time. A miniscule moment that lay outside the realm of mere human experience. In that vision he had seen an entire alternate reality, a shining cosmic kingdom that consisted of worlds within worlds, pleasures beyond pleasures…treasures that fueled a furnace of deep desire within him that he never knew existed.

He turned his head with an easy fluidity and looked at the others: two men and a woman who had yet to awaken to their new lives. There they lay in the circular carven womb, and there, many yards beyond them, lay the coverings that now represented the former lives they had just shed.

Then there was the Voice in Colin’s head—thinking thoughts not his own. It was a thundering Voice but a kind one. The Voice had given him the vision of the shining kingdom as an unbelievable promise. Colin knew that the others would receive the same vision, the same promise; that all of them would vie for it…that all but one would die for it. Perhaps he himself would be the chosen one, perhaps he’d be one of the ones who died. Right now it didn’t matter.  Right now there was only hope and joy. Right now there was only desire—desire for the Power.

And here came, right on time, another team of suited people from Petra City. Colin knew they must be a rescue party, concerned for the welfare of the four poor victims who’d “escaped” from the hospital in the dome. Colin understood now that it was only by the blood of sacrifice that any of them could be saved. After all, the four of them had had to go through the blessed suffering of blood to achieve their own godhood.

It was amazing…his eyesight was so keen now that the expressions on the faces of the approaching team members were clearly visible, even at this distance. Obviously they had spied him standing here—standing here in this superheated wasteland void of breathable air—standing here without an environment suit. They were gaping in stunned wonder. Colin laughed with a spasm of spontaneous glee.

The wonder on their faces turned to mixed disbelief and fascination. Colin could hear their conversations—mostly ejaculations of astonishment. He supposed he and his three counterparts would have to become accustomed to this kind of reaction from the normal humans from whom the Skyarid demanded worship. What could one expect, he admitted, from people steeped so long in the lies of a supposedly “naturalistic universe”? Ah, well, they would learn to bow and obey…

And those who refused would render their service in far more painful ways.

Now the other three were sitting up and beginning to stretch their limbs like a trio of felines after a pleasant season of canary-filled dreams. Colin had heard their names…what were they? George…Deacon…and Cassandra—that was it. Actually, he did more than see them. He was touching them with his thoughts, sensing their very essence, feeling echoes of their emotions. This was another precious gift of the Skyarid of Power. And with the combination of Colin’s adoration with theirs, the satisfaction he felt was growing ever stronger and more intoxicating. The memory of the new-birth vision was still fresh in their minds, mirroring his own. The promise, the challenge, the mission the four of them had been given.

Confident, effortless, proud and obedient to the Voice, the other three arose and emerged from the carven womb with long, powerful strides. The four new god-lings stood abreast to face the rescue party that was drawing near, laboriously cresting the ridge. Many of the rescuers held scanning instruments that were undoubtedly registering bioscan readings none of them could comprehend. Others were beginning to crouch and aim their weapons, confused, frightened, unsure what to make of these clearly humanoid beings who needed no external life support in such a lethal environment.

Colin supposed he ought to be the first to speak: “Please, gentlemen, your weapons will not be necessary. We have no desire to engage in violence of any kind. To answer the question that is surely in all of your minds, we have no need of environment suits simply because we have undergone a miraculous change. All four of us now live with the energy of the Skyarid of Power.  We welcome you as the first human beings to visit the Skyarid’s temple—his very womb. As the Skyarid’s first servants, we four invite you to share in your new master’s happiness.”

Then all four of the servants chanted together: “Kneel down and worship him. Worship and serve the Skyarid of Power!”

The rescuers, bewildered, looked back and forth at one another. The four servants repeated: “Kneel down and worship him. Worship and serve the Skyarid of Power!”

One of the rescuers barked at the others: “Enough of this…stun them now!”

A second later, all twelve of the rescuers were on the ground, covered with blood.

Reddy for This?

At the edge of night I’m a sailor’s delight,

At the crack of morning, a sailor’s warning,

I’m ketchup on a burger, sauce on spaghetti,

A souped-up vehicle for Andretti.

Bell pepper on a salad as a break from green,

I’m the nails and lips of a beauty queen.

I’m a fox’s coat, though hounds can’t see me,

Valentines and roses that make her feel dreamy.

I’m what men see when their anger boils

And with sweat and tears in all their toils.

I’m a phone a CEO or “prez” kept handy,

Or an apple, especially dipped in candy.

Cherry lifesavers or cinnamon “hots,”

I’m in slasher films by buckets and pots.

In old brick walls and Mississippi clay,

I’m striped all over Independence Day

On sunburnt bodies at your nearest beach

And blushing faces when preachers preach,

In a jell-o mold, on MacDonald’s barn,

Rubber galoshes and mittens of yarn,

I’m the ruby slippers Dorothy clicked

And the velvet cake whose frosting you licked.

On the Coke can you ought to have recycled

And the comb atop every hen that’s cackled,

I’m the shirt of a doomed security guard

And the phone booth outside Scotland Yard.

I’m Elmo’s fur, Thing One and Thing Two,

And the sexy dress on You-know-who!

  

Poinsettias, tulips and a drink named “Bull,”

Fire trucks and hydrants forever full,

Strawberries, M&M’s, dying embers,

Cabooses almost no one remembers,

Radio Flyer childhood wagons

And the fiery eyes and breath of dragons,

Stop signs, double decker buses,

Lucy’s hair over which she fusses,

I’m a long carpet at a world premiere,

And butcher’s meat making vegans jeer.

The hood on a wee girl who met a wolf,

And the caps sports sport when playing golf,

I’m watermelon flesh so juicy sweet

And adorn an old Schwinn’s bicycle seat.

A good bet on the roulette wheel,

I’m on robes to whose wearers many kneel.

The very tallest trees are named for me,

And Communist flags fit me to a tee.

I’m the petticoat Rhett Butler bought for Mammy

And the Happy Meal box you bought in Miami.

I’m comedians Skelton, Buttons and Foxx,

And for Boston fans,

what else?

I’m the Sox.

The Power Everyone Needs

People are fascinated by the subject of power. Solar power, electric power, nuclear power, the power of nature, psychological and political power, mental and spiritual power…various kinds of power fire our imaginations and draw our attention like a magnet.

Often we long for powers we don’t have. Who hasn’t wished for the power to fly, or to overcome a bully, or to achieve some impossible dream? It is this kind of wishing that has led to the creation of many myths and comic book heroes like Zeus or Hercules or Superman—ultra-human figures who possess super-powers mere mortals can only dream of.

If the Bible is to be believed, there is an all-important super-human ability that every person desperately needs, but that very few people seem to want. And that is the power to please our Creator.

Have you ever had a beloved pet, child, or spouse who always seemed to live only to please you? Whenever you came home he or she would come running up to greet you with a lavish display of joy and affection. He or she would go out of their way to bring you satisfaction or pleasure, making you feel like a person of royal privilege. As fellow creatures we can have a profound, pleasing effect on one another even in spite of our many imperfections.

But the Scriptures teach us that the infinite Lord of Heaven and earth is of a completely different order of being from those He has created. When this God created the universe, all he made was according to a holy standard of perfection that we can’t begin to imagine—a creation totally free of death, disease, defects and disobedience. When God surveyed all He’d fashioned and produced at the dawn of creation, He pronounced it “very good.” He gave every living thing the capacity to please, and to go on pleasing, the One who had made it.

This capacity, however, wasn’t a power that couldn’t be lost or forfeited. There were at least two kinds of creatures—angels and humans—who could lose the power to please God. Both of these beings were given a freedom of choice whereby their original perfect standing with the Maker could be cast aside and forfeited. The ability to please a perfect Creator had to be maintained by a life of perfect obedience, devotion and trust.

Satan and his demon followers chose to rebel against God because of pride and arrogance, and they were cast out of Heaven. Our first parents Adam and Eve chose to disobey God’s law and were driven out of Paradise here on earth. By rejecting God’s standard of perfect obedience, they were in effect rejecting God Himself.

As human beings who are used to life in a fallen, sinful world, we find it natural to wonder, “Why is God so hard to please?” “Why can’t He relent and lower His standards so that pleasing Him would be do-able?” “If He is a God of love, why can’t He simply forgive and forget?”

One way to understand this is to see all of God’s attributes as integral parts of His being. Everything God is, He is perfectly and to the infinite degree. He cannot just love someone “a little” or “half-way” because He IS love. He cannot give people “more” or “less” justice, for His is PERFECT justice. One cannot please God “a little bit” or “a bit more”…it’s either totally pleasing to Him, or not at all!

For our Creator to be satisfied with less than total obedience, trust and devotion would be like you and me being able to live without food and air. To survive without food or air we’d have to cease being human, and to be pleased with less than perfection, God would have to cease being God.

Obviously, then, imperfect human beings lack the power to please God. Paul puts it this way in Romans 3: “There is no one righteous, not even one…all have turned aside and have together become worthless. There is none who understands, no one who seeks God. There is no one who does good, not even one…For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” It is not just that we CHOOSE not to please God. The fact is that we lack the power of doing so, as well as the desire to please Him.

This situation is compounded by the fact that a right standing with God is necessary in order for any of us to escape eternal punishment for our sins. The Bible insists that without holiness “no one will see the Lord” and that our God will “by no means clear the guilty.”

“But,” we might wonder, “isn’t it possible to perform some kind of extra-credit assignment to counteract the curse of my sins? Can’t I earn my way into God’s pleasure if I work very, very hard?”

The Bible leaves no doubt that this is a false hope. Even when we are born, it teaches we are ALREADY starting out with a huge load of guilt in our deficit column. Our first representatives Adam and Eve saddled us with “original sin”—a sin nature that is in itself repugnant and offensive to God. Because they used their free will to choose to reject God, you and I inherited a nature that makes us incapable of perfect obedience from the start!

This sinful nature makes lying, cheating, lusting and hating as natural to us as hunger and thirst. Even if I wanted to perform good deeds to outweigh the bad, the bad deeds I’ve already done are still on my record. And God’s perfect justice demands eternal punishment for lawbreakers, no matter how small the infraction. Remember, rejecting even ONE of God’s laws is the same as rejecting God Himself.

Wow! What a bleak picture! And so it would be…apart from God’s grace.

There is one, and ONLY one, human being who has the power to please God. In fact, He has always had it, He has kept and maintained it, and—best of all—He has earned the right to share that awesome power with helpless, hopeless sinners like you and I.

The good news is that Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the God-man, came down from Heaven as a human baby, so that He could live a life of perfect law-keeping—pleasing God the Father and making Him (Jesus) the perfect sin-bearing sacrifice for hell-deserving sinners. “Christ died once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”

Before He went to the cross to fulfill His mission and die for our sins, Jesus told His disciples, “I will send you another Comforter to be with you.” This other Comforter is the Holy Spirit. This awesome Person of the Godhead comes to live in those who believe in the Person and finished work of Jesus Christ. He changes their hearts in an act of regeneration—new birth!—and brings new Christians both the desire and the power to please God, by the grace that is found in their Savior Jesus.

I hope that you, as you read this and the Spirit-inspired words of the Gospel, will see Jesus Christ as the true Lord and Savior of your soul. He lives and rules today at God the Father’s right hand. He calls all people everywhere to repent and trust in His power to save them from sin and its just punishment. O sinner, call on Him today for forgiveness and eternal life!

Only this crucified, risen, ascended Savior can give sinners the power to please their Creator and enjoy Him forever.

Where Love Falls Short (part one)

“The power of love is a curious thing. Makes a strong man weep, makes another man sing. Turns a hawk to a little white dove. More than a feeling—that’s the power of love.” Huey Lewis sang these words, echoing the sentiments of Paul, John, George and Ringo: “All you need is love… love is all you need.” A myriad of other songwriters and philosophers have likewise made a virtual religion out of this thing called “love.”

Maybe we hate to admit it, but trying to reduce all the facets and goals of our world down to a single essence—even love—can be a risky thing. The danger that all philosophers down through history have faced is the fallacy of reductionism. We all might hope and pray for a simple, easy answer to the problems and complexities of life, and many claim to have found one. But such a claim can render the philosopher blind to the factors that fail to fit into that simple system.

All of us long after this thing we call love; it is truly a universal human goal. But a longing, if it is strong enough, can cause a kind of blindness—even a kind of madness. Take a deep and prolonged thirst for water. If a man is thirsty enough, for long enough, he might lose his reason. He might begin seeing mirages in the desert. Or if he’s adrift on the ocean, he might begin drinking the salt water all around him that will only make him thirstier or sicker.

The perfect philosophy, or the perfect religion, would account for all the particulars of our existence—not just the ones that give us feelings of euphoria or satisfy our longings. The person who says “I simply have love as my religion” has, perhaps unknowingly, made love more than it is, and religion less than it is.

Let’s begin with the term “love” itself. Left to itself, this word is a chameleon, colored by a person’s upbringing, exposure to culture, history, literature and so on. Does the love devotee limit this virtue to other people, or does she include animals, plants and inanimate things? How is love to be shaded and distributed, from “I love this TV program,” to “I love my cat,” to “I love my brother, my buddy, my spouse…?”

What about loving mankind? One’s country? One’s enemy? Does one’s love of large groups of people take precedence over loving one’s own family or one’s close neighbors or one’s countrymen? The mere word “love” cannot, when left in isolation from values like justice, mercy, devotion, forgiveness, humility, authority, truth, give us sufficient answers to these questions. This is why I suggest that “love” is too small a term to sum up anyone’s view of reality.

Now let’s move on to “religion.” As I understand the term in its purest form, it differs from “philosophy” in that it moves beyond intellectual, rational principles about reality, into the realm of devotion and reverence toward an ultimate or supreme reality. A religion normally claims answers not only for the “here and now” but also of the “before and hereafter”…eternal answers. It claims to give satisfactory answers to universal questions of origins, purpose, and destiny.

In effect, the one who claims that “Love is my religion” would have to be saying that the simple term “love” is the universal answer to all of mankind’s questions: “Why and how did we originate? If God exists, what does He want from us? What are we doing here? Is there any meaning to life, to morality, to our labors, hopes and dreams? Is there life after death? How will it all end? Do we have any say in our future destiny?” Obviously, “religion” is too large a term for the word “love” to stand alone as a satisfactory answer to its questions.

Perhaps the love-religionist would wish to modify his claim to: “All I believe in is a loving God,” or “Love is my God.” Indeed, there would seem to be some Bible verses that point to love as being synonymous with the Deity: John the Apostle writes that “he who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” Here we must take care not to jump to unwarranted conclusions. One may say “This chicken is our dinner,” for example, without saying that the chicken and the meal are synonyms for the same thing. There are parts of the animal that are decidedly not being served as food, and there are parts of the dinner that are unrelated to the bird in question. John’s point in saying “God is love” is that God is so much the embodiment of pure love, that no one who fails to love can claim an intimate relationship to Him. In our reading of the entirety of Scripture, it is clear that one could also make the statements: “God is holiness,” “God is joy,” “God is justice,” “God is wrath,” “God is truth,” etc., since He is the pure embodiment of all of those attributes as well. Those who claim to have a close bond with Him must also display holiness, joy, justice and all the rest, for their claim to be true.

How would a love-religionist deal with the brokenness of our world and the immorality and guilt of our human race? Sadly, there are broken, unloving and unlovely things and people all around us and, if we are honest, we find brokenness, hate and ugliness inside our own hearts and minds. Every human being who ever lived has had to face the fact that this world and the people in it are not what they ought to be. I might long after love, cry out for love, want to give love, even come to worship love as my god…but in my honest heart of hearts, I have to admit two painfully bitter truths about myself:

I am too selfish and too enslaved by my own desires to truly love as I ought.

AND

I am in no way deserving of the love I continually long after.

Only the most delusional person will make the claim that his or her love (given or received) is everything he or she longed or meant for it to be. Even the most sincere love we express or experience is riddled with imperfections like guilt, regret, dishonesty, selfishness, greed, lust, etc. There is a void that occurs in all human love—a gap that can’t be filled in with the simplistic old saw, “Nobody’s perfect.” Certainly, an imperfect love that is cracked and marred cannot occupy any pedestal we would wish to label “my God.”

This presents the love-worshiper with a “Catch-22” dilemma. If I were to respond, “Well, of course the world is broken and the people are unloving; that’s exactly why my devotion to love as the ideal is so necessary! Love is itself the answer to that brokenness. If we abandon all the religions out there and simply preach and demonstrate love, everything would eventually get better…wouldn’t it?”—if that was my response to a broken world and mankind, I’d be in for a big letdown. Even if I could convince every person in the world to agree with my viewpoint and make it everyone’s goal to love each other, all I’d succeed in doing would be to enlist billions of equally flawed and broken people to engage in a love equally flawed and broken.

(to be continued...)

A Forgotten Dirge

(note: This poem was written for my friends in the Plymouth Area Writers Workshop group, as an assigned piece based on research into the dread influenza epidemic of 1918. I'm interested in hearing from all who have heard about this plague which claimed upwards of 50 million lives.)

A Forgotten Dirge

That March of Eighteen, scarcely now recalled,

The fading chill of winter in the camps,

Unguessed mutations stalking through the ranks

Of men already drugged by war’s cruel trance…

And legions soon would fall like flies before

A silent foe who felled each gate and door.

In March of Eighteen, doctors here were few;

Like nurses, most had gone to tend the slain

Of Flanders Field and others far from home,

Their homes left nearly shieldless when he came:

The freak invader, sickle poised, to reap

One wave of victims with his breathless sleep.

The March of Eighteen cry sounds wide and clear

For volunteers to fly where needed most;

A mere trainee, my husband still in France,

I board the bus with others for the coast.

My Red Cross mask in place, I pay the fare,

For spring has come, and I must do my share.

This March of Eighteen: little do I know

How “three-day fever” will evolve and grow…

As troops deploy to Europe, the disease

Is quick to cross the cold, forbidding sea.

By summertime, the plague has ravaged Spain,

Thus, “Spanish flu” is now its traveling name.

O March of Eighteen! Funeral march indeed…

By fall a second wave has come to feed

Like locusts on the babes, the young, the hale,

While in our labs, we struggle to prevail.

For this tsunami hunts and slays at will—

A hungry swarm, an army primed to kill.

The March of Eighteen strides from shore to shore,

From pueblos west to igloos in the north.

The victims spewing red and turning blue,

The hospitals fill up and overflow…

And life expectancy drops twelve percent;

A twentieth die, but still it won’t relent.

Our March of Eighteen…could it soon be past?

November’s here—it’s Armistice at last!

War-weary soldiers home whom God has saved:

But from our glad embrace, comes one more Wave.

Not like the last, but direr than the first,

This wave of flu is, in its way, the worst.

This March of Eighteen trudges one year more,

Far less regarded than what came before…

We’re tired of the War…the death…the flu…

We’re eager to begin our lives anew.

So, with my man, I turn from death…to dreams,

Where no invader writes his bitter themes.

Now, March of Eighteen’s drum is scarcely heard;

Our children, grown who hear nary a word

Of the monster who left fifty millions dead.

We sang them myths and fairy tales instead.

Like monkey-evils, never said, heard, seen…

Praying never to recall March of Eighteen.

Mark N. Aikins

August 1, 2013