Wednesday, February 26, 2014

A Man Called "Bill"

A boy who loved his mom and worked the land,
Who made his friends with ease and lent a hand
In times when scarcity made living hard;
He grew up loving peace and standing guard.
 
This child who heard of conflicts far away
He went to shore up freedom in his day...
Returning with his patriot heart still warm,
He chose to stand guard in another form.
 
And, marrying well, he drove his brave patrol
With children watching him fulfill his role.
So, whether daughter's eyes, or wife's, or sons',
All saw in him a peace not forged by guns.
 
Indeed, I well remember Father's claim
That suspects don't deserve a crippling shame.
He taught me that all men deserve respect--
To try hard in the bad, good to detect.
 
In fact, I find it rare that Dad would speed
To judge a fellow man of careless deed.
Yes, many lessons he has left behind...
And, as he mounts in years, we children find
That Father's shoes become harder to fill.
And that we'll always love a man called "Bill."

Friday, February 21, 2014

My Words...Worthy or Wasteful?

My scripture reading for today took me to Romans 3...

12 "All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." 13 "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." 14 "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." (NIV)

All too often, I wonder if I am wasting my time when I sit down to write. After all, if the words we say can be compared to the poison of snakes, then the words we write could have an even longer lasting and far-reaching negative impact. The echo of spoken words dies away in a moment...but what I write can be spread far and wide and might be remembered far longer than I can imagine.

I have many friends and acquaintances who believe they can excuse their avoidance of church attendance as the result of careless words. One such friend, a single mom, tells me that her minister insisted her child would not be in heaven because it was illegitimate. This is only one of the many examples I've heard of hasty, judgmental words spoken by (hopefully) well-meaning churchgoers.

The effects of nasty or poorly chosen words can be devastating, bringing hurtful stings in the short run and life-lasting discouragement in the long. I can vividly recall the unkind words of a fourth grade classmate who mockingly pointed out my overweight condition when I was tagged out in a schoolyard kickball game. Then there was the scathing rebuke of a choir member who didn't like my direction for the choir to sing the hymns from the choir loft when no special anthem had been scheduled for the service. Those two episodes are etched with acid on the scenes of my memory.

Personally, I want my words, both spoken and written, to be life-giving, life-affirming, life-enriching and a source of joy. Are they? Or are they an excuse others might use to avoid the things that are most real and important to me?

I have a writing mentor who has referred to me as an idealist. In a way, this description might have been used euphemistically, when she really meant, "heavy-handed and blunt." Christians so often deal in absolutes when it comes to truth, goodness and beauty, it is very easy for us to slip into an ugly, pontificating, absolut-ist mode, insisting (maybe not in so many words, but by implication) that our hearers/readers ought to agree or go along with our point of view, simply because it is ours.

Actually, even referring to oneself as a Christian at all, can come across to others as a claim to an exemption from human weaknesses and sinfulness. I have to remind myself (and should more than I do) that Christ Himself didn't go around touting his own authority or His sinlessness or His Sonship. In fact, when demons identified Him as the "Holy One of God," Jesus told them to be quiet! Mostly, Jesus simply taught the truths about God's kingdom, pointed people to His Father, and let His words and works speak for themselves.

This misunderstanding of the designation "Christian" has been a problem for a long time, I'm sure, and not simply because people are blind to the truths of sin, confession, repentance and forgiveness. People misunderstand it because so many folks so designated have spoken and written in ways that were unlovely and unloving. If I've ever come across that way to you, dear reader, please forgive me.

And, furthermore, you have my permission and my encouragement to "bring me up on charges" anytime you feel personally wounded, affronted or misrepresented by anything I write. Please let me know so I can correct the matter.

If I'm not representing my Lord in a way that is true, good, and lovely, I have no business writing and publishing this stuff at all. I mean that.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Admirations

Admire the pagans of this world
who pour themselves into nature-love,
assuring themselves the stars are kind...
Children of earth snuggle up to Mother,
rest and slumber in Her sweet embrace...
by chance awakening in a conqueror's chains,
stirred or abused by forbidden lust,
or cut down by descending fire.
Eternal hope, though, springs anew
should Fate spare 'til winter's end.

Admire the Nietzsches of this world
who follow philosophy to its ending,
bending no knee except to passion...
Children of Kant the Great
(he who woke to play with Hume's viper)
create nothingness out of a good Creation,
repaying in kind the denied deity,
sleeping in nightmares while awake...
laughing at love...sneering at hope...
furred with hubris against endless winter.

O admire, man of power!
O admire, woman of wonder!
Admire those journeying into dreams...
Admire them like shades on a screen,
but do not bend your knee or swear allegiance,
for the prophet says: in the end you shall be
like your idols.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

"God Shed His Grace on Thee"

America the Beautiful is undoubtedly one of the most wondrous American poems ever penned. According to a Super Bowl ad for Coca Cola, it is a song widely sung in many foreign tongues. This current controversial phenomenon has got me thinking about the ideas expressed in Katharine Lee Bates' poem, as well as the question of what constitutes genuine American culture.

Why would I consider it a threat to have people of other languages singing a poem that lauds the blessings and best aspirations of my own land? After all, America was founded as a haven for immigrants and refugees from other countries. This is one of the attributes that makes the USA unique among the nations of the world.

Of course, upon reflection, I do have to admit that much of our genuine American heritage has been, and continues to be, under attack, not only by foreign powers, but even by leaders and institutions that formerly could be trusted to uphold, cherish and applaud that heritage. Much of the entertainment and info media, representatives and jurists in our government, even many churches and civic organizations are shying away from a full-bodied patriotism, if not actually treating such sentiments as ridiculous and hopeless anachronisms.

One of the reasons I particularly love Bates' poem is the sense of both gratitude and realism permeating its imagery. This was no flowery, doggerel-choked Valentine composed while wearing rose-colored glasses, and the writer was no cockeyed optimist. America the Beautiful is, rather, a fervent prayer, reportedly written on the occasion of Bates' personal visit to Pike's Peak in Colorado, where she was impressed by the grandeur of the surrounding countryside.

Taken aback not only by the majesty of "spacious skies" and "purple mountains," but also by the scenes of farmers' labors ("waves of grain"..."fruited plain"), she was moved to set a heartfelt appeal to Heaven in verse: "[may] God shed His grace on Thee." This isn't a statement of something that had occurred already (not "God HAS shed"), but clearly a hope and yearning for divine grace to be poured out upon an already blessed land, coinciding with the following petition: "and [may He] crown Thy good with brotherhood" (not "crowned," but, "crown"--present tense).

"Brotherhood" is a telling request, especially in a land that had so recently been torn by civil war, and that conflict so closely tied to the scourge and abolition of slavery in our union. The writer was doubtless mindful not only of America's beauty, but of her blemishes as well.

From the manifest beauty and bounty of our land, Bates moves on to praise the splendor of America's character, which, to her, is embodied by the Pilgrims who braved the perils of carving out a new civilization when faced with a hostile "wilderness."

The following stanza mentions the nation's "heroes." Here is a part of our heritage where modern-day attacks are most obvious and most keenly felt. Few things can define a people's mindset and spirit as clearly as do its heroes--its "idols," as it were. Bates' heroic flames--those whom she considers to be facets of the nation's beauty--are "proved" not on the silver screen or the athletic field, not in the classroom or the boardroom, but on the battlefield.

"Liberating strife" was something close to the heart of most Americans in her day. There is, and was then, an everyday kind of heroism--those who strive for a better life for themselves and their children. But precious few actually "prove" their surpassing love for country and countrymen by committing themselves, body and soul, to securing and standing guard over our precious freedoms.

"And mercy more than life"--This line brings into view the unique character of the American soldier among the soldiers of the world and of the past. How does one exercise "mercy" on the field of armed conflict? First of all, by not fighting unless the need is forced upon you. And, secondly, by seeking victory as a means of achieving a just and genuine peace. Ideally, the US armed forces do battle in order to maintain security for our citizens and peaceful relations with neighboring countries, not for conquest or retribution.

Of course, there are episodes where foreign conflicts have been ill-advised or even disastrous, but love of "mercy more than life" still remains a fitting requirement for our true heroes. When the blood of battle is on a warrior's hands, all the more reason the soldier should be able to return home with a clear conscience, knowing that there had been no other course to take toward peace. A military has a culture all its own, but respect for, and gratitude for, our fallen and living heroes is definitely a cornerstone of our genuine culture as Americans.

"God mend Thine every flaw"--Again, what a poignant line, and how apropos in today's troubled and pessimistic era. Nations, every bit as much as individuals, are guilty of sinning against God, other nations, and their own citizens. Bates certainly understands this--knows that freedom, in the hands of fallen sinners, is a double-edged sword. Even the most industrious worker is tempted by sloth or ingratitude...the greed of CEOs and entrepreneurs can overtake and supersede their good intentions of free enterprise and philanthropy...our freely elected officials get caught siphoning off public funds for nefarious ends. The "flaws" in our nation's tapestry are legion, and all are in need of divine "mending."

The two mending needles Bates mentions, "self-control" and "law," are so needful in our own day, it hardly needs mentioning. God is the author of what our founders called "inalienable rights...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Only God can supply us with the grace to mend our souls when we take those liberties and abuse them. Especially should WE be mindful of what our "right" to privacy and "freedom of choice" have meant for untold millions of unborn babies, poisoned and tortured and dismembered in their mothers' wombs...May God forgive and mend all our souls!

Bates' closing stanza takes her prayer for America from the battlefields and the challenges of the present to the vision she and our founders had of the nation's future. They shared a "patriot dream that sees beyond the years" into the ideal, eternal age. To them, the ideal of America was truly "one nation under God," a nation our Creator would deem worthy to bless for the beauty, not just of its topography and generosity and justness of governance, not merely for its heroism and the kindness of its citizens...but the beauty of its pure devotion to a heavenly vision.

America, to them, wasn't some idol carved from a virgin wilderness to the glory of mankind, but a means to an even greater end. A handmaiden for the Lord of the nations to grace with His message of a glorious future kingdom, filled with "alabaster cities," devoid of "human tears." This is no jingoistic manifest destiny of American triumphalism...It is literally the "Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ." Bates' dream, our founders' dream, the true American dream, is for every citizen of our land to somehow enter that ultimate City not made by human hands. They dreamt that "all success" would be "nobleness" (the ultimate good as defined by a holy Lawgiver), and "every gain divine"--as Paul said when faced with his life's end, "For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

May our great God, the Refiner of hearts and of nations, burn away the dross of our sin and selfishness and, by the grace found in His Son Jesus Christ, renew all our "patriot dreams" for the glory of His ultimate, eternal kingdom.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Escapade

My mind, I fear, flirts with insanity...
so plagued by doubt, like all humanity,
and siren-sung by Faires of Vanity,
while devil-dogged I pant for some relief--
the madness haunting me called “unbelief.”

The scroll of nature scriven front and back...
with flames of reason making plain each track,
and words prophetic heaped upon this stack...
Why then this headlong foray into grief--
unreasoning, self-blinding unbelief?

"Look at this fruit,” the serpent said to Eve.
“Behold its shape...what wisdom it could give!
You shall not die...like gods, God’s bondage leave!”
Thus, Eve’s and Adam’s innocence, so brief,
was washed away by waves of unbelief.

Since then, I and my brothers die like flies;
we lap the snake-oil up of Satan’s lies
and, like Eve, deem it happy, safe and wise
to hail Sin’s mastery...become its fief...
only to drown true joy with unbelief.

New hearts we need--new power and new birth.
With heaven’s joys a Savior stooped to earth
to earn us what true righteousness is worth
and give to sinners, of whom I am chief,
deliverance from the scourge of unbelief.

Friday, February 7, 2014

Handling the Whole Truth


The truth is of a piece ... in fact, it is a Person. Jesus said, “I am the truth.” We might view Jesus of Nazareth as the most egocentric teacher who ever taught; so many of His lessons began with the words “I am.”

Throughout the Bible we encounter a God who takes the truth very seriously--even personally. The way He requires His people to speak and honor truth is encapsulated in one of the Ten Commandments: “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” In the litany of sinners that are doomed to the lake of fire in Revelation, “all liars” are included along with adulterers and murderers.

Human beings are infamous for their denial, twisting, shading, prevaricating and suppressing of what they know to be true. Jesus promised those who would follow after Him, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” The truth concerning Jesus Himself is the truth that leads us to freedom.

When Jack Nicholson’s character sat on the witness stand in the film A Few Good Men, he famously shouted out at Tom Cruise, “You can’t HANDLE the truth!!” The same can be said about most people in Jesus’ original audience--those who rejected His claims of authority and savior-hood--and, sadly, it can be aimed at most people in our day as well.

Most people content themselves with a noxious stewpot full of half-truths, misconceptions and outright lies when it comes to the eternal questions and their own ultimate purpose and destiny. Rather than taking God and God’s only Son at their word, believing, accepting and acting upon it, we prefer to compose our own personal versions of truth--a kind of “truth to fit us.” We object to a God of love holding His creatures accountable for their sin, even consigning many of then to eternal punishment. Our spirits rebel against that biblical doctrine, and so we tell ourselves that, “to me, God is totally, unconditionally loving and wouldn’t really punish anyone. After all, no one really believes in hell anymore.” This is only one obvious example of how we render truth palatable.

But there is an absolute truth, one not subject to change or popular approval. It is not a batch of doughy putty we can mold and sculpt to fit our preferences. It is a solid Rock, so hard and rooted so deep, no tide of mankind’s vacillating opinions can ever erode it. As we blithely navigate our boats through the waves of our lives, we are all destined to encounter the Rock of Truth at some point, either in this life or in the life to come. Those who refuse to acknowledge this ultimate Truth and take refuge in its sheltering crags, will at the end come crashing violently into it, at great loss.

Did you ever notice there is usually a good and bad side to most people, objects and activities in this life? Many a food tastes wonderful, but eating too much of it gives one a bellyache. Many of our favorite, engaging teachers were also the most demanding and unyielding. The most charming and exciting games can become boring and predictable after several hours. Work can be both fulfilling and frustrating hour by hour. It seems that nothing is either ALL positive or ALL negative...even Hitler was good at hanging wallpaper!

Truth is like that. Because of my rebellious nature and selfish preferences, I view the truth many times as distasteful, inconvenient, harsh and joyless. And, because God created me and knows me better than I know myself, He is aware of my ambivalence vis a vis what is true. My aversion to the Wholeness of Truth is no surprise to Him; in fact, much of the Bible addresses this.

The Bible depicts a wayward human race that avoids and evades the truth again and again. Even the favored, chosen Hebrew people, to whom God so clearly revealed Himself by dreams, signs, wonders, visions, prophets, writings, thunder and lightning--even they chose to turn away after man-made idols and false conceptions about the true God.

Interestingly, God’s reaction to this waywardness wasn’t to be flexible, re-group, rethink, resort to plan B, or take on a grandfatherly “boys will be boys” attitude. He didn’t poll His angels and other creatures and bend the truth to fit the times. Rather, He called out to the self-deceived truth-breakers, “Repent, turn back to Me and be reconciled. Come, let us reason together...though your sins be as scarlet, they can be as white as snow.” Both Jesus and the preachers in the New Testament echo this theme: “Repent, turn from the false, come back to the Truth, believe it, embrace it, surrender to it, be saved and set free by it.”

God’s name for Himself is the Hebrew tetragrammaton YHWH--many pronounce it “Yahweh”--and it means “I am.” There was a time in the eternal past, before anything else existed, when all there was, was God the Three in One. He Himself is the I Am--the ultimate Truth that has always been and Has called you and me and all else into being. If you and I owe anyone anything, we owe our allegiance, gratitude and undying love to the Truth...the Whole Truth...the Truth Who Is.

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Philosophy and Christian Truth - Part 2

Plato and Christian Truth
 

In all of the challenges that present themselves to the minds of human beings, the nature of man himself is perhaps the most perplexing. This is one of the reasons that ancient thinkers dealt not only with the nature of the material world of plants, animals, elements, etc., but also and especially with the non-material realm: the world of metaphysics.
 

If I am piloting a submarine exploring the depths of the sea, there are several ways I can gather information about the undersea world: I can look out of the viewports, I can use sonar, I can press my ear to the hull and listen very hard, I can use external video cameras and microphones.

But what if the information I’m gathering is interfered with by some outside force? What if an enemy agent or a practical joker is rigging the viewports so that they show me a prerecorded image? What if a huge crane has taken me out of the ocean and put me in a huge tank somewhere on dry land? What if there is someone on the hull making faked wildlife sounds into the microphones?

We can compare the human being to a “submarine” exploring his or her environment: to gather information each of us uses our five senses--sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Once the information is gathered, we somehow reason out the nature of what it is we have observed with our senses. Normally we must trust our five senses to give us accurate data to work from.

But thinkers like Parmenides and Heraclitus weren’t content to merely trust their senses to give them true knowledge. Parmenides insisted that everything that truly exists must, in some sense, be permanent--it must have being. Heraclitus, on the other hand, pointed out that everything we observe is in the process of changing all the time--it is becoming. Our senses themselves undergo changes: nearsightedness, hardness of hearing, dullness of taste, tiredness, disease, etc. all affect our senses. Plus, there is never any guarantee that the messages the objects we observe are sending us are accurate and not being “rigged” by some outside force.

If you are familiar with the Matrix film series, you’ll recall the plot device: an alien race had conquered mankind and hooked every human being up to a computer program that gave them the illusion of an outside reality. Everything they thought they were experiencing with their five senses was really a lie projected by this program into their brains. This carries the question of how our minds determine what is true to an absurd extreme, but it touches on one of the goals that all philosophers have struggled with: the nature of knowledge, or, epistemology.

Plato, a student of Socrates, developed a system of thought that attempted to resolve the conflict between being and becoming. At the same time, he hoped to find an adequate understanding of how we come to possess true knowledge. Interestingly, much of his thought was influenced by his experience with the followers of Pythagoras, who believed in reincarnation--that our souls are born and reborn over and over in various forms.

What Plato taught was that man’s soul is composed of three parts: reason, spirit and appetite. When he is born, his soul comes into his body from an ideal realm, what Plato called the world of ideas. Man’s soul arrives already equipped with the true knowledge of this ideal realm. That realm of ideas contains all of the objects we encounter here in this material world, only those objects are in ideal form. For example, in this world we encounter many different chairs. But in the ideal world, there is an ideal chair that embodies the essence of chair-ness. Because my soul retains the knowledge of this ideal chair, I am able to recognize its essence in the material chairs I encounter here.

Plato’s system of two worlds meant that our knowledge of the ideal realm is the only true knowledge we have access to. All of our “knowledge” of the material, physical world is only a shadowy reflection of the ideal world and really only amounts to opinion (or worse, deception). He insisted that the mind was meant to ponder the true, ideal nature of truth and reality, not to be bogged down with the imperfect world of physical objects and carnal appetites. Plato’s concept of “god” was the ultimate, ideal goodness that inhabits the ideal realm and is totally separate from the physical realm.

For the Christian, this meant a challenging obstacle in the Greek thought of the first century A.D. Platonic philosophy caused a continuing denigration of the physical world, considering the human body to be unworthy and soiled. To suggest that the ideal God would stoop to dwell in a human form (the incarnation) was ludicrous to them.

But the Bible insists that God not only created and blessed the physical world, but fully intends to totally recreate and redeem it through His eternal plan. It also teaches that God has revealed reliable truth, by His written word, and by the observable natural world--truth that is accessible to the inquiring mind by means of our senses...truth that can be used by His Spirit to lead us to eternal salvation!

Part 1 of this series:
http://markaikins.blogspot.com/2014/01/early-greek-ideas-and-christian.html