Gadfly's Muse

The Shadow of Greatness...

[ShadowOfGreatness, 2015]

Psalm 39:6 (NKJV)

⁶ Surely every man walks about like a shadow; Surely they busy themselves in vain; He heaps up riches, And does not know who will gather them.

The scene appeared to be composed from irony.   The shadow of the intact, imposing and virtually untouched tower fell across the ruins of what was left of its identical mate.  "This is what you once were... look at you now!" seemed to be the whisper of the breeze.  Where once you stood mighty, the safe haven of a deposed queen, now you cannot even prevent the field rats from foraging in your cellars.   The shadow of greatness only highlighted the humiliation.

Cromwell's army did this, intentionally destroying only this section of the castle so that its military value was denied, knowing that it would be too costly to ever rebuild, and so the ruins are a testimony to the ultimate futility of fallen man's aspirations to lasting greatness.  

Surely man does "busy himself in vain" as the Psalmist declares.  The most he can reasonably expect is to pass as a shadow across his assigned space in time and leave behind some monument to his existence, which, in time, will crumble away.   No matter how self-important we deem ourselves to be, no matter how wise and far seeing and forceful our character, time will humble us.  No matter how laudable our achievements, or the greatness of our fame, the mouthed praise of our contemporaries  will be lost in obscurity... like this castle, lonely in its surroundings, sought out only by those who give it passing notice.

Each of us live in the shadow of greatness and our lives, in more ways than we like to admit, are just crumbling rock and mortar that highlight our futile ambitions.

Adam was great... and he fell.... and all of mankind, like these remaining walls, can do little more that stand in the shadow of what he was.  This is man's natural fallen condition.

But there was, and is, another Adam and His greatness far exceeded and exceeds that of our first parent.  Though we exist in this fallen world bearing the shame of Adam's shadow, yet the second Adam came to bring light... and light chases away shadows.  Like Nehemiah, the Lord Jesus Christ came to rebuild the walls of His city Jerusalem, His Church, and is doing so.  Where man's fallen condition negates any hope of greatness, of stability, of lasting significance, because of Adam's shadow, Jesus came to alter that entire image.  Another, greater, city or castle is being built.  The stones are being gathered together and the mortar that seals them in place will last for eternity.  No Cromwell, no pride of man, no anger of Satan can overcome these walls.  There will be no more "shadows" of greatness only the living Presence of Light itself.

It is easy to look upon the world about us and be overcome by weeping.  As the aged men wept at the building of the second temple because it was but a shadow of Solomon's glory, so we weep as inept, blundering leaders and vain philosophies bring ruin on what was to be a beacon of light to the weary and downtrodden of the world.  But that is only part of the story and the shadow should remind us... that shadows only exist when the light is being obstructed.  Here is where we regain our hope, renew our confidence and get on with God's work of rebuilding the walls.  What God is doing will not pass, nor crumble, nor fail.  

The shadow on the wall reminds us that it is easy be busy in vain and that our works will be tried, as in a furnace, and only those things of eternal value will remain.  There is where our energies and our hopes are to be directed.

The Millennial Work Ethic (?)

[Snowmaggedon, 2016]

Published in the Baltimore Sun, opinion page, today, 29 Jan 2016 [Read full article here]

"So, when you tell me I can't work from home; when you tell me I can't have more time off; when you tell me I'll only be allowed six weeks of unpaid maternity leave, I'll tell you good-bye. Because when I grew up, people told me I could be anything. They told me I didn't have to settle for "good enough." They told me that there are many opportunities out there, and if I leave a job, another job will be waiting for me where I can be better and stronger."

....

We are the voices you hear now. We were quiet at first, but we are growing louder, and soon you will hear us shouting from the tops of mountains. As millennials, we fight to make our world fair. We see injustice and we act. We have been raised to know that we matter; each life matters. We demand better care, better government, better education, better technology, better food and better working conditions. And you will fade and we will brighten as your generation did in your time. Now it is our time.

Watch me. I will rise to a new height. I am a millennial.

OK, let me start off by saying I knew a man once who very much incarnated these attitudes.  He was highly skilled vocationally and one of the most intelligent men I have ever known.  The problem was that he never held a job very long.  If the boss didn't treat him right or if he didn't like this or that about the people with whom he worked, he would basically tell them where they could go, how they could get there and what to do when they arrived, and walk out.  Why?  Because he was highly skilled and very intelligent, there was always "another job ... waiting for me."  He much preferred to hang out with his friends down at the local "joint" (as we called bars down South), going hunting, fishing, etc.  That man died penniless, with little to show for his life other than four kids who learned from his (negative) example: (1) that life is not all about you... (2) that productive work is or should be a large part of a human being's self-identity and that (3) if there is not a higher value present in your life, one that requires self-sacrifice and which defines objective, measurable goals that are achievable through perseverance and persistence, then there will be a certain emptiness to your existence that warm, fuzzy, companionship simply will not fill.

I was one of those four kids.

As a reaction to an overly materialistic, workaholic "other" extreme, the Millennial view expressed in the quote above has some things to commend it.  Yes, there is more to life than work and balance must be achieved in it.  I wonder, however, if this author (authoress?) recognizes the presumptions upon which her confident and somewhat arrogant assertions are made.  

"There will always be another job waiting for me"... really?  I grew up in the booming fifties and sixties... jobs were plentiful and America was going somewhere.  But the generation that held most of those jobs while I was growing up were themselves shaped by the Great Depression and WWII.  They had come of age during the Roaring Twenties when jobs were plentiful and another set of "millennials" pretty much believed and expressed just what this woman writes.  They thought that way right up to 1929 and then they stopped thinking that way entirely.  

How many of those walking the bread lines would have demanded the kind of consideration this woman expresses?  

The problem I see lies not with these Millennials but with the self-admitted expectations that their parents inculcated in them.  "They told me I didn't have to settle for "good enough."  Does she not see that the current economic house of cards that defines our social order at this time can come down on our heads at any moment?  Does she not understand that the interlocking global economy removes her from immediate control of her destiny and, even worse, from the absolute certainty that she will be able to provide for her kids in it?  

World War II was the last domino to fall in the chain of events growing out of the stock market crash in 1929.  Adolf Hitler's rise to power was only possible during the chaos in Germany caused by banks in the US calling in their international loans in a desperate attempt to remain solvent themselves.  Wars are always fought for economic reasons at some level and mayhem is the social cancer that often accompanies desperate fights for survival.  

God willing, the Millennials may never have to unlearn the pleasant fairy tales their parents put in their brains.  God willing they may never have to watch their mother work at whatever job she could get to put food on the table.  God willing they may not have to urgently teach their own children that you never give up a job unless a better one is already in hand, because having a job is a privilege and not a right... and employers have their own job to do and that may mean that they cannot give you everything you want.  

God willing, perhaps the warm and fuzzy era will continue yet a while longer.

But I fear, sooner or later, a future generation will have to learn lessons that previous generations had to learn with great difficulty.

Related articles

The Greatest Generation: STB - RIP

Why? Good Question!

You've Got Male (?)

A Trillioneth of A Trillioneth of A Trillioneth of a Second.....

More Craziness....

"IF".... It all depends on that....

[Picture Lake, WA: 2015, Dave Johanson]

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling, "If", 1943

 

Proverbs 2:3–5 (NKJV)

³ Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, ⁴ If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; ⁵ Then you will understand the fear of the Lord, And find the knowledge of God.

 

"IF" is a big word, if not in size yet in impact.

 

The world is in a very dangerous place right now I think.  Certainly it has been dangerous before, especially in 1943 when Kipling wrote those verses, but that doesn't give a great deal of comfort.  As we gaze about us it appears that "the universe is spinning out of control" to use an old, trite and comedic line.  Instability is the order of the day in global and national politics, uncertainty and apprehension set the tone for our economic predictions, social values are shifting in what appears an unprecedented fashion, the old "bed-rock" institutions of marriage, family, school, personal and corporate pride have eroded before our eyes.  People are nervous and therefore prone to grasping at straws or losing themselves in fleeting moments of distraction.  "Pessimistic cynicism" prevails among our youth where there ought to be the most optimism.  "The times, they are a changin' " all right but not with Dylan's fundamental assumption that "for the better" is ahead.

 

Of course I am not about to value Kipling's as equal with God's Word in any way, but the two quotes above have something in common I think.  Both call us to a certain quietness in our souls in the midst of chaos.  Both point us toward "wisdom" as a place of refuge, serenity, calm... like the image of the lake above.  Kipling's poem begins with the famous and oft quoted line "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming you...", and he reminds us that panic is contagious.  Whatever danger lurks around the corner... whether it is political or economic catastrophe brought on by reckless policies pursued by vain leaders, or murderous violence spreading through the ever thinning lines of domestic or military defenses, or devastating attacks by cyber criminals operating with near impunity under the umbrellas of governments opposed to our prosperity... yet there is a place of quiet rest where perspective and thus strategy can be gained.

 

In Scripture "wisdom" is always practical not theoretical.  "Wisdom" is the art of living well, no matter what, because it is able to see the pathway that we, individually, are to walk, even through a minefield.  The writer of the proverb calls us to "cry out for discernment", not as a passing thought, not in the same manner that a soldier, hunkered down in his foxhole cries out "Oh God, help me" as the artillery shells rain down around him.  No, "crying out to God" for discernment takes place when we sit and meditate, gaze out at the calm, fog kissed pond, and lift our hearts in contemplation to the Source of all good things.  It involves taking the worries of our heart, one by one, and placing them on the altar before His throne and looking at them, again, each in its turn, with Him in the background.  It means opening our hearts to the murmuring Holy Spirit during our contemplation, as the things that so worry us take on a different perspective.  It is recognizing threats, first,  as challenges and then as opportunities.

 

I worry about my kids' and their families.  I sometimes grieve at the hope that has departed from the land and the way it infects or threatens to infect my grand-children.  I see the way people distance themselves from "others" and how that "friendliness" which is so characteristic of a Southern upbringing is being lost.  I worry about these things, and then I think about these things, and then I look for a place to draw aside and take them before the Lord.  

 

Somehow, after sitting and gazing at a place of quiet rest, "far from the madding (frenzied)  crowd's ignoble strife"¹, wisdom does prevail... the heart beat slows to its healthy beat... the adrenaline stops its heady rush... and impulse gives way to purpose.  "If" we can remember this, in the midst of all the craziness, perhaps the world will not ultimately be as dangerous as we thought.

 

¹[quote from Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written In A Country Courtyard" - the net effect of which fits with Proverbs and Kipling above]

Related articles

Preparation for Worship: Peace on Earth...

Kingdom Will Be Done and Such....

Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem - And Modern Israel.....

It was not exactly as we see it now......

Concerning Tomorrow: Well, You Never Know....

Refreshing Stream...

Foolish to the End....

Trump: The Darling of Evangelicals?

[Titmouse, 2015]

Jerry Falwell Endorses Donald Trump - Atlantic Article (Here)

"Trump is a Presbyterian who mangles attempts at biblical references"

There comes a point when I have to wonder "what in the world is that guy thinking?"

Such is the case with Jerry Falwell,jr's recent foray into politics.  When you have to preface your endorsement with the following caveat: "“The talents, abilities, and experience required to lead a nation might not always line up with those needed to run a church or lead a congregation,” then you are already conceding quite a bit.  

Yes, on the face of it, leading a church does call for a higher focus than leading a nation.  It calls for a sense of personal accountability, not only for the physical welfare, but for the spiritual flourishing of the individuals in the congregation as well as the whole.  The writer of Hebrews reminds us that elders will give account to God for the souls that were placed in their care.  Running a nation is probably less frightening when you think about it.

But, what Falwell is essentially saying here, is that we cannot hold our Presidential candidate, at least not this one, to the same moral standard that we expect of a church leader.  He's not just talking about "making deals" and promoting business... he's saying that we have to cut this man some slack in other areas.  We should not require that he exhibit the same kind of sustained track record that a church leader should possess.

Let's review the facts a bit. 

Any man who has divorced two wives, had widely publicized affairs during those marriages, and now married to a third, should at least raise doubts about his intention to keep any vows he might take.  

He calls himself a protestant Christian, a Presbyterian (of the Norman Vincent Peale) variety.  He very graciously, in his mind at least, states that he has had "a very good relationship with the church over the years."  He thinks his religion " is a wonderful thing."  Now the reason why this comes up is because he is courting the evangelical vote... period.  When Paul said that "I become all things to all men so that by any means I may win some" - this is not what he had in mind.  If Trump were honest he would simply tell Evangelicals - "Look, I don't take this Bible thing as seriously as you do... but I respect you... and I will reverse the hostility that the current administration has shown to you."  If he did that then at least he wouldn't be appearing hypocritical.  But as it is, how can the Christian church, and Evangelical leaders, endorse him and thereby encourage those who look to them for guidance to follow their lead?

A few years back Republicans took John Kerry to task for his "flip-flops" on major issues (the war in iraq, tax cuts, medical marrijuana, gay marriage, welfare reform and Nafta).  Compared to Donald Trump, Kerry is the rock of Gibraltar.   He  was a Republican from 1987–99. He then switched to the Reform Party from 1999–2001. From 2001–09 he was a Democrat again, and switched to the Republican Party again from 2009–11. An independent from 2011–12, he returned to the Republican Party where he has remained from 2012–present. (from Wikipedia) This should at least give a person pause.  This is a man who follows whatever breeze happens to be blowing at the moment.  

All this is to say that I see no grounds here for a major Christian endorsement of this man.  If, as private individuals, Christians look at who is out there, the tide of public opinion and the social temper, and decide to vote for him... essentially shaking our heads in disgust as we do so... then, OK.  But let's not deceive ourselves.  We need to be wise as serpents during this season.  We cannot allow ourselves to be anything but cleared eyed about this man even if it comes down to the choice to vote for him rather than either of the two major Democrats that are running.  

He is riding a wave of passion and stoking it up for all its worth.  Nothing he has said thus far tends to diminish my concern that it will the United States of Trump that he advances during his presidency... and the rest of us, well, perhaps we might get a few crumbs from the table, and that is about it.

Related articles

Trump Blows Bible Verse at Meeting With Evangelicals | Mix 96

Thinking About the Poor....

Education: Where's It Mostly Happening?

[Sunrise, 2016]

1Chron. 27:32 Also Jonathan, David’s uncle, was a counselor, a man of understanding, and a scribe; and Jehiel the son of Hachmoni tutored the king’s sons.

Ref. Smith, James K. A., "Desiring the Kingdom", (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009)

There came a point, many years ago, when I first dimly perceived that people aren't determined, first and foremost, by the ideas they hold to be true.  This was a shocking, and somewhat dismaying, realization on my part.  I grew up naive and idealistic beyond the norm and one of the things that I sincerely held, was that truth was sovereignly powerful to shape people's lives.  I, rightly or wrongly, held this to be true about myself and therefore, of course, it must hold for every one.  I thought: if you just teach kids, teenagers, adults, whatever, the truth, then their lives will conform to that truth.  

Then reality set in.  

I don't know how old I was when I first encountered the response: "That may be true but I don't believe it!"  Now here is the paradox - how can someone accept the fact that something may be true and not undertake to discover whether it is or not?  Take an extreme example.  Someone says, "The building is on fire!"  - who would be content to say "That may be true but I don't believe it!" and leave it there?  If something may be true, and the ramifications of that truth are important, what kind of person would simply "gaff" it off and go on in ignorance of its truth value or not?

Apparently a great number fall into this category.

It was at this point that I began to rethink all I had ever taken for granted about education and, most importantly, evangelism.

I began to see that the relationship between the heart and the head is NOT such that the head determines what the heart will love!  There is a much more complex relationship in play.  If a person simply does not want something to be true then, in many cases, they will not embrace it as such even if by many and varied demonstrations its truthfulness is logically undeniable.  

Furthermore there is no absolute linkage between what a person holds to be true intellectually and the conduct of their lives.  I saw this in myself and I saw it in others.  Truth is compelling only when the "love of truth" is the prior passion.  

Smith's book, referenced above, is addressed to this same conundrum. He calls us to rethink the whole idea of "Christian Education" as a move away from being preoccupied with a "Christian World View" with its various tenets and propositional statements.  Not that those things must be abandoned, far from it, but only that communicating those tenets is not the first object.  What Smith proposes is that we shift our perspective and see that "education" is far more comprehensive than class room activities and its goal is first and foremost, "character formation" not "skill" or "intellectual knowledge" transfer.  Smith calls us to look at where and how "education" in our culture mostly happens. He points to our malls, our media, our cultural pressures.  He calls us to open our eyes, "Matrix" style, and see that these things do not come "at us" intellectually.... they do not shape us by saying "here's an idea, evaluate it logically and see that it is true!"  No, there is a "liturgy" to the beating drums of culture around us.  These forces funnel our thoughts, our pathways, our choices in given directions by a nearly subliminal appeal.  Smith's perspective helps us see that we are immersed in the religion of Babylon and that worship of Baal takes many forms and the love of Mammon is cultivated more by giving us things to love than things to believe.

Smith is calling us back to an ancient understanding.  The Bible and the ancient Classical writers were agreed on this one approach.  "Tutoring" (paideusis)  is first and foremost about "civilizing" the soul, fitting a person with the appropriate inclinations, desires, values, and motivations, such that he or she will be equipped to live, love and act virtuously.  Of course the Bible and the Classical thinkers differ substantially in what it means to be a 'citizen' and even what 'city' a person is to inhabit.  But the central point is that education is far more than just being taught the facts and propositional truths.  It is rather aimed at shaping the person's heart to love those things.

It was well understood that this shaping process is almost entirely relational.  Jesus taught His disciples to love the Kingdom He was bringing, by walking with them, showing them the Kingdom, opening their eyes by inspiring their hearts.  They had to "look and see" that it was good and often times, the understanding of truth, propositionally, followed, not preceeded, this "seeing."  The power of the Kingdom and the Holy Spirit was experienced, the sweetness of Christian fellowship was tasted, the desire to "know" was cultivated, through a warm, personal, living relationship that was mutually important.  This is education in its broadest form.

Our ideas of "education" have departed from this to a large extent.  The scientist in his or her white coat has somehow influenced us to think of education as "clinical", the detached observation, deduction and summarizing conclusion methodology that makes "truth" an object.  "Truth" is a Person, I have come to understand a bit more clearly, and so are those who are seeking "truth."  Communication of truth has to be experienced as well as intellectually grasped, or it is not communicated at all.

Graphic Images...

[Our House, 2016]

Genesis 15:9–21 (NKJV)

⁹ So He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰ Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. ¹¹ And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

¹² Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. ¹⁴ And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

¹⁷ And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. ¹⁸ On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying:  “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates—¹⁹ the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, ²⁰ the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, ²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

Back when I was first trying to do something more with photography than "point and shoot and hope for the best", my friend Dave, who's taken it seriously from the time of the great deluge, sent me one of his images.  I noted that there had been quite a bit of image manipulation done on it and remarked that it was not "natural."  I'll never forget his answer:  "Sometimes Mother Nature needs a little help."  Somewhere along the way since then I have come to love "graphic image" depictions.  An ordinary photo can be adjusted to look like a pen-and-ink, or a architect's rendering, or just about anything.  I still like 'natural' images and soft images and other forms, but my default preference I suppose, is the "graphic" depiction.

I think that God sometimes chooses graphic images also for the same, but much more holy, reason than I.  You may not particularly like the effect but it's not easy to just pass it by... it tends to fix the eye on what is before you and make the details claim your attention.

Certainly this is evident in God's covenant with Abram (hereafter Abraham).  What can be more "graphic" than killing five animals, ranging from very expensive to quite common, splitting them in two (except for the  birds) and laying them out on the ground?  What could be more nerve racking than to sit there for hours, shooing away the birds, looking at those carcasses and wondering what in the world God was going to do.  What could be more terrifying than to be fixed in a trance, unable to move a muscle, helpless (as we all are) before the supernatural power that was moving in the air that night?  And then, in "horror" to have a great darkness fall on us... the sense of tumbling down a black hole comes to mind... as the world closed in, the stars and the moon blotted from sight, and the "awful" voice of God begins to be heard.

How graphic is that?

But it was entirely appropriate for God's words, spoken that night, were to be the foundation on which mankind, at last, was to understand the grace and purpose of God.  The "darkness" that came upon Abram that night was symbolic of the darkness that had gripped mankind since Adam fell.  We knew that God had made a promise, that a seed of the woman would come, and that Satan and the darkness would somehow be defeated.  But when, and by whom, and where and to what ends?  For all practical purposes fallen mankind was groping in the dark.  And then, God spoke.

It is through your seed, Abram, that all the nations of the earth will be blessed, for I will be your exceedingly great reward.  I will settle your descendants in this land... this very land... and they will grow to a mighty nation... and, my earlier promise to you (ch. 12) will come through your son Isaac, not through the concubine's son.  This is my covenant with you, and with your descendants after you... forever.  And, through the image of the smoking pot, you will know that nothing can prevent me keeping this covenant promise, for I, who lives forever, would have to die for it to fail.  I would have to be treated as these animals have been treated, and this can never happen.

God's graphic image sealed itself in Abram's brain.  The cross of Jesus Christ is a direct result of that promise (as all God's promises are yea and amen in Him).  For it was on the cross that God proved how He could keep His promise to those who have the faith of Abraham and yet be, by nature, a child of wrath even as the rest.  It was the greatest graphic image of them all, that Cross, which sealed not only the forgiveness of our sins but the complete cleansing of them so that we bear them no more.  It was the Cross of Christ that graphically demonstrated how God could be both just and the justifier of those who believe in Christ.

Graphic images are not "unnatural" to my thinking anymore... they are just one more natural way of looking at our world.  God wants us to love graphic images also... those that He has blessed to our understanding anyway.  And there we should stand.

Related articles

Unclean, Unclean.....

Preparation for Worship: The Support We Need...

The Time of Singing Has Come...

Standing Tall....

The Great Leveller....

Thinking About the Poor....

No (real) News is Good News.....

Devotion For A Lazy Sabbath Morn....

[Sunrise After The Storm, 2016]

THIS MEDITATION IS INTENDED TO HAVE HANDEL'S HALLELUJAH CHORUS PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUZEtVbJT5c)

Psalm 92: A Song for the Sabbath Day.

¹ It is good to give thanks to the Lord, And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; ² To declare Your loving-kindness in the morning, And Your faithfulness every night, ³ On an instrument of ten strings, On the lute, And on the harp, With harmonious sound.

Yesterday was one of the absolute laziest days I have spent in recent memory.  If I had been smarter I would have rented a snowmobile or a dog sled or something and gone to where the photos were for there were many "out there" just waiting to be taken.  This morning is the Christian Sabbath, the Lord's day, a day of rest... but not a day of laziness and the rising sun spreading its rays across the pure white snow calls us to praise.

Our church is closed today for corporate worship but that doesn't mean united hearts cannot sing complementary praise though separated from immediate company.  It is the high privilege and duty of God's people to praise Him every morning and to declare His loving-kindness (His covenant faithfulness to bless His people) throughout the week.  How much more, having been reminded of His awesome power through the howling blizzard, to praise Him for preservation and hope.  

O Lord, thank you for bringing us through this storm.  We are mindful of how easily the beautiful whiteness could be marred by the charred frame of a burned out house had an electrical short ignited one.  We remember how a medical emergency might have claimed our lives because the EMT's were delayed.  We think of how a overloaded tree branch could have ruined our roofs.  Lord thank you for the blessings you have extended to us.

But Lord, we know that others were at risk... we know that lives were threatened on our highways... we pray for those, especially of your people, who this morning are fearing what today may bring.  We pray for those, especially your people, who are shivering in the cold, for whom the snow holds no allure.  We pray for those in our military, exampled by those guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, who shoulder arms and brave the temperature and do their duty.  We pray, Lord of the Sabbath, for a true Sabbath rest... a relieving of our anxiety, a calming assurance that you have not forgotten us, that you not only will save us unto eternity but that you will save us in these times.

On many instruments, Lord Jesus, your songs can be sung this morning, not just the ten stringed harp.  The Hallelujah Chorus can fill in though human mouths are not able to rise to the perfection with which your praise is proclaimed.... accept the intentions of our hearts, the sincerity to which we can rise, as our honest endeavor to join the angels in doxology.  

God our Father, Christ our Lord and Savior, and Holy Spirit our Comforter, give us this day, rest for our souls and energy for our bodies.  Keep your mercies ever in the forefront of our thoughts and showing mercy as the goal of our efforts.  Grant us, Triune God, Holy, Holy, Holy in all Your Person, that we may embrace  with joy, today, that You are our God and we are Your People, with all that entails...

And give us peace...

Through the privilege granted us in the Lord Jesus Christ

Amen.

Related articles

Preparation For Worship: Not Dead Yet....

Preparation For Worship: Meekly Inheriting

Standing Strong....

Wall of Winners

Touchy and Mean Tempered...

Preparation for Worship: The Support We Need...

Ye Monsters All....

Pleasant Places....

Preparation for Worship: My Heart's Desire....

Politically Correct & Totally Absurd

[Flower & Bee, 2015]

The Honorable Ray Maybus, Secretary of the Navy has issued a memo calling for an "update" on how to make titles and ratings in the US Navy more gender neutral.  [See HERE]

The status of "Midshipman" may very well be on its way out - as well as "Bosun's Mate" ( I assume), and all the other time honored, traditional titles by which men and women have been classified for hundreds of years.

It's actually been underway for quite a while.  As technology has progressed some ratings that I knew as a junior enlisted man prior to commissioning have been replaced by other titles that are completely genderless, thus "Radarman" (which is what I was) is lumped into the category "Electronics Technician."

Quite frankly, in the overwhelming majority of these cases I don't much care.  But when it comes to certain ones - among which are Midshipman & Bosun's Mate - I consider it just plain wrong to let them go.

These titles are tradition bound and history provoking categories that tie the present to the past in a good sense.  Midshipmen in the 1600's & 1700's could be as young as 10 or 12.  They were bunked in the "mid-ship" region of the ship just as the "top-men" (sailors who handled the very top sails on the old square riggers) bunked with the other sail handlers in the "fore-ship" berthing.  These young midshipmen were commissioned as such and entitled to their own "mess" but they were not truly officers and ate in the officers' mess only by invitation.  They were "officers in training" and for some of them that was an elusive goal.  It was possible for a man to be a midshipman for his entire career.

But the incredible thing was that these young boys were often put in charge of boarding parties, leading swarthy bosun's mates, armed to the teeth with cutlasses and dirks, to take possession of enemy vessels.  

The point is, the title is not tied to a technical skill, it is tied to traditional military capacity or classification and to the honor, service and duty that was required in it.  There comes a point when changing stuff just to be changing it looses, in a barely perceived manner, a knot that holds fighting units together.  Traditions are important - the sense of continuity in a centuries old history is important - the pride of standing where men and women, just like you, have stood and doing your job as they did it - is important.

Breaking links with the past, especially when there is no urgent necessity to do so, should simply not be undertaken lightly for sometimes, when the crisis hits, honor and tradition make the difference between victory and defeat, life and death.

Leave the Mids alone... and give the Bosun's back their cutlasses.  Enough of this crazy idea that "now" is the only thing we have, that "yesterday" is forgotten and "tomorrow" is not guaranteed.  

Related articles

British Pubs: Endangered Species?

Frozen Chosen... Not So Much: A Southern Presbyterian's Stand During Slavery

Oh NO!!!! Snow!!!!

[Church, 2015]

Job 37:5–6 (NKJV)

⁵ God thunders marvelously with His voice; He does great things which we cannot comprehend. ⁶ For He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth’; Likewise to the gentle rain and the heavy rain of His strength.

My cell phone is beeping constantly with the updated, repeated, incessant reminders from the weather service:  "Blizzard Warning! - It's going to snow... expect a foot or more!  Watch out!  This is potentially life threatening!...." etc.

OK, I get it.  I imagine the folks in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and even Buffalo, New York are watching the incipient panic down here and shaking their collective heads in contempt.  It's a foot... maybe two feet... I remember over three feet a few years back... Cmon folks... it's winter... it's the middle North East... it snows... 

"But", we hear the defense rallying, "those folks further up North are prepared for it, they get it all the time, when it hits us it has greater impact."

Exactly... it has greater impact because we are not prepared... we insist on driving places we don't really need to go and the average Maryland driver is barely safe on dry roads... stay home!  Expect the power to go out because Maryland refuses to bury its electrical lines... the squirrels are cold... they like to go traipsing across transformers because it warms up their tootsies (I suppose) because they regularly get fried and entire blocks of go dark.  Now is NOT the time to buy a spare generator, that would have been August.  Do we really need a dozen half-gallons of milk?  Ok, I know one family with a herd of boys who consume 2 gallons a day... they do need that much, let them and people like them, buy a large quantity.  

But the real problem is the bemoaning.... snow means mostly inconvenience since we are no longer living in huts.  It means shoveling the blooming stuff and it is perfectly OK to grumble about that - especially when the blasted snow plow pushes a compressed block of ice back into your freshly shoveled driveway.  But the grumbling you hear makes it seem almost unjust.  The verses above remind us that snow is just as necessary to God's providence as rain.  Sometimes it rains and it floods... OK... sometimes it snows and there's a blizzard.  This is God's way of reminding us Who is in charge.

Now, if I can figure out how to tell my cell phone that "I KNOW there's a blizzard coming... shut up!" I'll get off the stump.

Hey folks... it's going to snow... enjoy!

Related articles

Touchy and Mean Tempered...

Yet ANOTHER Star Wars Movie????

Going No Where .....

Preparation for Worship: The Support We Need...

The Time of Singing Has Come...

Be Quiet!

Beloved Deformed....

Law and Grace, Faith and Obedience

[Foggy Harbor, 2015]

Romans 8:3–4 (NKJV) 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Herman Witsius (1636-1708) wrote the best summary development of the relation between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace, and specifically how the abrogation of the first did not absolve man, even redeemed man, from the requirement of obedience to God's law, that I have heretofore encountered. (The Economy of the Covenants, BK. I, ch. 10 in particular)

This topic is a matter of some passion these days.  The discussion ranges over topics such as how we understand the "Mosaic Economy" (a republication of the covenant of works for national Israel?), "sanctification" (is it a work of God on the mostly passive redeemed sinner?), "Christian ethics" (is there any such thing?) and a host of others.

What I find interesting is that Witsius' 17th century Christian contemporaries were pretty much occupied with the same debate.  Indeed, Witsius wrote his work in hopes that he might furnish grounds for bringing the sides together.  He was perhaps naive in this then and I don't see any reason for great optimism now.

What I do see is that Witsius' arguments, as a sustained incremental piecing together of the various Biblical texts and their most reasonable interpretations, is conclusive.  I offer this short quote as summary.

It is indeed a most destructive heresy to maintain that man, sinful and obnoxious to punishment, is not bound to obedience. For by no misconduct of man can God forfeit his right and supremacy. But the right and supremacy of God requires that man, and even every creature, be subject in all respects to God, so far as possible. Moreover, the rational creature, such as sinful man is, and does continue to be, can be subject, not only to the natural, but also to the moral providence of God; nor only to his vindictive justice, but also to his legislative authority: and as he can, so he ought to be subject to him, as to the obligation of obedience; because every possible subjection is essential to the creature.[1]

Witsius' sustained argument is too long to reproduce but he grounds his conclusions on the nature of God Himself and the Divine will that all things lead to His own glory.  Man, before the covenant of works was established and the potential for eternal reward set forth, was yet created under the obligation to obey.  Obedience, in and of itself, is inherent in the Creator-creature relation.  Witsius moves on to discuss the differences in the kind of obedience God requires of His human subjects and notices that there is that obedience to God's will that reflects the character of God Himself and that obedience (probationary) God requires in order to "test" or "prove" or "discipline" those subjects.  This last category is not arbitrary in the sense that God requires it in a whimsical fashion, it is always designed perfectly to accomplish its own ends.  The point is that God may, with no insult to His own Person, change this latter type of required obedience or discard it completely, while such is not the case with the first.  Thus the "law of God" is comprised of categories, some of which are inalienable to Himself and His glory and others which are not.  The natural obedience owed by the creature is directed to God in both categories and the Covenant of Works then follows as God acting with our first parents to institute a formal relation built on this obedience but, critically, adding to it a promise:  "If you do this, you shall live."  God's Son, Jesus of Nazareth, born under the law of creation, undertook the Covenant of Redemption in its eternal form:  "If you do this, then You and all the elect in You shall live", though the "this" in the two covenants differed in their probationary aspects.  In the Covenant of Grace, which God has extended to the redeemed in every dispensation, the formulation was no longer "if you do this, you shall live", but rather "the law no longer condemns you, but you still owe obedience from the heart to your Creator, Redeemer and Friend."

Witsius' treatment is exhaustive (and perhaps exhausting to those less motivated) on the implications of this development but it is well worth reading.  He pretty much undermines the notion that the Mosaic economy was a republication of the Covenant of Works by his exegesis of Heb. 8:13.  The Covenant of Grace did not "abrogate" the Covenant of Works but rather "presupposes" that that covenant was already abrogated.  Having abrogated it already, God, in Whom there is no shadow of turning, would not re institute it even in a partial form.  Every covenant has a "promise", indeed the purpose of God's covenants are not to introduce the idea of obedience, that is already present in the Creator/creature relation.  Rather, God's covenants are all "gracious" in the restricted sense that, though under no obligation to do so, God gives man a means by which further and greater blessings may accrue.  Man, having failed in his first probation, having lost all ability to will or do perfectly anything that God requires, cannot, either corporately or individually, ever have hope of any promise of meritorious blessing which is tied to his personal obedience.  Thus, for the Mosaic covenant to be a republication of the Covenant of Works, corporate Israel would have to have at least the potential of fulfilling the law.  This potential was entirely absent.

There is that sense of "do this and you shall live" which is entirely consistent with "believe and you shall be saved."  The difference between them is the difference between promises of the Covenant of Works and the promises of the Covenant of Grace.  The Mosaic covenant, as does the Gospel, condemns those who undertake to obey apart from faith.  However, when works proceed from faith, from believing, then "do this and you shall live" becomes the reality of eternal life which is entered into even now.

Thus, when viewed, rightly, as being a progressive development of the Covenant of Grace, all difficulty is removed.  The Siniatic covenant presupposes Divinely mediated grace.  It presupposes a "substitute" for man's sin such that "looking" to that Substitute and Mediator through the Levitical sacraments, constituted the hope of salvation and the predestined fulfillment of the Covenant of Redemption when the Divinely provided Ram (Abraham with Isaac) would appear and fulfill all righteousness.

Witsius saw clearly ... and his work abides as a refreshing and re-energizing message to Christ's Church and a call to arms to defend the Orthodox Reformed Confession, and to the call to obedience, in faith, as a signature distinctive of a regenerate heart.

[1] (Witsius, Economy, Bk. I,  2010) Logos, p. 125