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Butterfly, Butterfly, you flew away?
I finished my clinic at the Augusta State Medical Prison and headed out through all its gates. Waiting for each to buzz me through I would attend an email here or there. I had been in the endings of Madeline L’Engle’s book The Other Side of the Sun. What and ending, what an ending, but that is another story. I had been sprinkling sentences and paragraphs in catching what Stella caught in her trying days of the the post-civil war American south.
On the way to the car I called my dad who’s John Deere riding lawn mower has given up its ghost; he sought recommendations. No answer. “Ok, I’ll try again later, or maybe shoot off an email from Starbucks.” So went my thoughts. After pushing the starting button on my Tacoma I opened Moon+ Reader Pro, my reading app, and pressed play. A few sentences came through my smartphone’s speaker before it tethered into the Tacoma’s bluetooth and the richer reading sound of the truck’s speakers continued on that story.
Butterflies?
Well, not in my stomach, and not in my heart, but patience, patience I say. I’ll come to it.
Driving
No reversing was required and so straight out of the sparking spot went the truck and off through the parking lot. East on Gordon Highway I turned; mostly uneventful, just one pickup decided to pull across about a tire’s width into my lane, but no worries and on I went. Traffic got a bit heavier after approaching I-520. There I followed this Cadillac CTS which I’d let get in front of me on two occasions. It is funny how a car here and there on the road can sort of become a traveling companion. [Read more…] about Butterfly, Butterfly, you flew away?
An “Oh great, now what” moment from Nicholas Sparks
Have you ever looked up and found your kids doing something both unexpected and not encouraging?
The other day while I was remodeling my kitchen I looked up saw one of my kids sitting on our deck reading and sunning. “Great! Weird, though,” fired off my thoughts. See she used to read quite a lot and I wish she would do so now. I was curious to know what had caught her eye, but not curious enough to race over and interrupt her.
A day or two later she was at it again, and to satisfy my lingering curiosity I tried see what she was reading. Problem was she held the cover wrapped back on itself. Finally, though her posture and her fingers were just so allowing me to see but one word. Just one word and my mind wiggled a little at it. Do you know what that word was? Sparks. “Hmmmm, Sparks? Could that be Nicholas Sparks? Man, it must be.”
Well, I read a lot and am sort of familiar with movies that come out. There was this Nicholas Sparks book made into a movie. Yeah, see that picture over there on your device? This book stayed on the New York Times Bestseller List for like a year straight. It is not to hard to put two and two together with the faces on that movie cover. So, that’s my “Sparks Perspective.” I had other mental baggage about this too as reasonably or not some people have called it “soft porn.” I’ve seen some ladies from church (unfortunately) snicker a bit about these things being “beach reading.”
What a mess. Daughter is reading. Daughter clearly old enough to understand the whole bit about sex and all. One night at dinner she even popped out with, “all married people do it!” Well, at least she had the married bit correct. Somehow my inklings about Sparks gravitated to unmarried bed action. Even if said action was married perhaps I was not keen on the 16 year old wandering through what another might write in a book.
As a parent I am not naive to the influences she faces, but seriously? On the deck, in the sun, reading away at a Sparks book? Not sure I was lovin’ that.
Let’s go a figuring out of things…
When I was her age in the 1986 or 1987 era I brought a Star Trek novel home from the library at Papillion La-Vista High School. I cannot remember the name of that paperback but weirdly enough I do know it had a purple cover. In short order Bam! I had a parent collision. Dad told me it was off limits; I could not read it; it had to go back to the library. See how that experience sort of stuck with me? Since then I have found novels to be enriching and work well for my mindset. Maybe not for my dad’s mindset, but that is another story.
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Politics & Nachos Supreme: Lessons learned when the conversation died.
Yesterday found me at a restaurant in Clearwater, South Carolina. I have been meeting a friend there every month for many years. When I arrived I ordered my Diet Coke and his unsweet tea, and opened my Kindle app to read a novel1.
My friend arrived, sat down, we said our little greetings, and the waiter materialized. I always get a #3 with no sauce on the burrito, and I know what he gets too. Before leaving Edgefield that morning the techs and I had spoken about lunch orders. I had said, “he always gets Nachos Supreme.” With my order placed the waiter turned expectantly to my friend. While hunting through the menu he spoke a little a la carte, “I want something with a little chicken,
a little salad…” A little voice in my head said, “Nachos Supreme.” He and the waiter said a few things while menu pages turned back and forth. The waiter spoke up. “Maybe Nachos Supreme?” “Yes, yes, that is good,” or something to that effect said my friend.
I suspect I chuckled and looked down at the table. In my mind’s eye I could see myself walking down a hall in the Edgefield eye clinic discussing an event very much like this.
On to the more serious…
The menu was closed and slid across the table to his right. The waiter picked it up and left to go about other things. The transition lenses that my friend was wearing as he arrived had cleared up and we moved on to other topics.
The topic that first rose among us was surely like that of many in our country these days: Donald Trump, the wall, pipelines from Canada and executive orders. Now while I keep up with these goings on I don’t easily lock in the back stories or passionately promulgate my opinions about the future. In general I am reticent to speak with great opinions on matters I only know partially. As Solomon recorded in the book of Proverbs, “The first seems right till another comes forward and questions him.” (There might be a mite of paraphrasing there; Google it if you’d like to chase it down.)
As we sat there I would share variously on these political matters, but it slowly became forced. My mind had to work hard. It reached here and there grabbing this story or that idea. I could almost feel my mind wadding them up into little compositions and shoving them out into conversation. These political notions became harder and harder and I found my end of the conversation sputtering out. Eventually I was just putting salt on my chips, forking in some Spanish rice and sipping my Coke.
Humpty-dumptied, but fixable
God is love, but all men have sinned. That sin established a non-negotiable separation; people were permanently split off from God. While humanity was created to be in relationship with God it was completely broken, shattered, “humpty-dumptied” if you will.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
could not connect people to God again.
But there was a way that was put in play.
When a sinless person died for men
then could men connect to God again.
God sent his son Jesus at Christmas to die 33 years later on a Jewish holiday called Passover to rise and make a day known as Easter. That was how he made a way through the barrier of separation. That was what we now see he had planned from the beginning of time to restore that which would be lost when his creations rebelled in a place called the Garden of Eden.
Jesus said when he was lifted up he would draw all men to himself. In one of Peter’s letters he said that God is not slow in returning as some understand slowness, but is patient not wanting any to perish. From passages like these I see that all people are drawn by God to himself. Some are drawn many times and some few, but all are drawn. God is not indifferent to anyone; each person is God’s unique creation, and because of that there is no person anywhere that God has missed or overlooked or is disinterested in. Race, gender, etc. are varieties he has made, that he values, and traits which have no bearing on his love for the people.
There remains a crucial step in this process. While the account is settled each person must accept the payment given on their behalf. Each person must learn of their sin. They must recognize that cosmic rebellion (to borrow a phrase I heard R.C. Sproul use) and accept God’s cosmic payment. Then they can be brought back into renewed relationship with God.
So God loves all, desires all come to repentance, and draws all men to him.
In this drawing each person is given a point or points of awareness and conviction. In those moment(s) they are given enough insight, enough personal awareness and enough strength to respond. But…they must respond. Just like you have to approve updates on your Android or Apple products you have to accept the offer God gives.
There are many around me with a variety of beliefs, but we are all alike under sin. There is no one righteous, each of us has turned to our own way. In the mid-1990’s while sitting at Pizza Hut in Augusta, Georgia fellow named Bill Pearson said to me that some have turned away to good things and some to bad, but all of us have turned away. All need to turn back and God facilitates this. He gathers the bits and pieces of our eggshells and fixes our Humpty-Dumpty lives.
What about you?
Are you in pieces? God has good glue and he’s a lot more effective than the king’s horses and the king’s men at putting people together again. Salvation is step one. Without re-entering into a relationship with God you remain in a bad fix, the permanent fix and that train does not ride tracks to heaven. Below are the steps of what is called the Roman road, for it is taken from the book of Romans.
- Romans 3:23 >> “3 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (ESV link)
- Glory of God means relationship with God; heaven. All have fallen short of God’s mark
- Romans 5:8 >> “8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (ESV link)
- God made a way. “But there was a way put into play.” See that poem above.
- Romans 6:23 >> “23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (ESV link)
- Sin pays. It pays with death. The Bible says that people who die don’t just go to a “better place.”
- The Christmas gift was Jesus and that gift is free for all of us. Accept that gift and then you begin life, now, in a “better place.” Now don’t twist that and think life as a Christian is rosy. It will be tough. A bed of roses is not promised, but carrying people through thorns is.
- Romans 10:9-10,13 >> “9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved… 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (ESV link)
A Christmas Cough
We are in New Hill, North Carolina for Christmas. My brother has a great place for the families and we are resting well. Resting well is the thing I want to put in here this morning for I was worried last night.
My oldest daughter, Lydia, is home for the holidays. She also has a cold and is coughing a lot. Well I was worried and let me tell you why. It has to do with the cough. Except for my son, Colin, my whole family is sleeping in one room. No worries there for the beds are great, the room warm and all that. As I prepared for bed last night Lydia was reclining on a couch and talking / coughing on the phone with her best friend from Texas (at least that is who I think she was talking with since they talk a lot!)
I had all of these ideas that she would cough and keep us all awake, etc., etc. I would be tired in the morning. The routine of getting up before the sun, grabbing coffee, praying, writing Sunday school lessons and this blog would all be thrashed. I generally keep these thoughts to myself and they were not roaring lions in my head. They were more squeaking mice, but squeaks have their own annoyances.
I sat in my bed reading the biography of Lecrae called Unashamed. Great book and it sure helps me see and understand more of his songs. The beats he puts to his life and lyrics put a helpful light on my work at Augusta State Medical Prison, but that is another story.