Before I floated down three miles of the Mississippi River today, my father and I passed a man walking alongside the road. He was wearing blue scrubs, carrying a black book, and wearing a black hat. "Let's see if he needs help," my father suggests. I proceed to slow down and we ask him if he needs a ride. He proceeds to tell us where he is going and we offer to take him two miles to the next road where we are turning another direction.
"Did you run out of gas or something?"
"Oh, no, I prefer to walk in the natural environment rather than artificial roadways. Let me tell you what I mean. There is going to be a galactic war..."
Let's stop there a second. When a man wearing scrubs gets in your vehicle, you think maybe he is a doctor who needs a ride. You rarely jump to the conclusion that he knows about a galactic war that you've never heard about.
"...and I don't want you to be scared, that's why I have to tell you about it. The governments of the world have destroyed the environment with plastic and removing the plankton of society. Now they will attack and the environment will take over again. The galactic societies will seek to destroy us one by one."
I pull the car to the side of the road where we are turning and this seemingly harmless, but potentially ill man, beings to get out of the vehicle.
"Don't be scared when the government tries to draft you, just stand strong and don't fight."
What surprises me most about this adventure was that it lasted about three minutes and he didn't give us the chance to get one word in. He was definitely on a mission to tell us about this galactic war. I guess I'm glad that I know about this war, but it probably won't deter me from getting plastic next time I'm at the grocery.
-----
A few weeks back my aunt and her family invited a husband and wife acquaintance for dinner. A retired professor and international teacher of English, the couple had amazing stories of international education. They spent several years in China during the 1990s and it gave me great insight to the cost of textbooks, a much dreaded cost for all students.
According to this man, when there was a cultural political upheaval in China the government pushed all educated individuals out of cities and brought in peasants to fulfill their roles. Librarians were included in this push-out while peasants came to replace them.
The government told these peasant-librarian replacements, "Take care of the books and don't let them get hurt." To the peasants, that meant not to let them be read, touched, hardly to be looked at with a cross eye. In fact, this professor traveled to China to do research and he went to a library requesting a book.
"I need [title of the book]." Ironically, he can see the very book he needs right behind the librarian's desk.
"I'm sorry, we don't have that book."
"It's right behind you."
"I'm sorry, we don't have that book."
This continued for over an hour with a translator.
The professor finally got the book when the translator lied about the professor's entitlements, but this means something significant for the Chinese people in a communistic society. The availability of educational texts is limited if not impossible due to governmental restrictions. The cost of fair and accessible education in China must be immensely expensive.
I began to contemplate this story when I bought my textbooks online. The cost for textbooks is undoubtedly a ridiculous amount of money for one book. The monopolizing of the textbook industry with new editions, authors, and editors practically paralyzes the availability of educational accessible material for a large portion of American peoples unable to pay for tuition, let alone textbooks. Nonetheless, the cost is nothing compared to that of a restrictive governmental society. What a blessing that I can pay hundreds of dollars each semester for a half a dozen textbooks!
-----
Of the seventeen years of existence of Camp Baker, it is rumored that this is the year of the poorest fishing. Although we certainly have not gone hungry, fishing has been a struggle like I have never remembered before. I suppose there are many environmental and biological logical reasons for this fishing decline, but maybe the fish are helping us to curb our human problems.
With a play on the words of Bruce from Finding Nemo, "I am a nice [human], not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends, not food."
I hope that the fish don't hold out too long though because I'm not sure I want to buy as many groceries next summer.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
The Era of Brokenness
I have heard the modern era of the Church described as the time of brokenness. This brokenness has manifested itself in our homes, our hearts, our churches, and our communities.
Divorce, illness, economic strife, alcoholism, pornography, and even modernism have fed this brokenness; much so in my own life. Sin. Our brokenness, my brokenness, is a result, a consequence, of the Fall of Man.
If this is the era of brokenness, what were the former days? I have heard the times of Christ named the 'Era of Fear' and the Middle Ages the 'Era of Guiltiness.'
No governmental program or religious institutionalization can end fear, wash away guilt, and make the broken whole. Thankfully, our hope is in the Lord. He does end fear; He does cleanse us of unrighteousness; He does make the broken whole again.
I believe the claim that we live in the era of brokenness. Our own families, congregations, neighborhoods, and minds are broken. Our purpose for life is to worship Him and make Him known, not our sins. With the Spirit dwelling within, we are Christ, as the Church, to our own broken lives and those we encounter everyday.
He wants to make us whole each day. Are we on our knees, broken, every day eager for His mending? Do we have the heart to mend the broken each day?
Perhaps the 'Era of Brokenness' is not all that bad. We are forced to be broken before Him. We need to let Him make us whole again.
For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world - our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? - 1 John 5:4-5
Divorce, illness, economic strife, alcoholism, pornography, and even modernism have fed this brokenness; much so in my own life. Sin. Our brokenness, my brokenness, is a result, a consequence, of the Fall of Man.
If this is the era of brokenness, what were the former days? I have heard the times of Christ named the 'Era of Fear' and the Middle Ages the 'Era of Guiltiness.'
No governmental program or religious institutionalization can end fear, wash away guilt, and make the broken whole. Thankfully, our hope is in the Lord. He does end fear; He does cleanse us of unrighteousness; He does make the broken whole again.
I believe the claim that we live in the era of brokenness. Our own families, congregations, neighborhoods, and minds are broken. Our purpose for life is to worship Him and make Him known, not our sins. With the Spirit dwelling within, we are Christ, as the Church, to our own broken lives and those we encounter everyday.
He wants to make us whole each day. Are we on our knees, broken, every day eager for His mending? Do we have the heart to mend the broken each day?
Perhaps the 'Era of Brokenness' is not all that bad. We are forced to be broken before Him. We need to let Him make us whole again.
For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world - our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? - 1 John 5:4-5
Monday, July 19, 2010
The Election
Editor's Note: The following is a sermonic excerpt from Mike Nafziger, youth pastor.
I was recently at the zoo with a friend. After we saw the cutest baby giraffe in the entire world, we went to see the rhinoceroses. As we approached, we noticed the oppressive smell coming from their pen. We looked out and saw three rhinos laying down almost completely submerged in mud and filth, trying to avoid the heat. The person I was with said, “Oh, these guys are kind of cute!” I said, “Cute? No! This is so sad! It’s 95 degrees out here and these rhinos are laying here in the mud and in their own feces and are getting attacked by flies! This is disgusting! And the saddest part of all? They like it!” I thought to myself that if I could speak rhino and went and told them that they didn’t have to live in their own filth anymore; that they could get up out of the mud and the zookeeper would give them a nice cool hose down and let them live in the grassy area; if the rhinos were offered this opportunity, they wouldn’t take it. They were drawn to the filth. They desired the filth. The filth was comfortable to them, and in their filth they were never forced to think about the oppressive heat facing them outside. Brothers and Sisters, the same is true for us! On our own, we are drawn to our sinful nature. It is comfortable for us, it is all we know. This is what Paul is talking about when he says in Romans 7, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” But then there is hope: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” We have no means on our own to rid ourselves of the filth that we love to wallow in. But thanks be to God that even before the foundation of the world he chose us through Christ to be holy and blameless before him in love. “By grace we have been saved.” Only after Christ opens our eyes and our hearts can we see our sinful flesh for what it is, a pit of rhino dung. It is on this basis that we should read the rest of Ephesians 1, and in this understanding the promises of God become even more praiseworthy and awe-inspiring.
I was recently at the zoo with a friend. After we saw the cutest baby giraffe in the entire world, we went to see the rhinoceroses. As we approached, we noticed the oppressive smell coming from their pen. We looked out and saw three rhinos laying down almost completely submerged in mud and filth, trying to avoid the heat. The person I was with said, “Oh, these guys are kind of cute!” I said, “Cute? No! This is so sad! It’s 95 degrees out here and these rhinos are laying here in the mud and in their own feces and are getting attacked by flies! This is disgusting! And the saddest part of all? They like it!” I thought to myself that if I could speak rhino and went and told them that they didn’t have to live in their own filth anymore; that they could get up out of the mud and the zookeeper would give them a nice cool hose down and let them live in the grassy area; if the rhinos were offered this opportunity, they wouldn’t take it. They were drawn to the filth. They desired the filth. The filth was comfortable to them, and in their filth they were never forced to think about the oppressive heat facing them outside. Brothers and Sisters, the same is true for us! On our own, we are drawn to our sinful nature. It is comfortable for us, it is all we know. This is what Paul is talking about when he says in Romans 7, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” But then there is hope: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” We have no means on our own to rid ourselves of the filth that we love to wallow in. But thanks be to God that even before the foundation of the world he chose us through Christ to be holy and blameless before him in love. “By grace we have been saved.” Only after Christ opens our eyes and our hearts can we see our sinful flesh for what it is, a pit of rhino dung. It is on this basis that we should read the rest of Ephesians 1, and in this understanding the promises of God become even more praiseworthy and awe-inspiring.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)