Bonfires, book bannings, caveats and reservations

Bonfires, book bannings, caveats and reservations

I was recently reading Kurt Vonnegut's collection of talks and writings called FATES WORSE THAN DEATH, as well as some of the authorized biography of him by Charles j. Shields. Vonnegut was sensitive to and had a strong and particular view about censorship because one or more of his books were banned from school libraries.

What I want to speak of here is the need for those that have read books and have opinions about them -the need to express those opinions, hopefully IN the book itself, rather than allow that book to continue to exist and influence others without the one who has read it and is passing it along to others including his or her beliefs that disagree with the book itself.

In the history of civilization, books have previously been considered somewhat "sacred" because of the difficulty in the past of manufacturing them; and because they are a public forum. People were not supposed to write in books.

It is interesting to contemplate the value that we unconsciously or consciously put on books because someone thought the information or wisdom or entertainment value of a created work was enough that enough people would purchase the book to pay back the costs of publishing it and pay the author also. Also, . . . the assumption we make (I'm speaking for myself, personally) that because someone owns a book, that one had read the book and endorses the values put forth in that book. Can I tell you what book specifically I'm referring to? It is Gloria Steinem's book *****. I was young then - not yet twenty. I thought I was supposed to learn from it. That book led me in the wrong direction for a number of years. (As an aside, let us also acknowledge that Gloria was beautiful, glamorous and intelligent- looking. She was a good representative for the values she was promoting. Too bad that the values were not good. I do want explore here, now, however, that Gloria and her cohorts were in part extending a belief system that is native to the United States of America: that personal freedom and the pursuit of it are noble good things. That belief system carries with it the implication that "limits" are bad, especially man-made limits.

My perspective on books is that I personally was influenced negatively by some ideas in a book that was owned and displayed by someone whose opinions I valued. In my naive youth, I thought that since this person owned *****, that she endorsed everything in there. I didn't think to ask her if she, in fact, did endorse the thoughts .

MOON: FULL CIRCLE

Moon: Full Circle

This post is about the moon being the first thing I identified as God telling us about Himself.

As a young person, I loved to see the beauty of the Moon. It looked like a luminous pearl up in the sky.

At some point , I started to understand and appreciate how wonderful it is that the moon, which is smaller than the Earth,  can look to us to be the same size as the sun, which is so far and so huge. It didn't have to be that way. It could have been that the moon was smaller or, or the sun could have been larger. But No! They appear delightfully and transcendently equal in size.

Also, when Earth's scientific community sent out machine explorers to learn of other planets and their moons- and the exploring machines sent back pictures- we all saw the pictures of Uranus' moons, which were not uniform and beautiful like our moon. I said to myself (and God, and others, I hope) "it didn't have to be this way! We could have had a moon that did it's job as tide- maker, etc. without being beautiful. But God made it exceedingly beautiful!" -Such a contrast to the other moons in our solar system.

And then this year we had, in Texas and other places, an extended complete "blood moon" lunar eclipse. When I saw the moon without its stunning pure, intense, white illumination from the sun, lit only by the scattered light reaching it from earth and space dust, that moon looked so earth-bound and plain (like a wad of chewed up chewing gum?) with all its pinkish gray color and the nonuniformities visible in the subdued light of that eclipse, I said to myself, "hurry back sun illumination. I don't like this less beautiful picture of the moon." So I learned then that part of the moon's beauty was its brilliant lighting by the sun. God is good! Thanks be to God! Glory to God!

AHAH! part one

Ahah! part one

That term is similar to "Eureka!"
It means that suddenly I realize or learn something that can make a big difference in my life and in the world.
I had an "Ahah! moment this morning. We Christians consider that sometimes when we suddenly realize an important or helpful truth- especially if it is after we have asked our Creator, God, for help- that it is God Himself who has communicated this truth to us.

So, this morning's ahah! moment was about the story of Jesus, found in JOHN 8:1-11.

The most well-known phrase in this story is when Jesus says, " If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." A group of Jewish religious leaders had caught a woman in the act of adultery and brought her to Jesus and insisted that He pronounce a sentence (of death) on her.
Jesus had a better way. He said, "let the one who is without sin throw the first stone."

This story is pivotal to my local church right now. There are members of my church who, along with me, believe that God still has standards which He wants us to live our lives by; and the standards are similar to those in the Bible. Others in my local church believe that homosexual marriage is now acceptable to God. (I think that is what those folks believe.)
So , what has been perhaps inhibiting me from engaging in discussion with those who embrace "homosexual is OK" is the truth that my own life is also sinful; and therefore I don't have the right to say that this other is any more sinful than my own brand of sin.
The above referenced story is probably the one we Christians think of as teaching against picking out one person or type of sin or people group to tag as being wrong or sinful or evil and ignoring other sins.
Now I come to the "ahah! moment":
In that story, there was a life in the balance. Jesus was NOT  saying "he who is without sin can speak against this sin". We have been acting like that IS what Jesus said.

I'm going to have to think and pray to God about what this all means. You can too.

YOU MAY NEED THIS ONE

You may need this one

This is my own personal interpretation of one of the stories about Jesus. I have not heard this interpretation of this passage before. I wasn't going to publish it, because I'm rather unsure about my  idea on this (since it does SEEM to contradict some of the statements in the passage), and because I think that the Lord generally wants to give revelations to each of us individually to let us know how much He loves us.
But I'm putting this interpretation out there for you to agree or disagree with, and maybe to be encouraged with:

Jesus was in a crowded house, teaching and healing. Four friends brought their bedridden friend to Jesus. They had to climb up on the roof, break open the roof, and lower their friend and his mat down to Jesus cuz' that was the only way they could think of to get friend to Jesus for healing.
The one who told the story, Matthew?, called the man "paralyzed" and said Jesus healed him. And maybe that was what happened. BUT Jesus' words in this case were: to the man lying on the mat, "Your sins have been forgiven."; To the crowd, especially His critics and enemies, "which is easier to say: 'your sins are forgiven'? or 'get up and walk'? But so that you may know that the Son of man has authority to heal-, (to the paralyzed man AND for the benefit of the crowd) get up, take up your mat and walk."

So I notice here that Jesus does not specifically say, "Be healed."  He DOES refer to His authority to heal and how important that is as a sign of God's confirmation of what Jesus has claimed about Himself.
So I'd like to put forward my thinking in this. What if the man was not actually paralyzed? What if the man was just pretending to be paralyzed? Or partly pretending? We have heard of that sort of thing going on in more recent times. Maybe it was a possibility then, also.
So, if the man, in truth, was not paralyzed , but was faking it, he would have known whether or not Jesus knew the truth of the situation and his heart by what Jesus said. He personally would not have been convinced of Jesus' specialness if Jesus had simply said "Be healed!" when in truth what the man needed was to be truly known and forgiven. The man's heart would have remained untouched by Jesus. But, by making His first words to the man "your sins are forgiven", Jesus signaled to the man that He knew what the reality was and did this without "outing " the man. Indeed, if Jesus had tried to tell the crowd "Hey people, this man is faking!" The man would have had really bad feelings toward Jesus on account of Jesus making him look bad in the eyes of the community. Plus, this would have left the power in the situation in the hands of that man. He later could have- since he personally had not experienced Jesus' supernatural power- "relapsed " and said Jesus' healing didn't last! (Oops! That's not exactly right, is it? I said something that was not logical conclusion to previous two sentences. But let's continue.) If the man WAS a faker, Jesus saying what He did say was proof to the man that Jesus could read his heart, which is a supernatural thing just as healing is.
The way I came to this idea about the man brought to Jesus by his four friends was: 1)I was taught to carefully read the story of each of Jesus' recorded healings and to appreciate that Jesus healed each individual differently according to what they needed in order to receive His gift and according to the particular situation; 2) I had been studying with my neighbor Sister Kim's group about another healing that Jesus had done; and that other healing was quite different in its particulars from the one in telling of now.
The other healing is of a woman who was in a crowd around Jesus, who needed healing, but was too ashamed or scared to come out and ask Jesus to heal her. So she secretly touched Jesus' coat while holding the  thought that THAT would be the way she could be healed. Well, she WAS healed by touching Jesus' coat, but Jesus would not (in that case) let it be a secret, anonymous healing. He said, "Who touched My garment?"
Why did He do that?
Sister Kim had put much thought into that story, considering the afflicted woman who was healed. She came to the conclusion that Jesus wanted the healing to be public for two reasons: 1) So the woman would not feel that she had "stolen" a healing that "belonged" to another, but rather that healing was truly for her! (Because God loves her.) and, 2) Jesus wanted to help her draw close again to her community after her having been shut out of "polite society" (she could not attend any temple services with the ailment she was afflicted with. I don't know what else she could not do.)

THE BRILLIANT AND THE SPARKLING

The brilliant and the sparkling.

Two people groups have been particularly on my heart, the Japanese Christians who were forced to deny their faith in Christ as "Savior of all" in the 1700's or 1800's by their oppressive government; and the native people of what is now Turkey who were a major part of the early Christian Church but who were forced to deny their faith and embrace Islam when their country was conquered by the Ottomans.

(I am thinking of the Christians in that part of the world at the time when Paul of the NEW TESTAMENT was traveling and teaching about Jesus in the first century a.d.  Paul and John of REVELATION mention several names and communities in what is now Turkey. It is just around the corner of the Mediterranean from Israel, on the  way to Greece. So there WAS a Christian community there. How long did it florish? Were they faithful? did another persecution cause then to leave or disapate? Were there Christians there when the Ottomans and other Muslims invaded?)
In both of these communities, there were, I think, people who were able to remain true to Christ in the face of persecution. Maybe they could escape. But, I read that in Japan, at least, the oppressors designed the dire consequences of remaining true to Christ such that the Japanese Christians would have incurred cruelty upon their loved ones if they had continued to publicly proclaim Christ.

Author Phillip Yancey described in his  book SOUL SURVIVORS the Japanese government's (1700's or 1800's) persecution of Christians. I want to explain how things went: the persecutors gave the Christians the choice of either trampling on an image of Christ, a plaque, or having family members be tortured horribly. When I read Yancey's description I wondered about the
second commandment of the Ten Commandments. God said, "do not make for yourself an image or idol in the form of a creature in heaven, on Earth or under the Earth. Do not bow down to an image or idol." Some Christian churches have lost that knowledge that our Creator God has commanded that we not make and bow to images. The Catholics are the largest church that does not follow that second commandment of the Ten Commandments. I can't help but think that one thing God was doing by that commandment was protecting His followers from that type of coersion.  If you do not have and worship a physical (and man-made) image of God, an oppressor cannot force you to dishonor God and deny your God by breaking that thing. God is good; and His mercies endure forever!

"The brilliant and the sparkling" of this title refers to the Christians of Asia Minor and Japan that were persecuted.
Jesus said, "Blessed are you when men insult you and persecute you for my name's sake. Great is your reward in heaven." (MATTHEW 5:11)
Some of those maybe could not stay the course. In the case of the persecution of the Japanese Christians, the way the persecution was designed would need to be taken into account. God is good. Those people are not forgotten.

Comment on NOT YET UPON A TIME

Comment on not yet upon a time

Luke 14:28-29
Jesus tells a wise saying that if a man would build a tower, first he must count the costs to make sure he has sufficient resources to complete the project.
Did Jesus think about the massive project of bringing God's kingdom and righteousness on this Earth, working thru obedient believers? Jesus knew everything, so he knew! Two thousand years is a long time to wait (and work?) for the completion. And what are God's resources? He IS infinite, Maker of the universe, all- powerful, all- wise, all- knowing. His obstacles are the wavering hearts of even the most loyal followers. Is that true? Am I projecting my own uneven performance as a follower of Jesus onto all those who call themselves by Christ Jesus' name and whom  God sees as His family and servants?
I remember hearing a few times a quote maybe from Dwight L. Moody where he said he knew God could accomplish so very much if God has just one person who is 100% sold out to God.

SOMETIMES YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHEN YOU'VE LOST SOMETHING

Sometimes you don't even know when you've lost something!

Thinking of Dad. I LOVE him so much. Benevolent dictator. FIRST memory is his game, when we were riding in the car, of giving prize of one dime to the one who first sees and shares the news of "I see a rainbow!" and "I see the lake" (we were traveling to). That instilled in me (I don't know about my brother and sisters) the sense of anticipation instead of irritation and impatience; and a sense of joy in sharing the news of a joyful event of creation. Oooh! What a sweet lesson Dad taught. Did he know how sweet and wonderful that lesson was?

Other memories: he presided over our saying prayers at bedtime for a time, at least. That made me realize it must be a good thing to pray to God. In church, he enforced a "no fidgeting" rule by holding my two (fidgeting) hands in his ONE big hand closest to me. I don't know if that was necessarily good. It sounds odd, now, that a parent would  object to a child fidgeting in church. But the combination of his expressing in that way that church is important AND paying some attention to me, the youngest of 4 children -that was helpful to me, I think. I think there was a peaceful security in his calm insistence on this stillness while he listened to the sermon, etc.

I was envious of my older siblings, that they got to have Dad involved in their homework (I remember watching as Dad and David constructed replica of Jefferson's home or something, using an upside-down wooden bowl for the rotunda. And Dad went on Boy scouts camping and canoeing.) BUT, I really enjoyed bonding with Dad while I helped him by holding a board end while he sawed, or helping bundle up branches or yard clippings on warm summer days. That was MY opportunity to bond with Dad.

And Dad was the one who pushed and prodded me to get a job after college graduation, and gave me a direction to go in. Maybe it wasn't the best direction for me. Or maybe it WAS. After all, maybe he noticed that I enjoyed making mudpies in the backyard when I was a child. And he did see that I got a degree in soil and crop science at A&M. So a job as a soil lab tech was a good guess for me.

I'm not sure what I was going to talk about that was lost. Let me list a few things.
1) well, when my Dad died, I DID mourn and grieve him so. I was almost more devastated that my children would not know him than for my loss of my father.
But one thing that many children (myself included) of reticent parents regret is not asking their parents more about THEIR lives and decisions and growing up years and wisdom and hopes and dreams. Yes, I wish I could have known him better.

2) One painful family wound of my growing up years was my sister's decision to embrace a foreign strange religion. I know that she does not think of her religion that way. (I'm guessing that to her it makes sense as a religion, or did when she initially embraced it.) But although the tenets of her faith deny it, that belief system IS a denial- of Christ's choice to be a sacrifice; our sinfulness; and of His Divine nature.
My parents were mild, kind parents as far as I know. I don't know that they even tried to dissuade my sister in her choice. They may have been on the defensive when she made that decision. That's because part (most? all?) of her decision to leave Christianity was her realization of  and judgement of the racist attitudes that were a part of our parents' mentality and were generally (non verbally) promoted by the white "Christian" community that we were part of.
It maybe wasn't until later that they realized the magnitude of her choice, and the wrongness of their decision to forbid her from dating a young man who was African American. I say that because the methodists of that day (at least me personally) were not readers of the Bible, which is the foundation of the Christian faith and understanding and the main means through which God speaks to us.