A Peg in a Hole. I continue to try to get my wife’s writings out there to be read; so, I pass this one along for your enjoyment and encouragement.
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Good Moms and Bad Days
Good Moms and Bad Days. Since I haven’t had time to write recently, I thought I’d post this for Mother’s Day, written by my wife.
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Dishes and Doilies
I recently enjoyed a relaxing evening with friends watching the newly-released movie, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” While there were many scenes and sayings in the movie that caught my attention, one dialogue in particular has stayed with me since that time. The conversation takes place in Bilbo Baggins’ hobbit hole as Gandalf challenges him with the opportunity to go on an adventure.
The latest blog from my wife. Enjoy.
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Driven to Be Post-Modern
Without getting all philosophical and all, this post-modern age (this era that has emerged from the modern age that gave us the affluent, technological, media-driven, high-production, successful lifestyles we enjoy) is rooted in all kinds of things, a major one of which is personal disconnectedness. We are alone, un-rooted, migrants, cut off from traditions and families with no sense of belonging. We’re pretty much on our own. In the words of David Wells, its the age of homelessness (not literally for most but figuratively for nearly all). It is the age of the autonomous self. It’s all about the individual and it plays out in virtually all arenas of life. But where did this autonomous self come from?
My personal answer is that is came from trying to get some service for my phone and internet. My land-line phone wasn’t working today and neither was my internet for a while. I found that out when I tried to log on to our provider’s site and update some information. I couldn’t log in. Then I tried to call, but my call got cut off. So I pulled out my cell phone and dialed my way through the menu but never talked with anyone personally. Just when I was getting close to being able to talk to an actual person I was told that I would incur a service charge if I did talk with a real, live person. I hung up because that sounded ridiculous. Determined that I had to figure out what was wrong, I called again and forged my way through the labyrinth of menu options and finally got a live, human voice who told me it was not a billing problem because my bill was current. She transferred me to technical support and I once again got a live voice, not from around here, but from somewhere out there. They knew me only by my account number and name on their computer screen. Their personal touch was to call me “Mr. Mark” in a dialect I had difficulty understanding. This person wasn’t able to fix my problem but gave me a phone number to call since my problem seemed to be a local connection issue. I called that number and got the same recorded voice and menu I had gone to previously. I was back at the beginning. So, I tried again to trace my way through the menu maze pushing button after button and option after option, running upstairs in between button-pushing to check on our other phone as instructed by the impersonal voice, and dutifully entering each number I was asked for. I am pretty sure that when everything was said and done I ended up making an appointment for a service technician later today. I think I know what time. I have no idea if I’m going to be charged for a service call. A service ticket has been produced somewhere out there for a nameless technician, and now I guess I’ll wait and see if anyone shows up. I think they are but I never actually talked with anyone to confirm it. Talk about frustrating. Talk about feeling powerless. Talk about wanting to drop this provider and go look for another one. I made the passing comment to my wife, “It’s stuff like this that makes post-moderns.”
Sometimes it seems there is no one to stand up for you, no one ready and willing to help you. You’re left on your own, alone, until you’ve had enough, and you rise up for yourself to fend for yourself, to assert yourself, to not be treated this way any more, to refuse to be a nameless number, to get some attention. It’s time to assert self.
Welcome to the world of post-modernism.
By the way, asserting self, in the long run, won’t work unless you’ve got a big mouth, a lot of money or a big army (the need for which will depend on the size of the problem)! I have none of the above. Honestly, I don’t need any of the above because I know that there is a God who is real, who is bigger than me, smarter than any bureaucracy, more powerful than any army, and who, for reasons known only to him, actually cares about me!
Him or me? As I see it, He is probably all that keeps me from plunging into the lostness of myself in this post-modern age!
The Resurrection of Jesus: the Greatest Moment in History
I have been challenged to spend the next 40 days writing reflectively on the resurrection of Jesus. That’s how many days there were between his resurrection and his ascension (Acts 1:3). It won’t be daily, but I am going to accept the challenge and continue to contemplate the meaning of what we celebrated yesterday on Easter Sunday, something deserving far more than one day or even one week of careful attention.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest moment in history. Out of curiosity I did an unscientific survey using Google to see what others deemed to be the most important events in history. As you might expect the answers were all over the place including world-wars, inventions, and revolutions. Several mentioned Jesus’ birth and death. I didn’t find any that specified His resurrection. Many believe that the life of Jesus Christ was world-impacting. But the life of Jesus alone isn’t the most important moment in history. His resurrection is.
By his resurrection Jesus proved that he was who he claimed to be – God. If He didn’t rise from the dead, then he isn’t God because if he didn’t rise from the dead he either had an over-inflated view of himself and his ability or he outright lied about what he could do. God doesn’t overstate his case and he certainly does not lie. If Jesus said he would rise from the dead but didn’t then he is morally inferior to God and thus not God.
If he didn’t rise from the dead then Death was greater than Jesus. Nothing and no one is greater than God. If Death is stronger than Jesus, then Jesus isn’t God.
If Jesus isn’t God, then he isn’t the world’s Messiah-Redeemer. He may have been a good man who brought hope to his people and set an example for the world. But death is universal and if it got him and held him, then it still reigns as our ultimate finality. If Jesus isn’t the world’s Messiah-Redeemer, then we’re still waiting for him or her or it to come. We’re still looking. We’re still trying to figure out how this messed-up world can be fixed, perhaps even wondering if it can be fixed.
But Jesus did rise from the dead. The world’s Redeemer-Messiah has come.
For three days his beaten, bloodied, pierced corpse lay in a cold, dark tomb. No signs of life. No breath. No heartbeat. No movement. Just an icy-cold body lying in icy-cold silence.
But suddenly the closed eyes of Jesus opened. His body that was one moment a lifeless icy-cold corpse got up, pulsating with life. Leaving the grave clothes behind he came out of the tomb. He presented himself to those who knew him best (hundreds of eyewitness according to 1 Corinthians 15:5-8). Jesus was alive. Having gone head-to-head with Death he came out on top. He swallowed up Death in victory.
Since the resurrection of Jesus has made possible man’s reconciliation to his Creator now and forever, and since his resurrection brought the guarantee of everlasting life, and since his resurrection opened the way on the other side of the grave to heaven, there can be nothing more important in history. The resurrection of Jesus means the hope of Christians does not rest in the legacy of a dead man’s teachings but in their spiritual participation in his actual resurrection.
When the eyes of Jesus that were closed in death awakened in life, that was the greatest moment in history.
It’s Time for “New” Again
It’s the time of year for new beginnings and new starts. The need for such newness is highlighted by the glut of advertisements that are targeted at overweight, balding, skin-blemished, and in-debt people. It’s the promise of something better dangled in front of the discontentedly needy; a seemingly win-win combination. New beginnings 2013. Of course this is a follow-up to new beginnings 2012 and new beginnings 2011, and, new beginnings 2010, and, well, you get the point. I heard a news report today that said 40% of Americans make resolutions each year, and one-third of those resolutions are broken before the end of January.
We joke that New Year’s resolutions are made to be broken. I guess we joke about it because the only other alternative is to feel guilty about resolutions not kept and who needs that? I’m sure that many of these resolutions are sincerely made. The beginning of a new year seems a natural time to make these new-beginnings resolutions, as if the movement of the second-hand from 11:59:59 PM, December 31 to 12:00:00 AM, January 1 resets life for the next twelve months. It’s a chance to try again with fingers crossed, hoping that this time it will all work out.
Why do we keep doing it – making resolutions we don’t keep? Why do we act as if January 1 is a reset button? I think part of it is that we have a keen sense that we haven’t become everything we want to be or are meant to be. We know there are still areas of our lives that need improvement physically, relationally, financially, vocationally, and spiritually. We know we can do better and be better and at the beginning of a new year we seem to want it enough to make resolutions to do something about it. Additionally, I think we sense there is something more to be experienced in or accomplished through our lives. We know it’s not time to retire from life.
I wonder what God thinks of it all. I don’t know and won’t claim I do. But since God is timeless existing in an eternal present, I’m inclined to believe that the annual transition from New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Day is irrelevant to Him. I can’t help but think that with God our annual resolution-making must be sort of like a 6-year old promising every morning to be a better boy or girl that day but to no avail by bedtime.
Do we just give up then? Of course not. It is true that there is more for us to know, to experience, and to become; we haven’t arrived. It’s also true that we have some personal responsibility for our progress in the journey of life that requires our resolve. But the answer isn’t a new beginning every January 1 that proves to be another false start. Changed lives do not come through man-made resolutions but by divine regeneration. I’m not saying people don’t experience change apart from God. I am saying that the change that most needs to happen won’t happen apart from the regenerating power of God. And that change is unleashed through the cross of Jesus Christ. Real change comes through the death and resurrection of Jesus. If you want to see change in your life this year, perhaps you should revisit again the wonder of what Jesus has already done through the sacrificial death of his own Son and his resurrection to new life.
In his book The Cross-Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing, C.J. Mahaney writes:
If there’s anything in life that we should be passionate about, it’s the gospel. And I don’t mean passionate only about sharing it with others. I mean passionate in thinking about it, dwelling on it, rejoicing in it, allowing it to color the way we look at the world. Only one thing can be of first importance to each of us. And only the gospel ought to be.
That’s how change happens. It’s not so much through new resolutions as it is a return to what’s 
already been done. The truth is there is only one time in a person’s life when a reset button is pushed and that is the day a person trusts in Christ for salvation for when that happens, that person becomes a new creation in Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 15:57). That is a real new beginning, a real new start in a real new life. More than making wishes that we conceal as New Year’s resolutions, what we need is the life-giving and life-changing power of Jesus flowing through us by His grace. More of that is what I need. More of that is what I want. To that end and for that purpose and in that power let the resolutions begin!
I invite your feedback on making resolutions for the New Year.
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Tagged Christian Living, Church growth, New Year's resolutions, the cross
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Riding through the Woods on a Snowy Afternoon
I was out for a ride in the woods earlier today with my daughter and father-in-law. We circled around my in-law’s property: down a hill to the lower field with its cut cornstalks still protruding from the ground, along the banks of a full and unusually serene Black River which borders the back of their land, past our old dog Sparky’s grave marked with a boulder, and then skirted the upper field before returning home. The snow was falling quietly but heavily. As we drove through the gray woods that were gradually being flocked with the new snow, we spied white-tailed deer keeping a close eye on us along with a flock of wild turkeys. The picturesque settings brought to my mind the words of Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The last stanza especially echoed in my thoughts with seemingly appropriate sentiments as another year draws to a close and a new one prepares for launch.
Whose woods are these I think I know.
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
It’s been a good year. It’s been a challenging year. There is so much yet to be done in my family, friendships, and church, not to mention the people and the opportunities lying ahead of me that I know nothing of at this point in time. One of the many things I enjoy about the holiday season is the opportunity to eventually slow down and reflect on what is and what has been. But I don’t pause for long because a new year awaits. As I look ahead I do so with anticipation, and with the keen realization that I have “promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”
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Tagged Nature, nature photos, Poetry, Robert Frost, snow, stopping by the woods on a snowing evening
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