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Monday, February 23, 2004 posted by R.C. 8:33 AM link |
Ringing Mr. Bell, or The Wonder Years Last night I was given the assignment of speaking at a fundraising dinner at a classical Christian school, Petra Academy, in Bozeman, Montana. In my address, I had the privilege of speaking badly about government schools, which is almost as precious as the skiing I got to do earlier in the day. The emcee of the event, not surprisingly tried to undo what I had to say on the Lordship of Christ over all things. She was reasonably gracious about it, taking the time after the event to explain her incremental reason for turning my convictions into something soft and acceptable. She explained that there were Christians in the audience that taught in government schools, and she didn’t want to discourage them in their “mission.” I responded that I would be delighted to discourage them in their “mission.” It’s my hope that every Christian teacher will soon leave the government schools. She was rather surprised when I explained such. Her first objection was rather common, “But what about the mission?” I explained, “There is no mission if you can’t proclaim the message.” You can’t claim to hold onto the government school gig for the sake of the gospel if you can’t proclaim the gospel. But what, she asked, about the faculty lounge? She knew of real people, teachers who had embraced the gospel, because they heard it from believing Christians in the faculty lounge. I did not wilt and jilt my convictions, but rather happily concede the grace of God, “I don’t doubt it,. I said, “Praise God His grace is bigger than our folly.” I went on to suggest that I was rather confident that God had actually saved people in brothels, but that such doesn’t mean we should hope they would stick around. It is in light of that conversation, I want to remember some other small blessings that God birthed out of the mud of folly. I do not betray my principles to remember the grace of God in its most subtle forms. I have rhapsodized over the smell of bologna in a Happy Days lunch box. Today I want to remember those who, in their sin, pretended to teach without affirming the Lordship of Christ, yet who nevertheless, in exhibiting the image of God, still blessed me. First is Miss Donchez, my first grade teacher, and my first crush. She was a carbon copy of That Girl, complete with a Donald who took her from us through marriage. In the second grade we had the beautiful Mrs. Pletcher, who, I came to discover decades later, left us in the middle of the year because of the breakdown brought on by the guilt of an affair. But through those years there was one constant, Mr. Bell, the gym teacher. He wasn’t particularly kind, nor insightful. He didn’t even exhibit a profound love of sport. His glory was simply that he was a decent man, and that he was familiar. Years later in junior high I saw him again, this time because his son Ted had become my friend. Ted was a kind of caricature. He was tall, awkward, but worst of all, over-eager to make the cool crowd. This, in the gracious economy of junior high, made him at least a hanger-on with the cool crowd, as a sort of unofficial mascot. And, despite being one of only three people with whom I ever had a fist-fight, he thus became a friend of mine. He attended the local Romish schools. We, for a time, argued theology, but his heart wasn’t in it. But we both loved and despite our bravado, were intimidated by the pretty girls. He was Paul to my Kevin, even having the grace of hooking me up with the girl on whom he had a crush. God’s grace flows in the strangest places. We work, and we negotiate to build assorted grand canals and viaducts, when the truth is, it descends on us like mist. But there is one simple secret to the mechanics of it all—He works through the small and ordinary far more than through the gauche and spectacular. He will work more through the conversation about the death of Christ I had with the courtesy van driver on my way to the airport, than He will through a blockbuster movie. He worked in my life, despite the folly of government schools, despite the worldliness that defined my world, through men like Mr. Bell, simply because he was decent, and through his son, because decent men raise decent sons. God, it turns out, works in the strangest places because He is in the strangest places, and where He is, He works. Our job is to rejoice in the work, to live in faithfulness, to give honor to whom honor is due. Ours is not to reason how, our is but to praise and bow. [comments] |
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Monday, February 16, 2004 posted by R.C. 10:08 AM link |
Editor's note: R.C. reports that after yesterday's blizzard he and his family are snowbound, without electric power, and quite comfortable. He's unable to supply a new squib, but we're pretty sure his thinking is unchanged since he wrote this one in December 2002. Liquid Manna Martin Luther once said, “He who does not find [the great and perfect wisdom of God] in His wonderful work of music is truly a clod and is not worthy to be considered a man.” And as is almost always the case, in buffeting the ascetic philistine about the head, Luther is right. But I write not today in praise of the beauty of music, but of a beauty man will never rightly mimic, the beauty of snow. I know that there are snow making machines out there. But I know also they do not make snow. It’s cold, and you can, after a fashion, ski on it, but it is not snow. I know also that snow can make it difficult to get out of the house, to race well with the rats. All the better. Snow can even, as it did here last night, knock out the power for a time. Once again, all the better. But ultimately we ought not judge snow for its utility (though here it gets big points for making it possible to ski, ride a sled, have a snow ball fight and make a snow angel—plus, of course, it will give us in the Spring the water we need). No, it is the beauty of the thing that enamors. Snow is the ultimate marriage of complexity in harmony. Billions upon billions of unique notes fall together in a crescendo of white unity. If you should ever be blessed to be far enough from the crush of civilization when a heavy snow falls, you can even hear the very music of the iced dew’s delicate descent. It is the repainting of a landscape, in a thousand hues of white. It is the very dance of the wind. It is as if, just for a time, we get to enter the wonder of Narnia, or of Middle Earth, to dance amidst the miracle of liquid manna. If you want to behold the terror of the Lord, peek into the hurricane. It is falling snow, however, that invites us to be still and know that He is God. [comments] |
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Thursday, February 12, 2004 posted by R.C. 1:39 PM link |
Another Long and Winding Road: an Update on Our Star Columnist Friends, Many of you are aware that my dear wife was diagnosed with breast cancer New Year’s Eve. The doctors believed she has ductal carcinoma in situ, a rather tame form of cancer, and scheduled a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery for the ninth of February. As they were performing the procedure they found a slightly more aggressive form of cancer. They found that the cancer was invasive. The good news is that her lymph nodes showed up clean. The extent of the cancer in the breast, however, makes it difficult to be confident that it was all gotten. The plan now is for Denise to heal for a few weeks, and then begin chemotherapy. After that she will need radiation treatment. After that, perhaps another mastectomy, and certainly reconstructive surgery. What we thought would probably be over in six weeks (the recovery time from the original procedure) will now likely last into late summer or fall. While this is a setback, and while her “odds” are not quite as encouraging as at the beginning, we are still way over on the scale of the likely full recovery and an end to this. Getting there will just be more difficult and time consuming. More good news is that the entire family is in good spirits most of the time. God has sustained us in a mighty way. Much of that has been through the tender care of His people, both in their prayers, and in their ministry. Meals keep coming, and people keep coming to help out. We are delighting in the love of our brothers, and trusting in all God’s promises, believing that this hardship is a blessing to all of His people that are involved. It is not my intention to turn this website into a health report. You may hear nothing more about this here, assuming all goes as currently planned. Such doesn’t mean we don’t covet your prayers as we continue to walk this road. Thank you deeply from both of us for the prayers you have offered. |
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Tuesday, February 10, 2004 posted by R.C. 9:55 AM link |
The Long and Winding Road It was forty years ago today, Sergeant Sullivan told the band to play. I wasn’t born yet when Beatlemania hit these shores. I have, however, seen, or rather heard, film of that show of shows. In the interest of full disclosure, I have, over the course of my life, purchased nearly 500 records in various media, including, by the way, a dozen or so eight track tapes. Roughly ten percent of those would fall under the categories of classical, or ethnic music. One percent would be Christian music. The rest was all pop. The first record I bought was One More From the Road, a double live recording of Lynyrd Skynyrd at the Fox theater in Atlanta (this with the thirteen minute live version of Freebird). Much of the “pop” music had an advantage of a tie to older, more folk styles. I bought Muddy Waters and Burning Spear, Buddy Guy and Peter Tosh . I even at one time owned every Prince record from his first to his first as The Artist Formerly Known As.., including a bootleg copy of the at the time unreleased Black Album. Perhaps worse still, I actually owned a Robbie Nevil CD. Though I never owned a Beatle’s record, I have seen the Sergeant Pepper movie, and actually liked it. Aerosmith dressed like the Ramones, playing the Angry Young Band that had kidnapped Strawberry Fields. I confess all my lapses in taste and judgment, however, to once again remember that I have fingers pointed at me. What follows isn’t designed to be a carefully reasoned bit of moral law. Rather it is a mere observation: for whatever redeeming qualities pop music might have, doesn’t it seem like something must be fundamentally wrong with a phenomenon that has thousands of teenage girls screaming their lungs out, indeed drowning out the “music” they supposedly love? Shouldn’t we be shocked and perhaps a bit frightened by the Ed Sullivan footage, rather than bemused? Shouldn’t we be asking ourselves what it means? I don’t think you can watch that spectacle and honestly conclude, “It’s just music—where’s the harm?” Music hath charms to awake the savage beast. Culturally speaking, I believe we’ve suffered the same fate as Peter’s neighbors—he of howling wolf fame. When our grandparents fussed about Elvis, we plowed on through. When they fussed about those long-haired Beatles, we reminded them that they had fussed about Elvis. Then it was the Stones, and down we tumbled until we drew a line in the sand, right between Janet Jackson’s breasts. That line, I believe, will stay until the next tide comes in. Because we were warned about what we now consider tame, we have lost the ears to hear an appropriate warning. The Bible doesn’t say we can’t listen to the world’s music. It doesn’t tell us that hell rocks to a syncopated beat. Neither, however, did the Bible forbid first century Christians from attending the Roman coliseums. They didn’t go, however, because there was nothing there for them. Until they were forced to go, as the stars of the show. Until we too learn to dance to the beat of our sovereign drummer, I’m afraid we won’t have the honor of appearing before thousands of screaming fans—who scream for our deaths. It is better, after all, to burn out, than to fade away. [comments] |
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Tuesday, February 03, 2004 posted by R.C. 3:28 PM link |
No Rest for the Wicked I was driving home from supper with some friends last night when I noticed first that the Exxon gas station had changed hands, and then, strangely, that it was closed for the evening. And then I noticed how strange it was that I thought it strange that it was closed. I remember a time when gas was fifty cents a gallon. I remember when the only thing you could buy at a gas station was wiper blades. I remember when a man pumped your gas, checked your oil, cleaned your windshield, and gave you change. But I also remember that gas stations used to close, at night, and on Sundays. In fact, most businesses were closed at night. I remember also the first time I ever say a 7-11. I was seven or eight states removed from my home. I wasn’t puzzled by its function, as we had what we called then “the little store” just a few miles from my home, where we kids bought candy, smoke bombs and balsa wood airplanes, and where the parents bought milk, bread, and chipped ham. No, what puzzled me was the name of the store. My father, who was savvy to the wide world, explained that it opened at 7 in the morning, and stayed open until 11 at night. My eyes widened at such exotic hours. What would anyone possibly need to drag them out of bed at 10:45, that they couldn’t wait for until morning? As I often tell my children when they grumble of this ailment or that after they have been in bed, “You know the best thing for that? Sleep.” Las Vegas was once known as the city that never sleeps. I’m afraid we’ve become the nation that never sleeps. A convenience store that closed at 11 would now be considered most inconvenient. Instead we wonder why they have locks on their doors. If you don’t want to pay through the nose for some aspirin at the convenience store, the drugstore is also open 24-7. Or, you can get what you need at the grocery store that’s always open. And if what you need at 3:00 AM isn’t aspirin, but a particle board computer desk, there’s always Super Wal-Mart. What happened? Why are we living as if there is no tomorrow, not in the sense that tomorrow won’t come, but in the sense that time has become elastic, and all the days bleed into one? Why haven’t we the simple sense to get some sleep? Though I have puzzled over that question during my waking moments since last night, I believe I have the answer. We as a people have rejected the special grace of God’s Sabbath rest, and so we as a nation have lost the common grace of ordinary rest. I’m not arguing either for a Puritan view of the Lord’s Day, nor for the passage of Blue Laws. Our problem is far too deep for such convenient fixes. Instead what we need is some humility. When we declare ourselves the lords of time, we find that we’ve lost the rhythm., and so offend the Lord of the Sabbath, the Lord of the Dance. There is a time for everything, and everything in its time. Forgetting such leads to chasing after the wind. [comments] |