.
There is an owl in our neighborhood. Owls are not bad creatures and are beneficial and elusive in our society. They fortunately eat rodents and, unfortunately eat small domesticated animals. Ah, so goes the natural order of things.
For months I have heard a neighborhood owl in the early morning hours, all through the day, and just into the night. The call of the owl is alluring, unique, and a bit spooky. One day, a good question for God will be, “Who designed the call of the owl and why?”
So, on a particular morning when there was nothing pressing for a few hours, I donned a pair of binoculars and a hat, and I then began to attune my ears to the direction of the “Whoooos” until I felt secure in moving ten yards in a particular direction. Then, I waited until I heard at least several more “Whoooos” before taking another ten yard move in a finer tuned direction. I repeated this process for a good 50 minutes until I felt sure I was somewhere within the general acre of the owl and was possibly within eye shot. So I began to zero in on the direction of the calls with my binoculars.
With a few more directional yards acquired (and a pretty good idea of two trees the owl might be in), I hunkered down to do some fine looking. I looked and looked, trying to focus my looking in the direction of the calls. Only after 15 minutes did I finally find the owl, sitting a little on the back side of the tree from me but occasionally offering a little “who-who-who-woo-a." I watched the owl for as long as I could give the time, and most all of the time I was watching the owl, the owl was focused on me.
I had only spotted the owl at the end of my journey, but I was of the impression that the owl had spotted me long before I had come near to the moment when I focused the binoculars on the owl for the first time, for at that first glance, the owl was looking right at me. And as long as I sat and watched, the owl was purposefully conscious of my presence.
Owls are alluring, illusive, mysterious, winsome yet distant. Owls are not the same as any other creature and unique in design and purpose. Many of the attributes of an owl are the attributes of the winsome yet mysterious nature of God.
I recognize in recent generations, we have made God so personal and available that God has, often to a fault, become a good buddy, a casual friend, and always affirming of our point of view to any question we might have. Our current culture has grown very comfortable with God and has whittled and sized God down to where we can easily handle any personal conviction, guilt, brokenness, and temptation that might affect our lives. God has become the affirming and self-gratifying deity of our personal self-centered needs.
For one instance, the “angels” of the Holy Bible were messengers, one who brought good, or convicting, news from God. Angels were fearsome and antagonistic. They were to be feared. Jacob wrestled with an angel, shepherds cowered in fear at the angels, angels climbed ladders up and down to get the message delivered, and an angel of the Lord stood guard over the Garden of Eden, post eviction. Angels were awesome and powerful agents.
Today, we wear angels on our lapels, get them tattooed on our arms, have guardian angels who are our best friends, and find angels to be soft and personal with a huge appeal to even a non-religious culture. Angels are almost their own religion in our personalization of everything holy and sacred.
So when I say that “God is distant,” many might think I have gone back to the dark ages. However, God IS distant. God is not like us. Often forgotten natures of God are those of judge, sovereign Lord, powerful speaker of words that then become reality, Lord God Almighty, sitter on the great throne, the power behind the incarnation as well as being the incarnate, and tester of creation to learn of our true mettle (sp).
A journey to God is not always clear, not always guaranteed, not easy, and not ever without our dedicated energy. A journey to a discovery of God is, however, alluring (as an owl’s “whooo”), available (for those who take the time to pursue), and is not without notice by God (since God, like the owl, is continually aware of our journey and nearness). Not only is the call of God alluring and the persona of God winsome, but the appeal of God is to our conviction that we cannot imagine any other place we would want to be, except on a journey toward and with God.
I believe our society needs to put God back into the sovereign Kingdom, to remove God from the place of popular nearness, and to offer God as something other than our own personal whim and desire. God is to be pursued with a deep hunger where we are transformed by God more than God is to be invited into our shallow arenas of society where we transform God into our own image.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com
Monday, June 28, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Goose Egg Big Toe
.
I have discovered something within myself that I do not like and am surprised to find. I should not be surprised to find it but still it is there. I have discovered that I am a lazy person. I have a streak of laziness in me that runs from “can see to can’t see.” This laziness is a wide streak, thick and continuous, and it usually raises its ugly head when I am faced with doing a chore, a task, or a requirement. My laziness is all about doing those things that I have to do more than it is about doing those things that produce an obvious or creative result.
I do not like filling out forms, organizing statistics, weeding the vegetables, polishing the silver, putting things up, returning from a trip, cleaning the paint brushes, washing a pot, folding t-shirts, or trimming the edges of the lawn. I enjoy mowing the lawn, painting, cooking, eating with silver utensils, packing up and going on a trip, taking things down, making statistics, planting and harvesting vegetables, putting on clean clothes, and submitting filled-out forms. Of the former things, I am slow to act. Of the latter things, I am quick to answer the call.
I love maps and will read one at bedtime like a novel. I do not like folding maps, and so the underneath side of the bed has a usual array of interesting yet perpetually open maps. I love organizing a backpack of goods for a three-day hike. I have no interest in unpacking a pack after having carried it and having lived out of it for three days. I love making something that I have never made before. I have no interest in sweeping up the filings, brushing up the sawdust, picking up the remnants, organizing the scraps, and would prefer to let my tools lie where they have strewn themselves. I love the way a clean car drives but have no interest in doing what is required to get one to that condition.
I am not surprised that, when God had to think of a way to punish Adam and Eve, “toil” was the obvious answer. Adam and Eve had certainly worked long and hard before that time. They had named all the animals, gussied up the garden for afternoon walks with God, organized all the plants for advantageous growth and harvest, and altogether had a pretty jolly old time working day after day in the garden. They never griped, complained, or worried about the amount of work a day might require. Actually, labor seemed to be an OK thing to do.
Then they go and upset the order and stand in need for the rest of us for all time as punishment. God was very conniving and clever with the result being the simple and innocent-appearing transformation of daily “labor” into “toil.” I suspect that after God explained to Adam and Eve that “toil” would be the punishment, they looked at each other with a little smile, thinking this would be an easy pill to swallow. They had privately feared God might turn sugar into vinegar, or make their big toes larger than a goose egg so they would be easily stumped, or turn their noses upside down so the rain would cause them to strangle, or take away buttermilk. Instead, God gave to them, (and to us), a punishment that we could not get around, which is the daily punishment of clothes to fold and put up, forms to fill out, pots to wash, a desire for stuff that would have to be organized, weeds in the garden, little bones in the fish, stingers on bees, and chores that would have no end. The punishment is a life of meticulous and enslaving toil.
When God made “labor,” the resulting gift was one of the good things. When God gave us “toil,” the resulting bequeathal was the punishment. Of the former things, I am eager, willing, and able. Of the latter, I am a slug. I would have preferred a larger big toe.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com
I have discovered something within myself that I do not like and am surprised to find. I should not be surprised to find it but still it is there. I have discovered that I am a lazy person. I have a streak of laziness in me that runs from “can see to can’t see.” This laziness is a wide streak, thick and continuous, and it usually raises its ugly head when I am faced with doing a chore, a task, or a requirement. My laziness is all about doing those things that I have to do more than it is about doing those things that produce an obvious or creative result.
I do not like filling out forms, organizing statistics, weeding the vegetables, polishing the silver, putting things up, returning from a trip, cleaning the paint brushes, washing a pot, folding t-shirts, or trimming the edges of the lawn. I enjoy mowing the lawn, painting, cooking, eating with silver utensils, packing up and going on a trip, taking things down, making statistics, planting and harvesting vegetables, putting on clean clothes, and submitting filled-out forms. Of the former things, I am slow to act. Of the latter things, I am quick to answer the call.
I love maps and will read one at bedtime like a novel. I do not like folding maps, and so the underneath side of the bed has a usual array of interesting yet perpetually open maps. I love organizing a backpack of goods for a three-day hike. I have no interest in unpacking a pack after having carried it and having lived out of it for three days. I love making something that I have never made before. I have no interest in sweeping up the filings, brushing up the sawdust, picking up the remnants, organizing the scraps, and would prefer to let my tools lie where they have strewn themselves. I love the way a clean car drives but have no interest in doing what is required to get one to that condition.
I am not surprised that, when God had to think of a way to punish Adam and Eve, “toil” was the obvious answer. Adam and Eve had certainly worked long and hard before that time. They had named all the animals, gussied up the garden for afternoon walks with God, organized all the plants for advantageous growth and harvest, and altogether had a pretty jolly old time working day after day in the garden. They never griped, complained, or worried about the amount of work a day might require. Actually, labor seemed to be an OK thing to do.
Then they go and upset the order and stand in need for the rest of us for all time as punishment. God was very conniving and clever with the result being the simple and innocent-appearing transformation of daily “labor” into “toil.” I suspect that after God explained to Adam and Eve that “toil” would be the punishment, they looked at each other with a little smile, thinking this would be an easy pill to swallow. They had privately feared God might turn sugar into vinegar, or make their big toes larger than a goose egg so they would be easily stumped, or turn their noses upside down so the rain would cause them to strangle, or take away buttermilk. Instead, God gave to them, (and to us), a punishment that we could not get around, which is the daily punishment of clothes to fold and put up, forms to fill out, pots to wash, a desire for stuff that would have to be organized, weeds in the garden, little bones in the fish, stingers on bees, and chores that would have no end. The punishment is a life of meticulous and enslaving toil.
When God made “labor,” the resulting gift was one of the good things. When God gave us “toil,” the resulting bequeathal was the punishment. Of the former things, I am eager, willing, and able. Of the latter, I am a slug. I would have preferred a larger big toe.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Teach a Pig to Sing
.
Evidently, if you want to gather a crowd together to hear what you want to say, call your speech a “Commencement Address”. Commencement Addresses always draw a crowd. I remember my high school commencement address by a few notes I took on the back of the graduation program, which also listed all 680 of the graduates in my senior high class.
I believe our speaker was the inventor of latex paint, and how that made him suitable to be a commencement speaker, I have yet to understand. It is my belief that he was more proficient in the use of chemicals than he was at commencement speaking. At one point I actually believed the “commencement” had only “commenced” without having an actual end, but he soon came to a good end, and we all applauded. I learned that if you want to receive applause at the end of your speech, say more than you should and lead the people to believe you are going to go longer. Applause brought on by relief is just as good as applause born in praise.
Here is the 1971 Commencement Address from East Forsyth Senior High School graduation, (at least the parts I jotted down). These timeless truths are eternal.
“Cross the bridge of compromise, and do not make the alligator angry until you reach the other side, for only a fool tries to butt the bull off that bridge. The wise person will just jump right on into an ocean of platitudes and with the great stroke of an Olympian swim across the channel of confidence toward the great safety of the far shore of the obvious. It was a great man who said ‘if you give a man a fish platter, with hush puppies, you will make him happy today, but if you give him a credit card with an $8,000 limit you will make him happy for about 8 months,’ and I for one believe this is the way to keep on the sunny side all the while knowing life is a bowl of cherries, and you had better pick your bowl full sooner than later. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
Believe in yourself and don’t believe in all that glitters, for it is not gold. People who do had may as well believe that fat meat is not greasy, that wives may object to life insurance but widows never do, and that such is life, and it just gets sucher and sucher. Remember that the Prophet Grover once told us how we should not count our chickens before they hatch, should not take any wooden nickels, should not look a gift horse in the mouth, should not get our knickers in a twist, and we should not try to teach a pig to sing; we only waste our time and annoy the pig.
Abigail, (evidently the grandmother of the speaker) once told me to not worry about the blind horse but to just go ahead and load the wagon, for if you don’t like the cut of the jib, don’t like being a bump on a pickle, don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and don’t want to offend the neighbors, then don’t put a drunkard in the drivers seat and give him the keys. Everybody likes pie, and Jesus was a lot like his father.
Climb the stairway of success, for success is a journey and not a destination, even when a golden opportunity comes around only once in life, and your mission in life is to pay the price of success on the rocky road of life to the success that begets success. Go ugly early: don’t wait until quitting time.”
Now THAT is a great “Commencement Address”. Pardon me as I take a moment to wipe a tear and reflect on the great truths revealed in my recollection of this great moment in my life. As I go down memory lane, I remember the great adults who were born out of that great class of students. To my right was Jigger Marion, who soon after graduation jumped off a cliff into what he thought was a lake but all too late discovered it to be a puddle. On the other side was Grady Martin, who, on the day after graduation, married Roberta Flimsy, for her daddy’s money. Grady all too late discovered Roberta was marrying him for his money, and it just goes to prove, two poor people who get married will not make a rich family, (two negatives will not make a positive).
I believe Job 11:12 does quite well at summing up our human wisdom and Commencement Addresses. Look it up for yourself only if you can handle more truth that is far beyond my understanding. (Job is right before Psalms…in the Old Testament).
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com
Evidently, if you want to gather a crowd together to hear what you want to say, call your speech a “Commencement Address”. Commencement Addresses always draw a crowd. I remember my high school commencement address by a few notes I took on the back of the graduation program, which also listed all 680 of the graduates in my senior high class.
I believe our speaker was the inventor of latex paint, and how that made him suitable to be a commencement speaker, I have yet to understand. It is my belief that he was more proficient in the use of chemicals than he was at commencement speaking. At one point I actually believed the “commencement” had only “commenced” without having an actual end, but he soon came to a good end, and we all applauded. I learned that if you want to receive applause at the end of your speech, say more than you should and lead the people to believe you are going to go longer. Applause brought on by relief is just as good as applause born in praise.
Here is the 1971 Commencement Address from East Forsyth Senior High School graduation, (at least the parts I jotted down). These timeless truths are eternal.
“Cross the bridge of compromise, and do not make the alligator angry until you reach the other side, for only a fool tries to butt the bull off that bridge. The wise person will just jump right on into an ocean of platitudes and with the great stroke of an Olympian swim across the channel of confidence toward the great safety of the far shore of the obvious. It was a great man who said ‘if you give a man a fish platter, with hush puppies, you will make him happy today, but if you give him a credit card with an $8,000 limit you will make him happy for about 8 months,’ and I for one believe this is the way to keep on the sunny side all the while knowing life is a bowl of cherries, and you had better pick your bowl full sooner than later. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
Believe in yourself and don’t believe in all that glitters, for it is not gold. People who do had may as well believe that fat meat is not greasy, that wives may object to life insurance but widows never do, and that such is life, and it just gets sucher and sucher. Remember that the Prophet Grover once told us how we should not count our chickens before they hatch, should not take any wooden nickels, should not look a gift horse in the mouth, should not get our knickers in a twist, and we should not try to teach a pig to sing; we only waste our time and annoy the pig.
Abigail, (evidently the grandmother of the speaker) once told me to not worry about the blind horse but to just go ahead and load the wagon, for if you don’t like the cut of the jib, don’t like being a bump on a pickle, don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and don’t want to offend the neighbors, then don’t put a drunkard in the drivers seat and give him the keys. Everybody likes pie, and Jesus was a lot like his father.
Climb the stairway of success, for success is a journey and not a destination, even when a golden opportunity comes around only once in life, and your mission in life is to pay the price of success on the rocky road of life to the success that begets success. Go ugly early: don’t wait until quitting time.”
Now THAT is a great “Commencement Address”. Pardon me as I take a moment to wipe a tear and reflect on the great truths revealed in my recollection of this great moment in my life. As I go down memory lane, I remember the great adults who were born out of that great class of students. To my right was Jigger Marion, who soon after graduation jumped off a cliff into what he thought was a lake but all too late discovered it to be a puddle. On the other side was Grady Martin, who, on the day after graduation, married Roberta Flimsy, for her daddy’s money. Grady all too late discovered Roberta was marrying him for his money, and it just goes to prove, two poor people who get married will not make a rich family, (two negatives will not make a positive).
I believe Job 11:12 does quite well at summing up our human wisdom and Commencement Addresses. Look it up for yourself only if you can handle more truth that is far beyond my understanding. (Job is right before Psalms…in the Old Testament).
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com
Friday, June 4, 2010
An Eighth of a Ton of Hope
.
I presently weigh what Anne and I weighed together when we got married. I have assumed the mass of both parts of the nuptial speakers at our wedding. I took the statement, “the two shall become as one” a bit too seriously and physically. Actually, it appears I misinterpreted the saying thinking the words were, “the one shall be as big as two.” At this rate I am headed to a mass the size of my Uncle Grover, who was the largest man in our family. I long to return to those good old days when my lone weight was less than an eighth of a ton and somewhere around a mere tenth of a ton.
I am normally a forward-thinking person. Constant thinking of times gone by and the “way things used to be” is the sure way to misery in the present. I grew up with lots of family who referred to the “good old days” so often that, until I turned 18, I believed this was an authentic time and place being unanimously designated by all as the best time in the world to live. I found it very easy to believe that the world from 1900 through the year of my birth was life as good as it gets.
Only as I did some study did I discover that this same 50-year period was scarred with two world wars, a major depression, a dust bowl of the whole mid-west, racism in every part of the country, the elimination of thousands of types of native wildlife and plant species for lack of care, possibly 4 influenza epidemics that killed almost 3 million people in our country (5 out of every 100), a period of time when THE country of freedom had geographic regions where only white men could vote, and when an average lifespan was only between 50 and 57 years of age for both sexes.
Now that I have reached the golden age of sure death, according to the “good old days” standards, I also find it easy to look back to my past as the “good old days.” But as I remember those days, I have to acknowledge major wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Iraq/Afghanistan, along with minor events in Granada and Panama and a huge silent Cold War. We have witnessed the assassination, or near assassination, of three presidents, an attack on our country by an outside power, environmental and natural disasters like the world has never before witnessed, periods of inflation, mortgage bubbles, crashes, black Fridays, and interest rates above 12%. Yet, I look back and find this to be a time of “good old days.”
I actually find it easy to watch shows on Woodstock, or shows on the ‘50s, ‘60’s, ‘70s and even the ‘80s and long to return to those wonderful years. (Unfortunately, I have thrown away my platform shoes, my disco shirts and leisure suits, and I have not had a permanent in my hair for a few decades.)
Backward-viewing is so easily optimistic as we selectively remember the good and forget the horrible. Looking backward is the easy way we respond to the unknown of what is ahead and run to the safe security of the past of which we have survived. Few of us have great vision of survival in the future.
This is the place where the members of the Church of Jesus Christ differ from all other earth residents. We differ in that we are a forward-looking people. Nowhere in our New Testament does the early church point to the events of the past as being the time when “God lived.” Even a casual reader of the Old Testament will witness that, again and again, the old days were the time God drew near and gave powerful leadership to the faithful. But in the New Testament, we are a visionary and forward-looking people. Even at the death of Jesus, every teaching and event pointed to the resurrection that was to come. Today, we live in the hope of the return of Jesus and the joyful promise of Salvation through the grace of Jesus Christ. For the Christian, the future is a Kingdom of God, a house not made by hands, a crossing of the Jordan where we will not look back.
The Christian believes that every day is a day with God. The Christian believes that every new day is a time of grace, healing, reconciliation, hope and promise. Every new day is an Easter-day with the resurrection the source of our hope. We believe that the Holy Spirit of God will be even more evident to us than we have experienced in the past.
Christians who look back and believe that what was is better than what is, and what is is better than what is to come, have surrendered to the accepted temptation of our culture to be hopelessly wandering organisms of the earth, believing we alone must make our way and find our shallow pleasantries. Churches who have a larger “History Room” than their “New Converts Room” have given in to the safe temptation of becoming earth-dwellers satisfied with a good old history sufficient only for bragging rights. Churches that look to the future with dread, without a vision of God’s direction, have taken an earthly path and have stopped expecting the courageous vision of God for all that will be.
Our citizenship is in God’s Kingdom. The Holy Spirit is always with us. Our hope is in the Lord. I will never be a tenth of a ton again, but I look to the future with great hope and joy, for the Lord is my source.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com
I presently weigh what Anne and I weighed together when we got married. I have assumed the mass of both parts of the nuptial speakers at our wedding. I took the statement, “the two shall become as one” a bit too seriously and physically. Actually, it appears I misinterpreted the saying thinking the words were, “the one shall be as big as two.” At this rate I am headed to a mass the size of my Uncle Grover, who was the largest man in our family. I long to return to those good old days when my lone weight was less than an eighth of a ton and somewhere around a mere tenth of a ton.
I am normally a forward-thinking person. Constant thinking of times gone by and the “way things used to be” is the sure way to misery in the present. I grew up with lots of family who referred to the “good old days” so often that, until I turned 18, I believed this was an authentic time and place being unanimously designated by all as the best time in the world to live. I found it very easy to believe that the world from 1900 through the year of my birth was life as good as it gets.
Only as I did some study did I discover that this same 50-year period was scarred with two world wars, a major depression, a dust bowl of the whole mid-west, racism in every part of the country, the elimination of thousands of types of native wildlife and plant species for lack of care, possibly 4 influenza epidemics that killed almost 3 million people in our country (5 out of every 100), a period of time when THE country of freedom had geographic regions where only white men could vote, and when an average lifespan was only between 50 and 57 years of age for both sexes.
Now that I have reached the golden age of sure death, according to the “good old days” standards, I also find it easy to look back to my past as the “good old days.” But as I remember those days, I have to acknowledge major wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Iraq/Afghanistan, along with minor events in Granada and Panama and a huge silent Cold War. We have witnessed the assassination, or near assassination, of three presidents, an attack on our country by an outside power, environmental and natural disasters like the world has never before witnessed, periods of inflation, mortgage bubbles, crashes, black Fridays, and interest rates above 12%. Yet, I look back and find this to be a time of “good old days.”
I actually find it easy to watch shows on Woodstock, or shows on the ‘50s, ‘60’s, ‘70s and even the ‘80s and long to return to those wonderful years. (Unfortunately, I have thrown away my platform shoes, my disco shirts and leisure suits, and I have not had a permanent in my hair for a few decades.)
Backward-viewing is so easily optimistic as we selectively remember the good and forget the horrible. Looking backward is the easy way we respond to the unknown of what is ahead and run to the safe security of the past of which we have survived. Few of us have great vision of survival in the future.
This is the place where the members of the Church of Jesus Christ differ from all other earth residents. We differ in that we are a forward-looking people. Nowhere in our New Testament does the early church point to the events of the past as being the time when “God lived.” Even a casual reader of the Old Testament will witness that, again and again, the old days were the time God drew near and gave powerful leadership to the faithful. But in the New Testament, we are a visionary and forward-looking people. Even at the death of Jesus, every teaching and event pointed to the resurrection that was to come. Today, we live in the hope of the return of Jesus and the joyful promise of Salvation through the grace of Jesus Christ. For the Christian, the future is a Kingdom of God, a house not made by hands, a crossing of the Jordan where we will not look back.
The Christian believes that every day is a day with God. The Christian believes that every new day is a time of grace, healing, reconciliation, hope and promise. Every new day is an Easter-day with the resurrection the source of our hope. We believe that the Holy Spirit of God will be even more evident to us than we have experienced in the past.
Christians who look back and believe that what was is better than what is, and what is is better than what is to come, have surrendered to the accepted temptation of our culture to be hopelessly wandering organisms of the earth, believing we alone must make our way and find our shallow pleasantries. Churches who have a larger “History Room” than their “New Converts Room” have given in to the safe temptation of becoming earth-dwellers satisfied with a good old history sufficient only for bragging rights. Churches that look to the future with dread, without a vision of God’s direction, have taken an earthly path and have stopped expecting the courageous vision of God for all that will be.
Our citizenship is in God’s Kingdom. The Holy Spirit is always with us. Our hope is in the Lord. I will never be a tenth of a ton again, but I look to the future with great hope and joy, for the Lord is my source.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com
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