Put yourself in the clunker's position.
Once you were a new rig. But now you are a clunker.
They're paying money for you not out of love or respect, but because they want to get rid of your toxic influence on the environment.
Once I myself was a new rig.
But now I am fast becoming a clunker.
Yes sometimes I wish I was young again.
But I like being broken in. I like the dents and dings on me.
And when I'm on the road, nobody lusts after me. They just pass me by.
What I have left is only for use, not for show. And not for speed.
My concern now is how to be useful.
Help me not to be jealous of other old clunkers because I see they are so much more useful than me.
One day I will indeed be traded in.
But I don't think anybody knows what that will be like.
Logos2Go
2 Corinthians 5.4 Our dying bodies make us groan and sigh, but it's not that we want to die and have no bodies at all. We want to slip into our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by everlasting life. (NLT)
1 Corinthians 15.52 ...in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
John 12.24 Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.
Cash for clunkers
The burden of being an introvert
Introverts often aspire to be extroverts.
It's never the other way around. Can you imagine an extrovert thinking: "Oh, if I can only be an introvert! Think of how fulfilled my life would be!"
I can't imagine extroverts ever thinking that. They're too busy being extroverts: you know, being out there, mingling, networking, organizing, doing all of the things introverts live in mortal fear of doing ... and they're enjoying it! It's rejuvenating them!
I on the other hand am an introvert.
Once I went on a week-long retreat with a bunch of academics. It was in the mountains outside of St. Lake City. (In other words, I was stuck big time; no other place to go). The week was packed with wall-to-wall people obligations: meetings, encounter sessions (yuck!), dinners, cocktails, small talk, yak yak yak. Hikes in the snow!
I almost died.
One evening I simply disappeared into my room and shut the door. They didn't know what happened to me.
Oh, if I can only be an extrovert!
Today my friend Dan cited me a statistic that 75% of the US population is extrovert; only 25% are introvert. So you know who's running this joint.
Dan told me this tidbit in his study, which is a small wood frame shed -- oh, it must be no more than 10 x 10 -- on his 20 acres of land. We were holed up in there having fellowship, prayer, conniving to write a book entitled Christianity for Introverts.
Dan, you see, is an introvert.
"This is not a book," said Dan in his thoughtful way, "that will encourage introverts to be extroverts. This is a book that will encourage introverts to rejoice in just how God made them."
"Amen," I said, chomping down on his home-grown strawberries. "Amen!"
Outside several goats were lounging in the shade. And grasshoppers were all over the place, popping out of the grass like coiled springs.
Logos2Go
Psalm 139.14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
On giving money to strangers: a confession
The other day we were in the parking lot at Lowe's. A young man met us and asked for money to buy gas "for me and my father." I refused him by saying he should ask inside the store. He walked away dejected, muttering, "But I've already tried that ..." And we drove off.
It felt so not-right.
But what to do? These days many ask for money for help, only to spend it on what they actually need help for: addiction to drugs and booze. But do I hide behind this excuse, and end up not offering help of any kind?
The incident stirred two other memories:
Years ago when we were young, Valerie and I were in Seattle for the first time. Outside our hotel a man asked for 20 dollars for an emergency, promising he'll repay it by leaving it at the front desk for us later in the day. I gave him the 20 dollars. (We were young). Of course nothing turned up at the front desk later on.
That incident had a formative influence on me with respect to strangers asking for money. The young man at the Lowe's was the unfortunate recipient of that influence.
Also some years ago we were touring in China; I forget which city we were in. But again it was in a parking lot: a small girl came up to me and begged for money.
I've never forgotten how dismissive I was in turning her down. I've prayed for forgiveness many times since then. Of course I would give her money now. And I would speak kind words to her.
But in this life you never step into the same river twice.
And apparently my regret wasn't enough for me to come up with a better way to treat that young man at the Lowe's.
Again I am sorry, and wanting to respond correctly (righteously) the next time something like this happens -- the instant it happens.
Not that I know what I would exactly do or say.
But I don't want to just ruminate about it afterwards on a blog.
Logos2Go
Matthew 25.43-45 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' 44 Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' 45 Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'
The fair at God's fence
My friend Brad writes that God's holiness is like a security fence that surrounds Him. He put it there for our protection.
In the Old Testament, cross that fence and you die.
In the New Testament, there's actually a gate that allows you to go through that fence, in effect, and not face immediate extinction: the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
This is why Peter in the New Testament, for example, can challenge Christians to "be holy, as God is holy."
But this fence of holiness around God is still very dangerous. Yes, Christ is the gate into His holy presence, and this Gate takes away the barrier.
But it does not take away the danger.
So:
In reading Brad's post, I see another fence in my mind's eye, a second one. This fence surrounds the fence that is the holiness of God.
Around this second fence I see ... I see something. In fact I see lots of things:
I see festivity; I see commotion; I see lots and lots of people milling around, most of them -- the overwhelming majority of them -- dressed casually. And having a good time.
It's a fair!
Over there is a booth selling buttons with "WWJD" designs on them. (That would be What Would Jesus Do? buttons).
There are many booths selling self-help books: Christian investing, Christian dating, Christian this, Christian that.
And then there are booths where experts sit and speculate on the future: there's a Pre-Mil booth; a Post-Mil booth; one is a Preterist booth that's getting lots of attention.
And look! Over there is a booth selling a big ticket item: jumbo-trons!
I see in my mind's eye the people getting hungry and looking for food.
And all they seem to be served are hot dogs and mustard.
Hey, by the way, where is that gate?
Where is that dangerous Gate?
Logos2Go
Exodus 19.12 Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, 'Be careful that you do not go up the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death.
John 10.9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.
Matthew 7.14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
1 Peter 1.15-17 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.
A kaleidoscope of sons
Often in my mind's eye I see my adult sons as if through a kaleidoscope:
There they are 10, 15, 20 Christmases ago, right next to how and what they are now.
I hear their childhood voices in harmony with their men's voices now, sounding at the same time. Somehow the chords make sense.
I see Jeremy diving for second base in sandlot baseball; I see him playing makeshift hockey with a milk carton as goal; I see him graduating with his masters degree.
I see Andrew so disappointed that his matchbox car wouldn't go down the slide. I see him exulting at his first strike after many gutter balls.
I hear baby Josh trying to say "ice cream"; I see him reading Reformed Theology.
I see pieces of me mixed right in there, pieces good and not so good.
In the kaleidoscope, time goes away. It is all happening now.
Only somehow it is decidedly not-now. I can't ever have any of it back.
And I wonder if God sees things this way. Except through His kaleidoscope, all of it is still actual, in actual time. He knows ends from beginnings; and He does what He will.
In my case, I also see the stupid things I did; I still hear the stupid things I said in anger. There it all is, in the kaleidoscope.
I hope my sons don't see and hear them now. But somehow I suspect they still do.
How is it that God entrusts young men with fatherhood? Young men who themselves are still trying to figure things out?
Logos2Go
Matthew 7.11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!
Isaiah 46.9-10 Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, 'My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure...'
Swine and convenience
The men asked Jesus to go away.
They saw what He had done: the demoniac that troubled their town was sitting there, the demons taken out of him.
But where are the swine?
Where is their livelihood?
What? The swine rushed into the sea and drowned? All 2000 of them?
How can they live?
Jesus' actions had just taken away their source of income.
How can they live?
Their answer: let's ask Jesus to go away.
Logos2Go
Mark 5:3-17... He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; 4 for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; 7 and he shouted at the top of his voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me." 8 For he had said to him, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!" 9 Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" He replied, "My name is Legion; for we are many." 10 He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; 12 and the unclean spirits begged him, "Send us into the swine; let us enter them." 13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the lake, and were drowned in the lake. 14 The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. 16 Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. 17 Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood.
Raised beds and covering
The other day I built tented coverings over our raised beds, and it occurred to me that I had not written about them for a while.
The previous owners of our property had left tomato frames in the garden area. These are hinged wire-frame sections you can bend to make box-like supports. My architectural instincts led me to make cathedrals out of them.
That's an overly generous description of course; I simply bent the sections into little greenhouses with gabled roofs. I used metal wire for the structural ties.
But as I worked, cathedrals were on my mind because of what the English writer John Summerson once said: the sublime vaulting of the Gothic cathedrals were spawned by the universal human desire to be covered.
Security comes when you are covered.
As little children, Summerson said, we all played "house" by getting under a table or some other piece of furniture. And we'd feel secure.
From that need for security came the great cathedrals.
And the results of covering are palpable. I built those tents two weeks ago before our trip to the Midwest. It was because the plants were wilting, their leaves pecked at by birds and bugs. They were generally not doing well. But when I checked under the tents yesterday, our vegetables were thriving.
Security comes when you are covered.
There is an obscure passage in the Bible that often crosses my mind as I go about my day. It makes reference to an ancient angelic being as "the anointed cherub that covereth." Many commentators hold that this being was none other than Lucifer, more commonly known as Satan.
He was once the anointed cherub whose responsibility was to "cover" the entire creation of God. When that covering was in place, Beauty was in place. But for some reason beyond our present ability to comprehend, he decided to rebel. When he did rebel, the creation of God became uncovered.
And so the world today is what we see: it is generally not doing well.
Except, of course, we now have our Covering back. Remaining under His covering brings forth much fruit.
These thoughts come to mind as I look at those tents.
Logos2Go
John 15.5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing..."
Psalm 61.4 I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings. (KJV: I will trust in the covert of thy wings).
Ezekiel 28.12b-15 ... Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. 13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. 14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. 15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
John Summerson, "Heavenly Mansions: An Interpretation of Gothic" in John Summerson, Heavenly Mansions and Other Essays on Architecture (New York: W.W. Norton, 1963), 1-28