Oh, Good Grief! It's Supreme Courtship!

   I am grieving this morning, but probably not in the way you would expect.  First, the back story:

   Ever since Valentine’s Day, up until last week, my first-born was engaged to be married.  Then less than five days out, his bride bolted in the wee hours of the morning.

   

   I am pleased with the support we have received. Hardly anyone, (I heard only one instance,) sank to the platitude of “maybe it was better this way.”  It was not better this way, and even Pollyanna would have to agree to that.  So I am not grieving any feelings of being adrift and alone.

   I had earnestly prayed for family members’ travel schedules and safety. All that was answered phenomenally.  Graduations and final exams were worked around, even military orders changed to fit the date!  And we had a reunion after all, so I am not grieving a missed family time.

   The now-cancelled wedding day came as cloudless as could ever be hoped for, with the most comfortable mix of warm temperature and low humidity. James Lowell could have written his poem about it—

     And what is so rare as a day in June?

     Then, if ever, come perfect days;

     Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,

     And over it softly her warm ear lays;

     Whether we look, or whether we listen,

     We hear life murmur, or see it glisten.

— except that, unlike Lowell's native New England, in the Deep South, those days arrive in May. The odds are drastically against having another such flawless day so perfectly placed. While that may be lamentable, it does not sink to the level of grief.

   Nor am I grieving over the reason for calling it off—at least, not over the vague and incongruous reasons that were given. But don't take my word for it; I will allow you, my readers, to judge. Here are the quotes:  "started to have concerns," and "a few lifestyle conflicts," which "forced" her to realize "neither he nor I would be happy long term." All the while, she maintains she still loves him and he is what she always prayed for.  How's that for clear and precise articulation? It is pretty hard to grieve when you're left clueless by an explanation that presumes to forecast how others will feel.   

   I was delighted that their first full day together as man and wife, a Sunday, was to be Pentecost. What a fabulous beginning that would have been!  Pentecost was the day that the Church, the ecclesia, received its power—a wonderfully emblematic day to begin a new life. But while that was a sentimental loss, it did not descend to a level of deep grief either.

   As I said, my source of grief will probably be unexpected by many of my readers. It is the SCOTUS. The acronym stands for Supreme Court of the United States. As I write, the arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges to change the definition of marriage have been heard, but the decision that will rule on whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry has not yet been handed down.

   For the past few months, one of the things I have been deeply grateful for was the thought that this one marriage license, at least, would be issued while marriage still meant something of value legally. The Creator of man and woman ordained marriage as a covenant. Conventional 'wisdom' predicts that the SCOTUS will make gay marriage the law of the land. This will devalue the meaning of the marriage license from supporting a covenant between a man and a woman to merely certifying a contract between two humans. I am grieving this loss: That my children are unlikely to get married in a society that values marriage.

National Day of Prayer

    Last year, we joined the noon prayer service at the county court house. This year, I’m just not feeling it. For a while now, it has felt rather hypocritical to pray, “God Bless America,” but at least last year we could lay aside our pride and beg for mercy. Since the 2014 elections last fall, there has been a hardening of the leadership that has changed the spiritual texture of the nation to the point that even cries for mercy aren’t heart-felt.

    The theme verse for the National Day of Prayer, 2015, is found in 1 Kings 8:28. “Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O LORD my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you this day.”  Fine, Well & Good, but it doesn’t define what the servants are pleading for. And quite frankly, if you’re praying for the wrong stuff, you are wasting your time. My proof: James 4:3, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, to spend it on your passions.”

    Perhaps a timelier theme verse was scribed by Isaiah. “Woe to those who enact evil statutes and to those who constantly record unjust decisions, so as to deprive the needy of justice and rob My people of their rights.” 10:1-2.

    It takes some boldness to pray an imprecatory prayer, but I am there. Imprecatory prayers are the kind where one is calling down fire from heaven. It is spiritually playing with fire, so there is a corresponding chance of getting burned. It is asking God to switch from Grace-giver mode to His Avenger mode; the catch is that He passes through you on the way to the target, so it takes both wisdom and cleanliness in Christ to survive it intact.  King David wrote several imprecatory psalms, and he was able to pull that off because his motives were right with the Lord.

    Wars. Terrorism. Increasing earthquakes. Blood moons occurring in a tetrad on Jewish feast days. Avian flu that has already claimed 5 million turkeys that could have been in line for the Thanksgiving Day table. The boding of the Shemitah year. Leadership that has no fear of God. — We will never outgrow or lose the need for the “God bless Blinky, my goldfish” prayers that we said as kids, but we do need to add to the faith and courage of our prayer arsenal for the times ahead.

    If you pray for our country on this National Day of Prayer, make it count.

Beat Your Slave, Stone Your Kid, but by All Means, Don't Wear Polyester!

I have some older friends who are a generation ahead of me. Yes, some are fairly set in their ways, but they are also tech-savvy seniors who like to email their finds to everyone who will read them.  So a few years ago when this clip of an Obama speech showed up on YouTube, they were burning up their ‘Forward’ keys and expressing plenty of bewilderment at his audacity.

In his speech, he asks rhetorical questions, "Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery’s okay? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child?"

The tone is smarmy and sarcastic. You can watch it for yourself if you haven’t already seen it. It can be found here—  http://youtu.be/Hi-V_ilJu0w

And while a good deal of indignation was expressed, no one actually answered his questions.

I know, they were rhetorical, and no answer was expected, but many longtime Christians seemed stumped just the same.  When some contentious atheist whips out Matthew 5:18 and proclaims, “Jesus said until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law. Last time I checked, earth is still here. You’re a hypocrite! You’re wearing a wool blend!” many Christians are left speechless. While it is true that Levitical law says linen (plant fiber) and wool (animal fiber) should not be mixed together, there is no need to be thrown for a loop at this simple challenge.

There are different kinds of law. The Bible deals with three of them.

1.       Civil Law. Civil laws were given to the nation of Israel when they returned from captivity in Egypt. The Israelites did not have a Constitution. They did not have Congress or Parliament. They had civil laws given by God that applied as long as they were a theocratic state.  These laws are easy to identify because they include specific, temporal punishments. When Israel ceased to exist in 70 AD, the laws had no citizens to apply to and no system for implementing them.  Obama was mocking laws that apply to no one.

2.       Ceremonial Law.  Ceremonial laws specified procedures, sacrifices, and offerings for worship. A Tabernacle or Temple is required to keep these. Many of these laws were patterns of things that Jesus would do, and most were pictures or symbols of God’s plan of salvation and redemption.  Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial laws and now born again Christians are the ‘temple’ of the Holy Spirit b giving Him residence in their hearts.   

3.       Moral Law. Moral laws apply to all creation. They existed before, during, and after Israel was a nation, both within and without her borders. Moral law is eternal and absolute.   The most succinct summary of moral law is found in the Ten Commandments, although additional details may be found throughout both Testaments.

If Mr. Obama believed he was giving a witty and clever speech, he was wrong. He was mocking the civil laws that applied to another country long ago and far away. What the audience saw was a display of a fundamental dearth of understanding the law.

 

 

 

Key Words

Hi everyone,

In light of the NSA scandal, I am keyword stuffing today. Some words are meant to attract attention, some words are topics I have been reading or writing about in the past month, some words are added as misleading distractions, and some are just for fun.  If parenthetical expressions are involved, it probably means that I had to look it up – enjoy trying to figure me out! 

ACLU

Aestival (what today feels like)
Arctophily (study of teddy bears)
Areobiology
Blogger's rights
Bombic (of, like or pertaining to silkworms)
Carboniferous
Chick-fil-A
Coal
Connubial
Constutional
Coulombs
Crepuscular
Dactyliology of Middle Earth
Empleomania (mania for holding public office)
Euthanize
Famicide (one who destroys another's reputation; slanderer)
French whore
Gospel
Guns, poptarts
Harmonic
Hyperarchy (excessive government)    
Infowars
Merengue
Meringue
Nascar
Nephologic (cloud-like)
Nuclear family
Patriot
Penmanship
Pottery
Prism
Roentgen
Runcible spoons
Security
Sloth
Southern Poverty Law Center
Stemmatology (study of relationships between texts)
Surveillance
Tracking
Warp speed

Special thanks to the Glossaries of the Phrontistery.

The Wizards of Washington

The last time I posted, I asked, "Which fairytale character does our Chief Executive imitate?" This week I would like to ask, "Which fairytale figures do too many of our representatives in Washington fail to emulate?

I believe the answer lies in the American fairytale classic, The Wizard of Oz. I reread Frank Baum's book this past week, and for those of you who have never read it a first time, I will say this is one of the few cases where a movie not only lives up to the book, but possibly exceeds it—depending upon the strength of one's own imagination to visualize the story. The 1939 movie captured all of the book's original corniness. The short chapters make it a good read-aloud as a bedtime story, but great literature it is not, except for the message. As a character-building fable, The Wizard of Oz is very good indeed. 
 

The Scarecrow, as you may remember, wanted brains. The book resorts to a very bad pun, for in the end he receives "bran" new brains as the cereal grain is substituted for his straw, along with a few pins and needles to keep him "sharp." If only getting a brain was that simple! In Isaiah 3:4, Jerusalem and Judah were to lose their supply of brainpower when the Lord of Hosts proclaims, "I will make mere lads their princes, And capricious children will rule over them." Many of the behaviors we see in Washington are synonymous with childish: irresponsible and self-indulgent.

The Tin Woodsman, who had once been a flesh and blood human before his body parts were replaced with tin, wanted a heart. While he was rusting away in the woods before Dorothy found him, he realized that the greatest loss he had known was the loss of his heart. Matthew 24:12 says, "because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold." Many who are under oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" have become lawless and seek their own agendas instead.  Their love for people has grown cold.

The Cowardly Lion enters the story in a high-action scene. With one blow of his paw he sent the straw man spinning over and over to the edge of the road. He looked tough, but as soon as he met with some resistance his true nature came out. Revelation 21:8 lists the cowardly as those whose "part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."  The faint-hearted who will not stand up to champion what is right are allowing political correctness to turn them away from the solid brick road and put the country on the pathway to destruction.

Brains. Heart. Courage. All are lacking among our leadership. But wait, there's more.

Dorothy had a virtuous quest too.  Her dream was to return to America's heartland. Kansas was her connection to home and family.  Too many of our officials and too many members of the media that represent them have no roots to the heartland. They have been called the "Inside the Beltway Crowd," but it is not just a geographical location. It is an idolatrous worldview on which they get drunk. They become sorry sorcerers of manipulation, lawless abusers of power who deconstruct rather than defend the Constitution.  

No root. No courage. No heart. No brain.  Weenie Wizards of Washington.  

Which Fairytale is Figure is Obama? Gunning for Answers.

The really old fairy tales have come down through oral traditions. What most of the stories have in common are archetypal characters. By the end of the tale, love and virtue has conquered, and a moral lesson has been, if not learned, at least taught. If one reads enough fairytales, most human conditions common to man will be addressed, and most people will identify with one of the characterizations. So, which fairytale character is Barak Obama?

Since his reelection, he has most definitely become Sleeping Beauty's father. The story goes back centuries with roots in both France and Germany. Although the details vary, the core of the story remains intact. After many childless years, (some accounts portray consultations with a frog during this interval,) a long-awaited child is born. The king, in his joy, throws a grand feast. Among the guests, the numbers vary somewhat, but between 7 and 13 fairies bestow gifts of beauty, cheerfulness, song, charity, and such. One of the fairies was affronted, however, and either as a curse or a prophecy, declares that the princess will prick her finger on a spindle for spinning thread on her 16th (or 15th) birthday and die.

Different versions have varied explanations of how death is ameliorated into a hundred-year slumber, but all agree on the king's aggressive course of action: A national spindle ban! Not only does he outlaw spindles, spinning wheels are banned as well. Of course, this overly extreme and irrational act solves nothing. The kingdom's textile manufacturing tanks. Thread has to be imported from foreign markets, and the economy suffers from balance of trade issues. Shortages ensue while thread prices rise and quality drops. When the princess hits sweet sixteen, the inevitable happens. The castle is overtaken with brambles, thorns, and briers. The king becomes essentially irrelevant.

Do not miss the irony that Sleeping Beauty is rescued by a prince and his hunting party who are armed to the teeth with sharp objects.

Spindle photo from the Spinning Fishwife blog.

Self-evident Truths

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..." so said the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence.  Two hundred and thirty-six years later, I am not seeing much anecdotal evidence that the citizenry appreciates the significance of this statement. To the contrary, I have experienced jolting irreverence.

A young man recently told me that if history did not have any applicable benefits, then there wasn't any point in studying it. I would agree with him if he had meant what he said, but he didn't. What he meant was that because he found studying history tedious and because doing so would not result in a pay raise, he considered it a waste of his time. He believed that any potential payoff in insight or wisdom is not worth his investment; there are more efficient ways to gain understanding.  I am thinking that this guy is an evolutionist. His attitude does not express a biblical worldview wherein memorials are important so that mistakes will not be repeated.

Then on the eve of Independence Day, a member of the entertainment press flippantly made a comment that program schedules were changed because of a "silly" national holiday. I will be generous and say that perhaps it was an attempt at levity. Apparently the concept that this "silly" holiday commemorates the founding of a government that is constitutionally restricted from interfering with freedom of the press went right over her head; otherwise she'd have known it wasn't funny.  I am thinking that this reporter is an evolutionist. Her attitude does not respect the Creator's approach to national feast days.

Worst of all was the government employee who thought that she knew American history, but proved that she is as clueless as they come. I am convinced that she is an evolutionist who has no fear of God. In her mind, the 56 founding fathers signed a declaration of war. According to her, they had not yet evolved to the level of being able to "take a time-out" when they became frustrated with tyranny. (The bulk of the Declaration of Independence is actually a well-reasoned list of grounds for separation from England.)

Today, the majority of people trained in America's public education system believe that evolution is a self-evident truth. Our founding fathers did not. They believed that men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Their new government made revolutionary advancements in human rights and freedoms, but not as a result of holding evolutionary paradigms. Today, in a morass of circular reasoning, many who are ignorant of history choose to believe that it was an evolutionary advancement, not a reclamation of the Creator's endowment.  

Years ago when I made this wreath that I hang near the door during the Memorial Day, Flag Day, and 4th of July arc of the year, I thought it was simply a cute bit of folk art. It did not evolve, but was my special creation. It was a very fun and thrifty project because all the parts were free, left over, or recycled from other things. I liked the theme of a down-to-earth farmer rabbit holding a flag.  This year it acquired a new symbolism for me: Our national heritage is being taken over by dumb bunnies.