What Matters

Patrick Henry Hughes

I first came across the story of Patrick Henry Hughes through a Global Leadership Summit interview a few years ago.  The love between Patrick and his father his both inspirational and motivating.  This youtube clip says it all...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xwCG0Ey2Mg

How to be a Good Wife?

In introducing my message this last Sunday I commented on those things which have changed markedly over the last decades.  By way of illustration I read excerpts of the following instructions derived from a 1954 (American) Home Economics text book.  I should say this is not our church's position on gender roles in the home!

HOW TO BE A GOOD WIFE

 

Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal, on time. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal are part of the warm welcome needed.

 

Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so that you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your makeup, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people. Be a little gay and a little more interesting. His boring day may need a lift.

 

Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the home just before your husband arrives, gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper, etc. Then run a dust cloth over the tables. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift, too.

 

Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash the children's hands and faces (if they are small), comb their hair, and if necessary change their clothes. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part.

 

Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer, dishwasher, or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet. Be happy to see him. Greet him with a warm smile and be glad he is home.

 

Some don'ts: Don't greet him with problems or complaints. Don't complain if he is late for dinner. Count this as minor compared with what he might have gone through that day. Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or suggest he lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him. Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soft, soothing and pleasant voice. Allow him to relax and unwind.

 

Listen to him. You may have a dozen things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first.

 

Make the evening his. Never complain if he does not take you out to dinner or to other places of entertainment. Instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure, his need to be home and relax.

 

The Goal: Try to make your home a place of peace and order where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.

DaVinci Code

I've decided not to address in a major way the juggernaut that is the DaVinci Code.  Apart from anything else, I thought it was pretty poorly written anyway as far as thrillers go - a genre I read a lot.  Having said this, you may find this article by Graham Leo helpful.  Graham preaches in our congregation and is Principal at Emmanuel College...Download webarticle_Da_Vinci.doc

About God

Last week we commenced a new season in our church examining the character of God.  We've called it 'Our Amazing God'.  I shared a bit of wisdom from the past.  Here are some quotable quotes about the mystery that is God:

Outside of God, there is nothing but nothing - Meister Eckhart

A god understood, a god comprehended, is no god - German mystic

God turns shoes upside down - Arabian proverb

O thou before whom all words recoil - Ancient prayer

Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever - Westminster Catechism

In commanding us to glorify him, God is inviting us to enjoy him - C.S. Lewis

The favorite place of man is in the heart of man - Jewish Proverb

The glory of God is man fully alive - Irenaeus

God doesn't reveal his grand design.  He reveals himself. - Frederick Buechner

God is beauty - St Francis

God is he without whom one cannot live - Leo Tolstoy

A comprehended God is no God at all - Gerhard Tersteegen

Only to our intellect is God incomprehensible, not to our love - The Cloud of Unknowing

Parable of the Geese

Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard is the 'author' of the following parable.  This version I stumbled across many years ago in a book by Australian author and theologian, Athol Gill.  It spoke to me then, and still does now:

A certain flock of geese lived together in a barnyard with high walls around it.  Because the corn was good and the barnyard was secure, these geese would never take a risk. One day a philosopher goose came among them. He was a very good philosopher and every week they listened quietly and attentively to his learned discourses. 'My fellow travellers on the way of life,' he would say, 'can  you seriously imagine that this barnyard, with great high walls around it, is all there is to existence?

'I tell you, there is another and a greater world outside, a world of which we are only dimly aware. Our forefathers knew of this outside world. For did they not stretch their wings and fly across the trackless wastes of desert and ocean, of green valley and wooded hill? But alas, here we remain in this barnyard, our wings folded and tucked into our sides, as we are content to puddle in the mud, never lifting our eyes to the heavens which should be our home.

The geese thought this was very fine lecturing. 'How poetical,' they thought. 'How profoundly existential. What a flawless summary of the mystery of existence.' Often the philosopher spoke of the advantages of flight, calling on the geese to be what they were. After all, they had wings, he pointed out. What were wings for, but to fly with? Often he reflected on the beauty and the wonder of life outside the barnyard, and the freedom of the skies.

And every week the geese were uplifted, inspired, moved by the philosophers message.  They hung on his every word.  They devoted hours, weeks, months to a throughgoing analysis and critical evaluation of his doctrines.  They produced learned treatises on the ethical and spritual implicatiions of flight.  All this they did. 

But one thing they never did. They did not fly! For the corn was good, and the barnyard was secure!

Velvet Elvis

Started and finished a great book today - Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis - Repainting the Christian Faith.  Bell is a thirty-something pastor of Mars Hill church in Michigan, USA.  The way he thinks and writes is very much as a postmodern pilgrim - asking lots of questions, challenging dominant orthodoxies.

I loved the book.  Bell sees faith as more about journey than destination, Christian faith more about following A Way' rather than intellectual assent to doctrine.  For this and other reasons he would get right up the nose of those who want God constrained to a nice, neat box.  For Bell, God is a mystery where one question leads to another, leads to another and... you get the picture.

Velvet Elvis is a conversational piece.  It reads as a loosely linked series of essays to provoke further thought and reflection.  Bell's fascination with Jesus' Jewish roots is infectious and illuminating.  His sketches on what it meant to be a Rabbi's disciple in Jesus' day is worth the price of the book alone.  Topics covered include faith, doubt, ecology, the Bible, mission, discipleship, stress and burnout and the stuff of everyday life.

The book is full of quotable quotes.  Here are just a few:

'If anyone didn't have a Messiah complex, it was Jesus.' (p169)

'The greatest truth of the story of Adam and Eve isn't that it happened, but that it happens.' (p139)

'And if you do see yourself carrying God to places, it can be exhausting.  God is really heavy.'  (p88)

This is a really good book.  I know, because I will be turning over in my mind Bell's ruminations for some time.  And I think that was his aim all along.

Red Letter Christians

I've long admired authors and speakers Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren.  Each of them, for me at least, speaks prophetically.  Their words have always challenged me out of my self-centred complacency.  Which was why I was grabbed by the article on the link below that brings these guys together in advocating for a new 'movement' that aims to liberate Christianity from cultural captivity to the political right and left -and centre it again on the teachings of Jesus.  That 'Way' is shown primarily in Jesus' words, often denoted in red letters in many modern bibles.

What would it mean to be Red Letter Chrisitans?

What would it mean to really do as Jesus did; as Jesus taught?

What would it mean for us?  For the Church?  For the world?

Read on....http://www.beliefnet.com/story/185/story_18562_1.html

Bono's Blessing

Bono - Rock Star, Activist, Disciple and all-round Enigma - has the habit of saying it as it is.  I love the following quote for all its raw honesty and deep-seated faith and humanity:

A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life.  In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord’s blessing.  I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it…  I have a family, please look after them…  I have this crazy idea…

And this wise man said: "Stop".

He said, "Stop asking God to bless what you’re doing."

"Get involved in what God is doing—because it’s already blessed."

Well, God, as I said, is with the poor.  That, I believe, is what God is doing. 

And that is what he’s calling us to do.

[The full text is available at http://www.data.org/archives/000774.php]