In My Life

I prayed one morning, “Lord, open my eyes that I might see new wonders in your creation.”  A few hours later, I came across a bit of bark and a fallen leaf and couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty found in bits of decaying matter.  Do you see the knuckles in the bark?  Note the subtle shade of the green leaf.

What came to mind immediately were the colours of autumn on display in the northern hemisphere. In October 2012, we went to Mont-Tremblant in Canada to see the brilliant exhibition of ‘dying and decaying leaves’.

On reading novels

After years of having no time for fiction, I am making amends – listening to and reading classic and current literature.  One who is guiding my choices is Karen Swallow Prior via her books: On Reading Well and Booked – Literature in the soul of me.  In the latter, she tells her life story in books and how they influenced her development as a person.  So captivating is her writing that you feel compelled to follow in her steps.  

One she didn’t suggest was Utopia Avenue – the story of a British band of the 1960s.  The author David Mitchell mixes fact with fiction as he has his characters interacting with real musicians of that era – like John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin, and Leonard Cohen. 

It’s not a book I would recommend, but what I got from it was an insight into the mind of a schizophrenic or perhaps a demoniac.  That’s the secret struggle of Jasper, the lead guitarist.  I grieved for him and cheered when he received a measure of healing and knew to walk away from stardom and seek a ‘normal’ life.          

503 years ago

Last Saturday was the anniversary of the day when Martin Luther lit the fire that became the Protestant Reformation.  As a result, the Bible became the ultimate authority for the church; not the bishop of Rome.  Right now, on YouTube, there’s an hour-long documentary that will fill you in one what happened. https://youtu.be/6VK0p-tuuao.  

Mr Jones on Netflix

COVID-19 has driven moviegoers away from cinemas to Netflix. I have access via my daughter’s account.  One worth watching is Mr Jones – the true story of a Welsh correspondent who makes his way to investigate conditions in the Soviet Union under Stalin.  The awful truth: people are starving and dying in Ukraine.

What on earth is God doing?

We may not know what God is doing, but we do know what he has done.

Kevin Twit

Faith?

Faith is not a gift we bring to God in our hands to win his favour; faith is the empty hand of the beggar reaching out for divine charity.

Joel Beeke

Way, way back – salad dressing

Years ago, when I was unemployed for a while, I took to making and selling salad dressing to supplement the dole.  It was not exactly a roaring success, but those who liked it loved it.

Here’s what to do.  Add to equal amounts of apple cider vinegar, oil, and honey, a mixture, fresh herbs, garlic, and salt and pepper.  Blend the lot so that every drop contains all the flavour.  You can use sunflower or olive oil – or a blend of both.  Ease up on the honey, if you prefer.  Add a little Dijon mustard top spice it up. 

 

Over the last ten days, I have been listening to Shore, the new album from Fleet Foxes.  Without fail, each day, a new favourite has emerged.  First, it was Sunblind, reminiscent of the Beach Boys, then Can I Believe You, I’m Not My Season, Featherweight, and so on.  Right now, I have an *earworm, from the title track, burrowing its way into my consciousness.  I think Paul Simon’s Graceland was the last time there were so many songs to treasure in one album. (Though I’m forgetting the pleasures I found in All the Things I Did and All the Things I Didn’t Do, the last album from The Milk Carton Kids; but in that case, it took a little longer to be captured.)

There’s so much to enjoy in the Shore songs! No two tracks are alike.  It may be the same lead singer each time, but the voice or voices are blended differently.  Sometimes, Robin Pecknold is singing solo.  On the next track, he could be singing harmonies with himself or have his and many other voices deeply embedded in the music.  The same goes for the instrumentation – bursts of brass, jazzy and dreamy piano, heavy drumming, lovely guitar (on Thymia), and embellishments like tweeting birds, or a snippet of conversation.

The lyrics have taken a little longer to emerge.  I get the impression that Shore is a diary of an idyllic holiday near the sea, tinged with questions about love, the meaning of life, and thoughts of mortality. 

I like that Fleet Foxes know when to end a song; many of them are relatively short.  All the potential singles are upfront, and the avant-garde, more experimental pieces come before the finale.  As on previous albums, there is the obligatory discordant track, this time: Cradling Mother, Cradling Woman.  But, don’t let that rob you of enjoying a band at their peak.                  

*An earworm, sometimes known as a brain-worm, sticky music, stuck song syndrome, or Involuntary Musical Imagery (IMI), is a catchy piece of music that continually repeats through a person’s mind after it is no longer playing.

Words of wisdom from George Harrison

Watch out now, take care / Beware of the thoughts that linger / Winding up inside your head / The hopelessness around you / In the dead of night

From Beware of darkness – All Things Must Pass

Between the concept and the reality

You take to bodies and you twirl them into one / Their hearts and their bones and they won’t come undone.

If only this were true.  These lyrics, from Paul Simon’s Hearts and Bones, were written when he was married to Carrie Fisher.

Quotable quotes from J. I. Packer

By sin, the New Testament means rebellion against, defiance of, retreat from, and consequent guilt before God.

Christians live not be being perfect, but by being forgiven.

A personal prayer – inspired by Psalm 143

O Lord God, my enemy knows the weaknesses of my flesh and he pursues me, seeking to crush me, and cause me to despair.  Rescue me from the sinful cravings of my flesh, the enticements of the world, and the plots and traps of the enemy.  I come to you for protection.  Teach me to do your will.  Amen.  

Grace and mercy – what’s the difference?

While grace involves God giving us what we do not deserve, mercy is God not giving us what is deserved.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been making my own version of Bircher Muesli.  I start the night before by putting a half-handful of rolled oats into a bowl.  On top of that, I add an ever-changing mixture of nuts and dried fruit.  Most often it’s a sprinkle of flaxseed, generous pinches of coconut, sunflower seeds, and pepitas, with some naked ginger and currants, sultanas, dates, or a chopped dried fig.  Usually, I cover the mixture with soya milk or apple juice and leave to soak overnight.  In the morning it’s topped with yoghurt, honey, and some fresh fruit.  I like it so much I’ve stopped buying readymade cereals and this winter I skipped making porridge with rolled oats.  Give it a try!

On reading well

Just as water, over a long period of time, reshapes the land through which it runs, so too we are formed by the habit of reading good books well.

Karen Swallow Prior

Repeats

Stamp collectors are not the only ones who collect things.  My grandchildren collect ooshies from Woolworths; my hobby-farmer younger brother buys cattle, some collect fridge magnets, I know a man who collects tractors.  I’ve got a stash of DVDs.  I began with the rule that I would wait until what I wanted to watch was under $10, but I’d pay more for a series.  Anyway, after several years, I find myself with a stash of unwatched movies.  It’s astounding how, when I want to watch something, it’s just too hard to choose.  The genre’s not right for tonight, or it runs too long when I want an early night.  Then, what I end up doing is watching something I’ve seen before – something I’ll be sure to enjoy.  

All this has made me realize how good it is to go back and re-watch an oldie; it’s the same with books and music.  I think it was the fear-of-missing-out that made me such an avaricious acquirer of movies.  I’d read a promising review, and I’d be thinking, “I must buy that!”  But, now I know, that I would have been happy enough with just a few precious DVDs that I could view over and over again.  Besides that, there are not enough free nights in a week (or a year) to watch everything.  I guess the same could apply to meals.  How many new recipes do we need when we already have some many favourites to try again?

Another world

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

C. S. Lewis

The unanswerable

We need answers to the unanswerable: how did we get here?  How did “here” get here in the first place?  Is this – this brief life – all there is?  How can it be?  What would be the point of that?  And, we need codes to live by, rules for every damn thing!  The soul needs all these explanations – not simply rational explanations, but explanations of the heart.

Salman Rushdie

Faith

Faith is not a gift we bring to God in our hands to win his favour; faith is the empty hand of the beggar reaching out for divine charity. 

Joel Beeke

It is of vital importance to every one of us that we know whether or not there is a God.  Is everything that exists the result of the activity of God, or is there some blind, impersonal force or energy or power behind everything?  Am I face-to-face with a Being and with a Person?  Or am I the victim of blind chance, of some accidental meeting of atoms or powers that are without personality, without mind, without reason, without understanding?  Is it all blind, or is it all purposeful?

Either you believe that God created the world, or you believe the talk that gases – nobody knows how or where they came from – suddenly solidified and formed some primitive slime.  Though there is no mind, no purpose in anything, somehow or other, blind hidden forces so worked and reacted against one another that from a very primitive kind of undefined life they developed into human beings with their brain and power. They produced the complexity of the flower; the extraordinary instrument that we call the eye, and all the astounding things that happen in creation.  Is it all accident?  Is it all chance?  Or is there a mind, a Creator at the back of it all?

I have a coronavirus theory

This life is all there is; we’re mere mortals.  There is no life after death.  This is it – full-stop!  Immortality is just a myth.  That is the only reason I can think of, to explain the crippling fear felt by so many when it comes to COVID-19.  It rattles them; and especially politicians with elections just around the bend.  If you think all you have is this life, you will definitely want to hold on to it, and fiercely wish to avoid a virus that might cut it short.  Perhaps that’s why it doesn’t have the same dread for me, I believe in an eternal life hereafter.  Coronavirus is nothing compared to what is to come – either in heaven or in hell.

The soundtrack of my life

There’s a song, band, or album that will always make me think of each of our children.  For Dylan, it’s U2’s The Joshua Tree.  We named our second son after Jackson Browne around about the time of The Pretender.  Andrew introduced us to Groove Amada and Moby.  Hannah played David Gray, endlessly, for a season, and then it was Coldplay non-stop; she especially loved Politik.  Meanwhile, Glenys and I drove them crazy with Van Morrison’s Enlightenment and Hymns to the Silence,  Paul Simon’s Graceland, Concerto De Aranjuez, Nessam Dorma, and Gillian Welch’s The Revelator.

Yvonne’s Cake – A Very Versatile Recipe

I once asked a dear friend for an easy cake recipe, and here’s what she told me.

Mix together: one cup each of flour, sugar, coconut, fresh or dried fruit, and liquid—Bake at 180. 

With those simple instructions, I have baked a variety of versions because you may use any flour, coconut, fruit, or liquid.  I’ve tried all kinds of combinations, but most often I have used ½ cup of self-raising flour with ½ cup of almond meal.  I add just ½-3/4 cup of raw sugar.  I’ve used both shredded and desiccated coconut.  As for fruit, sometimes chopped apricots and sultanas, once I chose prunes, raisins and ginger are a good combo, and dates and figs.  You could add fresh fruit – mashed banana or berries.   Liquid-wise, I add milk, apple juice, or orange juice (which goes well with bits of added dark chocolate).  Being a bit crazy, I also add a sprinkle of sunflower seeds to the mix, walnuts, or flax-seed. 

Having mixed the batter well, pour it into a lined round or loaf cake tin.  Bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. 

Who are you voting for in the election?

Even though I am not an American, a couple of friends have asked me that question.  I guess they mean, “Who are you hoping will be elected?”  I hoped that both contenders would withdraw and give someone else a go – someone with integrity and a plan to deal with the issues that cause so much division. 

Biden, I expected, would blow it at the Democratic convention, proving that he’s not ‘up to it’.  But he didn’t, thanks to the teleprompter.  Trump, I was hoping, would step down, rather than risk defeat.  Who would replace them?  I’m not sure.  How can a country of 300+million people end up with two old codgers ill-suited for the task?  That’s what astounds me!    

By my reckoning, I have read through the Gospel of Mark at least 88 times.  Even so, there are always new things to discover.  At the end of chapter 4, when Jesus has just calmed a terrifying storm with the words, “Peace! Be still!” the disciples in the boat with him are filled with greater fear and asking, “Who then is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?”

Their question is left dangling, but not for long.  As Jesus steps ashore on the other side of the lake, he is met by a raving madman whose naked body is covered with self-inflicted wounds.  He may be out of his mind, but he knows the answer to their query.  He screeches, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”  It’s not the man who knows this, but the demons that possess him; and they are fearful and beg Jesus, “Do not torment us!”

Proof of all this comes when they beg Jesus not to send them back to hell, but into the pigs grazing on the hillside.  He does as they want, and 2000 pigs rush over the steep bank and into the sea where they drown.  Next, we find the man, once possessed, sitting there, clothed, and in his right mind.

From this short account, we learn three things: who Jesus is, that demons are real, and there is a place of torment called hell.  Here’s what else is noteworthy: When the demons begged Jesus, he did as requested; when, in fear, the local people begged Jesus to leave their land, he left; but when the man begged to go with Jesus, he was refused. “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”

Re-discovery – Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah

I’d grown tired of this old hymn until it was re-tuned by Jeremy Casella.  Now, not only has it been given a new lease of life, the words have come alive with richer meaning in this revitalized musical setting.  Though the lyrics were written in the 18^th century by a Welshman named Billy Williams, it is still the unofficial anthem, sung whenever the Welsh are watching their team play Rugby.  They sing the old tune; I much prefer the new one which is available at www.igrace.com.

Casella composed the music while he was a student and a member of a university fellowship that encouraged young men and women to write new tunes to old hymns for the following reason.  “Our hope is to help the church recover the tradition of putting old hymns to new music for each generation, and to enrich our worship with a huge view of God and His indelible grace.”

With the example and guidance of their chaplain, Kevin Twit, they have recorded several albums of re-tuned hymns.  Some of the students have gone on to make music their ministry, including Jeremy Casella, Sandra McCracken, and Matthew Smith.  Sheet music and demos are available for free at the website.  Look for live performances on YouTube.

Audiobook – The Lord of the Rings

I’m well into Volume 3: The Return of the King.  It’s better than the movies!  One quibble: the reader, Rob Inglis, has a deep voice – better at bass than baritone or tenor.  It works well for characters like Gandalf and the old kings, but I would much prefer a lighter touch for Aragon, Frodo, and Sam – more like Viggo Mortenson, Elijah Wood, and Sam Astin.  Still, he’s got the hissing right for Gollum.

On Creation from The Things of Earth

C. S. Lewis: We may ignore it, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God.  The world is crowded with Him.  He walks everywhere incognito. 

Joe Rigney: Creation is God’s self-expression… God’s revelation of himself in creation is pervasive and constant.

Isaiah 6:3: The whole earth is full of his glory.

Joe Rigney: As the light of the sun is refracted by water droplets into a rainbow, so creation refracts the glory of God.

A super-easy Dahl recipe

What you’ll need: oil, one cup of rinsed red lentils, curry leaves, three cups of vege stock, a red chilli or chilli flakes, and an ingredient you’ll find at stores that sell Indian food – asafoetida. It looks like this… 

Here’s how to do it: warm some vegetable oil (or ghee), when hot add the curry leaves (about ten). Heat until they start to crisp. Set them aside.  Now add to the pan two teaspoons of asafoetida powder.  Wait until it starts to pop, then add the rinsed lentils.  Fry them a little before adding the stock and chopped chilli.  Cook until the lentils are plump and tender.  That’s enough for two.  Eat with chapatti or roti and a dollop of yoghurt.   

P.S. I like curry leaves so I add a few fresh ones to the mix, a squeeze of lemon, and a little salt.  Sometimes I add chopped spinach near the end of the process. 

Last week I travelled 11 hours by car to Rubyvale for a reunion with my siblings and a couple of in-laws.  Twelve years ago, we were alone together for a week, packing up and sharing our parents’ possessions.  This time we wanted to reminisce, share old family photos, play some card games, cook for each other, and hang out.  It went well, very well – most of the time.  We laughed with and at each other’s quirks and gauged how we are faring.  I found this photo of my brothers and me (third from the left) from long ago when we were still young and, dare I say it, handsome.

They figured it out

An article in The Times that appeared in The Australian on 3 August greatly amused me.  Headline: Sperm swim like playful otters.  Apparently, since the invention of the microscope, it was widely assumed that sperm move by flapping their tails from side to side.  But, now, 3-D microscopy has revealed this: “Human sperm figured out if they roll as they swim, much like playful otters corkscrewing through the water, their one-side stroke would average itself out, and they would swim forwards.”  Attributed to Dr Hermes Gadelha, University of Bristol. Furthermore, from Dr Gabriel Corkidi, University of Mexico, co-author of the study published in Science Advances, “Our discovery shows sperm have… ingeniously solved a mathematical puzzle at a microscopic scale by creating symmetry out of asymmetry.” 

This information had me imagining how one sperm must have worked it out and passed it on to his brothers, who somehow passed it on to sperm in the next ejaculation.  “Hey, guys, this is how you do it, just watch me!”  Such ingenious creatures!  Such creative problem solvers!  Fancy being the first to figure that out – you’d be a hero and win the race!

Quotable quote

The cross of Christ – the incarnate God – is the site of cosmic inversion where all that is not supposed to be is absorbed by the Son, taken to the depths of hell, and vanquished by the resurrection.  Evil isn’t answered; it is overcome.  God doesn’t abstractly solve a ‘problem’; God condescends to inhabit and absorb the mess we’ve made of the world.  James K. A. Smith

From the soundtrack of my life

Do you find that different artists and different songs trigger reminders of time, place, and circumstances?  Play a song from my iPod, and I’ll tell you where I was and what was happening in my life when I first heard it.  I have Mt Coolum albums like Paul Simon’s Graceland, Van Morrison’s Enlightenment, and Midnight Oil’s Diesel and Dust.  Coldplay and Moby are bands from our West End days.  When we lived at Toowong, my wife loved Patty Griffin’s Heavenly Day and MLK, while I was into Wilco – especially the Sky Blue Sky album.   Commuting to and from Boonah it was Fleet Foxes’ Helplessness Blues, Indelible Grace’s Joy Beyond the Sorrow, and Sandra McGrath’s Desire Like Dynamite and In Feast or Fallow.

It’s amazing how music transports us back and, though familiar, often reveals new elements in the background or in the lyrics that we missed the first time around.

All hemmed in!

Right now I’m all hemmed in by scaffolding.  My block of units is 9 years old and so the body corporate is using most of our sinking fund to repaint the exterior of our building.  In order to make room for the painters I have had to relocate all my portable gardens and clear the veranda of furniture. Consequently, my living room and garage are chock-a-block and I feel claustrophobic.  They tell me it will all be done in a week, on my side of the building, but, with nothing happening today, I have my doubts. 

Meanwhile…

I’m working on a sermon for 19 July.  I’ve been given the freedom to choose the topic and so I’ve chosen a few verses from The Book of Job.  They caught my attention a few weeks ago when I was reading there.  In his agony and in the face of discomforting advice from his so-called friends, Job longed for someone to defend and vindicate him.  What he wanted is what we have in Jesus, someone who is able to put his an arm around both God and us and reconcile us.  Also, when we’re being accused by the arch-deceiver, Jesus pleads our case and shows the wounds that won our freedom from condemnation and judgment. 

Is this the first song to ever mention algorithms?

Nothing is real/ your mother’s a program/ you’re losing your mind/ true love is binary/ beauty’s a lie/ I don’t mind/ how could I? 

Nothing is real/ open your heart/ all that you feel is coded/ imprisoned in pixels and algorithms/ Nothing is real/ the wind isn’t blowing/ the sun doesn’t shine… The Milk Carton Kids

This comes from one of the songs penned in the midst of a marriage breakdown, when nothing must have seemed real.  Have you ever known that feeling, that heartbreak, and found yourself trying to kid yourself it’s just a bad dream?      

Creation observation – from N. D. Wilson

Rumour has it that most normal men send at least eight million ‘forward swimming’ sperm looking for an egg every sexual act.  Therefore, your chances of being here were about one out of eight million.  Funny.  Those were my odds too.  What are the chances of us both being here?  One out of sixty-four trillion…

We are a world of lottery winners.  For every one of us here right now, there were at least 7,999,999 losers.  They don’t even know how almost they were. From Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl

No fluke

An easy deliciously moist vegan chocolate cake

1) Heat the oven to 160ÑC.  Line a 20 x 20 baking dish/cake tin – with baking paper.

2) Combine and whisk 1¼ cups of plain flour, ¾ cup of raw sugar, 1/3 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder, ¾ teaspoon of baking soda, ½ teaspoon of salt.

3) Add 1 cup of water, 1/3 cup of canola oil, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, and a teaspoon of cider vinegar.  Whisk until it’s all blended with no lumps.

4) Optional add-ins: chocolate chips, raisins, glace ginger, and/or walnuts.

5) Bake until a chopstick/toothpick comes out mostly clean – 28-33 minutes. 

6) Cool.  Cut into squares.  Great solo or with a dollop of yoghurt or ice-cream.     

By the way

My grandson, aka Golden Vessel, has released a new track: midwest. It’s the first recording for his own label: sumoclic, and the first song from a new album to be titled colt. Take a look at… https://youtu.be/WmsvhQNuOE

Recent Terrence Malick movies have been non-linear, often mystifying, non-narratives – much to the disapproval of those who loved his earlier films like Badlands and The Thin Red Line.  But this time, with A Hidden Life he tells the true story of an Austrian conscientious objector at the time when his country was under the sway of Nazism. New on DVD. 

Don’t be daunted by the prospect of watching for three hours, for, as well as being a triumph of storytelling, it is a stunningly beautiful masterpiece of filmmaking.  There is so much to take in that, when it’s finished, you want to go back to the beginning to dwell on the scenery, the architecture, the food, the farming, the music, and the seasons of a simple life in the country.

A creation observation – shade and shadows

I’ve always been fascinated by shade and shadows – and especially in winter.  At this time of the year, when shade is not so welcomed, its starkness highlights the lightness (the greenness) of all around.  It seems denser and darker than in summer time, when it is relished for its coolness, not its density. 

As for shadows in winter, the play of dark upon light creates starker images – more like positive negatives (speaking photographically). 

On a scorching day have you given thanks for shade?  Have you ever marvelled at the wonder of shadows caused by the light of a lamp, the sun, or even the moon?  Have a look and you’ll see what I mean. 

The Milk Carton Kids

Every now and again I hanker to hear the music of two guys who call themselves The Milk Carton Kids.  Usually they perform with just their two guitars and their harmonised voices, but a couple of years ago they made a fleshed-out album with a full band.  In my opinion All the Things I Did and All the Things I Didn’t Do is the best they’ve ever sounded.  To celebrate, they took that band on the road and one of those concerts has been preserved on YouTube.  It’s worth viewing.  https://youtu.be/oStsWteq95U

Another clip to watch is Mourning in America.  https://youtu.be/YFfpScjKo7M

Glenys

Here’s a recent photo of my wife responding to music at the nursing home. After another ‘cerebral event’ two weeks ago, it seems she’s back again.  Hallelujah!

Quotable quote

The Holy Spirit, we might say, is the Matchmaker, the celestial marriage broker, whose role is to bring us and Christ together and to ensure we stay together.

J. I. Packer

It was my daughter who reminded me that sometimes, in real life, things just keep going wrong and getting worse – as was the case in A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry.  It’s not just sometimes for some people, but nearly always. 

Paul Simon makes the same observation in one of his songs…

Some folks’ lives roll easy as a breeze…

Some folks’ lives never roll at all…

But most folks’ lives

Oh, they stumble, Lord, they fall…

We live in a fallen world, a world not in balance, a world not given to fairness.  I had forgotten that at the end of A Fine Balance.  My feelings were too raw to make sense of what I had just read.  Now, I can understand Maneck’s reason for doing what he did.  There was a time in my life when nothing made sense – life seemed pointless.  And, my bitter disappointment made me anything but fun to be with.  I saw myself as a millstone of negativity around the neck of my family.  The only solution was to swim out to sea and not come back.  That way, nobody could know for sure if I had done it on purpose or drowned accidentally, and I would have spared my wife and my two little boys a lifetime of guilt and shame.

But it never came to that because someone started talking to me about Jesus.  Oh, yes, I scoffed, “Not another Jesus freak!”  It took a fortnight of influenza, a secular book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and a movie made in Hollywood, Ben-Hur, to bring me to my knees.  Maneck, however, never got to hear what I heard or to see what I saw.  No one threw him a lifeline.  Seeing his tailor friends reduced to begging was so unfair, that, for him, life no longer made sense.  Like the kids in The Sound of Music, singing DoReMi, he was confused and thinking, “But it doesn’t mean anything!”  I understand him now, and I can forgive Rohinton Mistry for the bleakness of his story and the tragedy of its conclusion.  I only wish I had been there to grab him before he fell.    

In Psalm 73 we read of a man who had almost stumbled when he observed the prosperity of the wicked and was envious.  They seemed to live trouble-free lives, to grow rich and fat, even while they strutted and scoffed, threatened oppression, and shook their fists at God; while his life was a struggle.  It wasn’t until the writer came into the presence of God that he learned how to interpret the situation.  It’s not until he ‘saw’ the end of their story that he became thankful not to be in their slippery place, heading for ruin.  Better to have God as your refuge than to be bitter and twisted with ignorance and envy.

Quotable quote

Augustine suggests a test for why you might consider the Bible as a guide: Does it provide guidance you couldn’t get elsewhere?  Even if the way it delineates is difficult, does it look like a way out, a way home?  If every other map has left you lost, what’s to lose trying out this one?  In Augustine’s experience, the Word was like an enchanted map.  It not only told him, “You Are Here” and pointed him toward home; it also gave him legs to run. 

From On the Road with Saint Augustine –James K. A. Smith

Creation observation

From the soundtrack of my life

I came to the Beatles’ after their pop became serious with Revolver and Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  I played A Day in the Life over and over.  But it was the songs of George Harrison that had the biggest impact, for example:  Long, Long, Long on The White Album.  After they split up, his triple vinyl album All Things Must Pass became a guide to my spiritual life.  He had embraced Krishna whom he called My Sweet Lord.  Even though I wasn’t believer at that time, when I sang it I had Jesus in mind.  When he urged us to call on the Lord, and sang, with great longing, “Hear me, Lord,” I unwittingly stored up those words so that, when I was in dire need of help, I took them and prayed them to the One I still didn’t know.  To my surprise God heard me and led me in the path I was to take.  It’s almost 50 years ago, but I am still grateful that God can take the words of an unbeliever and make them a prayer for a soon-to-be believer. 

          

I’ve just spent 626 pages, 25 hours of listening, in the company of a widow, two tailors, and a college student, thrown together in a one bedroom flat during the 1975 Emergency in India. I’m feeling wasted, heartbroken, and stalled. What can I read next? Rohinton Mistry writes like a modern day Charles Dickens. He is just as prone to coincidences as Dickens, just as deft at tieing up loose ends, but hopeless when it comes to “and they lived happily ever after”. The epilogue, set in 1984, left me stunned and sent me searching for something positive to take from their lives. I found two things to hang on to.

I wish I could recommend it because the writing is wonderful, the story is engrossing, the characters are revealed in rich detail (including a dozen or more part-players), the imagery is evocative and unique, and we are so rapt that we keep expecting better things just around the bend. I know that this book will be a yardstick for whatever I read from now on. If you dare to delve into it, you’ll meet people you’ll never forget, and be forever wondering how we got to be so blessed.

From the soundtrack of my life

One of my favourite quirky comedies is Local Hero – the story of an American mining magnate wanting to buy a whole Scottish village so that he can extract the oil reserves in that region.  The negotiator sent to make the deal falls in love with the place and the people and is surprised when they all want to sell.   It stars Peter Capaldi, Burt Lancaster, and Denis Lawson and was the winner of many awards.  I’ve watched the movie a half-dozen times, and I’ve listened to the soundtrack (or parts thereof) a hundred times or more.  It’s music composed by Mark Knofler (formerly of Dire Straits).  He captures the moods and beauty of the village, and the awesome aurora borealis which appears in the Scottish night sky.  My favourite track is the finale: Going Home – which never ceases to lift my spirits and renew my determination to press on.  It’s a great movie with a wonderful soundtrack!  Have a look!  Have a listen!     

Lines from Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

It’s interesting how, when revisiting an old hymn, you can suddenly be struck by a phrase or a line that previously never caught your attention.  Such was the case when I came across this old hymn from Joachim Neader.  I always thought it was ponder anew what the Almighty can do, but, in fact, it’s… Ponder anew what the Almighty will do/ if with his love he befriend you.  So that’s what I did – especially when I came to the last chapter of Revelation and ended my, maybe, fiftieth reading through the whole New Testament.  There, too, I discovered something new to ponder. 

Blessed are those who wash their robes so they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.  (Revelation 22:14).

As I pondered those words, I wondered and marvelled that, one day, I will pass through one of those gates into the very presence of the Lord our God.  How amazing!  For a brief moment, I could picture being part of an endless procession of believers, from every tribe and tongue and nation, entering into the heavenly city. The thought of it was overwhelming.  We, who believe and have been redeemed, are part of a much bigger and better story than we have ever imagined!  I hope you’re one of them.

A creation observation – omniscience

As I watch the countless falling autumn leaves on the trees next door, I am reminded of lyrics from Bob Dylan’s song:  That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand… and every sparrow falling like every grain of sand.   

They say the number of grains of sand on Planet Earth is equivalent to 10²³ which is equivalent to the number of stars in the universe – so huge a number you could round it off to infinity.  That equivalence is noted and recorded in Hebrews 11:12 in speaking of Abraham and his wife Sarah, who had been childless until she was 90 and he was 100.  There we read, Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.  Jesus tells us that God knows even the number of hairs on our heads (Matthew 10:30) and the death of every bird that ever lived.  Elsewhere we’re told that he has given names to every star.  I guess you’d call this omniscience.