Cautionary Words

"We cannot extend the mastery of government over the daily life of a people without somewhere making it master of people's soul and thoughts." - Herbert Hoover (31st President of the United States)

How We Act...Has Eternal Consequences

"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." - Galatians 5: 16-21

Note that the Apostle Paul does not place any conditions on these sins or "works of the flesh." The standard remains despite the circumstances. Pray for God's grace and strength in your life to live according to the Spirit. We are incapable of doing that ourselves.

The Light of the World

If I haven't mentioned it already, I'm reading through the book of Job. The book is interesting because you have to be careful about how you quote it. For example, while Job's antagonists' speeches are in the Bible, it doesn't mean that what they are saying (in the context in which they are saying it) is biblical. John Piper does a nice job discussing that here.

In view of this, I appreciate how Job uses the metaphors of light and darkness in chapter 24 to provide insights into sin and righteousness. Specifically, I was reading verses 13-17:

“There are those who rebel against the light,

    who are not acquainted with its ways,

    and do not stay in its paths.

The murderer rises before it is light,

    that he may kill the poor and needy,

    and in the night he is like a thief.

The eye of the adulterer also waits for the twilight,

    saying, ‘No eye will see me’;

    and he veils his face.

In the dark they dig through houses;

    by day they shut themselves up;

    they do not know the light.

For deep darkness is morning to all of them;

    for they are friends with the terrors of deep darkness."

In this passage, Job reflects the sins of the 10 commandments: You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal. He describes these sins as walking in darkness, against the light of God's righteousness. The ESV Study Bible provides this insight:

These verses are linked together by a play on the senses of the word "light" and its related vocabulary. Job begins by describing those who rebel against the light as those who oppose wisdom and righteousness - not knowing its ways or walking in its path (v.13). Job then describes how the manner of life is revealed in the light of day and the dark of night: the murderer gets up before it is light to pursue injustice and continues to prowl around at night (v.14); the adulterer assumes that in the twilight his actions will go unseen (v.15); thus they each bring ruinous effects on other households at night, while seeking to guard themselves during the day (v. 16). Job implies that their reversal of the typical times of sleep and labor (deep darkness has become morning) is itself a manifestation of the fact that they do not know the light and instead have chosen foolishly to become friends with the terrors of deep darkness (vv. 16-17).

As I read this passage and the commentary, it occurred to me that I started this blog over two years ago with this imagery in mind. There is something about darkness - about late night hours "after midnight" - that tempts us to sin. In the darkness we find cover - or we think we do - to do things we would not likely do in the light of day. That temptation can be tempered by seeking God before midnight, before the darkness lures us into sin, so that we do not "rebel against the light" but instead find comfort and solace in the Light of the World.

T.S. Eliot, Culture, and the Church

T.S. Eliot was a world-renowned, Nobel Prize-winning English (but American born) poet. He died in 1965 leaving a legacy of beautiful, influential literature.

I read Eliot as an English major in college ("The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,," "The Waste Land"), but I don't remember reading any of his work after he became a Christian. It's possible that we did and I don't remember, or the secular college I attended considered those of lesser artistry and left them out. Regardless, I was perusing an old bookshelf at home and found a collection of his poems. I started reading his explicitly Christian poems and I found them poignant and relevant for today. 

In 1934, in addition to witnessing the march of fascism and communism across Europe, he bemoaned the declining interest in God and religion. Churches were more empty than full, and there was a growing sense among the populace that faith was becoming irrelevant in the modern age. This decline has continue in Europe to a point where secularism has become the predominant belief system.

When my parents immigrated from Germany to the U.S. in the mid-50's they were amazed and pleased at how religious the American culture was. By 1956-57, Germany was already a post-Christian nation with churches having more value as historic sites than places of worship. Unfortunately, my parents now in their 80's and having been in America for over 60 years, are seeing the post-Christian culture overtaking this country as well. Fewer and fewer people are attending church and Christianity is more and more seen as an impediment to progress, instead of a bulwark against sin and beacon of hope.

Eliot shares his view with us as he observes 1930's England; in many ways, he's holding up a mirror to us.

Choruses from "The Rock" - 1934

The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.
O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God .
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

I journeyed to London, to the timekept City,
Where the River flows, with foreign flotations.
There I was told: we have too many churches,
And too few chop-houses. There I was told:
Let the vicars retire. Men do not need the Church
In the place where they work, but where they spend their Sundays.
In the City, we need no bells:
Let them waken the suburbs.
I journeyed to the suburbs, and there I was told:
We toil for six days, on the seventh we must motor
To Hindhead, or Maidenhead.
If the weather is foul we stay at home and read the papers.
In industrial districts, there I was told
Of economic laws.
In the pleasant countryside, there it seemed
That the country now is only fit for picnics.
And the Church does not seem to be wanted
In country or in suburb; and in the town
Only for important weddings.

The Temptation to Belong

I finally got around to reading The Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis. I read the first two books of the Space Trilogy years ago, but never read the final book. I'm about 3/4 of the way through it. For those who never read it, it's a story about that revolves around the lives of a married couple Mark and Jane Studdock and an ostensibly scientific institute, the N.I.C.E., which is a front for a sinister supernatural forces. Lewis weaves a tail of good versus evil as only he can. 

Today, I was struck by a passage that reminded me of a struggle in my own life and I think one that many struggle with as well: the desire to belong. I remember as a kid and young adult wanting to fit in, to find a group that would accept me, to be part of the "in" crowd. I don't think this desire is inherently sinful. We are made to belong. In the end, Christians will be part of a single group, a single tribe, a single people who will spend eternity together sharing in the joy of the presence of God. As Christians, we are commanded to love one another and consider each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. Now, we should be striving to belong to one another under the lordship of Jesus Christ. And wanting to be part of a club - bowling league, baseball team, a geneology club, a Ford club - is a good thing, too. The joy of commaderie is a gift from God. 

But like with everything in human life, we tend to distort what is good. We want to belong, to be part of a group - but we often want it too much; we seek entry into the group as a way to find an identity, to find life's purpose, to feed our pride, to feel superior to others...you name it and humans can distort even this good gift. Young people are particularly susceptible to this, but this temptation really knows no time limit. It haunts me even at my age. 

The passage below comes from The Hideous Strength. Mark Studdock is in a prison cell and he's reflecting on how he wound up there. How did he get involved in such an organization as N.I.C.E. or the "Progressive Element"? What did he give up to get here? What did he give up throughout his life just to belong, just be part of the "in" crowd? I can't explain all of the characters or circumstance here, but I think you'll get it - you'll see the struggle. You'll understand the regret. Most of have been where Mark finds himself. May God help use to resist this temptation, to repent when we sin in order to belong, and find our ultimate solace, identity, purpose, and belonging in Him.

With extraordinary clarity, but with renewed astonishment, he remembered how he had felt about the Progressive Element at Bracton [College] when he was first admitted to its confidence: he remembered, even more incredulously, how he had felt as a very junior fellow while he was outside it—how he had looked almost with awe at the heads of Curry and Busby bent close together in Common Room, hearing occasional fragments of their whispered conversation, pretending himself the while to be absorbed in a periodical but longing—oh, so intensely longing —for one of them to cross the room and speak to him. And then, after months and months, it had happened. He had a picture of himself, the odious little outsider who wanted to be an insider, the infantile gull, drinking in the husky and unimportant confidences, as if he were being admitted to the government of the planet. Was there no beginning to his folly? Had he been an utter fool all through from the very day of his birth? Even as a schoolboy, when he had ruined his work and half broken his heart trying to get into the society called Grip, and lost his only real friend in doing so? 

....He himself did not understand why all this, which was now so clear, had never previously crossed his mind. He was unaware that such thoughts had often knocked for entrance, but had always been excluded for the very good reason that if they were once entertained it involved ripping up the whole web of his life, cancelling almost every decision his will had ever made, and really beginning over again as though he were an infant. The indistinct mass of problems which would have to be faced if he admitted such thoughts, the innumerable “somethings” about which “something” would have to be done, had deterred him from ever raising these questions. What had now taken the blinkers off was the fact that nothing could be done.

There were no moral considerations at this moment in Mark’s mind. He looked back on his life, not with shame but with a kind of disgust at its dreariness....He saw himself making believe that he enjoyed those Sunday afternoons with the athletic heroes of Grip, while all the time (as he now saw) he was almost homesick for one of the old walks with Pearson—Pearson whom he had taken such pains to leave behind. He saw himself in his teens laboriously reading rubbishy grown-up novels and drinking beer when he really enjoyed John Buchan and stone ginger.

The hours that he had spent learning the very slang of each new circle that attracted him, the perpetual assumption of interest in things he found dull and of knowledge he did not possess, the almost heroic sacrifice of nearly every person and thing he actually enjoyed, the miserable attempt to pretend that one could enjoy Grip, or the Progressive Element, or the N.I.C.E.—all this came over him with a kind of heartbreak. When had he ever done what he wanted? Mixed with the people whom he liked? Or even eaten and drunk what took his fancy? The concentrated insipidity of it all filled him with self-pity.

In his normal condition, explanations that laid on impersonal forces outside himself the responsibility for all this life of dust and broken bottles would have occurred at once to his mind and been at once accepted. It would have been “the system” or “an inferiority complex” due to his parents, or things occurred to him now....He was aware, without even having to think of it, that it was he himself —nothing else in the whole universe—that had chosen the dust and broken bottles, the heap of old tin cans, the dry and choking places.

On a Lighter Note

I don't know...I just thought this was so funny...the look on the mother's face is priceless: "My son is an idiot." She looks like she just realized that this kid will be living with her for the rest of her life.





This comic strip, Close to Home, is drawn and written by John McPherson.