Growing Old Ain't For Sissies

NUMBER 167
DRAGON SOUP


Religion, according to Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, is “from the Latin, religio,” which means reverence.

The main meanings are: The service and worship of God or the supernatural…a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs and practices.

We recently had a discussion on “religion” in the class I teach at church. One Saturday morning, finishing up my preparation for that class, I noticed an article in the “Faith and Life” section of our local liberal rag. It was all about how many adults are turning to religion these days for help with raising their children.

The politically correct article included a wide sample of religions—with quotes ranging from a Unitarian minister in Colorado Springs who seems proud that no more than half his congregation believes in God to a man who grew up a Baptist but was derailed by the problem of evil and is now married to a Catholic and espouses parts of Hinduism and parts of Buddhism.




For my class, I made a handout that showed this sign by the road past our local Unitarian-Universalist Church, and an earlier one that proclaimed: “WE DON’T DO GUILT” on a similar banner with symbols of various religions strung across the bottom. They included a Cross, a Star of David, a Yin-Yang circle, a Muslim Crescent and Star, A Masonic Compass And Square, and a few others I can’t remember.

We were studying Hebrews, a letter written to Hebrew Christians who had found the answer in Jesus Christ and were in danger of going back to the old questions of Judaism. This banner caught my attention by reminding me that nothing changes very much.

There has always been a large crowd who believe that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive—even when it comes to the ultimate questions of life. A lot of religious effort is expended looking for answers that have already been given in the Bible. The presumption lies not in accepting these answers but in sanctifying the blind quest for answers God has already given.

At the bottom of my pictures of these two signs, I put two pictures I had taken recently at a local orchard:



On the ground is the fruit of religion—the human attempts to deal with the supernatural. Every person knows there is Someone or Something there. And every person responds in some way—either by honoring the Infinite-Personal God who is there and is not silent or by honoring the creature rather than the Creator.

Against the blue sky is a symbol of the fruit of regeneration. The sinners who honor the Creator are adopted into the family of God through faith in Jesus Christ and are like apples on a living tree, connected to the source of life—both temporal and eternal.

There are some encouraging signs that Americans, especially the younger ones, are turning away from the emptiness of human religion to the revealed faith of past generations. May their tribe increase.




Oh, you wonder about the dragon soup? When I started this blog I had a recipe in mind, but was greatly distracted. All I can remember is “Take one very large pot…” I once had an Eskimo recipe for Owl Soup. As I recall, it went like this:

Fill pot with water
Bring water to boil
Add one owl
Cook until done

I think if you were to substitute “one dragon” for “one owl,” and use a very large pot, you might get some tasty soup, eventually.

NUMBER 166
Where were you?

This is from a draft book of stories from around the campfire of World Vision. Although I wrote it in 1985, little has changed in 20 years. Today it is harder to get permission to help, and more dangerous to help when permission is obtained, but a very large part of the desperate human misery in the world is still created by greedy, power-hungry officials. This story could have been written today about any number of places in the world, and required very little in the way of changes.

WHERE WERE YOU?

A human crisis is seldom as simple as it seems on the evening news. When thousands are dying and millions at risk somewhere in the world, the full explanation is usually a complex mixture of "acts of God" and “acts of men.” There will be drought or flood or quaking earth. There will be officials who are failures or fools or scoundrels. There will be history and sociology and religion. There will be a unique point in time when a unique mixture of these things and the millions of tiny decisions made by average people come together into a critical mass that tips over the edge into disaster.

In such a disaster it is not unusual for a strong central government to first deny and then finally own up to what is being seen in living color on the nightly news around the world--and then begin to accept assistance from outsiders. Such a government may seek to profit from this help by placing heavy import duties on relief goods, but generally, there is a relaxation of control. Rules may be waived, constraints eased, regulations suspended. Ideology and religion may be sent on vacation. An unusual spirit of harmony and cooperation may even prevail.

However, when the worst is over and the evening news moves on to other more urgent things, it is also not unusual for such a government to mobilize itself quickly to recapture the ground it has given up in the emergency. Ideology and religion are called back from vacation. The negative influences and incorrect ideas that invariably creep in alongside the materials and the technology of assistance must be identified and rooted out before they become established.

It was with this in mind that the Assistant Deputy For Rural Affairs In The Southern Region approached one of the villages of his district. He had come five hundred kilometers over bad roads from the Capitol. He was tired and hot and missing the comfort of his air-conditioned office.

Although he had never before been to this village, the elders welcomed him warmly, gave him their best hospitality and granted his request that they call together all the people to hear his message from the Capitol. The call went out and all were presently assembled.

The Assistant Deputy For Rural Affairs In The Southern Region gave them greetings from the Capitol. He assured them of the daily concerns of their leaders for the welfare of the village and the daily toils of these leaders on their behalf. He congratulated the people on their evident health, the good condition of their village, the greenness of their fields and the fatness of their cattle. He commended the elders for their leadership during the recent very hard time.

As he spoke the old men nodded, the young men held their peace and the children did what children always do. But then he began to explain to them about the negative influences and incorrect ideas that had been brought to them along with the food and the medicine and the tools. He told them how World Vision didn't really have the best interests of their village in mind--they had religious and political seeds to plant. He spoke of spying, intrigue and of subversion. He told them how their leaders in the Capitol understood this all and felt responsible for helping the villages to understand this as well.

He went on for some time, as bureaucrats are wont to do. The children were getting restless, the young men were becoming concerned and dark looks were beginning to appear on the faces of the old men. Finally, a very old man stood up and began to speak. "When our children were dying and we were too weak to bury them, World Vision came to us with their own shovels and buried our children. Where were you when they were digging these graves?”

“When the food was gone and we were starving and too weak to lift a spoon to our mouths, World vision brought food and lifted our spoons for us. Where were you when World Vision was feeding us with a spoon?"

The old man shifted his weight, took a firmer grip on his walking stick and went on, "When our cattle were dead and the seed grain was eaten and we were without hope, World Vision brought us seeds and tools and oxen-and they gave us food to eat until the first harvest. Where were you when they were giving us back our hope and dignity and future?"

The very old man paused then, waiting for an answer. The Assistant Deputy For Rural Affairs In The Southern Region shifted uneasily on his stool. Finally he turned to the elders and told them the meeting was over. He got up, walked slowly to his Land Cruiser, and drove out of the village--back to the Capitol. Which is where he had been during all these terrible times.

As they watched the dust cloud rising behind the Land Cruiser the old man spoke once more, "We do not know who he is, we have never seen him before. We know World Vision, they have been with us all the time."

NUMBER 165
The Vision

If you have heard all you care to hear about Oompah!, the god of Christian Rock Worship music, you should skip this blog.

I commend to you a new book:

Can We Rock The Gospel? Rock music’s Impact on worship and evangelism
John Blanchard and Dan Lucarini
Evangelical Press 2006


For some Christians, Christian Rock and Roll is the best way of expressing their faith and sharing it with unbelievers, while for other Christians it is by far the worst. Does the truth lie somewhere between these two extremes?

Does God endorse music of every kind? Can we ‘cut and paste’ secular rock music and ‘Christianize’ it in the process? Is the difference between ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ in church music today just personal preference or taste? Should the Christian Church unite in bringing rock music to the altar or sending it to the bonfire?
This is a careful examination of one of the hot buttons in the church today by two respected Christian leaders and best-selling authors who together have many years of hands-on experience in worship, preaching, evangelism and music.

Here is a poem written in the trenches of the battle for traditional worship.

A Curmudgeon’s Vision

In the year that King Elvis died
I saw Oompah! high and lifted up.
The heat of his amplifiers rose like smoke
And filled the temple.
The foundations shook at the thunder of his backbeat,
His rim-shots cracked as lightning in the smoke.
And Lo, a great white wall was there,
And upon the wall, a song going round
Round and round and round and
Round and round and round…
I saw gathered before the great white wall
A multitude that cannot be numbered.
At the sound of the thunder
The people stood as one with their hands upraised
Before the great white wall
And began to sing the song of the wall.
And their song went round and round and round and
Round and round and round, even unto the end of the age.
Falling on my face, I cried out, “Woe is me for
I am a man of square lips and I live in the midst of
A people of round lips whose song goes
Round and round and round and round…”

10/05
032-2

PSALM 84.5

How glorious are the highways of Zion
Laid down in every Pilgrim heart.
Though they stretch
From star to star,
They're broad and firm
Where Pilgrims are.

Sunlight filters through green leaves
And warms the foot-worn paving stones.
And as they go the Pilgrim songs
Rise up in joy to Zion's thrones.

Lord God of the nebulae,
I will travel ‘til I die
These inner highways
Of Your sky.

1/87-10/06rev
050