Haiti Rocks

Whenever I return home from Haiti, the TSA and customs people at the Miami airport give me weird looks when they see the large rocks I have stuffed into my luggage.  Most people returning home from the Caribbean bring back jewelry and rum.  I usually bring home coffee, occasionally vanilla.  Almost always I bring home a few rocks.  I mean, there's nothing contraband about them, and they have to let them go through, but that doesn't stop them from backing up the xray belt a time or two.  Every time they say to me, "Is this bag yours? We need to look inside."

The snow-white rocks in the upper picture come from the north shore of La Gonave. They have been made smooth from thousands of years of ocean waves washing over them.  I have wondered how many swashbuckling pirates have trampled over them on their way out to their ship.

This middle picture is of a couple chunks of earthquake debris I picked up.  Iconic, don't you think, of a country that has been laid so low.  "Ayiti kraze," someone said. "Haiti is broken."

In the bottom picture are rocks I picked up in the middle of La Gonave where we hope to locate a base camp for our work in the future.  I'm not a geologist, but to me they look like old coral, which makes me wonder if ancient La Gonave may have been an underwater reef.

I love pictures and I sure take my share of them, but they're a poor substitute for holding relics like these in your hands, which I just have to do every once in awhile.  You just have to wonder what all they've seen.

Acting Routinely

“[He] does more than practice medicine.  He doctors people.  There’s a difference.”  Charles Kuralt

I long ago came to realize that I might never “get it right.”  Today, I know it for fact:  I will never “get it right.”  I’ll always be just “practicing” medicine.  I suppose that the same can be said for everyone.   We’ll always be just “practicing” in life.  Never quite getting things perfect.

I guess in a sense we're all practitioners.  Practitioners of our work.  Practitioners in our relationships.  Practitioners of our faith.  We never do get things quite right, do we?  We’re not perfect.  What’s more, we never will be!  The good news is that all this imperfection is all as God expects.

The use of the word practice these days almost always connotes the idea of trying to get better, or “get it right.” It is natural, of course, for those of us involved in sports or music to use the word practice to communicate the idea of repetition in order to get better.  After all, “practice makes perfect,” right?  What team will take home the trophy who has not, through tedious repetition, practiced the execution of different parts of the game?  “Practice your free throws,” I’d always encourage my kids.  And who wants to hear a song played by someone who has not practiced it?  Artists practice and experiment with different colors, shapes, and materials.  Fly fishermen practice tying flies.  My golf game stinks because I spend no time practicing at the driving range or putting green.

The word “practice” comes from the Latin practica which, at its very essence, means to “be used.”  For example, if we say that a kitchen or garden utensil is practic-al, we imply that it is use-full, or literally, full of use.  The word, even though it is used as an adjective here, conveys a strong sense of action.  Of course the verb “to practice” is an action verb. Even the noun “practice” (eg. a medical practice, or a legal practice) very literally, then, means a routine action.  To “practice” medicine, then, is to “act routinely” in the area of medicine.  To “practice” law is to “act routinely” in the area of law.  The “practice” of faith is to “act routinely” in the area of faith.   Be careful here, don’t equate “routine” with monotony, drudgery or vain repetition.  My family practice is anything but monotonous.  Oh, I show up every day, and I “act routinely,” lest my patients lose confidence, but “acting routinely” for me is a daily dose of variety, challenge, and excitement.  Likewise, the “acting routinely” in the area of faith in Christ should not and need not be drudgery.  Indeed, the practice of faith in Jesus Christ brings variety, challenge, and excitement, not in spite of “acting routinely” but as a direct result of “acting routinely.”  Routine can be the source of great blessing!  God’s intent is that routine would be a blessing to us, not a curse against us.

The primary reason that we “act routinely” is out of obedience.  God calls us to an active, vibrant, use-full practice of our faith.

“This has been my practice:  I obey your precepts.”  Ps. 119:56

A Practicing Faith

After med school comes “residency,” that essential part of every young doctor’s career where “head knowledge” meets “street smarts.”  I remember the day well, back in July, 1988:  my first days in the hospital after graduating from medical school.  I remember the painful realization that all the “stuff” I had been cramming into my brain the past 4 years was not yet enough to equip me to be a good doctor.  What first year intern doesn’t dread the “pimp” sessions when the attending physician grills him at the patient’s bedside about all the possible etiologies of the patient’s abdominal pain?  I remember well my first day of medical internship.  It was during “rounds”  the attending physician asked me (in front of about four or five other young doctors),  “Doctor Edmondson," (and the inflection in his voice when he said “Doctor” proclaimed loudly that he really had his doubts), “list for me the possible causes of this patient’s congestive heart failure.”  The ten seconds that followed were the slowest ten seconds of my life.  Time stood still for ten seconds.  Deer in the headlights time.  In an act of mercy, his eyes lifted their gaze from me to the rest of the group, who managed to come up with what he was looking for.  Why didn’t I have all the answer to that question?  I should have known the answer to that question.   His eyes panned back to me and, in a reassuring tone, I remember him telling me, “you’ve got it all up here,” placing his hand over my frontal lobe.  “What we need to do,” he said, “is to get it from here” (frontal lobe), “to here” (moving his clenched fist and placing it over my gut).  What I lacked was the gut.  Not guts.  Gut.  And I learned gradually over the years that it would come.  Head knowledge would transform into gut instinct.  That first preceptor in the clinical phase of my education taught me... not facts so much (I had those, or so he reassured me)... but he taught me how to use those facts to make a difference in my patients’ lives.  He taught me how to process the raw material (head knowledge) into something that would be useful to me as I stood at the side of the bed of a critically ill patient.  The patient, I learned, could care less if I got an A in “pulmonary.”  The patient cared a lot if I could prescribe therapy that would save his life.

“Bible smarts” isn’t enough (ask any Scribe).  Faith in God goes way beyond head knowledge(consult any Sadducee).  And lip service certainly doesn’t cut it (ask any Pharisee).  What a waste it would be for a graduating medical student to hang her shingle on her bedroom wall and never allowed her “head knowledge” be translated into improving the quality of people’s lives.  Similarly, how tragic is it that there are those who have an understanding of the Christian faith and seem to know all the right answers, yet who bear no fruit through the exercising of their faith in ministry to others.  How can we grow in faith if we don’t enter the “patient rooms” of life and allow our Great Preceptor to mentor and mold us into ever-learning, ever-maturing, and ever-reproducing practitioners of our faith?

I want to be an ever-maturing practitioner of my faith.  The moment we stop maturing in our faith, we start stagnating in our faith.  Fruit isn’t borne.  Hot turns to luke-warm.  Zeal gives way to boredom.  Might as well hang the shingle on your bedroom wall. 

Living Being

I've been thinking recently about what it means that God created us in His image, His likeness.

The understanding of a living organism must go beyond knowing how it is structured (its anatomy) to how it functions (its physiology). And as amazing as our Creator has created our anatomy, it is equally amazing to see how he has created our physiology.

“The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7

Here in Genesis we see the distinction between anatomy and physiology. When God “forms” he creates our anatomy. When he “breathes into” our lifeless anatomy, we become living, breathing, laughing, digesting, metabolizing, smelling, seeing, hearing, growing, thinking, hoping, indeed physiologic beings. The term “living being” used here is significant. Don’t gloss so quickly past the phrase that you miss its significance. Could it be that when God created us as “living beings” that both words, living and being, might carry equal weight in how we bear His image? When God forms us from dust we are yet, and very simply, a “being.” Only when He breathes into us are we transformed into a “living being.” The very act of God’s breathing His breath into us is just as much a part of our creation as is the forming us from dust. God created you by forming you AND by breathing into you. Form equals anatomy. Breath brings physiology.

“God created man in his own image.” Gen 1:27

Note carefully, it does not say here that God created man in his own form. It does not say that we were created to resemble him in a strictly anatomic way, although that is part of it. When it says we are created in his own image, the function (physiology) He created us to possess was also intended to bear His image! Form and function. Anatomy and physiology. Out of dust, and from His breath. What we are and who we are. All deliberate, necessary components of image of the God.

When God first created man and woman, they bore His image, His likeness. They were “living beings.” They were like Him in their being; they were like Him in their living. They were like Him anatomically; they were like Him physiologically. Later sin would corrupt both aspects of that likeness: form and function, being and living. Anatomy fell corrupt: to disease, decay and death. Physiology fell corrupt: to disorders, derangements, and disharmony. Today, we still bear the corrupt scars of sin. No one is immune.

"Living beings." It’s the "living" part we have the most problem with. We chalk up the three-score-and-seven aspect of our existence, our "beings," to fate or luck or lifestyle choices. But we struggle with living, really living. God-centered, purpose-filled, full-of-meaning living. Who among us doesn’t want to know that the life they’re living counts for something, that they’re not the result of some cosmic accident?

“You have made known to me the path of life…” David

“This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Deut. 30:19-20

Choose life? Is life a choice, like choosing whether I want dessert or not? Can I really decide whether or not to have life, like deciding if I want to accept a job offer?

“I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full.” Jesus John 10:10

It is clear: God, in Jesus, wants us to have life. But He allows us to choose whether or not we want this life. “The work of God is this,” Jesus tells us, “to believe in the one he has sent.” “He who believes has everlasting life.” John 6:47 The implication is that it is possible to be, to exist, but not to live. Note that Jesus is not saying, “He who believes will have an everlasting existence.” Who wants to live forever if it is all just existence that has no purpose or meaning?

It is possible to exist without living, partial image-bearers of God. Just vague representations. Some years ago I visited the Museum of Art, in Chicago, when the Egyptian exhibit came into town. I especially remember standing in respectful awe in front of many of the mummies on display. I was fascinated as I gazed at the skeletal remains of what, thousands of years ago, was a living, breathing human being. I was intrigued by some of the features that were preserved: the leathery tissue left covering the skull and face, providing a sense of the facial features. Hair, still attached to the scalp. Fingernails. Vague representations of a life lived. Kind of spooky. Very real.

In what sense are we just vague representations of what God initially created us to be? Vestiges of “better days”? Bodies still intact, but whose “life” has long since departed? Spiritual corpses?

A slogan made popular by the pro-life movement simply states, “Choose Life.” In like manner, God makes it abundantly clear: “Choose Life!” Life is a choice! We don’t have to live. God doesn’t force it on us. We can go through life simply existing. But Jesus says He has come that we may have life… a rich, meaningful, physiologic, image-bearing, purposeful life! Rick Warren surprised the publishing world by the enormous and long-lived popularity of his book, The Purpose Driven Life. But think about it. Is it really any surprise that the number one need in all of our lives is for purpose? Purpose that transforms merely existing into abundant living? Purpose that breathes life into the corpse of our existence? Purpose that busts us out of the museum of dead corpses into a world of relationships and growth and meaning?

Wanting to Want To

Two-year-olds are much smarter than most of us think.  Alex is a good example.  A few months ago Alex came in with his Mom for a routine check up.  After my physical assessment, I looked at his growth chart and started talking with his Mom about Alex’s developmental milestones.  It was a good visit, no red flags.

Now, most two-year-olds are still in those high-absorbancy “pull-up” diapers, one of the greatest inventions of the twentieth century.  The only problem with them is that they are so easy and so convenient and they keep toddlers so dry that the incentive to potty train is lost.  I mean, why bother learning how to use a toilet when these pants work just fine?

Alex must have thought so.

I brought up the issue of potty training with Alex’s mother.  Not so much for the purpose of encouraging her to get on it, as much as to open it up for questions she might have about the process.  As it turned out, she had the “big boy potty” sitting on the floor in the bathroom at home but Alex wasn’t expressing a whole lot of interest in using it.  Invariably, every discussion about potty training eventually leads to this conclusion, and you’ve heard it a thousand times:  “They’ll do it when they want to.”  Doesn’t matter what you say.  And Child Psych 101 notwithstanding, a child won’t potty train until they get good and ready.  It’s kind of one of those “you can lead a horse to water…” laws of early childhood behavior.

Alex was familiar with this law.  And he was paying attention to the conversation between his mother and me.  The reason I know he was listening was that the second I said to his mom the proverbial, “He’ll do it when he wants to,” Alex chirped in, “I can’t want to!  I can’t like that!”

There was great wisdom in Alex’s words that morning.  What Alex’s little two-year-old mind understood, and what parents through the generations have found out, is that reason and logic aren’t enough.  Persuasive skills fall short.  Shame and guilt are counterproductive.

When Alex shouted, “I can’t want to!” he was admitting that, in this instance…potty-training… he would rather comply out of an inner desire rather than out of obeying a parental edict.

“I desire to do your will, O my God;

your law is within my heart.”  Psalm 40:8

Do we ever, like Alex, want to want to, but can’t?  Where does the “want to” come from and how can we get it?

When God tells us, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4) could it be that God is telling us that when we place our faith in Him He will instill desires within us?   That when we place our faith and delight in Him He will reward us by putting the “want to” in us?

Last word is that Alex is still not interested in the “big boy potty.”  To be sure, Mommy and Daddy are ready for him to make that decision.  (Hey those pull-ups aren’t cheap!).  But they are patient.

Just like God is with us.

“He is patient with you,

not wanting anyone to perish,

but everyone to come to repentance.”2 Peter 3:9b

Buying Presence

The catch-22 is this:  on the one hand we want so badly to be about the work (and only about the work) of helping people. To help them dig out of their despair, to bandage their wounds. To, as Jesus said, visit them, clothe them, and give them something to eat.  But the thing is, we must first be there. Not just get there, but be there.

It's a love/hate thing, sort-of.  Because while I love the notion that we will soon have our own place (the last installment of our guesthouse furniture is currently enroute: bunkbeds, mattresses, shelving units, etc.), at the same time I feel like my time is stolen from being with the people I love so much. (I remember telling our board in one of Starfysh's early organizational meetings that things like fundraising and such don't charge me up nearly as much as being in Haiti, being with those we would help.

But the long view of "being there" requires more than showing up now and again.  If we are to make a lasting impact, we must invest in presence.  In a fully-equipped, comfortable guesthouse, ready and waiting for those who would come and invest a few days or weeks or months of their lives down here.  In the vehicles needed to move compassion about the difficult terrain which is La Gonave's.

As we do all this, of course, we are laying program groundwork (water, agriculture, feeding, medical care), which is, for me, way more fun. The time is coming soon when the center of gravity of time and resources will begin to shift from readiness to implementation. In fact, I see it already happening. Happy day!

Finally, I need your help folks.  We need rugged island transportation.  We have received two like-new 4-wheeler ATV's that are currently enroute down.  These will be of enormous value to us in moving about the island.  What we are still waiting for and desperately need next is a couple of heavy duty, 4-wheel drive, diesel trucks.  They wouldn't need to be new, just in good condition.  We will "lift" the bodies of the trucks up a ways, so they can navigate the rough mountain roads in moving supplies and people to where they need to be.  If you can ask around for us, or pull some strings, or know someone who would want to make a monster difference in the lives of a bunch of desperately-poor people by donating one, please send them my way.

Buying presence.  It's what must be done if we are to deliver radical, transformative change to this land.

Golf Scramble a Great Success

Golfers, start your engines!

We had a great day on the links today.  Perfect weather.  Fun golf.  Fun contests.  Lots of prizes.  Great steak buffet. Promoted our clean water initiative.  All proceeds from our outing today will be used to help us provide clean water to families on La Gonave.

Good stuff.  There will definitely be a "Second Annual" next year.

Thank you golfers who came out and volunteers who helped make the day great. Thanks to sponsors, too, for your support.

Hanging out with friends (some new!) at the golf course

God 101

“For the eyes of faith, every created thing manifests the grace and providence of Abba.

                                                                      Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

We’re all signed up for God class. Sometimes we're spending time in the Book.  More often, we take field trips. Sometimes group field trips, but usually field trips just by ourselves.  Today's assignment:  “Look for signs of God.  Report your findings.”  We find that clues are everywhere and it looks like He’s still on the move!  Twigs are broken and His tracks are still wet.  Seems He’s everywhere.

The assignments and tests are all open-Book.  Sometimes we get A’s.  Sometimes D’s.  Often we just plain flunk the exam.  We forget to study.  We forget our Book.  We lose our #2 pencils.  We forget we can work together.  Our Professor says, though, that as long as we stay in the class, we’ll get through the course.

The course: life. God 101.  Independent study, done together.  Life, a course in knowing God.  

Manifold Witness

“Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father.

Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above

Join with all nature in manifold witness

To Thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love”

                                      Thomas O. Chisholm

God has made us privy to so much more than the people who lived when Jesus walked the earth.  You’ve got to know that God, in His eternal I AM-ness, knew about telescopes and computers and dinosaurs and atoms and quarks and the internet and E=MC2.  God knew (and knows) about undiscovered truths of the day.  As we unearth these yet-to-be-discovered truths, we dare not discard them as not having originated from God, just because the Scriptures haven’t spoken of them.  Rather, we take newly-discovered truths and see what light Scriptural truth sheds on them.  Real truth will neither disprove nor discredit Scripture.  It might challenge our previously-held interpretations.  But that’s our issue, not Scripture’s.  The Word of God is true.  Truth cannot be untrue.  The fact that my little cauliflower of a brain has not yet comprehended (nor will ever!) the wonders of the Creator of the universe in no way minimizes His greatness.  In fact, my puny understanding only accentuates His greatness.

What a freeing concept!  We are free to discover.  Wherever we find truth, we learn a bit more about God.  (If astronomers should discover trees on Mars, it would not threaten our view of God; it would only serve to enlarge it. The only faith we would lose is the faith we have placed in our own puny attempts at understanding an infinite God).  We wake up each morning with a new eagerness to find out a little bit more about God today.  God speaks to us directly through Scripture, through the impressions of His Holy Spirit, and through the truths of the day, none of which are mutually exclusive.

We can know God and have relationship with Him through Christ Jesus.  And we can know about Him through His creation.  God’s creation gives witness to His nature and character and personality and attributes.

“All nature,” the song goes.  “Manifold witness.”  Each choir member has it’s own unique “voice” to add.  Every planet.  Every star.  Every tree.  Every animal.  Every insect.  Every rock.  Every molecule and atom.  Yes, every electron of every atom in the universe spins at the direction of the Director of creation’s choir.  The bazillion individual choir members are blending their voices in harmonies of praise, each telling their own, unique story.  Each witnessing to God’s character.

We, too, sing.  Every one of us each have our own unique set of insights about God.  No one’s life is like another’s.  Our life experiences, even those of people very close to us, are wildly different.  We each have a unique voice to bring to the choir.  Singing together our voices blend in rich harmonies with all the others (brothers and sisters, mountains and molecules, galaxies and snails). What a variety!  Manifold witness.

Evidence

“What on earth are we missing?”   Philip Yancey, Rumors of Another World

There is a subtle, yet important distinction between “evidence for God” and “evidence of God.”  If we’re collecting evidence for God, it’s as if we’re trying to prove His existence.  In observing the evidence of God, on the other hand, we are getting to know the God we already know is there.  I need no evidence for God.  That evidence is the witness of His Holy Spirit inside my being.  But I desperately long for evidence of Him, for the sense of His presence.  While I may intellectually agree that He is present, I also want and need to feel His presence in and surrounding my life.

F.W. Boreham in his 1997 essay, “The Quest,” said it well:  

“The footprints of God! It certainly proves that there is a God: but I want more than that. Robinson Crusoe found a footprint on his island: yet how little that footprint told him! Was it the footprint of a black man or a white man; of a friend or of a foe; of a man or of a woman? He could not tell. I want more than a footprint. The lover is not satisfied with the footprint of his lady: he wants her! I am not satisfied with the footprint of God: I want him! And science, failing to reveal him, failed to meet my soul’s deep need.”

We seek clues… not to build some airtight case for God.  We seek clues to discover “His eternal power and divine nature.”  God has set us loose… free to explore his visible creation for the purpose of knowing Him better.

The Lurking Presence of God

“Our world is saturated with grace, and the lurking presence of God is revealed not only in spirit but in matter--in a deer leaping across a meadow, in the flight of an eagle, in fire and water, in a rainbow after a summer storm, in a gentle doe streaking through a forest, in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, in a child licking a chocolate ice cream cone, in a woman with windblown hair.  God intended for us to discover His loving presence in the world around us.”  Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

God rarely shouts for our attention.  He is often subtle and quiet.  Lurking, even.  Hoping we’ll perceive His presence in the room.  Hoping we’ll see that He has carefully and deliberately planted clues about Himself all around, hoping we’ll recognize them for what they really are.

Everything God has done is relevant.  Nothing He has done is irrelevant to who He is.  All creation.  All revelation.  Every inspired word of Scripture.  Every order He has put into place has a purpose greater than itself.  Everything we see exists not for itself.  Every encounter, every universal law, every person exists for a God-inspired purpose.

What is that purpose?  What exactly is the relevance of the oak tree in my backyard?  And just why should I concern myself with it?  And is there something about the celestial sky that has meaning?  What difference does it make if the planets rotate in a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction on their axes?  Could the structure of a cell possibly tell me anything about the Creator of the universe?

Katanoeo

“I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds.”
                                                                                             Psalm 77:12

“If your heart were right, then every created thing would be a mirror of life, and a book of sacred doctrine.  There is no creature so small and worthless that it does not show forth the goodness of God.”                                   Thomas Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

Mirrors of life.  Books of sacred doctrine.  We’ll miss them if we’re not paying attention.  It was Jesus Himself who taught us the importance of paying attention:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!” Luke 12:22-28

Consider the ravens.  Consider the lilies.   The Hebrew word is “katanoeo,” which means, literally, “to take note of.”  Essentially, Jesus is saying to us, "Look around! Are you taking notice?  Are you paying attention to the things around you?"

Jesus’ teaching style was to use familiar, everyday scenarios that His audience would relate to in order to teach Kingdom truths.  But was it God’s intention that all truth about the Kingdom would be tidily summarized in the several specific parables Jesus taught?

Is Scripture simply a historical narrative that not only contains truth, but is sole guardian of all of it?  Is it God’s wish that we limit our understanding of His nature and His ways to that which can be described by (and only by) birds and lilies, and the moon and the stars?  Is it His intention in giving these words to us that we accept them at face value?  That we not extrapolate them to our context? 

“Stop and consider God’s wonders.” Job 37:14

Or, might there be wisdom in the parables of Jesus deeper than what we see on their surface?  Was Jesus, in elucidating the specific Kingdom truth of those parables also teaching us, here in the 21^st century, how to observe life around us, looking for our own parables, for new Kingdom truths perhaps?  In imparting truth through the audiovisuals of His audience’s context, was Jesus also teaching us, in our personal discovery processes, to use the audiovisuals He gives us in the 21^st century?

The latter is the case.   In fact, Scripture itself teaches us to look at and to consider the things we see and experience as we think about God and His design and purposes for our lives.  Jesus Himself taught us that observing and reflecting on the things around us:  nature, relationships, social structures, stories and events, and so on, all can provide insights that have value to our spiritual lives.

Ever aware of His surroundings, Jesus modeled for us what it is like to appreciate all things as God-given truths, nothing less than divine insights into the way things are.  Mirrors of life.  Books of sacred doctrine.

God has placed life lessons all around us.  We just need to katanoeo.

Red Blood Cells and Platelets and Spleens, Oh My!

I did not get too far in my medical school training before there developed within me a profound sense that something was up.  The cadavers, the pathology slides, micro lab.  What had they to say?  Having come to faith as a boy, I was familiar with the passages in the Bible that spoke of the Church as Christ’s Body.  Over the years, I had heard plenty of sermons and Sunday School lessons on the subject of spiritual gifts, taken from 1 Corinthians 12:

“Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.  If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.  And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?  But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.  If they were all one part, where would the body be?  As it is, there are many parts, but one body.  The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”  On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.  Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”     1 Corinthians 12:14-27

Overwhelmed and over my head in textbooks, class notes, pathology slides and cadavers, I could not stop thinking about the metaphor of the "body" of Christ when thinking of the Church and how I had never heard it taken beyond the simplicity of hands and feet, eyes and ears, presentable parts and unpresentable parts.

Now, I believe “body” is a perfect metaphor when describing the Church.  I also believe, however, that God, in inspiring its use, knew (and knows) infinitely more about the human body than the first-century contemporaries of Paul.  Paul knew nothing of serotonin.  Nor could he have ever imagined the complexities of the respiratory control center of the medulla oblongata, or that ultraviolet rays from the sun caused malignant melanoma.  Neither Paul nor his hearers could have conceived that leprosy might be caused by a thing called a microorganism, a billion of which could reside in a drop of water.  Metaphoric language is useful only to the extent that those who hear it can identify with its terms. In likening the Church to the human body, then, Paul spoke of familiar things:  hands and feet, eyes and ears.

Of course, Scripture is replete with anthropomorphic language that so effectively communicates truth in the familiar terms of the human experience.  ^“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean,” David prayed. “wash me, and I will be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7), his request not for a physical scrub down, of course, but a spiritual one.  “Blessed are those,” Jesus said, “who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”  People then, as today, so strongly identify with the physical experiences of hunger and thirst and being filled, that divine truth easily finds its mark in the minds of its hearers.

What of today?  What does it mean today that the Church is the body of Christ?  In considering timeless truths, can we, should we, need we, add new and fresh examples to the old ones?  In a day when we have catalogued the entire human genome, do we risk straying in to heretical territory if we add to Paul’s examples of hands and feet things like DNA, thyroid glands and fetal development?

Keep in mind, everyone in Paul’s day had a pancreas.  Fetuses went through the same phases of development for them as they do today.  People had diabetes, lupus, high cholesterol, and warts. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight,” the writer of Hebrews reminds us (4:13a).  “Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered,” Jesus told his hearers (Matthew 10:30), not bothering to tell them that their white blood cells were probably also numbered. Wait... cell? What's a cell?

 If you and I, as Christ's Church, are His "body," then might we stand something to learn about the nature and workings of His Body by examining the nature and workings of our own body? And if Paul had known of red blood cells and platelets and spleens, would he in describing the Church have drawn them in to the parallel?  Perhaps.  Knowing about such things, can we today?

“I knew something sacred was at stake.”

                                                                       Ken Gire, The Reflective Life

Sacramental Mindfulness

“If I take seriously the sacred origin of this world, at the very least I must learn to treat it as God’s work of art, something that gave God enormous pleasure.”  Philip Yancey

Our basic inclination, as earthly creatures, is to hold physical and spiritual realities at arm’s length, sequestering one from the other.  We have been duped by modernity, which asks:  “If we can examine it, measure it, quantify it, analyze it and predict it, then what could possibly be divine about it?”  We have lost the reverence of what God has made.  Ken Gire, in his book, The Reflective Life quotes Abraham Heschel on this point:  “Let your conceit diminish your ability to revere and the universe becomes a marketplace for you.” (Abraham Heschel, God in Search of Man:  A Philosphy of Judaism).  Gire goes on to state:  “We can objectify the world or sanctify it.  When we objectify the world, we view it and all that is in it as existing solely for our use, whether that use is for pleasure or profit or patriotism.  When we sanctify the world, we view it and all that is in it with appreciation.  In doing so, we recognize them not simply as objects, but as objects created by God that in some way reflect Him and all that is dear to Him, the way a work of art in some way reflects the artist and what is dear to the artist’s heart.”

“We tend to confine the sacred to a fenced-in-area,” Philip Yancey states in Rumors of Another World, “the ‘spiritual,’ reserved for church activities.  Many people rarely give God a thought apart from an hour on Sunday morning, when they sing songs of praise, listen to a sermon, and then reenter the secular world as if passing through air lock.”

How do we rediscover, then, the art of seeing the divine in the ordinary, of regarding created things and created order less as physical, chemical, and physiological marvels so much as testimonials of their Originator?  Philip Yancey, in his book Rumors of Another World, articulates it best: “As a start,” he states, “I can aim to make daily life sacramental, which means literally to keep the sacred (sacra) in mind (mental).  In other words, I seek a mindfulness - a mind full- of God’s presence in the world.  I have no desire to escape the natural world, the pattern of Gnostics, desert monks, and fundamentalists who flee “worldliness.”  Nor do I deny the supernatural, the error of the reducers.  Rather, I want to bring the two together, to reconnect life into the whole that God intended.  This world, all of it, either belongs to God or it does not.  If I take seriously the sacred origin of this world, at the very least I must learn to treat it as God’s work of art, something that gave God enormous pleasure.”

Lord, God… Creator of all that is…. Creator of me… please awaken me to the reality of Your presence in the world you have placed me in.  Help me to see at least some of the “glimpses of truth Thou hast for me.”  Amen.

“In every act of creation God is present, waiting to be discovered.  The essence of the spiritual journey is the discovery of the presence of the sacred in everyday things, in everyday people, in everyday life.”  Leonard Sweet,  Soul Salsa

One Week From Today

Next Friday... in fact one week from this minute, a bunch of folks will be on the practice green and driving range, getting ready for the 12:30 shotgun start of our 1st Annual Starfysh Golf Scramble.  I had hoped to have filled up the course by now... 36 foursomes, 144 golfers.  But as it turns out we've got plenty of room left.

Hole in One Prize

And I'm asking if you who follow my blog would help me get word out to those you think would enjoy a fun round of golf for a good cause.  We've planned lots of contests and prizes and we'll serve up a nice steak buffet dinner immediately following golf.

In addition, if you have connections with businesses who might like to sponsor a hole or offer up some cool prizes or give-aways that we can give out that would help make the day that much more fun.

Please help me make this "1st Annual" a success.  Thanks.

Steve

PS Little detail...  folks can register online at www.starfysh.org  Deadline to register: Tuesday, Aug. 9th 

This Looking Business is Risky

So where does all this leave us?  On one hand, we see evidence of God all around.  On the other, we’re afraid to collect it for fear we might be led away from pure Scriptural truth. The safe thing to do would be to walk away, sacrificing the benefits in the interest of safety.  But can reward come without risk?  Along our paths of discovery, we must be mindful of the mines, the slippery slopes, and the baited traps.  

“This looking business is risky.”

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Legitimate dangers cause wary believers to wear side blinders through life, out of fear that non-biblical truths may cause them to stray.  As a result, they miss out on enjoying the results of God’s creative energies and, consequently, all that these creations might say about their Creator.

We can neither deny nor ignore the obvious Kingdom truths found in creation.  God has certainly intended that we consider…that we take note of… creation in our search for truths about the Kingdom.  He does not want us to miss the clues!  With discernment and all due caution, then, here’s where this all leaves us…

Filtering our thoughts and observations through the grid of Scripture, prayerful reflection, allowing the Holy Spirit to speak truth, and within the God-ordained community (church) He has placed us (1 John 4:6) we are safe to discover new truths about God.

My son, preserve sound judgment and discernment, do not let them out of your sight; they will be life for you, an ornament to grace your neck. Then you will go on your way in safety, and your foot will not stumble;  Proverbs 3:21-23

Cornelius Plantinga Jr. put it well...

"The Holy Spirit authors all truth, as Calvin wrote, and we should therefore embrace it no matter where it shows up.  But we will need solid instruction in Scripture and Christian wisdom in order to recognize truth and in order to disentangle it from error and fraud.

"Thoughtful Christians know that if we obey the Bible's great commandment to love God with our whole mind, as well as with everything else, then we will study the splendor of God's creation in the hope of grasping part of the ingenuity and grace that form it.  One way to love God is to know and love God's work.  Learning is therefore a spiritual calling:  properly done, it attaches us to God.

"Educated Christians therefore need to "know their Bible" in order to lead a life that fits in with the purposes of God.  But to reform a complex institution-- or, as a matter of fact, to write a law, treat a patient, or perform any of a number of other human undertakings-- you will need to gain wisdom from many sources in addition to Scripture.  You will need to look for truth wherever it may be found.” Engaging God's World--A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living

Leonard Sweet would agree.

“Jesus taught that whenever we discover truth, it is God who has taught us.  No book is so bad that you can’t get some truth out of it.  No person is without some truth to teach us.  No situation is without its truth.  God is instructing us in soul sciences and soul arts every second of every day.” Soul Salsa. 

So if God is the author and owner of all truth, it follows that examples of God’s authorship fill the libraries of the world.  And wherever we find truth we should, like the psalmist, celebrate our discovery as a God-given clue to His greatness and His character.  We come just that much closer to knowing what God is like through knowing a bit more about what He has created.