My big brother is onto something. He is standing end times theories on their heads. He is making us think. He’s not saying he’s got all the end times answers; he’s only saying that there are a number of passages and prophecies that point to a different kind of end times scenario, and instead of just ignoring these because they don’t fit into what we’ve always been taught, we should at least ask: “What is this? What does it mean? Why is it here?”
Kiem wiped me when I couldn’t wipe myself. No big deal.
After three weeks in a hospital, I must say, the people who work here are among the most amazing in the world. That goes for everyone from nurses to technicians, to aids, to therapists and even volunteers. Maybe this isn’t true everywhere, and I just got lucky, but I feel like it’s more the nature of the job and the type of people who are motivated to do it day in and day out. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be here.
These are people who care about people and they deal with us at our worst. As soon as we are better, we leave. Still there was always a smile, a cheery voice, and a word of encouragement. But by far the most important thing I noticed is how everyone was treated with dignity. Everyone mattered. And it never mattered whether the job was undignified, the person never was.
Hospitals can be terribly unpleasant paces. That’s why I’ve decided to try and write about something pleasant that happens here as well. Thus the scripture verses on the TV yesterday, and something else you will enjoy hearing about today.
My rehab room at the hospital has a TV with an array of cable channels and one channel set up round the clock to play worship music, with pictures of nature, and an occasional scripture verse or song lyric. For a number of days there, when I was in the worst way, I had it on all the time, mostly with the sound off. That was because the music got a little sappy after a while, but what touched me deeply was every time the word of God came on the screen. What a treasure! What a powerful reality! What an amazing thing that we have access to the very words of God! It was pretty cool that someone else picked out what passage would be on my screen, and it just showed up in my room and blew me away every time.
“All virtue is a miracle” —Augustine
The oak tree on the other side of our back fence clings to its leaves all winter while other trees loose their foliage. “Marcescence” is the term botanists use to describe the phenomenon. They speak of unformed abscission layers and other arcane causes, but they do not know why some trees refuse to give up their leaves until spring.
I noticed last week, however, that the oak tree was dropping its dead leaves. The process was effortless: One by one the old leaves broke away and fluttered to the ground.
I wondered what brought about this transformation and looked more closely at the tree. I discovered that a tiny new leaf had formed at the base of every stem and had forced the old leaves off the tree. Continue reading
“He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.”
-Isaiah 49:10
There is a glacial lake that lies high in a fold of Jug Handle Peak in the mountains north of our home in Idaho. It’s a small dot on the map, but a place of rare beauty and tranquility.
The route to the lake, however, lies up a steep, exposed ridge through boulders and loose scree. There’s no respite from relentless effort. In the summer, the sun beats down mercilessly and there’s no shade to be found anywhere. It’s a strenuous ascent-hard on my old heart and legs.
There is a brook, however, at the bottom of the climb-a spring that seeps out of soft, mossy earth, and flows through a lush meadow crammed with flowers that bloom in wild profusion. Continue reading
“It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them…The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE!” —G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
I’m intrigued by the idea that God is still creating the world and everything in it. As a child delights in seeing a thing done again and again, God delights in the repetition and “monotony” of creation every day. It’s possible that every new emergence—every blade of grass, every butterfly, every blossom, every billowing cloud—is a new and special creation invented out of God’s wisdom, excitement and artistry. Continue reading
“Just remember this my girl when you look up in the sky. You can see the stars and still not see the light…” —“Already Gone,” the Eagles
I finished reading Edward Abbey’s book Desert Solitaire last night, a personal history of Abbey’s summers as a seasonal park ranger in what was then Arches National Monument. (Now Arches National Park.) Desert Solitaire is an American classic, one of the greatest nature narratives of all time and a book worth reading if only for Abbey’s luminous prose and vivid descriptions of the Four Corners region (“…crags and pinnacles of naked rock, the dark cores of ancient volcanoes, a vast and silent emptiness smoldering with heat, color, and indecipherable significance, above which floated a small number of pure, clear, hard-edged clouds.”) Continue reading
Now, about Rover, the dog—though for roving, I hardly remember him away from my side! …I almost believe that at one period, had I been set to say who I was, I should have included Rover as an essential part of myself. His tail was my tail; his legs were my legs; his tongue was my tongue!—so much more did I, as we gamboled together, seem conscious of his joy than of my own! Surely, among other and greater mercies, I shall find him again! —George MacDonald, The Flight of the Shadow
We had to put our Westie to sleep last week. Partially blind, deaf, mentally confused and in pain—it was the kindest thing.
In her last months she seemed bewildered, dogging our steps, never allowing us out of her sight. If I left the room she followed me and found a place on the floor near my feet. She was “an essential part of myself.” Continue reading
“Only by pride comes contention; but wisdom resides in those who listen and learn” —Proverbs 13:10
A number of years ago, Carolyn and I spent a few days camping on the flanks of Mount Rainier in Washington State. We were returning to our campsite one evening when we came across two large male bears brawling in the middle of a meadow. They were mauling one another, snapping, snarling, tearing up the ground and making a frightful fuss. We stopped to watch.
There was a hiker standing nearby and I asked him what the fight was about. “A young female,” he said. “Where is she?” I asked. “Oh,” he chuckled, she left the area about 20 minutes ago.” So, I mused, the ongoing squabble had nothing to do with the young sow; it was all about being the biggest bear. Continue reading
John Fischer The Catch 