The Good Portion

While the world and its Christians are clamoring over the controversy du jour*, I've decided to take a break, and a different tack. This will probably come as a disappointment to those who would rather spend their time engaging in culture wars.  But that's okay, because it's almost Christmas, and that feels like the perfect time to talk about disappointment. Christmas is a time for gifts, for giving and receiving them. This is as it should be. We do this in rememberance of the great gift that God gave to humanity on the night that Jesus Christ was born, or at least that was the original intent. Two thousand years later, the gift-giving has taken on a life of its own as part of our commercial culture and has left its roots in the dust. Which, I think, is a macro-reflection of our disappointment with God's gift to us. Think of all the effort and resources you have invested this Christmas season into making or purchasing just the right gift for the ones you love most

 * " Sola Scriptura  (Latin ablative, 'by Scripture alone') is the doctrine that the Bible contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness." -  Wikipedia “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” Luke 8:5-8 In my nearly 50 years of life, there has never been a time when I haven't identified in some way as a Christian: first as the nominal Lutheran I was brought up to be, then as a word-of-faith charismatic, then as a "regular" charismatic (during which time I attended an Assemblies of God college), then as a "backslider", then as a Calvary Chapel person, then as a "backslider" again. It wasn&#

Sola Scriptura "is the doctrine that the Bible contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness." -  Wikipedia    All of my life I have identified in one form or another as a Protestant.  During most of the years following my conversion at age 40, I identified myself as "reformed".  It was during those years that I first heard (or first remember hearing) the term Sola Scriptura .  It is one of five "Solas" that the youngish reformed folks are so fond of having tattooed on their wrists and arms and ankles. I don't need tattoos to identify myself with the Solas.  They are etched into my heart.  But, it was not always so.  Though I was never a fan of body ink, in my days of being Reformed™, the solas became a bit like tattoos to me - a superficial form of branding, a way of identifying with a certain group in distinction from other groups. For all of my lofty vaunting of  Sola Scriptura , I actually spent far, far less time reading and

This week, as I began making preparations for this year's Thanksgiving celebrations, I was full of joy, far more than in other years.  This year we are approaching the holiday with grave financial concerns.  It may, unless the Lord intervenes, be the last holiday season we enjoy in this little house.  Yet, my heart is filled with thanksgiving because I have watched God provide for us year after year, through recession, unemployment, and many heartaches. Through it all, God has taken us, as if by the hand, and led us, nurturing our fledgling faith.  He found us weak, and He strengthened us.  We trust Him with our lives.  Even if we lose everything here on earth, we know our sins are forgiven.  That means we have Him, and He is enough. And so, I am thankful. But there is something else.  It's a small thing, but today I am thankful for Thanksgiving. Reminiscent of when God, through Moses, set the slaves free, and gave them a Sabbath day each week in which to honor Him by r

My husband and I spend our Thursday evenings doing something a little out of the ordinary: we go to assisted living facilities and recreate old-time radio shows for the entertainment of the residents.  Our little troupe performs old favorites like Baby Snooks, Fibber McGee and Molly, Sam Spade, and The Honeymoon Is Over - better known as The Bickersons. This Sunday afternoon one of our fellow radio players dropped by the house to rehearse a "new" episode of Fibber McGee.  After we were finished, just for the fun of it, we decided to do a quick read of our latest Bickersons script, even though none of us would actually be the ones performing those roles this time around.  As the title suggests, John and Blanche Bickerson spend every episode bickering, always in the middle of the night. It's rollicking fun to act out their skirmishes. This is why, after our friend went home, I had the Bickersons on the brain as I closed myself into our tiny bathroom. Paul and I have

At age forty-six* I shredded my mother’s papers. It was ten months after she died, at age eighty-seven. The documents spanned twenty years of life, hers and mine. Hundreds of bills fretted over. Hundreds of checks written. Thousands of moments represented: fears, pain, courage, labor, dreams, and prayers. A fourth of her life. Half of mine. Two evenings spent, shredded it all. Life is short. Shorter than I imagined. You think eighty-seven years is a long time. But it’s not, not when you’re the one living it. And you are. I don’t know when my time will come, but I know that it will seem to me then as though no time had passed at all. “How did I get to be so old?” I will ask. I know, because I’ve asked it already. And what will I say then that I’ve lived for? Will I say that I’ve lived and loved well? If my time comes today I’m afraid I’ll say “no”. Today is the day to repent. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in

My family was ahead of its time. Mine was not the idyllic late-sixties childhood. I was a latch-key kid a decade or more before there was a name for such a thing.  But even before my latch-key days I was ahead of my time. I attended a unique private school in Culver City, CA which provided both before and after school care. It began in my pre-K year. I must have been four years old.  My mother and I would get up early in the morning, while it was still dark, to get me dressed in my uniform.  I ate my breakfast, and then we were off to work.  Mom would pull the car up to the curb in front of the school.  There Mrs. Aiken was waiting to escort me through the glass double-doors of that two-story building. It all seems so ritzy in retrospect - as if I were the daughter of a president or a celebrity. At the time it felt ordinary. Inside those doors they taught the little ones, pre-K and Kindergarten, to sing in French.  They taught us to use paste, and not to eat it. They let us play,

There are a lot of little babies bringing new life to our church these days, and the rounds of baby showers have given me reason to think back over my own years as a mother of small children.  I did not have the blessing of faith as I raised my little ones, and so, like many others, I have lots of regrets.  In spite of this, I was asked recently to give a devotional message at one of these showers.  I agreed before realizing I had no idea what a woman with my history could have to say to these young Christian mommies.  And so I decided to share the things I most wish I had known.  I share them here in hopes one or two other mommies might find encouragement.   It starts off a little bit sad, but I promise it doesn't end that way: When I first moved away from the big city where I was raised, I was a single mom with two small children. I was on my own in a new town and terrified. I had drifted away from church several years before, but, considering my circumstances, I de

This past week the leader of our church small-group gave us a homework assignment:  Imagine that noted scientist and atheist Richard Dawkins has requested that Christians write to him explaining why they believe what they believe.  Write a letter in response.   The following is my homework.  I share it here for the sake of anyone who may be curious as to why, in this age of scientific discovery, I continue to adhere to the Christian faith. Dear Mr. Dawkins, In this letter, I am pretending that you have asked me to explain why I am a Christian. As you are a noted atheist, I will begin more simply with why I believe in God. For the first 40 years of my life I lived as a nominal Christian (which most Americans were in those days before it became so fashionable to disassociate with religion). I experienced occasional bouts of evangelical fervor interspersed with long stretches of practical atheism - times when I lived as though there is no God and yet without openly denounc

In my previous post I reviewed Life of Pi .  The following is a discussion of the book from a specifically Christian perspective. Life of Pi  was a slow read for me. I took my time chewing it. There were a few points at which I nearly gave up.  A long, long time in a lifeboat on the open sea can do that to a person. I got tired for Pi.  I got bored for him. I hated his existence for him. I was afraid for him. I stopped wanting to share his dreadful adventure. It felt too much like being there. But I could not give up. I think I really needed to experience that promised happy ending. Art is not always beautiful, though one could argue that there is a kind of beauty in truth even when it is ugly - the beauty that is found in integrity, in capturing of the soul of a moment.   Life of Pi  is that kind of art. The scenes Martel paints are unforgettable.  The horrors are not like bad dreams which slip, along with their strangeness, away into obscurity.  Pi's traumas are as mun