greyfeld

A reminder of the most important things.

Connected: A Litany

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It's amazing what can be done with just a simple camera, no focus, no flash. I've been photographing things like mushrooms and flowers lately, but last week I was down by the water with some friends, and captured the shot you see here. I think it's the best picture I've ever taken. Thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, anyone?

Your result for What Do Others See You As Test...

41 to 50 Points

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Happy birthday, lassarina!!

I feel the need to quote myself again.  Consider whether this commentary on Jesus' warning against false prophets, penned by me back in 1998, resonates with anything concerning current news accounts surrounding "town hall" meetings this August.

Consider a preacher or politician who sets out to raise the alarm about some threat to the comfort or values of his audience. He tells stories of horror or atrocity designed to arouse fear or revulsion. He identifies as dangerous some individual or group that is clearly foreign to the persons to whom he speaks, whether it is a racial group, or an ideology, or an opposition political party, or a religious movement, or a foreign political or military leader. He calls his hearers neither to repentance nor to reconciliation, but instead seeks to arouse anger and indignation against the identified source of threat. He proposes ways his audience can protect themselves, warn their friends, and counterattack against the threat described. Note that the content of this type of preaching could be almost anything. The individual may be denouncing religion, or atheism, or big government, or liberalism, or conservatism, or Satanism, or pornography, or fundamentalism, or communism, or capitalism, or sexism, or feminism, or homosexuality, or homophobia, or militarism, or pacifism. The fruit he produces, however, is the same in all cases: fear, mistrust, alienation and ultimately hatred.

Or, in this instance, health care reform.

This has generated some discussion since I first published it on my other blog. 

On whether taxpayers have responsibility for the well-being of their neighbors, by means of government programs:

In the theocratic state envisioned by the Hebrew prophets (or even, in their critique of every nation) the responsibilities of kings was clear:  plead the cause of the fatherless and widow, demand justice for the poor.  See, for example, Psalm 82:3-4:  Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless, maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.  Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. Nations were judged by how well their rulers implemented these simple principles.

In the United States of America, "we the people" (the voters and, yes, the taxpayers) are sovereign.  Therefore "we, the people" are under divine judgment if we fail to use our sovereign power to take care of the elderly, the disabled, the orphan and widows of our world.  "We, the people" as sovereign refers to our corporate role as king, which is to say, the government.  It is laudable for individual persons to do what they can by means of "charity," but "we, the people" are not just an aggregate of individual persons.  We, together, are king, and as such are answerable to God for how well we rule.

Been meaning to say this for quite a while, but I think it is well worth bearing in mind this August as "we" (in the royal sense) debate with ourselves about health care.

Returning to random obsessions....

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Modern, Cool Nerd

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Luke Skywalker

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So I slept deeply, as usual.   In the dream that ensued, I had a long series of mini-adventures with my old friend Tom, whom I hadn't seen in quite some time on account of the fact that he died a few years ago.  But here he was, walking the streets of some unnamed city, getting into and out of various minor forms of trouble, and we were just generally hanging out.  Only odd thing (but not so odd for Tom, as he always loved role-play) was that whenever we met some people on this walking-tour, he would introduce himself as "Felix."
On toward evening, after a pleasant day of minor shenanigins (most of which are beyond my memory now - you nkow how that is with dreams), as we were walking down the street I turned to him  and said, "Tom?  I miss you.... I wish you weren't dead!"  And then the following conversation ensued: 

Me:   "When I get home, how am I going to explain to them that I spent the day with Tom?"
He:   "No need for that.  Just tell them you were with Felix."
Me:   "Oh, right.  Then they'll say, 'Who's Felix?'   And I'll tell them, 'Felix is Tom.'  And THAT will clear everything up."

We laugh and proceed on to our next bizarre mini-adventure.

First! WTF?

Just about sums me up.

Your Word is "Peace"

You see life as precious, and you wish everyone was safe, happy, and taken care of. Social justice, human rights, and peace for all nations are all important to you. While you can't stop war, you try to be as calm and compassionate as possible in your everyday life. You promote harmony and cooperation. You're always willing to meet someone a little more than halfway.

I dreamed.....

of being who I am, a country preacher. The lengthy series of events that precede what I am about to relate are lost to me, but suffice to say that several elements of my life merge to make the following scene possible. There is a gathering happening at church, or perhaps on the porch of the parsonage of a church (P.H.) I formerly pastored. A handful of people are there, including a familiar figure to my left, whom I can’t remember seeing but perhaps it’s my wife. Among several others seated are some current members of our congregation, and arriving late, to the pleasure of all, is S.B., a former church member we haven’t seen for nearly a year. The other significant figure present is my grandmother, seated diagonally across from me, and the occasion is my grandfather’s funeral service. As before S. B's arrival I had just finished outlining the way the day’s events are to proceed, S.B. and another person, a trusted member of our group, get up and excuse themselves so that S. B. can be properly oriented to the state of things. Not wanting to go into the rest of the service until these dear friends return, I suggest that we now take a moment for prayer.

As we bow our heads, I am overcome with a wave of grief for my departed grandfather, and weep silently, recognizing how deeply also I resent my grandfather’s passing. Composing myself, and mindful of the presence of my grandmother, myself, and others who will miss him terribly, I begin to pray as follows:

“ Dear Father, author of Life, as we gather to remember one who is now gone from us, but present to You, we recall that in the story that is told of the beginnings of humanity, we humans were not created to be temporary beings. We appreciate that You have come to restore to us that permanence, but for now, some of us are sorrowful, some of us are hurt, some of us are angry. Today we call upon you to be with us so that over time that sorrow is soothed, the wounds are healed, the anger turned, but not in a way which would in any way diminish the intensity with which we remember Charles H. Clark. It’s in the name of Him who gives us life that we pray. Amen."

In voicing that prayer, in which I could feel or see the emotions that I named (and also the resentment I did not name), I struggled to get the words out. My speech was slurred and difficult, but nonetheless clear. As I woke, I came to consciousness realizing I had been in fact talking in my sleep. This particular phenomenon occurs infrequently, but always in connection with occasions where, in my dream, I am either praying or preaching.

By the way: My grandfather, Charles H. Clark, passed away in October 1963, and his was the first funeral I ever attended. My grandmother outlived him, going to her rest in 1985. I find it significant somehow, in terms of my own search for integrity, that these, as well as people who are now and have recently been in my life, gather together as contemporaries in this particular dream-setting, and that my emotions were as fresh and raw as they were so long ago, when I was just 13 years old. Interestingly, within the past month or two I heard by e-mail from the minister who actually preached that funeral service in 1963.

I don’t know just when it happens that it first strikes a person that History is not just a matter of the past, but of the living influences that surround us. For most of us, the present time begins roughly around the year of our birth, or perhaps even around the time of our earliest personal memories. and everything beforehand belongs to History, Thus, for example, on a visceral level it seems to me that the forty years after my high school graduation (1968 to 2008) seems to be much shorter than the forty years preceding it (1928 to 1968). Subjective time is very flexible that way.

Here’s one that struck me even more forcefully, just the other day. A couple of months ago, my mother passed away at age 96. That’s not so unusual, and I find it convenient to think of the 20th century in terms of the life-spans of my parents (Dad was born in 1907 and passed away in 1989). But the 19th century still seems impossibly remote, populated entirely by Historical Figures. Until this thought came to me:

When I was born, in 1950, there could easily have been someone nearby who had by then attained an age as great as my mother did this past year (96). A 96 year old person that year would have been six years old, old enough to have retained memories of events, the year that Abraham Lincoln ran for President. That same year, a much younger contemporary, by comparison, would have had clear memories of the way life was before the Revolution.

Wow.