Looking Up

 "Poor little bird, you can't fly!"   "No, but I can look up!" —George MacDonald

My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD;In the morning I will direct it to You,And I will look up. —Psalm 5:3

For years my morning routine was the same: I completed my morning ablutions, snatched a cup of coffee and my iPad and got my news brief for the day. Then I settled in to meet the Lord.

No longer. I'm learning—first thing—to "look up.”

Looking out and about is unnerving: our world is circling down the drain. Pundits and prophets report the end of civilization as we know it and the scene on the ground confirms it. The world’s in a hand basket, as old folks say, and we have a pretty good idea where it's going.

Given the spin we're in, it's better to "look up," to lift up our voices first thing in the morning and "direct" our thoughts to the LORD; to take the worries off our minds, where they have no business being, and put them into his hands where they belong. 

And then, with hearts at rest we can sally forth to meet the day, or shelter safely at home.

There's an old saying: “To make a beginning is the whole," and worship is the best way to begin. Perhaps I can do no more this year—my sphere of influence is small—but I can certainly do no better. 

David Roper

1.19.20

Nativity I

 An ad hominem reaction is an argument directed against a person rather than the position he or she is maintaining. It’s a logical fallacy.

It was an argument that, on one occasion, was used against Jesus by the Pharisees, who, bested in a debate with him, turned and attacked his reputation: “Well at least we’re not born of fornication,” they sneered, with the implication: “As you were!” (John 8:41).

Jesus’ contemporaries never understood his miraculous conception, nor, to be honest, do we.

John Donne tried very hard to express the mystery and the wonder of it: 

Ere by the spheres time was created thou [Mary]Wast in his mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;Whom thou conceivest, conceived; yea, thou art nowThy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother,Thou wast light in dark and shut’st in little roomImmensity, cloister'd in thy dear womb. 

No, we’ll never understand Jesus’ unique conception. All we can say is that once for a very specific purpose, Immensity was cloistered in a young woman’s womb.

We can only hallow the day when, nine months later, ”the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward us appeared" (Titus 3:4).

David Roper
12.12.21