Promises

“I used to say ‘no promises; let’s keep it simple,’ but freedom only helps you say good-bye...” —The Carpenters

In the TV series “Lonesome Dove” (1988) Captain Woodrow McCall agrees to the deathbed wish of his friend Gus McCrae to bury his body in Texas. En route from Montana to Texas he’s often confronted by the curious who ask why he has taken on this arduous task. On one occasion, the Captain, being a man of few words, simply looks at his questioner and drawls, “I gave him my word.”

A long pause follows as the two men’s eyes examine one another. Then the stranger says, “I can see that you did.” The Captain merely nods and turns away.

There was power in that moment for it captured the character of the man. His beliefs, his words and his actions were one. “I gave him my word.” For Woodrow McCall that’s all that was needed!

In that regard I can’t help but think of our marriage vows for there we must be true to our word. The marriage vow is not a contract that can be readily cancelled by paying a few bills; it is a special promise to love, honor and cherish, “as long as we both shall live.”

The words, “for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health,” take into account the possibility that keeping that promise may be difficult and that circumstances and our spouses’ needs may change over time. While there are valid biblical reasons for separation or divorce, mere difficulty in and of itself is not a reason to forsake our vows. Integrity means keeping our word, though keeping it may entail suffering and loss.

I’ve conducted hundreds of wedding ceremonies in my time and it always seems to me that the most meaningful moment comes when the bride and groom exchange rings. The ring declares to the giver, the wearer, and the community that a binding covenant has been made. The ring, being endless until broken by an outside force, speaks of endless commitment to love, honor and cherish one another, “as long as we both shall live.”

“While a normal promise indicates a determination to try, acknowledging the possibility of failure, a marriage commitment before God is a liberation from the possibility of other futures, a choice about how to spend a life that admits no second thoughts” (from a Louis Smedes’ sermon, “The Power of Promises”).

Or, as a friend of mine once put it, “My marriage vows are the vows that keep me when I don’t feel like keeping my vows.”

DHR

What’s Wrong With My World

“Are not the gods just?” “Oh, no, my child. Where would we be if they were?”

—C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

Occasionally I get distraught by the evil I see in the world around me and wonder who’s minding the store. Does God know what’s going on? Does He care?

In my better moments, however, I know that much of the anguish in my part of the world, is self–inflicted. It is my greed, my ambition, my selfishness that has caused so much unhappiness in my family, friends and in me. I can hardly blame God for that, can I?

If, then, I am responsible for some of the evil in this world, it wouldn't do to insist that God set everything right. If he did, he would have to deal with evil unilaterally, which means he would put down monstrous tyrants around the world, but he would also put down my petty tyranny. If God were merely just where could I stand?[1]

I’m reminded of a conversation between Robinson Crusoe and his Man Friday:

“Well,” says Friday, “you say God is so strong, so great: has he not as much strong, as much might as the devil?”

“Yes, yes,” Crusoe says, “Friday, God is much stronger than the devil.”

“But if God much strong, much might as the devil, why God no kill the devil so make him no more do wicked?”

“You might as well ask,” Crusoe answered reflectively, “Why does God not kill you and me when we do wicked things that offend?”

G. K. Chesterton was asked by a reporter, “What’s wrong with the world?” “I am,” the old sage replied.

DHR

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[1] Lewis’ point is that God is not merely just. He is also gracious and forgiving on the basis of the Cross.

Encore!

“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

Ever since I first read G. K. Chesterton’s work, Orthodoxy, I have been intrigued by his 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 is 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.

He paints each pansy as it emerges in the spring, he colors every leaf in the fall. He ponders every act of creation, shouts “Encore!” and the whole business begins all over again, the business of creation that began “in the beginning,” and is still going on to this day.

Thus it follows that every human conception is a new creation. God says, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness”—and a human life springs into being! We think of the process as purely natural: we conceive a child and it grows to term on its own. In truth it is preternatural—creatio ex nihilo as theologians say; the creation of matter and spirit out of nothing.

Chesterton suggested the idea of on–going creation to me, but David, Israel’s poet, convinced me, for he describes God first “musing” and then “weaving” David together in the darkness of his mother’s womb. He did so, David insists, “before one of them (the various elements that became ‘David’) came to into being” (Psalm 139:13–16).

In other words, God created David out of nothing. No, he created David out of himself. He imagined what David was to be, and then brought him into being according to a pre–imagined plan. [The Hebrew text reads, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance and in your book they (David’s “component parts”) were written day by day before there was one of them.” The metaphor is that of a “journal” in which God wrote his ideas of what David would become and then brought each idea into being through his handiwork in the womb.]

Put another way, we begin as a gleam in our Heavenly Father’s eye and are shaped by Love into unique, immediate creations—immediate in the ordinary sense of “unmediated,” in that we come directly from the inventive heart and hand of God. We are loved into existence; we are God’s planned and wanted children.

That means that I am special and so are you—and so is everyone else in the world. This being true I must be “pro–life” in the purest sense of the word in that I sanctify all human life[1]—Stanford University sophisticates and untutored semi–illiterates; Seattle socialites and skid–row derelicts, winsome children and doddering old curmudgeons, fundamentalist preachers and left–wing political pundits, anti–abortion enthusiasts and pro–choice activists. All persons–all classes, ages, sexes, and races–are unique productions of our Creator’s genius.

Which is why Jesus said we should never call anyone a “fool (worthless)” (Matthew 5:22).

DHR

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[1] The Bible supports the sanctity of human life, not life in general for it is human beings alone that are created in the image and likeness of God, i.e., more like God than any other creature.

Why?

Psalm 131 is an admonition to intellectual peacefulness, an encouragement to understand that paradox is one of the hallmarks of God’s nature and that mystery marks out the limits of our intellect. We do not need to understand all that God is doing in this world and the next. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God” (Deuteronomy 29:28).

But there is another side of David’s quietism: I do not need to understand all that God is doing in me.  

David draws a comparison between a weaned child that no longer frets for what it once demanded, and a soul that has learned the same lesson. It is a call to learn humility, patient endurance and contentment in all our circumstances—and calm acceptance. Divine wisdom and logic are beyond our ken.

We ask, Why this affliction, this disappointment, this delay? God answers, “Hush, child. You wouldn’t understand if I told it. Just trust me!”

So, I ask: Can I, despite my circumstances, ‘hope in the Lord’ (vs. 3).[1] Can I wait in patience without fretting and without questioning God’s love and wisdom? Can I trust him while he works in me his good, acceptable and perfect will?

DHR

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[1] The Hebrew word for “hope” in this text (vs. 3), is a verb that stresses the concept of patient endurance rather than expectation.

^{The Winter Years}

“The vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it will speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry” (Habakkuk 2:3)

The morning mist is cleared away,

Yet still the face of Heaven is grey,

Nor yet this autumnal breeze has stirred the grove,

Faded yet full, a paler green

Skirts soberly the tranquil scene,

The redbreast warbles round this leafy cove...[1]

—John Keble

Keble makes his way through a quiet grove. The morning mists have burned away, but the sky is leaden and gray. Autumnal trees with faded, withered leaves are ominous signs of cold and bitter winter.

Yet ‘midst these omens of impending gloom, Keble hears a robin warbling, “singing so thankful to the dreary blast, though gone and spent its joyous prime. And on the world's autumnal time, 
'mid withered hues and sere, its lot be cast.” The robin sings in the face of “calm decay” and a beclouded future, a thankful, cheerful disposition that reveals the heart of a true seer:

Watching...the appalling future as it nearer draws:

His spirit calmed the storm to meet,

Feeling the rock beneath his feet,

And tracing through the cloud th’ eternal Cause.

This is the heart for watchmen true,

Waiting to see what GOD will do.”

And so our thoughts rise to seek an answer for the questions of our winter years. Does loneliness, poverty, disability or dementia await us? If so, what will we do?

Heaven answers: “Be calm and cheerful in the present though the future is clouded and uncertain. Have this quiet assurance: Eternal Wisdom and Love is working for you; all that God does, if rightly understood, will bring about your final good. Wait to see what He will do.”

DHR

7/11/13

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^[1] You can find the poem at http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/twenty-first-sunday-after-trinity/

Flowers

Old John Keble has written a poem about flowers—”relics of Eden’s bowers”—their “silent lessons undescried (undiscovered) by all but lowly eyes.” Put simply, there is a message enshrined in flowers that we may discover if we’re humble enough to consider them. Thus, Keble assures us, “as we gaze, we know.” He continues...

“Alas! of thousand bosoms kind,

   That daily court you and caress,

How few the happy secret find

   Of your calm loveliness!

"Live for today! tomorrow's light

Tomorrow's cares shall bring to sight,

Go sleep like closing flowers at night,

   And Heaven thy morn will bless.”

Thousands of our kind (folks like you and me) delight in flowers: We "court and caress them." But, few find the happy secret of their untroubled demeanor and loveliness: Flowers do not borrow tomorrow's troubles, but live and bloom for the day and let tomorrow, bring tomorrow’s cares to light. They fall asleep each night and leave tomorrow for Heaven to bless (Cf., Psalm 4:8).

Thus we should "consider the lilies of the field," as Jesus said, for “as we gaze, we know” (Please read Matthew 6:28-34).[1]

DHR

[1] For Keble, the entire visible world consists of images of the invisible and the Bible supplies the key to that imagery. Accordingly we can ask God to...

Help us, each hour, with steadier eye

To search the deepening mystery:

The wonders of Thy sea and sky.

“Fish!”

“As no man is born an artist, so no man is born an angler.”

—Izzak Walton

A number of years ago my sons and I enjoyed several days drifting and fishing the Madison River in Montana with two fishing guides who served as our boatmen. 

The guide I drew was a man who had lived on the river all of his life and knew where the big trout held. (And probably knew their names!)  He was a taciturn man—spoke scarcely two-dozen words in all the time he was with us—but his few words enlivened my days. Let me explain. 

We were fishing with small flies in choppy water, and my eyesight is not what it used to be. I was missing most of the takes. In due course, my guide, who was not only silent, but the very soul of patience, began to alert me by murmuring, “fish” when he saw a trout rising under my fly. When I heard his cue, I lifted the tip of my rod and...Voilà! A trout on the end of my line!

I’ve often thought of that guide, the river, and the great and mysterious opportunities that come my way every day—men and women, boys and girls, circling around me, searching for that elusive "something" for which their souls crave—serendipitous occasions to show love and speak of the hope that is in me, opportunities I will miss if not alerted. 

May the Great Angler, who knows every heart, whisper “fish” in my ears all through this day and may I have ears to hear (Luke 5:9,10).

DHR