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Looking Up: What Do You See?
Total solar eclipse this week swept across parts of Mexico, America, and Canada, and people from everywhere went to wherever for the chance to see the moon eclipse the sun. The moon is 400 times smaller than the sun and was 400 times farther away from the sun when this event occurred. Scientists do the math. Journalists report this as a cosmic coincidence when the moon blacks out the earth. People interpret this event through the lenses of telescopes, myths, superstitions, horoscopes, and religion. Whether people watched televised coverage, looked through special glasses, or experienced the total darkness of a blackout solar eclipse, “The heavens declare the glory of God,…
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Every Human Being Bleeds Red
The Covenant of Water, this may be the most majestical book I have ever read. Stop. Best book I have ever listened to, all 31 hours and 16 minutes. Read by the author, hearing him tell this story prepared me to read the book, which I plan to read word by word this summer, all 715 pages. The Covenant of Water is a novel written by Abraham Verghese, currently a professor and Vice chair of the Department of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. This leaves out a string of other recognitions and achievements, credentials that hint at his background, that contribute to the authority he demonstrates throughout…
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The Real YOU Abides
Our souls are the real, substantive part of who we are. Our bodies are the material manifestation. I’m reading through my journal written ten years ago and came across the above statement I had written to summarize what I was learning. At the time, I was attending a Bible study in a friend’s home, a study that referenced George MacDonald’s writing. Both C.S. Lewis and Oswald Chambers had been greatly influenced by George MacDonald, a writer in the late nineteenth through early twentieth century. Lewis called him his “master” and wrote an anthology for 365 days composed of MacDonald’s writings. At the time, I was preparing to teach at a…
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Smokehouse Creek Fire: After the Smoke Cleared
As it happened, last week I visited Pampa one week to the day after the historic fires burned across the Texas Panhandle. I lived in Pampa for twenty-five years. It’s where my children grew up. It’s where people I love still live, and a few days spent with friends feeds my soul. It hurt my heart in places I didn’t know I had, seeing the land, the Big Country, burned from horizon to horizon. I could not know who or what lay in the path of this destructive force that devoured lands and properties. I could not imagine the fear that blanketed the surrounding towns, towns I know by name,…
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Choose Your Hero: A Good Man is Hard to Find
Nearly every movie, book, or TV show has shifted from good vs. evil to bad vs. worse. The heroes from the past no longer exist. Heroes in the past used to represent admirable role models. But as Flannery O’Connor wrote, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Stories used to portray discernible character differences tied to moral absolutes. White hats vs. black hats has morphed into 50 shades of gray, and black holes in space where character distinction no longer matters. The outlines have blurred. Dark hearts conceal themselves under public image management. Every character does as he sees fit. Numerous factors and myriad inputs affect the moral compass each…
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Viva The Las Vegas I Remember
“I would never go there,” the group’s leader said––the person with all the religious status. His remark silenced comments from others. “If I now recognize evil in other people, is it not because I have become evil too? If I see someone has a suspicious nose, have I not smelled the same bad things?” Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club I had told coworkers that for my birthday my husband surprised me with tickets to fly to Las Vegas to see Celine Dion. This guy’s comment made me think how easy it is to make wide verbal swipes against people and places. What made him think he knew anything about the…
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The World, the Church, and Me: Examine My Heart
“O LORD, you have searched me ….” Past tense. David’s story was a story already in progress, and so is yours and mine. Wherever you or I locate ourselves, we exist having made countless choices along the way. The psalmist acknowledges incalculable evidences of God’s intimate knowledge, His mercy, and His grace from before he was born to the last word––everlasting. Continuing from last week, Psalm 139 is a prayer. A personal prayer to a Holy God. The psalmist does not suggest what other people ought to do as if he himself is exalted and exempt from examination. The words in verse 23, “Search me, O God,” “try me,” “know…
