Thanksgiving

The Puritan tradition of a thanksgiving was something that tied to a specific event of thanksgiving. For instance there were harvest festivals for the in-gathering of that years crops. Or there would be a time of worship of thanksgiving in response to a specific event that led the Christian community/church to gather for worship.

I am not a fan of a nationally designated thanksgiving holiday. It has led to the cultural watering down and dissipation of the spiritual center of the Christian church. We react more out of national loyalty than thanksgiving to God.

So...what is it we are grateful to God for this year? It isn't just ticking off a list of things we "should" be grateful for. What is it that you are grateful for? What is it that in your life that causes you to turn to God more deeply and more gratefully? Where will you worship God this day? What will you give up in honor of God? Or, how will you worship God by moving away from the trend of stuffing with food, watching sports events, circling the wagons of family to reinforce our own lifestyles, and shopping to get a head start on the Christmas rush?

Check it out:
http://www.historychannel.com/thanksgiving/
http://www.plimoth.org/learn/history/thanksgiving/thanksgiving.asp
http://dailytitan.fullerton.edu/issues/fall_03/11_19/focus/giving.html

faith, science, John Adams & Ben Franklin

There swirls around us debate about what is called "intelligent design" and the creation narratives in the Bible, and questions of the nature "Why did God allow (Katrina, Rita, tsunami and so on)?" This op-ed piece from yesterday's New York Times is a wonderful historical view of how similar issues were faced in the pre-US Revolutionary War times by ones such as John Adams and Ben Franklin. It is well worth the read.

Op-Ed Contributor
Shaking the Foundation of Faith
Published: November 18, 2005
New York Times
Madison, Conn.

AN event that occurred 250 years ago today stands as a singular reminder that the war between faith and science in America did not start in Dover, Pa., where several school board members who promoted the teaching of intelligent design were voted out of office last week, or even in that Tennessee courthouse in 1925 where John Scopes was tried for teaching evolution. It has been a recurring theme in our history since the very seedtime of the republic.

In the early hours of Nov. 18, 1755, the most destructive earthquake ever recorded in the eastern United States struck at Cape Ann, about 30 miles north of Boston. "It continued near four minutes," wrote John Adams...(continue)

bring them home

Once a month I lead a devotional service at a local Catholic sponsored retirement community. There's usually around 25 people there with the average age of 85. Today as I invited prayer concerns, one man who has offered literalistic views on scripture, blurted out, "Please bring our boy's home from Iraq!" Then 3-4 women murmurred similar comments about your "young people" and we want them home now. It was like an anti-war rally in the chapel at the retirement community!!! It struck me how much these people were feeling for the young people of our country who were being killed or were in harms way. This is the heart of the W.W. II generation reacting in prayer.

trip to TN

Our family made a three day trip to Crossville, Tennessee this weekend for the memorial service for Martha's grandmother who was 101. (My grandmother died at 102, so Kate and Molly may have some long life possibilities before them. I guess, Martha and I may too.)

I haven't been in eastern Tennessee in the fall since 1988. It is gorgeous. As we cut across the Cumberland Plateau and then down off of it at Harriman heading up the valley to Oak Ridge and Clinton...and then headed up I-75 near Lake City and over Jellico Mountain, the sun was out, the trees and mountains were glorious. I was listening on my MP3 player to Brahm's Requiem Mass. I looked in the rear view mirror at Kate and Molly who were enjoying the ride by watching a dvd...their heads close together. Tears came to my eyes. It was a moment of pure heaven.

another friend meets God deep

A few weeks ago I posted about our friend Nancy who died after an amazing journey of becoming closer and deeper with the presence of God and her anticipation of knowing God more fully after her death. 

 

Another close friend, Linda, who is one of the great three spiritual sisters (Nancy, Linda, and my wife Martha) just experienced that reality in the most unexpected and frightening way.  I post her email about it below:

 

 

Tonight I was at the Southside License Bureau in Youngstown to do the programming for the go live tomorrow.

Right before closing at 5:30 ...three armed robbers came in and robbed us.
My partner (Dawn who's pregnant), me, 3 clerks and 4 customers.

My back was to the counter and I didn't see them coming... Dawn shoved me down to the floor with her.  They jumped over us, roughed us up and put a gun between us.   There was lots of shouting and get down and give us the money, running and shouting by the robbers, etc.

I was the oldest person there and they must have assumed I was the boss.
One of them got down to my level.....put the gun between my eyes and yelled at me to open the safe.  I looked right at him and told him I didn't work there, I was just there doing programming...."Honest to God, I didn't have the combination to their safe."  In my head I was saying to my self....this is it, you are a dead woman!

I tell you all this, because I was always certain that I would be a screaming idiot in that situation.  I was NOT!  I was so calm and even when I thought I was a dead woman.....I KNEW God was with me.  I can't explain my behavior....I was totally OK!

After they took the money and left...the biggest black male customer started wailing and fell to the floor hyperventilating.   I went right to him and began rubbing his head  and helping him calm his breathing and called the ambulance and police!  Another black woman customer was sobbing and shaking and said she was pregnant with babies at home and didn't want to die.  I assured her God was with us and we were Ok and we were going home tonight to our familiies.  One by one they started shaking and crying and I went to them.   I am telling you God sent me to them....I was out of my own body, this couldn't have been the Linda I know doing this!!  Dawn said I was AMAZING...I have to agree, God did something through me, I'll never be able to explain.

All I could think on the way home was..."Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me!"

Yes, I finally cried on the way home and the big boss called me and told me I am not to go to work tomorrow.

It was the scariest thing I have ever been through....and I wasn't afraid!!

God is great!!!!!!!!!

LOVE YOU ALL,
LINDA

David Loar
http://discipledavid.blogspot.com ...my blog
http://www.fairlawnwest.org ...church web site

http://www.loar.org ...family web site

 

are we stuck in the "Enlightenment"?

Lesslie Newbigin in his book Foolishness to the Greeks - The Gospel and Western Culture writes this: "As people who are part of modern Western culture, with its confidence in the validity of its scienfitic methods, how can we move from the place where we explain the gopsle in terms of our modern scientific world-view to the place where we explain our modern scientific world-view from the point of view of the gospel?" Newbigin using the experience and lens of the experience of the Apostle Paul helps us to see how we have laid over "Christianity" more the foundation of Western culture history and science. Thus people reject Biblical stories because of the lens of the Enlightenment OR in reaction against it they accept them literally as their way to reconcile the two. Right now with the debate over "intelligent design" the wonderful narratives of creation in Genesis and the poetry of Psalms is being bastardized to fit into this Western cultural worldview. But liberals do it too with the ways they reduce down Biblical passages to be more about "justice" than about knowing the reality of God in Jesus Christ. It is Jesus who transforms the world and ushers in the just kingdom of God. Not ultimately social policy or political idealology.

colleges

As my daugther Kate starts to consider colleges, I have put together my list of favorite colleges. They reflect not just academically, but in campus life and core values, what I believe in and hope for my daughters to experience, learn, and grow with.

Northland College in Ashland, WI. Not well known, but I think a college that more people should support and more students consider.
Hope College in Holland, MI. Found out about this place through Colleges that Change Lives. It has the best I have found of mix with an openness of those who follow Jesus Christ, the world around us, and growing in body, mind and spirit. They have their conflicts between the fundamentalist types and the liberal types, but better that than lock step conservatism or liberalism.
Ohio Weslyan University in Deleware, OH
Grinnell College in Grinnell, IA
Juniata College in Huntingdom, PA
Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA

reduced Christ down

Last Sunday, I quoted E. Stanley Jones in respect to how Western Christians have done to Christianity... “We have inoculated the world with a mild form of (Christ) so that it is now “safe” against the real thing. We have reduced being a disciple of Jesus Christ to a creed to be believed, or an emotion to be felt, or an institution to which we are to belong, or to a ceremony or rite to be undergone – anything but a life to be lived!”Here are two good web sites about him http://www.vaxxine.com/eves/jones.htm & "The Christ Experience" written by Jones