A Restful Sabbath, Part 4

OK, last week we talked about why we celebrate Sabbath, now let's start on how.

We are commanded to rest on the Sabbath. We try not to set strict specific rules for what constitutes rest. The Pharisees did, and drew Christ's stern correction (Matthew 12:1-45). In our home, we clean house on Saturday in preparation for Sabbath that evening. We also have a good meal that night; preferrably one that requires preparation during the day, to increase the anticipation. We begin the meal with the Kiddush, which is the Jewish prayer over the bread and wine. Mom starts by lighting candles, signifying God having created light first. She says,
"Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, Who brings forth light out of darkness."
We pass around a piece of bread (usually homemade! :d -that's a yummy face-) breaking off a chunk. When everyone has a piece, Dad leads in saying,
"Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, Who brings forth bread from the earth."
Then we eat it. Next, everyone raises their cup of wine (or grape juice) and Dad leads again,
"Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, Who brings forth the fruit of the vine." Then, we drink.
Then...the meal; and Sabbath has begun!

Part of that sound familiar? Sound like communion service at your church? Jesus was very purposeful when He picked the symbolism of the bread and wine as His body and blood. He knew all Jews would recognize exactly what He was saying: "I am the Lord of the Sabbath!" No more did men have to toil to keep all the Law! Jesus fulfilled the Law, so now is the time of rest! Rest in His forgiveness! Rest in His love! Rest in the knowledge of His perfect work completed for us on the cross!

Now is the time of rest!

Drowning in Lake Mediocrity

I am going to quote a recent editorial that appeared in our paper; written by a college professor in North Carolina. I will try to do it without shaking hands and grinding teeth:

"We were talking informally in class not long ago, 17 college sophomores and I, and on a whim I asked who some of their favorite writers are. The question hung in uneasy silence. At length, a voice in the rear hesitantly volunteered the name of...Dan Brown.
No other names were offered.
The author of "The Da Vinci Code" was not just the best writer they could think of, he was the only writer they could think of."

*shake shake, grind grind* Sorry...I failed.

Mind you, this is not a survey of the proletariat. This is allegedly the best and the brightest of the current generation of academia. The article goes on to list vocabulary that the professor has used in everyday conversation that elicited blank stares of incomprehension from his college students. These words include: "impetus, ramshackle, lucid, advocate (both as noun and verb), derelict (as in neglectful), satire, pith, brevity, novel (both noun and adjective)".

A quick digression: If you turned red and shuffled your feet at your inability to name an author, or if you stumbled over any of the vocabulary words above, DO NOT BE ASHAMED. This post is not meant to embarrass you. It is to make you mad. Mad at who? Your fourth-grade teacher who read you Robert Frost poetry? Your seventh-grade teacher who made you perform Shakespeare in class? No! They were the occasional oasis in a vast desert of ignorance named the 20th century American public educational system. This is a system designed to stifle thought and repress free expression. Your teacher's attempts to raise your literary awareness were noble but futile efforts to rectify the damaging environment, sort of like ordering a triple bacon cheeseburger with beer-batter onion rings, hot fudge banana split and...a diet coke. The teacupful of inspiration and desire for wisdom was quickly dissipated in a lake of mediocrity and conformity.

This is not a holier-than-thou post. I am a product of the public educational system, too. It is nothing short of the grace of God that I can name any author above Dr. Seuss, or can write anything with more eloquence than "put all the mony in the bag i have a gun".

I want something better for my children than to teach them how to say, "Paper or plastic?". If you are reading nerdy material like this blog on the web, you probably do, too. We'll continue this discussion tomorrow after I calm down a bit.

Right now, I gotta go read to my kids.

A Bird in Hand is Better Than Under the Bush

Today our brother and good friend Peregrine Took, a.k.a. "Pippin" passed into eternity. Cause of death is uncertain since canaries are such delicate creatures. Pippin was a pretty cool bird. His two favorite things, besides his family, were NFL and Stan Getz, both of which flourish with abundance in our home.

A memorial service was held in the garden, where he was laid to rest 'neath the spreading Liberty apple tree. A fitting tribute since apple slices were one of his favorite snacks.

Mourning continues to this hour.

A Restful Sabbath, Part 3

Sorry this is late. We spent our Sabbath taking a long drive through some scenic countryside and discussing future family plans and dreams. We also stopped for some Sherman's ice cream (celebrating their 90th year!) in South Haven. It was pretty cool.

OK, I said I would talk about why we celebrate Sabbath. Let's start with the really obvious:
IT'S A COMMANDMENT!!! I guess nothing more needs to be said after that, hm? The Israelites suffered 70 years in captivity because they did not take God seriously when He commanded them to rest. For 490 years they had neglected to make the 7th year a year of Sabbath for the land. As a result, God said, "Fine. You won't give the land a rest? Then I will!" Since they had missed 70 Sabbath years, God removed them from the land for exactly that period of time!

Second observation: "Be ye imitators of God." God Himself rested on the seventh day, so even if it wasn't a commandment, it must be a pretty good idea.

Observation the third: Our lives are busy enough, don'cha think? We are living in a 24-hour society. No desire or whim is denied us at any time of any day! How could it not be a great idea to close ranks with the family, tell the world to buzz off, thank Father for His goodness, and look forward to another week of life?


Didn't get to connect blogs with my honey this week, but check hers out anyway: javadawn
She's always got great discussions and fun stuff over there!

Pop psyche

Just finished reading "All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes" by Kenneth Myers. Besides having one of the coolest book titles ever, it was a great confirmation for me, for something that the Lord worked in my heart several years ago.

Side note for encouragement: Reading books that confirm your ideologies is great, but don't let that be the only reason you read. Getting positive strokes from professional authors can be addictive, but I would encourage you to balance your reading with books that you know you do not agree with. This accomplishes two goals: 1) If you read with prayer and an open mind, you may find some long-held convictions that are unbiblical and it may require you to change your heart to align it with Father's will (not a bad result!). 2) If, while reading, you discern that your conviction is more in line with Scripture than the material you are reading, then the investment of learning the opposing point of view will help you in future discussions to present your case more knowledgably and more convincingly. Nothing is more frustrating in a debate than to hear, "Well, that's just what I believe!" You want to counter with, "I don't give a rat's tail what you believe, substantiate what you're saying!"

Whew! Sorry, that was a separate post in itself wasn't it? Anyway, the premise of this book is not to talk about how decadent our culture has become (duh!), but how the very essence of popular culture is anathema to an intellectually stimulating lifestyle. The last chapter is the part that rang with familiar truth for me. He likens the partaking in popular culture with "eating meat offered to idols" that Paul talks about in I Corinthians 10. For those who are under the idol's authority, eating meat is a sin. For those of us who have been set free from all authority but Christ's, it is not a sin...it's just meat. This was a life-giving revelation for me many years ago. I had gone through a hedonistic stage, to a if-it's-not-overtly-Christian-it's-from-the-pit stage, to a confused stage becuase I really liked Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix! Now, I guess I'm a Christian hedonist (nods to John Piper).

All things are ultimately under the authority of the Sovereign God. Tomorrow I'll talk about how all things glorify Him as we prepare for Sabbath.

The Author

To follow up on yesterday's post: We homeschool our children, and we do it in a rather unconventional way. We do not compartmentalize our time (see Jim Bush's blog and comments) into "school time" and "all other" time. We view all time as school time. God does not have a scheduled time to teach us, why should we restrict the teaching of our children? We try to stay attentive all day for opportunities to point out the hand of Father in creation, in human interaction, in events and structures. If God is the Author of all things, as mentioned in yesterday's post, then He is the Creator of art, mathematics, history, particle physics, and anything else we can study. As R. C. Sproul, Jr. says, "We know that 2+2=4 because it's Jesus' 2 and Jesus' 2 and Jesus' 4!" It is our job as caretakers of this planet and specifically of our children to show them how Father resides in all things! This will give them (and us!) a sense of security and responsibility knowing that from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.

It Takes "The Village"...

For family movie time, we have "family movies" for everyone, then we have "big kids' movies" which tend to be a little more intense fare, then we have "parents' movies" which are usually big kids' movies that haven't been screened yet. This weekend, we watched "The Village" for a big kids' movie. I had been avoiding renting this, because it had been panned horribly by the critics, and since I think M. Night Shyamalan is one of the five greatest living directors, I really didn't want my assessment of his talent to be diminished by watching a flop. Partially from the encouragement of reading the Thinklings, we rented it. We were very pleasantly surprised. It was a thoughtful, artfully directed movie heavy with symbolism. If that's not your bag, you have my sympathy. In our house we savor good movies like a juicy roast beef, slicing them into small sections and dipping them in Scriptural Worldview Worcestershire so we can enjoy every bite.

This is a significant part of what we do here. We turn everything into an opportunity for discussion, analysis and reflection. I don't mean we over-intellectualize events, I mean we look for spiritual significance in all things. God is the Author of all things. If we believe that, we should live it, and teach our children how to live it, also.

More on how to do this later. I might post more about the movie itself, also. Anybody else see it? What was your impression?

A Restful Sabbath Part 2

Last week, I said I would post ideas for making this a "set apart" time for your family.

My first idea is: Take God at His Word and REST! In the 19th century, and in some lower Amish cultures today, "rest" has a pretty severe definition. They sit quietly in the house and look at books, or talk in hushed voices. The children are reprimanded if they are too rambunctious or make too much noise in general. Hmm. Sounds pretty tense to me. I wouldn't have been able to rest trying to stay quiet when I was a child. I have a hard time staying quiet and still now!

Nor do I believe we are to narrowly define what constitutes "work" (see Sabbath post last week). If the grass is high, or the dirty dishes are drawing flies, it's hard work trying to pretend you don't see them until Monday morning!

"Rest" in our house can take many different forms. Sometimes it's playing a game together (which can get VERY loud!), sometimes it's watching a movie together, sometimes it's taking bike rides, taking a family walk, going to our local state park or zoo, reading books (here's a great description of the significance of that activity in our house: http://www.choosinghome.com/blog/?p=330). Sometimes it is restful for me to get a nagging house project done. Yeah, I know it's technically "work", but it puts my spirit at rest to do it, and the physical "work" is not burdensome. It is also restful for me to do dishes on the Sabbath. We have a schedule where every day of the week it is someone else's dishes day. Dad is not in the 6-day rotation, so on the Sabbath, Dad gives everybody elase a break and takes his turn. Sometimes I do the cooking, too. (not sure this is restful for the rest of the family!) :)

Next week, I'll post about why we should celebrate Sabbath. If we can get our act together, I may do a tandem blog with my better-looking half: http://www.xanga.com/javadawn. Meanwhile, I would love to hear ideas from readers for how your family celebrates Sabbath!

Back to the Future

A quick thought while we're in the midst of doing peaches:

One of the more ominous practices in 1984 is history revision. There is an entire governmental ministry dedicated to changing news articles, official records and the like to make governmental prognostications come true, eliminate the memory of subversive individuals or change facts to create alternate current realities (such as changing the name of the country we are at war with so it appears we have always been at war with that country). Once again, today's academic says,"Well, we'll be watching for THAT trick. They can't change history on us. We can't be fooled!"

Try this: We are coming up on the five year anniversary of Sept. 11. This will be an occasion for much reflection, remorse and revilement from both the left and the right. The hyper-patriotism of those first few months has dissipated into the deluge of Bush-bashing we are swimming in today. No one today seems to remember that in the several weeks before our invasion of Iraq, the United Nations had near-unanimous support for coalition military action in Iraq; link follows: http://www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/scres/2003/res1511.html. Today, what you hear is that Bush acted alone; this is Bush's war; poor Saddam, teh Iraqis were better off before, etc.

To clarify: I am neither a Bush-basher nor a Bush sycophant. The president has made two enormous errors in the execution of this war...no...police action. I may expound on them in a later blog, but the point I want to focus on today is: as we train up our children, teach them to read and listen with an open and discerning mind-remembering what has come before and evaluating what is transpiring now. Remember, men, we are training them up to be upright citizens of Heaven; walking in love, peace, wisdom and truth--not cogs in the machine, sloughing toward conformity.

Date night

One very, very important function of tending your garden is to tend to your chief gardening assistant (That would be the missus!). She is the one who keeps the plates spinning while we trudge off to fight the dragons at the office. When you get home from work, what do you do? Do you immediately shower the dragon blood off? Do you zone out in front of the TV, or behind the newspaper? The essence of my questioning is: Do you tend to yourself? Remember, she has been hoeing, weeding and shovelling fertilizer (thanks for the analogy, dear) all day. If you walk in the door, give her a peck on the cheek and go off to take a nap, is this applying Eph 5:25, loving her "as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her?"

Oh, I'm sorry. Were you looking for the comfy, cushy blog? Well, this ain't it! Try the GodMadeEverybodySpecial!.blog at the First Church of Warm Fuzzies. Life-real life-in the Kingdom is messy. It's dirty. It's bloody...with His blood! It always leads to death, but it's the only kind of death that ends in Life!

Brothers, I'm not pointing fingers at you. All of this applies to my sin-stained flesh as well. Father has been gracious enough to me to have encouraged me to establish a weekly date night several years ago. By His mercy, this is an act that has had a profound impact on my relationship with my wife. I will expound on this tomorrow. For tonight, contemplate your arrival at home and ask Father to make you more attentive to serving your wife, rather than being served.
And, um...I will do the same.

Tending Your Garden

Currently listening to: "Tending Your Garden" from the Basement Tape series, R. C. Sproul, Jr. and the Highland Study Center.

What a great concept! The mandate to take dominion was not just for Eden. As sons of God, we are to take up our hoes and cultivate the garden that Father has providentially put us in. What impacted me about this is that it says to tend "YOUR garden". There is no mention of poking your nose over the fence and criticizing the other guy's garden. Now, as one of the discussion members pointed out, "Of course, if a wildfire is threatening your garden, then I'm going to get involved and help you tend to it!" Otherwise, I think we would be wise to treat this as similar to the speck-in-your-eye/plank-in- mine issue. Be more concerned with the weeds in your garden than with those in your neighbors'. Do not compare height of corn stalks or plumpness of tomatoes. When your neighbor elatedly exclaims to you that he's finally grown a nice looking stalk of broccoli, do not ridicule him because your broccoli won the state spelling bee. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Iron sharpening iron. Sharing successes and failures, tools and methods for loving our wives and raising a crop of kids.

Gotta go pull some weeds.

Now...this:

We interrupt our discussion of classic futuristic tomes (as we will probably do frequently), for a timely observation: I AM SO GRATEFUL FOR THE BODY OF CHRIST!

The other day, I entered into a scriptural discussion with a brother who (how to put it delicately?) ...adheres to a different doctrinal stance than I do. Our conversation was interrupted, and before I had the chance to get back to fire up on him again, I chanced by my prayer partner (like anything happens in the Kingdom by "chance"). I said, "You gotta pray for me. I'm fixing to take that boy on. I've listened to that heresy long enough!" My brother calmly quoted 2 Tim 2:25 "with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to knowledge of the truth."

My super-spiritual reply? "Thank you, brother, the scales have fallen from my eyes. I shall go seek his forgiveness at once!"?? Nope. How about: "Wow. Let me go seek Father's heart in prayer to see how I should proceed!"?? Not even. More like: "Yeah, good word: gentleness. 'Cause my SPIRIT'S NOT FEELING VERY GENTLE RIGHT NOW!!!"

Of course, I justified all this 'tude by convincing myself that I was offended at the Word being misrepresented and the gospel being twisted to include the method of administering a sacrament as a requirement of salvation. (No, I'm not going to divulge the heretical teaching just in case some of you belong to the same denomination. If you'd like to contact me privately, however, we can figh- ...er... discuss the matter further.) The real issue here is my pride-filled heart exercising the need to be right. I can try to fool myself-and probably you-into thinking that I was defending the gospel. But my brother's Holy-Spirit-inspired words showed my sin for what it truly is, and...once again, I end up at the foot of the cross.

Thanks, man. That's where I belong anyway.

A restful Sabbath

Another way to help us keep our focus is to obey the 4th commandment, i. e. REST!

If your stomach is tied up in knots trying to figure out if you've offended God by doing too much "work" on the Sabbath-I assure you , you are not resting! Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Meaning...God wants us to truly rest, not follow a set of rules and get worked up in finger-pointing debates about what exactly "resting" means.

There was a young man at a church we attended years ago, who told us he never cooked on Sunday, because he didn't want to sin by doing too much work. We asked him if he fasted on Sunday, then? No, he said he usually went out to a restaurant or over to someone else's house for dinner. It really curled his ears when we asked him if he was not causing his brothers and sisters to stumble by making them cook for him on the Sabbath!

The point is we are to emulate our Father. He rested on the seventh day; not because He was tired, but because He knew that WE would need a day of rest in our week. So, in His sovereignty, He ordained that day to be a day of rest.

Enjoy your work week, and start making preparations now for next week's Sabbath! I'll have some ideas then of things you can do to make it a "set apart" time for your family.

Doin' the daily stuff

As we were discussing yesterday, the mindset that personal pleasure and comfort are the highest attainments is endemic in our community and our culture. As Christian men, we've got to hold a higher standard. We need to influence the world for Christ, right? Ah, but before we can expect to influence the world, it needs to start in our own homes. How do we keep our family's hearts with us in a world that continually distracts?

Today we took a family drive. One of our favorite peach orchards has Red Havens on now (Oh, yum!). With sixteen hands picking, it doesn't take long to fill up several bushels. Even though the peaches were reasonably priced (I didn't think 60 cents a pound was bad!), we still walked out of there with $143.10 worth of peaches!! Since the orchard is about an hour from our house, we took our time coming back. We drove another half hour north to our favorite blueberry farm for $36 worth of fresh blues, then hugged the shore of Lake Michigan on the way home. A beautiful drive, to be sure, but the most beautiful part for me, was that the entire day driving up and back was spent talking. Constantly. We never had the radio or cd player on. We shared dreams, we shared memories, we shared stories and jokes. All nine of us! No one was left out; even the 8-month-old made her opinions known.

This is what it's about. Spending real time together. The Disney World trips and baseball games are great, but when our older kids share their favorite memories, it's usually things like Dad doing the Funky Chicken dance, or Mom throwing the boy out in a snowbank, when he was particularly ornery. It's the everyday stuff. The mundane stuff. The sitting-down-around-the-dinner-table stuff. The funny thing is: we may think this stuff is primarily to keep our kids' hearts at home, but I believe it does just as much, if not more, to keep OUR hearts at home.

I expect to have more stories for you this week as we put up 238 pounds of peaches and 20 pounds of blueberries. Doin' the stuff...

Fighting for Milk?

What's that title supposed to mean? In the movie Cinderella Man , Russel Crowe, as prizefighter James Braddock, is asked at a press conference why his comeback is so successful. Braddock remembers the lean, interim years in his career, when the milkman would not deliver due to his unpaid bill. His children's hungry faces look up at him in his mind's eye.

Braddock: "I finally figured out what I'm fighting for."

Reporter: "Oh yeah? Whatcha fightin' for?"

Braddock: "Milk."

That's what we're doing, men. We work at our jobs, go to our meetings, serve in our churches, help out our neighbors. In the end, we come home to the people that God has placed directly under our care: our families; and we realize, this is who it's all for. This is where we have our best and most consistent opportunity to glorify God. Everyone else we communicate with has their own homes to go to; our families live with us. While we may have limited responsibility over others; our families have been placed wholly and directly under our care.

Let's encourage each other to honor God by being good stewards of the souls he has given us as our primary ministry.

The Future is Now?

I've recently been re-reading two books that were highly influential on my worldview as a high school student: 1984 and Brave New World. For the last forty years or so, 1984 has become something of a cliche. Many of its terms have ingrained themselves in our lexicon: Big Brother, doublespeak the Golden Country. Mere mention of the book in the socio-political circles produces a nudge and a wink saying, "Well, we know how THAT story turned out: suppression of free thought, re-writing of history, beatings and torture. They won't pull us into that type of society. We can't be fooled." All of our attention, then, is on preventing us from succumbing to an abusive, totalitarian state. A noble quest, yes; but, I fear, a red herring.

The society depicted in Brave New World is much more subtly evil, and much more similar to our present state. Instead of being controlled with ever-present pain, the citizens are controlled with too-abundant pleasure. They accept whatever is told them as long as they get their drugs, sex and entertainment. Sound familiar? We as a people have willingly and freely embraced this type of feudal arrangement, expecting the state to supply all our needs without our involvement or even our knowledge, as long as our cable service isn't interrupted.

As Christian men, how do we fight this mindset in our country? our community? our church? our own homes? I'll post ideas as they come to me, but I'd like to hear your comments as well.