Nature = Love

Here's more evidence that God loves us: nature is beautiful.

For those of you unaware, we've had a deluge of rain in Texas this year. Serious flooding about a month ago, in fact. But after many years of drought, rain is a glorious sight, too. Everything is so green and lovely.

I walk around the neighborhood with our dog and marvel at the beauty of the world God gave us. All the green. So many shades of green. Such a soothing color, green. Soft and gentle in the grasses of the lawn and the leaves on the trees and bushes.

And the contrast of the green leaves against the bright blue of the sky is remarkable. Somewhere in my very limited science fiction exposure, I read a novel about a world where the sky was pink or something. And of course, on every other planet, where there is no atmosphere, you only see dark space. I like the option given us.

 I have discovered in recent years that I have a particular affinity for texture. I prefer woven baskets to smooth flat boxes. And I love looking at the various uses of stone and brick in our neighborhood -- in the mailboxes, in the driveways, in planters and steps, even in the houses themselves.

And the sparkle of the flowers sprinkled here and there. Just in our front yard, we have lantana, esperanza, plumbago, and another purple flower that Charlie my plant-knowledgable neighbor can't identify for me. Plus the cactus is just about to bloom. Orange, yellow, red, and purple surprises accenting the soft greens and browns. Big and bold . . . or small and delicate . . .

In Texas (at least in our part of Texas, but I've heard it's a state-wide thing), there are wildflowers growing along all the roadways. The famous bluebonnets pop up to signal the start of spring here, but even now that they are gone, there are still flowers everywhere.

Walking around our neighborhood, I'm entranced by the sights . . . and sounds. Birds chirping. What a great idea that was! Again, such a calming thing to sit in our courtyard area and hear birds, twittering to each other, singing to the blue sky. Bright green lizards and fuzzy brown squirrels scamper up and down our maze of live oaks. Blue jays and other birds I'm not informed enough to pin a name to light on the edge of our stone fountain to get a drink or a quick shower.

And the fountain! Water! Water is an essential to our existence, but God didn't have to make it such a pleasing thing to the eye. Or the ear. The sound of water gurgling, or flowing, or crashing in waves . . . we record those sounds and listen to them in our urban apartments to drown out the car horns and sooth our troubled souls.

Again, God didn't have to make any of our environment beautiful. He was under no such obligation to us; life itself was his greatest gift, and He could have stopped there. We could live on a planet of empty vastness like the moon. We could live in broad deserts of nothingness (not that deserts don't have their own grandeur, but still). We have beauty, in various forms, all of which ease our souls and draw us to Him, if we let it.

Thanks, Lord. I'm gonna go take a walk now.

Northern Friends, Meet the Live Oak

Texas is one weird state. The lack of winter I expected. But I didn’t expect this: fall happens in March in Texas. For real.

Nothing fell in October, but we spent the whole two weeks before Easter raking and bagging the leaves in our yard. Forty-five bags of them. The live oaks drop their leaves in the spring right before they bud new ones.

“Live oak,” by the way, doesn’t mean the opposite of a dead oak. It’s a particular type of oak tree, and they are some of the coolest trees ever. The trunks grow all haywire in fascinating swirls around the yard. Many of them have trunks growing completely to the side, almost perpendicular to the ground after a while – growing toward where they find the most sun, I assume.

And they are HUGE. They must have remarkable root systems to support so much weight all leaning to one side. I look at some of them and think I’d be afraid to hang anything on even the largest of their branches because surely any extra pounds would send that thing crashing to the ground. But no. They stand strong for years and years.

We have several of these amazing trees in our yard. And as I noted before, they dump all of their leaves just in time to celebrate the Resurrection. So weird.

They also dump their pollen right about now. If you’ve never experienced such, it’s a sight. Yellow dusty stuff that covers EVERYTHING and gets people’s allergies all cranked up. We got the pine pollen in New Jersey; here it’s the oak pollen. Craziness.

But it’s not just the yellow gunk. The “flowers” fall off as well, and if I hadn’t already swept one layer of them up once, by now they would be covering our courtyard area (patio, table, chairs, grill, fountain, plus all the actual ground) with nastiness a half inch thick. Good heavens.

See how it's all leaning to one side? Crazy!

They clog up the fountain. I can’t even clean out the fountain until they’re done, so it’s just turned off for now.

And of course, it's been raining. On the positive side, that washed away a lot of yellow nastiness. On the negative side, the dried-up flower nastiness has been too wet to blow away.

I know – I’m whining. The truth is, the trees are beautiful and worth the mess once a year. At least I think so right now. A few more years of this and I may lose some affection for them, however.

Good motivation for me to continue teaching high school students. I’m bound to have a few someday who would love to clean up my yard for “extra credit.” ;)

Dead Limbs, Lucille Clifton, and the State of My Soul

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. John 15:1-2

Yesterday morning, I decided to get out the ladder and trim a few dead branches I saw in a tree in our courtyard area. Once up there, I noticed more and more dead branches. Then I glanced to another set of trees at the side of the yard and saw work to be done there, too, so I dragged the ladder to that end of the yard and started snipping some more.

And more. And more. Small tips of deadness were revealed upon closer inspection as entire dead limbs. I was stunned at the size of the branches and how easily I could break them off when there was no life left in them. Shift the ladder again and again. More and more and more deadness. I kept having to shield my head from the wood falling down on me.

In college, I read a poem by Lucille Clifton:

at last we killed the roaches.
mama and me. she sprayed,
i swept the ceiling and they fell
dying onto our shoulders, in our hair
covering us with red. the tribe was broken,
the cooking pots were ours again
and we were glad, such cleanliness was grace
when i was twelve. only for a few nights,
and then not much, my dreams were blood
my hands were blades and it was murder murder
all over the place.

In my memory, those last couple lines were “death death / all over the place” . . . and those lines and that image were running through my head as I snapped leafless limbs from the tree branches above and around me and they came crashing down: “death . . . death . . . all over the place . . .”

And I wonder if that's how my Father the Gardener feels. He snips off one bit of deadness in my soul, only to reveal another. And another. Something that appears to me to be a small dry twig is in reality (as He knows) a monumental limb, branching off into many directions, entwining itself with other branches, even with other trees, requiring not just a simple snap but a hacksaw at the trunk, leaving a gaping, painful hole for a while until the healthy branches grow to fill in the space.

It shames me sometimes, this pruning. Death death, all over the place. But as Miz Lucille tells us, such cleanliness is grace.

The Image of God Behind the Hedgeclippers

My sister and her husband visited our home this weekend while he attended a work conference downtown. Nancy and I had a lovely time, eating at girly restaurants, shopping at girly stores. And I discovered something new about my big sister: she enjoys yardwork.

During the neighborhood garage sale Saturday morning while I sat at the end of the driveway with the riding lawnmower and the '71 Yamaha bike hoping to clear out some room in the garage, she went around trimming up plants, raking out corners, pulling up weeds and stragglers, just generally cleaning up our front yard something beautiful. And after lunch, she came home and did it in the back, too. For fun. Because she wanted to do it.

I've never been much for yardwork, and I realized today that this is because I didn't know what I was doing. While I watched her taking out deadwood (literally) on our grounds, I joined in (now that I was aware of the deadwood also and of the correct and efficient way to get it out). And now I get the appeal.

It's the same feeling I have when I clean out the refrigerator and dump the partially eaten restaurant leftovers, the two-week-old chicken breast, the ketchup bottle so nearly empty that everybody gave up trying to force more ketchup out and opened a new bottle. Clear it out.

The same feeling I have when a party is over, and the excitement is still kind of ringing in the air but the guests are gone, and I'm walking through the party room, picking up cups and plates, gathering the evening's toys, putting away the pens and tossing the paper scraps, returning pillows and afghans to their rightful places, getting leftover food in the fridge, emptying the trash.

The same feeling I will have at the end of the week going through the girls' backpacks, throwing out food wrappers and scraps of paper, piling up books and deciding where they will be kept for future reference, setting aside tests and papers and interesting assignments to store for posterity, dumping the crumbs at the bottom of the bag in the trash and wiping it out so it doesn't attract vermin before we need it again in the fall.

Decluttering. Re-creating order. It is SOOOO satisfying. It is satisfying enough to me that I have a hard time understanding how people can stand to live very long in clutter and disorder. I mean, when you have a busy period of your life, yes, picking up may have to wait. But to just live with unnecessary items all around you, sitting in your way, making it hard to find what you need when you need it -- or even to get from one side of the room to another -- how can you not just scream after a while?

But I've learned that not everyone is like me. And I'm gradually learning to recognize this "fault" in other people as not necessarily being a fault at all. God is a God of order, and my urge to declutter is one of the ways I am made to reflect His image. Others reflect His image in ways I can't touch. Through creativity that astounds me. Through persistence that inspires me. Through compassion for the difficult-to-love that shames me.

Nevertheless, I am grateful to now know better how to maintain order in my yard. And if I find the persistence to keep it up, I'm sure my husband will be grateful, too.

Bad Religion or Bad Science?

If you're a homeschooler or a serious science person, you were probably aware of the big evolution debate last night between Bill Nye the Science Guy and Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis. I had BSF, so I couldn't watch the debate live -- I'll be watching it today with my youngest while she's home from school.

I'm anxious to see the debate, but I'm not anxious to deal with the fall-out on both sides, because I'm confident nobody came out a clear "winner" here, as in the other person left the stage saying, "Good points, Jack -- I'm convinced."  I fear that such events only rile up each side of the argument with more ammunition to attack the other side.

And I'm tired of the attacks. I know, for all my talk, I should be prepared for people to dismiss me at best and attack me at worst because of what I believe, but it still rankles me when people who claim to be the top of the evolutionary chain of mankind behave so ridiculously.

I'm willing to concede that there are those on the creationist side who don't approach this scientifically -- they believe what they believe because it's what the Bible says and no scientific findings will convince them otherwise. But I would hope my "opponents" would concede something similar on their side: many of their people refuse to listen to anything that a creation scientist or intelligent design theorist might say simply because it smacks of a supernatural god which they refuse to believe in up front. These scientists bring up some genuine problems with the evolutionary theory, and evolutionists only weaken their stance be refusing to address those points and simply ridiculing the messenger.

The ridicule is the real problem here. There is something wrong when, the moment a scientist brings up actual scientific evidence that calls into question the validity of the theory of evolution, scientific inquiry ceases. Evolutionist scientists do not take that evidence, examine it, test it themselves, and come up with a calm rebuttal of the facts (if one can be made). They ridicule the scientist daring to go against the mainstream. They deny him tenure -- even cause him to lose his position. I've heard before that, in anonymous surveys, the vast majority of people who work professionally in a scientific field find the theory of evolution an unsatisfactory answer to the question of the origin of life . . . but if you asked your average university physics professor about it, he wouldn't say that because he knows he would immediately lose all of his professional standing, if not his job.

That's not religion gone bad. That's science gone bad.

And there is most DEFINITELY a problem when my eldest's physics teacher feels emboldened enough by the arrogant stance of his professional community to publicly shame the Christian students in his class for being stupid and ignorant and small-minded -- before they've even said a word.

That's not science. That's prejudice and boorishness, and it has no place in a classroom at any level.

Can we all at least start with the agreement that NOBODY knows for sure how life began? No evolutionist or creationist, Christian or atheist, scientist or layman. None of us were there. We all are making intelligent guesses based on what was left behind. That kind of humility really must be at the basis of any scientific inquiry if it is to have any validity at all.

Because science is about finding the truth, and truth does not need to be defended by shaming its detractors. Truth is strong enough to fight its own battles -- just let it fight.

Transformational Tomatoes

I know that I have friends (and perhaps other readers I'm unaware of) who are very conscious of where they spend their money. Not only are they concerned about getting the most for their dollar for themselves, but they are concerned that their dollars are making a difference. That the companies they support with their business are behaving responsibly in the world.

Allow me to introduce you to my husband's new company: NatureSweet Tomatoes.

NatureSweet makes the small, little tomatoes that you put on salads -- three varieties of them. When I started telling people who hubby was going to be working for, I couldn't believe how many of them said, "Oh, NatureSweet! That's the ONLY kind of tomato I'll buy." They're not the cheapest tomato in the store, but they're really that much better.

They are grown hydroponically, which means the product is more consistent since they aren't dependent on the ever-changing weather for the right conditions to grow. They're unique in another way. I don't know the technical side of this well enough to do it justice with my description, but their particular product is the result of grafting together (a painstaking process done by hand) two different types of tomato plants: one for its strong root system and another for its sweetness.

Really, some consistently tasty tomatoes here. Folks out there eat these things just by themselves, for an afternoon snack (which I would never have considered trying before). But there's more. Let me tell you the behind-the-scenes stories hubby has learned in the last few months, the stuff that isn't necessarily trumpeted to the public.

The guy who owns NatureSweet is a billionaire from previous business ventures. He had a ranch in Mexico and fell in love with the people there. But his heart broke for them because they lived in such poverty and had no hope of changing that where they were.

So, he went and bought this tomato company and turned it into what is now NatureSweet . . . with the specific goal of providing work for the poor in Mexico. They have five facilities in the Guadalajara area. The workers there make two or three times the going rate for agricultural workers in the area (the website states that 82% of their Mexican workers are paid above the living wage). This means that they have money to spend . . . which brings businesses into the communities . . . which results in increased economic stability for the area. (Again, from the website: home ownership for their Mexican employees increased by 20% in 2012.)

What's more, NatureSweet actively invests in adult education programs for their employees -- from primary school classes on up (and that tells you how low a lot of these people start from). These people are empowered. The grip the local drug dealers have on the community is lessened. And the need to leave home and travel north (legally or illegally) to find a way to make money and support the family is alleviated.

And the owner makes no money on this. All of his profits go back into the company to increase sales, build more facilities, employ more people.

All this to say, when you purchase NatureSweet tomatoes at your grocery store, you are not only getting a high quality product, but you are participating in the transformation of lives and communities.

AND . . . when you talk up NatureSweet tomatoes at the restaurants and club stores you frequent ("Are these NatureSweet tomatoes on your salad? Oh, NatureSweet tomatoes are the best. I'd be much more likely to buy a happy meal for my kiddo if you offered NatureSweet tomatoes as a side option . . . "), you also contribute to the economic future of your humble correspondent and her family.  :) 

We, Like Sheep, Are Not All That Bright, You Know

A couple years ago, I wrote a play for the younger homeschoolers in Sioux City that was about sheep and the Good Shepherd. Basically, I made a list of every sheep reference in the Bible -- and there's a LOT of them -- and pulled them all together into a storyline. It was more of a challenge than I was expecting when I conceived the idea. I didn't like the script at first, but in the end, I had several people tell me it was one of their favorite of my plays.

All this to say, I am well acquainted with the Biblical discussion of sheep and have developed a fondness for the analogy. So when I read in Matthew in our BSF lesson that Jesus told the disciples he was sending them out "like sheep among wolves", I perked up.

Amy, our teaching leader, noted something about sheep last night. They're dumb. Really, they're not all that bright. In fact, they are not even able to forage and find food on their own, like a goat would. Sheep have to be taken to places where food is readily available, or they will starve.

They also, I learned in my own research for writing the play, can't distinguish a safe plant from a poisonous plant. A shepherd has to go ahead of them and pull out any grasses that would be dangerous for them to eat. This is actually what is meant in Psalm 23 when it says, "You have prepared a table for me."

Sheep NEED a shepherd. Sheep literally can't survive on their own; they only survive when they depend entirely on a good shepherd to take for them. (Which makes one wonder how they ever would have evolved and continued to propagate before humans were around to care for them . . . but I digress.)

In my play, I had one rebellious character, Felicia, who insisted that there was no such thing as a good shepherd and kept "crawling the fence", trying to find a way out of the sheepfold. When she finally got out, she immediately got herself lost and stuck in a ravine. And that's when she discovered that her shepherd was truly a Good Shepherd -- he sought her out, rescued her, bound her wounds, and lovingly brought her back to the fold. Because he loved her and knew her for what she was: a dumb, dependent, but beloved sheep.

And WE are sheep. We are made to be dependent on someone else. Dependent on God, of course, in the greatest sense. But I think we are also supposed to be dependent on each other -- our families, our neighbors, our churches . . . the American Way aside, we are not meant to live individualistic lives.

It's not coincidence, I'm sure, that in Jesus' analogy of the sheep and the goats, the self-reliant, independent goats are the ones sent to damnation, while the dumb, dependent sheep are welcomed into the kingdom. Pride is the root of all sin, after all. Not only is God unimpressed with the work we do on our own apart from him (even if we're doing it FOR him) -- but we simply prove that we have missed the point of the gospel completely.

One should be cautious of any value being promoted to us that begins with the word "self": self-reliance, self-esteem, self-actualization, self-worth . . . you can't ever get to genuine relationship or community -- with God or anyone -- if you begin with self.

It's Not About Your Pretty Leaves

It seems I'm being inundated with the Biblical vine/branch/fruit analogy lately.  You know, the one from John 15:

I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off any branch in me that doesn't bear fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be more fruitful.

And the fruit of the Spirit list in Galatians 5:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against these things there is no law.

I recently discovered that these passages shed light on another story that I've always been confused by. 

In Mark 11, on his way into Jerusalem, Jesus is hungry and passes by a fig tree with no fruit. He curses the tree, and the next day on their way out of town, the fig tree is withered from its roots. I always thought that an odd story. I also wasn't quite sure what the point was; I mean, after the disciples comment on the tree, Jesus goes on to tell them that they can move mountains with enough faith, but he makes that point in other ways -- it doesn't seem necessary to kill a living plant to communicate that message.

But perhaps there's something of this fruit analogy involved. The purpose of a fig tree is to bear figs. Not to grow leaves and branches and deep roots -- those are all merely tools used in the process of bearing figs. Similarly, believers live on earth strictly to bear fruit.

And notice that the fruit of the plant is used by other creatures. Animals eat the fruit. The fruit gives life -- but not to the plant itself, really. It gives life to others. And a plant that bears no fruit to give life to others is not justified in sticking around, Jesus seems to be saying.

So, all the Bible studies I go to . . . all the books I read, the scripture I memorize . . . all the church services I attend and sermons I hear . . . if all they do is deepen my own roots and broaden my own leaves, they are a waste. Deep roots and broad leaves are only there to bring me the nutrients I need to bear fruit -- fruit that is for the benefit of others, not myself.

Another thing: the fruit of the plant is part of the reproductive system. The seed to create another plant is inside the fruit. The way a plant makes more of itself is by its seed being scattered -- by animals eating of its fruit and leaving the seeds elsewhere.

See, I should have gone to a Christian school growing up. If science had been taught to me this way, as a reflection of the character of God, I might have cared.

My Mysterious Green Thumb

The cyclamen

I have these cyclamen in my kitchen window.  The only reason I know they are cyclamen is because I posted a picture of them on Facebook and people told me so.  These people also told me that cyclamen are very difficult to grow, which astounds me because I have a hopelessly black thumb and yet I've been able to keep this plant alive and thriving for three and a half years now.

Well, thriving until this week.  I came home from our trip to find them pretty droopy.  Late for one watering and look what happens. 

My orchid still looks good.  That's the other flower my friends tell me is almost impossible to keep going, and yet mine blooms and blooms despite me.  I really don't get it.  I've killed every houseplant I've ever owned.  I'm telling you -- my thumb is hopelessly black.  I have no idea what I'm doing. 

I bought a couple of flowering plants to put on the front porch to make it look a little more colorful while we're showing the house.  (Notice I said "flowering plants" because I have no idea what kind of plant they are.  I suppose it was on the tag somewhere.)  When I went to pay for them, I told the Lowe's lady what I intended to do with them and asked if that was a good idea.  She nodded, rather noncommittal about it all.  I asked for some tips about how to care for the plants -- specifically, how much water do they need?  She muttered something about giving them a good drink when they feel dry.

And I think this is why I kill plants.  "A good drink" when they "feel dry".  How dry?  How often do I check if they're dry?  Twice a week?  Twice a day?  How much is a good drink?  Until the dirt is soaked?  Soaked on the surface, or soaked to the bottom?  What do I do, stick my finger in the dirt and feel how wet it is?  These directions are simply not helpful in the least.  (And these poor things will be lucky to make it through the fourth of July, I think.)



The orchid

Apparently, people with green thumbs are like cooks -- I mean, natural cooks, those people who throw a bit of this and that into a pot and something amazing comes out.  I, on the other hand, am a baker.  I need a specific recipe with specific measurements for specific ingredients.  I can't feel my way through a dish for the family to eat . . . and I can't keep a living green thing green that way either.

One of the houses we're looking at in San Antonio we have dubbed the "garden house".  That's because it has an enclosed courtyard in the front with a fountain and trees and plants all around it.  It's beautiful -- an oasis -- and if we buy the house, I will have to hire a professional to come take care of it all.

In the meantime, I'm afraid I'll have to give up my cyclamen and orchid to a neighbor when we move.  (And the amaryllis that blooms something gorgeous every several months or so.)  I doubt they'll survive the drive to Texas, and I don't know if they'll thrive in a different environment. 

You think I'll ever again have a live houseplant that survives as well as these have?  I don't.  Oh, well!  It was fun while it lasted.

Whether Or Not You Believe

[BTW, please forgive the shifting fonts in this post.  Can't make blogspot cooperate today . . . ]

It seems like I've been picking on scientists a lot lately, and I want to make something clear.  I have friends who are scientists; I know there are some who humble and reasonable.  But I wonder at how they have such tolerance for (and even sometimes get swept up in) the rampant arrogance in their profession.

Case in point: a friend posted a meme on FB with a scientist saying, “The one good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”  Oh, my goodness -- don't you know I went off on that one.

The glasses through which
we view reality . . .

So, when science told us that blood-letting would cure our ailments, science was true whether or not anyone believed it.  When science said that the medieval Black Death was caused by "bad air", science was true whether or not anyone believed it.  Re-e-eally.

No, folks -- reality is true, whether or not people believe it.  Scientists only speak truth when they have a complete and accurate interpretation of reality.  And this is where I believe the arrogance of science rears its ugly head, because for scientists to have a complete and accurate interpretation of reality, it means a few things.

1) They have all the facts.  We know this isn't true.  Scientists are discovering new facts and debunking old facts all the time.  (Kinda gives new meaning to the word "fact".)

2) They are an objective observer of those facts.  It's very distressing to me how many scientists are so deceived about themselves as to believe that they are able to step back and view the world without the colored glasses of worldview that the rest of humanity wears.  NOBODY is completely objective.  EVERYBODY has a worldview that colors the way you view reality.

3) Science, by definition, is the study of the natural world.  It cannot deal with anything that might be in the realm of supernatural.  This means that someone who believes science can provide us with a complete and accurate interpretation of reality must believe that the supernatural doesn't exist -- or that if it does exist, it has no effect on our reality.  This, for all practical purposes, is a statement of religious belief.  And it automatically makes the believer an unobjective observer. To eliminate the possibility of supernatural influence on our world is to shut your eyes to a lot of what could actually be reality out there. 

And frankly, I suspect that this is why the majority of everyday scientists actually do claim a belief in some kind of God or Deity.  A humble and thorough examination of reality will reveal phenomena that simply have no natural explanation.  And an honest and unbiased observer will then concede the possibility of something that is beyond the natural.

That, my friends, is true . . . whether or not you believe in it.  ;)

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

"It’s so-o-o-o cold outside."  "How cold is it?"

"It’s so cold . . . even the Good Humor guy is in a bad mood."

Just an hour north of us in Sioux Falls, they cancelled school yesterday because the wind chills were, like, forty below.  Unbelievable.  If hubby ends up getting a job any further north than this, I may be crying all winter long.

"It’s so cold . . . I saw an Amish guy buy an electric blanket."

I've always said I'd rather be too cold than too hot, and I still say that (you can always put more on -- you can't always take enough off).  But if we must have the cold temperatures, we should at least get the pretty snow to go with it, yes?  Iowa winters are ridiculous.  Especially stretches of days like this when we never see the sun . . .

"It's so cold . . . I put the meat in the freezer to defrost."

"It's so cold . . . the fire hydrant is begging a dog to pee on it."

The disadvantage of the high ceilings and very open floor plan in our house -- we can't seem to contain the heat.  Every room is cold. Well, except for the main floor powder room and the music room, which have doors to shut.  I'm about to move all the significant furniture in there for the next month.

Ugh . . . another month of this . . .

"It's so cold . . . the rats are bribing the alley cats for a snuggle."

It occurred to me yesterday that this might be a good time to get out Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter and re-read it.  To hear about a frontier town with no electricity and no running water dealing with blizzard after blizzard every third day or so for a few months . . . running out of food . . . twisting "logs" of hay to burn every day because the firewood disappeared early on . . . howling wind and no sun for days on end . . . it might snap me out of this and remind me of how good I have it.  We are truly wimps.

"It’s so cold . . . even members of Congress couldn’t get into a heated argument."

< Snort! >  Okay, it's not that cold.

 

Hurricanes

“While living in South Florida, I considered hurricanes to be mistakes of nature. However, I soon discovered hurricanes are necessary to maintain a balance in the environment….”

 I copied and pasted this paragraph recently so I could ponder it some more.  I hated to remark on it while Sandy was so in the forefront of our minds. Unfortunately, I didn’t copy the source, so I can’t give credit for who is speaking here.  But I want to write about it anyway.  I find I need to regularly be reminded of the value of the hurricanes God allows to wreak havoc in my life.

“We all know the devastation these monstrous storms can cause, yet scientists tell us that hurricanes are also tremendously valuable because they reduce a large percentage of the oppressive heat that builds up at the equator.”  I haven’t looked up the etymology, but surely the word oppressive comes from the same root as pressure.  Heat – tension – friction – that results in pressure and oppression that builds and builds . . . yes, this feels very familiar.

“In fact, hurricanes are indirectly responsible for much of the rainfall in North and South America.”  Interesting how rain in moderate amounts, spread over a reasonable time span, is not only helpful but crucial.  We must have rain.  Living things can’t survive without it.  But it is more beneficial when it comes as a long-term drizzle than as a torrential downpour.  The drizzle can be emotionally draining, but the earth needs time to soak in the moisture a little at a time to make use of it.  I’m trying to learn to accept rain in my life in drizzle format so it can do its work.

On the other hand, there is a cleansing quality to the torrential downpour.  Every spring in New Jersey, there was a massive pollen dump one day that left an ugly dusting of yellow powdery gunk all over everything outdoors.  It really freaked me out the first time I saw it.  Within a couple years, I learned that the only way to completely get rid of it was a good hard rain.

 “Meteorologists no longer use cloud-seeding techniques to prevent hurricanes from being formed because they are convinced that hurricanes actually do more good than harm.”  Here’s where I suspect I run the danger of extending a metaphor too far.  Hurricanes, when they come, come only by God’s permission and with a purpose to accomplish.  But I won’t go so far as to encourage anyone not to try to prevent them from forming.  If one can find a less destructive way to release the oppressive heat, by all means, find it.  Accept the drizzle when you can, and avoid the storm.  The storm’s precipitation may help us grow, but the wind will always leave scars.

On the other hand, the wind can also make us strong . . . force us to grow deep, sustaining roots . . . shape us to fit our environment and thrive there . . . it makes us who we need to be.  God is perfectly capable of stopping the hurricane, but perhaps he sees the good that he can bring from it far better than we do.  No, I’m never going to stop trying to prevent hurricanes in my life.  But when they come – as they inevitably will – I will choose to get the benefit from them rather than lay down and allow them to break me.

And for the record – yes, friends, I’m well aware that this theme keeps cropping up in my posts.  J

That Sweet, Innocent, Little Baby . . .

I wrote something a while back where I asserted that we are all born selfish and sinful, and a friend on FB took offense at the remark.  I told her I'd try to write about that sometime and explain myself, and another FB friend gave me the opportunity yesterday.  She posted to my wall a 60 Minutes story called "Babies help unlock the origins of morality."  A perfect launching pad for this discussion.

The story describes research being done on children, particularly infants, to look for how a sense of morality develops -- or more accurately, what morality we have innately.  But I want to start by stating my natural suspicious of any and all scientific research I hear about anymore.  Objective science is like objective journalism -- an ideal we all hope for and desperately need, but virtually non-existent.  We do best to approach both entities with a reasonable level of suspicion, perhaps all the more when they seem to support views we want to believe.

Anyway, here are some of the conclusions this research comes to:

1) Babies, even from just a few months old, have a natural preference for moral behavior (that is, for puppets they observe who display moral behavior).

2) Babies, even from just a few months old, have a natural preference for people who are like them, even in the most superficial commonalities (actually, they are only able to study the most superficial of commonalities in baby preferences).

3) Children's preference for commonality over-rides their preference for morality; they prefer bad people who are like them to good people who are different from them.  (The story implies that this is a basis for racism -- I think that's an interesting hypothesis, but I also think it could have a lot to do with a child's limited abstract thinking ability.)

4) Children at a very young age will choose an unjust situation that favors themselves over a fair and just situation that is better for everyone involved; being one-up to another person is most important.  This tendency, however, decreases as we mature -- which they attribute to societal teaching (but, again, I suspect may also relate to maturing thought processes).

Overall, nothing here is surprising.  Interesting, yes, but not surprising.  The Bible teaches that we are created in the image of God, and therefore, a recognition of and desire for righteousness is in our nature.  In fact, the fact that we do have an innate sense of what is right and wrong despite how we may be taught or raised is the basis for our judgment in the eyes of God. The problem is that we consistently fail to do what we know is right.  As much as we admire morality and hold it up as an ideal, we still act in accordance with our selfish, immediate desires, even when our consciences condemn us.  Yes, we may get better with maturity (some of us . . . ), but not too much better -- frankly, what we really get better at is rationalizing our selfish behavior, making it look good to others and sound good to ourselves.  (And, by extension, rationalizing the selfish behavior of the fruit of our loins.)

Romans 3:10 says, "There is no one righteous, not even one."  Not even one.  "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." (Psalm 51.5)  All appearances and wishful thinking aside, I still contend that we are born selfish little snits.  Adorable, but selfish.

Seeing the Invisible

By faith he [Moses] left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. (Heb 11:27)

Moses saw him who is invisible -- that is, God, of course.  How did he see him?  The burning bush, I assume.  He didn't see a physical being that was God (only first century folks living in Palestine had that privilege), but he saw a physical, material phenomenon that had no explanation and heard God speaking to him to authenticate the vision.

Kind of like how nobody can see the wind, but we do see the tree branches sway.

I wish God would make himself evident in this physical, material way more often.  It has happened to me on a couple of rare occasions.  Nothing as dramatic as a burning bush that is not consumed, certainly.  But a couple of honest-to-goodness material happenings here on earth that had no other explanation than that God reached down and acted in our measly human affairs.  Moments when I was sure of what I hoped for -- certain of what I could not see.

Here's the difference between me and Moses:  he saw him who is invisible, and it caused him to persevere.  I saw him who is invisible, walked in a spiritual high for a while, then gradually grew less and less certain of what I had experienced.  Moses is an example of faith.  I am an example of . . . something else.

I wish those experiences happened more often; but if they did, frankly, my spiritual walk wouldn't require much faith.  More physical manifestations of God would not strengthen me, I suspect.  They would make me reliant on the physical manifestations, not on faith.  (Remember: without faith, it is impossible to please God....)

Jesus came to earth and did miracles as initial evidence to those first century Christians of who he was -- but then he left, and they were expected to persevere.  Impossible in our human frailness . . . which is why he sent the Spirit.  Really, the church just doesn't teach enough about living in the Spirit . . .

In any case, I am thankful this morning (during this thankful month) that God, in his omniscience, knows when we need to see him who is invisible and meets us -- literally -- at our point of need.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jer 29:13)

Weeding

It is HELLISHLY hot in the Midwest these days.  And no rain where we are.  Farmers are losing their crops.  Gardeners are losing their gardens.  And families expecting to have to sell their houses in the next few months are working desperately to keep their lawns alive.  The heat and drought are killing everything.

UGH . . . the yard weed I hate the most

Except the weeds.

Fascinating phenomenon, isn’t it?  Weeds just grow the heck out of themselves no matter what.  Profitable plants – plants that give us food, plants that beautify our landscape – they require care.   They require water and sunshine and sometimes extra nourishment on our part.  We have to work to make those plants grow and prosper.  We have to fight to keep them alive.

But not weeds.  They will thrive no matter what the weather and despite our efforts to, literally, root them out.  Phil from church is a bean farmer.  Because they are now farming without herbicides (the New Age of farming), they are having to pull the weeds in his bean field by hand.  Daily.  In 100-degree heat.  Wow.

My friend Jana waxed philosophical on the weed issue the other day on Facebook.  “The ‘weeds’ in my life don’t require anything to grow, thrive and do just fine.”  Ain’t it the truth.  If I wanted to, I could sit back, relax, and let my sins and bad habits swarm over me – and swarm they would.  They require NO coaxing, NO nurturing, NO feeding.  They feed on me and will overcome me completely if I don’t do them daily battle.

The Christ-like qualities, however, require nurture and tending.  They don’t grow of their own accord; they must be cultivated.  Actively.  Daily.  None of this Carl Rogers baloney that we're all basically good inside and are just messed up by our environment.  No parent who really paid attention to their children could believe that nonsense.  We are born selfish, little snits.  We must be trained to be good -- cultivated to do right.  And the change only becomes a genuine change of nature when Christ gets involved.

Just another reminder I needed today. 

SERIOUS Pruning

I am the vine; you are the branches . . . Any branch that does not bear fruit [the Gardener] cuts off, while any branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. (John 15)

I have a hopelessly black thumb, but I still understand the concept of pruning.  I recognize that when the flowers on the little plant behind my sink die, I need to pull them and their dead stems out to make room for new living ones to grow. So the idea of God trimming out the deadwood in my life to make room for new growth makes good sense.  Yay, God.  Thank you, Jesus.

But the late, great Andrew Murray informed me during my reading last night that trimming a vine is not just cutting out the deadwood.  It is "the cutting off of the long shoots of the previous year . . . the removal of something that is a proof of the vigor of its life."  The gardener seeking fruit from his vine trims off living, thriving sections of the branch.  Why?  Because it will waste sap that could be used for fruit. 

And again, the goal is fruit.  The goal is not a large, dramatic branch structure for someone to look at and admire.  The goal is as much good fruit as possible, which requires only one or two inches of wood -- enough to hold the grapes -- as close to the central vine stem as possible, so as to get the maximum amount of sap.

A sobering thought.  What living, thriving stuff does God prune away in my life because it sucks away from the fruit he intends my life to bear?  Religious activity . . . all the very good, very beneficial activities I get myself involved in that simply spread me too thin to be effective in any of them.  Excess "learning" . . . all the articles and commentaries and pithy sayings that I'm bombarded with in the media, all of which distracts me from the primary lesson he's working on in me. 

Even -- and oh, this is sad -- people.  People he has used to grow me in the past, whose friendship gives me great joy, but whose regular maintenance needs (all friendships require maintenance) suck time and energy from new directions God has sent me on.  Work . . . passions . . . our upcoming move may even be a method of pruning.  I expect it probably is.

I can cheer God on when he trims the deadwood out of my life.  But I'm likely to scream bloody murder when he starts whacking away at the stuff I like, that I think is supporting me, making me stronger and more beautiful.  The grand structure of My Branch . . . which is all about me and not about fruit.  I forget the blessing of being a bearer of fruit -- how much more satisfying it is to see God do great things through a weak me than it is to see a delusional me delude myself with my greatness.

Prune away, Lord.  Make me want the fruit as much as you do.

Land in my Blood

As I've remarked before, I'm a reasonably intelligent, certainly well-educated woman. Yet, I can still be pretty slow at times.

A couple weeks ago, after dropping my daughter off at school in the morning, I noticed that the moon was still visible. A full moon, huge, low on the horizon in the west, right in front of my face every time the car turned that direction. It was positively mesmerizing. I mentioned it to hubby when I got home, and he said, "Well, sun's about to rise in the east . . . full moon to the west . . . that makes sense."

This morning, the moon was visible again on my drive back home, but this time in the south and this time just kind of a sliver. But I remembered my husband's previous comment, and suddenly the wheels started churning. Full moon in the west . . . sun rising in the east . . . moon reflects the sunlight . . . sliver moon in the south . . . sun shines on only one side . . . whoa!!

Yes, I'm 43 years old and I just figured out the whole moon cycle business. Don't judge me. I just don't ponder this stuff very much. I have little need to. I'm very much an indoor gal.

Not that I want to be that. Sometimes I wish I'd been born a farmgirl. I'd like to be more in touch with nature and the land and the seasons and so forth. Somehow it feels like I'm lacking something in my psyche when I struggle with even keeping a houseplant alive.

I wonder if it's too late to change that? I wonder if I could learn, in my ripe old middle-age, to keep a vegetable garden, recognize the constellations, identify various types of grasses, and predict the weather by looking at the clouds. I can already feel a tornado coming -- I think that comes with growing up in Kansas, even in the city.

I come from a long line of farmers. The land is in my blood, eh? I should be able to do this, right?

But wait -- this would require spending time outside. Never mind.

Extra-Sensory Perception

Just got back from taking the eldest to school and the neighbors' two dogs are in our front yard. First time that's happened in three years. I assume they'll corral them back pretty soon. They were having a regular sniff-fest on our lawn, feasting on the various scents our own mutt emits in the area.

I always wonder what information they get out of those smells that we can't decipher. I heard somewhere that they can identify who's been passing by, how long since they've been there, whether they be friend or foe . . . and probably, like, what they ate for dinner last night. I bet if these dogs could talk, they could tell by smelling our mutt's pee out there what's wrong in his digestic tract that has kept him from eating much these last few days and given him diarrhea. The vet and I would like to know.

How do their noses get this information? Do they have more receptors? Different kinds of receptors? Do their brains have more neurons firing in the olfactory mode? Are they born with more innate information about scents stored there for use later?

And dogs hear better, too -- hear sounds that we can't. That always freaks me out a bit to think that there are sounds out there in the stratosphere that no human can hear. Are there tastes in food that our taste buds are too limited to taste, that if we were aware of them, would stop us from eating things that are bad for us? Are there things to see out there that our visual systems don't physically register? Or maybe that they register but our brains can't make sense of, so it's as if we don't see them?

Might there be things in our environment that we could feel if the nerve endings in our skin were more sensitive or developed? Or that we would "feel" through a completely different organ altogether? Are there other senses that we simply aren't aware of? I read once that we only really use about 20% of our brain capacity -- who's to say that with the other 80% functioning, we might not discover some other ways of "knowing", ways of experiencing the world that have been closed to us?

Maybe we'd hear the voice of God, the way the Old Testament prophets did. Not through our ear canals, but through another "sense". Maybe we'd see the hand of God. Not by way of the optic nerve, but we'd just know it was there, like we know the color purple -- like we "feel" the air pressure drop, or "feel" a storm coming.

Kind of makes it easier to believe the miracles in the Bible without questioning. If my dog can smell how old the neighbor's cat is through its pee, why couldn't a God-man know a way to walk on water?

Catastrophes

This had been a weird year, you know? You remember those few days in the spring when tornadoes seemed to be flying across the whole country -- including the one that hit Joplin? Several days before Joplin, a tornado swept through Mapleton, Iowa, not too far from Sioux City here. Destroyed maybe a third of the town. We have good friends in Mapleton, who fortunately had no damage or injuries, but it still seemed to hit close to home.

Then the Missouri River flooding, which was simply epic around here. I just heard yesterday that, now that the water is receding some, they've found that the section of I-29 down by Omaha that was underwater is destroyed, the ground underneath it completely mush. It's going to take a year or two for the ground to recover and the highway to be rebuilt. Un-be-lievable. If you don't live around here, you can't quite understand the impact of that.

Then there was the drought in the South and the fires in Arizona. The young lady who was our flowergirl lives in Arizona with her husband. They were vacationing in Maine and Kansas during that and I followed her conversations on Facebook about local friends clearing out their house for them and how close the flames were coming to her neighborhood. Wow. A thousand miles away, but again -- seemed to hit close to home.

Then there was the earthquake this week. How come nothing exciting like an earthquake happened in New Jersey while we lived there? (Oh, wait -- there was 9-11. Yeah..) And now it seems a hurricane is bearing down on our old Jersey stomping grounds this weekend. Good heavens.

If I didn't know better, I'd wonder if old Harold Camping was on to something. October 21st, you say now, Harry? Hmmm. That's after Hyllningsfest, before Halloween. That'll work.

Delight

I sat on the back deck this morning finally enjoying the sunshine we've been missing all week. I feel a deep need for cleansing this morning. I feel cluttered with chores -- small and large, significant and inconsequential, internal and external, social and individual, stuff I have control over and stuff I'm responsible for but feel very little control over. I'm tired. And I have too much going on to give in to tiredness. Not exactly what I wanted my summer to feel like.

Most mornings, when I sit on my deck, I can hear a chorus of various songbirds from throughout my yard, and this morning was no different. I closed my eyes for a minute, trying to calm my mind by singling out the calls of individual birds amongst the symphony.

And then one bird landed on the table in front of me. I'm completely ignorant about birds (one of my MANY areas of ignorance), so I couldn't tell you what kind of bird it was. Small, brown, fat, with a skinny pointy beak. He hopped around a little bit looking at me and looking around, making some weird little noise that sounded like he was calling for someone. I wondered how stupid this bird was. There was nothing for him on my deck.

But there was something soothing in watching his feathers ruffling in the breeze, his head twirking around. And then suddenly, he opened his beak and let out the most fascinating little series of melodic twitters. And after a pause he did it again . . . and again . . . and again. I just sat there and delighted in this fat, little dumb bird sing his heart out on my back deck.

The Lord takes delight in his people (Psalm 149). Really, Lord? I usually feel so undelightful. Small, fat, plain, dumb. An insignificant peon in the masses. But do you really look down on little plain me and delight in me? Delight in me? That's enough to get me through the day.