Hi loyal readers! (Should that be plural?) Anyway, I wish you all a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving this fine fall Thursday. Right now I am waiting for some extended family to show up, and then the eating begins, but right now I am getting a quick fix for my burgeoning internet addiction. Just kidding. Kind of.
Anyway me and mah pardner Tom Turkey here have rustled up some good links for ya, and then I'll have some nice commentary for ya later.
First the fun lins! Do any of y'all remember Sesame Street? And that little man with the gruff voice was stuck inside a cup or something? Really, I am not making this up, so stop giving me that look you are giving right now...he was the best! Here's some links:
"It'll be a full life!""Robert Begins with the Letter R, and W Begins with the Letter W""I Asked with Adroit Concern..."Anyway, now that that's out of the way, time for the real meat....
I've been thinking quite a bit about what gratitude...what we should be thankful for, and whether we live that way.
Thursday we had a celebration of thankfulness. You would think that this would be born from a spirit of humility, an understanding of blessedness, that our lives and our possessions are in the hands of One who is greater. And yet the very next day, everyone goes shopping. Everyone needs more. Even the celebration of Thanksgiving itself is skewed. How much time did you spend praying in thanks, and how much did you spend eating? How much of our culture is characterized by gratitude, and how much by gluttony? Do you see the same irony I see?
I am not saying the feasting is wrong, but what kind of an audacious message would it send if we spent Thanksgiving Day fasting?
My dad came back from China a week or two ago. His comment: the first thing you notice as soon as you set foot in an American airport is just how overweight everyone---everyone---is here. And he told me this over dinner, just as I had gotten back from the library, having rented a big stack of Seinfeld episodes, because, y'know, I just had to get my goodly dose of entertainment.
Right? What's going on here?
I've read several things about, in essence, gaining the whole world and losing your soul. Links are interspersed throughout, with some comments by Yours Truly. But remember that my commentary and excerpts are just a little preview---y'all should really read them for yourself. Or as LeVar Burton would say, 'Don't take my word for it...find out for yourself!"
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Phil Dillon - The Poverty of El Norte.Went to Mexico to help build (expand, rather) a church. Saw great wealth in unlikely places. Returned to American, and saw great spiritual need. Quote:
...it’s impossible to say what the high points were...Was it being able to see a nineteen year old young man named Antonio, who had overcome so many obstacles in life, lead seventeen people to living faith in Jesus Christ as he and I wandered around the city square in Axtla on a beautiful Sunday afternoon? Was it seeing a woman who had been tortured by pain and unable to even stand rise by the power of the Spirit and walk, leap, and praise God? Was it seeing the desperate hunger and need filled as Jesus lovingly responded to the desperation and hunger? Was it seeing a little lame girl, Griselda, ask us to pray with her for a pair of shoes so that she could go to school and for a Bible so that she could read all about Jesus? Was it seeing the gratefulness etched on the faces of the Nahuatl (pronounced nah-what) men and women cupping their hands as they received the gift of a small bag of frijoles at the close of the meetings? Was it witnessing the power of the Holy Spirit as it surged in waves through the crowd?
And later on...
I’m struck by the powerful temptation to get back into the American routine of
wealth and complacency. Why not just let CNN and Fox News and CSI and American Idol and IPODS and Tommy Hilfiger and fast food get us back into the rut of
American normalcy?
...
I see this and I’m becoming convinced that Victory Fellowship and other little beacons of light are being called to be those small pockets of spiritual wealth and generosity in what is becoming a spiritual wasteland, a place where the prayers offered aren’t for the IPOD we just can't live without or the designer outfit to die for, but for the fire of the Spirit to fall and hide our nakedness, a place where our cry is not “Give me!” but “Here am I Lord, send me,” a place where repentance replaces demands for things that cannot soothe the hunger or satisfy the thirst.
Wow. Mr Dillon has some very strong words, and I do think there is great emptiness in our wealth. I was verystruck by the "iPod we just can't live without" because the very next thing I read was:
Josh Harris: Jerry Bridges' New iPod
Excerpt:
Jerry is a dear friend of Covenant Life. He's been teaching at the Sovereign Grace Pastors College for the past eleven years and nearly every time he's done so, he has also preached at our church. This year we wanted to do something a little special to honor him. We decided that the man needed an iPod.
Hmmmm. Now I am not going, "A-ha! So Josh Harris is really an agent held by the deadly clutches of Mammon!" Giving a gift to a good friend is by no means discouraged (what has the Word taught us about generosity?) but it is remarkable how broadly our mindset is focused on things, and not on God.
Victor Davis Hanson: "The Chains of the Past" -- See Prisoner of Memory
"A Few Good Men" - See the Agrarian Life
I thought this would make a great counterpoint to the rat-race/consumerism mentality so prevalent today. Classicist and erstwhile political pundit, Victor Davis Hanson spent time at his family's old farm growing up, and reminisced about the old days.
On his grandfather's hard-working habits:
He seemed to think hard physical work was somehow spiritual, and rarely worried about labor-saving devices or doing things differently that might save additional labor Calluses, sweat, soreness were all a sign of moral betterment, something deeply resented by me and my siblings when we were forced to join him for hours in shoveling or tying up vines on our knees, but later appreciated for teaching how the mind can tolerate hours of rote rugged toil.
My biggest worry? The loss of knowledge I inherited about the physical world. My
grandfather could smell a storm on a southern September wind. He looked at the way birds nested to sense rain, and daily marked the phases of the moon, and tides and kept a precise diary for 50 years. He could judge the year by stunted or rich grape foliage, and weekly measured the water table, and checked the direction of the wind and the cloud formations. He had what I’d call a “sense”, the ability to know by intuition the impending physical world and the way humans would react to it, a Thucydidean in the fullest sense.
He had absolutely no interest in profit other than staying alive, and being able to farm and support his family. The appearance of his farm, not its profitability, was the key, since the aesthetics were a reflection of his own character. Shortfalls and farm losses were made up out of his hide, by avoiding expensive meat, and living off most of the things grown on our farm from persimmon bread to pomegranate juice.
What if we lived that freely by the grace of God?
Shaun Groves - "Is It Really This Simple?"
Truly giving.
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I am sorry if this comes off as a but of a carmudgeonly rant, but I think we need to be absolutely serious here. I see the burden of materialism everywhere--in my culture, in my family, in my friends, in myself. And it's so hard to see the sickness until it's nearly too late---with the mortgage, car payments, 3 televisions, 2 cellphones, 223 cd's, decorative cookware, an italian sofa, double-breasted, pinstriped, worsted-wool suits, and $10,000 in credit card debt. You'll look back and ask, "How did I get here? And why do I feel so alone?"
We never know how completely materialism poisons us, because it gives us such a delirious high. And like the junkie in the ghetto, when we find ourselves confronted with pain we inflected upon ourselves, and yet still walking down those alleys, we can easily console ourselves:
"Only one more time..."
But we know when we lie.
But many, many people, in their brokenness, follow this lie up with another, and say that since they've seen so many lies, there must be no truth. But even after great spells of consumption, and the loneliness and emptiness it begets, I remember:
"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
That is the greatest consolation. And that is what I am thankful for.
