Elders

We had an ordination service at our church this evening.  There were seven men ordained for service as deacons.  Most of them were young, as I was when I became a deacon almost 30 years ago.

Different churches handle the ordination ceremony differently, I’m sure.  At our church all the ordained men in the assembly are invited to line up and pray over the new deacons and lay hands on them.  Tonight it was my privilege to line up with a large group to pray and lay hands on those making new commitments to serve Christ and the church

To the casual observer, this process must seem strange.  It certainly is unusual.  The ordination service is the longest and quietest service of the year.  It’s a squirmy kid’s worst nightmare.  Yet I can tell you from my own experiences, it can be quite meaningful.

On the night of my ordination, about a hundred men lined up to pray over me and others who were also being ordained.  I was 31 years old at the time.  Many of the men there to participate in the service seemed ancient to me, though they were probably about the age I am now, which is 60. 

I think about that night sometimes as a reminder of how old I look to anyone born after 1970.  I don’t feel old now, and doubtless most of those men did not feel old then, but they looked ancient to me.

I’m told there was an era in our past when older men and women were held in the highest esteem.  Younger men and women sought their counsel.  The words of the elderly carried weight.  That’s not always true anymore.  Even in the church it is more common to celebrate youth and view the older generation with all the enthusiasm of a history final.

Yet there is wisdom to be found and fellowship to be enjoyed with those who might be twice your age, or even older.  Some of those who stood in that line to bless me almost 30 years ago taught me great lessons and gave me great encouragement.  Memories of those men give me a sense of joy and gratitude.

One of the older deacons in line the night of my ordination was John Stophel.  All the gentlemen of Downton Abbey on their very best behavior could not match John in his formality and courtesy.  I grew to admire him as the most prepared man, and perhaps the most diligent worker, I ever met.  Yet he was never unkind to those like me who were often less prepared and less diligent.

Another in the line was Shelley Bostick.  I grew to admire Shelley as the most humble of servants, but also as a man of great resolve and courage.  Shelley and his wife Lyda loved children, and they spent countless hours caring for every child that passed through our church doors.  After his death I learned that during the troubled 60s, when his Black neighbors were threatened, Shelley went at night and sat in his neighbor’s front yard to confront a carload of racists who wanted to cause trouble.  What love and courage!

Bernard Stone was in that line.  Bernard was short—almost elf-like in appearance and countenance.  He always had a smile and a joke.  What I admired most about Bernard, however, was the way he treated his wife Betty.  She was even shorter than Bernard and with a bigger smile.  The way Bernard and Betty treated each other was something every young married couple should see.

Another in line was Lawrence Bryant.  More than 50 years ago our church began to televise its weekly services, and almost from the beginning Lawrence as in the control booth.  He knew every inch of wire, every solder and switch.  Each week the service went live on time because Lawrence was there to keep the equipment running, a job that could not be done just in an hour on Sundays.  Lawrence recruited me to be a director of the broadcast, but he was always in control.  Never once did I hear him raise his voice or say an unkind word to anyone on the crew, even when we messed up.

As these men and so many others prayed over me that night in 1983, I experienced something almost otherworldly.  With my head bowed and eyes closed, voice after voice successively hovered over me and whispered down, I could not tell who was speaking.  Unknown hands touched my head, which began to spin and wobble as if I was in a small boat on large waves. 

In the middle of the disorienting chorus of whispers, two firm hands grasped my head and a clear voice came close and said, “Bill, this is Barton, and I want you to know you are very special to me.”  Then he prayed.

That was Barton Thigpen, who I met the first week I was a member at church.  Barton’s great gift was encouragement, and he was certainly encouraging to me.  Of all the men who prayed over me that night, Barton was the only one who made it personal.  And frankly, his prayer is the only one I remember.

The Lord works in mysterious ways.  About 20 years later I got a call from Darryl Craft, who was at that time our new pastor, the first pastor I ever had who was younger than me.  Darryl said, “Barton Thigpen’s had a stroke.  I’m going to pick you up and we’ll go see him.”  Darryl had never called me to do anything remotely like that before, and he never did after.  Why he called me that day—well, as the old people say, “Lord only knows.”

When we arrived at the emergency room the staff let the pastor—and me with him--speed right to the trauma room where Barton was lying on a gurney.  Not even the family was there.  Darryl spoke words of comfort and prayed over Him.  Then Barton looked my way.  I held his hand as he struggled to speak.  He said, “I love you, Bill.”  He died two days later.  Those had to be some of the last words he spoke.

Love, diligence, courage, compassion, kindness, faithfulness, encouragement—these are critical elements of the Christian life.  I am grateful for older men who showed me these things, modeled these things, taught me with action and not just words.

I’m struck by the reality that I am now the older man, and that there is heavy responsibility that goes with the title.  It’s not enough to just speak.  It’s not enough to just go through the ceremony.  It takes more than a disembodied prayer to pass along a blessing.

Porn For Breakfast

Based on my experience there is no greater evidence of man’s need for a Savior than lust.  Different men lust after different things, but I fall into the vast silent majority who know lust mainly as the elephantine pull of sexual desire.

It is easy and tempting to minimize the impact of lust in our lives.  Psychologists say lust is a manifestation of healthy impulses that should be indulged and sated before it becomes unhealthy.  For comedies, it’s a punch line.  For marketers, it’s the inspiration for an ad pitch.

But wiser men know lust as something fearsome and loathsome.  To paraphrase a favorite quote from C.S. Lewis, the man who gives in to temptation readily knows nothing about it.  Only the man—or woman—who resists temptation and feels its full power can claim any level of expertise.

My education on the topic of lust got a graduate level lesson one morning in Las Vegas.  It was morning, and I was walking the strip in search of Starbucks and coffee.

Even though the hour was early, it was hot and the city was already pulsing with everything that gives Sin City its identity.  There were trucks carrying mobile billboards with 30-foot photos of near-naked women.  A high-def, jumbo television on the side of a casino displayed a simulated sex act.  A man on the corner shoved a flyer in my hand promising no cover charge and women who are totally naked 24 hours a day.

Let me state for the record that I hate Las Vegas.

Las Vegas aroused two polar-opposite responses in me.  I was saddened and repulsed by all the overt, suggestive imagery.  At the same time I was with each step along the strip growing desensitized and accepting of it all.  Like the toad in the pot, I was getting hotter in Las Vegas’s steamy waters.

Lust is lethal because unchecked it drives men and women to the ugliest of selfish acts.  Lust demands that self be satisfied, no matter what.  Lust drives us to use people as objects.  Lust blinds us to where all we see in others are physical attributes and nothing else.  There is no personality and no soul--just skin.

At the extremes, lust drives some people to heinous acts of enslavement, murder and torture--things unspeakable in their horror.  Thankfully those who drift that far from the moral center are few.  Yet I can’t help but feel as our culture becomes increasingly sexualized, these evil aberrations are more and more common. There are predators roaming free among us, and like cancerous cells, they are multiplying.

Not falling to the level of sex trafficker or child molester does not let any of us off the hook.  A little lust is a little evil.  As Jesus taught, to lust after a woman is as sinful in the eyes of God as adultery.  That’s a painful truth that merits thoughtful meditation.

Familiarity breeds acceptance.  The longer the unguarded mind wanders the artificially green and glitzy desert of sex and lust the more acclimated we become.  We live with it.  We breathe it.  It becomes a part of our daily diet.

One morning I was in Palm Springs, another artificially green place I loathe.  I woke early and—again—went looking for a Starbucks.  (I confess that do love coffee, but I don’t think I lust after it.)  I found my Venti dark roast and blueberry scone and sat down to eat and check email. 

At the table next to me sat a man who was startling in his ugliness.  It wasn’t really his physical features I found repulsive, it was his demeanor, his aura.  This guy was giving off a very bad vibe.

He had a computer, too, and he made no effort to conceal what was on his screen.  He was clicking through a series of pictures of naked young men.  Porn for breakfast.

I did not want his screen in my field of view, so I moved my chair.  But then I could see his predatory eyes, widening and narrowing lizard-like with each successive click.

There is nothing endearing about a dirty old man.  There is nothing healthy or amusing about an endangered soul feeding on the bodies of others. 

And that’s what lust is.  It’s an invasion of the body snatchers.  It’s a roaring lion feeding on a fresh carcass.  Its something to be feared, understood and resisted.  It can be done.  That’s where the Savior comes in.

The Bible teaches that there is no temptation that we cannot resist because, if we look for it, God will always provide a path of escape.  I know from experience this is true.

I was a meeting in Washington D.C. (a different sort of desert) and a group of us went to dinner together.  There were 12 in our party seated around a long table.  Across from me was an attractive, charming woman who seemed overly interested in all my stories and too amused by all my jokes.  The signals she sent did not need amplification.  There was lust in the air. 

The 12 of us were all at the same hotel, so we walked back and got on an elevator together.  As the elevator ascended, one by one people stepped off until, left to ride to the upper floors, were just this one woman and me.

She stepped closer and asked me if I wanted to come to her room.  At that moment the elevator stopped and the door opened.  My path of escape was right in front of me.  I did not pause to see if it was my floor or not.  I bolted for safety, went to my room and called my wife.

I am acquainted with lust and temptation.  I’ve seen them from the dark side as well as the light.  Lust occurs naturally in the human experience, but like arsenic, which occurs naturally in the soil, it is not good for us.

Lust is a prowling lion seeking someone to devour.  I worry about a culture that treats it so casually, with so little fear. 

Decisions, Decisions

Decisions come very easy to me, but not necessarily good ones. I am very comfortable making judgments. I find, however, that the consequences of a quick decision is often a long, hard slog toward making things right.

My wife Janice and I were riding bikes in Acadia National Park when we came to a junction of two trails. I had a map in my pack, and I could have easily checked our position and made an informed choice. But the route to the left looked correct in my mind, and it was downhill, so that’s the way we went—downhill.

After a mile of easy coasting in the wrong direction, I admitted my mistake. I had to tell my trusting wife who followed to turn around and take back all the elevation we just descended. Perhaps it goes without saying the ride to the top was difficult, and also very quiet.

I read a book by a neuroscientist who observed through a number of experiments and diagnostic tests something I’ve known since childhood—the more things you have on your mind, the poorer your decisions.

On this vacation, I had a lot on my mind.

My poor decisions actually started weeks before. I found a place to stay online that promised a Swiss-style chalet, quiet surroundings and a private beach. I researched no further. I booked it. It was now one less thing I had to think about.

When my wife (again, so trusting) and I arrived we found a chalet, but our room was in the basement. It was dreary, dated, dirty, and the beach was a quarter-mile away. It turned out to be the most expensive vacation rental ever. As we left to find a better place, the landlord’s “no-refunds” still hanging in the air, I calculated we paid about $400 a minute.

The influence of a crowded mind was tested by some researchers who devised a very simple experiment. They told one group of people to remember three numbers, and then turned them loose on a large buffet of food. The table included healthy food choices like veggies and fruits, and also included cakes, cookies and lots of fatty-fried stuff.

The group with three numbers in their heads socialized at the buffet while they snacked, mostly on the healthier foods.

Then a second group was asked to remember seven numbers and turned loose at the same buffet. They socialized less, and ate mostly sugar and fat. The pattern was repeated in test after test.

The researchers’ conclusion was that humans are more likely to make good decisions if they have fewer thoughts in their heads. That rings true to me.

I teach a Bible study class, and sometimes I choose to teach topics I feel I need to learn. Recently I studied and prepared a couple of lessons on the topic of simplicity. I can’t speak for others in the class, but I did learn something.

What did I learn? I learned you can’t study your way to simplicity. Simplicity in thought and action comes from focusing on less, not more. Whether it be work, prayer, conversation, art, sport, reading, writing or relationships, we do better when we can narrow our focus.

One day Jesus was visiting in the home of Mary and Martha. While Mary sat and talked with Jesus, Martha was preparing dinner. After a while Martha got peeved about Mary’s apparent laziness and indifference. Jesus responded to Martha’s complaint saying, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things, but only one thing is necessary . . . .”

That one thing is love—to love God and to love others. All the prioritizations of life flow from this one priority.

Ultimately the crowded mind is a selfish mind. It is the mind that withdraws into self and broods quiet for hours. It is the mind that snaps impatiently at someone’s intrusion. It is the mind that makes life just a little harder for everyone else, but excuses itself with, “I’m sorry, but I have a lot on my mind.”

Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not puffed up and not insistent on its own way. The mind prioritized by genuine love is ordered, sensitive to what is going on around it, and focused on the better outcome

Peeling away the unnecessary and the lesser things is not sloth. In fact, when it does not come naturally, it requires serious work. Like a sculptor cutting away everything he does not see, it is hard to carve away all the extraneous things that get in the way of the essential. And you have to keep doing it moment after moment, thought after thought.

I do not want to be worried and bothered by so many things. I want to choose better. Lord, teach me to love.

Fascination & Mystery

Janice and I began our special year in Yosemite National Park. We arrived on New Year’s Day to the wonder of fresh snow falling. For three days we explored the magnificent valley, continually looking up at the towering cliffs and waterfalls, watching the choreography of light, cloud, snow, wind and granite.

On our last afternoon there, we walked out to the Ahwahnee Meadow to watch an incredible orange sunset projected on the face of Half Dome. The Ahwahnee Meadow separates the wonderful Ahwahnee Hotel from a village of wood-framed one-level buildings that house park employees and their families. The homes are modest, but their zip code is one of the most spectacular in the world.

As we walked the edge of the meadow, I noticed one of the homes featured a massive picture window designed to take full advantage of this scene we had traveled 2,500 miles to see. Imagine the joy of Half Dome through your window every sunset!

The drapes were open. I looked inside and saw two guys playing Madden football on X-Box. With the Glory of the Lord taking place behind them, they were focused only on their game.

This is a tendency we all have. It does not matter how wonderful the miracles are all around us, we get used to them and eventually they disappear from our focus. Just the other day Janice asked me if I had seen the day lilies in bloom by our driveway. I had not. I was focused on getting the paper.

New Year’s in Yosemite was the launch of a special year because 2011 marks our 40th wedding anniversary. On July 2, 1971 Janice and I looked into each other’s eyes and made the promises to have and hold till death. To be truthful we had no clue what the depth and height of those promises would mean. We were 18 years old.

On my side of the altar, had no idea of the beauty, complexity and mystery of this young woman who had agreed to be my wife. There were days of exploration and discovery ahead of me, days when I would marvel at the wildness and the grandeur of her, and the fascination of observing something new.

And sadly there were also many days when I took the beauty for granted, overlooked the changing landscape, and focused on man-made, cheap and temporary things. I’ve missed a lot of sunsets in my life with Janice, and I am sorry for it.

We live in a time when marriage is devalued. For many, marriage is no longer essential. It is easy to move on. Long-term commitments are sort of quaint. There are times when Janice and I feel part of an exhibit in the Smithsonian.

Marriage should be like two people marooned on an uninhabited island with no chance of escape. You have no alternative but to explore and scavenge and build out a life. You make a shelter, find a food source, fight off the predators. During the peaceful and restful times, you make babies. You populate your new world with children, experiences, mistakes and memories. You pay attention to everything in this wild, adventurous place because anything could turn out to be important.

While I remember our wedding 40 years ago, I have to confess the details are now sketchy. I remember praying but not the prayers, music but not the melodies. My most indelible memory of our wedding day is the moment after we had left the church and were alone for a few seconds in the back of my buddy Leon’s 64 Chevy. Before Leon got in to chauffeur us away, Janice turned and asked me in a voice flavored with equal parts joy, relief, excitement and fear, “Can you believe we did it?”

We did--40 years ago today. It has been an adventure.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

Planting Emmie

Every kid should have a favorite aunt. Every boy should have a favorite aunt like my Aunt Emmie.

Most of the women in a 9-year-old’s life are uniformly mom-like. They wear the comfortable clothes and shoes and favor low-maintenance hair. They drive boxy cars and keep the windows rolled up. They enforce the rules, articulate the cautions and dispense justice. My Aunt Emmie did none of those things.

Emmie was fun, glamorous, adventurous and prone to spoil nephews with stuff like circus tickets and cotton candy. The mom gene pretty much passed Emmie by.

Emmie’s blond hair was wrapped stylishly around her head and pinned high like Tippi Hedren in The Birds. She was single, with the height and build of a model, which she had once been while living in New York. She favored stylish wool suits, high heels, sunglasses, and gloved hands that usually held a cigarette. Her car was an MG convertible with a tiny back seat that popped out of the trunk.

A ride in the MG was always expected when Emmie came around, and she never disappointed. Even on cool days she threw back the top and opened the rumble seat, which my little brother begged to occupy. I preferred the passenger side where I could talk to Emmie and watch her shift the manual transmission.

Aunt Emmie was a presence I couldn’t get my prepubescent mind around. She had an effect on males of all ages. Though at age nine I could not know it, describe it or appreciate it, she had sex appeal.

Emmie also had a Nikon camera--the large single lens reflex style favored by war correspondents in Life magazine. She took pictures of my brother and me at the circus. The grainy black and white prints she produced of the event, my face illuminated by the dizzy, sensuous world around me, are documentation of her power to intoxicate and enchant.

The phone call with news that Emmie had suffered a stroke and would likely die in days or hours hit me unexpected and hard. My first emotion was shame. Why had I let so many opportunities to write, call or visit pass by? I let my favorite aunt become a favored memory. May God forgive me for the waste of it all.

Emmie loved the East Tennessee mountains near where I now live. Her final instructions were that her ashes be spread in The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. She was not a hiker or a naturalist, but she loved the Smokies experience--driving to Clingman’s Dome, visiting the Cherokee decked out for tourists, shopping on the strip in Gatlinburg. Like millions of others with a time on their hands, the Smokies is where Emmie wanted to rest.

So a small group of family gathered near the park to honor Emmie’s request. Her husband Don and his daughter Lynn, my uncle Pat--one of Emmie’s few surviving brothers—and Pat’s wife B.J., my mother and me—we were to see Emmie’s ashes to a final resting place. Having never scattered anyone before. I had no idea what to expect.

The Zip-Loc bags were the first surprise. To pack Emmie on a plane and ease her past airport security, the family decided on the practical approach. They divided her into a couple of quart-sized freezer bags and placed her in a carry-on.

The second surprise was that Emmie had not specified any particular spot in the Smokies as a favorite. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited in the country, contains more than 800 square miles of trees, trails and mountain views. Any number of vistas along U.S. 441, which bisects the park could have been a favorite spot, but no one knew for sure.

So Emmie’s husband Don asked me, as the one who knew the Smokies best, to pick the place. He wanted somewhere a little out of the way since it was unclear—another potential surprise—if the National Park Service would take kindly to seven visitors entering the park, but only six coming out.

We stopped at the Sugarlands Visitor Center near the park’s Gatlinburg entrance to make a plan. At Sugarlands there is a large, sculpted relief map that shows all the peaks and valleys of the park to approximate scale. The black line representing 441 South snakes its way from the blue line of the Little River on the Tennessee side, up and around Mt. LeConte and over Newfound Gap toward Cherokee, North Carolina and the blue line marking the Oconaluftee. The map has a border-to-border base coat of deep green paint, but the mountaintops are worn black from decades of visitors touching the summits. No doubt Emmie’s fingers had stroked these mountains at some time past.

My eyes settled on the lesser peaks called the Chimneys. There was no way our aging troupe could hike to the top, but I was familiar with the access trail and knew that it quickly crossed a footbridge and a cascading stream, which should provide some degree of seclusion and solitude. Don accepted the suggestion and we set out.

The Chimney’s are among the finest places in the park. The trail up is steep, but the reward at the top is a point of rock that exhilarates. The safest route to the highest point is through a passage that resembles a chimney, perhaps the last evidence of an active volcano, now many thousands of years cooled. I doubt seriously that Emmie ever climbed the Chimneys or even walked its trail, but she would approve of the choice. If she loved the Smokies, she would have loved the Chimneys and all they surveyed below.

It is simply part of being human that we carry our secret musings with us in every circumstance. As we drove toward the trailhead, I privately laughed at the thought of Emmie, a dedicated smoker of many years, resting at the foot of The Chimneys. I also entertained a poetic vision of us all releasing her ashes into the stream, the middle prong of the Little River, which would carry her along miles of secluded and pristine parkland. I love rushing water, and there are some streams where I would not mind floating through eternity.

That was my idea—the stream--but Don informed me Emmie was terribly frightened by water, so the Little River was out of the question. It humbled me to realize that if I had really known her, I would have known that. I’m just guest here, I acknowledged to myself. Emmie was spoiling me with one final adventure I did not deserve.

Fortunately B.J. and Lynn made a better choice. We gathered near the base of a majestic hemlock, one of the signature trees of the Smokies. Hemlocks can grow to 100 feet or more. This one had attained a girth that would require at least three tree-huggers for a full embrace.

Lynn read from the Psalms and Isaiah, and we recited the Lord’s Prayer. Then B.J. opened the baggies and divided Emmie, a little at a time, into our cupped hands.

What better metaphor for life than the passing of ashes through our fingers? Whether we pour ourselves out for the noble or the ridiculous, the grains of our lives continue to spill out. When we are young and full we barely notice the movement and sound of the tiny pieces of ourselves falling away. Then, eventually, the remaining grains are so few we fixate on them and try to count each one that passes.

I took the last grains of Emmie and placed them at the base of the hemlock, in the folds of the roots. I uttered a prayer that God would let her see that she was, and would always be, my favorite aunt.

Soon I’m planning a return to the Chimney’s and, God willing, I will climb to the top. Yet the highlight won’t be the view from the peak. What I am looking forward to is a giant hemlock. I want to sit by its roots and gaze into its canopy. Like Emmie, I want to rest there awhile.

Rest Stop

This past Sunday started with me teaching a lesson on the Sabbath and the importance of rest in our lives. Then I came home and spent the afternoon working like a prisoner on a chain gang, trimming crepe myrtles and dragging their bones to the road. The afternoon gave me a lot of time to ponder the words I taught on that very morning:

Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work . . . . You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. (From Deuteronomy 5:12-14)

I do believe in a Sabbath rest. Like most of my fellow 21st century Christians I don’t observe the traditional Jewish Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. I do observe The Lord’s Day, the first day of the week, resurrection day, Sunday.

But just like the Jewish Sabbath, The Lord’s Day is intended for our benefit. It is a gift from God--an opportunity for spiritual renewal and rest before the start of another tough week.

God created us to live to a certain rhythm of life—work, work, work, work, work, work, then a sweet period of rest, reflection and no work at all. You can take your Sabbath rest on a Saturday, a Sunday or a Thursday, just as long as you get into the sublime rhythm the Lord intended.

The Sabbath is a reminder of the liberty God offers his people. It is the one day when we should be free from the tyranny of obligation to anyone other than God himself. So it is a day for worship, whether in church or out. It is also a day to pursue anything that frees our hearts and opens our minds to the reality of God and the blessing of our place in his creation.

Which brings me to the crepe myrtles and the question of whether it is right to do that kind of work on the day of rest.

Unlike the nomadic herders and hardscrabble farmers of old Israel, I work most days in front of a computer. Basically I work with my head and sit on my butt. Acting like a lumberjack for a few hours on a Sunday can be some of the best non-work a white-collar dude can do.

My experience might be compared to a Jewish farmer who, free of obligation in his fields for a day, finds time to sit and compose some poetry.

Probably more important, my cutting those myrtles was a blessing to my wife. She was thrilled that I cut those 10 trees and she didn’t have to. It reminded me of the words of Jesus when he confronted the Pharisees and asked, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good?” (Mark 3:4). Then, of course, he did great good. Doing something for someone else is an excellent form of Sabbath keeping

Most of us get an abundance of leisure. A few hours of television a night, a movie on the weekend, NetFlix, Xbox, e-books, iPods. We get so much leisure it is easy to discount the value of rest. Leisure is not rest. Rest is found in the near total absence of all the stuff we experience the other six days of the week.

Keeping The Lord’s Day, or the Sabbath or whatever you want to call it, requires discipline. In the days of Moses the Jews were told to get ready for the Sabbath by preparing double food the day before. Keeping the spirit of the Sabbath today requires similar forethought and preparation. If we approach it like any other day we will fill it with the same thoughts and actions that wear us down every other day of the week.

Recently the Lord gave me a beautiful picture of why we need a Sabbath rest. I was driving at night through mountainous north Georgia, when I noticed the sky was beautifully clear and brilliant with stars. There were so many stars that I was actually startled. I had to pull to the side of the road to look at them for a while.

Living in the city, I routinely see only a few dozen stars, even on the clearest of nights. I had forgotten how many stars are actually up there. I needed to be reminded of the glory of the heavens.

The Sabbath rest, whenever we take it, is intended as just such a reminder. In the routine of work and world, it is easy to forget who God is, the glory of his creation, and the beauty of all he created us to be. The day of rest is our opportunity to stop, remember, refresh and enjoy.

Think About It

About some ideas and topics, our culture has what might be called a “lazy mind’s eye” or perhaps “mental myopia.” What I mean is that there are certain ideas that get communicated and repeated so consistently that most people just accept them as facts, without critical examination.

Some of these ideas are stereotypes repeated so often we just roll with them. Oil tycoons are corrupt. Teenagers are out of control. Republicans are mean and hypocritical. Democrats are over-sexed socialists. These ideas are perpetuated in movies and commentary and most people buy in without thinking much.

Some ideas have assumed the stature of history, though they really are not true at all. Just about everyone believes Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, but he didn’t. Edison made it more durable and commercially viable, but the invention was around for decades earlier. The phrase “separation of church and state” is not in the Constitution as most believe. It comes from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association.

Mental myopia has nothing to do with intellect or education. Post-graduates are as likely to be dumb as posts on some things. As Abraham Lincoln said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time” (though, of course, Lincoln never actually said that).

A most prominent concept that is swallowed hook, line and sinker by apparently intelligent people is the idea that all life owes its existence to evolution. Every creature, every plant, every microbe survives only because its strengths were favored by evolutionary forces. This idea is certainly an easy way to explain existence, but does it withstand critical examination?

Here is a classic example of what I mean. Last week I was listening to my favorite NPR station when a reporter interviewed Dr. Jim McClintock, an ecologist from the University of Alabama Birmingham. Dr. McClintock is involved in exciting cancer research focused on an interesting compound extracted from the sea squirt.

Apparently the sea squirt is a basketball-sized bag of goo found on the cold ocean floor of Antarctica. The potential drug comes from a poison the sea squirt excretes to ward off predators.

To quote the reporter, “Dr. McClintock says the theory is that the sea squirt has had millions of years to evolve chemicals to use in defense of predators.” Then Dr. McClintock himself added, “If you are a sea squirt, you can’t get up and run away from something, you don’t have a shell to hide within, so what you do is you produce these toxic distasteful chemicals to protect yourself.”

I am not a professor of polar and marine biology, but I am logician enough to challenge the good doctor’s theory. The idea that any organism, much less an unintelligent one like a sea squirt, can will itself a new and essential attribute seems silly on its face. I’ve been willing myself the ability to dunk a basketball since I was 10 years old, but so far my ability is going in the opposite direction.

Let’s consider the fate of the very first sea squirt, eaten millions of years ago by, oh let’s just say, a prehistoric version of Sponge Bob Square Pants. The non-toxic sea squirt tastes yummy, so Dinosaur Sponge Bob eats more of them, and invites his entire Sponge Bob family over for sea squirt dinners.

As I picture it, the sea squirt, once consumed, is quite dead and therefore no longer able to engage in sea squirt sex and pass his O-M-G-I’m-about-to-be-eaten genetic mutation on to sea squirt progeny.

Since they can’t run—and Dr. McClintock said they could not—those early, tasty sea squirts would not have been able to send out anything like a Paul Revere sea squirt to warn the others that the Sponge Bobs were coming.

Further, since sea squirts are not very good talkers either, they would not have been able to cry out to their sea squirt neighbors, warning them to get toxic before they too become Sponge Bob’s lunch.

So how did these sea squirts succeed in changing themselves? I think believing the millions of years answer requires a bit of blind faith.

The big hole in the evolutionist theory of the sea squirt is this. If the creature really did, over millions of years, gradually with each millennium grow a little more toxic, then why didn’t the squirt’s predators, over the same millions of years, develop a resistance to the toxin?

The millions-of-years idea is a cheap and easy answer to a lot of precious and deep questions. It gets used every day in classrooms, books, magazines, reality TV and cartoons. It is a one-size-fits-all cop-out that merits thoughtful, vigilant challenge.

It also requires faith to believe in a Creator God, which I do. But it does not require deaf-dumb-and-blind faith. The people of God need to sharpen their wits and not be afraid to debate. The word of God is strong enough to withstand the challenge.