Comfort Earns Its Recompense

The fear for me,

Is complacency,

Being cast into the fire.

Pharisees and scribes are told parables as a goad,

Let not the scattered seed get crushed upon the road.

There is a list,

We’d all agree,

Acts that bring God’s ire.

Violence to humans, derision and scorn,

Others say drinking, gambling and porn.

To make one free,

Takes eyes to see,

That I’m walking on a wire.

Middle road, comfortable, no active sword I wield,

Comfort earns its’ recompense a place in Potter’s Field.

Keyed up at three,

Quite anxiously,

The kiln in which I’m fired.

Scared to take the noble road, uneasy to lead or track,

To follow Him who lived for God, my sins upon His back.

The seed that’s sown,

Oft surreptitiously,

By men who work for hire.

Fertile soil, stretching out, resting in such grace,

Yielding fruit a hundred-fold, behold the Master’s face.

Photo by Vince Veras on Unsplash

Lavish Libations

 

Once outlawed, always American with a tinge of sweetness! No single sip started our pursuit. The adventure began on a couch. Streamed, not sipped---Neat, the Story of Bourbon. Novice noses already used to experiencing rich nuanced flavors of coffee, wine and beer. As the saying goes, ‘If life’s not a great olfactory experience, then it’s nothing at all.’

Sonic slushy sweet it isn’t. I once grew corn in my backyard. Fresh corn isn’t like grocery store corn. Flavorful but still corn. Bourbon isn’t only corn, it’s 80 proof, maybe 100. There’s a burn, a bite that bursts in the mouth and coalesces in the gullet. Corn is the key to bourbon, but whiskey is a wider road.

The wife’s becoming connoisseur of the Old Fashioned. I’m finding I lean toward a rye. Friends, waiters and whiskey flights are good exposure. So came my introduction to Skrewball’s peanut butter whiskey! As a man addicted to all things peanut this had to be in the arsenal. Water or no water? Cocktail? Or neat; pure and at room temperature.

What about that whole Christian and alcohol thing? Say ‘speakeasy.’ I’ve fallen off both sides of the horse. Christ followers walk in this tension. Legalism is a list of rules and regs, do this and don’t do that’s. Liberty is an emphasis on freedom in everything. Grace is the over arching principle that we are all screw ups and Christ alone has covered our sins.

Upon dedication of the temple Hezekiah called for whole-burnt-offerings and lavish libations (2 Chron 29). One author aptly states that Israel celebrated with whiskey and barbeque. Paraphrasing the Poet Preacher, “Enjoy bourbon! This is your reward in life and in your toil.” Enjoying the piquancy of whiskey adds accent and highlight to this life. For mood or season, straight or on rocks it flavors life. For the rest of life’s course, always grace, always ‘neat.’

Photo by Edgar Moran on Unsplash

Hard Seasons and A Hidden Hand

                                                    Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash

“So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,
the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust…”

 Driven from my home I drive round it in circles. Threatened with a TRO (temporary restraining order) I am forced to leave. Numb and confused I call a friend for advice. Checking into a cheap hotel that boasts a pool---a plot of dirt, avoiding the hotel boasting rooms by the hour. “How long will you be with us?” Hotel to hotel, one night grows to three weeks. 

Our life calendars are marked by cataclysmic crisis; pre-Covid, after the divorce, before the baby, during the cancer.  Life is lived segment by segment, season into season; childhood, college, that first job, first love, that fast (impractical for a family) car.

Memory is achromatic. Seeing experience as only black. Perceiving periods as pitch-dark. Not seeing ‘the strong hand of love hidden in the shadows.” That period was less a punch to the gut than it was a hollowness of the gut; feeling numb—which is no feeling at all.

 It was the zenith of the locust plague. Devastation cleared the ground for restoration. The locusts destroy what you’ve built with heart and hand. They overwhelm so you see no way out; only dark, only wing and leg. 

From the detritus of crystalline wings springs new life. A new season. Grasshoppers gnawed the first marriage to the root. A season of singleness and necessary soul work. Separation from the daughter burst into rich relationship that continues into her adulthood. New friendships and enriched older ones. Then the greatest surprise; the friend that is my wife ten years into these healing years.

God’s heart for us is that we are not depressed and distressed by the swarm. Life isn’t always driving circles in the dark. The grasshoppers will move on. The air will clear. Soul and seeds survive. In the light we will see what the strong hand of love was working in the shadows.

Ash Wednesday Isn't For Brownie Points It's For Freedom

This week across the globe people will commemorate death.  On Ash Wednesday folks will begin celebrating Lent.  Many will have the sign of the cross made on their forehead with ash.  This is to identify with death, specifically as related to the verse in Genesis, “By the sweat of your face you will eat bread till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  Lent is forty days of preparation for Passion.  Oh that we lived in the fullness of that Sunday and not in the shadow of that Friday.

People get stuck on Lent.  They focus on the giving up.  Somehow it gets to be all about them and what they’re giving up---that’s been my impression anyway, “Hey, if I give up Twinkies God will love me more!  Brownie points for Twinkies, yay!”  This is my first year doing Lent.  The wife and I are giving up minor food-stuffs in hopes that we will be more focused on Christ and Resurrection Sunday.  Not for Brownie points, just as a spiritual nudge to think about what matters.

What matters isn’t the diminutive deprivation (we’re not giving up coffee).  It’s more about who matters than what matters.  We choose to focus on Christ, His sacrifice and the resurrection which bought us complete freedom to live in the fullness of whom we are designed to be.  That is the fullness of that life-giving Sunday.  The words that changed Martin Luther, “Therefore, having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” that is what matters.  It’s free.  No Brownie points to earn God’s favor; Christ died, Christ paid, Christ rose for us.  It’s that simple.

“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness,” says Paul.  We have fullness.  Or as MercyMe sings it, “You are holy, righteous and redeemed.”   We fast for that.  On Easter, we feast for that.  We break fast, celebrate and enter into that fullness that Christ bought for us that Sunday when He rose from the dead.