Hope for Old Ladies
Hope for Old Ladies
How long was it that Jacob had to labor under Laban in order to secure his wives and livestock? How long did David mourn over the death of his son? Or his other son? Or his other son? How much time did David spend grieving over any of his troubles? And how long did Abraham and Sarah wait for a son?
How long? Maybe two minutes, maybe an hour in some places; it all depends on how long the passage of scripture is. Some people only go through five or ten verses of trouble at a time, others maybe an entire book, like Job. But it's not that long, right?
I tend to forget how long were the trials and tribulations of our fathers. When I am going through a "tough" trial I foolishly think that what I am going through is lasting longer than so-and-so's trial in the Bible. Yet my troubles have seldom lasted that long. I haven't had to wander in the desert and eat manna for forty years, be in bondage to another man for twenty years for a wife, lose every child in one incident followed by boils on the skin for more than a week, or have to wait twenty-five years for a son.
I know that one of the issues that some of the parents are facing in St. Peter is age and child-bearing. Some of the moms are getting "up there" in age and the times between pregnancies are getting farther and farther apart. Some are waiting two, three, four or more years between children. But how long is that in Bible terms, maybe six words, half a verse? Well, here's hope for all you ladies who are getting older and are concerned about when God will close your womb. I know a lady who is the youngest of six children. Her youngest older sister is thirty years her senior. Her niece is twelve years older than her. Now, how old was her mom when she delivered her? Sixty-eight. So may God bless you for a few more verses.
Community is Good Work
You can't buy it, but it requires substantial investment. You can't own it but it will belong to you. You can't make a career out of it, but it will help support you and your family. It doesn't come quickly, but it often requires us to come together at a moment's notice.
Community takes coming together. But it takes more too. It takes real work. Not like writing articles or conducting online research. It takes letting go of things we think we have a handle on and taking hold of some things we can barely grasp. And it takes patience.
Patience is another one of those things that is honest with herself. Sometimes painfully honest. It takes time, and yes, patience to cultivate patience.
Almost every time I work the bottom few acres down by the road, my old neighbor wanders over to talk. If I'm running the bush hog or string trimmer, that's O.K., he'll wait 'til I turn it off right in the middle of a row or pass. I could sometimes be tempted to frustration over something like this. But I need to remember that sometimes an old man who has observed and listened as much as he has deserves to be heard. I need reminding sometimes to stop, listen, and hear about those who worked my land before it was mine. I need to remember to pause and give thanks and observe little Sabbaths all throughout the day.
Yesterday, I spent several hours in the hottest part of the day mowing and clearing that bottom portion of our land. But the old man didn't come by to pause my progress. While I did finish the work earlier than I had planned, I was thoroughly exhausted. I got in my truck and drove right around the corner to the little old grocery for a coke where the old men still sit out front on the bench and tell stories. There was one vacant spot left on the end of the bench. So I got a drink and sat down and put the end of the bench to good work and listened a long time.
Correct Me If I'm Wrong…
If there is no objective truth to which everyone is accountable, doesn't it follow that there are an infinite number of falses that anyone could embrace? That is, back in the modernist age we were asked to choose between faith and reason, between grace and nature, between religion and science. Now in the postmodern age everyone is out there like a bunch of goldrush fools staking claims to this error and that.
Of course this, like every other folly of the world, infects the church. It's bad enough that our Bible studies are now reduced down to show and tell, wherein the facilitator directs the children to take turns in announcing what the text means to them, but worse still they give out gold stars based not on fidelity, but on originality and creativity.
Relativism, however, not only assaults the Word, but it assaults the sacraments. Here everybody does it, or doesn't do it, their own way. That's why we keep hearing about these churches that are "moving toward" weekly communion. Here's a map for you- Next week, serve the bread and the wine. The week after, repeat. But we can't get there from here, at least until some critical mass embraces this as their own personal vision of how it should be done.
Worse still it has gutted discipline, in all its forms. We don't excommunicate anymore, because we live in an age of grace, wherein everyone does their own thing, what is right in their own eyes. But neither do we admonish, at least directly. I can't tell you how many people have fumed, raged, sputtered and stomped because I had the audacity to call them particularly, or those who are in a class of guilty parties, to "repent." REPENT? How dare I? I must think I'm the pope. Nope. Just trying to use the Word to admonish, rebuke, and correct. Correct me if I'm wrong, but to me anyway, that's a good thing. The Bible isn't my word, it's our Word. May we all have ears to hear it.