May 31, 2011
Back to the Future
My lovely wife and I were talking the other day. I have no idea how it came up but we started talking about an imaginary scenario where I would go back in time to a couple of years before I met her and try to convince her that I was her future husband. What could I say?
Clearly I would need to tell her things about herself that no one else knew. I remembered a half dozen of her childhood stories. Only one of them was something no one else knew. She was surprised and a little disappointed that I did not remember more. I tried to explain that the filing system in my head did not work that way. I’m sure I would remember more if some associated event or question triggered my memory. She was skeptical, so I challenged her to tell me what she could say to convince me to believe her if she were the time traveler instead of me.
She did considerably better than me in terms of quantity of recollections; however, they were all things that were known about me by others. To get a convincing story she had to bring up things about my relatives that I could call and verify with them. Her genealogical research gave her the edge in that respect.
Certainly I will endeavor to learn more about the little girl who became my wife.
Thank you, Lord, that I have such a wonderful wife, and that I have a memory that still works at all.
----------------------------------------
May 30, 2011
True Colors
Yesterday I was talking to a good friend about a conflict she had been involved in. She used a phrase I have heard people use before, but later I got to thinking about it in a new way. She was describing the idiotic way the other people in the conflict were acting when they were angry. She said they were “showing their true colors.” I have always understood this phrase as an idiom or metaphor for “they lost their temper” or “they were very angry.”
In a sense it is true that an angry person is revealing something about himself. He is revealing that whatever is the focus of his anger is important to him. He is showing the world the fleshly person inside of him, whom he struggles to keep under control. But it is no more his “true self” than a three year old throwing a tantrum is demonstrating what he will be as an adult. It is the worst possible version of himself. It is not the person he wants to be. It is the person he is desperately trying not to be, until he was overwhelmed by his own emotions.
I believe a person is really “showing his true colors” when he is the best version of himself, not the worst. I like to think that I am most like my “true self” when I let Jesus live through me. I often fail to live and act as I ought, but I hope that I am most like the person God is making me into when I’m leading a worship service, singing a hymn, or extending love to someone near me, not when I lose my temper.
I cling to the belief and hope that my “true color” is the Holy Spirit within me, not my temper tantrums. As it says in 1 John 3:2 “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” Isn’t my true self the one that God sees I will become?
Thank you, Lord, for being my True Colors.
----------------------------------------
May 29, 2011
Tears in Print
Today in Sunday School, the class assignment was to turn Romans 8:26-28 into a prayer.
Romans 8:26 “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
By the time we finished sharing our prayers (below) everyone was in tears. I’m sure part of that was because to some extent we know what is going on in each other’s lives, although at different levels of detail. I would be curious to know if someone who knew less about us would be moved in the same way. Here they are in the order we read them:
“Father, thank You for the help of the Spirit. I do not know what to pray for. Thank You that Your Holy Spirit intercedes for me with groans I cannot express. I pray for Your will to be done. Help me to remember that You are working all things for my good. Help me to accomplish Your purpose.”
“Lord, I am weak. I am overwhelmed by my helplessness. I do not even know how to pray or what to pray for. I ask the Holy Spirit to intercede for me using that heavenly language that only You in the Trinity understand. Lord, search my heart and make my deepest desire Your perfect will. Lord Jesus, by Your shed blood I am a saint, though I have not earned that title, please intercede for me with the Father. I do love You, God, but I am struggling to see my circumstances right now as working together for good. Help me to see and hear Your calling so that through everything, I might carry out Your holy purpose.”
“The way of my spirit is weak. I speak words to You I may not should say, but Your Spirit screams from within, so all I can do is groan. You made my heart. You are the Spirit. Spirit, pray for me and for Your people. I know within me, that You, my Father, will work the good for me, ‘cause I love You. I am of the called according to Your purpose.”
“Dear Lord, I am so weak and I am so thankful for You and the strength You give to me when I seek You. Thank You I can turn my troubles and sorrows over to You. When I am so hopeless and know that You know my heart and will care for me in accordance to Your will because You love me.”
Finally we read the example from the course materials:
“Thank You, Father, that You have given us the Holy Spirit to intercede for us when we do not know how to pray as we should. May the Spirit always know our heart and mind according to Your will. We give thanks that You cause all things to work for our good because we love You Lord, and we are Your called. May we always understand and walk in Your will and Your purpose. AMEN”
----------------------------------------
More May 28, 2011
Floating by my Window
There is a cottonwood tree a few yards from the back of our apartment to the right. This time of year it is spraying out little bits of cotton full of seeds to float on the wind. Each little fluff of cotton is the hope of another cottonwood tree. When the breeze is in the right direction scores of them float past our window like snow. At the same time swarms of cicadas are dancing in the air and singing love songs to one another. I sit in my easy chair and watch it all. It is very relaxing, like watching fish in a fish tank.
A little while ago I saw a humming bird among them. He was barely bigger than the cicadas. Somehow he looked forlorn and lonely, being the only one of his kind in sight. Sometimes I feel like that. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one of my kind. And then God sends me someone to let me know, I am not alone.
Thank you, God, for good friends.
----------------------------------------
May 28, 2011
A Walk in the Park
This morning I went for a walk on a hiking trail with my best girl. I’m not going to tell you where we went because we don’t want it to get crowded and I know if you hear from me that it is a great place to walk you will start going there all the time. It’s not that I don’t want to see you, but just not there. I hope you understand and are not offended. We only saw two other people, three dogs, two cats and no bicycles at all. We want to keep it that way.
We saw meadows full of purple flowers with a few yellow and white thrown on the side every now and then as a garnish. We saw wild roses that look like pink dogwood blossoms with an extra petal. We saw a mulberry tree with ripe berries. They look sort of like blackberries. We saw some elderberry bushes in bloom. Several times we passed through invisible clouds of honeysuckle fragrance. Parts of the trail are through woods with the trees overhanging. There is one place with a wooden bridge about 30 or 40 yards long over a bog. The bridge is not straight but winds around the trees. I guess they did not want to cut them down. I’m glad for it is very charming.
We saw a pair of indigo buntings dancing on the wing over one of the meadows. We heard owls hooting. I guess they had insomnia. We heard some strange cries we could not identify. If it was not Nashville, I would swear they were wild monkeys in those woods. There were dragonflies and beetles and spiders and snails and worms and cicadas of course. But it was still in the cool of the morning and they had not tuned up good yet.
Trish saw an insect she could not identify, but I missed it. I saw an orange butterfly, but she missed it. Somehow things don’t seem to count unless we both get to see them. Does that mean we are in love? I think so.
Thank you, God, for enough health to walk, a pretty place to walk, and a wonderful, beautiful, woman to walk with.
----------------------------------------
More May 27, 2011
Ten Commandments
[1] Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.
[2] Matthew 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
[3] Matthew 19:19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
[4] Matthew 22:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
[5] Mark 12:31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
[6] Mark 12:33 And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
[7] Luke 10:27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.
[8] Romans 13:9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
[9] Galatians 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
[10] James 2:8 If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:
Thank you, God, for Your commandments.
----------------------------------------
May 27, 2011
First John
The Friday Night Adult Bible Study is studying First John. I was going to take a sabbatical from teaching for awhile, but they picked a book I can’t shut up about, so for all practical purposes I am teaching. I once did a series of 15 sermons on First John. I have translated it from Greek into English several times -- once when I wrote a course on New Testament Greek, and several more times as I taught the course. So, I can’t keep my mouth shut. That’s OK. It is fun and I don’t feel obligated to prepare.
Nevertheless, I had a few minutes today so I looked around on the net for something about First John. I found a great website about First John at http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/by-scripture/1-john. It is a series of good sermons on First John by John Piper.
In spite of all my study and translation of the Greek, Piper pointed out something I never noticed before. 1st John 2:1 says, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. …” There is an implication here that reading the Scripture has the power to help us avoid sin. Yet another good reason to read the scripture. I knew this already, but not as a doctrine learned from First John, the book I am perhaps most familiar with in the whole Bible. This is another demonstration that no matter how much you study the Bible, there is always more to be learned.
Thank you, God, for Your precious powerful Scriptures.
----------------------------------------
More May 26, 2011
The Perfect Salad
A salad bowl is not big enough. Get a serving bowl. Fill it half full of fresh butter lettuce. (I don’t know what that means, but “butter lettuce” is what it said on the cellophane pouch it came in.) Slice some crispy celery into little bitty pieces all over it. Do the same with a juicy carrot. Now the light green lettuce and salary has some orange on it. A cup of little sprigs of cauliflower and broccoli add white and dark green to the mix. Cover that with some creamy French salad dressing with bacon flavoring. You have to put on the salad dressing at this point to keep the flax seeds from all going to the bottom. A couple of table spoons of flax seed, a couple of table spoons of pumpkin seeds, and a couple of table spoons of sunflower seeds complete the masterpiece. Yum, yum.
Thank you God for good food.
----------------------------------------
May 26, 2011
Stormy Sky over Nashville
The sky early this morning is beautiful. It was very cloudy with each cloud being a slightly different shade of grey. They were all racing to some distant place, I know not where. There was a time when I would have envied them their freedom to go where they pleased. No more. Left to myself, I would never more roam from home.
I had a conversation this morning with someone about the sky. I told her it was a “Van Gogh sky.” She had no idea what I was talking about. Turns out I did not know what I was talking about either. I explained there was a famous painting called Storm over Toledo by Van Gogh and the sky looked like the sky in that painting. Sounds great except it was totally erroneous.
There is a painting by that name but it is by El Greco, not Van Gogh. Also, the dark grey sky this morning does not look like the painting at all.
http://www.mystudios.com/masters/greco.html
Van Gogh did do a painting about a stormy sky called Field under a Storm Sky
http://www.art-prints-on-demand.com/a/van-gogh-vincent/field-under-storm-sky.html
It doesn’t look anything like the sky this morning either. So the long and the short of it is; I made a very large display of my vast ignorance. I hope you think it is as funny as I do.
Thank you, God, for the beautiful sky.
----------------------------------------
More May 25, 2011
Cubicle Decorations
After I wrote this, I realized it is a very narcissist essay. Don’t bother to read it. I was going to just not post it, but I want to keep it somewhere, so I can read it in a few years. I tried to think of a way to re-write it to make it of general interest. Nothing came to mind. Seriously, it is not worth reading.
Besides my computer, stacks of work papers, photos of loved ones, calendars, and various manuals, etc. that everyone has in their offices, there are decorations that make this cubicle uniquely my work space.
I have a wooden eagle sitting on my computer, a gift from my boss two Christmases ago. Behind it on the wall is a picture of an eagle in flight. It is a black & white printed on letter sized paper of a picture from the internet. Also printed on it, are these words, “Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary. Isaiah 40:31”
I have two things hanging that have been in every office I have had for twenty years. One is a little paper that says, “Arete!” It was the motto of the ancient Spartans. It means, “Excellence!” The other is a Gumby figure with the words “Semper Gumby.” Semper is Latin for always, and Gumby is supposed to convey the idea of flexibility. Always Flexible and Excellence are two things I want to remember to bring to the work I do.
I have a plaque hanging that they gave me for helping with a major project when I worked at AT&T. We installed a new telephone switch. It switched all long distance calls in the 615 area code. The old switch was electro-mechanical. The new switch was electronic. Mounted on the plaque is a circuit board like the ones used in the “brain” of the new switch. It is not as ugly as it sounds. The board is white plastic and all the little circuits are made from real gold. The chips are not installed on it. It looks a bit like an abstract painting. Below it are the words, “Electronic Switching System, Circuit Board, Nashville #4ESS, January 21, 1978.” I hung it as a conversation piece almost six years ago. No one has ever mentioned it.
I have a big yellow certificate decorated with a couple of dozen stars that says, “WORLD’S BEST HUSBAND, this certificate is awarded to Thor Foy Carden in recognition of earning an A+ in the art of being an ideal husband.” It is signed by my wife, and dated March 11, 2011. Unlike the AT&T plaque it has generated several discussions.
I have a bunch of Dilbert cartoons my son gave me magnetically attached to a file cabinet. They have also generated many conversations.
I have a nerf hammer my daughter and son-in-law gave me that is a memorabilia item from the movie, “Thor.” I also have an empty box also from the movie. It was from one of the people in our Friday night bible study group. It did have candy in it. I ate 10% and gave away the rest. I know I ate exactly 10% because it had 10 little bags of candy, only one of which I ate myself. The hammer is a favorite item of many passerby.
----------------------------------------
May 25, 2011
A Quiet Walk . . .
I went for a walk at lunch today. I circled the building a half dozen times. It was already warm, so the cicadas had tuned up and begun to sing. I noticed that some trees have more cicadas than others. Some cicadas seemed isolated. When they are by themselves they sound more like the trill of the aliens in the movie Signs than anything else I can think of.
I heard a dozen different bird calls and kept looking for the birds. Finally, I spotted a mocking bird on top of a light pole. It seemed all the songs were made by him. I'm not sure whether I saw the same mocking bird six different times, on different light poles, and once in a tree, or several different mocking birds, but they, or he, seemed determined to keep me entertained.
The sound of the interstate is a distant roar from the southern part of my walk but barely audible from the northern part. I heard car doors thumping closed several times. Once someone's car gave an obedient chirp as it locked the doors. I noted that different models of cars have very different motor sounds as they idled slowly by me. A Volkswagen's high pitched whine was answered by the throaty diesel of a Mercedes. A truck across at the food bank played a snare drum as it throttled down to turn in.
Two ladies greeted each other from three car lengths apart as they walked in opposite directions. They stopped for a minute, still distant from one another, but at the closest point in their paths, to "catch up" in a loud and lively conversation punctuated by cheerful laughter.
The wind would sometimes create a moan in my ears as it tried different speeds and directions experimenting to see what tones it could make, like a boy blowing on a pop bottle top. There were a few dried leaves blown about by the wind. The sound of a dry magnolia leaf skittering in the wind across the pavement is quite different than the higher pitch of a smaller, less stiff, less thick, leaf of some other tree.
The flags flapped in the breeze and occasionally the metal couplings holding the flags to the ropes made the poles ring like bells. I listened for it, but the ropes were not tight enough to slap the poles with an audible sound.
I heard the clopping of a woman's, too high, high heels across the concrete. I listened to see if I could hear my own footsteps. Yes, I could. Barely, but I could hear them. There they were, following me everywhere I went, providing a steady beat, to combine the other sounds into a symphony.
Thank you, God, for the nice relaxing music.
----------------------------------------------