Snow

We are way overdue for a snow.  It’s been three or four years since we’ve had enough snow to make a snowman.  In the past, we’ve always been able to count on at least one good snow per winter.  Not lately.

 Anyway, the weatherman is now calling for the chance of rain changing to snow tomorrow afternoon, with the possibility of four or more inches accumulating.  Now, it has been my experience that when the weather forecasts call for snow, they always miss it.  The more certain they are about snow accumulating, the less likely it is to happen.  The best snows always seem to catch everyone by surprise.

 We have had dustings a couple of times this season, and even these caught the weather experts by surprise.  But now I’m ready for a snow.  I’m ready to have a big bonfire and a snowball fight.  I want to build a snowman.  I want to take pictures in the snow.  It just doesn’t feel like we’ve had a winter until we’ve had a good snow.

 I get all excited when I hear snow in the forecast.  Then I get disappointed when it never happens.  But even if no one predicted it, we are still due for a good snow.

 Now, I hope I haven’t jinxed it by talking about it. 

Funny Prayers

I was listening to a Catalyst podcast yesterday, and the host made a comment that struck me.  He had seen a well-known Christian leader on television offering a prayer, and he shared that something in the prayer made him laugh out loud.  He virtually apologized for laughing.  He went on to say that he rarely ever laughs during a prayer, recognizing that communication with God is a sacred experience.

Now, I certainly agree that prayer should be a sacred experience, but I must confess that I often laugh aloud during prayer with others.  God obviously has a sense of humor, and I think that he likes for us to share in it.  Routinely my family and I will burst out in laughter during family prayers.  We get tickled when we share with God something punny, absurd, frustrating or delightful.  He can be in on our jokes.  It draws us closer to his heart.

We don’t laugh at each other, mind you.  We laugh together. 

Often our worship team will laugh together in prayer as we prepare to lead worship.  Part of the fruit of the Spirit is joy, and what better way to express it than good-hearted laughter?  Our small group has been known to laugh aloud as we share our burdens and excitements with Jesus.

I expect that Jesus often laughed as he spent time with his Father.  He is fun to be with.  Good parents enjoy laughing with their children.

Scary Idea

The U.S. Senate today passed a “stimulus” package priced at $838 billion.  We have to fix everything.  If we had failed to pass this bill, we would have wrecked the economy.  Oh, wait, that was the $700 billion bailout bill last fall.  It was going to fix everything.  But now we need to spend even more money to get our economy moving forward again.

If borrowing money for the government fixes everything, then why stop at 700 + 838 billion?  Why not just borrow $10 trillion?  Just think of all the executive bonuses we could give, and “stimulus checks” we could all receive in the mail!

Where does this money come from?  Someone has to buy the U.S. treasury bills – bonds that must be repaid with interest.  But what happens when no one wants to buy them?  After all, someone so severely in debt as Uncle Sam can barely pay his minimum payments.  Why would you risk lending him more money? 

As the global financial markets shy away from purchasing T-bills, we are left with no alternative but printing money.  Then we will see a certain escalation of prices, with too much cash introduced in our money supply.

The idea is that “only government” can fix our problems.  And the only way it can fix the problem is with borrowed money.  Something is wrong with this picture.  It is a scary thought that only government can make things right.  It is even scarier when they plan to do it with money borrowed for generations in the future.  

Automatic Audit

 Tax season is upon us.  Accountants are holing up at work, barely seeing the light of day.  Taxpayers are getting records together, working to determine exactly how much Uncle Sam will get.  We want to pay him all that we owe – but nothing more.

 I learned today that Tom Daschle, the president’s nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, has withdrawn his name from consideration.  Turns out that the former senator from South Dakota owes $134,000 in back taxes.  I am appalled that a member of our legislature could have the gall to spend billions and trillions of taxpayer dollars, while not paying his own taxes. 

 I wonder how many other senators and representatives fail to pay their taxes.  Couldn’t we have a law by which every legislator is automatically audited by the IRS?  I wonder if they would be more responsible in their spending.

 Meanwhile, the congress is proposing “stimulus” spending, an effort to borrow our way to prosperity.  Obviously we need to have more common sense in our fiscal policies.  It sounds like we also need leaders with more integrity.  We should demand better.

Favorite Teacher

I just learned few days ago that one of my favorite high school teachers passed away in October.  Tony Bryant taught me English at Page High School in the late 1970s.  I think was a sophomore.  He would always mark up my papers until they bled.  I don’t remember if I made an A or a B in his class, but I remember butting heads with him.  It seemed like he was most unreasonable as he pushed me to write better and better.  But he really cared about the students, and he would let us tease with him.  He was fun in his own opinionated, hard-headed way.

Once I challenged him on the spelling of a word.  I wrote the word “coöperate,” with the two dots over the second “o.”  He marked the word as misspelled.  It should be “co-operate,” he declared.  I pushed back, saying that the word could be spelled my way.  He instructed me to go look it up.  I found a dictionary in the room and located the word—spelled my way.

Of course, I took the book to him, smugly.  “Well, the dictionary is wrong,” he concluded, saying that the spelling had changed in contemporary English.  Now  I had the upper hand.  “How do you expect me to spell words correctly, then, if even the dictionary in our room is incorrect?”

 He did not count off for the spelling of the word, and he made a special point of getting a new dictionary in the room.  He even announced that there was now a means for checking spelling accurately.

 I often thought about going back to Page to show him one of my articles in the Northwest Observer.  I wanted to tell him that all his harassing and haranguing had really made me a better writer.  I wanted to tell him how much I appreciated it.  I wanted to laugh with him about the whining of his students today.

 I never got the chance.  He was only 60 when he died.

 Now I have my own class of 9^th graders, home school students who have a day-long tutoring session every Tuesday.  When I talk to them about their writing, I hear Tony Bryant’s voice coming through me.  I only hope that these students are as blessed by my pushing them as I was by Mr. Bryant’s pushing me.

Eternal Living

Sometimes I read a book, and it feels like I’ve got to finish it so that I can understand life.  Dallas Willard is an author referenced by many speakers and authors I respect, but whose works I had never read.

 I found myself in Barnes and Nobel with my family recently.  Browsing through the shelves, I found lots of books to peruse, knowing that I could buy something with a gift card given me by one of my ninth grade students.  Then I happened upon The Divine Conspiracy, by Dallas Willard.  I picked it up and read the foreword by Richard Foster.  Foster called it, “the book I have been searching for all my life.”  Whoa.  That’s the highest praise I can imagine, coming from a very profound author. 

 I brought the book home, and have been taking every free moment to read it.  Willard says that coming to Christ is more than a visa stamped in one’s eternal passport.  Jesus wants to be an intimate part of our lives here and now.  Salvation is not just about heaven.  Salvation is not just about doing good for the down and out.

 God invites us to an eternal kind of living.  He truly transforms us, inside and out.  He makes us new creatures.  That’s the life I am getting a taste of.  That’s the life I long to delve into.  That’s the joyful, abundant, risk-filled life that Jesus wants us to have.

 The Christian life should not be dull – it should be exciting.  It should not be about following rules, but following Jesus. 

 I think Willard has a lot to teach me about that.  I think the Holy Spirit has a lot to show me about that.

A Better Christmas

As I reflect on Christmas Day, I see that the mood of the holiday is different this year.  From the news reports, it sounds like people are looking for simplicity rather than the latest toys and fads.

Momentum has been building for restoring Christmas to a celebration of Christian faith.  The trappings of Christmas have drifted farther and farther from any connection to Jesus, and finally people have had enough.  The pendulum had swung so far to commercialism that many are rebelling against excessive spending and partying. 

For years I had suggested to friends that we should give gifts at Thanksgiving, so that Christmas could be uncluttered and directed to the worship of Jesus.  But something better has happened.  Through the work of groups like Advent Conspiracy, Christians are working together to turn Christmas into a time when believers work together to bless the world in the name of Jesus.

Last night at our Christmas eve candlelight service, we received an offering for local and international missions.  We are trying to worship more and spend less.  Then we can give more and really make a difference in the world.  I pray that the world might come to recognize Christmas as a time when the followers of Christ work together to share the love of Jesus.  In practical ways we can provide for the needs of the helpless and hurting.

Christmas becomes an exciting time when we make a focused effort to give Jesus to the world.