We're Spending our Children's Inheritance

That bumper sticker is truer than anybody understands. It makes me rather ill.

Forgive us, Father, for we know not what we do.

Quotable: A Grateful Heart

Excerpts from “About Thankfulness,” an unpublished essay by the late Paul L. Holmer, professor at Yale University and former Covenanter:

“Indeed thankfulness is commanded, but it does not dangle there as an unsupported attitude. It is not a vagrant move of the personality, an immediate gift that some have by sheer force of their wish or disposition. Rather it is both appropriate to what we are as persons and also correct in respect to the reality of things. Christian teachings tear the veil of illusion away and they confute the erstwhile wisdom of experience. What may look like a scandal and an offense to the statistically normal apprehension is no longer a scandal at all – it makes sense. The token of that sense is the new capacity for thankfulness that makes every day worth living and every moment of opposition an occasion for spiritual strengthening.”

“The radical contingency of all things must be acknowledged, for nothing has to be the way it is. We can regret it and spend our time scheming how to beat reality, or we can acknowledge the Lord and Giver of all. With the first, we thwart ourselves and see so little; with the second, we share a perspective that lets us see goodness in suffering and providence in pain. Gratitude is not an escape from reality, it is an access to it. The Christian life is thus a life-long improvisation in the attitude of thankfulness.”

“There is such a thing surely as a state of being thankful, and that state would suggest a demeanor of peace, tranquility of mind, and a quality of present life. A reduction of anxiety, a kind of contentment, and a willingness to be what one is – these are part of that state.”

“Grumbling, envy, malice, and rivalry can only prosper where other people are no longer thought about with any gladness of heart. But if one is genuinely thankful for a wife or husband, for a friend or neighbor, granted their idiosyncrasies and difference, then we can also rejoice in them. Pettiness disappears, and affection gets a little room in one’s life.”

“We are spiritual beings, not just pawns of a material world. Because we are also spiritual, we bring capacities and dispositions to bear upon everything that is. That means dependency upon events is broken, and we can now have health of the spirit even while creation groans for the day of deliverance.”

“Thankfulness is, indeed, commanded. That makes it look almost like a bit of personality manipulation, but it is not. Being thankful for all things also is one of the deepest ways to approach God. To thank Him is to appreciate what He is. This, in turn, is to be fully alert and alive to the way the real world is. Not to be thankful is to have lost touch with reality itself. Besides it means missing one of the most refined and lovely human experiences that we can have. God not only demands thankfulness, but finally He communicates His presence to grateful hearts. This is why a virtue like that is both rewarding for what it is, but more, that in that thankfulness God is able to give Himself to tranquil spirits.”

Song: The Summons

Add hearty, lilting Scottish melody. Sing well.

Will you come and follow me
If I but call your name?
Will you go where you don't know
And never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown,
Will you let my name be known,
Will you let my life be grown
In you and you in me?

Will you leave yourself behind
If I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind
And never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare
Should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer
In you and you in me?

Will you let the blinded see
If I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free
And never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean,
And do such as this unseen,
And admit to what I mean
In you and you in me?

Will you love the 'you' you hide
If I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside
And never be the same?
Will you use the faith you've found
To reshape the world around,
Through my sight and touch and sound
In you and you in me?

Lord, your summons echoes true
When you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you
And never be the same.
In your company I'll go
Where your love and footsteps show.
Thus I'll move and live and grow
In you and you in me.

Words © 1987 The Iona Community
Tune: KELVINGROVE (Scottish Trad.)

Ain't that the Truth

The Cynicism and Hope conference this weekend was powerful and beautiful, a much needed respite from the incessant 'doing' of grad school to worship, pray, grieve, be still, eat, learn, converse, and celebrate Kingdom promises in the company of 200 or so faithful people weary of exile and empire.

Among the many worthwhile things I gained is knowledge of the existence of this website:

Make Affluence History.

Amen.

What will it take?