The Kentucky Derby 2008 (1)

The Kentucky Derby 2008 (1)

Coming from Behind

Two horses and two men came from behind yesterday at the Kentucky Derby.

Big Brown, who won with a huge lead, was held back by his jockey until it was time for a final sprint, which he accomplished easily, finishing strong and seeming fresh.

Eight Belles, the only filly in the field, likewise came from behind to finish a good second, several lengths ahead of the third place runner.

Big Brown’s jockey, Kent Desormeaux, had won the Derby twice before, but then went into a personal and professional slump for several years. Yesterday presented him with a chance for a big comeback, and he triumphed.

The same goes for Big Brown’s trainer, Rick Dutrow, Jr. Saddened by tragedy in his private life and failing in his work, he raised some hackles by boasting all week long about his horse. At the finish line, however, his bragging was vindicated and he overflowed with indescribable joy.

It gives you hope, doesn’t it? The saying, “It’s not over until it’s over” remains true. Past failure and present frustrations do not dictate future possibilities.

So, let’s keep on keeping on. Maybe we’ll come from behind, too.

Two Beggars

Two Beggars

After church yesterday, Dori and I were walking to meet out-of-town friends at a restaurant when we passed three beggars sitting on the street.

Do you have any change you could spare?” asked one shaggy man with a large shaggy dog.

Walking briskly by, I said, “No.”

Strictly speaking, that was true, since I didn’t have any coins in my pocket. But it was also an excuse, because I don’t know what to do with beggars. Sometimes I open my heart and my wallet, and sometimes I just think that I would be feeding someone’s habit.

He didn’t try again when we headed back towards our car after lunch, but a block later we encountered a pleasant-looking young black man who approached me and said,

“Do you have any money you could give me to get something to eat?”

Having just enjoyed a good (though not expensive) meal, I somehow could not refuse.

“Sure, let me go with you,” I said, leaving Dori to wait for me at the car while I accompanied him to a restaurant. (She had indicated that she was happy with this arrangement.)

“What’s your name?” I inquired.

“Stu.”

“What do you do for work, Stu?” I asked, rather insanely.

“Nothing. I don’t have any work. I lost my job.” He sounded dejected.

“What did you use to do?”

“Construction. Sheet rock. I finish sheet rock.”

“Oh, that industry is in a slump, I know.” His story sounded plausible, so I thought maybe he was a responsible sort of fellow.

“What are you doing to find work?” I pursued.

“I go to construction sites, but no one is hiring.”

“Look, that industry is going to take at least two years to recover, so maybe you could use your spare time to gain a new skill or get some free education, so you can get another job.”

He nodded appreciatively. Well, I was glad to help a man like this.

Until we saw the three beggars I’d seen before, and the slightest flicker of recognition passed between them. So, probably these tramps all know each other and occupy different turf where they prey on innocent passersby-like me.

By then I was committed, however, so we entered a lower-priced eatery that he had chosen and I pulled out two dollars (the “change” I had in my wallet) and called the manager over to give him the money.

Glancing at the menu, however, I noticed that two bucks would only buy a cup of coffee and maybe half a piece of toast, so I pulled out a five dollar bill and handed that to the proprietor instead.

”Here,” I instructed, “ use this to pay for a meal for him.”

The man behind the counter rattled me a bit more when he seemed to know my new friend, but I pretended to ignore that and left, with another exhortation to get some education and a “God bless you, Stu.” He shook my hand and thanked me. I still liked him.

The shaggy man with his big dog saw me coming, and asked again for some change. Waving to him, I strode by without a word. I guess I just didn’t like him and his fuzzy companions very much. They all looked well fed and seedy.

“He’ll talk to that nigger but not to me,” the disappointed man uttered just loud enough for me to hear as I hurried back to Dori, who had been waiting quite a while by now.

Turning quickly, I retraced my steps to where he sat and gave him the two dollars originally intended for the black man.

“You were rude to me, but I’m not going to be rude to you,” I said softly, as I handed him the money. “God bless you, brother.”

“God bless you, too, Mister,” he responded.

So many unanswered questions surround this entire event that I can only plead, “May God have mercy on us all!”

Is this experience from God?

My friend also had another question, which I shall seek to answer:

(2). Many of my Christian friends told me that they were touched by Holy Spirit.  How do we know the power touches someone is from the Holy Spirit and not from other beings, such as angels or the staff of God?

Another good question! Many Christians do claim that they have been affected “touched,” “filled,” “baptized,” etc.) by the Holy Spirit, but how do we know whether our experience is from God’s Spirit and not some other source?

A famous theologian named Jonathan Edwards once wrote a whole book on this subject, called Religious Affections (emotions, experiences). He pointed out that much of what seems to be from God may not actually be. After all, the Bible says that Satan and his demons (evil spirits) can work miracles, so a supernatural healing or other miracle is not necessary a work of God.

Furthermore, speaking with other tongues, which is commonly used as a sign of the work of the Holy Spirit, can come from another source also – either our own voice production or the work of some other spirit.

Strong emotions, too, don’t necessarily come from God. You can be really “happy” or excited, but that could simply result from your reaction to something you are thinking or some stimulus in your environment. I once had some sort of mystical experience of “peace” and “unity with the whole world” during and after listening to Beethoven’s 7^th Symphony!

If you are in a crowd, and they all go crazy over something, you can be overcome with powerful feelings that derive from the influence of the mood of the people around you. Both Hitler and Mao Zedong had that influence on large gatherings of devoted followers, and something like that seems to happen to many young people at rock concerts.

You can have a strong impression that something is true or right, but it may be very false and very wrong. These “clear” “messages” may seem to come from God, but they could be the work of the devil, who knows very well how to deceive us.

People in religious meetings are sometimes overcome by joy, or ecstasy, or dread. None of these is necessarily a product of the Holy Spirit’s work in our hearts. Likewise, falling down as if dead – sometimes called “being slain in the Spirit” – can happen to people for all sorts of reasons, and is not necessarily a work of the Holy Spirit of God.

Okay, so how can we know whether an experience comes from God? There are several ways of evaluating religious experiences:

Does it make me love God more – his holiness, justice, mercy, truth, and all his other excellencies?

Does it make me trust God more? Does this experience lead me to believe more in what the Bible says, to rely on his promises, especially the spiritual promises in the New Testament, even if everything else around me seems to deny the Scriptures?

Does it make we way to obey God more? Does it cause me to think that all his commands (meaning primarily those in the New Testament, not all the food laws in the Old Testament) are good and right and true, and that I must seek to follow his revealed will, no matter what the cost?

Does it make we want to hope more in God and in the grace that will come to me when Christ returns?

Does it make me hate sin, and falsehood, and everything that is wrong?

Does it make me love God’s people – other Christians – and want to be with them and serve them and work with them to advance God’s kingdom?

Does it make me more aware of my own sins and need for God’s mercy, and does it cause me to rejoice more in the sheer grace of God that has reached down to someone as unworthy as I am?

Does it cause me to focus my attention on Jesus Christ, the Son of God and only Savior? Or does it turn my eyes towards something or someone else? All that comes from the Spirit of God will bring honor and glory to the Son of God, as revealed in the Bible.

Is this experience in any way contrary to the will of God as revealed in the Bible? Does it make me want to read the Bible more and meditate on the Scriptures? Or does it distract me and cause me to yearn after other emotional experiences?

These are some of the tests we can use to ascertain whether what we have experienced has come from the Holy Spirit or from some other source.

Is the Bible true?

A friend in Taiwan sent me this email with questions from a non-Christian about the Bible. I thought that perhaps others might also be interested, so am including her questions and my response in the (longer than usual) blog entry, starting with my friend’s encouraging greeting:

My goodness Wright! Your blog is a “page turner”! (still going through The Lord’s Healing Words in fits and spurts…)

If you have time, could you give us advice about something? K. has a friend from long ago who is seeking truth. She is a highly intelligent lawyer who asks a lot of good, probing questions about Christianity. When my family came to visit, she and my Dad got into a conversation about Christianity. They have continued their dialog by email. She just sent Dad two questions typically asked by non – Christians. I’ll cut/paste her email:

Dear

The following two questions may be offensive, but they really troubled me:
(1). Is every word in the Bible from God? How do we know that the Bible is the word of God?

Is it possible that some content in the Bible was the work of human beings based on their interpretation of God’s teaching? The author may honestly believe all the content is inspired by God; but how can we be sure that it is really consistent with God’s will? If it is God’s will, how can some of the content has become out of date? And some seems to be not reasonable or not loving?

Messages can be mis-communicated easily due to human errors. We don’t even know exactly what happened around us now or what happened 10 years ago because people recorded it can always view something from various aspects; how can we be so sure about history written more than 2000 years ago and passed on generation by generation?

My question can boil down to one: how can we make sure all the rules we are required to follow as specified in the Bible lead to the right way to attend to God’s glory?

WD: Good questions! And you are right to boil the first of them down to one: How can I be sure that what the Bible says I should do will “lead to the right way to attend to God’s glory?”

We don’t have time or space to discuss this first very large and basic question in detail, but here are a few sentences for starters:

Many people have the same questions. If fact, this is the fundamental question about Protestant Christianity, for we claim to derive all the content of our faith from the Scriptures and not from church traditions (like the Roman Catholics) or human reason (like liberal Protestants) or from direct “revelation” from God’s Spirit (like some charismatic Christians).

Second, many scholars over the centuries have investigated these matters, and have come up with some plausible answers, though not with absolute proof in the full inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible. Dr. Carl Henry, for example, wrote a full four volumes of his six-volume masterpiece, God, Revelation, & Authority, to try to show that belief in the full accuracy and truth of the Bible is reasonable. Many shorter books support the same position.

Specifically, they say that:

(1) The Bible itself claims, in hundreds of both direct and indirect ways, to be the very words of God. To assert otherwise is to call into question everything else that the Bible says.

(2) Most apparent contradictions in the Bible can be resolved with careful study, though a small number cannot.

(3) Archaeological and historical research has demonstrated that the historical accounts of the Bible are accurate and trustworthy.

(4) Contrary to popular belief, science has not disproved the truth of the Bible. In particular, Darwinian theory has recently been shown to lack scientific proof, or even much evidence. Read Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box; Michael Denton’s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis; Philip Johnson’s Darwin on Trial; or Jonathan Wells’s Icons of Evolution for confirmation of this statement.

(5) If there is a God, and if he created us in his image, then it is reasonable to believe that he could also communicate clearly with us, using the writings of men whom he specially chose and guided to record his will and his ways accurately.

(6) Some things (such as the destruction of the nations living in the Promised Land by the invading Israelites) do seem unreasonable or unloving to us. In those cases, Christians first seek to understand what is meant by those passages, and then confess that we just don’t have enough information or wisdom to comprehend everything God does or says.

But, we believe he is good, because Christ died for us, and that he is powerful, because God raised Christ from the dead, so that we could be forgiven and come to know God as our loving Father.

(7) Which parts of the Bible, in particular, do you consider “outdated?” Do you not rather mean that they are out of sync with some modern prejudices? Who is to say our generation is right and the Bible is wrong? What standard are you using?

(8) Finally – and I know this is all very brief – we find out whether what God has told us is right by trusting his promises and obeying his commands. Only as we step out in faith to rely on his promises to forgive those who repent of their wrongdoing and trust in Christ, and to supply all that we need to serve him; and only if we attempt, relying on his power, to do what he tells us, will we experience the goodness and rightness of what the Bible teaches.

I should add that millions of Christians have done just that over the past two thousand years, and have testified to their experience that the Bible is really the Word and words of God, and that living by its teachings really works.

I hope this helps a bit.

The Unknown Artist

The Unknown Artist

Last night, Dori and I visited several art galleries on the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville. It was the first Friday of the month, when they hold special exhibitions and offer free refreshments.

The first one we entered offered some really good art, but the pickings were slim for hungry free-loaders.

The next gallery featured ugly “art” and no food, so we didn’t stay long.

But the last place, which we’ve always enjoyed the most anyway, did not disappoint us. Larger, with dozens of really fine paintings and other objets d’art, it held our attention for quite a while. We especially liked the exhibition of Eric Slayton’s oil paintings. We could see why his work has been displayed in the West Wing of the White House and in U.S. embassies around the world.

The goodies made up for the scarcity at the other galleries – fresh vegetables, crackers, tasty dips, and Sprite. I tried not to appear like the glutton I am, but did manage to, shall we say, silence the messages that had been rumbling up from my mid-section.

Sitting at a table with the little cups of Sprite was a pleasant-looking lady who seemed to belong there. Going over, I asked,

“Are you the hostess here?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, I just wanted to say ‘Thank you’ for these refreshments. They’re really good. We love the paintings, too.”

Smiling broadly, she replied, “You are welcome.” Then, pointing over to a tall, handsome man standing by himself, she asked, “Have you met the artist? He’d love to talk to you.”

We hadn’t known that Eric Slayton, the creator of our favorite paintings, was present. I walked over to him and introduced myself, expressing appreciation for his work. He beckoned to his wife, and introduced me to her, remembering my name and even pronouncing it correctly (most people say “Ray,” or “Frank,” or “Dwight”).

Dori had already gone off to another section of the gallery before I met Mr. Slayton, but I remained to chat with them for about ten minutes. Living in Prescott, Arizona, they had never before seen the Blue Ridge Mountains, so we shared our appreciation of the lovely scenery of Albemarle Country. We also talked about modern Chinese painting.

What a pleasant couple they were! And what a privilege, to meet the creator of the art which had brought us so much enjoyment!

And all because I had stopped to say, “Thank you.” Maybe there’s a lesson here somewhere.

One further thought: If we take the time, we can talk to the Master Artist whenever we want to, and thank Him for the beauty with which He has surrounded us.

“Let me tell you about my boy (girl)”: The Way God Looks at His Children

“Let me tell you about my boy (girl)”: The Way God Looks at His Children

Yesterday, I ate lunch with a friend. At the outset, he told me that he wanted to discuss with me some important career decisions facing him. I relished the opportunity to be helpful and was honored that he would want to ask my opinion. In other words, I was ready to “do business” with him right away.

But he was not eager to start with the main item on his agenda. He had something else he wanted to share with me first.

Today he and his wife are driving up to New York to take their oldest boy to visit a prominent university, from which, as it happens, my friend himself had received his Ph.D. years ago. The boy has already been accepted at this school, along with three other outstanding colleges. With a perfect SAT verbal score and a 4.0 GPA in a very good high school, the kid is obviously very smart.

He’s also a leader: Vice President of the student body as a freshman and now President. His outstanding qualities were recognized when he was given the responsibility to administer a large community grant for benefiting young people. He helps with the youth program in his church, too.

Most of all, he’s humble. When asked publicly to account for his success in academics while participating fully in extra-curricular activities, he said, “God gives me strength and wisdom.”

At first, I was impatient with my friend’s long monologue about his son. After all, hadn’t I been invited to give some valuable advice?

As I reflected on this man’s evident delight in his boy, however, it struck me that perhaps God is like that.

Can we imagine Him up in heaven, calling to one of hHs angels and saying, “Let me tell you about My boy (or girl). Sure, he makes mistakes, but all in all, he’s a pretty neat kid. I like the way he’s growing, performing well, and trusting Me more.”

After all, isn’t that what the LORD did when He virtually bragged about Job to the heavenly court? (The divine attention led to some difficulties for Job, of course, but that’s another story.)

So, I tried to think of God, my heavenly Father, beckoning to Michael the archangel, pointing “down” to me, and saying, “Let me tell you about Wright. I like what I’m doing in him, don’t you?”

Do you dare to put your name in there? Try it. I think that you’ll enjoy the awareness of your heavenly Father’s favor, which He extends to – no, lavishes upon – all who, by faith, are “in Christ Jesus,” his beloved Son.

Healing Words

    For several decades, I suffered from something like fibromyalgia. During that time, I read countless articles and many books about nutrition and health, but I found that the most helpful instruction came from the Bible.

Over a period of several years, I compiled a number of references to passages in the Bible that spoke about physical, mental, and spiritual health, and wrote short comments on them. You can find the results of this study in The Lord’s Healing Words, available from www.AuthorHouse.com.

The former dean of the medical school of the University of Virginia, Dr. Robert M. Carey,  wrote in his preface, “I commend this book most enthusiastically to you.”Dr. Francis MacNutt, author of Healing, The Power to Heal, and other widely-read books, said it was “Very well done.” Other readers have told me how much they have been helped by The Lord’s Healing Words, so I encourage you to find out for yourself.

The 200-page volume contains six months of daily readings from the Bible on physical, mental, and spiritual health, with brief commentary. The comments are meant to stimulate your own reflection, prayer, and action to produce substantial change in your health and overall happiness.

Without offering any guarantee of a pain-free existence, this book does uncover the wisdom of God’s Word for a healthy lifestyle. A special section on men’s health addresses common problems we men face and contains essential principles for along, effective, and joy-filled life.

TLHW is not a “page-turner”; nor is it meant to be. It works best for you to go slowly, one section at a time, thinking about what you have read and applying it to your own life.

Happy reading!

Wright

The Street Preacher

The Street Preacher 

            On St. Patrick’s Day (March 17), I took the train from New Haven to New York, where I had a two-hour layover before boarding another train home to Charlottesville. On my first stopover in Penn Station a few days earlier, I remained below, enjoying the sights and sounds of the subterranean semi-city. This time, however, I decided to emerge from the “safety” of the train station to the busy streets above. I actually thought I might be able to catch a glimpse of the thousands of revelers.

            When I asked directions to the parade, I was directed towards Fifth Avenue, three blocks away. Crossing 34^th Street, I saw a middle-aged man standing not far from the corner, speaking to no one in particular as the crowds hurried by.

            I was about to pass him also, and did, but something in his manner and his message drew me back around to where he was standing, and I just stood there, quietly listening for almost ten minutes.

            This was my first real exposure to a street preacher. I’ve seen men haranguing a crowd, but never have I stopped to listen.

            Holding a little green Gideons’ New Testament in his hand, he cried out with a loud voice as he looked straight ahead and poured forth his message in steady, rhythmic cadences. I was skeptical, and sought to find fault with him. Not that I am opposed to such endeavors, which have engaged the energies of many great servants of God over the centuries, included John the Baptist, George Whitefield, Hudson Taylor, and Jesus himself. It’s just that I see these people as perhaps you do, maybe a little nutty.

            He was dark-complexioned, about my height, though a bit heavier, and with more gray hair. Simply dressed, even a bit shabby, he stood in front of a couple of large plastic bags whose contents I could not discern, but which just might have held his all his most valuable earthly possessions. Clearly, he was not getting rich by thus occupying himself.

            Nor was he acquiring fame. Tourists and travelers like me had other places to go and see, and headed for their destinations with cheerful determination. New Yorkers are too sophisticated, I suppose, to waste their precious time on a non-entity like this, or to halt long enough to hear a message that challenged their fundamental values. 

            For that is what he did, non-stop and with great passion. 

            “Friends, you can cancel your appointment with your hairdresser. You can cancel your appointment with your lawyer. You can even cancel your appointment with your doctor. But you can’t cancel your appointment with death.”

            “The Bible says that there is a hell, and that those who do not repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ are going there.” For his Roman Catholic listeners, he warned, “I have read the Bible many times, and in it I find no mention of Purgatory.”

            “But you say, ‘I have lost my job. My wife has left me. My children have gone off the right path. Cancer is eating up my body. I am already suffering enough. I am already in hell.’ Friend, I tell you that the pain you endure now is only a slight foretaste of the eternal misery you will encounter in hell if you do not turn from your sins and put your faith in Jesus Christ.” 

            He spoke of his own previous experience – drug addiction, immorality of all sorts, pride, envy, hatred. “But Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit, saved me; he forgave my sins and made me a child of God. Friends, he can do the same for you.”

            The more I listened, the more I admired – no, envied – this man. He had it all:  a firm grasp of the entire Bible, it seemed; up-to-date knowledge of current events and cultural trends, to which he referred frequently; oratorical eloquence of a very high order; and fearless zeal for God’s glory and the salvation of souls.

            He paused only to take the shortest of breaths, so at length I just had to break in (for I did want to see the Empire State Building), and said, “God bless you, Brother. I am a preacher, too, but you are far better than I am.”

            At that he ceased speaking and put his arm around me.

            “Thank you Brother, he replied with a warm smile. Let me pray for you.” And he did, passionately, asking God to give me the fullness of the Spirit as I shared the Gospel.

            There we were, two middle-aged men, with our heads bowed and arms on each other’s shoulder, enjoying the immense gift of instant friendship. He was from Puerto Rico (I learned), where I lived for two years as a child. Maybe we were in San Juan as boys at the same time, unbeknownst to each other. At any rate, God had brought us together on a crowded and noisy street corner in Manhattan for a few brief and blessed moments.

            He returned to his preaching, pouring out his heart in the hope that some would find the freedom and joy and peace which had come to him, perhaps through another preacher on another corner.

            And I – I made my pilgrimage to the Empire State Building, symbol of man’s pride, and then into Macy’s, a place where all our material wants can be supplied (for a price). To be sure, I enjoyed myself thoroughly as a tourist in the big city.

            But in my heart the insistent voice of that faithful, courageous, street preacher,  pleading with all his heart, drowns out the din of downtown New York. At least for me, he re-defines success, and true joy, and the real purpose of this transitory life.

            Happy Easter.

Just How Bad Is It?

The young woman who asked that question over supper the other night wants to know whether to quit her job and travel the world. But her friends are telling her that we are in a recession, and some are even saying it’s going to be worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Sadly, I had to reply, “It’s going to be really bad, and – yes – possibly worse than the Depression.” Asked why I was so pessimistic, I went on:

“My brother and I manage our sister’s part of the estate (mine having gone into our mortgage, a used “new” car, our daughter’s college education, and then her wedding). To be responsible, we have had to scour the literature for investments that are relatively safe. That has led us to several newsletters that, over the past decade, have proven to be remarkably accurate. So, while others have lost huge amounts of money, her portfolio has gone from $60,000 to $104,000 in the past few years.

“The newsletters we follow all predicted the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, the credit crunch, the looming bankruptcy of bond insurers, surge in the prices of oil and gold, rising inflation, and much more. They say that the worst is not over, and that we could be facing a collapse of the financial system or, at the very least, “stagflation” – the toxic mix of slow (or no) economic growth and rampant inflation. They believe that the truly mammoth pyramid of derivatives will collapse, and the entire financial bubble created by easy credit under Greenspan and now Bernanke will pop, with disastrous results.”

This did not comfort my friend, who asked, “So what should we do with our money?”

“They recommend various strategies, including (1) get out of the U.S. stock market; (2) invest in some socks based in other countries with better prospects for long-term growth; (3) put money into cash (such as short-term Treasuries); (4) get out of the U.S. dollar and into other currencies (such as the Swiss franc); (5) buy gold and silver – either the physical metals or safe substitutes, like an ETF or certificates that have your name and a serial number, stored in a really safe place; (6) buy stocks in commodities, such as oil, wheat, precious metals. They also have other suggestions, depending on their point of view.”

I promised to send her information via this blog, so here I am, passing on to you what my brother and I have found useful for our sister. I recommend that you look first at the Safe Money Report of Martin Weiss(www.martinweiss.com). Supplement that with the newsletter on currencies from Everbank (www.everbank.com); and fill it out with the newsletter on silver from Jim Cook of Investment Rarities International (Call 1-800-328-1860 and ask for Greg Westgaard; tell him I sent you. He knows me as “George” [my first name, which I use for business]). Ignore the hype in Weiss’ publications. He’s been right on, despite all the exclamation marks.

McAlvany’s Intelligence Advisor (www.mcalvany.com) is not for the faint-hearted, but it’s interesting to know that he was against the invasion of Iraq from the beginning, seeing it as a costly no-win boondoggle. He’s quite critical of the government (as are some of the others I’ve mentioned) and very pessimistic, which turns a lot of people off. But he does give news and analysis on the current economic and geo-political situation, with worst-case-scenarios worthy of the best “doom-and-gloom” prognosticators, except that he always ends with a strong affirmation of Christian faith and a reminder that we have no security in this world apart from God’s promise to take care of his people.

The March 16 New York Times carried two articles of interest: On the front page, a story on how Fed chief Bernanke has apparently thrown the “rule” books out the window in a frantic attempt to prevent a total financial collapse – which should tell us something about the seriousness of the situation -and, on the front page of the business section, a scathing criticism of the Fed’s bailout of Bear Sterns this weekend. Apparently, the writer thinks this sends the wrong message to irresponsible risk-takers, and presages the further decline of the dollar, inflation, and a loss of trust in the U.S. government and the U.S. market.

March 18’s Wall Street Journal used terms like worsening chaos, panic, collapse, etc.

Friends, this is the big one people have been warning us about for years now, made incredibly huge by the explosion of derivatives investments whose “value” now exceeds that of the U.S. economy.

Maybe during these coming months we shall have to re-think our priorities in life, tighten our belts a bit, and renew our commitment to seeking God’s kingdom first.

One thing we know: Psalm 23 has not been taken out of the Bible, and Matthew 6:33 is still true. We don’t have to worry. We just have to trust God and do what seems best for his glory and the good of our neighbors.

Three conversations

I took the train today to New Haven, changing at New York’s Penn Station. Getting off the train, I saw a young man with a cylinder slung across his back and asked what was in it.

“A poster,” he replied.

“Are you going to a scientific conference?”

“Yes, in Cold Spring Harbor,” he answered in a think European accent.

“Where are you from?”

“Poland”

“Oh, I greatly admire the Poles.”

“Why?”

“They have a noble history.”

“What was noble about it?”

“The Polish cavalry rode out bravely to meet the German tanks at the start of World War II.”

“How do you know that?”

“I read a bit here and there in history.”

“What do you do?”

“I lead a small think tank in Charlottesville.”

“What do you ‘think’ about?”

“China.”

“What about China?”

“Religion in China, and especially Christianity.”

“Oh? Is there any Christianity in China? I thought it was all wiped out.”

“Well, they tried, but now the Chinese church is growing fast, especially among intellectuals.”

He stopped in his tracks and fixed me with an incredulous stare.

“I don’t understand how this could be.”

Well, of course I was more than happy to tell him why many educated Chinese are becoming Christians in droves. That just mixed up the pieces of his little mental puzzle, as I described how really bright Chinese were not only looking for answers to questions of meaning, purpose, and social ethics, but also their own private dilemmas and conflicts, and how some of them are open to sharing their mental journey with us, and even seeking our advice sometimes.

“They must pay you really big bucks for that kind of advice,” he said, sincerely.

“Well, no. But they give us their friendship, which is worth more.”

He smiled appreciatively and we parted.

Briefly, the next conversation was on the next train with a young black student at Fordham University, whom I asked about what her classmates were thinking about life these days, and whether they were optimistic about their futures. In the course of our discussion, I asked what religion(s) her friends were favoring, and she said they were mostly atheists.

“How interesting!” I replied. “In China, among students, it’s just the opposite,”  and went on to explain. She was quite surprised, but didn’t pursue the matter. Too many text messages were coming in, I suppose.

The final conversation was with the Hertz d river who picked me up. He told of how his teenage daughter had reported on him for giving her his frank opinion on some matter of contention, and how the police had called him in the next day for “child abuse.” He is distraught by his inability to discipline his two daughters, even verbally. I sympathized with the  difficulties of rearing children these days, inwardly thanking God for my own mostly respectful daughter, but thought I had an opportunity to put in a word for faith.

“Have you thought of taking them to church?” I queried.

“I take them to church every Sunday but it doesn’t seem to do any good.”

Is there a connection between these conversations? I think so. The decreasing decadence of the West, and the turning of Chinese to  Christianity, having “been there and done that.”