Theology of the Gathering Wings: From Deadlines to Lifelines in Luke 13

Theology [loyce]of the Gathering Wings-From Deadlines to Lifelines In Luke 13[260203v15-13p][v5][ed-P]Download

Hope Enough For All: God Always Rescues A Contrite Heart

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What will prepare our Global family for our Children?

Os Guinness speaks of three enduring first-principles, faith, knowledge, and virtue. In an economic-related sense, we could say that they refer to attitude, aptitude, and altitude.

If one were to apply the sociological stress test to sustainable development one would ask three things: first, what is the market’s mood [attitude] in the prevailing economic condition, second, what has the market learned from the past that it would not want to repeat [aptitude], and third, what are the means at the market’s disposal that it can change – what is its vision or direction, and realizable application [altitude]?

The mood [attitude] is decidedly pessimistic. Martin Wolf’s excellent FT article, on the 24th November 2011, titled, “To the Eurozone: advance or risk ruin”” makes the point that something practical needs to be done instantaneously. This was similarly confirmed by a recent survey carried out to more than 1600 executives. A poor attitude is a warning sign that change is needed. One might say that usually the worse the attitude, the greater the need for sensible and practical change or adjustment – like the hand that approaches a red-hot stove plate!

The collective discernment [aptitude] screams out the need for recognition of and the adjustment to a number of things. Here are a few:

1. The global economic ‘tree’ is in dire need of a pruning. Without pruning, a tree becomes increasingly unproductive. We should ask: is our global economy not like a giant un-pruned tree? And if so, then who will do the pruning? Pruning is feared where vision is short and vested interests are allowed to manipulate. Pruning is a value – an ethic, and where values are concerned, a strong character will always be called upon [a faith attitude]. The pruning principle teaches that austerity is not necessarily an enemy. Will we be prepared to do the hard little and great things. We each know what it will take, personally, communally, and societally. We each have our respective spheres of influence, and can in an instant begin to make the necessary adjustments. I am reminded of a statement made by Marcia St. Martin, executive director of S&WB, to the citizens of the greater New Orleans area, as that region faced a hurricane of disastrous proportions. She said that if each of one million citizens of the area were to simply clear their drains, that the collective effect of that one act would avert disaster for that region. Here again, we see the power of what a collective change of attitude, and the corresponding aptitude to decide and to act, can do to save a potentially unredeemable situation.
2. Where we resist pruning, a breakdown is imminent, or inevitable. Where we avoid necessary discipline, austerity is ultimately imposed. Already, executives are giving furtive looks to alternative markets in a bid to hedge against the consequences of euro disaster. Everyone has the ‘aptitude’ to know that there is a problem and to act responsibly. In the US, under the guise of a “stress test,” the Fed is preparing for the worse, even while throwing out the disclaimer that ‘this is not a forecast’. In other places, Central banks are buying gold at unprecedented levels [again, disclaimers noted]. Frankly, the vital signs are not good, and one cannot blame everyone for taking protective measures, but this only confirms the point that any delay in exacting the necessary present discipline will only heighten the consequences later. We have the aptitude, so let’s use it. Where is the leader that will stand up and say so?
3. Without a proper long-term vision of the global economy [altitude], we will commit ourselves to interminable cycles of revisions, and ineffective adjustments. Two things are required. First, identifying the important little steps, such as the Fed’s “stress test” on some thirty major US banks. Second, agreeing on a long-term vision – leadership has to gain some ‘altitude’. For instance, we have to break out of the swamp of subsidiary sovereignty [Charles Goodhart]. Will someone stand up and take the helm, and will we allow them to do so?
4. The greatest deterrent to a sustainable economic future is a view of global economic reality as constituting many independent trees capable of independent existence. What does this mean to the strongest possible vision of a sustainable economic future? For instance, in Europe, it is to see that the only possible economic reality is that they can only stand as one. This view might perhaps finally propel the European Union to more unified fiscal policy. If one were to view the one economic tree as either living or dying, and not as a dozen trees each capable of self-protection, then we might have the vision to act radically and promptly.
5. For the family of nations, the greatest danger to a healthy global future safe for our children is unhindered gluttony and unrestrained selfishness. Any vision of the future that does not factor in the need for decisions internally that benefits others externally is unsustainable. We need not only the right attitude [faith], nor not only the right aptitude [discernment; assessments, and responsible actions], but also the right altitude – values of selflessness; gratitude; honor; respect for everyone, and the constant reminder that we only each have what was generously given to us by others.

My university professor, Willem Saayman, speaks of an old African proverb: that no single individual can embrace the Baobab tree (Embracing the Baobab Tree, 1997, Intro). This means that no one can master alone the problems, challenges, and needs of the world in which we live. This picture teaches the value of community, of family, of respect, of giving dignity to the difference in the other, and to a careful reflection of our way forward as human species of what global future we see for our children and for the creation.

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The Making of a Wise Person

The Making of a Wise Person

Moses had spent his early life doing things in his own strength… No one could tell him otherwise. To defend God’s people, he would take a man’s life and expect to be appreciated. He thought, “At least the Israelites will understand what I did!” They did not, and thus began a 40-year wilderness journey designed to make a wise person out of him!

As Chesterton writes, “Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness!” When Moses began, he thought he saw what was right and wrong. He felt he had the right to judge a situation involving God’s people. He also thought he was the one to do something about it. He had the power. He had the wisdom. He had the talent. He had the connections. He had the credentials. He was ‘God’s man’ for the hour. However, after God had prepared Him, he was a stutterer unwilling to speak. He was disqualified as a spokesperson in his own eyes. He had nothing. He also had almost no one with him in his desert abode, except those he needed most – his family!

The new Moses saw God [in the burning bush], then heard God, then saw himself as honestly as he ever had – as a person incapable of doing God’s bidding, and finally, he saw what he had to do. The old Moses did not need God. The new Moses said, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh…?” We hear, in his words, the heart of every spiritually awakened person. Isaiah said, “Woe to me. I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips”. Paul said, “I am the worst of sinners”. David said, “I have sinned!”

Moses, as the Scripture records, was a person of faith. We are told that Moses was the humblest person on the face of the earth! Is it then not something to notice that it benefits the human and helps his humility to ‘meet with’ or ‘come to know’ God? Secular Humanists, such as Carlyle, and others, would have us believe that the person who must lead is the one who thinks he can. There is some truth in this since to be authentic in what we do can never exclude our choice to do it. But, is there not also a blessing we might find in the example of Moses, who added to his ‘earthly wisdom’ the wisdom beyond himself that included a relationship with God? Is it not logical to see that to think of God implies the capacity to conceive of God—a capacity recognized by scientists as ‘beyond the beasts’. Theologians call this capacity ‘the image of God’ in the human, or ‘the Imago Dei.’ However, whatever way you wish to define this ‘capacity’, is it not also a fair-enough question to ask that we pay attention to the collator of the Proverbs who reminds us that the great value of living must include the wisdom of ‘love and kindness’ (the image of God in each person) “written in our minds” that “shows like a necklace.” 

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The Plight of the World’s Poor and Sick!

The Plight of the World’s Poor and the Sick!

The New York Times states that the “quest for eternal life, or at least prolonged youthfulness” is now within reach. “In five or six or seven years,” said Christoph Westphal, one of Sirtris’ co-founders, “there will be drugs that prolong longevity.” [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/science/29aging.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimes] How much fun is that? I do applaud every drug discovered that will combat degenerative disease, but am left wondering whether it is the best use of resources at this time while the world’s majority suffocates on a daily income of less than $1 per person? Caring for the world’s poor has never been more necessary, nor is the potential for global disaster more acute. In a Foreign Policy® article by Roger Bate, titled: The Deadly World of Fake Drugs, [Carnegie Endowment, September/October 2008, Page 57]. He states, “Whether it’s phony Viagra or knock off cancer meds, fake drugs kill thousands of people each day, thanks to counterfeiters in China and India who mix chalk, dust, and dirty water into pills sold around the world. With the internet becoming the world’s dispensary, these poison pills could be coming to a pharmacy near you.” Later in his article, he writes also that bad malaria meds kill 200,000 African children every year. The western frontiers of the mid-20^th century were Bosnian, or perhaps Mediterranean? However, today’s fault lines are already drawn down the main streets of our cities. As has already been mentioned, C. S. Lewis calls Nature, untrammeled by values, the Magician’s Bargain: whereby people give up their souls bit by bit, in return for power. However, once the soul – that is, the individual self – has been given up, the power conferred does not belong to them.[i] The value we speak of is: Caring for others above ourselves! [MQ, Page 36]

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[i] C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, A Touchstone Book, published by Simon & Shuster, distributed by Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1996, p. 80

A Family Adventure

While Sharon convalesces, I am getting to grips with the container cupboard. Two weeks of scrimmaging have produced a necessary result: The Law of Containers!

The Law of Containers:

Round with round, square with square, and lid on the container. Wash container and lid together. If not, then lids go to the bottom and the container will never be used. Like washing socks together, wash matching lids and containers together so that the monster can be held at bay. The lid monster hides lids at the bottom to undermine the container cupboard’s foundation. Throw out a container for which you do not find a lid, but handle more carefully a lid for which you cannot find a container. It might sound simplistic, but a damaged lid is less serious than a damaged container – anyone with an ounce of Scottish blood in them could not bring themselves to throw anything away anyway – but take a reality check – if there is a hole in the container larger than one millimeter, throw it away. A bit of advice – hang onto an expensive lid just a little bit longer – like something marked Tupperware® on it. Do not hoard aluminum bases, yogurt, and cream cheese containers – they are like mischievous cats and dogs in a cooped up area – they complicate the process and will keep you busy – well, maybe just one 2-liter ice cream tub but no more. No empty Powerade® bottles, they are the demons sent to create chaos, they just don’t ‘fit!’ They are individualists and too demanding – they need to stand alone and side-by-side like soldiers standing guard outside the cupboard. Oven gloves are a no-no also. Oh, and don’t forget to put a sign on the cupboard door that says, “Teenagers KEEP OUT!”

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