MAKING A BRIDE | kenread's Xanga Site

what i really think.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

PETER'S NETS (Richard Crashaw, adapted)

Strong Simon, son of John, the boy
who grew up by the sea,
You've grown to be the fisherman
that you were meant to be.

Capernaum has watched you grow
into a skillful man
who casts his nets, enfolds his prey
and hauls them in again.

And on and on you toil and cast
and pull and cast and pull,
and hone your craft until at last
your basket is quite full.

You cast by night and sell by day
and day by day you earn
enough to feed your family
and make a stable home.

And yet today when Jesus calls
and nets would have you stay,
you make your strongest, truest cast
to cast them quite away.
THE FINAL WORD (Richard Crashaw, adapted)

Christ, when He died,
deceived the cross.
'Twas sin that died
and death that lost.

The captive world
awaked and found
the prisoner loosed
the jailer bound.

It was a sweet
and dear dispute,
for death and love
bear different fruit;

the two opposed
and different far
as antidote
and poison are.

And by the first
and fatal tree,
it seems both life
and liberty

were given up
were sold and slain,
yet both arose
to live again.

So in this dark
i see a light
for death brings life
and day from night,

and any who
must enter heard
that life, not death's
the final word.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

MUSINGS

this is a short snippet of what i remember from my stand-up comedy routine this morning. during the shower. stream of consciousness thinking, i guess you'd call it.

where do the Russians keep their armies?

in their sleevies.

that should be sleevskis.

there are two kinds of people in this world: Amerikanskis and Amerikantskis.

i'm an Amerikantski.

a bit of advice: don't try to learn to ski when you are over the age of forty.

also, when you are doing that snow plow idea to slow yourself down, you know, where you ski pigeon-toed, and then your skis cross each other, and you start falling forward? well, don't plant your pole in front of you to keep yourself from falling. it won't. you will find yourself decelerating from, oh, about a hundred miles an hour to zero in a nanosecond. and that hurts.
NOTHING (Richard Crashaw 1613-1649, adapted)

You answered Nothing when accused.
O Mighty Nothing! we owe You.
You spoke one time and made the world,
then saved us all without a word.
The world was made of Nothing then;
it's made of Nothing once again.

Sunday, October 05, 2008

DOGS

Abe Lincoln once asked, "if you call a dog's tail a leg, then how many legs would he have?"
"he has four. just because you call a tail a leg doesn't make it one."

a three-legged dog walks into a saloon and calls out, "i'm lookin' for the man that shot my paw."

what does a man do standing up, a woman do sitting down, and a dog do on three legs?
shake hands.

if you taught a dog to walk around on his hind legs, would you begin to call his front legs arms?

if a satanist is sings a song about his dog, and you play it backwards, does that mean the song is really about God?

what do you call a dog with no legs?
it doesn't matter, because he can't come to you anyway.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

McCAIN OR OBAMA

McCain trusts big business. sooner or later, people with money will put it to use and hire the middle class to do their work.

Obama does not trust big business. he believes that the wealthy are greedy, and they must be forced to give to the middle class. big businesses need a watchdog to keep them in check, and, like Robin Hood, to take from the rich and give to the poor. in other words, Obama trusts big government.

as for me, i do not trust big business OR big government. i believe that mankind, both rich and poor, is depraved. so whether it is the multi-millionaire who exploits workers to build his own wealth, or it is the politician who somehow became a multi-millionaire in so-called "public service" because he receives support from special interests, every person is out for himself. that's one thing we can trust: the depravity of mankind.

do you really think that if someone who is poor, or someone who is middle class, just needs a little hand up, and that having received that, he or she will be content and will flourish? why are you and me, as the middle class, any different from the wealthy in our motives?

the only hope for our economy is when all Christ folowers (we can't hope for much change in human nature from the rest) to have a heart change and choose to live purposefully beneath their means, so that they can be generous. then individuals can genuinely help the poor.

until that happens, i say it doesn't matter much whether we have mixed socialism (as we have now) or pure socialism (which is what Obama means by the word "change").

Monday, September 29, 2008

PERMISSION, OR FREEDOM? (PART 2)

the TRUTH is:
1. i CAN homeschool my child without permission from the government. but most people, including many school superintendents in Ohio, don't realize it. many parents have to procure a lawyer in order to defend their rights. they almost always win their case, because the law is quite clear about our freedoms, but many bureaucrats don't know the law.

2. i CAN start a church without permission from the government. by definition, that church is even tax-exempt. the only reason to seek governmental "permission" is if that church chooses to register as a 501(c)3 organization, so that they can cooperate with other recognized non-profit organizations. but increasingly, there are movements afoot to change the tax-exempt status of unregistered churches.

3. i CAN be a minister without registering or obtaining "permission" from the government. i can even marry people without being registered in my state. but such unregistered marriages (sometimes spoken of a "common-law" marriages) are frowned upon by the government, and they make things difficult for the couple. it is easiest simply to register.

the POINT is:
all of these are rights and freedoms. today. but all are being currently reviewed by lawmakers, fought in courts, and debated by those in control (superintendents, the IRS, Social Security, and other governmental bureaucracies that seek "better" control of their jurisdictions).

isn't it GOOD for the government to have more control? more regulations? more monitoring? maybe. but remember, every right that we as a people surrender is one less freedom that we own. we read about bad use of guns, about abusive parents hiding under the guise of homeschooling, about ministries that fraudulently misuse funds, and we begin to conclude that because of the few we must take away the freedoms of the many. and so, one by one, we surrender our rights to our always-benevolent Big Brother.

as long as our dictator is benevolent, it doesn't matter on a practical day-by-day basis whether or not we have freedoms like these. but ask homeschoolers in Germany how it feels to have their children removed from their homes, because home education is illegal there. ask the church in China if registering with the government is a good idea. ask them what doctrines are permitted to be preached in a registered church. ask them about the penalty if they choose to meet without registering with the government. ask any pastor in Iran, or Indonesia, or North Korea, how much freedom they have to preach the gospel, and ask them how the limitations began and where they are now.

as i say: the price of freedom is vigilance.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

THE LOVE OF CHRIST (John Austin, 1613-1669, adapted)

The Sower came to sow His Seed
His Precious Only Son. Indeed,
He saw His risk, yet knew our need
To overcome our lusts.

Love drew Him down from Paradise
Where all seeds grow and bloom and thrive
To plant Himself and give His life
Among our weedy dust.

And so the Sower came in love
To sow His seed from heaven above
Diffused His fragrance wide to all
Who lived or for life longed.

He fell upon a trodden path
So hard and harsh and full of wrath
And Satan swooped the Seed to snatch
Before it could grow strong

It grew despite that brutal force
Of envious frost and furious storms
Then on a tree that Tender Form
Did bend His head in death

The Life of Christ, the death of God
Let guilty mankind stand in awe
We choked His life! The Lord of all
Has taken His last breath

Let God arise! Let Christ be praised!
The Seed the Sower sent is raised
To take His Throne, His rightful place
In Paradise again!

And here on earth in fertile ground
Let Truth take root, let love be found
Till sons of earth are heavenbound
Where there is no more sin
IN SHORT...

if i must obtain permission from the government
to do something,
who gave the government permission to grant me permission?

The price of freedom is vigilance.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

PERMISSION, OR FREEDOM?

every once in a while, i must make a serious political statement. as a follower of Jesus, as a minister of the gospel, and as a home educating father, i am aware that my government has "permitted" me the privilege of doing these things. the government "tolerates" my actions--for now.

the problem is, as Jefferson understood it, these are unalienable rights of mine. not permissions to be granted by men, but endowed by my Creator. and if they are unalienable, then the government cannot take them away. if they are unalienable, NO ONE can take them away. it is impossible, because they simply cannot be removed from me, by divine right.

Thomas Paine said that toleration and intoleration are not opposite. both are despotism. if the government assumes to itself the right to withhold something from me that God gave me, it really doesn't matter whether they have given me "permission" or not.

i am "allowed" to follow Jesus, as long as my beliefs don't interfere with others. wait a second! allowed? since when does the government have jurisdiction over religious liberty? i thought i was endowed by my Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which [is] . . . liberty.

i am "licensed" as a minister of the gospel, as long as i submit certain papers and get certain permissions. then i have a "perk" from the government of being tax-exempt. hold on! why is the government the watchdog over the church? why is there even a possibility of government taxing a minister who does not meet with their approval? where did that power come from?

i am "permitted" to home educate my children, as long as i register with the local school, submit for approval my course scope and sequence for the year, and prove myself to be qualified and competent. oops! since when has the government owned my children? i thought that the concept of democratic governments meant that we own and control the government, not that they own and control us.

the idea of America is that people have rights. we have slowly become a country in which the Government has rights, benevolently granting permissions to citizens who stay in line.

something is backwards here.

this next election will take us a huge next step in the direction of an all-powerful, self-declared benevolent, despotic Big Brother. take a deep breath, we're going to be underground for a long, long time.

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Sunday, July 13, 2008

MAKING A BRIDE
how could God change me into beginning to do things for Him rather than for me? for that matter, how does He take us all, collectively, and change us into the beautiful bride of Christ, radiant and without spot or blemish or any wrinkle?

as i get to really know the saints in my little church, i find that these believers are the most suffering, most fragile, most dysfunctional people i have ever known. we are all broken, addicted, dysfunctional, and insane. every one. that’s what we come to realize when we really begin to do church life together.
maybe we are not really so unusual. maybe it’s that i never really got to know the people who went to my church before.

but when we know each other well, with all our problems, there is an unexpected benefit to our fellowship. the ones who suffer first are able to comfort those who suffer after them. when i have allowed myself to be broken, without bitterness, i can share with those who come after me how God has enabled me to overcome.
and i discover that my wilderness experience is not for me alone. i suffer for the whole body. i recognize that virtually every piece of wisdom, every moment of good advice, is born from my own lessons learned during suffering.

God has slowly moved me from being a person with all the answers, and who was so eager to share them with others, and has grown me into someone who is more quick to cry, slower to correct, and more willing to let others speak. i am less judgmental and have far fewer answers than i used to have. but i have more empathy, and that goes a longer way in bringing healing to another than my answers ever did.

have those changes been coming from the books i read, or the sermons i heard? no. it was the humiliation of the wilderness, when i came to the end of my answers, that changed me.

amazingly, the Bible says that Jesus did not complete His sufferings. His contemporary body continues to fill up what is left. one of us will be ridiculed, another will suffer disease, another rejection, and still another unjust death. but it is assigned to His church to suffer as our Head has suffered.

when we ask, “why?” we will always receive the same answer:

silence.

the silence is part of the suffering, part of the desert. so, for the sake of the body, i suffer alone, because, well, i can never know why, but somehow for the sake of the whole church.

a radiant bride, set apart and without spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. that is God’s dream, and He is willing to do whatever it takes to make His bride the wife of His dreams. now, i am not that bride, and you are not that bride, but we are that bride. Are you catching this? it is not up to me to be the bride of Christ; this is a collective journey.

how can this ragtag group of ragamuffins possibly be the spotless bride of Christ? the answer does not lie in our collective weakness, but in the collective gifts of the Spirit. among us, we have all the major sins, addictions, foibles and idiosyncrasies. but among us also, we have all the gifts of the Spirit. as Christ has His way among us, the Holy Spirit whittles away the human mistraits. as iron sharpens iron, He bestows grace and beauty as we minister to each other according to our gifts.

what’s more, it seems that our little group has had far more than its share of tragedy and loss. death, injury, disease, unemployment, broken homes—to a person, we have experienced bitterness and spiritual attack from the outside.

how can God be in all of this, if His ultimate goal is to make for Himself a radiant bride?

here again is where the Holy Spirit paints over the canvas of our tragedies. we learn to serve one another, according to our gifts, not when times are good or the sea is calm, but when we are all sick and start leaning on each other for support, or when we together are clinging to the life raft in our collective storm.

that’s our church. no one has it together in our little fellowship. no one. but we are going through what we go through together. one person’s lessons and strength help another in an area of weakness. in spite of the deep corruption in each of us, and in spite of the desert experience of each of us, we are together being shaped into a beautiful bride for Jesus.

are the weaknesses and tragedies a gift from God? that’s a bit hard to say. but God can bring beauty in the desert. and He certainly has a plan that sees far beyond our current trials.
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