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Pastor David Hewitt
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Pastor David is Associate Pastor of King of Glory Lutheran Church and blogs these devotionals. He invites your comments which will be considered for posting for a period of 5 days from each blog entry date.
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Friday, 28 May 2010
Art Linkletter died yesterday at the age of 97. I am just barely old enough to have known this entertainner/TV host in his heyday. Art's show "House Party" was on in the daytime, and when I was 7 I remember watching in the summer when school was out -- the show's last season, 1969. I think what got me to watch was that this smiling older man named Art was paying attention to little kids like me.
Of course, I noticed that the adults in the audience would laugh at the cute things the little kids would say. But I liked Linkletter's questions, and he seemed impressed with some of the answers. Some of the kids' answers I, too laughed at. And some of the answers I thought I would have said, or something like it.
Apparently Art and his wife of 74 years had five children, and one of them, Jack Linkletter, also went into show business, most notably hosting the Miss Universe pageant for a time. Art and Jack loved to reveal how it was that a conversation between little Jack and his dad started Art on the whole idea of interviewing children.
It was the evening after Jack's first day of kindergarten. He wandered into his father's work room, where he saw his father saying different things over and over again into his microphone. Jack asked what dad was doing. "I'm just practicing my radio voice," said Art. "Come over here, and I'll interview you." Art was interested in what Jack thought of this newfangled thing called "school" (there being no preschools back then).
"Jack, what did you do today?" The son spoke near dad's microphone -- and he was being recorded. "I went to school for the first time," he answered.
"How did you like it?" "I'm not going back." "Why aren't you going back."
"Because I can't read, I can't write, and they won't let me talk." Art laughed. He loved that answer, and he played the exchange with Jack on his "Who's Dancing Tonight?" Sunday-night interview radio show. The response? Well, as you might have guessed -- "Mail came in from all over Northern California," said Linkletter, "saying what a wonderful thing it is to hear a little boy talking to his daddy, and it struck me," he went on, "that there were no interviews with children as children (back then); they were always professional children -- trained, coached, and written for." In other words, all the spontaneity -- and surprising wisdom -- of talking with children had been ignored before Art's discovery. From then on Art interviewed many, many children on radio and TV -- and loved it.
Tuesday, 25 May 2010
I know there are many of you out there who didn't watch the finale to "my" show, "Lost," last Sunday night. You may have heard of its "religious" or "spiritual" overtones. I won't give away endings, or go on too long about the show, except to quote from a reviewer, "Doc" Jensen. He is a Christian himself (he dares to say, even as he works out in Hollywood for Entertainment Weekly), so maybe he reads too much Christian meaning into Lost episodes. Yet, commenting on a major character's key actions at the end, the Doc writes this:
The Lost story is all about the folly of "master plans." Anyone who has ever had a master plan on this show has failed catastrophically. Mother.
Jacob. The Man in Black. Ben. Charles Widmore. Jack. Sawyer. The best we can do is live our lives with enlightened improvisation -- to be so
self-aware and fearless that we can live fully in the present and redeem our every moment and every human connection."
There's that old saying, "Man proposes -- God disposes." Even Proverbs weighs in: "The human mind may devise many plans, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will be established." (Prov. 19:21) It was Lincoln that once said -- to much consternation -- "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." Even in his own day people take that quote the wrong way. Lincoln wasn't saying that his actions were totally random, or without a moral compass; he simply implied that it is not enough to have a moral compass; that one must also be open to the timing and the method of execution of the "good deed," in order for that "good deed" to REALLY be a part of God's plan. When a preacher proclaimed that God was on their side, Lincoln said he preferred rather that THEY would be on GOD'S side. We must listen to God several moments of every day to do that -- to follow HIS master plan, not our own.
I was watching Hamlet the other day. Throughout the play Prince Hamlet does not know whether to kill his uncle, King Claudius, or not; Hamlet is not sure that the ghost claiming to be Hamlet's father is really his father or a demon -- a demon that may be lying to him about being murdered by brother Claudius. Hamlet seems ready to wreak revenge and cleanse Denmark of its "rotten"-ness; but then circumstances...Hamlet's own scrupulous morality and intellect,...and some confusing evidence...keep Hamlet from action. "Conscience makes cowards of us all!" he cries out in despair. Then the uncle/king forces Hamlet to go to England.
When he returns -- surviving his uncle's assassination plot -- he has found peace. He is ready to die, if need be, to rid Denmark of its king and corruption -- but only if God tells him that NOW is the time. "There's a divinity that shapes our ends," he says, "Rough-hew them how we will." He will not force the issue. He realizes that "there is a special Providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it [his action] be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not know, yet it will come -- the readiness is all."
"Prepare ye the way of the Lord!" cried John the Baptist. He told us all to "prepare" to be an instrument, a ready-made instrument, in God's hands. "Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing," said Jesus. Jesus knows we will be "ready" for God's use when we are not too busy with our own agendas, and ready and open to God's agenda - the agenda of the moment, and of a lifetime. As Doc Jensen said above, we should get ready to "live fully in the present and redeem every moment and every human connection." And how do we do that? Jensen says by being "self-aware" (aware of possible avenues to serve God) and "fearless" (fear is the opposite force to God's love). Prayer and discipline and worship and study and instrospection are a part of that -- all avenues into our heart for the Spirit to travel.
Lincoln -- a student of both the Bible and Shakespeare -- sought God's timing for the start of the Civil War, for the Emancipation Proclamation, for the use of black troops, and so forth. Hamlet sought God's timing, and found it when it was clear that his wicked uncle had not only poisoned Hamlet but also his mother and Laertes. No one would defend Claudius, and Hamlet executed him. Both Lincoln and Hamlet died for "the cause," but they died at the right time, after God had used them up.
May you and I find that "the readiness is all," and, when God uses us "ready" people, that He use us...up. For, in the life to come, He will fill us to the brim...again.
David Hewitt
Friday, 21 May 2010
IN THE NEWS TODAY is the invention of the first so-called "synthetic cell," the implication being that somehow some scientists were able to create LIFE out of NOTHING. But if we look carefully at what really occurred, we hear the inventors say that this new cell is "more of a re-creation of existing life -- changing one simple type of bacterium into another -- than a built-from-scratch kind" of cell.
However, one of those same scientist/inventors went on to speculate that his team's project "paves the way for designing organisms that work differently from the way nature intended for a wide range of uses." Differently from the way nature intended. Hmmm.
The way the Roman Catholic Church has responded to this is enlightening. The bio-ethics people at the Vatican are warning scientists "of the ethical responsibility of scientific progress." On the one hand, they say, is "the temptation to play God," to not "respect the dignity of of the person." On the other hand, this new bio-technology can be a useful tool "toward the good" if, they say, it is utilized "to treat pathologies [diseases]."
But THEN the Vatican spokesman uses an interesting phraseology. He says, "We look at science with great interest. But we think above all about the meaning that must be given to life." The meaning. What does he mean by "the meaning?"
The hit TV show "Lost" is screening its final episode this coming Sunday, May 23rd. I've become a fan of the show ever since the producers decided, three years ago, that the show (and its long storyline) would stop right about now. For me, because the story now HAD an ending, watching the show would be more meaningful. "Lost" would not be just a series of random episodes; the program had a point.
That is what Christians like those in the Vatican and you and me should be asking any new technology, any new tool. What is the point? What is its overall effect on humanity? What is the meaning, the ultimate purpose of this new stuff? I recall how over the last 65 years, through the invention of nuclear bombs, nuclear energy, and nuclear medicine, we have found out what's helpful and what's not so helpful about harnassing the power of the atom. We are finding out its best meaning for humanity and for God's world. We can be very destructive - and, say, obliterate civilization in an all-out nuclear war -- if we lose sight of the best "meaning" and "purpose" for our use of atomic energy.
A TV critic named "Doc" Jensen has watched "Lost" for all 6 seasons. He knows that many viewers are looking for final answers this Sunday night to the show's many mysteries. But he's looking forward to the finale because, he says, "I'm ready to watch 'meaning' -- which, to be clear," he adds, "is different from 'answers'." You see, Jensen is very perceptive (he's also a church-going Christian). He knows that people who want ANSWERS are taking themselves out of the equation. He's ready to experience the deep MEANING that the show can provide -- which is the LOVE that the characters are learning to show each other.
Many times people want answers and don't realize that what they really want is meaningful, loving relationships. God in the Bible is sometimes frustrating because He refuses to answer in detail several questions: What's heaven like? How will good triumph over evil? Why does evil exist in the world? etc. Yet faith tells us, if we let it, that God has already given us the answers that count, the meaning we need...that God loves us and suffers and triumphs with us...that His plan is working out right now...and that we are called to follow the God of Jesus Christ, together, in a Spirit-led, loving community. As Jensen writes, "Lost" tells us that "the labor of our emotional, intellectual, and spiritual healing, growth and refinement isn't a solo act, but requires a community of fellow souls also seeking transformation...[who are] deeply invested iln each other's survival, growth, and flourishing."
It's through being "deeply invested" in each other that we find our ultimate purpose and meaning in life. Forming that community, in turn, guides us, together, to make the right decisions for this world, and for each other.
David Hewitt
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
I was on the phone the other day, trying to reach someone in my area code, who still lived quite a distance away. I was wondering if it would work, but I dialed the number without a 1 in front of it or the area code. Then I heard a beep, and a (female) mechanical voice : "Your call did not go through as dialed. You must dial '1' before the number."
Fine. So I dialed "1" and then the rest of the phone number. Then: another beep, and a slightly different (but still female) mechanical voice warned me, "Your call did not go through as dialed. You do not need to dial a '1' before the number." But I thought...
This has probably happened to you. I was fast becoming a part of that old "Who's on First" Abbott and Costello routine. Well, I tried both ways again, and each time got the same response. I even dialed 1 and then the full area code and then the number...still the beep, followed by the Mechanical Voice of Denial (but what I really hate is that beep).
I sometimes tell myself to calm down in these situations. After all, if we didn't have phones at all we couldn't communicate nearly as well as we do. What's a little inconvenience?
So I dialed the operator for help. I tried really hard to explain to her my dilemma. She asked me to repeat myself and I did, this time describing it even better. After a few more seconds, she seemed a bit distressed and said, "I'm sorry, the connection is weak...." and she hung up on me. Yeah, the connection is weak all right....
Sometimes we wonder if the connection is weak between us and God. We sometimes want to know why we aren't getting through to God. Is it something I have done? Am I not praying as I should? Do I not properly understand what's going on? Maybe God has it in for me. Or maybe...God doesn't do things like...help people.
In my down times I sometimes remember Romans, Chapter Eight. The 8th chapter of Romans has a lot of great stuff in it. Paul gives us the Gospel in so many wonderful and powerful ways in that single chapter. I always recommend it to people to read. For instance, he says "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)
So I guess the Apostle Paul thinks God and His followers cannot be separated. That's very good to know. But WITHIN that UN-separatedness, how is our connection with God made stronger? Paul says, again in Romans 8, that "likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words." (Rom. 8:26)
Hey, that's great news! Due to our "faith connection" -- a connection that, purely for Jesus' sake, makes us "saints" -- Paul adds that "God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." (Rom. 8:27) The Spirit intercedes for you and me! The Spirit of God translates our poor prayers into pure eloquence, eloquence that reaches deep into the Father's own heart.
You see, we knew Jesus was for us. Now we know the Spirit is for us. And that all leads to knowing that "If God is for us, who is against us?" (Rom. 8:31) God will help us make all the necessary connections we need to make in our life...but on His time, according to His not necessarily ours.
By the way, I used the Spirit of patience in the midst of my phone problems. I tried the operator again, and got a different one. She was very, very helpful. She got me over my barrier. In that respect, she was like the Spirit of God.
David Hewitt
Thursday, 13 May 2010
I encountered an article recently entitled, "How Rich Are You?" Of course in my mind I quickly said, "I'm not rich at all." But then I read on....
Let me quote it: "You're richer than you think. At least according to Poke, a London-based creative company that specializes in interactive media. Their Web site, The Global Rich List, generates a wealth ranking for its users based on their annual income. For example, if you make $52,000 a year (the median American household income for 2009), you are the 58,252,719th richest person in the world...." [There are about 6 billion people in the world now] They pointed out that that [$52,000 per year] puts that person in the top 1% of everyone in the world!
Even someone who makes $26,000 a year is in the top 10%.
Now, one may put up a caution and say, well, that's income. How expensive is it to buy things where you live? And a point can be made there. But still, the larger point holds true: we Americans are, for the most part, rich, globally speaking. But we don't like to think of ourselves that way.
Being rich has its advantages...and its disadvantages. According to the very rich investor Warren Buffett's son, 52-year-old Peter Buffett, his business titan of a father rarely if ever spoiled him. Peter has just written a book, "Life is What You Make It: Finding Your Own Path to Fulfillment," in which he describes how he ended up a "normal, happy" person instead of a spoiled child to one of the world's richest people.
"I am my own person," he writes, "and I know what I have accomplished in my life. This [Life] isn't about wealth or fame or money or any of that stuff. It is actually about values and what you enjoy and finding something you love doing." His father didn't let "the silver spoon" in Peter's mouth become what the elder Buffett calls, a "silver dagger in your back." Peter talks about what his dad taught him: "Anybody who acts like they deserve something 'just because' is a disaster."
Though I would amend the title of Peter's book to say, "Life is what You Let God Make It: Finding the Lord's Path to Fulfillment," I think he makes a very important point. Those who think they "deserve something" are takers, not givers, and those people who think life is "all about receiving" are wrong. Life is really "all about giving." As Jesus Christ once said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." (Acts 20:35)
Since it is more blessed to give than to receive, DO we have more money to give than we need to receive? Martin Luther would say yes. In 1520, he once wrote, "See, in this way the love of God flows from faith, and from love flows a free, willing, and joyful life of freely given service to our neighbor. For just as our neighbor suffers want and is in need of our surplus, so we have suffered want before God and were in need of His grace."
I can personally testify how amazing it is when one begins to think that God has given him (or her) more than they need, that one has "a surplus." Certainly learning how rich we are, that we are in the top 1% or 5% or 10% of all people all over the world, helps to prove that key spiritual point. We are saved by God's rich gifts. We can help others in the same fashion.
David Hewitt
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Someone found out, some years ago, that a survey was done in heaven, and the results astonished. Here it is:
"Americans who have died and gone to heaven are not entirely satisfied with either. Twelve hundred dead Americans were interviewed in a survey. These tended to be older than average. Older, or else more careless. About 36% found heaven better than they expected, and about 21% thought it was about the same as they expected, and 43% were disappointed. Of the 1200 Americans surveyed, 31% feel it is poorly run and 17% feel that government is not paying enough attention to their needs....Those who were disappointed with heaven say the food is good, and they like not having winter and all that, but they feel a lot of uncertaintly about the future. You get there and it's not as perfect as you think. The hardware is a different size. So you can't do home improvement or anything. No yard work. The selection of reading materials is limited. So is cable reception. It's poor. They don't care for the people all that much. The blessed, the meek, they get on your nerves. And the pure of heart tend to be hard to get to know. Women, especially, they're real standoffish."
Sounds a lot like a typical poll on earth, huh? I think that was Garrison Keillor's point. He also put in there that "If I were God, I'd be concerned about it. Those are pretty high negatives." It's like the old Rolling Stone song, "I can't get no...satfisfaction...."
I've often joked that hell is just heaven, only it's hell to those who are dissatisfied. And what would they be dissatisfied with? Bored, with nothing to do? Singing and having to sit through those 24-hour long worship services? It's hard to say.
I just know that it's easier to be dissatisfied than satisfied these days (and by these days, I mean I've noticed this since I became an adult over 25 years ago). I know for me I have to constantly fight the urge to obsess of that 1 thing that went wrong on a given day than the ten things that went right, or right enough, that were blessings in my life.
You know the devil, he loves dissatisfaction. If fact, his name is "Satan," which means "Accuser," and the biggest accuser for each of us, it seems to me, is that voice deep inside.
That's why I'm always struck by what the Apostle Paul says in Philippians 4:8. He says, "Finally beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." He implies we shouldn't be thinking so much about...other things.
I really think we put a lot of Christian Joy out of reach if we are not willing to follow Paul here. Some ask how Paul was able to soldier on with all the terrible things he had to deal with -- rejections, arrests, beatings, whippings, imprisonments, etc. Of course it all starts with his faith in God, that "nothing will be able to separate" him "from the love of God in Christ Jesus." But how is that love activated in Paul's life?
Part of it is how Paul allows the Spirit to influence his mind. And one thought that perhaps kept purring on in Paul's head through all the highs and lows of his life was this: This moment (no matter how the world judges this moment) is a blessing. A Real Blessing.
David Hewitt
Thursday, 06 May 2010
I don't know how many of you know of Garrison Keillor and his radio show, Lake Wobegon. It's on PBS stations, and is performed before a live audience in St. Paul, Minnesota. Keillor, who is also a great writer, finishes each show -- filled as it is with old-time radio stuff like radio serials and radio ads and singing old songs -- with a long, humorous, and sometimes sentimental monologue about the people in the fictional small town of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. Those monologues that I have heard are quite endearing and sometimes very insightful - not just about Minnesotans, but, more broadly, us Midwesterners and our weird ways - especially our weird ways of understating everything and shyly admitting to some passion about something or other.
Of course the bottom line in his stories is that it's all about human nature, its joys and sorrows. So in this encyclopedia I found which describes all things from the show, I ran across a subject heading entitled "Fear." It's a radio ad, written by Keillor: "The Fearmonger's Shoppe (serving all your phobia needs) pays particular attention," he tells us, "to the danger of poisonous snakes. Snakes like to come indoors at night to get warm and thanks to their flexible skeletons can squeeze through an opening just big enough for a pipe cleaner. Many people have reached for what they thought was a belt or sat down on what looked like a lovely pillow and gotten bit in the butt," Keillor points out, probably to audience laughter.
Keillor's fake phobia shoppe then gives us some pointers about avoiding snakes: "1. Always step back before you open a closet door. 2. Before using a toilet, check for ripples in the water. They may indicate the presence of a water moccasin. Flush." I like Point #6 -- "Before climbing into bed, look for odd wrinkles or bulges. Whack the bed with a baseball bat carefully from head to foot, leaving no area unwhacked. Follow these rules, and," Keillor concludes, "nine times out of ten, you'll have no problem with poisonous snakes whatsoever." Nine times our of ten. Not good odds!
I like to laugh in the face of fear. Unless it's one of my really, really deep fears. I laugh, but keep the laught to myself usually, in the face of OTHER people's fears. They can't really be serious, I think. They're afraid of THAT? There's no reason. But that's also human nature. Like "one person's trash is another person's treasure," so also is "one person's fear is another person's foible."
Of course maybe you've heard or read me holding forth on a key biblical concept, love vs. fear. Read the 4th chapter of 1st John (the letter, not the gospel). It's all about how fear is the enemy of God's will. Almost every key incident in the Bible has God, or one of God's messengers, say to a person (or people), "Do not be afraid, for God is with you," and, without that fear, they have the courage to do what God wants them to do.
But are we ALWAYS supposed to be without fear? A friend of mine is reading a book by noted security expert Gavin de Becker entitled, "The Gift of Fear." In it, de Becker seeks to explode the myth that violence is usually a random event that will always strike victims unawares. He has studied so many incidents, he can share some simple warning signs, as well as tell the people that hire him to advise them that they should also rely on their intuition. Yet he also wants people to "separate real from imagined dangers."
It is my contention that we often do not even TRY to do the right thing because of imagined dangers. God reveals that Satan's favorite means of manipulating us away from being courageous by "the fear of death" that he seeks to insert into our hearts and souls (Hebrews 2:15), putting us in "slavery" to his whims. Yet that doesn't mean we are called to be daredevils, to confuse the "No Fear" slogan with the devil's catchphrase "do whatever you want to do."
Recently at the Univ. of Virginia a young female student and lacrosse player was killed by her boyfriend, also a UVA student and all-American lacrosse player. He had been (as usual) drinking and had a well-known temper. What wasn't well-known was his arrest record. Yet I am sure that Mr. de Becker would have been able, ahead of time, to pick out the warning signs. After all, when the young man was arrested two years ago on campus, at the police station he threatened to kill every officer there.
So where do we make the distinction between "the gift of fear" and "have no fear"? In my opinion, its realizing that what the Bible talks of and what de Becker and others talk of are not to be confused; it's apples an oranges time. Mr. de Becker seeks to educate our minds; in that respect, I am reminded of what Jesus once said when he sent out his disciples among the populace: "See, I am sending you out llike sheep into the midst of wolves; so be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves." (Matthew 10:16)
God has plans for us that ought not be derailed by a foolish naivete that may shield us from noticing someone else's destructive impulses. So let's be smart as serpents and avoid use THAT kind of fear as a gift to be used wisely. But where Christ's dove-like innocence comes in to play is when we decide, even when there IS danger, to do the right thing anyway, discerning, through instant prayer, that God wants us to minister to others in spite of the danger. Why? Because -- and only because -- we realize, at that moment, that it is part of God's plan.
David Hewitt
Tuesday, 04 May 2010
I found a book the other day that described a part of my life, however small. I always pay attention to such things. I remember reading once about a giant mafia conspiracy to smuggle drugs into this country from Italy back in the 1980s. Suddenly, midway through the book, a part of my life enters the pages! The authors write that a pay phone behind a lonely little pizza place in a small town in Oregon, Illinois was one of the key phones used by this worldwide organized crime syndicate.
In other words, while myself and other local camp counselors were eating pizza on a Friday night, relaxing after an exhausting week with some kids, a few feet away, behind the joint, millions of dollars of heroin was being ordered by phone to be sent to America.
Some personally-angled stories that I run across aren't quite so stunning. Like this latest find. You see my wife, Diane, and I are both from really small towns in Illinois. And the book I was holding the other day was describing a trip the author (Truman historian David McCullough) was taking with famous photographer David Plowden, back in 1981. And Plowden drove to Diane's old hometown, where she was a little girl.
And he liked this viewpoint -- thought it would make a great picture. It was of the side of a hardware store near the railroad tracks and on Main Street. This town, Gilman, was, in 1981, just starting the shrinking process that almost all small towns are now going through, shrinking into nothingness. And this is what drives Plowden, the photographer, crazy.
As Plowden takes a black-and-white picture of the words "Roeder's Hardware" painted on the side of the building, he tells McCullough, "You know what I really love about doing this? In a sense I preserve this little place -- I caught it, and it won't disappear. It's been held. There's something about this particular moment, this particular little corner -- and [now] it's not going to go [away]...I love that feeling: I love that feeling of getting this place." You see, Plowden is on a rescue mission. He talks about "everything disappearing," but as long as he's taken a picture of it, he's saved it, forever.
But what has he saved? Well, as I look on the internet for items about "David Plowden," I find his very own website, and on it are some photos he has taken, subdivided by genre. One of them, of course, is "small towns," so I click on it and see that there are 58 photos in this section; the site forwards me through the pictures in record time. I see pictures of stores and railroad tracks, and houses and farms, and people from small towns in Ohio, New York, Vermont, Pennsylvania, etc. On the 28th of the 58 photos I find...the Roeder's Hardware sign. I can't believe it. There it is.
And I'm thinking that, okay, I don't know how artistic it is, but it's nicely done. And I know what he's getting at, anyway, without looking at this photo. There's a romance about small town life, that it is somehow more innocent than life in the big city. And we all long for that innocence, even if some of us (and that includes Plowden) don't want to live there anymore.
We all long for something we have lost. A lost innocence. Pastor Paul quoted from the psychologist Erik Erikson last Sunday. Erikson said something like, "None of us likes change because, inevitably, change involves loss." And we can all look back to a time when we were "blissfully innocent" of one thing or another. But we are sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. We ate the forbidden fruit. We know of good and evil and a whole lot of other things we sometimes wish we never knew.
Take that Roeder's Hardware photo. In the back there are things that look like propane tanks. Now if you had asked me about propane tanks several years ago, I would have told you all about their innocent uses. But just today we received word that the fellow who tried to blow up Times Square Saturday night used propane tanks to kill people. Too much information.
But we can't go back. Only rarely does our Holy Scriptures describe heaven in terms of Paradise for the simple reason that in getting to heaven we will not be dumb again. But that's OK. You see, Adam and Eve did not know Jesus Christ. But now we do. We may wish we were not a part of the struggles of life beyond paradise, but experiencing the evil also means we experience the extra good goodiness of God, and of people who have God working through them, as they love us. As St. Paul wrote, "I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." (Philippians 3:7)
McCullough wrote, while he was in Gilman, that, compared to the previous small town, at least Gilman had a "Ben Franklin (chain) Store." Well, the internet search tells me that Ben Franklin is out of business -- the auction was in 2008. And one of the things auctioned was "a large bill collector's desk from Roeder's Hardware." I like to think someone is taking good care of it right now, putting it to good use in their home.
David Hewitt
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