Following Jesus of Nazareth

Bill Bright's final charge to Campus Crusade staff, as he was approaching the end of his life, fromThe Journey Home: Finishing with Joy*---

Following Jesus of Nazareth

Beloved followers of Christ around the world, I embrace you with the love of our risen Savior in Whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and through Whom alone we can know our Awesome Creator; now by His Holy Spirit I give you this charge to keep:

Love the Lord God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength; keep His commandments and practice His Golden Rule.

Surrender to our Matchless Master as a royal slave, obeying and enjoying life with Him, trusting in His presence, power, and promises.

Meditate upon the attributes of the One True Living God, and let your faith reflect His greatness and character in all your ways.

Love your family as Christ loves you.

Depend upon the power of the Holy Spirit both to begin and to complete His plan for your role in helping to fulfill the Great Commission.

Memorize His Holy Word to fortify yourself for spiritual warfare.

By faith, walk in His light, enjoy His presence, love with His love, and rejoice that you are never alone; He is with you always, to bless!

Bill asked for these admonitions to be printed on a card, with the following verses on the back:

The Great Commandments (Matt. 22:37-39)
The Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12)
The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:3-17)

The founder and chairman/president emeritus of Campus Crusade was born October 19, 1921, and passed away from complications of pulmonary fibrosis on July 19, 2003.

Bill Bright, The Journey Home, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003, p. 166-168.

Open my eyes, help me to see 2

(edited)The Christian Examiner interviews Kay Warren* in Pondering suffering, caring for people with AIDS/HIV

Kay is convinced that the church is the answer to the world’s global giants, like AIDS.

“The evangelical church has been asleep at the wheel,” she says. “We have been absent from our post in caring for people and their needs for a very long time now. But I see repentance happening. I see people waking up with the same shock that I did and wanting to respond. That fills me with hope.”

Kay knows the world won’t be perfect until Jesus returns.

“But we can push back the darkness,” she says. “We can bring His presence and His light. We can be His hands that relieve the suffering, that comfort the dying, that care for the sick.”

* * * * * * *
Prof. Johan Malan of the University of Limpopo, South Africa, has published an article, Wilkinson's Dream For Africa is Shattered, detailing reasons for the failure of Bruce Wilkinson's* campaign to fight AIDS in Swaziland. (HT: Crossroads)
* * * * * * *
We need to become better observers and listeners.

*Wilkinson authored The Prayer of Jabez. Kay Warren is married to Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life.

Most interesting webcams of 2005

ADDED: Sorry, this link was replaced with views of New Year's celebrations before I got a few direct links to the webcams made.

For a five-minute mental vacation, check out the most interesting webcams of 2005 (HT: Ian's Messy Desk):
wildlife, zoos (Nashville piranhas and D.C. pandas), Eiffel Tower, Hawaiian beach, Boston University, Alaskan airport, Valencia (Spain), Skelleftea (Sweden), Meersburg (Germany), pyramids, Salzburg (Austria), San Francisco, Virgin Islands, LA beaches, New Orleans French Quarter, a jail, Birmingham mall (UK), Graceland (formely home of Elvis Presley), Tahiti, the Antarctic, Tokyo, a convention center construction site (Raleigh, NC).

Spring of light

Winter wheat (late autumn)

Wednesday marks the beginning of winter, which means hours of daylight (in the northern hemisphere) will begin to lengthen. The oceans will begin to warm again, and eventually raise the air temperatures.

In one of her books, Luci Shaw refers to three springs: one of light, one of water, and one of green. The spring of light is nearly upon us.

Christmas card

Allthings2all is hosting the third Spotlight on Darfur.

Spirit of Adoption, a recent comer to the blogsphere, has been sharing steps on her and her husband's adoption journey. She shared a number of verses describing our adoption as children of God. She sees her and her husband's decision to adopt as following an example God has set for us.

For Christians, the Incarnation is a prelude to adoption. And one of the results of that adoption is being taken into a large family that includes millions of new brothers and sisters. Some of those brothers and sisters are living, and being persecuted, in the Darfur region of the Sudan. I am proud to be part of a family that includes such strong and faith-filled people. I will not turn my eyes away from their tribulation at Christmas. They also enjoy the holiday, and may be better at celebrating than we are.

Merry Christmas to Christians in the Sudan. May your faith remain strong. May God bring your country peace in the New Year.

Open my eyes, help me to see 1

In the process of doing the meme of sevens, I felt I needed to broaden my perspective. It's been a long time since I was in college, being assigned to read things I wouldn't have chosen on my own. I asked Dee at christian fiction:

. . . . What kind of a list would you, as a Christian, give someone like me to watch and read, if I wanted to have a more "integrated" mind? I would like to post it on my blog, and credit you as recommending them-- maybe five books and five movies.

I know about Frederick Douglass and James Baldwin, but have not read them. I did a project on the Harlem Renaissance in graduate school a number of years ago, but can only remember Zora Neale Hurston. I have read Toni Morrison's Beloved.

I have seen The Color Purple, Do the Right Thing, The Bishop's Wife (Whitney Houston), Glory, and maybe some others, with black lead characters-- especially Denzel Washington. Also, Hotel Rwanda. But I am talking more about America [the U.S.]. A few months ago, we saw one with James Earl Jones and Robert Duvall, A Family Thing. It was pretty good. I recommend it, if you haven't seen it. . .

I appreciate Dee's help. Read her favorites in her sevens meme. These are her recommendations to me, for continuing education.

Her list:
Five books
W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk
Nella Larsen, Quicksand & Passing
Alice Walker, The Color Purple
Olympia Vernon, Eden
Walter Moseley, Easy Rawlin Series: Black Betty
Five Movies
The Human Stain
The Color Purple
Waiting to Exhale
Imitation of Life
Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Woman

A challenge for the New Year. Thank you, Dee.

Lake Erie snow, lighthouse
November, 2005

Beef Stew weather. (HT: Nancy at Just Thinking)

November thanksgiving finis: Dear Rebecca

Dear Rebecca,
Thank you for the opportunity to follow in your bootprints this month. I thought having a theme of gratitude would lead to fewer postings, give me some time off, make blogging easier. But I found I had so many things to be grateful for, I did not have nearly enough time to blog them all.

Maybe you can lead a trail across the blogs again next year, and we can get some more hardy souls to join. And get our own little icon for the month, "I am a thankful blogger." :-)

It's been real, and it's been good; and it's been real good.
Stay warm up there in the Yukon,
Julana

November thanksgiving 26: our messy house

(hurrying to get this in before midnight tolls :-)
Ever since our son was born, whenever children visit, they leave toys strewn all over our the house. Children love our house, because we have so many toys; I used to buy almost every one sighted in the hands of a therapist and then some. For the first several years of our son's life, I would leave these toys where they lay for days. I was so happy to see the them picked up, played with, and carried around. Usually, they stayed primly in place on their shelves. It took effort to get our son to pay attention to toys; he did not pick them up on his own, let alone carry them around the house.

Since our son began walking independently last summer, at the age of seven, our house always has something lying around out of place.* Last night he took the measuring spoons from the counter, took them into the living room, got them separated, and then they ended up on the kitchen floor. The other evening, he checked out the bathroom and my toothbrush and (lidless) lip gloss ended up on his bedroom floor. His eyes fall on something at his eye level; he finds it interesting, carries it around until he finds something even more interesting, and drops it where he stands.

Today, I am Thankful for a messy house, bearing mute testimony to son's increasing attention span, and continuously developing fine and gross motor skills.

*A partial survey of the floor starts with the ring-stacker star, the Wiggles Big Red car, Casper the friendly ghost (stuffed), Greg Wiggle, and a padded baseball bat.

November thanksgiving 21c: Christmas in the schools (first amendment, contd.)

Barbara Curtis over at Mommylife has posted on a seasonal aspect of the first amendment: Christmas is legal in the public schools. She brings clarity to where the lines are drawn. There's a lot more freedom than you'd think, given the annual hullabaloo in the newspapers about community nativity scenes.

Our son participated in a Thanksgiving program two years ago; it covered pilgrims and turkey, but no religious content. One chanted poem involved a repetitive chopping motion with the right arm that could have come straight from an Atlanta Braves baseball game. Grinning, violent little kindergarteners!

The Christmas programs seem relegated to the higher grades. Maybe I should print Barbara's post out and share it with his principal and teacher.

ADDED: Christie shared the name of David French, of FIRE (Foundation for Individal Rights in Education) , in the comments. He works with freedom of religion at the university level.

November thanksgiving 25: pediatric specialists

Today I am thankful for pediatric specialists, especially the opthalmologist, the ENT (otolaryngologist), the physical medicine doctor, the neurologist, and the neurosurgeon. This morning we saw the opthalmologist.* She is a great doctor. Our son is farsighted, which is normal for children. One eye is slightly more farsighted than the other, but not enough to need corrective lenses at this time.

It is fascinating that this diagnosis can be made for a nonverbal child who follows few directions. The resident(?) dilated his pupils. An hour later, the doctor darkened the room and used a pencil light and some type of magnifiying lens to view his eyes, while keeping his attention with a moving toy. We will return next year for another evaluation.

*My feelings toward the pediatric dentist are almost equal parts gratitude and frustration, slightly weighted toward gratitude.

November thanksgiving 24: the Incarnation

I'm thankful for the Incarnation.

. . . Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness . . . .Philippians 2:5b-7 (NIV)

My favorite Christmas poem is Luci Shaw's Mary's Song.* I recommend reading it, sometime during the season.

*I'm not linking it, for copyright reasons.

November thanksgiving 22: I "chose" a mortal life

In January of 1994, we moved from Michigan to Ohio, back near my homeground. We lived in a temporary apartment for a month, then moved into our first house. WIthin a week or two, I received a call from my OB-GYN's nurse, informing me that the results of an AFP test showed that there was a 1 in 33 chance that the baby I was carrying had Down syndrome. I didn't know much about Down syndrome back then, but I knew enough for the news to result in a good cry, so I had one.

I didn't undergo amniocentesis to obtain a definitive diagnosis, because I knew amnios increase the risk of miscarriage. I knew that I would carry the baby to term regardless of the results. Intellectually, I believed abortion was murder; emotionally, I recognized my baby as a person.

I did not choose life for my son. He was given it by Someone else. What I chose was a "mortal" life for myself. I accepted a life that had some limitations it would not have had, if I had collaborated in ending my son's life before his birth.

When I chose a college, when I chose a major, when I chose a husband, I accepted the accompanying limitations. Accepting boundaries was a submission to the truth of my finity. I cannot live forever, experience everything, everywhere.

My life was bounded by many parameters before I became pregnant. Having a child would add to them. So would having a child with Down syndrome.

When I received the phone call from the nurse, I did not see my child as an object of the verb "to choose," but of the verb "to give." He was part of the given. In accepting the gift, and the limitations that would come along with it, I assented to the truth: a mortal life has many limitations, and a person in touch with Reality accepts them.

Crying on the couch, back in February of 1994, I did not so much choose a mortal life for myself, as continue to accept one. And this Thanksgiving, I'm thankful, from the bottom of my heart, that I did.

November thanksgiving 21b: first amendment, flip side

Yesterday the New York Times weighed in on the ramifications of earlier prenatal testing for Down syndrome, with The Problem With an Almost-Perfect Genetic World:

"Where do you draw the line?" said Mark A. Rothstein, director of the Bioethics Institute at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. "On the one hand we have to view this as a positive in terms of preventing disability and illness. But at what point are we engaging in eugenics and not accepting the normal diversity within a population?"

Dear Mr. Rothstein,
You're engaging in eugenics when you remove the patients from their families, load them onto trains, unload them into camps, line them up, and herd them into gas ovens en masse. As long as you kill them one at a time, in a sanitary medical setting, in the presence of one or more family members, and they don't look afraid, and you can't hear them cry out, you can get away with referring to killing the patient as preventing a disability.*
* * * * * * *
Freedom of speech gives people the freedom to say unpleasant things, and to misrepresent the truth. I'm still thankful for it.

Further reading:
Rethinking Fetal Anomalies, Christianity Today
An extra chromosome isn't awful, Boston Globe
Down Syndrome Now Detectable In 1st Trimester, Washington Post
Screening for Abnormal Embryos Offers Couples Hope After Heartbreak, New York Times
The Down Dilemma, Time Magazine
The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have, Washington Post
One Woman's Choice, Washington Post

*Note: This is one reason people first language continues to be so important. People with Down syndrome are not Down syndrome people. Even a big blogger like Evangelical Outpost still isn't getting this one right.

November thanksgiving 21a: first amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

This week I (inadvertently) angered someone in a newsgroup by quoting our bumpersticker:

It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.
Mother Teresa 1910-1997

I am thankful the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, along with freedom of religion, the press, and assembly.

November thanksgiving 19: neighbors

I have to mention neighbors among things to be thankful for, with both Allthings2all and Wittingshire posting on the topic lately.

The first neighbors I remember were Joe and Ethel, an elderly couple who lived at the bottom of our hill, just to the west. One of them, maybe Ethel, had Parkinson's. Joe kept bee hives and sold us the best honey, some still in the comb. One of my earliest memories is running as fast as I could from one of their hens, after I tried to pet its little yellow chicks. It pecked the back of my legs. (Ye-e-ow-w! The terror was worse than the nip.) Joe and Ethel taught me that the world outside my family and our church could be a friendly place.

Later, for most of our growing up years, our closest neighbors were a large family on the other side of a big lot. One daughter was bright-eyed and temperamental, with a sense of humor. She wore a brace on her leg, and was difficult to understand and a little slow, mentally. I still think of her once in awhile, and wonder how she's doing-- hope she's happy. This family, who had another child in special ed, provided a benchmark for me to be grateful for the advances that have been made in serving children with special needs in the public school system, over the past 30 years.

The neighbors across the valley on the other side were Amish and raised hogs. When the wind was from the north, you could smell Money.
* * * * * *
I'm thankful our current neighborhood is safe and quiet. We are rather newly come to it. Getting to know people takes time, effort, and intention. I am still simmering these ideas on the back burner of my mind.

The duty towards humanity may often take the form of some choice which is personal or even pleasurable. . . .

But we have to love our neighbour because he is there — a much more alarming reason for a much more serious operation. He is the sample of humanity which is actually given us. Precisely because he may be anybody he is everybody. He is a symbol because he is an accident.
---G.K. Chesterton (HT: Read the entire quote at Wittingshire.)

(I just noticed the parallel to "chosen" and "given" I noted in November thanksgiving 9: family.)

November thanksgiving 18: Tim Horton's coffee

We are thankful for Tim Horton's coffee year round, but especially so when the weather turns cold, as it did yesterday. Dave Thomas started Wendy's in our town, and when Wendy's bought Tim Horton's, it was a happy marriage for us. We got a taste of what those Canadians (Kim, Violet, Rebecca) have been drinking all these years. What is it with Starbucks? I like Tim Horton's, and so do most of the adults I know.

November thanksgiving 16: refining fire

(secular version)
Here is an excerpt from an interview with Greg Palmer, author of Adventures in the Mainstream, and father of a young man with Down syndrome.

If you could give advice to new parents of kids with Down syndrome, what would you say to them?
The first thing I would say is what a very great lady said to me on the day we learned Ned had Down syndrome: “It’s not the end of the world.” Or to paraphrase what Emily Perl Kingsley once said: “You thought you were flying to Italy. You were set for Italy, you’d studied the language, knew the sights you wanted to see. And then you landed in Holland.* Not Italy. A different place. Not necessarily a bad place, just not what you were expecting.” And I would add, “So learn some Dutch, and get on with it.”

I would also say this: If you let it happen—and that’s a big but crucial if—there will be joy, and laughter, and sorrow, there will be tragedies but also triumphs. As quickly as you can, get over your self-pitying belief that the gods have screwed you. Embrace people who embrace your child, and ignore the others. Especially ignore those who want to show you how compassionate they are by sharing your tragedy. You don’t have a tragedy, you have a child, and you can get as much satisfaction from that child as you’d get from any child. But there’s no question you’ll have to give more; give more of your life, of your time, of your energy, of everything you have, if you want to make that child’s life a success. In other words, you’re about to find out just what kind of person you really are.

*For some reason, my husband is always a little miffed at this analogy. :-)

November thanksgiving 15: Jan Karon's Mitford books

Steeple, Episcopal Church, Blowing Rock, NC

I enjoy Jan Karon's Mitford series. The new one, Light from Heaven, hit the shelves last week. Two years ago we spent a week of November in Charleston, SC, and stopped in Blowing Rock, NC, on the way home. Karon lived in Blowing Rock while writing the books, and you can see some of her inspirations in the town.












Entrance, Episcopal Church, Blowing Rock, NC

November thanksgiving 14: Ohio weather

November sky
We have a saying here: "If you don't like the weather, just wait ten minutes."

Yesterday afternoon, on the way home from speech, we stopped by the river, under skeleton trees sporting a few last leaves, and threw a blanket on the cushy green carpet overlaid in yellow. The Boy laughed at the wind and played in the leaves. Pouffy clouds scudded north, shifting the sky from mostly blue to three-quarters gray and white within half an hour. Last night, I took a walk after dark in a balmy, breezy 70 degrees.

During the night, a cold front rolled in, pushing rain before it. Today, the high will be 45.
* * * * * * *
ADDED:

"Don't you like a rather foggy day in a wood in autumn? You'll find we shall be perfectly warm sitting in the car."

Jane said she'd never heard of anyone liking fogs before but she didn't mind trying. All three got in.

"That's why Camilla and I got married, " said Denniston as they drove off. "We both like Weather. Not this or that kind of weather, but just Weather. It's a useful taste if one lives in England."

"How ever did you learn to do that, Mr. Denniston?" said Jane. "I don't think I should ever learn to like rain and snow."

"It's the other way around," said Denniston. "Everyone begins as a child by liking Weather. You learn the art of disliking it as you grow up.

Noticed it on a snowy day? The grown-ups are all going about with long faces, but look at the children - and the dogs? They know what snow's made for.

-C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, Chapter 5. (HT: The Window in the Garden Wall. I couldn't find our copy this morning. :-)