Coming Up For Air

From Isaiah 2:5 O house of Jacob, come and let us walk In the light of the Lord. 6 For You have forsaken Your people, the house of Jacob, Because they are filled with eastern ways; They are soothsayers like the Philistines, And they [b]are pleased with the children of foreigners. “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders," suggests Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. "Instead," he contrasts, "teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” Prophetically, the second chapter of Isaiah takes a similar approach. After a largely negative, justly confrontational first chapter, the opening of Isaiah 2 is visionary and inspiring. Wherever the ultimate fulfillment of its picture of eager, contagious fellowship of the nations at the throne of God lies on the eschatological timeline, the glimpse gives Isaiah's audience something to yearn for. This rapturous motivation bigger than ourselves and our present dra...

My wife and I are watching the first season of The Crown , which offers a behind-the-scenes look at the life of Queen Elizabeth II. Not for the first time, I'm realizing how easy it is to dismiss or diminish the physical and emotional stamina involved in a life in politics. The Queen is on a tour of Australia which requires her to present the best face of the monarchy to a different city nearly every day for almost two months. Her face is literally cramping. Like an athlete who must perform, she opts for an injection that makes it possible for her muscles to meet expectations. This makes the consistency of God's smile upon His people all the more amazing. Professional smilers faint and grow weary, but God's ongoing delight in His own does not dim. What's more, rather than work and rest periods as Prince Philip sensibly counsels the Queen, God orders His representatives to remind His people constantly of His smile in an integral part of gathering in His Name called the A...

From James 3 ( New King James Version ) – 13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envy and [h]self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. 15 This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. 16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. 18 Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Andrew Murray writes on humility in his classic book by that name that the virtue is, "nothing but that simple consent of the creature to let God be all, in virtue of which it surrenders itself to His working alone.” This approach to our thinking also begins to unpack the distinction James makes in his biblical lett...

In the Danny DeVito feature Other People's Money , his character is interested in purchasing a family held company in order to sell it off for its assets. The family resists, insisting that with no debt and decades of success behind it, the company is well-positioned for the future. DeVito's character explains that the company's customer base will shrivel up because of the coming of fiber-optic cable. Yes, boys and girls, there was a time before widespread Wi-Fi.  If you want to know how to go broke, he says, take an increasing share of a decreasing market. In this, he challenges human instinct. So does the Bible. We are inclined to cling to the seemingly immovable status quo until forced to do otherwise. That's why I find the end of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount so economic and impactful. Link our own forgiveness of other people to being forgiven by God? Pluck out our eye and cut off our hand before allowing our greed to mislead us? Come face-to-face with the realit...

My romp through the 90s sitcom Mad About You is winding up, and the newlyweds at the center of the show, Paul, and Jamie, are now parents of a crawling infant. Paul's parents want to keep up, and their offering in that direction is an odd one. His mother orders a handstitched rug featuring both of them. Jamie grapples for an escape, trying to explain that she and Paul are trying to keep the child from looking down. They want to think of Bert and Sylvia, and they want their daughter to do the same. This particular looming legacy, however, is a bit much. Elizabeth, who has just given birth to the baby who will become John the Baptist in the narrative of Luke 1, could identify with Jamie's predicament. Luke 1:58 ( New King James Version ) sets a wholesome and encouraging scene, relating, "When her neighbors and relatives heard how the Lord had shown great mercy to her, they rejoiced with her. So far, so good. But pressure comes with the postpartum baby shower. The next verse...

From Isaiah 2 – 3 Many people shall come and say, "Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4 He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, and neither shall they learn war anymore. David Wilkerson in The Cross and the Switchblade advises on more than dogs when he suggests how to get a bone away from one. Give him a pork chop. Isaiah has pointed to this kind of glad exchange already on an individual and national scale. In the first chapter of the prophecy, God revealed to him, both the worshiper by habit and the self-gratifying prince begin to change as they grasp the glory of God. What each has been satisfied with heretofore is paltry indeed, a shadow of th...

State-of-the-art doesn't look like it did 35 years ago. In baseball, this is particularly unnerving. As a young fan, I wasn't bothered by the intrusion of an "eye in the sky" to help the Braves position their defenders. I rather admired it and incorporated it into my way of looking at the world. 44-year-olds are less admirably adaptable, and I'm adjusting with reluctance to defensive alignments which use reams of computer-generated data to produce defensive positioning so unorthodox it requires an overhead diagram similar to football. Coaches will now regularly move the shortstop to the right side of second base if that's what the data demands. This is generically referred to as The Shift. Mark Lemke spent most of his career relying more on his own grit than on Big Data to refine defensive excellence. Nevertheless, in last night's radio broadcast, he reflected on the secondary impact of the changed positioning we see on the field. Spring training changes, ...

If there is such a thing as a secular conversation, this was it. The exchange had been put off a couple of times, and from the tone, I was ready to trade formalities and trudge on to face the obstacles in this season of life that have at times seemed intractable. Then, my partner in this obligatory dance led differently. He identified me as a student of God's Word. He was in a position to extend the implications of that designation beyond what we think of as spiritual niceties handed out in lieu of present opportunity. Recognizing that the hold of God's Word on me, extended beyond Sunday church attendance, he opened a door which will change my life on Mondays through Fridays. Jesus also sanctifies such a moment in Luke 17:17. A single leper, now healed, has come back to thank Jesus for the transformation wrought in him. In verse 17, Jesus asks the man, didn't I heal ten of you? Where are the others?" Anytime Jesus asks a question, we can be assured He knows the answer....

On the presidential drama The West Wing , President Bartlett is maneuvered into offering the vice presidency to a relatively obscure, inoffensive congressman. When the backbencher resists, the president vents his frustration a little by asking acidly, how can we sweeten the offer for you? I think of that exchange as I formulate my mental after action report on the life of Gideon, the subject of weekend men's retreat in which I participated. By the opening of the eighth chapter in the Bible's book of Judges, we have followed Gideon through his own faith journey. God called him to rally and deliver the nation, overcame Gideon's resistance, and the results are evident. Through the efforts of Gideon and 300 select soldiers chosen by God, the enemy who once seemed invulnerable is on the run. The culture is changing. Now that Gideon and his handful of men have taken the initial risk, recruiting should be easy, right? Not quite. When Gideon asks for help in pursuit, the men of Eph...

My wife's dominion over the remote control was still in force when I returned home from the men's retreat. This meant that The Kitchen was on the air. A guest chef was lovingly preparing a taco wrap. He was so meticulous in his craft that he, as a final flourish, submitted his creation to a buttered griddle to perfect a golden seal to hold it together. Presentation being part of enjoyment, he halved his effort to let the viewer see the well-layered colors inside. Cooking regular Sunny Anderson admired that such a restaurant quality effort could be rendered at home, but she was a little protective. My first job was in fast food, she said. Don't put me out of business. On that note, the show was actually sponsored by ubiquitous chain of franchise outposts that turns out fast Mexican food, with some items less than a dollar. We can surmise, even if we have never been surrounded by its plastic decor that the dining experience offered here could not compete with the labor of lo...

My wife typically disputes my self-measurement at 5 feet, 3 inches tall as overly optimistic. I don't hear the words, "Watch your head," every day. The bunkbed commodity of a men's retreat allows me to measure myself differently. So does this weekend's discussion of the Israelite leader Gideon in the Bible's book of Judges. When Rick, the discussion leader, asks how we, like Gideon, have been challenged by God to step out and do something different, I can set affirmation rather than just a challenge to further growth. I'm writing more, and writing more personally, as God has been challenging me to do for years. I don't yet measure at the stature to which I might aspire, but I'm not where I was. Measuring against 20 years ago, 10 years ago, or last year, I have to be reminded to, so to speak, watch my head. With admitted growth comes admonition as well as affirmation. Watch your head. Watch, in this case, the thoughts that accompany the reality that...

Ready as we are to resent or fear philosophy, Spinoza will not become click bait. Our loss. He compounds much that could soothe our angry age into a tweet-sized reflection.  As an interesting expansion of a mentor's advice, I posted this week to, "Respond. Don't react, "Spinoza explains, "An emotion becomes a passion when through our confused and inadequate ideas of origin and experience, it's external cause dictates our feeling in response." That is, what we believe about the source of an event determines whether we will get angry about it. A friend of mine we will dub Daniel is struggling with this. Daniel has a huge, compassionate heart which bubbles over in eagerness to help before most people even notice a problem. The response tends to be cooler, I've noticed, if an opportunity to help comes in the form of another person's request rather than Daniel's astute observation. If that request comes from someone to whom Daniel feels an oblig...

In a May 14, 2018 issue of the New Yorker , Emily Nussbaum profiles Ryan Murphy as, "the most powerful man in TV." She faithfully reports that even Murphy has difficulty persevering in creativity. He confesses that good ideas are used up in early episodes of television seasons and in the early seasons of shows and counters this ennui with a radical proposal. He pitches a series in which producers, actors and viewers are drawn in with the co-mingling of enthusiasm and novelty, which is reinjected in the show's second season when many of the same actors reappear as different characters under divergent premise. The Lord our God does not need to counter boredom. He is compelling both to Himself and to His Creation in perpetuity. Nevertheless, between what we divide as the first and second chapters of the book of Isaiah, He showed a fondness for a reboot that isn't entirely dissimilar. While men have put some of the chapter divisions of His Word in puzzling places, this ...

Russell Jackson is the president's chief of staff  on the television drama Madam Secretary . Typically he could be described as calculating and bloodless, keeping the show's more compelling characters at a distance. A brush with death from a heart attack has mellowed him some, but not much. Jackson's wife, a physician, insists on prescribing the process. She sets the expectation that her husband will implement a more healthy, reflective habit. He recoils. In true Chief of Staff fashion, he delegates the task to an underling. Don't make it weird, he postures. Jackson's visible discomfort increases when Dr. Henry McCord, a religion professor he knows well from more structured, professional dealings offers help. Jackson is sure any professorial suggestion from an ethicist will only be toward more of the murky musing the analytical decision-maker finds so distasteful. The outcome, then, is surprising. Rather than dragging Jackson into the abstract and metaphysical i...

To ease my transition into high school, I remember that my parents paid for a class designed for that purpose. Ironically, I was introduced to the lady who would later serve as my junior English teacher of daunting reputation in that non-threatening role. One morning, she asked us to list all the similarities we could think of between laughter and peanuts. Her next instruction was what stuck with me, though. She said, keep listing. She said on a similar thought exercise that her husband came up with a possibility he really liked, and stopped. Thus, in self-satisfaction, he perhaps deprived himself of an even better idea. I can do that. I can stop digging and start polishing even on ground as rich as the Bible where so many have gained so much from persevering excavation. Accordingly, I've been fascinated with the explanation I came to of a parable in Luke 17 with which I have historically had difficulty. I haven't been able to see Jesus' point in launching into verses six t...

On the medical drama Code Black, third-year resident Dr. Angus Leighton is played with a runt-of-the-litter, likable quality that belies the elite nature of the group of emergency physicians in training of which he is a part. Therefore, the character is as surprised as the viewer when a moment of quick thinking and exemplary action positions Dr. Leighton for a surgical opportunity he did not seek. When he makes an error in the operating room, Leighton reverts to his more familiar form. He backs away from the table so that his attending, Dr. Will Campbell, can take over. Dr. Campbell, with the cool confidence more typical of surgeons, barks that Leighton should never back away from the table and its opportunities again. On follow-up, the attending hands the chastened resident a pair of blue jeans. Practice your stitching, he says, until you can do it with your eyes closed. Practice your stitching until your fingers bleed. The next exchange is worth the buildup. Dr. Leighton pleads, ho...

Everything about Braves relief pitcher Peter Moylan inclines me to listen to his observations on the team's atmosphere. At 39 in a young man's game, we are kindred spirits. The flecks of gray in his beard mirror my own. His Australian birth and accent not only lure my pre-existing Anglophile inclinations, they grant him a certain objectivity. He has been somewhere else so is a little less tied to the assumptions of one location. In fact, as a former Brave back again, his candor is particularly valuable. Midweek, announcer Joe Simpson related Moylan's thoughts on the team chemistry. Moylan recalled that he had been unsuccessful teams before but that even those teams tended to huddle in clusters according to age and experience. Moylan's appraisal of the 2018 Braves was different. The young and talented players, and there are many of them, tend to actively seek out the advice of the veterans. They also tend to listen to that advice once sought. With time in the bullpen in ...

Josh Lyman is Deputy Chief of Staff on the White House drama The West Wing . He is in charge of the president's politics, and in the course of the show a newspaper profile will he quit his power as an unelected staffer with that of a sitting United States senator. However, his swagger can tend to overstep. This time it was funny, and probably played even by him for comic effect. He said in the fictional timeframe of the show that Mexico's economy was collapsing because the country didn't do what he told them to do by devaluing the peso. He then backpedaled under skeptical questioning from his assistant to admit that the warning actually came from the Secretary of the Treasury with actual authority on the issue. Josh admits as sheepishly as Josh can that he was merely in the room. As the Bible and The West Wing occupy immense portions of my operational mental reserves, it will surprise no one that content intermingles. We as Christians can swell our sense of importance and t...

From Isaiah 1 – 28 The destruction of transgressors and sinners shall be together. And those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed. 29 for they shall be ashamed of the terebinth trees which you have desired; and you shall be embarrassed because of the gardens which you have chosen. 30 for you shall be as a terebinth tree whose leaf fades, and a garden that has no water. 31 The strong shall be as tinder, and the work of it as a spark; both will burn together and no one shall quench them. Elton Trueblood memorably cautioned that the same sun which softens the wax hardens the clay. In this, he offers the sobering assessment that the same blessing or adversity from the hand of the Lord can have very different results on divergent hearts. One softens before either His grace or His chastisement, while a neighbor under similar circumstances becomes even less supple before the Lord. Thus we arrive at the end of Isaiah 1. Within it, Isaiah has spelled out the details of both judgment and ...

Paul and Jamie are at their usual antics on my rewatch of Mad About You , and the Gospel which connects every good narrative to universal experience intervenes again. This time, the Holy Spirit wasn't just clearing His metaphorical throat at the slightest hint of something redemptive in any entertainment short of debauchery. He was, in fact, proving the bold assertion of Titus 1:15 that to the pure all things are pure, that once we begin to understand Christ's pervasive and attractive authority over all things in Heaven and on Earth, His shining through sitcom isn't all that surprising. The winsome to some at the center of the show is visiting Paul's uncle Phil in the hospital. Things are not looking good for Phil, played memorably by Mel Brooks. Most immediately this is because Phil mishandled the control for the bed and came to the unwelcome late-in-life discovery that his kneecaps would fit into his eyesockets. Comparatively, difficulty with his bed is a minor proble...

I strongly suspect no single individual has been shaped by every single rite of passage he or she assumes everyone else has been through. The tendency, then, is to consign the answers or comfort in life we don't have to the experiences, or the books, or the movies we missed along the way. As a person with a lifelong disability which has precluded some common experiences, I'm assigning a lot of missing cohesion to the life lessons passed on as one learns to be comfortable guiding thousands of pounds of metal among the likewise conditioned to intrepidity. I'm convinced a lot of life's secrets were passed on in the fellowship of the fast-food workers, and that weighty truth was conveyed among waitstaff. The formative value of military experience holds a similar allure for me. Since that option was precluded, I'm ready to consign whatever answers of ideal manhood I don't embody yet to missed time in olive drab or dress blues. So when Philip Roth's narrator in th...

During the fifth season of the sitcom Mad About You , filmmaker Paul Buchman visits his childhood home with his father Burt. As an artifact of his maturation, Paul notices that the marks his father made measuring Paul's height are still evident.  Adult Paul asks his dad why the measurement stopped at age 9, and his dad confesses that it is difficult to measure someone who is always moving. I suspect we fail to steadily measure progress, our own or someone else's, for similar reasons. To commemorate incremental progress seems artificial. We fear to inflame the ego. We hesitate to impede progress toward the next more obvious marker of achievement or stature. Tempted to stop someone else and help them make a note of progress, we are turned aside. Just like Burt may have decided that Paul already knew he was taller without being measured and marked off, so we assume that other people already know they are growing. Opportunities to affirm that and leave the affirmation for future re...

Ironically, the graveside experience I mentioned yesterday was the authentic exception at the Billy Graham Museum. Seeing on an actual tombstone that which I only read in a book before was moving for precisely the same reasons the rest of the museum was not. Visitors were shuffled from one video to another. We traveled for a YouTube experience. I wonder if the Christian testimony in the 21st century doesn't fragment something similar. We have hundreds or thousands of friends in the media sense of the word. We reach out, but only far enough to offer the same carefully curated version of ourselves indistinguishable to whoever happens by. The museum could have offered more engaging glimpses of the changing, fallible Billy Graham behind the carefully cultivated picture in a televised image or press release. Christians called no less than Graham to engage with the Gospel, have the opportunity to show how it engages us in different areas and in different stages of our lives. The Billy Gr...

Media is too much with me. I can spend so much time among bitmapped and inked characters, half aware of audiobook scripts, that prepared verbal input loses some of its impact. I can domesticate it. I can unleash my quotes to nip at other people's heels like Chihuahua watchdogs. I need to get out more. So I did, and the same words were waiting for me. Chiseled in stone, on a gravestone, they etch their way deeper into me. Secondhand through Billy Graham's book Nearing Home , his relation that his wife saw a highway sign with the words, "End of Construction. Thank you for your patience," seems safe enough. His report that she wanted this on her tombstone made some impact, but I moved on to conquer other input.  There are many books, many quotable nuggets, between me and an epitaph. I saw the phrase she repurposed on the actual gravestone beneath which Ruth Bell Graham's earthly remains rested, and something came alive within me. She was human like the rest of us. Sh...

The invitation was a surprise, and it wasn't yesterday's last one. My prospective employer, a small Christian college with a conservative repetition, took my interview seriously enough to startle me by opening it in prayer. I've done this before, but I haven't done THIS before, I thought as I settled in. The interview that opened with a prayer closed with an invitation, as the person who took the lead in asking the questions at one last one for me. He asked me to come be a part of the college's choral celebration last evening. Sensing, possibly, despite my game face, where socialization usually ranks in my priorities, his friendliness persevered. "It only lasts an hour." The college which takes interviews seriously also takes celebrations seriously. Coats and ties were the norm in the audience, and tuxedos matched long black dresses among the choir. A few songs in, two representatives step forward from the ensemble in this attire. I puzzled at what I thoug...

Afterwards you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with justice. Isaiah 1:26b and 27a The Aaron Sorkin drama Studio 60 chronicled life producing a late-night television show. In the first episode, the proud franchise has fallen on hard times, with predictable jokes and a lack of bite to its social commentary. Alumni are coming back to resuscitate the show, and one of them quotes Pericles. Good things should flow into the boulevard. The culture deserves better. There is something of this heart behind the flow in Isaiah 1, culminating in the end of verse 26 and the beginning of verse 27. The Great Physician gave His sober prognosis for the sick culture to which He speaks, with fatal idolatry contagious from the very biblical sacrifices of those who claim to be God's people. Not surprisingly, if those who at least go through the motions of attention to the Bible's details don't have changed hearts, don't apply His Word in t...