Model A

 

“You know what car I’d really like?”  The older man sitting across from seemed fairly animated, as though this car of his dreams was something special.

“I don’t know,” I said.  Vehicle makes and models aren’t a strong point of mine.  I seem to have missed that day in Medical School and none of the medical conferences I have attended since have had a lecture on the subject.  “A Chevy?”  I guessed.  “Maybe an electric vehicle?”

“No!”  The other man grimaced as though he had stepped on a shard of glass.  “Definitely not!”

“A pickup truck?”

“I’ve already got one of those,” Art told me.  “Don’t really need another one.”

“I give up,” I said. 

“A Model A Ford!”  Art said, triumphantly.  “My Daddy owned one until the 1950s and he sold it to my uncle who ran it till near 1960, but that was a beautiful car.”

“I imagine they’re expensive,” I commented.

“Oh, no,” Art said.  “Ten or fifteen thousand for one in good condition.  But they hold so many memories for me – I suppose that’s why I find them so attractive.”

As I left the room, I was thinking about old things and new things.  I have reached the age where I am considered vintage, although not quite old enough to be an antique.

I have realized that just because something is new doesn’t mean that it is better.  There are plenty of items from the past that were simply better constructed and had more craftsmanship put into them than the assembly line, mass produced objects of today.

I’m not sure that I would want to drive a Model A car, but of course, I don’t have a lot of memories about that line of vehicles either.

“It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22,23)

Jeremiah wrote the book of Lamentations in the midst of one of the darkest periods for the Jewish people.  Foreign invaders had defeated Israel’s army and eventually the city of Jerusalem and even God’s temple would be completely destroyed.

All of this begs the question, why do we need new mercies?  Weren’t yesterday’s mercies adequate? 

The answer is clearly that yesterday’s mercies and compassion were for yesterday’s woe.  Today’s challenges are new, even if they are similar to yesterday’s challenges, and they bring with them a need for new mercies.

God doesn’t listen to us for a couple of minutes after we begin to pray and then cut us off with a short, “You told me all this yesterday.  Just get over it!”  Instead, He gives us new mercies and sufficient grace for today and tomorrow, He will repeat the process – even if the problems and our response to them remain the same.

Even if a Model A is sufficient to get you to work and back, God doesn’t make us rely on yesterday’s mercies.  Instead, He renews them every morning, loving us, even when we find ourselves – and our troubles -- frustratingly the same.

A Folding Chair

 

A metal folding chair sat on the edge of the field, looking out across the tiny soybeans that were just poking their way up into the spring sunshine.  It was an odd place for a folding chair, but I had seen it for several mornings on my way to work and so it clearly served some purpose.

Typically, the reason that folding chairs (or any other type of chair for that matter) exist is to sit in and I supposed this one was no different.  I never did the reason behind this chair's location.  I saw it for another week or two and then, as suddenly as it first appeared, it was gone.

Maybe, it had gone to the beach -- or to a family reunion, but if so, I never found out.

It is possible that the farm who had planted the field of beans had sat out and watched his beans grow.  Finally, he gave up when they didn't grow fast enough.  Maybe, it served some more mysterious purpose.

I would like to think that the chair was simply assisting someone in enjoying the beauty of Creation.

We know that after each day of Creation, God looked on the things that He had made and pronounced them "good."  Then, after the sixth day, when He finished making humans and saw the completed product He called it, "Very good."

The word good can imply many things.  A lot of use the term to mean "good enough" or adequate.  If someone asks you how you are and you reply "good" (the grammarians among us say that you'd be better to answer "well"), you simply mean that things are OK and could be worse.

Obviously, that is not what God meant.

Good meant harmonious and interconnected.  More than that, good meant beautiful.  God could have created a drab flavorless Universe in which everything tasted like either chicken or week old bread.  Instead, He created worlds that are full of colors and scents and flavors.

It is all very good.  Perfect you might and beautiful enough that a farmer might sit on the edge of his field soaking it all in -- even while his beans don't grow.

The Picky Eater

 

“You are so picky when it comes to food,” I told my younger son.  “And a lot of your food likes and dislikes seem arbitrary.”

“What do you mean?”  Elliot asked, a little defensively.

“Well, you like cupcakes, but won’t eat muffins,” I said.

“That’s because cupcakes are better than muffins,” he said.

“It should depend on the ingredients,” I said.  “But once you make a statement like that, you can’t really argue about it.  Another example is that you won’t eat pancakes unless they have blueberries in them.  Plain pancakes need not apply.  But waffles are OK.”

“Pancakes without blueberries are just gross,” Elliot said.

“They’d probably taste better if you put some syrup on them,” I suggested.

“Why would I do that?  I don’t like syrup,” he countered.

Checkmated at last, I fell silent.  Apparently, my son’s dietary idiosyncrasies were completely reasonable.

Now, I am as aware as anyone that the old Roman proverb, “de gustibus non est disputandum” applies in these sorts of situations.  That is to say, there is no arguing over taste.  The fact that I don’t like the taste and texture if eggs is a fact of life and no amount of debate will convince me otherwise.

That said, I am convinced that many of my son’s dietary decisions have more to do with weird mental blocks he has with certain foods rather than with actual taste.

I am afraid that many times we are locked into poor paths, not because of actual restrictions, but because of things we just don’t want to do.  The sad thing is that we often miss out on much that is beautiful because we aren’t willing to make the effort to break out of the pattern set before us by our rigid thinking.

A life well lived is one in which people are willing to try things outside the box of their expectations.  For, the man who chooses not to eat muffins, simply because they aren’t cupcakes will miss out on an awful lot of breakfast goodness.

Friendship and Hamsters

 

“What are you researching, Victoria?”  I asked my daughter.

“Nothing, really,” she answered me, even as she pulled up a webpage entitled, “5 Tips on how to encourage your hamster to love and trust you.”  As she scrolled down, numerous linked articles showed up – most of which had to do with dogs – “What happens when your dog eats sweet potatoes” and “3 foods your dog needs to avoid!”

“Doesn’t Pip like you?”  I asked her.

“No – or rather, I’m not sure, but he bit me and even though it didn’t hurt, it makes me think he doesn’t like me,” Victoria answered in a rush.

“Maybe you need my new perfume that makes you smell like a hamster,” I said.  “It could be really helpful.”

“Dad!”  Victoria was not amused.

Aly started laughing.  “That would be funny to be sitting in church, and you start sniffing and ask yourself, ‘I wonder who it is that smells like a hamster?’”

It is an amusing thought, but Victoria takes her relationship with Pip pretty seriously – more seriously than her relationship with her siblings.  Getting him to like her and let her hold him is near the top of the list of things she wants to do this summer.

“A man who has friends must himself be friendly…” (Proverbs 18:24) The idea is that if we want people with whom we can share life and connect deeply, we must be willing to make some effort. 

I often hear people complain that some group isn’t friendly or doesn’t reach out the way they would like.  I am sure there is some truth to this, but there is also a sense in which we need to be willing to start a conversation, listen to someone else, and try to get to know them.

Even when it is outside our comfort zone, we can take a first step to friendship.

Just like it is not enough simply to smell like a hamster, so too, it is not enough to wish for connection with others.  As we make ourselves into good friends, we will find these connections grow and our circles expand as a result.

Extra Hot

 

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.  It was also eighty degrees, and someone was wearing his winter coat on the beach.  Something clearly wasn’t right.

“Why do you still have on your coat?”  I asked my younger son.

“I’m just trying to enjoy the beach,” he said.  “I’d enjoy it a lot more if random people stopped asking me about my coat.”

“It just seemed a little warm for a coat,” I said.  “We could have it surgically removed if that would be helpful.”

“It wouldn’t be helpful,” Elliot said.  “I’m not hot all and it’s a nice coat.”

“Maybe we need to get him checked to see if he has a thyroid condition,” Elaine put in.  “He does seem to be cold all of the time.”

I looked around but couldn’t spy a minute-clinic site to get blood drawn anywhere on this particular stretch of sand.  “Maybe we can wait till we get back home,” I said.  “Although I’m guessing his thyroid level is OK.  I think he decided to wear his coat and so taking it off would be admitting he made a mistake.  It’s better to bake than to admit error.”

It is hard to live life unable to make mistakes.  Of course, no one can actually live a completely mistake-free existence, but some people act as they do.  They seldom admit to any errors on their part – people around them are to blame for misunderstandings.  It might even turn out that though others thought that a mistake was made, there really wasn’t one.

“For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again…” (Proverbs 24:16a) When the righteous man makes mistakes, he gets up, dusts himself off, and confesses his failure, learning from them to do better. 

On the other hand, it is those who never make mistakes who repeat them most.

Murder He Wrote

 

“Dad,” Elliot asked me the other evening.  “If someone was shot through the neck, could you tell what gun had shot them just from the size of the bullet hole if you didn’t have the bullet?”

“Probably not,” I said.  “Although depending on how close to their neck the gun was held, there would certainly be blood and DNA on the gun.”

“Sure,” Elliot agreed, “but they didn’t know about DNA in the 1920s in England.”

“This is a weird conversation,” I said.  “Why are you wanting to know all this stuff?  Are you time traveling back to try to murder someone because murder is murder, even if a time machine is involved.”

“I’m writing a detective story,” Elliot said.  “It is set in the 1920s in England and it involves the detective’s cousin being shot in the neck and the detective coming to solve the crime.”

“That’s interesting,” I said.  “I thought you were supposed to write about things that you know about.  You don’t know anything about England, particularly not during the 1920s – nor much about murders, for that matter.  Why not set your story in a small Mennonite school in the 2020s?”

(Even as I said this, I realized it wasn’t totally true.  An awful lot of authors write stories about dragons and magic and not a single one of them that I have found owns a pet dragon or can do magic beyond using an iPhone.)

“That would be boring,” my younger son replied.  “Beyond which, I’ve read enough Agatha Christie stories that I think I know how to write this sort of thing.  My only problem is that my chapters are too short – most of them are only a page and a half long, but I figure after I do my research, I can expand them.”

“Well, I’ll enjoy telling people that I knew Elliot Waldron, back before he was a famous crime novelist,” I said.

“It’s amazing to me that I thought of this perfect crime.  I think it will surprise most people,” Elliot told me seriously.  “I figure I’ll have the book done by the end of the summer.”

“And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” (Ecclesiastes 12:12)

If Solomon thought that there were a lot of books written in his day, I wonder what he would have thought about the 21^st century.  In doing a tiny bit of research, it seems as though (if you include self-published books) there are some 2 million new books written every year, just in the United States.

That means that there are more people writing books than are actually reading them!

I have read enough of these books to know that many of them have no particular reason for their existence.  I suppose it takes some level of self-importance to believe that you have an important story tell or light to shed on some subject that has been shrouded in mystery until the present.

I suppose more important than the writing of numerous books is the reading of THE book – God’s message to humans.  More than that, the goal in reading Scripture is not simply to read or even memorize the words, but to apply them to our lives.

An awful lot of people who claim to follow Christ stalk through their lives, hurting their friends and family with their words and actions. 

Too many of us believe that we have much to say and some of us even sit down and cobble together books or blogs as a result.  But only one book truly sheds light on the path we are to take.  All other books fall short – even a crime novel written by a 15-year-old about someone shot through the neck in England in the 1920s.

Jots and Tittles

 

 “Come on everyone,” Elaine called out from the kitchen, where she was finishing preparing our supper meal.  “It’s time to eat people!”

There was stunned silence.  “Really, Honey?”  I asked.  “Have we turned to cannibalism?  I know groceries are expensive, but still…”

“I thought this was chicken,” Aly said, looking at the dish sitting on the table.

“There’s a comma in there that you apparently didn’t catch,” Elaine said – I thought a bit defensively.  “It’s time to eat, People.  You hear it now?”

It reminded me of the old joke where a Panda walked into a restaurant and ordered a yogurt parfait.  Upon finishing his delectable repast, he pulled out a gun and fired two shots into the ceiling and left the eating establishment.

Another patron turned to the man beside him and asked, “Why did he do that?”

“Look in this book,” the other man said, showing him a wildlife manual.  Under the entry for Panda, was simply written this entry.  “Black and white mammal native to China.  Eats, shoots and leaves.”

Of course, commas make all of the difference in some sentences.  It can make the difference between understanding that a panda eats both bamboo shoots and leaves and believing that pandas are prone to firing off weapons and fleeing the scene of the crime afterward.

Jesus said, “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:18) This verse came in the context of the Sermon on the Mount – a section of the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus repeatedly strengthened the commands given in the Law of Moses, rather than dispensing with them.

Jots and tittles are the King James’ way of translating yods and daleths – tiny little letters and strokes that help give meaning to ancient Hebrew writing.  The point seems to have been that only the parts of the law that Jesus fulfilled would be dispensed with – the rest would continue on.

Jesus went through talking about murder and telling his listeners that not only was murder wrong, but getting angry and holding offenses against your brother was dangerous.  Adultery was not simply the act of unfaithfulness in marriage, but included looking lustfully on someone else.

I am afraid that many people in the 21^st century believe that Jesus came to get rid of the law – commas and all, but the reality is He came to give us the power to live above the law.  He came to bring us the ability to live in holiness and to understand what it means to please God.

For whether we are talking about cannibalism, or just coming to the table to eat chicken, every part of the sentence is important.  How much more the inspired Word of God that was given to the Biblical authors – yods, daleths, commas, and all.

A Loving Epistle

 

“Dad, I want you to mail this letter to Tonya,” Elise told me, presenting me with an envelope with the name TONYA scrawled across the front.  A stamp had been placed beside the name.  “I put the stamp on so they would make sure to deliver the letter on time.”

“But you’ll see Tonya on Sunday,” I said.  “The letter would hardly get to her before you see her next.”

The letter wasn’t sealed and so I peaked at the note inside.  I felt like an Egyptologist trying to decode a laundry list from the corner of King Tut’s tomb.  Elise is not into spacing her words apart, nor does she use punctuation and sometimes she doesn’t use vowels. 

I read such sentences as: “Plsritsun.” (Please write soon?) and “Allriteweneverican,” (I’ll write whenever I can.) 

I was stumped for a while by the phrase, “Lukonbak.”  But eventually I discovered that it was merely an indication that Elise’s epistle continued on the other side of the paper.

“Dad, I won’t see Tonya for ever so long and she needs to know that I still love her,” Elise said.

“I think she’ll be OK,” I said.

“You know,” Elise told me wisely.  “You can love people, but you can’t love food.  You can only like food.  A lot of people don’t know that, and they’ll say things like ‘I love ice cream,” but you can’t really love ice cream at all.”

My six-year-old daughter may not write the most legible letters or understand the rules of punctuation, but she understands some things about love that are important.  Love is something deeper than the like you have for a particular object or food and more than that, the object of love needs to be told of that love regularly.

Many people say that they love God.  I wonder what they mean by that.  Do they love Him the same way they love ice cream or a special kind of pickles?  Do they mean that they love the fact that they can bring lists of wants and needs to Him to fulfill – like some sort of cosmic grandfather?

The Bible tells us that the best way to know if someone loves God is if they show love to the people around them.  “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?  And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.” (I John 4:20,21)

The two are tightly related.  Loving God and loving our brother and yet, so many people try to separate them, believing that they can love God without demonstrating any sort of love for the people they live and work with.

At the end of the day, it is more important to show love than to use spaces between words or even to capitalize words correctly.  

"ForonlythosewhoshowlovetootherstrulylovetheirHeavenlyFather."

Toxic Floats!

 

“Mom got us root beer, for root beer floats,” Victoria told me, as I walked in the door from a long day at work.  “Elise and I both had one this afternoon.”

“Sounds tasty,” I said.

“It’s kind of weird though,” Victoria said.  “It isn’t the root beer that floats, it’s the ice cream.  Shouldn’t they be called ice cream floats?”

“That’s a good point,” I said.  I proceeded to look it up and found that in Mexico, it is called an “helado flotante,” meaning floating ice cream.  Clearly, Spanish speakers (at least in Mexico), know what they are doing when they describe things as complex as ice cream floating in soda.

“Can I have another one for supper?”  Elise asked, ready to skip whatever the main course was and jump to the good stuff.

“Now, Elise,” Anna put in quickly.  “Root beer is soda and soda isn’t healthy for you!”

“Why not?”  Elise asked, not believing that something that tasted so good was not also good for you.

“Because sodas are acidic,” Anna said firmly.  “And acid won’t let your stomach work right.”

“What sorts of things does your stomach work at?”  I asked curiously.  Mine never seems to do much other than complain if I eat Ghost Pepper Jack Cheese.

“Oh, digest things and stuff like that,” Anna said breezily.  I was disappointed, I had hoped I could use my stomach to make money, but it seemed like stomachs don’t do that sort of work.

“I thought your stomach had acid in it already,” Victoria put in.  “I don’t know why it would be bothered if you drank root beer, even if it is acidic.”

With this conversation behind us, we sat down to an excellent supper.  Afterward, Victoria and Elise watched as Anna took the two liter bottle of root beer out of the fridge and poured herself a cup of the “very unhealthy” liquid.  

“I thought that root beer wasn’t healthy,” Elise said.

“It isn’t,” Anna said.  “That’s why I’m only taking this much.”  She indicated a point slightly over halfway up her cup.

“That’s way more than I got,” Elise said firmly.  “I guess I’m more healthy than you!  I don’t drink NEAR as much root beer as you do Anna!”

Consistency is something that is really hard to achieve.  Parents often want their children to do what they tell them to do, rather than following the parents’ example.  Even the Pharisees in Jesus’ day struggled with this.  Despite them seeming like paragons of following the law, Jesus said of them, “So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach.”

I think about this when it comes to instructing my children because they are awfully quick to pick up on areas where my actions simply do not line up with the things I’m telling them.  If I am asking them to love other people and speak kindly, but they hear me speaking critically of others or see me acting in an uncaring way, they will see the inconsistency.

For, if root beer is really as unhealthy as all that, big sisters would avoid it completely – not simply fill their glass with the toxic fluid “up to here.”

Planning a Graduation

 

“Dad,” Elise said seriously.  “I don’t want to graduate with boys!”

“I don’t think you have much choice, Elise,” I said.  “It’s an odd fact, but roughly half the earth’s population are boys.”

“It’s true,” Aly put in.  “Boys are weird, but some of them are nice.”

“Do you want Elliot to come to your graduation?”  I asked. 

“Elliot CAN NOT come to my graduation!”  Elise said firmly.  “He is a boy and worse than that, I don’t like him.  He can just stay home.”

“What about me?”  I asked.  “Can I come?”

Elise considered this a little longer than she did for her brother.  “No, you can’t come either,” she said at last.  “You’re my dad and you’re a boy too and I don’t want any boys at my graduation.”

It was such a weird conversation to be having because of course, Elise is six years old and coming down to the tail end of first grade.  She has eleven more years to grow and develop and get more accustomed to boys and even develop a better relationship with her older brother (if that is possible).  The idea of her planning her high school graduation now, just a month before the end of her first grade year is a bit silly.

Of course, she doesn’t think it is silly.  She sees it as important – she needs to set ground rules ahead of time so that everything goes off perfectly when the big day comes.

Paul told the Philippians, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done.  Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6,7 NLT)

There are so many verses in the Bible about giving up worry and anxiety and trusting God with our future.  I suppose there are a lot of reasons for that, but chief among them is that most of us feel like our lives are uncontrolled chaos.  We have a deep desire to be in control and to order the things around us and somehow the people in our lives resist our attempts at ordering things.

The blessing is that God’s peace will guard our hearts and mind and give us calmness as we face the future – even if that future includes a graduation ceremony, 11 years from now, in which an unwanted brother and dad show up.

Infamous

 

“Would any of you all like to be famous?”  I asked my gathered family.

Six-year-old Elise was the first to put in her 2 and ½ cents.  “I would NOT want to be famous,” she said firmly.  “Because when you are famous, people follow you around and take pictures of you when you don’t want them to and that would be SO annoying.”

“That would be a downside to fame,” I agreed.  “As it is, you only have to deal with your mom and dad taking pictures of you.”

“I would like to be inspicuous,” Anna said.

“Inspicuous?”  I asked.  This was a word with which I was unfamiliar.

“You know – kind of the opposite of conspicuous, but not exactly the opposite – inspicuous.”

“You mean inconspicuous,” Elliot said.  “That’s a word and inspicuous isn’t.”

“No, I don’t think I mean inconspicuous – just inspicuous.  Anyway, I don’t really want to be famous,” Anna said, thoughtfully.  “I’d rather be infamous – like you, Dad.”

“Infamous like me?”  I asked.  “I hadn’t realized I was infamous – notorious, maybe, but certainly not infamous.”

“It’s all of those botched surgeries,” Elliot put in helpfully. 

“What do you think infamous means?”  Elaine asked.

“Oh, it means famous, but only to a select group of people.  So, like Dad is famous in Brookneal and to some Mennonites, but he isn’t famous all across the country.  That's what infamous means.”

“Oh, no, Anna,” I said.  “Infamy has to do with fame for bad reasons.  So, for instance, if I took to the high seas as a pirate, I would be infamous as the first Mennonite Physician Pirate, but hopefully, I’m not infamous now.”

I sometimes think about fame.  It seems as though there are many people who desire a bit of fame and in the internet age, it is possible to get attention from others.  We call some of these people “influencers” and can follow their trials and travails on their You Tube channels.

Of course, most of these people aren’t famous for any particularly great reason.  They haven’t fixed world hunger or brought peace to the Middle East – they simply make content that other people are willing to click on and even sometimes “like and subscribe.”

The Bible makes it clear that our goal should not be to gain fame or attention for ourselves.  Jesus said, “Those who speak for themselves want glory only for themselves, but a person who seeks to honor the one who sent him speaks truth, not lies.” (John 7:18)  If we are representing Jesus, we will attempt to honor Him with the things we say and share – even if we get little or no attention for ourselves.

At the end of the day, our goal should not be to be famous – or infamous – or even “inspicuous.”  Our goal should be to bring to glory to God.  As His fame grows and His name is well known, the world can be changed for good in a way that a million internet influencers never could.

An Odd Aroma

 

“What’s that smell?”  My beautiful wife said, as I opened the door to our humble abode.

“I hope that’s not Elliot’s pie,” I said.  “It smells as though he was cremating it, not just baking it.”

The aroma of something burning wafted out into the garage.  As we walked into the kitchen, Elliot pounced before we had a chance to say anything.  “Look at my pumpkin pie!”  He said.  “Isn’t it beautiful?”

It did look OK – I had expected to see something resembling a volcanic crater based on the atmosphere in the kitchen, but although the edges were a little dark, it certainly didn’t explain the smell.  “What happened?”  I asked.

“What do you mean?”  Elliot said blankly.  “I baked a pie, that’s all.”

There was general laughter from the other children sitting in the kitchen.

“You didn’t burn anything?  Then why does it smell the way it does?  I hope this isn’t your new cologne.”

“You smell something?”  Elliot said and then.  “Well, I sort of spilled some of the pumpkin on the bottom of the oven when I was putting it in.  I was surprised at how much smoke it made.  It kind of set of all the smoke detectors and I had to turn off the oven and clean out the bottom before I could bake the pie.”

“That certainly explains it,” I said.  “I wonder how long it will take before the atmosphere clears in here?”

Someone told me once about a restaurant on the moon – they have great food, but no atmosphere.  On the other hand, we had great food and too much atmosphere.

One of the things I have realized is that our lives leave behind an aroma.  The things we do, the words we say, and even the ways in which we say them touch people and leave behind an impression long after we leave the room.

“Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing.” (II Corinthians 2:15 NLT)

In the Old Testament times, the Jewish people saw the sacrifices they made as pleasing God.  Even then, God told them that He was more pleased with obedience, mercy, and justice than with sacrifices. 

In the New Testament era, we no longer offer sacrifices and yet, there is still an aroma that goes up based on our words and actions.  Hopefully it is a Christ-like fragrance that others perceive and not the thick, harsh smell of burned pumpkin on the bottom of an oven that wafts up to the throne of grace.

Crazy Weather

 

"This weather is crazy!"  My patient warmed to his topic, just as quickly as the temperatures had cooled from the previous weekend.  "We got up to eighty degrees last week and then it snowed on Friday!  It was 24 degrees at my place Tuesday morning!  It's no wonder everyone is getting sick."

"Actually," I said (relishing my ability to bring science to bear on the situation), "Weather has very little to do with infections.  I think most respiratory infections are caused by either bacteria or viruses."

My patient wasn't buying what I was selling.  "Then why do so many more people get sick in the winter than in the summer?"  He shot back.  "I've had six close relatives die in the last couple of years and all but one of them passed in the winter months.  It's right scary when December rolls around again -- you just don't know who you'll lose, but it's bound to be someone."

"I mostly blame it on school," I said.  "I think schools are the perfect environment to spread viruses around -- after all, you have a bunch of kids packed together in a room for multiple hours a day.  More than that, pre-teen children are terrible at washing hands and covering their coughs."

"Maybe so, but none of my family members who died was either a student or schoolteacher.  That didn't stop them from getting sick."

Later on, I googled the question and discovered that there are multiple reasons people get sick more frequently in the winter months.  Of course, in cold weather, people do spend more time in close quarters with others, but more than that, in cold, dry weather, water droplets from a sneeze or cough fly farther than in warm, humid air.  Even more interesting is that when the inside of our nose gets cold, the little cilia inside don't work as effectively to sweep out mucus and viruses.  When the janitor cells in our noses go on strike, the sinuses get sick.

Of course, it is understandable that people blame the weather for various illnesses.  After all, there is little more certain in old literature than that a character who has spent time in a cold, damp location will begin to cough and depending on the author's whims, eventually find themselves knocking on the pearly gates.

It strikes me that unless we understand the reason behind the things that happen to us, we can do little to prevent them from recurring in the future.  As long as people believed that malaria and yellow fever were transmitted by inhaling bad air, people would continue to perish from them, but when they figured out that was actually mosquito borne, they could begin to eliminate it.

Jesus said, "A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart." (Luke 6:45)

When we say something unkind or unchristian in some way, our tendency is to believe that we need better filters.  "That's not really me," we say, explaining away the slip of the tongue with excuses like fatigue and stress.

The reality is that what comes out of our mouths is quite definitely an indication of what is in our hearts.  The fact that we filter most of the negative things out, doesn't change that at all.  Jesus doesn't want us to change or improve our filters; He wants us to change our hearts.  Only then will we be able to speak without fear of what we share.

Once we understand the source of the problem, we can do something about it, whether we are talking about loose speech or respiratory illnesses.  For fixing the weather in Virginia is unlikely to eliminate viruses, even if warmer weather would put a smile on the face of the dying man who can't stop coughing.