Presidential Tirades

 

“If I were President, they wouldn’t have sat me back there.  In Real Estate, like Politics, and in Life, LOCATION IS EVERYTHING!!!”

This tweet came from a former president, who was chagrined at the placement of the current president of the United States at a funeral service for Queen Elizabeth II.  Apparently, he would have thrown his weight around and gotten a seat closer to the front --  maybe even in the casket with the deceased monarch.

I wasn’t even invited to the funeral event.  Apparently, you had either be a world leader or related to the queen, which doesn’t seem quite fair.

I was busy in Brookneal and wouldn’t really have had time to go, but it would have been nice to be invited…

As I was contemplating this diatribe, I began to think of a short parable that Jesus told.  “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him … But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, Friend, move up higher; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you.  For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”  (Luke 14:7-10 NASB)

The point that Jesus was making had nothing to do with how to get the highest seat possible at an event.  Quite simply, Jesus was telling His disciples to learn humility.  Whether we feel ourselves to be a big or small fish and regardless of the size of the pond where we live, we shouldn’t make everything about us.

It is OK to be small.  It is wise to be humble, for truly there comes a time when all of us will Bow before the Throne of He who rules the Universe.

Even former Presidents of the United States of America.

Licking a Saltshaker

 

 

“Don’t lick that!”  Anna’s voice came ringing across the table with high volume and clarity.  “Mom!  Victoria’s licking the holes on the saltshaker!”

“Please don’t lick that, Victoria,” Elaine said to our middle daughter.  “Polite people don’t do that.  It’s a sign of bad manners.”

“Technically,” Vincent put in, with the wisdom gained through eight full years of education.  “Technically, you can’t lick a hole.  You can only lick the area around the hole.”

He thought a moment and then said, “I suppose you could lick a donut hole.”

“You could lick the hull of a ship,” Elliot said, helpfully.  “Although I suppose you’d have to get pretty close to it to do that.  It might be hard to do.”

“That hull is spelled differently,” Vincent said.

I suppose that this is the way of life.  It is awfully easy to miss the message that is delivered because of the manner in which it was delivered.

Few people have a way with words that great orators, like Abraham Lincoln or JFK, have demonstrated.  That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a message worthy of our attention.

This is particularly true when we receive a message that is critical of our behavior.  Typically, we exhibit one of two responses to messages like that.  Either we are critical of the way in which the message was delivered or, we are critical of inconsistencies in the life of the messenger.

All of this misses the point.  When there is a message for us, we should attempt to learn from it.

Even if the lesson is as simple as not licking the saltshaker.

So Short a Summer

 

"Next week school starts again!"  I told our children.  Four of them were going to be resuming their studies at our little school.

"I'm not ready," One of them complained, wrinkling his face up into a discouraged look.

"It has been two and a half months since school let out," I said.  (I'm very good at calculating times and seasons.  I even generally know what day of the week it is).  "That's how long summer vacation usually lasts."

"It doesn't seem like it," my son said.

It is at a young age that we learn the transitory nature of time.  You wait and wait, what seems an eternity for your next birthday, only to have it vanish in a few seconds.  A long-awaited trip disappears, almost before it starts.

Humans have a strange relationship with time.  We are given only a limited amount of it and yet, we tend to squander this precious commodity on frivolous things.

Psalm 90:10-12 speaks to us of the brief nature of our lives and of the importance of using them for things that have value.

Every hour, every minute has value.  We can choose to spend it scrolling through social media or speaking encouragement to someone who is hurting.  Even if we do not consciously spend the time, it will still vanish, used to purchase whatever things, trivial or not, that fill our days.

The sad thing is that so few of us learn to number our days.  Instead, we get to the end of whole seasons of our lives wondering where they went and what we did with them.

We are like a child reaching the end of his summer vacation and wondering where it went.

Psalms 90:10-12 "The days of our years are three score and ten; and if by reason of strength they be four score years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow for it is soon cut off and we fly away.  Who knoweth the power of thy anger?  even according to thy fear so is thy wrath.  So, teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."

"What is that in your hand?"

 

“Dad,” my son Vincent told me.  “I have come up with a fun game for children to play while their parents are shopping.”

“What’s that?”  I asked him.

“They can count how many cell phones they see,” my eldest son told me.  “I’m talk about the ones that are in people’s hands,” he clarified.  “Not the ones that are on display for sale.”

“That sounds like a boring game,” his younger brother put in.

“I was with Mom in Target today,” Vincent said.  “I saw thirty cell phones in people’s hands during our time in there.”

“It’s a sign of a good education,” I said.  “You are able to count that high without taking off your shoes and socks.  When I was your age, I wore flip flops everywhere simply so that I could get to twenty without breaking a sweat.”

The cell phone conversation stayed with me.  I began to think of Moses coming upon a Burning Bush in the desert.  After God called him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses expressed doubts about his ability. 

It was then that God asked Moses a question.  “What is that in your hand?”

Moses was holding a staff and God told him to throw it down.  It immediately became a snake – a sign from God of Moses’ divine calling.

If it had been a 21^st Century American standing before the burning bush and God had asked the same question, the answer would have been a smart phone.  Even when people are with friends, they seem to have their phones out – checking on a variety of statuses and replies.

Smart phones are powerful technology.  They have housed within their slender frames telephones, cameras, contact lists, and music libraries.  They have an always on connection to both e mail and the internet.

I am not against technology.  It makes life easier in many ways.  I even own a smart phone and I use it regularly.  If my phone gives up the ghost someday, I’m sure I will replace it in short order.  I have come to depend on it enough that I could not easily go back to a old style flip phone.

It is interesting that God told Moses to throw down his staff.  Certainly an eighty-year-old shepherd could be forgiven if he depended on his staff more than a little for balance and support.

Maybe God was telling Moses that he needed to learn where his source of strength truly was.  Perhaps Moses needed to lean on God more than he ever had his rod, to lead a great (and greatly complaining) people out of Egypt.

It feels to me as though God is asking 21^st century Christians to do the same thing – to throw down their phones.  Well, being the merciful God He is and understanding the cost of replacing a cracked phone screen, He might ask us to place the phone gently on the ground.

“This thing you hold in your hand,” He tells us.  “It is a tool – a device that you are leaning on.  I want you put it down and for a long moment focus only on me.  You will come to realize that you need me far more than that piece of electronics that feels so important to you.”

What is that in your hand?

It is a tool.  It is a way of maintaining tenuous relationships with distant friends.  At times, it is an impediment to maintaining relationships with people close at hand.

Most important is the question of whether these phones stand in the way of our relationship with our Heavenly Father.  How long can you pray without checking your phone?  Does meditating feel boring compared to checking the latest post on social media?

When we stand before the bush in flame, we hear a divine voice speaking to us.  It asks again, “What is that in your hand?”  Then it tells us to throw it down on the ground.

Anything that stands in the way of us relying wholly on God must be stripped away.

Even if that thing is something as amazing as the technology found in a smart phone.

The Wrong Messenger

 

"I don't like it!"  Elliot said loudly in a voice dropping with disgruntlement.  "Why does Anna get to choose the music?"

"I am older," Elliot's older sister said with a tone that implied that this explained everything.  Surely, someone with fifteen years on the planet should get to choose the music for the household.

"Dost thou not like Chopin Etudes?"  I queried.  "I know that there is much music under the sun, but I would far rather listen to that music composed by Chopin than such modern composers as Michael Jackson or Elton John."

"I guess Chopin is OK," Elliot replied.  "Just not when Anna picks it."

My eldest daughter does have a great tendency to commandeer the musical playlist.  It is with great frequency that the rest of her sizable family is allowed, nay, subjected to listening to Flute Concertos till the Cows Come Home to Roost.

(For, she is an aspiring Flutist.)

I pondered this conversation long.  I am not totally convinced that my youngest son doth like the piano music of one, Frederic Chopin. but I know for a fact that Elliot's Main Issue was not with this long-deceased, Polish composer, but rather with Anna controlling the soundtrack of his life.

It seemeth clear that there are many times that people are unable to accept good ideas because of the messenger who delivereth them.  Mayhap, they do not desire that particular person to receive acclaim for what seemeth a good idea.  Perhaps, the problem has much to do with the group that this messenger is a member of.

This is most evident in politics.  Democrats despise any plans brought forward by a Republican, regardless of how good it might seem.  The reverse is just as true.

This world is in desperate need of good ideas and life is too short to discount some of them, simply because they come from the wrong source.  For, the light bulb was a great invention, even if Thomas Edison lived in New Jersey and was a vegetarian.

It is sad when a young man cannot enjoy the talents of a great composer like Frederic Chopin, simply because his despised sister has chosen that music.