A Weekend to Remember

Linda and I last weekend were at "A Weekend to Remember," which is a seminar created by Family Life, which is in term on the ministries of Campus Crusade for Christ. It's designed to help marrieds live well together. I'm ready to recommend it for any married couple, even with as many years of married experience as Linda and me (34 years). I wish we had done this decades earlier.

Key points? Perhaps these: understanding the concept of "oneness," communication, forgiveness.

Are we there yet? I keep thinking this good and delightful union of which I am a part cannot get much better, but it does. Still, we find places of misunderstanding...as recently as 3 hours ago. So, we keep working on it, and finding ways to make it better.

Thank you, Father for proclaiming marriage and the joy of life together!

Capitalism and the environment

In Wired News today is a provocative story about saving the planet. Among other things mentioned by the author and Lester Brown, who was being interviewed:

There's a quote by Oystein Dahle close to a decade ago now, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was for many years Exxon's vice president for Norway and the North Sea. He said, "Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth."

Seen at a distance, the problems of socialism are many. The problems o f capitalism, seen up close here in America, are not as visible. We fish have trouble describing what water is like, as the saying goes.

Our society is constantly pushing economic costs into the future. The SuperFund sites all around the United States are just one example. We don't often pay the real costs to society of products we purchase.

And it is not only ecologic truth that is not being told. Social truth is sometimes covered over as well. I see it here in Anchorage: subdivisions are built with little regard for people movement, for example. Where are the sidewalks and bike trails and pathways to bus routes, grocery stories, libraries and so forth? It's easy to think that they have been squeezed out by the desire to squeeze in one more lot for sale. Maybe there's more to it than that. I hope so.

I miss the pedestrian access of Uppsala where foot and bicycle traffic was a priority in the community. We may be maximizing the profit of a few, and minimizing the taxes of the many, but the time will come, I predict, when many are wishing for better foot traffic possibilities.

I'm far from wanting to toss out capitalism. But we ignore its problems at the peril of our environment, our health, and our souls.

Break this heart of stone

As I listen to Annie Herring's Heart of Stone, I was reminded again of Pastor Richard Irwin's moving sermon last Sunday at Anchorage City Church about grace.

The sermon was about grace. If we could really get our hearts and minds around the concept of grace, and apply it to others as the Lord applies it to us, the impact on our communities would be stunning, he said. Out of 100 people, one reads the Bible, and the other reads the Christians. When we who are Jesus' disciples fail to extend grace to others, we are sending a wrong message. We are sending the message of the Law.

But it's easy, right? I just need to be nice to people.

Well, here I am a Christian now two decades, and here's the measure of my grace: this morning, I growled at my gentle, sweet wife over some inconsequential issue. At the time it seemed so important. I had been wronged!

Instead of extending grace to her, I growled. What if God did that to me every time I failed even a little bit?

Pastor Robert Ekh said one time we expect others to treat us based on our good intentions, but we instead treat others based on their behavior. In other words, we expect grace from others because our hearts are "good" but we judge others under the law when they fail at something or another, or cause us some hurt.

When people who are not yet believers look at the church, what do they see? People who extend grace to others? Or do they see people who hold laws in their heart by which pre-Christians are constantly measured?

Pastor Irwin's point is if he can change, and if I can change, and our brothers and sisters who are under grace can change and extend that grace to others, the doorways to salvation will be seen to be wide open, rather than held by those constantly checking for adherence to the law. God's Kingdom will advance.

Break me of my lack of mercy and grace, Lord.

On praying enough

My wife and closest friend, Linda, has been struggling for about two weeks with an ear infection that has left her with a plugged eustachion tube. Naturally, I have asked God to heal her and "spoken to the mountain" (the ear). Twice.

But yesterday, I understood that I was essentially 1) being prayerless and 2) assuming that since nothing happened the first two times, nothing would happen. But Jesus told us we should always pray and not give up. I gave up. So....now we will pray and not give up....and we wait expectantly for the Lord's reply.

Sephardic vs Ashkenazi

I have generally thought of Jews as simply....Jews. But Jews see themselves as being part of one of at least two large groups, Sephardic (seh-far-dik) or Ashkenazi (ash-ken-ah-zee).
The Ashkenazi are mostly from Eastern European stock. They are, in North America, a much larger and better organized part of Judaism. Sephardic Jews are in North America "a minority within a minority." In a Jews for Jesus newsletter, I read that everying from language and food to religious observance differs from that of the Ashkenazim.

The Sephardim come from a much larger area: Spain, Morocco, Italy, Greece, Israel, Syria, Yemen, Tunisia, Iraq and India.

Listening

Tonight on the Marriage Course the discussion was on listening. I realized that my listening skills are not so hot. Sila Lee said there are several common hindrances to effective listening. She listed these listener types:

• Reassurer -- the one who says "never mind, it will all be okay."
• Advice giver -- waits for the speaker to finish and then gives advice, whether wanted or no
• Intellectualizer -- takes the discussion into esoterica
• interrupter -- waits for a pause in the speaker's words and then says what is on the mind
• Going off on a tangent -- changes the subject.

I am guilty of at least the first three, and I short circuit my communications with friends, children and wife by doing so.

Lord help me to change those patterns!

More on Learning Swedish

I wrote earlier about my process of learning Swedish. There have been interesting points of discovery along the way. Here are a few of them:

• During conversation I find that the Swedish word for a thing sometimes comes to mind before the English word. That most recently happened when speaking to my parents. I was looking for a word describing "people I work with". The first word that popped up was arbetskamrat, which was a better match than colleague, which took a half second or so longer to find in my ordförråd (literally, word storage, or vocabulary). I suspect this is no big deal for people with multiple languages. It probably happens often enough to not even be noteworthy. The reverse of this is even more true, unfortunately. When I am conversing in Swedish, English words pop up with distressing frequency.
• Sometimes Swedish words lodge in my head and ricochet around without any apparent reason. Fanjunkare, or senior petty officer, as we would say, was a word doing that last week for a couple of days. The word appeared in Red Rabbit, a Tom Clancy novel translated into Swedish that Linda purchased for me in Uppsala a year ago. This book is a result of my sister's suggestion that this would be a good way to pick up vocabulary (she's right). Su is fluent in English, French and Spanish, and understands bits of others, so I think she knows whereof she speaks.
• Very early this morning, I awoke from a dream that I realized was in Swedish. It probably wasn't very literate Swedish, but I was having a conversation in Swedish.

Learning languages has always had some appeal to me, and putting serious effort into this one has been fascinating and rewarding.

Skiing

Life, fortunately, consists of more than work, as absorbing and entertaining as it may be. One of the pleasures of my youth pretty much unrelated to work was cross country skiing.

One of the trips that I especially remember was a solo trip where Linda dropped me off on the ridges above Goldstream Valley in Fairbanks and I followed an old road for miles downhill until I reached the valley itself. From there it was easy to get home. Another time Ken Klopf and I skied on a winter moose hunt in the Totatlanika River drainage near Fairbanks. It was great fun on a pair of Norwegian skis with bamboo poles that I bought in the early 1970's. We didn't even SEE a moose, but we had a pretty good time anyway.

I haven't skied much since the early 1990s, but today was my second day in a row. I'm going to have to get used to these new waxless skis, however.

Waxless skis are not exactly waxless. One must wax at least the glide surfaces. But as I found today, it's going to take more than that. Yesterday was like skiing on sandpaper. It was a bit better with waxed gliding surfaces, but still I was able to ski uphill....which suggests I don't have the glide part down yet.

This workout also made me realize how much heart pounding exercise I DON'T get. I like to walk, and do a lot of it, but skiing gets the heart really rolling. It feels good.

The breath of life

Pastor Barry Mulock has been part of the congregation at Anchorage City Church for months now. He is about to launch a Four Square Church here in Anchorage. His wife has strong connections in our church family, so it was natural for them to be among us while they are getting ready to launch their new church. Pastor Richard told us about the plan last week....and even suggested that those who feel led to do so should consider becoming part of this new church plant. I told Richard that was the first time I have ever heard a pastor say something like that.

But what I wanted to tell you was a point that Barry made in his message.

The book of Genesis records that God spoke creation into being. With one exception: man. Man, he made from the dust of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life.

While ultimately all life is made from the earth...and it is to earth that we return....only man has that unique God breath.

Invasion of the culture snatchers

I watched a chick flick last night with my wife. It is fun doing just about anything with Linda. But what was not fun was watching the culture snatchers at work. Hollywood has long been doing this, of course, it just hit me worse than usual this time.

Exhibit A: when the protagonists realize that it is love at (almost) first sight, their (almost) immediate reaction is to (almost- saved by lack of a condom) copulate.

Culture Snatch Messages:
1) Love is chemical. If you feel something, you have it, if you don't feel it, you don't. Reality check: Love is a decision, an act of will.
2) Get into bed before marriage. Reality check: Studies show that couples who don't live together first have better marriages, and by extension, better lives.
3) Condoms make casual sex safe. Reality check: Condoms prevent neither pregnancy nor disease.

Exhibit B: the female protagonist has two male homosexual friends with a long term committed relationship.

Culture Snatch Messages:
1) Homosexuals are nice people with committed long term relationships. Reality check: Many homosexuals probably are nice people. But much of male homosexuality is more about multiple sexual experiences than relationships.
2) Homosexual behavior is harmless and kind of cute. Reality check: Sexual expression outside of the marriage of a man and a woman is harmful to families, societies and nations. It spreads disease. I'm not sure I get the cute part.

Hollywood may entertain and educate at times, but it comes with the cost of having to put up with its agenda of social change.