Adeodatus in Wonderland

St. sat our almost-three L. down on her lap to brush her long blond hair into a nice ponytail. Instead, she stared at a little girl holding scissors in her right hand. Cutting paper into tiny slivers must have grown boring, so L. turned her hand to her glowing locks, cutting swathes from the right side of her head. Her bangs, almost grown out, are now 1/4” stubble. The hair above her ear looks like a hail and locust ravaged wheat field.

May God grant that you never see your darling little girl with a mullet, self-inflicted or otherwise.

Many times I toss the morning paper into the recycle bin annoyed that it snatched away even ten minutes of my day. This morning’s, though, brought me this gem:

It looks like all of our water conservation efforts worked! With all of us ripping out our lawns and following the watering rules, the mountain reservoirs are now safely full. Oops. Turns out that the water district needs people to use lots of water so they can charge lots of money and keep solvent. So now Denver Water is lifting all restrictions and adding surcharges to cover the missing revenue. Next they will be asking us to please readjust our sprinklers to cover as much sidewalk as possible.

The best part was the comment by a put-out homeowner:

"It's discrimination against homeowners with large lots," said Blair Kittleson, who lives on half an acre in Denver.
"I shouldn't be penalized because I have grass, trees, a swimming pool and a reflecting pool," he said. His June-July bill was $1,114 for using 115,000 gallons. The average Denver residential customer uses 102,000 gallons a year, Denver Water said.

When?! Oh, when will justice roll down like waters? And righteousness like a living stream for these suffering citizens?

Oh, and that 8 page supplement on the Kobe Bryant trial? I didn't read that.

PS. Good thing I didn't read that Kobe insert, eh? I wish I has such historical foresight when making most of my reading choices.

It's been about seven months since last I commented on anything political, so I'm due:

I am growing tired of elements on the left talking out both sides of their mouth. Specifically, this whole Viet Nam issue. Let me be straight on this: coming of age in the 80's means that any and all romance or patriotism is completely stripped from that conflict. When this nation revisited our role over there and its repercussions, we largely nodded along with the youthful Kerry's assessment: this was immoral. From beginning to end, the Viet Nam war went against American democratic ideals. Young American men committed atrocities. Medals were handed out like condoms in a health class. Duty? Honor? Shoot, using vocabulary like that is askin to saying a whore put in an honest hard day’s work at the Mustang Ranch.

Popular culture cemented this into our conscience. The genre of grisly Viet Nam exploded in literature, film and television: Pacos Story, One to Count Cadence, The Short Timers (source for Full Metal Jacket ), Born on the Fourth of July , Apocalypse Now, The Deerhunter, Platoon, Hamburger Hill, Good Morning Viet Nam, the action flicks (First Blood, Rambo, and the MIA series), China Beach, and even M*A*S*H (you don’t really think that was about Korea, do you?). In the nineties, we learned that only simpleton could prove heroic in those circumstances. You would need to go all the way back to this to find a positive slant on the war in popular culture (excluding the song of the same title). Even recently, the cinematic image of US involvement in Southeast Asia should have us shaking our heads in shame.

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"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
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For the last thirty years, then, voices predominantly from the Left have been crafting our cultural conscience, and the Right, given their clear lack of moral footing (having been those in power when that last helicopter pulled away from the embassy roof) never said a peep. We were left to assume that given the duplicity of the US executive branch, the huge cost (financially, culturally, and in human lives), and the ultimate military and political failure, history has come down hard on that chapter in US foreign policy. The picture we are left with? A superpower intent on keeping communism in check myoptically intervenes in a postcolonial conflict, resulting in over two million US service men burnishing zippos, napalming refugees, deforesting swathes of pristine jungle (simultaneously planting the germ of cancers), and finally coming home with seriously inflamed PTSD and even more serious drug and alcohol problems. Or, in the words of an eyewitness:

" [US soldiers] personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephone to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."

These are Kerry’s words on his war criminals. These are the maniacs he pulls from the river. In this light, of course the moral high road must be Clinton’s slinking off to study in England or Bush’s orchestration of National Guard service.

Given this cultural vision, intentionally crafted during my entire lifetime, it is incongruous at best for the left to now draw a curtain of rhetoric and make service in Viet Nam any sort of gleaming artifact resting on a pedestal of heroism and duty. If Kerry’s testimony were believed, saving that special op’s soldier from the waters was akin to rescuing an SS storm trooper.

And now Kerry’s service record is being challenged. It sure looks as if he padded his wartime record with some stories and his chest with some medals. His seared memory seems to have taken precedence over his seared conscience. In the end, the details of a thirty-five year old firefight are largely moot. Mines exploded, swiftboat 50cal’s ripped the shoreline – combat is confusing and the truth of events difficult to fathom. What remains truly problematic is the new direction Kerry has chosen to take this wartime event and his shock that his new dogma of events and heroism has come into question.

Some questions that come to mind: how can Kerry’s editor friend suggest that the Swift Boat Veteran’s ads darken the reputation of veterans who served with Kerry? After being entirely blackened by Kerry’s non-recanted testimony, these guys are already war criminals who shot babies out of mother’s arms and poisoned food supplies. (“How much more black could it be? The answer is none. . . none more black .”) Claiming that Kerry and his comrades embellished one incident hardly ups the ante there. Imagine the breaking news! Slobadan Milosevic indicted on new charges that he bounced a check at a mom & pop video store.

Other questions go out from there: how do people on the left criticize a private company for selling a privately written and funded book ? Why do Democrats demand that Bush silence a segment of Americans who are exercising their right to free speech while they still much their popcorn with their French boyfriends as Michael “Ich bin nicht Leni Riefenstahl” Moore performs his birthday party magic act in the corner?

I do not mean to imply that Republicans are beyond question in this election campaign or that I disagree entirely with questions Democrats are raising. I only ask that both sides maintain their convictions throughout.

This morning. 

Venus has been greeting my early rising. Hot cup of tea or coffee in hand, I pull up the shades to find her hanging alone in the dark eastern sky. She, my only company in the quiet blackness of predawn, slowly ascends her sphere, away from the impending Sun. I read, sip, and throw quick glances at her, knowing she will leave with the blues of day.

The day comes without temerity as the brash, proud Sun washes out all else. Venus is eclipsed, her bright subtly subsumed in the light and noise of the day. On the best mornings I have the presence of mind to say goodbye to her. Too often I put down the book and scan the blue sky in vain as the Sun awakens footsteps and voices.

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"At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear." Norman Maclean

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The Mormons came by again yesterday for another 3 hours of discussion. While they certainly did not leave without providing a vigorous explanation and defence of their theology, they walked down our walk without a vigorous challenge to their church or doctrine. Several observations on this encounter:

The obfuscation of terminology presents an ongoing problem in all dialog with a Latter Day Saint. Their Jesus is not the Jesus of the canonical scriptures or historic orthodoxy. Redemption, baptism, grace, heaven, spirit, Kingdom, Father – these all carry entirely different referents than normal Christian usage. I tried to appropriate as much Mormon technical language as possible and use it correctly. For example, “soul” refers to a human being in the flesh, who is a marriage of the pre-incarnate “spirit” and a body.

Mormons (if these young men presented a typical example) do not like to unpack their doctrines in full, revealing their distance from historical orthodoxy. God is a flesh an blood entity, perfected and glorified not the same from eternity to eternity. Jesus was created as the first, preeminent spirit, just as every other human being. All persons (‘personages’) have existed forever, first as ‘intelligences’ and then as ‘spirits’ fashioned father in his celestial world. Nothing was ever created ex nihilo. “We don’t normally go into this sort of detail,” Elder Anthony noted. No, I can’t believe that you do. It reveals very quickly that you are outside of the stream of Christian faith, all claims to the contrary.

I found it interesting that Mormonism presents us with an almost unique heresy: anti-Gnostic insistence on flesh and blood. Every human being on the earth has already done something right by choosing to be born, a choice which guarantees a place in one of the three nice eternal places. Elder Smith admitted some similarity with a Hindu notion of karma, that your place in this life is the result of some decisions made in the mist of a former existence. Of course, in such a system the Holy Spirit cannot be God, because it has no body. Only rebellious entities snub embodiment, such as Satan and those celestial spirits who followed his refusal to come down here and get themselves bodies.

At the end of the day, we were faced with a religion that has refined its doctrine and covered its bases. Its theology is internally consistent, with its early contradictions seemingly smoothed over during the intervening two centuries. But it is not in any of its key doctrines Christian. The LDS insistence on using Christian language and claiming to be within the folds of Christianity must be seen as either (charitably) a cultural identification leftover from its New England roots, or a (more crassly) an intentional marketing ploy to downplay its aberrant core.

I would have preferred to send these young men, creatures of the Sovereign Lord of Scriptures, with hearts and minds heavy with concerns over their church’s history and doctrine. As it is, we simply parted ways, they requesting that we keep reading and praying that God would evidence in our hearts the truth of Joseph Smith’s restoration. I’ll be praying, all right.

St. came into the study yesterday afternoon holding her Bible, visibly flustered. Two young men in crisp white shirts and conservative ties were just at the door, and they were getting their Bibles.

Three hours we spent unpacking Mormon doctrine and practice. We were clear by the time we finished that the Latter Day Saints are hardly within the folds of orthodoxy (or the Great Apostacy, as Church history from 100 - 1830 is called). But they will be coming back on Thursday, no doubt with the Bishop in tow, and then we will have to talk about the veracity of their prophets, their scriptures, and their appriopriation of both Old and New Testaments.

Given some time later today I will unpack some of the more significant doctrinal stuff (including the requisite glossary of terms.)

I’m nearly done with a re-reading of Richard Bauckham’s The Theology of the Book of Revelation. The ideas in this little book forever removed a literalistic hermeneutic from a reading of the Apocalypse, which in turn opened up all sorts of theological doors.

Friday found me wandering the stacks at the seminary, looking for a book on the history of premillennialism in America. I have my hunches as to why so many doctrinal statements crafted in the first half of the twentieth century demand a premillennial return of Christ, but I would like to listen to someone who has looked at it more carefully. On a tip from a professor, I found this. Before I could hunker down and start affirming my hunches, I glanced the back of the pastor’s head, at his usual spot along the south wall. Since it had been years since our last encounter along the Mustard Wall, I sauntered by.

He is aware of the basic scope of events of the ill-fated Minnesota Pilgrimage, although St. and I haven’t met with him yet for debriefing or counsel. After the basic hellos, he leaned back in the 50’s era desk chair and nodded at the book in my hand. Just trying to get to up speed on all of this, I explained. His brow furrowed. Might it not be better to remain an informed agnostic? He suggested. You need not make this into a divisive issue, or put a perverse amount of energy into its study. But I need to know what I believe and what indeed is at stake here. I agree that there are more important doctrines to nuance and defend, but since others have made a big deal of this, I need to be sure that, as I guess, not much really hangs on one's millennial stance. He warned me again to avoid giving undue weight to the doctrine and went back to work on his sermon.

The more I think of this conversation the more it picks at the summer’s scabs. A dialog runs though my head sounding like something from a mud-smeared John Rambo:

Adeodatus: There wouldn't be no trouble except for that recruitment director! All I wanted was someone to cover logistics. But the man kept pushing Sir.
Pastor: Well you did some pushing on your own Adeodatus.
Adeodatus: They drew first blood, not me.
Pastor: Look, let me come in and get you the hell out of there!
Adeodatus: They drew first blood...

I have no plans on ambushing their inconsistent hermeneutic with a tiger trap or burying punji sticks to impale their overly-complex eschatological schemes, but at the same time, don’t expect me to suffer the ignominy of being dropped off outside of town on account of my amill fatigues and realized eschatology haircut. Someone put my back up against the wall regarding biblical interpretation: I cannot remain agnostic or only mildly convinced of my position. I sincerely hope this is now about intellectual integrity more than personal vindication.

Another thing hit me yesterday as I thought about the encounter: the premillennial folk are winning. Of course they wouldn’t like to make a big deal out of it. Imagine a white Ivy League student whose admission was largely influenced by legacy speaking to an inner-city black about affirmative action. Sure, he might have insights into the issues at hand, but he also might be too bound up in his world to realize how patronizing he sounds.

I had hoped to resume some studies of Christ and Culture, but it looks like I will be swimming in the waters of future glory for a bit longer. And if I gave it a moment’s thought I would realize that eschatology is probably a pretty good place to start a study of cultural formation and interaction. (Check out Bauckham on Rev. 21: “the nations and the kings will enjoy their own glory – all the goods of human culture – the more through dedicating it to God’s glory.”) I purchased Beale’s commentary a few years back and have yet to crack it. Looks like the time has come.

Though an irregular feature around here, it is none-the-less time for another of Adeodatus’ Brushes with Famous People or Their Offspring.

July 2, 1993 Greg picks me up at 5:30am for our first annual cutthroat trout pilgrimage up to Tabor Lake. He drives his red econobox like a madman around blind curves and boulder-strewn forest roads so we can hike to the lake before the sun rises. We scramble up the scree slope to the cirque only to find a field of blue ice. Not even a patch of open water. Such is the high country.

Lessoned learned, naps taken, we squeal and rock our back down to Aspen. In a hospitable mood, Greg even springs for top-shelf margaritas at some restaurant on Main Street. As we laugh our way through town, we both stop in our tracks as Ms. Julia Childs steps slowly down the stairs from the Eddie Bauer store. No doubt with some bellboy in tow portaging packages, she continues down the sidewalk, her distinctive voice going on about dungarees. Greg is more impressed than I, he being a chef from time to time (such is life in Aspen. No one ever files a tax return with just one W-2. My record was nine).

Now she’s gone. I can only hope that those Eddie Bauer jeans treated her well until the end of her days.

You can tell you are nearing home after a long trip away when you start to pass familiar landmarks: that Village Inn where you drank coffee until 2am with a college friend, then new supermarket (which was put up in ’87). Similarly, you notice when your body shakes with the minute convulsions of the winter’s first cold: a dull ache in the knees followed closely by an itchy nose. I have only in the last few years recognized that signs like these clearly mark a descent into spiritual malaise.

First: the day’s clothes are tossed onto the floor in front of my closet, or thrown onto the loveseat, or slumped over the back of my desk chair like the corpses of so many sorry sons of bitches who tried to make a dash over the concertina wire. By the time I notice this is happening, there are strata of shorts, t-shirts and briefs in every corner of my study. This is especially telling if I sigh, start putting them away, but get no farther than two shirts and a pair of socks before throwing my hands in the air and stomping out.

Then: as evidenced in the prior paragraph, certain words and phrases creep into my vocabulary. Usually it’s only in a thought or two, under extreme provocation as allowed by Uncle Jack. But given three days or week of this, it’s sure to come out under my breath. The little ones take apart all the clothespins, or unravel the aluminum foil or can’t be bothered to trek all the way inside to the toilet: out pour the tersely whispered curses. Today in conversation with an old classmate I found myself peppering the dialog with words usually off-limits in polite, non-passionate company (I was a little fired up. Not nearly enough to legitimize the use of vulgarities, though). I know things are really bad when silent moments reveal loops of genuine, no holds barred curses running through my mind like an old, oxidized tape-loop: curses toward knocked over trash cans, junk mail, broadleaf weeds, and computer games.

What else? I pour the scotch a little more heavily and forgo the dash of water. I listen to more blues and rock than jazz, gospel or folk. I check out more DVD’s from the library and watch mediocre movies rather than engage more fruitful pursuits. (This week it was Billy Elliot and Welcome to Collinwood, both evidencing pretty early on their mediocrity. The Mexican, however, tickled me despite its many [non-graphic] murders. Maybe it was pretty-boy Pitt as a bumbling mob lackey). I ditch my usual sleep schedule in favor of crashing on the couch and ignoring morning squeals until they escalate to a few screams and the tugs on my arm become nearly constant. With stiff fingers I flip off NPR’s Daniel Shore when he pontificates over my Benz’ old AM radio. I don’t automatically flip past the Josilin’s ads on pages 4-5 in the morning’s paper.

Once you pass that Village Inn, you kick in onto auto pilot, navigating even blackened 3am streets with familiarity and ease. When those feverish aches move up to your back, you get more sleep, drink more orange juice, and pop a few ibuprofen. What do I do given the first clear signals of ill ease and malaise? Usually nothing until I am desperate. Wisdom would dictate a run to the Almighty, curses and all. Or humbly asking for prayer from those closest to me. Instead, this unnamed plaque accumulates largely unnoticed until most beauty is obscured and my teeth grind even in sleep. By then, hope has lost her vigorous physique, and pleasure is summed up in the morning’s cup of reheated coffee or the night’s swirls of cigar smoke up into a vaguely starry sky.

It's not that I have anything against these beheamoths of the highways, or that I feel no compassion for the family who lost their vehicle (or especially the two who sustained burns. I know how badly that hurts). But ever since the morning after that September day, I pull the newspaper from its blue baggie with not a little hesitation, nerves ready to wince at the headlines. When the picture adorning the front page is nothing more than a frozen moment in sports short or a car wreck, I can resume breathing, pick up my steaming coffee, and start my day.

Thus is my world tense only with the large stuff. Small, immediate events now fly below the radar. That family above? They live in Lakewood, probably less than 10 minutes from here. Here is a thought I had years ago: immediate access to the large wounds of peoples around the world dull us to even the most painful, accessible scrapes, bruises and bleedings right around us. A tribe or village can mourn the death of one of its own. But what do you do when you are a small piece in a pell-mell circus of a humanity? You no longer mourn or identify with pain: you look for Significance, and that usually means numbers. The earth quakes in the Middle East, but only two hundred die. Oh, that's nothing: remember that quake in Turkey in '98? Or last year in Bam? Those were worth reading about and digesting. Ninety perish in mudslides in Latin America? A shame, to be sure, but hardly worth the time to read about. Twenty-two dead in a Peruvian bus accident? Please. Spare me.

That sounds sickeningly cold and indifferent to the pains and stuggles of peoples around the world, and it may be. Or it may be an appropriate mechanism, saving my soul from perpetual grief. Has the scope of tragedy changed my grasp of human pain? Must an event fall into a historical ranking by damage done and lives lost in order to warrant concern, prayer, and emotional reaction? Part of me says, Yes! It must! I can't begin to grieve over the lives lost in that mudslide or the children crushed as that overcrowded bus crunched and shattered down a rural rivine. But the unintended consequence of this is that I no longer grieve over the loss and pain of my neighbors. You know, I could make that family in Lakewood dinner or mow their lawn this week: something which says they are in my world and I recognize their loss.

Sure you've read Vischer's side of things. But what about those lovable fruits and vegetables hung out to dehydrate? Get the facts.

This is the last of the vacation posts. Sorry to dump them on you like this, but the drakes are hatching and I'm running very late to fool a fish with my imitation.

7.27 Now isn’t that a nice number? It has a pleasant ring to it. On the clock it rolls around during two of the best parts of the day. It is a pointy-nosed commercial aircraft. And it was a nice day to get married in Ft. Collins a decade or so ago.

J. was first a little disappointed that he wasn’t gong to be seeing Lake Superior on this trip. I explained that once you can’t see across a body of water, it’s immaterial whether it’s the biggest or not. We pulled into Great Hart around seven in the evening and were on the beach by 7:06. The boys had a good fire going by the time the sun curdled to a blood red above the white waters, and the whole mess of us finished off as many s’mores as our bellies could hold. This cabin is the ancestral vacation spot of Mrs. Br_____’s forebears, a sacrosanct plot of lakefront which has hosted an unbroken lineage of beach lounging, paperback reading, and stargazing going back to the 1920’s. Henry Ford stayed here at the Pebble when not revolutionizing industry or haranguing the Jew.

That night was as good an anniversary celebration as any might be on the road. The sun finally left after lingering like an uncouth party guest. All eight kids were snug in sleeping bags, tucked into every corner of the cabin. We quaffed our first beers in weeks and sat under blankets before a dead fire and laughed. The sky lit faintly with blue swirls of the Northern Lights. Stacy and I fell into bed around two, still giggling, much decompressed from the events of the past week.

7.26 Yikes! Tomorrow is #13! Well on our way to being that old couple sitting on their porch swing, holding hands and shouting insults toward the uppity kids whizzing by on their scooters. It shall be spent watching the tiny waves lap the shores of northern Michigan.

Jason was supposed to pound on the door to our room this morning so we could share a cup of coffee before he headed out the door for another week of short-hauling. Pam says he did try to wake me up, but I would not be roused. In due course I was awakened quickly and entirely by Nathanael rolling out of bed onto my head, but it was seventeen minutes too late. I scared six morning doves and two rabbits as I walked around the front porch to sit and take in the county morning.

And country it is. They have two acres around their old house, complete with a big garden, numerous climbable hardwood trees and evidence of four outbuildings. The requisite Truck abandoned out back is actually Jason’s 1983 LandCruiser, 270K on that straight six and some rust around the rear wheel wells that is now a cancer of Mayo Clinic seriousness. The basement is a tight cellar with the rock foundation for walls. Pam cans, Cash fetches, and the neighbors bring over dinner when Luke is in the hospital.

The irony here is that before they had kids a mutual friend had a daughter with a serious birth defect. “Man, I don’t know if I could handle that,” Jason said at the time. His second son was diagnosed with serious heart problems in utero which required patching several holes, replumbing some hoses, and installing an entirely new valve. While Jason trucks all over Michigan delivering heavy machinery, Pam tends to the constant needs of this little boy who has spent 27% of his life in an ICU. They haven’t been able to go to church for these two years, and a lady sits up downstairs all night to make sure no machine goes Ping. Luke has a tracheotomy, which allows a ventilator to keep his pipe open. It means the lad can’t talk or even audibly cry since no air makes it past his voicebox. It also means he has to keep an artificial nose clipped over the hole or else his little lungs are open to the world. It’s a little cylinder with filters on the ends. One of our girls ran in with this nose covered with sand. Luke had pulled it off and dropped it into the sandbox. Pam rinsed it off and dashed back outside. So it goes every day: a level of terror kept in check by vigilance. Next Saturday is Luke’s Big Two birthday bash, a celebration of his perseverance thus far. Big pig roast and a keg and a hundred of his closest friends.

In this is a picture of pain and frustration and love and service which puts our little problems into perspective. It isn’t quite as glorious a line of reasoning as, say, Paul lays out in Romans, but it does serve in the short term to give us insight into the severity of our little setback.

7.24 Four states today. We started off on the Mighty Mississip in WI, almost nodded off across Illinois, and currently race across the top of Indiana. Our fourth state will be Michigan, the home state of old pals, Jason and Pam. They moved back here after giving up like the rest of us trying to live in the Roaring Fork Valley. They held out about a year longer than most of our circle. The first time I talked to Jason after they moved into their own house in Middleville, I told him that he needed to keep a can of Pabst in the back of the fridge until I came to visit. (I’m no lover of the Blue Ribbon; it just seemed like the right Midwestern token to keep in front of a now-distant friend).

We still have the denomination’s merchandise (mugs, clock, pens, nametags), and the promise that we will be charged for none of these or any other candidacy school expenses (instead of dividing the cost of candidacy school by 42, they’ll just divide it up by 40. Great; stick it to our faithful new friends. >:( ). Sure we now have to start over in the whole sending agency process, with all the applications and e-mails. Yeah, I will need to get some sort of job and figure out my three kids’ education coming up in a month. (WHeeee! Damen und Herren, wir sin dim Michigan!) The strangest thing to me was how much it hurt, how many times I had to fight back tears when talking to my peers or various leaders. I remain convinced that God is in all this, that we are in his will driving across the continent, depleting our savings, and engaging this agency with seeming fruitlessness. I am also aware that my brothers and sisters in Christ will fail me at times, maybe even regularly, as I have them, and we will move on with charity. But knowing it, and even deeply believing it doesn’t strip away the nagging ache in the gut, the reality that we have been rejected while all these others move forward in their ministries. Rejected because of an interpretation of apocalyptic literature.

I do plan on dialoging with the leadership regarding the inclusion of millennialism. The best I got out of the men I spoke with is that it preserves a more literal hermeneutic regarding some prophetic texts. Unfortunately, on one of these occasions the man’s wife was sitting at the table as well, and I had had about enough of that Very Silly Defence. “No, it doesn’t,” I said, going off on all the texts in Revelation that even the most ardent, Darbiest of premillennarians would take figuratively. “You don’t need to get like that,” she said. Listen, ma’am. I was just dragged half-way across the country with my entire family (at no small expense). We have sat through two weeks of classes only to find out that I was never eligible to serve with this organization from the get-go. You will just have to either excuse my emotions here or move to another table. (She moved). I hope that those responsible for retaining this doctrine in the statement will have a well-articulated defence at the ready.

PostScript: We pulled into Jason & Pam’s driveway at 10pm, and there he was sitting on a cooler with his pal Daniel. Turns out that we snuck past some timezone border in the dark and it was really 11pm. Good thing they are night folks. It is very good to see them and relax in their great house here in the country.

Also – I was told recently that an esteemed PR professor let go of his more Other eschatology after being taken aside by a well-known NT guy, this before he could take a position at Denver Seminary. I just checked the alma mater’s doctrinal statement, and it is now thankfully purged of all such silliness. A growing trend, I think.

Postscript to that postscript: Dang. It is in there, but hidden under their doctrine of Jesus Christ rather than where you would expect it, in “Last Things.” Grrrrrr.

I'm going fishing. So lest I keep posting two weeks behind, I shall dump a few on you:

7.21 How about that. Looks like we will be packing things up a day early. St. & I just had another conversation with the Man in the Know, the fixer who can give us the thumbs up or thumbs down regarding this whole problem over the doctrinal issue. When he suggested another organization I knew the die had been cast. I really don’t mind loosing battles and shedding my blood, but I sure don’t like seeing it happen over things like this.

So in the morning we meet with our director, who made it known to us that this was a big deal only after we’d been here for over a week. How awkward will this be? The kids have some big graduation ceremony set up for Friday, so I’m loath to actually drive away before the school is over.

07.20 Oh, the horror. . . Dr. Bill, a scientist working to stamp out weeds on the globe's largest landmass, confessed to us this morning that he has been accidentally brewing decaff every morning for the last week. No wonder the group has been going through three jugs of the stuff before the ten o’clock break. You could see people whispering desperately into their polystyrene cups: “C’mon, baby! Work for me! Do your magic for daddy…” This makes sense of the lethargic discussions we have been having. The poor instructors toss out interesting questions to a spiritually deadened crowd who have been putting their faith into mere brown water rather than the vivifying waters of Gracious Joe.

Please note that Bill did not do this on purpose, as I first imagined. When he told us in hushed tones this morning, I assumed it was a confession of a soul desperate for absolution in the face of such a crime (as it is written: “It would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea than cause one of these little ones to remain drowsy”) But it was innocent, insofar as he assumed a bag of coffee not clad in that blazing orange which internationally marks the Impotent Beans would serve the saints. You would not expect brown signs to warn of road construction ahead, nor brown traffic cones closing off a lane. Should rifle hunters wear brown they are not only breaking the law, but confessing a deep suicidal desire. Their orange warns all others that they are not a normal part of the world, not fair game for human consumption. We should not fault Bill when the coffee purveyors were so lax in their packaging.

Note well! Such packaging makes a loud theological statement! Men must not pray with their heads covered. Rich people can never enjoy the Table before the rest. And decaff shall not shed its orange to masquerade as the True Fruit of the Shrub, lest we deny the goodness of God’s created order.

PS So that Brother Bill might not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow, he has been forgiven and restored to our fellowship. As hard as it was for some of us (both emotionally and physically, to lift our heads from the tables), we have reaffirmed our love for him in Christian charity and long-suffering.

I ran down to the Lakeville Supertarget in search of icecream. Despite my haste to get it back to my craving wife, my eye catches an end display: Cracklin' Oat Bran on sale. This never happens. Country clubs do not advertise two-for-one memberships in the Nickel Ads. Jaguar XJS coupes are not put up on blocks along the back fence (although, if you are ever in Hot Springs, SD...). Kelloggs does not deign to put Cracklin' Oat Bran -- a top shelf cereal -- on sale. I grabbed a box and shovelled it into my mouth on dark ride back.

In the morning I discovered this:

Do the math: a box is on sale at Target for $2.50. You buy ten and get an EE savings bond for free, which costs $25 from Treasury Direct. That's ten free boxes of cereal. Durn good cereal at that. The kicker is in the details, though: Kelloggs will only allow a single person to get 20 bonds. That means just 140 savings bonds for my family...1400 boxes of Cracklin' Oat Bran. That is a whole lot of regular retirement savings.

07.19 Dangit if my Calvinism doesn’t keep showing up like a gaudy pink slip with static cling beneath my homely gingham jumper. I don’t come in with a tulip stuck in my hat or well-worn Westminster pages falling out my back pockets. But when it comes to how one understands culture, or how to share the Gospel (or what is the Gospel?), or how to understand calling – then I find myself trying to articulate a perspective that rests entirely on an entirely sovereign God.

Sometimes this poses no danger. I can stick my head up out of the trenches and shout away. We just talked about a missionary in Japan who wanted to focus energies on young Japanese who had jettisoned their language for English, in turn throwing overboard most of their cultural distinctives. Well, a Calvinistic view of culture demands that we seek worshippers from every culture because God has been at work in that place even before his Gospel has taken root. Ultimately we work toward praises rising up from every tribe and tongue. With that one, people withhold their fire, and even nod along.

But a few shots have zinged by our heads when I quipped about my conviction regarding the Millennium (mentioned earlier, I think). So strange that an amillennial position raises hackles. Do I deny the bodily return of Christ? No. His physical reign over all the earth? Uh-huh. Instead, I believe that Christ is now at work in his people, his reign is active and growing around the globe. Not just in individuals either. Cultures, governments, philosophies – these are all falling under the authority of the King. But the adversary’s authority is not yet entirely abrogated, even if he has been soundly defeated. That wicked kingdom too continues to grow and influence, if only on pure momentum. Already. Not yet. You understand.

Then I get myself into real trouble when I snort at the tracts handed out for our “outreach evening” and the talk about evangelism. The Four Spiritual Laws pose enough problems on their own, but when that lil’ book has been used for decades by the director (& was even influential in communicating the message of salvation to him) my haughty disdain makes me no friends. Stacy was looking at another tract, something about 3D living. It boasted a hip layout, lots of fonts & text sizes, and puts the nature and character of God toward the front. But “3D”? That means humans share three aspects of being: body, soul and spirit. Ooops. Even The Bridge Illustration from Contagious Christian blows it when communicating biblical truth. It has the presenter show solidarity with the lost masses of humanity by writing “Us” on one side and “God” on the other. Call it "Humanity" or even try to include a teeny bit of biblical language like "in Adam." Then there is the little stick figure who is merely unhappy on his side, not dead in trespasses, actively living in the flesh (Yes, this requires a little more explanation and time. But we do not speak to people who have a metaphysical framework in place, unless they are Jews or Muslims). And finally, the bridge of the cross allows sinners to skip over the chasm of death into the presence of the Father. Ummm. Swing and a miss. We are crucified with Christ and buried with him. Unless we see ourselves as in Christ in His death, we have nothing more than an individualistic Happy Heaven Plan. (These are all easily fixed, though, since the illustration is in the hands of the presenter, unlike the tracts above). Does God use those tracts and incomplete illustrations? Thankfully he does, as he does in my incomplete knowledge and anemic wisdom. Does he work more powerfully in those than in my reclusive silence? Assuredly, in manifold ways.

PS Stacy and I stayed up until nearly midnight last night talking eschatology. I walked her through the positions, pointing out that the pre-millennial position hardly lives up to its claim of taking scripture literally. Once that presumed plank has been knocked out, the whole system teeters on a mighty delicate and intricate framework. Here is my primary question: what key aspect of conservative evangelical faith is inexorably linked with the pre-mill position? What exactly are we loosing if we adopt a less rigid eschatology and assent to a bit of preterism? I mean, what besides millions a year in merchandizing and conference revenue? (I shudder to think of all those cruise ships sitting idle because the Elect have given up their Last Days Voyage to the Bahamas)