Conventional wisdom advises much caution if not a firm prohibition on talking about politics and religion when travelling abroad. Avoiding such topics is one of the top ten reminders when preparing folks for international mission trips.

I’ll get back to violating the forbidden topics conversation rule, but first a very quick summary of our past two weeks:  Great!!!  Becky and I arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, on Thursday morning, April 4, and left just after noon on Wednesday, April 17.  Yes, two glorious weeks.  For those who enjoy Google Maps, our itinerary took us to Lisbon, Sintra, Evora, Monsaraz, Redondo, Evoramonte, Porto, Aveiro, Peneda-Geres National Park, Ponte de Lima, and even a brief foray into Galicia, Spain. I’ve posted a few photos in the gallery below.

But back to those conversations against which conventional wisdom cautions. We found a tour guide to take us from Porto to Aveiro (the Venice of Portugal) and liked him so much we asked him to show us Peneda-Geres National Park another day. The sojourn into Spain was a bonus during our national park tour.  One of the first things our guide told us on the drive from Porto south to Aveiro is that he doesn’t think Aveiro is at all like Venice, despite the gondola-like salt boats they use for tours through the canals of the city.  I liked that honesty, and I think he is right about the comparison with Venice.

As the day in Aveiro continued and we visited a cathedral and a monastery, our guide, who by then knew Becky and I are Protestant Christians, and I am a retired pastor, asked if we could talk about Catholicism and Protestantism and what we believe.  A one-time altar boy and faithful Catholic, our 30-something guide still values his baptism – he’s soon to become a godfather for his best friend’s child – but wonders if, really, the purpose of life and God’s purpose for all of us is that we seek to be good people. Certainly, he seeks to be a good person and he seems to be succeeding at it.

And then he turned to us. “What do you think?  What is God’s purpose for our lives?” How would you have answered our new friend?  In my response I tried to rephrase the answer to the first question of the Shorter Catechism – what is the chief end of man? (to glorify God and enjoy him forever) – in a way that might make sense to him. Good conversation followed.

On the trip to the national park, we talked a lot about politics and some of his dreams for the future.

My guess is that we broke a few tourist and guide rules in our conversations in Aveiro and Peneda-Geres.  But we also made a friend and we agreed to stay in touch with each other – those dreams for the future and those questions about life.

Our two weeks in Portugal were wonderful and it will be impossible to limit our highlights to even ten – but one of them will be the new friend we made and our against the rules conversation we had with him.

Becky and I are leaving today for a couple of weeks in Portugal.  Stories to tell when we return.

The Three Crosses, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1653

Good Friday.  Good for all the reasons it first appeared so bad. Love Lustres at Calvary, one of the Puritan prayers in the Valley of Vision (you ought to have a copy!), captures a sense of the paradox of the day.  Read the entire prayer at the Banner of Truth site. And ponder these few lines from the prayer and you consider Good Friday: Continue reading →

Last week my presbytery travels took me to western Ohio, and somewhere between Celine and Greenville I noticed a sign indicating the stretch of two-lane highway I was on is the Annie Oakley Pike. On my return trip from Greenville, just south of North Star, I saw the sign pointing to Annie Oakley’s grave. I took the detour.

Annie Oakley is a name from my Baby Boomer past. The details of her life are compelling, but not what I remember about Annie Oakley. I suppose my earliest memories of Annie Oakley come from an old TV western series that used Annie’s name but fictionalized just about everything else about her. And then there is the slightly more accurate musical Annie Get Your Gun (“There’s No Business Like Show Business”). In fact, Annie Oakley was in show business along with Buffalo Bill Cody and Sitting Bull.

So, I have been thinking about Annie Oakley and those childhood memories connected to her. You know, it was a good thing to have at least one cowgirl among all those cowboys of 1950s TV. But mostly those memories take me back to a time long ago. It would be easy to say simpler, even better times, but I am guessing my memory would be failing me. Simpler, maybe. Better?  Probably not. Continue reading →

Two scenarios.

1.  Becky and I attended a Bible conference a few weeks ago.  1,500 people packed the room to hear the well-known speakers.  We arrived early enough to find some good seats down front. With 15 minutes or more before the program was scheduled to begin, the auditorium buzzed with the sound of casual conversation among the conference goers. The people behind us – four or five together, it seemed – were especially talkative, and that was fine.  But, yes, I learned more than I cared to know about their families and friends, their opinions on the state of the world, and their disappointment with their new pastor.  Finally, the host of the conference came to the podium to welcome the crowd and tell us about the many books our speakers had written. The room immediately grew silent. Except for the people behind us. They kept on talking.  Not a last word or to finish a sentence, but paragraphs to finish a chapter about their families and friends, their opinions on the state of the world, and their disappointment with their new pastor. It’s not so much that I really wanted to hear the conference announcements or needed to know the titles of the many books our speakers had written, I just did not want to hear any more of the conversation behind us.  If 1,495 people were able to silence themselves, why not these 5?
2. I am out in the early morning light.  I hear the sound of their coming before I see them.  Squawking and the beating of a thousand or more wings flapping. I think they are starlings (though I know very little about birds).  They fly over and then, en masse, maybe 1,500 of them, they light at the top of the trees in a grove just on the other side of our neighborhood.  Within a second or two they are silent.  The squawking ceases and early morning silence descends on the neighborhood.  I don’t know why the birds quiet themselves so quickly.  Is it some sort of Darwinian instinct to ensure their survival?  Are starlings innately polite and want to be sure all the members of the flock hear whatever announcements are to be made that morning? Is their lead bird some authoritarian figure whose demand of silence on the treetops they dare not disobey? Or do they respect their good starling leader and their starling tradition of treetop silence?

Continue reading →