Psalm 89:11–12

The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours;
the world and all that is in it, you have founded them.
The north and the south, you have created them.

Becky and I spent a few days at the end of last week on the shore of Lake Michigan with our daughter and her family. It was a glorious time! We drank of the beauty of the earth and rested in the joy of human love – parent, grandparent, sisters, children, and grandchildren.

Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. defines sin and its consequences as “not the way it is supposed to be.”  Those 48 hours on Lake Michigan in the glory of God’s creation and with the gift of family were a reminder of how things are supposed to be and how things someday will be.

The photos offer a glimpse of our experience – walking with family beneath a canopy of leaves splashed with the yellows and oranges of October, climbing a towering dune to look across this fifth largest lake in the world, one of the wonders of the created order. Belonging and beauty, serenity and sanctuary. The way it is supposed to be.

It was good to be away.

But now we are back and Tuesday is election day. Here in Indiana, the election offers little drama. Only lesser state offices are to be filled, neither of our senate seats is being contested, and we are mostly a one-party state, though I will do my best to split my ballot without surrendering to the “lesser of two evils” conundrum. I will gladly vote against building a casino in our corner of the state.

The election is about more than making our way to the polling place at the Methodist Church on Tuesday morning, however. As our time with family on the shore of Lake Michigan offered a glimpse of the way things are supposed to be, our elections and our partisan politics have come to reflect so much of the way things are not supposed to be. The crazy fringe has taken the center of both major parties. Families divide and friendships fracture over the personalities of the politicians and the particulars of policies that are more fodder for disagreement than solutions to problems.

Yes, there are candidates who offer more than a lesser of two evils and there are issues (like casinos in northeast Indiana) that demand our attention and our votes. I am not without positions and preferences on any number of issues. Indeed, sometimes our stands will be costly, such are the ways of good citizenship and of Christian discipleship.

As we come to Tuesday’s election and its aftermath – few of us will be happy – it will be important to remember the words of Psalm 89 that the world and all that is in it belongs to God. The lake shore and the fall leaves, the voters and the candidates, are his. To be certain, the beauty of the earth and the joy of human love are often the best reminders of the way things are supposed to be. But so might be politics and elections if we are willing to forgo the sins of anger and arrogance, of seeking our wellbeing in the personalities of politicians and the particulars of their policies.

As Isaac Watts reminds us in his paraphrase of Psalm 90, the God who has been our help in ages past is still our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast.  That’s the way things are supposed to be.

The first frost warning of the season came last week, and, sure enough, as we headed for church on Sunday, the front lawn was covered by a coat of icy crystals. With colder mornings headed our way, I’ve pulled out my long sleeve running shirt and my leggings along with a pair of warm gloves for my pre-dawn jogs. I will add another layer of clothing for the cold mornings of January, but this will do for now.

In fact, my winter weather gear is more for my comfort than for protection from anything too dangerous. My gloves keep my fingers from getting numb, but there is certainly no threat of something so severe as frost bite. When the morning temperatures drop to the mid-teens or below, I simply stay inside and sip coffee by a warm fire.

While I may not be an arctic explorer, I do appreciate the way a merino wool shirt and those cheap Amazon leggings keep my arms and legs warm on a frost-warning morning run.  Numb fingers are no fun, and the gloves do their job. Continue reading →

In the 26 years I have been posting Friday thoughts in one form or another, I am pretty sure this is the first time I have written about a roadkill. For everything there is a season…

I noticed the carcass at the side of the county road as I was making my way from our house into town. But it wasn’t the usual racoon or opossum. Its black fur with a white stripe gave it away immediately. “Poor Pepé Le Pew,” I thought as I drove by, and for a few seconds did not think much more about it.

Then it hit. 50 yards or so from the scene of the crime, that unmistakable aroma hit my nostrils, even though the car windows were up. In another 100 yards the stench receded. The roadkill’s olfactory assault had been far worse than its visual assault. Continue reading →

We received word earlier this week of Ann’s death. She was 98 years old. Our sorrow, then, is not so much in an untimely death as in the loss of someone so good.

Becky and I knew Ann together and separately. Ann and her family were friends in Becky’s growing up neighborhood and with Becky’s family members of First Presbyterian Church in Santa Cruz, California. Ann and her husband Bob served and led at the church and were perhaps my most important encouragers and mentors when I became Youth and Christian Education Director following my graduation from the university in that town. For both of us Ann and Bob modeled faith and service – a love for Christ and his church – as few others have.

On an evening walk after we heard of Ann’s death, Becky and I shared memories of Ann and her importance in our lives as the sun set golden behind the trees in the neighborhood. The stories and recollections are too many to list, but for both of us the word that best describes Ann is grace. There was a grace about Ann in the way she dressed and the way she spoke, but, more, a grace about her care and love for people, surely a grace reflecting the grace of the God she served all her life. Continue reading →

I have checked, and my friend has missed sending me a message only 3 days since the beginning of August.  Okay, a few of the messages have been a bit saccharine for my taste, but I love them all. I love knowing that sometime between 6:00 and 8:00 every morning I will be greeted by a reminder of God’s faithfulness – and a reminder of a wonderful friendship (along with a chance to keep my Portuguese current).

It is easy to begin the day with the same worry that was on our minds when we went to bed.  Too often my first thought of the day is more anxious than faithful, too distracted by the ugliness of our current cultural moment than focused on the beauty of Christ.

Even that Snoopy meme was a reminder of the goodness of our God. “May God give you a day full of smiles and blessings.  Good morning.” Continue reading →