As for many of you, this past week in Auburn, Indiana, has been filled with wind and snow and very cold temperatures. And lots of snow shoveling. At least for me. My neighbors might be correct to assume that I have some sort of snow removal obsession disorder. Not long after the last flake floats to the ground (or sometimes a little bit before it makes its final landing), I am out to clear the driveway and sidewalks of the wicked white stuff. Heaven forbid if I have to leave the garage while there’s still snow on the driveway. Those nasty ice tracks become deadly slip traps for the next many days. So, yeah, I am sometimes obsessed with ridding our hard surfaces of that frozen menace.

We have lived in the real snow country of the mountains of California and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where to let the falling snow get too far ahead of you is to never catch up.  I come by my compulsive behavior honestly.

Not all our neighbors share my obsession, however, as their sidewalks and driveways become obstacle courses of icy ruts and slippery concrete. Whether it is good for them to slip slide away on their way to work every morning is theirs to decide, however. Their inattention to the fine art of snow removal is not good for me, that is for sure. Filled with disdain and self-righteousness, I find myself judging my neighbor.

Surely, I think, King Solomon would join me in condemning my neighbor with his driveway a frigid stew of slush and ice. Solomon may not have dealt with delinquent snow shovelers, but it doesn’t take much to apply his description of the sluggard with his overgrown vineyard to my neighbors with their under-plowed driveways. “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest…”  You can read it for yourself:

I passed by the field of a sluggard,
by the vineyard of a man lacking sense,
and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns;
the ground was covered with nettles,
and its stone wall was broken down.
Then I saw and considered it;
I looked and received instruction.
A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,
and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want like an armed man. Proverbs 24:30-34

O, my sluggardly neighbors with their lack of sense.

And, O, my judging heart and my log-infected eye. Jesus cautions us to beware of practicing our righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. (Matthew 6:1) Now, I can’t avoid having my neighbors see my meticulously cleared driveway, but I can avoid my smug feeling of superiority. I might even shovel my neighbor’s sidewalk because it is a good thing to do.

In fact, whether it is my neighbor’s sidewalk or ours, the timely removal of snow is a good thing for lots of good reasons. I need not repent of my devotion to my snow shovel. But I do need to repent of my judgment on those who are less obsessed than I am.

Earlier this week I came across one of Paul’s closing admonitions to the Galatians. “Let us not grow weary of doing good,” he wrote with no reference to snow removal. At about that time the wind began to gust and the lake effect snow began to fall. And I realized that I am growing weary of doing good.

What is it? We hope the groundhog does not see his shadow on Tuesday morning?

but I’m not a national champion

You may have heard that the Hoosiers of Indiana University are the national champions of college football. They beat Miami 27-21 on Monday night. In and of itself, the win should make any resident of Indiana proud. But it’s not just that. It was not the Ohio State Buckeyes or the University of Michigan Wolverines winning the national championship. It was the Indiana University Hoosiers. There are various ways of summing it up. ESPN puts it succinctly. Since records have been kept, IU had suffered “715 losses, which was the most recorded by any team in the 156 years of college football.”

The college with the worst record of all time is now the national champion. Way to go, Hoosiers!

And what or who are Hoosiers and how did they come to be called Hoosiers? No one knows where the appellation comes from, but in its nearly 200 years of use, it has come to mean someone from Indiana. Becky and I have been nomads, having lived in six different states, so our Hoosier identity may not be deep, but, indeed, we are Hoosiers, and Monday’s game adds just a little bit of polish to the name. Continue reading →

Sometime last year the street department put up a bunch of new speed limit signs in our neighborhood. I’m not sure the signs have had much effect. Some of our neighbors have been not so good about obeying the limit. This time of year, school buses pick up children before the sun rises. Fast cars, dark streets, and little kids laden with winter jackets and heavy backpacks are not a good combination.

Apparently, there was an incident last week when a car zipped down the street, adding a little bit of vroom as it sped past the corner where children were waiting for the bus. A mother standing on the sidewalk with her children was not happy and said so on the HOA Facebook page. Her rage was justified.

Most of the comments to the mother’s post were supportive or recounted similar tales of fast cars, dark streets, and little kids. The community cynic, whose quips I often appreciate, posted, “I thought we had new 25 MPH speed limit signs installed?” along with a smile emoji. Continue reading →

Someone asked why I don’t write much about politics. It’s not that I think politics are unimportant, it’s just that they have become such a distraction to my stated purpose here  of offering “observations on living life faithfully and fully in our ‘not the way it is supposed to be’ world.” And they are a personal distraction to what the Catechism tells me is my chief end – “to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

One dictionary defines politics as “the activities of the government, members of law-making organizations, or people who try to influence the way a country is governed.”  Another speaks of “activities that relate to influencing the actions and policies of a government or getting and keeping power in a government.”  The polis, of course, is the city and it is a good thing for men and women to be engaged in politics as they seek to influence and guide the life of the city. I am not necessarily opposed to getting or keeping power, either, as that power is used to implement policies for the common good of the people of the polis. I am all for politics and politicians, whether I am in agreement with their direction and principles or not.

So, how have politics, arguably a good thing, become a distraction? Perhaps it is that politics have become more about power and less about the common good of the polis. Noble principles have been replaced by base ideologies. Politicians have become personalities in our personality-obsessed culture. Base ideologies and the cult of personality share a common home in the life of the ideologue, the “blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology.” Continue reading →

We’ve been out traveling the last week or so – Christmas with one branch of the family in Memphis, Tennessee, and then a few days after Christmas with the Florida panhandle bunch. What wonderful times in both places! Yesterday was our last leg home – up I-65 north of Nashville through Kentucky and Indiana and on to a snowy welcome in Auburn.

The day, New Year’s Day, began with a reading from Psalm 103, and I pondered the words of its first two verses as we headed towards Bowling Green and Louisville, passing Mammoth Cave and the Jim Beam distillery:

Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.

I am not much of a New Year’s resolutions person, but it seems that remembering God’s benefits to us might be a good thing for any year. His benefits, not my list of happy memories or my collection of things accumulated. Benefits – life, family, friends, purpose, the call to discipleship. Benefits – enjoying and glorifying him forever. 2026: forget not all his benefits. Continue reading →