Rod White's Blog, page 56

Untrusting Death-prevention

From today's reading: I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.  (Jesus in John 12)

Lent is good for uncovering our untrusting death-prevention techniques. Unless we want them exposed, it is better to ignore the whole season. If we don't,  Jesus is going to say something like he does in John 12, above, and say it is best to go ahead and die and rise instead of just trying not to die, as...

Survival vs. Lent

Lent begins on Wednesday. I have this horrible feeling that it will be overshadowed by further snow removal. I hope I am not unsympathetic to people who have been overwhelmed by the double blizzard of 2010. But I am moved even more by the realization that we might "survive" rather than live.

I got thinking about this as I read about the Lt. Gov. of South Carolina's quote. He's been all over the news for saying that feeding the poor is like feeding stray animals. It just encourages them to...

Frog in the Militarism Kettle

I had the shocking feeling yesterday that I might be the proverbial frog in the kettle. I am not sure who discovered the facts behind that proverb (some mean "scientist" with a pet from, I guess) but, apparently, if one puts a frog in a kettle in normal frog-water temperature and then slowly turns the heat up, the frog will not jump out of the kettle. It will acclimate, bit by bit, until it is cooked.

For the last thirty years or so, since Ronald Reagan, I have been mildly upset that the...

Nineteen Flame-tending Women, to Start

February 1 is Ibolc. It marks the first stirrings of spring in Ireland. St. Brigid's Day is attached to it, as is Candlemas, marking the 40 days after Christmas when Mary went to the Temple, with baby Jesus in tow, to honor the rules for being ritually purified after giving birth, and thus meeting Simeon and Anna. It's Candle Mass in the old days because we brought our special, home-use beeswax candle to the meeting for a blessing. As with all the big days of the Christian year, Brigid's Day...

Imagine Fearlessly Walking with God

I bought a best-selling children's book the other day called Bubble Trouble. It has an intricate rhyme that entertains me. Upon first-reading, it proved to be a bit over Josiah's head. He had trouble figuring out the plot. The first question upon turning a page, several times, was "Where is the baby's mother?" We needed to establish that, because, I discovered, this was sort of a scary book about a baby who floats away in a bubble until the townfolk rescue him. When we were finished...

Thanks and Fear

I bought a best-selling children's book the other day called Bubble Trouble. It has an intricate rhyme that entertains me. Upon first-reading, it proved to be a bit over Josiah's head. He had trouble figuring out the plot. The first question upon turning a page, several times, was "Where is the baby's mother?" We needed to establish that, because, I discovered, this was sort of a scary book about a baby who floats away in a bubble until the townfolk rescue him. At the end, Josiah's first...

Answering those Who Teeter…again

Peter answered him, "We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?"  Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.  And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But...

Patient Impatience

We are saturating ourselves with 1 Thessalonians and I am fixated with one phrase of verse 5:14: "Be patient with everyone."

I think many people are called and are good at being patient in a "passive" way. They can really wait! They are good at being quiet and receptive. So they can wait for what God is going to bring to them.

I am becoming better at that, but I am still more of an "active" patience kind of guy. I have to be patient in my impatience. That's why I was so glad to see that the...

Keeping the Covenant Real

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Ephesians 5:21

Paul writes the sentence above to exhort the Ephesians to a new way of relating. He immediately proceeds to exhort husbands and wives, in particular, to relate in mutual submission out of reverence for Christ, to have sex like that, to form families suffused with mutual respect and fidelity, just like Jesus relates to the church and the church relates back. I think Paul presumes that most people know how Jesus and the church...

John Wycliffe and Mom

"If a man believes in Christ, and make a point of his belief, then the promise that God hath made to come into the land of light shall be given by virtue of Christ, to all men that make this the chief matter." John Wycliffe

John Wycliffe was talking about "faith alone" as the chief matter in being a Christian before Martin Luther made that thought popular again. He died on this day in 1384; that makes it John Wycliffe Day. He was the "first light of the reformation" and this is the dawn of...