The Blue Church

It’s perfect. The weather is calm and pleasant, humidity low, and the sky is full of high, puffy clouds. The burgers are gourmet, the rolls soft, the tomatoes bright red, and everyone is relaxing in the shade. The kids are laughing, playing happily nearby on the swings and slide.

People of faith often are characterized by outsiders as being weak, and needing outside support of an “invisible friend” to shield them from the realities of life. The story is that faith is a sign of weakness.

When someone is running a fever, it might seem wise to plunge the patient into an ice bath. It isn’t, for two reasons: first, that therapy causes shivering which, in turn, tends to raise our core temperature, and second, fever is just a symptom.

As we’ve experienced many weeks of separation, and now contemplate physical gatherings, we’re reminded again of what intimacy means. Not hugging and not touching is hard when you feel close to someone. God has made us social creatures, and we crave physical contact.

One of the more comforting sayings of Jesus is, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” It is the first half of John 14:1, which concludes with the idea that if we trust God, we should trust Jesus in the same way.

It was the talk of the seminary campus for at least a week. In the lunchroom, a friendly discussion on doctrine had escalated past the boiling point, continued outside, and at some juncture one of the students knocked the other student into the bushes by the walk.

A few years ago I enjoyed a book and a short video entitled, One Man’s Wilderness. It was the story of Richard Louis Proenneke, who, in 1967, spent a year in the Alaskan wilderness in a cabin that he built with non-powered hand tools all by himself.

My parents were good and godly people and I was blessed growing up in the home they made for us. But one of the lessons I learned was one I have had to modify over the years. Dad and Mom were all about fairness, and to me, that meant treating everyone the same.

On this, Day 101 of the Blue Box Blog, we proclaim Jubilee 2.0!

When Israel entered the Promised Land, the Lord commanded them to rest one day in seven, and one year in seven, with a Jubilee Year at the end of the seventh seven. You can read about it in Leviticus 25.

On my bookshelf is a two-volume set of sermons I purchased at the Valley Forge National Park bookstore in 2001: Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805. The first volume itself runs to 1,000 pages, and thankfully has a digital version.