Category: Life

Coronations and Considerations

Silva

I wonder how many have been watching the Democratic National Convention in Denver.  It started on the 25th and tonight will likely draw the most watchers yet (Obama is going to do his thing).  During these conventions and campaigns people start to raise expectations that bad things are about to start stopping and good things will start starting.  With new candidacies / regimes comes good things (that’s the theory).  Of course, a little digging will reveal that’s more a biennial hope than a present reality (Pew Research 1st 100 Days of Democratic Congress).

But, still, the impulse is not bad: no one likes days of affliction.  And we’re all looking for the ways to make things better.  I’ve been considering my own “affliction” and the search for change and lately been resting in how one helps me to see through to that change.

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. (12)

Return O Lord!  How long?  Have pity on your servants! (13)

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. (14)

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. (15)

Let your work be shown to your servants and your glorious power to their children. (16)

Psalm 90:12-16

Look here.  Anyone who’s lived through a regime change or two knows that things don’t change with the banging of gavels in hallowed white power halls.  It doesn’t stop us from hoping things would change, but ultimately they only slight shift.  In these Bible verses, we see a different picture.

What the folks who are so attentive to political campaigns, conventions and coronations need is to see those things through a grid informed by those verses.  It is not as if we should no longer care about the political process – now, by all means, care.  It is just that caring means thinking rightly about them…

First, start with verse 15.  Our days are difficult and full of affliction.  The verse is honest even if we’re not.  Admit it: anger, frustrations, disappointment, pain, suffering, fear, and uncertainty are what we’re swimming in.  Ignoring it only makes us look stupid.  And, in that stupidity we tend to attribute those to things we cannot understand (which is untrue).  In fact, our difficulty the writer attributes to God.  Look again.  The Bible never impugns God for this (a story for another post) but simply here attributes these things to God and His plan.  But, God doesn’t act without a reason.

So, secondly, why all of this affliction and difficulty?  Look at verse 12: we’re proud.  In that verse, the author asks God to “teach us to number our days” which is another way of saying, “teach us to think rightly and humbly about our lives.”  Without it, we are fools.  With it, we get a “heart of wisdom.”  We are afflicted because we are proud not because a Republican is President, Democrats control the Congress or Roe vs. Wade is the law.  Here is where convention watchers go astray.

You – eyes glued to MSNBC – are proud and BH Obama can’t do a thing about that.

You and I need perspective on our lives.  We are, in fact, significant yet small.  It gets tough for us when we think we’re just significant.  That was the problem the Psalm was written to address because we ARE significant but we are ALSO small.

What’s the pathway out of affliction?  It is the one to humility.  That road is paved with the work and power of God and it doesn’t go through Denver or Minneapolis.  So, thirdly, verse 16 asks God to imprint His work in our minds and His power in the minds of our children.  The author believes if we are cozy with the work of God in the Bible (and our lives), we are likely to be more prone to consider ourselves rightly.  In so doing, God will figure prominently and we will not.  That will please Him and He will restrain affliction upon us.

One thing more, though.  Verse 14 shows us that even as God is pleased with our self-awareness of smallness, He is just as pleased to satisfy us with His steadfast love which leads to great joy.  Smallness like this and joy go together.

Watch the conventions, but once they end, turn the channel to consider the majestic work of God and there is where you’ll find answers to your questions.

Your inside voice, not your stadium voice

Silva

Do you know the differences between “inside voice” “outside voice” and “stadium voice”?

I’ll never forget when a good friend was teasing a high school boy – who was as loud as a DC-9 after lift off – he said, “Daniel, use your inside voice, not your stadium voice.”

I was rolling – the kid was incredibly loud so my man was right on. When I think of stadium voice, I remember screaming – until my gut hurt – that the Navy QB would not be able to make his calls and Army be able to squash him like a grape! (BTW, when I was there, we regularly did…)

Here’s an excerpt from an article that made me think of that exchange:

James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/23/fossilfuels.climatechange

This guy is using his stadium voice and it is annoying. It surpasses annoying because annoying simply implies that I have the problem (maybe I do). But this dude definitely has passed through dramatic-to-make-a-point and crossed over into we-can’t-talk-to-each-other-anymore.

That’s what this is about: civility. Here’s another excerpt from a different article:

August is the wettest and often the muggiest month of the year. Yet, summer heat continues in short supply, continuing a trend that has dominated much of the 21st Century’s opening decade. There have been only 162 days 90 degrees or warmer at Midway Airport over the period from 2000 to 2008. That’s by far the fewest 90-degree temperatures in the opening nine years of any decade on record here since 1930.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-tom-skilling-explainer-13aug13,0,918946.story

Let’s just say this could be anecdotal evidence that an opponent of Mr. Stadium Voice would use in a dialog or debate. Would he hear it? Or, would the bearer of such evidence speak in such a way that he would even be inclined to do so? OK, so you’ve got people who refuse to honor people by hearing them out about Global Warming. What’s next? What qualifies as a topic that is REALLY worth getting heated about? Is getting heated-so-I-can’t-hear-anything-except-my-own-screaming ever appropriate?

You know, having lived at various times in Bickerville – as an active participant – I’ve needed someone to get in my face and tell me something hard. One of the foundational tenets of life is that men and women are blind to how bad / sinful they really are. Now, if we exist in a time of decreasing civility, that means many things not the least of which is that I will grow less and less willing to hear hard things when I need them. And if I won’t hear hard things and you won’t hear hard things and that becomes common, imagine that culture.

You know, this lack of civility really chaps me.

Bickerville

Silva

I live in Bickerville. My wife and I moved there about 17 years ago. Over time, Bickerville has grown in population by 5. That’s a really small town, right? Bickerville is special, though. Nothing about it seems small. It seems like there’s a very loud town fair every night that ends late. Court’s always in session with one of the recent residents arguing his or her case against another resident. I’m the Mayor, by the way. Every now and then my wife (the Chief of Police) and I got to court to make our own case against the other. Whenever we do, the whole town comes out to watch. It’s a very lively place.

Bickerville is private; you won’t find it on any map. But, unlike Atlantis, it’s real.

A Friend of ours lives in town at the Inn (not sure why He doesn’t buy a house; says the Inn is fine with Him). He will frequently stop by. When He does, He usually reminds us that Bickerville needs reform. I’m the Mayor, by the way, and sometimes I don’t take too kindly to my Friend and His observations. He’s frequently persuasive, though. Reform is tough. I mean, I’m ALL ABOUT IT, but sometimes my Chief of Police puts up a fight or the residents (they’re snarky) pitch fits. ‘Course, if you talk to the Chief, she’d say I’m snarky. But, I’m the Mayor (that’s what I tell myself).

Life in Bickerville can be tough. Especially when all of us storm the court to make our case against another. We do find that when we listen to our Friend and He mentions other towns – we like those stories. Still, Bickerville is familiar to us and those towns sound far away. One time, He took me with Him to one of them – it was amazing. I told the Chief about it and she thought it was cool as well. One time, we were all convinced that one of those towns could be our home – so we all moved!

When we got there, we found out that it was called: Bickerville. Strange.  My Friend did live in the inn there, though. I was glad.