No Wine Before Its Time

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By Sujit kumar (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Sujit kumar (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

“We will sell no wine before its time” was a famous tag line from a series of commercials featuring Orson Welles in the 1970s. There were a number of “untimely” occurrences in the wedding at Cana incident where Jesus turns water into wine, which we considered this past Sunday in our pastor’s message on John 2:1-12:

  • The wedding wine was running out, an embarrassment to the bridegroom and his family.
  • When Jesus’s mother tells him about the problem, he responds, “my hour has not yet come.”
  • Mom ignores Jesus’s words and tells the servants to do whatever Jesus says.
  • Jesus tells the servants to fill up six 20-30 gallon containers used for hand washing with clean water and then take some to the banquet master.
  • The banquet master upbraids the bridegroom for his “untimely” saving of the best wine for last.

So what time is it when Jesus does these kinds of things at a wedding? What most impressed me was that turning ceremonial cleansing water to wine is considered the first of seven signs John records to point us to how Jesus will give life to those who put their trust in him. The question is: what is the reality toward which this sign points?

The ceremonial water pointed toward the Jews awareness that they were a people set apart by God and that they were to live this in all of life. Cleanliness really was next to godliness for these people–it represented outwardly what they wanted to be true inwardly–to be a people for God, to worship God in community with all the others who share in this solemn promise called a covenant.

The problem with washing your hands is that you have to do it over and over again–and cleaning up my outsides doesn’t necessarily clean up my insides. And this is the wonder of what Jesus signifies in this sign–that he is the giver of the new wine that replaces the ceremonial water. We drink of him and it transforms us from the inside out.

But wine does something more. As Psalm 104:15 says, “Wine gladdens the heart.” The wine Jesus gives replaces ritual adherence with the joy and celebration of the bridegroom who has come!

There is one other element of “time” to consider here–Jesus’s statement that his hour had not yet come. What’s that all about? It seems that what Jesus is acknowledging to his mother is that it is not yet time for him to die for the sins of the world and that what she is asking will actually put him on the path that ends at the cross. The sign of wine reminds us of the cup we drink in communion that signifies and ushers us into the blood-bought intimacy with God we enjoy.

Rich concluded with a question and statement that I am pondering this week.

The question: Do we drink deeply of Jesus?

The statement: Most often, what we need most of Jesus is Jesus himself.

This challenges me in the busyness of life, and even my “religious” busyness–am I still over at water jugs washing my hands or even fretting about all the things “running out” in my life? Or am I coming with all this to drink deeply of the wine of Jesus? How about you?

Memories of the Blizzard of ’78

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By NOAA Central Library, Silver Spring, Maryland (NOAA Central Library Data Imaging Project) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Weather Map January 26, 1978. By NOAA Central Library, Silver Spring, Maryland (NOAA Central Library Data Imaging Project) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The newscasts of this past day about the blizzard currently hitting New England brought back memories of the signature blizzard of my generation in the Midwest, the Blizzard of ’78, which hit from Wednesday January 25 through Friday January 27, 1978 –exactly 37 years ago as of this writing.

I found out that a similar phenomenon created both storms and it has a really cool name–bombogenesis. This occurs when a storm center intensifies resulting in a drop in atmospheric pressure of 24 or more millibars in a 24 hour period. The Blizzard of ’78 resulted in a drop of 40 millibars in the same time period and record low pressures (28.28 inches measured in Cleveland) and wind gusts as high as 100 miles per hour (anything above 75 is hurricane force). [Weather data courtesy of Wikipedia.] One account I’ve heard of the storm says three weather systems collided (of all places!) right over Bowling Green to create this storm.

I was living in Toledo at the time working with the collegiate ministry I still serve with. One of the campus groups I worked with was at Bowling Green State University, 20 miles south of Toledo. The group met on Wednesday evenings and I would often stay overnight with one of the men in the group and meet with people through the day on Thursday. When I left Toledo on the night of the 25th, the temperatures were in the low 40’s and it was raining somewhat heavily. It still was when I parked about 75 feet from the dorm where I spent the night.

On Thursday morning the 26th, I woke to hear the windows of the dorm room where I was staying rattling. Getting up to look out, all I saw was WHITE. I could not see my car, which was a sky blue that usually would have easily stood out. In the course of the morning, we began to realize how bad this storm was with snows upward of 40 inches, drifting across roads that made them impassible, and the governor’s declaration that only the National Guard could be on the roads. Much as I wanted to get home, I realized that I needed to hunker down. My fiance’ was likewise hunkered down, but in cozier circumstances in the home she roomed in back in Toledo. She had plenty of groceries–I was glad she was safe.

Things got interesting. A water pumping station that served the university failed, meaning a loss of water supply and steam heat. So it got cold and bathrooms didn’t work. This came back online in a day or so with boil orders for drinking water. We didn’t mind–being warm and flushing toilets mattered more!

I ended up staying from Wednesday night until the following Monday morning. It was kind of like an extended party, as we got out to get snacks and refreshments and settled down to marathon card and Monopoly and other games. Needless to say, it was the ultimate “bull session.” On Saturday, I led a leadership workshop that I had planned to return to Bowling Green to lead, except that I was already there. On Sunday evening, we hosted a worship gathering for any interested students in the dorm where I was staying.

Leaving on Monday wasn’t that easy. Because of all the rain and the rapid drop in temperatures (from 40 degrees Fahrenheit to subzero in a matter of hours), all that water froze around my wheels and on the roads. I couldn’t get out of my parking space until a delivery truck driver with a chain pulled me out. When I got to Interstate 75, I discovered that while the snow had been plowed, ice remained on the road there and everywhere, and because it remained cold for the next several weeks, it did not melt but simply became more rutted with traffic. Lots of bumpy driving. But I made it home to find a message from my roommate, “Welcome home, Sgt. Preston of the Yukon!” I felt like it and never did coming home feel so good.

My memories were far from the harrowing. I’ve read accounts of truckers stranded on I-75 with snow drifted over their trucks surviving by melting snow to drink. There were people who struggled to find their way from their house to their garage in white out conditions.

There was another kind of memory as well. Nine months after the blizzard a number of babies were born. In a Facebook group, now defunct apparently, a number of people shared that they were born nine months after the Blizzard of ’78 and were know as Blizzard Babies. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a similar spike in births up the east coast in nine months.

So, my friends in New England–hang in there and make some memories (maybe even some human ones!) as we did in ’78. No doubt you will have great stories to tell!

Review: Contagious Disciple Making: Leading Others on a Journey of Discovery

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CDMThe main idea of “contagious disciple making” is both simple to summarize and presents a real challenge to the contemporary church. It is to model and encourage trusting obedience to Christ as we discover his will in scripture, and to share these discoveries with others. This simple and compelling idea is a breath of fresh air for a Western church long on talk and short on obedience.

The authors (father and son) have been involved in church-planting movements throughout the world resulting in thousands of churches being planted under indigenous leadership in each country. This was not always the case and the first part of the book recounts the “re-thinking” that took place for them in moving from attempting to plant churches that conformed to Western ideals to launching Disciple-Making Movements. They argue, to begin with, that the task of church planters is not to contextualize the gospel but to “deculturalize” it–to help people discover the message without Western cultural or denominational accretions.

What is crucial is simply building relationships within the appropriate structures, often family or tribal or village, where one can lead people in discovering for themselves from the Bible the basic message of the gospel, and even as they are learning it and beginning to act on it, to share it with others. Even before becoming disciples, proto-disciples are making disciples. From the start, and at every phase, an emphasis on obeying what one discovers, and inviting others to discover and obey is central.

The disciple-maker facilitates discovery and encourages obedience. This is so different from a teacher-student model that focuses around transfer of knowledge. Instead of creating perpetual learners, disciples quickly learn to become disciple-makers themselves and continue to perpetuate this with those they lead in discovery. The approach is one that respects and holds up the priesthood of all believers rather than a cult of experts.

The second part of the book explores practices around this core mindset that have proven important to these movements. Parts of this reiterate the focus on disciple-making from the first part and seem repetitive at times. But the authors also cover the importance of prayer movements, the nature of discovery groups, how churches are established out of these, and the development of leadership through mentoring that concentrates not simply on action but also character.

I found two sections particularly thought-provoking. One, concerning engaging lost people, talked about identifying the “silos” in which they live — the different affinity groups by family, village, or interest that bring people together. Rather than seek to “extract” people from this group, the Watsons advocate disciple-making within these groups so that families, villages or significant parts of affinity groups come to faith, rather than isolating a single convert from the former “silo” of which they were a part.

The other section concerned finding the “person of peace” in this silo, the person sufficiently spiritually receptive to host the disciple-maker as they form discovery groups. They recommend not attempting to plant in a particular “silo” without having the support of such a person.

There was much that I found to be refreshingly helpful. I work in university ministry that incorporates much of what these authors recommend, building groups around discovering what it means to follow Jesus in scripture, defining leadership in terms of those who are making disciples with others, doing all this in a context of prayer, and even thinking about the different “silos” on a university campus.

At the same time, I found myself wrestling with a tacit anti-intellectual, anti-theological emphasis that focused on the Bible and nothing but the Bible. I’ve seen too many unorthodox movements that are able to appeal to the Bible to say that relying on people’s personal discoveries from scripture to counter false teaching.

Also there is the question of Christian witness and discipleship in centers of learning and culture. While it is true that unlearned disciples who had been with Jesus confounded the religious elites of their day (which underscores the priority of trusting and obeying Christ!) I would contend for the value of coupling that devotion with the development of a Christian mind that is both theologically acute and culturally astute for engaging these culture-shapers. Just as a willingness to learn gaming is important to reaching a “gamer” silo (an example used by the authors), this intellectual work, which underlines the value of the theological enterprise and the intellectual work Christians are doing in many fields, should be encouraged for those engaging the intellectual world.

Yet the authors’ challenge to churches long on words and experiences and short on consistent obedience is one that needs to be heard. The authors contend that “A church that condones disobedience to God’s laws cannot stay a church. A church that does not practice grace and mercy cannot stay a church” (p. 159). Any of us seeking to plant or develop a ministry or church do well to heed this.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Snow Days

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My father-in-law during a big snow storm before we were born (late 40s-early 50s) courtesy Marilyn Trube used with permission

My father-in-law during a big snow storm before we were born (late 40s-early 50s) courtesy Marilyn Trube used with permission

You remember what a delicious feeling it was. Dad comes into your bedroom and tells you that you can sleep in today. School is cancelled because of a big snow fall. Maybe you were up and heard the news on the radio and jumped up and down with jubilation–especially if you were supposed to have a test or do a report that day. At very least you had an unexpected day free of classes, cafeteria food or sack lunches, and bells.

I don’t remember that we had huge numbers of these in Youngstown. Unlike Columbus, which seems to cancel school at the drop of a snowflake (we joke in my house of it being “the great white death”), you had to have more than six inches of snow–a real blizzard that was ongoing–to cancel school. Otherwise it was boots on and off to school. Parents all knew how to drive in snow, and the worst that happened was that sometimes you were tardy–and sometimes you got a break on that.

But there were those rare times when we got buried on a school day. Usually, the first thing was to help the parents dig out. We only had a short stretch of sidewalk but a long driveway that went down a hill to a detached garage. Houses were pretty close together so when you were between the two houses, the question became where to put the snow without piling it up against the neighbor’s windows. That was a bit of work, but the reward was to come in to some hot chocolate and a warm house.

Then there were all those great outdoor things you could do. I remember building snow forts and having epic snowball fights with friends. Usually when it snowed heavy, it snowed wet and it was great for making blocks of snow (a wood or sturdy cardboard box made a great mold!), and of course the snow packed well for snowballs.

There were also snow men, which seemed to be something we did when we were younger–complete with some charcoals, a carrot nose, an old hat and some sticks for arms. Sometimes it would get really cold after these snows and our forts and snow men would hang around for weeks. Unfortunately, back then, they would also start turning a bit gray as soot from the mills would settle on them making them look a bit grubby unless we got a fresh layer of snow. I don’t think we thought then about the fact that we were breathing this stuff as well!

Of course this was a great time to go sled riding as well. I discovered on my recent post on sledding that many of us called it “sled riding” back then. I also learned that in addition to Calvary Run and Glacier Avenue and Rocky Ridge, there were a number of other awesome places around the city to go sledding like “Suicide Hill” (also called Ski Hill) in the park, up at Crandall Park and the Kensington Hollow, St Joseph’s in Campbell, Ipe’s field in Brownlee Woods and many others. Some readers of these posts reminded me of how our parents would put bread bags over our feet inside our boots to keep our feet dry and how all our boots smelled like bread!

Often, we would get home by late afternoon, pleasantly tired, just in time to watch some of the late afternoon TV shows for kids like a show that we remember as “Four O’Clock Showtime” (we’re not sure of the exact name but it had all these great old sci-fi flicks). All those outdoor activities worked up an appetite, but suppers in working class Youngstown were usually early, sometime around 5 pm so you weren’t hungry for long. Then as evening came along, you realized that there would be school tomorrow, and you better do that homework (if you hadn’t already!).

I still find myself wishing for snow days–until I remember that I do a good deal of work out of my home and that the internet is still up and even if I can’t get to the campus where I work, I can still work from home. But visiting those memories recalls the delight of those wonderful words “schools closed”.

What are your memories of snow days?

 

What If We Sent Old Men To War?

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That’s the premise of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s Warold mans war, which I’ve just started reading. Scalzi envisions a time in the future when people from earth have colonized distant world, and presumably have encroached on the space of others, precipitating wars in space. The colonists, whose technology is far in advance of those living here on earth have a unique recruiting strategy. You cannot enlist until you are 75, and if you do, you can never return to earth. You have died and gone to the heavens. Why then do people do it? It is because the colonists have figured out how to rejuvenate the old bodies who have nothing and maybe no one left on earth to live for and are tired of living in old bodies.

I’m really liking the book so far, and not just because of the author’s Ohio roots and references. It raises all kinds of questions for me. Will old people, who become more their own people as the years go by, be able to live under military discipline? Will the reprieve from aging make them more or less courageous in the face of death? Will they have more or less to lose? Can we have the potential for endless life without entering into some form of Faustian bargain?

Why would a government want old people in young bodies to fight it wars–all kinds of people, not just the intelligent ones? I could see that this might be a great alternative to Social Security and Medicare.

What is more interesting yet is that this explores the fear so many of us have in growing old. Sooner or later, we face the losing battle of failing bodies or minds. Better to risk a battle one might win than battles that we always in the end lose, and often in great pain, or in utter embarrassment to our sense of dignity.

The question this book raises above all is whether there might be good reasons to warrant the choice not to pursue a rejuvenated body–to accept the indignities of physical or mental decline with grace. Grace indeed, I wonder, the grace that in John Newton’s words “has brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.”

I’m looking forward to seeing how Scalzi works this out. At any rate it is a fascinating alternative to old men and women deciding to send young men and women to fight and to die. Should not the old die for the young?

I’ll keep you posted.

My Apologies!

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I’ve not been a very good citizen of the blogging and social media world of late! Life has been, let’s just say, very full of late, and about all I’ve been able to do is write posts and get them up, including posting them on some Facebook and Google groups that have been kind enough to welcome me.

What I haven’t done much of is look at, like, and comment on the posts of others. I was reminded of this by a gentle note from one friend who allows me to post on a page he administers. Comments and likes promote posts on news feeds, and all of us like to know that others are looking at what we’ve written–at least I do!

So, I want to apologize to my fellow writers. I know what this takes. I’m going to try to “like” at least one post on any page where I post and find one a day on which I will comment. That sounds pretty minimal, but at least its a start.

At the same time, I want to challenge others who are posting on these same pages. When I do scroll down the pages, it seems that very few are interacting with anyone’s posts. In a number of cases, it just looks like everyone is simply promoting there own book or some other product. Some of these sites have as many as 20,000 members yet it doesn’t appear many are actually interacting. [One interesting exception is on a couple Youngstown pages I post on where people interact extensively.]

I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m getting on my high horse. I’m posting to “promote” my stuff too. I do want people to view and interact with this blog. But I wonder if the Golden Rule applies here as in many places: interact with others posts as you would have them interact with yours.

I confess I struggle with the time this takes. I’m thinking that maybe this means posting in fewer places, perhaps focusing on those where it seems people are interacting, and doing so thoughtfully with each other. Maybe it means paying more attention to the blogs I follow.

I’m curious how those of you who have been at this a while deal with this? I’m obviously still on the learning curve!

Thomas Piketty Got This Right!

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CapitalLast summer, Thomas Piketty published Capital in the Twenty-First Century (reviewed here), a best-seller that probably few people waded through. One of the things Piketty explores is how capital wealth accumulates far more rapidly than wealth from wages, and tends to be concentrated in an increasingly small percentage of the global population.

This week, we got a startling glimpse of this in a new Oxfam Study that predicts that by 2016 (that is next year, folks) one percent of the world’s population will control more of the world’s wealth than the remaining ninety-nine percent of the world’s population. A mere 80 of the world’s richest individuals control more wealth than the bottom 3.5 billion people in the world.

All but the most ardent capitalists will see these figures and conclude something is wrong. When over 1 billion people live on less that $1.25 a day while 80 people have billions, something is wrong. One of the things this study noted is that not all of this capital came from sheer entrepreneurship. Those invested in health care and pharmaceuticals saw their net worth jump by 47 percent due to lobby efforts for these industries.

By DFID - UK Department for International Development (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/14590135480/) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By DFID – UK Department for International Development (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/14590135480/) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The immediate cry of many will be for more taxes on this incredible wealth. Bill Gates himself thinks that this wealth should be taxed unless the wealthy invested their fortunes in philanthropy, as Gates himself is doing. It seems that what may also be needed are greater protections against exorbitant profits subsidized by higher costs that the less fortunate must bear. I do not want to fault wealth gained by honest effort and entrepreneurship, but when wealth benefits from special privilege and is further enlarged by access to power, this seems to be a form of welfare for the rich. At very least, there might be additional taxes levied on lavish consumption.

But far better for the rich to do themselves what may be done less efficiently with taxes, through using the influence and entrepreneurial intelligence they have in philanthropic efforts. There is an old story of the rich man who died and someone asking how much he left behind, and the answer given was “all of it.” I’m reminded of the biblical parable (Luke 16:19-31) of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man walks by Lazarus every day but doesn’t give him even table scraps. Lazarus dies and rests in the bosom of Abraham. The rich man burns in Hades. Even here, he assumes the privilege of demanding that Lazarus alleviate his thirst. Even here, he assumes he is entitled. And yet in the end he perishes and his name is not known while poor Lazarus at last finds comfort.

I’m not a part of that richest one percent. But I also think of that large group living on $1.25 a day. I don’t think twice about spending more than that on a cup of coffee. Yet like the Gates folks, I’ve discovered that some of the greatest joys of life come around giving–thoughtfully, as well as generously. John Wesley once said, “Earn all you can, save all you can, and give all you can.” Wesley even acknowledges that creating wealth and accumulating capital is not bad if the end for which this is done is generosity. It may be this last part that is the hardest, and yet which makes more sense, to gain joy in the giving while you are living? Or to let someone else, or the tax man dispose of what you’ve left behind?

Wouldn’t it be crazy if a whole generation joined Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and defied Thomas Piketty and the Oxfam folk as well as the folk crying for higher taxes, and invested their wealth with intelligence and generosity–to provide clean water, and economic development, and educational opportunity? What if we did this with our more modest means? This would not by a long shot solve all the world’s problems… but then neither will a bunch of taxes. And it sure could be a lot more fun…

Review: Faith and Reason: Three Views

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Faith and ReasonThe question of the relation of faith and reason is a live question for any Christian seeking to live an integrated life in the world of higher education, where rigorous thought is a necessary part of the pursuit of truth in every discipline. It is also a vital question with regard to the proclamation of the Christian message. Is there a role for reason and apologetics as part of the process of sharing the Christian message with the hope of a person coming to saving faith? Or, is the knowledge of truth in Christianity something which may only be apprehended by grace through faith?

Christians through history have differed on these matters and this book, part of InterVarsity Press’s Spectrum Multiview Book series presents the three major approaches to this question in dialogue with each other. The format for the book is that each of the three approaches is presented in turn with a response by the representatives of the other two approaches.

The three views presented are:

1. Faith and Philosophy in Tension, presented by Carl A. Raschke. This view in brief minimizes the role reason and philosophy have in matters of faith, for which God’s revelation of Himself in his Son and recorded in scripture and believed by faith is sufficient. Pascal, Kierkegaard, some post-modern theologians and those from Lutheran and Anabaptist traditions tend to hold these views.

2. Faith Seeking Understanding, presented by Alan G. Padgett. This view holds that reason is insufficient to lead one to faith but that faith under the illumining work of God can “redeem reason”. Faith does not depend upon nor determine other disciplinary learning but may bring illumination of the ways such things may be pursued to the glory of God. Augustine, Anselm and Calvin would be representatives of this group.

3. The Synthesis of Reason and Faith, presented by Craig A. Boyd. This view considers reason to be an endowment of God not obliterated by the fall which may lead us to truth but by itself, apart from faith cannot save us. This approach is most closely identified with Thomas Aquinas, but also Richard Hooker, John Henry Newman and John Wesley.

The editor, Steve Wilkins provides a helpful overview of the three views and a conclusion that considers the Christian way in which these scholars engage, affirm, and disagree. And this is perhaps the books greatest value. Wilkins points out that all three agree on three important points:

1. They all reject the autonomy of reason, reason unaided by faith,
2. All recognize intellectual capacities as a gift of God, and
3. All affirm that faith has epistemic value, that faith leads to a kind of knowledge inaccessible to reason alone.

I found this discussion most helpful in coming to the realization that these three areas of agreement represent an “orthodox” position on faith and reason. The testimony of the differing positions seem, to me, to serve as healthy correctives to one another that save one another from unhealthy syncretism or excessive emphases on either faith or reason. The arguments and the interchange serve as an important witness and example of faith and reason in practice, and of the ability to disagree agreeably.

We could use more of that!

Review: Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power

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17293092 (1)I think many of us have developed our understanding of power from Lord Acton’s axiom: Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. For most of us, that is the end of story and this accounts, at least among many Christians I know, for a deep aversion to anything like the exercise of power.

Andy Crouch has a different take that is evident in the word play in his title Playing God. We often think “playing God” is the worst manifestation of abusing power. But Crouch would argue that as image bearers, people who reflect something of the nature of God, we “play” like God in using power, and that this was originally intended for the flourishing of fellow human beings, and the creation, for creating cultural goods and even good institutions.

Crouch explores the original gift to power and how it has been distorted through idolatry, which he defines as giving to some cultural artifact ultimate significance. And idolatry leads to injustice as idols demand allegiance that undermines the flourishing of human beings. Crouch argues that instead of idol-making, our calling is to be icons, literally those who are seen through, giving glimpses of the Creator who made us to be like Him.

In the next part of his book, he explores the nature of power. Power is often hidden and yet exists, even in characters like Michael Scott from The Office. He talks about the realities of force, violence, and coercion and what impressed me is the nuanced fashion in which he did so, recognizing these can be used for evil or good (an argument pacifists may not accept). Finally, he exposes the realities of privilege, the perquisites of power we often are not even aware we have, except when we see ourselves through those who do not have them.

For me the third part of the book was most interesting because he explores power in the context of institution-making. Again, we often see institutions in a negative light but Crouch argues that institutions can be gifts for good if we assume our responsibilities as trustees of these institutions.

Finally, he explores the end of power through the lenses of discipline, sabbath, and the consummation of power in the return and ever-lasting reign of Christ. True power is like the prodigal father who uses all he has to maintain and restore his relationships and the flourishing of both of his sons, the younger profligate one, and the older resentful one.

This is an important book. What I believe often happens in Christian communities is that we try to deny the existence of power and thus become less self-aware of how we may exercise it, both for ill and for good. This, to me, seems greater than the danger of the conscious exercise of power that is cognizant of how power may be abused but also how power might be used to serve others and to promote their flourishing. Furthermore, our aversion to admitting the gift of power we’ve been given is the denial of the gifts of God, both those inherent in our humanity, and those spiritually endowed among the redeemed people of God. My hope is that Crouch’s book is widely read, that a new way of using power is charted that neither makes it into an idol nor denies its existence but redeems this gift and uses it for good.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Ice Skating

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Lake Glacier and Boat House in Winter, photo courtesy of Reva Evans Foy, used with permission.

Lake Glacier and Boat House in Winter, photo courtesy of Reva Evans Foy, used with permission.

Gliding on a slippery smooth surface of ice. Temperatures so cold they almost take your breath away. A star-studded sky. A shoveled path across frozen Lake Glacier. Coming back to the wood fire and a cup of steaming hot chocolate. These are memories of ice-skating growing up.

My first memories of ice-skating were far less picturesque. My first ice-skating outing was on the frozen tennis courts at Borts Field. I’d just received a pair of skates for Christmas and this was the first time the weather was cold enough to try them out. You remember it…the robotic walk trying to stay vertical…three steps…and land on your butt…get up clinging to the fence…repeat. In my weird compulsiveness, I kept track of how many times I fell–thirty-two. It was hard to sit in those wooden school seats the next day!

I’m nothing if not tenacious! So I returned the next night and fell half as much and occasionally sort of glided on the ice. Gradually I could skate more sure-footed and faster. Curves became fun. I figured out, watching some friends, how to skate backward. Truthfully, that’s about as far as I got–jumps, spins, and other fancy stuff I never mastered. But it was enough.

Enough that is to skate with some of the cute girls I met who also liked to ice skate. I really only had one skating romance. I saw a girl with this spotted fur skating outfit and I was drawn like a mosquito to a light! And believe it or not, she let me skate with her! We ended up dating about six months until we both realized we really wanted to date other people. But it was magical to meet up on a Friday night and glide along the ice arm in arm. Even falling together wasn’t so bad!

Skating at Lake Glacier depended on it being really cold for really long so that didn’t happen very often. Eventually, we went skating at the rink (now closed) at the Wick Recreation Area. There was this cool thing I’d never seen before called a Zamboni! Every so often, all of us would get off the ice and this machine would re-surface the ice smooth as glass and twice as slippery! Up until then wherever you would skate would tend to get rougher and rougher–not bad if you were playing games on the ice, but terrible if you just wanted to enjoy the sheer wonder of gliding along.

These days, it is rare to skate on a lake where we are. If people skate, it is in an expensive indoor rink, or occasionally an outdoor one (our zoo has had one). Most of us growing up in working class neighborhoods probably could not have afforded most of the options available today. Now I can afford them but I would probably be risking limb if not life to venture out. But I have memories of wonder and magic of those growing up years skating on a cold winter night on a lake or a public rink, sometimes with a pretty girl at my side that bring joy in the remembering.