Tapestry

One of the greatest movie lines in history is in Star Wars, when the evil Darth Vader reveals the awful truth to our hero Luke Skywalker: "Luke, I am your father." (Actually, this is a misquote, but it's become part of our cultural lexicon anyway. Check out this YouTube video of a four-year-old's priceless reaction to seeing this scene in Star Wars for the first time.)

Princeton theologian Diogenes Allen has said that we are living in the midst of a "massive intellectual revolution" that is perhaps as great as that "which marked off the modern world from the Middle Ages." And it’s changing much faster than ever before and more deeply than we realize.

In an election year with conventions, platforms, and speeches in the news, we have a unique opportunity to converse in the public square. Having a Christian worldview should affect how we think and interact about politics. Here are some suggestions:

The great theologian A.W. Tozer said : The most important thing about you is what you believe about God. Seeing Him as He really is will influence every thought we think and every action we take. Last spring, a persistent blazing-red cardinal tried to make a nest in our dining room.

Sure He does! Where else would we get ours, since we are made in His image, and a sense of humor is such a delightful gift?

Humor, though, is culturally rooted (with the exception of mother-in-law jokes, which are apparently universal in any culture on the planet!). That's why most of us Westerners find it difficult to understand that Jesus was really a funny fellow. For instance, it's easy for us to imagine Him intoning solemnly, "Blind guides! You strain out a gnat yet swallow a camel!" (Matt. 23:28) Not only is it a funny mental image, but Jesus was making a pun that is completely lost in translation. The Aramaic word for gnat is galma, and the word for camel is gamla. If we'd been there as onlookers, we would have howled.

August — my least favorite month. It’s hot, the kids go back to school and we celebrate Anna’s birthday. I know I should feel happy about my daughter’s birthday, but I seldom do. You see, Anna will most likely lose her hearing by her thirteenth birthday. That’s what the doctors have told us. Diagnosed at two years old with a condition known as Large Vestibular Aqueduct Syndrome, Anna has never had the gift of hearing things clearly.

It’s that time again. Monday, trash day. This week it fell my job to roll our large trash bin to the curb anticipating an early morning visit from the rumbling truck with it’s robotic arms ready to clasp my trash to it’s bosom.

Well, it took me a few weeks, but "love is patient" really got into my life and changed me. So, I moved on to "love is kind" (1 Cor 13: 4).

Now, if you are sleep deprived from not only your own jet lag, but that of an infant, then said infant gets over jet lag, but still likes to get up once or twice a night to nurse, and your husband seems rested, and you just moved in with your parents from having your own place, and you don’t know how you’ll find jobs or insurance or functioning vehicles, can love be kind?

A dear younger friend of mine recently posted this question on a forum:

"Do you feel that you have a great mission or purpose in life?

"I do feel like I'm made for something more than this, but whatever it is I can't reach it, or find out what it is. I do feel as though I have a great purpose or mission in life—I'm sure I do!!! Why can I just not figure it out?

"Was I born in the wrong time? My roommate says that I'm like a young person who thinks they were meant for more. She says hardly anyone here has a great life of purpose and I just have to accept reality. 99% of the people are just normal people—that there are not that many characters, priests, prophets, or heroes.