We weren't really ready at first, but the dogs never really were.
The last one is definitely the best. I am truly blessed.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Family Pictures...
Those of you who supported us during 2013 should have received a Christmas card. We thought we should take a new family photo with our "children." I thought I would just post some of the "negatives" that we got along the way.
We weren't really ready at first, but the dogs never really were.
The last one is definitely the best. I am truly blessed.
We weren't really ready at first, but the dogs never really were.
The last one is definitely the best. I am truly blessed.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Dancing in the kitchen...
17 November 2013
Poetry. I suppose that’s the only way to describe it; sitting on the porch, watching the sun sink slowly behind you while the big, yellow moon swings above the opposite horizon, losing circumference as it gains altitude. It’s the birds singing their goodnights from tiny branches atop trees. The smell of wet earth after two days of rain and that crystal clear sky after all the impurities that accompany a drought-ridden sky are washed away.
Poetry is dancing with your wife in your kitchen that is not nearly as clean and perfect as the movies; the slight feel of grit under your bare feet and fresh bread on the cutting board. Holding her close and floating in circles while Over the Rhine’s “I Want You To Be My Love” plays softly from your phone on the countertop and your two Great Danes stretched out on the cool tiles looking on with disinterest.
Kind of hard to believe that 48 years ago, American troops were fighting for their lives half a world away in the Ia Drang Valley. My heart goes out to all the wives whose dance was replaced with a telegraph and a life forever changed.
Poetry. I suppose that’s the only way to describe it; sitting on the porch, watching the sun sink slowly behind you while the big, yellow moon swings above the opposite horizon, losing circumference as it gains altitude. It’s the birds singing their goodnights from tiny branches atop trees. The smell of wet earth after two days of rain and that crystal clear sky after all the impurities that accompany a drought-ridden sky are washed away.
Poetry is dancing with your wife in your kitchen that is not nearly as clean and perfect as the movies; the slight feel of grit under your bare feet and fresh bread on the cutting board. Holding her close and floating in circles while Over the Rhine’s “I Want You To Be My Love” plays softly from your phone on the countertop and your two Great Danes stretched out on the cool tiles looking on with disinterest.
Kind of hard to believe that 48 years ago, American troops were fighting for their lives half a world away in the Ia Drang Valley. My heart goes out to all the wives whose dance was replaced with a telegraph and a life forever changed.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Withered hands and wild-eyed wonder...
I was in town shopping and the man running the check out line had a withered hand, drawn up in a half claw against his chest; more like a T-Rex fore claw than a man’s hand. My initial feeling was pride for the man because he was working; not allowing a disability, a physical setback to keep him from living life. He didn’t seem worried that people might stare at him, or might whisper when they walked past his checkout line.
However, when I got in the car and was driving down the road I suddenly thought about the story in the Bible where Jesus healed the man with the withered hand, in a synagogue, on the Sabbath day. It struck me just how visually astounding this miracle would have been. To see a man with this bent up, withered, claw-like hand, pull it out of his robe whole; muscled forearm and complete dexterity where twisted wreckage had been.
Then I thought of the Pharisees and that in the midst of this miracle, faced full on with wonder, the only thing they could think of was that it was the Sabbath and that this was somehow impermissible. No compassion, no love, no wonder. Their hatred for Jesus and their tenacious grappling for power and control left their hearts so shriveled that they had lost their sense of wonder.
No love, no compassion, no wonder…not even a whisper of excitement, of that childlike intensity and wild-eyed wonder at the seemingly impossible. They had lost the impetus in the search for truth and traded it for the form; traded sorrow for crepes and shrouds, joy for hollow laughter and banal jokes. It reminded me of what C.S. Lewis told us in “The Great Divorce” through one of the Bright People, trying to reason with a Ghost who had lost all true reason in the pursuit of human wisdom.
“…Once you were a child. Once you knew what inquiry was for. There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you had found them. Become that child again: even now.”
Jesus came to remind them of something written in their own Pentateuch. Deuteronomy 7:7-8:
“It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, (8) but it is because the LORD loves you…”
As I drove away and thought of that man with the lazy eyes and the withered hand, I thought of Christ and how he loves us so much that he reminds us time and time again by example to keep first things, first. As humans we seem predisposed towards the legal; towards a list that tells us we can do this and this and make it. We are objective creatures and indeed truth is by nature objective, but it is an objectivity beyond our control and that makes us nervous. The Pharisees wanted to autonomy and this new Truth (which was really Ageless) threatened their autonomy and so rather than see the wonder in the miraculous, the heart of a Father that SO LOVED THIS WORLD, they chose instead to plot and scheme behind closed doors and murder the Son of God.
BUT, do we not in our own way plot and scheme behind gilded doors of our souls and justify our actions and nullify our laws because we forget we did nothing to merit grace and can do nothing to maintain it? It is interesting is it not, that the sum of all commandments is wrapped in Love. On these hang ALL the law and the prophets.
However, when I got in the car and was driving down the road I suddenly thought about the story in the Bible where Jesus healed the man with the withered hand, in a synagogue, on the Sabbath day. It struck me just how visually astounding this miracle would have been. To see a man with this bent up, withered, claw-like hand, pull it out of his robe whole; muscled forearm and complete dexterity where twisted wreckage had been.
Then I thought of the Pharisees and that in the midst of this miracle, faced full on with wonder, the only thing they could think of was that it was the Sabbath and that this was somehow impermissible. No compassion, no love, no wonder. Their hatred for Jesus and their tenacious grappling for power and control left their hearts so shriveled that they had lost their sense of wonder.
No love, no compassion, no wonder…not even a whisper of excitement, of that childlike intensity and wild-eyed wonder at the seemingly impossible. They had lost the impetus in the search for truth and traded it for the form; traded sorrow for crepes and shrouds, joy for hollow laughter and banal jokes. It reminded me of what C.S. Lewis told us in “The Great Divorce” through one of the Bright People, trying to reason with a Ghost who had lost all true reason in the pursuit of human wisdom.
“…Once you were a child. Once you knew what inquiry was for. There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you had found them. Become that child again: even now.”
Jesus came to remind them of something written in their own Pentateuch. Deuteronomy 7:7-8:
“It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, (8) but it is because the LORD loves you…”
As I drove away and thought of that man with the lazy eyes and the withered hand, I thought of Christ and how he loves us so much that he reminds us time and time again by example to keep first things, first. As humans we seem predisposed towards the legal; towards a list that tells us we can do this and this and make it. We are objective creatures and indeed truth is by nature objective, but it is an objectivity beyond our control and that makes us nervous. The Pharisees wanted to autonomy and this new Truth (which was really Ageless) threatened their autonomy and so rather than see the wonder in the miraculous, the heart of a Father that SO LOVED THIS WORLD, they chose instead to plot and scheme behind closed doors and murder the Son of God.
BUT, do we not in our own way plot and scheme behind gilded doors of our souls and justify our actions and nullify our laws because we forget we did nothing to merit grace and can do nothing to maintain it? It is interesting is it not, that the sum of all commandments is wrapped in Love. On these hang ALL the law and the prophets.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Home Visit
It's been nearly two years since I left the cold New York coast behind and headed into the sunrise on a South African Airways jet. A lot has changed, but coming home I find many things are blessedly the same.
It's nice to be in my old home with my wife and enjoy the familiar sights and sounds. Delani and I are greatly enjoying our family and looking forward to being with my two sisters as well when they fly in.
Three weeks isn't very long, but any time with family is good whether short or long. Until next time I post; Merry Christmas and God bless from Jeremy and Delani.
It's nice to be in my old home with my wife and enjoy the familiar sights and sounds. Delani and I are greatly enjoying our family and looking forward to being with my two sisters as well when they fly in.
Three weeks isn't very long, but any time with family is good whether short or long. Until next time I post; Merry Christmas and God bless from Jeremy and Delani.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Ash and donuts...
Sometimes life in mission work is frustrating. Some days I want to quit and go back home, find a 9 to 5 and settle down to raise my 2.5 kids and live the American dream.
Sometimes. Only for a moment.
There is nothing wrong with that life for those to whom God has called, but I knew a long time ago, I could never do that. The moments that I want to walk away and move to a place that gets my sarcasm and where a real donut is never far away. Where a plunger is something you use in the toilet and you don't have to live in a house with more security bars than a small town jail. These moments God quietly shows me that I am wallowing in a maudlin self-indulgence.
If I am crucified with Christ and my life is no longer my own, then all thoughts of sacrifice and deprivation are deceptive and hellish at best.
It is not always easy, but when a student that has truly been a child of hell the entire last term looks at you for the first time with clear eyes and a bright smile and clarity in his soul...
Well, let's just say the thoughts of that donut turn to ash and anything you thought you laid down to be here rusts and fades into the dirt and weeds again.
Sometimes. Only for a moment.
There is nothing wrong with that life for those to whom God has called, but I knew a long time ago, I could never do that. The moments that I want to walk away and move to a place that gets my sarcasm and where a real donut is never far away. Where a plunger is something you use in the toilet and you don't have to live in a house with more security bars than a small town jail. These moments God quietly shows me that I am wallowing in a maudlin self-indulgence.
If I am crucified with Christ and my life is no longer my own, then all thoughts of sacrifice and deprivation are deceptive and hellish at best.
It is not always easy, but when a student that has truly been a child of hell the entire last term looks at you for the first time with clear eyes and a bright smile and clarity in his soul...
Well, let's just say the thoughts of that donut turn to ash and anything you thought you laid down to be here rusts and fades into the dirt and weeds again.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Time-lapse...
Sometimes life is like a time-lapse shot in a nature film. Life has lately been that way, so I suppose you won't mind if the catch up on how life is going also follows somewhat of a time-lapse kind of momentum.
The dining room...
The fireplace...
The living room will come next...
The dining room...
The fireplace...
The living room will come next...
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