chappelltemple

The fourth of five daughters, she was named for her grandfather but never really liked it, thinking it sounded too much like a boy’s name in her mind.  Nevertheless, Jessie Lou could outrun, out-jump and outwork most boys of her day, especially after her father died when she was young, leaving her and her sisters and their mother to keep up the family farm near Hillsboro all by themselves.

She hated picking cotton, and looked for any excuse to get out of that backbreaking chore, but with one sister crippled by arthritis and another still too young, she usually couldn’t avoid it.  So when push came to shove, she took her turn in the fields, chopping and bagging those tender tufts of mallow, even while singing alongside of her sisters the tunes they had all learned at the Methodist Church, her alto voice easily finding the harmony in every song.

To go to high school she had to leave the farm and move in with an aunt who lived in another town, but it’s pretty clear that the farm didn’t really leave her, or at least the lessons she picked up there never did.  You get what you plant and nothing more.  If you don’t nourish it, it dies.  Sometimes there’s too much water and sometimes there’s not enough.  And a good storm can pretty much wipe out everything, but it can’t blow away your faith unless you let it.

Following her graduation, it was onto nursing school at the Scott and White Hospital in Temple, and it was there that Jessie Lou found her true calling.  Her steady hands and quick impulses made her an excellent surgical nurse, a skill she was one day to employ alongside the famed DeBakey heart team in Houston.  And in medicine too she found maxims for life.  Caring may be the most important compound in any treatment.  Real healing takes time.  And the life is always in the blood.

She fell in love, married, and within a year she was widowed when her husband was killed while fighting in The War.  And then another wounded veteran—a sailor named Charlie—wound up in the hospital where she worked and when he was discharged he drove his car along beside her as she walked home each day, endlessly offering a ride until one day she finally gave up and got in.

The two were married and began a forty-three year journey through life, raising two sons along the way who quickly became the focal point of Lou’s emerging interests.  She taught them how to pray and made sure they were in church every Sunday, checking to see that their shoes were shined each Saturday night, in fact.  Likewise, she wrote out scriptures and posted them by the doorway so the boys would have to read them whenever they left the house.  This is the day that the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.

And then long before she was ready for it, Charlie died as well, following what was supposed to have been a routine bypass surgery.  So Lou began yet another chapter in her life, throwing herself into what was to be her defining role, at least in the eyes of her sons and grandchildren:  she became The Nana, a grand dame indeed who somehow managed to meld the characteristics of Queen Elizabeth, Henry Kissinger, and Auntie Mame.

Cancer came along, and then dementia.  But though the ravages of time tried their best, The Nana remained in charge to the very end, essentially choosing to celebrate her 87^th birthday with Jesus rather than wait two more days to do so here on earth.  For though she never liked her name, she always lived up to it, for the meaning of Jessie is simply “God’s gift.”

Today would have been her 93^rd birthday and I still think of her all the time.  For the faith lessons which my mother modeled have stayed with me through the years of my own journey in life, too, including what was perhaps the most important one she ever taught me:  Family really is everything.

And the family of God is even better.

It was quite a challenge, even for one accustomed to the kind of theological bantering in which seminary professors so very often find themselves engaged.  For while everyone had long before heard the basic story, the question was how could he express it again so that small children, including his own, might begin to grasp its deepest meaning?

It had taken, after all, the best efforts of such giants as Matthew, Luke, John, and Paul to interpret the birth of Jesus to those first few generations of adult believers in the church, and to make it more than just a beautiful story or, worse yet, merely a lovely legend surrounding His nativity.  So how could anyone expect little children to truly understand that the birth of Christ was nothing less than the very incarnation of the living God in this world and the ultimate manifestation of His self-giving love?

Unless, of course, the children could have an experience of that kind of all-accepting and self-giving love for themselves.  For what the good professor realized is that most of us, even as adults, need concrete examples of such things in order to comprehend them, even if the example itself is more mystical and imagined that it is real.

And so the New York City Old Testament scholar began what was to be perhaps his greatest work of New Testament interpretation, “translating” not the story itself but the idea of God’s self-giving love which lays behind it, and enfleshing it all in words that might have meaning even for the wee ones among us.

Himself the son of a bishop, he based his character upon both a local Dutch handyman and an ancient bishop in Asia Minor who had been renowned for his deeds of kindness to others.  Though clearly small–tiny enough to drop through chimneys in fact– he made his elf rather “jolly and plump,” because that seemed to be the kind of personality which kids and others most enjoyed being around.

He likewise Americanized the Dutch name of the bishop and then he wove his tale of this mystical figure around an extraordinary idea indeed:  a once-a-year visit in which his character would leave gifts for children not because they had earned them, or even deserved them, but purely and simply because he wanted them to have them!

And the rest, as they say, was history.  For the character which Dr. Clement Clark Moore described quickly became a favorite, and the story which he wrote, “The Night Before Christmas,” an enduring classic.  Indeed, though the original stature of that “little old driver” and his “miniature sleigh of tiny reindeer” have usually been forgotten, the picture which he created in 1823 remains the basis for most popular portrayals of St. Nicholas even today.

Only it seems that since the time that Dr. Moore fashioned his “translation” that folks have misused “old Saint Nick” in a way that I’m certain that the professor would never have intended.  For whenever parents or others propose that Santa Claus will only bring toys to those kids who have been “good,” they’ve rather messed up the symbolism of the whole story, I think.

After all, Jesus Christ didn’t come because our behavior merited the birth of a Savior.  Rather, as St. Paul once expressed it, “when the time had fully come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption.”  God’s Christmas gift therefore was simply His grace wrapped up in the form of a child, given purely and simply because He loves us.

To be sure, Professor Moore, ever the distinguished teacher of Oriental Languages, was hesitant to acknowledge his  authorship of the poem at first, not wishing to somehow “dilute” his academic credentials.  But his kids may indeed have rescued Mr. Moore from himself at that point.

For clearly, nothing else the erudite doctor ever wrote in his scholarly career ever received such acclaim as his simple children’s story about “A Visit from St. Nicholas.”  Maybe that’s because Christmas itself began with a child, and that’s part of what makes the whole idea so incredible.

After all, I’m pretty sure that Isaiah didn’t promise that “for unto us a soteriological solution to the vexing problem of human peccability is born.”

I wonder what he must have thought when long ago that night                                               They came and knocked upon his door, a travel-wearied sight.

“We’ve journeyed far across the land, just as the law required.                                                         So do you have a place for us?” they earnestly inquired.

“We’ve come because we’re family; like you, we’re David’s kin.                                                   A distant cousin you must be, so won’t you let us in?”

“My house is small,” he might have said, “and every spot is taken.                                         You’ve come too late–please go before my children you awaken.

And then he saw her anxious eyes, her cloak all smudged with earth,                                             Yet bulging with the signs of one who was to soon give birth.

“Perhaps,” he said, “there is one place to come in from the cold.                                                    It’s not a room, it’s just a barn, with musty smells of old.

“It’s where we keep our family’s sheep; it’s full of straw and hay.                                                   But you can have it if you need a spot where she may lay.”

And so it was that in that keep and on that very night                                                               The Savior of the world was born to bring to all the light.

For like the master of that house we think our lives are full.                                                    But then one day He’ll come to us, in gentleness to rule.

He’ll ask us just as long ago, for we too are His kin:                                                                     “Is there a place within your heart where I may now come in?”

I wonder what we’ll think that day, I wonder what we’ll say                                                       When Jesus knocks upon our door and asks if He may stay.

I could easily have flunked out of seminary because of him.  For–reflecting perhaps the evangelical poverty of my childhood– it was not until one Finals week in the first year of my graduate studies in Boston that I finally ran across him.  And never having read his children’s stories before, after I finished the first one I found myself having to devour all seven of them immediately, even if it did keep me up and keep me from studying for my exams.

Fortunately, the tests turned out okay.  In fact, maybe just because Aslan was “on the move” in my life, I found it even easier to parse St.Paul, befog Barth, and conquer church history.  Because, just as the Oxford don had discovered for himself, I also began to realize that Christian doctrines are not what really counts about Christianity– rather, they are simply “translations” of the actual story of Jesus, a “true myth” that has become fact.

What’s more, the tales of Narnia soon proved to be only a “gateway” drug to the other equally intoxicating writings of this man. I discovered in him a new approach to apologetics, for instance, almost conversational in tone, one that discarded debate in favor of winsome discourse.  To be sure, if I looked carefully, I could see some flaws in his logic here and there.  But the trip that he took me on was so overall delightful that I found myself more than willing to simply sail right over whatever abysses there might have been just to stay on board a little longer.

Likewise, his capacity for imagination seemed unlimited to me.  From a satirical dialogue between the devil and one of his apprentices, to a science fiction trilogy that actually worked, to the re-telling of an ancient Greek myth, his ability to write across all kinds of genres, spelled out in almost sixty books, fascinated me.  And when I actually heard a recording of his voice from one of his radio addresses during the War I knew then that I had found a muse for my own ministry, for he spoke so calmly and cogently that I could not help but be captivated by him.

Oh to be certain, perhaps that was because he told me what I intuitively already knew but had never been able to articulate, namely, that we live at present on the wrong side of the door and cannot mingle with the splendors that await us in our real home.  But, he went on to assure me, “all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so–some day, God willing, we shall get in.”

In the meantime, so he wrote,“the load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.”  Indeed, all day long, he argued, we are in some degree or another inescapably helping each other either to a destination of eternal glory or one of everlasting horror.

As so as he did for millions around the world, Clive Staples Lewis helped me to find the real destination in my life, as well, not only pointing me towards that “weight of glory” that transformed how I hope to treat others, but becoming a touchstone for my thinking through all the decades that have followed, too.

Few noticed when he died fifty years ago on November 22, 1963, for the other news of that same sad day– the dispatches that came out of Dallas detailing the death of a president–quickly captured the attention of the world.  But I have a feeling that on that late autumn day C.S. Lewis found a welcome reception in heaven indeed as the door on which he had been knocking all of his life opened at last.

Through his words, Aslan really was “on the move.”  Thanks, Mr. Lewis, for sharing him with me.

He did that which only a handful of people have ever done, changing the course of human history.  For the world which Martin Luther left behind when he died in 1546 was strongly different than the one into which he was born some fifty-seven years earlier.

Luther’s story is well known, or at least it used to be.  For it is said that more books have been written about this son of a copper miner than about any other figure in history, save that of Jesus Christ himself.  Long ago Erik Erikson, the coiner of the term “identity crisis,” even penned a post-mortem “psychoanalysis” of Luther in which he tried to explain the German monk’s behavior looking back half a millennia later.

In the end, however, the lasting legacy of Martin Luther can perhaps be summed up in just three simple phrases:  sola scriptura, sola gratia, sola fidei.

The first, sola scriptura, means that there is an external source of authority for us all, no matter how clever or self-reliant we deceive ourselves in thinking that we might be.  For when it comes to understanding both who God is, and who He desires for us to be, we must always look not to the cues of the culture but to the witness of the Word—the Logos which became flesh and dwelt among us, but also that which was entrusted to the prophets and saints of old.  Or as our Methodist founder John Wesley put it, we must be a people of “one book,” and that is the scriptures.

Sola Gratia, however, means that it is by grace alone that any of us can ever come close to getting it right.  For without God’s grace, all of our efforts to reform ourselves (much less reform others) will come to naught.   And if we are indeed wholly dependent upon God’s grace for ourselves, would it not be only right that we learn how to extend that same kind of grace to all those around us, even the ones with whom we most may disagree?

Then sola fidei simply reminds us that it is by faith alone that we can stand before God, not on the basis of any of our good works or even good intentions.  For when Luther discovered for himself that it is not just penance, but genuine repentance, that God desires, everything changed for him.

Confronted by a church hierarchy more interested in building great cathedrals than in saving individual souls, the lawyer turned professor thus turned to the pen to express his theological convictions, writing out 95 propositions for debate.  His theses dealt principally with the question of selling indulgences, a practice of the church at the time (and still the most effective fund-raising scheme ever) which promised “time off for good behavior” in purgatory in exchange for helping to renovate St. Peter’s in Rome.

And then—as was the custom– to open the conversation, Luther posted his points on the cathedral doors at Wittenberg where he taught.  And the firestorm which Luther’s propositions set off led not only to the formation of the entire Protestant movement, but to a genuine reformation in the thinking of all Christians, both Catholic and Protestant alike.

Or, in short, we could suggest that when Martin Luther tacked up his theses 496 years ago today, that he quite literally “nailed it” when it came to arguing for the genuine power of the gospel over the coerced control of the church in people’s lives.  And for that, he is indeed a genuine hero of the faith worth remembering, even on a day like Halloween.

So do you suppose that anyone will think to dress up today in the kind of Augustinian alb that a German monk of old might have worn rather than just another Batman or Captain America muscle costume?

I can’t help shake the uneasy feeling that it’s all coming apart today.  For in just a few hours a retired Methodist bishop from California will conduct a same-sex marriage ceremony in Alabama in a ceremony that is neither legal in that state nor allowed by the rules of our denomination.

He will do so against the expressed wishes of the resident bishop of that area, as well as the counsel of most of his fellow bishops.  But as a retired bishop, it is unlikely that he will face any real consequences for his actions at all.

In the coming weeks, some thirty UM pastors elsewhere have similarly pledged to jointly conduct a same-sex ceremony in an act of solidarity with a fellow clergyman who awaits a church trial on just such a charge.

And in the meantime, our Judicial Council is deliberating today in Baltimore on whether or not the decision to simply ignore church law on this question is an allowable action by an annual conference which is convinced that the wider church is wrong.

Some will say that it is all political theater, of course, particularly as the ceremony today is taking place in Birmingham, where decades ago the civil rights movement unfurled against the harsh realities of unrepentant racism.

And others will call what the bishop is doing there an act of “gospel disobedience,” necessitated by the continued refusal of the denomination to change its policies on same-sex issues.

But what if those policies are actually not just a matter of Pharisaic legalism or even blind-sided bigotry wearing religious clothing, but instead reflect the authentic witness of the scriptures which tell us of God’s ultimate protective will for all of his children?

You see, I have no doubt whatsoever that those who are advocating the change–even violently taking the kingdom by force at this point to quote Matthew 11–are completely sincere in their desire to “do no harm” by extending the ministries of the church to all.

And I understand that we are talking about real people here, and not just the avatars of someone’s agenda.  Indeed, many of them are individuals whom I have come to love, and it pains me to see their pain as well, much less contribute to it in any way.

But I likewise know that many of those who stand on the other side of the question are equally sincere in trying to simply hear the still small voice of God over the cacophonous chorus of the culture.  And if so, does that not mean that someone here must be “sincerely wrong” in their assessment of what the scriptures actually say to this question?

The very possibility of that requires us all thus to walk carefully, taking seriously the insights of those from across the world and even across the ages.  And towards that end, may we not believe that the collective judgment that speaks in our church as expressed through the General Conference is worth following, again not as a matter of mere legalism but as an authentic act of faith and obedience, not to our own perceptions but to the wider understandings of the church assembled?

Today may not be the beginning of the end of the United Methodist Church.  But as frayed as we already are in the eyes of the world, it clearly won’t take much to unravel us completely if we are not extremely careful.  It’s thus not a time for any of us to be pulling the loose strings of our already disentangled denomination.

In the words of an ancient prayer, may God deliver us from the “laziness that is content to settle for half-truths and from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth.”

Today is definitely a day for prayer.

It’s possible that by the time I’ve finished this post that you folks will have figured out how to play well with others (a skill that most individuals learn in kindergarten, along with not running with scissors.)  On the chance that you still are a bit stymied with respect to the government shutdown, however, perhaps these thoughts might help break up the legislative logjam you seem to have gotten yourselves into.

Mr. President, I would encourage you to calmly explain to the country just exactly why you believe the Affordable Care Act can’t wait a year for implementation, for I suspect that if you really wanted to do so that you could find some valid reasons.  Mention the more than 47 million Americans who are presently uninsured, which doesn’t even count the elderly population.  Explain that the majority of those folks are from low income families for whom insurance has simply been too expensive.  And point out that even just a one year delay in the program could mean that some of those needing medical care in the next twelve months won’t get it.

In short, don’t just bristle and bow your back because you’ve been challenged, but instead appeal to our better nature, Mr. President, and remind us that the measure of any society’s greatness is in how it looks out after those who are on the fringes of life, especially children who make up 27% of the uninsured.  Help us to remember that America has always been a compassionate nation and this act simply exemplifies that idea.  For though the law did pass, you still have a majority of your citizens who have come to believe that it is a bad one, so your work is not yet done in that regard.

On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, make your case more strongly than ever that there are serious flaws in the program hidden in the host of regulations and rules that only a handful of people have probably ever read.  Put the economic analyses out there, side by side, with those of your opponents, and show how this law may actually backfire and end up costing folks more.  And then if you believe that the ACA is simply too flawed to fix, give us something better to replace it with, for the American people may be distracted but they are not dumb.  Point out that for almost every other consumer need in this country that we rely upon the private sector, and that the government’s track record in managing huge programs is not all that good.  Do your very best to win the argument in the chambers of public opinion, thus, even if you can’t quite do so in the chamber across the rotunda from you right now.

And you who serves as the Majority Leader of the Senate, perhaps you can find a way to hold firm to your own beliefs without having to utterly destroy and denigrate those who may disagree with you.  Calling your fellow legislators “anarchists,” for instance, would hardly seem to be a helpful way to advance the dialogue.  No doubt emotions have been running high on both sides of the aisle, but if you really want to lead you can’t simply do so with majority manipulation or legislative legerdemain.  Remember that ultimately all authority is moral authority, and so try at least a little harder to hit the high road rather than drag your colleagues with you down into the fray.

In short, what the country is expecting from each of you during this time is that you put aside your own ambitions (whatever they might be), bury your pride (wounded or otherwise) and remember that those on the other side of the aisle may love this country just as much as each of you do.  And in that respect, perhaps some words spoken long ago by a chaplain of the United States Senate might be helpful.  For in his prayer “To Change the Spiritual Climate of the World,” Peter Marshall once asked simply to be made an instrument to alleviate “the pain and heartaches, the tears and sorrow, and the greed and cruelty that had been unloosed” around the world.

He prayed that God would allow him to do so by “returning good for evil, returning soft answers for sharp criticisms, being polite when I receive rudeness, being understanding when I am confronted by ignorance and stupidity,” so that in gentleness and love he might “check the hasty answer, choke back the unkind retort, and thus short-circuit some of the bitterness and unkindness” that has overflowed God’s creation.

I know it may seem like an intractable problem at present, the embodiment indeed of an immovable force which has met an irresistible object.  But it’s not impossible.  Indeed, the prayer of that chaplain offered in those Senate chambers on April 7, 1948, is worth repeating even today:

“O God, our Father, history and experience have given us so many evidences of Thy guidance to nations and to individuals that we should not doubt Thy power or Thy willingness to direct us.  Give us the faith to believe that when God wants to do or not do any particular thing, God finds a way of letting us know it.”

Here’s hoping that all of you–and all of us, for that matter–may be listening.

It may come as a surprise to some folks, but we at least began our social involvement on the right foot.  For in the very first two decades of our existence as an indigenous and independent church in the new nation, Methodists proclaimed a rather bold campaign against the most pervasive of all American social evils, the practice of slavery.

As early as 1784, in fact–just a quarter century after the first lay preachers arrived on these shores—we even wrote it into the rules at the conference which formed the new “Methodist Episcopal Church,” requiring every slave-holding member of the society to emancipate his slaves or face expulsion from the communion rail and the life of the church.  And in doing such, the American followers of John Wesley clearly reflected his own disgust for that most “execrable sum of all villanies,” as he not so euphemistically called slavery.

That opinion was shared as well by Francis Asbury, the first bishop in America, who not only preached to both black and white listeners, but who shared the pulpit with a frequent African-American traveling companion, “Black Harry” Hoosier, by all accounts an equally persuasive preacher of the Word indeed.  And Thomas Coke, Wesley’s designated superintendent for the new nation, was even more adamant in his anti-slavery opinion, to the point of being incapable of even discussing the issue diplomatically.

When the organizing conference for the new church was held in Baltimore at Christmas 1784, thus, the question put before the group was a bold one:  “Does this conference acknowledge that slavery is contrary to the laws of God, man, and nature, and hurtful to society, contrary to the dictates of conscience and pure religion, and doing that which we would not others do to us and ours?  Do we pass our disapprobation on all our friends who keep slaves, and advise their freedom?”  And the answer was “Yes.”

There were many who opposed the stance, of course, including one “high-headed Lady” who told a crowd that she would give fifty pounds to anyone who would “give that little Doctor” (meaning Thomas Coke) one hundred lashes.  But the Methodists persevered; in Maryland alone, in fact, over 1,800 slaves were freed in predominately Methodist areas in the decade and a half which followed the new rule.  Church leaders even managed to persuade some within state legislatures to support their position, arousing the conscience of many which had been deadened by acquiescence to a clear moral evil.

Eventually, however, faced with rising opposition particularly in the slave-holding states, Methodists began to give into the culture all around them and retreat from their moral high ground as well.  By 1804, in fact, the Methodist reversal on slavery was in full-swing, moving from a stance of complete repudiation to one of powerless resignation.  Then four years later, though still arguing that slavery was contrary to the spirit of Christianity, the last remaining prohibitions concerning slaveholding by private members were struck from the church’s rules.  The 1808 General Conference went so far, in fact, as to direct that one thousand copies of the Book of Discipline be printed with the section on slavery deleted altogether for the use of the South Carolina Conference.

So what happened that caused the great reversal?  In a word, success.  For from less than 2,000 members in 1775, Methodists grew to well over a million in the decade preceding the Civil War, becoming the largest and most influential church in America.  Only in order not to alienate the masses they wished to reach with the gospel, they tragically “drew in their horns” on speaking out on a controversy which threatened to do so.

And on this fiftieth anniversary of the famous “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, it is worth remembering as Dr. Martin Luther King once noted that “lamentably it is a historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up these privileges voluntarily.”  Likewise, as the experience of the early Methodists demonstrate, even good beginnings can be derailed unless there is a firm commitment to keep the faith, no matter what the consequences.

I can’t help but wonder thus if modern Methodists are still holding out the flame of freedom to all, or we’ve allowed the shifting winds of society to snuff it out?  Our own history reminds us that it is far too easy to fall back from doing right when pragmatism pushes us elsewhere.

So what kind of history do you suppose we might be writing now?

I don’t know Stephen and Lynn Ash, but I have a feeling that they must be doing something right indeed.  A middle school principal in Little River, Texas–population 1,994 — Stephen is the father of six kids and he and his wife have apparently raised them all–without television, by the way–to love the Lord.

One of their sons, David, is now in college where he happens to be the starting quarterback for the University of Texas Longhorns.  And just this week, he was asked by the media about his counterpart over at Texas A&M, Johnny Manziel.

Now, just to put things in perspective, at least as the Houston Chronicle has reported it, David has “never even come close to winning the Heisman Trophy,” nor has he helped UT beat the number one team in the country, or led the Longhorns to a Top Ten finish.  But in what must be a rarity in some college circles, he’s also a tee-totaling T-sip who doesn’t drink, tweet, or even go to the movies, much less hang out with rap stars like “Johnny Football” has done.

Nevertheless, when reporters asked him if he was glad that he was not having to deal with NCAA investigators and probes into autograph-signing questions like Manziel does, his response was an interesting one.  According to the Chronicle, in fact, Ash replied by saying, “My answer is, ‘by the grace of God.'”

He then went on to say, “I don’t know Johnny Manziel personally, but I do know college football players are regular people and they have their problems.  And Johnny Manziel, he seems like a nice guy.  There’s a lot of pressure, a lot of things that can go wrong in your life.  And probably not very many people are interested to know what that is, or what’s going on.  Johnny, I just wish him the best.  He’s a great football player.  For me, it’s only by the grace of God I haven’t taken that path– I’ve been blessed with great parents…and a great community in Austin.” 

At the ripe old age of just 21, Stephen and Lynn’s boy David has figured out that if you’ve been blessed—by either talent or circumstances– that it’s not really so that you can market your gifts and enjoy your fame and fortune.  Rather, it’s all about grace and recognizing that whatever advantages we may have are from God who expects us, in turn, to use them wisely.

Likewise, anytime someone is willing to publicly credit God with helping them to make the right decisions in life I can’t help but think that out of their mouths God has indeed perfected His praise (Matthew 21.16).

It’s all enough to make a UT fan out of a pretty dyed-in-the-red-and-blue-wool SMU grad.

But then some would say that was by the grace of God as well.

I really should be more patient, I know.  For after all, to reach me it has to come from some 22,000 miles away, traveling at a speed of more than 128 kilobits a second.  Similarly, the twin satellites which beam the signal out have been up there in their higher elliptical orbit over North America for several years now, with a new set of Boeing 702 birds nicknamed “Rhythm” and “Blues” launched in 2005 and 2008 respectively  to replace the earlier pair known as “Rock” and “Roll.”

Satellite radio is not only an amazing amenity, thus, but it is also a fairly impressive technological wonder.   Unfortunately, though, it may even be a little addictive once you start listening to it, as well.  All of which may be why it’s been irritating that the XM receiver in my car has been on the fritz lately, flashing up the words “No Signal” on my radio for increasingly long interludes, even under clear skies and unimpeded conditions (though being careful to work perfectly well whenever I’ve taken it back to the dealership for service, of course.)

Likewise, hooking up our cable TV service in the new place seemed to go well at first, but now there’s that same infuriating message of “No Signal” scrolling across our television screen too.  And even though I have held a first-class FCC radio engineer’s license since I was fifteen, I have to confess that I don’t actually have a clue what’s wrong with that system either, since my technical knowledge was all attained back when capacitors and tubes were involved or—as some of my younger colleagues might think—long ago while the earth’s crusts were still cooling.

But then I should admit as well that I’ve often been guilty of sending out a “no signal” message myself when it comes to keeping in constant contact with the Lord.  For it is incredibly easy to get so bogged down by the demands and details of life that we can lose our connections and begin to forget the purpose and meaning of it.  And so–to carry the analogy a little further– that is when we clearly need to stop and re-boot.

Towards that end, it is helpful to check the “manual” every morning, as well as speak to the Manufacturer all throughout the day.  What’s more, however, long before we were ever born the Creator of all that is built into His handiwork a weekly time for receiving routine maintenance and updates in our spiritual lives.

As the summer time continues to sizzle, thus, if you’ve been missing from regular worship during these past few months, maybe now is the time to wander on back and see if we can help clear up the picture a little.  We’ll keep the AC on and I am fairly certain that most folks won’t have to travel anywhere near so far as that little XM signal so valiantly does while cutting through the cirrus clouds to try to contact me.

For the truly good news is this:  even if our receivers have not been working correctly, His transmitter still is.