We're Not Going to Kenya After All

It is with profound regret that I have to write that my family is not traveling to Kenya after all.  With my wife's recent health scares and surgeries, we have had to face many, many fears, from ourselves, our family, our church family and from all around us.  Harriet's health improves every day, but concerns remain for her immune system to stay in tiptop shape, especially faced with the prospect of traveling overseas to somewhere as far away as Kenya. 

I feel ill that this spring has unfolded as it has, because it's been an unpleasant April, but the graciousness and Christian love that Bishop Jacob Chris Barasa Lusweti showed me when we spoke on the phone a few minutes ago underscored that we serve a Great God, one who loves us and wants us to love serving Him.  We don't know what our next serving opportunity will be, but right now we're going to try to focus on our family life.  "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord..."

Lark Rise to Candleford

After putting off trying this series out, even though my parents recommended it over and over again, we finally got the first disc of Lark Rise to Candleford on Netflix.  After watching now about fifteen episodes, Harriet and I have actually found a TV series we enjoy even more than our beloved Downton Abbey.

I grew up on The Waltons.  Harriet especially loved Little House on the Prairie.  This sort of TV show that did so well in the 1970s just doesn't really exist any more, except on TVLand and Hallmark. 

Nowadays you have to delve deep into rerun-land to find wholesome, but top-quality shows like these.  At Drennon we have The Andy Griffith Bible Study, and it fits our congregation to a T (and Harriet and me too).  My other favorite shows of all time include M*A*S*H, Northern Exposure, Everybody Loves Raymond and The Office, none of which really have the same high values as Andy Taylor, John Boy and Charles Ingalls exude in their beloved shows.  This one comes close.

The scenery of Lark Rise to Candleford is amazingly detailed and historically accurate (to my layman's eyes).  The characters are real--earthy, gritty, warts-n-all kind of folks.  The stories aren't all pretty, and there's occasionally sadness, but that's okay.  This show is a thing of beauty.  The picture I included above says it all:  patient Queenie and mad hatter Twister, as appealing a pair as you could every imagine.  I've fallen in love with finding out what happens next with Alfie, Pearl and Ruby, Thomas Brown, Dorcas, Robert and Emma--everyone.  The only sad part is knowing that, even though this show was a smash hit in Britain, it ended last year after four seasons.  Once we hit the fortieth episode, that'll be it.

Find this show on Netflix, on DVD or on YouTube.  It makes you feel good in an age when TV rarely does that.

Levi's Will, by W. Dale Cramer

My wife and I have always been fascinated by the lifestyles of our Christian brethren that live the older, simpler lifestyles than what we're accustomed to these days in 2012.  We visited Montgomery, Indiana, about three or four years ago to witness the Amish community there.  Seven years ago while I was on a mission trip in Belize, I traveled a couple times past a Mennonite settlement.  Finally, one of our favorite places on earth to visit is the Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill near Harrodsburg, right here in Kentucky.  (And let's not forget South Union Shaker Village in western Kentucky.)

While the Shakers are mostly gone, except for a few in Maine, the Amish and Mennonites are going strong.  This particular book is written by a man whose family is Amish, although he left that life many decades ago.  The story of the novel pretty closely follows the experiences he's had through his life, and in fact its writing and publication affected his family so much that some of the themes of forgiveness and reconciliation from the story came true in the book's aftermath.

This book is beautiful, in my opinion.  Much like in reality, the folks of this story go through some frank, tough struggles, up to and including the ending.  Nothing's black or white as much as it's several shades of gray.  The main character goes through a several-decades-long process of learning about himself, his Amish roots, his immediate family and his place in God's Kingdom.  I was really struck at how realistic this novel was at showing how long it can truly take for someone to come to grips with his or her faith.

There's not much objectionable in this book, and I'd recommend it to anyone.  I'll probably have to read some more of Dale Cramer's works in the future.

Making Vision Stick, by Andy Stanley

This little book has done a great job in helping me understand how to launch our new vision for Drennon.  Over the course of about two months, I preached about the need for a clear, easy to understand vision for our church (for three weeks), then solicited ideas for inclusion in the vision from the parishioners.

All of the ideas came together to focus us one this one statement, written as a combination of everything:  welcoming others into a life in Christ with open, loving arms.  These next three weeks--the first after Easter--I will spend delving deeper into what this vision means and how we will live it.

I read another Andy Stanley book just a couple of months ago, as a gift from our good friend Chris Chmielewski of Northeast Christian Church in Louisville.  Andy's a terrific writer, easy to read and follow, and this thin volume has been a great supplement.  It basically comes down to our, as a church, identifying the problem we need to face, coming up with a solution and knowing why we need to do what we do.

The world needs Jesus.  We need to welcome others into a life in Him, with open, loving arms.  I hope and sincerely pray that we can embrace this vision and make sure everything we do as a church addresses it.

The Voynich Cypher, by Russell Blake

I love free Kindle books, but like any book you never know what you're going to get.  I enjoyed this one, but it probably was best as a freebie.  The two problems I had with this fun, exciting, action-packed book were pretty common in today's entertainment:  1. gratuitous sex, and 2. not enough meat to make the archaeology believable.

The sex part basically takes this from the realm of being able to be recommended by me.  I love to read escapist thrillers about Biblical artifacts, but like with most fluff novels, there always has to be a love interest.  Amazing how every time someone faces a crisis, they have to either have a torrid love affair or find their soulmate.  Sometimes yes that happens in real life, but not always.  Making the affair explicit and taking up plenty of pages describing it, though, takes away from it, to me.

The other part concerns the archaeology.  The Voynich Manuscript is a very real artifact from the Middle Ages, one of the most mysterious religious writings in history, still undecoded.  Learning about it was a lot of fun, but then the mystery kind of goes nowhere at the end.  How many novels have been written since The da Vinci Code that have tried to debunk Jesus' resurrection?  Far too many.  I remember reading Steve Berry's The Templar Legacy and loving the book but being disappointed in yet another group of scientists finding Jesus' bones.  Well, here we go again.

That would put this book into the classic "debunking Christianity" category, except for the twist that the bones in question are described as having human, but not quite human DNA.  Does that mean this author believes Jesus was someone special, someone unexplainable, someone divine?  Then why write a story about someone finding His bones? 

How many great preachers, evangelists, writers and theologians does it take to remind us of how important Christ's resurrection is to the entire Christian story?  Without the resurrected Christ, there is no story.  I really enjoyed reading this page-turner, but I wish this author believed in the resurrected Christ.  His story would have been that much better.  A better book would be A Skeleton in God's Closet, by Paul L. Maier, which was not only a better mystery but also a very Christian novel.

Thanks to All for the Love

I haven't posted anything on this blog for quite a while, with lots of work put into preparing for Holy Week, then more than that with my dear wife Harriet's illness and subsequent surgeries.  I am typing this from her hospital room, where we hope to leave for good tomorrow.

We have received such a nice outpouring of love from our family, friends, church friends, work friends and baseball friends.  It's made this ordeal so much easier to bear, considering we thought we were going to celebrate our sixteenth wedding anniversary and spring break, but instead got a huge health scare and a week in the hospital.

The flowers, balloons, chocolates, phone calls, text messages, emails, visits and help with housing our son JR have all been so wonderful.  Sometimes it's been very hard for Harriet to get any rest at all with how busy the hospital has been this week, but the consolation of all the love we've been shown has been tremendous.

That is what the church should be:  helping one another in the ways we need it.  May God bless you all.