Dog Food Tales

 
Dog food.

It's considered such a lowly source of nutrition.

It may be healthy, of course; otherwise, we wouldn't feed it to our beloved family pets.  But judging by its looks and odor, we rarely assume it would taste good to us.  And those few hardy souls who've ever tasted it on a dare never seem eager to make it a regular part of their diet.

Dry, it can be even less appealing than those unappealing dry cereals doctors say are supposed to be the healthiest for us.  Moist, or in what dog food manufacturers call "gravy," dog food takes on the texture, appearance, and even smell of leftover human food that's turned bad in the back of the refrigerator.

Our dogs don't seem to complain too much, but I haven't known a dog yet that, just like you and me, prefers people food instead!  That right there probably tells us something about the flavor quality of conventional dog food.  Which makes dog food the butt of many jokes and disparaging comparisons.  "That looks worse than dog food," we'll say.  Or, "I wouldn't let my dog eat that."

Poor dogs.

Then consider this:  It has been said that American Christians today spend more money on dog food than they do on cross-cultural missions.

Do you believe that?

Dr. Michael Oh serves as the executive director of the Lausanne Movement, a group founded by Billy Graham that seeks to promote Christian evangelization worldwide.  He said it during an interview for the Gospel Coalition's website.  The statistic originally comes from Leonard Ravenhill, a British evangelist best known for being a spiritual mentor to the late musician Keith Green.

It's just convicting enough to sound accurate, although I can't find anything to substantiate its claim.  For one thing, what was Ravenhill's definition of an American Christian?  There are so many varieties.  Besides, has anybody ever done a study to determine how much American Christians spend on dog food, or cat food, or pet food in general?  Then too, how would somebody determine a dollar amount for what American Christians contribute to cross-cultural missions?  Would it be by how much they individually donate, or a percentage of what they donate to their church, or what they donate to para-church missions agencies?

Veterinarians say people food is usually bad for dogs.  So, considering the price of quality dog food these days - the stuff that isn't made with artificial fillers and questionable byproducts in China - how can American Christians NOT spend a lot of money on dog food?

Still, it makes the point that although dogs and pets in general are not a specific part of our faith walk, it's an approximation of a likely truth that American Christians are just jaded enough about foreign missions to spend more money on relative luxuries like pet ownership than they are to help fulfill a basic command from the Bible.  You know, the Great Commission?

Go ye therefore, and preach Christ's Gospel to every nation?

Do you spend more on dog food than you give to support the Great Commission?

I don't have any pets, so do I have to answer that question?

Back when I was working for a freight brokerage in New York City, I got a call one afternoon from a potential customer who had a hot lead on a job lot of dog food.  A freight brokerage, just so you'll know, arranges to ship goods from a supplier to a customer, and the firm for which I worked specialized in international exports from America to places all over the world.  And this guy who called our office with his request about dog food wanted to ship it from here to Bulgaria.*

So, I started collecting the information I'd be needing to get some shipping quotes.  His location, whether or not he was using a letter of credit, and to whom the dog food would be consigned.  We also briefly discussed the process involved.  This potential customer had never shipped dog food to Europe before.  He was acting on a tip he'd gotten about really cheap dog food, and somebody had provided him a contact in the recently-dissolved USSR who would buy it from him in Bulgaria, on the spot.

"Wow," I commented casually to the guy on the phone.  "They must have a lot of really hungry dogs over in Bulgaria."

"Oh - this isn't for pets," the man replied.  "This is for people to eat."

I stopped in my tracks.

He wanted to ship these containers of dog food to a foreign country for human consumption.  I asked him to repeat himself, figuring I'd mis-heard him.

"Yeah, the Bulgarians are starving over there," the guy confirmed, and I could practically hear his glee over the telephone.  "They're so hungry in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, they'll eat anything to survive.  Isn't it great I got this super cheap deal?"

I don't remember how I ended that call, but when I hung up the receiver (remember those pre-cell-phone days?) I turned to my boss and said, "I can't process this request for a quote."

"Why not," my boss wanted to know.  So I told him that the guy wanted to ship dog food to Bulgaria because people there were so hungry, they'd eat it themselves.  I remember that my boss's face clouded over, too, but he was the owner of the company, and bottom lines meant more to him than to me.  He did take the information to work up a quote, and he figured it was just unusual enough a shipment that if there were any official questions from customs, it might sound better to the authorities if the paperwork was arranged by the owner of the company, instead of a regular employee.

So thankfully, I didn't get any demerits for being unwilling to perform a basic function of my job.

And, fortunately, when my boss called the guy back with some figures, he learned that the deal had already fallen through, but I can't remember why.  So my boss was relieved, too, that he didn't actually have to go through with such a questionable shipment.  We talked about it in the office, amongst a couple of us, and the possibility was floated that if food was that scarce in Bulgaria, that maybe dog food was better than nothing at all.  Somebody checked the customs regulations (we had books and books of them in our office; this was before the Internet, too!), and there was nothing illegal about such a shipment.  Dog food is nutritious, after all.  But none of us were happy with the thought that somebody was still trying to earn a profit off of the misery of people he'd likely never have to meet.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but maybe it can also be the stepchild of abuse.

So, as I heard about us American Christians spending more on dog food than missions today, my mind floated back to that day on the 25th floor of 21 West Street, where I used to work, and had received that call about sending dog food to the starving people of Bulgaria.  The whole episode left a terrible taste in my mouth, as if I'd eaten some of that dog food myself.  I thought then that maybe, if the people of Bulgaria were that desperate, I should look into whether or not some humanitarian organization was already shipping human food over there.  The church I attended, Manhattan's venerable Calvary Baptist, had an extensive network of international compassion ministries; maybe one of them could help.

But then somebody in the office mused that maybe the reason the dog food deal fell apart was the customer in Bulgaria learned that the United Nations or some other relief group was bringing in real food to prevent a humanitarian crisis.  And then, as things tend to do, more calls came into the office regarding shipments to other places, and before I knew it, the Bulgaria situation had been shifted to a back burner.

And then it disappeared from the stove completely.

It's what usually happens when we're presented with an immediate challenge, isn't it?  If we don't act quickly on it, like this customer with the dog food deal was trying to do, something else can just as quickly divert our attention.  The diversion can be just as worthwhile, but usually, it's just more busywork, or something less demanding, or perhaps some desirable recreational activity.

That's why, when I hear things like dog food and international missions, the ease with which the Bulgarian situation dropped from my consciousness - despite my strong stance on it initially - still can prick my conscious.  Not that I think God is blaming me for whatever aid may not have arrived for the Bulgarian people.  But the truth that cross-cultural missions is an ongoing responsibility for God's people, and it's a responsibility that doesn't lose its importance, urgency, or impact on the lives of those it can touch.

Whatever mass starvation existed in Bulgaria is long over.  But the Great Commission is as valid today as it was when Christ charged His church with it over two thousand years ago.

That's a long time in which to grow complacent, isn't it?  A longer shelf-life than dog food, even.

But that doesn't make it any less efficacious, does it?

* I say it was Bulgaria, but it may have been Hungary.  Sorry I can't be positive which one it was.

People Art Culture's Value

Dum.  Dum.  Dum.

The macabre drumbeat of devolution continues from Detroit.

This time, it's a suspicious fire that destroyed part of the city's Heidelberg Project, an eclectic display of old junk alongside abandoned houses that, since its inception in 1986, has managed to cultivate a loyal following of dystopia fans.

Ostensibly, the Heidelberg Project consists of "interactive sculptures" recapturing elements of decay from within the urban fabric and rehabilitating them to serve a more honorable purpose.  In addition to abandoned homes, folk artist Tyree Guyton has repurposed abandoned cars, stuffed toys, broken furniture, shopping carts, and other detritus of his defunct city in a colorful jumble along Heidelberg Street that, to the uninformed, may look more like an organized garbage dump than Postmodern art.

But in an unfortunate twist for the Heidelberg Project, one person's trash not only has become another person's treasure, but yet another person's target.

Early this morning, Detroit's beleaguered firefighters were called to the scene of a blaze burning through what was called the "House of Soul," one of the abandoned houses along Heidelberg Street Guyton had reclaimed as one of his interactive sculptures.  For the House of Soul, also called the "Record House," its interactivity occurred when Guyton had nailed old vinyl records onto it, creating a look as if the house had a severe acne problem.

Wealthy suburbanites have the venerable, stately Detroit Museum of Art, whose revered billion-dollar collection could be raided any day now to help pay off the city's creditors.  Meanwhile, Detroit's inner-city residents have a street painted with multi-colored polka dots and lined by abandoned buildings against which junk has been stacked and tacked.  Although lawyers and judges may still pick apart the DMA, two previous mayoral administrations have already tried to tear down Guyton's claim to fame, bulldozing several of the early homes he'd decorated, in a sign that not even all Detroiters see his Heidelberg Project positively.

Indeed, it's so tempting for those of us mystified by the unconventional infatuations of new-age cultural expressionism to scoff at what seem to be mere contrivances in the name of "art."  What's the difference between a bunch of desperate new urbanists branding the Heidelberg Project a legitimate expression of civic angst and social creativity, and arsonists seeing just a pile of expired kindling to burn?

Guyton's website says that visitors have come from all over the world to marvel at his kitschy creations, and he hosts workshops and other events to help inner-city kids develop their creative sides.  I'm not quite sure how encouraging ten-year-old boys to paint colorful dots on porches translates into, say, eliminating graffiti vandalism, but apparently this is what a lot of people call progress in a part of town that has seen little of it in any variety.

Although, having said that, I must admit that Guyton's whimsical "Dotty-Wotty" House, also called the "New White House," whose entire two-story exterior is completely covered in colorful dots, is itself oddly fascinating.  If I were a bit more open-minded about such things, I might be persuaded to concede that at least some of the components of the Heidelberg Project, taken individually, could have more merit than the sum of their whole, which appears unable to sustain an impression of purpose.

As it is, as of this morning, there's even less of that whole than there used to be, with the burning of the House of Soul.

Fire officials have labeled today's fire suspicious, and it follows another fire in October that destroyed another building in the Heidelberg Project, and three other smaller fires this year.  Frankly, I'd heard about the other fires, since I've begun to follow - like a gawker at a train wreck - the increasingly bizarre news streaming out of crumbling Detroit.  I've already seen the photos from previous fires in the Heidelberg Project of burned-out houses lined with singed dolls, warped plastic, and blackened scrap metal, but they never really caught my interest, until today, when the piecemeal destruction of Guyton's dreams became more pronounced.

It's becoming ruin porn for ruin porn.  Poor Detroit.

But still, is it art?  Will curators from New York's prestigious Metropolitan Museum or France's Louvre now rush to Detroit to salvage what's left of the Heidelberg Project before it succumbs to what appears to be an arsonist's torch?  It's pretty much just been a collection of self-appointed ambassadors of the bohemian urban grunge scene who've made an avant-garde fuss over a project most other people would call "too little too late."  Labeling the Heidelberg Project as art probably doesn't do any disservice to Detroit, for obvious reasons, but does the term "art" get abused by applying it to such exhibits?

Even if you do want to call it art, however, would you want to live next to it?  And even if you think you would, plenty of other people wouldn't.  That's not to say that a democratic majority gets to decide what's art and what isn't, but sometimes, junk stacked against an abandoned house is simply junk stacked against an abandoned house.  And since we live in an approximation of a free country, if you still want to call that art, you can't make me agree with you that it is.

Which brings us to value judgments, which makes some people look at the Heidelberg Project as too important to burn.  And then there are people like me.  Yes, I feel sorry for Guyton and his supporters, because I don't think somebody should just be able to come along and torch something.  But I still don't think what Guyton and his supporters have is the same caliber of art as what's sitting, awaiting its fate, over at the DMA.

Who's right?

This is a question about the value of cultures, isn't it?  So often, we like to pay lip service to the idea that all cultures have equal validity, and that we should respect people who do things differently than the way we do things, because that's the way their culture tells them to do those things.

Sometimes, in cases like the Heidelberg Project, it doesn't really matter which cultural perspective is the correct one, or the superior one.  But many times, it does.  Yet we prefer to avoid the question by cloaking it in an admirable diplomacy.  If we don't like the way other people do things, it's because we don't understand their culture, and we don't appreciate their culture.  Not that - just maybe - either culture simply does things in an inferior, or superior, way.

My point is this:  not all cultures are the same.  We don't all see things the same way all the time.  Forget about debating the merits of the Heidelberg Project for a moment, and consider what the overall debate regarding those merits represents.  Culture itself can be arbitrary.  Particular cultures can't automatically have equal value, can they?  The values celebrated by particular cultures don't derive their validity from their very existence as a cultural value.

In this case, I don't find much appeal in what the Heidelberg Project has created, and I can't see the connection between what they've created and how that's supposed to translate into the sustainable urban renewal they claim it could.  But I can't say what they're doing is sinful, or wrong, or immoral, or wasteful, or corrupting.  I'm not sure about all of Guyton's motives, or the motives of his supporters, or the reasons for why they're apparently flocking to this one street in Detroit to take in the spectacle.  But I'm going to make a value call, and say that if it came down between the masterpieces at the DMA, and the polka dots at the Heidelberg Project, I think the city should try and protect the DMA's collection first.

Some might say that's economics talking.  At a billion dollars, the DMA's masterpieces are known to be worth far more than Guyton's efforts.  So in a way, the art world has already decided which culture is more valuable.  See?  These types of value judgments are made every day, and civilization as we know it hasn't fallen apart - yet.  That's because even though we say all cultures have value, we know they really don't.

What has value in these cultures are the people within these cultures.  That's why I say that I feel sorry for Guyton as arsonists are targeting his Heidelberg Project.  I don't really like it, but I sympathize for its creator, because while he's trying to make a positive statement about some pretty depressing circumstances in his city, at least one of his fellow residents appears to care not one iota about that.

By the way, what's that arsonist's culture like?  The ghetto culture of crime, mayhem, drugs, and nihilism?  How valuable is that?

Do you see how the acquiescence to cultural diversity is itself an ethereal pretense?  It's an impossibility.  What we should be striving for is the respect of people for their humanity, regardless of their culture.  After all, what is culture, but a social fabrication that likely has as much negatives in it as positives?

It may seem like splitting hairs, since so many of us are hardened products of our culture, and what we do and how we do it are literal extensions of our socialization.  Sometimes, the distinctions can seem trivial, such as with the different mindsets that ascribe value to art.  But enshrining culture can lead us to accepting norms and practices that may not be helpful.  So why persist with the fallacy?

Of all the lessons Detroit's downfall has taught us, and continues to teach us, learning to differentiate between things that are helpful and detrimental to cultures remains one of the most crucial.

We all have equal value as people, but the cultures in which we live do not.
_____

Update:  Yet another home burned Thursday, November 21, at the Heidelberg Project.  This time, it was the Penny House, and once again, officials suspect arson.

Yippie! Hippie Trip Over for VW's Bus

They liked 'em so much, they got two of 'em.

No, not little boys, although they got two of us, too.  But those old Volkswagen buses.  My parents bought two of them in a row.

You know - the flower power hippiemobiles from the 1960's, with the big, googly-eyed headlights, the front seats perched over the front wheels, and an engine in the rear that emitted a blue haze even when you drove it new off the dealership's lot.

VW's iconic bus hasn't been sold in the United States in years, and production at its last bastion of relevance, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, is going to end next month.  Never a marvel of German reliability, the bus lost favor in most of the developed world when its interior spaciousness - it's best feature - became available in better-made and more stylish SUVs.  Even Brazil has finally enacted safety requirements for all new vehicles sold there that officially make the bus obsolete.  It would cost VW too much to try and re-engineer things like air bags and anti-lock brakes to its bare-bones people hauler.

My father developed a taste for Volkswagens while he was stationed in Germany during the Korean War.  He served as part of a peace-keeping effort while Europe re-built after World War II, and was there as VW, legendary even back then, was re-building its line of passenger vehicles.  The Beetle had officially been known as Type 1, and the bus, introduced in 1950, was officially known as Type 2.

Oddly enough, in the 1970's, VW would try a crazy four-door concept car that looked like a cross between a Third Reich military vehicle and a Beetle on steroids, and call it the "Thing."  Thing 1?  Thing 2?  Maybe Dr. Seuss designed for VW when he wasn't writing children's literature?

At any rate, by the time my parents had gotten married in the mid-60's, the VW bus had already been claimed by liberal radicals for its quirky looks and simple practicality.  Why my parents - born-again, straight-laced, button-down evangelicals - were attracted to the bus, I  never did understand.  Granted, it was bigger than the Beetle, but I think it did make some people assume some totally wrong things about my parents when they'd first see them driving a hippie vehicle into a church parking lot.

Dad, me (feeding the rabbit), a relative from Finland
(wearing a Euro-chic pantsuit - this was July 1972, after all),
Mom, and my brother, at home in upstate New York,
with the blue VW bus behind us,
next to one of Dad's American-made tanks

I absolutely loathed those two buses.  The first one was blue with a white top, and the second was tan with a white top.  I can't remember what happened to the first one, but it couldn't have been its remarkable reliability that convinced my folks to replace it with another one.  They didn't have air conditioning either, and their heaters were laughably weak.  It figures they were probably made in either Mexico or Brazil, VW's main production centers in the Western Hemisphere.  Who in those countries ever needed a functional heater?

Regular readers of my blog know that I grew up in upstate New York.  Heaters are essential for cars for most of the year up there!  I remember ice crusting on the INSIDE of our buses' windows.  Top that off with thin vinyl seat coverings, and lots of painted metal inside, and you got a nifty walk-in, drivable refrigerator from November through April.

Not that my brother and I didn't find ways to enjoy our rides in those things.  This was back in the day before seat belts, and when we were small, both my brother and I could fit, standing up, in the front passenger seat space, where there was a handrail built into the narrow dashboard.  We'd stand up, the two of us, holding onto the handrail, as Mom sailed over those country roads north of Oneida Lake, none of us buckled up, not a car seat in sight.  My brother and I had our tiny skulls mere inches away from the broad windshield, and I remember that it was only when our heads kept banging up against the glass that we were convinced that we'd grown too tall to keep riding in that position.

Dad, meanwhile, always got big, American-made tanks from his company to drive, like those massive Ford Country Squire station wagons that were almost as long as football fields.  He'd drive off on business, plowing around the Northeast in those big, air-conditioned cars, all by himself, while his entire family bounced around rural New York in a tinny metal box.  I listen to new parents today gushing about all of the safety features on their bulky, expensive family haulers, and I smile in amazement at what we survived when I was a kid.

We were only ever in one traffic accident, in the tan van with the white top.  A high school teacher, oddly enough, ran a stoplight and hit us broad-side one Wednesday evening as we were on our way to church.  The teacher had just left a school function, and was closely followed by other high schoolers driving home as well, and they all passed by the accident scene, with their teacher standing in the middle of the intersection, next to his crumpled blue sedan.  None of us were hurt, but the bus stayed in the shop for quite a while as replacement parts found their way up from South America to New York's hinterlands.

Back then, Mom's parents lived in coastal Maine, and we'd drive up there every Thanksgiving, and during the summers.  I remember we usually took Dad's cars, since they were more comfortable and more suited for highway traveling, but a couple of times, we took those hideous VW vans.

The thing about driving from rural upstate New York to rural coastal Maine at Thanksgiving time is the weather.  Always bitterly cold.  Usually with precipitation that isn't necessarily in liquid form.  I remember Dad gingerly driving those buses along narrow back roads in New England ("all the crazy drivers use the Interstates," he'd explain, or, "it's the scenic route" when all we could see was white snow).  Of course, those roads were all ice and blowing snow because the snowplows were all out plowing... the major highways and Interstates!  And we'd always leave Maine to head back home at some unearthly hour, like 5am on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  I don't think those vans warmed up until the afternoon sun hit them - I remember Mom piling blankets on top of us to keep us from matching the ice on the inside of the windows.

When Dad was transferred down here, I was so relieved that we could start a new life in Texas without the stigma of a VW bus.  My parents decided that the rust beginning to show on the tan van, thanks to the salt New York applies to its winter roads, would look awkward down in Texas, where it never snows (yeah, right - it snows here, but they never put salt on the roads when it does).  So Dad found a sucker - I mean, a buyer - at the Exxon gas station where we regularly filled-up, at the I-81 interchange in the little village of Central Square, north of Syracuse.  One of the guys had worked on that van so much, he probably figured he'd replaced everything on it at least once already.  Dad hated parting with it, but I was so happy when we pulled away from that Exxon station, leaving that bus in its parking lot for the last time.  But even then, it looked rather forlorn, sitting there among all of the "normal" American-made cars.

Indeed, the VW bus was never conventional, at least in the United States.  It was always odd, weird, and a vehicular misfit.  In the 1990's, a later iteration of the bus, called the Eurovan, managed to revive Volkswagen's passenger van franchise for a few years.  It was even boxier than the buses my parents owned, but it had a front-mounted engine that required a snout, making it look less funky.  Those were also manufactured in Germany, adding an air of sophistication that the rear-engine buses from South America never had.  The buses still being built today in Brazil, whose production will end by the end of the year, are the old style like my parents had.

Apparently, down in South America, the traditional Type 2 has developed a reputation if not for reliability, then at least for being easily fixable.  With a relatively uncomplicated engine, even shade tree mechanics can keep one going at minimal cost.  And obviously, heating one is no problem at all.  Anyway, since so many have been built down there, it's not like VW busses are going to disappear from their streets anytime soon.

However, I can't recall the last time I saw one of any vintage here in north Texas.

While Brazilians are reportedly mourning the end of the line for their distinctive buses, this is one death of an icon that I won't be mourning at all.  Usually, I don't like change, but when my family got rid of its last bus, I couldn't wait to replace it with a conventional sedan.  When we moved to Texas, my parents bought a silver Ford Fairmont, with a burgundy interior, and I was thrilled that it had a trunk, and nobody could walk from the front seat to the middle seat to the back seat!

The Fairmont didn't even have a middle seat.  Wow - we were moving up in the world.

Today, my parents own a Chrysler minivan, and once again, you can walk from the front seat, to the pair of bucket seats in the middle, to the back seat.  There's not as much room to do it in like the VW buses had, but in terms of practicality, functionality, and space, this new generation of minivans has taken what those old hippiemobiles started and made it mainstream.  So mainstream, in fact, that the initial burst of enthusiasm for minivans that followed Chrysler's re-introduction of the concept back in the 1980's made them synonymous with fleece warm-ups in the style department.  They're the kind of vehicles grandparents drive.  Which suits my folks, since they have five grandkids.

The last time I was in the market for a new car, I briefly considered buying a minivan, since they have the headroom I prize as a tall person, and the versatility I thought I needed.  But when Mom asked me what kind of vehicle I was looking for, and I mentioned a couple of minivans, she scowled.

"Single men don't buy minivans," she advised.  So I ended up getting another Honda Accord.

At least nobody has ever assumed I might be a hippie.

80 Years, One Church

When you were eight years old, were you going to church?

If so, imagine what it would be like if you were still attending that same church now.  No matter how old you are today.

Now imagine you're 88 years old, and you're still a member of that church you joined back when you were eight.  Eighty years ago!

Lilly Stone lives in the tiny east Texas town of Chireno, and last Thursday, she turned 88.  She's been a member of the town's United Methodist Church since 1933, which by any standard, is a pretty impressive feat.  There isn't really any type of registry that keeps track of church membership records and who's been a church member the longest of any American, but if there was, don't you imagine 80 years in the same church qualifies Stone for some sort of award?

Or maybe it qualifies the church for an award.  I can think of at least one church whose pastor was glad when I left, because I asked too many questions, and stuck my nose in places where it wasn't appreciated.

For her part, Stone was presented a plaque from officials in the Methodist denomination acknowledging her achievement.

Perhaps it comes as little surprise that Chireno is a rather small town, with a population of about 400 people, out in the middle of noplace, kinda half-way between Nacogdoches and San Augustine, if that tells you anything about the area.  And unless you're from east Texas, it likely doesn't, which is what I mean.

Pleasant enough, probably, if you enjoy small-town life on a really small scale.  Probably not a lot of crime, and a place where you know just about everybody, and just about everybody knows you.

The kind of place where a lot of kids grow up and leave, because of the scant job prospects, and the slow pace of life that teenagers don't realize is attractive until they start having kids themselves.  And by then, it's often too late to change gears.

Meanwhile, people like Stone, whose maiden name was Atkison, progress through life, and suddenly, if they've lived long enough, they're celebrating 80 years of membership in the same church where they were raised.  Granted, it's not like Stone has been spoiled for choice of churches to attend in Chireno, since the Methodists appear to be the only game in town.  There's their tidy Methodist church, occupying what appears to be the best-maintained building in town, a Capital One bank branch, a time-worn grocery store with burglar bars on its windows (what was that about "not a lot of crime"?), and an air conditioner repair shop.

Hey, this is Texas, after all.  It gets hot here.

Oh - and a dinky U.S. Post Office, and a defunct Exxon gas station.

Now, we could be really mean-spirited, and ponder all of the plausibles about what kind of person Lilly Stone is to be content with the same small-town church all her 88 blessed years.  But actually, wondering such things probably says more about us, and maybe even betrays a little bit of envy - or contempt - on our part that somebody could be that content in that type of church in that type of rural community.  So let's not make this about her, but about you and me.

Were you going to church when you were eight years old?  Where was it?  What denomination was it?  How big was it?  Does it still exist today, that you know of?  And what about your faith?  Has it progressed much beyond what it was like when you were eight?

For me, the church my family attended when I was eight no longer exists.  At least, its congregation doesn't.  I believe the actual church building is still standing, and has been adopted as an ancillary facility by a church in the next village.  I'm not naming names, since I don't know any of the details around the closure of that old church, but if you're a long-time reader of my essays, you know I grew up on the north shore of Oneida Lake, in central New York State.  That's a part of the country that's been hit hard economically, losing a lot of its employment and population throughout the 1970's, 80's, and 90's.  The major employer for the community in which that church was located moved its manufacturing overseas during those years, and eventually went bankrupt.  For all I know, my old church folded not because of any internal strife, but simply because too many members had to look for jobs outside the increasingly barren Empire State.

I didn't have any friends my age in that church, although I remember the Sunday School department having a couple dozen kids in it.  Our classrooms were on the second floor, at the end of a balcony that was so narrow, it only had two pews in it!  The sanctuary was pretty ugly, painted a light green; freezing in the winter, and stuffy in the summer.  There were two elderly ladies who always sat in front of us, wearing those little pillbox hats covered in black lace, and one of them had a problem with flatulence, a condition that is particularly bizarre for eight-year-old boys.  I think our mother lived in mortal fear of my brother or me bursting out with innocent yet uncontainable laughter after one of the poor old lady's episodes.  Mom may have been strict, but she knew that some things were just unavoidable for little boys.  Even hers!

Okay, so have I grown up since then?  Well, maybe not much, since the flatulence story remains one of my strongest memories of that church.  But what about you?  Transport yourself back to when you were eight, and compare yourself then to who you are today.

Hopefully, this little exercise provides some encouragement for you, no matter where you are on your faith walk.

Then consider all the churches you may have attended since then.  Why did you leave them?  Or, theologically, why did they leave you?

What is the one church that you've attended the longest?  And why has that been?

Eighty years is a long time to have attended the same church.  Thankfully, our spirituality isn't dependent upon how long we attend a particular church, or even church in general.

Let's just make sure we get more out of however long we attend church than just a plaque.

Saints, for One, and All

Adapted from an earlier essay...


Sainthood.

Evangelicals have a problem with the concept, because we bristle at anything and any term most commonly associated with Roman Catholicism.  Catholics make people saints, which is something evangelicals think only God can do.

Technically, of course, whenever somebody professes faith in Christ for the first time, they become a saint, don't they?  So yes, only God can make a mortal a saint.  But we often use the word "saint" as some sort of special honorific, like the Catholics do.

So confusion over the whole thing is understandable.  But it's also unfortunate.

For example, today is traditionally considered All Saints Day in Western Christianity.  But few evangelicals observe it, mostly because of the "saints" thing, and we may be missing out on something.  All Saints Day serves as a commemoration worth observing because it draws on the victory Christ secured over death by His resurrection, and how that victory translates to our own mortality.  While most unsaved people fear death, believers in Christ benefit from a unique perspective on the end of life on this planet.  Since everyone who is saved will, upon their death, be automatically in the presence of our Lord for eternity, what fear should we hold about dying?

"Death, where is thy victory," remember? "Grave, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin, and sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord, Jesus Christ!" (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)

Granted, "how" we actually die is still something of which most of us remain apprehensive. And you'd be hard-pressed to find Scripture that tells us the process of dying is something we should anticipate, or we shouldn't fight against. Doctors and medical science have been gifted by God to honor life, and the advances in prolonging life our researchers have been able to achieve come not at the hubris of mankind, but the kindness of God in the form of Common Grace.

Still, when our time comes, who wouldn't prefer drifting away to heaven while in a deep sleep?  Yet how many of us do?  The point is that no matter how we die, where we end up is not in dispute, or a dreadful place.  Even if the streets weren't paved with gold, and that was only a metaphor for bliss, simply spending eternity in God's presence would certainly be far better than anything we could possibly experience in this life.

Which brings us back to All Saints Day, where the emphasis isn't on a morbid bunch of corpses, but on the reality that life is not confined to flesh.  Life continues regardless of what happens to our bones, skin, and organs.  Humans are eternal creatures, except that people who do not know Christ have no reason to anticipate the afterlife.  And it's not just the afterlife being acknowledged by All Saints Day.  Originally, the observance was created to honor martyrs of the faith, and remind the rest of us that even though God never guarantees that our life here on Earth will be idyllic, He does promise us to be with us no matter what we face, or the price we pay for claiming His Son's lordship of ourselves.

We can also use All Saints Day to remember the sacrifices made by not only martyrs, but also pastors, and cross-cultural missionaries, and even our believing parents and ancestors, that have contributed to legacy of faith that is expressed through the generations.  God works through individual relationships, but He created the broader community of faith for the perpetual propagation of His Gospel.  What's more, if we know something of the sufferings endured by these people who have gone on to their eternal glory before us, the Holy Spirit can use that perspective to embolden us in our own path of sanctification.  All Saints Day is not a time of sorrowful reflection, but joyful confidence in the sovereignty and faithfulness of our Savior!

So don't let the over-Catholicised term "saints" throw you.  If you've been bought by the blood of Christ, you're a saint, whether you always act like one or not.  Saints exist to worship God and enjoy Him forever, which is exactly what those saints who've gone before us are doing in real time right now, in Heaven.

Paradoxically, while we look back at the example of the "Church Triumphant," as dead saints are euphemistically called, we also look ahead to our own glorification with the end of our journey through sanctification to the feet of Christ.  In heavenly bodies.  Forever!

Kinda bizarre, huh?  But as long as we focus on Christ, and not on how it all doesn't make sense to us this side of Heaven, we can remind ourselves that God has not revealed everything to us yet, and that's for not only His glory, but our good.  Besides, yet another benefit in All Saints Day is reminding ourselves that we need to trust God that He will accomplish those things that impact our mortality in His time and way.

Faith.  Remember?

That's why observing All Saints Day can be so helpful, since faith is "the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1).  Honoring those saints who've already won their battles against flesh and the principalities of evil here on Earth helps us put into perspective the merits of God's love for us and the sacrifice of His Son.  And helps remind us of the eternal reward for us saints, and all who follow after us.

A common hymn at Presbyterian funerals is "For All the Saints," a wonderfully appropriate tribute to the life God provides each of His children in their walk towards their Heavenly home.  Consider its text here, and think about the saints in your life and family who've gone on before you, and the example you're setting for your sphere of influence as you continue your life journey even now.

After all, if the Lord tarries, someday, the church may be singing this song, and thinking about you as they do.

For all the saints who from their labors rest,
who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy name, oh Jesus, be forever blest. Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress, and their Might!
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well-fought fight.
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light. Alleluia!

O may Thy soldiers faithful, true, and bold,
fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
and win with them the victor's crown of gold. Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west.
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest.
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blest. Alleluia!

But, lo! There breaks a yet more glorious day;
the saints triumphant rise in bright array;
the King of Glory passes on His way! Alleluia!

From Earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast,
through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: Alleluia!

For All the Saints - text by William Walsham How, 1864

PS - I can't find any free online version of For All the Saints that includes congregational singing, but I like this solo pipe organ arrangement by a guy named "BigDaddyMark" on YouTube.  This is supposed to be a powerful, majestic hymn, and he gets it!  He's playing the behemoth blaster at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (yeah, "Saint" John) and if you can turn the volume all the way up, you'll be richly rewarded!  He goes through all of the 5 verses and then (after a glance to the camera, with a "you ready for this?" expression), does a glorious improvisation.  I like to think this is something similar to what it will be in Heaven someday when we all, from Earth's wide bounds, and from ocean's farthest coast, sing this in one massive choir to our Lord.