A Christian Worldview from Silicon Valley

Getting to know people well is like a treasure quest to me. Meyers-Briggs notwithstanding, we’re all uniquely talented, quirky, marked by experience, and it’s my task to discover the special qualities of the people who cross my path. But the quest doesn’t always end with the person in front of me. Sometimes I get to meet the parents, and then the real fun begins:

So that’s where he got that verbal expression.
No wonder she’s paranoid about germs.
Ah, his dad is artistic, too.
And so on.

On April 1, as I sat outside the KLM gate in the Amsterdam airport, I saw the best example of a Bahiana (by-uh-nuh) that I have ever seen with my own eyes. The epitome of a traditional Bahiana is a large black woman from the state of Bahia (bah-ee-uh) in Brazil who dresses in a sumptuous dress and turban that enables her to carry a basket on her head. Because I was getting ready to board a flight to Uganda, East Africa, it dawned on me that I was not looking at a Brazilian, but an African. That was my first clue that I was about to meet Mama Africa.

Having spent eight years of my childhood in Brazil, I was intimately aware of the unique attributes of that country. It was obvious from history that the years of importing slaves had marked the culture in profound ways. However, I hadn’t expected the deluge of comparative details that assaulted me when I woke up the next day and began exploring Africa. I noticed similarities in architecture, engineering, clothing, handwriting, geology (red dirt=iron!), crafts, meals, plants, and so on. How wonderful to know the child and have the opportunity to meet the mother!

Jesus left heaven to dwell among us in order to give us a similar Aha! experience. He even uses the parent-child analogy, saying, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” All people reflect God to a certain extent, since we are all made in His image, but the goal of a Christian is to grow more and more like God the Son, and thus, God the Father.

Do people look at you, just being yourself in your everyday activities, and think, “I know why she’s behaving, speaking, dressing, concluding in those unique, counter-cultural ways. It’s because she lives under the influence of her Father.”

Do you look at those around you and wonder, “I’m hearing certain language and seeing certain behaviors and observing certain thought processes in him that make me think he is a child of God.” Then what do you do?

I was playing golf a few weeks ago with a new friend who is a long time Christian and, at 83, a man with no small amount of wisdom. He knew that I was the minister at the Palo Alto Church of Christ, and as we walked down the 9th fairway he asked me a question.

“How are you doing with one of your brother ministers being so much in the news and so controversial?”

I hesitated for a few seconds while my mind tried to interpret the question, and then I got it. He was asking me about Jeremiah Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ. And why shouldn’t he? Both churches use the name Church of Christ, and to anyone who is not familiar with either of these churches, the names would seem to indicate that they hold many things in common.

My friend, being who he is, knew that the likelihood of our churches being affiliated with one another was remote at best, but his question made me wonder if anyone else might have made that link. Do people in the neighborhood of PACC think that we are part of the same movement that defines Trinity United?

I mostly forgot about that possible link until this past week when I received a phone call at the church. The nice lady on the other end of the line wanted directions to our church from Monterey, because she was coming to a memorial service. I did give her directions but then asked if she was certain the service was going to be at our church. She said she got our number from information, and then she read the notice about the service which said it would be held at The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints on Middlefield Road in Palo Alto.

The names are similar, but the churches are not the same.  How much does the world view us by our name, and what’s in a name?

Paul writes to the church in Ephesus (and, by extension, to all churches) that they should be about “redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Just what does that mean, and how do we redeem the time?

Let’s start with two phrases that are common to our vernacular. The first phrase, which corresponds closely to redeeming time, is “buying time.” We use that in all kinds of ways, and what we usually mean is that we are holding off some undesired outcome for a while. A judge may order a cooling-off period for a union, for instance, before they go on strike, thus “buying time” which might be used to reach a settlement. A student may have a paper due but not be ready, and may “buy time” by seeking an extension.

The second phrase is “spending time,” and that is one we know well. Most of us prefer to spend time in the presence of people we like, and in activities that we like. I’d rather spend time reading, walking with my wife or playing golf than I would paying bills, being yelled at, or listening to bad music.

The common thread in both buying time and spending time is that they are often centered on our own desires. Redeeming the time, at least in a Biblical sense, is far less self-centered and far more God-centered. What Paul is encouraging us to do is to use time to do things that God wants us to do. Many of those can be found throughout scripture, but they include encouraging one another, teaching one another, being filled with God’s spirit, acting wisely in all things, and being thankful in all things.

You see, redeeming the time is not about a particular activity, it is about a particular attitude. With the right attitude, even spending time can be redeeming.

Under the mercy,

Lewis

A little insight into what’s wrong with me, or at least what goes on inside…um, sometimes.

Each morning I try to have a two way conversation with God. You know, voices in my head, whispering sweet somethings, standing on both shoulders so the devil’s minions will leave me alone.

I like to have the conversation first thing in the morning because, well, just because. It suits me. It’s not any more right or wrong than any other time. And I do not have conversations ONLY in the morning.

The conversation goes something like this -

Before opening my Bible, I usually know where I will be reading, as in which book and sometimes which chapter.

(more…)

How far is your heart from your mouth?

When was the last time you felt something deep within your heart, your gut, your soul and you let it out?

When was the last time you were touched positively by someone’s actions, their words, and you let them know?

When was the last time you felt loved and you told the person who loves you?

When was the last time you were offered encouragement and you told the encourager?

When was the last time someone taught you something and you told them how much you appreciate the lesson? Hard as the lesson may have been.

When was the last time you said things like ‘thank you’, ‘you did a good job’, ‘that really encouraged me’, ‘I am a better person for having talked with you today’, ‘you are a great example of…’, ‘I wish I could be like you when you…’, ‘How did you become so good at…’?

We feel things, I know we do.

We admire people, love people, appreciate people, cherish people, are better people because of those around us. We love.

Let’s start telling people the good things we think about them. Let’s start today.

Last weekend my husband reminded me of the recent spate of freeway shootings where, apparently because of road-rage, someone decides someone else’s time has come and acts on that decision.

That such a thing can happen is symptomatic of many problems (gun control, anyone?), but I’m extremely disturbed at the low regard for life.

In Nancy Pearcey’s book “Total Truth,” she says:

All these forms of cultural dissolution, [Francis] Schaeffer writes, have “come about due to a shift in worldview… to a worldview based on the idea that the final reality is impersonal matter or energy shaped into its current form by impersonal chance.”

If this is truly a product of the long reach of Darwinism, so much for the atheists who believe religion threatens the survival of mankind. In the case of road rage, I don’t think the fittest survives.

How different would our world be if we all viewed each person as someone created in God’s image, someone Jesus died for?

For two years in the late 1970s I was the tennis pro at a small club in Quincy, Illinois, a town on the Mississippi River not far from St. Louis, Missouri. One of the best tennis players in the world at that time, and certainly one of my favorites, was an Australian named John Newcombe, and when I learned that “Newk” was going to be playing in St. Louis, I arranged to take some of my better students and go see him.

The trip was great fun, the tennis was excellent, and I absorbed it all with excitement and joy. It was late at night when we got home to Quincy, but I was anxious to get back on the court myself, and fairly early the next day I did just that. Now here is the good bit… no one could touch my serve!

Normally my serve was adequate, but after watching John Newcombe serve in the tournament, my serve became instantly (though temporarily) far better than it had ever been. For the rest of that day and even part of the next, I was a reflection of John Newcombe. And I loved it.

In Ephesians 4 Paul writes that we are to help each other grow up into Christ, and then he tells us to “walk no longer as the Gentiles walk.” How can we do that? By setting a John Newcombe kind of example in areas where we are strong, and by watching for John Newcombe examples in areas where we are weaker.

If you want to walk in the way of the Lord, if you truly want to “walk the walk” of a disciple of Christ, then follow Christ’s example. Perhaps if we watch closely enough we will learn to serve like Jesus.

Under the mercy,

Lewis

Cough! Cough! Cough! GASP!!

That’s how I feel about now. And, if someone else can think of a better way of expressing the sounds of coming up for air, please let me know.

For the past couple of months, SamW has been a slave driver. Uncharacteristic of many such drivers, he has no whip. He’s right down here in the trenches with me. We have been trying to get a project done by an unbending deadline.

We did it. But, in the end, as hard as we worked and planned in advance, it still took more than 40 hours of work in less than 3 days with time out for worshiping God in the middle on Sunday. (more…)