Selling the House Before the Roof is On

Alexis de Tocqueville was researching the American prison system on behalf of the French in the mid 1800's when he wrote of American culture, "An American will build a house in which to pass his old age and sell it before the roof is on; he will plant a garden and rent it just as the trees are coming into bearing … he will take up a profession and leave it, settle in one place and soon go off elsewhere."

Is it simply part of the American experience to wanderlust? Is he highlighting a kind of stupidity that is still inherent to us? Not every American was or is like his generalization, but is there a common trait amongst us that contributed to our current economic plight? Are we selling the house before the roof is on it when our system seeks an ever expanding economy and encourages the frivolous and extravagant use of credit?

I'm jus wondering.

The Senility Prayer

Ran across this today, thought you aged ones might enjoy this. You know who you are!

Dear Lord,
Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
The good fortune to run into the ones I do, and
The eyesight to tell the difference.
Amen.

Forever Begging for Just One More Day

May you and I live this day so fully as to find needless the prayer uttered at the end of this amazing poem. Thanks, Billy Collins, for continuing to amaze us.


Statues in the Park

I thought of you today
when I stopped before an equestrian statue
in the middle of a public square,

you who had once instructed me
in the code of these noble poses.

A horse rearing up with two legs raised,
you told me, meant the rider had died in battle.

If only one leg was lifted,
the man had elsewhere succumbed to his wounds;

and if four legs were touching the ground,
as they were in this case--
bronze hooves affixed to a stone base--
it meant that the man on the horse,

this one staring intently
over the closed movie theater across the street,
had died of a cause other than war.

In the shadow of the statue,
I wondered about the others
who had simply walked through life
without a horse, a saddle, or a sword--
pedestrians who could no longer
place on foot in front of the other.

I pictured statues of the sickly
recumbent on their cold stone bed,
the suicides toeing the marble edge,

statues of accident victims covering their eyes,
the murdered covering their wounds,
the drowned silently treading the air.

And there was I,
up on a rosy-gray block of granite
near a cluster of shade trees in the local park,
my name and dates pressed into a plaque,

down on my knees, eyes lifted,
praying to the passing clouds,
forever begging for just one more day.

-Billy Collins

I couldn't resist

Props for this joke to the source editors at Homiletics. You guys are some of my favs:

A fellow has a parrot who swears like an old salt. The bird is a pistol. He can swear for five minutes straight without repeating himself. Trouble is, the guy who owns him is a quiet, conservative type, and the bird’s foul mouth is driving him nuts.One day, it just gets to be too much. The guy grabs the bird by the throat, shakes him really hard and yells, “QUIT IT!”

But this just makes the bird mad, and he swears more than ever. Then the guy gets angry and says, “Okay for you” and locks the bird in a kitchen cabinet. This really aggravates the bird, who claws and scratches. When the guy finally lets him out, the bird cuts loose with a stream of vulgarities that would make a sailor blush.

At that point, the guy is so mad that he throws the bird into the freezer. For the first few seconds, there is a terrible din. The bird kicks and claws and thrashes. Then it suddenly gets very quiet.

At first the guy just waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt. After a couple of minutes of silence, he’s so worried that he opens up the freezer door.

The bird meekly climbs onto the man’s outstretched arm and says, “Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you. I’ll do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on.”

The man is astounded and amazed at the transformation that has come over the parrot. Then the parrot says, “By the way, what did the chicken do?”

Rough Verse

Draft of a first verse of a poem I'm working on.  My Maryland friends may recognize the "blue train" as the MARC - speeding by, of course.

I’d love to settle into that restless breeze, 

Tagging along behind that blue train to the land 

Where no one owns a cell phone, nor needs one, 

A place where ringing things have no squeeze on me.

McDiet

It only takes one 10 p.m. McDonald’s commercial to stoke my appetite.  Even with a great dinner just over my shoulder I’m dreaming of a milkshake in my left hand and hot fries in my right.  If I’m strong I’ll settle for some of that cardboard stuff known as “Fat Free Popcorn.” Hey, we all crave the wrong things occasionally.

 

In a world of Little Debbie cakes, fast food on every corner, and grocery stores gaudy with too many choices, we are a culture addicted to food that is bad for us.  We are some serious snackers in the spiritual sense, too, having too often settled for a fast-food religion rather than the life sustaining gourmet feast that is really ours.  Jesus challenges us in John 6.26 with a word to the throngs following him around after the feeding of the 5,000, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” 

 

The message of the munchies is that we’ve settled – once again – for something less than God’s best for us.  We’ve chosen ritual over relationship, sappy over substantial, and flashy over the real nourishment of Christianity.  Many a modern minister has used the worship table to dish up stones for bread, but Christians have endorsed it, gobbling down the byte-sized pabulum that passes for preaching like Scooby-Doo and Shaggy tearing into a foot long hero.  Long story short, we need to look for a little more substance in our relationship to God.

 

That’s what we’ll be discussing this Sunday as we look at John 6.24-35.  The sermon is called McDiet and I hope you’ll come hungry. 

 

(p)Reaching for a crispy fry,

Pastor Gary

 

Long Story, Short is an email I send to get you thinking about church on Sunday.  You can read similar things at my blog, Life to the Lees.  This week’s sermon is part 2 of 5 in the series Hunger.  Upcoming titles and texts are: 

 

July 19 – Tastes Great               John 6.35; 41-51

July 26 – Stuffed                        John 6.60-69

August 2 – True Bread              John 6.51-58

 

John 6:24-35

²⁴So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ ²⁶Jesus answered them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. ²⁷Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.’ ²⁸Then they said to him, ‘What must we do to perform the works of God?’ ²⁹Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’ ³⁰So they said to him, ‘What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? ³¹Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” ’ ³²Then Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³For the bread of God is that which^* comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ ³⁴They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’

35 Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.