Look Back to See the End
It is not some distant horizon
We live in town. To let the dog off leash, we have to go up to the cemetery, a hilltop space with a long, steep slope that was started in 1898. I go at dusk. Walking is the natural pace of life, so I like to go there and not hurry. Yes, we are walking the path around tombstones, but it is somewhat like a garden and no one else is ever there.
Our dog enjoys the freedom and I pray. Mostly I pray the same thing over and over. “How I need you.” While other things bubble up like the health of my uncles, the marriages of our family, and thanks for the basic needs being met by income, I sink into prayers for my wife and I.
The prayers are more like questions - the questions of a 5-year-old to his dad. I wonder aloud if I’m doing right, if I am seeing what I need to see, doing what I need to do, and if so, what more do I need to do?
We make a lap, slowly, the sky darkening. I circle over the same topics, not knowing what to do. I say how much we need a home. As the words leave my mouth, I look over at a tombstone:
we are nomads and pilgrims and that person once had a home.
My thought flashed back to a meme I had seen on Instagram recently showing a skeleton in a grave that said things like, “I was famous”, “I was a millionaire”, and “I had the most expensive house.”
The last one said, “I knew Jesus.” The comment below the images said how the world will give you a tomb, but heaven will give you a throne.
(I am not sure how to credit the creator, so I left the screenshot whole so all can see where I got these.)
Now, among the graves, there are two competing ideas in my heart:
the need for a home
and the need to let it all go.
Will the Lord provide if I am not doing what I need to do? Will He provide if I am making bad decisions with my employment or not trying hard enough?
We make another lap beneath the darkening sky as I pray about help. I don’t make a lot of money and I’m afraid my wife thinks I should be doing more, but what to do when waiting on the Lord? When you want every choice made to be the one He would like? Our situation isn’t simple, but I’m terrified that I’m the one talent guy - the one who buried what he was given out of fear.
I don’t know what to do. So, I walk the dog and pray. I am a nobody in a small town wishing for a home in the country. Simple. Alexander the Great, on the other hand... Not many people in history get to be called “the Great,” but what he did truly deserves to be remembered and studied.
Even so,
an epitaph says of him,
A tomb now suffices him for whom the world was not enough.
I think of another tomb, made from stone, simple, empty.
CULTURE
Here’s a headline for you:
Historic German church hosts worship service featuring Taylor Swift music
'Many had tears in their eyes'
“The Church of the Holy Spirit, a famous church in Heidelberg that meets in a 600-year-old building, put on a service titled "Anti-Hero — Taylor Swift Church Service" over the weekend in an effort to draw the interest of young people, according to Deutsche Welle (DW).
"The Church of the Holy Spirit has always been a place of encounter and exchange. That's why a pop-music religious service fits so perfectly," Pastor Christof Ellsiepen told the outlet. "With it, we are giving space to the questions and issues that occupy the younger generation."
Read that last sentence again and check how you feel about it.
They actually take space from the Resurrection and give it to teenagers. This trend of letting the youth guide us is breaking everything apart. When you are trying to be everything, you become nothing.
NEWS
A change in a definition by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) - the first paragraph tells of the move away from simple ‘sex’. Click here to read the article.
The change, published in the Federal Register on May 6, clarifies that
"[d]iscrimination on the basis of sex includes discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes; sex characteristics, including intersex traits; pregnancy or related conditions; sexual orientation; and gender identity" as well as "marital, parental, or family status." It is scheduled to take effect on July 5.
The complaint warns that the failure of McComb and similar healthcare providers to comply with the new rule could lead HHS to "punish them with huge financial penalties and exclude them from treating patients paid through [the] federally funded programs."
Do things by the government’s definition or get defunded. Just like public schools. This group wants the option to do medical procedures like transitions or to refuse to do them. With the new definition, they will be fined and/or lose federal funding that would otherwise go to help people with normal care.
It goes on to say
"Doctors should be allowed to fulfill their Hippocratic Oath to do no harm and follow their medical judgment without fear of government intervention," said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Matt Bowman, who is representing the clinic, in a statement on Tuesday.
"These radical changes by HHS will completely upend the practice of medicine. The Biden administration is working to force doctors to do harm by providing unnecessary procedures that remove healthy body parts and prescribing puberty blockers."
San Francisco spending $5M per year giving 'regimented doses' of alcohol to homeless addicts
The city of San Francisco, California, is spending $5 million per year on a program that involves providing alcohol to homeless people who suffer from alcoholism.
Not much to say here. San Fran will be San Fran.
We want to be compassionate, but is this the way? Does this follow the science? They must have a lot of extra money in San Francisco.
WHAT STOOD OUT IN SCRIPTURE
21 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. 2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. 4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. 5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. 6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. 7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
Even as a young person, I was always moved by Revelation. I know that its language is very different from the rest of the New Testament, but through all the imagery that we have lost connection to - not that it cannot be understood, but that one needs a guide to best understand it - it ends very clearly. Love through confusion, fear, loss, pain, and death.
The dwelling place of God is with men, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, for the former things have passed away.
There is and end. It is Christ.
There is a beginning. It is Christ.
Seraphim Rose said,
“It is later than you think.
The Apocalypse is now.
Hasten, therefore, to do the work of God.”
I love this quote because it rearranges my timeline. Another has said,
wherever Christ is, the end has come.
“… a priest in the Soviet Union wrote from prison to his spiritual children,
‘The end is not somewhere beyond the horizon; it’s just over your shoulder .’”
Isn’t that awesome to contemplate?
Even so, come.
ART
Hail, true Body, born
of the Virgin Mary,
having truly suffered, sacrificed
on the cross for mankind,
from whose pierced side
water and blood flowed:
Be for us a sweet foretaste
in the trial of death!
[O sweet Jesus, O holy Jesus,
O Jesus, son of Mary,
have mercy on me. Amen.]
WHAT I HAVE REALLY LOVED LISTENING TO
Nearer My God To Thee - this instrumental version will likely keep popping up here because I love it so much.
Give yourself time to let it in. Play it twice and really listen.
POEM
This poem is easy to read and follow the story. I just found it and saw how it fit into this post. We always think there is more time. We always get distracted. There is a time for joy and gladness, for thanks for simple good things, but far too often we get focused on our own plans and melt into blindness. Fill up your oil and keep your lamp trimmed and burning. Be found watching.
It Is Later Than You Think
Lone amid the café’s cheer,
Sad of heart am I to-night;
Dolefully I drink my beer,
But no single line I write.
There’s the wretched rent to pay,
Yet I glower at pen and ink:
Oh, inspire me, Muse, I pray,
It is later than you think!
Hello! there’s a pregnant phrase.
Bravo! let me write it down;
Hold it with a hopeful gaze,
Gauge it with a fretful frown;
Tune it to my lyric lyre ...
Ah! upon starvation’s brink,
How the words are dark and dire:
It is later than you think.
Weigh them well .... Behold yon band,
Students drinking by the door,
Madly merry, bock in hand,
Saucers stacked to mark their score.
Get you gone, you jolly scamps;
Let your parting glasses clink;
Seek your long neglected lamps:
It is later than you think.
Look again: yon dainty blonde,
All allure and golden grace,
Oh so willing to respond
Should you turn a smiling face.
Play your part, poor pretty doll;
Feast and frolic, pose and prink;
There’s the Morgue to end it all,
And it’s later than you think.
Yon’s a playwright — mark his face,
Puffed and purple, tense and tired;
Pasha-like he holds his place,
Hated, envied and admired.
How you gobble life, my friend;
Wine, and woman soft and pink!
Well, each tether has its end:
Sir, it’s later than you think.
See yon living scarecrow pass
With a wild and wolfish stare
At each empty absinthe glass,
As if he saw Heaven there.
Poor damned wretch, to end your pain
There is still the Greater Drink.
Yonder waits the sanguine Seine ...
It is later than you think.
Lastly, you who read; aye, you
Who this very line may scan:
Think of all you planned to do ...
Have you done the best you can?
See! the tavern lights are low;
Black’s the night, and how you shrink!
God! and is it time to go?
Ah! the clock is always slow;
It is later than you think;
Sadly later than you think;
Far, far later than you think.
PATRISTICS
Justin Martyr - a very, very early Christian witness.
“And when you hear that we look for a kingdom, you suppose, without making any inquiry, that we speak of a human kingdom; whereas we speak of that which is with God, as appears also from the confession of their faith made by those who are charged with being Christians, though they know that death is the punishment awarded to him who so confesses. For if we looked for a human kingdom, we should also deny our Christ, that we might not be slain; and we should strive to escape detection, that we might obtain what we expect. But since our thoughts are not fixed on the present, we are not concerned when men cut us off; since also death is a debt which must at all events be paid.”
T-SHIRT
This design comes to mind when thinking of the return of Christ.
Click HERE or on the image below to go to the purchase page.
For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. - Matthew 24:27 (ESV)
John Crysostom said of this passage:
How then shines the lightning? It needs not one to talk of it, it needs not a herald, but even to them that sit in houses, and to them in chambers it shows itself in an instant of time throughout the whole world. So shall that coming be, showing itself at once everywhere by reason of the shining forth of His glory.
Thank you for reading. Keep your lamps trimmed and burning.
See also ApologyApparel.com
For painting related material, see my other publication, INSCRIBED. Click below.
