And Who Says Birders Don't Have a Sense of Humor?

(Found on the "Sightings" board at the Nature Center where I often walk.)

A catch-up entry: my week has been so full that I haven't really been capable of writing.  Sunday before yesterday, our church's pastor had the honor of preaching  a wonderfully prophetic sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.  I don't think he'd mind my quoting my favorite portion:

"And yet there is danger in this passage [he is referring to the Great Commission, which calls upon Christians to make disciples of all nations]; a grave danger of misinterpretation. And I fear that this danger, this misinterpretation, is holding sway, perhaps even winning the day in our nation. The danger, of course is, confusing Christ’s commission with some other commission; Christ’s vision, with some other vision; blurring the Kingdom of God with some other lesser kingdom until eyes can’t see and ears can’t hear, and we miss the mark of the Kingdom’s goal.

It is a danger that, throughout the ages, has led to great evil. Crusade, pogroms, destruction of native culture, cultural, political and military imperialism all in the name of Jesus Christ. As Gordon Kaufman once wrote: “what are we to make of the fact that the Christian institutions, communities, and traditions have been responsible for so much oppression and suffering in human history?”

It seems to me that the lines between the Kingdom of God and its baptism of self surrender, servant hood and reconciling love is being blurred in our country by a misguided vision of the American Kingdom and its baptism of self-righteous patriotism, materialism, and suspicion. We pray “Lord, lead us not into temptation” but we are being led into temptation, I believe, “like sheep being led to the slaughter” equating the great commission of Jesus Christ with an imperialistic dream of winning the world for some other kingdom. Winning the world for some Pax Americana at the expense of Pax Christi.

I received just two weeks ago the plan of the Ohio Restoration Project. Claiming the endorsement of major political leaders in Ohio, this so called “project” will target 2,000 pastors in the state to become “Patriot Pastors.” Participating in Pastor Policy Briefings and regional God and Country rallies these “patriot pastors” will be asked to insert voting guides in their church bulletins provided by the Christian Coalition, the American Family Association, and the Center for Moral Clarity. A statewide OHIO for JESUS rally is planned for late February or mid-March 2006. At the bottom of the mailing I received was the statement: “America has a mission to share a living savior with a dying world.”

I do not believe that is America’s mission.

When the church of Jesus Christ abdicates its mission to any nation, to any government—when we confuse the Christian story with any national story, when we superimpose a national agenda onto our Lord’s agenda—we are close, dangerously close, to losing our soul. We are succumbing to the devil’s temptation in the wilderness to bow down and worship him, so that “in an instant all the kingdoms of the world” will be handed over.” (Luke 4:5)"

Is it any wonder that I have been rattled by his invitation, offered a couple of days later, to preach in our church one Sunday this summer?  Soon.  Soon enough that I have gone completely brain-dead as I have waited for a message to come to me.  I know the text, but the well of inspiration has run completely dry.

And then there are my own job and employment issues, one child's preparations for summer school at his twin brother's college (and in his apartment), the other brother's preparations for six weeks in Spain, and the girl's graduation from high school next week.  She may turn out to be my one gainfully employed child this summer -- the animal shelter where she is doing her senior project has offered her a job and so she is trying to work out hours and dates. 

And the DRIVEWAY PROJECT.  A concrete drive to the back corner of the house; a concrete-stamped area in back to double as driveway and patio for out teeny tiny lot, and a new garage floor.  Think money, dust, money, machinery hopelessly stuck in narrow drive, money, my new friends the concrete guys here every morning to wake me up, money, my new friends the concrete guys disappearing to the beach and leaving me with a sea of mud, money, city permit and inspection headaches, money.

Can you tell that I've been through 90-year-old home improvement projects before?

And, finally,  who might have remembered for the past six months that summer always comes back around with its lush explosion of botanical life? SADD, you are finished for the season.

(Home of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker)(Tee-Hee)