Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me

El Señor hace nulo el consejo de las naciones; frustra los designios de los pueblos.El consejo del Señor permanece para siempre, los designios de su corazón de generación en generación. Salmos 33:10, 11

The LORD brings the will of the nations to naught; He thwarts the designs of the peoples. But the LORD’S will stands fast forever, and the designs of His heart from age to age. Psalm 33:10-11

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel… Philippians 1:12

Some of us teacher types got talking about the “what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger” quote yesterday, as we walked over to the Poetry Center after lunch. And this used-to-be-Mormon-then-Jehovah’s-Witness-now-agnostic friend said that she hated that quote because then it makes all of the evil in world seem purposeful, laid at the feet of some helpless or uncompassionate god.

And it is really difficult to ignore the Bleak House in which we live, especially with the current tag team of Palestine, Iraq and border children, when I have so many connecting heartstrings to each of these situations, in a long line of situations tracing its way through history.

And yet, somehow the heart deep down believes in the supracultural understandings of justice, mercy, grace, kindness. And love. This morning NPR radio played a previously recorded interview with an elderly Afghanistan writer whose book of short stories was first published when he was 79 years old.  And there was a sweetness in his voice even as he detailed life among war-torn tribes.

And Week magazine, my source of all short snippets of relevance, included a summary from a recent study published in Science 2.0:

WHILE MILITANT ATHEISTS like Richard Dawkins may be convinced God doesn’t exist, God, if he is around, may be amused to find that atheists might not exist.

    Cognitive scientists are becoming increasingly aware that a metaphysical outlook may be so deeply ingrained in human thought processes that it cannot be expunged.

    While this idea may seem outlandish—after all, it seems easy to decide not to believe in God—evidence from several disciplines indicates that what you actually believe is not a decision you make for yourself. Your fundamental beliefs are decided by much deeper levels of consciousness, and some may well be more or less set in stone. 

    This line of thought has led to some scientists claiming that “atheism is psychologically impossible because of the way humans think,” says Graham Lawton, an avowed atheist himself, writing in the New Scientist. “They point to studies showing, for example, that even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul.”

And while the rocket's red glare, and the bombs bursting in air are certainly part of our human experience, there are also the signs of image-bearing at our deeply engrained levels of consciousness everywhere I turn, patiently offering up iodine-swabbed veins at the Red Cross Blood Donation Center, quietly filling the Community Food Bank box at Sprouts, and even the palpable heartbreak is evidence of His love so lifted up being part of who we are.

And this is the gospel, the good news, that each of us is beloved and children of the God Who so loved the world, and that His will stands forever. And each of us is the design of His heart from age to age.

And today may I be that good news as I live through this day, noticing one at a time the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, with eager expectation and hope and in full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.

And we have that Bible in five different languages: English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian

Some in the crowd were shouting one thing, some another. And as he could not learn the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks. Acts 21:34

Things certainly haven’t changed much in the past two thousand years.  There are still a bunch of folks still worried about the rules of religion, do this, don’t do that; think this, don’t think that. However, Paul says our actions will cease, our prophesying is dim, what we know will pass away. These are good things, but not what really matters.  All the neat little rules belong to the weaker brothers. We are to put aside our childish squabbling and choose what will remain: faith, hope and love.  

Lots of stories are coming out these days, about my dad, and the impact he had on so many lives.  For instance he taught Ali how to shake hands properly. But there is one that grips my momma’s heart.  

So one of my daughters, well all of my daughters, grew up on the mission field, surrounded by committed Christians of every creed and culture.  They were in church pretty much every time the doors opened.  They went to Christian schools and memorized Bible verses with the best of them.  But they were losing the story in the midst of the cluttered verbiage of premillennialism, dispensationalism, predestinationalism colored lines and charts that spoke nothing of an all powerful loving God, but mostly spoke of who was in and who was out. LIttle children drawing ism lines in the sand and fighting about things they do not understand.

One of my girls was pretty angry at this god created in the image of man.  If he was real, she was not so sure she wanted to be part of his club.  And on top of it all, she was all signed up to spend the summer with a overly cheerful short-term mission group and there was no way to get out of it all.  And she was absolutely unhappy.  And of course, one of the requirements was that every single person spend one entire hour every single morning reading the Bible.  Grumble.  And of course, her duffle bag with everything in it including her Bible had been stolen or lost or whatever.  So there she was, sitting alone in the jungle with her backpack and very crabby at Someone. Well not alone.

So she rummaged around in her backpack.  Nothing else to do. And lo and behold, her sneaky grandpa and done his little trick when she wasn’t looking.  He had slipped a handful of his ever-tucked-into-his-shirt pocket little Bibles. Just in case.  So my daughter, suckled on the word of God started flipping through the familiar verses. Verses of comfort, assurance and salvation...from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith is in Christ Jesus...for by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is a gift of God: Not of works, lest any man shall boast...for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. But He sent not His son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved...

And somehow, there God met her in a fresh new way.  His way. Not our way. And I have been rereading and rereading 1 Corinthians 13.  In a fresh new way.
  

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Love never fails.  

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails.  For God so loved the world.