Gettin' Schooled

For the last few days, I have been hanging out with one of my dear college friends in Clayton, MO.  Clayton is an incredibly upscale neighborhood in St. Louis.  The town is completely enchanting with rich history, gorgeous landscaping and inspiring architecture.  It should come as no surprise to me, then, that some things are a bit pricey here.

Yet, like a foolish simpleton, I didn't entertain that thought at all when I decided to drop three basic dresses off at a dry-cleaning joint nearby.  A couple of them were not clean and they were all wrinkled due to traveling in my suitcase.  Because I am planning to wear them for wedding festivities this weekend, I decided it would be best to fork over a few bucks to get the garments spruced up a bit.  

So, yesterday I walked a few blocks to the nearest cleaners and surrendered the items to the man behind the counter.  Nothing about the place gave me any hesitation, and true to the idiotic tendencies I had that day, I didn't inquire about the price.  In old-school cleaners style, there didn't seem to be any prices posted.  I wasn't worried.  In my experience, getting things dry-cleaned is not too pricey.  It's true that I don't probably do it often enough to really know the ballpark figures and I generally go to the burger joint of cleaning companies, but I just expected it to be $20 at most for all three dresses.  (Please, go ahead and laugh now if you know better).

Today, I explored the city while my friend worked (by the way, she wasn't with me yesterday when I dropped off the clothes.  Too bad because she probably could have supervised this situation.).  I had a grand but exhausting time riding the metro and walking miles up and down streets around the city.  By mid-afternoon, I was ready to head back to the apartment, so I swung by the dry cleaners.  

All seemed right until the cleaning agent spoke the total: $62!!!!!   What?!?!?  I tried not to drop my jaw when the unsuspecting man behind the counter dropped the bomb.   I was super surprised, but what could I do?  It was my fault that I had not checked into the prices beforehand.  I had no option but to give the man money and walk out the door.  Out of spite, I grabbed not one, but two candies from the counter jar as I left.  Ridiculous and unethical, I know.  The initial feelings of hurt pride and frustration quickly melted into hilarity.  I just had to shake my head and laugh at myself.  I suppose that's the most sane thing to do in a situation like that, right?  It's just money.  It's okay.  There are worse tragedies in the world.  

Just goes to show you that a girl my age can still get schooled.  All I know is I better look $62 worth of clean and pressed this weekend.  I better look mighty good. 

We just need a little John Wayne

As a pigtail-sporting child, I was mesmerized by John Wayne.  I remember watching him in a few movies and feeling admiration and intimidation at observing his no-nonsense approach.  It seemed to me like John always knew what was what.  The truth of a situation and subsequent course of action were crystal clear to him.  Forget about popular opinion!  He discerned what it would take to get rid of the bad guy and that was that!  Go get 'em, John!

The idea of absolute truth is controversial.  Mention the fact that you believe in such a thing and some people will ex-communicate you, at least in their minds.  It is not popular to have standards, especially any standards that might make others feel badly.  We wouldn't want to hurt any one's feelings!

The problem with being so overly worried about other's feelings is that there is no way to draw the line once that becomes your standard of truth-deciphering.  I mean, really!  Please don't discipline your child and tell her that touching a hot stove is dangerous because that would seriously cramp her style!

This tolerance mentality is dangerous in and of itself for obvious reasons.  Worse yet is the militant tolerance that demands that everyone else be tolerant.  It is counter intuitive and self-defeating to champion such a dictate, and it demonizes those who dare to admit that they believe in absolute truths.  Circular reasoning begins now.

Absolute truth can only really be believed if one believes in a Higher Power.  For the Christian, believing in Christ means that our views of right and wrong are based on the revelation of Scripture.   In society today, that is perhaps the most dangerous philosophy to embrace, at least to the relativistic, tolerant-preaching crowd.  How dare Christians have standards!!!

I wonder what John Wayne would think if we decided to redo his movies with a tolerance message featuring a noodly waffler of a man riding around and deferring to all but those ridiculous standards-braying cowboys.  One glance at his face and I'm guessing he wouldn't like it.  Not one bit.

The Question of the Human Condition

"No one can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations— He gives us His teachings which are truths that can only be interpreted by His nature which He places within us."  ~Oswald Chambers

What is the human condition? 

Is it the desire to do right?  Is it the need to promote self?  Is it an inevitable bent toward evil?  Is it the soiled slate of a purely born life?  When all is stripped from the exterior of human existence, what lies there?

Just a few days ago, a crazed madman burst into a Denver movie theater and let a firestorm of terror and bullets rain down on the unsuspecting crowd.  What ensued reads something like a terror novel smashed onto the pages of reality in what was a senseless and no doubt demonic act.  Though the event itself lasted a short time, the grief and the questions will linger for years.

How could a human do such a thing?  How???

Then, the age-old worldview question becomes painfully relevant.  What is the human condition?

Counter intuitive though it may seem, my belief that man's condition is a naturally fallen one gives me comfort.  Comfort because it reminds me that though humans have great capacity for evil, there is One who interceded on man's behalf and made a way for us to be supernaturally cleansed.  The truth of Jesus Christ and his saving power does not lesson the grief left in the wake of heinous human acts, but it does remind me that there is an all-powerful God who can reach into human chaos and give peace and life and healing.

My prayer tonight is that every grieving soul will not look to empty and fallacious human goodness for relief and balm, but that they will look to the all-loving, supernatural power of Jesus Christ. 

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."  ~Matthew 11:28

The Deepest Root

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Finishing a good book is bittersweet.  No matter if it's fiction or non-fiction, there is a mixed emotion that accompanies the ending of a mind-stimulating read.  A few days ago, as I digested the last sentences of Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas, this feeling of rich sadness was especially keen.  I felt that I was saying goodbye to a treasure.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, simply put, was a phenomenal man.  I know he would not wish me to idolize him.  If he were alive, he would stress that Christ was the power behind anything he accomplished.  Bonhoeffer was obsessed with his relationship with Christ and, more profoundly, with being obedient to Christ.  Yet, he was not a piously abstract and isolated Christian.  To the contrary, he was a very present and concerned believer who sought to be used for good and for the glory of God at a time when doing so was not easy in his country.

The story of Bonhoeffer's life reads like a thriller.  So many aspects of his story, so intricately entwined with Nazi Germany, are beyond belief.  Yet, it is the calm assurance and action of a man so hounded by stressful and dire circumstances that presents itself as the most astoundingly consistent thread in his life.  How can someone so harried by impossible situations ever remain calm and loving?  Wouldn't he become bitter, scared, crazed, angry or suicidal like so many others of that time?  No. He had a root system that ran too deep, a spiritual grounding of faith in Christ. 

It is this hallmark of his life that has impacted me most.  It is this compelling example of his that urges me to write of this book in hopes that you will read it too.  You would not be disappointed.  Let the following passage from a sermon of his give you a glimpse into the extraordinary life and legacy that is Dietrich Bonhoeffer (found on pg. 531 of the book):

"No one has yet believed in God and the kingdom of God, no one has yet heard about the realm of the resurrected, and not been homesick from that hour, waiting and looking forward to being released from bodily existence.
Whether we are young or old makes no difference. What are twenty or thirty or fifty years in the sight of God? And which of us knows how near he or she may already be to the goal? That life only really begins when it ends here on earth, that all that is here is only the prologue before the curtain goes up - that is for young and old alike to think about. Why are we so afraid when we think about death? ... Death is only dreadful for those who live in dread and fear of it. Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God's Word. Death is not bitter, if we have not become bitter ourselves. Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in him. Death is mild, death is sweet and gentle; it beckons to us with heavenly power, if only we realize that it is the gateway to our homeland, the tabernacle of joy, the everlasting kingdom of peace.
How do we know that dying is so dreadful? Who knows whether, in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly, blessed event in the world?
Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death."  

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