The Prized Treasures

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  “Will the prized treasures of today always be the cheap trifles of the day before? Will rows of our willow-pattern dinner-plates be ranged above the chimneypieces of the great in the years 2000 and odd? Will the white cups with the gold rim and the beautiful gold flower inside (species unknown), that our Sarah Janes now break in sheer light-heartedness of spirit, be carefully mended, and stood upon a bracket, and dusted only by the lady of the house? . . . .   The “sampler” that the eldest daughter did at school will be spoken of as “tapestry of the Victorian era,” and be almost priceless. The blue-and-white mugs of the present-day roadside inn will be hunted up, all cracked and chipped, and sold for their weight in gold, and rich people will use them for claret cups; and travellers from Japan will buy up all the “Presents from Ramsgate,” and “Souvenirs of Margate,” that may have escaped destruction, and take them back to Jedo as ancient English curios.” Jerome K. Jerome, “T...

Strong in the weak places

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It's all catching up to me again:
  • Sunday School, we are taking a break from Mark and spending a couple of weeks on Philippians 4:1-9.
  • Ethics--spending the next couple of weeks on Genetic Engineering, which to me is a "non-issue" when you remember how a theological basis redefines everything (short version: man is not God). We find ourselves awash with all these ethical delimmas that should not be happening! I will be introducing the topic tonight with Huxley in one hand and Chesterton in the other (Brave New World vs. Eugenics and Other Evils). Writing these lectures are killing me--getting a theological response to these issues is necessary, but not easy!
  • Family: this whole teenager thing is really rocking the boat. I learn something about kids: you feed them, they grow. I am learning every day how much parenting is more about discipleship than anything else.

A friend of mine (a Kenyan pastor) smiles when I complain. "Look at how strong God is making you in all of those weak places!" And he feels my arms as if assessing strength . . . smiling.

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