Gardener

One of the issues in the just past election that concerned me most was the Iowa Water and Land Legacy Amendment, an amendment that would allocate three-eights of one percent of sales tax to the conservation and maintaining of Iowa's grasslands, wetlands, waterways and forests as well as the conserving of its agricultural soils. To me it seemed like a no-brainer(and apparently to the Iowa Senate also which approved it by a 49-1 vote) since Iowa ranks 47th out of 50 states in conservation spending, has extremely polluted water ways, and is likely to lose more than 230,000 acres of habitat by 2012. Thankfully, the amendment passed, but the majority in my county opposed the amendment. And I can only think of two possible reasons, neither of them very persuasive. Perhaps some voters were opposed to any possible increase in taxes, even 3/8ths of one per cent of sales tax, and even if the money is used for the common good--things like hiking, fishing, hunting, health, and flood protec

I'm still reading the third volume of C. S. Lewis's Collected Letters (on page 300 with about 1100 pages to go.) Many of the letters are thoughtful responses to his readers--but not necessarily interesting to me. But occasionally one comes upon a letter that is sheer poetry, as this one to a Nell Berners-Price: Dear Nell, I am sorry to hear about your Mother. In a way you were most fortunate to have had her so long (mine died when I was a little boy), yet in another way it probably makes it worse, for you have lived into the period when the relationship is really really reversed and you were mothering her: and of course, the more we have had to do for people the more we miss them--loving goes deeper than being loved. But it must be nice for her. Getting our of an old body into a new life--like stripping off tiresome clothers and getting into a bath--must be a most wonderful experience. And here's another Lewis quote I ran into reading a book on imigration by Soerens and

Major league baseball has given us two morality tales this season, one heart-warming, one unsettling, both profound. The first was the almost “perfect” game thrown by Detroit Tiger pitcher Armando Galarraga. With two outs in the ninth inning of that game, a hard hit ground ball resulted in a close play at first base and umpire Jim Joyce called the runner safe. So Galarraga lost his perfect game. However most observers saw that the runner was clearly out—and TV replays gave concrete visible evidence to the fact. Here was a situation ripe for harsh language, bitterness, and recrimination on one side and stonewalling defensiveness on the other. But it did not come—at least not from the two key players in this little drama, Galarraga and Joyce. Galarraga’s immediate response was a shy, incredulous smile, followed a short time later by the comment that nobody’s perfect and everybody makes a mistake from time to time. Joyce admitted he had blown the call, apologized personally to Gala

C. S. Lewis writes the following in a letter to someone who had responded to his space trilogy, and especially That Hideous Strength: " When I've said that there is no allegory in it, and that there's nothing at all about the Second Coming in T.H.S., you may reply 'Well, that is what the books mean to an intelligent reader and what does it matter what you meant them to mean?--a point of view I wholly agree with." What startling words from an author, and especially one as opinionated and traditional as Lewis. Most authors, it seems to me, are far more critical of readers who don't see what they intended them to see or see what they did not intend to put into the novel. Yet here's Lewis saying he wholly agrees that it is the intelligent reader who creates the meaning from the text, and implying that the author surrenders any right to criticize the reader the moment he publishes the novel. I was just as surprised to hear my former colleague Jim Schaap

What is it? I don’t mean what do American corporations tells us it is, or politicians, for that matter. Nor do I mean what I in my most exalted or pious moments think it should be. But what is it when I take a deep hard look at what I most value in life. Well, here goes. It’s a spouse who loves you and shares her/himself with you, family—three and four generations, meaningful work, freedom from want, freedom to speak one’s opinions even when they conflict with these of fellow citizens, a church family and meaningful worship--especially preaching, a culture where justice and law make life more or less safe, a community where friendliness and courtesy happen as a matter of course, good books to read and movies to watch and music to hear and perform, good talks over good food and wine with good friends and family. That's it, off the top of my heart--and head. What would you say?

"Boys are now taught to regard Ambition as a virtue. I think we shall find that up to the XVIIth Century, and back into pagan times, all moralists regarded it as a vice and dealt with it accordingly." C. S. Lewis I have been reading The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, vol. 3, a book that goes to 1800 pages and provides, in addition to brilliant and startling statements, the opportunity for arobic exercise while lying on one's back in bed reading, holding the four pound volume in the air with both hands for about twenty minutes each night. The statement above made me sit up and take notice. Ambition a vice? It sounds positively unamerican. Have we turned morality upside down over the last two centuries? I checked what the Oxford English Dictionary says about ambition and found that every definition carried the notion of an ardent desire to rise to high position or attain rank, influence or preferment. W. R. Alger writes that "Aspiration is pure upward desire f

In my last Plumbline I told some stories about people I had encountered who were adamantly opposed to the very notion of global warming and human involvement in it. In each case the reasons were pretty superficial or even ridiculous. Today I want to try to express as fairly as I can the serious reasons people give for being indifferent to global warming. I want to be fair to them, but I also will try to refute those reasons. As I listen to and read the arguments of those opposed to the idea of human involvement in global warming, I encounter two main arguments, one has to do with science and the other with business and lifestyle. First, the area of business and lifestyle. For those who have a strong commitment to capitalism, the “free” market system, and the lifestyle that we associate with this system, a war against CO2 emissions will be perceived negatively. Why? Because, they say, it will have a negative effect on American business. That’s why organizations like the American Enterpr

I spent February of this year in Florida, hanging around with old folks most of the time—after all, I am 67 and an official member of AARP. One of the things I was told by an elderly acquaintance in Florida was that the whole idea of global warming had come from an 8th grader’s term paper. And he believed it. I asked him if he ever watched NASA launch spacecraft to go to the space station—since we could see those launches from our trailer park. Yes, he said, he had and they were pretty amazing: the huge ball of fire hurling the spacecraft into the heavens and then in no time at all disappearing, only to return from outer space precisely on time two weeks later after having traveled hundreds of thousands of miles and then landing as neatly as you might pull your car into the garage. Amazing! The precision of it, the marvelous science. Well, I said to him, do you realize that NASA, the same organization that put men on the moon and now sends them to the space station, is the organ

It is no surprise to discover that two-thirds of American phlanthropy actually goes to institutions (whether museums, orchstras or churches) that primarily serve the rich--essentially, the wealthy underwriting their own cultural esperienes with the benefit of a tax deduction--or that the futililty of American urban life has given rise to misogynist, nihilistic forms of music that simply underwrites broken horizons of masculinity and femininity with the alleged credibility of "the street." It is also no surprise that most money is made on Wall Street providing financial services to people who already have extraordinary amounts of money, that most advertisements target a thin (literally and figuratively) slice of prosperous young people, and that much of the rich world's research into new medicines target the disorders that disproportionately affect the rich world. Nor is it a surprise that in the name of economic and political empowerment, dictators like Pol Pot and Robe

Just about every year that we've lived here, I have been able to cut a bunch of pussy willow branches to bring as a bouquet to my wife--and every year she's thrilled with them. Those pictured here are past their prime for cutting, but beautiful in their golden fuzziness. For the rest of the year they will be absolutely ordinary, eliciting no wolf-whistles or ooh-lah-lahs, but right now they are lovely. Every year I cut them back so they do not block the sun from my vegetable garden, but they don't seem to mind. They come right back the next year. And these apricot blossoms, are so pregnant with blossoms I expect they will burst into blossom tomorrow if it stays warm. This apricot tree is about 10 years old and in ten years we have had about 4 apricots. Apricots need to cross pollinate, and our other apricot tree either dies every other year, necessitating our purchase of a new one, or blossoms later than this one. But we live in the hope of a lush crop some day. Maybe this

Here's a poem I wish I had written but in fact it is by Anne Porter: Another Sarah When winter was half over God sent three angels to the apple tree Who said to her "Be glad, you little rack of sticks, Because you have been chosen. In May you will becme A wave of living sweetness A nation of white petals A dynasty of apples."

In a sort of "aside" in his sermon yesterday (Easter Sunday) our pastor said, "What an appropriate mis-idendification Mary made, thinking Jesus was the gardener." For in the most comprehensive sense, he is the gardener --the gardener of the lives of all believers, of course, but also, as Kuyper suggests, the gardener of every square inch of creation, of the stars and the animals and the radish seeds just planted in my garden, gardener of rulers and politicians and voters, gardener of artists and poets and bloggers, gardener of architecture and technology and obscure academic journals--and he desires (I think) to nurture and nourish it all. Of course, all of creation is groaning under the weight of sin and that includes its caretakers; so much of what we see in the creation is bent or blighted or worm-eaten. But because Christ is risen, we have the promise and the witness of a new creation that gives us hope as we move out on this Monday morning into the gardens

What Glenn Beck Does Not Know Should one even bother to reply to Glenn Beck? Clearly, he does not use reason when he tries to convince folks to think like he does. Often, he attempts to frighten people by using words that carry all sorts of emotional baggage. Sometimes he talks as if he knows a lot about something, but in reality he’s not very well informed. I would hope that people would see through this sort of manipulation, but I hear that Beck has a huge following—even in a town like Sioux Center. So I am going to respond to something he recently said. Beck said that Christians should check their church’s web pages for the words “social justice” or “economic justice” and if they find them, they should resign from the church. Why? Because those words are really code words for communism and Nazism. Now for those Christian Reformed folk listening, if you bother checking the website of The Christian Reformed Church in North America, you will discover—if you did not already kno

Blindside and Precious Two movies having to do with African Americans caught in situations of extreme poverty were up for best picture at the Academy Awards this year: Precious and Blindside. Neither won, though in my opinion Precious should have. (But I saw only 5 of the 10 nominated films.) Both Precious and Blindside are fine movies but completely different in style. Blindside is a typical Hollywood movie, by which I mean, a movie that takes a true story and cleans it up into a slick, clean comfortable feel-good tale that allows rich, white, Christians and Southerners to feel good about themselves. Precious, in contrast, is a journey into the life of a young African-American girl who has been sexually abused by her father and experiences daily the most putrid kind of verbal abuse from her mother. The language, of the mother especially, is so violent and profane that it scalds your heart. Blindside seems to say that if once in a while wealthy whites would pick an Afr

And then there was one! At one point during my 20 year career at Dordt, I had 11 colleagues on the faculty who were Canadians. Now, with Hubert Krygsman moving to the presidency of Redeemer College, there is one. All of the departed Canadians were my friends and that includes not only those at Redeemer—John Van Rys, Jim Vander Woord, and Syd Hielema—but the others: John Vander Stelt, John Van Dyke, Fred Van Geest, Case Boot, John Struyk, and Simon DuToit. But my loss is nothing compared to Dordt’s loss. I know, of course, that generalizations about ethnicity or nationality are dangerous, but I will hazard some generalizations nevertheless: · The Canadians lived and breathed a Kuyperian worldview. It was in their blood and bones. When they were in the classroom, it was in the classroom. · The Canadians spoke with refreshing, Old World Dutch directness. They had no tolerance for bullshit. In an academic world characterized by evasion and euphemism and half truth, t

Letter from Florida (7): Long-legged Waders Florida is a paradise for bird lovers. And of all the birds we see around here, the most startling—even though many of them are common as robins up north—are the long-legged waders. What pleasure we take in identifying by name these creatures that we had no knowledge of a few weeks ago. Some, of course, we knew. An old favorite is the Great Blue Heron. We see lots of them here, though they look different than they do in the North: They have beards and white streaks in their plumage and they sit for hours on end with their long necks stuck down in their shoulder blades, like petulant old men. In the north—as I recall them—they are a solid blue gray and when you spot them they are either fishing or flying. We also enjoy the sleek, grey-blue Little Blue Heron. Another favorite down here is the roseate spoonbill, a gorgeous pink bird about 30 inches tall with a bill that looks like a couple of nearly flat spoons clasped together. I have some grea

Some time ago a friend told me that he was singing more, listening to more music and was, because of this, much happier. I believed him. Music is one of the most powerful and mysterious forces on earth. And just as mysterious is the question, Why do we listen to what we listen to? Why do we like some music and hate another kind? Is this a learned thing or instinctive? Example: I grew up in a home where classical music was on the radio most of the time. My mother had no use for the gospel music of her time and wouldn’t have walked across the street for a gospel concert. I remember a time when The King’s Choraliers, a Grand Rapids based male chorus that sang gospel music, came to Edgerton, my home town. It was a big deal in town because the director was a man who had grown up in Edgerton. But my mother was not the least bit interested in attending. As I grew up, I absorbed some of her attitudes and these were augmented by participation in Choral programs when I attended college.

Jennifer quotes Barbara Brown Taylor saying worship is not something that “people cook up by themselves.” And Luke suggests among other things that worship is a dialogue. Both suggest that God, the Spirit, makes worship happen. Of course as Ron notes, when one actually takes on Christ with the Eucharist, that’s everything. That seems to be the Catholic position, but does that mean fellowship with other believers is not a part of worship? Or exegesis of the word? My little screed of several days ago came out of a frustrating worship service that had way too much of the preacher’s personal opinion and not nearly enough of the word of God. That happened again this Sunday. It disturbs me. But suppose it was the word of God that was upsetting me? What if I heard strong Biblical preaching that was so radical it upset my comfortable life. That would be a good thing, right? I have been reading a collection of essays by Smith (The Devil Reads Derrida) and in a short piece on worship h

We noticed Mr. and Mrs. Crane walking by our house a couple of times a day and so one day we just went out and introduced ourselves. That’s the way you do it in a retirement village. They’re a rather odd couple, really, but gentle and sweet. They both walk in this slow, loping walk, sort of dipping down as they go and planting each foot so delicately on the grass or street that you’d think the ground was hot. Both of them walk this way—I guess it’s true that couples who live together long enough start to imitate each other unconsciously. Also, they both have red hair though that must be a genetic thing, not something that happened by imitation. In the morning when we take our walk around Lake Fox Village, they are usually out as well, standing by the lake--they have an unusual double-wide down by the lake, sort of round in shape, unlike most of the homes which are rectangular. They don’t talk much, but when they do, we sit up and listen. It comes out sort of like a honk. And if t

Speaking of worship—as I did yesterday—I am always struck by the worship practices of Flannery O’Connor. I was reminded of them as I read the new biography of O’Connor by Brad Gooch. While she was at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, she attended a small Catholic church around the corner from her apartment. Almost every morning! “I went there three years and never knew a soul in that congregation or any of the priests, but it was not necessary. As soon as I went in the door I was at home.” She is famous for a remark some years later at a literary gathering at the apartment of Mary McCarthy in New York City. Painfully shy, she has said virtually nothing the whole evening but when a woman remarked that she considered the host (in Holy Communion) to be just a symbol, O’Connor remarked: “Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.” For O’Connor the host was absolutely life-giving and was at the very center of her worship. My concern here is worship and it is clear to me that wha

While we are in Florida, we gather at a chapel with a number of Reformed brothers and sisters for Sunday worship and are led by a variety of retired CRC and RCA pastors--so one never knows what to expect. Yesterday morning, the sermon was from Genesis 1 and the central thesis was that the creation was the marvelous act of our all powerful God. Now this is a fundamental truth of Christianity and a worthly subject for a sermon; however, most of the time and energy of the sermon was devoted to a debunking of evolution--and in a rather sarcastic tone. This raised a couple of problems for me. First of all, the word evolution, like communism or socialism, is a word that makes a certain number of religious people automatically see red. To use it indiscriminantly as a synonym for atheism, that is, to suggest it represents a belief that denies the existence of a creator God, is to do a huge injustice to those who believe in some form of theistic evolution. And further, it denies the fact o

On our way to Florida, we made a side jaunt to Milledgeville, Georgia. It was a pilgrimage of sorts to the shrine of St Flannery. That’s Flannery O’Connor, author of two collections of short stories, two novels and a couple of other books, one a collection of essays on the craft of fiction and one a collection of her letters, both assembled posthumously. O’Connor died of lupus at the age of 39. Both Jeri and I have taught the short fiction of O’Connor for years and have come to admire it more and more the longer we taught it. Her stories are often violent and shocking, yet funny and unflinching in their portrayal of evil and breathtaking in their depiction of grace. Although most evangelical Christians would probably find her fiction disturbing—and even disgusting in some cases—it has been a force to be reckoned with in the largely secular world of modern American literature. “To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the blind you draw large and startling figures” is O’Connor’s epigra

My blog has been comatose over the past four months and the reason is "The Fruited Plain." Let me explain. In late August, my daughter and her husband purchased a building on Main Street in Sioux Center and began the long process of gutting it and creating from the space a coffee shop/wine bar to be called "The Fruited Plain." And just like that, I had a job--volunteer laborer. Whatever needed to be done, I did or attempted to do along with a large number of volunteers. We tore out the old ceiling and the loose insulation--by the dumpster-full; we pulled nails out of old 2x4's reclaimed from the old stud-walls. We put up new studwalls and covered them with sheetrock--in some cases 4 layers of 3/4 inch drywall, 2 layers on either side (for a firewall). We mudded the joints and primed and painted and applied a clay like substance to the walls. We cut trenches for plumbing and elctricity in the cement floor. We removed old paint from the interior brick walls to cre