Gardener

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...