Eden's Bridge

God saw one thing in creation that was not good: Adam was alone. Other than my own ponderings, I have never read or heard why. But God’s response rectified the situation by creating a co-worker for Adam. Most theologians, preachers, and laity would point to Eve being created as Adam’s wife for the production of future generations but that is not how she is first introduced.

In effect, God created a market economy by introducing the division of labor so Adam (and Eve) could prosper together. That is, they could help each other by specializing in their work and thereby increasing the “wealth,” or creature comforts, of their existence by exchanging the fruits of their individual efforts. That increased comfort was to be a sign of God’s blessing, evidence of his grace.

Another little noted reality, which I had to point out to scholars working on a biblical theology of work, is that God did not command Adam to work: God created Adam to work. Read the text again. Commands to work in the Bible come only after Adam’s fall from grace as corrective instruction to overcome the influence of sin.

Vocation first, then trade, or exchange, are central to the original order and intention of creation. We often hear that work is inherently dignifying, giving a person the ability to contribute to their own support. What we miss is that their work contributes to the economic vitality of the whole world. We are, in the parlance of drudgery, simply cogs in the machine. But that perspective is exactly what the world would have us embrace over against God’s intention that we would find personal fulfillment by taking part in the economic health and betterment of all, from our households and co-workers at hand, to the farthest reaches of our tightly globalized economies.

Unfortunately, the Church has moved far away from business as being a “worldly” pursuit taking greed and abuse as the hallmarks of commerce. Should we likewise take infidelity and beatings as the hallmarks of marriage? Obviously, we answer “no” to the latter because we understand that sin has corrupted this “original” institution of God. We should embrace the marketplace just as we do marriage, bringing the redemptive grace of God to bear in the workplace and in trade.

The Church has embraced the concept of charity, that is, of giving through funds, services, and goods. That is right and good. But, though God saw a shortcoming in Adam’s existence he did not simply make it easier for Adam to thrive in Eden by directly providing everything for him. Rather, he gave him a job and created a market place, a more indirect facilitation for blessing.

So, how does this support the idea that the Church should go into business? Well, in many ways, the Church is already in business. We often think of the Church in predominantly institutional terms. But the Church is all of God’s people and the vast majority of its members enter the marketplace on a daily basis. Hence, in significant ways, the Church is already in, and doing, business, by working diligently, by applying the integrity of Christian ethic, and even in positions of empowering leadership.

The results include providing jobs and incomes, facilitating giving, and creating opportunity for growth economics to bless the lives of even more of the global poor, wresting them from the throes of poverty. And there is a significance here that can be easily missed.

When we survey the global scene, we are confronted by a myriad of hardships and striving. We have domestic racial divides and global political and religious conflicts. Interestingly, if we boil them down, nearly all are rooted in economic deprivation or strivings after economic power. Sex trafficking exists because 1) there is a market for sex (meaning people are willing to pay for it) and 2) there are unscrupulous people greedy enough to abuse others (typically the economically vulnerable) to make money.

Most religious conflicts are rooted in power struggles for influence and economic influence is most powerful of all as it affords the one with wealth to wield increasing legal and military strength. Hence we find struggles between ancient religions as they fight for cultural control and seek to extend their reach taking unto themselves more and more power via economic and political strength. No one would be aggressive in war if not for the ability to fund their supply chains and weaponry.

My point is, as we survey the Bible, we will find that there are two main ingredients at work in the devastations of humankind. First is alienation from God. The second is human autonomy due to that alienation. Because we fear deprivation, because we do not know or trust God to provide for and protect us, we hoard wealth and we fight one another. Our alienation from God reaps alienation from our own (human) race.
Why should the Church go into business? Because exchange, based in godly values, overcomes evil. Globalization has cut the rate of global poverty in half in the last twenty years. Trade mitigates strife between nations as trading partners realize the debilitating and economically draining impact of war. Jobs reduce crime in poverty stricken areas. Where more people have access to gainful employment, they are less inclined to steal to feed their families. Where education is understood to be a key element to a healthy economy, jobs proliferate and businesses thrive. Where economic provision reaches the furthest down the economic ladder, shalom, the overall well-being of society-at-large, grows.

Closest to home, we see whole sectors of our metropolitan areas marginalized where business closures and job losses, coupled with poorly run educational institutions, ill preparing youth to take part in even their local economies, lead into a downward spiral of desperation. That desperation supports illicit trade in prostitution (including pornography) and drug trafficking, both of which lend themselves to organized crime and gang activity.

Churches have an opportunity to impact their broader communities but most cloister, either as havens of escape in desperate communities or havens of excuse in wealthier ones. Sadly, most clergy have no concept of the biblical or theological legitimacy of commerce as God’s plan for humankind. It is this ignorance, and feeble preaching that does not pierce the heart to “love one another” and bless the poor, that keeps the Church in the West divided racially and economically. It is this ignorance that makes the Church’s charitable works repetitive trips to the same well, drawing deeper and deeper until the waters must be parsed out sparingly rather than overflowing in abundance.

The Church has the resources, not just of funds but of intellect (reasoning capacity), intelligence (that is, information), experience, and time to change the world, to witness to the glory of God for all the world to see, simply by self-sacrificially reaching out to bless the poor by welcoming them into the “rest” of economic viability. That witness is specifically why the Church should go into business.

Religious anti-evolution rhetoric poses a hollow argument against the development of God- consciousness in primates (as opposed to the spontaneous creation of full physically and spiritually complete humanity in Adam and Eve) by claiming that death came into the world through sin which did not exist before Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit. On the surface, the argument sounds good but there are some very simple, though subtle, problems that undermine the argument.

First, God told Adam that the very day he should eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he (Adam) would surely die. The Hebrew term for die is muth which is commonly understood to be physical death throughout the Old Testament so the doctrine of the introduction of physical death by this act of sin would appear to have at least one leg to stand on. The first problem is, if physical death had never occurred before Adam sinned, and obviously before God announced this particular penalty in Genesis 2:17, Adam would have had absolutely no understanding of the concept and God’s proclamation would have been meaningless without such a point of reference in Adam’s experience or knowledge. We have no indication whatsoever from the text that God supernaturally explained or infused a knowledge of death into Adam’s understanding.

The second problem is the bigger one and comes in God’s judgment in Genesis 3:14-24a. The direct result of Adam’s sin was numerous curses placed on Eve, Adam, and the ground, then Adam’s banishment from the Garden in 3:23. The problem is not explicit here but is implied if we take God’s original commandment in 2:17 to mean physical death (as an argument against physical death before the Fall). After he sinned, Adam did not die physically. If we adhere to a literal interpretation, that would mean 1) God lied and 2) the serpent was the purveyor of truth. But we know from the rest of Scripture and by the witness of the Holy Spirit that 1) God does not lie and 2) Lucifer misleads by means of deception.

The solution to this seeming inconsistency on God’s part is to realize that what made Adam and Eve human as divine image-bearers, was not their physicality, that is, we easily assume that our physical nature is not reflective of the image of God since God is Spirit and has no physical nature. What made them human was god-consciousness which allowed for communion with God. It is relatively easy to understand that I can have no overt relationship, and especially an intimate one, with someone or something of which I have no knowledge of its existence. When God breathed life into humanity, he breathed into a pre-existing body which was created before god-consciousness was possible, even according to the order of operations in the text itself in Genesis 2:7. In this sense, becoming a “living being” takes on a very different meaning than simply drawing breath of oxygen. It means drawing a different kind of vitality from the realized, inspired (or “in breathed”), notion of the divine.

When we speak of death, we most often think in physical terms but we do not consider the extended etymology of the term itself. The Hebrew term, muth, carries both a figurative and a literal sense. Adam did not die literally, that is, physically, from God’s judgment on his sin. Rather, Adam died figuratively, spiritually. As he was displaced literally from God’s presence in the Garden, he was also displaced figuratively from God’s presence spiritually, from intimate communion. We do not die in a literal sense when we sin but our sin separates us from communion with God because our unholiness cannot abide with the holiness of God.

If we die unrepentant and unforgiven in our sin, we ultimately suffer twice in the loss of physical communion with the world and our loved ones and also in the loss of spiritual communion with God. We can attest to humankind’s fallen nature and the struggles of life – according to the laborious nature of Adam’s work after the fall and even the resistance he meets in his enduring interactions with the rest of creation (the coming forth of the thorns and thistles from the accursed ground) – due to our spiritual isolation from God.

While our species likely evolved physically very much along the lines science suggests, god-consciousness was the spontaneous act of God’s grace – the infusion of divine breath – that made Adam, and us, aware of the reality of God and called into being response-abled humanity.

As I continue working through Georg A Reisch’s Pink Floyd and Philosophy, I find numerous themes relevant to the Kingdom of God as an emerging – already-but-not-yet – reality. That is, there are components of the Kingdom that have been and are being realized in the here-and-now while its culmination rests entirely in the future return of Christ.

One such theme is highlighted in the eighth chapter, “Roger Waters: Artist of the Absurd,” by Deena Weinstein, a professor of Sociology at DePaul. Weinstein analyzes Waters’ lyrical contemplations of the tension between the human desire for connection (i.e., unity) and the draw of autonomy. Water’s, in alignment with the Albert Camus’ existential frustrations, presuming an atheistic point of view, is reduced to only voicing the frustrations of that tension. That is, he is reduced to an absurd view of life (and therefore of expression) given the futility of trying to overcome a seemingly perfect balance between these two realities: those of alienation and ego.

Water’s ultimate futility is likely captured most succinctly in the bewildering and morale crippling fade at the end of “Time” (Dark Side of the Moon):

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English* way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say.

[Author: I would have to substitute “fallen human” here.]

Any real value to Water’s reflections are now made void, trailing off into the mind-numbing loss of coherency. Finding and offering no answers, there is nothing for this lost soul, still alone in trying to make connections while simultaneously clinging to individual personal identity, to wrap his mind around as a truly unifying factor in human experience. He is frustrated by his aloneness (“It is not good for the man to be alone.”) while creating the very walls of his own isolating and alienating prison. Unfortunately, having never seen over the walls, he does not realize that there is any reality outside them.

He is, so to speak, blinded by his own ego and will, simultaneously unwilling and, therefore unable, to trust in anything outside himself and his own ability to perceive truth (reality). This is the ultimate act of hubris because it disallows epistemic humility. Perhaps the artist would be better served to step back long enough to realize his frustration is not with externalities but with his own capacity which is far too limited to grasp “everything under the sun” in its completeness. On the other hand, I believe Water’s is honestly wrestling with his own internal discontinuities (which Weinstein points out) but still cannot see the necessity of making himself vulnerable to overcome the hurdles he cannot see over. He needs an external answer (God) but wrestles on, seeking the closing line to the last verse that still eludes him, his “something more to say,” for his own sake as much as for the listener.

Here then I would address the significance of his dilemma for the Church and, therefore, the mission of God (the mission Dei) and the advancement of the Kingdom of God. It is the very same blindness of the artist that cripples the Church in its pursuit of serving God. It is the blinding power of ego that voices belief yet continues to live (act) in unbelief.

This is the impact of Adam’s sin. Not that God could not have spontaneously changed Adam to “fix” his failure. He easily could have. What God did do however was to put Adam out of the Garden and curse the ground to harden the task of Adam’s existence. It would seem Adam, finding himself outside of God’s intimate grace (though still the recipient of his life-giving and sustaining grace), would have immediately humbled himself to re-enter the security, the shalom, of that former intimacy.

What Adam did, however, and everyone since (except Jesus), was to allow his circumstances to drown out the call of God to humble himself. Adam became autonomous and self-reliant. His sweat and toil were the products of his own desire to be like God outpacing the blessing of being with God. Adam chose disunity with the divine in hopes of making himself divine. In the aftermath of his sin (his disunifying choice and action), God chose to let Adam’s race experience that disunity in the hopes that the despair of autonomy (attempting to fulfill oneself and the inner re-calling to communion with the divine) would drive them to seek God’s fellowship once again. But that fellowship demands releasing one’s autonomy.

The disunity of the Church is a function of this same fear of vulnerability. We tend to trust our own theological evaluations and valuations of a long litany of doctrines more than we can bring ourselves to trust others. Our mistake lies in wanting to put our trust in the evaluations and valuations of others (and ourselves) before we place our trust in God. This is not unlike the dysfunctions of marriages. As the bride of Christ, we refuse to release ourselves entirely to the groom. We distrust because our ego disallows trusting God’s goodness to the point of overcoming the fear of vulnerability. “What if,” we ask subconsciously, God (my Groom) cannot fulfill all that I desire? What if God is not sufficient to meet all my needs?

This distrust then is misdirected to our peers who also suffer the same malady. Sadly, to even admit the malady makes us vulnerable and exacerbates our fear of being abused. Our wariness is directly a function of our lack of faith because, knowing history, we fear reliving it in our own experience.

Storm Thorgerson, heading the Hipgnosis graphic art group, was the creative mind behind several Pink Floyd album covers. The prism cover of Dark Side of the Moon is likely the most famous. The human desire for unity, represented by the singularity of white light, gives way to the spectrum of disunity in the refraction of that light into the bands of rainbow colors. The point behind the cover art is that autonomy leads to alienation in the recognition that we are different one from the next – red and green are forever opposites and cannot abide with one another.

Sadly, we tend to focus on how to overcome the refraction while remaining unwilling to make ourselves vulnerable to “being absorbed” into the unity in fear of losing our personal identity and the ability to fulfill ourselves by our own definition. If anything, our unity in Christ celebrates the fact that all those colors, all the uniqueness of individual identity, are present within the singularity and are what, in communion with the divine, ultimately reflect what is pure and holy – the perfect light, the fulfillment of God’s desire that all of God’s people be of one mind and Spirit.

The Bible consistently calls for us to humble ourselves before God. And we believe we do. But similar to the intertwining reality of loving God specifically by loving others as the fulfillment of “all the Law and prophets,” our humility before God must also entail recognizing our own limitations and ego in making ourselves vulnerable to others. There is no small risk involved in following Christ and more often than not that includes real world risks in our daily life.

In embracing those risks, we exercise faith, trusting God for outcomes above what we might expect of others or contrive in our own thinking and doing. God asks for us to “count the costs” which is nothing short of wholesale abandonment to self. But he also promises, as Kenneth Cain Kinghorn’s book title suggests, to make us fully human (Christ Can Make You Fully Human, Abingdon, 1979), the perfect fulfillment of self.

Faith, especially walked out in the community of the universal Church, in unity of Spirit and the calling to glorify God, risks looking absurd to an absurd world. But faith leads to a revelation of God’s glory both through and within us, and faith comes only by the sacrifice of the ego.

The true beauty of the pure Light is revealed imperfectly in the rainbow of refraction. There is much deeper beauty, a place of spiritual, emotional, even of temporal, shalom, within the singularity. Contemplatives and theologians through the ages have touched on it though no one has completely or adequately described it. St. Thomas Aquinas is attributed with stating:  “Everything that I have written seems like straw to me compared to those things that I have seen and have been revealed to me.”

As Aquinas’ intimacy with and knowledge of God increased, he simply reached a point of being at a loss for words, even recognizing the inadequacy of all the words that had come before. His ego was crushed in the winepress of God’s refining love. Aquinas could see the beauty of the rainbow as a reflection of God’s image but now could see how the subtle alienations of the spectrum fell so far short of the purity and unity of the true Light.

Aquinas had nothing more to say but, unlike Roger Waters, his was a silence of stupefaction in the presence of God rather than hitting the limiting walls of his own construction. Life is not absurd. It only seems so to an ego rejecting the reality of God. Perhaps that is why Scripture tells us “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm14:1). To the proud fool, all is absurd. To the humble, all becomes Light.

Okay, I will admit that this essay has little to do with any direct connection between Pink Floyd and the Kingdom of God. However, sometimes the random rabbit trails we follow end up awakening some interesting thoughts.

I recently acquired a copy of Pink Floyd and Philosophy: Careful with that Axiom, Eugene! (Open Court Publishing, 2007), edited by George a Reisch, a graduate instructor at Northwestern University. The fourth essay in the book, “Pigs Training Dogs to Exploit Sheep: Animals as a Beast Fable Dystopia,” was written by Patrick Croskery, an Associate Professor in the Department of Religion & Philosophy at Ohio Northern University. This is some heady stuff!

Croskery draws parallels and discusses the similarities between Pink Floyd’s Animals and George Orwell’s 1984. As a Christian, endowed with the Holy Spirit, I cannot help but to “hear” God’s voice in relation to the subjects before me and reflecting on God’s take, so to speak, on those subjects.

What jumped out at me most was Croskery’s succinct capture of the three dominant forces at work in human culture: government, the marketplace, and community. He makes an excellent point that (what I consider) the “powers and principalities” within societies are always in tension. The government polices human behavior. The marketplace provides for human material well being. The community dictates moral direction.

Unfortunately, as Croskery points out, only the government and the marketplace have well-ordered power structures in place to exercise their will. The community, unless riled to strong unified action, like governmental overthrows or large-scale boycotts, gets pushed around a lot by the entrenched directors of the other two institutions for their own advantage. Communal moral authority tends to degrade as it slowly succumbs to the seemingly indomitable corruption of the power drive and elitism of government and the greed that too often fosters bottom line thinking at all (human) costs in business.

What struck me was that these three institutional structures emanate from the community of the Trinity, which predicates both governance and provision on communal moral authority. That community is founded in love, the essence of both Spirit (philosophic personality as inward, guiding motivation) and divine character (manifest behavioral personality as outward, action orientation). As 1 John 4:8 says: God is love.

Thus we can see the corrupting effect of sin in that social mores are subsumed (pushed away from divine order) and culture (and therefore all overarching institutions) suffers separation from God’s will, ways, and plan, driven by the overt entrenchment of human self-determination and self-interest.

As we participate in bringing God’s Kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven, we must first take on the mind of Christ, that is, to accept and then act on a guiding philosophy of altruistic being. God does not relish material sacrifices for their own sake. He wants all people to function from a heart of justice which entails willing sacrifice as a manifestation of divine character (Proverbs 21:3; see also my essay “On Justice and Righteousness – mishpat & tsadaq” at http://wp.me/p1Z8Bv-3L).

Consider if government was not the realm of “halls of power” but truly administered as if the elected were “public servants,” serving the good of as many people as possible while risking their own displacement in the next election due to making decisions unpopular with power brokers from other social quarters. Or imagine business owners (even absentee stockholders) demanding and ensuring all workers received a living wage, compassion in discipline, and facilitation for re-training and finding new opportunities before layoffs occurred. Both sets of actors would need to see “the other” as more deserving of consideration than their own well-being, or at least in league with it. It would take overcoming risk aversion as an act of faith, trusting that God is faithful and that righteousness precedes prosperity, and accepting whatever form of reward (and outcome) God dictates.

The central problem is that such a system has never been adequately demonstrated nor have enough hearts been transformed by seeing such a model at work. Words are powerful for proclamation but deeds speak much more loudly. If the claims we make do not align with our own behavior, how can we justify our faith to any unbeliever? How can we portray the Kingdom of God as more attractive than the world as it is if our behavior endorses the current structures and distributions of wealth and power?

It is clear that Jesus suffered not just for our individual salvation but for the redemption of the world. That includes the reformation of meta-institutions toward reconciling human life with God’s heart and created order. George Orwell critiqued the emergent oligarchy of socialism after the Bolshevik revolution. Pink Floyd critiqued the same types of rule in the marketplace (“Welcome to the Machine”) that endorse riding  the “gravy train” and in Western educational systems (“Another Brick in the Wall”) that program students toward conformity that will keep the current governmental and economic structures in place.

The Church, as a single community, needs to critique both of these, but better by example than simply decrying the sins of the world in the public square. God’s mission in the world is to turn the existing power structures upside down such that public morality (a function of community) leads government and business rather than succumbing to them. Christians should be intentional in seeking influential roles in both institutions to re-order them toward the original order of creation (see Howard A. Snyder’s Salvation Means Creation Healed. Snyder’s book has a strong emphasis on environmental redemption but is clear that the doctrine justifying that focus is universal as it applies to every aspect of human life and experience, including the redemption of institutional roles).

This means Christian business leaders will need to take large risks in light of prevailing business philosophies, perhaps even running the risk of losing their businesses. But money is not the primary focus of business in God’s creation. The division of labor and exchange are anticipated in Eve’s introduction as helpmate, a co-worker, in the Garden of Eden. The self-interested drive for profit (i.e., toward self-preservation in distrust of God’s provision) was not on the horizon until after Adam’s Fall from grace.

This also means that elected and appointed officials will need to do “what is right,” pursuing an universal morality, applicable to all without demanding a theocratic (or otherwise overtly ideological) agenda (though “what is right” is guided by theological and ideological considerations). Such a pursuit is obviously a slippery slope given innumerable public views, ranging from the extremes of varied fundamental religious cults (whether Christian, Muslim, or otherwise) to the guilt-driven political correctness of godless humanism. But Christ suffered willingly for us all and made no promise that our ministry to the world would be any easier.

Outside the Garden, every man since Adam, save One, has operated to varying degrees as if he is alone in the universe. But Christ established his Kingdom on earth in his teaching ministry (by proclamation, Word) and obedience to the Cross (demonstration, deed). We are called to do likewise. Unfortunately, just as Jesus was tempted in the desert, Christians in positions of influence are faced with a myriad of temptations, most especially that of being conformed to the world in the form of pragmatism. To submit to practicality as the final answer in decision-making is having no faith in the character, promises, and leading of God. In both governance and business, Christians need to be adventurous and fearless risk takers, trusting God before others and even before our own assessment of surrounding circumstances.

Pink Floyd’s songwriters, especially Roger Waters, wrestled deeply with the major issues of the human condition – evil, alienation and isolation, power and greed, etc. The angst at the heart of the driving melodies and lyrics have been popularized as much by the sense of identification of listeners with the writers as the beauty of the music itself. Pink Floyd stands out as a strong representative of all the poetic philosophers who have emerged through the music industry of the last half century. Waters et al sadly offer no answers to the questions that so vex them. But they give new and very popular voice to a lost and dying world seeking, though ignorant of it, the Kingdom of God and the shalom it affords to all.

After a five year hiatus, I have recently re-entered a marketplace vocation. Some readers will know that I have owned three businesses, all together spanning forty percent of my career life. I have never had a particular career plan thus my income history has been something of a roller coaster ride. But I have no complaints. I seemed to have done well enough generally to stay fed, clothed, and housed.

Many of the jobs I have had and the businesses I have started presented themselves along the way, almost arbitrarily it seems. My businesses occupied very different commercial spaces – technology, niche retail, and homeowner / small business services. My other jobs, starting at a very early age, have spanned nearly a dozen sectors, including public utilities, hospitality, media and communications, warehousing and distribution, entertainment, retail, manufacturing, academia, and others.

Across my career, I have worked as an engineer / CAD designer and cartographer, (not bad for an English lit major), a writer (now there’s that degree in action!), and in sales, management, production, planning, service, supervision, etc. ad nauseum. To say my career has been eclectic is undoubtedly an understatement. I have found the most satisfying work, however, where I was met with the most challenges. That would most significantly include the simultaneous wearing of innumerable hats as an entrepreneur and the two engineering positions that required learning new technologies and performing technical design work.

I do believe, however, the highlight of my career life has been the years dedicated to theological education and writing, especially where it has spilled over into application through charitable work. We often downplay our volunteer efforts as outside our career picture but that work is the most rewarding especially as it matches up with the skills and experience we have developed professionally.

As eclectic as my career has been, including my theological education and self-led studies on a number of sociological, anthropological, and business topics, one can imagine that what has accumulated in my head (and my personal library) covers a broad range of material (though that cover in many areas is none too thick!). My interests seem to interact in a chicken and egg-like way: I enjoy the particulars of a myriad of subjects but I more enjoy the big picture and how all the parts of varied disciplines fit and work ecologically. For example, my most ambitious writing was on marketplace theology, two topics most people would not connect, at least not intuitively.

But most of all, I enjoy thinking (and praying) and now find myself reflecting on my latest career moves. After a five-year hiatus from wage earning (thank God my wife has had a really good job!) and sneaking up on retirement, I have sought to re-enter the marketplace to achieve some financial goals. But I hoped for a position that, again, presented some new challenges. In October of last year, almost by happenstance, I was hired by a family-owned manufacturing company where I was to learn how to operate two very expensive pieces of fabrication equipment – a CNC (computer numeric control) table and a plastics welder – and create CAD (computer-aided design) drawings.

I had never worked in a manufacturing setting as a machine operator and it had been nearly two decades since my last venture into CAD work. Beyond the challenges of the machines I was to learn, the CAD work has also pushed me over the threshold from two dimensional to three dimensional drawing. But all three functions are coming together in their own right and I am comfortable now that I can handle all three to a satisfactory degree.

The more interesting part, however, has been prayerfully reflecting on this career move, especially the last few days. I ask of the Lord, “Why this?” and “What can I learn in this situation as part of my spiritual journey?” and “What part do I have to play for the sake of others here?”

I have no delusions to finding pat or complete answers to these questions any time soon but a recent event, in light of other recent thoughts, put a finer edge on “seeing.” A friend, just a day or two ago, posted online a snapshot definition of holiness attributed to St. Augustine: “Holiness makes a person gentle, so they do not revel in controversy.”

If one has been a regular reader of my blog posts, they may have noticed a dramatic fall off in my productivity in the last few months. I have never been prolific in my blog postings (even postings on social media) but have written a fair number of essays along the way. But last summer, my trip to India had an unforeseen impact: I found myself with less to say.

I have wanted to write on a number of concerns, especially on the woeful decline of the American church, but find most online discussions and debates tiresome. My most painful reflection is that failure of the American church is due to the way the Gospel specifically and the Bible generally are handled so poorly, resulting in a form of religion without power.

We live in times, though likely no less so than of eras past, of great controversies – racial tensions, conflicts with Islam, economic upheaval and inequities, political divisions, social repression, and so on. I simply do not want to join in most conversations because I see that too many have already done so (especially Christians weighing in on the topic of American politics), effectively to little or no end.

As I have prayed, I have wondered why I suddenly seemed to have so little to say, or at least feel so little compulsion to say it. It would seem that each us has little more than a microscopic role to play, if any at all, and more often than not adding our voice to the din amounts to no more than a clanging cymbal. Perhaps our greatest roles are to intercede in prayer as Christ often did and piously manage no more than our own direct spheres of influence.

As I pondered these things, my friend’s post appeared and I wondered anew as Augustine’s sentiment immediately brought to mind St. Paul’s hortatory in 1 Thessalonians 4:11 – “…make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands…”

My career has been one of multiple professional re-inventions. My current job has inspired me to think ahead as to what I will do when I (technically) retire, or at least semi-retire, in a few years. I like working with my hands, making or fixing things, but I especially like the creative process of designing things. I am looking forward now and am starting as a hobbyist, to a new, though far less ambitious, new business designing, making, and selling my own creations.

I have a couple of friends in the community where I hope to retire who are of similar age and situation who I hope to entice to work with me, at least to some degree. I am looking forward to hours in my someday workshop, drawing, crafting, and chatting. I am ready for the quiet life.

Though I hope to continue to work on some outside projects, especially in Christian missions, I find myself less and less concerned about provision. I have chosen Psalm 23 to read daily this year as part of my devotional time. God has always been and shall ever remain a faithful and generous provider just as the first verses of that psalm affirm. Perhaps my workshop is to become both the green pastures and still waters of my future.

I do not know what tomorrow will bring. I may write more (or even less) than I have in the past few months but too often our writings are for little else than our own vainglory. I want to avoid that, though there within me still that desire for recognition. In any case, I want to be available for those God calls me to be available to and do everything I can to do as he guides. But I have a growing appreciation of the lifelong enjoyments I have found in just being productive and in spending time with those I love, both family and friend.

I am gratefully entering those years where sociological studies find we grow in contentment, even joyfulness. And I thank God for the opportunities to grow in being still that I might know him.

Shalom.

<rant>

Frankly, and I say this unapologetically, Americans, like their European counterparts and the citizens of a handful of other highly-developed countries, are the spoiled children of the world. The analogy to children is apropos because our nation and culture are barely moving out of the toddler stage even now by comparison to nations and cultures that have been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

The spoiled part is evident by the level of unconscious entitlement to which we have risen collectively. There are specific issues, like tariffs on imported peanut butter that protect a very small portion of our population, the peanut farmers. At the same time, we are prohibiting global peanut farmers from being able to sell their peanuts on the global market as well, since we push our global partnering nations to buy our products there as well. So, because we can, given the political and economic power that we have, especially through global financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, we force some of the global poor to either 1) be poorer, or 2) try like the dickens to find some other way to survive.

By the way, this backfires in our own backyard since those same tariffs force American citizens to pay a much higher price for peanut butter than what it would cost if we actually took part in a level global playing field. And it really backfires when we consider it is a government mechanism (import tariff) that pushed those higher prices onto lower income families in the United States since they are far and away the largest consumer block buying peanut butter in this country. It also exacerbates the drain on our food stamp programs since peanut butter is a staple for lower income families.

Okay, so that’s one example. Trust me, the United States, much like it does militarily, bullies small nations economically through trade negotiations in many, many more ways, just so we can maintain our lifestyle while neglecting investment in the world’s poor. What is saddest is that we have become so shortsighted as to not understand that investing in the global poor, either directly, with capital funding, or indirectly, by lowering trade barriers between the United States and poorer nations, will benefit us all as, to borrow the rising tide analogy, all boats will rise together.

I guess that brings me back to the child analogy since we are, as a population, largely ignorant of what our own government and trade associations foist on the rest of the world. We also choose to turn a blind eye to the plight of the global poor. We need to grow up, and especially so if we call ourselves Christian and still think we should grant our government carte blanche to treat the marginalized around the world in ways that benefit us while robbing them. Read about the King of Tyre and the unrighteousness of his commerce sometime in Ezekiel 28. And keep reading long enough to see the judgment God decreed against him, effectively equating him to the fallen Luciferian character by calling him the “anointed cherub” (v. 14) “in Eden” (v. 13) bearing “the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty” (v. 12).

As anyone who has visited this site and read more than an essay or two will know, I am an open market advocate. But I will not support crony corporatism (and the politicians that it has purchased along the way) or ignore the abuses of mega-corps like Monsanto. For an eye-opening look into the impact of that one company’s impact, rent ($1.99) or buy ($5.99) the documentary, “Behind the Label,” from Amazon. Central India has experienced about a quarter million farmer suicides since 2000 and Monsanto has been an evident contributor to the financial burdens that pushes them to abandon their wives and children and life itself.

The Bible speaks more to the issue of economic justice than any other in its considerations of and God’s heart for the poor. We as a nation have taken it upon ourselves to wallow in our wealth (currently representing about 22% of global GDP but only about 4½% of global population) while ignoring the plight of others. We have achieved much of our growth by leveraging our economic strength to retain access to resources, especially oil, vital to our growth and maintenance, at the expense of the general populous of many oil-producing nations. We have poured our money into the hands of autocratic leaders in those nations then wonder why the citizenry dislikes us. It is the plight of the bully to be an ignoramus, not knowing what he is doing.

Economic injustice was an enormous failing of Israel repeatedly and the abuse of the poor was the meat of the prophets’ enduring admonitions and laments. We will answer for our own neglect and abuse of the poor.

</rant>

by David Doty

I have had one distinct experience in my life that I would call a vision from God. It did not last long, maybe a second or two, but the visual image of what I saw and the impact of what I felt will, I am sure, never leave me.

This event was triggered by a very particular set of circumstances. My wife, Teresa, and I were relaxing in our living room, she sitting on the sofa, I in a recliner. We were listening to the Christian music CD, Freedom, by Darrell Evans. We had only had it for a week or so and I was still somewhat unfamiliar with the lyrics. But there was one song that had already touched me, though, up until then, I could not explain how.

As that particular song started, I told my wife there was a special moment in the tune when I almost felt as if I could reach up and get hold of God. As we listened, the song proceeded through the first verse or two and came to the beginning of the chorus. It was at that point that, sitting back in my recliner with my eyes closed, I actually did reach up and grasped the empty air above me, as if I could get hold of God. What followed I will never forget.

In my mind, I was suddenly at Calvary. But it was the combination of the words of the song coming to life, specifically in accord with the perspective I had of Christ on the Cross. I was peering along the length of Jesus’ right arm, looking toward his bleeding arm where the spike secured it to wood. It was as if my perspective was precisely seeing the scene unfold through his own eyes.

The oddest thing about the experience was what, in that briefest of moments, I felt, and the emotional rush that was my undoing. One would expect to feel the physical pain, or perhaps to have some notion of confusion – Why hast Thou forsaken me? But there was none of either. No, what I felt was an overwhelming sense, an electrifying jolt, of the most intense joy, beyond any I could ever imagine or expect or even describe.

In that instant of the lyrics of Evan’s song mixing with the scene before me, I was undone. Teresa can attest that I was unable to speak and literally sobbed for twenty minutes. It would take a long while to calm down enough to begin reflecting on what had just happened to me. In retrospect, I can understand some of that “getting my head straight” simply because the event was so vivid, so starkly real. It was if I was there, as real as the living room, the recliner, and the house around me in the very same moment.

But it was the lyrics of Evan’s chorus that drove home to me how Jesus ultimately felt when he said, “It is finished,” and passed into the presence of his heavenly Father.

To quote the first two lines of Evan’s chorus:

Spread wide, in the arms of Christ

Is the love that covers sin.

Now, and I am getting chills again, remembering even as I write, I understand the sentimental power of what those words mean in relation to Christ’s atonement for our sins. But three things occur to me whenever I take a moment out to reflect on what I experienced.

First, I felt, I mean really felt what Jesus felt. I saw through his eyes and thought what he thought, even being overwhelmed by sharing one aspect of his awareness and heartfelt reflection on exactly what was transpiring in those last moments of his earthly life. I cannot explain it, but I was there, firsthand, inside his head! It is a bold claim to make and I am sure there are those who will accuse me of grandstanding or blaspheming or whatever as such a claim may deeply offend them. But, I saw what I saw, I felt what I felt. That cannot be taken from me.

Second, that overwhelming joy! Jesus could only have felt this as he experienced his Father’s love washing over him for the depth and breadth of his obedience. Though there was that singular moment of despair, in the end he knew he had accomplished what he was sent to do: to atone for the sin and sins of all humankind. Jesus found himself, amidst all the very real pain, perfectly centered in the redemptive plan of salvation. I am convinced that at the very end he knew, in great depth, exactly what was transpiring.

And finally, there is that universal reach of atonement, not just in the temporal realm as we understand it. This was the central event in all the history of the cosmos. This event would not only make the way open for the reformation and restoration of the entire universe to God’s original intention and design, but it would lead to the most compelling demonstration of the power of God’s love: the Resurrection, the very defeat of death itself. That’s the ultimate goal of atonement, the eradication of death that would otherwise separate God’s creation from its Creator. Jesus’ sacrifice reached into the spiritual realms to “set right” even the heavenly places that had been corrupted by the sin of Satan, to the end that the utter destruction of death heals even the heavenly (spiritual) realms of creation.

Is it any wonder, the joy he could experience knowing that through his suffering, he would ultimately bring an end to all suffering? We still see his atoning work working out in our world but we can be assured that for his obedience, his prayers will be answered – that we all would ultimately be one as he and his Father are one, that God’s will would be fulfilled on earth as it is heaven. We may not see all those things accomplished in our lifetimes. It has already been many generations since that dark day outside Jerusalem. But sharing in such joy as could only emanate from the perfect holiness of the heavenly throne, Jesus knew . . . and he asks simply that we trust and obey, believing and acting according to his new commandment, to love one another.

It may be still many generations before he returns but we know this, that following Christ, growing in him in grace and mercy, showing the world by serving it sacrificially, witnessing in Word and deed, we can share in his joy.

Friends –

The time is at hand! I am just eighteen days away from my departure from Atlanta on August 9. I will get to spend eight days with the Dongerdive family and Life Light ministries in Aurangabad, India. I have been working with John, Life Light’s Executive Director, for ten years, ever since we met in seminary.

Life Light is a multi-faceted indigenous Indian ministry. They operate an orphanage, operate two schools (which are bursting at the seams!), directly oversee nine church plants (plus they have thirty missionaries to their own people who have planted 74 churches in their region), offer an annual pastors conference for up to 200 attendees and a correspondence course in biblical and theological training, conduct street ministry to lepers, and are growing their microlending program. They now have a staff of nearly 150 people.

John, and his brother James, the Director of the St. John’s Schools, asked me two years ago to serve on their U.S.-based board as Director of  Organizational and Staff Development. And now they have asked me to come and see and taste that the Lord is good. During this trip I will offer a one-day conference to local pastors on marketplace theology and ministries. I will also be meeting extensively with members of Life Light leadership and staff, local pastors, and local business leaders. I know that I will learn far more than I will be sharing with them. But the gist is to help them in any way that I can, especially with strategic planning, as they move forward in their reaching Maharashtra state for Christ.

I have two needs for this trip. There is far more riding on this trip, for myself as much as for Life Light, than I can imagine. I want to see and celebrate all the work that God has done through the Dongerdive family over the last 24 years. I also want to clearly discern how I can help them reach their city (3.7 million metro population) and their state (114.2 million), of which, less 3% are Christian. Please pray for my wisdom, for eyes to see and ears to hear what God intends in this region and for Life Light Ministries.

The other need is financial. I have raised more than 80% of the costs of this trip but am still about $500 short of my goal. I have my plane tickets but still need to cover my hotel, meals, and incidentals. Please pray about making a contribution. Eden’s Bridge, Inc. is a registered 501(c)(3), not-for-profit so 100% of your gifts are tax deductible. Gifts can be given through PayPal by using my davedoty@edensbridge.org email address, or checks can be mailed to me, c/o Eden’s Bridge at 991 Lancelot Drive, Norcross, GA 30071.

Thank you for your friendship and encouragement through the years. I am looking forward to reporting some amazing things going on in the heart of India.

Shalom,

Dave Doty

Eden’s Bridge, Inc.

859-621-3636 (mobile)