A perfect Freesia from my garden…

Even where the weeds keep growing, there is still beauty to be found. It is there regardless of that which is unwanted, a nuisance, a chore to be attended to, something unruly and overbearing that would hide such glory that exists.

There are times when everything seems to be going wrong and nothing going right. One way to get really down in the mouth is to focus on the negative, to see the glass as half empty rather than half full - or even completely empty (ignoring the tap where one can fill the glass again).

As a small child onwards I was told to count my blessings, and as far back as I can remember, I found myself poised on the edge of a hard choice. If I had to rummage around and come up with blessings - that is, really come up with them and not complain that there are not any to count - then I was forced to forgo the gloomy satisfaction of a good wallow in the injustices of this world. A good wallow would have me continue to believe in my misery, hang on to it, even magnify it. Looking for the good, the positives, the things for which I could be grateful, and how much more fortunate I was than others (and there were always others far worse off than I ever was) had me loose hold of that which pained me. A tough exercise at times, but a very healthy one.

Did you notice the words among the leaves with the roses two posts back? They were: “You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses.” In this imperfect world there will always be things that go wrong, that do not happen according to one’s liking, but we still have choices regarding our reactions to those things. You make the choice yourself. Nobody else makes it for you. You can choose to wallow in misery, or you can choose to throw the switch completely and go the other way. If you are not used to doing that, it may take a little help from a friend and then a bit of practice, but it is certainly possible. Feeling states are preceded by thoughts which are often embedded in attitudes. Deal with the attitudes, change the thoughts, and soon one’s outlook changes in that new direction. Is that hard? Yes, sometimes it is. But it is not impossible.

It was a long time ago now, but one day I came to be sitting in a hospital waiting room with the weight of the whole world on my shoulders, being far from well. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a young women going through the process of being discharged from hospital. All was going well for her. Then she stopped and looked towards where I was sitting. I did not know her, but she came over to me and did something most unexpected. I must have looked as ill as I was because she spoke very gently and said “I was very ill when I was admitted and now I am well. I pray the same will be for you too.” And she kissed me on the top of my head. Yes, I was very ill, but that kiss became the seed of hope that I dearly needed that day. It was a surprising thing that happened but it meant so much to me right then. It told me to hang on to hope, to hold out for the best, the good, the positives and to believe that such things can and do happen.

Now I know that these things are there all the time for us - if only we will look for them, open our eyes to see them, believe in the Source of them, truly appreciate and enjoy them, be grateful for them, and in our gratitude thank God for His provision of them. It can be the hardest thing to do sometimes, but seeking out that which is good and thanking God even in the midst of one’s pain is the way towards overcoming those things that are imperfect in this world. Our God is the provider and unlike the shifting shadows, He does not change; they continue to be there for us - all of the time.

Some of us who are orthodox in our Christianity feel estranged from our local parishes where the clergy are preaching and promoting a liberal theology. Where that is the case, we are caught between a rock and a hard place. We may want to worship within the church denomination that has been our home and our custom, but do not want to be part of the heresy that is being promoted as true Christianity. Imagine the difficulty in sitting and listening to a sermon that you know is leading everyone up the garden path. As an example, I will point to one by the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church in the USA. No, I am not one of her parishioners - and thank goodness for that! - but if you wish to see what I mean by a sermon that leads people right away from the truth, here is an excellant analysis of one by David Ould:
How Not to Read the Bible

Reading from one of my favourite authors, that being George MacDonald (1824 - 1905), in an edited version by Michael R. Phillips (Knowing the Heart of God), I came across the following from The Landlady’s Master (originally titled The Elect Lady):

“I seldom go to church,” said Andrew, reddening a little, but losing no sweetness from his smile.

“I have heard that. It is wrong of you not to be regular. Why don’t you go to church?”

Andrew was silent.

“I want you to tell me,” persisted Alexa, with a peremptoriness she had inherited from the schoolmaster. She had known Andrew too as a pupil of her father’s.

“If you insist, ma’am,” replied Andrew. “I not only learn nothing from Mr Smith, but I think that much of what he says is not true.”

“Still you ought to go for the sake of example.”

“Do wrong to make other people follow my example! How could that be right?”

“Wrong to go to church! What do you mean? Wrong to pray with your fellow Christians?”

“Perhaps the time may come when I shall be able to pray with them, even though the words they use seem addressed to a tyrant, not to the Father of Jesus Christ. But at present I cannot. I might endure to hear Mr Smith say evil things concerning God, but the evil things he says to God make me quite unable to pray, and I would feel like a hypocrite to attempt it in such a setting.”

“Whatever you may think of Mr Smith’s doctrines, it is presumptuous to set yourself up as too good to go to church.”

“My difficulties with the church have nothing to do with thinking myself good, ma’am, which I do not. But I must bear the reproach. I cannot consent to be a hypocrite in order to avoid being called one.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“It looks as if you thought yourself better than everybody else.”

“I consider myself better than no man. Besides, if it were such that we thought, then certainly he would not be one of the gathering… His presence cannot be proved; it can only be known. One thing for certain, if we are not keeping his commandments, he is not among us. But if he does meet us, it is not necessary to the joy of his presence that we should be able to prove that he is there. If a man has the company of the Lord, he will care little whether someone else does or does not believe that he has it.”

“Your way fosters division in the church.”

“Did the Lord come to send peace on earth? My way, as you call it, would make division, but division between those who call themselves his, and those who are his. It would bring together those that love him. Company would merge with company that they might look on the Lord together. I don’t believe Jesus cares much for what is called the visible church; but he cares with his very Godhead for those what do as he tells them; they are his Father’s friends; they are his elect by whom he will save the world. It is by those who obey, and by their obedience, that he will save those who do not obey, that is, will bring them to obey. It is one by one that the world will pass to his side. There is no saving of the masses. If a thousand be converted as once, it is still every single lonely man that is converted.”

“You would make a slow process of it.”

“It is slow, yet faster than any other. All God’s processes are slow. The works of God take time and cannot be rushed.”

I can just imagine the agony (for me) of sitting listening to a liberal version of “the truth” and wanting to leap up, waving my Bible, to call out “That is not so!” from the pews. What if I did, and what kind of stir would that make? Who am I to speak out in such a situation? My own conservative understanding of New Testament Scripture has it that I should not behave that way at all. But must I sit through such torment knowing in my heart of hearts that what is said is not the traditional Biblical Christianity handed down from the Apostles and the early Church Fathers? Where we have liberal clergy, we also have hollow and deceptive philosophy arising from basic principles of this world. And so like Andrew, just for the present time I stay away.

The content of Judah’s Journal is copyright. If you are NOT reading this on Judah’s Journal, then it has been copied from there and is re-published illegally - in other words, stolen. Those who would do that are common thieves and lack moral integrity. Judah’s Journal

One of my hobbies is working with images in Adobe Photoshop, especially repairing and restoring old photographs, but also creating something special from those which I take with my Olympus C-5060 wide zoom digital camera. Here I have combined several interests together ~ growing flowers in my garden, digital photography, image manipulation, Biblical Christianity, and Judah’s Journal. The result is presented here: one of my favourite verses combined with a beautiful rose from my garden.

There is much that is ugly and unpleasant in this life. It is there first thing every morning when I pick up the newspaper tossed on the driveway, a quick glance at the headlines confirming that I am still on this planet. It doesn’t stop at the front page, unfortunately, as after the entire first section explores the criminal element and their activities, or some other unpleasant thing, the next section moves on to international news - soldiers with guns, threats, deaths, wars, and more. Well, that is reality; that is what our world is like.

I am glad that I stopped outside and spoke to the two Tuis chattering away in the big tree by the front door. Mr and Mrs Tui (one presumes they are heterosexual mates although anything is possible these days, it seems) are often breakfasting there in the mornings at newspaper time, two of our handsome “King of the Forest” natives gaining more confidence to take up residence in the more leafy suburbs. They are some of the nicer things in this world, along with my garden and the advice of this verse which knows the real benefit of spending time with such things.

There is a saying: “you are what you eat”. I also think it is true that you are what you feed yourself in the way of experiences - what you read, look at, think about, and do. The poet describes this well in his poem where he writes:

There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he looked upon,
that object he became,
And that object became part of him
for the day or a certain part of the day,
Or for many years or stretching cycle of years.

Walt Whitman ~ “There Was a Child Went Forth”

Psychologists warn us how youngsters may become more aggressive from spending long hours playing certain X-box games or watching a lot of movies of a certain kind. I think that watching TV News these days may also contribute to that effect - or perhaps precipitate depression! Those who seek out internet pornography find it becomes addictive, inflaming the passions and enticing them to look for more of it more often. Then these things begin to drive one’s life, influencing, steering, directing, etc. Most of us know for ourselves that we have different kinds of reactions to what we read, watch and use to entertain ourselves, or whose company we keep. We can excite ourselves or calm ourselves, scare ourselves or enlighten ourselves, and over time will grow ourselves depending upon what it is, in this way, we feed ourselves. How far more worthy it is to feed on what is best in this world, not that which is unsanitary and seamy.

Matthew 5:

6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.

The content of Judah’s Journal is copyright. If you are NOT reading this on Judah’s Journal, then it has been copied from there and is re-published illegally - in other words, stolen. Those who would do that are common thieves and lack moral integrity. Judah’s Journal

There gets to be a point where, no matter what one says, the other clearly does not want to know. I have had that demonstrated to me often by my son, teenagers being so much smarter, better informed, more “with it” and certainly more wise to the world than a silly old Mum who has clearly “lost it” somewhere inside her assumed senile decay. My brain worked well enough when the little tyke was smaller than me, but now that I am smaller than him, it seems to have no knowledge of any worth at all - a kind of directly inverse relationship of sorts. The empty park bench here represents it very well, my son would expect you to believe. Certainly any useful information has long been leached out of it by the ravages of parenthood. Yes, there are usually perfectly good reasons such as these just mentioned to warrant not listening when one doesn’t wish to hear. And in the end, as youngsters reach adulthood, they must take responsibility for their own lives which includes the decisions they make, wise or not, and the consequences that those bring. The parent, wise or not, may or may not be heard, and thus the world moves on.

There has been a great deal happening in the world-wide Anglican Communion of late, and many reports published all over the internet. Did the Church avoid a split? Are the orthodox responsible for the schism? Will the Episcopal Church in America play ball - or simply reinterpret the rules instead? Will other provinces within the Communion play by the agreed set of rules as well? Is this as big as the Reformation itself? And who cares anyway?

Well, if you have no allegiance to the Anglican Church, then maybe it matters very little to you. The Bishops and Archbishops (the latter are called Primates, a term causing my thoughts to turn to that of monkeys!) have had meetings and talks and subcommittees and papers that were issued from them. They gave rise to documents and statements and covenants or proposed covenants and lots of words have been both spoken and written. Tempers flared, tears were shed, stands were taken, and the matter is ongoing. Since part of me, a kind of historic part, does have a little bit of allegiance still, I guess the outcome does matter to me especially as I want to see the traditional Biblical Christian truth upheld.

Did the Church avoid a split? I think they may have only postponed one.
Are the orthodox responsible for schism? Is belief really responsible for the separation of unbelief when the latter heads down a different path from it?
Will the Episcopal Church play ball? I think it will, but a different game by it’s own set of rules. And probably on a different playing field.
And the other provinces? We shall have to see. My crystal ball is cloudy from the tempestuous swirls of Thor and his dark omens.
The comparative rating with the Reformation? Well, in global Anglicanism, it certainly ranks quite close.
Who cares anyway? I believe God does.

So while the Primates have been busy in their upper house, a microcosm of these events have taken place on a certain forum which I have made mention of before. The dialogue has battled on, the subject that of religious liberalism, with all it’s both relevant and irrelevant tangents into the bargain. And this is where I come back to my title question… when is enough, enough?

The dialogue has tried the patience of many of us, probably from either side as well. We simply do not see eye-for-eye at all. No matter how painstakingly one can present a certain argument, if the other will not engage the points of debate, and for whatever reason does not believe - then they simply do not believe. I will admit that I have closed down to the arguments from liberal theology. Although the same Christian terminology is used, the meanings of words are tweaked and twisted; it is a different religion from that of traditional orthodox Biblical Christianity. I see the foundations of such unbelief to be firmly those of heresy. Why should I listen any more to heresy?

2 Corinthians 6: 14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?

I have chosen which path to follow, and it is not in the direction signposted by liberalism. I have made a commitment, and in doing so there are options no longer open to me. That is one that isn’t. I have also realized that those walking the different path are closing off their options to follow the one that I am on. Since I believe I am on the right one, and that being on the right one matters eternally, I am naturally sad that they have decided to go the other way. Some have tried so hard to convince them otherwise, even showing them the map and pointing over and over to the directions given on it, but to no avail. Their ears and eyes are closed - just as they surely think that mine are too. How long does one persist while getting nowhere? If no approach at one’s disposal seems to work, then I guess it comes to that… enough really is enough. A decision was made, and the consequences will be theirs to savour.