Greetings Charles!

If you have found my Journal and are reading this, please know that I am thinking of you.

For others who are wondering what this is about, I would like to introduce you to someone who, just a few months ago, was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, better known in the USA as Lou Gehrig’s disease). This is a progressive motor neuron disease and quite debilitating. Charles is now confined to a wheel chair, doesn’t get around very much anymore, and the disease has virtually paralyzed his tongue, rendering his speech difficult to understand.

He started writing a journal - Charles & Life - to share his life and faith with others. I don’t think this is getting any easier for him, writing a blog, and I am hoping that he gets all the necessary assistance to keep it going for as long as possible. Why? Because he is a man who has much in his heart to share - the frustrations, heartaches, losses and griefs of this hugely debilitating condition in the way that can impart insights to the rest of us, but even more importantly and beyond it all, his love of God and how this helps him to overcome such circumstances regardless. Charles says he chooses to remind himself of specific biblical wisdom – as a man thinks in his heart, so is he (read Proverbs 23).

Meanwhile, there are others unprepared to submit to God’s providence and who are seeking control through voluntary euthanasia. After all, so they reckon, since we must all depart this life sooner or later, if life becomes utterly intolerable, why not depart it sooner by one’s own decision than wait it out until later with no prospect of anything better than more and worse suffering?

As Charles has written about in his journal, it certainly is a matter of choices, but of ones not always considered.

The options are closely related to worldviews. If I restrict my options to the gloomy ones above, based on the view that there is nothing ahead but worsening fortunes, increased suffering, and the infliction of that on others around me by virtue of my needs, then it probably makes some kind of sense to bring an end to matters now. However, I seriously and strenuously disagree with a worldview that is so hugely impoverished. Although it may sound callous to say so, that constricted view shares much in common with the actions of the child who throws his toys out of the sandpit when he cannot get what it is he wants. But I say that with a far deeper compassion than may be appreciated - if you can’t see any compassion there at all. I am not Charles and do not have to cope with the same struggles with which he is faced. But I do know that, as he points out, we still have choices even when damaged nerves and muscles fail, even when losses mount up, even when grief becomes overwhelming. One can (and does!) choose one’s own thoughts, what to entertain in one’s mind. That in turn impacts the “heart”, affecting one’s quality of being, in a way far beyond the circumstances of daily life.

I was touched by the account Charles gave of the help he received from the small group of boys, and the email from one of them later. Who can possibly say that his needs were merely a burden on others? They were certainly not! Those youngsters demonstrated their own growth in understanding, compassion and love for others. Who wouldn’t like friends and neighbours like them? This is a situation where love increases, not where meaninglessness and despair has a place. Charles writes about this as demonstrating the Body of Christ. And so it does. We may see only glimpses of the Big Picture, but we know without a doubt that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28)

Charles, whatever the particular future that faces you, and no matter the struggle, the love between yourself and our Saviour will continue to exist. It shines forth from within you, and will remain your witness to others through how you live the rest of your life. To God be the glory. You will be in the prayers of many who read of you here, and who visit your journal. As you will already know…

…in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Romans 8:37-39, NIV)

Charles has now come to the end of his earthly journey. That is so sad in that he will be much missed by his family and all who knew him, especially since (as his son wrote - see his note copied below) that Charles had a lot more to say that would have benefited all.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Final Post

From Tim Hodge:

I am deeply saddened to make this entry for my Dad. Early this morning, just after midnight, he breathed his last and made his final journey. He is Home.

Thank you for your love and support. If you would like to find more recent information, please visit here.

If you are one of the regular followers of this blog, you have already noticed that my Dad hasn’t posted an update in many months. Since the spring, he hadn’t felt much like writing. We are al the poorer for that because he still had so much to say.

Early in the morning, on New Zealand’s eastern shore, the sun was barely halfway up and barely dressed before the people came with rods and bait, willing up their breakfast feast from Neptune’s salty store.

I will make you fishers of men, I heard His words once said, and remembered how He told them then that life was more than bread.

The light was shining in the east and spread across the bay, gilding touches to sea and sky with all their shades of grey. No ball of fire, no solar disc, no heat to scorch the air but just a glimpse of glory hidden out beyond the sphere.

I am the light of the world, I heard His words again, and remembered how He told them all to follow Him and then no more would darkness reign.

The people stood and faced the light, but watched their rods and lines, or clambered up the driftwood beach not looking at the signs.

If you love me, my commands obey, I heard my Master say, and watched the people pack their things and blindly drift away.

They left me standing on the beach gazing at the light, seeing only He who beckons me, a captive to His might. My line is cast, the sea is wide, the people need a prayer. And if some enigmatic breath rustles in the air then know that I am fishing… and that He is very near.

There’s a corner of my garden where I love to sit and be. It’s peaceful there and pretty; it tastes of sanctuary. The jasmine scented quiet, the little chapel roof, the paving stones, the timber… it all adds up to make this a rather special place for me.

You may join me for a coffee, or perhaps a cup of tea. Or if the afternoon is creeping on, a glass of pinot gris. We can watch the Fantails catching insects on the wing, and listen to the Tuis as they chirp and chat and sing.

Above the sky is azure blue and the sun is beating down, but here my garden bower is cooler with a hint of breeze around.

You’ll often find me sitting here when household tasks are done, and daily burdens weigh too heavy ruining my fun. I come here for the peacefulness, the loveliness I find, and breathe in the quiet beauty that soothes my anxious mind.

For around me is His glory, I can sense Him here with me. It makes this corner sacred, a very special place to be. There is nothing else so blessed than being here with He who is so holy, righteous, powerful, tender, loving, and to my humble awe is also very willing… to share this place with me.

You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you,
all whose thoughts are fixed on you!

(Isaiah 26:3. NLT)

I have some clever “crafty” friends who visit here. For them in particular, the photo alongside is the now finished afghan that featured in the previous post, dumped in its unfinished heap showing only the colours and a glimpse of the pattern. It doesn’t take long to finish these items, but I still have a great deal of yarn left in my stash. Several consecutive lifetimes just might be necessary to see it used up… unless I can figure a way to churn them out in my sleep!

I have often wondered why some people gather up and collect things, unable to let them go, nor sort and dispense with them when no longer useful. Many years ago we inherited a lovely old oak writing desk. It came complete with stuffing - over 40 years of receipts for everything imaginable! It was so fully stuffed that it could not be used for that which it was made - as a writing desk. Not anymore, and it is a now a lovely and useful piece of furniture gracing our home.

For most things on this planet I find I am perfectly able to appreciate them, enjoy seeing them, but not have to own them. It is simply good that they exist in the world. I can admire but not want them myself. This is a happy way to be, especially when some things cost more than one might be able to pay. On the other hand, I am not coping with hunger nor any other deprivation of basic needs, and I am well aware that my happy disposition in relation to things might be quite different if that was not so.

Throwing out rubbish is one thing, but deciding on what is rubbish in the first place is something quite else. It is said that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. But go back a step and consider why one acquires something in the first place… and often takes more than one needs. My collection of fabrics and yarn arose from far more than project leftovers, but on a “need” to have more for future projects. Quilters liken their fabric stashes to an artist’s palette where plenty of choice is necessary for creative expression. But look in my pantry and you’ll see it is well stocked as well. Clearly I don’t like to run short. Same goes for yarn.

For me I suspect that has something to do with my past. Hospitalized as an infant at a time when down-to-earth nurses hustled mothers out of the ward saying “she’ll be just fine”, I was left for a fortnight, too young to understand, to despair and grieve the loss of my mother. The family legend has it that I refused anything to do with her when 2 weeks later she returned to take me home, and for weeks afterwards grabbed and clutched food in both hands instead, whether hungry or not. Thanks to the research of people like Bowlby and Robertson in the field of separation anxiety in young children, we now have a more enlightened approach to treating sick infants (and their mothers) such that these adverse effects are largely avoided. But perhaps that accounts for my well stocked pantry… and yarn and fabric supplies!

It is often said that we come into this world with no material possessions, and we leave the same way, unable to take anything with us. That being so, and personal history aside, I am endeavouring to be a good steward of those material possessions I have acquired in between. I have more than I need, recognizing that “want” and “need” are often two very different things. As I write, some of the worst bush fires in Australian history are raging through the state of Victoria, wiping out entire towns and communities, incinerating people, their pets, the wildlife, and leaving just cinders behind. Those that have escaped with their lives and nothing else are saying “we’re alive, and that’s the main thing” as their lost possessions are weighed up in relation to what really matters the most. It is worth giving a thought… what really does matter the most?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

(Matthew 6:28-34. NIV)

I cannot take any of my possession with me when it comes my time to exit this world, but I can share them wisely with others - as a good steward of that which I have been given. My eternal security is not found in grabbing such things and clutching them close to me, as I did as a devastated infant, but in giving them away wherever genuine need appears on my path through this life. And doing this with wisdom from above, I can be assured that I will not go without in those things that really do matter, ultimately, eternally, most of all.

The Cold Knees Project is a fun name for my attempt to make a dent in my stash of yarn that I have collected over many years.

Being someone who was taught to crochet and knit from the age of 4 years, and enjoying these needlecraft activities ever after, it will not be surprising to fellow “yarn-aholics” that I now have quite a hoard of brightly coloured balls of wool - well, wool and many blends of wool and various other fibres.

On a drive to downsize my material possessions, I spent a day hauling out all these packages of yarn, sorting them, deciding what to give away, and what projects I could use them up on. Much of it was re-packed into sacks to go to the “To Russia With Love” project. A number of dedicated knitters use donated yarn to make warm clothing for children in Russian orphanages. This seemed a very worthy project, and so I lessened my stash considerably by making a donation in that direction. But what of the rest? Then an idea came to me…

The City Mission had mentioned in a newsletter how they work to keep the elderly living in their own homes for as long as possible, rather than having to go into residential care, but during the winter it gets increasingly hard for these folk to keep warm when the cost of electricity makes adequate heating unaffordable. I’m all for people being able to live in their own homes for as long as possible, if that is what they want to do. Perhaps those balls of yarn could be turned into afghans which might help to keep cold knees a little warmer in winter? And so my Cold Knees Project was born.

My friend Donna, who has recently learnt to crochet, is just discovering how addicting it is to collect yarn with all kinds of projects in mind. She is just a beginner when it comes to yarn - read her confession here - although from what I have heard, her house positively bulges with collections of other craft materials!

Another friend from Sleepy Cat Hollow is crocheting scarves to donate to the Kids Kottages, protective shelters where police or social workers bring children after they have been removed from their families. Most children at Kids Kottage are there because their families are suspected of severe abuse or neglect, but some children are placed because no one else is available to care for them during parental incarceration or hospitalization. As well as the scarves, and being a quilter too, she is also planning to make and donate quilts. Hmm, quilts are on my inventory list for the Cold Knees Project too. If only there were more hours in the day… I could certainly use them!

Yet another friend from Sewing Sunsets is hopelessly attached to her sewing machine and addicted to dressmaking. As well as publishing sewing tutorials, she has found a mission for herself in churning out clothes for children of needy families, and in making gifts to cheer others and help brighten their days.

There is a wellknown saying that goes “It is more blessed to give than receive.” Value cannot always be measured in monetary terms alone. A gift that has special meaning is often treasured beyond the monetary value of the item as appraised by some objective criterion. There is treasure in the gift, plus more accrued to it by the one receiving the gift, and even more again by the blessing received by the giver. The accumulation is treasure indeed.

A friend and I both learnt exactly that when I gave her one of my quilts. Seemingly tragic events in her life had provoked her to make a serious attempt to end it. The circumstances were intensely humiliating, and she was still struggling with shame and a clinical depression when the quilt arrived “out of the blue”. I learnt some time later how much that quilt meant to her, and was humbled to know that something I enjoyed making could help that much. She pulled through, often burying herself in that quilt for consolation, and turned the corner to be living a much more rewarding life achieving goals she had once believed were totally out of reach.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
(Matthew 6:19-21)

The Christian worldview accepts that every action and every outcome must sooner or later be measured against an ultimate norm for its ultimate value. This kind of treasure is not stored in this temporal world but is weighed for good measure in the eternal one that continues beyond. Good deeds in themselves will not secure anyone’s salvation, and so it needs to be said that salvation is itself a gift ~ from God through our faith in Christ. But wherever you invest your treasure, there indeed will your heart be also.

In my previous post I disputed the teaching of an Anglican clergyman, the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, USA.

The problem with this example of Anglican teaching is that the clergyman concerned has subjected Biblical truth to the disbelief of liberal theology and is offering a distortion of God’s revelation that we have from the Bible - a revisionist view.

This application of theological liberalism to God’s revelation is definitely not confined to Anglicans alone, but is present in many other “mainstream Christian” denominations as well. Liberalism in Christian theology is rife in certain parts of the world. I am not criticizing those Anglicans faithful to the truth of the Gospel, nor those parts of the global Anglican Communion which do indeed uphold the Apostolic faith as handed down from the early Church Fathers. There are faithful Anglicans as well as liberal Anglicans, and discerning the truth requires that we think very carefully about what is taught us by those whom we expect to have knowledge.

But what do I mean when I denounce certain teaching as distorted by the application of liberal theology, or religious liberalism? A brief summary of the Major Theological Propositions of Liberalism by M. James Sawyer, Th.M., Ph.D., followed by his Critique of those propostions can be found here. It is the application of these theological propositions to the specific revelation (Scripture) that God has given us, and the resultant revision of the time-honoured traditional understanding of this specific revelation, that has given us a new religion which uses the terminology of Christianity while refuting its original message.

For instance, it is not an uncommon view to hold by some that Jesus was limited by His cultural milieu, had unthinkingly absorbed some of it and needed correction by a Gentile woman who thus enlightened Him. That is how some interpret the story of the Canaanite woman who pleaded with Jesus to heal her daughter. That interpretation is simply not a description of the historical Jesus of the Gospels, or not as I understand Him to be. Consider that idea alongside the paper by Dr James Sawyer, I find it illustrates well the theological propositions of liberalism, or a secular intrusion into the story. That encounter of Jesus aside, Scripture reports elsewhere of Him as speaking to another woman, this time at Jacob’s well at a town called Sychar, and the conversation profoundly affected her:

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
(John 4:28-30)

To claim that Jesus would make an error of judgment concerning His calling is a gross distortion of the truth, and a denial of who He is. I believe it to be more an admission of unbelief on the part of the one who holds such a view.

I would hope that this example alerts others to the need to critically examine that which they are being taught in their churches, and to think it through with their Bibles in front of them. It is necessary to watch out for the influence of theological liberalism and the distortions that it causes. Liberalism is not Christianity, and if you are inclined towards believing that theological liberalism teaches the truth, then know for sure that you are not believing the Gospel of Christ.

Bibliography:

Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen

~ This book, first published in 1923, is a classic treatment of the age old controversy between Orthodox Christianity and Liberalism. Machen contrasts the errors of liberalism with the basic foundational truths of Biblical Christianity such as: Doctrine, God and man, the Bible, Christ, Salvation, and the Church. Machen’s book is scriptural, thought-provoking, well-reasoned, and relevent today. Your faith in the Bible and its basic doctrines will be strengthened. It is worth your time to read this important book. This book, which can be read online, is in the public domain.