All things new

The rush of the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays are over. The deadlines of finishing work projects, gift-preparation and gift-giving, making last-minute tax deductible arrangements, cooking the feasts—all in the past. The guests have gone home, the decorations have been removed, and your waistline is back at last January’s measurement, when you did your previous crash course in power-walking and dieting. The daylight lasts a few minutes longer now. It’s time to paint the kitchen, rearrange the garage or attic, prune the rose canes, approve the budget at work or church or home, start a new school term… renewal time. Start over.

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them. Matthew 9:35-36 NIV.

Think of that! Jesus renewed all the towns and villages by healing every disease and sickness, and showing His compassion. He made every diabetic and cancer sufferer free from disease (and the painful treatments). He gave sight to the blind and even the presbyopics! He turned the asthmatics into distance runners. He took those afflicted by demons and mental illness, and let their human spirits soar free and unafraid. He made the handicapped into dancers, and those disfigured by skin disease had bodies as fresh as the day they were born. He preached the good news that the kingdom’s gates were open to all whom God loves.

Renewal is one of the greatest gifts the Lord gives us. When He forgives our sins, He doesn’t file them so He can drag them out and zap us with guilt the next time we mess up. He throws them away in an inaccessible place, and He forgets them. That is truly a miracle, because I remember my sins, and Satan certainly brings them up again and again. But God declares that my sins are forgiven and that He has wiped them from my account. Gone. Poof!

“But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people…And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” Jeremiah 31:33-34 NLT.

How we love the Lord for forgiving and forgetting! That’s where we find healing and renewal: in the knowledge that Jesus has paid the penalty for our rebellion, and that He remembers our sins no more. He said that even if a mother could forget the infant at her breast, God could not forget us, His beloved, because He has engraved us on the palms of His hands—the nail prints.

In this new year, come back to Jesus. Ask Him deep in your heart, where He’ll write His will for you: that you be buried in Him, and Him in you, forever.

And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.” Revelation 21:5 NLT.
All things—new. What a promise. It’s trustworthy and true.

Come. Sit. Stay. Stand. Shake hands.Fetch. Play dead.(Stuff you do at church)

You might think I’m continuing the saga of dog behavior. But last month’s message was actually about God’s unfathomable love for us. And this one isn’t about dogs at all.

I grew up in a church-involved family. When I was little, our congregation met in the Christian school’s gymnasium, and we sat on taupe metal folding chairs. My brother and I could not talk or fidget. Those services seemed to take hours, considering our stubby little legs were dangling above the floor. The services seemed more interesting after I was elected a church pianist at age 10, because I was actively involved instead of a spectator.

Our web site coordinator, Laura, said that the last time she sat in the church transept (the families-with-fidgety-kids section), her five-year-old and a little friend, instead of going on a sanctioned mission to help with the offering collection or to listen to a story, actually ran downstairs to play tag. Laura figuratively collared and leashed them, and walked the naughty puppies back upstairs to obedience class.

Sometimes church attendance is like an obedience class. We learn the rules, like where not to be seen doing bad things like chewing on the pew (or, um, a church member). We learned to come every week on time, bathed and brushed. To sit. To stay and not fidget. To fetch an offering check to the deacon. To shake hands at the greeting time. To howl on command during the music. To play dead during the sermon—oops, not during the sermon, but certainly on Tuesday night, when someone wants help at a committee meeting.

Is any of that “proper” behavior meaningful to the Lord? Is that what He wants: churchy acts? We’ve kept the commandments and lived morally pure and physically healthy, without even a traffic violation. We’ve volunteered for the church in many roles, attended every meeting through the week, contributed offerings and service year after year. We’ve got catechismic responses, when the doctrines are discussed. We’re pretty good then, right? Exceptionally good, compared to many folks that spring to mind.

When the rich young man (Matthew 19) came to Jesus and said that he’d kept all the commandments since his youth, and asked what more needed to be done for salvation, Jesus commended him, but said to go and sell his possessions to benefit the poor, and then come and follow Jesus. So was salvation earned by behaving well plus helping the poor? Or was Jesus saying to throw—even waste!—every self-saving act and self-preserving resource to the winds, and fall at His feet in utter dependence on His sovereign mercy?

Being “good” without divinely-inspired love is unnecessary noise (1 Corinthians 13). All my “righteousness,” because it is of my own devising, is meaningless. It’s worse than that, really, because I’m so blinded by my own lack of “badness” and so full of pride in my respectability and all the points I’ve won, that I can’t see how truly arrogant and needy I am. Jesus told a parable of a man who accumulated much wealth, but when the man congratulated himself, there was no one to listen. Family and friends had been discarded or tossed away.

Being good is not the opposite of being bad. On a bar chart, you’d put badness at the bottom and paint it black; and moral, respectable behavior fractionally above it, painted dark gray. But where’s the pure white marker, the divine nature? It’s off the scale. Won’t fit on the paper. Because that goodness is nothing we can work for or even aspire to on our own. Only God is good. Only God gives the “goodness” that counts. When He creates a new heart within us (Psalm 51), He pronounces it “Good,” in the same way that He did of all His work at the Creation. That is grace.

To “sit pretty” in church or live a moral, respectable life is only a false sacrifice. “Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.” 1 Samuel 15:22 KJV.

What does God require of us? To obey His law of agape love for God and man, certainly. “ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Deuteronomy 6:4-5 NIV. To be like Him: humble, merciful, generous in giving and forgiving, loving, compassionate (Micah 6:8). To reflect His light not only to those around us, but even to our own worst critics—ourselves. To worship Him not in the way we think it ought to be, in a “worship service” of tasteful music and an educational sermon, but the way He modeled: in loving service to His people—all the people He died for, even the ones we don’t approve of.

What are you doing at church? Sitting pretty, or helping the Shepherd round up those strays?

Black and white, day and night

It was past 11 p.m. on a Sunday that started at 5:30 a.m. with a dog walk, playing the organ for a Methodist congregation, and yard work—all before noon. In the evening, I had bottled 19 pints of mulberry jam, and my feet were killing me. Evie, my black and white Border collie, indicated that she needed to go outside, so instead of accompanying her as usual, I sent her out to the fenced back yard and continued to clean the kitchen before I went to bed. Evie made a growl-and-chase sound as she often does for a stray cat or a pedestrian outside the fence. (My pet has delusions of being a guard dog.)

I took out the trash, then brought Evie back in. My dog ground her face on the scatter rugs and rushed around the family room, blinking her eyes. I looked at her closely, and saw a yellow-brown substance on her white face, smelled an odor that far exceeded that of bug killer, decided that my dog was the carrier of the smell, and put her back outside. It’s said that a dog’s sense of smell is 1000 times more acute than a human’s. If she smelled that terrible to me, then how much more must she have been in distress with the scent right on her muzzle?

The “stray cat” turned out to be Pepé Le Peu, a cute, furry, black and white—skunk. My house is in a built-up suburb, but it’s four blocks from a dry river bed, superhighway to coyotes, possums, skunks, and wild creatures that roam the neighborhoods. Apparently, summer is a great season to be thieving vermin—if you like ripening tomatoes, avocados, peaches, and berries!

Naughty Evie had recently found fallen, overripe avocados and rolled in them: twice in one week. (Right, a black and white and green dog!) So the dog shampoo was already on the patio table. I poured a large amount into my hands and slathered it on Evie’s face and mane. She was clearly not happy at that, but I wasn’t finished. I brought her into the house and put her in the bathtub with the flexible shower head. I waited a moment until the water was warm, then started spraying the stink and dirt off my dog. She was even more unhappy, but I did more shampoo treatments and rinses, and Evie produced many showers of dog shampoo and water until I was also soaked. I towel-dried my dog on the bedroom floor, and brushed her long coat so it wouldn’t mat. At 12:15, I tossed the rugs and dog towels into the washing machine with plenty of detergent. At 1:00 a.m., I crawled into bed, almost too tired to sleep. I’d removed 85 percent of the odor, but various treatments would follow, including expensive skunk-deodorizer enzymes.

We often think of God’s love as conditional: If we keep the commandments, color within the lines, excel at our jobs, raise brilliant children, are successful in our careers, and win the Marathon because of our superior diet and exercise, God must really love us! We think we smell like the Mr. Lincoln rose, a heady perfume.

“If ” we’ve sinned, made mistakes, or come up short of expectations, we’re apt to think less of ourselves, that our efforts are failures, and that we need to hide from God until we straighten ourselves. He won’t bless us, love us, or listen to our prayers unless we’re perfect, or the best, or at least trying to be good. We come up smelling skunked. So God must love us less, right?

The answer, paradoxical to human thought, is NO. He cannot demonstrate His love for us in any greater way than this: while we were still stinking of skunk odor, He took the effects of our nasty scent on Himself, so that we could be washed brilliantly clean and be imparted the beauty and perfume of the Rose of Sharon.

Not only does God love us infinitely more than our wildest imaginings, He cannot love us less! That is a difficult thought for me, mired as I am in legalism and behavior-oriented religiosity. But Christ died to free us from that slavery to sin and legalism, and set us free to understand that His grace is limitless—in both directions on the continuum. He cannot love me more, He is incapable of loving me less. Praise His holy name.

God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:8-11 NIV.

When my dog reeked of skunk, did I love her less? Did I yell at her or spank her? Of course not! In fact, when she was deep in trouble, I was more caring and solicitous than ever. At risk of taking malodorous substance on myself, I tenderly groomed Evie, hours after my appointed bedtime. I murmured to her that I loved my doggie. But my experience is a molecule in the vast ocean of God’s love.

How much more the Father loves His children, even when we’re covered in sinful or rebellious acts. How He longs to wash us, and create new hearts and righteous spirits within us. Not because of who we are or what we’ve done, good or bad, but because of Who He is and what He’s done.

So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? ... absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. Romans 8:31-39 MSG.

Remembering our liberties

I don’t know anyone who perished in a war. My grandfathers and relatives survived world wars and Vietnam. As a child, Memorial Day meant that my parents purchased little paper poppy lapel pins from disabled veterans, we had the day off school, the public pool opened for the first time since last September, and we could sniff delightedly as Dad cooked on the charcoal grill. As a teen, I remember my cousin’s wife taking flowers to her father’s grave, and that school graduations were held on this weekend. As an adult, Memorial Day meant the first legal holiday off work since mid-February, and that there were discounts at the mall or car-sales lot. Now that I’ve traveled to a few countries, I see that every village and large city has a war memorial in a public park or in a cathedral chantry.

Even though I don’t personally know fallen soldiers, I can reflect upon what their sacrifice has purchased for me and for millions of others: civil and religious liberty; a safe and peaceful lifestyle here even when wars rage across the world; the ability to work every day to make enough money to have my own home and help support my local church and worldwide evangelism and mission projects. Those soldiers’ legacy has given me the heart to pray for those who are suffering from war and its many evils, and for innocents who are forced from their homes, or kidnapped and told to kill or be killed.

Thanks be to God for creating courageous and hard-working men and women, soldiers dedicated not to the destruction and misery that war brings, but the peace and restoration that comes after. Thank you, Lord, for their sacrifice not only of their suffering and death on foreign soil, but for the life they could have enjoyed back home. Memorial Day can remind me of Your sacrifice that purchased my eternal liberty from sin and death.

"So you'll go out in joy, you'll be led into a whole and complete life. The mountains and hills will lead the parade, bursting with song. All the trees of the forest will join the procession, exuberant with applause. No more thistles, but giant sequoias, no more thornbushes, but stately pines—Monuments to me, to God, living and lasting evidence of God." Isaiah 55:12-13, The Message.

Over the Edge

Titel: Over the Edge / Unga rebeller
Genre: Drama
Land: USA
År: 1979
Regi: Jonathan Kaplan
I rollerna: Michael Eric Kramer, Matt Dillon, Pamela Ludwig, Vincent Spano

Handling: Ungdomarna som växer upp i ett välplanerat förortssamhälle känner sig bortglömda. De har ingenting att göra och ingenstans att ta vägen på kvällarna. De revolterar, leker med vapen, använder droger, dricker alkohol tills de stupar och hånar polisen.

Omdöme: Detta starka ungdomsdrama var så pass vågat att studion inte ville släppa filmen på biograferna 1979. Istället visades den på HBO 1981 och sedan på bio. Just att det hela baseras på verkliga händelser gör det givetvis intressantare och i början av filmen står det att 110.000 ungdomar åkte fast för vandalism runt om i USA 1978. Filmen följer ett gäng ungdomar med Carl (Michael Eric Kramer) i fokus, hans kriminelle vän Richie (Matt Dillon) samt tjejen Cory (Pamela Ludwig). I gänget finns även den ständigt drogpåverkade Claude och den stumme Johnny.



Att växa upp i ett slutet samhälle där allt ska vara perfekt utåt, men där endast ungdomscentret som har öppet till sex på kvällen är ett ställe att gå till för ungdomarna, är tufft. Carl är en relativt lydig kille, men hamnar allt oftare i trubbel pga sina kompisar. Han får nog av sina föräldrar som ständigt anklagar honom och säger åt honom vem han får och inte får träffa. Ja, typiska ungdomsproblem alltså. Filmen blir också ganska mörk genom några händelser och visar på ett ganska avskalat sätt hur långt det kan gå. Kul med Matt Dillon i sin filmdebut, skådespeleriet bland ungdomarna är dock blandat. Musiken av regissörens far håller tyvärr inte riktigt måttet vilket är synd då filmens soundtrack annars är ganska bra och rockigt. Saknar den där riktiga känslan som inte infann sig, mycket pga musiken.

3 - Skådespelare
3 - Handling
3 - Känsla
2 - Musik
3 - Foto
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14 - Totalt

Betyg:
IMDb: 7.7

Vertigo

Titel: Vertigo / En studie i brott
Genre: Drama/Mysterium/Thriller/Romantik
Land: USA
År: 1958
Regi: Alfred Hitchcock
I rollerna: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore

Handling: Efter ett trauma p.g.a. en händelse på jobbet, spenderar en polis sin pension i lugnet diskuterande med en kvinnlig vän till honom. En gammal vän anlitar honom för att förfölja hans fru som han tror svävar i livsfara pga sig själv. Men händelserna utvecklas på ett bisarrt sätt när han faller för henne...

Omdöme: I detta klassiska Hitchcock-mysterium inleder man med en jakt på hustaken i San Francisco där en man jagas av en uniformerad polis och polisdetektiven John "Scottie" Ferguson (en som vanligt underbar James Stewart). Efter det att Scottie drabbats av yrsel, faller polisen nerför byggnaden och dör när han försöker hjälpa honom. Med starka skuldkänslor och vetskapen om att han blir tvungen att ta en skrivbordstjänst, slutar han som polisdetektiv för att ta det lugnt. Då får han ett samtal från en gammal vän som vill träffa honom. Han ber Scottie följa efter hans fru för att ta reda på vart hon åker och se till att inget händer henne.



Kvinnan han ska förfölja är Madeleine (Kim Novak), en vacker blondin som Scottie blir förtjust i med en gång. Till en början håller han sig på avstånd, men de två kommer snart allt närmare varandra. Men hennes problem och besatthet av det förflutna gör att hon är en fara för sig själv. Scottie är desperat i sina försök att få henne att berätta om hennes mardrömmar och upplevelser och dras allt djupare in i mysteriet. Hans höjdskräck kommer också göra sig påmind igen och den enda som kan hjälpa honom är hans goda vän "Midge" (Barbara Bel Geddes) som han känt sen skoltiden.



Filmens stil är nästan poetisk och till stora delar är den dialogfri då James Stewart och Kim Novak tar sig runt vackra platser i och runt San Francisco. Stämningen är på topp mycket tack vare den näst intill hypnotiska musiken av mästerkompositören Bernard Herrmann, som Hitchcock jobbade med på sju filmer mellan 1955-1964. Musiken tillför oerhört mycket känslor till storyn, men även de två huvudkaraktärerna har ett djup som gör att man känner mer. De vackra platserna och färgerna gör också sitt och det är verkligen en kombination av allt man kan tänka sig som lyckas nästan till sitt yttersta.



Filmen är också ett stort mysterium och även om man sett den tidigare är det saker man inte kan vara helt säker på och som man kan se på ett nytt sätt. Något som jag inte riktigt uppskattar är sista halvtimmen då filmen trampar lite vatten och inte utvecklas som den gjort under de första tre fjärdedelarna. Men det är också här mysteriet får sin förklaring och bitarna faller på plats. Det är även en överraskande mörk historia som jag tycker man känner ganska tidigt i filmen med dess musik och stämning. Det är definitivt en klassiker som tål att ses om och om igen och som är en väldigt personlig film. Tillhör antagligen Hitchcocks fem bästa filmer, även om det är en hård kamp.

4 - Skådespelare
4 - Handling
5 - Känsla
4 - Musik
5 - Foto
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22 - Totalt

Betyg:
IMDb: 8.6

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Titel: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? / Vem är rädd för Virginia Woolf?
Genre: Drama
Land: USA
År: 1966
Regi: Mike Nichols
I rollerna: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis

Handling: Det äkta medelåldersparet Martha och George bjuder hem ett ungt par till sig efter en fest. Med de unga människorna som publik vältrar sig de båda i raffinerade förödmjukelser för att kunna såra varandra så mycket som möjligt.

Omdöme: I sin regidebut fick den då 35-årige Mike Nichols filmatisera pjäsen med samma namn. Två par, ett äldre och ett yngre, träffas hemma hos det äldre paret under småtimmarna efter en fest. De har alla druckit en del, men värre kommer det bli. Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) och George (Richard Burton) är det äldre paret (och var i verkligheten gifta med varandra) som ständigt psykar varandra med ett s.k. "spel". När det yngre paret Nick (George Segal) och Honey (Sandy Dennis) dyker upp vräker det äldre paret ur sig det ena värre än det andra. Det yngre paret blir motvilligt indragna och alkoholen flödar fritt.



Denna klassiker blev nominerad till hela 13 Oscars, inte illa för en regidebut. Den vann fem av dessa, bl.a. bästa kvinnliga huvudroll (Taylor) och biroll (Dennis). Under inledande trekvarten finner jag filmen relativt intressant där spelet mellan de fyra blir allt mer intensivt och rått. Filmen ligger då på en jämn nivå och skådespeleriet är rakt igenom mycket bra. Men tyvärr känns det stundtals lite för teatraliskt för min smak och jag tappar även intresset allt mer. Och istället för att filmen ska höjas ett snäpp och kanske bjuda på en vändning, blandar den in ett par mindre lyckade scener (tänker främst på när de tar en biltur och stannar till på ett ställe). Inte en klassiker i min smak helt enkelt.

4 - Skådespelare
2 - Handling
2 - Känsla
3 - Musik
4 - Foto
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15 - Totalt

Betyg:
IMDb: 8.1