September 2nd, 2008
My son, Jonathan and I were camping Sunday night and hiking Mt. Monadnock in Jaffrey (by the way, the most climbed mountain in the world) on Monday morning. I thought several times about the people of New Orleans and prayed for them, particularly the members of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (the church our presbytery mission team worked with last November). The last news I had heard was that Gustav was a category 4 hurricane coming out of Cuba, and the only thing between it and New Orleans was a lot of warm water (just the thing hurricanes love). I was dreading the news of absolute devastation, possibly thoughts of abandoning this city that seems doomed to destruction.
I was shocked last night when we got back and I asked Allie about it. She said that it had decreased in intensity and hit as a catogory 1 storm, bringing lots of rain and some damage to the city but nothing like what was feared. How is it possible that a storm would decrease in strength when the conditions seemed to dictate the opposite? The only answer I can come up with is that God answered the prayers of millions of people who know what His church has done to demonstrate the gospel in that hurricane-ravaged city and he spared her in mercy.
sdg
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August 1st, 2008
The departure of Manny Ramirez from the Boston Red Sox has brought a mixture of consternation and relief to Red Sox Nation citizens everywhere. Aside from the strategy side of things and the question of what the Red Sox need to repeat as world series champions, I think the Manny saga has relevance to the human condition.
Simply put, one could place a full color picture of the smiling slugger with his pitch-blackened helmet in the dictionary next to the word “narcissistic.” It’s hard to imagine a more self-centered person who, having recently assaulted a fellow employee, regularly left his left field position to urinate in the Green Monster, skipped out of spring training, often given himself a day off for no particular reason and made up injuries simply to avoid playing and never really received a single reprimand or punishment for the above activities, (pause for breath) could have the gall to say that the team that gave him all of this ridiculous leeway for eight years (and paid him millions for it) ”is not worthy of me.”
The honest response to his story, of course, is to see my own selfishness and demand for rights in Mr. Ramirez. Only the gospel has the power to remove these base desires, and only through Christ am I enabled to lose my life and in the process find it.
sdg
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