Of This and That

• Of Matches and Autumn Fires: I'm losing my touch. Tonight I went to light a fire in our portable outdoor fireplace and it took me about 6 or plus matches to get the fire going. That's a little humbling to me because I've taken pride in being able to start such fires with just one match. The kindling would not cooperate. That was my fault for not being more careful about the material I was using for kindling. I finally got a steady flame going, and in the end it was a really nice fire. It was a beautiful crisp Fall night for having a fire. I enjoyed just sitting out on the patio and watching the flames dancing and flickering.
  
  
• Revisiting Hemingway: Back at the first of this year I picked up and read Hemingway's For Whom The Bells Toll. In my mind, Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, and For Whom The Bells Toll constitute a Hemingway trilogy of sorts. It is the two war novels that give the setting and context for understanding the rampant anomie found in the story being told in The Sun Also Rises. The generation that fought in WW-I (Farewell To Arms) is the "lost generation" of The Sun Also Rises. And if that was not enough, we then have the disillusionment that came out of the horrors and atrocities of the Spanish Civil War (For Whom The Bells Toll). Someday I want to develop this perspective into a full blown essay with the premise that these three Hemingway novels taken together, give us a picture of the birth and development of post-modernity in the early 20th Century.
  
  
• I love "the Church". Yes, the church that is represented by institutions known as local congregations. It is because of the church, universal and institutional, that I have the Bible in my own language. It was this church that supported the college and university Gospel outreach that a Sovereign God used to bring me to Himself. (Rest in peace Mr. Bill Bright.) It has been the "Doctors" of this church that honed and worked out from that Bible the theology that helps me understand and make sense of what the Christian life is about. It is the Pastors of that church that faithfully explain the Word of God and feed my soul. It is in the fellowship of that church where I find encouragement and friendship with those in whom I see the image of Christ being formed.
  
  I know this church is not perfect. I know it's not always as authentic as it should be. Yes, there have even been times when some in this church have let me down, or even betrayed me. I'm not perfect either.
  
  I love the church. I love the church because I love Jesus Christ. Because I love Him, I also love the bride He loves. The church is not perfect, but one day it will be. I am not perfect, but by the grace of God, one day I will be.
  
  I love the Church.