Tuesday, May 7, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Date night with George
George and I had dinner together at Thai Loda. George had pad thai with chopsticks, and I ordered boat noodles, partly because I was intrigued by pork blood, only one of many ingredients  in the dish I don’t eat on a regular basis. Boat noodles are served off boats in the Mekong, Nan, Ping, Mun and You Rivers of Thailand, hence the name. The Thai community likes this place, and I certainly liked boat noodles. Didn’t have to navigate the old neighborhoods of Bangkok.
Great food and a fine conversation with George, much of it about books and ideas.  A week or two ago George got carried away and ordered 10 books from Amazon. His handsy neighbor took one of the two packages and then returned it a few days later, out of the package, perhaps partially read, with an apologetic note. “I don’t what got into me,” she said.
Perhaps something in one of the books got under her skin, or into her conscience. Sometime around the beginning of the twentieth century, New Englander Christopher Morley said, “You can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries.”
George didn’t shoot his neighbor. Couldn’t imagine that, he doesn’t even own a gun. In fact, he was glad she had taken time to look through his books – a mix of history, literature and theology. He may or may not become a professor one of these years, but his personal education continues apace. He is curious about everything, and the energy with which he shares his discoveries is intoxicating.
About midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God as the prisoners listened, there was suddenly such a severe earthquake that the foundations of the jail shook; all the doors flew open, and the chains of all were pulled loose.
When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, thinking that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted out in a loud voice, “Do no harm to yourself; we are all here.”
The jailer asked for a light and rushed in and, trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
Paul could not contain his enthusiasm. He could not help but speak. If he had been silent then as Jesus said, even the rocks would cry out!
Paul and Silas spoke up and said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your household will be saved.” So they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to everyone in his house. He took them in at that hour of the night and bathed their wounds; then he and all his family were baptized at once.
The jailer brought them up into his house and provided a meal and with his household rejoiced at having come to faith in God.
Isn’t that like George as well? He has found a spiritual home in the Gideons, and when he heads out to hand out Bibles he can’t wait to say how much Jesus loves him, and of course loves the person he’s giving that bible to.
Like many of us, he discovers God in relationships with all kinds of people, and in the woods. He hiked in an hour or so with his new wife Anne (first anniversary), they were deluged with torrents of rain, thunder and dangerous lightning, but their pictures show them laughing, as they prayed to be spared. George thinks like a mystic, and he shops at REI. (Or would, if he didn’t spend so much money on books!) Here’s a poem that fits for him:
 In the Flesh by Clarence Heller
I understand that you long for the experience of insights
or consoling feeling,
dreams or visions.
I know you long for a spiritual message,
inner peace,
acceptance,
and assurance regarding your choices.
But I must say, dear one,
and please hear me,
if you wish to encounter God,
then touch another person.
My favorite, most blessed medium for revelation
is the human being.
And know also that you are called
to claim your place among those chosen
to enflesh transcendence.
 Philosopher-theologian-party guy Soren Kierkegaard’s 211th birthday was honored earlier this week. Kierkegaard’s famous idea of the “leap of faith” essentially means it’s impossible to have faith without doubt. George and I both know doubt. But we both have faith in God’s faithfulness, whether or not we are comfortable with the moment. I don’t think George has a “demanding” bone in his body.
He is both a servant and a child of God, living the life.
 (Acts 16, Psalm 138, John 16)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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