Swinging from the profane to the sublime and back again. Enjoy!

Emily Freeman reflects on how her decision making process has changed in recent months. — Looking For Clarity, I Found Courage Instead

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Jesus had a sense of humor. If you don’t believe it, just read Luke 24 and the story of the Road to Emmaus. Read it and tell me Jesus isn’t being at least a little bit funny. A sense of humor can be evidence of deep faith, or nihilism. Rather than give up on it, let’s get better at it. — The Fine Line BW Mockery And Satire

Therapeutic language and the vocabulary of self-help is everywhere. It is often helpful and sometimes a trap. (Sometimes we wear a lable and other times it wears us.) Freya India thinks through what we lose when we inhabit modern labels vs. finding old-fashioned ways for describing our lives. — Nobody Has A Personality Anymore

Here’s another great post from Embodied Faith. — Abraham and 3 Renunciations

C-pap machines won’t help them. Neither will blindfolds. This is the impact our modern world is having on our bird friends’ sleep cycles. — The Birds Are Singing All Day

Research reveals that the “Nones” aren’t replacing Christian faith with some other form of spirituality. Generally speaking, they are replacing it with nothing. — Spirituality (Or Not) Of The Nones

Here is a shameless plug for a beloved FOW (Friend of Wheatland). J.R.’s new book, The Art Of Asking Better Questions is coming soon. Pre-Order it!

Not the actual book cover.

… no one is really sure what actually happened and what we were supposed to take from it. But, here’s a troubling reflection on it’s impact. — Noah Gets Drunk. Then Curses Ham.

He was simply the best. I remember where I was the day that the music died.

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The 150 Psalms of the Old Testament are collectively called the Psalter. The Psalter is divided into five books that remind us of the five books of the Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. In addition to that five-fold division, there are different collections of Psalms within the Psalter. One of these collections is called the Psalms of Ascent. It's found in Psalms 120 to 134.

Psalms of Ascent were so named because they were prayed and sung by worshipers going up to the Jerusalem Temple. Regardless of geography or elevation, one always "goes up" to Jerusalem. Hence, the Psalms of Ascent. Jerusalem sits on a plateau, and the Temple sat on a hill. These Psalms of Ascent are also known as “Pilgrimage Psalms.”

These Psalms of Ascent are grounded in trust. Whoever composed these psalms trusted that God would act and deliver them. Despite this, however, they reflect a variety of emotions. Some are laments. The writer is grieved by the suffering of God’s people and the bad behavior of those responsible. Some of the psalms are so happy that the psalmist can't contain himself. But out of those, Psalm 126 is especially beautiful. One can almost see the psalmist with a far-off gleam in his eye as he longed for, even fantasized about, the renewal of Jerusalem and the restoration of God's favor.

Here is Psalm 126 from the Book of Common Prayer (1979) translation.

1 When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, then were we like those who dream.

2 Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.

3 Then they said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them."

4 The LORD has done great things for us, and we are glad indeed.

5 Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses of the Negev.

6 Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy.

7 Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.

Going to Jerusalem was an act of trust. The people who set out for Jerusalem with their sacrifices weren't perfect people with perfect lives. They journeyed to the Temple carrying emotional burdens that may be familiar to us: the grief of lost loved ones, the fear of lost crops and revenue, and the fear of the tribes and nations around the corner who wanted what they had. Normal stuff.

But there was always hope. God was going to act. Whether that action would occur on their timetable was yet to be determined. But they still believed he would. This trust is highlighted in that phrase in v. 6,

Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy.

Psalm 126 was probably composed when the people of Jerusalem were in Babylon. These exiles had lost everything, their city, the Temple, and everything in between. As a captive, the writer is writing about things that he knows have been lost. As far as he can tell, they no longer exist. Jerusalem, the city they would “go up to,” was just a burning stump.

The opening lines of the psalm demonstrate great faith or maybe foolishness; the writer’s hope defies reasonableness. Yet, his trust wins out. In time the Jewish captives return home, and city and Temple are rebuilt.

We rightly wonder how someone could trust in the face of such difficulty. It’s hard to say, but we do know that one way they conveyed this trust was with language from the farm. Jesus used this language, too—the language of sowing and reaping. The trust these planters had in crops coming to life aided their imaginations that, just maybe, God had “planted” them in Babylon in order to “harvest” them at the right time and “plant” them back in their own land.

Everyday life gave them the images they needed to feed their faith in dark times. Their God-given imaginations gave them visions for their future. Even now, our imaginations are altered as we pray the Psalms, even as we let the archaic imagery take root (see what I did there) in our hearts and minds.

N.T. Wright comments on the purpose of the Psalms in the Christian life. We do well to take his words to heart.

The Psalms, I want to suggest here, are songs and poems that help us not just to understand this most anceint and relevant worldview but actually to inhabit and celebrate it—this worldview in which, contrary to modern assumptions, God’s time and ours overlap and intersect, God’s space and ours overlap and interlock, and even (this is the really startling one, of course) the sheer material world of God’s creation is infused, suffused, and flooded with God’s own life and love and glory. The Psalms will indeed help us to understand all of this. But it will be an understanding that grows out of a deeper and richer kind of knowing—something that brings together imagination, insight, and love. (The Case for the Psalms)

I suspect that the kind of imagination Wright speaks of here is just what we need. Confidence born out of good and bad experiences creates a language that sustains us in tough times. Words like,

When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, then were we like those who dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.

Let’s pray God would give us imaginations large enough to trust him in extraordinary times and in the daily grind.

Nathan Hansen, “Commanding” Pastor of Hilltop Urban Church, preaches for us on the story of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples in John 13:1-13. Nathan takes us from the burden of choosing sermon titles, to a group of nursing students in India, through our self-conscious hang-ups, to the joy of serving Christ in our sisters in brothers.

Here is Nathan’s closing prayer, which he borrows from Stanley Hauerwas’s little book Prayers Plainly Spoken.

Free Us From Self-Fascination

Lord Almighty, we way we want to serve you, we say we want to help others less fortunate than ourselves, we say we want justice. But the truth is, we want power and status because we so desperately need to be loved. Free us from our self-fascination and the anxious activity it breeds, so that we might be what we say we want to be—loved by you and thus capable of unselfish service. AMEN.

FTLOL is a patchwork of internet goodness. Some is profound and some a little profane. Others are entertaining, and even some are edifying. Enjoy!

Here are some important words Dallas Willard wrote to Bishop Todd Hunter. Words we can all take to heart. — Heart First, Work Second

“There is no perfect church.” “You can say that again.” “There is no perfect church.” Bonhoeffer warned against idealism in the church. “The existence of any Christian life together depends on whether it succeeds at the right time in bringing out the ability to distinguish between a human ideal and GOd’s reality, between spiritual and human community.” (Life Together, pg. 37)

Priest and poet Andy Squyres gets what Bonhoeffer was saying. — a local church is where your idealism dies

How many Christians go to church anyway? Here is some good, if disturbing, information about church attendance and spiritual growth. — Nearly Half of U.S. Christians Don’t Attend Church

Has the time for humble and kind Christian witness in the public square passed? Or, is there a way to be clearly Christian, assertive, yet kind in a Christlike way? — Tim Keller or Machiavelli?

If you enjoyed this essay, you should check out the rest of Comment Magazine—top-notch writing and thinking.

A Chiasm is an inverted parallelism. It is a literary structure where the phrases or ideas are parallel but reversed. Here is a simple illustration: A - B - C - B - A. Here is a more complicated and impressive example. Of course, you’ll have to zoom in.

The parallels one can find in The Lord of the Rings are inexhaustible. This author sees the arrival of the movies with 9/11 as especially interesting. – How The Fellowship of the Ring explains post-9/11 America.

Last week, one of you mentioned that your algorithm was now sending you King of the Hill clips. Enjoy this one. As some say, “It preaches.” It’s worth 20 mins of your time.

… have kept me alive.” So says Rick Elias. (A collaborator with Rich Mullins and the music genius behind the movie, That Thing You Do.) I agree, and I hope you do too.

For the Christian to pray—above all else—is to let Jesus' prayer happen in you. And the prayer that Jesus himself taught his disciples expresses this very clearly: 'Our Father.' We begin by expressing the confidence that we stand where Jesus stands and we can say what Jesus says. – Rowan Williams

When Jesus tells Thomas, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," he says more than Thomas can hear. Jesus is speaking plainly. But even when God speaks plainly, his words are weighty. "The Way" is not a method for faithfulness. It is not the Haj for Christians. It is not a physical road that we have to travel. It is not a path to success. It is not an it.

Jesus didn't say he would "show us the way." That may have been easier. Instead, he said, "I am the way." These four little words will require the rest of our lives to master. Maybe longer. In truth, we don’t master them. They master us.

There are many ways in which Jesus is "the Way." At its most basic, Jesus is "the Way" for communication with God: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Jesus taught us to pray “Our Father.” That is, we are to pray to the Father of Jesus. And through this Jesus, we call God Father. Since Jesus called him "Abba." So can we.

Rowan Williams continues,

Jesus speaks to God for us, but we speak to God in him. You may say what you want — but he is speaking to the Father, gazing into the depths of the Father's love. And as you understand Jesus better, as you grow up a little in your faith, then what you want to say gradually shifts a bit more into alignment with what he is always saying to the Father, in his eternal love for the eternal love out of which his own life streams forth.

Jesus means it when he says, "I am the Way." Entering the way, being in Christ, means that we speak to God in Jesus' voice, with his words, and his heart. And, in doing so, we begin wanting the things Jesus prayed for and not merely praying for our desires to be fulfilled. “The Way” creates new desires within us.

Christ is in the Father, we are in Christ, and Christ is in us. Jesus is indeed the way.

'I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. - John 14:6

Some of the best parts of the Bible are questions that aren’t questions. God’s rhetorical questions come at us from one end of the Bible to the other. But God invites us to engage him with our questions, even our rhetorical ones—two of the best start with that little pronoun whom.

Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.

My flesh and my heart fail;
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. - Psalm 73:25-27

And another good whom comes to us in the mouth of Peter, in John 6.

To whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life,
and we have believed and have come to kn
that You are the Holy One of God. - John 6:66-68

FTLOL is a compilation of semi-random posts, links, and videos. Some are fun, some are edifying, and others the jury remains out. Enjoy some dainties of internet goodness.

Maybe a Bible that’s hard to make sense of is worth more than one that gives up its secrets too quickly. — Why Your Bible Refuses to Be Understood

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Do you enjoy book lists? Dan Pelzer’s list includes 3600. He read them all and kept the proverbial receipts. Today his children are releasing their dad’s book list. — from the Smithsonian … and here’s the list that you can visit, and revisit — What Dan Read

The Shroud of Turin has been a subject of intense interest since its discovery. Is it genuine? A forgery? Was it the burial shroud of Jesus? Here’s a new wrinkle in those discussions. A fascinating, brief article on what the shroud may actually be. — Death Shroud or Work of Art?

Hank Hill is back and older. Here’s a moment from the past when he dealt with difficult changes at his home church.

She is the Mother of God, the Theotokos, the Virgin Mary. August 15 is the Feast of the Assumption of Mary; or the Dormition of Mary. Here are two quick reads on why she is so important. — Behold Thy Mother and The Dormition or the Assumption of Mary?

Last week I included these two links: Robert Louis Wilken’s essay “How To Read The Bible” and Pauline Viviano’s article, “The Senses of Scripture.” Here’s another one to add to that mix. It’s brief and enlightening. — In Defense of PreModern Exegesis

Tom Petty sings “Southern Accents” a foreshadowing from this Saturday’s sermon.

Who did it better? Here’s Johnny Cash’s version.

Always good, here’s Bishop Todd on Solitude.

A list of increasingly dangerous cheeses.

Potato chips by state. (I’ve always been a Ruffles man.)

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So opens the morning office from the Book of Common Prayer. You may have been told that prayer is easy. Sometimes it is. It comes easier for some than others. But for some of us, starting is all but impossible.

In her little book, Clinging, Emilie Griffin identifies with all of us who have found it hard to “make the words.”

There is a moment between intending to pray and actually praying that is as dark and silent as any moment in our lives. It is the split second between thinking about praying and really praying. For some of us, this split second may last for decades. It seems, then, that the greatest obstacle to prayer is the simple matter of beginning, the simple exertion of will, the starting, the acting, the doing. How easy it is, and yet – between us and the possibility of prayer there seems to be a great gulf fixed: an abyss of our own making that separates us from God. - Emilie Griffin in Clinging, pg. 1

Many of the most challenging things we face have been faced by someone in our distant past. One of those from our collective past was King David, whose flight from God landed him, wordless, in overwhelming guilt and grief. He proclaims his guilt, crying out for God’s forgiveness in Psalm 51. In the process, he asks for something that seems simple.

Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will proclaim your praise.
You don’t want sacrifices.
If I gave an entirely burned offering,
you wouldn’t be pleased.
A broken spirit is my sacrifice, God.
You won’t despise a heart, God, that is broken and crushed.

You are in good company if there is a wall around your mouth. King David, Emilie Griffin, and faithful Christians through the centuries have asked God to give them the words. And in asking for the words, we are reminded that prayer is the work that Christ is doing in us.

Bob Mueller does a masterful job bringing together Jeremy Bentham’s remains, Middlemarch, ethics, and Franz Jägerstätter as he concludes Wheatland’s recent series on the book of Colossians. Bob covers Colossians 3:1-11.

Since Bob references Wheatland’s website, here is the about page where his closing quote comes from.

For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. - Colossians 3:3

FTLOL is a compendium, collection, amalgam, fusion, a grouping of the interweb’s deliciousness. Dig in and enjoy!

How do you read the Bible? On the surface that’s an odd question. But it is critical that us modern people think about the way we engage this ancient book. Robert Louis Wilken’s essay “How To Read The Bible” is a rich exploration of the way many Christians used to read the Bible. The good news is, it’s making a resurgence.

In a similar vein, Pauline Viviano teaches about the “Senses of Scripture” in this clear, concise, and enlightening article on reading Scripture the “medieval” way. — “The Senses of Scripture.” She provides a contemporary application of the senses of Scripture in her brief article, “Redeeming the Bible: Can Scripture be a Source of Unity and not Division?”

Some great thoughts from Scot McKnight on what Christian leadership is supposed to look like.

He was the creator of worlds and not only with his words. Author, painter, and Christian, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Paintings from Smithsonian Magazine.

Many of us have mixed feelings about evangelism. Both doing evangelism and having evangelism “happen” to us. Brad Jersak reflects on his experience. — Evangelism?

At this writing, the XIT Rodeo and Reunion is happening in my home town. Included in the celebration is the world’s largest free BBQ. (A mere 10,000 lbs. of beef) I have fond memories of serving pinto beans out of a 50 gallon drum. — World’s Largest Free BBQ is In Dalhart TX

You’ve probably seen his work. You can follow him on Instagram @scotthepainter Here is a video interview with him along with some of his work on the Stations of the Cross. — Stations in the City

Read about more expressions of the the intersection of art, faith, and mystery, in the journal Image.

Find more of Scot’s work on his substack — Scott Erickson

Bob, Kelly, and I have enjoyed working together on our recent series from the book of Colossians. Bob’s wrapping it up this Saturday. Here are the links to the previous week’s sermons. You can also listen to them on your favorite podcast app.