God, Dentistry, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

     I hadn't read Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in years, but the prospect of having to spend a few hours in the dentist's chair over the past couple weeks, made me decide to buy the audiobook. It seemed like the perfect distraction to whatever would be going on in my mouth at the time.

     We all think about the purpose and meaning of our lives, and the following dialogue between two of the characters in the book struck me:

     "The chances of finding out what's really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied... I'd far rather be happy than right any day."
     "And are you?"
     "No, that's where it all falls down, of course."
     "Pity, it sounded like quite a good lifestyle otherwise."

     Life does seem completely chaotic and random at times, but in Morning Prayer today, the ancient prophet Isaiah had a different outlook:

For thus says the Lord,
who created the heavens
(he is God!),
who formed the earth and made it
(he established it;
he did not create it a chaos,
he formed it to be inhabited!):
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I did not speak in secret,
in a land of darkness;
I did not say to the offspring of Jacob,
‘Seek me in chaos.’
I the Lord speak the truth,
I declare what is right.
                              – Isa. 45:18, 19

     God seems to say to us in this passage, "No, I made the world to be what it is. Stop making it all so complicated. I didn't create a system where you have to wade through chaos to find me. I did not speak in the darkness. I am here with you. I always have been."

"We have flown the air like birds..."

Pogonip Descends on Reno!

     Praise the Lord from the earth… hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command!
– Psalm 148:7, 8

     This morning, we awoke to find the valley shrouded in icy gray fog. Every pine tree, fencepost, and skeletal vine was covered in what we in the West call pogonip. Pogonip is our word for the rare ice fog that produces dramatic and beautiful spiked frost covering everything. It's almost like overnight, snowflakes were magnified a thousand times and then attached to everything, and now with your naked eye you can actually see their intricate crystalline structures. Conditions have to be just right for pogonip to form: temperatures have to be below freezing, and humidity has to be at about 100%, which is a rare occurrence in the high desert. It's a spectacular, yet eerie sight.


     The first Americans found it difficult to see any beauty in pogonip. The word comes from a Shoshone word meaning "white death" or "frozen death". The Washoe Indians who summered at Lake Tahoe, but wisely wintered here in the valley where it's usually warmer, often saw weaker or older persons in their tribe carried off by respiratory diseases during such extreme weather.


      Still, pogonip's delicate white splendor remains, and this morning's rush-hour seems somehow hushed… muted, as though even busy commuters recognize they are in the presence of some of God's finer handiwork.

Keepers of the Heart Know Words Become Bullets

"For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure."
– Matthew 12:34,35

     Does it seem that more and more angry and hateful words uttered by people are becoming bullets? I'm not just talking about hateful and angry words spoken by a radical imam far off in the Middle East, but by people as part of our national daily dialogue. Here's a sample of what I mean:

• Angry words about immigrants from Mexico have now translated into increased deaths in Arizona: Link to Salon
• Hateful words about gays have directly translated into the deaths by suicide: Link to Dallas Voice
• Glenn Beck's hateful words about the Tide Foundation, an organization that facilitates charitable giving, almost ended in a blood bath: Link to Salon

      Yes, yes, I know all about the First Amendment. Still, I can't help but think of the words of Supreme Court Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in 1919: "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic…" Have we really become a people who believe that because of the First Amendment nothing we might choose to say has any real consequence? Have we so forgotten the power of well-reasoned discourse and carefully chosen words that we believe the only effective remedies are "Second Amendment remedies"? When did we become so powerless as a people?

      Rather than try to reach back to a time of civility in American life and politics I'm not quite sure ever really existed, I would suggest the kind of angry tirades we hear on talk radio, from leaders in our government, from consumers who feel they have been wronged by a store or restaurant, from drivers irritated by traffic, and sadly sometimes even from our own mouths, are not in keeping with the Christian path.

"Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life." – Proverbs 4

     We, as Christians, are to be keepers of the heart. If we want to change the world, it is not done with legislation or wars or sparkly new scientific inventions – it is done by changing hearts. The simplest barometer of the state of our hearts are the words we speak. I may not be able to change the tenor of the national dialogue, but I can be vigilant to keep watch over my own heart and encourage others to do the same. Oh, neither you nor I will ever do it perfectly, but it's a start. If those who are not Christians can't see any difference between the way we talk and the way everyone else talks, how then will they recognize us?

High Card Draw to Select a Bishop?

     You know there is something that just feels right about living in a state like Nevada and knowing that one of the preferred methods in our constitution for deciding tied elections is high card draw.

     In one of our seventeen counties, Eureka, there was a tie in November for the position of County Clerk-Treasurer (Yes, we do have to double-up some of our positions in the small counties – what we refer to as the "cow" counties, even though Eureka is known more for mining.) This tie probably would not have occured had one of the candidates not asked for a recount. As a result, a couple ballots were added in and one ballot where both candidates were marked was allowed since the voter's intent was clear (He/she had written "Oops" next to one of the candidates.)

     Four new sealed decks were brought out on the day of the drawing. Jackie Berg, the incumbent, eliminated one deck and her opponent, Carrie Wright, eliminated another. A third deck was eliminated by a county commissioner, and then the remaining deck was ceremoniously shuffled and fanned by the manager of the Owl Club, a fine gaming establishment, in Eureka (Um, it's both the name of the county and the town, you see.) The incumbent ended up winning the draw with an eight of hearts; her GOP challenger drew only a three of hearts. Many Nevadans were delighted by the account in our newspapers here and here.

     Now, we are quite happy with our bishop, thank you very much, but I am curious, so I plan to look into Nevada's canons just to see how we handle a tie vote for bishop should it occur in the future. I mean we have a tradition of gambling to select representatives in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. The high priest of Israel carried the "Urim and the Thummim" in his breastplate for tough decisions. Honestly, all they were was a pair of fancy dice (Ex. 28:30; Nu. 27:21). When selecting an apostle to replace Judas, the eleven apostles drew lots – who knows, a more careful look at the Koine Greek might reveal they actually did use a deck of cards to choose Matthias (Ac. 1:26). Instead of endless balloting for a bishop, and counting votes by order, we might as well welcome her/him to Nevada with a traditional high card draw. It's entertaining and, more importantly, it's biblical.

Simon's Cat in "Santa Claws"

     Of course my tree's not down. We're only on the sixth day of Christmas ("Geese alaying" for those of you keeping track.) I am, however, getting a little nervous about the outside Christmas lights since my pagan homeowner's association tends to send out notices threatening all sorts of draconian consequences unless lights are taken down – I kid you not. Don't these people realize it's not even Epiphany yet?! Besides... it's cold out... and the ladder's really high.

     My cats have thoroughly enjoyed the season! For you cat lovers out there, here's a wonderful little video that answers that age-old math problem: CT + C = ? (Christmas Tree + Cat = ?)

A Digital Nativity

     If the Nativity took place with today's social media available! Enjoy!