On a Vacation Rest
I was on vacation with my family recently and I witnessed the amazing inefficiency of a state park in New York. Sitting on 65,000 acres in Western New York, Allegany State Park has a lot of standing timber that could be cut for building and rich soil in valleys that could be put to work growing crops. All of that land sitting idle, with only a few cabins and camping sites for the odd tourist.
It was beautiful to see that inefficiency. The politicians who set aside a large swath of land did a good thing.
There’s nothing wrong with putting land to work for the benefit of humans. God gave us the right to use the land, but at the same time we were given the responsibility to care for it well (Gen 2:15). Sometimes, however, the purpose of the created order is to point our minds toward the Creator (Psalm 19:1-4).
There is something majestic about a seeing hillsides covered with trees in an unbroken field of green. It reminded me that the world isn’t all about sidewalks and subdivisions.
Parks are a reminder of the principle of Sabbath. Rest. Beauty. Delight. These are the sorts of things that land set aside for recreation or simply for preservation can remind us of.
In the end, our lives are not ultimately measured by our productivity, but by how we delight God.
This transient event was a reminder that there is order in the universe. There is design. Care was taken by a mind to create something that is wonder-full. And, if we’re willing to take a little of our time, we’re likely to get a glimpse of the transcendent even in this world of banal imminence. These moments are gifts from God to draw us out of the ordinary into a sense of awe at his nature. That is something no human mind can deny.
Michael Rood of ‘Rood Awakening!’ ministries is careful to distance himself from Pharisaical traditions, but his teaching has more in common with the Judaizers Paul dealt harshly with throughout his life. His message is intended to lead them away from salvation.
For those who love reading and thinking about reading, this book is a delight. Perhaps it will not change the world, but it did enrich my soul.
In both books, Anderson notes that “distinguishing between good and bad questions is like distinguishing good and bad music.” He also highlights the “‘touch’ that separates great pianists from good ones” (Questions, 158; cf. Exploring, 164–65). There is an intangible quality, an eye, or a feel that differentiates the good from the great in every discipline. You can’t checklist your way to the Hall of Fame in a sport, to musical greatness, or to academic excellence. On the other hands, you can often checklist your way to adequacy. And adequacy is a precursor to excellence.
In a culture that tends to see so many things in terms of quantitative production rather than qualitative excellence, even a dose of what Newport prescribes can be beneficial. Knowledge workers that reconsider their harried lives through his unhurried lens will find plenty of things to reevaluate, especially for those of use who recognize a purpose beyond income and self-gratification in our work.
Everyone has stories. As the Moth authors write, “You are a multitude of stories. Every joy and heartbreak, every disappointment and dizzying high––each has contributed to the complex, one-of-a-kind person that you are today” (3). That’s part of their motivation in telling stories, in coaching storytellers for their show, and in producing their book about storytelling.
When Paul warns servants to do their work “as for the Lord” (Col 3:23) he is getting at this why. Obviously, we’ve got to work so we keep a job in order to eat (or for slaves, so they didn’t get punished), but that’s not enough. We have to focus on the next deeper question to have success. We have to see God as the final object of our efforts if they are going to have real merit. And, I think, we are more likely to have new habits or behaviors stick if we make God’s glory the animating purpose of our actions.
The brevity and fragility of life is exactly what makes the Puritans different from our contemporary “entrenched intellectualists,” who “present themselves as rigid, argumentative, critical Christians, champions of God’s truth for whom orthodoxy is all” (31). Truth and life were altogether too important to waste with argumentative posturing and saber rattling, The Puritans certainly battled many things in culture and in print, but in their writings, those always seem to be penultimate goals—the ultimate goal was increasing love and knowledge of the God of the universe.
How and How Not to Be Happy is an exercise in asking questions and reasoning through options for the source of happiness with the aim of explaining to a broad audience where true happiness can be found.
The hope of Christians for creation is not that we will be able to make things entirely correct through our efforts. Rather, we work with the knowledge that we have been given a ministry of reconciliation, which includes all of creation (cf., Col 1:20; 2 Cor 5:16–18). We work toward reconciliation in hope, but recognize that hope will not be fulfilled until Christ comes again. Creation exists in futility in the present age because of God’s curse on creation. (Gen 3:17–19) Our task is to till the ground in hope, making our living, (Gen 3:20) looking forward to the moment when God supernaturally sets everything right.