My Faith Timeline

Ocean House Chapel, Watch Hill, RI

Yesterday at lunch, after our noon mid-week Lenten service, the guest pastor shared with us the story of how he came to be in the service of Christ.  He went to college to be a sports coach but couldn't get a job.  His friends who were cops encouraged him to join the police force.  He did and served as a law enforcement officer for twenty years.  Retiring from that position, he worked for the Department of Transportation.  After fifteen years as a transportation official, he heard the call to become a pastor.

Now, I don't know about other people, but I like it when my pastors have had "other lives."  It seems to give them a different perspective on faith than those who have come to the pastoral field straight out of the college-seminary track, a different skill set.  That said, I must admit that my current pastor, who to my knowledge followed the traditional college-seminary-clergy track, has a great bead on life, maybe because he is the father of five talented children, the husband of a gifted wife, and is himself a talented singer/performer.  To illustrate:  one son is an actor who recently had a walk-on extra part in an episode of "The Big Bang Theory;"  Mrs. Pastor just published her second book;  and, just about the time we joined the congregation, Pastor portrayed Jesus in a local production of "Godspell."

All this discussion got me thinking about my own faith timeline:

1962  Baptized in the American Lutheran Church
1975  Confirmed in the American Lutheran Church
1982  Participated in Navigators while at college;  attended an LCMS campus chapel
1985  Married a Catholic in the American Lutheran Church
1985-1990  Stayed away from church.  Not sure why.

1990-2005  Member of an ELCA congregation
While at this church, I taught Sunday School using The Divine Drama.  I also explored New Age Spirituality while my husband was a thyroid cancer patient.  When my daughter was three years old, we started attending Bible Study Fellowship together and continued until she was six.  When she was older, I volunteered occasionally with a local Awana program.

2006-2009  Transferred to an LCMS congregation
During this time, I taught Sunday School for a couple of years.

2009-2011  Attended a PCA church with my daughter while she explored Calvinism
2012  Returned to my LCMS congregation

Now that I am back home, so to speak, and my daughter is learning to be a church organist, I spend a lot of time in area Lutheran churches other than my own.  I also visit churches of other denominations if their congregations are in need of a substitute organist.

So, what is your faith timeline?  Where has your faith journey taken you thus far?

A Free Wool Coat

Reposted from Gooseberry Lane.  Original posting date:  3/15/2007.

Yesterday, after attending a noon Lenten service at my church and after dropping my daughter at her weekly piano lesson, I sat in McDonald's drinking tea and reflecting on the sermon I had heard just an hour before based on a passage from Isaiah, written almost 700 years before the birth of Christ:

All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way;  but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.  Isaiah 53:6 (NASB)

Common language skills tell us that the words "ALL OF US" in this passage refers to you and me.  The phrase "LIKE SHEEP" compares us with those woolly creatures who, if you have ever spent much time around them, provide consistent evidence of lack --- lack of stellar intellect, lack of self-direction, lack of awareness, the list could go on and on.  They provide beautiful wool for my sweaters;  but, let's face it, the comparison of people with sheep is anything but complimentary to the people.  We often lack intelligence, self-direction, and awareness, too, most especially when trying to follow our Shepherd;  hence, the phrase "GONE ASTRAY."

And to where have we all strayed?  To the happy land of "self."  In our sinful state, we spend most of our waking hours concerned with our own lives, our own goals, and our own problems.  We don't spend a lot of time worrying about others or what the Lord thinks is important.  We can't help it;  it is just the way we are.  In the Lutheran church, we confess these words, or something similar, in our liturgy on a regular basis.

We are by nature sinful and unclean and have sinned against God by our thoughts, words, and deeds.

And just who is going to rescue us from this condition, assuming that to remain in such a sinful state would be detrimental to our eternal health?  Christ, of course;  hence the phrase "BUT THE LORD HAS CAUSED THE INIQUITY OF US ALL TO FALL ON HIM."  Jesus took all the punishment for all the sins of all the people ever born (and whoever will be born).  As a stray sheep, I can do nothing to save myself.  I need Christ to stand in my stead, to provide the covering for my sin that I cannot provide for myself.  In the words of my pastor:

I can wear a coat of righteous wool shorn from the Lamb of God Himself.

That coat is a free gift provided for each of us.  All we need to do is accept it.

Hope Is a Strategy, Mrs. Clinton

I noticed recently that a Gooseberry Lane reader had searched for an article that was posted on a now defunct blog called Ducky Persuasions that I had started (and quickly deleted) back in 2006.  The article in question was titled, "Hope Is a Strategy, Mrs. Clinton."  I searched for the piece on my home computer and eventually found it under the title, "Hope is the Foundation of a Strategy."  By either name, I am posting it here for the first time so that whoever was interested in perusing it may now do so.  Sorry for the wild goose (or would that be duck) chase.  I hope you find the article worth waiting for.

From November 2006:

Over the past week or so, some of you may have seen new footage of Senator Hillary Clinton participating in one of the many Congressional hearings I am certain she attends daily, discussion strategy for the war in Iraq.  In this particular news video, Senator Clinton was quoted as saying, "Hope is not a strategy."  Well, Mrs. Clinton, I beg to differ.  Hope is the foundation of strategy.

What exactly is hope?  The American Heritage Dictionary contains the following definitions, based on different parts of speech:

hope  v.  hoped, hoping, hopes.

--- intr.  1.  To wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment.  2.  Archaic.  To have confidence;  trust.

--- tr.  1.  To look forward to with confidence and expectation:  hoped his daughter would carry on the tradition.  2.  To expect and desire.

--- n.  1.  A wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment.  2.  Something that is hoped for or desired.  3.  One that is a source of or reason for hope:  the team's only hope for victory.  4.  Archaic.  Trust;  confidence.

--- idiom.  hope against hope.  To hope with little reason or justification.

Notice how the word wish appears in the currently accepted definitions and the word trust appears int he archaic definitions (archaic, of course, meaning ancient, out-of-date, and no longer applicable).  Notice also how the definition of the idiom hope against hope refers to hope without reason or justification;  in other words, hope without a source.  This same dictionary defines wish as the desire for certain outcomes (noun) or the feeling of that desire (verb).  A wish, then, is nothing more than an emotional longing.  Sounds very similar to the aforementioned idiom:  an expectation having no source.  So...the modern-day, working definition of hope constitutes an emotional longing based on nothing?  In other words, HOPE IS WISHFUL THINKING.

But what if I return to the archaic definition of hope:  trust?  Trust is confidence in or reliance upon truth.  It is the ability to expect, with assurance, that certain outcomes can be assumed.  As the dictionary says:

Synonyms:  trust, faith, confidence, reliance, dependence.  These nouns refer to a feeling that a person or thing will not fail in performance.  Trust implies depth of assurance of such feeling, which may not always be supported by proof.

I make these kinds of assumptions every day, conditions that I believe will be true from sun up to sundown, conditions that are so basic to my existence that I don't even give them a second thought.  I certainly don't attribute then to hope (unless I really stop to meditate on it), and I certainly don't consider them wishful thinking.  What kinds of assumptions?  Foundational ones:

- I will wake up in the morning.
- I will be healthy and productive.
- I will live independently.
- My husband will return from work at the end of the day.
- I have personal rights.
- My friends and family will be safe.

The list could go on and on.  So, HOPE IS TRUST IN TRUTH.

Well, that statement just begs the question:  who's truth?  Ah, ha.  Now we get to it.  If truth is relative, hope is based on sinking sand (see My Hope is Built on Nothing Less), ergo hope is wishful thinking.  But if truth is based on immutable principles, then hope is based on a solid foundation.  What immutable principles, you ask?  Foundational ones:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." --- Jeremiah 29:11 NIV

...but hope that is seen is not hope;  for who hopes for what he already sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. --- Romans 8:24b-25 NASB

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. --- Hebrews 11:1 NASB

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character;  character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. --- Romans 5:3-5 NIV (1984)

Once I have this solid foundation from which to operated, I can create a strategy, a plan of action, with which to face life's challenges.  If my foundation is relative and constantly shifting, my strategy will exhibit these characteristics as well.  The circumstances of life shift constantly, why should I choose to set my hope in something just as shifty --- the relativity of truth.  No, I set my hope in the immutability of God and His principles.  It is the foundation of my strategy, and my life, and it works.