Month: July 2018

Posted on

Who Needs Air Conditioning?

Seen on the Federalist website: “I Gave up Air Conditioning this Summer to Live within My Means.  America Should Try That.”

Good for you, pal.  He’s in his twenties, vigorous and healthy and feeling great after a camping trip during which temps got down in the forties at night and high eighties during the day.  I’m in my sixties and I just got back from a camping trip during which it got no cooler than 73 with something like 100% humidity, and I feel pretty good, too.  (Did you catch the discernable trace of conservative virtue-signaling?)

I could do without A/C if I had to.  We did do without it for years, partly for economy’s sake.  I’ve spent summers in Texas without A/C—all of them, while growing up, and one while I was pregnant.  We’ve lived through summers in Tennessee and Kansas and rural Missouri without it, sweating out a few uncomfortable nights and very long afternoons.  Survival takes some strategic planning, such as

  • Put a couple of feet of insulation in the attic, along with an attic fan.
  • After sundown, turn on the attic fan and open the windows.  In the morning, turn off the fan, shut the windows and pull down the shades.
  • Fill up a one-to-two-gallon thermos jug with ice and cold water in the morning and drink from it during the day to save the fridge.
  • If you bake or can (I used to do both), wait until the attic fan is on   You’ll be up late, but that will give you an excuse to sleep late.
  • Use your outdoor grill for some of your cooking and a toaster oven, electric skillet, or hot plate for the rest, plugged into the electric socket on the porch.
  • Don’t use your drier—put up a clothesline.
  • Do most of your outside work in the morning and save indoor sedentary tasks for the afternoon, under the ceiling fan with bottomless ice tea.
  • Adjust.  Your body is made for it.

Though grateful for the A/C now—mostly—I still kind of dread the day in late spring when it goes on, because it won’t go off until early fall.  That groan when it kicks on, the steady rumble while it’s going, the barrier that blocks the summer night and fresh air, the nervous rattle of loose objects on the stove—I don’t like any of that.  I don’t like the dependency.  I don’t like being boxed.

These are personal preferences, and maybe some pokes at first-world guilt. At first glance, Air Conditioning appears to be one of the few technologies with almost no downside.  The title of an American Heritage article from 1984, “How Air Conditioning Changed Everything,” is only a slight exaggeration.  A/C made Florida and Las Vegas possible (a mixed blessing?), along with summer movie blockbusters, indoor sleeping, and year-long factory production.  It leveraged hospital deaths and ameliorated tropical diseases.

But it also created isolation and dependency.  We no longer get to know our neighbors by strolling at dusk and stopping to chat at the porch or stoop.  And when the grid shuts down it can be devastating.  Does anybody remember the Chicago heat wave of 1995?  Most of the 700+ deaths were due to older people “air conditioned” to stay inside, and so accustomed to confinement they were afraid to go out.  With the benefit of life-changing tech, we forget how to cope, and we forget a little more with each succeeding generation.  I can survive with A/C but not without electrical power.  My kids in Clark County, Nevada, would be seriously threatened is their A/C went out, but they could get by without their smartphones.  Will my grandchildren be able to cope without their phones?  Maybe, but research about phone addition indicates it might not be easy.

Technology gives and it takes away, the saying goes.  As the pinnacle lifts us higher from earth and its earthy problems and joys, I have to wonder if we’re jacking ourselves up for a big fall.

Posted on

Bible Challenge Week 43: The Church – From Jerusalem to Samaria

The church is growing because the gospel is spreading.  But just what is “the gospel”?  There’s a lot of confusion about that today, just as there was in the first century.  And just as there is in today’s church, the first-century church faced its problems.  Some of them were unique to those early days, but other problems are still with us: hypocrisy, glory-seeking, false teaching, and sudden, wrenching losses.  You would think that twelve divinely-appointed and sanctified apostles, who had spent the last three years with Jesus himself, would be able to run things perfectly.  In some ways it’s a reassurance to know that even the best, most saintly saints can’t do everything right.

It’s reassuring because the growth of the church didn’t depend on them.  Who was really in charge?

Click below for a printable download with scripture passages, thought questions, and family activities:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 43: The Church – From Jerusalem to Samaria

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 42: The Church – He’s Alive!

Next: Week 44: The Church – To the Gentiles

Posted on

Should I Expect Thanks?

UPDATE: Hey, Science backs me up! “You Should Actually Send That Thank-You Note You’ve Been Meaning to Write.”

Here’s what I’m seeing more and more, even among young, solid, sound Christian young people (and young people edging toward middle-age): Christmas is coming, or a birthday, or graduation.  I sound them out on what they might like, or ask someone who should know.  I research gifts and plot how to pay for them.  I might even make something.  I scrape together the money, buy the gift, wrap it, send it.  And I get no word in reply.

Sometimes I ask, did you get the present I sent?  Sometimes packages get lost, or emails bearing gift cards get buried.  Usually the answer is, Oh yeah!  Sorry, it slipped my mind.  Thanks!

Sure; everybody forgets—I have forgotten to write that note or make that call myself, so I shouldn’t be pointing fingers.  But I see my carelessness as a fault, whereas I’m not sure everybody does.

My question is, when something occupies my mind for a significant period, and takes an investment in time and money and (sometimes) presentation—doesn’t that deserve a piece of the recipient’s mind, a piece that doesn’t slip?  Do I deserve thanks?

My Calvinist daemon shakes its head no; dangerous territory, to think I deserve anything.  My natural self urges yes.  Maybe there’s a compromise: I don’t deserve thanks.  But . . .

Am I owed it?  Like I would be owed a paycheck for contracted work?  But gift-giving isn’t contracted; just the opposite.  It’s to supposed to be without obligation.

Do I need it?  Maybe closer to the truth, but not quite true.  I would certainly like to know if the gift arrived, that it didn’t get lost in the mad rush to unwrap presents and that it was (somewhat? a little?) appreciated.

Should I expect it?  Well . . . maybe, but expecting anything still sounds like strings attached: I do this for you, you’d better do something in return, even if it’s just a simple “thank you.” Not that we’re playing tit for tat, and don’t you hate it when people feel like they have give you something of equal value whenever you do anything for them?  So expectation doesn’t quite fit either.

Could it be that a gift isn’t complete unless it’s received and acknowledged?

Maybe it’s like this: a gift isn’t complete unless it’s received and acknowledged.  It’s still a gift, because of the giver, but something needs to come back to the giver for the circle to be closed.  Otherwise all the questions are just hanging out there: Did you get it? Do you like it? Can you use it?  A work of art is unfulfilled without an audience, an act of mercy must be received—even fixing a drain under the sink is pointless unless the sink is promptly used with gratitude (and the plumber is paid).

“It’s the thought that counts” works both ways.

Yes, we get busy and forgetful.  But I wonder if thank-yous are even a thing for younger people—do they want thanks when they give?  Or do their lives move too fast for either giving or receiving? If so, their lives move too fast, period.

Posted on

Always In Between

Do you have a “trip from hell” travel story?  Mine occurred over ten years ago, when I was trying to get from Vienna to Missouri using my status as a USAirways employee next-of-kin.  It’s too convoluted to recount in full, but it began with an accidental upgrade on the train from Vienna to Frankfort (that I didn’t pay for) and ended with me on a plane to DesMoines, which was not my destination.  (I got off before the plane left the ground.)  The forty-odd hours of delays, close or missed calls, deprivations and misunderstandings didn’t seem funny at the time.  But from that experience comes one solid piece of advice: when you are stuck in an airport for several hours because of a missed connection due to a delayed flight, find the chapel, open a Bible, and get a grip.

Chances are your place of refuge will be an inter-faith sanctuary that tries to accommodate everybody: the chapel I found in the Pittsburg airport scheduled Mass every morning, marked off a special praying area on the carpet for Muslim knees, and asked nothing of visitors but silence, so that fellow travelers could commune with their personal spiritual reality in peace.  But the deepest imprint on the chapel was left by Christians, as I discovered while paging through the prayer journal on the lectern.  Most of the entries expressed faith in Jesus Christ while sharing their burdens or giving thanks.  Reading over them was like traveling alongside for a while.

In fact, we’re always traveling alongside: these are the people crammed three abreast on Boeing jets, sharing processed air and hugging their bit of private space.  We know them, because we are them.  The prayer journal revealed their hearts:

“Thank you Father for this peaceful place and this beautiful day.”

“Lord, please show me if Michelle is the one for me . . .”

“Please pray that this last visit with my dad will be special. I love you Dad–thanks for everything.”

Amid the outcries and the gratitude, I found this fleeting prayer: “. . . and bless those who are in between where they need to be.”

It’s the cry of travelers the world over–I’m here and I need to be there.  Oh for wings like an eagle, that I could soar above all that unyielding space that stands in my way.  Or a divine bow to shoot me straight home, piercing the hours and the miles.

That’s our wish, even while acknowledging that we’ll never truly arrive.  In between–thought and deed, fact and expectation, doubt and assurance, heaven and earth–is where most of us spend our lives.

Abraham was never home.  The Israelites wandered for years, and after settling in Canaan, travel became part of worship.  Psalms 120-134 is the songbook for such journeys (and more edifying than “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.”)  Most of the teaching in the synoptic gospels takes place after Christ “set his face to go to Jerusalem”–including the story of the youth who traveled to a far country, squandered his inheritance and made his painful way back home.  Paul, that epic traveler of the New Testament, set out for Rome and found himself seriously “in between” on the island of Malta.

We know we are strangers and exiles on the earth, and our journeys from here to there are metaphors for a life lived in expectation of heaven.  Of course we tend to forget it, but on that trip I was blessed by a timely reminder.

While I was still reading the prayer journal in the airport chapel, the door opened and an airline employee entered with a guitar.  He nodded to me in the wary way of strangers, then took a seat, turned his instrument and began singing praise choruses.  After a moment I joined in on the ones I knew, and just like that, we were no longer strangers.  Soon three more employees joined us, then two other travelers.  The songs gained energy and conviction, especially “This love (joy, peace) that I have–The world didn’t give it and the world can’t take it away.”  At the end of the song service, before continuing on our separate ways, we took a moment to shake hands with special warmth.  Like the pilgrims of Psalm 84, “in whose heart are the highways to Zion”, we had passed through the Valley of Baca and found it a place of springs.  And the very place, providentially, where we needed to be.

Posted on

Bible Challenge Week 42: The Church – He’s Alive!

If the main character of the Old Testament is Yahweh, the main character of gospels is, of course, Jesus Christ.  But the  main character of the “Acts of the Apostles” is not the apostles–not even Peter and Paul.  It’s the Holy Spirit, or the third Person of the Trinity, who completes the work of salvation in the disciples of Jesus and goes on to make more disciples: “First in Jerusalem, then in Samaria, and on to the uttermost parts of the earth.”

When we last saw the handful of disciples that were left after their leader’s shocking death–about 120 of them–they were disheartened and bereft, but still together.  Two stunning events are about to occur, which will turn not only their lives upside down, but alter the history of the world.

What were they?  Click below to find out:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 42: The Church – He’s Alive!

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 41: Messiah – The Lamb of God

Next: Week 43: The Church – From Jerusalem to Samaria