day no. 15,895: imagination, machination and exeuction

"The cultural chaos in which we are currently living has caused many to despair, and others to simply shrug and accept the postmodern crazy. But I want to argue that we are in the perfect moment to rethink this whole subject. Because our culture has kicked everything over, since nothing is left but rubble, we actually have the remarkable privilege of being able to think through each line before redrawing it. We can check each boundary against the Scriptures before setting it back in its place. What a blessing! What a huge opportunity! I might not have advocated that our culture burn the house down, but there is no denying that now that the demo has actually happened, it might be nice to start with a blank slate. Rebuilding the house, but this time with better closet space and less ugly linoleum, is actually a great opportunity...We have a fantastic opportunity in front of us, but we also have a hostile audience. We are in the position of Nehemiah—returning from exile and trying to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem while the culture outside jeers. But if I could stand in any moment, this is the one I would pick. We have a huge opportunity in front of us, and I hope we can make the most of it." -- Rebekah Merkle, Eve in Exile

While every child of God earnestly yearns for a better Jerusalem, none of them would have burnt the place down in order to begin again. Their desire would have been for reformation, not deformation. But if Jerusalem goes down in flames, those whose heart was for it will be the ones who rebuild it and when they do, they won't use the old blueprints, they will revisit the ones received by Moses from his vision of the one above in order to rebuild it better than before. If we have to start over anyway, we might as well begin with a better end in mind. Everything is created twice. Once in the imagination and again in reality. May our imaginations be defined by God's designs that our machinations may be manifestly divine in their execution.

day no. 15,894: Penelope turns TWELVE!

Congratulations, Penelope! You have successfully entered into the last year of preteen-itude. Your time as a preteen is coming to an end. Its days are numbered as teenland has been spotted off in the distance. There the stakes are higher, but the prizes are bigger.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. You may be the oldest you can be before becoming the youngest of teens, but you still have a whole trip around the sun to enjoy it. Call it a victory lap for preteen-ness or a test drive for teen-itude, but whatever you call it, it's going to be amazing. No need to buckle up, buttercups. If it gets a little bumpy, it's all part of the fun.

First of all, how you be so big? You literally share shoes and shirts with your mom. You are a young woman. You have always been a little older on the inside than the outside and while your outside is now playing a little bit of catch up, your inside continues to grow and mature.

You are such a help around the house. You voluntarily do so much for our family. I can't imagine what we would do without you. Now that phrase gets thrown around a lot and maybe too much to the point that it takes the edge of the expression. In this case, however, it bears repeating in that I know exactly how much we would have to do if you weren't doing it for us. So it's not that I cannot imagine what we would do without you, but that I know precisely how much we would have to do if you weren't here doing it for us. You serve us in so many ways. You do the little girls' baths, you bake cookies, you make breakfast, you clean, you cuddle, you change diapers, you decorate for parties, you keep tabs, you keep lists, you take note, you pay attention. 

In addition to all of that, you also write stories and play music. God has given you a vivid imagination. You can play games for hours downstairs, creating whole worlds and characters and storylines off the cuff. You are a good lyricist and come up with words for songs easily. And you remember them all. You remember the melodies and the words. You have a expansive imagination and a robust memory. You are able to do most of that which you set your mind to do. God has given you a great mind. All the more to love Him with, my dear.

You read your Bible every day and often have comments about what you read. You understand the sermons you hear and know how to think through things Biblically. You like logic and enjoy running things all the way. You push ideas all the way to the corners. This will serve you well as you grow.

You are a good big sister. The little girls all look up to you and I hope they all learn from you and grow up to be like you. They see you and your mom as their models of femininity and womanhood and I'm grateful to God for that. You are the kind of woman I would want all women to be like: smart, beautiful, faithful, loyal, helpful, careful, diligent, and fun. 

You are a good baby sitter. You are a big sister to Ophelia, but you are also like a mini-mom in many ways. You love her and care for her in the ways that you can. You think about her and take her into account. You are beginning to think like a mom with eyes and ears on many moving pieces at any given point and time.

You are a great daughter. I like you. You are someone I like spending time with. You are fun to have around. You are fun to talk to and spend time with. You like to laugh and you like to learn. I am glad I get to be your dad. I'm grateful that God picked me to be your parent. I am praying for the man who will one day be your husband. He would have to be quite the man just to keep up with you, but you're not looking for someone to simply match your pace, but to outpace you and lead you. With man these things are impossible, but with God, all things are possible. If He can make a you, He can make a man who can surpass and lead you. What a pair you will make. I am excited to meet him and see the children you two will usher into existence. The grace of God abounds.

You hate feminism. I could expand on that, but why ruin a masterpiece. 

You are a reading machine. You are always reading books. You like to work ahead and read tomorrow's reading today. You like to challenge yourself to read more. You like the idea of reading all the books. You come by it honestly. Your mom and I are bookish. We like to read and we like good reads. I am excited for all that you have yet to read and all that you will carry with you as you continue to grow because of what you've already read.

You like words and jokes and laughcraft. You enjoy a good pun as much as anyone and can often dish them out as well as you take them. Puns that is. You sometimes struggle with being the butt of the joke, but that's to be expected. It ain't always easy being a butt.

The Good News, however, is that we're all butts and the sooner we realized it, the happier we are. We're all jokes and the sooner we agree, the quicker we can laugh along with everyone else. 

Happy 12th birthday, Penelope. Girls often read mature sooner than boys and you are often more mature than most other girls. That makes you quite the mythical beast, my friend. More rare than a unicorn and more beautiful to boot.

I love you, little lady!

Always have, always will. No matter what. Forever and ever.

day no. 15,893: give and take

"Responsibility comes to him who seeks responsibility." -- The Armed Forces Officer, U.S. Department of Defense (1950)

Responsibility is given to those who take it. It is a gift bestowed on those who have earned it. If you want more responsibility, you must take more. You will never be given the gift of responsibility by another until you have taken it now for yourself and for others.

Responsibility is a reward for those who already have it. It is freely conferred on those already paying the price for it.

day no. 15,892: rank hypocrisy

"It is hard to imagine a more dismal ending for a career than that of the man who aspires to rank, without having any honest concept of its proportionate moral responsibilities, particularly when the lives of others are at stake." -- The Armed Forces Officer, U.S. Department of Defense (1950)

It is bad enough for a man to overestimate himself and find himself looking up at the great heights from which he imagined he resided; but how much worse is it for that same man to toss not only himself, but his loved ones, over the cliff of arrogant inflation?

Authority necessitates responsibility. If one rises in rank without a corresponding rise in character, everyone suffers for it. It ends tragically for everybody. No one enjoys the ride or the landing. The denouement is a disaster.

You cannot be a moral authority without being moral, a civil authority without being civil, a governing authority without being self-governed, a spiritual authority without being spiritual, a parental authority without being parental.

day no. 15,891: the right to be wrong

"'The right divine of kings to govern wrong,' considered as a sneer, really evades all that we mean by 'a right.' To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it. What Pope says satirically about a divine right is what we all say quite seriously about a human right. If a man has a right to vote, has he not a right to vote wrong? If a man has a right to choose his wife, has he not a right to choose wrong? I have a right to express the opinion which I am now setting down; but I should hesitate to make the controversial claim that this proves the opinion to be right. Now mediaeval monarchy, though only one aspect of mediaeval rule, was roughly represented in the idea that the ruler had a right to rule as a voter has a right to vote. He might govern wrong, but unless he governed horribly and extravagantly wrong, he retained his position of right; as a private man retains his right to marriage and locomotion unless he goes horribly and extravagantly off his head." -- G.K. Chesterton, A Short History of England

If a man is only allowed to vote for one candidate, it is the same as not being allowed to vote. Having that kind of election is not holding an election at all. The right to vote in that instance is no more a right than the right to life is able to prevent one from death. Asserting that kind of right in that way is the same as not to have it. But the right to vote is the right to vote wrongly as long as you like and the right to life is the right to live as long as you can.

Having a right is having the right to be wrong. If you can't be wrong, you don't have a right. Being wrong is not an argument for withholding a right, it is an argument for having rights to begin with. But, as Chesterton points out, there comes a point if one has been regularly and egregiously wrong that the right to be wrong anymore is removed. You can only be wrong for so long or to such a degree before you terminate your right: either by voting away your ability to vote through stupidity or living your ability to live away through profligacy.

As an aside, the right upholds the right to be wrong by upholding the amendments. The left withholds the right to be wrong by withholding the amendments from those they determine to be wrong. For the conservative, a right includes the ability to be wrong; but for the progressive it cannot tolerate any deviation from their definition of right. That is why they take the liberty of removing yours so seriously. They not only see themselves as having the right to do so, but the obligation. They must limit your liberty in order to preserve the liberty of their choosing. But that kind of liberty, as Chesterton points out, is merely slavery. And slavery is not made any more tolerable for being labelled, "freedom." The freedom of the progressive left is the freedom only to choose their position. You have the right to say that they are right, but not the right to say that they are wrong. This is not a right and that is why they are suspicious of God-given liberties and work so hard to repress, redact, subtract or erase them.

day no. 15,890: thanks-having

"I do not, in my private capacity, believe that a baby gets his best physical food by sucking his thumb; nor that a man gets his best moral food by sucking his soul, and denying its dependence on God or other good things. I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” — G.K. Chesterton, A Short History of England

Experiential knowledge is not ultimate. A man is not an expert on himself for the same reason, his only experience is in being a man. No one and nothing is immediate. No one has access to God on his own without mediation. No one has access to his neighbor on his own. No one even has access to himself without God's help. Nothing is immediately known.

Knowledge itself is a gift from God which must be received. Nothing is apprehended without help. Everything that can be known comes from without and must come through something else in order to get into us.

1 Corinthians 4:7
For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?

Chesterton concludes that gratitude is grandiose -- thanksgiving in its highest form. We give thanks because we've been given much so that our thanksgiving is for our thanks-having.

"Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

What a glorious way of phrasing it. God's grace is a wonder. It comes from without and comforts within. It rushes in and flushes out. It fills up and spills over. It nourishes the soul and flourishes the man.

day no. 15,889: high spirits

"'Wine,' says the Scripture, 'maketh glad the heart of man,' but only of the man who has a heart. The thing called high spirits is possible only to the spiritual." 
-- G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

No one who drinks in order to discover gladness will find it. No one becomes high-spirited by low behavior. But the one with the joy of the Lord in his heart will find wine a friend, not a foe. Wine will complement his joyous effort, not corrode it. Wine cannot produce joy, but it can catapult it. But if joy is not present, wine will only bite the hands that drinks it. Drowning despair in drink only adds to the dilemma. So if you don't have the heart for it, don't drink of it. Wine is a sacrament, not a solution.