All Dogs Go to Heaven

"Scripture says a great deal about animals, portraying them as Earth's second most important inhabitants. God entrusted animals to us, and our relationships with animals are a significant part of our lives." - Randy Alcorn, Heaven.

Last week, we laid to rest our four-legged family member and friend. Chloe was a 5-year old, 145 lb. American Mastiff, who in life was literally a huge presence, and now in death leaves a huge hole; both in our home and in our hearts.

John and I first met her as a 2-week-old, and I had the opportunity to bottle-feed her. She was small enough then to lay easily on my lap with her head and bottle in my one hand. Once she was grown, my hand could only compare to the size of her paw. She had a massive head and jaws, but would take a treat from me in the most ginger of ways. I always thought she had the head of a bear and the body of a lion - she was beautiful, and it was a joy to watch her long, easy stride as she walked. It was also terribly impressive to feel the house shake when she leapt into the air to catch a toy. One of her favorite games was to chase the flashlight beam, and every evening she would stand patiently in front of John asking him to get the flashlight. If he didn't get the flashlight when she wanted, she woofed at him - and her woofs were hard to ignore.

Chloe woofed a lot. Her woofs were very distinct, as anyone with a dog knows. She had an "I -am-sitting-down-now" woof, a "let me out" woof as well as a "let me in" woof. (Pet owners are, after all, simply doormen.) Her "someone is here" woof was extremely intimidating to whomever was outside the door, and she also had lots of complaining, whining noises, too. We thought she sounded a great deal like Star War's Chewbacca when she was complaining about something. We miss the sounds she made - her woofs, her whines, and her human-sounding walking in the house. We miss her.As we drove home from the vet the day she was put to sleep, I found myself wondering - as if I were 5-years old - where was Chloe now? Was she romping the hills of heaven? Or was she simply gone? Who can say for sure? We do know that God considers animals to be very important, not made in God's image as man is, but a part of His creation upon which he pronounced good. Eden wouldn't have been Eden without the animals, created as helpers and companions for men. They were given a special relationship to man, and he was to care for and nurture them. In fact, of all God's creation, He gave to man the right and responsibility to name the animals. Considering this unique kind of relationship man has with the animals - perfect in Eden - it seems likely that when God brings us finally to the New Heavens and the New Earth, He will restore the animals right along with the rest of the earth and creation. Does this mean I get to see my Chloe again? I don't know, but I'd like to think so. Is it wrong to grieve the death of our pets with whom we have such a unique relationship? No. God gave them to us to love and it is a true loss when they're gone. God gave Chloe as a blessing to us, and I'm thankful for all that that means."In her excellent book about Heaven, Joni Eareckson Tada says, 'If God brings our pets back to life, it wouldn't surprise me. It would be just like Him. It would be totally in keeping with His generous character ... Exorbitant. Excessive. Extravagant in grace after grace. Of all the dazzling discoveries and ecstatic pleasures heaven will hold for us, the potential of seeing Scrappy would be pure whimsy - utterly, joyfully surprisingly superfluous ... Heaven is going to be a place that will refract and reflect in as many ways as possible the goodness and joy of our great God, who delights in lavishing love on His children.'"

"In a poem about the world to come, theologian John Piper writes,

'And as I knelt beside the brook

To drink eternal life, I took

A glance across the golden grass,

And saw my dog, old Blackie, fast

As she could come. She leaped the stream-

Almost-and what a happy gleam

Was in her eye. I knelt to drink,

And knew that I was on the brink

Of endless joy. And everywhere

I turned I saw a wonder there." (Randy Alcorn, Heaven)

Maybe I'll see my Chloe in heaven after all.

Anybody Listening?

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."

~ Lady Margaret Thatcher

Consequential Ideas

"He was one of the great humanitarian French freethinkers; and the only thing wrong with them is that they make mercy even colder than justice."

~ G.K. Chesterton,  The Secret Garden

Deep Wounds

Our human lives are full of daily challenges, difficulties, and problems, but there are a few wounds that strike so deeply that our lives are forever changed.  They become little monuments that mark the "before" and "after" in our lives.  

In the spring of 2002, I was happily and successfully rolling right along in my occupation of training and competing my horse.  The years of training were paying off, and I was having a great time.  Then a tumor was discovered on the lower part of my spinal cord and that was the end of that.  After an extensive surgery (after which it was determined that the tumor was benign, thank the Lord) I had a long period of recovery in which I literally had to learn to walk again.  But, at least I could walk; and even today I am back in the saddle if only for a nice trail ride.  Not a day passes, however, that I am not in some degree of pain.  Your body doesn't simply forget that kind of invasion of the surgeon's knife.  The muscles in my back will never be the same, they have been forever altered.  But, I am grateful.

In late autumn of this past year, after months of happy expectations, Cameron Beau was born and lived among us for 8 days.  The experience of loving him and losing him didn't kill us, but we are having to learn to walk again.  The wound in our hearts and minds is extensive and not simply forgotten.  I'm guessing that even as we heal, each day will bring its degree of sorrow; but we will never be the same, we are forever altered.  And, I am grateful.  

At the end of an age, God's people were anticipating their Messiah - the King who would restore the throne of David and rescue them from the oppression of Rome.  The Messiah did indeed come, but not as anticipated. Instead, He suffered deep wounds.  Wounds for our transgressions.  Those wounds did kill Him, but not for long, for after three days He rose again - and we are forever altered.  History, nor we, will ever be the same.  And, I am forever grateful.  

"I find crosses Christ's carved work that he marketh out for us, and that with crosses he figureth and portrayeth us to his own image, cutting away pieces of our ill and corruption.  Lord cut, Lord carve, Lord wound, Lord do anything that may perfect thy Father's image in us, and make us meet for glory."

"Scar not at suffering for Christ:  For Christ hath a chair, and a cushion, and sweet peace for a sufferer."

~ Samuel Rutherford

What Am I Doing?!

Though it wasn't necessarily warm today, the sun was just brilliant.  It was a clear, beautiful afternoon and John and I had plans to go to Harpeth Hills where our little Beau is laid to rest, and buy some real estate ourselves.  We also planned to visit Beau's Place and replace the flowers Eric and Kelly had left there a couple of weeks ago.  I thought it would be fun to tie up a little baby trinket among the ribbons on the flowers, so after choosing flowers at the store, I began to shop the baby aisle.  What was I thinking?

No one, no one, should have to shop the baby aisle to find something to put at the graveside of a baby rather than crib-side.  I was so angry and so hurt.  And yet I know full well that I am not the only one who's ever done it or ever will. However, later on, once we reached the grave, it was a comfort to bustle about and make it beautiful again.  It was the least I could do to honor our precious grandson.  It is inside-out and upside-down to have to bury a baby.  Life isn't supposed to be this way!  But, it is, and here we are - pain and all.  

When we shall come hoome and enter to the possession of our Brother's fair kingdom, and when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, and when we shall look back to pains and sufferings; then shall we see life and sorrow to be less than one step or stride from a prison to glory; and that our little inch of time - suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome home to heaven.  ~ Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661)

The Love of God

"The whole life of Christ was a continual passion; others die martyrs, but Christ was born a martyr.  He found a Golgotha even in Bethlehem; for, to his tenderness then, the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after; and the manger as uneasy at first, as his cross at last.  His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas Day and his Good Friday are but the evening and morning of one and the same day."   ~ John Donne, from a sermon preached at St. Paul's Cathedral in London on Christmas Day, 1626

For Christ came once to die that we might live with Him eternally (Hebrews 9), so "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."  1 John 4: 7, 9-10 

A most blessed and tender Merry Christmas from all of us at High Meadow Farm.

In The Valley

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for though art with me: thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."  Psalm 23:4

Formerly, I never got past the first part of that passage in Psalms - the Valley of the Shadow of Death - and wondered what it must be like.  The ideas that took root in my mind were images of darkness, terror, fear, abandonment.  But, now I have seen the rest of the passage.

A shepherd's rod and staff keep the fearful sheep on the right path so that they don't stray into danger.  I have found this to be true, and it is indeed a comfort.  And what was so remarkable in that awful Valley, was the fact that it was not at all dark.  Instead it was light and precious and holy, for the light of the Lord Himself illumined that darkness, and we were not afraid.  We were comforted."... grief is not a force and has no power to hold.  You only bear it.  Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery."

"I was yet grateful.  Sometimes I was grateful because I knew I ought to be, sometimes because I wanted to be, and sometimes a sweet thankfulness came to me on it's own, like a singing from somewhere out in the dark.  I was grateful because I knew, even in my fear and grief, that my life had been filled with gifts."  ~ Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry.                       

Virtue and Liberty

"A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy...  While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader...  If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved.  This will be their great security."   ~ Samuel Adams (1722-1803)

"Nations crumble from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which the citizenry might better provide for itself...  I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited.  There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics:  As government expands, liberty contracts."  ~ Ronald Wilson Reagan   (1911-2004)

"Suspicious of welfare addiction, feeble justice and high taxes, totally committed to preserving it's own national sovereignty, unabashedly Christian in a world part secular and part muslim, suspicious of the Great Global Warming panic, it was unique.  These strengths have been fading for some time ... weakened by the failure of American's conservative party - the Republicans - to fight on the cultural and moral fronts.  They preferred to posture on the world stage.  And now the US, like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World .... Where now is our last best hope on earth?  ~ Peter Hitchens, Mail Online, UK

Game Over For Today

"Politics is not an event but a process. We sometimes lose the events but it never gives us the right to stop being faithful to our principles that enlisted us in the process.  We shall live to fight another day."   - Mike Huckabee

William Wallace leads the Scots Against the English by J. Rogers

Sin of Omission

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps perpetrate it."

- Martin Luther King

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

- Edmund Burke

Inquiring Minds

"For inquire, please, of bygone ages,

and consider what the fathers have searched out.

For we are but of yesterday and know nothing,

for our days on earth are a shadow.

Will they not teach you and tell you

and utter words out of their understanding?"  

~Job 8:8-10

When the Beatles first hit American soil, I was in the first grade, but already I was singing along to Hard Day's Night, and marveling at those young men and their shaggy haircuts.  I remember having a conversation with my mother about men and long hair and how this was the first time men had ever had long hair!  She assured me there had been many times in history that men had had long hair, and it dawned on me that it was the first time in my  very short history that men had long hair, and I realized then that much time and history had preceded me.  As a young child, life was all about the present, the here and now, and history had no realm in my understanding.  

George Santayana quipped, "Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it."  And it was Karl Marx who said, "History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles.  It is men, real and living, who do all this."  It is not only foolish, but it's also arrogance to assume that we, in our own space and time, know all there is to know, and deny the great thoughts and accomplishments of those gone before.  But, that is exactly what Modernity/Post-modernity preaches;  "We are it!  We are the People!  We're da man!  To heck with the old fogies."  So, alas, we are doomed to repeat history.

"Reading feeds the brain.  It is evident that most minds are starving to death."  ~ Benjamin Franklin

Arts, education, economics, politics, anthropology, the Church; all these areas have suffered the effects of no longer looking, and learning, back through time.  I would suggest that the Church bears the largest responsibility of abandoning it's understanding of the past, and that the aforementioned areas - and more - are thereby affected.  The Modern/Post-modern Church hasn't even done a good job of looking far into the future - perhaps because of spending too much time waiting for Jesus to return and not enough time keeping her lamps filled and wicks trimmed.  Instead, the here-and-now, experiencially-oriented modern Evangelical Church has concentrated only on the present, perhaps a bit into the future, but certainly not on the past; and that is simply a symptom of failing to mature and see past one's self.

The Church has an amazingly rich heritage and deposit of wisdom and understanding from which to draw.  Not only is there the Old Covenant, from which the New Covenant drew, but there are the Church Fathers.  Why have we have ceased to study the writings of the men of the early church who were only a generation or two removed from the Lord Himself?  The writings and wisdom of Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp and more have been preserved for us in letters.  Augustine wrote prolifically, and don't forget those who preceded the Reformation - indeed established its foundations - such as Groote and Wycliffe - then the Reformers themselves - Martin, Calvin, Bucer, and many more.  Through history, there have been wise men and women who worked, suffered, and left us a rich legacy even to our own time:  Chalmers, Kuyper, Sayers, Schaeffer, Lewis.  In order to walk wisely into the future, we cannot cut ourselves off from the strong foundations of our past.  As it's been said, "The old ways are the best ways after all."  We must know where we've been in order to know where we are and where we are going.  

"For inquire, please, of bygone ages, and what the fathers have searched out."   

One Big "If"

"The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our Civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards;  and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.  We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors; they purchased them for us with toil and danger and the expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence.  It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men."   ~ Samuel Adams

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.  We will preserve for our children America, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness.  If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here.  We did all that could be done."  ~ Ronald Reagan"...if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sins and heal their land."  II Chronicles 7:14

Life in the Fast Lane

"Life in the fast lane, Surely make you lose your mind,

Life in the fast lane, everything all the time...."  - The Eagles

It was announced at our church that we were going to have our first Women's Retreat.  Groan.....  Not being Madame Social Butterfly, and being turned off by the typical women's retreat - described by a like-minded friend as a slumber parties for grown-ups with fluff, warm fuzzies and lots of tears for spiritual sustenance (you can tell we hadn't been thrilled from past experience) - I unenthusiastically signed up.  After all, an Elder's wife ought to set the example, right?  Some example.  

The theme of the retreat was "Rest".  Sounds good, but how on earth do you do that?  SCHEDULE rest?  That sounded like an oxymoron.  Besides, I'm too busy to set aside time to just rest and do nothing.  Boy, was I wrong.  

"What keeps any of us from growing (spiritually) is not sin, but speed... We live life in the fast lane because we have no slow lanes anymore.  Every lane is fast and the only comfort our culture can offer is more lanes and increased speed limits.

Spiritual growth is not running faster, as in more meetings, more Bible studies, and more prayer meetings.  Spiritual growth happens when we slow our activity down.

"If we want to meet Jesus, we cannot do it on the run.  If we want to stay on the road of faith, we have to hit the brakes, pull over to a rest area and stop.  Christianity is not about inviting Jesus to speed through life with us; it's about noticing Jesus sitting at the rest stop.  While the church earnestly warns Christians to watch out for the devil, the devil is sitting in the congregation encouraging every one to keep busy doing "good things"... Jesus came to forgive us of all our sins, including the sin of busyness.  The problem with growth in the modern church is not the slowness of growth, but the rushing of growth.  Jesus came to give us rest."  -Mike Yaconnelli,  Messy Spirituality

If Jesus Himself went away regularly to be alone with the Father, why would I ever think that I shouldn't as well?  Doesn't daily Bible reading hack it?  Snatching prayer times throughout the day as I go about my business?  MY business.  Jesus told his parents that He came to be about His Father's business.  Hmmm.....  It sounds like that the first thing needed in gaining that rest promised by the Father is to lay down my own agenda.  

"Personal retreats are not about me and what I'm going to do to experience God.  Personal retreats are about the Lord and what He what to do in me when I'm willing to slow down and listen... Over time I noticed two specific gifts that regularly emerged from my private encounters with the Lord:  stillness and rest.  Together, these two gifts can replenish our souls, restore a sense of God's holiness and sovereignty, and strengthen our resolve to serve Him."  - Brenda Jank

"Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest awhile."  - Mark 6:31-32

This was Jesus' direction, His invitation to His disciples after they had been out ministering to the people, and after they had suffered the loss of John the Baptist.  They were depleted and didn't realize it - but Jesus did - and He interrupted their agendas to call them aside to rest.

"For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:

'In repentance and rest you shall be saved;

In quietness and in trust shall be your strength.'

But you were unwilling......'

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore He exalts Himself to be merciful to you.  For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are those who wait for him."  - Isaiah 30: 15 and 18

"Come away, my Beloved!" He cries to His children.  Come away to a desolate place and I will be your rest.  Quietness and trust will be your strength."

Not my agenda.  Not my ideas.  But, His presence.    

I guess a Womens' Retreat really can be about Rest after all.  

   

Covenantal & Classical Living

“You are the heirs of a remarkable legacy—
a legacy that has passed into your hands
after no little tumult and travail; a legacy
that is the happy result of sacrificial human
relations, no less than of stupendous human
achievements; a legacy that demands of you
a lifetime of vigilance and diligence so that
you may in turn pass the fruits of Christian
civilization on to succeeding generations.
This is the essence of the biblical view, the
covenantal view, and the classical view of
education. This is the great legacy of truth
which you are now the chief beneficiaries.”
—Arthur Quiller-Couch