A Barbarian in the mirror

So the European Financial Stability Facility and the IMF have put together a bailout of Greece, to the great relief of the EU and the world financial community.  All the cooler heads have prevailed, as they see it.  The plan will lower interest rates and change payment terms on rescue loans already extended, saving Greece billions of Euros.  You can almost hear the sign of relief around to this side of the world.  I would imagine that  with this crisis behind the world can look to solving the financial crisis in the USA, perhaps in a similar manner.

But how did they ‘rescue’ Greece?  The Globe reports, “The €109-billion package from the rescue fund and the IMF means loans will have a maturity of at least 15 years, up from 7.5 years, while the interest rate will fall to 3.5 per cent from 5.5 per cent. All told, the move will would cut the country’s debt burden by about a quarter.

This is the second bailout for Greece. The first was in May, 2010.”

So in layman’s terms, the wealthy lent money to Greece on a promise (inital rounds of lending, leading up to their 1^st crisis).  Greece broke that promise, but promised not to break it again, so on that 2^nd promise they lent more money to Greece (May 2010).  Then then broke that promise but now make a new (3^rd) promise not to break the next one.  And the world should be happy at that.

GK Chesterton wrote, “It is plain that the promise, or extension of responsibility through time, is what chiefly distinguishes us, I will not say from savages, but from brutes and reptiles…the promise, like the wheel, is unknown in Nature, and is the first mark of man.  Referring only to human civilization it may be sad with seriousness, that in the beginning was the Word.  The vow is to the man what the song is to the bird, or the bark to the dog; his voice, whereby he is known…It is not easy to mention anything on which the enormous apparatus of human life can be said to depend.  But if it depends on anything, it is on this frail cord.  On that solitary string the Barbarian is hacking heavily, with a sabre which is fortunately blunt.”

What GK was saying is that civilization as we know it depends on our ability to do what we said we would do.  That is the first mark of maturity as a man.  To that I wholeheartedly subscribe.  He then makes the point that only a Barbarian (in all the ugliness that he defines that term to be) would misuse the promise of a man’s word (or a nations word – indeed, he was speaking of Prussia when he wrote that in The Appetite of Tyranny).

If then it is only a Barbarian who would break a promise, what manner of person would allow them to break it repeatedly, and more than that, celebrate making a new promise with them?   Far from celebrating the ‘historic rescue’, I think we should send each other sympathy cards.  We are watching the destruction of our very way of life, right in front of our eyes.

A morning Psalm

In the quietness of the morning

And in humility of spirit I come to you

I kneel before you with hands spread out

Before my God I surrender my day

My prayer is ever before you, a prayer to honor the Lord

For what I am that you should take me for yourself, to

speak your words to the assembly, to lift up Your Name,

the Name above all Names

To bring you glory and praise, telling many peoples of your

salvation.  To enlarge the borders of your tent even in my life

and the lives of all who meet me

Oh Lord, You are the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

The God of David, Isaiah and Jeremiah

The God of Peter, James and John, even Christ my Lord. 

God of ages past and God of ages to come

I seek your face that you would reveal yourself afresh

My God and my King

Of Gardens and the Compromise of Heaven

When I first moved to the house we now call home, I planted a garden behind the garage.  The soil was good there, and it seemed appropriate in my eyes.  So I put in rows of carrots, onions, potatoes, peppers and tomatoes.  To be fair, I never even considered why I would plant in rows.  It just seemed natural.  After all, we want to be neat, organized and structured, because structure means convenience. 

In my garden this spring, I firstly considered where various plants could grow.  The area behind the garage has been vastly renovated – I now have five wooden raised planting beds there (and a 6^th lower one right against the garage), and a new garden area behind the old one.  Each receives different amounts of sunlight owing to the trees surrounding my yard.  Also, I put in another new garden by the side of the house that doesn’t receive direct sunlight, and a small stone garden area outside the kitchen.  With so many areas to choose from, it made more sense to me to put different kinds of plants in different areas.  So potatoes are now in the side garden, strawberries in the new (further back) garden, herbs near the kitchen and various food plants (too many to mention here) in the raised beds. Looking at all that, I realized that my garden still has structure, but no longer is ‘complete’ in the sense of being in one place – unless you define that place as the entire yard.  It’s a bit less convenient in some respects (many areas to water).  But it’s also more convenient in other respects (like picking herbs for cooking).  I also put in raspberries in the lower area at the back of the garage and blueberries next to the herb garden.

Then I went on vacation for a few days to a cottage in mid-northern Ontario. I love the country up here, the scenery and the peacefulness of it all. 

As I am writing this I am near Tobermory, looking out from the cottage porch across the yard, past the ‘beach’ area, past the swamp to the lake and beyond that to the trees.   And I’m thinking of what can be grown up here.  The owner had put in a small garden area to the west, and enclosed it with chicken wire (there are a LOT of rabbits up here).  But being absent most of the time (hence the renting to strangers), his little garden is overgrown with weeds.  Two potato plants in the middle are struggling to overcome, undoubtedly remnants of a year or two ago, long forgotten.  It is hard to keep structure up here – the growing season is shorter by at least a month, so many plants are just not going to make it, and the ground is acidic (evidenced by all the pine trees around us), so many other plants are not going to do well. How inconvenient! 

I guess that’s another reason to NOT consider living up here one day.  How would you grow all you needed/wanted in this environment?  How would you stay in touch with family and friends when everyone else you know lives 3 hours south?  Surely if it wasn’t for family being in Southern Ontario, I would in many ways want to live up north. But such is the compromise we make for the sake of family.  Surely if it wasn’t for the limitations of money, time, distance and human frailty, my wife and I could have a place here with all the luxuries of home and also the gardens we so enjoy.

And I thought of God’s garden. He plants oranges in Florida, mangoes in Africa, tea in SriLanka, coffee in South America and apples in Ontario.  That’s not very convenient either.  At least not for us – we are not ‘everywhere’ nor can we travel from place to place just by thinking, so it seems most inconvenient to us.  But surely it is not so for the Lord.  For Him, it is just as close to put things where they grow best as it would be to grow them together, and the whole earth is His ‘garden’ from that perspective (indeed, it’s not restricted to earth, as the tree of life only grows in heaven!).  Structure no longer looks the same if space and time don’t affect you!

That brings us to thinking about heaven.  Specifically the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God to the earth - see Rev 21.  (I’ve been studying Revelation lately because I see it necessary to preach our “Simple Truth” series out of it, if you’re wondering where the connection is).

The New Jerusalem will become the dwelling place of God’s glory (see Rev 21:3).  His throne will be there, and Yet I think, how inconvenient that must be for God.  For the whole of heaven cannot contain Him and yet He is going to live with us forever in this city – a finely structured place (for a city is nothing if not a structured place).  Surely that is a compromise He is making for our sake.  Like a husband compromising on where to set up house, He compromises for the sake of His created people – His family. 

For His family requires (to our sense of order and for our peace of mind) a much greater degree of structure than He may prefer of Himself – He who made the stars and set them in their orbits, the galaxies and put them on their axis. So He has purposed to bless us with His presence in the confines of a city (OK, a huge, enormously large city, but a city all the same!).  At that time we will find we no longer have many of the limitations we have now.

For time will no longer matter so much – we will live forever in bodies that do not age or grow weak.  Distance will not matter so much – He will watch over our coming in to the city and going out of the city, and there is no longer any sea to separate us.  Money will no longer matter so much – the glory of the nations will be brought into the city, and the city itself is built with unimaginable wealth.  What will we do when we have no limitations of money, or time, or distance or frailty? 

Surely it will be in the end like it was in the beginning.  For God had put man in the garden, to tend and care for it - to apply OUR structure to His creation, that it may be more pleasing to our eyes and appropriate to our sense of order as created beings.  That we might cultivate it, care for it and cause it to bring forth blessing to us, that we may give glory to Him.