Happy Late 4th of July

Happy 4th of July!!! Umm, well, maybe this is a little late! I actually started writing this on the 4th. Does that count? :)

Over this past year or so I have been reading about the Founding Fathers and the American Revolution. I have been enamored with it for some reason. As I watched the fireworks this year, I almost teared up as I recalled the sacrifices these men made to bring about the birth of a new nation. Did you remember that by writing and signing the Declaration of Independence they were making themselves known as traitors? They were committing an open act of treason against one of the longest running and most powerful empires in existence at that time. If any of them were caught they would have been hanged. Many of them lost their fortunes and their health as a result of their revolutionary endeavors to break away and form a government with roots in philosophical, "enlightenment" ideas many of them had been raised on and dreamed about. Sometimes I think we don't ponder these things enough.

Something to ponder. We may not like the "other party", whichever side that may be, but we should be thankful that we can have safe political dialogue. And elections, though sometimes the outcomes are highly contested or very disappointing, do not erupt in violence in the streets or even the threat of it. And not only should we be thankful, we should pray for those nations that do not enjoy the political freedoms that we do, that they will be ruled in peace and justice.

As a tribute to this holiday is an excerpt from the introduction of a book I am currently reading, Founding Brothers, by Joseph Ellis. It is very fitting for the recent celebration.

What distinguishes the American Revolutions from most, if not all, subsequent revolutions worthy of the name is that in the battle for supremacy, for the "true meaning" of the revolution, neither side completely triumphed. Here I do not just mean that the American Revoltuion did not "devour its own children" and lead to blood-soaked scenes at the guillotine or the firing-squad wall, though that is true enough. Instead, I mean that the revolutionary generation found a way to contain the explosive energies of the debate in the form of an ongoing argument or dialogue that was eventually institutionalized and rendered safe by the creation of political parties. The source of the disagreement... involv[es] conflicting attitudes toward government itself, competing versions of citizenship, differing postures toward the twin goals of freedom and equality.

But the key point is that the debate was not resolved so much as built into the fabric of the national identity... Why is it that there is a core of truth to the distinctive iconography of the American Revolution, which does not depict dramatic scenes of mass slaughter, but, instead, a gallery of well-dressed personalities in classical poses?

First, the achievement of the revolutionary generation was a collective enterprise that succeeded because of the diversity of personalities and ideologies present in the mix. [It is] not because any of them was perfect or infallible, but because their mutual imperfections and fallibilities, as well as their eccentricities and excesses, checked each other...

Second, they all knew one another personally, meaning they broke bread together, sat together at countless meetings, corresponded with one another about private as well as public matters. Politics...remained a face-to-face affair.

Third, they managed to take the most threatening and divisive issue off the political agenda. That issue, of course, was slavery, which was clearly incompatible with the principles of the American Revolution, no matter what version once championed. (Could they have tried to abolish slavery and manage to keep the nation? ) ... The revolutionary generation decided that the risks outweighed the prospects for succes; they quite self-consciously chose to defer the slavery question by placing any discussion of it out-of-bounds at both the national and federal level.

Fourth, they developed a keen sense of their historical significance even while they were making the history on which their reputations would rest...If they sometimes behaved like actors in a historical drama, that is often how they regarded themselves. ..We are the audience for which they were performing; knowing we would be watching helped to keep them on their best behavior.

The Horse and His Boy

I just finished listening to The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis on CD while painting one of our guest bedrooms. What a great book! I have read it before a couple of times and again I was moved to tears by Aslan's protection, providence and will, a picture of Christ over our individual lives and His creation as a whole. I read that this book is about finding one's home. The two talking horses from Naria who were stolen and sold to the people of Calormen. They were free creatures in Narnia so life in Calormen was like slavery. They sought the opportunity to escape and find their way back home to Narnia. The two children who are with them and are a means for them to escape, have never been to Narnia but have their own cruel, slave-like situations they are trying to escape.

As the book is indeed about the journey to reach Narnia, the original home of the horses and the intended new home for the girl, Avaris, and the boy, Shasta, I think it is much more about the invisible hand that guides our lives and world events. One of the allies of Narnia is under siege by the Calormen, but Aslan has complete control. He had planned for many years how the kingdom would be saved, even by the most unlikely person who in the end turns out to be someone quite different than even this person thought he was. (You'll have to read it for yourself - I am not giving it all away!!!) His life was rough in the beginning but it was all for a purpose far greater than even himself.

We know God works all things out for good to those who love Him but I think often we may make that "good" too small. Surely God will bring good in our lives through whatever we go through in life but what if God has had it planned since creation to have a far greater purpose like the salvation of another person, or a whole family or even a whole people group? When we think of God's providence we must think much bigger than ourselves. I was listening to a sermon by John Piper (also while painting) the other day about Jesus building His church and it made me think about the Horse and His Boy. Jesus said, "Upon this rock I WILL build my church." It is not of matter of maybe it will be done. He WILL do it and oftentimes it might be through ways we could never have imagined, when it seems absolutely impossible. Though the Horse and His Boy is not about building the church it is about a kingdom that Aslan sought to protect and did it in a way that would seem unlikely and unimaginable. "His ways are not our ways."

Here is my favorite part of the book. Shasta had been separated from the group of warriors on the way to fight against the Calormen who were attacking the allies of Narnia. Shasta was lamenting over his bad luck throughout his whole life and feeling left out, left behind and lost.

"And being so very tired and having nothing inside him, he felt so sorry for himself that the tears rolled down his cheeks.

"What put a stop to all this was a sudden fright. Shasta discovered that someone or somebody was walking beside him. It was pitch dark and he could see nothing. And the Thing (or Person) was going so quietly that he could hardly hear any footfalls. What he could hear was his breathing. His invisible companion seemed to breath on a very large scale... and he had come to notice the breathing so gradually that he really had no idea how long it had been there...

"The Thing (or Person) went on beside him so very quietly that Shasta began to hope he had only imagined it. But just as he was becoming quite sure of it, there suddenly came a deep, rich sigh out of the darkness beside him. That couldn't be imagination! Anyway, he had felt the hot breath of that sigh on his chilly left hand...

His horse was unreliable to make a run for it "so he went on at a steady walking pace and the unseen companion walked and breathed beside him. At last he could bear it no longer."

"Who are you?" he said, scarcely above a whisper... "You're not -- not something dead, are you? Oh, I am the unluckiest person in the whole world!" Once more he felt the warm breath of the Thing on his hand and face. "There," it said, "that is not the breath of a ghost. Tell me your sorrows." He told him of his hard childhood and the rough journey thus far.

"I do not call you unfortunate," said the Large Voice. "Don't you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?" said Shasta. "There was only one lion," said the voice. "What on earth do you mean? I've just told you there were at least two the first night and --" ...

"I was the lion." I was the lion who forced you to join with Avaris. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you could reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, as child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight to receive you."

"Who are you?" asked Shasta. "Myself," said the voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook... Shasta no longer felt afraid that the Thing would harm him but "a new and different sort of trembling came over him. Yet he felt glad too."

A light came on them and revealed the Thing. "He turned and saw, pacing beside him, taller than the horse, a Lion...after one glance at the Lion's face he slipped out of the saddle and fell at its feet. He couldn't say anything but then he didn't want to say anything and he knew he needn't say anything. "

"The High King above all kings stooped toward him. Its mane, and some strange and solemn perfume that hung about the man, was all round him. ..." After a bit the Lion was gone and Shasta wondered if it was just a dream. "But it couldn't have been a dream for there in the grass before him he saw the deep, large print of the Lion's front right paw."

The Lion is padding by our side and He leaves his heavy footprints and His breath everywhere. Do we see the evidence? Do we look for it? He WILL do what He says He will do and it WILL be for His glory and our good.