Mt 6:19-21 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
I haven’t posted lately. It’s not from a lack of material to write about. Believe me, I could write many paragraphs about my cross-country train adventure. And will.
I offer no excuse for not writing, unless a general lack of motivation will do.
Then today, after reading the verses quoted above, restless thoughts began to seek adequate words for expression.
Matthew’s use of ‘kingdom of heaven’ instead of the New Testament’s more often found ‘kingdom of God’ has probably led some to believe these verses speak of storing up treasure for the afterlife. Yet the kingdom of God is within us and among us. (Luke 17:21)
Earthly treasures may be understood as material goods: food, clothing, tools, ornaments, buildings and all the other stuff we hoard. This includes all items of plant or animal origin, or any other material of this impermanent planet. Included, everything that may rust, rot, decay, decomposes, crumble or become lost, stolen, destroyed.
So if these are earthly treasures, then what are the treasures in the kingdom of God? This is the question that occupied my thoughts this morning, while watching a dreary rain through my office window.
I have heard many preachers talk about “kingdom building” What do they mean? All too often they appear to mean building new buildings, or larger, more elaborate buildings. Well, we humans do have a fondness for monument building, so this is hardly surprising. But is monument building, kingdom building?
A while back I went online to find current info about some of the churches I attended as a child. Most no longer exist, or have moved out of those rundown neighborhoods to relocate in more prosperous suburbs. This seems the trend in Central Florida. Churches leave older neighborhoods for greener pastures out by the Interstate. And by ‘greener’ I do mean the green in the wallet.
I remembered seeing this YouTube video about a long abandoned Methodist church in Gary Indiana. The video is an excerpt from The History Channel’s “Life After People”. After locating that video, I came across the following amazing music video shot in that same abandoned church.
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Who remembers the name of the monument builder after the monument, no longer treasured, is abandoned to the ravages of time? Ruins crumble, testament to the identity of their kingdom. They are of an earthly kingdom of mortal men who dream of immortality through the building of momentary monuments.
I have been reading Michael Spencer – The Internet Monk – for well over a year now. His writings have meant so much to me. I was heartbroken to read about his battle with cancer last fall. Now, today, his wife Denise sent an update to tell his readers that “Michael most likely has somewhere between six months and a year to live.”
I usually pray: Lord, let Your Will be done in all things. As I watched the dreary rain outside my window my prayer became a petition. Please Lord! We need Monk’s honesty, his humor, his intelligence and clarity. So many of us need him!
Monk always wrote so honestly about the challenges facing the present-day church. With heartfelt words he wrote about the challenges we face along our journey of faith. Sadly, too many Christians perpetuate the notion that once we “come to Jesus” all is sunshine and happy smiles. And worse, many are led to believe that once saved they will be enveloped in perpetually happy and endlessly-loving church family.
But what about the people who feel out of place, who ask questions they are told they should not ask, who always feel the outsider? Many of us were fortunate enough to find The Internet Monk. In Monk’s honest discussions of the human condition, he allowed Christ to more brightly illuminate the Good News of The Kingdom of God.
Instead of building monuments, h wrote, and his writings and podcasts nourished the confused and questioning, those that doubted or were close to walking away entirely.
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
No one could write as much as Monk wrote unless his heart was in the writing. And this was testament to the kingdom he treasured.
Thank You Monk for sharing the treasures of a kingdom where all questions may be asked and no one is denied entrance.
Thoughts On The Earthquakes in Haiti and Unceasing Creation
“What would you call it, if not arrogance? To believe we could build eternal cities upon a ball of fire with an ever shifting crust lashed by ocean currents and atmospheric turbulence that we never fully appreciated or understood? (From And The Dominoes Fall)
Those of you who read And The Dominoes Fall know that this theme runs through my novel. Creation is an ongoing process. Creation is ceaseless. I will go a step further: Death and resurrection, creation and new creation, this is the natural order of our world.
To view creation as something that happened a long time ago, happened, was completed is to diminish the awesome grandeur of creation. Creation is much more enduring, powerful and unstoppable.
I really like the following video because it animates not just the shifting plates in our planet’s past, but speculates about future shift. The movement of continents, past and future, reminds us that at any given moment we occupy nothing more than a grain in the shifting sands of time.
Those that view creation as something completed a long time ago encourage the view that natural disasters must be the wrath of God. Of course we have heard such talk over the past week. Sadly, this is all too predictable when one cannot contemplate continual creation.
The wrath should be at ourselves because we go about our pampered lives oblivious to human suffering until disaster reveals a horror too great to ignore. When an earthquake crushes so many structures, it reveals deplorable conditions in place long before the ground trembled.
Posted by: Jeff Masters
The catastrophic earthquake of 2010 is only the latest--and worst--natural disaster to devastate the nation of Haiti. Up until the quake, the hurricane season of 2008 was the cruelest natural disaster ever experienced in Haiti. Four storms--Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike--dumped heavy rains on the impoverished nation. The rugged hillsides, stripped bare of 98% of their forest cover thanks to deforestation, let flood waters rampage into large areas of the country. Particularly hard-hit was Gonaives, the fourth largest city. According to reliefweb.org, Haiti suffered 793 killed, with 310 missing and another 593 injured. The hurricanes destroyed 22,702 homes and damaged another 84,625. About 800,000 people were affected--8% of Haiti’s total population. The flood wiped out 70% of Haiti’s crops, resulting in dozens of deaths of children due to malnutrition in the months following the storms. Damage was estimated at over $1 billion, the costliest natural disaster in Haitian history. The damage amounted to over 5% of the country’s $17 billion GDP, a staggering blow for a nation so poor.
If natural disasters of a similar magnitude had hit the US in 2008 … well, that is more than I can contemplate. And yet the storms in Haiti garnered little notice outside relief groups, and those who track tropical storms. I have talked with several people who were not even aware of the 2008 storms in Haiti. They only had some vague notion that Haiti suffered.
Back to my thoughts on the ceaseless nature of creation: The following USGS graphic shows the location of the quake and aftershocks a week after -- about 50 aftershocks at that point. Look at the location of the quakes. Now while I have no idea of this is a possibility, looking at the images one can imagine the land in the process of breaking apart and forming a new island -- a new Jamaica. If such a thing were to happen I would call it a New Creation.
The Caribbean islands remind me of so many pieces from a jigsaw puzzle spread upon the sea. One can imagine how they might have fit together in this planet’s distant past.
And yet new creation/resurrection may take many forms. Some creations may be geographic; others may begin with new opportunities. While the people of Haiti struggle to overcome this nightmare, I pray the nations of the world will encourage a new beginning.
We must not think that because things have been a certain way for a long time, they must always be that way. Nothing in the nature of out planet is that stagnate. Change is always possible.
Restore this land that has suffered so brutally through deforestation and the people may also be renewed.
NOTE: While I am away over the next few weeks I will update on Twitter and Facebook.
John just sent me some new posters and I liked his Oasis so much, I wanted it for my screensaver. I love the colors, the contrasts of light and shadow, the smallness of the oasis compared to the great natural forces. He gave me permission to turn this and perhaps a couple other posters into screensavers to offer free at WordThunder. Anyway, here is The Oasis offered free, in three popular screen sizes.
I haven’t even added this one to our store yet, but sometime this weekend hope to have all his new posters available at WTGifts.
The oversized calendars display a different 11×17 poster each month.
Open, they are 17×22 inches!
I wanted to do one with a sampling of John’s artwork, but since several of his posters are vertical I arranged them with great quotes about imagination.
From the Calendar link click View Calendar Pages to view the design for each month.
I designed the Comfort/Thinking of You Calendar specifically for my mother and mother-in-law, but think others living in nursing homes or limited by illness will appreciate these pages. The calendar includes many of the 11×17 posters
from our Comfort and Caregiver page. Paired with photographs or John’s artwork you’ll find comforting Bible verses or poems.
Video created and narrated by John Mankowski. John created the video from old VHS tape and photos.
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John's cat. Video by John Mankowski
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John created the video of his great-grandmother from 20-year-old VHS tape.
