Hallowed Ground?

Fifty years ago, my father told me that the time would come when Islam would present a far greater threat to the world than did Communism, and that Christians needed to understand Islam. My father died soon after, so he never saw how dramatically, and quickly, his prediction would come true.


Now, nine years after the Wahhabist Muslim members of Al Qaeda crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center, most Americans and most Christian Americans are still woefully ignorant regarding Islam and its followers. Judging by the mostly-ridiculous public discourse we have been hearing regarding the so-called “Ground Zero mosque,” both the rosy-spectacled liberals and the equally-ignorant-but-vitriolic-and-angry conservatives seem to be simultaneously jerking their knees in their particular variations of political correctness.

The former maintain that Islam is inherently a religion of peace while ignoring the Koran’s own declarations as to the Muslim meaning of “peace” and how it is to be obtained. The latter seem neither to know, nor care, the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni, and they assume all Muslims are Wahhabists set on jihad.

As a conservative Christian, to whom the Bible says that these Muslim people for whom Jesus died are not the enemy [Ephesians 6:12], my primary concern is with the incredibly un-Christian reactions of a lot of people who themselves claim to be both conservative Christians and patriotic Americans.

I am no fan of Islam, but this opposition to the proposed Muslim cultural center – modeled after the Jewish 92nd St. “Y”,with similar sport and cultural facilities and including a prayer room, not a mosque – is one of the most amazingly STUPID, IGNORANT, UN-AMERICAN and UN-CHRISTIAN activities I have observed in a long time.

Furthermore, the mob hysteria over the proposed cultural center continues to play right into the hands of America's real enemies even as it exposes its protagonists to deserved ridicule. I take no pleasure in seeing right-wing political pundits actually agreeing with Al Qaeda in their opposition to a Muslim group that seeks a moderate course vis-à-vis America.

Conservative American Christians, especially, need to re-think their knee-jerk Palin worship and consider the potential consequences to themselves and their own interests, plus the damage to Constitutional protections, if they should succeed in interfering with the construction of the cultural center.

Oh yes – American Christians also need to consider how their rhetoric relates to Jesus Christ’s interests in those same Muslims.

If Muslims can be kept from building their cultural center on private property after they have jumped through all the legal hoops, then Christians can expect to be victims of the same lynch-mob rationale as, in future, their own precedent is turned against them to prevent church buildings from being erected, etc. You can kiss goodbye to any idea, not only of "religious freedom," but also of "private property rights" and "the rule of law."

We cannot safely pick and choose which Constitutional rights to recognize for others without endangering ourselves and our children, and when we would ignore the rights of Muslims in America, we remake ourselves into the very image of the intolerant Muslim governments we decry overseas.

How can we ever again claim any kind of “moral high ground” in the Middle East or anywhere else?

And these considerations do not even begin to touch the ridiculous posturing by the Becks and Palins of the world as they talk about "hallowed ground" (have you noticed any of the other businesses that are built at the same distance as the proposed mosque around Ground Zero? Look at http://daryllang.com/blog/4421 & http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/gallery/2010/08/welcome-to-the-neighborhood-a-look-at-the-area-around-the-ground-zero-mosque.php?img=17), etc.

If it is true -- and perhaps it is -- that the Muslim community is just trying to "spit in America's face" with this proposed mosque, then keep in mind that one of the things that has kept this nation great is the fact that in America, one has the Constitutional right to spit (at least figuratively) in the face of just about anyone. THAT is one of the very things that has historically made "us" better that all the "them"s of the world, and especially, of the Islamic world.

This very thing -- the recognition of the rights of those with whom we disagree -- is part of the HIGH COST OF FREEDOM.

Dear Reader, get a grip! Emotional reactions are a terrible way to make decisions, especially those that have such far-reaching consequences!

Whether as Christians, or merely as Americans, GET BACK TO THE ROCK FROM WHICH YOU WERE HEWN and stop giving real aid and comfort to the enemies of both our freedom and our faith! While you are at it, tell the Becks and Palins of the world to get off their self-aggrandizing soap boxes and hush!

Yes – there is real danger to America from some Muslim quarters, but I have no fear that America will be damaged by a Muslim establishment on Park Place in New York. America can be destroyed, however, by people who – even in the name of a misguided and false patriotism – are willing to ignore and trample the rights of others.

As prescient as my father was about the dangers of Islam, I am glad he did not live to see the Lord Jesus so shamed by this knee-jerk hatred against Muslims for whom Jesus died.

[Cf. also:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/opinion/17dalrymple.html?_r=1
&
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/opinion/22rich.html?hp]

Stray Blessings

When Matt was very young, he wanted a cat. I said “NO!” Patsy told him that if Daddy said “no,” he should go over Daddy’s head and ask God for a cat. Not long after, there appeared in our driveway, under the car, a tiny stray kitten that was much too young to be away from its mother.

I had been overruled. We had a kitten.

I should not have been surprised. After all, I come from a long line of people who took in “strays.” After my Grandmother Gilliland’s death, I learned that during the Great Depression, hobos had placed a chalk mark on the foundation of her house to indicate that she would feed anyone who was hungry. It might be only cornbread and milk, but a passing hobo could get a meal.

My parents were like that, too. As a child, I never knew who might show up at our dinner table, or who might be spending the night in our guest room. No one in need was ever turned away, and one of the great delights I remember from childhood was sitting at that dinner table, listening in wonderment as those unexpected visitors shared their lives with us. We enjoyed those guests, and the idea of showing hospitality to strangers was thoroughly ingrained in me.

Mother and Daddy made very real to me the Scripture that says: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” [Hebrews 13:2]

We still take in “strays.” My wife, Patsy, has been wonderful about taking in unexpected visitors, whether for a meal or for a night – or longer. She really does have a gift for hospitality, and she makes our home such a warm, welcoming place. Her gift is one that certainly does “keep on giving.”

Through the years there have been so many unplanned guests – I can’t begin to remember them all. Not all of our guests have been angels, of course, but I would have to say that each of them has blessed us in some special way. Yes – sometimes the blessing is more obvious, and then again, sometimes the strays seem to bite us. Still, although many of our friends think we’re crazy,  we don’t mind that such unexpected blessings continue to come our way.

Another such visitor arrived yesterday, thanks to a highway patrolman who went beyond the call of duty to make sure she was not left stranded at a truck stop. We enjoyed this new friend’s visit before putting her on a bus toward home this morning, and we considered ourselves blessed for the privilege.

As I drove back from the bus station today, it occurred to me that God apparently cares a great deal about strays. Jesus was saying that when He told the story about a shepherd who had a hundred sheep, and one wandered off. He said that the shepherd left the ninety-and-nine in the fold while he went out looking for the stray, and He concluded, speaking of the Shepherd: “he rejoices over it [the stray] more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray.” [Matt. 18:12-13, Luke 15:4-7]

Sometimes, the Lord allows us to get in on His outreach to wanderers.

Oh yes – about that kitten that showed up in the driveway – Matt named her “Blessing.”

A very appropriate name for a stray.

Weddings and Funerals

This week is particularly historic for our family. The seven days from June 23rd through June 29th each have special significance. It is appropriate that Patsy and I are in Birmingham this weekend for the wedding, later today, of a first-cousin-once-removed, because much of this special family history is connected to Birmingham.



On June 23rd, 1937, my parents, McKinley Gilliland and Martha Jordan, became engaged. Two years later, on June 24th, they were married at Ruhama Baptist Church in the East Lake section of Birmingham.


On June 25th, 1964 my father died here in Birmingham after having been flown back from Nigeria with a brain tumor. He died in the hospital across the street from Ruhama Baptist Church.


June 26th is the birthday of my first cousin, the mother of today's bride. My cousin lives in Birmingham.


On June 27th of ’64, my father was buried in Forrest Cemetery in Gadsden, Alabama, between two beautiful cedar trees on a hill overlooking a steel plant.


Two years ago on June 28th, I had the delight of performing the wedding ceremony for my son, Matthew, and his beautiful bride, Meghan. That happy event, at least, was in North Carolina.


This next Tuesday, June 29th, would have been my Mother’s 93rd birthday, but she died six months ago, just two days after Christmas. A month later, we comemorated her life in another Birmingham church, then we buried her ashes next to my father between those two cedars in Forrest Cemetery. The steel plant, like so much of America’s heavy industry, closed years ago after it became cheaper to build in Gadsden with Japanese steel than with Gadsden steel.

Yesterday, coming from Atlanta on the anniversary of my father’s death, we “took the long way” and drove by way of Forrest Cemetery. The cemetery is owned by the City of Gadsden and is beautifully kept. Even so, those cedars make it hard for grass to grow around the Gilliland family footstones, and the eroding dirt collects on some of them. We cleaned my parents’ footstones as best we could.

Someone had recently placed fresh flowers in front of the Gilliland headstone.


The last time we were in Forrest Cemetery, to bury Mother’s ashes, the weather was cold and blustery, with the wind whipping bits of freezing rain at us. Yesterday was hot and muggy, and we were dodging thunderstorms instead of ice.

I am glad we're in Birmingham for a wedding this time. Weddings are more fun than funerals.

Enjoying the Whitewater

A friend Photoshopped this picture to commemorate an event in my personal history.

Four years ago right now, I had cancer – a melanoma, right in the middle of my back. Surgery was scheduled for the next day (June 19^th), so I had not found out yet whether or not the surgeon would be able to “get it all.” If he did not, my prognosis would probably not be good.

A week or so earlier – after I already knew from the biopsy that I had cancer – Patsy, Matthew and I had gone for a vacation in the North Carolina mountains. During that time, Matt and I took a day to go whitewater rafting. It was one of those “perfect” days, as we paid good money to ride through rough water.

Near the end of our ride, our raft took a drop-off wrong and dumped over, and I was pinned to the river bottom by a couple of other bodies on top of me. I remember it with wonderful clarity – almost as though it happened in slow motion. And I remember how amazingly relaxed I was as I simply lay there without struggling while the other guys scrambled to get to the surface.

I was wearing the helmet and life jacket I had been issued, and I had total confidence that as soon as the others moved, I would pop to the surface. I knew there was a big air bubble under the overturned raft. No fear – complete assurance that I was safe – so relaxed that I actually had to tell myself that it was time to go up for air. I stuck my head out of the water about the time our guide was coming under the raft to look for me. Then, as we had been instructed earlier, I just let the current carry me down to where the guides had a safety line in the water – I grabbed it, they pulled me to shore, and that was that.

It really was a marvelous experience – that amazing feeling of perfect peace, even though I was intellectually aware of the potential for danger. That few moments underwater left me with a “high” I can scarcely describe.

On the June 19^th, as they wheeled me down the hallway to surgery, I felt that same kind of totally peaceful high – the kind that comes from knowing I am safe, no matter what happens. The doctor might get the cancer, or he might not – it didn’t matter, because I new that I belonged to God through my covenant in the Blood of Jesus Christ. Even as I had trusted that life jacket to hold me up, I knew absolutely that come what might, the Lord would take care of me and everything and everyone related to me.

That year, 2006, June 18^th was a Sunday, and I preached on “It’s the Whitewater That Makes the Trip Interesting.”

I have had my share of “whitewater” in life, just like everyone else. But as I trusted that life jacket while I was on the bottom of the river, so now, even as the Scripture says, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him….” [2 Tim. 1:12]

I wouldn’t take anything for that experience on the river – and I wouldn’t want to have missed the experience of God’s absolute faithfulness while I was dealing with the cancer.

Now, I am allowed to live every day with the continuing assurance of that faithfulness.

Oh yes – the surgeon apparently did “get it all.”

A Time For Drip Castles

We are at the beach. We’ve been here since Monday evening. That was Memorial Day, and most of the people who mobbed the area last weekend left as we were coming in, so things have been pretty quiet and uncrowded. It has been a nice get-away for us.

For some years, if Patsy and I were ever able to get away at all, it was usually only for a couple of days. This time, we have had most of a week. It has been nice not to have anything at all we had to do.


We haven’t tried to go sightseeing. We went to a grocery store when we had to and stopped into a couple of other shops. Mainly, we have just “hung out” together. That has been good for us. It has been a long time since we simply relaxed together.

Matt and Meghan came Tuesday night and stayed until Thursday morning. Their visit was a special treat. Since my melanoma, I don’t lie out in the sun, but Matt and Meghan went to the beach with Patsy, and Patsy was able to pass on to Meghan her special techniques for making a sand castle by the “drip” method. I joined them on the beach late, after the sun was well on its way toward hiding.

Peaceful. Fun. Nowhere we had to be, nothing we had to do. At liberty to relax. Maybe go to bed early. Sleep late. I didn’t even bother to get out my fishing tackle – too much trouble. Vegitate. Walk on the beach if we felt like it – or not.

Funny thing, though – after we had several days to “chill,” we began to realize how exhausted we really were!

We spend our lives running from urgency to urgency. Sometimes, the urgencies are even important. We go and go, and drink a little more coffee and go again. We put it down to being “Type-A” personalities, and we go some more.

Maybe one of us gets to go to bed early or to sleep late sometime, but mostly, we just stay on-the-go. Sometimes, I’m not sure where we’re going, but we keep moving….


But not this week. This week, we chilled. Even when there seemed to be an emergency back home, we just left it to others to clean up the mess, and we chilled. Not that we didn’t care, but … we just accepted that we were, at least for the moment, expendable. The world could turn without us. So we let it.

The chill time is ending too quickly. Tomorrow, we must go back to that other world that demands we help it turn.

It’s too soon. The deep weariness has not been fully displaced yet. But we have obligations, so we must pack up and go.

These five days away has been a huge blessing. I suspect we will try to do this again – soon. Maybe – is it possible? – we will even stretch things out closer to two weeks?

Life really should allow time for drip castles.

Jerking Knees

When I was a boy, I always wanted to play with the little tool the doctor would use to whack my leg just below the knee. It looked to me like a tomahawk, and I wanted one. I never did get my own Taylor’s Reflex Hammer, as the little tomahawk is properly called.

There are other designs of reflex hammers, but the Taylor’s is the most common. With it, the doctor tests our neuro-muscular reflexes by whacking on certain spots and then watching to make sure that we jerk appropriately. It is that whack just below the kneecap, and the accompanying leg jerk, that give us the phrase “knee-jerk reaction.”

Unfortunately, when we use that term, we are not usually referring to knees, but to the propensity most of us have to react unthinkingly when we encounter certain ideas or actions from other people. I regret to say that I can speak as an expert on this matter of knee-jerk reactions.

Fortunately for me, my son, Matt, has become very good at forcing me to re-think many matters on which I would previously react with a somewhat-predictably jerking knee. That is not to say that I always agree with him, even after I re-think a matter. But he has often pushed me, and he frequently – and uncomfortably – has done it by using my own words against me!

As a Christian conservative, there are a number of issues on which I have been well trained to jerk my knees. I appreciate the fact that my son frequently makes me take a fresh look at them. He does not always convince me of his perspective, but he is very good at identifying the key issues involved and presenting them with a logic – and with an attention to details of fact – that often leaves me no honest choice but to agree with him.

At the very least, he forces me to go back to my sources and re-examine and re-think that of which I had previously been so sure. Sometimes, I come away more convinced of my old position than before. More and more frequently, however, I find that my reconsideration brings me around to Matt’s viewpoint.

Meanwhile, why should I be surprised that Matt does this? After all, Patsy and I raised him. And as we, in our own generation, refused to accept everything we were taught as “Gospel” unless we “read it in the Book” for ourselves, so now Matt is doing the same thing. And he is doing it to me!

But, as I told him he should, he really is “knowing more and seeing further” than I. In so many ways, Matt has become my teacher.

Even before Matt came of age and intellect to press me so, I had already taken to trying to limit my own knee-jerk reactions to the bare minimum. Now, he will not allow me even those small luxuries! Using my own principles and logic, and using a deadly-sharp sword of facts, he often discomfits me and requires me to reconsider another long-held assumption.

Not surprisingly, I tend to find this intellectual stress uncomfortable. Sometimes, it feels as though the old soldier is having to go back through basic training. If I complain, however, I do so knowing that the exercise really is good for me.

There are certain Truths that will never change, no matter who challenges them. At the same time, I know that there have been many points of which I was sure, but which honest reconsideration forced me to see differently.

Jerking one’s knee is fine when the doctor whacks away with his little tomahawk-shaped hammer. It is not fine when one is dealing with the important issues of life. I am fortunate to have someone so close to help me deal with my own jerking knees.

Solifugids Among Us

I had never heard of a solifugid before I brought a couple of dead ones back from Sudan for my bug-collecting friend, Bill. I had a couple of these creatures, which I could tell were arachnids, but I thought they were some kind of spider. Bill set me straight; they are a separate order from both spiders and scorpions.

Later, a Google search for “solifugid” brought me far more information than I really wanted about these strange creatures, called variously “camel spiders,” “wind scorpions,” “sun spiders,” and other local names.

The name, solifugid or solifugae, comes from Latin and means “those that flee from the sun.” We never saw them in the daytime.

There are over a thousand known species of solifugids, generally living in warm, arid conditions and in virtually all desert areas in both eastern and western hemispheres. The unattributed drawing at right, which is easily available on the Internet, is a pretty good likeness of what we had in South Sudan, except that ours were a translucent tan.

I met my first solifugid on my first night in Akot. I was sitting under the lit Baptist Training Center shelter when something went whizzing by my feet. A moment later, it zoomed past me the other way. I still had not gotten a good look, but it appeared pretty fearsome. A little later, I managed to kill one.

Even dead, it was scary. Big, hairy, fast – and with those vicious jaws!

These “speedy spiders,” as I took to calling them, grew to nearly four inches long, and they moved in a blur. If one was in a small room, it would almost bounce off the walls as it ran laps around the perimeter. Knowing that these things were out at night made sleeping on the ground considerably less enticing.

After I returned to the States, it occurred to me that I had actually met a lot of solifugids before – especially in church. The Bible even refers to them. They might not have eight legs, but they certainly flee from the light.

In John 3:19-21, we read: 

And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.

I preached on solifugids yesterday.

Not your typical Pentecost Sunday sermon, I’ll grant you.  But when one considers that the Holy Spirit was sent by God to bring the Light of His Presence practically into our lives, and when one considers how few church people really seem interested in “walking in the light, as He is in the light,” [a la 1 John 1:7] one might get the connection.

And another thing – I find that the solifugids among us have vicious jaws, too.