Category: Family

Blaming the Walls

There was a collision downtown the other night, a stylish new model smashing through walls that have stood for centuries. And curiously, many who witnessed the event are blaming the walls.

But it’s been that way in our little town. Change is in the air. The buildings look much as they did 100 years ago, a seeming tribute to the art and integrity of generations who came before, but it is no tribute. We live in their houses and do business in their shops, but the people who built this town would not be welcome here.

The collision made this clear all over again. There was a school board meeting downtown, a tense conversation, a new idea smashing into an old wall. Of course, it’s hard to root for a wall, and almost no one did. The new idea, that pornography has a place in school libraries, easily won the day.

It’s been that way in our little town, and it’s not just sex. The same drugs that police fought to keep off our streets are now the biggest business on our streets, with more than a dozen licensed dealers and billboards advertising our product across the state. Just another old wall, toppling into dust.

It’s hard to root for a wall, especially an ancient wall built by strange people, even if those strange people were our grandparents. We honor them, of course, but there must have been some mistake, some flaw that prevented them from seeing what we see. So, we cheerfully knock down their walls, proving we know more than they did.

Or, possibly, that we know less.

The danger of our situation is demonstrated by our impulsive answers to big questions. No one can tell you why marijuana is suddenly good for you. No one can tell you why pornography is suddenly good for children. No one can tell you why there is suddenly no difference between a girl and a boy. No one can tell you, and it’s dangerous to ask.

These are not new questions, only new answers. Very different answers than those given by the strong and intelligent people who came before us, people who won desperate wars and endured crushing hardships and built the towns we inhabit. What makes us so sure that our answers are better than theirs?

We smash through the walls they built to protect their children and culture. We belittle their faith in a kind and reasonable Creator, suddenly convinced that intricate and elegant worlds arise by luck.

We assume that we have learned something new about the world, but we have only forgotten something old. And now we must learn it all over again, as our children pay the price.

The Good Giant

I know; Fathers’ Day is over. For a few weeks, we thought a little more about the man who first gave shape and color to our world, who gave us one of our first images of our self. Perhaps it was an image of something precious, to be treasured and protected, or… perhaps not.

It’s a risky thing to be born into a world of giants, to be so powerless and fragile. It is also a fearsome thing to be the giant to whom a child is given. There are so many ways to fail and to forget, so many things you must surrender if you are to become the good giant, the one who carves out of the hard world a soft, safe place for your child.

Our father was our first hero if he was any father at all; awesome in size and strength. We reached for his giant hand and stared up into his face and hoped to see a smile, some assurance of his love. It is a picture woven into the world, repeated in the experience of every child: our weakness cast upon another’s strength, our desperate need for someone’s mercy, the beauty and necessity of compassion.

Christians recognize in this the careful design of a Creator who built a universe to help us know him, who placed on human fathers the frightening responsibility of having almost godlike power over their children. It seems a terrible risk, and some men prove it so. But, for many more, becoming a father is a door to redemption, an invitation to choose godlike love over our natural gigantic ambition.

I love these pictures because they show what happens when we accept that invitation. Day by day, our pilots practice the beautiful art of Fatherhood, using their strength to care for people who are not strong. We hope to emulate, in our small way, the greatest giant of all, who laid down his life for his friends, and the one Father who is truly good.

-2019, with Wings of Mercy. (HTTP://www.wingsofmercy.org)

Reviewer comments for “A Different Kind of Sky”

One of the best books I’ve ever read. Such a captivating story…

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Started to read at 11 p.m. last night. Finished it at 5 a.m. this morning. Bad idea but well worth the loss of sleep.

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Such a descriptive narrative. Well thought out and expertly written. I feel like I just lived life alongside Mike… There is so much depth and richness in the storytelling that I didn’t want it to end.

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This book had me laughing and crying. It was an emotional read full of wonder, hope, and sadness.

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I found myself experiencing side-splitting laughter, bouts of deep, heartfelt grief, and curious excursions into the overwhelming vastness of human existence, confronting the age-old questions: How is it that humans exist, and for what purpose?

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The characters feel like real people. The storyline contains a solid mix of humor, sadness, suspense, and drama.

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This book was really hard to put down. The character development by the author draws you into the story, making you feel a strong connection to their life’s journey. Excellent book for a club as the depth is well beyond a surface discussion of life, faith, joy, tragedy, etc. Can not wait for more from this author!

Find the story on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1625862393

The Brains We Are Building

It’s the most important job of each generation, and we get to do it twice.

We are building the brains that will replace us – those of our children but also those vast new mechanical brains that read and remember more than we can imagine.

The brains we build will believe us, at least for a while.

And that might be a problem. Take the recent experience of law professor Jonathan Turley. A recent article composed by the artificial intelligence (AI) tool, ChatGPT “reported on a claim of sexual harassment that was never made against me on a trip that never occurred while I was on a faculty where I never taught. ChapGPT relied on a cited Post article that was never written and quotes a statement that was never made.”

This is a helpful example because the facts can be easily verified. The AI brain lied.

Our Washington representatives have been discussing “the weaponization of Government,” which is indeed a disastrous thing. But, here, we meet something dramatically more disastrous – the weaponization of speech.

Speech is at the heart of human relationships. We speak to transmit. We listen to learn. The invisibly obvious assumption behind every conversation is that the words will be true.

A lie murders speech. It makes a weapon of the hearer’s good faith and uses it against her. It betrays trust and attacks the very possibility of human connection.

And our culture is full of lies.

The brains we build will believe us, at least for a while. The vast mechanical brains of AI will be as truthful as their programmers, and the lies they create will be bigger, faster, and more alluring. The brains of our children will be as discerning as our educational system, which distorts our history and can no longer tell a girl from a boy.

It’s the most important job of each generation, and we’re failing at it twice, in heartbreaking ways that may cripple future generations.

Let’s hope their precious brains don’t believe us for long.

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“He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
-Jesus, describing Satan in John 8.

More about Professor Turley and AI: https://jonathanturley.org/2023/04/06/defamed-by-chatgpt-my-own-bizarre-experience-with-artificiality-of-artificial-intelligence/

Other People’s Children

I wasn’t the smartest kid on the farm, but I noticed something right away. Farmers were often permitted the astonishing privilege of feeding and cultivating plants – merely because they planted them.

In my youth and inexperience, it never occurred to me that neighbors might find these actions brash or unfair. There seemed a logical connection between planting and cultivating – between nativity and nurture.

But things were different then. Culture was largely focused on family, and family was a scandalously narrow thing: One man who wanted to be manly. One woman who liked being a woman. His fascination with her femininity. Her love for his masculinity. Their permanent union. Their desire for children.

Of course, we know better than all that. Gender means nothing now but also everything. Our concept of marriage is remarkably inclusive, though less commonly exclusive. Current ideas about family are infinitely broad but often sterile.

Sterile.

Let that word lie dead on the page.

Every ideology – whether democracy or CRT, monogamy or transsexuality – is one generation from extinction. Every ideology needs children to carry their ideas forward, even ideologies that abort children.

If our grandparents had lived in this brave new world, they might have become anything – with the possible exception of grandparents. We, the proud vanguards of new society, are really the offspring of old society. Of – dare I say it? – that old-fashioned menace known as heterosexuality. Our grandparents’ marriages were narrow, but their love was broad, bridging the mysterious gulf between male and female. And their love was fertile.

And that is the agricultural significance of this moment. If there are now (as I just read) 81 genders, that makes 6,561 possible combinations in a two-person marriage. That’s a dazzling array of infertility, layered atop a fanatical insistence upon the disposability of unborn children. If these ideas about sexuality and culture are to survive, they need far more children than their supporters will produce.

They need other people’s children.

It’s no coincidence that schools are increasingly focused on social (and not academic) conditioning. While many – and likely most – teachers serve from genuine concern for their students, there is increasing pressure upon the educational system to proselytize. From presentations by drag queens to salacious library books to privacy policies barricading parents from information about their minor children, schools at all levels perform a sort of conversion therapy, normalizing practices and values previously considered abnormal.

And it’s no coincidence that the school attacked last week was Christian, given the stubborn Christian confidence that gender is a good and clear gift of a competent and loving God. Schools, churches, and families that reproduce this confidence in their children represent a profound threat to an increasingly hateful and violent opposition.

In this bizarre moment of sexual confusion, traditional families are being used to serve an agricultural function, giving birth, food, and clothing to little bodies whose minds are to be properly filled by someone else.

Our children will eventually decide what is true and important for American culture, but – unlike the many generations before us – we are being told to surrender the idea that parents are best qualified to prepare them for this responsibility.

Let’s say no.