Problems are for Solving

I had some auto-posts set up for a while and they’ve run out. So there’s nothing here for a few weeks.

Last month we went to visit my Mom’s cousin in Nevada, MO (passing though the famous Louisiana/Mexico corridor) for a few days. After that, I had a trip to Hot Spring, AR, followed by a few days in Branson, MO, including a two day trip to Silver Dollar City. It was a nice trip.

Mom and Dad came with us to SDC, and then came up to Peoria for a few days where Dad helped build some bookshelves in our library. Maybe TC will post pictures later, but I’ve decided that if I start posting pictures I’ll never get posts done again. But they look really nice–you can come by and see them if you’re in the neighborhood.

This week, Danco is installing air conditioning. Upstairs and downstairs. That ought to take the crimp out of hospitality this summer. We’re looking forward to it.

Last week and next week I had/have short trips to the east coast. It keeps me busy.

I haven’t been to the gym in several weeks. Bad me. I really would like to start that up again, but it’s just hard to get back over the initial inertial hump.

That’s about it. Lots of life surrounding this. I had delusions about posting individual posts about the stuff above, but don’t think it would have happened.

More later, Lord willing.

Note: This is a post I wrote on a previous blog a few years ago that I’m bringing out of mothballs, slightly edited.

I have been reading quite a bit lately about the topic of abusive authorities. I’ve read cautions about blindly following (a wise caution), about the harm that authorities can cause when they abuse their power, and many other aspects of the damage that unwise or unrighteous rulers bring in their wake.

One thing that I have found continually missing, though, is how those who are ruled should respond to those who rule in these situations. What little is said about how to respond to the abuse of authority seems too often to be making excuses why the abused underling (no matter the authority) doesn’t need to do anything about the problem, but can get off free in the matter.

As I’ve looked at the relevant passages, I am convinced that the abuse of authority (the Bible calls it lording over people with regard to Church leaders) is truly a horrible thing. And the poor or evil leadership a ruler brings, whether in church, state or family will curse the entire group. There’s no two ways about it.

But having sinful rulers is inevitable. God will allow evil men to rise to power at times (past President Clinton is a great example)—and there is no arguing against that. Even men who are not evil will sin grievously against those under their charge. David, who was a king after God’s own heart, sent his friend Uriah to his death on the front lines so that he could steal his wife.

So what does a man do when placed under authorities who sin? All of us are under authority, or we should be, in at least three areas: the family (father), the church (elders) and the state (the magistrate). In this day and age most of you will also have rulers at work (bosses). The Bible uses the slave/master relationship to describe this. Biblically speaking, I will try to treat this as a subset of the family, even though our workplaces are not organized that way anymore.

I don’t want my posts on this topic to be long, and so I’m going to post shorter posts as I am able. You are going to have sinful rulers, likely in more than one of the spheres of authority, and there are practical steps to overcoming the sin of those who rule over you and God has not only not been silent on the topic, but He has left us with quite a few principles on the matter. I’m not going to deal with the principles in any particular order, but as I do I’ll organize them into a logical outline that you’ll be able to find under this category, or an index I’ll create later.

I’m not the handiest guy around. Ok, it’s much worse than that. I’m not very handy at all. My dad can fix almost anything, but at the age where he was working on projects around the house and I should have been helping in such a way as to 1) encourage him 2) actually be of some help and 3) learn some of what he knows I was a) swimming b) watching way too much TV and c) just not really wanting to spend time with my dad.

Now I regret that time, but I can’t go back and fix it. My dad and I have a great relationship now, but it took years of growth in my life for me to finally treat him with respect and such. Now we genuinely enjoy being around each other–but he’s in Arizona. Not too much help on the daily household projects.

Thankfully, my wife is patient. She’s willing to wait without nagging at all for most of the things that need to be done around here until I can find someone who knows how to do it to come help.

Occasionally a job comes up that I can do myself. Saturday, I picked up a new cordless phone. The last one broke a couple of weeks ago and it means that Theresa can’t talk on the phone without being tied to the kitchen wall. I asked her–would you like the cordless phone mounted in the kitchen and the corded phone someplace else? She said yes, and I put two screws in the wall (yes, it took three tries to get them spaced properly and in a spot where the phone didn’t jiggle) and now the phone is mounted:

My wife will enjoy having the answering machine a bit closer to life and the charger accessible more easily from where she spends her time.

Oh–and I fixed the picture thing so it’s not so big. On this and the dishwasher post. My wife helped me. She knows HTML.

WARSKYL: A Page For Christian Martialists: A Holiday Warskyl Warm Fuzzy

This blog post by my father-in-law is the story of one of my wife’s favorite memories.

Oh–and my FIL’s blog is a worthwhile read in general so add it to your RSS feed.

Until this year my job has offered opportunities for travel on occasion, and some of them have been required, though not all of them. I’d gotten opportunities to visit conferences and places I might not have otherwise, and sometimes even to take along my family.

This year has been different.

None of my travel has been optional, and it has been exceedingly great. As of this post, I’ve visited 28 states and logged over 38,000 miles this year. (Side note: this is the reason my blog posts have been so sporadic all year)

I’m tired. I’m tired of coming home and tired of not getting to stay.

For my birthday Raquel gave me a copy of Andrew Peterson’s album, Clear to Venus. I loved it instantly and it became my favorite AP album just as quickly. The title track, Venus, is about his struggles as he traveled around from concert concert and the wear and tear on his family.

The song makes me cry.

I am convinced that what I am traveling for is a worthwhile–in fact I am convinced that there is no one else who can do what I’m doing. Which means that just because I’m tired I can’t just give up–if this is what God has called me to then there is no where else I can be.

…It’s one more night at the Hampton Inn
It’s breakfast on the house again
Well, it isn’t home, but it’ll do just fine
Still, it isn’t home

We’ve got planes to catch, bills to pay
We won’t make it home today
We’ve got shows from Boston clear to Venus
But if America is listening, as long as I’ve got songs to sing
We can always make a home right here between us

(whole song lyrics)

But that doesn’t make leaving home and spending “one more night at the Hampton Inn” any easier. It’s been hard on me, and hard on my family, and every time I come home I long for Home.

38,000 miles is a lot, and I’m not done this year yet. By the end of the year I’ll be well over 40,000 miles. The song was especially meaningful because my year of travel started with a trip to Boston, and I feel like I’ve traveled clear to Venus. But thankfully, that’s not true. Venus is closest to earth at 40 MILLION miles. I haven’t traveled a tenth of a percent of the way to Venus.

It just feels that way.

I miss my wife and my family when I travel, and it’s hard to balance my callings at times. Here’s a link to Andrew Peterson singing Venus. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. And if it makes you cry, think of me and say a prayer for my family while I’m “singing my songs” to America.

A few weeks ago we had to make a quick trip to northeastern Pennsylvania for a funeral. A man I admire had died.

This man fathered my wife’s mother–he is the first Christian in that side of my children’s line. And he was a godly great-grandfather to seventeen little ones, grandfather to sixteen and father of five.

He loved Jesus.

And so we were sad. And because we were sad we celebrated.

We celebrated his life.

Grandpa Rhodes now sits with Jesus. He has no pain and no sorrow and he will serve Christ forever with redeemed arms and legs and energy like he never dreamed of in his final days. And Jesus has shown him his inheritance and said “well done.”

My wife has been greatly influenced by her grandfather. She spent many summer days working beside him in the strawberry fields. She often talks of the hard summer and the hard work of the man who never quit. Retired three times he was always busy until close to the end when his 80+ year-old body failed him. And sin, and the death that comes through sin, became more real to him in that decaying body that lies silent in the grave now.

And so we celebrated. His sister told stories of when they were young, and his brother (who no-one expected to speak) pointed everyone there to the Scriptures that Alan Rhodes loved. This was a funeral he planned himself years ago after his stroke and it was a beautiful reminder of his life and his true life in Christ even as we grieved his death.

So long, Grandpa Rhodes. We will miss you here–but I would not wish upon you one more day in this dark, sinful place. May you enjoy glory forever. We will be there soon and then the celebration will never end. Because in that eternal celebration we will celebrate one death that conquered death forever–and we will rejoice in the life that he bought us. Forever.

Last week on a plane from Chicago to San Francisco I sat next to a very friendly man. Friendly and talkative. As we engaged in conversation he mentioned children. I asked how many children he had, and he replied, eight. Said he’d like to have more.
I almost asked where he went to church (very few non-Christians have that many children) when he asked if I was married. I said that I’d been married for twelve years.

Him? He’d not yet found the right woman.

Eight children with multiple partners. The man acted like he wanted to be a good father. He “texts” his older daughters every Saturday. He sends uplifting, encouraging messages. He doesn’t want them to grow up dependent upon a man.

I found that ironic. A father who has many children and yet to actually make a marriage work Continue Reading »

It’s true: AIDS is nature’s awful retribution for our tolerance of immoderate and socially irresponsible sexual behavior. The epidemic is the price of our permissive attitudes toward monogamy, chastity, and other forms of extreme sexual conservatism. (the rest at the NY Times web site)

This is an excerpt from a book entitled, More Sex is Safer Sex by Steven E. Landsburg. [I'll note in passing that because of the number of ways my last name was changed by immigrating ancestors, it's entirely possible I'm related to this fool]. I followed a link yesterday morning from a doctor’s blog and was appalled at what I saw there. Continue Reading »

Yesterday, Peter turned six years old. We’re running behind on birthday stuff this year, having just returned from a trip on Saturday and his birthday inconveniently falling on Monday.

Two years ago, on Peter’s birthday, I wrote:

“Last Saturday, Peter Jay turned four years old. It was weird.
“Weird?” you ask. “You have five children and this is the fifth time you’ve celebrated a fourth birthday. How could it be weird?”
Well, in order to understand that you’ll need some history.
When I got married I had a conviction that we should not, except for dire medical reasons (which I was convinced at the time didn’t exist) use birth control. I knew people who shared this conviction and nursing their children acted as a kind of natural birth control and their children were evenly spaced at about two years apart.
Ten months after we were married my oldest, Moriah Elizabeth was born.
When Moriah turned four, Elsie Katherine was 8 days old.
In between Moriah and Elsie we had two boys (NB: not twins), Samuel John and Tobias Nathaniel.
When Moriah turned four there were three little ones in the house.”

The blog post went on to talk about Peter turning four and having no little ones. He was our youngest for much longer than we imagined.

Now, Peter is a big brother. A smiling six year old big brother. And he is lovely to watch with his darling little sister.

Peter will be a big boy—and grows each day. I am thankful that God has given him a joy in life and that we have been able to know him for these six years. Tomorrow night we will have a party celebrating Peter’s birth and will join with others in the celebration.

Thank you God for my youngest son—and for the life that he brings into our home.

Remember when I used to post on my blog?

Today Samuel turned 10. The double digit birthday has become a rite of passage in the Lansberry household. Samuel received today a Red Rider BB gun and a fairly stocked toolbox–both tools to prepare him for manhood, especially in hopes that he becomes more handy around the house than his dad.

It was a nice day, despite the trip to traffic court (another story, but PG both tickets were dismissed!), and I’m looking forward to leaving tomorrow with my eldest son for his special 10th birthday trip to a place from my past, Silver Dollar City. I’ll try to get some pictures up when I can after the trip.