“Our once great western Christian civilization is dying. If this matters to followers of Jesus Christ, then we must set aside our denominational differences and work together to strengthen the things that remain and reclaim what has been lost. Evangelicals and Catholics must stand together to re-establish that former Christian culture and moral consensus. We have the numbers and the organization but the question is this: Do we have the will to win this present spiritual battle for Jesus Christ against secularism? Will we prayerfully and cooperatively work toward a new Christian spiritual revival ― or will we choose to hunker down in our churches and denominationalisms and watch everything sink into the spiritual and moral abyss of a New Dark Age?” - Mark Davis Pickup

Saturday, March 27, 2021

A DIFFERENT KIND OF WITNESS FOR LIFE AND LOVE

 

I've have had multiple sclerosis for 37 years. There were times when the terror of neurological dysfunction seemed almost too great to bare. At the same time, I saw a well-orchestrated campaign by euthanasia/assisted suicide advocates selling the false idea of so-called 'death with dignity' to the public, politicians and the media.  I wanted life with dignity!  Death with dignity is not achieved by injecting someone with poison when they are at their lowest point. That is abandonment not dignity. Death with dignity is not an event, it is a process, the conclusion of having lived with dignity. 

Through my own tears and sorrow of adult-onset degenerative disability, I asked God what He wanted me to do with my situation? He told me not to focus on my own increasing disability but to reach out with a message. What was the message?  Every life is sacred and deserves to be loved, cherished and protected — even if they have ceased to believe that — especially when they have ceased to believe it! And so, I began to take that message to anyone who would listen, and wherever God opened doors. Boy, did He open doors! 

For more than 20 years, I spoke across North America—from Victoria to Prince Award Island in Canada, Boston to Los Angeles in the U.S., from Whitehorse in Canada's Yukon to New Orleans. I spoke in small towns and big cities, to schools and universities, community groups and churches, politicians and government committees. As time passed, travel became increasingly difficult as my disability worsened. Eventually, travelling became so difficult I had to retire from speaking. Then, something else began to weigh on me.

I felt led to write an autobiographical feature length screenplay about my life. I called it TRANSCEND: A Journey Toward Love. Although it deals with abortion, it is not a story about abortion. Yes, it deals with severe disability, but it is not primarily about disability. It obviously deals with euthanasia and assisted suicide, but it is not a story about those things either. TRANSCEND is a love story, the heartbreak and transcending love story of my wife, LaRee, and I, spanning half-a-century as we slowly and painfully gained an ever deepening understanding of love (both human and divine). With God's help, our love transcended our circumstances.  

Then something wonderful happened. I prayed—as I had so often done throughout the years—that if it be God's will, could He raise me from the electric wheelchair I had been in for 16 years. I prayed that if it was His will that He would let me walk again and regain the use of my right arm and hand. It would be enough; even for a short time, even if I needed canes or a walker. In His loving providence, God did raise me out of my wheelchair and walk—albeit on weak and atrophied legs. He returned the use of my arm and hand. I've been walking for close to two years. I hadn't been able to hold anything in my right hand for a quarter of a century, so I began to pen love letters (I'm right handed) each day to my wife. But I had already finished the screenplay.  

It was necessary to rewrite the ending of the script to include this miracle. I knew many people would not believe something so dramatic and unexpected, but it had to be included. I sent the revised script to my friend Joni Eareckson Tada, an internationally renowned Christian disability advocate and prolific author, for her feedback.  She loved it! She gave it her strong endorsement (a copy of it is at the bottom of this post).  

The film industry is hard to break into, particularly for an old man who's never written a screenplay. Most producers won't give an unsolicited screenplay a second glance, and it was no different for me. 

Fortunately, a man who has been involved in Hollywood's movie industry read the script. Frank Eik liked it so much he wants to see it made into a movie. He sent the screenplay to a professional script reader in Hollywood for a critique. He helped me make recommended alterations, corrections and edit the script to tighten the story line and give it some "polish." Mr. Eik will now present TRANSCEND: A Journey Toward Love to a Christian movie producer he knows in Hollywood for consideration. The Director of Content for Pure Flix, a Christian movie streaming service, has also asked to read the script. Will it be made into a movie? I don't know. 

I believe LaRee's and my story is worthy and unique, but I'm biased.  If not, the exercise was educational and cathartic for me. That's worth something. 


Thursday, March 4, 2021

THE BIBLE IS NOT JUST ANOTHER BOOK

If I was banished to a remote and isolated island (the original cancel culture), I would want two books to live out my days: The Bible and The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. Kempis’ book has been good for meditation on spiritual truths, spiritual discipline and development of my interior life. 

 

Kempis begins: Book 1, Chapter 1.2,  THE IMITATION OF CHRIST AND CONTEMPT FOR THE VANITIES OF THE WORLD.

 

“Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness,”[1] says the Lord. These are Christ’s own words by which He exhorts us to imitate His life and His ways, if we truly desire to be enlightened and free from all blindness of heart. Let it then be our main concern to meditate on the life of Jesus Christ." 

 

"2. His teaching surpasses that of all the saints, and whoever has His Spirit will find in His teaching hidden manna.[2] But it happens that many are little affected, even after frequent hearing of His Gospel. This is because they do not have the spirit of Christ.[3] If you want to understand Christ words and relish them fully, you must try to conform your entire life to His."

 

I have met people who claimed to have read the Bible cover to cover and found it wanting, ordinary, and not particularly inspiring, even silly and inferior. I knew an agnostic man named Ted. He made such a claim; I did not believe him. His ignorance of Scripture belied his claim.  He said he found God to be vengeful and cruel. His usual example was to distort his face and imitate an ogre. In a guttural voice he would hiss, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” One day, I asked him where it says that in the Bible? He did not know. It’s Exodus 21.14.[4]

 

In fact, this passage does not reveal a cruel God exacting vengeance. Quite the contrary, it was instructions for judges that penalties must not exceed the crime, rather than retaliation by an injured party which was often out of proportion to the crime. A man does not kill someone who knocked out his tooth. This principle of proportionate punishment has guided laws into modern times. 

 

When someone says he’s read the Bible and got nothing out of it, the problem is not the Bible. The problem is with the reader who, as Kempis wrote, “… many are little affected, even after frequent hearing of His [Christ’s] Gospel. This is because they do not have the spirit of Christ.[5] If you want to understand Christ words and relish them fully, you must try to conform your entire life to His.” 

The Bible is not just another book, it is the Word of God.[6] The reader must be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit.”[7] The Bible cannot be understood by merely reading it, as though it is a novel or history book. It must be prayerfully read. C.S. Lewis said, “The Bible, when read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers will bring us to Him” meaning Jesus. Saint Jerome said, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” Remember Thomas à Kempis said that “whoever has His Spirit will find in His teaching hidden manna.”  

I actually don’t believe that people like Ted could have read the Bible without a little voice within convicting them. The writer of Hebrews said, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two- edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”[8] This was the problem for Ted and why he was so quick to dismiss the Bible. He did not want to have God’s word penetrate his interior life and convict him of his sin, his thoughts or the intent of his heart. He preferred darkness to light.”[9]

 

Ted preferred darkness to light because light would have exposed his secret life and his evil thoughts and sinful deeds. He enjoyed his sin. He did not want to change. The word of God exposed to him that which he did not want exposed.[10] Somewhere deep inside himself, Ted was afraid of the implications of listening to that little voice.[11] He would be called to repent of things he was not ready to repent of. It was easier and more comfortable to smother the little inner voice (as he had done so often before), silence his conscience, and close the Bible.

 

Do you understand what I am writing about? We who have denied and defied God at one time or another have tried to silence that nagging little voice. We felt that piercing double-edged sword. So many people have heard the feet of the Hound of Heaven behind them.[12] When they opened Scripture, they heard its pounding paws closing in on them. They had three choices: flight, fight or surrender.


I hope that in the final moments of Ted's life he finally surrendered to Christ. The darkness that had covered his life would have become light as he stepped from this life to the next. 


MDP 

________________________


[1]
 John 8.12.

[2] Revelation 2.17.

[3] Romans 8.9.

[4] Cp. Leviticus 24.20

[5] Romans 8.9.

[6] John 1.1. 

[7]1 Corinthians 2.10-12

[8] Hebrews 4.12.

[9] John 3.19-20. See 1John1.5, Acts 26.18, Romans 13.12.

[10] Ephesians 5.11.

[11] John 12.46.

[12] Francis Thompson (1859-1907), poem The Hound of Heaven.

[13] Romans 2.4.

[14] John 3.1-36. Also see 2Peter 3.9, Ezekiel 33.11, 1 Timothy 2.4.