in the open space: God & culture

A clever sign as you leave the parking lot of a church in Wetumpka, Alabama.

Coincidently, there are literally 10 church signs (on my 10th Church Signs post) at this intersection. Only in the Deep South, heh.

Heh, the kids starting singing that familiar children's song . A nice way to begin the day, actually.

Good thing, huh. (Image: a car in Montgomery)

Life has a unique sense of timing. This rather clever church sign cropped up today and dovetails on the one I saw earlier , the one that says adversities are blessings in disguise. Not long after I ruminated on that one, an adversity of sorts slammed into my life, clocking me but good. So, this morning after I dropped the kids at school, I took our dog for a walk and began dusting off what was left of that ton of bricks that had fallen on me. I went through some habitual steps, spending a great deal of the first half of the walk just confessing to God how I let my thoughts and feelings shape my life instead of him and how miserable I felt. I confessed everything from my anger (at life, others, myself and God) to my fears (which were many). Then I spent some time reminding myself how God and this world works. I ruminated on Job and reminded myself that God is ultimately powerful and he is good. I thought on how Paul says we can pray with thanksgiving and I thanked God (with blurry eyes)...

My eight-year-old daughter was with me when we first saw this sign. When she read it, her eyes narrowed and her head tilted to the side. “That doesn’t sound right,” she said, looking at me. “Well, it doesn’t sound right to a lot of people,” I told her. We talked a bit about what many of us think it means to be blessed—to have a nice house, a nice car, good things happening to us. And those can be blessings. But when something bad happens, most of us experience that as the opposite of a blessing. We even see it as if we are being punished for something. But people who follow Jesus, I told her, see bad things happening as opportunities—chances to trust God and learn that he really is who he says he is and can do what he says he can do. “Oh, okay,” she said and promptly moved onto another thought. Heh. I wish I could accept that as easily as she. Adversities in life often hit me like a ton of bricks, knocking me off balance and sometimes to the ground. They can cause me to question, rail ...

I passed by this road-side sign last week, and, boy, was it timely. Even though that longed-for summer vacation has been going for about a week, I’m already catching hints of the Groundhog Day blues. What’s that, some of you may be asking? It’s when every day starts the same, seems the same and ends the same. At first, this is a soothing and welcome routine compared to the hectic nature of end-of-the-school-year activity, but it can very quickly become, well, like Groundhog Day . So, how’s a summertime stay-at-home mom to beat the Groundhog Day blues? Yesterday, 1 Peter brought this sign to mind and reminded me of a strategy. How’s that? Bear with me a bit. An old habit of mine threatens to take over whenever I sense the whispy clutches of Groundhog Day approaching: I begin to imagine all those “if onlys.” If only my toddler was actually four or five instead of three, it’d be easier to do all those fun summer things, like go to the pool or zoo. If only we had a bit more money, we c...

Here's my Daily Bread loaf-sliver for the day (which fits neatly with a challenge to my own living-out-the-faith I experienced lately). I don't take this to mean that talking about our faith doesn’t matter—it does. But, as James put it (albeit in Eugene Peterson’s rendition): “Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?” (2:17)

Ain’t that the truth. In a Bible study my husband and I attend, we’re working our way through Mark. One of the members pointed out the “principle of increase” throughout the Gospel, which also resonates throughout Scripture. What does he mean? Take Mark 4:25: “Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him” (which shows the "increase" going both ways). Or the feeding of the thousands. The growth of the mustard seed. I also think of Romans 1, where the increase is going the way of sin. (You can’t fool yourself after reading that chapter: you can’t control sin. If you let in just a little, it will consume you more because it has a voracious, snowball-rolling-downhill-kind-of appetite.) So, what’s the connection with this church sign? Well, whichever way you are increasing will show up in your priorities. So, even though the words are a bit cliché, it was a good reminder to me.

Last week, when I dropped my daughter off at school, I glimpsed this license plate. (When I stopped my car to take a picture, I think the woman behind me thought I was a private investigator or something.) Anyway, while it's not a "church sign" it has God-talk all over it (plus I just like it) so I'm adding it to the Church Signs list.

One of the many things I’ve found unique and interesting about living in the South is the large number of churches—and in particular the clever messages that crop up on their road-side signs. In California, I don’t remember passing that many churches and I don’t remember the signs being that interesting. But here in the South, I pass seven different churches on my seven-mile trip home from dropping my son off at his mother’s morning out program (which, I guess, you could count as church #8). Of those seven, two in particular usually catch my eye—including this church, which changes its message weekly. This one is on their more serious side, though sometimes they are quite witty. Truth be told, I look forward to seeing a new one each week. It reminds me of the “Daily Bread” sliver I used to draw from the loaf each morning as a kid.