Mark Pickup: November 2007

For the sake of tidiness, I took very early blog entries off both my blogs. Apparently that was a mistake, numerous readers have asked for access to those older entries (http://markpickup.blogspot.com). So this evening I am replacing some of those blogs. I will do the same on http://humanlifematters.blogspot.com

Nature v. nurture. Does it matter?

Originally posted Saturday, August 4, 2007 __________________________________________________________

Have you ever noticed that one child in a family is easily made happy while their sibling is easily made unhappy? Those two tendencies can become entrenched at an early age – blessing one child and dogging the other throughout their lives. Either way, it is often a result of how the two children choose to respond to their common environments and individual events in their lives.

A reader of this blog may comment that it revolves around the perennial discussion about what makes people who they are: Is it nature or nurture, or a combination of both? I think the parameters of that discussion are too narrow. People are not merely products of their environments or genetics; they are also products of the choices they make.

I am referring to the choices people make to the circumstances or situations of their lives and how they respond to them. Another consideration is how they choose to respond to God.

In considering my own life, I have come to the conclusion that I’m as much a product of the choices I made as the powerful forces of genetic predisposition and environments. Some of my choices were good and have blessed my life to this very day. One obvious example that comes immediately to mind is my Christian conversion in 1980. Choosing to surrender to God through faith in Jesus Christ was an excellent choice. The alcoholism that precipitated that surrender was the result of a long series of dreadful choices.

In His wisdom, God immediately intervened to quench my addiction to alcohol. Apparently I had much larger fish to fry and He wanted me to burn them to a crisp. God did not, however, correct my colossal character flaws; I was left with the arduous task of working those out (which presented a new series of choices, and new surrenders).

Excising these character flaws is proving to be a life-long task. The painful process is still incomplete. There are still areas I am reluctant to burn, yet they must be burnt. It’s much better that they be burned away in this life than me being found still clinging to them when I face Christ at the Final Judgment. (2 Corinthians 5.10.)God may wipe away every tear on the other side of the grave (Revelation 7.17 & 21.4) but there is hard work to do on this side of it. I am a sinful and self-absorbed man whose self-will and pride need to be scoured in the here and now.

Higher purpose

God has not left me to my own means in this monumental task. I am convinced that God has allowed my degenerative and increasingly serious disability as a necessary tool to break down my illusions of self-sufficiency and delusions of self-importance – leaving only my weakness and insufficiency. It is only in that wretched state that God can use me, refine and change me, for a higher purpose.

Saint Paul wanted God to remove a thorn in his side.[1] He was insistent that God remove the thorn. The Lord’s reply was, ““My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Release or healing of Paul’s “thorn” was denied in order to serve a higher purpose. (2 Corinthians 12.7-9.)

This means a great deal to me. My nature is not conducive to growing in Christian faith, a relationship with Christ or serving God. By nature I am stiff-neck, arrogant and proud. Nurture for some of us involves tough love not warm fuzzies and afterglows.

Fiery trials

For rebellious sons and daughters, the warmth of glowing embers and afterglows are for the other side of the grave. For us, we must go through a fiery trial to purify and prepare us for then. (See 1Peter 1.6-7, 4.12,) What brought us to such a state – whether nature or nurture – it no longer matters. We must be into submission to God and fire is an indispensable ingredient to that submission.

Mark Pickup

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[1] Many biblical scholars think the thorn might have been an infirmity or disability. (Cf. Gal. 4.14)

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Orthodoxy versus apostasy

Originally posted July 24, 2007.

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Okay, it’s time to spill the beans on myself: I’m an arch-conservative Catholic, loyal to the Magesterium of the Catholic Church. There, it’s out.I have very little patience with liberal Christianity. As far as I can determine, liberal Christianity is really just secularism expressed with theological terms.

My early years were spent in the United Church of Canada. My father was an evangelical Christian of the first order – believing the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, irrefutable, the final authority in all matters of faith, conduct, ethics and the cosmos. Sola Scriptura.

During the 1960s, the United Church of Canada began to deviate from its strong evangelical roots. At first the shifts and drifts away from sound Christian doctrine were so small that my father felt petty even bringing them up. But shift by shift, sight deviation by slight deviation -- the drifting toward apostasy became more pronounced. Prominent clergymen questioned the validity of the Scriptures. (Apostasy always begins with questioning the validity of the Scriptures as the inspired Word of God.) Headline seeking clergymen denied miracles of Christ, the Virgin birth, the death and Resurrection of Jesus, the Second coming and the Final judgment. They were not corrected or disciplined. Many were actually celebrated. Even the Moderators remained strangely silent as though quietly approving.

By the time my father started speaking out against the apostasy, it was too late.

Today, all that remains of the former glory of the United Church are empty pews and empty clergy who don religious vestments and go through hollow motions of gutted religious rituals.[1]

Virtually every central tenet found in the Apostles Creed has been denied at one time or another. By definition, the United Church of Canada ceased to be Christian.There is something to be learned from the sad legacy of the United Church of Canada.

We are in an era when so many people cannot tolerate sound doctrine and are blown about by every breeze of fashionable thought. When I see small shifts in my adopted Catholicism, red flags go up and internal alarm bells ring. I come across smorgasbord Catholics – people who want the easy parts of Catholicism but want to leave the difficult parts behind. This cannot be. Catholicism is a package deal.

Lessons for the Mother Church

Yes, there is a lesson to be learned by the Catholic Church. Clergy and laity alike must be vigilant and completely loyal to the teachings and Magesterium of the Catholic Church --even in what may appear to be minor points.Unfortunately liberalism has gained a toxic beachhead in the Catholic Church, but it’s not too late. Liberalism can still be uprooted and rejected.

For example, there’s actually an organization called "Catholics for a Free Choice." Quite simply, you can not be a pro-choice Catholic. When it comes to critical Life Issues, like abortion, the Church is unequivocal and unchangeable and has been this way since the first Century. (See Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), No. 2271.) Catholicism is so adamant on this point that it considers that formal “cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life.” (CCC, No.2272).

There is no such thing as a pro-choice Catholic. Abortion is a form of human sacrifice. How can any legitimate Catholic believe in a choice that includes such an abomination?!

God laid out the choice:

"I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him." (Deut. 30.19-20a, NAB.)

God is pro-Life! He told us to always choose life. Every human life is valued equally by God. It is the secularist and the apostate who deny human worth.Christianity must transform society not be seduced by it! Christ told us to be salt and light not sugar and soft-soap. During His earthly life, Jesus’ words and actions liberated many people and their lives were changed forever. He offended others and they crucified him. It was that way from the beginning and it is no different today. We must stand for Christ who is "the way, the truth and the life" (John 14.6.)

Vetting the Bible for "repulsiveness"

I recently came across an email from a man who identified himself as “Dave.” He is apparently a buffet Christian, meaning he picks and chooses which parts of Christianity he likes and rejects the rest. At one point in his email, he said: “We ignore the many parts of the Bible that are repulsive and have no place in a modern society.” Dave’s idea of selective Christianity is increasingly common. Perhaps the parts Dave finds “repulsive” are the Scriptural condemnations of homosexuality.Now John is a thief: He finds the seventh Commandment repulsive.

Ted is a serial adulterer. He wants to dispense with the sixth Commandment and all other Scriptures that are against unfaithfulness.

Bernice finds the Passion of Christ “repulsive.” It’s too violent. She wants to expunge the crucifixion accounts from the Gospels. Not only that, she wants the crucifix removed from the front of her church. In Bernice’s view it glorifies violence. She says it could encourage weak minds to be violent.

Gerald finds the teachings about the physical Resurrection of Christ "repulsive.” He thinks its bunk and wants to add a disclaimer to the front of the Gospels saying it’s just a story written by primitive and superstitious men.

New-age book banners at the provincial human rights commission and state civil liberties union want to officially declare the Bible as hate literature and ban from all publicly funded libraries.

Arrogance of modern man
Moderns want to create God in their own image. They do not want to confront the reality that there is a real God that exists quite independent of human thought. This God created all that exists. He sets the rules. He is concerned about the course of human events and has been active in history.

Modern man will quickly become passé and die. God remains.

We must humbly reconcile with God on His terms, not ours’.

Mark Pickup

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[1] At one time the United Church was the largest Protestant denomination in Canada.

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The exclusivity of Christ's deity

Originally appeared on July 15, 2007

My last blog entry was entitled "John Paul II and Christian meaning in suffering." It had my reflections on the Pope’s 1984 Apostolic letter SALVIFIC DELORIS, THE CHRISTIAN MEANING OF SUFFERING.

A reader by the name of Mirabai left a comment saying, “what an interesting post. seems like the concept of divine love is so universal. i came across that article on divine love at http://www.gitananda.org/”

Dialogue

I appreciated the opportunity to respond to a religious non-Christian about faith and religion, although I am a layman and my own understanding of other religions is limited. I responded:

Mirabai: The difference is that I wrote about Jesus Christ. Christ himself said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14.6.) The website you cited says, "Rather we are repeatedly reminded of these spiritual laws through divine incarnations such as Mirabai, Buddha, Krishna, Jesus, Mahavir, Mohammed, Nanak, Kabir, Narsi Mehta, Ramakrishna, and Mahatma Gandhi."Saint Peter said "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4.12.) Of course, Peter was speaking about Jesus.
As for me, I only know Jesus. To Him alone do I pledge my allegiance.

Succession of deities?

To date I have not heard back from Mirabai but I hope he/she writes again.

I went to the website Mirabai identified and found the following quote under Beliefs:

“Gitaji teaches us our true religion and the way to happiness, joy and peace. Our true security lies in being obedient to the Truth, in loving God unconditionally and in acting at every moment according to our duty at that particular time by forgetting the past and not worrying about the future, because neither one is with us presently. The lives of true saints -- Buddha, Mahavir, Gandhi, Jesus, Ramakrishna, etc. -- teach us to universally accept Truth, love and spirituality. This is contradictory to traditional, ritualistic religion. The presentation of this subject is not complete by any means and merely provides an opportunity for all of us to get involved in learning and practicing universal religion as taught by Gitaji and all other major religions. --Swami Radhanandaji "

Jesus was different in that He claimed to be God. Thomas Schultz stated in a 1962 dissertation at Dallas Theological Seminary,

“Not one recognized religious leader, not Moses, Paul, Buddha, Mohamed, Confucius, etc. have ever claimed to be God; that is, with the exception of Jesus Christ. Christ is the only religious leader who has ever claimed to be deity and the only individual ever who has convinced a great portion of the world that he is God.” -- (Thomas Schultz, The Doctrine of Christ with an Emphasis upon the Hypostatic Union. Unpublished dissertation. Dallas Theological Seminary, May 1962. P. 209, as cited by Josh McDowell in his book Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Campus Crusade For Christ, 1972, P. 92)

Exclusivity of Jesus Christ

In claiming to be 'the truth' and one with God, and saying that He was the only way to God, Jesus ruled out being put together in a long line of deities. Since its beginning, Christianity has understood and accepted Christ's exclusive claim. Christ's unique status as God’s only begotten Son (John 3.16) is stated by Jesus and the Creeds of Christianity dating back into antiquity. The Apostle’s Creed states, "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth, And in Jesus Christ, His only Son,” The Nicene Creed says “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, Through Him all things were made, for us men and for our salvation.”

To claim that Jesus is just one of many incarnations of deity, is to misunderstand His own claims as well as the claims of His followers beginning with Saint Peter then throughout the ages spanning 2,000 years. If there are many incarnations of divinity, Jesus can not be included for that would make him a liar by His own words, or insane.

If one takes the time to examine Christ’s claims, there are really only three possible responses: He must be discounted as a liar, a lunatic or accepted for what He claimed to be.* If Jesus is in fact God made man and if he is the only way to the God, then each individual is called to respond to this revelation.

Mark Pickup

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*This idea was put forward in C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1952) and given considerable attention in Evidence That Demands a Verdict mentioned above.

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John Paul II and Christian Meaning of Suffering

Recently I was a guest on a radio talk show for the Catholic Relevant Radio network in Green Bay, Wisconsin, We discussed various topics including the perils of euthanasia and assisted suicide to people with incurable diseases and serious disabilities. Our discussion concluded with Pope John Paul II’s witness to the world, in his disability, for a Culture of Life.

Pope John Paul II

From my perspective, his identification with the disabled people of the world was never more profound than his last public appearance at the window of his papal apartment. It was Easter morning 2005.

Debilitated from years of Parkinson’s disease, and having been hospitalized twice in quick succession with severe respiratory problems, the Pontiff was wracked with septic shock and kidney failure. He still insisted on trying to deliver the traditional Urbi et Orbi blessing.[1]

The Holy Father was clearly in pain and could not give the blessing. He was unable to speak. To me, it was his most eloquent statement of solidarity with the disabled of the world.

I was reduced to tears and remembered his 1984 Apostolic Letter, SALVIFIC DELORIS, THE CHRISTIAN MEANING OF SUFFERING. Almost twenty years after his Apostolic Letter was published, Pope John Paul II lived its truth. John Paul II had written,

“The world of suffering possesses as it were its own solidarity. People who suffer become similar to one another through the analogy of their situation, the trial of their destiny, or through their need for understanding and care, and perhaps above all through the persistent question of the meaning of suffering.”

His Holiness said that God’s love provides the ultimate source of meaning to all that exists:

“Love is the richest source of meaning of suffering, which always remains a mystery. …Christ causes us to enter into the mystery and discover the “why” of suffering, as far as we are capable of grasping the sublimity of divine love.”

The Cross of Jesus Christ

The Pope pointed to the Cross, and said, “This answer has been given by God to man in the Cross of Jesus Christ.” He reminded us that “suffering seems to be, almost inseparable from man’s earthly existence.”

The price Christ paid for our sins, through his sacrifice on the Cross, is the source of man’s salvation and liberation from evil. John Paul II said that evil is closely bound to the problem of suffering. The ultimate human suffering is to be cut off from God and that is precisely what the Cross prevents. Through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, our sins are cancelled.

It was at the foot of the Cross that I found meaning to my own protracted suffering that has spanned more than two decades.

I look to the example of Christ’s Passion, crucifixion and resurrection. By uniting my lesser suffering with His sufferings for all mankind, I am discovering that suffering has a mysterious connection to human transcendence. The Object in abject suffering must be Christ—not myself.

Again Pope John Paul’s words came back to me:

“[T]he need of the heart commands us to overcome fear, and the imperative of faith … provides the content, in the name of which and by virtue of which we dare to touch what appears in every man so intangible: for man, in his suffering, remains an intangible mystery.”

Surrender

I discovered in suffering the gift of surrender. In surrender man finds fertile ground for faith which foreshadows spiritual illumination.

My intangible mystery is inextricably linked to the purpose for which I was born: Union with Christ! With Christ as my interior guide and Master, I can begin to grasp the light of His victory over suffering and death and cease groping in my own darkness of defeat and despair. Grasping comes from faith, groping from unbelief.

Agony in the Garden

The Agony of the Garden culminated with Christ’s words, “My Father, if it is not pos sible that this cup pass without my drinking it, your will be done!” (Matthew 26.42.) So too, I was/am called to continually surrender my life and destiny to the will of God – whatever that might be. I must be content with the consolation that this fire of suffering has a refining influence that begins here on earth and meets its completion in eternity. My temporal suffering is an indispensable ingredient to the glory that will be revealed to me. It is through the transforming grace of Christ that my eternal glory is possible. Apparently, the agonies are necessary to change a stiff-necked and stubborn man, like me, to become more like Christ.

Pope John Paul said, “In the Cross of Christ not only is the Redemption accomplished through suffering, but also human suffering itself has been redeemed.” The Cross gives context, purpose and meaning to my suffering. I am being prepared for eternity!

Throughout his disability and suffering, Pope John Paul’s heart remained tender to the voice of God and to the cry of humanity. He epitomized Saint Paul’s exhortation to “offer your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.” (Romans 12.1, NAB).

People suffering catastrophic disabilities or incurable illnesses must resist the temptation to become bitter or harden their hearts toward God. Hard hearts are oblivious to the sublimity of divine love. It is only God’s love that gives context and meaning to suffering as the sufferer lays their agony and sorrow at the foot of the Cross in union with Christ’s sufferings and sorrows.
Christ's tender heart

His outstretched arms welcome you and me with all our agonies, into His tender embrace of divine love.Tender hearts feel life’s agonies but they also experience heaven’s Ecstacy. Stone hearts only know the agony.

The answer to the Why of suffering lies in the redemptive love of Christ Jesus as we humbly surrender to God and pray, “if it is not possible that this cup pass without my drinking it, your will be done, your will be done!” Then we unite our sufferings with Christ.

"But rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may rejoice exultantly.” (1Peter 4.13, NAB)

Mark Pickup

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[1] Urbi et Orbi, Latin - "for the city and for the world.”

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To enter God's glory

Originally posted June 18th 2007

In a sermon to newly Baptized Christians, early Church Father Saint Jerome (c. 347-420) imagined what it must be like for the saved to stand before God. He said,

“Now they come forward and they stand in the presence of God. They have come forward before the altar and have looked upon the mystery of the Savior. … I shall go into God’s marvelous dwelling place, his house. The house of God is the Church, his marvelous dwelling place, filled with joyful voices giving thanks and praise, filled with all the sounds of festive celebration.”

Deepest desires satisfied

Saint Thomas Aquinas told us that our deepest desires can only be satisfied in our heavenly home with the saints. He said, “Only God satisfies, he infinitely exceeds all other pleasures.”

Saint Augustine exhorted Christians to pray as the Master taught us for Christ shows us how to receive the desire of our hearts, through prayer.We learn from Augustine that God’s “gift is very large indeed, but our capacity is too small and limited to receive it.”

This desire does not enter into our hearts -- we enter that divine desire. What is that desire? God is the object of our deepest desire and longings. Therefore, to follow Augustine’s line of exhortation, God must be the Object of our prayer life.

Prayer

To enter God’s glory is to enter an Ecstasy beyond earthly human capacity to imagine. Prayer is intended to expand the Christian’s capacity to anticipate and enter the glory of God.

I believe an underlying and refining purpose of our brief time on earth is to expand our capacity to enter into the full joy of “God’s marvelous dwelling place, a house.” Again Thomas Aquinas tells us that “Since in their heavenly home the saints will possess God completely, obviously their longing will be satisfied, and their glory will be even greater.”

Saint Stephen

Occasionally, we see the spiritual transformation from earthly to heavenly understanding. This was graphically illustrated in the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 7.55-56). The veil was completely removed from Stephen as the deadly stones rained down upon him.

“But he, filled with the holy Spirit, looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” But they cried out in a loud voice, covered their ears, and rushed upon him together. They threw him out of the city, and began to stone him. The witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul. As they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

Despite being robbed of his earthly life, Stephen’s heavenly life came into full view. Things of the earth grew dim and faded away.

God's glory

Saint Paul referred to seeing indistinctly and partly here on earth but in the presence of Jesus Christ, standing face to face—then we will see clearly and understand fully just as we are understood fully. (See 1 Corinthians 13.12)

At present we are incapable of seeing the full glory of what awaits those who love Jesus Christ. The glory of God is too much for any to bear in our present states. At best we can only grasp small wisps and murky inklings of what all of this means. We do not understand. The holiest of people only understand in part.

Prayer is the mechanism God has provided to us to prepare and expand our capacity to experience His glory. Sublime Ecstasy will accompany divine desire fulfilled. There beyond our present experience, beyond nature we shall eat of the tree of life in the glorified and renewed bodies. I must avert my thoughts from nagging doubts.

That which is decaying here will dance there. The cross comes before the crown.

Through Christ I shall enter God’s glory and will say “I was created for this.” In God’s dwelling, with saints of the ages, I will understand that I am finally home.

Mark Pickup

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God is still with me

Originally posted June 12, 2007

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So much of my adult life has been spent scaring people away. Old friends stayed away in droves when I was first diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. As a young man, it was hard to be forced to use a cane. It seemed out of place to me and to others. Canes were for old people with bad hips or a silly little man with a moustache and a black bowler hat in the era of silent movies. He may have been funny but the reality was that people laughed from comfortable seats in theatres at the comedic misfit. The difference between Charlie and me was that he twirled his cane and I hobbled on mine.

As my disease progressed, I had to resort to two canes. My body contorted with early spasticity and it frightened people. The sight of a young man on two canes reminded them that they, too, were mortals. Children stared from behind clothes racks at shopping malls. Their parents scolded them and said not to stare at “that man”, then stared themselves from the end of the aisle.

Later, with metal crutches, the sight of me took on a sideshow quality. People stared out of pity. They were friendly enough but passed by quickly.

During remissions -- when physical function returned -- I was invited into new friendships until the next attack. My social calendar became blank again. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that those new friends were unkind, just hard to find.

When I started using a scooter people began take liberties with jokes: “Got a licence to drive that thing?” “Don’t get speeding tickets.” “Hey look, here comes speedy Gonzales.” Oh, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard those rib-ticklers !

The problem was that my legs didn’t work right. It was a source of pain and grief to me. I could not understand why people felt they could make jokes about something that caused me heartache. I did not find the jokes about my disability aids amusing. I still don’t.

It was as inappropriate as if I made a joke about someone’s poor vision by saying, “Hey, have you started any fires on sunny days with those coke bottle glasses?”

Don’t get me wrong, there are people who can take liberties with my disability but they are not strangers on the street. They are those few loved-ones who have walked with me through my suffering. If anybody has earned the right to make smart-cracks about my disability, it is them. Yet, they do not for they witnessed the anguish and tears over the years that took me through each loss of function.

Now, in advanced disability, the jokes have diminished along with meaningful human contact. Isolation increases with people’s discomfort levels. I have books and my music to keep me company.

One constant remains: Through every phase of disease, the smarting of ill-placed jokes, the increasing human isolation … God abides with me.

After the last page of the book closes, the last music note dies away, the snickers have all ceased, God is still with me.

Mark Pickup

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Two critically important questions
Originally appeared on April 25, 2007

There are two questions most people avoid. The questions are: “Why am I here?” and “Where am I going?” They are such penetrating questions that most people spend their lives going to great lengths to avoid them. Questions call for answers and these two questions pierce to the core of who and what a person is (or is not). They will expose a person’s spiritual state and their humanity (or lack of it). The questions can be unpleasant, threatening and make a person feel uncomfortable. They can spark internal crisis.

Avoidance

Most people would rather busy themselves with frenzied activity of work, rushing here and there, trying to satisfy the insatiable demands of commerce. They would rather fill their cars with ear-piercing music than be surrounded by the threat of quietude. They prefer a nightclub of strangers to a room of blessed solitude. They will occupy themselves with inordinate obsessions of hobbies, or even walk over a bed of hot coals, rather than answer those two fundamental human questions.

Anything is preferable to introspection and the possibility of confronting those two monstrous questions. But not facing, not contemplating, not answering those questions is so much more costly for people’s spirits and souls than avoidance.

Henry David Thoreau said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” He also said, “If misery loves company, misery has company enough.” He was right. What could more miserable and desperate for person than not knowing why they exist or where they are going!

Contemplating why you are here and where you are going will either rekindle joy or break your heart. But avoiding the questions is much more costly. You will die with the song God gave you still unsung.

Atheism's bitter conclusion

The natural conclusion for an atheist is that there is no purpose or destiny to life. The universe is as silent as his grave. The evolutionist believes us we are nothing more than ancestors of primordial slime, and to conclude we have any more value than that has no basis. After all, according to evolution, everything is the result of random chance. Thought itself is ultimately meaningless -- merely the product of electrical or chemical impulses and reactions. Concepts like right and wrong, fairness or justice are meaningless in a world of chance. The logical conclusion for an atheist and evolutionist must be that humanity has no more value than a leaf, a stone or the slug found under it.

Yet something deep within us rails against the idea of meaninglessness. We want to believe our lives have meaning and purpose. We instinctively believe our lives have value and we are not the products of random chance.

Royalty in exile

In each of us rests a longing for something (yet unattained) beyond ourselves --a feeling we have been deprived of something that should rightfully be ours. It is as if we are royalty in exile, and we are.

The Bible tells us that we are made in the image and likeness of the King of all creation: God. (Genesis 1.26-27.) Church traditions and teaching reinforces this idea.

What is heart breaking is that when a person seriously contemplates those two questions -- Why am I here? And “Where am I going? -- they will probably discover that while he/she have a royal and divine lineage, they do not behave like royalty. They are alienated from the King. They are in rebellion against His royal Kingdom.

They can not realize their royal potential because it lies beyond them. It can not be reached without being reconciled to the King.

Made for love

Deep within you and me lays a spirit which is most responsive to love and withers without it (we all know this). The human spirit comes from God. That is why the human spirit is made for love. That entity we call our spirit has a nagging desire and hunger for something we can not identify or satisfy without confronting those two questions head-on.

We were created by God for His purposes. The answers to those two critically important question lie beyond us, but we have been told we will find the answers if we dare search for them with all our hearts. God gave a message to Jeremiah about other exiles:

“For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope. When you call me, when you go to pray to me, I will listen to you. When you look for me, you will find me. Yes, when you seek me with all your heart, you will find me with you, says the LORD, and I will change your lot; ….” (Jeremiah 29:11-13)

Dare to believe that message from God is for us too.

Through his Son Jesus Christ, God will shower His love and grace upon us like rain. Our spirits will be revived and renewed like dry and parched land after a rain storm.Why are you and I here? I suspect that you may discover that the reason you are here is to love the King and take that love to others who bear the King’s royal image and likeness. That is the answer I found.

Where are we going? The King wants his royal subjects to occupy his Kingdom (heaven). He sent his Son, Jesus, to retrieve us all, through faith and love. He wants to lead us back to the Kingdom to rule with Him forever. All we have to do is follow Him.

Mark Pickup
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Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ
Posted April 23, 2007

We have limited control over circumstances that befall us, -- but we have total control about how we respond to them.

I am facing the very real possibility of quadriplegia due to an increasingly aggressive form of multiple sclerosis. I have no control over that unpleasant fact, or the frightening future it implies, but I do control how I respond to it. I can choose to rail at God and let my circumstances make me bitter to people around me, or I can trust in God's goodness to use whatever befalls me as somehow purifying me and make me fit for eternity.

C.S. Lewis said, "Well, take your choice. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren't." (A Grief Observed, Bantam, 1976, p.51)

I was never guaranteed good health, or even human love. The absence of health or human affection can not separate me from God’s love. Neither depressing or disheartening circumstances, affliction, malevolent forces or separation from family can separate me from the love of Christ. I find comfort in Saint Paul words:

“What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? As it is written: “For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-39)

I only know that God loves me with an eternal and perfect love. I only know that God loved me so much that he gave His only Son to die for my sins and provide a way I could spend eternity with Him (John 3:15-18).

If I end up encased in an unresponsive body, or locked in a coma-like state I trust Christ will be there with me, to the end. I am already in the fire of disease; Jesus is with me like the 4th figure in the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (cf. Daniel 3.24-25).

At some point in my journey, edging toward quadriplegia and beyond, I may be abandoned to futile care theory by post-Hippocratic medicine: Treatment, care, food and fluids may be withheld from me, just as it is already happening to others, even as I write these words.

I rest assured that not even Bioethicists pontificating from ivory towers to hospital wards below can separate me from the love of Christ.

Mark Pickup
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Dying of a broken heart

Originally posted April 17, 2007

British researchers at University College London and the Brighton & Sussex Medical Medical School (BSMS) have verified that a person can actually “die of a broken heart.” The research team studied people under extreme stress of bereavement. They found that intense bereavement can destabilize cardiac muscle rythms in people who already have heart disease. Areas of the brain responsible for learning, memory and emotion can trigger irregular heart rythms. (Roger Highfield, “Scientists show we can die of a broken heart”, Telegraph.co.uk., April 10th 2007, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/10/nheart10.xml)

Dr. Marcus Gray from BSMS, said, “We know that stress can increase the risk of sudden death through cardiac arrest. …”Have you ever felt so much heartache that it physically hurt? Have you ever been so brokenhearted or grief-stricken that you wondered if you were going to actually have a heart-attack? I have—or perhaps I just wished it would happen.

Most of us have heard stories about old people dying of natural causes a short time after their mate passed away.Grief and suicideI’m not referring to those sad but rare occasions where brokenhearted people have taken their lives at the apex of grieving the loss of a loved one. That is suicide. For instance, I know of a woman who took her life after losing her child in a tragic drowning. She was overwhelmed by a tidal wave of grief.

Many people with acquired disabilities may want to die. It is usually the result of unattended, unresolved grief. This is where the current push to decriminalize or legalize assisted suicide stems from. Helping in the suicide of the grieving young person with a newly acquired spinal cord injury, or multiple sclerosis, seems quite reasonable in the current climate of “choice” that is so prevalent in North America. Rather than engaging in the hard work of constructively dealing with unresolved grief, it’s much easier and tidier to kill the griever. Besides, there is a cultural bias against disability in which death is considered preferable to life with serious disability. I sometimes wonder if euthanasia advocates are so committed to a world free of disabilities that they are prepared to kill to get it.

Assisting the grieving mother to kill herself, when she has lost the will to live, is unthinkable. But in the current climate that heralds the “freedom to choose” the time and place of one’s own death, she might decide that she wants assistance in her suicide from a medical professional: Physician assisted suicide. After all, it’s preferable to taking her chances with an overdose of pills or misfiring a handgun. Her heart is too strong to give out from intense bereavement. She could say, “My pain living without my child is too much to endure. It’s just as bad as the suicidal person without the use of his legs. I want a doctor's supervision over my suicide.”

Who are you or I to say she has less grief?! It's her "choice."

Bible promises comfort

But the British medical researchers were not talking about suicide. They were talking about grieving people dying of heart attacks – if they already have heart disease.

When I read the news article, it left me with a hollow feeling to think that bereavement can be so intense that it can stop a weakened heart. I was driven back to the Scriptures.

Just before his crucifixion, Jesus said to the Disciples: “Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.” (John 16.22). Although Christ was referring to his post-resurrection state, there is an application for you and me, and we find it in the last book of the Bible. Saint John wrote that there will come a time when God will dwell with his people. God himself will wipe away every tear His followers have ever shed. Death and mourning, weeping and pain will be banished. (Cf. Revelation 21.3-5. Also see 7.17)

For those of us who have lived with sorrow or grieved, these words mean everything. For those of us who see our bodies being destroyed before our eyes, we find comfort it these words.

We know that death is not the end of life. It changes. When Christians die they gain and everlasting dwelling place in heaven (Luke 23.43) The soul is separated from the corruptible body at death and reunited with an incorruptible body at the final resurrection (1Corinthians 15.50-58.)

It's cause for joy to me! I will with united with Christ and reunited with loved ones who have died. No more wheelchair or disability or tears. As the Hymn says, “No more crying there, we are going to see the King. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

If your grief seems too great to bear, hold on. Very soon we are going to see the King. He will be our God and we will be His people.

Mark Pickup

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Ecstasy in a night breeze

Originally posted April 5, 2007

One stifling hot summer night, a few years ago, I awoke to a familiar but dreaded sizzling sensation in my legs. My old nemesis multiple sclerosis was visiting, eating internal function – like termites inside a tree. What was happening this time? Unable to go back to sleep, I eventually transferred from bed to wheelchair and went outside and stopped under some large boughs of Manitoba maples in my backyard.

I looked up the hill to the reassuring and steady sight of the illuminated historic Catholic Church at the crest of the hill. It’s been there for over one hundred years.

Everything was peaceful, barring that horrible sizzling sensation. I gazed up through the branches of the trees into the dark serenity of a starry sky. It is my sacred little place in the world where I've spent countless hours throughout many years contemplating, reflecting, praying, searching, looking to understand rather than to see. It is beneath the canopy of branches of my cluster of maples that so often the hope and joy that resides within my chest has risen toward heaven. What more could any man desire?

A sudden gust of warm wind swayed the branches above me. Leaves rustled as though whispering, "Do not be afraid. I am here." My soul expanded in ecstasy then contracted in shame: ecstasy to know He was near and shame to know my life was deeply stained by a litany of sin. Confession. Forgiveness. Divine embrace.

Leaves rustled again but carried no further whisper. My momentary joy vanished as quickly as it had come. All that remained was a yard bathed in moonlight and the great old church on the hill bathed by floodlights. The sizzling sensation in my legs remained but ceased to matter. I was left with a sense of awe that the Master visited me. Tears of joy streamed down my face.

I’ve mentioned previously that Christ has been with me throughout my terrifying journey with a horrible disease. This was one of the more terrifying yet sublime moments. To a casual passer by that night, it would have appeared ordinary and uneventful. It was not! It was earth shaking. The sweet essence of Eden had reopened for a brief instant then mercifully closed: the whisper in the breeze was too much, too close, too wonderful and ecstatic to humanly endure for more than a breath. In that brief twinkling, centuries passed and joy entirely filled my heart.

Then without warning the sensation was gone. I wept uncontrollably – not because my body was wasting but because I had been touched by the holy Spirit.

Saint Paul’s words made perfect sense:

“Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4.16-18, cf. Romans 8.18, Col.3.10. Also note Hebrews 11.1.)

As much as I have loved my canopy of maples, my little house on the Canadian prairie and the old church on the hill, my hope and home is not here. It is somewhere else with Christ. I gave my life to Him.

Saint Peter said,

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.” (1Peter 1.3-9)

You see, I think the whisper in the breeze was Christ assuring me that nothing can happen here on earth that will snatch me out of His hand. (Cf. John 10.27-28), Nothing nor anyone can separate me from the love of God (cf. Romans 8.38-39) He abides with me and will be faithful to the end – both to you and me personally, as well as to the end of the Age (cf. Matthew 28.20).

I will know as I am known. It will all make sense. I will finally see clearly. (Cf. 1Corinthians 13.12.)

Mark Pickup

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Love will ultimately prevail

Originally posted April 4, 2007

Have you ever wondered why God put his precious gift of life in such fragile packaging?
If life is so sacred and precious - as the Scriptures proclaim - then why did God place it in bodies made of flesh and bones? Skin and flesh tear and bleed; bones and hearts break.

Why didn't God encase his precious gift of life in bodies as tough as granite with the human psyche safely guarded, as though behind some fortress? Such thoughts occasionally arise within me from a desire to protect loved ones from life's pains and sorrows.

After all, there would be no need to wipe away tears if none are shed. But then, humans encased in bodies like granite, with hearts like stone, would be of no use to God or man. Granite is impenetrable.

Hearts of stone would never ache, break or melt.

Love is a choice

After more than 20 years of chronic illness, I have come to the conclusion that the purpose of our time on earth is for spiritual growth not mere survival.

The Scriptures tell us that God is love. A God of love must have something to give his love to and humanity is the object of his love. We know this because - as far as we can tell - humanity is the only thing in creation to bear the indelible image of God. A God of love must surely want to be loved in return. A central aspect of genuine love is that it is given freely. Real love is a choice and an act of free will.

That's what makes love a high-risk proposition.

As soon as an option exists for choosing between two things, there's a risk of making the wrong choice. The stakes of love are horribly high both for God and humanity. But the prospect of living in a loveless world is unthinkable.

Risks of freedom

When God created human free will, he knew his love might not be returned. People may choose to love the world rather than the Creator of it.

When our Lord said, "For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be"), he was challenging human priorities (Matthew 6:21). Christ was laying out a stark choice for humanity: Either love God and the permanent things of heaven (yet unseen) or the temporary things of earth.

Our first love and priority can be to seek "treasures upon earth" (to use Christ's words) or "treasures in heaven." Jesus spoke of them as two mutually exclusive masters of the heart and soul. "No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You can not serve God and mammom" (verse 24).

Mammon is an Aramaic word meaning wealth or property. But it could also symbolize anything temporal and fleeting such as youth, beauty, health or social status.

To choose anything over God is to rebuff his love. Love spurned is a terrible experience. To love without reciprocation is a bitter thing.

Divine overtures rejected, despised or even mocked must be unbearably painful to the heart of God. He could have made us without the capacity to decide and programmed us like robots to drone his praises. But that is hardly love returned.

Jesus said he prefers people who are hot or cold toward him, not lukewarm (Revelation 3:14-16). A heart animated by love or hate is still human; a heart dead with indifference may as well be made of granite. Indifference to the love of God is worse than cursing him.

Love is vulnerable

God made himself vulnerable for the sake of being loved. Why should we expect anything else? To love is to be vulnerable: It goes both ways. Hearts of stone and souls in fortresses would not be protected from risks and buffeting of life, they would be prevented from living. Is that what I wish for my loved ones in order to save them from pain or sorrow?

Vulnerable people accept and radiate love best.

I wrote earlier that I have come to the conclusion that the purpose of our time on earth is spiritual growth not mere survival. This is what I meant. We only have a short time to learn and grow in reciprocal love--both human and divine. God's model for love encourages interdependence not independence. We were designed to live in communities not fortresses.

At the very beginning our Creator said, "It is not good for the man to be alone." (Genesis 2.18.)

Designed for relationships

We are designed for relationships. Granted, you may find the odd recluse who prefers life as a hermit, but they are the exceptions to the rule.

No! They are the exceptions that prove the rule! Fortresses separate and isolate. Granite is cold and hard.People live best in the warmth of interdependent communities of reciprocal love. Love makes human beings vulnerable and fragile.

Despite this, I believe that divine love ultimately prevails. And that's the treasure in heaven about which Jesus spoke.

Mark Pickup
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Envy -- destroyer of contentment!
Originally posted March 7, 2007

Someone said they detected in me an envious spirit. Perhaps they were right. A person in my predicament must be careful to guard against envy or resentfulness. Most of my adult life has been compromised by multiple sclerosis (MS).

There have been times when I had to fight resentment of my deteriorating health at the very point when most men’s careers are moving forward. My most vulnerable period for resentment was being forced into medical retirement from a promising career with the federal Public Service at the age of 37 years.

Now at 53, I find myself fighting resentment that life passed me by. Other men have risen to their peak earning capacities. I live on a modest disability pension.

I have fought envy and jealousy in my personal life too. Years ago, I burned to watch other fathers ski with their kids while I sat in chalets watching my children ski alone. I used a cane to help me walk, then two canes, then crutches, then a motorized scooter, now an electric wheelchair.

Even in small matters I find envy and raw jealousy surprising me. One pleasant winter day I took my small grandson outside for a ride on my wheelchair. He sat on my lap, bundled in a warm blanket. At one point, we stopped to watch a father tobogganing down a hill with his children. The frosty air was filled with happy shrieks and laughter. My grandson wanted to join the fun. I had to ask the man if he would give my grandson a ride on a toboggan. He was very kind and took my little fellow. I must admit, watching my small grandson giggling, swooshing down the hill with a neighborly man, prompted resentment in me. Why couldn't I be doing that?! Why must I always sit on the sidelines of life! Rather than feeling gratitude for a stranger’s kindness, I was resentful.

Envy is sin. It was envy that made the Devil the Devil. It was Cain’s envy of Abel that caused the first murder. Envy engenders other vices and sins. A spark of envy in the human heart can flare into blazing jealousy that endangers all possibility for genuine joy of life, and if allowed to surface into action, it can end in self-loathing.

The Oxford Dictionary defines envy this way: "a feeling of discontentedness or resentful longing by another's better fortune."

Yup, that pretty much sums it up. Envy always makes me discontent and I suspect it is the same for you. Envy is a destroyer of our capacity for friendships—both human and Divine. Envy unchecked will seriously compromise our Christianity. That is the real danger of envy!

Saint Paul said, “…I know also how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance.” (Philipians 4.12.) Elsewhere he said,“Let your life be free from love of money but be content with what you have, for he [God] has said, “I will never forsake you or abandon you.” Thus we say with confidence “The Lord is my helper, [and] I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?" (Hebrews 13.5-6.)

It’s within Christ’s embrace that we find every reason to be content in whatever state we find ourselves, because He is there with us.There is no reason or place for envy in a redeemed people. The opposite of Envy is Love. Christ calls us to love God with our whole hearts, and to love one another as He first loved us. There! That’s the key to the gentle art of contentment, the anecdote to envy.

Mark Pickup

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Conscience and Natural Moral Law

Originally posted March 6, 2007

Is there anything so wicked as a man trying to silence his conscience? It is a willful act that happens in stages: Bit by bit, incident by incident, rationalization by rationalization, the voice of a man’s conscience can be stifled—that still small voice within him eventually becomes fainter, until his heart turns to stone and covers the voice within.

But even within a stone-heart, his conscience knocks and pounds against the inner granite walls, making muffled cries of protest.How many murderers have used alcohol or drugs to dull a stabbing conscience! How many corrupt business tycoons keep their lives busy with the hum of constant shady wheeling and dealing to distract them from a relentless nagging conscience?

Occasionally, at an unexpected moment, a whisper of conscience escapes from behind their stone hearts and catches them off-guard—only to be quickly squelched.

Perhaps they tell themselves they wouldn’t be so cruel if it weren’t for their own abusive upbringing. Perhaps they ease a twinge of shame by telling themselves it was their own poverty as a child that drives them to accumulate ill-gotten wealth so their own little ‘Johnny’ or ‘Suzy’ won’t have to endure deprivation. Besides, the wily old tycoon has done good things too. Remember that charity drive for crippled children he hosted in 1972? It must have helped dozens of kids!

As long as a man is making excuses for his bad behavior, we know his conscience is alive. There’s still hope for his humanity. As long as he’s trying to hide his misdeeds, there is acknowledgement of good and evil and right from wrong. The fact that the evil or misdeeds are hidden bears witness to the fact that he knows what is right.

Natural lawPeople of older times called this innate sense of right from wrong the Law of Nature or Natural Law—a standard of decent behavior that people instinctively understood beginning in early childhood. It was innate and didn’t need to be taught.

C.S. Lewis began his marvelous book Mere Christianity, by addressing the Law of Human Nature. He started with the premise that people everywhere ascribe to a common standard of Objective truth, a set of rules about fair play or morality to which they expect others to know about. You can tell this by the way children and adults alike quarrel. Lewis wrote:"They say things like this: “How’d you like it if anyone did the same to you?” ─ “That’s my seat, I was there first”─ “Leave him alone, he isn’t doing you any harm” ─ “Why should you shove in first? ─ “Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine ─ “Come on, you promised.”"

Lewis noted that seldom does the other party reply: “To hell with your standard.” No! The offender pretends that there’s some special reason why “the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that something has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise.” In fact they both agree with a common standard of decent behavior. The fact that they are quarrelling indicates that they are trying to show the other person is in the wrong. Otherwise, as Lewis wrote, they would “fight like animals”.

C.S. Lewis originally put this idea forward in the 1940s for a series of British radio broadcasts. Mere Christianity was not published until 1952. The idea of a natural moral law ingrained into humanity has weaved throughout history. America’s founding Fathers talked of ‘Truths’ that are ‘self-evident’ (human equality and being “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”)Saint Paul referred to natural law written on human hearts (Romans 2.14-15). The Catholic church teaches that “natural law expresses the original moral sense which enables man to discern by reason the good and the evil, the truth and the lie:” (The Catechism of the Catholic Church No. 1954). Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) said, “the natural law is written and engraved in the soul of each and every man.” St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) said,“The natural law is nothing other than the light of understanding placed in us by God; through it we know what we must do and what we must avoid. God has given this light or law at the creation.”

Brave New World

And yet I see rampant immorality with little obvious guilt. People parade their sin in the streets! How can this be? Abortion advocates successfully secured abortion on demand, resulting in the deaths of millions. Biomedical researchers are raising the prospect of experimentation on embryonic human life. They advocate strip mining comatose patients for their organs. Euthanasia proponents successfully advocated the killing of brain injured Terri Schiavo (41) of Florida.

People with serious progressive disabilities (like me) are left to wonder what awaits us in the Brave New World of the 21st Century?! Has modern secular man been able to finally eradicate God’s natural law from the human heart?[1]

The church teaches this is not possible.“Even when rejected in its very principles, it cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man. It always rises again in the life of individuals and societies.” (CCC, No. 1958.)

Back to the truth

And history teaches this too. Despots and scoundrels, prevaricators and deniers of natural law have risen before. They have their day in the limelight but the natural law they denied or twisted still beckons good people back to the Truth.

The Church speaks the Truth to provide spiritual and moral clarity to humanity—even at the darkest moments of confusion. If this generation rejects the principles of natural law and God’s Word, another generation faithful the Word of God will rise to replace error with Truth. I believe this with all my heart. I must!

Mark Pickup

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[1] For more reading on these subjects see Wesley J. Smith’s books (Culture of Death, Encounter Books 2002) & Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World (Encounter Books, 2005).
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Abundant life is available to all through Christ

Original post March 5, 2007

I knew a woman who was afraid to leave her house. I will call her Valerie. She was consumed by all sorts of anxieties about what might happen if she stepped outside her door. A truck or a bus or a car might run her down if she crossed the street. She might be accosted by a stranger. Yes, Valerie was so paralyzed with fears of dying that she merely existed—choosing to become a prisoner in her own home.

I know a man who is afraid to fall in love for fear of what it might require of him. I will call him John. He grew up in a home where his parents did not love each other. His home was bereft of affection but coldly predictable. In a heartless sort of way it was safe. Now, in adulthood, John keeps up a façade of superficial cordiality to scare away romance and commitments of love. John has sexual desires but lust is not love. Lust consumes while love nurtures. John’s fears about what love might require of him keeps his heart in check. He is emotionally paralyzed.

Paralysis takes many forms. Mine is physical. It creeps slowly, taking over my body, bit by bit. Despite the advancing physical disability, the wheelchair, the deteriorating physical health, I consider my paralysis much less of a handicap than emotional and spiritual paralysis such as I described above. In fact, I consider Valerie and John more crippled than me. One is afraid to live while the other is afraid to love. I am afraid of neither: Life and love both involve an element of risk but also hold great rewards.

Being engaged with the living experience and being committed wholly to love (human and divine) are indispensable to human growth. They make our time on earth well spent. Neither life nor love requires legs that work.There is so little in my world I can control. I can, however, decide to live my life in whatever state I find myself. I can choose to love. The option is to live a compromised life or an existence without love.

No. I choose to live my life to the fullest. I choose to go outside my house and enjoy the fresh air and the warm sun. I choose love. Whether it is returned in any human context is beyond my control. I am loved by God and He is the author of life and love.

In his Messianic prophecy, Isaiah wrote:

"The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,because the LORD has anointed me; He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly,to heal the brokenhearted,To proclaim liberty to the captivesand release to the prisoners, To announce a year of favor from the LORDand a day of vindication by our God,to comfort all who mourn;". (Isaiah 61.1-2)

Christ read this passage and claimed it for himself (Luke 4:17-21). He came to set captives free.

Christ is Truth (John 14.6) and the Truth sets men free (John 8.32). Valerie did not need to live in fear and nor does John. Abundant life is available to all in Christ.

Mark Pickup

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This glorious hope awaits us!

Originally posted March 2, 2007

My small grandson and I were watching Disney’s children’s movie Pooh’s Grand Adventure (1997). It starts on the last day of summer with Christopher Robin trying to break the news to Winnie the Pooh that he must go away to boarding school:

CR: Pooh Bear, what if, someday, there came a tomorrow when we were apart?

PB: As long as we’re apart together, we shall certainly be fine.

CR: Yes, yes, of course, but if we weren’t together. If I were … somewhere else?

PB: Well, you really couldn’t be, because I would be lost without you. Who would I call on those days when I’m just not strong enough, or, or brave enough.

CR: Well, actually …

PB: And, who would I ask for advice when I didn’t know which way to turn?

CR: Pooh, we …

PB: We! We simply wouldn’t be.

In this touching exchange, Winnie the Pooh is asked to consider the possibility if them being separated. It’s unthinkable to Pooh and Christopher Robin can not muster the courage to say he’s is leaving for boarding school. But the unthinkable happens: the next morning Pooh discovers that Christopher Robin really is “somewhere else.” And so a brokenhearted Pooh Bear embarks upon his misguided but grand adventure to find his best friend.

The movie captured the attention of one little boy and his grandfather.

It is terrible to think about being separated from those we love. Yet, it is a heartbreaking prospect we all shall face at some time or another. The sadness of separation will surely visit you and me. It may be the result of events or time or distance or death. But eventually, we will all feel an inconsolable ache of being separated from the human relationships that matter most to us.

Painful separation by death

To be widowed or orphaned is a terrible thing. To be suddenly left alone in the midst of life’s journey can cause such sorrow that the griever may be convinced their heart is irreparably damaged and is about to break in two. They wake each morning to the dreadful reality that he or she really is gone. The gaping hole left by the loss of a loved-one seems too great to bear and the griever wails at the thought that ‘we’ has become ‘me’. The griever’s heart cries out: “I am lost without you! I am not strong enough or brave enough to endure this pain!” Pooh Bear was right: We ceased to be!

Pooh’s Grand Adventure spoke to me of things I must say to my grandson, but, like Christopher Robin, I am reluctant to prepare us both for the day we will be apart. He and I are ‘we.’

For those of us who live by faith, our consolation in the agony of separation is Jesus Christ. The separation of loved-ones through death is not final. Jesus said, “Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5.3.) And so we shall be comforted. Saint Luke’s parallel account of the Beatitudes (Luke 6:20-22) puts Jesus the words this way: “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” Present pain carries a future promise and blessing.

After all, to seek God is to seek divine happiness and enter heaven’s joy.

Glorious hope awaits usPresent human understanding of love and relationships will seem like poor reflections of the genuine articles when we stand face to face with the Creator of both. We will realize that we were always fully known, even in the loneliest of earthly sorrows. (See 1Corinthians 13.12-13.)

God’s children will be with Him (John 1.12). The Bible says:

"I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them (as their God). He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, (for) the old order has passed away.” The one who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” Then he said, “Write these words down, for they are trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 21.3-5)

We must teach our children and grandchildren of this glorious hope that awaits those who trust in Christ. We will be together again with Jesus in Paradise. The promise is “trustworthy and true.” Then, the only response possible will be joyous laughter.

We simply will be, Pooh bear. We simply will be, together with Christ.

Mark Pickup

Mark Pickup

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