We sold our home when I was ordained, because we knew we would be moving to Pittsburgh. We rented in Pittsburgh (Edgewood, actually) because I knew we’d be there only one to three years, and that’s too short of a timeframe to be buying and selling real estate. Then, when I was called back to Bryn Athyn, we rented again, this time in Huntingdon Valley. Again, no purchase, because I was certain that I’d need to move out to plant a church within one or two years.

The houses in Edgewood and in Huntingdon Valley each had their good points, but they were each somebody else’s. Now, sitting here in my study in our one-story house in the Highland Hills part of the city of Austin, I’m a homeowner again. Now, for the first time in a long time, I truly feel home.

Tomorrow is Sunday. Our plan is to use many Sundays in the coming seven months (except those on which we are doing a monthly worship gathering with New Way Church, of course!) as chances to visit neighboring churches of all types and sizes, and worship with our neighbors, and with strangers. Many of these Sundays we’ll worship as a family at home, too. Tomorrow is something special, though. Tomorrow we are dedicating our home to the Lord.

As part of the dedication, we will read together four readings from the Word. Here they are.

Divine Providence 338:4:

Everyone after death comes into a society of his own people, that is, of those who are in a similar love, and he recognizes them as relatives and friends, and what is wonderful, when he meets them and sees them it is as if he had known them from infancy. This is the result of spiritual relationship and friendship; and what is more, no one in a society can live in any other house than his own, each one in a society having his own house, which he finds ready for him as soon as he enters the society. He may take part with others in meetings outside his own house, but still he cannot dwell anywhere else.

Genesis 12:1-9:

Now the Lord had said to Abram:

“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan. Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. And the Canaanites were then in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South.

Luke 10:1-9:

After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go. Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. Go your way; behold I send you out as lambs among wolves. Carry neither money bag, knapsack, nor sandals; and greet no one along the road. But whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on it; if not, it will return to you. And remain in the same house, eating and drinking such things as they give, for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not go from house to house. Whatever city you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. And heal the sick there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’”

Deuteronomy 6:4-7:

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart; you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. (Deuteronomy 6:4-7)

This is my home. Thank you, Lord, for leading us to it, and help us to put it to use in service to you.

“Back to School” ads always made me angry as a kid, and frankly don’t please me much even today. I associate the end of summer with the end of freedom, the beginning of anxiety, and a significant uptick in the number of meetings I have to go to. Every night the cicadas grow louder as they play their requiem to joy, and before we know it, all the plant life around us will begin to die. Bleh!

At the same time, I am very aware that I am actually (to me, surprisingly) in the minority in this regard. So normally I keep these feelings mostly to myself. And I respect the fact that others quicken at the thought of buying new trapper keepers and look forward to the air eventually becoming “crisp”. I respect them, because I have learned that it’s okay for other people to be wrong, sometimes.

In all seriousness, there are plenty of things going on around us this week that could make a person smile. I just thought it’d be a rare treat for you to read a Pastor’s Box written from the perspective of a curmudgeon. The Lord promised in Genesis that we would never see an end to “seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night”. Hidden within this statement is the spiritual truth that even angels in heaven go through fluctuating states of spiritual summer and winter. So although the state of a spiritually reborn individual is generally that of an optimist, they nevertheless have their better and their less good days, attitude-wise. So hopefully you’ll permit this sinner his moment wallowing in the dark tea-time of the soul, now and then.

Last week I and my wife and kids all went to the Jersey shore for a low-key getaway. Lots of miniature golf and sitting in the sand and reading books together. I am not, generally speaking, a nature person. I get as much inspiration watching people in airports and crowds rushing around on a city sidewalk as I do walking through a forest or watching a bird build a nest. Some might think I’m weird, and I suppose I probably am. But the one aspect of nature that I really find puts me in touch with the Divine like nothing else is the ocean.

I am an ocean guy. I love the waves, the crash of surf, the infinite variety of ripples upon waves upon swells upon currents. I’m not too hot about mysterious pointy things that stab your ankles, but that’s beside the point. I just plain love the ocean. And on this last visit, I had an experience I’d like to share with you.

I was standing on the edge of the surf, looking out at the waves, and beyond them at the seemingly infinite horizon. My four-year-old son’s little hand was gripping my right hand, and he stood there with me. Occasionally he would get a little more adventuresome and take another step deeper into the water, and I’d step with him. Sometimes he’d back out a few quick steps, and I’d calmly retreat with him. However deep he wanted to go, I would go, and no deeper. And holding my hand, he felt totally free to explore safely. And I got to thinking.

First, I reflected that my own father probably did the same with me, although I cannot remember it. I prayed that my son would remember this somehow. Then for a moment I felt a yearning pang, thinking, “Who do I have to hold my hand and guide and protect me as I stand at the edge of the ocean?” Of course, I immediately realized that I had my Father in Heaven, who was always willing to hold my hand. And then is when it really hit me.

The Word of God is an ocean of truth. We first approach it unable to swim, unable to fathom its depths, unable to cross it. It is an immense mystery that draws us. We spend much of our time just playing in its surf. Even as we get older and go deeper, we still are only just splashing in its edges. We can build boats (construct a studied understanding of doctrine) with which to cross it, but even then we are only just on its surface. We can swim in it, and explore its depths, and yet we are still only just barely comprehending it. Put on a mask and dive deep, and you may think you are seeing everything down there, but the reality is you can only see a short distance. You could explore it forever. Read Secrets of Heaven, and it is not hard to get the same sensation one gets when gazing at the ocean.

I shared this thought with my ten-year-old son, and he added another angle that I love: when you look inside it, you see fish and realize that the whole thing is full of life.

It has been said by many that God wrote two books: the Bible and Nature. Isn’t it delightful that a knowledge of correspondences gives us a key to understanding both. At least a little.