Thoughts on Turning 38

I love movies--especially on expansive screens with THX sound. In October 2005, I sat in a darkened theatre with my wife. I don’t even remember what movie we were there to see. As the trailers scrolled, I was stopped cold by a simple piano intro into a song. As the camera performed a dolly shot, a line of young adults—the cast of “Rent”—sang “Seasons of Love.” (You can view the trailer here.

I knew of “Rent” the way I recognize somebody in the grocery store, but have no idea why. I still haven’t seen the movie or the Broadway show, but I downloaded the song from iTunes and listen to it often. What a powerful song! It asks these questions. “You have 525,600 minutes a year. How do you measure your year? How do you measure your life?"

It got me thinking about all the minutes I waste. There are 525,600 minutes in a year. That may sound like a lot, but if a person sleeps seven hours a night, that’s 153,300 minutes. The average American spends 32,850 minutes eating, 87,600 minutes watching television, and 21,900 minutes driving to and from work. If you work 8 hours per day, you spend 175,200 minutes.



Am I eating alone or using the time to be with other people? How else can I maximize the time I spend putting fuel into my body? (And what is the quality of the fuel I’m putting in?)

Am I maximizing my commute? Who can I call to encourage or pray with? Who do I need to talk to for the sake of good communication?

Since TV is such a culprit of time, what am I doing to turn it off and watch only what brings value to my life? How far can I chop this number?

Am I maximizing my time at work? Am I doing my work unto the Lord? Am I being a good steward of time “because the days are evil?”

How am I sleeping? Are those minutes well spent or restless? Do they prepare me for the next day or am I just grabbing winks?

When you take out the sleeping, driving, eating, and working, I only have 54,750 minutes left. The activities I’ve already mentioned can be transcendent. But those minutes outside of those activities are the ones that add life to our days, er, minutes.

How many minutes do I spend in meaningful conversation with my wife each day? Not enough. How many minutes do I spend laughing with each child each day? Not enough. How many minutes do I spend at funerals, comforting friends, or writing letters? Way too few. How many minutes do I spend with the Word of God? How many minutes do I spend in church? How many minutes do I spend in prayer? I don’t want to count them, because the total should be much higher.

I want to make the minutes of my life count. I want my life, like the song says, measured in love. We’ll see how I’m doing when the calendar announces that I’m 39

May each of us be aware of the time we waste, and then “waste” the time we do have with our spouses, our children, our other relatives, and our friends.



P.S. If you struggle with these issues like I do, I strongly recommend the book Choosing to Cheat by Andy Stanley. The title is provocative, but the message is powerful and profound.

China, Christianity, and Meileah

The BBC published an article announcing the results of a survey of religious practices in China. You can read the entire article here.

Reading the article inspired a bit of thankfulness and wonder within me. As my regular blog readers know, my family adopted from China 13 months ago. (See our adoption blog.) We prayed for our precious Meileah, educated ourselves on China, traveled the country, and learned Meileah's story. Throughout this process, we all wondered.

Why did Meileah's birth parents wait so long before abandoning her? Was it the sheer cold of Changchun? Were they too compassionate to leave a child on the streets when the temperature was hovering around 0 degrees fahrenheit?

There was an outbreak of disease in China around the time she was born? Was one of her birth parents afflicted? Did they intend to raise her, but couldn't because one of them died?

Were her birth parents Christians who were (or are) persecuted? Did they want to give their daughter the best chance to thrive? Did her birth mother nurse her (despite her cleft palate and lip) to boost her growth and immune system before she was subjected to an orphanage? Did she wean her in preparation for her future life?

We'll never know. All we do know is the street corner where a police officer discovered her.

In preparation for our trip, we also read Randy Alcorn's excellent novel, Safely Home. If China intrigues you, I highly encourage you to read this book.

Here are some highlights from the BBC article.

The number of religious believers in China could be three times higher than official estimates, according to a survey reported by state media.

This suggests 300 million people nationwide could be religious, compared to the official figure of 100 million.

China is regularly criticised for cracking down on unauthorised worship.

Believers are only allowed to attend government-approved churches, mosques and temples.

But the party is still ready to deal harshly with any religious group it perceives to be a challenge to its authority - especially the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong, which was not mentioned in the reports.

The survey found that Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Christianity and Islam are the country's five major religions - China considers Catholicism as separate to Christianity, which covers Protestantism.

The survey also found a significant rise in Christianity - accounting for 12% of all believers, or 40 million, compared with the official figure of 16 million in 2005.

Professor Liu Zhongyu, who helped carry out the survey, attributed the rise in religious belief to growing freedoms in the country as well as the upheaval of rapid social and economic change.

He said the average age of religious believers had fallen, with two-thirds of those in the poll who considered themselves religious aged between 16 and 39.

Echoes of Holiness

St. Augustine lived an interesting life. His work still influences us today. Two Sundays ago, the worship team at my church prayed a beautiful prayer attributed to Augustine. It has echoed in my mind. A few days after the service, my teenage daughter stopped me in the kitchen. Out of the blue, she asked, “Dad, do you remember that prayer from Sunday?” It’s comforting to know that God is working in your children’s lives.

Here is the version I heard in church:

Breathe in me, Holy Spirit, that I may think what is holy
Move me, Holy Spirit, that I may do what is holy
Attract me, Holy Spirit, that I may love what is holy
Strengthen me, Holy Spirit, that I may guard what is holy
Guard me, Holy Spirit, that I may keep what is holy

Here is another version popular on the internet.
Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit,
that my thoughts may all be holy.
Act in me, O Holy Spirit,
that my work, too, may be holy.
Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit,
that I love but what is holy.
Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit,
to defend all that is holy.
Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit,
that I always may be holy.
Amen.
( St. Augustine)

I wanted to know more about St. Augustine so I turned to Nelson's Dictionary of Christianity. This great volume provides quick access to definitions of historical, theological, biographical, and ecclesiastical terms often difficult to find in standard dictionaries and reference books.

Here is our entry about Augustine:
Augustine of Hippo, St. (354–430) Bishop of Hippo. Regius and doctor of the church. Born to a pagan father and a Christian mother, St. Monica, he had a restless adolescence and took a concubine with whom he lived for 15 years and who bore him a son. For a decade thereafter he was a Manichaean while he taught in Carthage, Rome, and Milan. At Milan he underwent a spiritual crisis as he abandoned Manichaeism, left the mother of his son, and came under the influence of St. Ambrose. He retired from his teaching position in Milan at the age of 32 and was baptized on Easter eve 387 by Ambrose. He moved to Rome and after the death of his mother, returned to Africa where, at Hippo Regius, he was consecrated priest and later bishop, succeeding Valerius.

In his early years, Augustine produced a series of works against Manichaeans, Donatists, and Pelagians. He condemned Manichaeism because of its emphasis on the power of darkness, although his later teaching against Pelagians on sexuality and original sin probably reflected persistent Manichaean influence on his thought. He was conciliatory toward Donatists and urged the Catholic Church to recognize the orders conferred by them, making an important distinction between the validity and the efficacy of sacraments.

Against Pelagians he wrote some of his most important works: The Merits and Remissions of Sins and Infant Baptism, The Spirit and the Letter, Nature and Grace, The Perfection of Human Righteousness, The Grace of Christ and Original Sin, Marriage and Concupiscence, Against Two Letters of Pelagians, Against Julian, Grace and Free Will, Correction and Grace, The Predestination of Saints, and The Gift of Perseverance.

Augustine maintained that because of Adam’s fall there could be no faith or good works without grace. Augustine held that grace is available only to the elect who are predestined to receive it and who are granted the gift of perseverance, although he conceded that grace can be given temporarily. While he was engaged in the Pelagian controversy, he wrote a vindication of Christianity against pagan critics who indicted it as the reason for the fall of Rome in 410.

The 22 installments of the City of God appeared between 416 and 422. It contrasted the earthly city, represented by Rome, with the heavenly city in which alone true justice, humanity, and forgiveness prevailed. Augustine prescribed asceticism as the cure for the ills of society. His ethic dealt with the dehumanization of a society driven by lust, greed, and power. Between 399 and 419 he wrote the 15 books of On the Trinity, comparing the three persons of the Trinity to three components of a personality: memory, intellect, and will. He also described the Holy Spirit as the bond of love between the Father and the Son and thus laid the foundation of the Filioque.

Augustine’s profound sense of the ecclesial community is brought out in his Tractates on the St. John’s Gospel, sermons, and rules for monks and nuns. Among his other works are De Doctrina Christiana on biblical exegesis; Harmony of the Evangelists, rebutting pagan charges regarding inconsistencies of the Bible; Enchiridion, a handbook of theology; and Retractationes, a review of his writings. His Confessions, a record of his spiritual and intellectual development, is one of the great classics of all time. Augustine has been a towering figure in Christian theology. He laid the foundations of the school that bears his name, and he exercised strong influence on the Roman Catholic Church and on the Reformers and Jansenists. Feast day: August 28.