New Life'n

514 years ago today

It started out exciting, wonderful and innocent --

Here follow the precise words of the Admiral: "As I saw that they were very friendly to us, and perceived that they could be much more easily converted to our holy faith by gentle means than by force, I presented them with some red caps, and strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and many other trifles of small value, wherewith they were much delighted, and became wonderfully attached to us. Afterwards they came swimming to the boats, bringing parrots, balls of cotton thread, javelins, and many other things which they exchanged for articles we gave them, such as glass beads, and hawk's bells; which trade was carried on with the utmost good will.

But for a lot of different reasons, it didn't stay that way.  (And more from his journal HERE)

So why is there a cross on the beach where Columbus is supposed to have landed?

 

Answer HERE.

Want to be a volunteer at the dairy barn with a cross?

When we first moved to Charlotte, we took a ride up Park Road past Woodlawn to Park Road Shopping Center, near where the 300 acre dairy farm that Billy Graham grew up on used to be.  Billy loved history books, his dad loved cigars, and Billy's mom joined a Bible class when he was 15 which was the start of the big change in the whole family.  It's hard to imagine the dairy farm in the country with all the houses and businesses there now. 

A lifetime later they're building a reproduction of the barn on the property that's the headquarters of the ministry that had its roots on that farm.  And they need volunteers to help tell visitors the story of the Jesus who can take one ordinary farmboy and use him to do extraordinary things.  You can be one of those volunteers -- find out more HERE and apply HERE.  (And a quick review of Mr. Graham's life is HERE.)  Isn't it cool to live in Charlotte?

You know the song. Here's the songwriter.

His mom was godly, his dad ran around all over the world.  Mom died when he was six.  He followed in dad's footsteps -- "a debauched sailor...a miserable outcast." 

Then came the bad storm, March 21, Luke 11:13.  That was the beginning, but, like most of us who remember a special day, change did not come all at once. 

Years later, the song.

He was tough with the truth and humble with people -- "Humble under a sense of much forgiveness to himself, he finds it easy to forgive others."  He said it looks like this:

A company of travellers fall into a pit: one of them gets a passenger to draw him out. Now he should not be angry with the rest for falling in; nor because they are not yet out, as he is. He did not pull himself out: instead, therefore, of reproaching them, he should shew them pity...

"The Tough Roots of His Habitual Tenderness"

Faith(s) of the Fathers

So were America's founding fathers Christians?  Ben Witherington looks at a new book, The Faiths of the Founding Fathers --

Our country was certainly not founded by secular humanists...It was however founded by people whose religious beliefs ranged from non-Christian Deism to more Christian Deism, to, in the case of people like Samuel Adams, John Jay and Patrick Henry, orthodox Christianity.

He says "none of the first five presidents would appear to have been orthodox Christians in any modern sense of the term" but --

better things can be said of some of the wives of the first Presidents who were much more orthodox and church attending than there husbands (e.g. Martha Washington for example).

One of the reasons for the difference between the Presidents and some of their First Ladies...

the women were charged with educating their children with the tools at hand, the primary tool of course being the Bible....(this makes) good sense, as the spiritual nurture of the children had been left in their hands. It was the women who arranged the baptisms, weddings and the rest. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Read the article HERE.  Check out the book HERE.

By the way -- about the painting below

It's called Wheat Field Under Threatening Skies (you can click it to make it bigger).  It's one of Vincent Van Gogh's last paintings.  Story is, it was in that field that he killed himself on July 27, 1890.  He was 37.

• They found this letter to his brother with his body
• This letter was written from his brother to their mom, after Vincent's death
• And a friend describes his death and funeral

Amaze your friends with your Mideast war savvy

My misjudgments affect mostly me.  Sometimes my family or work or church.  One man's misjudgment has caused an international crisis...

We now await the forces of order and rescue, and by all appearances a long, big struggle is playing out in Lebanon. This is from the Book of Habakkuk: "The violence done to Lebanon shall overwhelm you" (2:17). The struggles of the mighty forces of the region yet again converge on a small country that has seen more than its share of history's heartbreak and history's follies.

The story and background of the Mideast war in Lebanon -- it covers the technicalities of politics and history, along with backfiring strategies, but if you really want to understand what's going on, for 10 minutes of your time, this will help.

Did the ones who were there really see it that way?

Apparently yes:

“It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”

“Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day...Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior?...Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity?”

But would he impress Simon?

   

Words about him:

He was not a brilliant strategist or tactician, not a gifted orator, not an intellectual.  At several crucial moments he had shown marked indecisiveness.  He had made serious mistakes in judgment.  But experience had been his great teacher from boyhood, and in this his greatest test, he learned steadily from experience.  Above all, (he) never forgot what was at stake and he never gave up.

Words about his time:

Especially for those who had been with (him) and who knew what a close call it was at the beginning -- how often circumstance, storms, contrary winds, the oddities or strengths of individual character had made the difference -- the outcome seemed little short of a miracle.

His own words:

Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.

The reflection upon my situation...produces many an uneasy hour when all around me are wrapped in sleep.  Few people know the predicament we are in.

More about him and source of quotes.