Author: Jon Gauger

In the sixties and seventies they called it “white noise”–the background blanket of sound that relaxes some—and makes others more productive.  Then, The Sharper Image made it personal with their Sleep Sound Machine.

 

From Time.com comes a review of three background noise websites.  For starters, there's Coffitivity.com.  This site recreates the pleasant background sounds of a coffee shop.  Perfect for anyone who finds that atmosphere more conducive for work.  Coffitivity lets you dial in how much activity you want.  Choose from Morning Murmur, Lunchtime Lounge, or the more restful, University Undertones.

 

Noisli.com offers a huge array of background sounds you blend together for the perfect combination of relaxation or focus—depending on your mood: rustling wind, a crackling fire or passing train.  A user-selectable screen visual allows you to match what you hear with what you “see” emotionally.

 

MyNoise.net bases its sound palette on actual research and offers soundscapes specifically designed for health recovery, meditation, or just plain sound blocking.  The website automatically calibrates for your system's speakers and your personal hearing. 

 

Who knew there were so many toys for noise?

 

But in a sound-soaked society like ours, I'm wondering if more noise is what we really need.

 

Ecclesiastes 3:7 reminds us there's “a time to be silent.”  In Psalms 46:10 we're told, “Be still and know that I am God.” 

 

I submit that some of the world's most effective soundscapes are found in the 23^rd Psalm– He makes me lie down in green pastures.  Can you hear the birds?  He leads me beside the still waters. Hear that peaceful trickle?

 

What you and I need is not more sound for the sake of noise…but peace for the sake of our souls.

 

You won’t get that online.  Only in God and His Word.

1.5 billion.  Dollars.

That's how much money is owed to the city of Chicago in unpaid parking and traffic tickets. Imagine one and half BILLION dollars!

A recent article in Chicago Magazine spelled out exactly what that kind of cash will buy. A creative number crunch suggests that 1.5 billion dollars is enough to buy 545.5 million Chicago style hotdogs (nearly two for every American). 

Those unpaid tickets could purchase 5,117 years' worth of school supplies for Chicago's kids.  Sick of potholes?  That money could also resurface 2,497 miles of Chicago's streets—about two thirds of all its streets!  Or if you'd rather, you could reconstruct 3.5 CTA rail lines.

But if you prefer to think big—really big—1.5 billion dollars would also buy you the 110 story Willis Tower–plus a 590,000 square-foot addition. 

All of this because people refuse to pay their tickets. The Pharisee-in-me is inclined to simultaneously label and lambaste these scofflaws.  How dare they cheat the government? But in pointing at others, we must beware the proverbial four fingers pointing back at ourselves:

• Do you and I pay our parking tickets?
• What about filing permits for home improvements?
• Do we get creative with numbers when filing our income tax?
• Do we dabble in deceit of any kind?

Amazing how comfortable I am pondering the scofflaws “out there” that owe a billion and a half, while overlooking my own moral debts.  I wonder if God were to actually show me the ledger how horrified I would be.

Romans 14:12, “Each one of us will give account of himself to God.”

 

In a recent CNN commentary, Fareed Zakaria (by his own admission not a Christian) made this assessment of Christianity: “its central message is simple and powerful: Be nice to the poor.”  Fareed ends with, “if you have a problem with this message…you have a problem with Jesus Christ.” The commentary makes a number of worthwhile observations.  Clearly, followers of Christ are called to care for “the least of these.”

However, to say that the message of Christ was mostly about loving and caring for the poor is to suggest that a visit to a steakhouse is mostly about the salad. Loving poor people and alleviating suffering of all kinds was certainly on the menu, but this was hardly the main course for Jesus. 

No question Jesus encouraged loving the poor and advocating their cause. To ignore them or exploit them is sin.  But as for the central message of Christianity, that is something much larger.  Jesus revealed it in Luke 19:10, “The Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

In telling the world that He was fully God, fully able to seek and save, Jesus greatly offended the crowds (then and now).  Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me” (John 14:6).  He called Himself the exclusive way to heaven!

If the central message of Jesus was about being nice to the poor, he would surely not have ended up crucified with spikes driven through his hands and feet, his head bloodied and his body spat upon.   Clearly, His contemporaries understood His central message: “I am God.  You are all sinners in need of a Savior.  I am that Savior.  And by the way—there is no other.”  They did not crucify him for a central message of being nice to the poor!

I agree with Fareed that we have a moral obligation to be kind and generous to the disadvantaged.  Being nice to poor people is certainly a reflection of the character of the Christ.   But to reduce the central message of Christianity to “being nice to the poor” is not being nice to Jesus.  Or the truth.

If you have a problem with that, with due respect, you have a problem with Jesus Christ. 

If it's true that Chicago is the “city with big shoulders,” those shoulders get quite a work out.  Walking 1.5 miles each way to work, I'm continually amazed at the construction projects I encounter. 

There is no end to the pounding, grinding, bashing, welding, clanking—building.  On Wacker Drive, I see a major project underway that has most of the heavy equipment staged on the Chicago River.   

Worth noting: a huge red crane (the boom must be 50 feet tall or more) whose treads rest on massive timbers laid out on a barge.  Because I often take the same train, I witness the same early morning scenarios: workers grabbing their last few puffs on cigarettes before clocking in, heavy equipment dragged out of locked storage containers, and a symphony of swearing from red-scarfed heads. 

What has lately grabbed my attention is the daily ritual of the aforementioned crane's operator.   Day after day I find him climbing outside his cab with a jug of glass cleaner in one hand and a rag in the other.  Every morning, he faithfully spritzes the glass and wipes away the dust and grime that come with big noise and big toys. 

Apparently, it's “all that important” to him.  In a given day, he will hook, hoist, and haul hundreds of tons of materials—any of which could crush a site or kill a man, given the slightest imprecision on his part.  It's not that he “wants” to see clearly around him.  He must see.  So he cleans. Every morning.

And so must we. 

The windows of our souls are ever caked with dust and grime that come from a noisy life—sin. We little understand the loads we swing about us daily, the potential we face for immediate destruction.

How good to know that upon our confession, the Savior with big shoulders—Jesus—is ready and willing to forgive our sins and “cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

How is it with the windows of your soul?

Now that television is clogged with large men lunging at an oblong ball, I reluctantly cede summer's end. Though I love football, I shall miss summer. Most of all, I will miss Saturday mornings in a wooded field. Seated in a comfortable chair I am alone with my Bible, my Creator and His creation. 

The birds are loud there, with many different sounds.  I often close my eyes and count the number of different calls.

One bird sounds like a Chevy engine that won't quite start—really!
Another's contribution is nothing but a single syllable chirp. 
Others, by comparison, offer highly ornate phrases using many notes on the musical scale.

The best way to enjoy, though, is not to over analyze, but to let the layered harmonies of these winged creatures work their melodies into your soul.  The birds, I'm convinced, have a few lessons in their twitter (pun likely intended).

Lesson One:  Your voice—your solo–is unique.  Your appearance, your personality, your spiritual gifting—they're not just okay, they're great!  So “sing” boldly.   As Oscar Wilde put it, “Be yourself.  Everyone else is already taken.”

Lesson Two: Learn to be silent. 
All birds don't sing all the time.  They take turns, sit out awhile, then chirp when the time is right.  There's a place for letting others solo.  Learn to be silent. 

Lesson Three:  Learn to celebrate the symphony.   You can only sing one part—not an entire score!  As Paul observed, “we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function” (Rom. 12:4).It's great to be multi-talented.  But it's wrong to attempt to be the whole show. 

Most people go bird watching.
Me?  I go bird-listening.
That's what I've been hearing lately.

Now if you’ll please excuse me–I have a tweet to send off.

Recently I overheard a conversation between a mother and her young child.  The well-intentioned mom informed her son that unless a certain behavior changed, he would not be able to attend Awana Bible club.

I don't doubt her motivation.  Nor is there anything wrong with stripping a child of privileges for behavior that fails to meet clearly defined age-appropriate expectations.

But when we consider all the evil in the world, all the dark forces at work trying to wrap their wicked tentacles around our kids, using a Christian Bible club as a reward to be earned, or a punishment to be meted out seems wildly inappropriate.

I've seen this in other situations.  A neighbor lady often used our church youth group as a “withholding tool” for disciplining her kids.  She wouldn't allow them to attend if they didn't meet a certain behavior standard.  So they often missed.   Know what?  They quit going all together.

Think of all the Bible lessons these young people have missed out on.  Ponder all the Christian comradery they were shortchanged, the vital friendships that were never forged, the mentoring that never happened.  I do not consider it hyperbole to suggest the entire trajectory of their lives may well have been changed—for the worse.

And many of the same people who use Bible clubs or youth group meetings as rewards somehow fail to see their child's television or gaming time as candidates for disciplinary withholding.   Really!

The hymn writer asked, “Is this vile world a friend to grace to help me on to God?”  The answer, of course, is no!

By all means, we must discipline our children.  By all means, let's let children experience consequences for bad behavior or bad choices.  But let us never ever prevent them from attending a Christian club or event where the gospel is presented and Jesus is lifted high.

We dare not forget that eternity is always at stake.

Imagine that you are an air force pilot…but your country has only four airplanes (flying condition unknown).  What would you do if 10,000 enemy soldiers advanced to within 16 miles of your nation's second largest city?   That was the situation faced by Lou Lenart.

According to an article in The Times of Israel, Hungarian born Lenart, of Jewish descent, immigrated to the United States as a child to avoid rampant anti-Semitism.  Enlisting in the U.S. Marines at the age of 17, he is said to have “talked his way into flight school” and flew combat missions in the Pacific during World War II.

Just three years after the end of World War II, Israel was pronounced a state and Arabs in the region responded with ferocity.   An Egyptian army numbering more than 10,000 marched to within sixteen miles of Tel Aviv. 

Israel's entire air force consisted of four airplanes assembled from smuggled German Messerschmitt parts.   Lenart, who was then back in Israel, took off in one of them. “We didn't know if they would fly or if the guns would work,” he said. Determined, Lenart took off.   The plane's pistons all fired but the guns did not. 

Still, Lenart's fearless swooping over the opposing army forced the Egyptians to retreat, now believing the Israelis had a lethal air force.  

After Lenart took on the entire Egyptian army, newspapers dubbed him, “the man who saved Tel Aviv.” An average hero might have hung up his spurs to glory in the glimmer of international acclaim.  But Lenart went on to fly thousands of Jewish refugees from Iraq to Israel and worked as a commercial airline pilot.

In a 2012 interview with the Jerusalem Post, Lou Lenart commented, “I was the luckiest man in the world that my destiny brought me to that precise moment to be able to contribute to Israel's survival.”

Sadly, as of this summer, Lou Lenart is now gone. 

Israel could certainly use more of his kind.

It happens in most every church, most every Sunday morning.  The pastor has finished his sermon and the congregation is about to sing another chorus or two. The pastor prays a prayer inviting the Holy Spirit to “do a work among us,” driving home the Bible passage just preached.  
 
But in nearly every congregation some folks are exempted from that prayer: the worship team.  The singers, band members, interpreters, they make their way up to the stage while the prayer is being prayed.
 
Question:  Why?
 
Answer:    Because we don't want to “waste time” getting everybody situated. 
 
Now as a guy who lives in a world of live radio, nobody appreciates the need to keep things flowing more than me.  As a (would be) musician, I completely understand the prep that has to go on before a group can be ready to sing or play. 
 
Yet still I ask, why do we find it acceptable to use prayer as a “transition” for our worship teams?   Isn't the worth and value of our worship tied to our praying?  In our current model professionalism and pragmatism have trumped prayer.

What is wrong with simply letting the worship team pray with the rest of the congregation—and then giving them a moment to get set up on stage? 
 
If “saving time” is such a premium to us, why don't we start the service on time rather than a few minutes late?  If saving time is such a premium, why don't we tighten up our announcements?    Or why not run the announcements during the time the band is resetting on stage?
 
Consider the small—even stingy–piece of “pie” that prayer gets in the average Sunday morning service.  Dare we slice it even thinner for those claiming to lead us in worship?
 
Maybe it's time we stopped being slick and professional.
Maybe it's time to be a bit more awkward so we can be a bit more prayerful.

Only when you are in a cave and they turn off the lights do you finally grasp how dark true darkness really is.  We experienced such a lights-out encounter touring the Cave of the Mounds.

When some workers mining for lead set off a dynamite charge back in 1939, they unknowingly ripped a hole into the Wisconsin wonder known today as the Cave of the Mounds.

The “roof” of the cave at any given point along the tour route is between 30 and 60 feet below grass level.  So temperature year round is a constant 50 degrees.   Unlike most caves, this one had no natural above ground entrance (until the miners blasted their own version of a doorway).  Because of this, Cave of the Mounds has no bats, no vermin, no wildlife of any kind. 

Whether you like caves or loathe them, they surely offer an altogether different perspective on geology, history, and even theology.  For me, the “teachable moment” came when staring at stalagmites and stalactites I decided to check the cell phone to see if by any chance I had any coverage. None.  Nada. A red “X” glowed where “bars” normally lit up.

Because (perhaps like you) I have a bit of imagination, I began running scenarios through my mind that are typical for cave visitors:

• What happens if there's a power failure down here?
• What happens if the guide's walkie talkie fails?
• What happens if…(in a cave, an active imagination is not your best friend).

Then another thought captured me (forgive me if this strikes you as corny).  Lack of cell phone coverage aside, I was no further away from connecting with the God of the universe down in that mine than up on a mountain.  The poet David agreed:

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you.”  (Psalm 139:11-12).

Next time you’re in a cave—literal or emotional—there's a light you can count on.

When traveling through Elkhart, Indiana, do not miss the RV Motor Home Hall of Fame, a one-of-a-kind camping collection (rvmhhalloffame.org/).

The museum features camping curiosities sucy as the 1913 Earl Trailer and Model T Ford, believed to be the oldest trailer camper in existence.  There's a 1915 Model T with Telescoping Apartment (earliest known example of a “slide out”).

It was interesting to peer inside the 1931 Chevrolet House Car owned by Mae West.  Built for Paramount Studios, it was used as a chauffeur driven lounge car and featured a rocking chair on the back porch!

One of my favorites: the 1935 Bowlus Road Chief Trailer.  This shiny silver predecessor to today's Airstream has the shape of an inverted boat.

Impossible to miss: the 1954 Spartan Imperial Mansion.  At eight feet wide and a whopping 42 feet long, this trailer is immense.

Tromping through 100 years of RV and motor home history—many models featuring original flooring, bedding and furniture–I was struck by one unifying reality.  From the primitive Model T Ford campers to the technology laden RV's of today, they are all designed only for temporary living: vacation housing, not permanent dwellings.

So nobody expects even the fanciest recreational vehicle to be as big or as nice as a real home.  It's just intended to keep you comfortable for a short time. 

Which is exactly the same attitude we should have toward this thing called life on earth.  It's only temporary.  Our sights are to be set on a better—and ultimate—destination:  heaven. 
   
Maybe, like me, you need to dial back your expectations for this life which Michael Easley reminds us is “at best a clean bus station.”

Philippians 3:20, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Here's to loosening our grip on this dying world—and fixing our eyes on the world to come.

Happy travels!