Fridays with Froehlichs #4

Let's start with the good news.

Steve's latest round of CT scans and blood work were all clear. 2 years and 8 months after completing chemo, he remains NED (no evidence of disease). Thanks be to God! His next scans are scheduled for July.

However, while Steve was in Roswell getting scanned, Sheryl was walking Luci around the block. As she paused to admire one of Buffalo's many colorful buffaloes, she stumbled and fell full weight on her left shoulder. She was in excruciating pain, and the Roswell staff kindly shuttled us over to the Buffalo General ER where Sheryl got her very own CT scan along with some x-rays. They sent us home with the news that Sheryl had sustained 2 fractures to her humerus (there's nothing funny about that). We met with our very fine local orthopedic surgeon (who specializes in shoulders) who is scheduled to patch Sheryl up this Friday, Feb 09 -- a plate and a few screws should do the trick. He assures her that she will have sufficient range of motion to continue skiing and cycling.

We want to go on record that the entire Buffalo General ER crew was amazing amid their crazy busyness. They were kind, attentive, and encouraging. They even offered some ideas of how we could smuggle Luci into the ER room.

If you pray, please ask the Lord for the pain to subside, for Sheryl to have good sleep, and for healing to be complete.  It's a good thing Steve is "retired" because being a valet is a full-time job. And, the surgeon assures us that recovery will not interrupt our April trip to South Africa.

Epiphany

The Western calendar begins with the season of Epiphany or "Theophany" in the tradition of the Eastern Church. It is the season to discover anew "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," writes Fleming Rutledge In her new book, Epiphany. Poet Luci Shaw reads from her book, A Radiant Birth, as she reflects on the beauty and significance of Epiphany.

Joy Makes Space for Grief
by Sarah Southern

"Advent bids us take fearless inventory of the darkness:
the darkness without and the darkness within."
Fleming Rutledge

Joy sits like a lump in the throat lodged between two tight shoulders.
Joy travels to a stomach rolling with unsettledness.
Joy is the promise of dawn after the longest night,
the pinpricks of light disturbing a dark sky,
a soft bed after a hard day’s work.

Kudos to Ben King

We've been a fan of Ben King for a long time. He's retired from international cycling competition after a distinguished career. He has ridden all the major world cycling tours including The Tour de France and has stage wins in The Vuelta and The Volta. Now, his bicycle takes him to quiet places to photograph wildlife. His hummingbird photographs have been selected by the USPS to be featured on a series of 2024 postage stamps. To see more of his stunning photos, visit his website.

Website Updates

You'll find some new additions to the Other Voices page on the website. Click on the "Blogs, Websites, & Newsletters" button.

One of the voices you'll find linked there is Denis & Margie Haack who have been trusted and valued mentors for many years. Since we are still near the beginning of the new year, and since some of you make reading through the Bible (in a year) a new year's goal, here's a link to Margie's "Bible Reading Plan for Shirkers and Slackers." You can do this!

If you are new to Fridays with Froehlichs, here are links to the posts you may have missed:

Fridays with Froehlichs (#1)
Fridays with Froehlichs (#2)
Fridays with Froehlichs (#3 - Advent)

Work on the Holy Callings project has been on hold for quite a while primarily because care for mom has dominated our lives for the past 9 months. We hope to return to the project in March by doing some interviews.

"Luci" by Elsie Tiscareno

The Stewardship of Words

Perhaps you know first-hand that the current culture war posturing within families and communities can make it difficult to talk to people we love about many important ideas. We need help valuing again the godly discipline of humble listening if we are to re-learn how to participate in fruitful conversations that lead to servant-focused engagement that in turn leads to the flourishing of people and relationships.

In short, we believe words matter. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words…” really can be weapons of destruction or agents of healing. Knowing how cruel and thoughtless we can be in our speech, we pray: “May the words of my mouth (which flow from the thoughts of my heart) be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer” (Ps 19:14; Mt 12:34). Knowing how eager we can be to demand our right to be heard (as if Moses had the American Constitution in his back pocket when he came down the mountain), the Apostle James cautions us to be “quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry” (Jas 1:19).

So, we are on the hunt for resources that can help us be good stewards of our words, ideas, and opinions.

Intellectual Hospitality

The Octet Collaborative is the Center for Christian Studies at MIT,
a sister center with Chesterton House here at Cornell
and a member of the Consortium of Christian Study Centers.
The Octet Collaborative has put a special emphasis on learning
and practicing intellectual hospitality. Octet director, Nathan Barczi, explains what that means in his insightful essay "Intellectual Hospitality Is a Species of Love."

In their Diálogos series, Octet endeavors to model this kind of hospitality in several conversations about difficult often divisive topics. In our reactive polarized culture in which too many Christians have stopped listening and have forgotten how to inquire as an act of love, the practice of intellectual hospitality is a timely and valuable discipline. One of the speakers, Alan Love, is an NLPC alum.

Similarly, Baylor University hosts a Civil Discourse Series. We found the panel discussion in this series on Politics and Faith to be especially valuable. The discussion is moderated by Baylor President Linda Livingstone, and the panelists include Curtis Chang, Justin Giboney, and Kaitlyn Schiess.


What If?

Cherie Harder is Executive Director of The Trinity Forum.
Malcolm Guite is an Anglican priest and poet.
Both are listed on our Other Voices page

CH
If our words have generative power, presumably they also have degenerative power.

MG
Oh, yeah.

CH
Here in the States we’re about to embark on an election season. We are certainly at a time in which there is a lot of really ugly rhetoric. We’ve had national leaders refer to other people as vermin or poisoning the blood and use overtly dehumanizing language. And there’s a market for that kind of thing.

MG
I know. It’s awful. Yeah.

CH
If we are ourselves poems, what is our responsibility to care for language? And how do we learn to both care for language and, as part of that, love it?

MG
Well, I think we have a deep responsibility for language, because language is a distinctive thing that God has given us. God is really interested in what we do with language. It’s a very interesting moment in Genesis when he brings the animals to Adam to see what he would name them. Not what God would name them, but what we would name them. You know, he’s giving us this naming power. And we can use names to bless and liberate, or we can use them to curse. And Jesus is really clear about the importance of this. He would be; he’s the Word incarnate. He’s now telling us about what words are. And, you know, famously in Matthew 12, he says, “I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof on the day of judgment. For by thy words shalt thou be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned.” You know that should be written on the top of everybody’s computer before they press send. This poem was sparked by some really bad political rhetoric where one side was talking about targeting the other side and actually used a rifle target on a poster, which was just wicked. I mean, there’s no other word for it. And I was spurred on to think, what if we actually took the words of Jesus seriously? What if? So, the poem was my go—it’s the nearest I get to rap, I might say—it was me really having a go at rhyming. But it went like this:

Malcolm Guite reading “What If?”

Our weaknesses are often the raw material God uses to demonstrate his strength. He uses our losses, struggles, and deficiencies as the vehicles for his kind of success in our life. So we wrestle with weaknesses. So our closets have enough skeletons to populate a graveyard. So we weren't voted most likely to succeed or marched home from Sunday school with ribbons for Bible memorization. This is not about us. Neither how good we think we are nor how bad we know we are constitute our identity or empower us for the missions on which God sends us.

Our trust is in Christ, who chooses the last and the least over the first and the greatest. We write our story in a way that draws upon our strengths, our hopes, our plans, and dreams. But he writes our story in a way that highlights our weaknesses, our fears, are deficiencies. Why? Because in so doing he showcases the areas of our lives where he does his best work. Yes, God can and does use our unique talents and abilities, but most often he uses whatever is going to spotlight our nothingness and his everything. His story in our lives is most obvious when the narrative has taken a turn toward the cross.

The self-image we cultivate tends to work on the false assumption that God desires us to grow more independent. To become better and stronger so that we need him less. We imagine the Lord is waiting for us to spread our wings and make our own way through this life. But Christian maturity is not marked by independence but dependence. A growing awareness of our incessant need for Christ. The less we are, the more Christ is. Far from being bad news, this is the best news of all. For the more Christ is, the more we are the very people God has created us to be.

Chad Bird
Your God Is Too Glorious

Serving in South Africa - updates!

We've been extended an invitation to travel to South Africa in 2024 to serve students at the Univ of Stellenbosh and the community of Christ Church in Stellenbosch. Click here to get details.

Book Notes

Titles in the queue...

Benediction

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a man who stood for Christ and against not just Hitler but also the Christendom of his day, penned this benediction from prison:

“May God in His mercy lead us through these times;
but above all, may He lead us to Himself.

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