Boxes of Love

As a teenager I once delivered holiday baskets to the needy with the pastor.  Having parents who provided food, love and a roof over my head, I was amazed at the poverty I saw.

One house stuck in my mind. The paint had peeled off the house years ago, the porch was rickety and when the lady opened the door there was minimal furniture and no carpet on the bare floor. The pastor and I were outside in the chill air and weren’t asked in – probably because she was embarrassed by her home. It didn’t  matter anyway because it didn’t look any warmer on the inside than it was outside.

She broke into a big smile when she saw Rev. Heywood’s box of Thanksgiving fixings. It wasn’t going to feed them for long, but for one day she and her family would feast together. We repeated the scene several times that day.

Churches have lots of differences but some things are common to all of them. Helping those in need is one. In Los Angeles a Christian group called “Here’s Life Inner City” delivered boxes of food for Thanksgiving to the impoverished. Families could avoid going to food pantries or soup kitchens for the holiday meal and enjoy the day together at home. Unfortunately, the bad economy hit Here’s Life and it was forced to cut back.

Enter Pacific Crossroads, a Presbyterian Church. According to Aaron Belz writing in The Wall Street Journal, the congregation “took on the coordination of mobilizing well-resourced churches to fill boxes and deliver them with the help of inner-city churches.”

“Last year, Pacific Crossroads rallied 10 other churches in the L.A. area to assemble and distribute 1,000 boxes – 650 contributed by its own congregation. This year it will work with 15 churches to generate 1,500.” The “Boxes of Love” contain enough food to feed a family of six. It’s a lot of food and a big project.

The process takes about a month “in which church staff print fliers and make public announcements, hand out shopping lists and empty boxes. Congregants, for their part, take boxes home, fill them, ply neighbors, friends and co-workers for help, and bring finished boxes back to church. There, crews of congregants load the boxes into trucks and vans for distribution. Finally, dozens of church members take the boxes to the doors of families in need.”

Jesus calls on Christians to help the needy – and we do. My mom helps cook huge quantities of American Chop Suey for two soup kitchens at her Methodist church, and my Baptist church operates a food pantry. The Morristown, NJ Community Soup Kitchen was started as a local  Episcopal program but it's grown involve over 30 churches. It's open every day of the year.

We Christians have our differences but we agree on the fundamentals. Charity is one of these and it’s practiced without fanfare by thousands of churches all the time. At Thanksgiving we should all thank God for motivating Christians to selflessly help their fellow man.

Sagan's Dragon

Dr. Carl Sagan

Astronomer Carl Sagan used an analogy to disprove God’s existence. It went like this:

"I say “a fire breathing dragon lives in my garage.”

You say, “Show me,” but all you see is an empty garage.

You ask, “Where’s the dragon?”

“She’s right there – did I forget to mention she’s invisible?”

“Maybe you could spread flour on the floor to show its footprints.”

“Won’t work: she floats in the air.”

“We could use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire”

“The fire is heatless.”

“How about spray-painting it?”

“The dragon is incorporeal so the paint won’t stick.”

And so on. There isn’t a single physical test that will work.

Sagan asked, “What’s the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? Claims that cannot be tested are worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us. I’m asking you to (believe in the dragon) in the absence of evidence, on my say-so. The only thing you’ve really learned from my insistence that there’s a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on in my head.”

Dr. Sagan’s view of the world is crippled because he’s restricted it to physical evidence that can be tested by the scientific method. His hypothetical dragon was beyond the scope of the scientific method so he dismissed it as a figment of imagination.  He uses the same criteria to deny God, but his methods only work for the natural world. God isn’t a natural phenomenon; He’s supernatural and beyond Sagan’s tests. We need to look elsewhere for proof.

Sagan deliberately blinded himself to a large part of reality. If he had a spiritual viewpoint the evidence for God would have been obvious.

God’s “footprints in the flour” would include sensible explanations about where our universe came from and how life began. And the unsought changes that happen within people when they come to faith. And the personal miracles people experience. None of these can be tested by the scientific method but open-minded spiritual people know them to be true.

Another footprint can be seen in our society’s decline since it distanced itself from God’s teachings. Take child discipline. The Bible warns, “spare the rod, spoil the child” but today anyone who dares spank their child is viewed as a troglodyte. But spanking is immediate, effective, short-lived and makes two points:
1. The child knows exactly what got him in trouble and
2. He avoids the behavior so he doesn’t get punished again.
The lesson is taught and life goes on.

Social scientists say “proven” alternative methods like “time outs” work better. But the decline in student discipline this thinking has wrought is one reason our schools are failing. We’ve cast aside Biblical lessons with damaging results. Isn’t this another “footprint” that supports the truth of the Bible – and the reality of the God who inspired it?

We need open-minded spiritual tools to see God.  His presence is obvious when we use them. Unfortunately our culture popularizes people who wear spiritual blinders while promoting the idea that skeptics are enlightened.

To view a typical condescending atheist with eyes wide shut please click on  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MScdPTR-Y0w&feature=related