...thoughts expressed here are not necessarily final.

October 17, 2005 It's Official!

The Fosters are moving to Indy to take a new position with McGraw-Hill. It's been an eighteen month search with many interviews and several offers I have turned down along the way waiting for the "right" position. We had an offer on the house yesterday and a contract today and will be traveling to find some new digs later this week. I have to be in the office there on November 14.

I went to the Narnia Tour as it hit St. Louis Friday night at Borders on Olive.

This is revisiting old territory as when we first moved here and attended Covenant Seminary, we gathered at Borders for the Francis Schaeffer Institute's Fridays at Borders series. Jerram Barrs spoke at the (Creve Coeur location) on Echoes of Eden in C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as part of Narnia on Tour. Jerram is Professor of Contemporary Culture and Resident Scholar of the Francis Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Seminary. I had Jerram for two excellent courses- Common Objections to the Christian Faith and Christianity and the Arts while at Covenant. I would estimate the crowd at around 80 plus as there were many sitting on the floor and standing behind bookshelves as they listened attentively. Jerram spoke on how a variety of motifs in the Chronicles (and particularly in The Lion, the Witch and Wardobe) speak of the Fall, of Sin and of Redemption in ways that communicate an overtly Christian message in terms that anyone can understand. It was Lewis' hope that by falling in love with Aslan, people would love Christ and recognize Him when they met Him.

Barrs focused on three main aspects of the echoes of Eden. First we find Creation echoes which reveal the beauty of how life once was before the fall- and the delight in ordinary life and ordinary persons.

We also see echoes of the Fall in the tragedy of life now in the alienation that accompanies life with the reign of the witch.

We also see echoes of redemption- the promise of what life will be when Christ, the Lion of Judah returns to establish his kingdom, and in the even deeper magic and the disbelieving for joy and the healing and reconciliation that comes with spring- in anticipation of the renewal of all things.

We said goodbye to the folks at Bethel yesterday. We will be back to visit of course, and I resolve to stay in vital contact with Tim Lewis, my pastor extraordinaire. I had not anticipated the hugs and well wishes we received. As I have expressed before, we would not be on this journey of faith without the time and freedom and support of those who knew we did not have anything much to offer in the way of service when coming to this church.

Some pastors might have written us off, but not Tim Lewis. He saw how God was working within us to will and to do according to His purposes and embraced and encouraged us. He understood our hearts as we coped with this strange situation where we were not vitally linked and in service as teachers as in the past. He encouraged us as we were on the road to Paducah and Louisville as many Sundays as we were at church. As a result, we have been able to move forward to act on our discernment that God is leading us to Seminary training and beyond.

The October flowers are waning a bit for a while but now the mums are in their glory, greeting the changing fall colors in the neighborhood. Hope we can find as pretty a place to live in the days ahead.

Sadness over sin

We went to some friends' house and bounded out of the car. A neighbor was walking up the hill and greeted us as they passed. We were laughing and cutting up and walked into a wall of sadness and dismay. Asking what was wrong, they informed us that their neighbor just let them know she had asked her husband to leave. They had been working on their marriage, going to counselingat their church for 4 years.

She discovered that her sixty-five year old husband had been philandering since early in their marriage and was having an affair currently with a 22 year old. His advice to her, get over it and get yourself a young lover. He was totally unremorseful and she asked him to leave once and for all. She had been totally unaware that he was slipping away an hour here and there, and it turns out he had even brought the girl, hiding in the floorboard of his truck , into their home for sex. The girl showed up recently and told her of how her husband had pursued her.

Our friends were shocked and devastated as well. How could this happen under their noses? How could someone they considered a friend live such a double life so successfully? Yet no one suspected. I admit I do not understand how this could happen without the wife suspecting- he must have been very practiced and successful at deceit. It makes me wonder what is going on behind closed doors all around me, for I know sin runs dark and deep in our world.

Jesus wept.