Category: Spirituality - trish hermanson

When the Gate Swings Open to Another World

1/15/2021

Every once in awhile an invisible gate swings opens before me, and I realize I’m living in two dramas - the world around me and an unseen world.
     That happened when we sold our ranch-style home. We’d completed upgrades that we loved: installing wood and tile flooring everywhere except the living room that we kept carpeted, and turning two bedrooms into one to create a master area with a separate retreat.
     We loved it, but then we sensed it was time to “right-size.” Crazy, I know, but we put it on the market.
     A young couple with two kids nabbed it. At closing, the woman turned to me. “I couldn’t maneuver my daughter’s wheelchair on the stairs anymore. One time I lost control and she tumbled down.”    She explained her young daughter had a genetic anomaly that confined her to a wheelchair. “We needed a home on one level with all hard surfaces, except one carpeted room for physical therapy. And a big master bedroom to keep her bed near us so we could reattach her breathing tube when she loses it and chokes overnight.”
     I blinked back tears. Unbeknownst to us, we’d prepared our home for them. A God prompt? I think so. This reminds me that “…we are but actors in the play, not the director, and in fact we must listen carefully to the whispered stage directions,” author Philip Yancey says.
     That’s good to recall these days when the world is spinning out of control. More is going on than I can imagine.

I Have No Hope Anywhere Else

12/15/2020

I have no hope anywhere else.
     Not in conspiracy theories.
     Not in claims of election fraud with no hard evidence.
     Not in those who would subvert the Constitution rather than support democracy.
     Not in politicians on either side of the aisle who choose party over principles.
     Not in the masses from any political persuasion who believe that violence, burning, and looting are a solution.
     Not in those American Christians who bow down to bullying and braggadocio rather than obey Jesus, who declared that name calling is murder.
     Where is my hope? I think about a woman whose dress caught on fire. Her husband, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, threw himself on her burning body to snuff out the flames, but she perished. Longfellow was left with burns on his face and six children to raise. Two years later, his oldest son enlisted in the Civil War and was severely wounded.
     As Longfellow sought to nurse his son back to health, he heard Christmas bells ringing. Yet war cannons boomed throughout the land. He bowed in despair. “Hate is strong,” he wrote, “and mocks the song of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
     But the bells pealed louder, stronger. Hope stirred in Longfellow. “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep,” he scribbled. “The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, with peace on earth, good-will to men.”
     I share his hope. I yearn for the day when God makes everything right!
   Where is your hope?
     Here is a riveting song of Longfellow’s poem performed by a band of siblings.

Why Sift Through Facts & Folly in Fragile Times

10/3/2020

In these fragile times, it would take more faith for me to be an atheist than to believe in God.
     I don’t say this to “dis” my atheist friends whom I respect for their good and hard questions. I say this because of evidence I sifted through. As a young adult, I wondered whether Christianity stood up under the test of science and history, or whether it was just a bunch of Santa Claus at the North Pole.
     I entered into a skeptical study of the historical Jesus, and especially during these times I encourage you to do that if you haven’t. One approach I’ve appreciated is the one taken by hard-core atheist Lee Strobel when he sought to disprove Christianity. Using tests of evidence he learned in earning a masters degree from Yale Law School, Strobel considered categories of proof - eyewitness, documentary, corroborating, rebuttal, scientific, psychological, and circumstantial.
     Strobel says he “read books, interviewed experts, asked questions, analyzed history, explored archaeology, studied ancient literature….”
     In his book “The Case for Christ,” he says, “Based on the avalanche of evidence that pointed so powerfully toward the truth of Christianity, I concluded that it would take more faith for me to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian.”
     That’s where I landed, too, and I’m thankful for this solid ground under my feet when everything on planet Earth is shifting these days. It clarifies my value and purpose.
  To explore on your own, here’s a link to “The Case for Christ” movie.

Who's Gonna Save Us?

9/11/2020

l long for someone to save America from violence, the pandemic, and economic turmoil. I long for someone who is “larger than life” to rescue us, as Bonnie Tyler sang in “Holding Out for a Hero,” an anthem that has echoed through our culture for more than three decades.
My yearning for a political messiah seems inherent across the political spectrum, whether we’re left, middle, or right. We want someone to ride in on a white horse and save us.
     But when I place my hope in a politician or a political party, am I committing a modern form of idol worship? Have I forgotten our national motto: “In GOD We Trust”?
     It’s crazy when I search for a superhero because no person, party, or platform can ultimately rescue America. Commentator Cal Thomas says, “…revival of the American spirit won’t come through politics and politicians…. America’s central problems are not economic and political; they are moral and spiritual.”
     So what can I do? For my soul’s sake, I can ask my Creator to revive me. For my country’s sake, I can look beyond campaign rhetoric and vote for who I hope will best preserve our Constitution and our shaky union.      Bonnie Tyler’s original music video is overwrought with her plea to save her from a burning house. Our national house is on fire today. Perhaps our faith in a candidate is just as overwrought. Who’s gonna save us? Neither. Rescue begins at the individual level.
     ***
      Artwork: GoGraph.

The Strangest Recycling Program

8/20/2020

That’s my grandson Oak reaching toward a stash of shells we found strewn across a beach near his home in Alabama. He and I were observing the strangest recycling program - gorgeous shells washed up and ground into sand by the force of wind, waves, and feet.
     It’s mysterious to me why God trashes part of creation when it’s at its peak in beauty. But then, I thought about how sand becomes the building block for construction, the primary raw material to create concrete and glass.
     It’s a grand recycling scheme, something that I suppose we’ve all undergone. Did you ever get demoted? Swept out of a high-profile position into something less noticeable? It feels like a drop in status, but perhaps it’s actually a stepping stone into something closer to what you were made to do.
     Like a seashell, sometimes I’ve felt washed up on life’s shore, crushed in my aspirations by the wind, waves, and feet of others. Perhaps I was getting repurposed. Perhaps I was, as Jesus described, like a seed that must be buried before it can sprout into leaves, flowers, and fruit. Being recycled can be painful. Often it demands risk, as Peter Mayer describes in this song about pumpkins that face being repurposed out of their patch.