Currency -- a New Novel

Our son, Todd Wood, has just published a new novel, entitled Currency.  It is available on Amazon Kindle.  It is an incredible story of power, romance, revenge and international finance spanning three centuries. The issues could not be more timely!  


Todd is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. He has been an aeronautical engineer and an Air Force pilot. In the Air Force he flew for the 20th Special Operations Squadron which started Desert Storm.  For the past eighteen years he has been an international bond trader with expertise in Emerging Markets. He has conducted business in over forty countries.  Todd has a keen understanding of politics and international finance. He has been published in the Armed Forces Journal.  He lives on a 300+ year old farm in Connecticut deeded from King George of England with his children.

Here is one review of the novel:  "Wow!!! Can this guy see the future? I bought this on a whim but so glad I did! A must read!"

I hope you get a chance to read it.  

If I could only more closely follow his admonitions...

Those who know me are aware of the influence the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer have had on my ministry and, indeed, my life.  I read Bonhoeffer several times a week.  Since I gave away my entire library when I retired -- several thousand volumes -- I don't have in my possession many of the treasured Bonhoeffer books.  When you live fulltime in an RV travelling the country as we do, with only 300 square feet of space available, you choose to give up things, even some things dear to your heart.  I am able to read a lot of Bonhoeffer on the net.  That hardly satisfies having the hard copy in your hands, but it has to suffice.  I do have a copy of A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer which offers a reading of his work each day of the year.  Today I read the following from A Testament to Freedom.

One day, at the last judgment, he will separate the sheep and the goats and will say to those on his right: 'Come, you blessed, ...I was hungry and you fed me....'  (Matt. 25:34ff).  To the astonished question of when and where, he answered: 'What you did to the least of these, you have done to me....'  (Matt. 25:40)  With that we are faced with the shocking reality: Jesus stands at the door and knocks ....  He asks you for help in the form of a beggar, in the form of a ruined human being in torn clothing.  He confronts you in every person that you meet.... He lives in the form of the person in our midst....'

What would it be like to live that way every single moment of every day?  What would it take for me to do that, to live like that?  To see Christ in the woman at the checkout counter, in the man on the corner holding a sign asking for food, in the person I pass on the sidewalk, in the man and woman sitting with me in the doctor's waiting room, etc.  How do I see Christ in Obama,for whom I hold little respect?  What about seeing Christ in the form of the minister colleague who has made a decision to flaunt his or her misinterpretation of Scripture in the face of Jesus --someone with whom I significantly disagree? 

What would it be like to live like that every day?    These questions trouble me.  You...?

Bonhoeffer on the Church-splitting PCUSA Conflict

“Two factors, which are really one and the same thing, reveal the difference between spiritual and self-centered love. Emotional, self-centered love cannot tolerate the dissolution of a community that has become false, even for the sake of genuine community.  And such self-centered love cannot love an enemy, that is to say, one who seriously and stubbornly resists it.  Both spring from the same source: emotional love is by its very nature desire, desire for self-centered community.  As long as it can possibly satisfy this desire, it will not give it up, even for the sake of truth, even for the sake of genuine love for others.  But emotional, self-centered love is at an end when it can no longer expect its desire to be fulfilled, namely, in the face of an enemy.  There it turns into hatred, contempt, and slander.”          

                                                               

       -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from Life Together

Musings, November 9, 2011

** Thinking about a 'stewardship sermon' I'm to preach this coming Sunday at a church in western Idaho.  On the net I notice most 'stewardship sermons' I read are thinly veiled efforts by pastors to persuade their people to give more.  Why can't pastors just come out and say it instead of trying to manipulate their people?

** I'll never forget the elderly couple in First Presbyterian Church, Savannah, GA, who, in the midst of our stewardship season, visited me in my study and said, "We can't give much, but here is our father's gold pocket watch.  Sell it and use the money for our church's mission." 

** An elderly neighbor of ours died last night.  He was a quiet, pleasant man who often puttered around his rig fixing things.  Another of God's children gone into the night and the world goes on. 

** Joe Paterno is fired at Penn State (for good reasons!), but Barney Frank, a crook from Mass, stays in Congress and continutes to dine at the table of public funds.  Can somebody explain that to me?

** Obama promised an open administration, 'transparent' in his words, but you and I know the reality is anything but transparent.  Anyone want to defend his betrayal?

** White House aides say there's no plan to produce documents on now-bankrupt solar firm Solyndra.  Now that's transparency, right?  Anyone doubt the reasons for this refusal?

** Democrats are pushing to repeal the Defense of the Marriage Act.  Our forefathers are turning over in their graves (again and again!)

** Anyone wondering who is behind the Herman Cain attacks?  Herman Cain has never lived in Chicago. But you know who has? David Axelrod! And guess who lived in Axelrod's very building? Right again: Cain's latest accuser, Sharon Bialek.  Just asking....

** Does Rick Perry remind anyone of a comic?  When you step in 'it', don't keep doing it!

** 20,000 children starved to death today.  And Ms Obama takes a $$$$$$ vacation trip to Paris!  Oh my...!

** Billy Graham's new book, Nearing Home, is an inspiring, encouraging book, especially the chapter that describes Ruth's final days and death.  Get a copy.

** Dietrich Bonhoeffer's words about the Christian community in his book, Life Together, indicts the far left, pro-gay ordination group in our PCUSA.  But that group would never admit same.

** Now the PCUSA is helping produce a curriculum that encourages youth to consider gay marriage.  O Lord, when will such garbage stop?

** After 45 years of active ministry I retired three years ago.  I think much about my life as I enter my 73rd year.  I was good at some things, never great in any thing.  I failed in ministry many times, and in being a father and husband, a friend to others and in many other areas of my life.  So, what is my hope when I stand before my Lord in judgment?  Grace...God's grace, grace that is greater than all my sin!!!

Buffalo Bill's Kin

My neighbor, several sites down from us, is Karl, a true westerner, a former bullrider and now crippled from riding ferocious bulls ... and hard, demanding work at west.

Karl's great grandfather owned a 46,000 acre ranch in Wyoming and was a close friend of Buffalo Bill, the western folk hero.  When Karl's grandfather was married, Buffalo Bill was his best man and gave Karl's grandfather a wedding gift of one of his pearl handled revolvers. 

Karl was supposed to get the gun in his grandfather's will.  His  uncle took the gun and never gave it to Karl.  Karl says he would love just to hold the gun that Buffalo Bill used daily.

Karl is now using a walker and is bright intellectually and a fun conversationalist.  I wish you could meet him.
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Friends are leaving us...for a time.  Ken left for Seattle.  Snarky left for Arizona.  Jim and Pat left for Colorado.  Monte and Carol leave tonight for Desert Gold park in Arizona.  Don leaves soon for K&N park in Sierra Vista, Arizona.  Doug and Alice leave in a few weeks for Yuma.  Others will be leaving in the next month or two, heading for warmer weather for the winter.  The resort here is still relatively full with many overnighters who are passing through.  Soon, however, in November, the snows and cold weather will come, the winds will blow and this resort will have many empty sites.  Dozens will ride out the winter here, several feet keep in snow.  Helen and I will leave January 1, 2012, for Nevada Treasure RV Resort in Pahrump, Nevada and stay there for a month  before heading for Texas to visit with dear friends in Alpine, TX.  Donna and Manning are there and Floyd and Rubye are coming over from the San Antonio area.  The six of  us will join hundreds for the Annual Cowboy Music and Poetry Symposium in late February.  Meanwhile we continue to enjoy our daughter and granddaughters nearby in Nampa (ID).  Golf is great here and Helen loves the pool and hot tub.  Boise offers many avenues of interest.  Mission Aviation Fellowship is headquartered in Nampa.  The Birds of Prey reservation is nearby, as is Bogus Basin, the beautiful snow skiing resort. We attend the Nampa Bulldogs football games and are proud of our two cheerleading granddaughters.  We really enjoy our 'new' church family at Covenant Presbyterian led by pastors Phil and Brian and many capable, committed volunteers.  Many fine restaurants, too, in Nampa and Boise.  The fishing in Idaho is fantastic (if I could just find more time to fish!)  I'm reminded of the sketch framed and hanging in our Roamer RV, given to us by Dick and Doris.  It reads,"God does not deduct from the allotted time of man those hours spent in fishing". 

Confusion At All Levels

Since the PCUSA's deletion of its "fidelity and chastity" requirement for ordination, confusion reigns at most every level of the denomination.  I know, the Fellowship of Presbyterians offered four alternatives for congregations to ponder: stay and seek reform, leave and fight in court for your property, form a new denomination or presbyeries within presbyteries, etc.  But those choices only lead, at this point, to more spintering and more confusion.  Just read the numerous blogs and subsequent post/responses and you easily see how confusion reigns.

Small congregations with severely limited resources have little choice but to stay in the PCUSA.  They don't have the funds to fight in court for their property and the large churches aren't going to 'fund' them.  Medium size congregations dont' want to exhaust the funds they might have to engage in court fights.  Hostile presbyteries, who care only for protecting their boundaries and funds, will make life miserable for any congregation with limited resources that seeks to leave.  Congregations of all sizes have at least a percentage of members who favor the 'progressive' wing and  will vote NOT to leave, thus splintering the local church and producing ill-will at home.  More overtures will land in the General Assembly's 2012 agenda seeking to overturn the 2010 vote on the 10-A amendment, or create presbyteries within presbyteries, etc.

Pastors of congregations with limited resources will fear loss of or drastically reduced income.  Pastors of congregations with great resources will make sure they are protected in any new venture, thus leaving the smaller church pastors on their own and 'out on a limb'.  Presbytery executives will follow the lead of the power-brokers in their presbytery and allow the attacks on smaller churches considering leaving the PCUSA. 

Meanwhile, higher judicatores will face increasingly shrinking dollars.  (The only action that got the attention of the hierarchy was the massive designating of benevolent dollars.)  Mission dollars will be increasingly directed to para-church or independent mission organizations, thus straining our already strapped international missions ministries.

It's just a mess!  And the immediate future promises a greater mess church-wide.

For many, at present, there ares no clear-cut choices, only to leave and give up property and shelve local history, leave and fight court battles, wait for the Fellowship to propose even more options and wait to see if a new denomination is formed and what options/choices that offers.

I was birthed, nurtured, educated and ordained by the PCUS/PCUSA.  I have no plans nor desire to leave the PCUSA.  I grieve over the present state and the ill-advised decisions that brought us this mess.  Now retired, I have little influence other than encouraging those pastors under stress and praying for the Holy Spirit to raise up some wise, courageous voices to lead us out of this 'mess' that is quickly becoming messier.

Do I have hope?  Of course I do, yet I believe it will be DECADES before clarity and resolution is achieved.  By then I will be in the Church Triumphant.  Thanks be to God.

Some Voices of the PCUSA as it races to insignificance

From David Fischler’s blog:

The PCUSA has in effect chosen schism as well as heresy by passing Amendment 10-A. The denomination will just have to learn to live in the tiny ghetto it has moved into, along with the other dying mainline American churches.


From Viola Larson’s blog:
The San Francisco Theological Seminary has produced a document, “SFTS Inclusive Community Statement,” that directs students and faculty to “walk according to the course of this world” and to keep adding sin to sin. It promotes antinomianism which is heresy because it belittles the grace of God.


From Gary Miller’s blog:
I remember feeling, after every General Assembly I attended that no glory resulted. We brought vain glory to the wicked cause of the Libertines. We brought vain glory to those of who called ourselves Renewalist. The Libertines have won their battle to license sin.


From Mateen Elass’ blog:
By our action we have now alienated ourselves from the vast majority of our brothers and sisters around the globe. Already many of our sister Presbyterian and Reformed denominations in other parts of the world had warned us that they could no longer partner with us in mission should we take this step. Some of the same denominations informed us that in making this decision we would break fellowship with them because of our endorsement of homosexual behavior as normative while they remain convinced that it is a sin.


From my blog (Larry Wood):
The once influential PCUSA has lost more than half its members and continues to bleed members (last year we lost more than 60,000 members). The PCUSA has seen more than 150 local churches leave the denomination. Many more are sure to leave soon.  Contributions to the regional and national judicatories are shrinking annually. Many local churches simply refuse to fund the ultra-liberal higher governing bodies. Presbyteries spend enormous amounts of money to challenge in court the efforts of many local churches to leave the denomination with their property.  We have been relegated to a second rate, inconsequential church. Yes, there are many individual, local PCUSA congregations which are vibrant, growing and serving their communities, committed to the lordship of Christ and faithful to the Scriptures. It is the denomination that is suffering and at great risk.


(Note: I will post my thoughts on The Fellowship of  Presbyterians after its meeting in Minneapolis this week and include the thoughts of many other bloggers.)