Author: Ian Bothwell

When classes last three hours I sometimes end up sitting on the desk.  It is a vulnerable position because during winter mornings in Massachusetts it is dark when I get up.  Sometimes I end up with mismatched socks much to the amusement of my students.  But this morning I graduated to a new level of unawareness.  Halfway through the day I suddenly realized my shoes were not matched.  They didn’t even look alike.  One was dark brown and the other light brown.  I am so glad I did not have a class today.  I do cultivate the frumpy professor look but this is more in the absent minded professor category.

Getting dressed in the dark is one thing but some people live in the dark.  They don’t have a clue what they are missing if they don’t know Jesus.  Without Jesus they have to cope with their guilt.   Without Jesus they run out of life after a few decades.  Without Jesus life’s great questions, why am I here, where am I going, go unanswered.  Without Jesus there is no hope for anything more than one can manage to grab onto in a short life.

With Jesus “our citizenship is in heaven.”  Philippians 3:20  Heavenly citizenship comes with a privileged passport that merits unlimited visas.  With Jesus life has purpose far beyond the important human responsibility of family.  It is difficult to think of anything more important that raising a healthy family but beyond our imaginations there await us goals and tasks to challenge our ever-growing intellects and characters.  With Jesus we move into the light and out of the darkness.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 6, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

Paul was not to be trifled with. Philippi was a Roman colony where Rome had sent 300 distinguished veterans of the Roman legions to provide leadership and a strong Roman presence. Enter Paul, himself a Roman citizen.  As he moves through the city he is followed by a servant girl who continually calls out, “These men are servants of the most high God and they are telling you how to be saved.”  One would think Paul would have appreciated this but she was a major distraction from his preaching so he cast the spirit out of her.  Her owner, realizing his loss of her special powers, dragged Paul and Silas before the city magistrates, not Romans, and had Paul and Silas beaten and jailed.

The beating was not the savage kind that Jesus received but never-the-less significant.  During the night an earthquake broke the prison doors and their chains.  It is then that the magistrates discover Paul is a Roman citizen and they had beaten him without a trial. Realizing their predicament they tried to get Paul to quietly leave town.  Ah, no.  Paul will not hear of it. He made the magistrates come to the prison, publicly apologize and personally escort him to freedom all the time knowing the Romans in town would definitely hear of this travesty.  Paul would not let them sweep it under the rug.

In Philippians 3 Paul acknowledged while he was pressing toward the goal of being like Jesus, he, Paul, had not yet attained.  On the cross Jesus said, “Father forgive them.”  In Philippi, Paul made a public spectacle of his persecutors.  Oh, I’m sure he forgave them.   But not before he got his pound of flesh.  I love it that Paul was as humanly flawed as you and I.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 8, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

We are fortunate enough to have the DVDs for the third season of the wildly popular and excellent PBS drama of Downtown Abby.  We now have to be careful when we are talking to our friends who are watching it each Sunday evening on PBS.  We know how it ends and we don’t want to spoil it for them.  While walking my dog this evening in the almost zero degree night I was thinking how very opposite this is from knowing what Jesus says about the end of the world as we know it.  We should tell it to everyone.  Jesus tells us to tell.

Jesus said, “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.  And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”  Matthew 24

Paul adds his input in I Thessalonians 4. “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”

Sometimes in our eagerness and zeal we add a lot of details from our imaginations and give the impression we know more than we really do.  The centuries have not been very kind in bearing out our man-made details.  To be safe I have learned to stick to the basics.  Jesus wins.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 24, 2013

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I got a really bad haircut today.  For reasons unknown to me my regular barber wasn’t open today so I went just down the street to a new place. I should have known better.  The place opened just a month ago and didn’t look overly busy.  Going to a barber is like going to a diner.  Don’t go if you never see any cars parked outside.  Maybe going to a church is like that.  Go where the parking lot is full.  Something is happening inside.

One of my favorite stories about Jesus is found in Matthew 8.  A man with leprosy was looking for Jesus.  Jesus wasn’t too hard to find.  The leper just went where the crowd was.  Getting to Jesus would have been a problem for some but not for a leper.  As he came near the people were repulsed by his appearance and smell.  Everyone got out of his way lest they be touched by him.  “He knelt before Jesus and said, ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.’ Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.  ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’ Immediately he was cured of his leprosy.”

What I love about this story is that Jesus touched him prior to taking away the disease.  That is so much like Jesus.  No matter what our problems, our sins, our mistakes, our lousy past, Jesus is willing to first touch us and make us clean.

The crowds aren’t always right.  To the contrary history teaches us the crowds are often wrong. But the crowds that found Jesus were very right.  The man’s leprosy was gone never to grow back.  Fortunately for me, my hair will grow back.  It’s a great life.

 

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 23, 2013

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I just came in from walking my dog.  We didn’t stay out very long. It’s a breezy 10 degree night and I wondered about her feet.  The moon is busy painting shadows on the snow cover.  It would be impossible to sneak up on someone because the snow is creaky and crunchy.  When I was a boy I read lots of stories about Indians walking silently through the forest.  I thought that was wonderful and used to try to do it.  Carefully I would avoid stepping on a stick that would snap and echo through the trees.

God is very good at moving silently through the forest.  He could even cross our creaky, crunchy snow without a sound.  He is excellent at sneaking up on us.  Frankly speaking, He is a stalker.  He cannot help Himself.  When one loves someone they want to see them, be with them, and share with them.  Psalm 139 says, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”

I used to think the prodigal son’s father went out to the road each day watching for his son.  But now I think differently. With the resources he had I am sure he had people watching his son everyday and reporting back to him.  With great joy he heard that his son was on his way home and he ran to meet him.  There was never a day he did not know where he was.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 22, 2013

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

“The business of life is the collecting of memories.”* If we are to have memories to collect we have to make them. When we are young we are way too busy, we give little thought to memory making.  There is no time.  We have so much energy to use we cannot waste it sitting about reminiscing.  Birthdays are stepping stones to adult privileges.  Each candle is twelve months closer to one’s driver’s license.  Each diploma or degree is one step closer to the fulfillment of a career. Somewhere in the middle of it all we begin attending alumni weekends and begin sentences with “Do you remember.”  Photo albums become the treasures we would rescue from a burning building.

If one is to build a good life one must build good memories.  If we are to look back to a fraternity of friends we need to make friends along the way.  If when we look back we see enemies, most likely we had something to do with making them.  However, that is not always so.  Enemies happen.  We cannot control other’s feelings or reactions.  Occasionally we give offense and don’t even know it.  I wish I could say we were in complete control but alas that is not the case.

It is a wonderful thing that Jesus forgives our transgressions.  But how much better had we not transgressed. If life is about collecting memories, and it is, we can craft the major portion by making good decisions.  If we are ever in doubt regarding a decision the best bet would be to choose what God instructs.  He’s been around a while.  He knows.  Listening to the smartest being in the room is the smartest thing to do.  It makes for good memories.

*Herb Gardner – “I’m not Rappaport”

Written by Roger Botthwell on January 22, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

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To Be Human

Have you ever stood on a stage and looked at the different colored lights that are available to set a scene?   Changing a hue changes an atmosphere.  The lights are different colors, not because the inside of the light is different, but because of the filter covering the light.  There is no such thing as bias-free.  It is a myth of gigantic proportion.  The end result being that each religious or political group is absolutely convinced their views are the right views and others are either horribly mistaken or downright evil.

So here I sit with my Bible in hand.  The light that floods from its pages flows through the biased filter of my mind.  In order to change me, I have to be jolted otherwise my biases will adapt what I read.  What I read will merge with what I already believe.  In order for God to recruit Saul into Paul, God had to literally knock him off his horse and strike him temporarily blind to jolt Saul into a reevaluation of his core beliefs.  Even then Saul\Paul retreated for literally years of study before he emerged as Paul, Christ’s greatest ever evangelist.

Before we take up arms, verbal or otherwise, against anyone either for religious or political reasons, we must step back and recognize that we could be that other person were it not for the filtered set of biases we inherited from our past, our subculture and culture.   We must understand the other is as spiritually or philosophically invested as are we.  The cause for which we are willing to die is heresy to another.  It does not make them evil.  It makes them human.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 21, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

As the full moon slowly slid across our winter sky with tomorrow’s snow clouds in tow our beautiful lab patiently sat watching supper preparations.  The sizzling skillet filled the air with saliva inducing aromas.  The floor would have to be cleaned below her chin.   Her dark brown eyes were fixed on my wife as she waited for the command.   This was her job.  When the food is ready she gets the nod to find me.  I can hear her coming.  There is a thunder across the floor and up the stairs as her ninety pounds hurl into the room.  “It’s time to eat.  Don’t linger.  Can’t you smell it?”   She is as persistent as if Timmy were in the well.

Her joy is to obey.  In Psalm 119 we read, “Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart. My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end.”  Oh that the psalmist would be as happy with me as he would be with her.  “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands are always with me and make me wiser than my enemies.  I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes.  I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts.”  While it is true we are motivated to obey because of our love for our heavenly Father, we should also be motivated when we understand that obedience is the smart thing to do.  Not only does it keep us out of trouble it makes us smarter.

I should be as smart as my dog.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 20, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

While root beer is the extent of my indulgence in kinds of beers, I do have to admit some of the better commercials on television are the beer ads.  Who among us doesn’t enjoy the Clydesdale horses pulling a sleigh across the snow?  One particular brand features “the world’s most interesting man.”   He is an incredible looking, grey bearded 70ish guy who does phenomenally outrageous things like parallel parking a train.  Each ad closes with a close-up of his slightly wrinkled tanned face looking into the camera as he says, “Stay thirsty my friend.”

“Stay thirsty” is a great message for everyone.  Our lust for life, our desire to try new things, read a new book, climb a new mountain, take a new class, taste a new food, write a new poem is what we are designed for.  Adam and Eve weren’t made just to smell the flowers in Eden but to design a world.  In John 7 Jesus said to a massive crowd, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”  The paradox of Jesus’ comment is once we have quenched our thirst by coming to Him we will want more.  One can never be sated when we are with Jesus because He continually expands our capacities.  The more we know about Him the more we want to know because the results are so very enlightening.  New vistas of thought flood our minds with new intelligence to comprehend.

The real “world’s most interesting man” is the One who’s birth divided history.  He is the One whose message was and still is “stay thirsty.”  Drink up as much of Him now and He will give us an eternity more.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 17, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

You might think I spend a lot of time behind cars and trucks.  I do.  And I suspect you do also.  Today I pulled up behind a car decorated with contradictory symbols.  There was the traditional fish symbol for Jesus next to a cross.  However, there was also a pentagram and a bumper sticker promoting Satanism.   As this mixed message drove off I remembered the witchdoctor that sat under a mango tree in front of the dispensary by our school in Uganda.  It was there that I discovered that the witchdoctor was a good guy.  He sold things to counteract curses from witches.  He was the doctor.

One afternoon while waiting my turn to see the nurse at the dispensary (I had fallen off my motorcycle and needed an antibiotic ointment.) I noticed people coming from the dispensary also purchasing things from the witchdoctor.  I recognized one of them and I asked, “Why?”  His logic was interesting.  He told me he was covering all the bases.  Modern medicine was fine, but just in case, a good charm from the witchdoctor might do the trick.

Jesus once said we cannot serve two masters. We can’t play both ends against the middle.  We are either with Jesus or we are not.  “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”  Matthew 6:24.   I wondered if the person in the car in front of me was trying to hedge his faith.  If so Elijah would have a few words for him.  “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”  I Kings 18:21

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 18, 2013

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell org