I would describe this article as a common sense, or common grace application of portions of the New Testament Book of Romans. Therefore before you begin this article it is recommended that you gain the context of the book by preferably listening to it in audio form. For those who do not have audio cassettes etc., the following links will provide Real Audio renditions.
http://www.gospelcom.net/asi/audio.html
http://www.higherpraise.com/RealAudioBible.htm
This is also a story about a journey to a new land or state of understanding. In that respect, the difficult portions of Hebrews 3-4 dealing with the concepts of faith and today are also relevant. Journeys are accomplished one day at a time. To move forward in the Biblical context, each day must be a day of faith, tempered by the understanding of the grace of God offered in Jesus Christ.
Some time ago, I was ask, "Just what do you want to accomplish with what you are doing?"
What really surprised me, was not so much the question, but the fact that I had never really even thought much about it. I could see God's hand in my life, training and retraining me in various ways and this just seemed as the next logical step. So what is my answer? I guess looking back at Bible and worldly leaders throughout time, one characteristic emerges. Leadership: It's not about me. It's not about you. It's about the higher call, or what they call in the military, the mission.
If you look at the world today, the reason that all human civilization is in chaos, is that there are so few true leaders. Everyone is trained from the time they take their first breath, "It's all about you, baby!" Add to that the concept of "original sin" which is just some brainwashing concept of Christian religious fanatics. What emerges from this primordial soup is the sum of evolutionary doctrine, humanity without design, life without true purpose.
But just as it appears that way, doesn't make it true. If there truly is a God that created everything, then everything is designed, everything. If this is true, really nothing else matters. If this is not true, then nothing matters, life is hopeless. Primordial soup really is not the substance of things hoped for, things not seen, but a boundless dream of oblivion, designed to create a longing for absolutes found only in God.
In the Bible, God took the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt, to move them into the promise land of Canaan. Just a short journey, I suppose today, with all the turmoil that is happening in that region, you could still make the trip in about eight hours by car, most of the time being spent at various check points and obstacles of a similar nature. Because of unbelief, it took the exodus from Egypt forty years, and those who left Egypt of adult age, all perished during the journey except two. Joshua and Caleb.
I have never been to Israel, and until things settle down somewhat, it is not high on my travel plans. But I am aware of another journey that too typifies a physical journey, similar to that ancient exodus. That is the journey from Seattle to Montana.
Before we go there however, let us briefly look at the world that God has designed for us to live. Have you ever thought about just how flat it is? With all of the recent patriotic hype about America's "purple mountain's majesty" have you ever ruminated on the "plain" distance you need to create the vision of these impressive purple mountains.
No matter where you live in the world, you are somewhere and you are bound for another place. For sake of this article why not take not only a brief descriptive natural journey, but a spiritual journey to the "promised land." Let's go to Montana.
Most of you are now thinking
to yourself, "He has really lost it this time, why in God's
name would anyone want to go to Montana, especially on a spiritual
pilgrimage. Well Cheryl and Henry a couple of our readers recently
moved to Sweet Grass, Montana, just the place I would like to
take you. They are probably still asking this same thing of God,
only in their case it is real in substance. Now those of you who
are addicted to internet searches here is where you will find
some of the latest facts not only on the town, but also the county.
Just 1.9 persons per square mile in the county, sounds like home?
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/30/30097.html
As I write this, it's raining in Seattle again. It wasn't supposed to be raining this morning, but it is. It's really not rain either, it's the Seattle drizzle. How depressing! We need some uplifting music to begin our journey. The song for Seattle is "Climb Every Mountain" from the "Sound of Music." On a clear day in Seattle, you can see the mountains. So when you see them you think about climbing them. So when the weather is nice you do. "Climb every mountain, search high and low . . . till you find your dream."
Climbing mountains is really the essence of Seattle. You can do it, but really after you climb all our mountains, you really must go to the Himalaya. On those mountains you can "find your dream" and also a religion that suits your temperament. A cloudy murky atmosphere of spiritual dreams and lofty summits, that is what your trek to Tibet and Nepal is all about.
This whole, depressing winters-mountain vistas, complex has been called a disease, Seasonal Affected Disorder (SAD). I call it Puget Paradox Disease, but it is real and it is scary in the eternal sense, because it centers on the only thing I can focus on much of the year, my own decreased horizon and what I can do to get rid of it.
"We got to get out of this place, if it's the last thing we ever do." Oops, that song wasn't on the play list. But in the sense of a spiritual pilgrimage, that is the essence of the journey. As it says in Hebrews, today is the day to begin to exercise your faith.
Actually, I am picking on the Puget Sound metropolitan area to make a point. All urban areas, to a very high degree focus on man's ability to harness God's creation. We climb every mountain, taking our high tech gear with us, only to return to the security of our man dominated environment.
There are no leaders in urban culture, basically because urban civilization is really all about me. If you think about it, this is really a serious cultural dilemma. I set the course of my life, so I do not need anyone to lead me forward. If we do not think about it we will remain content in Egypt. If we think, well . . . but don't think too long, this is a journey about taking a trip to Montana. Let's save that thinking for some "Sleepless in Seattle" nights. Today is the day to head east.
I was raised "east of the mountains." From Seattle's point of view, that stretches from the Cascade summits to New York City, including Montana, its all the same. But there are buffer zones between the Cascade crest and Montana, the Columbia River plateau and a couple of other mountain ranges, the Rockies and the Bitterroots. This plateau is also divided into various somewhat distinct smaller areas such as the Columbia Basin, the Inland Empire, the Channel Scablands, and the Palouse Hills to name a few.
The song for this area is "Roll on Columbia," by Woody Guthrie, Arlo's dad. The area's geology is dominated by a basalt steppe, highly influenced by water, lots of water, some of it frozen thousands of years ago. Security here is established by the water. Until Grand Coulee Dam was built, the river brought salmon to the native population, easing a difficult life. After the dam, irrigation water helps to make a desert bloom.
But since this region was created and people began to inhabit it, rivers and their courses bring and end to the tranquility of the plain. In the canyons you still can see the power of moving water and begin to glimpse the peril of foolish actions. Before the dams, a stupid mistake and your molecules could be fertilizing pearl oysters in Japan. Hence the disease that affects the local population seems to be a fear of falling off a cliff into the river and being affected by the problem called "Swept Away Syndrome." With the building of Grand Coulee however, much of this disease has disappeared, being replace by Walleye fishing.
Transitions while on a journey, is what much of life is about. In this respect the Columbia River plateau, the Bitterroots, and the Rockies are a fitting transition to our ultimate destination, the prairies of Montana.
Montana Mentality was a term I created when I was sixteen, it was my first real job (after I could drive). I was driving truck in wheat harvest, just outside of Reardan, Washington, population 410. Reardan is where I spent about nine years of my young life, from 5 years through grade school, just twenty miles west of Spokane on US2. The farm was owned by Herman Alf, his two sons were grown and had moved away and he needed help during this season. The Alf's were members of the local Lutheran church and knew me from that earlier era.
My mate in the small bunk house was from Thompson Falls, Montana. Just across the Bitterroots, but close enough to the real Montana to be infected by this cultural disease. I don't remember his name, but will always remember his outlook on life. At the time, and actually until very recently, I considered it a disordered view of reality. Now however, I am beginning to think a Montana Mentality as the ultimate gift that God could give to His children.
Now for you scientists, my Montana Mentality sample is not all that large, but I have seen Montana Mentality symptoms from everyone I have met from Montana. The problem is really to understand it properly you must live in Montana, and you then become infected. Just as with Puget Paradox Disease, you must be careful.
Montana Mentality is so infectious that once infected you never want to leave, or if you do, you always long to return. Therefore, it is only by the grace of God, that any of us get to even glimpse this ailment. That web link above says that there are only 902,195 people in the whole state, so chances of you running across a large sample of these people is quite remote.
Now Montana Mentality, as with Puget Paradox Disease and Swept Away Syndrome, are really not religious disorders as generally defined. They are really common grace mind sets. Along with a multitude of others, these diseases are given by God to people of certain localities, to bring Him glory, but generally they are overlooked in our modern essence to be all we can be unto ourselves. These ailments are what ties the spirit of man to the earth.
For example, among the people I have known best, two sufferers of Montana Mentality come to mind, one was a dear friend that gave meaning to my life at a critical juncture, and the other was the biggest crook I have run across, who had not ever been caught.
The song for Montana Mentality is "Wild Montana Skies," by John Denver. Now some of you were already thinking about "Big Sky Country" and this is what the title of John's song seems to indicate, but the actual lyrics describe a deeper, "something he couldn't leave." That is what is the meat of the song, that something. That something that affects and effects every essence of Montana Mentality. The two lines that use that something are:
There was something in the city that he said he couldn't breathe
There was something in the country that he said he couldn't leaveSince we are featuring links this week here is the link for the lyrics: http://www.reallyrics.com/lyrics/J003800010021.asp
Now John has gone, when his plane flew out of gas on a trip off the coast of California, still searching for that natural religious experience. I don't think he ever found that experience because he was always looking for it in space. Wild Montana Sky, Rocky Mountain High etc. never got him there. But in some common grace way, I think that blame rests as much with the evangelical church as it does with John. "'Oh, God,' I sought you, its just the religion of your American church I couldn't handle. After all, "Oh God," with George Burns really was nothing but a testimony of many modern evangelicals and the vision of many of the founding fathers. But we are getting off the subject.
However, countering gnostic spiritual arguments with similar intellectual pursuits misses the wonder of God's highest creation. The argument should not be about my understanding of reality, however sound or unsound that may be. The argument should stem from the tension between the expansiveness of God's creation and the limited nature of dust. This focus brings the wonder of it all and the glory of God, the intellectual pursuit limits God's power to our understanding of Him.
God made man body and spirit. The two are one. The spirit of life and the dust of the ground, formed into the image of God. Wow! In that light the "Big Wild Montana Sky" is only half the equation. The other half of the Montana Mentality reality, is the dust of the land. More specifically the "short grass prairie." Sweet Grass County, Montana population 3609, no one would ever choose to live there. Less than four thousand souls in a world's population of what, 6-7 billion, what could they ever teach us? Many of those souls probably not, except perhaps Cheryl and Henry, when their time is done, and of course some of our other readers east of the mountains suffering from Swept Away Syndrome.
I didn't know much about the short grass prairies until last year. I was familiar with the Palouse Prairie, which is really the rich, well blessed relative. The Palouse is rather small and hilly however, not the expanses needed to truly understand the endless prairie of the Montana Mentality.
In this last year, I have now come to believe that the short grass prairie is a good economic model for a sound world economy till Jesus comes. But in order to grasp the design of the whole concept you also need the Big sky to keep everything in perspective.
As the purple mountain majesties fade from sight, the prairie becomes flatter, natural life in this modern era, becomes harder, the big sky becomes bigger, so the infectious nature of Montana Mentality is more important. In this area the ocean is at least a days drive to the west by car, over three mountain ranges. The rivers run the other way. Not to a grand ocean, but into the Gulf of Mexico.
There on the Montana prairie the essence of life with God your Creator makes sense. Too much sense for lowly man to fully understand it all. So the residents of that area suffer from Montana Mentality until they cease to care much about what they are missing in the life we treasure. We like wise don't seem to have a clue to what makes the Big Sky country so different. But this is all part of God's design of the total universe. Not only does everything have a season, everything has a reason.
Just because Americans have never come to grasp with the complexities of life west of the hundredth meridian and east of the coastal mountains, does not mean that God does not see and have designed a distinct purpose for this area. After all, while our current President and Vice President are not infected with Montana Mentality, I believe Texas and probably Wyoming have their own specific strain of this disease. Right now God has determined that their leadership is important for this nations future. In North America, the big sky and the arid prairies alone teach us it really is not about me. It is a concept that others can learn, but they must move beyond the concept of "climbing every mountain" to experience the wonder of "Wild Montana Kkies," and the short grass prairie.
Next week we will put Montana Mentality more in context as we look at the nature and design of our gifts, as we seek to bring rest from stress, focusing on God's nature of servanthood, or leadership. But for today we must begin with a desire to move beyond our own perceptions toward the grace offered through a Montana Mentality. It is first a gift of common grace, in that sense we must begin to pack our spiritual bags, or more importantly start to see what baggage we must leave behind. This brings the meaning for today, through the appropriation of faith in the work of God's son, first in creation, and then on the cross.
The view from our new found Montana Mentality should be that there is nothing wrong with living in the city, climbing mountains, or living in a county with less than a couple per square mile. These are all common grace gifts designed with a purpose to bring meaning to the life of all men and women. The problem comes when we elevate our personal desires and we loose our focus on the mission. In this larger context this is what Romans and this part of Hebrews are saying to all mankind, but only somewhat understood by God's children. This is why the Word of God revealed in the Bible is so important to our daily lives.
I therefore recommend that those who did not at least review the passages mentioned at the beginning, do so now. To put those in a perspective of just a couple of verses, the following quotation from Proverbs 3:6,7 might help:
Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
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