Bad though this imbalance is in the human realm, it’s even worse when we attribute such skewed values to God. We too often describe a God who has no sense of proportion, making Him hard to relate to, let alone love.

Rick Sherwin, rabbi at Congregation Beth Am and a great friend of our Markham Woods congregation, has an interesting response when people tell him they don’t believe in God: "Tell me about the God you don’t believe in," he says, "and I can assure you that I don’t believe in that God, either."

Perhaps if we spent more time seeking to understand why some don’t believe, we’d be forced to rethink some of the ways we portray God. Too often we’re not great PR agents.

In today’s Fine Print I’d like to talk about a separate but related subject: perspective. Perspective is a major factor in how we perceive reality. Let me illustrate.

When our oldest son, James, woke up after having been in a coma for some six weeks following an auto accident, the one thing he wanted more than anything else was something to drink. For several of those weeks in a coma he’d been on a ventilator. For several more he’d breathed through a trach. Understandably, he was ready to rinse out his mouth and have a good drink. In fact he was desperate.

But one problem remained: Just because he was awake didn’t mean he could swallow correctly. And if he wasn’t swallowing correctly, he could aspirate, develop a respiratory infection and die. So he was taken for a radiological procedure in which they film what’s going on in the throat as the patient drinks barium.

Now I’ve never drunk barium. But I’ve been told that it’s considerably worse than milk of magnesia. In short, it’s not most people’s beverage of choice! Most people hate it. But James was so desperate for liquid in his mouth that he drank it willingly. In fact, to everyone’s amazement, he asked for more. And he wasn’t trying to be funny. He was dead serious. And it all had to do with a simple thing called perspective.

We often have difficulty understanding someone else’s perspective. For example, as affluent Westerners we may visit a country with a repressive government and be surprised when told that the people actually like their leaders. But how could they?

Their wages are minimal. They get only one loaf of bread each day. They get only one pair of shoes each year. They live in crowded conditions with several people occupying the same space. They risk being thrown in jail if they speak negatively about the government. What we fail to realize is that, compared to the previous regime, they’re on easy street. Bad though it is, it’s the best they’ve ever had it.

Remember, even barium can taste good if you’re thirsty enough—as we’ll talk about more next week.

Jim Coffin, Senior Pastor

Last week I told how our oldest son, James, was so thirsty after having woken from six weeks in a coma that he actually asked for more barium to drink when he did his swallow test.

Despite the fact that barium tastes so bad that most people hate it, James was sufficiently desperate for something wet in his mouth that barium seemed a lot better than nothing. He wanted more!

Perspective is also a major determinant in how we judge religion.

Recently one of my sisters sent me a fascinating book, compiled by Kerry Kennedy, one of Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s 11 children. Ms. Kennedy, who comes from a long line of Catholics, thought it would be educational to invite a number of prominent public figures with Catholic roots to each write a brief essay about Catholicism’s impact on them. The book—Being Catholic Now—includes contributions from people as socially and politically diverse as conservative TV commentator and author Bill O’Reilly and liberal-activist movie star Susan Sarandon.

Some of those featured in the book have remained traditional Catholics. Others have chosen to treat Catholicism as a spiritual smorgasbord from which they feel free to retain whatever they like and discard what doesn’t meet their tastes. Still others have severed all ties with the church of their childhood, such as comedian and social critic Bill Maher, whose biting critique of religion––Religulous––is playing in theaters right now.

Catholic schools came in for considerable discussion in Kennedy’s book. To some, the "sisters" and "brothers" who taught them were held in highest esteem. They epitomized for these young observers what the religion of Jesus is all about. Others viewed them as a blight on the church and a major factor in their ceasing to affiliate with it.

Assuming that the way we live our lives is the only Bible some people will ever read, certain Catholic Church employees did an excellent job of presenting the God of grace and love. Others presented a God of anger, damnation and self-centeredness.

Of course, the most tragic stories come from those who were abused by people in positions of trust within the church. Movie star Gabriel Byrne tells just such a story. It’s an experience that guarantees that he’ll no longer turn to the church––in which he strongly believed as a child––in his search or spiritual nurture.

It’s fascinating to see the varied perspectives of this array of high-profile people who all began life as Catholics. As a non-Catholic with a rather anti-Catholic Protestant heritage, it’s far too easy to give credence to those with a negative perspective of Catholicism while dismissing those who’ve continued to find the Catholic Church a source of spiritual support and comfort.

Which brings us back to perspective. The only way I’m ever going to be able to understand the thinking and actions of others, whatever their background and belief, is to try to understand just what their perspective is and why.

Jim Coffin, Senior Pastor

Where: At the Youth Camp at Wekiwa Springs Park.

When: Check-in for those staying at the camp begins at 3:00 pm on Friday. The first official activity will be supper at 6:30 pm, followed by vespers (a special program on the wonders of nature) at 8:00 pm. Children up to Grade 3 and Grades 4-12 will have separate services during each of the three service times. For the adventuresome, there will be a night hike after vespers on Friday night. Bring your flashlight.
Sabbath activities will start at 7:30 am with a baptism at the springs (down near the canoe-launch area). The gate to the park won’t be open at 7:30 am for those wanting to come to the baptism. So call the Youth Activities Hotline (407-865-9773) to get the gate code, then let yourself in. Turn right past the park office and go to the springs.

Breakfast will be at 8:00 am. From 9:00 to 10:45 am there will be a guided hike (or self-guided hiking for those who prefer), biking (self-guided; bring your own bike), birdwatching (self-guided), canoeing and socializing. The morning church service starts at 11:00, with Rey Descalso as our speaker. Lunch will be served at 12:30 pm. There will be more hiking, biking, birdwatching, canoeing and socializing from 2:00 to 5:00 pm.

At 5:30 pm we’ll have a closing-Sabbath vesper service (again a special program focusing on nature). Supper will be at 6:30 pm. There will be recreation for young and old at 8:00 pm around the campfire and at the swimming pool. At 9:00 pm a family movie will be shown in the recreation/lecture hall, and there will be table games in the dining hall.

The retreat concludes with breakfast at 8:30 am on Sunday (followed by cleanup - so lots of volunteers are needed!).

At Markham Woods Church, services will be conducted as usual at 9:00 and 11:30 on Sabbath morning. Sabbath School will run at the regular time (10:10 am) but with fewer classes.

Attendance will be small because of the Retreat.
Why: Getting away—to relax, to socialize, to play, to worship—can be refreshing for a congregation.

Who: All Markham Woods members and attenders are invited. None are too young or too old.

How: All cabin and tent/RV sites have been booked. But you can stay at home and simply come to whatever retreat meetings, meals and activities you choose. Meal sign-up sheets are in the Foyer, and you must sign up for each meal desired. Today is the last day to sign up.

There is no charge to participants for accommodation, food, activities or admission to the park. We would ask that you simply continue supporting the Church Budget with your generous tax-deductible contributions. You’ve done wonderfully in the past, so please keep up the good work.

You must have signed up in advance to attend. No drop-ins will be admitted to the Youth Camp. Dress casually. And bring a lawn chair.

Hope to see you there!

Back in the mid 1930s my dad was farming a piece of land that lay adjacent to his father’s farm. Because of the proximity, it wasn’t uncommon when my dad was working in his field to see his father working in the field just across the fence.

No doubt both looked at each other’s farming efforts with more than casual interest. Whose corn was planted in straighter rows? Whose crops were growing better? Whose agricultural techniques were producing superior results?

One day as my father was cultivating his corn, he noticed that large numbers of grasshoppers were descending on his father’s field. As the hours passed, the profusion of grasshoppers on the other side of the fence had soon become a plague.

It was quite uncanny how many grasshoppers were in his father’s field. Yet the grasshoppers seemed to stop at the fence, almost as if there were an invisible wall between the two properties.

As my father watched the grasshoppers decimating his father’s crop of corn, the explanation suddenly dawned on him: He was witnessing a miracle. He was seeing a concrete fulfillment of the promise of Malachi 3:11 in which God says: "I will prevent pests from destroying your crops" as a reward for tithe-paying. My father was certain this was happening because of his faithfulness in returning a tithe.

A relative few years before, my dad had begun to take tithe-paying seriously. His father never had. And now my father was witnessing both the blessing promised for obedience and the negative results of his father’s having ignored God’s command.

The implications of what was happening left him nearly breathless. Clearly, God was rewarding him for his faithfulness. His father, on the other hand, had to face the "pests" on his own.

For three days my father cultivated his corn, all the while watching as the grasshoppers riddled his father’s crop. For three days his corn stood unscathed. For three days he couldn’t believe that he was seeing such a dramatic modern-day miracle, demonstrating the truth of God’s long-ago promise.

At the end of the third day, however, the grasshoppers crossed the fence, descended on his corn, and began destroying his crop just as they’d done in his father’s field. By the end of three more days, my father’s crop was gone too.

It was a defining spiritual moment in his life. Never again did he view the promises of Malachi as the ironclad contracts he’d once perceived them to be. But neither did he ever quit paying tithe.

Obviously, the foregoing story isn’t going to get into any Christian books about stewardship. Such books want success stories only. This one doesn’t mesh with the paradigm being offered. So the best thing, many would say, is to suppress it—to try to act as if it and other stories of a similar stripe simply don’t exist.

The problem is, they do.

So next week we’ll look at whether candor and honesty, in the long run, are more likely to shatter faith or to create strong, realistic Christians.