Places I’ve never been to that I’d like to visit:
Machu Picchu
Patmos
Ephesus
Jerusalem
Base camp of Everest
Italy
Wine regions of France
Egypt
Victoria Falls
Great Barrier Reef
Bangkok
That’s a beginning of a rather long list. For now, I’ll settle with a spring break trip back to Searcy, Arkansas to perform the wedding for a young man who grew up right next door to us here in Abilene. Abilene boy marries Searcy girl whom he met in Memphis. Our worlds are colliding.
- - - -
I’m working through a manuscript by Rubel Shelly entitled (tentatively) Divorce and Remarriage: A Redemptive Theology. I think it’s going to be a helpful tool to church leaders as well as to those who find themselves in a situation they perhaps couldn’t have imagined. I’m also anxious to see the new book Remarriage After Divorce in Today’s Church: 3 Views. The three writers (including one, Craig Keener, who is one of my favorite NT scholars) stake out different understandings and then interact with one another.
Thanks for the heads up about the book, Mike. Let us know when it is published because I would really like to read it, having endured and survived just a horrible, horrible divorce in the church some 20 years ago now. (It was actually right here in Picayune, Mississippi where Tom and I have moved back to now to build a new house. Fortunately, I’ve been able to recover enough and enough people have left that I can be part of the church once again here, but I am very wary, still, and keep my guard up constantly “at church,” which is NOT the way it should be for us as redeemed Christians at all!).
Places I’d like to go - most of all to Greece. Starting with the islands of Greece and working my way through the country. Then a grand tour of the entire Mediterranean Sea visiting all of the countries and regions around its perimeter.
But I will settle for Abilene soon, to go visit my mom and sister. If and when I come out this next time, I’ll try my best to come visit Highland and get to hear you and meet you and bring you greetings from the really deep south here in Picayune, Mississippi.
Well, I’ve been to two of those places (Italy and the Great Barrier Reef) but I went to Peru without (!) going to Machu Picchu.
Great list! I’d go all of those places if I could. Maybe heaven will have a virtual tour or something.
Virtual tour — I like that! Dee, please drop me a note when you’re coming to Abilene. I think Rubel’s book will bring insight and healing to lots of people who have suffered as you have.
I also like Keener. I have several of his books–And Marries Another, Paul, Women and Wives etc, very insightful writer.
Is Rubel living full time now in Rochester? I’ve lost track of him. He was wonderful spiritual mentor to so many of us during our “formative” years at Freed. The neat thing was we got to see his spiritual transformation as we were going through our own.
A note on another topic here. I just discovered that many of Carl Ketcherside’s lessons, teachings, are now available in audio format at his web site:
http://www.unity-in-diversity.org/
Talk about a Christ follower ahead of his time!
Peace.
Rubel’s book will bring insight and healing to lots of people who have suffered as you have.
Does the line form here, behind Dee? I hope so, ’cause I’m there. Why does it now surprise me that Rubel would tackle this sticky question?
Having had a congregation turn its collective back on me as a very young mom, believe me Dee, I know what you’re talking about. Usually I just avoid it when questioned about my former marital status. I feel safer that way - not wanting to give any of those I love a reason to look down their noses and sniff at my youth’s pain, mistakes and events.
There is freedom? Yep! With a ton of caveats for some in our fellowship, and being divorced is one of them.
Been to Italy, lived in France, my dad lived in Bangkok.
I would like to go visit Brazil, Alaska, Niagra Falls, and India.
I will be taking care of medical stuff during spring break and then may visit the soil of some of my recent forebearers.
Divorce and remarriage……. I thought I had read just about every point of view there could possibly be on the subject. But, I am willing to read anything Rubel writes.
Visited 3,4,6,and 8. Steve and I really loved Forence and Tuscany this past year and want to go back. Also, loved the islands we’ve visited in the Caribbean and always love Hawaii. Turkey is a must to understand a lot of things in Bible-asia minor.
Rubel was a man ahead of his time, I honestly think of him as a prophet. What he spoke of so long ago has come to pass and our eyes have been opened.
Mike,
If you take me with you, I have family we could stay with in Zim. The Victoria Falls are truly a sight to behold…
ahh, make that Florence
Mike,
I can’t wait for the book to come out. I want to thank you and Rubel for this important topic and tool for ministers and others. I also can’t wait to purchase Lynn Anderson’s “They Smell Like Sheep Vol. 2″.
I speak Italian conversationally, know the public transportation system in Italy, all the cool sites, a good bit of history…so if you want to pay my plane ticket, food, and lodging I can show you around.
I also know most of the churches of Christ.
Seems like Jerry Jones and Trevor Thompson are also working on one on marriage, divorce, and re-marriage. Thanks for the information.
Nice list of places. High on my list is England, especially London. I’d also like to visit Lithuania and MAYBE Romania. Mainly I’d just like to move back to Brazil and get back into mission work.
It’s funny that Abilene, Searcy and Memphis seem like colliding worlds to you….
Mike,
Unless you’ve already been there, you should definitely add Morton, TX to your list. It’s wonderful this time of year.
Adam!
It’s funny that Abilene, Searcy and Memphis seem like colliding worlds to you….
I just didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to say it, but did think it too?
Machu Picchu - Been there - what a spiritual journey that was!
Patmos - Yes, would like to
Ephesus - Definitely would like to
Jerusalem - Oh Yeah! would hope to
Base camp of Everest - Nepal yes! I’ve missionary friends going there soon.
Italy - It’s always has been one of my “before I die” destinations
Wine regions of France - I can pass on France, been to a small corner, enough.
Egypt - Yes, would like to
Victoria Falls - Oh Yeah. After Iguazu Falls and Niagara, Victoria is a must see.
I’d add
Vienna once again. I cried when leaving the first time.
British Isles - In search of some of my roots
Iberian Peninsula - Would prefer it to France.
Asia in general - China in particular
Oh! Forget it, and just add the rest of the world where I’ve not traveled as yet.
Interesting list, Mike. Your list is actually very similar to mine. I can’t believe I lived within 800 miles of Machu Picchu for 7 years and never made it for a visit. One more thing the Lord has had to forgive me for!
I would have to substitute Mexico for Italy on your list. Getting to know a Mafia figure has kind of cooled me on Italy.
Mike -
I have lost your email address since sometime after Katrina in several moves around and computer glitches. Please email me at dee_andrews@bellsouth.net and give it to me again because I’d really like to drop you a note and get to visit with you a bit about that book and divorce and just fun stuff (like new grandbabies!!) when I come out to Abilene, hopefully in just a few weeks, depending on how our house building “project” comes along.
Actually, I think I might remember your email address, but am not 100% certain.
Thanks for all you are and do, Mike! Dee
I’ve been so blessed. I’ve been to four of the places you named: Patmos, Jerusalem, Italy, and Egypt. Though I’ve been on a ship anchored off the coast of Ephesus, I didn’t make it there. I microbial souvenir I picked up in Egypt kept me on board while my group toured Ephesus. But there have been many compensations for that one disappointment: Corinth, Delphi, Cenchraea, Athens, New Zealand, Brazil…and Abilene!
We get to Ireland pretty regularly now and - Dublin is a great city to reach the rest of Europe from on Ryan Air. I have wanted to go to Ephesus ever since James came back from there 19 years ago.
This year Vermont and next year Paris!
Africa!!!
One time, in class at ACU, a teacher pronounced Machu Picchu - moochie poochie.
True Story.
The wine regions of France? If you’re a history buff or have relatives who died in one of the World Wars, I can definitely recommend taking a train from Paris out to Reims and then driving through the Champagne country. It’s really stark - especially in winter - to see these unbelievably steep, chalky vineyards running uphill and downhill for mile after mile through countrysides pockmarked with little WWI cemeteries and little villages…and to see those village churches whose belfries served as German machine-gun nests. Time has sort of stood still out there, and the bleakness of February gives it a stark surreality. You can almost hear the screams of soldiers’ agony through the hedgerows around St. Etienne-a-Arnes from the battle of Blanc Mont (1918)…then you knock on the door of a local farmhouse, and the man of the house takes you out back to the little vegetable garden along the brook, shows you the cellar where the Germans set up their radios, you put your finger in the bullet holes in the walls…
And then you hop back in the car and drive through the Champagne, with vineyard after vineyard after cemetery after empty church after cemetery, some German, some Allied…and the monuments, with the craters and trenches and everything is so close at hand you wonder how anyone got out alive and the flowers blooming around the monument because the French caretaker still makes his daily rounds in behalf of the dead American boys that recaptured that little no-name hill near his grandmother’s house, only to give it back a few days later in a hail of thundering Austrian 88s and German 155s and that rolling inferno…and in the hazy afternoon light you step into a brasserie for a glass of Trappist ale and a sandwich of that otherworldly bread and that bone-dry saucisson, and the smoke and the memories are so thick your eyes can never adjust, and life is going on in the countryside, and the old man pays no mind to you or to your once-in-a-lifetime errand because he’s been making money off Americans like you all your life, and it’s all the same to him…you leave a few euros on the table and say goodbye in your mind, knowing that the veil is very thin here…
wistful qb, raising a toast
I will go on the record admitting ignorance over Machu Picchu. And I will not even try to pronounce it, but I looked at Wikipedia, and it does look gorgeous!
I have been to Hawaii a couple of times, but I could go there every year and it would be just fine with me!
“… as well as to those who find themselves in a situation they perhaps couldn’t have imagined…”
Yeah, I could write the book on that one, huh, Mike?
Al Maxey has a wonderful book on the subject of Divorce — “Down, But Not Out” You can find it by following the link on his homepage.
http://www.zianet.com/maxey/
He also has some good articles in the “Reflections” section of his website. Al was our minister in Honolulu, Hawaii during the late 90’s. I think you’ll enjoy his thoughtful way of studying the scriptures.
BTW - I love to travel and look forward to the day when we can take our young children to even more of God’s beautiful work. Right now we are a little milder until we can survive toddlerhood. We’ll have them backpacking through Europe eventually.
If you want a real guide for Italy, take Beckie Weaver who teaches at Harding. She’s taught at HUF several semesters and she knows her way around the whole country and she’s taen me to most of it at one time or another. Tuscany and Cinqueterra are my two favorite places in Italy!Look on Tim’s blog artist-tim.blogspot.com to see a beautiful painting of San Gimignano. That is the neastest little town of towers to visit in Tuscany with lots of artists and craftsmen. Beautiful place, beautiful goods!
The place I most want to visit is the birthplace of my husband - Russia! It has always interested me, but now I want to see it all!
Both of my children have been through divorces, but it still scares me … are we finding “reason” to accept divorce?
Belinda, I know that that’s how it looks, because that’s what we moderns seem to try to do with every moral failure; find a way to justify it, explain it away, construct elaborate loopholes through the standard.
I think, though, that what we’re trying to do is figure out, as a practical matter, what it means to reconcile “divorce is sin” with “nothing can separate us from the love of Christ” and “He is faithful to forgive us of all sin” and “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Our gut - and the word of God - tell us that all sin (except B.A.T.H.S.) is forgivable, but we also fear that indiscriminate forgiveness is tantamount to license and an invitation to lawlessness…
Striking that balance without effectively condoning sinful behavior is easier in theory than it is in practice; but it is in practice where the grace of God really is needed and shows up, not in theory.
As Steve Jr. said, peace.
qb
Hey Mike! We talked about churches requring preachers to be married today during class, and I read this article I thought you might like =)
http://www.burnsidewriterscollective.com/general/2007/03/ill_have_the_marriage_please.php
Digging for the Truth (on the History Channel) was about Machu Picchu. I’d heard of it before but didn’t know much about it. Now I’ll have to add it to my list of places to see…someday.
Here’s the shows website:
http://www.history.com/minisite.do?mini_id=1337
Michael R.
Mike
You’ve got to add Cape Town to that list.
Mike,
Bangkok? Trust me, you aren’t missing much. If you’ve been to Houston on a smoggy day in the middle of summer you’ve already had most of the Bangkok experience. Try Chiang Mai instead or maybe Siem Reap, Cambodia (Angkor Wat).
LOL, Russ - and worse, because the sun’s higher in the sky, there are 9 lanes of traffic but 15 vehicles abreast, and the swarms of thuk-thuks are running 1980s-vintage, 2-stroke engines belching unburned BTEX into your breathing zone.
Chiang Mai is a quantum leap upward in quality of life, and there’s always that leisurely run to the summit of Doi Suthep to work that reconstructed knee into shape. qb
To ride a horse around the pyramids in Egypt…I WILL do this one day.
Jordan River
I’m guessing you’ve already “SEEn ROCK CITY”
A dear friend of mine in California referred me to a sermon on divorce that his teaching pastor gave last Sunday, March 11.
I just heard it. It’s excellent. Of course, I like most anything by John Ortberg, who is no longer at Willow Creek and is now the teaching pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church.
If you want to hear Ortberg’s message, go to http://www.mpccfamily.org. Click “Sermons online” and you’ll see John’s message from March 11.