push pause

[6 minutes, 1180 words]

“WE COULD ALL do with a pause. Our world is saturated by unnecessary noise. On a recent trip around Britain I was constantly reminded of lines by Wendell Berry, “Best of any song is bird song in the quiet, but first you must have the quiet.” I searched in vain. Everywhere I went, pubs, restaurants, hotel lobbies, even a dentist’s waiting room, all were filled with either pounding music or the inane drivel of a TV chat show. And don’t get me started on mobile phones!
I climbed Mount Snowdon on a crisp and uniquely still winter’s day. When I reached the summit, alone, the view at 3,000 feet was spectacular. But the silence and a wonderful experience of wilderness were soon shattered by — you’ve guessed it — a septuagenarian, who didn’t even wait to get his breath back before whipping out his little phone to bawl his banal news in an endless stream of calls to friends, never once mentioning where he was or what he could see!”
– Ian Skelly, From Resurgence & Ecologist Issue 228 • Jan/Feb 2005

I read recently there are now 8.3 billion mobile phones in use around the world. Fun fact: there are approximately 8.3 billion people living on our planet right now. You get a cell phone! You get a cell phone! Everybody gets a cell phone! “We are becoming dangerously dependent upon useless information, and feed a growing habit for voyeurism with a mountain of contraptions” (Ian Skelly). Two billion television sets are in use globally. 6.5-12 billion computer screens are being looked at any given time around the world.

Does the world feel noisy to you? The psalmist mentions a “noisome pestilence” (Psalm 91:3, KJV) as one of the plagues that disrupt our need for peace and solace. Of course, the Hebrew has nothing to do with ‘sound’ but I rather like the interesting choice of word.

It is still no less true that we are under assault with bothersome noise. The very next verse tells us that God covers us with his feathers and tucks us in his wings as a buffer against the raging of the world. I can’t help but think of noise canceling headphones!

I pray you find a way to “push pause” on the unwelcome ruckus that clamors for your attention. May God cover your ears and lay you down beside His quiet streams.

update from my corner of exile

It’s been a minute since I’ve shared any personal updates so I best hop to it. A lot has happened since I last sat down with you, so let me start with the more recent and work my way backward.

Four days ago, on Saturday morning, I woke up to a literal puddle of blood and drainage from my hip. You might recall that I have mentioned a large collection of fluid I have carried inside me for over a year. Numerous attempts to aspirate it have proven unsuccessful — the goop or soup or whatever it is has been too thick and ‘gelatinous’ to extract even a small sample. Over a dozen attempts have been made by interventional radiologists, both outpatient and inpatient. Their conclusion? As long as it’s contained, and you are not feverish and sick, we will just take a wait-and-see approach.

So last Friday evening, I went to bed with dry sheets and nary a hole in my hip. Seven hours later, there was a hole in my hip with gouts of blood and drainage pouring out. Nonstop. For several hours. Welcome to Scott Mitchell’s world.

It is now Wednesday morning, and in a few hours I am going to see, at my doctor’s behest, a surgeon who will determine next steps, and whether or not it is time for a more invasive exploration rather than just jabbing at the area with needles.

The same surgeon and I have had some recent experience together. Less than three weeks ago, he poked four holes in my stomach with spidery robot arms in order to remove my gallbladder. Gallbladders have been a thing in my family; both my mom and dad had theirs removed, as well as my grandmother. Four hours later, I was upright and heading home.

We’ve been in Florida since Spring 2022 and for almost 4 years my health had been uncharacteristically good. 2026 is another story. Even so, I feel doubly and triply blessed! The healthcare I have received in Florida through every MRI, CT scan, ultrasound, IR procedure and hospitalization has been amazing. No complaints from this old guy.

ministry update

Sandy and I have become even more invested in our home church. I continue to be a table facilitator for our Thursday night men’s Bible study. I was on the teaching rotation, but stepped away from that for a season because the Lord opened the door for me to be on the teaching team for the youth ministry on Wednesday nights.

Sandy spoke to a large gathering of women from our church in August. Many women who were there have told me — and continue to tell me — what a blessing she was. Sandy also made a sizable impact on quite a few teenage girls who joined their mothers for the event. I’m tickled pink by how God continues to use her in a wide variety of ways.

One-to-one discipleship continues to be the main thing I do. If you had told me twenty years ago that I would enjoy sitting across the table from a guy, drinking coffee and discussing spiritual formation would be more exciting than preaching, I would have said you were nuts. It’s true, though. Personal discipleship is my profound joy and I can see myself doing it — with gusto — the rest of my life.

Our pastor recently nominated me to be part of the elder team and the process is pretty much complete. I will join another candidate for the laying on of hands ceremony in one of our upcoming Sunday services. Very little will change about my ministry responsibilities. As one of our staff pastors told me, “We’re just ratifying you in the same ministry you’ve been doing here all along.”

Before signing off, I’d like to briefly revisit the initial thought of this post. May I again encourage us to seek the quiet and solitude of Christ for the sake of our souls? Life can be such a heavy, noisome thing for all of us. I think this beautiful prayer by St. John of the Cross is just the way to push pause, orient our hearts heavenward, and re-order our spiritual affections:

O blessed Jesus,
Grant me stillness of soul in Thee.
Let Thy mighty calmness reign in me;
Reign in me, O Thou King of gentleness, King of peace.
Give me control, great power of self-control,
Control over my words, thoughts, and actions.
From all irritability, lack of meekness, lack of gentleness,
O dear Lord, deliver me.
By Thine own deep patience, give me patience,
Stillness of soul in Thee.
Make me in this and all things more and more like Thee.

Selah, beloved.

home home.

[5 minutes]

Headed home from the hospital after an 8-day stay. All praise to Jesus! So many miracles happened! As God does.

Now Hagar represents Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.
Galatians 4:25-26, CSB

If you visit Jerusalem today, you will see a people who are the spiritual offspring of Hagar — born of the flesh, after the flesh. The Lord loves them and longs for them to open their eyes (2 Cor 3:14-15), but for now, they choose to wander the spiritual wasteland of blindness and deafness.

BUT THERE IS A HEAVENLY JERUSALEM (v26). That City will one day supplant the present one. It is spiritual and heavenly, populated by people who know and are known by the Lord Jesus Christ — whose names are written in heaven (Heb 12:23). Saved Jews and Gentiles. Every tribe and tongue. Righteous people, made perfect by the sacrifice of the Lamb, worshipping their King in reverence and awe.

the jerusalem above

Followers of Jesus Christ are looking for that City (Heb 11:16), not at all satisfied with this one. We are ascending — up, up, up — climbing ever upward until the day we top that final hill and behold the City of God spread out before our eyes: shining and beautiful, surrounded by a myriad of angels, all dressed out for the festival of the ages.

It took valleys and deserts to cross to get here (Psa 84:6), but there she is — a multi-faceted jewel, the eternal dwelling place of God our Father and Jesus our Brother. The Holy Spirit is its everlasting Light.

When we fix our eyes and affections on this “Jerusalem” instead, we forget that we have been set free and saved for another Country altogether. We turn to graven images and works of the flesh, practicing an artificial religion that promises some attachment to the heavenly — but all it does is detach us from our True Country.

We soon realize that lifeless religion, empty rituals, and sad attempts at tower-building are futile. So we settle. We reach for shiny things on the ground — in the dirt, in the mud — and pretend we are happy. But the heart is deceitful and wicked, and no amount of playing in the dirt will appease our empty souls.

Weren’t we once “children of promise” (v28)? Why are we in the pig sty rooting around for corn cobs when my Father’s House has fatted calves and wide open spaces? Why am I wearing a yoke of slavery when I’m meant for a robe of righteousness (Gal 5:1)? Why am I severing myself from Christ (Gal 5:4) when I’m supposed to be dancing in the House of God (Gal 5:13)?

When did I stop ascending and start descending? I was making progress. Who bewitched me (Gal 3:1)?

There is good news. In the present Jerusalem is a holy spot where the Christ of Glory became the Lamb of sacrifice. He was slain upon a Jerusalem tree by a Jerusalem mob, but was raised to life inside a Jerusalem tomb. He then ascended to the Heavenly Jerusalem and told us He is preparing a place for us.

Don’t forget your true homeland. The present “Jerusalem” is not your home. You are commanded to come out of it (Rev 18:4) and set your sights on the City whose builder and maker is God. Look away to the heavens, Child of God — there is nothing for you here. Your help comes from heaven (Psa 121:1-2). Your birth certificate is in heaven. The census of heaven has your name on it.

C. S. Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory: “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

He’s promised us a holiday at the sea. Pack your bags and get hoofing! The journey ahead won’t always be pleasant — at times it will be fraught with scaries and peril — but it is the only journey worth taking. Soon we’ll crest the last rise, and there She will be: the heavenly Jerusalem, spread out wide and wonderful, all dressed up for our arrival.

Just think of stepping on shore
and finding it heaven;
of touching a hand and finding it God’s;
of breathing new air and finding it celestial;
of waking up in Glory and finding it Home.
— “Finally Home,” Don Wyrtzen

taking it home

The hospital doctor came into my room this morning with good news: “I think I can confidently say that you are going home today.” It’s been a comedy of errors getting discharged, but as God does, He has a reason for everything. I’ve enjoyed my time with the doctors, nurses, and techs who have graciously cared for me. I’ve tried to shine Christ to each one — three asked for a copy of my book! — learning all their names and blessing each. For me, hospitalizations have become second business. First business is living Jesus in front of people who face death every day.

I came in with the onset of sepsis and infection spreading through my body. Multiple blood clots in my lower legs were also discovered — hello, Eliquis — contributing to my issues. The bottom line: I have been unwell since October. But I feel I’ve been gone over with a fine-tooth comb, and wherever problems surfaced, they have been addressed, one by one. I am so thankful for the hope of better health. And now I get to go home. Not home home. But home.

Home home is the one on my radar. This lower Jerusalem, for all its hardships and unpleasantries, has also afforded me quick gulps of Glory and glimpses of the land of our inheritance — if you squint hard enough.

On earth as it is in heaven…

Soon, Shahd will be here for my bed bath. Sandy will arrive and get me dressed and ready for the short trip home. Not home home. But for now, just home is good enough.

Selah, beloved.

ministers, not messiahs.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

~ Bishop Kenner Untener, October 25, 1979