Tyler Galleria Temple

 

[1]

Joshua 24:15 Good News Translation

¹⁵ If you are not willing to serve him, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your ancestors worshiped in Mesopotamia or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are now living. As for my family and me, we will serve the Lord.”

 

When we first moved to Riverside, the greatest shopping center in the city was Tyler Mall. That was almost forty years ago. I used to say to Sylvia, “This is Riverside’s temple to the goddess of materialism.” Thousands of people converged on this temple every day of the week. Then things began to happen. Workmen got in there and added another story of shops. They renamed the Tyler Mall, the Tyler Galleria. They spent several years redoing the streets and the 91-Freeway to make it more convenient to enter the temple.

Out of curiosity I looked up the meaning of the word “galleria”. One dictionary traces the etymology of the word to a chapel at the entrance to a 15^th century church—indeed, a place of worship. A place of worship for the populace, not just for the appropriately dressed nobility who could worship inside the church.

But now, in this modern age, things have changed beyond the wildest imaginings of the designers of the Tyler Galleria. Modern technology has brought the galleria into everyone’s home and pocket. Now far more people spend their millions on their computer or phone from outlets like Amazon. People can worship the goddess of materialism from the comfort of their own home, car, or office. They can even have the product delivered to their own front door. If they don’t like what is delivered, or it breaks, they can ship it back and get their money back.

And what has happened to these “places of worship?” Many, especially since the Pandemic, have fallen totally into disuse. They lie desolate, practically abandoned, licking their wounds. We can apply Christ’s 2,000-year-old lament to our age: “And so your Temple will be abandoned. I assure you that you will not see me until the time comes when you say[2] ‘God bless Him who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

In the end, our materialism will be destroyed. For a peek into the future, just look at what is happening to our gallerias during a “snatch and grab” raid—or for their eventual destiny in the pictures from Gaza or Ukraine.

I pray that we will choose with Joshua: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!”

 

 

 

 

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[1] https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8163/7580038042_c0b7a09a90_b.jpg

[2] Luke 13: 35 GNV

 

Perfection

 

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1 Peter 1:3 Good News Translation

A Living Hope

³ Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Because of his great mercy he gave us new life by raising Jesus Christ from death. This fills us with a living hope,

 

This morning I read[3] “How beautiful you are, my love, how perfect you are!”

My mind roamed randomly through everyone I knew. I could think of no one that this compliment could be applied to. Firstly, my loving wife came to mind. She is precious in so many ways. She has faithfully looked after me as I lay at death’s door. In many ways she has been and still is the perfect love partner for me. Of course, when you get to know anyone, you begin to notice their foibles.

I thought of the people whom I have looked up to over the years: my colleagues and former associates. Then there were the teachers and pastors, some of whom spent considerable time and effort to meet my physical, financial, and spiritual needs. I admired many of them and am thankful for their care and interest in my well-being. But perfect? Not by a long shot.

One candidate might have been Pastor P. H. Coetzee. He preached the most powerful sermons I had ever heard as a young kid growing up. He ran a week of prayer at my primary school and held up the image of perfection in a beautiful way. When I was 8, I attended a junior camp at Hartenbos in South Africa, and he led out in a way that captured my admiration. Had you asked me about a perfect person when I was ten or twelve, I might have thought of him.

When I was studying at Sedaven High School, he was the chairman of the school’s board. At one point his son, Leon, was only peripherally involved in a gross breach of school principles that caused the faculty to expel about a dozen students. Many of those expelled were rebellious and evil in every sense imaginable. In many ways, Leon was an ideal student, so P. H. Coetzee called the school board together and reinstated his son. (Mark Twain[4] once quipped, “In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.”)

He couldn’t just reinstate his son, however, without being accused of nepotism. So, he had all of those students reinstated in school. This resulted in a total breakdown of discipline in the school. It almost caused the school to close. Suddenly those perfection images of Pastor Coetzee, were ripped from my eyes.

None of us are perfect[5]; “everyone has sinned and is far away from God's saving presence.” As Peter writes “Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Because of his great mercy He gave us new life by raising Jesus Christ from death. This fills us with a living hope.” This hope is that Christ has died for us so that we might live in His perfection. God’s plan is stated thus:[6] “As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our sins from us.” He then looks at us and says, “How beautiful you are, my love, how perfect you are!”

Lord, thank You that in Your eyes we appear with Christ’s perfection. Thank You for saving us completely!

 

 

 

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[2] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/46/63/7b/46637b6155595658043c561f192ba7dc.png

[3] Song of Solomon 4:7 GNT

[4] Mark Twain Following the Equator: A Trip around the World

[5] Romans 3:23 GNT

[6] Psalm 103:12 GNT

 

Dry Eye

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Ephesians 1:18 Contemporary English Version

¹⁸ My prayer is that light will flood your hearts and you will understand the hope given to you when God chose you. Then you will discover the glorious blessings that will be yours together with all God's people.

 

Sitting this morning while heat treating my eyes because of dry eye disease, I got to thinking about my eyes. In the normal eye, tears flow over it all the time, keeping it moist and able to see. I have spoken with several professional eye doctors[WC1] . They have told me that I have dry eyes because there is not enough liquid coating my eyes. Forgive me for laughing at that amazing discovery.

Pursuing the topic, I find that tears come in three layers. On the actual surface of the cornea of an eye is the Mucin Layer. It helps make the tears actually stick to the eye. Then there is the aqueous layer of mainly water with salts and other chemicals to feed the surface cells on my eye. Finally, there is a lipid layer which is an oil that prevents the aqueous layer from evaporating too fast. The lipid layer is secreted by Meibomian glands that exist along the inside of the upper and lower eyelids. 

One scenario of dry eye disease is that the Meibomian glands wear out and disappear. When this happens, less and less lipid oil is secreted into the eye. Without the oil, the aqueous layer evaporates leaving the surface of the eye dry.  An ophthalmologist showed me a microscopic view of the inside of my eyelids and how my Meibomian glands are almost all missing. I asked him what I could do about it. He offered to run a plastic gadget over this surface of my eyes and hopefully stimulate the glands to regenerate. He told me that my condition was pretty extreme and this treatment probably wouldn’t help. So, he recommended that I not do it. The treatment was expensive and not covered by insurance. I took his recommendation.

Since I live in the California desert, the air is often very dry. Therefore, doctors recommend I keep a humidifier handy besides several vials of preservative free eye drops in my pocket to add to my eyes when they feel dry. My wife Sylvia helps by giving me hydrotherapy treatments on a regular basis.

During my morning meditations while doing this heat treatment, I considered the extreme complexity of the eye.  Who knows how many different parts of the eye and its environs all work in perfect harmony to provide us with sight? If any one of those often-microscopic parts quits working, it affects the sight. Then the mathematical side of my brain began to reason about the possibility that all these different parts evolved and work in harmony. The probability of this happening by random mutations is tantamount to impossible. Mathematically, the only way we have eyes is that they are designed by an intelligence. Hence there must be an infinite, beneficent designer. This Designer is the one who offers us His glorious blessings.

I pray with Paul that light will flood your hearts and you will understand the hope given to you when God chose you.

 

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[1] https://www.redmondeyeclinic.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/DryEyeInfographic.png

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 [WC1]