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Welcome to this week’s edition of In the House of Tom Bombadil.

Arthur Wesley Dow, The Hill Field, 1908–1910

Welcome to this week’s edition of In the House of Tom Bombadil.

Samuel John Peploe (1871–1935), The Sands, Barra

Here in San Diego County we're deprived of the kind of fall season many other parts of the country enjoy, particularly the dramatic change in the color of leaves. However, I recently found fall hiding up at Palomar Mountain State Park.

Welcome to this week's edition of In the House of Tom Bombadil.

Isaac Levitan (1860–1900), Golden autumn. Slobodka

Welcome to this week’s edition of In the House of Tom Bombadil.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875),

Welcome to this week's edition of In the House of Tom Bombadil. Today I want to talk about how the Psalms can help us process our emotions.

Georges Seurat, Horse and Boats (Study for Bathers at Asnières ), 1883–1884

Welcome to this week's edition of In the House of Tom Bombadil. This week I ask for your help thinking about emotion. I also have some articles for you about work and rest and a great quote by John Wesley about common grace.

August Fink (1872–1916), Shepherd with His Flock in the Evening Light

Welcome to this week's edition of In the House of Tom Bombadil.

Constantin Westchiloff (1877–1945), Stream In New England

Welcome to this week's edition of In the House of Tom Bombadil.

Peder Mørk Mønsted, A Cottage in Gastein, Austria, 1912

Julian Onderdonk, Bluebonnets at Sunrise, 1917

Around the Web

The Kids Should See This (TKSST)

Welcome to this week’s edition of In the House of Tom Bombadil.

Samuel Halpert, , ca. 1924

Welcome to this week’s edition of In the House of Tom Bombadil.

Edward Wilkins Waite (1854–1924),

This week I introduce you to a playlist for those who are grieving, hurting, or suffering that makes space for both lament and hope in our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

Albert Edelfelt (1854–1905), Sorrow

Just a quick check in. It’s been a few weeks. I’m hoping to resume publishing weekly in the near future.

Peter Ilsted (1861–1933),

Have you noticed that, by and large, our churches don't attract the kind of people Jesus did during his earthly ministry (the poor, marginalized, irreligious, and openly immoral)? Why is that? See Tim Keller's take below.

Samuel Palmer, Harvesting, 1851

Edward Mitchell Bannister, Streamside, 1870

Yesterday, I preached the first sermon in a new series in Luke's Gospel that we've titled "Meals with Jesus." The sermon focused on Jesus dining with sinners at the home of a tax collector named Levi (Luke 5:27–32). In this brief story, Jesus demonstrates that he is, indeed, what his enemies accused him of being: the friend of sinners (Matt 11:19; Luke 7:34).

I read through different parts of Dane Ortlund's book Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers again as I prepared the sermon. I appreciated the following excerpt from a chapter titled "A Tender Friend."

My wife and I are on a much-needed but way too brief getaway (I wrote and scheduled this before we left).

Paul Kutscha (1872–1935),

Marsden Hartley, New Mexico, c. 1918–1920

How does following a crucified Lord shape our prayers?

Elmer Wachtel, California Spring Landscape, ca. 1920

A timely warning from a trusted voice.

William Wendt, , 1920

A barber from a small Kentucky town reflects on growing old.

George Inness, The Lonely Farm, Nantucket, 1892

If you're in Christ, you can hop off that treadmill.

George Elbert Burr, Old Bridge near Bettws-y-Coed, North Wales, 1899

Psalm 93 asserts that the fundamental truth about the world is this: the Lord reigns!

Camille Pissarro, Boulevard Montmartre, Spring, 1897

Often around this time of year I get the urge to go wander in the mountains.

Edward G. Eisenlohr, Spring Fields at Grand Prairie

Five suggestions for making the Psalms part of your prayer life.

Camille Pissarro, , 1891

I’m enjoying more evening light as I write this week’s newsletter.

Winslow Homer, , 1894

Do you ever find yourself at a loss for words in prayer? There's so much going on inside you—thoughts, feelings, fears, hopes—but you're not quite sure how to express it. The Psalms can help.

George Inness, After a Summer Shower, 1894

Please do not neglect the Psalms. Read them. Meditate on them. Pray them. No other practice has helped steady me as much over the past year as reading and praying a psalm each day.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Ville-d'Avray, c. 1865

I love Wendell Berry, but sometimes he frustrates me. Welcome to this week’s edition of In the House of Tom Bombadil.

Louis Eilshemius, , 1890

Have I become a birder? Is there any going back? Welcome to this week’s edition of In the House of Tom Bombadil.

John Atkinson Grimshaw, , ca. 1884

I have some art for you to enjoy today. Welcome to this week’s edition of In the House of Tom Bombadil.

Gustave Loiseau, , 1912

The death of a baseball legend, a praying feminist, why story is important, and a young poet mesmerizes the nation. Welcome to this week’s edition of In the House of Tom Bombadil.

Bertha von Tarnoczy (1846–1936),

Jean Béraud (1849–1935), L’accident: Porte Saint-Denis

In my mind, the image below, taken from a video of the protest-turned-insurrection, represents so much of what's wrong with MAGA world and American Evangelicalism: idolatrous worship of a Jesus made in the image of the MAGA faithful. This Jesus is a white American man. He's anti-government, anti-taxes, anti-immigrant, anti-science, anti-compassion, and the list of what he's against goes on and on. He's pro-America, pro-guns, and pro-Confederacy. He's misogynistic and racist. He despises the poor and the weak. He's a cultural warrior. Donald Trump is his prophet. All who refuse to bow before this Jesus and his prophet will be crushed by the noble MAGA warriors.

Alfred Zoff, ‌The Meadow Near Krems, 1903

On Thursday, January 7, shortly before 10:00 a.m., I entered a line outside the Viasat Engineering Pavilion at Cal State San Marcos. I stood, wearing a mask, under the warm Southern California winter sun, along with a few hundred strangers (all socially distanced, of course). We were waiting to be tested for COVID-19. Earlier in the week, I had contact with someone who later tested positive, so here I was in line.

While waiting for my turn to be tested, I read parts of the January/February 2021 issue of The Atlantic. One article discussed the difficult ethical and emotional decisions U.S. doctors have been confronted with while providing care during the pandemic. With limited supplies, fatigued medical staff, and, in some cases, little capacity at hospitals, how do health care professionals decide who receives care? First come, first served? Those most likely to survive? Save as many lives as possible?

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, A Café In Vaugirard, c. 1850

I recently listened to a discussion between Malcolm Guite and Judith Wolfe on creation and new creation in the work of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. While discussing Lewis's perspective on the value of imaginative fiction, Guite said that such literature helps us perceive "inklings of heaven and glimmers of hope." I love that phrase, don't you? That's certainly been my experience of reading Tolkien and Lewis.

Along those same lines, poetry has helped me during the past year to perceive what George Herbert calls "heaven in ordinary." In other words, it has enabled me to see more of the beauty, wonder, and splendor of God's glory and grace in all of life. According to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, good poetry removes the "film of familiarity" from our eyes.

Jasper Francis Cropsey, Pompton Plains, New Jersey, 1867

Around the Web

How Reading Makes Us More Human by Karen Swallow Prior writing at The Atlantic.

Joseph Rubens Powell, Winter, 1835/1871

John Constable, Hadleigh Castle, The Mouth Of The Thames–Morning After A Stormy Night, 1829

L.A. Ring, A Road Near Vinderød, Zealand, 1898

Advent is a time of waiting and watching. Poet Malcolm Guite put it this way:

Advent is a paradoxical season: a season of waiting and anticipation in which the waiting itself is strangely rich and fulfilling, a season that looks back at the people who waited in darkness for the coming light of Christ and yet forward to a fuller light still to come and illuminate our darkness.

H.A. Brendekilde, ‌A Sower of the Field on a Sunny Spring Day at Brendekilde Church, 1914

The Thanksgiving holiday was a little different for the Wentzel family this year. We don’t have a useable kitchen or dining table at the moment due to a remodeling project that’s still in progress. On top of that, we weren’t able to gather with extended family. But we tried to make the best of it. Here’s a shot from our Thanksgiving dinner on the back patio, complete with paper plates and plastic utensils.

Albert Bierstadt, Buffalo Trail: The Impending Storm, 1869

Recently, a familiar passage of Scripture leaped off the page for me. Do you ever have that experience? I'm talking about James 1:2–4. I've read this passage numerous times, but, for some reason, its message captured my attention in a new way during this most recent reading. I'm considering preaching a sermon on it at the end of December, so I'll simply share a few working thoughts for the moment.

In three brief verses, James talks about trials, faith, perseverance, and spiritual maturity. I summarize his message this way: don't waste your trials.

Jozef Israëls, Peasant family at the table, 1882

H.A. Brendekilde, Children on a Country Road, 1892

Last week I said I’d see you on the other side of the election. Little did I know that nearly a week after election day, there would still be controversy over who won. Well, that’s life under the sun, right?

Georges Seurat, The Gardener, 1882–83

It's been a doozy of a week. I'll see you on the other side of the election.

Around the Web

H.A. Brendekilde, Wooded Path in Autumn, 1902

I recently read through Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer with a few friends. It's a brief but profound exploration of Christian community. I'm thinking about writing a series of articles for my church interacting with material from the book.

Here's a draft of an introductory article (the illustrious Craig Marshall provided a little editorial help). I thought I'd test it out on readers of this newsletter.

George Inness, New Jersey Landscape, 1891

H.A. Brendekilde, Fishing Boy, 1880

On Monday last week, I began feeling unwell. Headache. Body aches. Runny nose. A tickle in my throat. A bit of fatigue. No fever or shortness of breath, though. Tuesday was more of the same. I haven't been a guest at the White House lately, so chances were low that I had COVID-19. But with a wedding to attend on Saturday and a sermon to preach on Sunday, I didn't want to take any chances.

So Wednesday morning, I headed over to a coronavirus testing site at my alma mater. As I walked up to the facility, a security guard directed me to fill out a brief online form using my phone. After completing the form, I was instructed to wait in a well-ventilated room with a handful of others waiting to be tested (all socially distanced, of course). I'm pretty sure one of my general ed classes met in that room my freshman year.

Tyndale New Testament, 1526, Digital Commons, Cedarville University

This is an important week in the history of the English Bible.

October 4 marks the 485^th anniversary of the completion of the printing of the first complete English Bible (Old & New Testaments), known as the Coverdale Bible, in 1535. Miles Coverdale, the Bible's namesake, was an English Bible translator, preacher, and bishop. He served as William Tyndale's proofreading assistant in Hamburg while Tyndale translated the Pentateuch from Hebrew to English (for the second time) between March and December 1529. (Tyndale's original translation—the first ever translation of Hebrew Scripture into English—was destroyed when the ship in which he was traveling from Antwerp to Hamburg was caught in a severe storm and shipwrecked off the Dutch coast.)

Alma Thomas, , 1973, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Camille Pissarro, The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning, 1897

Russell Moore on How a Devilish View of Strength Is Killing Us:

This mentality—of pretend “strength” as an aspect of leadership—is not only out of step with the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is, in fact, a completely different gospel—the gospel of antichrist. From the very beginning, God created human beings—even before the Fall—to see their creatureliness and dependence. Human beings were fed, after all, by God. They were not self-sufficient deities, but “frail children of dust, and feeble as frail.” The Serpent of old is the one who told them to pay no attention to that vulnerability. Eat, the snake said, of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which has been forbidden to you, so that you can gain freedom from vulnerability. “You will not surely die,” but instead, “you shall be as gods.”

Robert Seldon Duncanson, ‌Still Life with Fruit and Nuts, 1848