[I write a column for the Community Press newspapers. This is the column version of my essay on character assassination which I just submitted.]
Dick Ebersol, head of NBC Sports, recently met with President Bush about security arrangements surrounding the Olympics in Athens, Greece. They met one-on-one. Afterwards, at a gathering of the Television Critics Association, Ebersol said that Bush “really did know the facts” surrounding Olympic security arrangements. This observation evoked laughter from the audience, as though they thought the NBC sports chief was being ironic. He had to assure the crowd, “I’m serious.”
Ebersol’s experience of President Bush during his “face to face” didn’t conform to the media’s picture of Bush as an intellectual lightweight manipulated by his handlers. Because of that image, a roomful of intelligent people laughed at the different picture Ebersol painted.
In our media-saturated world, it doesn’t take long for public figures to be saddled with bad reputations, deserved or not.
And of course, the media heavyweights aren’t the only guilty parties when it comes to character assassination. Politicians themselves are facile in such assaults. President Bush, for example, authorized the recent production and webcasting of an ad that interspersed video clips of speeches by various Democratic Party leaders with one of Adolf Hitler, implying that there was a connection between the Democrats and one of the most murderous despots in human history. That's outrageous!
We can't control what people with their hands on the big media switches tell us about public figures. But we can control our reactions to the things we’re told about those figures. We need to be skeptical about assaults on character and wary of the ones doing the assaulting.
The public figures whose lives are sliced, diced, dissected, lampooned, and disposed of in the media are, after all, human beings. When their actions seem to violate good sense or cause harm, it’s absolutely legitimate to hold them accountable. But that’s not a license for character assassination.
One of the commandments God gave at Mount Sinai says, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Martin Luther fleshed out the meaning of this commandment when he wrote:
“We are to fear and love God so that we do not betray, slander, or lie about our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain his actions in the most charitable way.”
I can’t claim to keep this or any of the other commandments perfectly. I’m a sinner and I sometimes violate God’s will for my life. So, as horrified as I am by media-generated lynchings of people’s reputations, I can be guilty of character assassination, too.
My victims aren’t just celebrities, though. I can be cruel in my assessments of non-celebrities, the people who populate my everyday life. Maybe you can say the same thing.
But there’s hope. The New Testament book of First John says: “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous...” (First John 2:1)
For all of us who mar the reputations of others (for all who sin, period), Jesus Christ can be the road to our recovery. We can be forgiven and start with clean slates. When we turn from our sins and turn to Christ, God forgives and then, gives us the power to keep turning from sin...even the sin of character assassination.
Maybe we Americans ought to informally declare a National Clean Slate Day. On it, we'll grant forgiveness to each other for all our past slandering of others and then, we'll ask God to help us refrain from verbally assaulting anyone. We'll also ask God to help us to disagree with others without being cruel. We might even want to declare an International Clean Slate Day. Anybody interested?
Monday, July 12, 2004
More on the Bush Campaign's Desire for Church Rosters
Check out this article from a Christian news site about the reaction of a Baptist pastor to the Bush campaign's desire for church rosters.
I wrote about this earlier.
I wrote about this earlier.
Overcoming the Culture of Character Assassination
Dick Ebersol, head of NBC Sports, was concerned. NBC is covering the upcoming Olympic Games in Athens and he wanted to make sure that strong security measures were in place to protect the people working for his company. He sought a meeting with President Bush for reassurance.
The president personally met with him. Afterwards, at a gathering of the Television Critics Association, Ebersol recounted the meeting. Bush “really did know the facts” when it came to the minutiae of Olympic security arrangements, Ebersol said. This observation evoked laughter from the audience, as though they thought the NBC sports chief was being ironic. He had to assure the crowd, “I’m serious.”
In this era of twenty-four-hour-a-day news coverage and instant commentary from cable news networks, web sites, and late night talk show monologues, it doesn’t take long for public figures to be saddled with bad reputations, deserved or not.
Ebersol’s experience of President Bush during his “face to face” didn’t conform to the media-generated picture of the President. That picture insists that Bush is as an intellectual lightweight manipulated by his handlers. Because of that image, a roomful of intelligent people found it hard to accept the different picture Ebersol painted.
Generally speaking, it seems that the media, voracious in its appetite for news and controversy, can be nonpartisan in trashing public figures. On the night of the Iowa Caucuses earlier this year, Howard Dean finished poorly in that first contest of the presidential nominating process. Concerned about the morale of his supporters, Dean decided to play campaign cheerleader. His “yee-hah” performance was shown repeatedly on TV. Supposedly serious people on news shows wondered whether the caucus-night speech indicated that Dean lacked the maturity to be President and speculated about how badly it would hurt his campaign. Dean was the victim of media-generated character assassination and it was wrong.
And of course, politicians themselves are often guilty of the most vicious character assassination. President Bush himself, for example, apparently authorized the recent production and webcasting of an ad that interspersed video clips of speeches by various Democratic Party luminaries with one of Adolf Hitler, implying that there was a connection between the Democrats and one of the most murderous despots in human history. That's unconscionable!
We can't control what people with their hands on the big media switches tell us about public figures. This comes as a simple plea for common people like me to pay heed to what we can control: Our reactions to the things we’re told about public figures. We need to be skeptical about assaults on people's characters and wary of those who do the assaulting.
The celebrities whose lives, accomplishments, mistakes, and alleged faults are so calmly sliced, diced, dissected, lampooned, and disposed of are, in fact, human beings. When their actions---particularly those of office holders---seem to violate good sense or cause harm, it’s absolutely legitimate to hold them accountable. But there’s no reason to assault them personally. There's no reason to fabricate destructive fictions under the guises of analysis or satire.
One of the commandments God gave at Mount Sinai--we Lutherans reckon it as the eighth commandment, others count it differently--says, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Martin Luther, in typical fashion, fleshes out the positive spin on this commandment when he writes in The Small Catechism:
“We are to fear [that means to respect and reverence] and love God so that we do not betray, slander, or lie about our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain his actions in the most charitable way.”
Of course, I can’t claim to keep this or any of the other commandments perfectly. I’m a garden variety sinner and I sometimes violate God’s will for my life. So, as horrified as I am of media-generated lynchings of people’s reputations and how we all seem to blindly subscribe to what the media tell us about people, I can be guilty of character assassination, too.
My victims aren’t just celebrities, though. Sometimes, I can be cruel in my assessments of non-celebrities, the people who populate my everyday life. Maybe you can say the same thing.
If so, there is hope. The New Testament book of First John says: “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous...” (First John 2:1)
For all of us who mar the reputations of others (and for all of us who sin, period), Jesus Christ can be the road to our recovery. We can be forgiven and start with clean slates. When we turn from our sins and turn to Christ, God forgives and then, gives us the power to keep turning from sin...even the sin of character assassination.
Maybe we Americans ought to informally declare a National Clean Slate Day. On it, we'll grant forgiveness to each other for all our past slandering of others and then, we'll ask God to help us refrain from verbally assaulting anyone. We'll also ask God to enable us to disagree without being cruel. We might even want to declare an International Clean Slate Day. Anybody interested?
The president personally met with him. Afterwards, at a gathering of the Television Critics Association, Ebersol recounted the meeting. Bush “really did know the facts” when it came to the minutiae of Olympic security arrangements, Ebersol said. This observation evoked laughter from the audience, as though they thought the NBC sports chief was being ironic. He had to assure the crowd, “I’m serious.”
In this era of twenty-four-hour-a-day news coverage and instant commentary from cable news networks, web sites, and late night talk show monologues, it doesn’t take long for public figures to be saddled with bad reputations, deserved or not.
Ebersol’s experience of President Bush during his “face to face” didn’t conform to the media-generated picture of the President. That picture insists that Bush is as an intellectual lightweight manipulated by his handlers. Because of that image, a roomful of intelligent people found it hard to accept the different picture Ebersol painted.
Generally speaking, it seems that the media, voracious in its appetite for news and controversy, can be nonpartisan in trashing public figures. On the night of the Iowa Caucuses earlier this year, Howard Dean finished poorly in that first contest of the presidential nominating process. Concerned about the morale of his supporters, Dean decided to play campaign cheerleader. His “yee-hah” performance was shown repeatedly on TV. Supposedly serious people on news shows wondered whether the caucus-night speech indicated that Dean lacked the maturity to be President and speculated about how badly it would hurt his campaign. Dean was the victim of media-generated character assassination and it was wrong.
And of course, politicians themselves are often guilty of the most vicious character assassination. President Bush himself, for example, apparently authorized the recent production and webcasting of an ad that interspersed video clips of speeches by various Democratic Party luminaries with one of Adolf Hitler, implying that there was a connection between the Democrats and one of the most murderous despots in human history. That's unconscionable!
We can't control what people with their hands on the big media switches tell us about public figures. This comes as a simple plea for common people like me to pay heed to what we can control: Our reactions to the things we’re told about public figures. We need to be skeptical about assaults on people's characters and wary of those who do the assaulting.
The celebrities whose lives, accomplishments, mistakes, and alleged faults are so calmly sliced, diced, dissected, lampooned, and disposed of are, in fact, human beings. When their actions---particularly those of office holders---seem to violate good sense or cause harm, it’s absolutely legitimate to hold them accountable. But there’s no reason to assault them personally. There's no reason to fabricate destructive fictions under the guises of analysis or satire.
One of the commandments God gave at Mount Sinai--we Lutherans reckon it as the eighth commandment, others count it differently--says, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Martin Luther, in typical fashion, fleshes out the positive spin on this commandment when he writes in The Small Catechism:
“We are to fear [that means to respect and reverence] and love God so that we do not betray, slander, or lie about our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain his actions in the most charitable way.”
Of course, I can’t claim to keep this or any of the other commandments perfectly. I’m a garden variety sinner and I sometimes violate God’s will for my life. So, as horrified as I am of media-generated lynchings of people’s reputations and how we all seem to blindly subscribe to what the media tell us about people, I can be guilty of character assassination, too.
My victims aren’t just celebrities, though. Sometimes, I can be cruel in my assessments of non-celebrities, the people who populate my everyday life. Maybe you can say the same thing.
If so, there is hope. The New Testament book of First John says: “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous...” (First John 2:1)
For all of us who mar the reputations of others (and for all of us who sin, period), Jesus Christ can be the road to our recovery. We can be forgiven and start with clean slates. When we turn from our sins and turn to Christ, God forgives and then, gives us the power to keep turning from sin...even the sin of character assassination.
Maybe we Americans ought to informally declare a National Clean Slate Day. On it, we'll grant forgiveness to each other for all our past slandering of others and then, we'll ask God to help us refrain from verbally assaulting anyone. We'll also ask God to enable us to disagree without being cruel. We might even want to declare an International Clean Slate Day. Anybody interested?
Sunday, July 11, 2004
The Happiness Project: What Mercy Does
Matthew 5:1-2, 7
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, July 11, 2004)
One of my favorite preachers is Dr. Gerald Mann. He tells a story about something that happened during his first year in seminary. He was the twenty-one year old, married, father of one. His little girl was profoundly deaf and in need of special attention she could only receive in Houston, Texas. And so, already pastoring a church part-time in Houston, he had to fly to the seminary he attended in Dallas four times a week for classes. As you can imagine, he was always on the brink of physical and emotional exhaustion.
One week, toward the end of his first term, wiped out, he remembered that he had a paper due in his New Testament studies class the next day. Two days out of the week, he roomed with a student specializing in New Testament and so he asked if there were any resources on the authorship of the New Testament book of Hebrews to which he could refer him. Yeah, the guy replied, someone in his seminar had presented a pretty good paper on that subject and he handed it to Mann.
Gerald Mann was impressed by the paper. It had been typed on an IBM Selectric (this was back in the Stone Ages). As the night wore on and Gerald Mann became more desperate, he decided to find an IBM Selectric, tear off the title page from the paper his roomie had handed him, and replace it with one bearing his own name. He turned it in.
A week or so later, Mann received the paper back. The grade: A+, under which was written, “Look inside.” Inside, his professor had written a note. “When I wrote this paper fifteen years ago,” it said, “I only got a C for it. But I always thought that it was pretty good. See me at your convenience.”
You can imagine the fear that Gerald Mann felt. Plagiarism--stealing what someone else has written--is no different from knocking off the local convenience store or sacking Enron. His professor had evidence sufficient to have him expelled from seminary. He went to his professor’s office and soon began to explain the pressures under which he was operating: his little girl, his job, his four-times a week commute between Houston and Dallas, his average of four hours of sleep at night, his last-minute realization that a major paper was due the next day.
As he told his story, his professor began to tear up and then, came around his desk and put his hand on Mann’s shoulders. “Listen,” he said, “you don’t need to cheat. If there are times when you’re up against it, just come and see me and we can work something out.”
Mann was taken aback by this, but still was concerned about what was to happen next. “What about my grade?” he asked. His professor said, “It’s still a good paper. The grade stands. We’ll just keep it our secret.”
The impact of that professor’s decision? Gerald Mann says that he never cheated again.
Jesus tells us in our Bible lesson today, “Blessed (that means: happy, fortunate, blissful) are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.”
All the different Biblical words---both those in the Old Testament and in the New Testament---tell us that to be merciful means more than feeling compassion for someone who’s experiencing pain or affliction. It also means acting on our compassion or sympathy. Sometimes it means to act sympathetically or compassionately even toward those who have wronged us. Jesus says that the happy people of this world are the ones who treat others with mercy.
That was a very tough fact for me to review and remember this past week as I prepared this message. I like the idea of being compassionate or merciful toward others. And I like it when other people think that I’m merciful. But to actually be merciful isn’t easy. Being merciful takes a willingness to put aside our own agendas and let the pain or needs of another person intrude on us. It means sharing others’ pain or giving them some relief.
Years ago, one of our Lutheran magazines had a tradition of printing the names and pictures of every person graduating from Lutheran seminaries in the spring. Interspersed with the pictures were articles by seasoned pastors, giving advice to these men and women about to become pastors. I’ll never forget an article that appeared one year in which a veteran pastor talked about his “theology of interruptions.” He advised that it’s all well and good for a person to have plans for their day. But when someone with a need comes along, we need to be willing to forget our agendas and instead pay heed to helping where we can.
That’s not easy to do! The late writer Erma Bombeck once told about a flight she was taking to Chicago. About thirty minutes before the plane was to take off, she settled down in her seat, craving some quiet. You see, just before she’d left for the airport, her son had engaged in some long monologue about a movie he’d just seen, replete with about 3000 “you knows.” And then, her cab driver rambled on about his own college-age son. Now, she thought, she could enjoy some peace and quiet.
But then she heard the voice of an elderly woman sitting next to her. “I’ll bet it’s cold in Chicago,” she said.
The actions of mercy can be as simple as listening to a person who is hurting. Mercy has many faces and many manifestations. But it always involves acting to help those in need, whatever their need and however limited our abilities. Once, when our son was about six years old, we were doing some Christmas shopping. He’d just bought a gift for his sister, from money he’d been collecting for awhile. As we left one store, we passed a Salvation Army volunteer, ringing his bell, seeking donations. My wife and I watched as our then-little boy dug into his pocket and put all that he had left into the volunteer’s bucket. I had tears in my eyes as I thought about how many times I passed the needs of humanity by, thinking that because I couldn’t do everything, I couldn’t do anything. At that moment, Philip taught me, that no matter how little we may think we have to offer, we can still be merciful to those in need. It’s a lesson I’m still trying to learn.
Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” Does that mean that if we’re kind and generous to people in their afflictions that God will be merciful to us? Does it mean that we can earn God’s forgiveness and love? You and I know better than that. The Bible teaches that there is nothing that you and I can do to gain God’s forgiveness and eternal life. Those things are free gifts to all who turn away from sin and surrender their lives to Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus’ death on the cross is the greatest act of mercy in the history of the world. The New Testament book of Romans says that while you and I were still sinners---lounging around in the slop of our sins like pigs unaware that sin made us dirty and unfit for living---Jesus Christ died for us. God saw our need and took care of us before we even knew we needed His care. That’s mercy.
But here’s what Jesus teaches us this morning (and in lots of other places in the New Testament): Every time you and I fail to share His mercy with other people, we build up a wall between God and us. The less mercy we show, the bigger the wall between God and us and the harder it becomes for His mercy to reach our hardened hearts.
Jesus says that happy people are those who keep their hearts and lives open to God’s blessings by living mercifully toward those in need. Happy people are those who keep turning away from sin and keep turning to God and to others.
Being merciful to others can also tear down walls between us and other people. After the Korean War, a group of American soldiers rented a house in South Korea. They had a young Korean working for them and they treated him horribly, playing practical jokes on him all the time. Every time they did something to him though, he would laugh and go on with his business.
One day, the Americans felt so badly about it that they finally apologized and said they wouldn’t pull their pranks any longer. He asked, “You mean you won’t put buckets with water on the top of the door, making me wet when I open it?” “No” they said, “we won’t do that.” “No more grease on the stove knobs, making it hard for me to do the cooking?” “No.” “No more dirt on the floor so that I have to vacuum all the time?” “No, no. We won’t do anything like that any more.” “Okay,” he said, “then I won’t spit in your soup anymore.” When we’re merciful to the afflicted, that mercy has a way of coming back to us.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” Happy people gladly give away God’s mercy because they know God has a lot more mercy where that came from. In fact, the follower of Jesus Christ knows that the more mercy we give away, the more of it fills our lives.
Ask Jesus to give you the faith and the courage to be a merciful person, to share the mercy He has given to you. Ask Him to help you fill the needs of others in your own unique way. When you do, you’ll be on the road to true happiness.
[Erma Bombeck told the story of her flight to Chicago in a column appearing in the Chicago Sun Times on February 26, 1977. It and the joke about the Korean and the US GIs appeared in a very fine sermon by Pastor Will Pounds, written and delivered in 1999.]
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, July 11, 2004)
One of my favorite preachers is Dr. Gerald Mann. He tells a story about something that happened during his first year in seminary. He was the twenty-one year old, married, father of one. His little girl was profoundly deaf and in need of special attention she could only receive in Houston, Texas. And so, already pastoring a church part-time in Houston, he had to fly to the seminary he attended in Dallas four times a week for classes. As you can imagine, he was always on the brink of physical and emotional exhaustion.
One week, toward the end of his first term, wiped out, he remembered that he had a paper due in his New Testament studies class the next day. Two days out of the week, he roomed with a student specializing in New Testament and so he asked if there were any resources on the authorship of the New Testament book of Hebrews to which he could refer him. Yeah, the guy replied, someone in his seminar had presented a pretty good paper on that subject and he handed it to Mann.
Gerald Mann was impressed by the paper. It had been typed on an IBM Selectric (this was back in the Stone Ages). As the night wore on and Gerald Mann became more desperate, he decided to find an IBM Selectric, tear off the title page from the paper his roomie had handed him, and replace it with one bearing his own name. He turned it in.
A week or so later, Mann received the paper back. The grade: A+, under which was written, “Look inside.” Inside, his professor had written a note. “When I wrote this paper fifteen years ago,” it said, “I only got a C for it. But I always thought that it was pretty good. See me at your convenience.”
You can imagine the fear that Gerald Mann felt. Plagiarism--stealing what someone else has written--is no different from knocking off the local convenience store or sacking Enron. His professor had evidence sufficient to have him expelled from seminary. He went to his professor’s office and soon began to explain the pressures under which he was operating: his little girl, his job, his four-times a week commute between Houston and Dallas, his average of four hours of sleep at night, his last-minute realization that a major paper was due the next day.
As he told his story, his professor began to tear up and then, came around his desk and put his hand on Mann’s shoulders. “Listen,” he said, “you don’t need to cheat. If there are times when you’re up against it, just come and see me and we can work something out.”
Mann was taken aback by this, but still was concerned about what was to happen next. “What about my grade?” he asked. His professor said, “It’s still a good paper. The grade stands. We’ll just keep it our secret.”
The impact of that professor’s decision? Gerald Mann says that he never cheated again.
Jesus tells us in our Bible lesson today, “Blessed (that means: happy, fortunate, blissful) are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.”
All the different Biblical words---both those in the Old Testament and in the New Testament---tell us that to be merciful means more than feeling compassion for someone who’s experiencing pain or affliction. It also means acting on our compassion or sympathy. Sometimes it means to act sympathetically or compassionately even toward those who have wronged us. Jesus says that the happy people of this world are the ones who treat others with mercy.
That was a very tough fact for me to review and remember this past week as I prepared this message. I like the idea of being compassionate or merciful toward others. And I like it when other people think that I’m merciful. But to actually be merciful isn’t easy. Being merciful takes a willingness to put aside our own agendas and let the pain or needs of another person intrude on us. It means sharing others’ pain or giving them some relief.
Years ago, one of our Lutheran magazines had a tradition of printing the names and pictures of every person graduating from Lutheran seminaries in the spring. Interspersed with the pictures were articles by seasoned pastors, giving advice to these men and women about to become pastors. I’ll never forget an article that appeared one year in which a veteran pastor talked about his “theology of interruptions.” He advised that it’s all well and good for a person to have plans for their day. But when someone with a need comes along, we need to be willing to forget our agendas and instead pay heed to helping where we can.
That’s not easy to do! The late writer Erma Bombeck once told about a flight she was taking to Chicago. About thirty minutes before the plane was to take off, she settled down in her seat, craving some quiet. You see, just before she’d left for the airport, her son had engaged in some long monologue about a movie he’d just seen, replete with about 3000 “you knows.” And then, her cab driver rambled on about his own college-age son. Now, she thought, she could enjoy some peace and quiet.
But then she heard the voice of an elderly woman sitting next to her. “I’ll bet it’s cold in Chicago,” she said.
“Stone faced, I replied [Bombeck writes], ‘It’s likely.’ ‘I haven’t been to Chicago in nearly three years,’ [the elderly woman] persisted. ‘My son lives there.’ ‘That’s nice,’ [Bombeck said, her eyes now glued to a book she hoped the woman would see she was reading.]
But the woman went on: “My husband’s body is on this plane. We’ve been married 53 years. I don’t drive, you know, and when he died a nun drove me home from the hospital. We aren’t even Catholic. The funeral director let me come to the airport with him.”
Erma Bombeck writes: “I don’t think I ever detested myself more than I did at that moment. Another human being was screaming to be heard, and in desperation, had turned to a cold stranger who was more interested in a novel than in real life...She needed no advice, money, assistance, expertise...---all she needed was someone to listen.”
The actions of mercy can be as simple as listening to a person who is hurting. Mercy has many faces and many manifestations. But it always involves acting to help those in need, whatever their need and however limited our abilities. Once, when our son was about six years old, we were doing some Christmas shopping. He’d just bought a gift for his sister, from money he’d been collecting for awhile. As we left one store, we passed a Salvation Army volunteer, ringing his bell, seeking donations. My wife and I watched as our then-little boy dug into his pocket and put all that he had left into the volunteer’s bucket. I had tears in my eyes as I thought about how many times I passed the needs of humanity by, thinking that because I couldn’t do everything, I couldn’t do anything. At that moment, Philip taught me, that no matter how little we may think we have to offer, we can still be merciful to those in need. It’s a lesson I’m still trying to learn.
Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” Does that mean that if we’re kind and generous to people in their afflictions that God will be merciful to us? Does it mean that we can earn God’s forgiveness and love? You and I know better than that. The Bible teaches that there is nothing that you and I can do to gain God’s forgiveness and eternal life. Those things are free gifts to all who turn away from sin and surrender their lives to Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus’ death on the cross is the greatest act of mercy in the history of the world. The New Testament book of Romans says that while you and I were still sinners---lounging around in the slop of our sins like pigs unaware that sin made us dirty and unfit for living---Jesus Christ died for us. God saw our need and took care of us before we even knew we needed His care. That’s mercy.
But here’s what Jesus teaches us this morning (and in lots of other places in the New Testament): Every time you and I fail to share His mercy with other people, we build up a wall between God and us. The less mercy we show, the bigger the wall between God and us and the harder it becomes for His mercy to reach our hardened hearts.
Jesus says that happy people are those who keep their hearts and lives open to God’s blessings by living mercifully toward those in need. Happy people are those who keep turning away from sin and keep turning to God and to others.
Being merciful to others can also tear down walls between us and other people. After the Korean War, a group of American soldiers rented a house in South Korea. They had a young Korean working for them and they treated him horribly, playing practical jokes on him all the time. Every time they did something to him though, he would laugh and go on with his business.
One day, the Americans felt so badly about it that they finally apologized and said they wouldn’t pull their pranks any longer. He asked, “You mean you won’t put buckets with water on the top of the door, making me wet when I open it?” “No” they said, “we won’t do that.” “No more grease on the stove knobs, making it hard for me to do the cooking?” “No.” “No more dirt on the floor so that I have to vacuum all the time?” “No, no. We won’t do anything like that any more.” “Okay,” he said, “then I won’t spit in your soup anymore.” When we’re merciful to the afflicted, that mercy has a way of coming back to us.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” Happy people gladly give away God’s mercy because they know God has a lot more mercy where that came from. In fact, the follower of Jesus Christ knows that the more mercy we give away, the more of it fills our lives.
Ask Jesus to give you the faith and the courage to be a merciful person, to share the mercy He has given to you. Ask Him to help you fill the needs of others in your own unique way. When you do, you’ll be on the road to true happiness.
[Erma Bombeck told the story of her flight to Chicago in a column appearing in the Chicago Sun Times on February 26, 1977. It and the joke about the Korean and the US GIs appeared in a very fine sermon by Pastor Will Pounds, written and delivered in 1999.]
Saturday, July 10, 2004
A Good Blog
A wonderful blog I check often is written by Pastor Craig S. Williams, who is now on a sabbatical. I've never met Craig, but he seems like a gracious, authethic person who tries to live each day for Christ. Check out the latest posting on his site.
Thursday, July 08, 2004
The Horrible Situation in Sudan...and What Can Be Done
This coming Sunday, I will be preaching on Jesus' beatitude: "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy" (Matthew 5:7).
One of the striking things I've been reminded of as I've studied and prepared this week, is that the Biblical notion of mercy entails sympathy for those who are afflicted in any way. But it moves beyond a feeling to action. God has shown sympathy for us by becoming one of us, dying on the cross for us, and offering new life to all who will turn from sin and receive Christ as Savior. But, Jesus seems to be saying, we build walls between ourselves and God when we harden our hearts and refuse to be merciful, actively compassionate for those in need.
This is hard for me to know and think about because I am so comfortable in my middle class American life style. It is so easy to live as self-contained creatures here.
For some time now, I have watched and read about the humanitarian crisis in Sudan and not done much. The crisis is huge and it's easy to say, "Well, I can't do anything anyway." But as a Christian, I follow a Savior Who has told all of His followers that they would be empowered by His Spirit to do greater works even than He accomplished while on earth.
I'm a communicator and so, I want to use this platform to do several things:
(1) Inform you about the crisis in the Sudan;
(2) Ask you for your prayers;
(3) Encourage you to do what you can at your personal and local level, possibly contributing to relief agencies.
Below are links to stories about the Sudan crisis, as well as agencies and organizations to which you might wish to contribute. God bless you!
This article provides basic information on Sudan. It comes from the Division for Global Mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
This article, by a BBC reporter, gives her experiences traveling through Darfur province in Sudan.
This is a great Q-and-A about the roots and disastrous consequences of the terrors in Sudan. It also was produced by BBC News.
Information and the opportunity to contribute to relief efforts in Darfur, through Lutheran World Relief, the world's most cost-effectively operated charity, can be found here.
This link presents information and a chance to contribute to efforts by Doctors without Borders.
May we all learn the meaning of mercy. God bless you!
One of the striking things I've been reminded of as I've studied and prepared this week, is that the Biblical notion of mercy entails sympathy for those who are afflicted in any way. But it moves beyond a feeling to action. God has shown sympathy for us by becoming one of us, dying on the cross for us, and offering new life to all who will turn from sin and receive Christ as Savior. But, Jesus seems to be saying, we build walls between ourselves and God when we harden our hearts and refuse to be merciful, actively compassionate for those in need.
This is hard for me to know and think about because I am so comfortable in my middle class American life style. It is so easy to live as self-contained creatures here.
For some time now, I have watched and read about the humanitarian crisis in Sudan and not done much. The crisis is huge and it's easy to say, "Well, I can't do anything anyway." But as a Christian, I follow a Savior Who has told all of His followers that they would be empowered by His Spirit to do greater works even than He accomplished while on earth.
I'm a communicator and so, I want to use this platform to do several things:
(1) Inform you about the crisis in the Sudan;
(2) Ask you for your prayers;
(3) Encourage you to do what you can at your personal and local level, possibly contributing to relief agencies.
Below are links to stories about the Sudan crisis, as well as agencies and organizations to which you might wish to contribute. God bless you!
This article provides basic information on Sudan. It comes from the Division for Global Mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
This article, by a BBC reporter, gives her experiences traveling through Darfur province in Sudan.
This is a great Q-and-A about the roots and disastrous consequences of the terrors in Sudan. It also was produced by BBC News.
Information and the opportunity to contribute to relief efforts in Darfur, through Lutheran World Relief, the world's most cost-effectively operated charity, can be found here.
This link presents information and a chance to contribute to efforts by Doctors without Borders.
May we all learn the meaning of mercy. God bless you!
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
A Biography of the Other Adams
Book Review:
John Quincy Adams by Robert V. Remini (New York: Henry Holt and Company)
The historian is to be more than a regurgitator of facts and figures. The historian’s art involves the interpretation of facts as well as the surfacing of patterns and connections between people, events, and trends. It’s a subtle art that demands that, even when the historian’s ideology, passions, or convictions are engaged, she or he make fair judgements about the truth and its meaning. Historians must do this without intruding on the events they record and interpret.
Some who write history can’t seem to get this right. They either veer off into the error of personal intrusion or they play it safe, producing works that recount facts without attempting to make sense of them.
One prominent historian/biographer for example, has recently torn off in each of these errant directions in two different best-selling biographical works. In one, he intruded on history by creating a fictional character who ostensibly was a life-long friend of his biography’s subject, thus manufacturing fake history and distorting the story. In another, he recounted the day-to-day life of his subject over an eight year period with virtually no interpretation of that life at all.
The historian must strive to interpret while being accurate and fair.
But even with that goal in mind, two historians can look at the same people and events---even the same primary sources (things like letters, diaries, memos)---and playing the role of fair interpreters, derive markedly different conclusions.
One of the most striking things about historian Robert V. Remini’s new biography of John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, is the interpretation he offers of Adams’ parents and upbringing. It presents a stark contrast to the portrait of John and Abigail Adams and their parenting style that we find in David McCullough’s masterful biography of John Q. Adams’ father and presidential antecedent, John. In John and Abigail Adams, McCullough found two loving parents, persons of deep faith, great intelligence, and extraordinary resourcefulness---and not a little prickliness---who presided happily over their family. But Remini sees John and Abigail as distant, demanding, and moralistic. He is particularly critical of Abigail. He even approvingly quotes biographer Paul Nagel’s conclusion that Abigail was “a calamity as a mother.”
Whether Remini or McCullough are correct about Abigail Adams, it’s clear that the former feels that Abigail’s alleged deficiencies as a parent explain much about the career of John Quincy Adams. And in fact, there is much that needs explaining. Like his father, John Quincy was a one-term president. That may be attributable in part it seems, to deficiencies as politicians shared by the father and the son: They lacked the ability to incite allegiance, but were facile in creating animosity. Both were highly principled, which made their occasional dalliances in hardball politics--it seems fairly clear that J.Q. Adams made a deal with Henry Clay in order to secure election in the U.S. House of Representatives following the inconclusive 1824 presidential election, for example--seem more deplorable.
Remini’s book makes it clear that John Quincy Adams as president was dogged not just by a cold, aloof personality and a tin-ear as a politician, but also by a rather unscrupulous demagogue for an opponent in Andrew Jackson. (In this, Jackson played the same role first played by the similarly unscrupulous and demagogic Thomas Jefferson vis-a-vis the elder Adams.) From the moment Jackson lost the presidency to J.Q. Adams, he set out to thwart the president at every turn and to stack the deck for his own ascendancy to the White House in the subsequent election.
But Remini’s book, part of the new American Presidents series, published by Henry Holt and Company, under the general editorship of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., does have something in common with McCullough’s book about his father: It demonstrates that the most interesting, consequential, and illustrious part of this Adams’ life, like John, occurred before and after his one unhappy term as president.
Before the account of the younger Adams’ presidency, Remini makes a stunning claim:
There are compelling reasons for that argument. First of all, there is Adams’ pedigree. His parents saw to it that he was groomed throughout his life for service to his country, particularly as a diplomat. He in fact, did serve as an effective and often, imaginative emissary for his country prior to being tapped as President Monroe’s chief diplomat.
Adding to Remini’s argument is Adams’ actual performance as secretary of state. It was he who formulated what came to be called the Monroe Doctrine, a strong foundational principle that has guided US diplomacy in the Western Hemisphere for two centuries.
In his post-presidential years, Adams’ political career was given a resurrection. Voters in Massachusetts saw fit to elect him to the House of Representatives. There, as an elder statesman who sometimes employed shrill rhetoric, sometimes soared beyond his natural gifts as an orator, he fought the institution of slavery. While he wasn’t necessarily all-out against the peculiar institution and may have been, as Remini suggests, politically motivated, seeking revenge against the southern Democrats who sabotaged his administration as president, he played an important role in the development of opposition to slavery.
I loved reading Remini’s biography of Henry Clay several years ago. His expertise in the history of the period of Clay’s, Jackson’s, and Adams’ life is clear. In spite of the brevity of this text, he successfully evokes the feeling of the period and his take on the life and character of John Quincy Adams is well-founded. While one may disagree or have reservations about his interpretation of events, this is a fine book written by a great practitioner of the historian's art.
John Quincy Adams by Robert V. Remini (New York: Henry Holt and Company)
The historian is to be more than a regurgitator of facts and figures. The historian’s art involves the interpretation of facts as well as the surfacing of patterns and connections between people, events, and trends. It’s a subtle art that demands that, even when the historian’s ideology, passions, or convictions are engaged, she or he make fair judgements about the truth and its meaning. Historians must do this without intruding on the events they record and interpret.
Some who write history can’t seem to get this right. They either veer off into the error of personal intrusion or they play it safe, producing works that recount facts without attempting to make sense of them.
One prominent historian/biographer for example, has recently torn off in each of these errant directions in two different best-selling biographical works. In one, he intruded on history by creating a fictional character who ostensibly was a life-long friend of his biography’s subject, thus manufacturing fake history and distorting the story. In another, he recounted the day-to-day life of his subject over an eight year period with virtually no interpretation of that life at all.
The historian must strive to interpret while being accurate and fair.
But even with that goal in mind, two historians can look at the same people and events---even the same primary sources (things like letters, diaries, memos)---and playing the role of fair interpreters, derive markedly different conclusions.
One of the most striking things about historian Robert V. Remini’s new biography of John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, is the interpretation he offers of Adams’ parents and upbringing. It presents a stark contrast to the portrait of John and Abigail Adams and their parenting style that we find in David McCullough’s masterful biography of John Q. Adams’ father and presidential antecedent, John. In John and Abigail Adams, McCullough found two loving parents, persons of deep faith, great intelligence, and extraordinary resourcefulness---and not a little prickliness---who presided happily over their family. But Remini sees John and Abigail as distant, demanding, and moralistic. He is particularly critical of Abigail. He even approvingly quotes biographer Paul Nagel’s conclusion that Abigail was “a calamity as a mother.”
Whether Remini or McCullough are correct about Abigail Adams, it’s clear that the former feels that Abigail’s alleged deficiencies as a parent explain much about the career of John Quincy Adams. And in fact, there is much that needs explaining. Like his father, John Quincy was a one-term president. That may be attributable in part it seems, to deficiencies as politicians shared by the father and the son: They lacked the ability to incite allegiance, but were facile in creating animosity. Both were highly principled, which made their occasional dalliances in hardball politics--it seems fairly clear that J.Q. Adams made a deal with Henry Clay in order to secure election in the U.S. House of Representatives following the inconclusive 1824 presidential election, for example--seem more deplorable.
Remini’s book makes it clear that John Quincy Adams as president was dogged not just by a cold, aloof personality and a tin-ear as a politician, but also by a rather unscrupulous demagogue for an opponent in Andrew Jackson. (In this, Jackson played the same role first played by the similarly unscrupulous and demagogic Thomas Jefferson vis-a-vis the elder Adams.) From the moment Jackson lost the presidency to J.Q. Adams, he set out to thwart the president at every turn and to stack the deck for his own ascendancy to the White House in the subsequent election.
But Remini’s book, part of the new American Presidents series, published by Henry Holt and Company, under the general editorship of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., does have something in common with McCullough’s book about his father: It demonstrates that the most interesting, consequential, and illustrious part of this Adams’ life, like John, occurred before and after his one unhappy term as president.
Before the account of the younger Adams’ presidency, Remini makes a stunning claim:
John Quincy Adams is arguably the greatest secretary of state to serve that office.
There are compelling reasons for that argument. First of all, there is Adams’ pedigree. His parents saw to it that he was groomed throughout his life for service to his country, particularly as a diplomat. He in fact, did serve as an effective and often, imaginative emissary for his country prior to being tapped as President Monroe’s chief diplomat.
Adding to Remini’s argument is Adams’ actual performance as secretary of state. It was he who formulated what came to be called the Monroe Doctrine, a strong foundational principle that has guided US diplomacy in the Western Hemisphere for two centuries.
In his post-presidential years, Adams’ political career was given a resurrection. Voters in Massachusetts saw fit to elect him to the House of Representatives. There, as an elder statesman who sometimes employed shrill rhetoric, sometimes soared beyond his natural gifts as an orator, he fought the institution of slavery. While he wasn’t necessarily all-out against the peculiar institution and may have been, as Remini suggests, politically motivated, seeking revenge against the southern Democrats who sabotaged his administration as president, he played an important role in the development of opposition to slavery.
I loved reading Remini’s biography of Henry Clay several years ago. His expertise in the history of the period of Clay’s, Jackson’s, and Adams’ life is clear. In spite of the brevity of this text, he successfully evokes the feeling of the period and his take on the life and character of John Quincy Adams is well-founded. While one may disagree or have reservations about his interpretation of events, this is a fine book written by a great practitioner of the historian's art.
Monday, July 05, 2004
My Cackling Metabolism Thingy (The Column Version)
[Below is the column version of my recent essay on my weight gain. I hope you enjoy it.]
It started shortly after my forty-ninth birthday. Until then, I’d been able to eat baked goods with impunity. I “breakfasted” each day on four slices of wheat toast, along with OJ and a banana. Sandwiches were a usual part of my diet. I loved occasionally stuffing slices of dry bread into my mouth. Cookies, sweet rolls, specialty breads, and other baked goodies have all been perennial favorites.
I was able to eat this stuff and keep my weight under control. I never even thought about how much I weighed. From age thirty, I stayed at about 159-pounds.
Then my brain issued orders to my metabolism thingy---that’s the technical term I use for it. The order: Get older; slow the process by which you break down and process all those baked items. My metabolism thingy obeyed.
At first, I didn’t notice because just as this order was issued, my wife came home from work with news. She and her fellow employees and their families had been offered a special deal for membership at a local gym. I was enthusiastic about the idea of joining. We checked the gym out and got a membership. Being a cheapskate, I decided not to pay the extra money for a few sessions with a personal trainer. Later, I realized that the sessions would have helped familiarize me with the torture devices there and ultimately, prevented problems. But I didn’t know that then. The music videos playing in the gym kept me from hearing my metabolism-thingy laughing at my ignorance. I’ve come to recognize its cackle since.
Because I’d never really worked out regularly, I knew that I needed to ramp my exercising up slowly. That’s why one month into hitting the gym for an average of four days a week, I was only doing 200 crunches a session.
“That’s Britney country!” my doctor’s assistant told me the day I went in for my appointment, complaining of some “mysterious” pain in my groin. It shouldn’t have been a mystery: I had herniated myself. That’s when I first noticed the cackling.
It was a mild hernia. The doctor said that I should lay off lower-body exercises for awhile. I focused on my upper body. But I would take it slow!
I thought I did. One night though, using weights, I felt a crunching in my neck and shoulder. I ignored it. I shouldn’t have; I was damaging my neck and rotator cuff. I’ve been in physical therapy ever since. For the first few months of that process, I wasn’t allowed any exercise.
That’s when the cackling got really loud. It came because my metabolism thingy saw an opening to full implementation of its orders. It came because another habit I’d developed in the months I’d been working out was devouring every baked good in sight after I returned, famished, from the gym. No longer engaging in the habit of exercise, I nonetheless kept on with the habit ot eating to excess. I ballooned. One morning, I weighed myself and found that I was now 179 pounds! Half my pants no longer fit and the other half are a stretch.
I’m still in physical therapy, improving. But I weigh too much. I walk a lot and I’m going to the gym about three times a week to work on the elliptical walker. I’m cutting down on the baked stuff. One week into this new regimen, I’ve lost a two-pounds-and-a-half.
I figure I owe it to God to get into better shape. The Bible says that our bodies are temples of God, not dumping grounds for cinnamon bread and Ho-Ho’s. I owe it to my family, too; I want them to be able to stand looking at me. And I owe it to my pants, straining under the added pressure from my midsection.
Those are good reasons for losing weight. But mostly, I want to stop that incessant cackling from my metabolism thingy.
It started shortly after my forty-ninth birthday. Until then, I’d been able to eat baked goods with impunity. I “breakfasted” each day on four slices of wheat toast, along with OJ and a banana. Sandwiches were a usual part of my diet. I loved occasionally stuffing slices of dry bread into my mouth. Cookies, sweet rolls, specialty breads, and other baked goodies have all been perennial favorites.
I was able to eat this stuff and keep my weight under control. I never even thought about how much I weighed. From age thirty, I stayed at about 159-pounds.
Then my brain issued orders to my metabolism thingy---that’s the technical term I use for it. The order: Get older; slow the process by which you break down and process all those baked items. My metabolism thingy obeyed.
At first, I didn’t notice because just as this order was issued, my wife came home from work with news. She and her fellow employees and their families had been offered a special deal for membership at a local gym. I was enthusiastic about the idea of joining. We checked the gym out and got a membership. Being a cheapskate, I decided not to pay the extra money for a few sessions with a personal trainer. Later, I realized that the sessions would have helped familiarize me with the torture devices there and ultimately, prevented problems. But I didn’t know that then. The music videos playing in the gym kept me from hearing my metabolism-thingy laughing at my ignorance. I’ve come to recognize its cackle since.
Because I’d never really worked out regularly, I knew that I needed to ramp my exercising up slowly. That’s why one month into hitting the gym for an average of four days a week, I was only doing 200 crunches a session.
“That’s Britney country!” my doctor’s assistant told me the day I went in for my appointment, complaining of some “mysterious” pain in my groin. It shouldn’t have been a mystery: I had herniated myself. That’s when I first noticed the cackling.
It was a mild hernia. The doctor said that I should lay off lower-body exercises for awhile. I focused on my upper body. But I would take it slow!
I thought I did. One night though, using weights, I felt a crunching in my neck and shoulder. I ignored it. I shouldn’t have; I was damaging my neck and rotator cuff. I’ve been in physical therapy ever since. For the first few months of that process, I wasn’t allowed any exercise.
That’s when the cackling got really loud. It came because my metabolism thingy saw an opening to full implementation of its orders. It came because another habit I’d developed in the months I’d been working out was devouring every baked good in sight after I returned, famished, from the gym. No longer engaging in the habit of exercise, I nonetheless kept on with the habit ot eating to excess. I ballooned. One morning, I weighed myself and found that I was now 179 pounds! Half my pants no longer fit and the other half are a stretch.
I’m still in physical therapy, improving. But I weigh too much. I walk a lot and I’m going to the gym about three times a week to work on the elliptical walker. I’m cutting down on the baked stuff. One week into this new regimen, I’ve lost a two-pounds-and-a-half.
I figure I owe it to God to get into better shape. The Bible says that our bodies are temples of God, not dumping grounds for cinnamon bread and Ho-Ho’s. I owe it to my family, too; I want them to be able to stand looking at me. And I owe it to my pants, straining under the added pressure from my midsection.
Those are good reasons for losing weight. But mostly, I want to stop that incessant cackling from my metabolism thingy.
Sunday, July 04, 2004
A Good Read for Pastors...Veterans or Rookies
During my recent trip to Disney World, I was able to read several books and start reading two others. In this post, I'll comment on one of the books I read. In my next one, I'll review the other. And I'll shut-up about the other two until I've actually finished reading them.
One of the books I read during the trip is one I'd already read, really.
Among the reasons I like to keep books is that, especially as I grow older, I don't always get as much out of them the first time through as I might were my mind a fresher slate. Second and third readings often hammer points home for me that I missed before.
Besides, I've always regarded good books as good friends. The thing about good friends is that no matter how much time passes between your visits with them, you can pick right up where you left off and still have those feelings of closeness you so value.
Back in 1986, I read a simple little book by two Lutheran pastors. It was called The Penguin Principles: A Survival Manual for Clergy Seeking Maturity in Ministry. At the time, I'd been a pastor for about a year-and-a-half, wrestling with the enormity of the task of leading a church and feeling some frustration that the reality didn't match my previous ideals. (And I had those feelings in spite of the fact that I still think my first congregation was and is among the very best churches I've ever experienced or known about!) The good humor and common sense of authors David Belasic and Paul M. Schmidt came as gusts of fresh air and reassurance for me. The Penguin Principles was a reality check and a confidence booster.
For some reason, my wife also read the book back then and told me, "You should read this little book once a year." Being a typical husband, I heard what she said, but didn't heed it.
Eighteen years later, I decided to re-read the book and I have to say what most husbands probably should get around to admitting eventually: My wife was right. Reading it as a seasoned pastor serving my second parish, I can says that The Penguin Principles, is still a reality check and a confidence booster.
Early on, Belasic and Schmidt say:
I like the honesty in that statement and the implicit recognition that we learn and grow more from our failures than we ever do from what are regarded as successes.
The principles in this book--six in all--are rooted in the assurance that no matter how things look, God is still in control of the Church, God loves imperfect people (including pastors), and that over time, no matter the indications to the contrary, God's will is done. The two-thousand-plus year history of the Church seems to confirm Belasic's and Schmidt's notions.
The principles include the following.
(1) The Five Percent Principle:
Stifle your horror for a second. This principle is nothing more than a simple recognition of the Biblical doctrine of original sin. We are born in sin and those of us who receive Christ are never anything more than recovering sinners. Any honest pastor will acknowledge that they are sinners--forgiven sinners, but sinners nonetheless. So, it should never come as a surprise to pastors when their parishioners act from less than pure motives. (Nor should it surprise us when we act from less than pure motives.)
Rather than horrifying me, this principle causes me to stand slack-jawed before the Lord when I realize how many wonderful things He accomplishes through imperfect pastors and church folks. That's clearly attributable to what we Christians call "grace," God's undeserved favor and acceptance.
(2) The Inverse Insight Principle
Belasic and Schmidt explain, "People don't always say what they mean! If you watch what they do, you will have a better idea of how they really feel."
Does that mean that people are liars? Not intentionally so, no. But people have good intentions and because of their humanity and the circumstances that can push all of us around, they don't always do what they intend to do.
Years ago, a couple came to our congregation, anxious to get involved. Their intentions were good and I was excited. They were capable people, full of enthusiasm and great ideas. They were with us for about six weeks. But right after their child was baptized, we never saw them again. They weren't liars, just human beings. My guess is that they'd really wanted to be involved with our congregation, that they were earnest in their desire to take part in its mission. But having missed a few weeks and then a few weeks more, the chances are they felt a sense of embarrassment about not returning. That's sad. But the worst thing I can do as a pastor is villify people struggling already with embarrassment and guilt. I can pray though, that the experience of grace and love that good-intentioned-but-poor-performing people experience in our congregation will incite them to want to know the God Who loves and accepts imperfect people. Maybe it will even incite them to find another congregation where they can confidently enact some of their good intentions.
(3) The Ecclesiastical Friction Principle
The local church can be a cumbersome machine, a Rube Goldberg-concoction that seems devised to prevent the fulfillment of Christ's mission for the church. Church members are usually well-meaning. They have notions of what the church should be and shouldn't be. New ideas, however rooted in Scripture, throw them off. And Belasic and Schmidt imply that the more the church tries to organize itself, the more paralyzed it becomes.
Again, the wise pastor is the one who rejoices when good things do get done by the church.
Say Belasic and Schmidt:
(4) The Creative Ignorance Principle
Recently, I was chatting with the volunteer youth minister of our congregation, a dedicated Christian who wants to serve Christ and the church. From my perspective of twenty years as a parish pastor, I lectured him---lovingly, I hope---about the importance of not doing everything in the church.
The fact is, just as surely as we can always find people who do things better than we can, there are also others who do things less ably than us. Just because people are not as capable as we are at certain tasks doesn't mean that we pastors shouldn't recruit them to do them. I love what Pastor Rick Warren says: "Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly."
When pastors and other church leaders do everything, it leaves the rest of the church with nothing to do. We turn our congregations into spectators, rather than fellow servants of Christ. In spite of incessantly proclaiming that through Christ, God accepts us just as we are, we pastors seem to undermine that proclamation by playing omnicompetent super heroes (without the tights). We leave no room for others to exercise their gifts from God. We deny people the opprtunity to do the one thing that will most help them grow as followers of Christ: to fail.
Belasic and Schmidt say that it's particularly important for pastors to be less-than-good at things that aren't central to their duties. They write:
(5) The Tweaking Principle
Pastors tend to be "pleasers," nice gals and guys. We confuse being Christian with being nice. We forget that the Bible counsels us with advice like, "Be angry...but do not sin." It tells us to "Speak the truth in love." Jesus assumed that people might disagree in the church. That was why He gave us, in the Gospel of Matthew, guidelines for handling disputes.
But we pastors usually bend over backwards to avoid conflict. Say Belasic and Schmidt:
(6) The Pastor Principle
If there are times when pastors must tell their churches what they want, they mustn't be selfish and they must always remember that the people of their congregations are children of God who, above all, need love.
To achieve anything worthwhile, pastors must exercise patience. This has been the hardest thing for me to learn in my twenty years as a pastor. And I've learned also that the only way God can teach patience to us is to force us to be patient.
This is a wonderful book! But why Penguin Principles? Belasic and Schmidt explain:
Re-reading this book brought me back to my work with a renewed patience with myself and others, a renewed commitment to love others as I am loved by my Savior, and to do my work with humor and goodwill.
One of the books I read during the trip is one I'd already read, really.
Among the reasons I like to keep books is that, especially as I grow older, I don't always get as much out of them the first time through as I might were my mind a fresher slate. Second and third readings often hammer points home for me that I missed before.
Besides, I've always regarded good books as good friends. The thing about good friends is that no matter how much time passes between your visits with them, you can pick right up where you left off and still have those feelings of closeness you so value.
Back in 1986, I read a simple little book by two Lutheran pastors. It was called The Penguin Principles: A Survival Manual for Clergy Seeking Maturity in Ministry. At the time, I'd been a pastor for about a year-and-a-half, wrestling with the enormity of the task of leading a church and feeling some frustration that the reality didn't match my previous ideals. (And I had those feelings in spite of the fact that I still think my first congregation was and is among the very best churches I've ever experienced or known about!) The good humor and common sense of authors David Belasic and Paul M. Schmidt came as gusts of fresh air and reassurance for me. The Penguin Principles was a reality check and a confidence booster.
For some reason, my wife also read the book back then and told me, "You should read this little book once a year." Being a typical husband, I heard what she said, but didn't heed it.
Eighteen years later, I decided to re-read the book and I have to say what most husbands probably should get around to admitting eventually: My wife was right. Reading it as a seasoned pastor serving my second parish, I can says that The Penguin Principles, is still a reality check and a confidence booster.
Early on, Belasic and Schmidt say:
The Penguin Principles are the results of many failures and a great deal of "slow learning" to determine what actually works in the parish ministry as it is. Through the years the Penguin Principles became the means by which God gave us a new maturity and joy in the ministry.
I like the honesty in that statement and the implicit recognition that we learn and grow more from our failures than we ever do from what are regarded as successes.
The principles in this book--six in all--are rooted in the assurance that no matter how things look, God is still in control of the Church, God loves imperfect people (including pastors), and that over time, no matter the indications to the contrary, God's will is done. The two-thousand-plus year history of the Church seems to confirm Belasic's and Schmidt's notions.
The principles include the following.
(1) The Five Percent Principle:
Despite the pious things we say, at any given time, less than five percent of any group of people in the church is operating with purely Christian motivation. The other ninety-five percent is asking, "What's in it for me?"
Stifle your horror for a second. This principle is nothing more than a simple recognition of the Biblical doctrine of original sin. We are born in sin and those of us who receive Christ are never anything more than recovering sinners. Any honest pastor will acknowledge that they are sinners--forgiven sinners, but sinners nonetheless. So, it should never come as a surprise to pastors when their parishioners act from less than pure motives. (Nor should it surprise us when we act from less than pure motives.)
Rather than horrifying me, this principle causes me to stand slack-jawed before the Lord when I realize how many wonderful things He accomplishes through imperfect pastors and church folks. That's clearly attributable to what we Christians call "grace," God's undeserved favor and acceptance.
(2) The Inverse Insight Principle
Most of the time, in the world of the church, things are not what they appear to be.
Belasic and Schmidt explain, "People don't always say what they mean! If you watch what they do, you will have a better idea of how they really feel."
Does that mean that people are liars? Not intentionally so, no. But people have good intentions and because of their humanity and the circumstances that can push all of us around, they don't always do what they intend to do.
Years ago, a couple came to our congregation, anxious to get involved. Their intentions were good and I was excited. They were capable people, full of enthusiasm and great ideas. They were with us for about six weeks. But right after their child was baptized, we never saw them again. They weren't liars, just human beings. My guess is that they'd really wanted to be involved with our congregation, that they were earnest in their desire to take part in its mission. But having missed a few weeks and then a few weeks more, the chances are they felt a sense of embarrassment about not returning. That's sad. But the worst thing I can do as a pastor is villify people struggling already with embarrassment and guilt. I can pray though, that the experience of grace and love that good-intentioned-but-poor-performing people experience in our congregation will incite them to want to know the God Who loves and accepts imperfect people. Maybe it will even incite them to find another congregation where they can confidently enact some of their good intentions.
(3) The Ecclesiastical Friction Principle
There is a friction in the church that burns up enormous energy, consumes endless hours, smothers creativity, impedes progress and often creates little heat.
The local church can be a cumbersome machine, a Rube Goldberg-concoction that seems devised to prevent the fulfillment of Christ's mission for the church. Church members are usually well-meaning. They have notions of what the church should be and shouldn't be. New ideas, however rooted in Scripture, throw them off. And Belasic and Schmidt imply that the more the church tries to organize itself, the more paralyzed it becomes.
Again, the wise pastor is the one who rejoices when good things do get done by the church.
Say Belasic and Schmidt:
Despite human efforts to impede it, the church seems to plod onward at God's own speed. It pays not to take human efforts too seriously. It's the "shove from above," not the "blow from the below" that makes God's churches go!
(4) The Creative Ignorance Principle
In the ministry it is better not to know some things, even if you have to forget them forcefully.
Recently, I was chatting with the volunteer youth minister of our congregation, a dedicated Christian who wants to serve Christ and the church. From my perspective of twenty years as a parish pastor, I lectured him---lovingly, I hope---about the importance of not doing everything in the church.
The fact is, just as surely as we can always find people who do things better than we can, there are also others who do things less ably than us. Just because people are not as capable as we are at certain tasks doesn't mean that we pastors shouldn't recruit them to do them. I love what Pastor Rick Warren says: "Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly."
When pastors and other church leaders do everything, it leaves the rest of the church with nothing to do. We turn our congregations into spectators, rather than fellow servants of Christ. In spite of incessantly proclaiming that through Christ, God accepts us just as we are, we pastors seem to undermine that proclamation by playing omnicompetent super heroes (without the tights). We leave no room for others to exercise their gifts from God. We deny people the opprtunity to do the one thing that will most help them grow as followers of Christ: to fail.
Belasic and Schmidt say that it's particularly important for pastors to be less-than-good at things that aren't central to their duties. They write:
Being selectively dunce-like is important and very healthy in the long run. Parish Penguins stand tall. You were not called to your profession to know it all or to do it all!
(5) The Tweaking Principle
They'll only do it to you if you let 'em.
Pastors tend to be "pleasers," nice gals and guys. We confuse being Christian with being nice. We forget that the Bible counsels us with advice like, "Be angry...but do not sin." It tells us to "Speak the truth in love." Jesus assumed that people might disagree in the church. That was why He gave us, in the Gospel of Matthew, guidelines for handling disputes.
But we pastors usually bend over backwards to avoid conflict. Say Belasic and Schmidt:
Short as he is, the penguin stands straight with dignity. A courageous way pastors can stop others from treating them unfairly is to stand tall with dignity and "ask for what they want."
(6) The Pastor Principle
The ultimate principle for pastors is "tough love" that looks beyond the irritation of the moment and in the strength of Christ loves people as they are.
If there are times when pastors must tell their churches what they want, they mustn't be selfish and they must always remember that the people of their congregations are children of God who, above all, need love.
To achieve anything worthwhile, pastors must exercise patience. This has been the hardest thing for me to learn in my twenty years as a pastor. And I've learned also that the only way God can teach patience to us is to force us to be patient.
This is a wonderful book! But why Penguin Principles? Belasic and Schmidt explain:
The more we studied about penguins and their life in the Antarctic, the more apt the comparison seemed to be.
Penguins seem to have that unique dignity that many people expect of the pastor. Yet, as dignified as penguins seem to be, they look so ridiculous as they waddle around on the ice. Something of that same absurd dignity applies to the pastor's ministry as it really is. The task is so "glorious," but we are so laughable as we blunder through in the work of the kingdom!
Re-reading this book brought me back to my work with a renewed patience with myself and others, a renewed commitment to love others as I am loved by my Savior, and to do my work with humor and goodwill.
The Happiness Project: The Diet That Will Make You Happy
Matthew 5:1-2, 6
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, July4, 2004)
Keith Miller was successful in the oil exploration business in Texas. He was married and had two beautiful daughters. But in short succession, he was forced to deal with one terrible event after another: his father suddenly died of a heart attack; his brother was killed in a plane crash; his mother contracted cancer. While helping his mom through the final stages of her life, Keith, who'd seemed capable of handling everything with unflappability, suddenly found himself overcome by anxiety.
This really threw him for a loop. As a boy whose father had by and large ignored him, Keith had tried to prove himself, first to his dad and then to himself and lastly, to the world. He’d been a confident conqueror as a student, an athlete, and a businessperson. He thought that he really could handle anything. But now he doubted himself. He couldn’t face all that life had thrown his way. That was when something happened to Keith Miller. He writes about it in a book called, A Hunger for Healing:
For the next few years, Keith Miller experienced the peace of Christ. He began to help others know Christ’s peace too. He left the business world and took on the direction of a conference center where ordinary Christians and those exploring Christian faith could come and open themselves to Christ the way Keith had done on that Texas roadside. He even became a best-selling author, helping others to experience God’s goodness. But slowly, without even knowing it, Keith Miller found the old habits and motivations taking over his life again, the old dependence on self instead of God. He was more of a workaholic than ever, still driven to conquer. As a result, he spent less and less time with his family. “I neglected my family,” he writes, “just as my father had neglected me. Because I was doing it for Jesus [or so he thought], it was hard to criticize.” Complimented constantly and enjoying success as an author and speaker, Keith began to suspect that he was “a special and gifted person.” He couldn’t understand why his wife and family weren’t as happy with his “success” as he was.
An afterthought in Keith’s life, his wife convinced him that their marriage must come to an end. Keith was devastated. What made things worse is that with the exception of a few people, church leaders from around the country who had, just a short time before endorsed and applauded him and been close to him, were now ignoring him. He realized the truth of one observer’s words: The church is the only army in the world that shoots its wounded. He began to become bitter until one day, during a time of prayer, he sensed that God was speaking to his heart:
That became the trigger for Keith Miller to begin taking honest stock of himself. He realized that even while he’d been busy telling others about the God Who is big enough and loving enough to take all of our burdens—all our sins, all our hurts—and give us new lives, Keith had still been trying to be a conqueror. He’d been worshiping himself, trying to get the whole world to join in lifting him up as a master of the universe. He so hungered for a sense that his life mattered that, in spite of the faith in Christ he professed, he was still caught in the trap of trying to prove himself to the world, to God, and to himself.
We all hunger for what one pastor calls the cosmic okie-dokie. We all want to know that we’ve arrived, that we’ve achieved some sort of success in the game of life. Each of us is born with a hunger and a thirst to know that something about our lives has mattered. That appetite for significance can drive us to measure our lives by how much property we accumulate, how many sex partners we’ve had, how much knowledge we pile up. The possibilities are endless. And it should be said that there is nothing wrong with trying to achieve things in life. God gives us talents and abilities. And it is a sin not to use the abilities that God gives to us in the ways God leads us to use them. But, as Keith Miller’s experience demonstrates, nothing that you and I can achieve through the use of our talents can ever truly satisfy the hunger we all have to know that our lives matter, that we are valued, that our existences count for something.
Jesus says: “Blessed, happy, fortunate are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” The happy people are those who hunger for righteousness; they’re the ones who get the cosmic okie-dokie. But what is righteousness exactly? Righteous people are people who are right with God. They’re not perfect. They’re forgiven. They’re reconciled to God. They’re empowered to live the best versions of their lives possible. They live in confident anticipation of eternity.
Jesus once told the story of two men who went to the temple in Jerusalem to pray. Both of them were hungry to know their lives mattered. But each fed themselves in different ways, one on junk food and the other on God. The first was a member of the religious group called the Pharisees. They were spiritual workaholics. They believed that if they abided by certain rules, they would be right with God. They fed themselves on holier-than-thou spiritual pride. The Pharisee in Jesus’ story prays: “God, I thank You that I’m not like other people. I obey Your rules, make the right offerings, and really, in every way, I’m a holy guy. I especially thank You that I’m not like that sinner standing over there a few feet away.”
The interesting thing about the man the Pharisee pointed out is that he would have agreed. He’d come to see himself as a sinner who needed to change. He was a tax collector, which in those days was a profession for extortionists. They were like mobsters running a protection racket. The Romans gave them franchises to collect a designated amount of taxes in a certain area and the tax collectors would shake down the area residents for lots more, threatening them with foreclosure and imprisonment if they didn’t pay up. The tax collector had tried to feed his hunger with the junk foods materialism, power, and other sins. But he regretted it all. He cried out to heaven, simply, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
After laying out those two vignettes, Jesus says that it was the tax collector and not the Pharisee who left the temple justified. The first of two brief Greek lessons, because the New Testament portion of the Bible is written in Greek: That word, justified, is the verb form of another word, righteous. What’s the point? The tax collector who regretted sin and hungered to be right with God was right with God, at the very moment he asked for mercy. He had the cosmic okie-dokie. He could face life in the knowledge that he was right with God. Those who hunger and thirst to be right with God will be satisfied.
But what about the rest of his life? Did the tax collector ever sin again? Did God’s mercy so fill him that he didn’t ever need to confess another sin or worship God or read God’s Word? Was his hunger for rightness taken care of forever? There are times when I get a real hunger for junk food. There are other times when I want good things. I think that as long as I live on earth, I will have to choose which diet I’m going to use: the one that’s bad for me or the one that’s good for me. This is exactly what Jesus is telling this morning about being right with God and experiencing happiness. The verbs hunger and thirst that Jesus uses today, are in what the grammarians call the durative present tense. That means that “hungering and thirsting” for righteousness isn’t a one-time thing. Our appetite for the cosmic okie dokie, the sense that we are accepted and okay, is with us every day. Keith Miller’s roadside cry to God brought him peace. But it didn’t banish sin completely from his life. Nor did it spare him the temptation of filling that hunger up with spiritual junk food—the applause of others, success. Instead, he had to begin to learn to choose his diet.
If we’re to maintain a right relationship with God, we need to keep hungering and thirsting for it. Our relationship with the God we know through Jesus must be the central object of our lives. We must, in that phrase of Luther’s, live in daily repentance and renewal, feeding on Christ and His love and power every day!
It’s a funny thing about God. He is the Master of universe, its founder and the One Who one day will bring it to an end. But even with all that power, He never forces Himself on us. We must cry out to Him and invite Him to be in our lives for it to happen. And that brings up a funny thing about us: God will fill us with Himself; but the more He fills us, the more we want Him with us all day, every day, 24/7. Keep hungering for God and no matter what life brings your way, you will always be happy!
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, July4, 2004)
Keith Miller was successful in the oil exploration business in Texas. He was married and had two beautiful daughters. But in short succession, he was forced to deal with one terrible event after another: his father suddenly died of a heart attack; his brother was killed in a plane crash; his mother contracted cancer. While helping his mom through the final stages of her life, Keith, who'd seemed capable of handling everything with unflappability, suddenly found himself overcome by anxiety.
This really threw him for a loop. As a boy whose father had by and large ignored him, Keith had tried to prove himself, first to his dad and then to himself and lastly, to the world. He’d been a confident conqueror as a student, an athlete, and a businessperson. He thought that he really could handle anything. But now he doubted himself. He couldn’t face all that life had thrown his way. That was when something happened to Keith Miller. He writes about it in a book called, A Hunger for Healing:
...finally, on a roadside in the tall pine woods country in east Texas, between Tyler and Longview, I turned to God in a desperate moment and offered Him my life. As soon as I did, I was relieved of my sense of shame, fear, and failure and was given new meaning in life: to tell people that there is hope if one will surrender to God as revealed in Jesus Christ.
For the next few years, Keith Miller experienced the peace of Christ. He began to help others know Christ’s peace too. He left the business world and took on the direction of a conference center where ordinary Christians and those exploring Christian faith could come and open themselves to Christ the way Keith had done on that Texas roadside. He even became a best-selling author, helping others to experience God’s goodness. But slowly, without even knowing it, Keith Miller found the old habits and motivations taking over his life again, the old dependence on self instead of God. He was more of a workaholic than ever, still driven to conquer. As a result, he spent less and less time with his family. “I neglected my family,” he writes, “just as my father had neglected me. Because I was doing it for Jesus [or so he thought], it was hard to criticize.” Complimented constantly and enjoying success as an author and speaker, Keith began to suspect that he was “a special and gifted person.” He couldn’t understand why his wife and family weren’t as happy with his “success” as he was.
An afterthought in Keith’s life, his wife convinced him that their marriage must come to an end. Keith was devastated. What made things worse is that with the exception of a few people, church leaders from around the country who had, just a short time before endorsed and applauded him and been close to him, were now ignoring him. He realized the truth of one observer’s words: The church is the only army in the world that shoots its wounded. He began to become bitter until one day, during a time of prayer, he sensed that God was speaking to his heart:
“Keith, quit blaming the Church for your sins. You’re the one who behaved sinfully [ignoring your family and thus, breaking up your marriage]...You deal with your own sin, and I’ll take care of the Church!”
That became the trigger for Keith Miller to begin taking honest stock of himself. He realized that even while he’d been busy telling others about the God Who is big enough and loving enough to take all of our burdens—all our sins, all our hurts—and give us new lives, Keith had still been trying to be a conqueror. He’d been worshiping himself, trying to get the whole world to join in lifting him up as a master of the universe. He so hungered for a sense that his life mattered that, in spite of the faith in Christ he professed, he was still caught in the trap of trying to prove himself to the world, to God, and to himself.
We all hunger for what one pastor calls the cosmic okie-dokie. We all want to know that we’ve arrived, that we’ve achieved some sort of success in the game of life. Each of us is born with a hunger and a thirst to know that something about our lives has mattered. That appetite for significance can drive us to measure our lives by how much property we accumulate, how many sex partners we’ve had, how much knowledge we pile up. The possibilities are endless. And it should be said that there is nothing wrong with trying to achieve things in life. God gives us talents and abilities. And it is a sin not to use the abilities that God gives to us in the ways God leads us to use them. But, as Keith Miller’s experience demonstrates, nothing that you and I can achieve through the use of our talents can ever truly satisfy the hunger we all have to know that our lives matter, that we are valued, that our existences count for something.
Jesus says: “Blessed, happy, fortunate are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” The happy people are those who hunger for righteousness; they’re the ones who get the cosmic okie-dokie. But what is righteousness exactly? Righteous people are people who are right with God. They’re not perfect. They’re forgiven. They’re reconciled to God. They’re empowered to live the best versions of their lives possible. They live in confident anticipation of eternity.
Jesus once told the story of two men who went to the temple in Jerusalem to pray. Both of them were hungry to know their lives mattered. But each fed themselves in different ways, one on junk food and the other on God. The first was a member of the religious group called the Pharisees. They were spiritual workaholics. They believed that if they abided by certain rules, they would be right with God. They fed themselves on holier-than-thou spiritual pride. The Pharisee in Jesus’ story prays: “God, I thank You that I’m not like other people. I obey Your rules, make the right offerings, and really, in every way, I’m a holy guy. I especially thank You that I’m not like that sinner standing over there a few feet away.”
The interesting thing about the man the Pharisee pointed out is that he would have agreed. He’d come to see himself as a sinner who needed to change. He was a tax collector, which in those days was a profession for extortionists. They were like mobsters running a protection racket. The Romans gave them franchises to collect a designated amount of taxes in a certain area and the tax collectors would shake down the area residents for lots more, threatening them with foreclosure and imprisonment if they didn’t pay up. The tax collector had tried to feed his hunger with the junk foods materialism, power, and other sins. But he regretted it all. He cried out to heaven, simply, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
After laying out those two vignettes, Jesus says that it was the tax collector and not the Pharisee who left the temple justified. The first of two brief Greek lessons, because the New Testament portion of the Bible is written in Greek: That word, justified, is the verb form of another word, righteous. What’s the point? The tax collector who regretted sin and hungered to be right with God was right with God, at the very moment he asked for mercy. He had the cosmic okie-dokie. He could face life in the knowledge that he was right with God. Those who hunger and thirst to be right with God will be satisfied.
But what about the rest of his life? Did the tax collector ever sin again? Did God’s mercy so fill him that he didn’t ever need to confess another sin or worship God or read God’s Word? Was his hunger for rightness taken care of forever? There are times when I get a real hunger for junk food. There are other times when I want good things. I think that as long as I live on earth, I will have to choose which diet I’m going to use: the one that’s bad for me or the one that’s good for me. This is exactly what Jesus is telling this morning about being right with God and experiencing happiness. The verbs hunger and thirst that Jesus uses today, are in what the grammarians call the durative present tense. That means that “hungering and thirsting” for righteousness isn’t a one-time thing. Our appetite for the cosmic okie dokie, the sense that we are accepted and okay, is with us every day. Keith Miller’s roadside cry to God brought him peace. But it didn’t banish sin completely from his life. Nor did it spare him the temptation of filling that hunger up with spiritual junk food—the applause of others, success. Instead, he had to begin to learn to choose his diet.
If we’re to maintain a right relationship with God, we need to keep hungering and thirsting for it. Our relationship with the God we know through Jesus must be the central object of our lives. We must, in that phrase of Luther’s, live in daily repentance and renewal, feeding on Christ and His love and power every day!
It’s a funny thing about God. He is the Master of universe, its founder and the One Who one day will bring it to an end. But even with all that power, He never forces Himself on us. We must cry out to Him and invite Him to be in our lives for it to happen. And that brings up a funny thing about us: God will fill us with Himself; but the more He fills us, the more we want Him with us all day, every day, 24/7. Keep hungering for God and no matter what life brings your way, you will always be happy!
Saturday, July 03, 2004
My Cackling Metabolism Thingy
I suppose it really started about six months after my forty-ninth birthday. All my life up to that point, I’d been able to eat breads and baked goods with impunity. For years, I’ve “breakfasted” on four slices of wheat toast--two with butter, two with butter and jelly. Sandwiches have always played a big part in my diet. And if I ever grew famished in the middle of the day, I happily stuffed a slice of dry wheat bread down my pie hole. Cookies, sweet rolls, specialty breads from fancy bakeries , and various other baked goodies have also been perennial favorites.
For forty-nine and a half years, I was able to eat all this stuff and keep my weight under control. In fact, I never even thought about my weight.
From age thirty, I stayed at about 159-pounds. Even at that, my doctor would occasionally issue mild warnings about my spare tire. But I suspected that he wasn’t that concerned.
Then it happened. My brain decided to issue orders to my metabolism. The message: Get older; slow the process by which you break down and process all those baked items. My metabolism thingy--the technical term I use to describe it because my knowledge of human physiology is virtually nil--apparently set to work (or, ore accurately, set to slow) with a vengeance. It had a mission and was determined to succeed.
At first, I didn’t notice. You see, at about the same time as this order was issued, my wife came home from work with news. She and her fellow employees and their families had been offered a special deal for membership at a local gym. I was enthusiastic about the idea of joining. We went, checked the gym out, got a membership, and being a cheapskate, I decided not to pay the extra money for a few sessions with a personal trainer. The music videos playing in the gym prevented me from hearing my metabolism-thingy laughing at my ignorance. But I’ve come to recognize its cackle in the months since.
Of course, because I’d never really worked out regularly, I recognized that I needed to ramp up slowly in developing an exercise regimen. I knew that people can get hurt if, at the start of a regular exercise program, they push too hard.
That’s why one month into hitting the gym for an average of four days a week, I was only doing 200 crunches a session. “That’s Britney country!” my doctor’s assistant told me the day I went in for my appointment, complaining of some “mysterious” pain in my groin. I guess it shouldn’t have been so mysterious: I had herniated myself. That’s when I first noticed the cackling.
It was a mild hernia. But the doctor said that I should lay off any lower-body exercises for awhile. That was okay with me. I decided to focus on getting my scrawny upper body buff. But I would learn the lesson of the crunches, I said. I would take it easy.
And so I did. Or I thought that I did. One night, I was using flyweights and felt a kind of crunching in my neck and shoulder. “No big deal,” I thought. “I’ll just finish my workout; probably just some stiffness and the exercise will do me good.” Wrong! Whoever invented the admonition, “Play through the pain” is unfamilar with the truth, “Pain is an indication that something is wrong.”
That crunching I heard was me damaging my neck and rotator cuff. I’ve been in physical therapy ever since. For the first few months of that process, I was not allowed to do any physical exercise.
That’s when the cackling got really loud. Though unable to exercise, another habit I’d developed from my nights at the gym continued. Back then, arriving home sweaty and hungry, I filled up on whatever caught my eye in the kitchen. At the time, I could afford it: I was sweating off calories. Not so now. But the feeding frenzy continued.
Then, one morning, fresh from the shower, I tried to push my way into a favorite pair of blue jeans. I couldn’t do it. Perplexed, I did something I’d rarely done in my life: I weighed myself at home and not at the doctor’s office. I couldn’t believe what I read! I had ballooned to 179 pounds. Literally half of my pants no longer fit and the other half are something of a stretch.
I’m still in physical therapy, gradually recuperating from injurues caused not just by my workouts, but by the amount of time spent writing and working at the computer. I walk a lot and I’m going to the gym about three times a week, just to work on the elliptical walker. And I’m cutting down on the bread. One week into this new regimen, I can report that I’ve lost a whopping two-pounds-and-a-half. I’m down to 176.5 pounds, according to my digital scales.
I figure I owe it to God to get into better shape. The Bible says that our bodies are temples of God, not dumping grounds for cinnamon bread and Ho-Ho’s. I owe it to my family, too; I want them to be able to stand looking at me. And I owe it to my poor pants, straining under the added pressure from my midsection.
Those are good reasons for losing weight. But mostly, I want to stop that incessant cackling from my metabolism thingy.
For forty-nine and a half years, I was able to eat all this stuff and keep my weight under control. In fact, I never even thought about my weight.
From age thirty, I stayed at about 159-pounds. Even at that, my doctor would occasionally issue mild warnings about my spare tire. But I suspected that he wasn’t that concerned.
Then it happened. My brain decided to issue orders to my metabolism. The message: Get older; slow the process by which you break down and process all those baked items. My metabolism thingy--the technical term I use to describe it because my knowledge of human physiology is virtually nil--apparently set to work (or, ore accurately, set to slow) with a vengeance. It had a mission and was determined to succeed.
At first, I didn’t notice. You see, at about the same time as this order was issued, my wife came home from work with news. She and her fellow employees and their families had been offered a special deal for membership at a local gym. I was enthusiastic about the idea of joining. We went, checked the gym out, got a membership, and being a cheapskate, I decided not to pay the extra money for a few sessions with a personal trainer. The music videos playing in the gym prevented me from hearing my metabolism-thingy laughing at my ignorance. But I’ve come to recognize its cackle in the months since.
Of course, because I’d never really worked out regularly, I recognized that I needed to ramp up slowly in developing an exercise regimen. I knew that people can get hurt if, at the start of a regular exercise program, they push too hard.
That’s why one month into hitting the gym for an average of four days a week, I was only doing 200 crunches a session. “That’s Britney country!” my doctor’s assistant told me the day I went in for my appointment, complaining of some “mysterious” pain in my groin. I guess it shouldn’t have been so mysterious: I had herniated myself. That’s when I first noticed the cackling.
It was a mild hernia. But the doctor said that I should lay off any lower-body exercises for awhile. That was okay with me. I decided to focus on getting my scrawny upper body buff. But I would learn the lesson of the crunches, I said. I would take it easy.
And so I did. Or I thought that I did. One night, I was using flyweights and felt a kind of crunching in my neck and shoulder. “No big deal,” I thought. “I’ll just finish my workout; probably just some stiffness and the exercise will do me good.” Wrong! Whoever invented the admonition, “Play through the pain” is unfamilar with the truth, “Pain is an indication that something is wrong.”
That crunching I heard was me damaging my neck and rotator cuff. I’ve been in physical therapy ever since. For the first few months of that process, I was not allowed to do any physical exercise.
That’s when the cackling got really loud. Though unable to exercise, another habit I’d developed from my nights at the gym continued. Back then, arriving home sweaty and hungry, I filled up on whatever caught my eye in the kitchen. At the time, I could afford it: I was sweating off calories. Not so now. But the feeding frenzy continued.
Then, one morning, fresh from the shower, I tried to push my way into a favorite pair of blue jeans. I couldn’t do it. Perplexed, I did something I’d rarely done in my life: I weighed myself at home and not at the doctor’s office. I couldn’t believe what I read! I had ballooned to 179 pounds. Literally half of my pants no longer fit and the other half are something of a stretch.
I’m still in physical therapy, gradually recuperating from injurues caused not just by my workouts, but by the amount of time spent writing and working at the computer. I walk a lot and I’m going to the gym about three times a week, just to work on the elliptical walker. And I’m cutting down on the bread. One week into this new regimen, I can report that I’ve lost a whopping two-pounds-and-a-half. I’m down to 176.5 pounds, according to my digital scales.
I figure I owe it to God to get into better shape. The Bible says that our bodies are temples of God, not dumping grounds for cinnamon bread and Ho-Ho’s. I owe it to my family, too; I want them to be able to stand looking at me. And I owe it to my poor pants, straining under the added pressure from my midsection.
Those are good reasons for losing weight. But mostly, I want to stop that incessant cackling from my metabolism thingy.
Friday, July 02, 2004
News stories of interest...
Dealing with the issue of the Bush campaign's desire to get church membership directories for political organizing purposes, check out and this one also.
Could I Have Your Attention Please, Mr. President?
Mr. President:
Let me put my cards on the table.
I am a deeply committed evangelical Christian---that is, a good news Christian. In my sometimes-liberal denomination, I occasionally take heat for that. But my reading of the Bible and my personal experience as a one-time atheist who fell in love with Jesus Christ, tell me that we need the Good News of forgiveness, new life, and hope that only Jesus gives. I believe that while God cares about all people, as a loving God, God grants to all the ability to say Yes or No to Him. As a follower of Jesus, my call is to help people know why it’s so wonderful when you say Yes to Him and the Good News of Jesus. If your campaign biographies are to be believed, you have similar sentiments.
I’m also a Republican: pro-life, pro-entrepreneurship, pro-frugal spending, and in favor of the kind of subtle and appropriate application of military, economic, and political power that have characterized Republican presidents like Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and your father in the first Gulf War. I was a Republican candidate for the state House of Representatives here in Ohio earlier this year.
But, Mr. President, I have been long concerned over the attempts by both Christian and Republican leaders to make it appear that if you’re a Christian, you must be a Republican. I have objected to this equation of "Christian" and "Republican" for several reasons.
First: It simply isn’t true. While I am aware of polling data showing a propensity for the religiously-affiliated to be conservative and Republican (and that conforms to my personal observations, as well), there are also deeply committed Christians who are liberals and Democrats.
The fact is, the Bible does not proscribe particular political or economic systems.
Christians are completely free to vote or not to vote. They're free to vote for Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Libertarians, independents, Martians, or anybody else they choose.
It is perfectly possible for Christians to study the Bible and pray about the appropriate exercise of their voting rights and conclude that they’re going to support a Democrat. God won’t send them to hell without an electric fan for that!
Second: The equation of any political ideology with the Gospel of Jesus Christ amounts to idol-worship.
To equate following Jesus to being a good Republican is really an attempt to make Jesus over in a particularly preferred image. That can't and shouldn't be done to the Savior we claim to be God-in-the-flesh!
The Christian should instead be committed to letting Jesus make us over in His image. Our prayer as citizens should never be, “Lord, bless what I believe,” but, “Lord, help me to believe and do what You bless.” That's why when we pray, we tell God, "Your will be done."
The ultimate call of all who seek to follow Jesus is to love God completely and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Republicans, Democrats, and independents may have different answers as to how they want to express that love of God and neighbor in the political realm. Only in heaven will we know who was right or wrong. Or, more accurately, how right or wrong we were.
But some preachers who back you and some Republicans who tout your candidacy for re-election seem to regard it as an article of faith that if people don’t bow down at the altar of conservative politics, your brand of conservative politics, they’re damned.
There is only one God, Mr. President: the God revealed through Jesus Christ. No -ism, philosophy, ideology, or program can contain Him or reflect Him perfectly. Nor can they command our allegiance. No political campaign can claim the endorsement of Jesus Christ or whittle Him down to sizes that suit our purposes!
I wish that you would say that publicly. I wish that you would tell your supporters that it is absolutely appropriate to pray about where they will stand on political issues and to be able to explain the line of reasoning that leads them from their faith in Christ to where they land politically.
But I wish that you would also tell them that you find it personally reprehensible for anybody to claim that they have a personal political pipeline to Jesus or to imply that God and the GOP have the same political agenda.
Third: Many of the attempts to proscribe specific behaviors that are advocated by your administration reflect a functional atheism, a refusal to believe that if we Christians will faithfully pray and share the Good News of Jesus, the Holy Spirit will help people to confess Jesus as Lord.
Christians are never to coerce people into acquiescence to Jesus' Lordship! Persuasion undergirded by God’s Spirit, not any political or economic program, is what we need in order to change people’s hearts and lives in our nation and our world.
It's true that we need government. Theologian Martin Luther said that God rules the world in two ways. First: God rules the hearts of those who have surrendered to Christ. Because Jesus is their Lord, they will tend, in spite of all humanity's shared inborn sin, to voluntarily do what is best for their neighbors and their community. Second: Through governments, God rules those who have not surrendered to Christ, forcing people to do what is best for all through coercion and law. Luther said that were it not for governmental authority, Christians would go through life like lambs amid ravenous wolves. For the good of all, we Christians also ought to submit to the authority of government, when it attempts to act justly.
Luther wrote in a pre-democratic time. As in Bible times, Luther, who lived from 1483 to 1546, lived in a time when nobody but royalty had a say in what governments did. In America, we believe that the people are sovereign and therefore have a “piece of the action” when it comes to governance. But the experiences of those times and places where kings imposed their religion on others---as they do today in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia and even, in its way, in China, where the government touts an atheist, economic determinism as its “religion"---should be a lesson to us. Yes, governments should enact legislation that prevents people from being hurt by others and to promote the well-being of all. But no government should impose a specific religion or form of morality on others. It is both un-Christian and un-American to do so. No partisans or adherents of one political philosophy should claim to be more righteous or worthy than opponents who may themselves, worship the same Christ and pray in His Name!
More broadly, no government should act as the agent of a specific religious belief system. Freedom of religion for all--the Christian as well as the non-Christian--is imperiled when people take it into their heads to impose their views on others. A government which imposes specifically Christian views this year may be replaced for example, by a Mormon government, with markedly different views the next year. The coercive imposition of our own particular faith values on others is dangerous, apt to create paybacks that are ultimately destructive of the cause of Christ and which are, in any case, contrary to how Jesus told us to do our mission as Christians.
Attempts to push a so-called "Christian social agenda" in the policies of government reflect a belief that God isn’t big enough, persuasive enough, loving enough, or real enough to use our humble, faithful, loving proclamations of Jesus Christ to really help people live differently.
Much of so-called “Christian political activism” is based on the unspoken fear that God is just too puny to get anything done. That’s why I label this brand of political activity as I do: It's atheism, a failure to trust in God to be God. And neither you or your campaign should be encouraging it or exploiting it, Mr. President. You should especially not be doing it at the same time that you're professing faith in the God Who can use people with faith in Him to do great things (Matthew 19:12), even if their faith is no bigger than a mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32).
These “Christian political activists” seem to overlook the fact that Jesus, God in the flesh, never took the reins of political, military, or economic power, never forced anybody to do things His way. The only people Jesus ever blasted were first, the Pharisees: religious folks who wanted to force people into conformity with their particular versions of following God and second, Herod, who made a habit of exploiting faith while not himself trusting God.
Rather than trying to impose their versions of Christian faith on others, Mr. President, some of your religious supporters would do well to read the Bible.
They might heed Peter when he writes: “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” (First Peter 3:15-16)
They might remember that faith can’t be coerced. Paul says, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit.” (First Corinthians 12:5)
It is frustrating to live in a culture that wants to turn its back on God, as is true of America today. But as Christians, we cannot allow our frustration with a disbelieving culture to cause us to give into defeatism. For it is defeatism that makes us fall prey to the un-Christian tactics of governmental coercion and moralism. That is not the way people are won for Christ!
The politician who is a Christian should simply strive to live his or her faith as best they can, praying over every decision and treating their opponents not as villains to be conquered, but as people (fellow sinners) for whom--just like us--Jesus died and rose. That's what every Christian citizen should expect of their political leaders who wear the label, "Christian."
I bring all of this up because of a Reuter’s news story that came out today. (You can click title above to get to the article.) It reports that your campaign is now asking churches for their membership rosters so that Christians can be organized for your campaign. A memo is even being circulated to “help” churches that want to have voter-registration rallies and candidate-education emphases during worship services.
Mr. President. As long as I’m a pastor, there will never be any political rallies intruding on worship of Almighty God of the church I serve!
There will never be any implication that to be a good Christian, you have to vote one way or another.
Your campaign--and no political campaign--will ever receive the membership roster of our congregation.
No candidate will ever be allowed to “say a few words” to the assembled congregation.
Mr. President, even when I ran for office this year, I told a supporter of mine not to stand up during the announcements, asking people to help my candidacy. I knew that good Christians had the right to vote for my opponents. The Church should avoid either the appearance or the reality of endorsing a candidate or political party.
The Church is not a political institution. The Church is not an outlet for George W. Bush or the Republican Party or any other poltiical group. Not only would that be objectionable for the reasons I’ve already mentioned, it’s also probably against federal statutes regulating the political activities of not-for-profit organizations.
So, Mr. President, I ask you to stop your campaign from going into the churches, holding political rallies, soliciting members’ names for political purposes, or doing anything else that obviously violates the sanctity of the Church’s mission and seeks to subordinate the Church to partisan politics. I hope that you will fire the campaign aides who concocted or enacted this strategy. It is reprehensible.
God bless you, Mr. President. I pray for you every day.
Let me put my cards on the table.
I am a deeply committed evangelical Christian---that is, a good news Christian. In my sometimes-liberal denomination, I occasionally take heat for that. But my reading of the Bible and my personal experience as a one-time atheist who fell in love with Jesus Christ, tell me that we need the Good News of forgiveness, new life, and hope that only Jesus gives. I believe that while God cares about all people, as a loving God, God grants to all the ability to say Yes or No to Him. As a follower of Jesus, my call is to help people know why it’s so wonderful when you say Yes to Him and the Good News of Jesus. If your campaign biographies are to be believed, you have similar sentiments.
I’m also a Republican: pro-life, pro-entrepreneurship, pro-frugal spending, and in favor of the kind of subtle and appropriate application of military, economic, and political power that have characterized Republican presidents like Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and your father in the first Gulf War. I was a Republican candidate for the state House of Representatives here in Ohio earlier this year.
But, Mr. President, I have been long concerned over the attempts by both Christian and Republican leaders to make it appear that if you’re a Christian, you must be a Republican. I have objected to this equation of "Christian" and "Republican" for several reasons.
First: It simply isn’t true. While I am aware of polling data showing a propensity for the religiously-affiliated to be conservative and Republican (and that conforms to my personal observations, as well), there are also deeply committed Christians who are liberals and Democrats.
The fact is, the Bible does not proscribe particular political or economic systems.
Christians are completely free to vote or not to vote. They're free to vote for Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Libertarians, independents, Martians, or anybody else they choose.
It is perfectly possible for Christians to study the Bible and pray about the appropriate exercise of their voting rights and conclude that they’re going to support a Democrat. God won’t send them to hell without an electric fan for that!
Second: The equation of any political ideology with the Gospel of Jesus Christ amounts to idol-worship.
To equate following Jesus to being a good Republican is really an attempt to make Jesus over in a particularly preferred image. That can't and shouldn't be done to the Savior we claim to be God-in-the-flesh!
The Christian should instead be committed to letting Jesus make us over in His image. Our prayer as citizens should never be, “Lord, bless what I believe,” but, “Lord, help me to believe and do what You bless.” That's why when we pray, we tell God, "Your will be done."
The ultimate call of all who seek to follow Jesus is to love God completely and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Republicans, Democrats, and independents may have different answers as to how they want to express that love of God and neighbor in the political realm. Only in heaven will we know who was right or wrong. Or, more accurately, how right or wrong we were.
But some preachers who back you and some Republicans who tout your candidacy for re-election seem to regard it as an article of faith that if people don’t bow down at the altar of conservative politics, your brand of conservative politics, they’re damned.
There is only one God, Mr. President: the God revealed through Jesus Christ. No -ism, philosophy, ideology, or program can contain Him or reflect Him perfectly. Nor can they command our allegiance. No political campaign can claim the endorsement of Jesus Christ or whittle Him down to sizes that suit our purposes!
I wish that you would say that publicly. I wish that you would tell your supporters that it is absolutely appropriate to pray about where they will stand on political issues and to be able to explain the line of reasoning that leads them from their faith in Christ to where they land politically.
But I wish that you would also tell them that you find it personally reprehensible for anybody to claim that they have a personal political pipeline to Jesus or to imply that God and the GOP have the same political agenda.
Third: Many of the attempts to proscribe specific behaviors that are advocated by your administration reflect a functional atheism, a refusal to believe that if we Christians will faithfully pray and share the Good News of Jesus, the Holy Spirit will help people to confess Jesus as Lord.
Christians are never to coerce people into acquiescence to Jesus' Lordship! Persuasion undergirded by God’s Spirit, not any political or economic program, is what we need in order to change people’s hearts and lives in our nation and our world.
It's true that we need government. Theologian Martin Luther said that God rules the world in two ways. First: God rules the hearts of those who have surrendered to Christ. Because Jesus is their Lord, they will tend, in spite of all humanity's shared inborn sin, to voluntarily do what is best for their neighbors and their community. Second: Through governments, God rules those who have not surrendered to Christ, forcing people to do what is best for all through coercion and law. Luther said that were it not for governmental authority, Christians would go through life like lambs amid ravenous wolves. For the good of all, we Christians also ought to submit to the authority of government, when it attempts to act justly.
Luther wrote in a pre-democratic time. As in Bible times, Luther, who lived from 1483 to 1546, lived in a time when nobody but royalty had a say in what governments did. In America, we believe that the people are sovereign and therefore have a “piece of the action” when it comes to governance. But the experiences of those times and places where kings imposed their religion on others---as they do today in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia and even, in its way, in China, where the government touts an atheist, economic determinism as its “religion"---should be a lesson to us. Yes, governments should enact legislation that prevents people from being hurt by others and to promote the well-being of all. But no government should impose a specific religion or form of morality on others. It is both un-Christian and un-American to do so. No partisans or adherents of one political philosophy should claim to be more righteous or worthy than opponents who may themselves, worship the same Christ and pray in His Name!
More broadly, no government should act as the agent of a specific religious belief system. Freedom of religion for all--the Christian as well as the non-Christian--is imperiled when people take it into their heads to impose their views on others. A government which imposes specifically Christian views this year may be replaced for example, by a Mormon government, with markedly different views the next year. The coercive imposition of our own particular faith values on others is dangerous, apt to create paybacks that are ultimately destructive of the cause of Christ and which are, in any case, contrary to how Jesus told us to do our mission as Christians.
Attempts to push a so-called "Christian social agenda" in the policies of government reflect a belief that God isn’t big enough, persuasive enough, loving enough, or real enough to use our humble, faithful, loving proclamations of Jesus Christ to really help people live differently.
Much of so-called “Christian political activism” is based on the unspoken fear that God is just too puny to get anything done. That’s why I label this brand of political activity as I do: It's atheism, a failure to trust in God to be God. And neither you or your campaign should be encouraging it or exploiting it, Mr. President. You should especially not be doing it at the same time that you're professing faith in the God Who can use people with faith in Him to do great things (Matthew 19:12), even if their faith is no bigger than a mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32).
These “Christian political activists” seem to overlook the fact that Jesus, God in the flesh, never took the reins of political, military, or economic power, never forced anybody to do things His way. The only people Jesus ever blasted were first, the Pharisees: religious folks who wanted to force people into conformity with their particular versions of following God and second, Herod, who made a habit of exploiting faith while not himself trusting God.
Rather than trying to impose their versions of Christian faith on others, Mr. President, some of your religious supporters would do well to read the Bible.
They might heed Peter when he writes: “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” (First Peter 3:15-16)
They might remember that faith can’t be coerced. Paul says, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit.” (First Corinthians 12:5)
It is frustrating to live in a culture that wants to turn its back on God, as is true of America today. But as Christians, we cannot allow our frustration with a disbelieving culture to cause us to give into defeatism. For it is defeatism that makes us fall prey to the un-Christian tactics of governmental coercion and moralism. That is not the way people are won for Christ!
The politician who is a Christian should simply strive to live his or her faith as best they can, praying over every decision and treating their opponents not as villains to be conquered, but as people (fellow sinners) for whom--just like us--Jesus died and rose. That's what every Christian citizen should expect of their political leaders who wear the label, "Christian."
I bring all of this up because of a Reuter’s news story that came out today. (You can click title above to get to the article.) It reports that your campaign is now asking churches for their membership rosters so that Christians can be organized for your campaign. A memo is even being circulated to “help” churches that want to have voter-registration rallies and candidate-education emphases during worship services.
Mr. President. As long as I’m a pastor, there will never be any political rallies intruding on worship of Almighty God of the church I serve!
There will never be any implication that to be a good Christian, you have to vote one way or another.
Your campaign--and no political campaign--will ever receive the membership roster of our congregation.
No candidate will ever be allowed to “say a few words” to the assembled congregation.
Mr. President, even when I ran for office this year, I told a supporter of mine not to stand up during the announcements, asking people to help my candidacy. I knew that good Christians had the right to vote for my opponents. The Church should avoid either the appearance or the reality of endorsing a candidate or political party.
The Church is not a political institution. The Church is not an outlet for George W. Bush or the Republican Party or any other poltiical group. Not only would that be objectionable for the reasons I’ve already mentioned, it’s also probably against federal statutes regulating the political activities of not-for-profit organizations.
So, Mr. President, I ask you to stop your campaign from going into the churches, holding political rallies, soliciting members’ names for political purposes, or doing anything else that obviously violates the sanctity of the Church’s mission and seeks to subordinate the Church to partisan politics. I hope that you will fire the campaign aides who concocted or enacted this strategy. It is reprehensible.
God bless you, Mr. President. I pray for you every day.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
The Happiness Project: The People Who Make a Difference
(Shared with the people of Friendship Church, June 27, 2004.)
While we should never worship heroes because God alone is worthy of our worship, I hope that none of us ever gets too old or jaded for having heroes! Heroes are people who, by their examples, demonstrate how ordinary, mortal, two-legged humanoids can be more and do more. They show us the potential that resides in each child of God.
One of my heroes, as you know, is Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War Two and for my money, one of the three best presidents of the twentieth century. Historian Stephen Ambrose said that if you and I live in a free Europe or America today, we can thank Dwight Eisenhower for it. Eisenhower, like the rest of us, was far from perfect. But he did what every person who achieves great things must do: he overcame himself. He defeated his deficiencies in order to become his better self.
As a boy, Eisenhower had a fierce temper, likely to explode at the tiniest provocation. Once, when he was ten years old, Eisenhower’s parents gave permission to his two older brothers to go “trick or treating” in their hometown of Abilene, Kansas. Dwight was told that he was too young for such an adventure. Eisenhower writes about the incident in his wonderful book, At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends:
An hour or so later, Eisenhower says, his mother came to his room. He was still sobbing in his pillow.
Ida Eisenhower proceeded to salve and bandage young Dwight’s hands. Writing more than sixty years later, Eisenhower says:
That simple incident, remembered vividly by Eisenhower until his dying day, may tell us everything we need to understand him. Why were the leaders and the people of the world willing to repose so much power and responsibility into his hands? In large part, it must have been because as a boy, his soft-spoken Mennonite mother, showed him the simple truth that over the long haul, whether here or in eternity, the best blessings don’t belong to the arrogant, the rude, the pushy, the self-serving, the angry, or the tyrants. She taught him the simple truth of Jesus’ words for us today: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth.”
This is the third portrait of blessedness, or happiness, that Jesus presents in a portion of His teachings recorded in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Taken together, the twelve verses we’re exploring are called The Beatitudes.
Today, Jesus tells us that happy people are meek. To our modern ears, that sounds crazy. Meek people, we think, are milquetoasts who let the world roll over them. But that isn’t the Bible’s or Jesus’ notion of meekness.
In his book, The Be Happy Attitudes, Robert Schuller mentions two people the Bible describes as being meek, possessing the sorts of personalities that will inherit the Earth.
One is Moses in the Old Testament. Moses was fierce, headstrong, prone to violence, and sometimes rebellious against God’s way of doing things. But in the end, Moses militated against his natural inclinations in order to surrender to God. Moses is meek.
Another person the Bible describes as meek is a certain carpenter from Nazareth, Jesus Himself. Jesus was God as well as man. It would have been easy for Him to diverge from the plan for His earthly life. He could have sidestepped the cross and plunged us all into eternal separation from God. Jesus wrestled with that very temptation in the garden of Gethsemane on the night of His arrest. But instead, Jesus took the painful path. He submitted to the Father’s will and went to a cross for us. Jesus was meek.
Meek people control or channel their personalities, bending them to the will of God.
They’re not weak; they’re focused, targeted to do God’s will, surrendered to God.
When meek people are leaders, they don’t lord their authority over others.
When meek people are followers, they don’t bellyache or whine; they do the work and live the life that God sets before them.
God’s meek people are happy because they in know that in turning from sin and following Christ, they will live with God forever.
The meek, it seems to me, exhibit three main characteristics. First, they’re sure of themselves and of their relationship with God. The meek don’t need to get even; but sometimes, they get a good laugh. In that same book I mentioned earlier, Robert Schuller tells a story told to him by a priest. Some nuns attended a baseball game and sat in front of some guys who’d probably had a few too many and didn‘t like Catholics. One of these guys said, “Let’s go to Texas; I hear there aren’t many Catholics there.” His friend said, “Let’s go to Oklahoma; I hear there are even fewer Catholics there.” The first guy, apparently finding himself witty, “Let’s go to Alaska; there are hardly no Catholics there.” At this, one of the nuns turned around and said, “Why don’t you both go to hell; there are no Catholics there?”
She knew that the meek will inherit the Earth!
A second characteristic of meek people is that they’re patient in doing right, even if it doesn’t seem to be paying off in the world’s way of measuring things. This past week, you know, I spent a little time down in Florida. As always seems to happen when I travel, the prime attractions were the people I met from all over the world. As happens any time that people meet, folks asked me what sort of work I did. When I told them the story of Friendship and of how we had worshiped in a school gym for twelve-and-a-half years, some asked how the church stayed together through such a trial. I just told them how incredibly faithful the people of Friendship Church are! I let them know that the folks of Friendship are so faithful to Christ that they stick with you through thin and thin and thin and thick!
People were amazed that there were and still are people in this congregation who waited all that time before getting into a building that we really wanted not just for ourselves, but to share with the community! It is amazing! But the meek, God’s blessed, happy people are patient in doing what they think God wants them to do!
Finally, meek people aren’t bowled over by setbacks. They’re stubborn in the pursuit of loving, godly, life-giving goals.
Mattie Stepanek died this past week. He, like his three older siblings, succumbed to a rare form of muscular dystrophy with which he was born. He was confined to a wheelchair through much of his short life. This extraordinary thirteen year old, who must have been a certifiable genius, began writing reflective poetry when he was three years old. Five of his books of poetry were best sellers, according the New York Times. Starting in 2002, he was a goodwill ambassador for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. His personal hero was Jimmy Carter, who became a friend of his and of his mother. Mattie was inspired by the former president’s efforts to promote peace in the world. Perhaps knowing firsthand how fragile life is, he was appalled by war and wanted to stop it.
If any of you ever saw Mattie Stepanek on TV, you know that he was a tiny boy in a wheelchair. His lungs had to be forced to breathe because his brain no longer knew how to orchestrate respiration on its own. Mattie Stepanek was hardly an intimidating brute. He smiled constantly and exuded joy. He showed a tough will to make a difference in life in spite of the raw deal that his genetics had given him. “My life mission,” he said, “is to spread peace to the world.” He never flagged in that pursuit.
The meek aren’t wimps! They’re tough-minded people who keep relying on God to become their best selves---full of love, humility, the resolve to do God’s will, hope, and happiness!
They’re sure of God and because of God, sure of themselves; they’re patient in doing right; they’re not bowled over by setbacks.
Five years ago, at the age of eight, Mattie Stepanek wrote a piece he called, On Being a Champion. When we surrender our lives, our past, our present, and our futures to Jesus Christ, we become champions in the eyes of the only One Whose judgment matters. We become one of God’s meek people.
We may not be counted successes by the world. But we will inherit every good and perfect blessing God gives to those who follow Jesus. We will be meek. And we will be happy.
While we should never worship heroes because God alone is worthy of our worship, I hope that none of us ever gets too old or jaded for having heroes! Heroes are people who, by their examples, demonstrate how ordinary, mortal, two-legged humanoids can be more and do more. They show us the potential that resides in each child of God.
One of my heroes, as you know, is Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War Two and for my money, one of the three best presidents of the twentieth century. Historian Stephen Ambrose said that if you and I live in a free Europe or America today, we can thank Dwight Eisenhower for it. Eisenhower, like the rest of us, was far from perfect. But he did what every person who achieves great things must do: he overcame himself. He defeated his deficiencies in order to become his better self.
As a boy, Eisenhower had a fierce temper, likely to explode at the tiniest provocation. Once, when he was ten years old, Eisenhower’s parents gave permission to his two older brothers to go “trick or treating” in their hometown of Abilene, Kansas. Dwight was told that he was too young for such an adventure. Eisenhower writes about the incident in his wonderful book, At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends:
I argued and pleaded [with my parents] until the last minute. Finally, the two boys took off. I have no memory of what happened immediately afterward, but I was completely beside myself. Suddenly my father grabbed my shoulders to shock me back into consciousness. What I had been doing was standing by an old apple tree trunk and pounding it with my bleeding fists, expressing resentment in rage. My father legislated the matter with the usual hickory switch and sent me off to bed.
An hour or so later, Eisenhower says, his mother came to his room. He was still sobbing in his pillow.
Mother sat in the rocking chair by the bed for a long time. Then she began to talk about temper and controlling it. Eventually, as she often did, she drew on the Bible, paraphrasing it, I suppose. This time she said, “He that conquereth his own soul is greater than he who taketh a city.” Hatred is a futile sort of thing, she said...the only person injured [by our anger is ourselves]...This was soothing, although she added that among all her [six] boys, I was the one who had the most to learn.
Ida Eisenhower proceeded to salve and bandage young Dwight’s hands. Writing more than sixty years later, Eisenhower says:
I have always looked back on that conversation as one of the most valuable moments of my life...she got me to acknowledge that I was wrong and I felt enough ease to fall off to sleep. The incident was never mentioned again. But to this day I make it a practice to avoid hating anyone.
That simple incident, remembered vividly by Eisenhower until his dying day, may tell us everything we need to understand him. Why were the leaders and the people of the world willing to repose so much power and responsibility into his hands? In large part, it must have been because as a boy, his soft-spoken Mennonite mother, showed him the simple truth that over the long haul, whether here or in eternity, the best blessings don’t belong to the arrogant, the rude, the pushy, the self-serving, the angry, or the tyrants. She taught him the simple truth of Jesus’ words for us today: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth.”
This is the third portrait of blessedness, or happiness, that Jesus presents in a portion of His teachings recorded in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Taken together, the twelve verses we’re exploring are called The Beatitudes.
Today, Jesus tells us that happy people are meek. To our modern ears, that sounds crazy. Meek people, we think, are milquetoasts who let the world roll over them. But that isn’t the Bible’s or Jesus’ notion of meekness.
In his book, The Be Happy Attitudes, Robert Schuller mentions two people the Bible describes as being meek, possessing the sorts of personalities that will inherit the Earth.
One is Moses in the Old Testament. Moses was fierce, headstrong, prone to violence, and sometimes rebellious against God’s way of doing things. But in the end, Moses militated against his natural inclinations in order to surrender to God. Moses is meek.
Another person the Bible describes as meek is a certain carpenter from Nazareth, Jesus Himself. Jesus was God as well as man. It would have been easy for Him to diverge from the plan for His earthly life. He could have sidestepped the cross and plunged us all into eternal separation from God. Jesus wrestled with that very temptation in the garden of Gethsemane on the night of His arrest. But instead, Jesus took the painful path. He submitted to the Father’s will and went to a cross for us. Jesus was meek.
Meek people control or channel their personalities, bending them to the will of God.
They’re not weak; they’re focused, targeted to do God’s will, surrendered to God.
When meek people are leaders, they don’t lord their authority over others.
When meek people are followers, they don’t bellyache or whine; they do the work and live the life that God sets before them.
God’s meek people are happy because they in know that in turning from sin and following Christ, they will live with God forever.
The meek, it seems to me, exhibit three main characteristics. First, they’re sure of themselves and of their relationship with God. The meek don’t need to get even; but sometimes, they get a good laugh. In that same book I mentioned earlier, Robert Schuller tells a story told to him by a priest. Some nuns attended a baseball game and sat in front of some guys who’d probably had a few too many and didn‘t like Catholics. One of these guys said, “Let’s go to Texas; I hear there aren’t many Catholics there.” His friend said, “Let’s go to Oklahoma; I hear there are even fewer Catholics there.” The first guy, apparently finding himself witty, “Let’s go to Alaska; there are hardly no Catholics there.” At this, one of the nuns turned around and said, “Why don’t you both go to hell; there are no Catholics there?”
She knew that the meek will inherit the Earth!
A second characteristic of meek people is that they’re patient in doing right, even if it doesn’t seem to be paying off in the world’s way of measuring things. This past week, you know, I spent a little time down in Florida. As always seems to happen when I travel, the prime attractions were the people I met from all over the world. As happens any time that people meet, folks asked me what sort of work I did. When I told them the story of Friendship and of how we had worshiped in a school gym for twelve-and-a-half years, some asked how the church stayed together through such a trial. I just told them how incredibly faithful the people of Friendship Church are! I let them know that the folks of Friendship are so faithful to Christ that they stick with you through thin and thin and thin and thick!
People were amazed that there were and still are people in this congregation who waited all that time before getting into a building that we really wanted not just for ourselves, but to share with the community! It is amazing! But the meek, God’s blessed, happy people are patient in doing what they think God wants them to do!
Finally, meek people aren’t bowled over by setbacks. They’re stubborn in the pursuit of loving, godly, life-giving goals.
Mattie Stepanek died this past week. He, like his three older siblings, succumbed to a rare form of muscular dystrophy with which he was born. He was confined to a wheelchair through much of his short life. This extraordinary thirteen year old, who must have been a certifiable genius, began writing reflective poetry when he was three years old. Five of his books of poetry were best sellers, according the New York Times. Starting in 2002, he was a goodwill ambassador for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. His personal hero was Jimmy Carter, who became a friend of his and of his mother. Mattie was inspired by the former president’s efforts to promote peace in the world. Perhaps knowing firsthand how fragile life is, he was appalled by war and wanted to stop it.
If any of you ever saw Mattie Stepanek on TV, you know that he was a tiny boy in a wheelchair. His lungs had to be forced to breathe because his brain no longer knew how to orchestrate respiration on its own. Mattie Stepanek was hardly an intimidating brute. He smiled constantly and exuded joy. He showed a tough will to make a difference in life in spite of the raw deal that his genetics had given him. “My life mission,” he said, “is to spread peace to the world.” He never flagged in that pursuit.
The meek aren’t wimps! They’re tough-minded people who keep relying on God to become their best selves---full of love, humility, the resolve to do God’s will, hope, and happiness!
They’re sure of God and because of God, sure of themselves; they’re patient in doing right; they’re not bowled over by setbacks.
Five years ago, at the age of eight, Mattie Stepanek wrote a piece he called, On Being a Champion. When we surrender our lives, our past, our present, and our futures to Jesus Christ, we become champions in the eyes of the only One Whose judgment matters. We become one of God’s meek people.
We may not be counted successes by the world. But we will inherit every good and perfect blessing God gives to those who follow Jesus. We will be meek. And we will be happy.
What If We Asked the Imagineers' Question? (Column Version)
[Below is the version of the third of my Walt Disney World reflections submitted for my column, appearing in the Community Press newspapers in the Cincinnati area.]
When looking for better ways of doing things, what’s the question we can ask that will unlock our creativity?
How about when we’re confronted with a nettlesome problem?
I recently leafed through a book produced by the Walt Disney company’s “imagineers.” The imagineers are that creative band of Disney folks who spawn a seemingly endless array of innovative animation techniques, intriguing theme park attractions, and fetching resort motifs.
One chapter said that the key question imagineers ask is, “What if...?”
As I read that, I reflected that every positive event in history probably started by asking that question.
Galileo must have asked, “What if my observations are true, that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around?”
The Wright Brothers probably asked, “What if a wing with the shape of a teardrop will give a flying machine the lift it needs to take flight?”
Martin Luther must have asked, “What if the Church is wrong and the Bible is right, that human beings don’t have to earn or buy an everlasting relationship with God? What if a relationship with God comes to human beings as the Bible says it does, as a gift to us when we turn from sin and turn to Christ for forgiveness and life?”
What if, in our daily lives, we asked that question more often?
What if the married couple stuck in a stalemate of mutual inattentiveness and resentment asked, “What if we wanted to make our marriage what God intended it to be? What would it take?”
What if parents, aware of how little time they spend with their kids and of the need to provide guidance for living to their children began to ask, “What if I wanted to become a “Cliff and Claire Huxtable, Ward and June Cleaver” kind of parent? How would we do that?”
The problem with asking “What if...?” is this: It gets our creative juices going. It impels us to move from dreaming to doing, just as it does Disney’s imagineers. That’s why we rarely ask the question. It’s a fearful thing to set sail against the winds of convention, common practice, and habit.
For the follower of Jesus Christ, it seems to me that failing to ask “What if...?” is a sin. God wants us to use our brains to improve life for ourselves and for others. In Genesis, God tells the human race:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of the Earth!” (Genesis 1:26-27, The Message translation)
This isn’t a license to lives spent in comfortable ruts.
It’s a mandate to ask, “What if...” and to see and enact new possibilities. In fact, it’s a mandate to see and enact what others might deem impossible.
Jesus says that all things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26). He also says that when we ask in His Name, He can make good things happen (John 14:13). We simply need to ask, “What if...?” and enlist the help of God. To God, impossibilities are mere impediments.
Every human being has a call to be an imagineer of the spirit! What if we all asked God to help us become our best and most positively achieving selves? The possibilities are endless!
When looking for better ways of doing things, what’s the question we can ask that will unlock our creativity?
How about when we’re confronted with a nettlesome problem?
I recently leafed through a book produced by the Walt Disney company’s “imagineers.” The imagineers are that creative band of Disney folks who spawn a seemingly endless array of innovative animation techniques, intriguing theme park attractions, and fetching resort motifs.
One chapter said that the key question imagineers ask is, “What if...?”
As I read that, I reflected that every positive event in history probably started by asking that question.
Galileo must have asked, “What if my observations are true, that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around?”
The Wright Brothers probably asked, “What if a wing with the shape of a teardrop will give a flying machine the lift it needs to take flight?”
Martin Luther must have asked, “What if the Church is wrong and the Bible is right, that human beings don’t have to earn or buy an everlasting relationship with God? What if a relationship with God comes to human beings as the Bible says it does, as a gift to us when we turn from sin and turn to Christ for forgiveness and life?”
What if, in our daily lives, we asked that question more often?
What if the married couple stuck in a stalemate of mutual inattentiveness and resentment asked, “What if we wanted to make our marriage what God intended it to be? What would it take?”
What if parents, aware of how little time they spend with their kids and of the need to provide guidance for living to their children began to ask, “What if I wanted to become a “Cliff and Claire Huxtable, Ward and June Cleaver” kind of parent? How would we do that?”
The problem with asking “What if...?” is this: It gets our creative juices going. It impels us to move from dreaming to doing, just as it does Disney’s imagineers. That’s why we rarely ask the question. It’s a fearful thing to set sail against the winds of convention, common practice, and habit.
For the follower of Jesus Christ, it seems to me that failing to ask “What if...?” is a sin. God wants us to use our brains to improve life for ourselves and for others. In Genesis, God tells the human race:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of the Earth!” (Genesis 1:26-27, The Message translation)
This isn’t a license to lives spent in comfortable ruts.
It’s a mandate to ask, “What if...” and to see and enact new possibilities. In fact, it’s a mandate to see and enact what others might deem impossible.
Jesus says that all things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26). He also says that when we ask in His Name, He can make good things happen (John 14:13). We simply need to ask, “What if...?” and enlist the help of God. To God, impossibilities are mere impediments.
Every human being has a call to be an imagineer of the spirit! What if we all asked God to help us become our best and most positively achieving selves? The possibilities are endless!
What If We Asked the Imagineers' Question? (Another Disney World Reflection)
When looking for a new and better way of doing things, what’s the question we can ask that will unlock our creativity?
How about when we’re confronted with a nettlesome problem?
Last week, while visiting Walt Disney World in Orlando, I spent some time window-shopping at Downtown Disney, a fantastic collection of shops, restaurants, and theaters. One of the shops specializes in selling Disney animation art: painted scenes from movies, numbered posters based on various animated features and characters, and other items. Being a book lover, though, I was naturally drawn to its books about Walt Disney and Disney’s animated art.
I leafed through one book produced by Disney’s “imagineers." The imagineers are that creative band of Disney “cast members” who spawn an array of innovative animation techniques, intriguing theme park attractions, and fetching resort motifs.
One passage in the book really struck me. It said that the most important question the imagineers ask is, “What if...?”
As I read that, I reflected that probably every positive event in history started by asking that question.
Galileo must have asked, “What if my observations are true, that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around?”
The Wright Brothers, toiling away with their wind tunnel experiments probably asked, “What if a wing with the shape of a teardrop will give a flying machine the lift it needs to take flight?”
Martin Luther must have asked, “What if the Church is wrong and the Bible is right, that human beings don’t have to earn or buy an everlasting relationship with God? What if a relationship with God comes to human beings as the Bible says it does, as a gift to us when we turn from sin and turn to Christ for forgiveness and life?”
“What if...?” is a powerful question and it rarely gets asked. Unfortunately, most of us are frightened to ask it. We’re stuck in our comfortable ruts. But, what if, in our personal lives, we asked that question more often?
What if the married couple stuck in a stalemate of mutual inattentiveness and resentment asked, “What if we wanted to make our marriage what God intended it to be? What would it take?”
What if parents, aware of how little time they spend with their kids and of the need to provide guidance for living to their children began to ask, “What if I wanted to become a Cliff and Claire Huxtable, Ward and June Cleaver kind of parent? How would we do that?”
What if suburbanites, fed up with the sprawl and lack of community they experience in their lives, asked, “What if we wanted to create a sense of place and togetherness here where we live?”
What if ordinary Americans, concerned about the perception of our country that seems to exist globally, decided to find creative ways to reach out to other nations and show what America is really all about?”
For the follower of Jesus Christ, it may be a sin when we fail to ask, “What if...?” God, after all, wants us to use our brains to improve life for ourselves and for others. In Genesis, God tells the human race:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of the Earth!” (Genesis 1:26-27, The Message translation)
This isn’t a license to lives spent in comfortable ruts. It’s a mandate to ask, “What if...” and to see and enact new possibilities.
In fact, it’s a mandate to see and enact what others might call impossible. As Dr. Gerald Mann frequently points out, there isn’t a positive achievement in the history of the world that wasn’t at first thought to be impossible.
Jesus says that all things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26). He also says that when we ask in His Name, He can make good things happen (John 14:13). It only takes people willing to ask, “What if...?” and to enlist the help of God. To God, impossibilities are mere impediments.
Every human being has a call to be an imagineer of the spirit! What if we all asked God to help us become our best and most positively achieving selves? The possibilities are endless!
How about when we’re confronted with a nettlesome problem?
Last week, while visiting Walt Disney World in Orlando, I spent some time window-shopping at Downtown Disney, a fantastic collection of shops, restaurants, and theaters. One of the shops specializes in selling Disney animation art: painted scenes from movies, numbered posters based on various animated features and characters, and other items. Being a book lover, though, I was naturally drawn to its books about Walt Disney and Disney’s animated art.
I leafed through one book produced by Disney’s “imagineers." The imagineers are that creative band of Disney “cast members” who spawn an array of innovative animation techniques, intriguing theme park attractions, and fetching resort motifs.
One passage in the book really struck me. It said that the most important question the imagineers ask is, “What if...?”
As I read that, I reflected that probably every positive event in history started by asking that question.
Galileo must have asked, “What if my observations are true, that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around?”
The Wright Brothers, toiling away with their wind tunnel experiments probably asked, “What if a wing with the shape of a teardrop will give a flying machine the lift it needs to take flight?”
Martin Luther must have asked, “What if the Church is wrong and the Bible is right, that human beings don’t have to earn or buy an everlasting relationship with God? What if a relationship with God comes to human beings as the Bible says it does, as a gift to us when we turn from sin and turn to Christ for forgiveness and life?”
“What if...?” is a powerful question and it rarely gets asked. Unfortunately, most of us are frightened to ask it. We’re stuck in our comfortable ruts. But, what if, in our personal lives, we asked that question more often?
What if the married couple stuck in a stalemate of mutual inattentiveness and resentment asked, “What if we wanted to make our marriage what God intended it to be? What would it take?”
What if parents, aware of how little time they spend with their kids and of the need to provide guidance for living to their children began to ask, “What if I wanted to become a Cliff and Claire Huxtable, Ward and June Cleaver kind of parent? How would we do that?”
What if suburbanites, fed up with the sprawl and lack of community they experience in their lives, asked, “What if we wanted to create a sense of place and togetherness here where we live?”
What if ordinary Americans, concerned about the perception of our country that seems to exist globally, decided to find creative ways to reach out to other nations and show what America is really all about?”
For the follower of Jesus Christ, it may be a sin when we fail to ask, “What if...?” God, after all, wants us to use our brains to improve life for ourselves and for others. In Genesis, God tells the human race:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of the Earth!” (Genesis 1:26-27, The Message translation)
This isn’t a license to lives spent in comfortable ruts. It’s a mandate to ask, “What if...” and to see and enact new possibilities.
In fact, it’s a mandate to see and enact what others might call impossible. As Dr. Gerald Mann frequently points out, there isn’t a positive achievement in the history of the world that wasn’t at first thought to be impossible.
Jesus says that all things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26). He also says that when we ask in His Name, He can make good things happen (John 14:13). It only takes people willing to ask, “What if...?” and to enlist the help of God. To God, impossibilities are mere impediments.
Every human being has a call to be an imagineer of the spirit! What if we all asked God to help us become our best and most positively achieving selves? The possibilities are endless!
Monday, June 28, 2004
Prayers Still Needed for Maupin Family
Major news outlets are carrying the report that Matt Maupin, the young man from our community, has been executed by an Iraqi militant group. Please pray for Matt's family, asking God to give them strength, encouragement, and comfort. Pray also for an early, peaceful end to this conflict, please.
Saturday, June 26, 2004
Meeting America at Disney World
During my recent four-day stay at Disney World, I became acquainted with a man named Thomas. He works in the food courts of two different Disney resorts. Thomas is thus employed at two full-time jobs. He came to America from India several years ago. "We always heard that America is the land where dreams come true," he told me with a smile. "My brother had lived here for awhile and told us how wonderful it is. So, we applied to come into the country."
Seeing that I was interested in his story, Thomas went on. "It took two-and-a-half years, but we were accepted."
"Do you like it?" I asked.
"We love it! You can do anything in America!."
Both Thomas and his wife work entry level jobs, although Thomas, at any rate, is an obviously well-educated person. For him, whether he attains financial success or not, the American Dream has already happened. In fact, that's precisely what he told me. Just living in a land that has the look, feel, and smell of freedom and goodness that America has (characteristics that those of us born in this country often take for granted) is nearly beyond the wildest imaginings of most people on this planet.
For several years now, I've been arguing that we need to recover the original meaning of that phrase, "The American Dream." Today, it's almost exclusively associated with having fat wallets. But that's not what it meant to the originators of the slogan, "The American Dream." For them, it meant the dream, unrealized in most of the world for any of recorded time, of freedom within the context of caring community. I've also argued that the dream is only possible when people are rooted in Christ, precisely the argument made by one of the Founders, John Adams. Without Christ, freedom degenerates into license, mobocracy, or materialism.
Among the things that make America unique--or at least, made it unique at its founding--is that it was a country that chose to come into being. It came together by compact, not by conquest, custom, or more traditional means. The thirteen original states entered a kind of marriage contract and announced to the world, "We're hitched."
The hitching coalesced, at least in part, around a set of common ideals, most of which we still don't fully live. But as one of my Political Science professors, B. James Kweder at The Ohio State University (later Cleveland State University) used to drill into our heads, the story of America is really the story of a nation fitfully but deliberately moving toward the expansion of the American promise embodied in the Declaration of Independence. All but a few of the amendments to the US Constitution have been about expanding the blessings of freedom within a community of caring and mutual accountability, thus embodying the ideals of our country.
Some days after the death of Henry Clay, a young Illinois politician gave a eulogy in Chicago. Clay was Abraham Lincoln's "beau ideal" of a statesman because Clay believed that America was more than just land sprawling across the Western Hemisphere. America was an ideal. America, in a phrase that Lincoln would later use, was the last best hope of the world.
Of course, I don't believe that America is the world's last, best hope. Only the God we know through Jesus Christ can claim that. America is a nation on a globe hurtling toward eventual extinction. God is immortal and eternal. He offers a spot in eternity to all who will place their hope not in temporary, earthly things, but in Christ.
But the American Dream, the American experiment, is noteworthy. Two-hundred, twenty-eight years after it bubbled forth from that laboratory in Philadelphia, that experiment--for all of America's faults, sins, and problems--is still working.
Thomas and people the world over who have come to these shores or who have ever wanted to, prove that.
Seeing that I was interested in his story, Thomas went on. "It took two-and-a-half years, but we were accepted."
"Do you like it?" I asked.
"We love it! You can do anything in America!."
Both Thomas and his wife work entry level jobs, although Thomas, at any rate, is an obviously well-educated person. For him, whether he attains financial success or not, the American Dream has already happened. In fact, that's precisely what he told me. Just living in a land that has the look, feel, and smell of freedom and goodness that America has (characteristics that those of us born in this country often take for granted) is nearly beyond the wildest imaginings of most people on this planet.
For several years now, I've been arguing that we need to recover the original meaning of that phrase, "The American Dream." Today, it's almost exclusively associated with having fat wallets. But that's not what it meant to the originators of the slogan, "The American Dream." For them, it meant the dream, unrealized in most of the world for any of recorded time, of freedom within the context of caring community. I've also argued that the dream is only possible when people are rooted in Christ, precisely the argument made by one of the Founders, John Adams. Without Christ, freedom degenerates into license, mobocracy, or materialism.
Among the things that make America unique--or at least, made it unique at its founding--is that it was a country that chose to come into being. It came together by compact, not by conquest, custom, or more traditional means. The thirteen original states entered a kind of marriage contract and announced to the world, "We're hitched."
The hitching coalesced, at least in part, around a set of common ideals, most of which we still don't fully live. But as one of my Political Science professors, B. James Kweder at The Ohio State University (later Cleveland State University) used to drill into our heads, the story of America is really the story of a nation fitfully but deliberately moving toward the expansion of the American promise embodied in the Declaration of Independence. All but a few of the amendments to the US Constitution have been about expanding the blessings of freedom within a community of caring and mutual accountability, thus embodying the ideals of our country.
Some days after the death of Henry Clay, a young Illinois politician gave a eulogy in Chicago. Clay was Abraham Lincoln's "beau ideal" of a statesman because Clay believed that America was more than just land sprawling across the Western Hemisphere. America was an ideal. America, in a phrase that Lincoln would later use, was the last best hope of the world.
Of course, I don't believe that America is the world's last, best hope. Only the God we know through Jesus Christ can claim that. America is a nation on a globe hurtling toward eventual extinction. God is immortal and eternal. He offers a spot in eternity to all who will place their hope not in temporary, earthly things, but in Christ.
But the American Dream, the American experiment, is noteworthy. Two-hundred, twenty-eight years after it bubbled forth from that laboratory in Philadelphia, that experiment--for all of America's faults, sins, and problems--is still working.
Thomas and people the world over who have come to these shores or who have ever wanted to, prove that.
The Wonderful World of Mark at Disney World, Part One
Riding on the shuttle train at the Orlando Airport last week, there was a family of four---a mom, a dad, and two little boys. The youngest of the two appeared to be about four years old. He was dressed, appropriately for these ninety-five degree, central Florida days, in shorts, a short-sleeved shirt, and sunglasses. He and the letter "r" apparently weren’t getting along well yet. Straining to see what he could from his lower vantage point, holding onto the handrail of the train, he looked at his parents and asked, "Aw we at Disney Woold yet?"
I can understand his impatience. I know that Walt Disney World in Orlando is a mecca of rapacious consumerism, a shrine to corporate branding, a come-on for those mired in materialism. Disney World would be a great place to start a twelve-step program for those addicted to "stuff." I know all of that. I know too, that the employees (cast members, they're called) don't always smile and aren't always singing, "Be our guest, be our guest, put our service to the test.”
But Disney World is still a repository of almost holy fantasies and wholesome dreams: a place that encourages us to believe in such virtues as hospitality, friendliness, love of neighbor, love of family and home, and even true love. A belief that all the diverse members of the human race can live together in peace and that we can interact with the earth’s environment without despoiling it are also part of the Disney vision, it seems. The fact that this sprawling set of theme parks and resort hotels and the entertainment corporation that spawns it so successfully uphold these ideals---and even appear to live them most of the time---is amazing!
The fact that this gigantic venture falls short of completely fulfilling those ideals is no surprise. Even at Walt Disney World, weary cast members snap at guests. There is litter that hasn't yet been cleaned up. There are souvenirs that are brazenly overpriced. And even Uncle Walt and all his imagineers couldn't create a separate world in which the sin of unregenerate human beings was banished. The Bible affirms that we are all born in sin (in Psalm 51, among other places); so Disney World's guests bring their sinful impulses and inclinations with them for the price of admission. Cast members clock in with their foibles as well. Only Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, can usher us into a whole new world where sin is no more, where a people made new by God after turning from sin, surrendering their wills, and walking through the valley of death with Christ, will live forever.
But there is something special about Walt Disney World. When the cast members tell you to "Have a magical day," there are times when you nearly feel the magic. Disney World may not be your idea of heaven. It embodies some of mine. But for all of us, I suspect, it reflects our fondest hopes, dreams, and yearnings. It shows us that even in this imperfect world, we can find hints of how it might be for us to live in a kingdom of love. It makes us realize that, contrary to what negative sourpusses who call themselves Christian might say, there are things about this world in which we live that are--or have the potential for being---fine and true and shimmering with innocence and blessedness.
That realization makes you wish that this world---a world of churning oceans and majestic mountains, of Redwoods and Blackeyed Susans, of the Eiffel Tower and even Disney World, could last forever and ever. We know that ultimately this world and everything that human hands have devised in it cannot survive. Both the scientists and theologians agree on that. But, oh, how we ache for it to not be so! We long for paradise and accustomed to this place and its sometimes breathtaking beauty, we wish--we ache--that this could be it.
It isn't just for a dazzling present or a better future that we long, though. C.S. Lewis spoke of those "good dreams" which seemed to reside in the memories and psyches of every human culture. The dreams weren't just of a future paradise. These good dreams contain an awaremess that something old, wonderful, and lost needs restoring. Composer Randy Stonehill gave eloquent voice to our good dreams in a mid-1980s song, when he wrote: "Like a child who dreams of flying and aches for something more, We hold the dim remembrance of an ancient golden shore."
Somehow, in spite of our efforts to bury the truth or to deny it or to delude ourselves, we know that there is a baby in the bathwater. There was an Eden and we believe, hope, and pine for it to be not just a place in our past, but also the place of our future. We know, irrespective of our grumbling, our cynicism, our selfishness, or our attempts to gracelessly quantify a world in which there are still mysterious unknowns, that there is something wonderful and worthy of redemption in the human soul and in the world we inhabit.
So does God! That’s why He became one of us two-thousand years ago. That’s why He shared our death, though He didn't deserve it. That’s why He rose from dead. He came to give us a second chance at paradise. That’s why He told a criminal who hung on a cross next to him, who’d asked to be remembered with Jesus on the other side of death, “Today you will be with Me in paradise!”
Today, on this creeking, beautiful planet, ambiguity prevails. Even our seemingly perfect Disney Worlds are infected by sin. Our Grand Canyons and purple mountains majesty show the effects of human shortcomings. The Bible says that right now, all of creation groans under the weight of human sin (Romans 7).
But there is hope! His Name is Jesus! This isn't heaven. But our good dreams tell us that there is such a place. God has inserted a holy hunger for it in every human soul. We try to feed that hunger with junk food---and ultimately, even my beloved Disney World is junk food. But Jesus, Who called Himself the living bread from heaven (John 6), is the real deal. Until we cross over from this life into the next, we can feast on His Word and His holy meal and know that there is a paradise awaiting us. As we turn from sin and turn to Jesus, we see that the good dreams are true. We see that God is for us and that in the end, the good dreams will come to pass and we will walk and live and laugh and love in the presence of God forever!
I can understand his impatience. I know that Walt Disney World in Orlando is a mecca of rapacious consumerism, a shrine to corporate branding, a come-on for those mired in materialism. Disney World would be a great place to start a twelve-step program for those addicted to "stuff." I know all of that. I know too, that the employees (cast members, they're called) don't always smile and aren't always singing, "Be our guest, be our guest, put our service to the test.”
But Disney World is still a repository of almost holy fantasies and wholesome dreams: a place that encourages us to believe in such virtues as hospitality, friendliness, love of neighbor, love of family and home, and even true love. A belief that all the diverse members of the human race can live together in peace and that we can interact with the earth’s environment without despoiling it are also part of the Disney vision, it seems. The fact that this sprawling set of theme parks and resort hotels and the entertainment corporation that spawns it so successfully uphold these ideals---and even appear to live them most of the time---is amazing!
The fact that this gigantic venture falls short of completely fulfilling those ideals is no surprise. Even at Walt Disney World, weary cast members snap at guests. There is litter that hasn't yet been cleaned up. There are souvenirs that are brazenly overpriced. And even Uncle Walt and all his imagineers couldn't create a separate world in which the sin of unregenerate human beings was banished. The Bible affirms that we are all born in sin (in Psalm 51, among other places); so Disney World's guests bring their sinful impulses and inclinations with them for the price of admission. Cast members clock in with their foibles as well. Only Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, can usher us into a whole new world where sin is no more, where a people made new by God after turning from sin, surrendering their wills, and walking through the valley of death with Christ, will live forever.
But there is something special about Walt Disney World. When the cast members tell you to "Have a magical day," there are times when you nearly feel the magic. Disney World may not be your idea of heaven. It embodies some of mine. But for all of us, I suspect, it reflects our fondest hopes, dreams, and yearnings. It shows us that even in this imperfect world, we can find hints of how it might be for us to live in a kingdom of love. It makes us realize that, contrary to what negative sourpusses who call themselves Christian might say, there are things about this world in which we live that are--or have the potential for being---fine and true and shimmering with innocence and blessedness.
That realization makes you wish that this world---a world of churning oceans and majestic mountains, of Redwoods and Blackeyed Susans, of the Eiffel Tower and even Disney World, could last forever and ever. We know that ultimately this world and everything that human hands have devised in it cannot survive. Both the scientists and theologians agree on that. But, oh, how we ache for it to not be so! We long for paradise and accustomed to this place and its sometimes breathtaking beauty, we wish--we ache--that this could be it.
It isn't just for a dazzling present or a better future that we long, though. C.S. Lewis spoke of those "good dreams" which seemed to reside in the memories and psyches of every human culture. The dreams weren't just of a future paradise. These good dreams contain an awaremess that something old, wonderful, and lost needs restoring. Composer Randy Stonehill gave eloquent voice to our good dreams in a mid-1980s song, when he wrote: "Like a child who dreams of flying and aches for something more, We hold the dim remembrance of an ancient golden shore."
Somehow, in spite of our efforts to bury the truth or to deny it or to delude ourselves, we know that there is a baby in the bathwater. There was an Eden and we believe, hope, and pine for it to be not just a place in our past, but also the place of our future. We know, irrespective of our grumbling, our cynicism, our selfishness, or our attempts to gracelessly quantify a world in which there are still mysterious unknowns, that there is something wonderful and worthy of redemption in the human soul and in the world we inhabit.
So does God! That’s why He became one of us two-thousand years ago. That’s why He shared our death, though He didn't deserve it. That’s why He rose from dead. He came to give us a second chance at paradise. That’s why He told a criminal who hung on a cross next to him, who’d asked to be remembered with Jesus on the other side of death, “Today you will be with Me in paradise!”
Today, on this creeking, beautiful planet, ambiguity prevails. Even our seemingly perfect Disney Worlds are infected by sin. Our Grand Canyons and purple mountains majesty show the effects of human shortcomings. The Bible says that right now, all of creation groans under the weight of human sin (Romans 7).
But there is hope! His Name is Jesus! This isn't heaven. But our good dreams tell us that there is such a place. God has inserted a holy hunger for it in every human soul. We try to feed that hunger with junk food---and ultimately, even my beloved Disney World is junk food. But Jesus, Who called Himself the living bread from heaven (John 6), is the real deal. Until we cross over from this life into the next, we can feast on His Word and His holy meal and know that there is a paradise awaiting us. As we turn from sin and turn to Jesus, we see that the good dreams are true. We see that God is for us and that in the end, the good dreams will come to pass and we will walk and live and laugh and love in the presence of God forever!
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