Collected Thoughts from Old Social Media Postings from Today in Years Past
(in no particular order)
We make up news and believe what fits our favorite narrative; we selectively read history and tirelessly reject logic. We are citizens.
Life is a gift from God - all life at all stages of life. Let us be consistent in our embrace of life and protection of life now and future.
The nice thing about being post-election is that we can speak to issues and those issues are unrelated to who we did or did not vote for.
We need to read more, ask more questions, believe less of what we hear, pray more, read more scripture, raise more objections, & think.
We have entered an era when people are going to be mad at us from all sides if we speak truth. Let us continue to do so in love.
We are come to a time when, if we truly seek and speak truth, it will challenge all our cliches and many of our core beliefs.
"And the LORD shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be The LORD is one, And His name one."- Zechariah 14:9
"Teach me to do Your will, For You are my God; Your Spirit is good. Lead me in the land of uprightness." - Psalm 143:10
" I know that the LORD will maintain The cause of the afflicted, And justice for the poor. " - Psalm140:12
We have had days of lament and that may continue, but Advent cries out to us to introduce HOPE into the equation and that calls for action.
While the ultimate destination is in the hands of God, our proximate destinations are in our hands as we cooperate with His purposes.
We are not on a roller-coaster ride into a predetermined future; we are laborers together with God, charting and implementing tomorrow.
Anyway, this election could have gone, we would have been speaking truth to power in a hostile environment & atmosphere of distrust.
The prophetic voice of the church is not in for a time of relaxation. We have much work to do. But the gospel is the power of God.
“Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." –Gandhi
Posted Four Years Ago - After a steady decrease in the abortion rate, we are considering restricting access to contraceptives. Is this pro-life?
Is it pro-life to destroy a life-giving environment for future generations of unborn children?
We must strive toward a consistent and comprehensive pro-life ethic that reaches beyond our own generation and beyond the womb without ignoring the womb or the present setting.
"The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled,and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day." - Isaiah 2:11
“Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise,” says the LORD; I will place him in the safety for which he longs.” - Psalm 12:5
It is the first Monday of Advent, the second day of the season. We begin our scripture journey this morning with a corporate cry for mercy. The people of God are pouring out their souls to God for Jersusalem. They have experienced seige and oppression, violence and destruction.
In all of this, they sense the judgment of God and fear God's abandonment.
So, in their journey back to renewed faith and hope, they remind God, and thus, remind themselves, of God's covenant, mercy, and love for them.
It is a plaintve cry, set in an historical context other than our own. Yet, it is a common emotion and touches a common human experience.
In days of trouble and sorrow, we wonder where stand with God.
As you move through this ancient hymn prayer, find those thoughts and phrases that express the deep feelings of your heart for yourself and others. Then, pray them to God.
Psalm 79 (NRSV)
Plea for Mercy for Jerusalem A Psalm of Asaph.
O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the air for food, the flesh of your faithful to the wild animals of the earth. They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them. We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us.
How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealous wrath burn like fire? Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call on your name. For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation.
Do not remember against us the iniquities of our ancestors; let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low. Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and forgive our sins, for your name’s sake. Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?" Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of your servants be known among the nations before our eyes.
Let the groans of the prisoners come before you; according to your great power preserve those doomed to die. Return sevenfold into the bosom of our neighbors the taunts with which they taunted you, O Lord! Then we your people, the flock of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise.
The Word of the LORD comes from Micah as if to answer the doubts of any who feel left behind by God. He speaks of the days to come. He moves from the psalmist's rather parachial and exclusive concept of God's love and covenant to a larger and more inclusive call for the nations to come.
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord," is how the peoples of the earth shall respond to the inner prompting of the prophetic voice speaking to their souls.
Micah 4:1-5 (NRSV)
In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills. Peoples shall stream to it, and many nations shall come and say
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
For all the peoples walk, each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.
The prophetic Day when nations shall no longer make war comes because God has spoken it, but is also a divine response to those who walk in the name of the Lord.
We live in an age of Advent.
Let us walk in the name of the Lord and embrace the hope of a day of peace and justice.
Revelation 15:1-8
Then I saw another portent in heaven, great and amazing: seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is ended.
And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb:
Great and amazing are your deeds, Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, King of the nations! Lord, who will not fear and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your judgments have been revealed.
After this I looked, and the temple of the tent of witness in heaven was opened, and out of the temple came the seven angels with the seven plagues, robed in pure bright linen, with golden sashes across their chests. Then one of the four living creatures gave the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever; and the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were ended.
God is up to something. It is something that, ultimately God can do. But God can use us to accomplish much of it. Then, what we cannot do, by His power and might, He will finish.
We celebrate Advent by beginning with the end in mind.
Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth.
Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up thy strength, and come and save us.
Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.
O Lord God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people?
Thou feedest them with the bread of tears; and givest them tears to drink in great measure.
Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours: and our enemies laugh among themselves.
Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved…
… Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself.
So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.
Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.
We have eaten the bread of tears. We have faced our fears. We have borne the weight of years and years of torture, torment, and terror. We have suffered and we have been derided for that suffering.
So sings the psalmist in a song of lament and, against the backdrop of weeping and wailing, he sings on and affirms faith. It is the faith of one who has walked with the shepherd and knows the character of His leadership and the beating of His heart.
It is the faith of one who cries out to see His face yet again that the people may be saved.
We come to worship with a sense of living in interim in-between where we languish and lament. It is from this vantage that we long for a day of redemption, a future that is in the distance and yet, seems very near.
This is the song of a soul in the prophetic season of Advent.
Isaiah 64:1-9
Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence,
As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence!
When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence.
For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.
Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.
But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people.
Come, God, the prophet cries. Come and rend the heavens. Come and right all wrongs. Come and right us. Come and have mercy on us.
Come, however you must come, but come and come quickly.
We wait.
We wait in expectation of that which is greater than our power to perceive, conceive, or imagine. And, thought we cannot imagine, we hope and grope, and gaze toward the glaring sun of righteousness.
Our righteousness, like leprous rags, hold no credence with God. Their currency is worthless. The bargaining value makes us beggars.
So, we beg.
God is the potter; we are His clay. We call; we wait; we groan. In all of this we say, “Come!”
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;
That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;
Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:
Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
We are waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is our theme and our song on this first Sunday of Advent. We await the Son with longing hearts and eyes fixed upon the brightness of his arrival as King.
When shall it be?
How shall it be?
How long must we wait?
The Christian in the spirit of Advent is standing on his or her toes, panting with anticipation.
We are being enriched and bearing witness to the hope within us. Our waiting is not resting. The biding of our time is not complacent. We are not relaxed. We are activated.
We spend our days and years in fellowship with Christ and his people, in service, and devotion.
But what can explain the wait?
Mark 13:24-37
But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,
And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.
And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.
Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near:
So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors.
Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.
Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.
For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.
Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning:
Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.
And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.
It is a time of watching and watch we shall.
Many birds can sleep with one eye open, one part of their brains activated and on guard while the other rests.
No one knows the day or the hour. The reason we know of his first coming is because it is past. But of the future, no one knows.
What we do know is that even though heaven and earth may pass; his words remain and are active.
Therefore, this is not our first Advent and it may not be our last …
I have studied the problem of evil since I learned to think philosophically, psychologically, and theologically.
I have all the easy answers in a short file.
I have the really tough ones in the question box.
We can dismiss it all with the word "sin," but that three letter word is far larger than we think or know. It is so deep and so pervasive that it requires divine intervention, sacrifice, and planning to correct.
At the same time, it requires far less from us when we come to dealing with our own, assuming we understand an inkling about grace.
It is so nagging that, even after repentance and regeneration, the Apostle Paul still struggled with its residual effects.
It is simple, but it is not simplistic. It is both human and dehumanizing. It is a distortion of reality, yet part of our daily reality.
Does evil exist?
Some philosophical systems suggest that evil is but an illusion.
If it is, it is like the apparition that can frighten someone to death.
Some days, the best I can do is to look at the evil, bitterness, coldness, anger, and bigotry in my own heart, cry out in despair, shake my head, and lift my voice to God saying:
Frank País was a Cuban revolutionary and committed Christian.
He might have become president instead of Castro. Both wanted to end the evil dictatorship that existed in Cuba in the 1950s, propped up by American Mafia money and some U.S. government support.
Pais, if he had lived, would have helped write a different sort of story for Cuba where oppression and repression would not have flourished. But the bad money would still have had to go and there would have still been some unhappy people in places of power in the U.S. and in Cuba.
People's hearts and politics follow their money.
Things would have been different for both countries if Pais and people like him had lived and prevailed - better more just.
Many times, our support and influence have landed on the wrong side of history. We have bolstered powers that oppressed the poor and helped to create radicals like Castro when there were men like Pais who were available.
Yes, did collaborate with Castro - in Castro's better days. But remember, Castro was just a freedom fighter at first and the greatest evil was the Bautista regime.
Should we have backed him?
Probably not.
But we certainly should not have backed and profited by Bautista either.
Our history of conquest there goes back long before the Cuban Revolution and far away from that island and around the world. We tend to reap what we help to sow.
Cuba is in transition and we wish the Cuban people well and pray for them as they chart a new course in a new generation.
May they prosper and enjoy ever-increasing freedom to speak, worship, and forge their own destinies.
They are smart, creative, and resilient people and may they be strong enough to resist the forces and influences of all who may seek to exploit them. May we learn from the past.
There are always two roads to life. There are at least two - either/or, this/that, 0/1, left/right. They have many expressions and characteristics but let us focus on one dimension of choice: Playing it safe or risking everything for a cause greater than ourselves.
Most people agree that “stupid risks,” those made in a stupor of pleasure-seeking irrationality, are worthless and possibly, evil. That is because they have no meaning, purpose, or long-term advantage.
Risking what is not yours to risk is likewise beyond any redemptive purpose. There is no honor is taking three drinks, getting in a car without buckling one’s seat belt, and driving 110 miles per hour down the road against oncoming traffic.
There are no monuments to men who caused multiple fatalities in one hundred car pileups because they were brave enough to take a risk.
When Jesus says that we must deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him, He is calling us to live sacrificially, redemptively, and adventurously for a purpose.
That is why He so strongly utters these words:
“Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” -Matthew 16:24-26:
We can lose life by clinging to it.
William Barclay said, “The man who plays for safety loses life.”
"There was a very cautious man Who never laughed or played,’ He never risked, he never tried. He never sang or prayed. And when he one day passed away, His insurance was denied. For since he never really lived They claimed he never died." - Anonymous (quoted by John Maxwell)
Irrational clinging to what we think is life is as without merit as throwing it away needlessly and foolishly.
We fail to move forward and conquer what lies ahead.
Julius Caesar landed in England about two thousand years ago to conquer the Celts, numbering about a half million with 50,000 Roman warriors. His men were not fully committed, and many would have retreated given the opportunity and overwhelming odds that lay ahead. So, Julius Caesar burned the ships.
The Romans stayed, conquered, and established a long-term Roman presence and permanent influence in England.
In 1519, Cortez did the same thing off the coast of what is now Veracruz. Now, most of South America speaks Spanish.
In the book of Exodus, the children of Israel were tempted to return to slavery rather than face the hardships of the desert. 40 years later they entered the promised land and well over three thousand years later we have a nation called Israel, a people called Jews, and a heritage that brought our Savior into the world.
Jesus went before us and gave us the gift of assurance after His death that life can extend beyond the grave. Because He died and rose again and gave His disciples 40 days of constant contact to verify it, they bore witness to it and we have the biblical record today.
And we have the Holy Spirit within us.
Yet, following Jesus is risky.
John the Baptist was imprisoned in a dungeon, dark and cold. He had been the first to identify Jesus as the Lamb of God, but in that dank place, he doubted and sent word to that he needed reassurance. "Are you the One or do we look for another?"
Jesus met him in the darkness and reassured him.
Sometimes we cry out to God from dungeons of despair. As we wait for an answer, we keep on keeping on.
C.S. Lewis gave us a great gift in the fantasy land of Narnia with the Christ-figure, Aslan to point us to truth that even emerges in fiction. In “The Silver Chair,” by C.S. Lewis, one of the characters says:
”I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I am going to live like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.”
We have assurance and hope, but we still need faith, and we must decide to exercise it and live by it.
We can win by losing.
That is Jesus’ message.
Whoever loses his life FOR HIM will find it. One might also say that losing one’s life IN Him means finding it … not just for now, but for eternity.
After ignoring a warning, Homer’s hero, Odysseus, and his men launch their ships on a voyage that is certain to end in doom. They had no experience with losing, but this day would be different as they crashed between some unmovable rocks in a harsh current. While his ship and all his men are being sucked into the sea by a whirlpool, Odysseus is somehow propelled upward, and grabs hold of a fig tree on one of the crags nearby. He was washed ashore on the island of the enchanting Calypso, a strange and powerful woman who compelled him to remain as her lover for seven years before escaping.
Then, his journey continues … but first he had to be stripped bare of everything upon which he falsely depended. All he had left was who he was … his character.
Sometimes we must shed our false dependencies.
Stalin is said to have taught his Communist operatives, during the Cold War, to think of themselves as dead men on furlough. If they thought of themselves that way, they would have nothing to lose.
Jesus teaches us to think of ourselves as men and women who cannot ultimately die, whose final outcome is victory, and who will see the His glory.
We can and must rewrite the meaning of Thanksgiving every year.
History is dynamic because we are in the middle of it.
It is a daily call to gratitude and humility.
It is also a cyclical observance in many cultures and religions for the harvest season. It is mandated in scriptures and Jewish tradition on special days and seasons.
It is not, for me, a celebration of the legacy of the Puritans who came here for their own religious freedom while denying it to others.
Nor is it, an acknowledgement for those who came before them in Virginia and dedicated a day of Thanksgiving on the shores of the James River.
Thanksgiving is not about the colonization of these territories and the false narrative of friendly relations with the people who were victims of genocide, displacement, and enslavement in the process. The indigenous nations were giving thanks regularly, ritually, and religiously with great fervor long before the English arrived in North America.
It is about parts of all these things, but less and more.
Lincoln initiated it as a regular observance for the nation.
There is something for everyone in it because we have all received much.
There is also a case for mourning and lament as well as repentance.
But the giving of thanks is always in order. It balances us with perspective. It humbles us. It regulates us. It adjusts us in thinking and behavior. It makes us better. It reminds us that we did not make the grass grow beneath our feet and did not cause the sun to shine this morning.
For the theist, it is about God as the source of all material, familial, and spiritual blessings.
For the non-theist, it is, at least, about all that nature and other people have contributed to a life of promise, hope, bounty, and joy.
For us all, it is about all of these things. it is about naming them and giving thanks for them. It is about renewing our hearts and minds in the quest of justice, truth, compassion, mercy, and generosity. It is about expanding the dream to be inclusive of all and righting the wrongs of the past.
Everyone has their own history. Until all stories are told, none is completely accurate. We gain nothing by writing history to exclude the darkness and sin. We can be grateful without being naively sentimental. We can be truthful without excluding all sentiment and nostalgia.
The words, "It was the next of times; it was thew worst of times," can be said of any generation. Let it never be said of our generation or any generation was that it was an age of ingratitude.
November 22 is the first defining day in my childhood where I knew where I was and what I was doing when world-changing news came.
There have been so many devastating and unbelievable tragedies since then, but this is the one that first grabbed my attention and engraved itself upon my memory.
We heard J.F.K.'s words in our generation, even though I was young, and took them to heart. They defined real patriotism for us.
"Ask not, what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
We read "Profiles in Courage."
We knew about PT 109.
We embraced the challenge to go to the moon and come home safely.
We were challenged by a member of the privileged class to seek equity for the oppressed.
Jack Kennedy, the legend, may have been larger than Jack Kennedy the man, but we needed a legend, and we needed a leader, and in him, we had one.
It is difficult the know what the world would have been like if Lee Harvey Oswald had been hit by a car and transported immobile to the hospital on the way to the Texas Schoolbook Depository.
We cannot rewrite the past. We can remake the future.
I have walked those steps on pilgrimage. I have crossed the street where the bullets landed. I have stood on the grassy knoll. I have retraced all those steps in Dallas. It was 1979 when I made that trip.
It was only then that I was able to get back the shock and put things in some perspective.
As I said, it was a defining moment.
There was such optimism in January 1961 and the air was still optimistic on the morning of November 22, 1963. One thousand days of great promise and hope were interrupted by a bullet.
Yet, a generation started thinking differently about the possibilities of a just and great society and other interpreters inherited the courage to stand up, speak out, and lead forward.
Every year, on this day, I seek to renew an American dream that often seems to be on life support and to know that if it is not for all, it cannot be for any.
What can I do for my country? It is only what I can do for the people here and with the people here. Our nation is not defined by land, language, or lore, but by living, diverse, common people who are the source of its greatness and the big idea that they, and their freedom matter.
Let us ask what we can do for our country.
"Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You"
John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961
We observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom — symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning — signifying renewal, as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago.
The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe — the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.
We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans — born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage — and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
This much we pledge — and more.
To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do — for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.
To those new States whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom — and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.
To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required — not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge — to convert our good words into good deeds — in a new alliance for progress — to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers. Let all our neighbours know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this Hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house.
To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support — to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective — to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak — and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.
Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.
We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.
But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course — both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind's final war.
So let us begin anew — remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belabouring those problems which divide us.
Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms — and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations.
Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.
Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah — to "undo the heavy burdens -. and to let the oppressed go free."
And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavour, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.
All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.
In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.
Now the trumpet summons us again — not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are — but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation" — a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.
Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavour will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.
On this day in 1620 – Plymouth Colony settlers sign the Mayflower Compact which was written by the male Separatist Puritans on the ship from England, originally bound for Virginia.
It was their aim to form a colony based on religious principles rather than on the concept of religious freedom.
The freedom they sought was initially to build a community where church and state were intertwined and where there was no line of demarcation between civil authority and ecclesiastic authority.
Thus, rather than the King calling the shots over the church, the local civil government could enforce its principles such as church attendance, government licensing of preachers, church "taxes," and Sunday laws.
The downside was that this sucks the life out of the church, the individual and a spiritual being before God, and of society. The upside is that they meant well and their initial piety was very real - and born out of a persecution ... that they would later inflict on others who dissented.
Also, it set the stage for the sort of decline that brought forth thinkers like Roger Williams and the Rhode Island experiment and later, the Great Awakening, which. along with the secular ideas of the Enlightenment gave birth to the revolutionary fervor to come and the concepts of soul freedom and freedom of religion.
The document as we have it is worth reading and contains some great ideas.
Modern version:
"IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620."
Artwork: Signing the Mayflower Compact 1620, a painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris 1899
This is called, "A Prayer of one afflicted, when he is faint and pours out his complaint before the LORD."
Surely, many here have had days when the cry sounded something like this, first to be heart, and then to be answered:
" Hear my prayer, O LORD;
let my cry come to you!
Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress!
Incline your ear to me;
answer me speedily in the day when I call!"
(Psalm 102:1-2 ESV)
"Do not hide ..."
How do you know that an invisible God who rarely manifests His presence directly and obviously in your life is really hearing and answering?
Sometimes it is in the subtleties; often it is in the coincidences; frequently it is in the irrational peace or the unexplained strength and faith that arises in our hearts as we trust and follow.
So often, it is in joy and in the joyful reality of community that becomes the presence of God to us.
We experience God's presence as we brutally pour out our hearts to God in the full range of human emotion, despair, and frustration:
" For my days pass away like smoke,
and my bones burn like a furnace.
My heart is struck down like grass and has withered;
I forget to eat my bread.
Because of my loud groaning
my bones cling to my flesh.
I am like a desert owl of the wilderness,
like an owl of the waste places;
I lie awake;
I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop.
All the day my enemies taunt me;
those who deride me use my name for a curse.
For I eat ashes like bread
and mingle tears with my drink,
because of your indignation and anger;
for you have taken me up and thrown me down.
My days are like an evening shadow;
I wither away like grass."
(Psalm 102:3-11 ESV)
You know through hope and you know through the acting on feeble faith. This God who regards and hears the prayers of the destitute will not despise your prayers:
"But you, O LORD, are enthroned forever;
you are remembered throughout all generations.
You will arise and have pity on Zion;
it is the time to favor her;
the appointed time has come.
For your servants hold her stones dear
and have pity on her dust.
Nations will fear the name of the LORD,
and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory.
For the LORD builds up Zion;
he appears in his glory;
he regards the prayer of the destitute
and does not despise their prayer."
(Psalm 102:12-17 ESV)
This God manifests Himself and, in due season, manifests Himself to you. He appears in His glory, even if only in glimpses and hints, even if only in flashing moments of self-disclosure, He lets you know.
Furthermore, He reveals Himself in worship as one who attends to our prayers and in the words of those who record His deeds and share together, in community, their experiences of grace:
" Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
so that a people yet to be created may praise the LORD:
that he looked down from his holy height;
from heaven the LORD looked at the earth,
to hear the groans of the prisoners,
to set free those who were doomed to die,
that they may declare in Zion the name of the LORD,
and in Jerusalem his praise,
when peoples gather together,
and kingdoms, to worship the LORD."
(Psalm 102:18-22 ESV)
It is our witness of one another of His witness to each of us.
Comparing our notes, we realize that there really are no coincidences.
" He has broken my strength in midcourse;
he has shortened my days.
“O my God,” I say, “take me not away
in the midst of my days—
you whose years endure
throughout all generations!”"
(Psalm 102:23-24 ESV)
He has His ways of bring us to the place where we can experience His grace in healing ways, but they sometimes seem like the breaking of our strength in the middle of our lives. We are moving toward a grand goal and suddenly, we are interrupted.
Perhaps our interruptions are necessary for refocus - at least sometimes ....
But in the meantime, go ahead and register your complaint to God.
Our struggles with faith land on faith. Believers' doubts, fears, and frustrations are real, but they are differentiated from the ordinary because they land on faith. They settle on solid ground. They come to rest where they have always rested in that confidence that simply will not go away, that stubborn trust in the one who upholds all things including our own feeble lives:
" Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you will remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
For a nutritious spiritual salad, I recommend three heads of "let us." They are best served with a dressing of desire, willingness, and resolve. Feel free to use this little outline to build your own sermon, bible study, life less, or life itself.
How do we live with “The Day” Approaching?
Hebrews 10:11-25
New International Version
Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool.For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:
“This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”
Then he adds:
“Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”
And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus,by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body,and since we have a great priest over the house of God,let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Let us make a salad out of Three Heads of LET-US (10:19-25)
Let us APPROACH (10:22) – This is our life of Prayer, Intercession, and Intimacy with God.
You can. The door is open (10:11-15).
You may because you are invited into covenant (10:16-18)
You must because you need it and the world needs you.
Let us HOLD FAST (10:23) – This is our stand! This is our witness and our open confession of faith.
Stand for hope.
Bear witness to the world.
Act in love and goodness (10:24).
Let us CONSIDER HOW TO PROVOKE (10:24-25) – This is fellowship and encouragement as we encourage love and good deeds in our brothers and sisters. Our response to Christ’s coming, whenever it might be is to encourage one another
P – It is POSITIVE (Not a negative threat, but a positive affirmation).
R – It is REDEMPTIVE (We are forgiven people).
O – It is OPPORTINISTIC (“Consider how to … ). κατανοῶμεν
V – It is VISIONARY (“… as you see the Day approaching …)
O – It is about ONE ANOTHER – We cannot do this alone. παρακαλοῦντες
K – It is KENETIC – forces producing motion or change. παροξυσμὸν is stirring up
E – ENCOURAGE - παρακαλοῦντες - Encouraging one another.
People say "God is watching" as if it were a reality from which to recoil in utter dread, as if it were a threat.
I do not recoil.
I take it as a promise.
I am ever aware that God is watching my every success, failure, strength, and flaw. It causes pauses of reverential fear, but it is of the sort that brings weight and glory to every moment, even the moments of frivolity and folly that come so often.
Grace. Mercy. Peace.
These are the comforts and joys of His knowing gaze, watchful eye, and guiding hand. He sees and breathes purpose into my scattered days. I am known. I am loved. Like the experience of Peter before and after his major failure and denial, Jesus knows all things about me and He knows, even better than I do, that I love Him.
We are bundles of contradictions but thank God He is watching.
And when I feel utterly unworthy to feed sheep, I remember that.
We cannot love our neighbors as ourselves if we refuse to take the effort to see the world through our neighbors' eyes or try to imagine life in his or her skin.
We cannot love our neighbor without learning to sing the songs of lament and the entire book of Lamentations.
We cannot love our neighbor by telling him or her what he or she should be or not be feeling.
We cannot love our neighbor without tears.
We cannot love our neighbor by having an answer for every word our neighbor speaks in fear or frustration.
We love our neighbor more with our ears than our words. When we do use words, we love our neighbor more by what we speak on behalf of our neighbor than what we say to that neighbor.
We cannot love our neighbor by taking our scripts from Job's friends and having all the trite answers organized and ready to spout.
We cannot love our neighbor without working at it and putting aside our own interests and opinions long enough to understand.
We cannot love our neighbor while belittling our neighbor.
And ... we cannot love God without loving our neighbor.
"After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory. And he called out with a
mighty voice,
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!
She has become a dwelling place for demons,
a haunt for every unclean spirit,
a haunt for every unclean bird,
a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.
For all nations have drunk
the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality,
and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her,
and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.”" - Revelation 18:1-3 (ESV)
Here is an angel, a messenger of God, speaking truth to power - power that you are either attracted to or that you resist --- or both.
What is your Babylon? What is that seat of power that attracts those who also want power and hope to get it through association, conspiracy, and sinister collaboration that oppresses the weak and the righteous? We are attracted to that bright, beautiful, lively, ostentatious "city of influence," its sensual pleasures and its facade of wealth, luxury, and illegitimate power.
It intoxicates and it draws in those who are inclined to be drawn.
And lest we lift our own heads in pride, something in it is inclined to draw something in us and it can intoxicate us as well --- for a season or for a lifetime
--- our choice if we remain conscious enough to make choices.
For Babylon is fallen. It is an eternal reality in Heaven where all is accomplished already.
Every false god and every pretender to every throne has eventually been vanquished and neutralized. It has been; it shall be. Ultimate rectification is
reality, but in the meantime, the dance is repeated throughout history.
The only history that immediately matters for us is the one we are living, the choices we are making, the alignments we are activating, and the loyalties we are forming.
It is an angel, a messenger, which has the authority to put power in check and glory gathers around the sound of his mighty voice.
That says that it is truth that brings powers to their knees. It is the voice of truth, the message of God that humbles the proud and pronounces judgment upon oppressors.
Let that be an encouragement to all of you who daily, and without apparent reward, consistently and faithfully, speak truth to power.
More on this ... because at the end of the list is the real "cargo" of unscrupulous commerce in a marriage of convenience with illegitimate and oppressive power. It is the slavery of human souls.
"And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore, cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls." - Revelation 18:11-13 (ESV)
This subversive circular is calling out power for its tracking of humanity. The test of authenticity, legitimacy, and righteousness in any system of commerce and government with all their entanglements may well be --- Does it profit from the enslavement of human souls?
If it does, and that includes the enticements of systems of addiction, then red flags go up everywhere.
This one is "Babylon" and it is going down.
The picture of judgment is telling. It is not poured down the throats of the proud and haughty. They lap it up. Warned not to be proud, they lust for more and it is judgment they consume that judges them in the end --- and judges us daily. Pride of heart and haughtiness of spirit are not our friends. When we choose not to walk humbly before our God and graciously among our neighbors, we lap up judgment to ourselves.
The Parable of the Ten Virgins (section) by Phoebe Traquair, Mansfield Traquair Church, Edinburgh.
A sermon from Sunday, November 7
The Poem
Election Reflection on Diversity and Unity
____________________________________________
No gloating
No pouting
No insults
No shouting
No self-congratulations
No hateful accusations
This is the day the LORD hath made.
Rejoicing, gladness He hath bade.
We may not be, yet, all together.
We may be tossed in stormy weather.
But our thoughts, not His thoughts,
And our ways not His ways , we stretch forth.
We press on.
Not everything rhymes or falls into our rhythm
.
We are products of thinking that has shaped our thought.
We are shaped by the forces and truths, we've been taught.
We are trapped in the whirlpools where we have been caught.
We are loved by a lover who has loved those He has sought.
We are temporally conditioned.
But we are ultimately free.
We are proximately blind.
We are ready to see.
And we shall see
And we shall know
As we are seen and know.
We prefer a simplicity we mistake for sincerity.
We take shortcuts with slogans that belie fullest verity.
And so we arrive at different conclusions
Are trapped in and perpetrate multiple confusions.
But we are loved and that statement stands alone.
We are cherished, and that too, emerges from our deepest groan.
We are called and appointed that's who we are,
Beloved and chosen. This is our North Star.
We voted with confidence and chose with conviction
Believing the high ground was ours, but our addiction
Is often the comfort that says, "Mine is the right way,"
And I know it is right, whatever you say."
We need some of that.
We need some resolve.
But it sometimes goes flat.
There are problems to solve.
Remember, Beloved, you're beloved and your neighbor
Is also, and more so. Holster your saber.
Do justly; love mercy; walk humbly with God.
This is your daily devotion while walking this sod.
In the end and beginning after thankless venialities
It's about what is truth and that transcends personalities.
And partisan bickering
And rude, crude, lewd snickering
And insults and assaults
And greedy, lustful dickering.
I may disagree with you.
I may not see just what you do.
You may not see what I see
Or believe my decree.
But that does not mean I don't love and respect you
I cannot convince you if I yell till I'm blue.
Whatever you believe, perceive, or conceive,
I think common ground is something to achieve.
If not, I grieve.
You took your stand. I took mine and someone is vexed.
But what really matters is what we do next.
Our ideas are important and and some nonnegotiable
And the unity we seek far transcends being sociable.
The Kingdom of God is not drink nor meat.
We come to His table, but He has the head seat.
There is more to be said and saying's my thing.
But I defer to the Head, and it's time now to sing.
I just want to say this one more thing and I'll end.
Rather, I'll pause, and breathe, and suspend.
There are hills that I'll die on. If I must, then, I will.
But there are none that I'll kill on. I just will not kill...
Not your body.
Not your soul.
Not you.
Not anyone.
_________________________________
Thanks to @TimMossholder for making this photo available freely on @unsplash
UNSPLASH.COM
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
Colorful Hands 1 of 3 / George Fox students Annabelle Wombacher, Jared Mar, Sierra Ratcliff and Benjamin Cahoon collaborated on the mural. / Article: https://www.orartswatch.org/painting-the-town-in-newberg/ . Download this photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you." He said to them, "Go and tell that fox for me, 'Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.' Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'" - Luke 13:31-35
Jesus has been doing some tough preaching on topics like the Kingdom of God, hypocrisy, humility, and power. He has hit hard and he has hit his targets. Now comes an ominous warning:
Get out of here. King Herod is gunning for you. He plans to kill you.
Jesus is not shaken, impressed, or distracted. In fact, he tells them to go back to "that old fox," and let him know what he is up to.
"Tell him what I'm doing."
Jesus was busy and he planned to stay busy. He had more important things and people on his mind than Herod, Herod's threats, or the warnings to play it safe. It is a little unclear if the Pharisees were trying to warn Jesus for his own good or intimidate him.
"I'm casting out demons and curing people, and I am doing it today and tomorrow."
They could not stop him. He knew that. He was heading for Jerusalem no matter what and doing as much good as he could along the way. He knew the third day was coming. He knew he had to be in Jerusalem for the showdown. He was ready. He was willing. He was busy until then.
He knows that, as a prophet, if he is to be killed, he needs to be in Jerusalem. His should bring dread, but, instead, it brought feelings of sorrowful love for the city. How much better it could be if he, like a mother hen, could gather all of the city's chicks around him
But it would not be this time.
There is an eschatological tone to his closing words, an ominous allusion to rejection, suffering, and ultimate welcome. He is purposefully vague enough to cause them to wonder now and reflect later. He is specific enough to let them know he is in charge of his life and ministry.
He sets an example of how we can and must be in the world in the light of opposition, threat, intimidation, insult, and attack. We must be resolute and purposeful with every today and every tomorrow. We may not know exactly when that third day may come for us, but until then, we serve God and humanity.
There is another point, and it requires the whole story be lived out, settled in, told over and over, and reflected upon. It is the allusion to another third day, one that the thousands of disciples who would hear and read the gospel of Luke for the first time would understand. On the side of the cross in the context of this warning scene, the third day is about arrest, trial, and crucifixion. However, for the reader looking back, it is about resurrection.
In that scene, only Jesus understood that, but we can see more.
Whatever the threat or fear we face; we can keep on keeping on. But, when we must face the awful and awesome hours of our lives, there is always another third day coming with hope and life.
That gave Jesus courage. It should give us courage.
Every outcome or event is influenced by past choices and events and every such outcome or event influenced future outcomes, choices, and events.
It gets very complicated, especially when you consider how many such turning points there are in any given minute of time.
We live in complicated times with complex problems, challenges, and questions. With each, we make choices.
Each problem, challenge, or question has its proponents or champions who would move it to the top of the list of current concerns.
"If we could solve this one," they imply, "all others would soon fall in line."
For instance, the doctor said that the reason my arm hurts is that I have tendinitis (aka: tennis elbow). So, he gave me a brace. After two or three hours I had a deep insight into how it works: It feels so good when you take it off.
It is a change of focus.
Where should our focus be? If we address one pivotal concern will all others pivot with it (say it fast and it will sound clever)?
"All you need is love," we used to sing. "What the world needs now is love, sweet love; it's the only thing that there's just too little of."
What about public morality? Personal morality?
Will one lead to the other?
Which crisis is most threatening and thus, most in need of our attention?
COVID19? Violence and terrorism? Moral decay in America? Sleep disorders? The Diabetes epidemic? Global Warming?
And given that Christ is preeminent in all things, what does that imply in relation to our problems?
Are we crisis-driven or purpose driven?
Most of the issues of our day are so complex, complicated, timely, and intense that we could start digging about anywhere and hit a mother-load of sewage. We live in a leech field of unwanted complications.
And like an onion, we keep peeling back layers to find more.
I was wondering today if there had ever been such a time as this where so many were aware of the magnitude of threats to our well being, where one big issue out of balance could upset all the rest and forever topple the delicate balance that holds the world together.
What do we do?
At the risk of sounding simplistic, I'll venture a list:
1. Make an independent, prior, and irrevocable commitment to what is eternal and purposeful. Consider what is not disturbed no matter how hard everything else is shaken and commit to it. Let that commitment be your prior decision about all unknown contingencies and stick with it. If God is really God than God will still be God when everything else is rubble.
2. Lead with the Word, the Spirit, and the heart. Fully engage yourself in a search for truth that is first theological and then, open-ended, rooted in the Word of God (Living and Written). Then, engage your spirit with the Eternal Spirit of God, seeking, seeking, seeking, listening, and obeying. Finally, engage a heart of compassion, love, and brokenness for the brokenness of the world.
3. Take your assignment and do it. You are not called to solve ill. You may be called and equipped to do work that is largely invisible and seems insignificant. Do it anyway. Every assignment is vital. Do what you can.
4. Pray. We believe in the Sovereignty of God, not fatalism. We are not privy to all the outcomes. resignation is not the pathway of faith.
5. Relax and celebrate life. Your depressive negativism will not make the world a better place or enhance your joy while you are here.
Let's work together to find our way out of the maze.
I had a "what have I learned" assignment some time back thanks to a friend's invitation to speak to a group of peers.
It behooved me to remove my "expert hat" and be a fellow traveler.
That hat never fit too well anyway.
In fact, I have never really liked wearing hats much. I find them functionally necessary at times as tools, identifiers, shades from the sun, or ... well ... that is all I can really think of.
Hats - I have so many, role-related identifiers.
Whenever I introduce myself, I am compelled do a reality check. What hat am I wearing today? What is the "so what" of the crowd that is my ticket in the door? Why was I invited? What are the needs of the people that I have been sent to serve?
I am not switching between one authentic self to another; I am just turning the side of me that is relevant to the side of the crowd that cares.
And yet, everything relates, integrates, and colors everything else. I am or have been, a pastor, preacher, teacher, writer, blogger, community manager, non-profit (public benefit organization) board member, executive director, coach, Toastmaster, encourager, singer, chaplain, entrepreneur, husband, son, brother, father, GRANDPA (!), disciple of Jesus, human being, friend .....
See, I did not, could not list them in order. The order changes with the setting.
If you ask me what I have learned I have to ask what about! And I have to ask who is asking and what they need/want to know. What have I learned in what context? Under what hat? As a what? How will it help?
See 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 and ask, "What is the big banner? What is the big hat?"
It is not about having a changing persona; it is about function. All functions serve a greater purpose. I only become all things to all people for the benefit of others. I do that for the sake of a message of good news which is greater than anything that I am. As a result, I get to share in the benefits ... like Joseph who, for all of his gifts, designations, and complexities, a servant who lived out his life for the benefit of a people not his own in a land not his own ... and came to share in the benefits of life-giving service he had offered.
F.D.R. died in the company of a lady who was not his wife. J.F.K. was, well, J.F.K. Lincoln had mental health problems and was clinically depressed. Then, there was King David. Others delved into corruption that affected policies which brutalized the nation or populations within the nation. Someone has to sort these out and decide what is most important as an element of decision-making criteria. Is it a human sin with a small circle of scandal or is it a scandalous cancer that threatens the course of the future?
This is one of the challenges of the season when we weigh issues, character, personality, leadership abilities, wisdom, discretion, and truth. This is the challenge of the voter who is seeking to decide how to vote, what news to spread, what conversations should be loudest, and what should cause a candidate to sink or swim.
I am trying to rewrite an old article written first to address a the scandal of a legislator decades ago. I am wondering if any of the principles might apply.
Scandals and Sandals
There is usually a scandal in Washington - the kind we love, juicy, sexual, tawdry, and polarizing.
And the Man in sandals walks among us unshaken, knowing what He has always known - that we are vulnerable and flawed and ever so needy of His grace and mercy.
Here is what we do, and this is not to minimize the shock value or the horror of anyone being victimized: we polarize. We let the nasty news back up whatever position we have already entrenched ourselves in:
"See, I told you that all fibberwidgets (Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, political "liberals," political "conservatives", etc... ) were ignobilities."
And, if we happen to be elected to something and affiliated with a party, we will gravitate in one of two directions:
Make political points from it.
Avoid or minimize political damage from it.
And this is where the hypocrisy lies whether we were Republicans lam-blasting Democrats or Democrats doing the same to Republicans. We take the sinless stance and gather a handful of stones. And if we happen to be related by party or ideology, we distance ourselves and change the subject.
All the while, this has little to do with ideology, party affiliation, or public policy. It is about human flaws.
I must interject, during an election time, that some policies are quite scandalous themselves in that they oppress the powerless, suppress their voices and votes, marginalize populations, and defy compassion ... but that is not today's topic.
Once we recognize our opponent's flaws, we buy into the culture of cynicism and dehumanize the offender.
Here is an alternative approach to start open our dialogue:
The "opposite party' keep its mouth shut and quietly communicate with the party of the offender that it wants to give it a chance to take the lead on the housecleaning. wouldn't that be something? Give the points away.
My goodness, that might actually be civil. we can't have that.
And the Man in Sandals walks among us and shakes His head.
We are in one of those disgusting seasons where every opportunity for statesmanship is about to be shunned for good old-fashioned mudslinging after which the culprits will try to convince us that because they wear nice suits and have titles such as Senator and Congressman, they are deserving of our respect and we should consider them intelligent and conscientious patriots.
We are to expect them to respect us and work for our best interests when they can't even treat each other with respect, good will, and decency.
And when one of them falls in a big way, I almost gravitate toward him with sympathy because at least he is no longer actively assassinating the character of his opponents, maligning their motives, or labeling them with meaningless terms in an attempt to avoid honest debate.
Again, I am not talking about patterns of disregard for truth, long history of graft and corruption, heartless policies, or serious deficits of character pervasive in a system of cover-up and disregard for integrity. I am talking about human failings in isolated people and relationships.
I am talking about the capacity to weigh things, discern truth, have compassion, be reasonable, and make our best efforts toward conciliation without surrendering our own integrity.
I am guess there will be people on various sides (there are never just two) of the political spectrum who will identify with what I am saying and point the finger at the other side - which is my point.
The Man in Sandals walks among our scandals but is not scandalized.
Brennan Manning, who God uses to speak to my heart as few others makes this bold statement:
"You're only going to be as big as your concept of God."
He poses a searching question about a heavenly encounter with Jesus where our Lord asks us if we truly realized how much He loved us and desired fellowship with us.
Manning doesn't just ask these questions; he probes our hearts. He then predicts that some of our answers might actually reveal our unbelief, thought we might have professed and proclaimed the love of God.
Maimonides teaches about the 'measure of men' (compared to the earth and the universe, men is very small). - Public Domain
HUMILITY BEFORE GOD AND MAN
Think about this: would you prefer to be humbled or to humble yourself?
Would you prefer an honor bestowed by the most honorable of all or to convey honor upon yourself?
“And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.” – Matthew 23:12
Humility before God and man does not come easy to us. The grip of pride is strong upon our hearts. We may be convinced that there is no escape. There is. God is our helper. He will deliver us from pride as surely as He forgives and redeems. He can impart the humility of Christ into our lives.
It is, after all, His purpose to express the life of His Son through us
It is not easy to describe humility, but we know it when we see it. At the core of a generous heart is the seed of humility. In the soul of a servant, a humble man or woman lives.
The admonition to humility is phrased as a promise. The humble will be exalted. The sanctified irony of the matter is that is exaltation is your motive for being humble, then you are faking it and your humility is not real. But if it is based upon a genuine assessment of your life in the light of God’s glory, it is very real and that reality brings dignity...
Father, since I have no humility of my about which to boast, I come in the humility of Jesus Christ. Purge me of pride and enable me to walk in the steps of Jesus as He walks this path again through me.
Now, What About Humility and Confidence?
Are they compatible?
A man's steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand his own way? - Proverbs 20:24 (New International Version)
The very steps we take come from God; otherwise how would we know where we're going? - Same verse (The Message)
γνώθι σεαυτόν (Greek Proverb inscribed at the entrance to the temple of Apollo at Delphi) - Translation: "Know thyself."
There is a conflict between what the Oracle of Delphi prescribes and what the sage of Jerusalem decrees. The Greek proverbs adjures us to know ourselves and the Proverbs tell us that we cannot completely know ourselves. There are factors that are like ingredients in the mix of our lives that are beyond our grasp and deeper than our introspection.
Alexander Pope boasted,
"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is Man."
While not being altogether in error in his observation, he is not all-inclusive.
God is guiding our lives. Chance meetings evolve into lifetime relationships; courses are changed in a moment; entire destinies are altered by a word or deed of seemingly marginal significance.
God is guiding us, leading us, nudging us, preparing us, and building a highway of destiny for us. Of course, we can rebel and pridefully avoid His grace, but it will never be dismissed entirely. We simply do not know everything there is t know about ourselves and our purpose on this planet.
We need a dose of humility to boost our confidence.
A BIG dose!
Walk in wonder with a deepening appreciation for the mysteries of God in you. Liv e in awe and expectancy. temper your confidence with humility and your humility with courage. Leave some things dangling in yourself perception.
Don't lock yourself into hard and fast definitions of yourself.
First know God and let Him introduce you to yourself.
