Simple Respect

I had a Sociology professor in college once that said something I’ve always remembered. He told us that if we were considering marrying anyone that we should watch the way they treated the least important people in their lives. He said that was the way they would eventually treat us. That’s always made me aware of the way I treat the least important people in my life. I was blessed with a mother who can strike up a conversation with anyone. She taught me by her example to treat everyone with respect. I’ve tried to follow her example and I’ve tried to be kind to waitresses and counter people, mailmen and gas station attendants, homeless people I pass on the street and the nameless, faceless people I deal with on the phone. All of them are worth the same respect I think I’m worth.

I had a girlfriend years ago that hated the fact that I would strike up a conversation with anyone…especially waitresses. She ignored them and she called me a fool for being nice to them. Now I’m forever grateful that I didn’t marry that woman. I can see the truth of what my old professor had said. It is odd to me, as a single person, that we can marry someone and, in effect, say they are the most special person in the world to us only to later treat them like we would the least important people in our life. That’s another story though.

The point I want to make here is that people, all people, deserve our respect as fellow human beings. The Golden Rule in the Bible says to treat others how we would like to be treated. Similar sayings and proverbs are in most religions. Wise people of all cultures and in all ages have realized the truth of that principle. We’re all in this life together. We can make things easier for each other or we can add to the burdens of each other. How we choose to live, how we choose to treat others says more about us than about them.

The basic principle is that there are two ways of life… the way of get and the way of give. We can spend our lives amassing stuff and stepping on other people or we can realize that we are all connected and reach out to our neighbors. People that live the latter are the salt of the earth…they preserve it. That’s what everyone who calls themselves a Christian is called to do. It doesn’t mean selling everything and moving to India to serve the poor necessarily. It means to help those in your little corner of the world, those God puts in your path.

We all need a hand from time to time. That’s helpful to remember when someone comes to us needing a hand. We all need a little acknowledgement and praise from time to time too. It can often be a very simple thing, like a smile, that makes someone’s day go by a little easier. You can strike up a conversation with someone just to be friendly and to let them know you see them; that you hear them. It takes very little effort to treat people with respect and dignity and it adds something positive to the world. It can have a ripple effect through the people we meet and the people they come into contact with.

The bottom line is that we create the kind of world we have to live in. What kind of world do you want to live in? What kind do you want to pass on to your children? We all deserve to be treated with respect. Let that start with how you treat the least important people in your life. Life is hard enough already. When you see people…let them know you really see them. That simple thing will begin to change your world.

On Being Real Men

I had someone ask me once why I liked John Wayne so much... I told them that when he walked into a room you knew what he stood for. Love it or hate it...you could count on it. He didn't waiver or waffle, he didn't change what he believed depending on who he was talking to. He was a Real man. It may sound corny but he is still one of my heroes. I trust someone when I know where they stand and I know they are going to be there. I don't have to agree with them about everything but I have to know I can count on them. That kind of Honor is in short supply these days.

When someone tells you the truth about the present or the past it’s called honesty. When someone tells you the truth about their behavior in the future that’s called Honor. Honorable people have a code of conduct that they live by. You know you can count on an honorable person to keep their word. In that way even ones enemies can be honorable. There was a time when that was a common value. Too many ‘men’ place no value on that quality these days. Call me old fashioned, but I believe Honor is one of the defining qualities of a Real man. It is akin to Integrity. Integrity is holding on to your code of conduct no matter what comes. When the hull of a ship is ruptured or broken it is said to have lost its integrity. When you can’t count on someone to do what they say they are going to…they’ve lost their integrity.

I don’t know why men in previous generations held some values. I don’t know why many couldn’t cry or tell their loved ones “I love you”. Those things don’t make a man ‘weaker’. They establish him as someone secure in his own manhood. It’s is a source of strength to be able to do those things. I’ve often thought the so-called ‘Iron John’ movement was a joke. Those folks claim that men have lost their way since women are more independent these days. That’s’ a load of crap!! Being a real man was never about dominating women! The Iron John types teach men to be sensitive and cry. Men don’t have to cry to be men…they just shouldn’t be afraid to when it’s appropriate. That doesn’t mean it’s OK to be a sissy! A man should be willing to stand up for what’s right just because it’s right.

Men these days have dropped the ball miserably in being Real Men. We don’t expect the same things from ourselves and from each other that we once did. We’ve lost something in the process. When some of us look to the past to reclaim what it means to be a man, we often only see the mistakes that our forefathers made. Being a man was never about dominating or controlling the women in their lives, for example. That’s something fools do. Real men love Real Women and aren’t afraid to let them be themselves. Real men control themselves.

What Real men do is take responsibility for their actions, protect the ones they love, provide for those in their charge and set the example of being upright and honest in dealing with other people. Real men teach their sons how to treat women with love and respect. They teach their daughters how they should expect men to treat them. They give the loved ones in their lives a soft place to land when they fall. Real men aren’t afraid to love because they know that’s where real strength comes from.

OK…so I’m a dinosaur! I prefer the company of Real men to the limp-wristed, cry babies that run from their responsibilities these days. I also prefer Real women, those who don’t think feminine is a dirty word or a sign of weakness. This trend towards a unisex society is hurting all of us! It attempts to emasculate men and it forces women to step up and do what the men in their lives won’t.

Real mean NEVER hit the women and children they love. There is no excuse for that kind of unfocused anger. Real men support their children…whether they are married to their mothers or not. Real men teach their sons to be men by their example. Real men don’t try to be women either. It’s good to be a man! The occasional testosterone rush reminds of that. Women don’t have to understand that part of us. And we don’ t have to understand everything about them!! We should just learn to love and appreciate them…

Here endeth the lesson!

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is one of the most powerful concepts in the realm of human psychology. It is a cornerstone, if not ‘The’ cornerstone, of Christianity. To forgive is to release someone from their debt of offense. Without Gods forgiveness there may not even be a human race and there would be no Christianity. Without our ability to forgive each other most of our relationships would become impossible. Without our forgiveness for ourselves we would be unable to grow emotionally and spiritually.

The fact is that it is hard to know our own minds sometimes. We may not understand our own motivations for doing something. All of us make mistakes and we all sin. A part of our maturing process is to learn to forgive each other, and ourselves, for our mistakes and transgressions. To do so can help us in drawing closer to each other. Every one of us can recall times when we’ve wronged someone, maybe without even knowing why. Afterwards, when they forgave us, we felt closer to them than ever. Forgiveness can help to form life-changing bonds between people because it comes from love.

While it is a cornerstone concept in the Christian faith, it is often easier said than done.
We all have personal stories about someone who has wronged us and never apologized or asked for our forgiveness. Sometimes the hardest thing to feel towards someone who has wronged us is forgiveness. We have it in our power to choose to carry the offense as a burden or to forgive them anyway. Sometimes we do it just for ourselves…just so we don’t have to continue to carry the emotional baggage. To carry the feeling that we’ve been wronged only drags us down and hurts us. Forgiveness can release us from that burden. It can uplift both the forgiver and the forgiven.

Forgiveness is something God expects of all of us. In the Lords Prayer we ask that He “forgive us our trespasses AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US”. In other words, He’ll deal with us the way we deal with others. Forgiveness flows from mercy. Mercy flows from Love. Love flows from God. That is what Christianity is after all…a vehicle for conveying Gods Love to man. If you’re not forgiving your debtors…you’re missing the mark.

When Christ was asked how many times we should forgive someone for offenses to us His answer was…seventy times seven times. Just think about what God has forgiven you of and it seems a much smaller number afterward.

Perhaps the greatest thing about forgiveness is that it’s available to everyone. God offers it to us freely through the sacrifice of His son Jesus the Christ. And we all have it in our power to forgive each other and ourselves. It may not happen all at once. More often than not it’s a process, one that charts our spiritual growth. Where we fall short we can always go to God in prayer and ask for His help. When you have no love to give, you can always turn to The Source of Love. He will forgive us our debts and He will forgive others through us if we only ask…

Evolution AND Creation

Some aspects of the various theories of evolution seem logically sound and quite plausible to me. The basic concept of evolution has been around since the Greeks…that amazing culture that gave us so much when they began to think freely. What Charles Darwin did was observe and record the mechanism by which the theory might operate. Darwin, a keen observer with a very sharp mind, theorized that the mechanism by which human evolution might have taken place is ‘survival of the fittest.’ He observed that environmental pressures tend to weed out certain characteristics in the gene pool while favoring other characteristics. An animal more suited to cold weather is more likely to survive a planetary shift in temperature, like an ice age, than one not so well suited for example. I can buy that. There is still the sticky problem of one species of animal giving birth to a different species. Evolutionary theorists tell us that such changes happen gradually, over millions of years but they have yet to produce any fossil evidence of a real missing link. It could happen I suppose, but without any hard evidence it’s still just a theory.

What the survival of the fittest mechanism doesn’t come anywhere near explaining is Sentience. Sentience, self-awareness, consciousness, or whatever label ones gives the quality that sets human beings apart from animals makes us unique among living things on earth. Some scientists speculate that sentience might be an ‘evolutionary emergent’ quality. That is to say that when life begins to evolve into ever more complex forms, self-awareness naturally occurs. That is pure speculation with NO evidence to back it up. In fact the evidence seems to me to point the other direction. Human beings, if you buy the most commonly accepted theory of evolution, have been around maybe three million years. The dinosaurs were around some two hundred million years and there is no evidence that any of them became sentient in the process.

What happened to man is unique. Some will, no doubt, point out that we share 98 percent of our genetic make up with the great apes and they are just behind us in evolutionary development. They have been around as long as we have. If sentience is evolutionary emergent…why don’t they write books and build cities too? They are not just different in degree from human beings…they are different in kind. Any non-biased observer can tell you that. (Provided they don’t have a PhD to muddle their thinking!) Intelligence may well be evolutionary emergent but intelligence is not the same as sentience.

If evolutionary theory is true then something happened to mankind that made us different. We are self-aware. We are capable of understanding the universe around us. We can build cultures and create languages and we can pass on what we’ve learned through them. No other life form yet identified can do those things.

There was some moment in our development when we became self aware as a species. We might call it an, ‘Adam and Eve moment’. The emergence of the Human Spirit set us apart. At that point a new species was born. From here it might be possible to harmonize the Biblical account of creation with modern scientific thought. If the first hominid to become self-aware began to reproduce it is logical to assume that his offspring would have the advantage over other hominids in intelligence and eventually come to dominate. That would mean that all modern human beings had the same ancestor even if other hominids existed simultaneously for a time.

This is all just speculation on my part. I don’t believe there is enough information in the few pages of the Bible where the subject is addressed to speak dogmatically. I also don’t believe that evolutionary scientists have proven their case. There are too many holes in the best of their theories. Sometimes both sides seem alittle too entrenced to hear the other to me.

I think that children should be taught everything. Let them hear both arguments. Maybe it would be inappropriate for both arguments to be taught in a science class. That’s OK by me…send them to a worlds religions class too. Teach them everything!! The world they were born into is not black and white. It’s more complex than that. They’ll need good brains to navigate their way through it. They’ll need to be exposed to all the ideas to make up their own minds. I don’t think any of us should be afraid of education.

I DO believe education should include being taught the difference between right and wrong and they won’t get that in a classroom. They won’t be taught personal or social responsibility there either. It’s up to parents and churches to teach them the really important things. Instead of taking a hard-line stand on evolution versus creation, I think our time would be better spent on teaching our children to be decent people. We can best do that by our example…whatever our beginnings were.

Open for Business!

2005 has been an important year for my heart. The death of someone special to me caused it to slowly shut down long ago. It was as if I had put a sign outside of it: “Closed Until Further Notice”. In the last year I have lost more friends and relatives to death than ever before in my life. I know that’s to be expected as we get older, but it doesn’t make it any easier. One friend’s death, in particular, made an impression on me. A man in his nineties named Bill Copenhaver whom I had known for many years quietly faded off in his sleep. He was a blessing in my life. I don’t think I ever met a more decent, gentle, unassuming man. He was married to the love of his life, Mabel, for over sixty years. She died a few years ago leaving him alone and ready to join her. They were such an amazing example of life-long love… I stopped by the nursing home where he spent his last month the day before he slipped beyond the veil. I touched his forehead as he slept and, unintentionally, awakened him. We exchanged a few words. I told him that I loved him and he told me the same. He was one of those people that just made life easier to bear for me. His death reminded me of the saying: “Don’t cry because it’s over, Smile because it happened!” I did both at the same time… I’ve found that even in moments of darkness and despair there are moments of grace. Mr. Copenhaver helped me to realize that. This year has served as a kind of wake-up call for me to 'Carpe Diem'! I've set about to make some changes in my life. One of them is to open my heart more. I've been blessed to have had some great examples in life. Most of them have now slipped beyond the veil. I have folded the lessons they taught me into my life so a part of them lives on through me. I hope I can do them honor…

Smiting the Black Metal

Blacksmithing is one of the crafts that made modern life possible. It may even be ‘the’ craft that made modern civilization possible. It is as old as civilization. It’s been a part of most cultures for thousands of years.

Without an understanding and use of iron and steel, modern life would be impossible. After World War II traditional blacksmithing almost died out. It has been replaced by modern welding, machining and manufacturing processes. We can now make things faster, stronger and more uniformly than the local blacksmith ever could. Today mass production has insured that most everyone has the same ‘stuff’.

In making the transition, I think we’ve lost something too. In the United States we have the unspoken axiom that ‘newer is better’. When a new way to do something is developed the old ways are often largely forgotten. In an age when everything is going hi-tech, I think it’s important to remember where we came from and how we got here. It not only gives us a fuller understanding of why things are done the way they are, but it gives us an appreciation of the past and how our ancestors lived.

There are other cultures that hold different values. In Japan for example, when you take a job in say, a textile mill, you are required to learn the origins of the craft. In the case of textiles they are taught how fibers are obtained and woven, how plant dyes are rendered and utilized and how successive technologies gradually modernized the craft. They consider it important to understand how we got to where we are.

Some people in our society today can operate the most advanced computers but have no idea how to grow their own food or build their own homes. Our culture has seen many traditional crafts simply die out in favor of new ways. In sensing that we’ve lost something, making the transition to our modern mass-produced culture, many are turning their eyes back to the traditional ways. A whole new generation is rediscovering what it means to exercise their will in steel. Blacksmithing is being reborn. The anvil has been infused with new life by artists and craftsmen seeking to learn the old ways.

Tools that were once unidentified relics in dusty old barns, and skills that were once forgotten, are being rediscovered. Modern artist blacksmiths are preserving the knowledge for future generations. They are finding that they are limited only by their imaginations. And what some of their imaginations have produced would amaze you! Traditional philosophies once held that there were five basic elements in the universe…earth, air, fire, water, and wood. The blacksmith works with all of them and he also adds a sixth…his will. He creates something new and unique in the universe every time he forges. Everything he or she forges is, by definition, one of a kind.

I can tell you from experience that in the forge it’s easy to feel a deep connection to the elements. You become one with them. The joy one feels in using air, water, fire, wood and earth in creating something new is almost indescribable. It’s like putting your fingers on the pulse of creation. You learn its rules and its boundaries. You learn to move with it. You learn to stretch your own imagination and your own will. There is something primal in it that speaks directly to your soul. With every hammer blow you can also feel a connection with thousands of years of history and with the struggles our ancestors faced in getting us here. Some of us embrace the past and the old ways. Some of us still love the ‘low tech’ ways. We won't let them be forgotten. A new day is dawning on the hammer, the anvil and the forge!