The Old Ways

I got a call recently from an old friend who said he needed the help of a blacksmith. What struck me as funny about it was that my friend is a very ‘High Tech’ guy. He’s the first person I thought of when I thought my computer might have crashed not long ago.

My friend brought another high tech guy with him when he came over. They came in a state-of-the-art van outfitted for a wheel chair. The ramp had failed to work as designed and its owner needed a low-tech device that would enable him to secure it. After some discussion and experimentation we came up with a device that filled the need. It only amounted to a piece of tool steel with a little heat applied in a few spots. That was nothing for a smith, except a chance to get rid of another piece of scrap steel lying around. For some reason it impressed these two high tech guys? I got a chuckle out of it… You see, with a few exceptions, my PC being the most obvious, I’m a very low-tech kind of guy. While everyone else I know has started studying high tech systems etc., I started studying blacksmithing. I guess I’ve always been out-of-step with most people around me.

The episode got me to thinking. I love the old ways of doing things. Making ice cream in an old hand-cranked bucket, cooking on cast iron, and hammering hot steel are only a few of the old ways I cherish. I collect antique and vintage tools along with a few pieces of antique stoneware and furniture that have struck my fancy. I’ve never really tried to explain why the old ways appeal to me so much. The thought came to me last night that I don’t want for those things to be lost in our rush to the future. When my tools were new some of them represented the culmination of hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of years technological development. It seems a shame to me to simply discard them in favor of a new way of doing something. They had value once in helping men to manipulate the world around them. They still have value in representing an old way of doing things. There are, of course, other ways of remembering.

I don’t re-enact any particular period of history the way some do, but I respect it as a way to remember, and learn from, those that came before. I have a stepfather that collects and restores old military vehicles. It’s his way of honoring those that came before and the sacrifices they made to get us here. These, too, are putting value on the way things were once done. It puts value on the contributions of our ancestors. I don’t think those things should ever be forgotten. I don’t want the past to be forgotten. The past is where we came from. It’s who we are. What we’re doing now will belong to the future.

As my friend and his buddy left they joked; “when civilization breaks down, high tech guys will be out of jobs and we’ll need blacksmiths, otherwise who will make our swords and knives for us?”

Such things do need to be considered after all!

The Gift of Laughter

I think laughter is one of Gods great gifts to us. Laughter can help break the ice in dealing with other people. Laughter can diffuse anger and lighten our mood. Laughter can relieve stress. We tend to remember things better when we laugh while learning them. To be able to laugh at ourselves can lighten our load. It is no wonder it is called the best medicine, it has a healing effect to be sure.

Even the thought of an infant smiling and laughing brings a smile to my face. The laughter of children is especially contagious. The laughter of little children can fill us with joy. (Just watch their faces when the muppets are on!) It's not only contagious, it's without guile. It can remind us of our own innocence lost.

There are those who make a living out of making others laugh. That’s not a bad calling…if it’s used in a way to uplift us and not tear us down. I remember Red Skelton and his TV show when I was a child. He was decent man who never tried to make us laugh as the expense of others. He would make us laugh at him. He was the consummate clown. At the close of every one of his shows he asked for God to bless his audience. In a way, we were blessed just from watching. There aren’t many like him around these days.

Like all of Gods gifts to us, laughter can be misused. To laugh about some injustice or dark deed can make us take them a little less seriously too. Jokes about death can help us deal with the subject more easily…but jokes about killing can take away from the seriousness of the subject. Jokes about ourselves can help us not to take ourselves too seriously…but jokes about others can be hurtful.

Unfortunately too many comedians these days appeal to our basest nature. Comedians that make a reputation out of belittling others or using foul language may make us laugh but they don’t uplift us…they debase us. As a society we seem to have an unfocused anger that comes out in our humor. It doesn’t diffuse anger or relieve stress it just fuels our cynicism. Much of the humor that’s popular these days is cynical and hateful.

I think what we laugh at is a good gauge of who we are as a people. It can be like the water we bath in. It can leave us feeling clean and refreshed or, like bathing in muddy water, it can leave us feeling unclean. I’m afraid that today too much of our humor is inclined to pull us down instead of building us up.

To have become so jaded as to take one of Gods gifts to us and use to tear down and debase ourselves…shame on us! Consider what we've lost.

We could learn a lot from the laughter of children. It's not called 'the best medicine' for nothing!

What is Beauty?

I’ve been doing some further reflection on art. I’ve asked in an earlier piece: What is Art? I’ve come to a working answer at least. I don’t believe reflecting the ugliness in the world is art. I believe art should be uplifting. It should be timeless. Art should be beautiful. The question then arises: What is beauty? I’ve read some of what various philosophers have had to say on the subject, but I choose to address the question by how it makes me feel and what I learn from it.

First, I think beauty evokes a physical reaction. It pleases us. There is, perhaps, nothing more beautiful in the universe to me than a beautiful woman. The beauty of a woman isn’t ‘one’ thing…it can be several. There is the kind of beauty that evokes a hormonal reaction. We can sexually desire a woman. That is, I think, the lowest form of feminine beauty. There is a kind of beauty some women have that captivates us in our minds. Something about them makes us want to just ‘be around’ them. These women are interesting. We want to see what they’ll do next. We want to hear what they have to say. We like these women! Then there is the, almost transcendent, kind of beauty that we idealize. These women are the goddesses. We put them on pedestals. Just looking at them can cause a stillness in us. I think this is the kind of beauty that romance begins with.

The first kind of beauty women have, the sexual attractiveness, is fleeting. It fades over time. The second and third kinds of beauty can grow with time. These are kinds of beauty that only some men will perceive and respond to. Not all men will be drawn to any one woman in the same way. We can all see something different. All women have something beautiful about them if one will only take the time to notice.

Beauty in other forms can evoke physical reactions in us as well. I have seen sunsets and mountains, among other sights, that caused me to well up with tears they were so beautiful to me. These were forms of beauty beyond possession. To appreciate their beauty, I had to stop and take it in. I am reminded here of the saying: Life is not about the number of breaths you take, it’s about the moments that take your breath away. Some of these are the moments that take our breath away. This is a transcendent beauty. It’s both fleeting and new with every moment. This is the kind of beauty that makes something in us say: “Thank You…”

Beauty can be a teacher, or so it seems to me. Beauty can teach us about how fleeting life is. We have to stop and appreciate it to really ‘get’ it. Afterwards it fades. Something in the view, or in us, changes and the moment is gone. Beauty can teach us to fully participate with life in each moment. In each moment there is something of beauty to be perceived. We can hold it, but only for a moment, then we have to let it go. Maybe this is why women possess the most captivating kind of beauty. We can physically hold them. We can possess them. But, that’s only fleeting too. All of these kinds of beauty can teach us something about love. A part of love is stopping to appreciate something special outside of ourselves. Love is opening our hearts to it to take it in and become one with it, if only for a moment.

Sometimes I don’t even realize, when I sit down to write, where it will take me. Something inside pushes out to express itself and then I learn something more about what’s going on inside me. I didn’t know where contemplating beauty would take me. I’ve learned something from listening…to me. Beautiful…

Suffer the little children

I just watched the Ron Clark story on TV. It’s a movie based on the life of an elementary school teacher from North Carolina who moved to Harlem, New York to teach sixth grade students. He chose the remedial class because everyone else had given up on them. The students tried everything they could to get him to quit and give up on them…but that would only have reinforced their view of themselves. Mr. Clark stayed. He showed them that he believed in them and that helped them begin to believe in themselves. They went from being the lowest testing class in the school to the highest in the district. Mr. Clark’s students caught his love of learning and it began to burn in them. He uplifted them by setting them an example of someone who not only loved learning but who was able to show them something of value in themselves.

To let a child see something of value in themselves through the eyes of an adult…I think that is the greatest thing an adult can give a child. Kids need more than just three squares a day and a roof over their head, they need to know someone believes in them. When a child learns to value him or herself they can easily learn the value of others…when they don’t value themselves they won’t value anything or anyone else.

I’m reminded of the story of a king in a small country who wanted to adopt a child raised by a village. He told the village about his plan but he wouldn’t tell them whom the child was. So the village raised every child there with love and affection. They were all praised and encouraged. They were instructed with patience and nurtured because of who they might become. As a result the whole generation was uplifted. They prospered as a peaceful people and raised a wise leader for the next generation.

Children need food, clothing, a safe and peaceful home, an education and the example of honest, upright adults, especially their parents. Every child needs a mother and a father who love each other living in their home. Little boys need the example of a man to learn to become a man. Little girls need a father to teach them how a man should treat a woman. Every child needs a mother to learn how to love.

Children don’t belong to their parents. They only come through them. They belong to God. Children are only entrusted to their parents for their parents to teach them to become decent human beings. That’s more important than being rich or famous. Our character is what we take with us after we draw our last breath. Everything else is just for training purposes…

People often wonder what's going on here on earth. Why are we here? The answer is that God is creating His family here. We are raising the Children of God in every generation. We should take that to heart because it’s THE most important thing happening in the universe! What we do in our homes will echo for an eternity…

Love your children.

Anti-Semitism

The world powers are, once again, focused on the Middle East. Throughout history it’s been a political hotspot. It was once a coveted overland trade route between Asia, Africa and Europe that was regularly fought over. We all know the area is the birthplace of the three great Western religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It's home to some of the holiest places of those faiths. And, most relevant to most of the modern world, the area is the richest source of oil on earth. Anything that disrupts the peace there has the power to interfere with the flow of oil to a power-hungry world. That’s a reality.

Jewish history is such that, when the Romans occupied their homeland, the Romans drove them out in the Diaspora. After nearly two thousand years, and WWII, when Hitler made a concerted effort to murder an entire people, the world recognized that the Jews needed a homeland. The United Nations was responsible for the formation of the modern state of Israel in 1948. The Jews were given their ancestral homeland back by the world. The only people that have consistently refused to recognize that official decision by the United Nations are the Arabs.

Arabs will say that they fear Zionism, the idea that Israel will expand…but that’s only a story for the naive. The fact is the Arabs want to eradicate Israel. They do not believe it has the right to exist…period. Their arguments about the Palestinians being a people without a homeland ring hollow when one realizes the largest population on earth without their own homeland are the Kurds. Arabs don’t care much about them because they live in Arabic countries.

Without their oil, the world would probably pay little attention to the Arabs. But, their oil has given them financial power and a voice in the world. Muslim theology demands that they spread Islam throughout the world with it. The history of Islam is a bloody one. If people didn't convert with the word they were converted with the sword. Additionally, Muslim eschatology, or end time theology, says that Islam must wipe out the children of Israel before Gods final judgment. That translates into a hatred of the Jews. True Muslim believers are never going to make peace with Israel…and that’s a reality.

Many people want to blame the Jews for the violence in the Middle East. While anti-Semitism is on the rise around the world, especially in the Middle East and in Europe, the facts of history are plain. The Jews have only wanted to live peacefully in their homeland. They don't proselytize their faith. They don’t start wars. They don’t invade other countries to take territory. When modern Israel has taken territory it was because they were attacked and they took it to form a buffer zone between themselves and their enemies. They've offered to return those lands in return for peace. The Jews have contributed to the arts and sciences of civilization far out of proportion to their small numbers. They've set a standard of morality, as a people, that has been a light to the world.

In the dark ages of Europe, when the black plague ravaged the population, much of the Jewish population was spared. Many of the Europeans came to believe that was because the Jews had cursed the Christian population. The fact was, the Jews kept Gods laws of quarantine and sanitation revealed in the Bible. Obeying those laws kept them from falling prey to the disease. Sanitation and quarantine practices are now common among modern nations, thanks in part to the example of the Jews.

They have kept Gods revealed law to mankind alive and well...despite all the efforts that have been made to wipe them out of existence. It's for that reason that Satan has attempted to destroy them throughout history. Satan has used the Persians, the Romans, the Spanish Inquisition and the Nazis...but the Jews have always survived while their enemies have been destroyed. God has protected His people.

Some may claim a hatred of Jews based on individuals they've known, but to hate an entire people based on a few individuals is irrational. There are bad apples in every basket. Anti-Semitism comes from one source and it has nothing to do with God. For those that believe in God but give no thought to Satan…you need to reconsider. Hate is the work of Satan. He is alive and well. He wants to destroy the Jews because they have kept the knowledge of the One True God. Practicing Christians are on that list too...

There is a reason why terrorists have targeted our nation along side the Jews. The United States and Israel are two of the most moral nations on earth, despite our many flaws. But Jews and Christians need to realize who the Real enemy is here. It's not one of flesh and blood. Ultimately the way our enemies will be defeated is in our obedience to God. A part of that obedience is found in where our loyalty and our sympathies lay. There is NO such thing as an Anti-Semitic Christian. A person can be one or the other, but not both. Our savior was born into the tribe of Judah. Jews didn’t kill Christ…our sins did. That is the very heart of the Christian message. That makes every human being culpable.

Once again hate is mounting against the tribe of Judah. Islam has become the right hand of Satan. Muslims are rearing up against the people of the One True God. Like all of the others that have done so…they will ultimately be destroyed. There won’t be peace in the Middle East until they are. That too is a reality.

Ramblings of an Old Guy! Pt.2

When we’re young we can act like we’re indestructible. It’s a time when the life force in us is moving faster than our bodies decline. We can also act like life will go on forever, despite all evidence to the contrary. Age comes as a surprise for many people just like a failing body does. The fundamental truth of our existence comes to all of us eventually.

The truth is that life is a one-way ticket. We can only spend time…we can’t save it or trade it. How we spend our time, like how we spend our money, is a measure of what we value. We may not realize it at the time but what we do in the present determines our future. The choices we make determine the quality of our lives. We can choose to act with integrity. We can choose to deal honorably with each other or we can choose to treat life like it’s our own little game and concern ourselves only with “I, me, my and mine”.

We can treasure the companions that have made the journey with us, but ultimately we go through life alone. That is to say that what happens inside our own skin is unique to us. God, in His eternity, is always with us…only a breath away. But, sometimes we just need someone with skin to touch and to talk with. It is not good for man to be alone after all. We are social creatures. We need each other. We can treasure each other but we can’t really hold on to each other. We can’t keep sickness, old age and death from claiming those we love. We can only fully participate with them while they are here…while there is time. We can make the leap and realize that we are all connected. We are all a part of each other. In that way we are never alone...

We can spend our lives uplifting each other and in the process be uplifted. That’s what God reveals to us. He gave us free will so we can choose…then He implores us to choose life! We’re here to learn that…and to teach it. What we do here will ripple throughout humanity and beyond. What we do here on earth in our mortal form can echo an eternity. It’s well to ponder these things while young. It is wise to ponder them before acting...

My Dad, his bottle, and what he left behind...

My father was an alcoholic. There was a time when I believed that the only effect that had on me was to keep me from getting drunk. I’ve never been drunk or used illegal drugs. Being from my generation, many people find that amazing, but most of them have never seen the things I’ve seen. In an off-handed way I can thank my father for my aversion to brain altering chemicals, it’s true. As I grew older I realized that my fathers alcoholism affected me in many ways and most of them were not so positive.

When you live with an alcoholic you can never predict what will happen from one day to the next. One day my father would come home in a good mood, smiling and patient. The next day he might be in a rage and decide to knock my mother around while yelling and threatening to kill her. When you live with that day in and day out, you begin to live with a knot in your stomach. You prepare for the yelling and screaming and, because you’re prepared for that, you can’t really appreciate the good days. The knot eventually stays with you all the time. The innocent child in you hides behind the walls you build up for yourself deep inside. Everything in your life is met with a defensive reaction. You begin to wonder: “How is this going to hurt me?” about everything. You never really relax or let your guard down. Life becomes one traumatic event after another and the moments in between are spent trying to prepare for the next one. It alters everything in your life.

If it happens to you when you’re very young, you develop the constant fear of having your mother killed and losing your father to prison. When you’re too young to control anything in your life, you’re completely at the mercy of someone controlled by alcohol. No kid should ever have to live like that. No kid should ever have to get a butcher knife for his mother to keep his father from killing her. No kid should ever have to see his father hit his mother at all. It’s no way to live…believe me.

In my life, my experiences as a child living with an alcoholic have made me pray for peace more than anything else in life. Since it’s most peaceful when I’m alone…I’ve spent most of my life alone. I’ve had relationships with women but I’ve never let them get too close. The child still hiding behind the walls remembers too well that when you let someone into your heart they can really hurt you. Even close friends aren’t allowed too close. It’s hard trying to explain to a child living behind walls that things have changed…

It’s hard for me to accept weakness in others, but it’s really hard to accept it in myself. Weakness invites attack so you have to always be strong. It is really hard for me to forgive. I have found that I just can’t too many times. God, in His grace, has shown me that He can do it through me if I’ll just step aside and let Him. I’m still learning…slowly.

Never letting anyone too close, wanting to be inside where it looks warm and inviting but always staying outside looking in…and living with the remnants of a knot in my stomach. It can be exhausting.

I can thank my father, and his weakness for alcohol, for all of this. He taught me to live in fear. He forced me to be strong when I just wanted to be a kid. He left me with the legacy of never being able to be too close to anyone. He made sure by his example that I would never want to get drunk…or be like him in any way. My father taught me how to be a man by teaching me how not to be a man. He threw away the chance to get to know a neat little kid. But, he was my father…

Bobby Gene Perkins (Born:1937, Died:1991)

I forgive you Dad…

Ramblings of an old guy! Pt.1

Aging is a funny thing. We all have to come to peace with the fact that our existence as mortals is temporary, one day we will die. We have to accept that as the central truth of our lives. But, what is even harder to come to grips with is getting older or, I should say, getting old. When you’re young you never really ‘get’ that you will get older, it only seems to happen to other people. Then one day you wake up and twenty or thirty years have past and you’re not quite sure where they went?

Coming to peace with the fact that we will get older, that our bodies will, one day, fail us is even harder than coming to peace with death. Death is an event…one day it just happens. Getting older, that’s gradual. It takes no effort. It happens while we’re thinking of other things! It can seem unfair I suppose, especially to those who haven’t made peace with it.

It seems unfair that we are expected to make most of the big decisions in our lives while we are in our teens and twenties. Most of us will choose our mates, our educations and our careers in that time. When we’re older we realize how little experience those grand decisions in our lives were based on. I know, at my advanced age, that I would hesitate to trust most twenty-something’s to make the big decisions for themselves. They just don’t have the experience or the wisdom to do so. Maybe that’s why arranged marriages are so popular in older cultures? In many older cultures it’s quite common for parents to choose the careers of their children too. I can see wisdom in that.

Those ideas rub against the grain of our American culture. Ours is a culture of youth. We believe in allowing every individual to make their own decisions and mistakes. There is a wisdom in our way too. We just have to be prepared to make quite a few mistakes. (When I hear some people seem surprised that they made a mistake in their life my response is usually: “Welcome to Earth!”)

Though, it’s clear it doesn’t happen to everyone, hopefully most of us grow up as we grow older. In growing up some of even become wiser. It seems the only way to do that is to pay attention to the mistakes and the successes in our lives and connect the dots that got us there. When we’re older we are not as driven by our hormones and other bodily chemicals so we can think more clearly…at least for a while. That must lend itself to wisdom too.

I think growing older is somewhat like climbing a mountain. At the base it doesn’t look as high as it does from the top. As we get higher, we can see farther. At forty you can understand 20…but at 20 you don’t get 40 at all! I guess that means some part of wisdom is in perspective too.

As we grow older, and hopefully somewhat wiser, we also have the opportunity to grow in character. We can put that wisdom to use in our own lives by becoming better people. It doesn’t matter how old we become, we can still grow. With character we can be good examples for those farther back on the path.

It just seems that, right about the time you really start understanding a few things, you’re too old to be able to do anything about them! Our desire then moves to wanting to share the things we’ve learned with younger people. The problem with that, in our culture of youth anyway, is that not many are inclined to listen. The young too often ignore the advice of the mature and then set about to make all the same mistakes in their own lives. Clearly, something is wrong somewhere!!!

Life is about growth. In growing we're going to make mistakes. In fact, if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough! Hopefully we live long enough to find some redemption and some inner peace. Life is not just some ‘thing’ we can hold on to…it's a process we participate in. It’s like a song or a book, it will end, but it can cause ripples that last for generations. Most of us are so wrapped up in our own lives that we sometimes forget that.

As we get older, we often forget many things…I can’t even remember how I wanted to end this just now?!?!

Oh well…Welcome to earth everyone!

Coming Soon...OneWorld, One Faith.

As the Roman Empire was on its last leg, the emperor Constantine sought something that would give it cohesion, something that would unify his crumbling empire. He chose a relatively new, small religion that had made a name in the empire because of the dedication of its members. Constantine made Christianity the state religion. He didn’t much care exactly what it taught, as long as that teaching was universal. He ordered church leaders together to sit down and codify it doctrines. This ‘new’ faith, being as much political as it was religious adopted many of the ancient practices of the peoples in the empire. It picked them up, dusted them off, and gave them ‘Christian’ names. When in Rome one must do as the Romans do after all. Thus, Saturnalius became Christmas and the first day of the week became the official Christian day of worship. A partnership between this newly formed church and the state was born. In the centuries that followed the power of the Catholic church grew as the political leaders, and alliances, in Europe and elsewhere came and went.

To be sure, the formation of this faith provided some stability for the various peoples it came to dominate. It kept the people in line by owning their ‘immortal souls’ while the state owned their bodies. It proved to be a useful tool to the state and vice versa. This is only one manifestation of a state religion in history.

Political leaders have often come to understand that it’s easier to govern a people when most of them maintain the same beliefs. Emperors have especially found it useful. In an empire many countries come under the umbrella of one government or leader. With many different peoples and many different cultures it is necessary for social cohesion that the people share some common vision. Religion has been used to provide that cohesion far more often in history than political philosophies.

We are at a time in history again where differences in worldviews are at the core of conflicts between nations all over the globe. The difference is, in our age, modern technologies and the modern weapons of war have gotten so deadly that we are now able to annihilate our race many times over. If we don’t find a way to solve our differences we are headed that way. History teaches us that the time is ripe for another state religion, one to give people a common vision for the sake of political stability and cohesion. It looks like things are shaping up to move that way. To be effective this time it will have to be global in its scope. The world is a much smaller place than it was in Constantine’s time.

As it happens the Bible, too, predicts a coming global faith that is in alliance with its ruling nations. The leader of that faith will bring peace to the world. He will make the world believe that Christ has returned. He will bring Peace, peace…finally. Or so it will seem…because that leader will be the very antithesis of Christ. The peace he will usher in will be short lived.

Every generation of Christians has predicted the coming of the Anti-Christ followed by the coming of the Real Christ. They have all been wrong… But this time…this time is the first time in human history that we have the capacity to destroy all life on earth. Doomsday predictors have always been with us, and they will be…until doomsday. Now it’s a real possibility.

The real message of the Gospel, the Good News, of Jesus the Christ is that this is a time of hope. Jesus the Christ is coming back! The heart of the gospel is that the Kingdom of God is coming. There will be one world, and one faith. God will dwell with men. He will wipe away all tears from our eyes. There will be no more death, no sorrow, no more crying. There will be no more pain because the former things will have all passed away. All things will be made anew! (Rev. 21: 3-5)

As Christians we have all reason to hope for the future because these words are true and faithful. It’s time to renew our faith and hold fast to it. The darkest hour of human history is before us…just before the dawn!