The Religion of Peace?...The Facts:

(Originally Posted 12-31-04)


Sept.5, 1972...International Olympics...Munich, Germany...11 Israeli athletes murdered

Oct.23, 1983...United States Marine Corps barracks. Beruit, Lebonon...241 murdered...80 wounded

Oct.1985...Achille Lauro hijacked...69 year old American tourist in a wheelchair murdered...because he is Jewish

Dec.21, 1988...Pan Am flight 103...Lockerbie, Scotland...270 murdered

Feb.26, 1993...World Trade Center...New York, New York...6 murdered...1000 injured

June 25, 1996...Kobar Towers...Riyad, Saudi Arabia...19 murdered...372 injured

Aug. 7, 1998...U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania...224 murdered...hundreds injured

Oct. 12, 2000...Navel Vessel USS Cole in Persian Gulf...17 murdered...39 injured

Sept. 11, 2001...World Trade Center/ Pentagon...New York, New York/ Washington D.C....3030 murdered...2337 injured

In Israel since the second Intifadah there have been 425 terrorist attacks... 377 Israelis murdered...2076 injured

52 were suicide bombings...murdering 288 people...

(This information is dated and far from complete).

March 11, 2004…Spain, 10 bombs exploded on four commuter trains at three railstations, murdering 191 people, more than 1,800 injured

Sept.1-3, 2004…Beslan, Russia…1200 plus people in an elementary school taken hostage by 32 terrorists, 330 murdered…176 of them children (They were not allowed to eat, drink or go to the bathroom for three days while they were held hostage. Bombs killed many of them, many more were shot in the backs as they tried to escape)…over 500 injured...24 children orphaned.

All of these crimes against humainty were committed by Muslim terrorists.... And where was the outcry against these mass murders in the Muslim world? Not one major Muslim organization has condemned them...

America has put its sons and daughters in the service of arms in harms way to protect Muslim lives many times…to liberate them from Fascists in North Africa in WWII, to protect them from Serbs in the former Yugoslavia and to liberate them from one of the most brutal dictators in the history of the world in Kuwait. Now American soldiers and marines shed blood in Afghanistan and Iraq...to set Muslims free from oppressive governments.

Cynics will say that Americans are only interested in the oil the Middle East has to offer. That is one interest. The fact is that America and Europe have made Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Middle Eastern oil producers some of the richest countries on earth because the land they live on lies atop rich oil reserves. That has raised the living standards of millions of Muslims and it has served to give them a voice in the world…one they would not have otherwise.

While Arabs cried foul when the United Nations created the nation of Israel in 1948, because that act displaced the Palestinians and left them without a homeland, they have been silent about the plight of the Kurds, the largest ethnic population without a homeland...because the Kurds live in Muslim lands. Arab Muslims have ignored the will of the United Nations and tried on more than one occassion to wipe Israel out of existence. Arab Muslims claim that Israeli Zionists seek to take over the world because Israel, in it’s own defense, conquered some of the land of the Muslim nations that have attacked them. No mention is made of the fact that the Koran dictates Muslims try to conquer the world for Islam. Muslim history is a history of conquest and bloodshed and is there to read for anyone who cares to. Many Muslims today openly proclaim that world conquest for Islam is still their goal.

There are some two dozen Arab Muslim nations that all share the same language, culture, religion and ethnicity…and they are all ruled by dictators. In many of those lands women are treated like property; non-believers are only barely tolerated and the freedoms that the Constitution of the United States of America declares are the God-given inalienable rights of every human being...are non-existent.

Where, exactly, is the 'peaceful' part again?

The Spice of Love

I think romance is the nicest dimension of a relationship between a man and a woman. When I was younger I used to wonder why, in the movies at least, the town always cheered when two lovers got together? It wasn’t happening to them so what were they so happy about? I finally understand why the town cheers. I find myself these days silently cheering for lovers that look happy together. Just to know that it’s possible between two people gives me a good feeling. In a way, I think it is somewhat akin to seeing ballet dancers or gymnasts move in amazing and graceful ways. It can give us pleasure just to know it’s possible for members of our own species to do such things…even if we can’t. That is the faith of love.

Some people think romance is dead. It seems like too many people are cynical from having been burned. Too many people are content to selfishly use each other to fill one need or another. Men use women for sex. Women use men for money. And it goes on and on. It’s too bad. I came to realize late in life that this life is supposed to be a blessing. A big part of that blessing is finding someone to share it with. People that don’t let themselves experience romance only scratch the surface of life’s blessings. People that are only in relationships for sex or whatever they can ‘get’ out of them never really mature. Some are destined to be ‘deeply superficial’ it seems. That is the pain of love.

Some people let the romance in their relationships die. They become so fixed on the day to day that they forget that love can lift them above it. It’s a shame to see the romance die in lovers. Sometimes it seems to die but in reality it has only matured. Romance is different at different times in a relationship. It can be roses and wine in front of a fireplace or walking along the beach in the moonlight in the beginning. It can always be that way for some, for others, after so many years, it may just be a your eyes meeting across a crowded room or the little knowing glances and comments that no one else is privy to. Romance is the spice of love.

A mature relationship is one that allows two people to grow together, to explore the depths of what it means to be human together. When two people know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, when they know the raw truth of each other and still love each other it uplifts them. They become more than the sum of their parts. When two people have laughed and cried together, when they have experienced life’s joy and life’s pain together it creates something new and unique in the universe. It creates a bond that’s beyond anything physical. That is the dream of love.

These are, of course, observations from the outside looking in. This kind of blessing only happens to two hearts that are open to each other at the same time. Its rarity makes it seem like it only happens to the lucky few. I’m just happy that it happens at all…that it’s possible for a human heart to find another that fits it and they are content to grow old together. That is the hope of love.

King Solomon once wrote: There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four, which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent on a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid…

Romance is one of Gods true miracles. That is the blessing of love…

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!

What is Art?

Our ‘conscious’ selves are only a part of who we are. The unconscious is programmed by what we sense and perceive and it can be programmed intentionally by our conscious mind…it then runs most of our lives. The unconscious will assert itself when it’s ignored or repressed. It manifests itself in our dreams, in our language and in our movements. But perhaps it’s greatest manifestation is in our art.

The art of a civilization is often all that remains when it’s people are gone. Their art can tell us what was important to them, what they valued.

I’ve spent hours pondering the questions: ‘What is art?’ and ‘Why is it important to us?’ I have come to the conclusion that art expresses something in us that’s beyond our conscious mind, it's beyond logic. Sometimes it represents what we see, sometimes what we dream, and sometimes it represents the moments in between. Art can take the daily and mundane and uplift it to the eternal and the ideal. Art represents our inner self, pressing itself out. At its best, it is the evidence of our striving for perfection. Just like our conscious and unconscious minds together make us complete, I believe we need art to feel whole.

Art is what flows out of us when we’ve wrestled with ourselves to understand something. When an artist feels love, pain, beauty, redemption, or any of the feelings common to man, in coming to understand what those feelings are, and if he or she has the tools, the answer can flow out of their unconscious in color or form, music or movement.

It takes a great deal of discipline to let something flow, unobstructed, out of you. It takes mastery. Some people take shortcuts, thinking they’re doing the same thing because it looks or sounds the same. To the untrained eye or ear they can appear similar, but they’re not… Anyone can scribble ink on a page, throw globs of mud together, squirt paint on a canvas, bang the keys of a piano, or move to music. But to truly be an artist takes discipline. After learning the skills and techniques of past masters to the point where they become a part of us, we can let them go and let our unconscious use them to express what we feel. Our creative impulse needs the tools to express itself just like we need language to communicate. To simply grunt and hope to be understood isn’t the same as having the tools of language at our command. Like language, the goal of art is to communicate what an artist sees or feels to others.

Art isn’t just one thing, it's many. There is a kind of art even in a daily routine. There is beauty even in the mundane. But it is the the art that transcends the daily and mundane that I'm speaking of...great art. Great art is beautiful and uplifting. Great art has a timeless quality, one that can be sensed centuries after it's produced. It comes from within us and helps us to understand something about ourselves and each other. Great art can be figurative or it can be abstract.

I didn’t used to like abstract visual art. I thought it was just, random meaningless shapes and colors thrown together. I didn’t see any logic or skill in it. Then I walked into a Mark Rothko exhibition. I had never heard of him and, had someone described his work to me, would not have expected to be impressed. Would I have been so wrong! Rothko found a way to use color without form to express emotion and he did it in such a way that a very deep part of me ‘gets it’.

While I believe that much, maybe even most abstract art, is produced by artists with no discipline, I have found in the last few years that some of it is the essence of discipline. I’ve come to love some of it. It occurs to me that, while it doesn’t necessarily represent something in my logical, conscious mind, it seems to be more akin to what goes on in my unconscious mind. Those images that float across the screen when nothing else is in focus. They represent being at ease, being comfortable, to me. I’ve decided they don’t have to make any logical sense, they just have to be allowed to ‘be’ a part of me.

We, human beings often hear several inner voices. Those that we ignore will just get louder until they’re heard. Those that are allowed to express themselves can be uplifting in many ways. They can help us to come to inner peace. If we listen to ourselves and to each other we can all be uplifted. Art can be one such voice…

Politically Correct Faith?

Ever since the Supreme Court decided that the phrase in the Bill of Rights, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" meant the complete ‘separation between church and state’. (A phrase first written by Thomas Jefferson and later reiterated by James Madison and Ulysses S. Grant..) People have used it to push any mention of God out public discourse. [Never mind that those men all publicly endorsed a belief in God, or that ‘The Creator’, and ‘natures God’ are referred to in The Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution.]

What the Bill of Rights referred to was the government not favoring any particular sect or faith. God has always been above any particular religion. But, human nature being what it is, people don’t want to be reminded that they will ultimately be held responsible for their actions so they choose to put God out of their minds for the most part.

On some level we still sense a spiritual aspect of our existence but, instead of acknowledging God in it, we ‘clean it up’…for politically correct reasons of course! Now instead of God, we have a ‘higher power’. Instead of God answering prayers, we send them out into the universe and somehow the universe answers them. Instead of angels sent from God, angels just come and go by their own initiative apart from any god. We still need to feel good about ourselves, after all, and this watered down, meaningless pseudo-faith allows us to be ‘spiritual but not religious’…

I had a conversation recently with two older women, one a former social worker and one a semi-retired clinical psychologist. I told them I used to work in the field as a Clinical Psychologist but now only use my education for writing. I sometimes still counsel but I only do so as a Christian service, not for profit. They balked when I mentioned the word ‘Christian’? I later asked one why.

She first said that a counselor shouldn’t limit their approach to Freudian, Rogerian, Jungian or other approaches and that a ‘Christian’ approach was limited in a similar way. I told her it wasn’t an approach to how I counseled, it was a moral guide to what I counseled. She knew that I had worked for the state, when I was counseling, and was very quick to tell me she hoped I left the ‘Christian’ part of me away from the office. Church and state were supposed to be separate after all! I first said: Of course I did. Then I thought about it…I’m not at all sure what she meant? Now this was a lady that would be quick to tell you she is ‘spiritual but not religious’ but she made a point of saying she was not a Christian several times. It became clear in the conversation that she thought somewhat less of me for my personal convictions.

Her comments were, of course, the politically correct thing to say. But, I consider that somewhere between naïve and moronic… How a counselor is supposed to leave a big part of themself out of a counseling session is beyond me? I have never, and would never, try to convert anyone. I am always ready to answer any questions I’m asked about my faith but that’s different.

What, exactly, people like this lady have against Christianity is beyond me. But, it is a common thing to hear these days. The ‘politically correct’ would rarely say such things about, say, Islam. I wonder what part of my personal beliefs I’m ‘supposed’ to leave out of my counseling? For that matter I wonder what part of their personal beliefs our founding fathers would be expected to leave out of our sacred documents if they were framing them today?

I believe it’s better to be honest than to lie. I believe it’s right to keep ones word. I believe adultery is wrong. I also believe intentionally hurting others is wrong. I could list a page or two of what I believe is right and wrong, and I believe most people would agree with my list. Well, newsflash here, my moral code comes from my faith as a Christian!

This is yet another attack on faith by people who don’t want to be reminded there is a God and He is the only true source of morality for His creation. The politically correct have run amok. They think of themselves as much more ‘enlightened’ than someone who would believe such outdated myths as the Bible! But I think they are a far greater threat to our society than any people of faith! They are working feverishly to save a society that they are slowly destroying!

Now that I think of it…the comment was much closer to moronic than naïve. And, it’s people like her that run our social systems! If that passes for wisdom these days, may God help us!

Reproduction, Sex and a Stable Society

A part of morality consists of controlling and channeling sexual energy into a positive, uplifting, and stable force. Societies that have been unable to do so have historically never risen to become great nations or they've become unstable and collapsed. Our society is in a transitional period wherein the traditional values that have controlled and channeled sexual energy into a stable social structure have become unfocused for lack of a moral code to guide us. This is a time of decadence and moral decay. If we are to come through it and survive as a viable culture we need to make some radical changes, first in our spiritual values, then in our cultural institutions and legal system.

Recently making the national news was the next legal argument resulting from the legalization of abortion. Now, it seems there are men that want to divorce themselves from any responsibility for fathering children. Their argument is that they didn’t ‘set out’ to produce a child, they only set out to have sex…and what that produced isn’t a baby, it’s only a cluster of cells. In the terms of our law that was the next logical step.

The blanket legalization of abortion based on a woman’s right to control her body was a bad ruling. It has been responsible for the killing of millions of the most innocent lives simply because they were inconvenient for their irresponsible mothers. Now, men (and I hate to use the words ‘mothers’ and ‘men’ in describing these people..) want to be released from any responsibility from their sexual actions too.

An unborn child is a child, just ask any mother waiting to meet her new son or daughter. Why ‘right to lifers’ feel the need to defend them is completely understandable to me. While I don’t agree with some of their tactics, or all of their platform, I respect the fact that they revere the lives of God’s children. Fighting for the rights of unborn children is a noble fight. It is a legal and a cultural fight and it should be fought on those grounds. Those that kill doctors or blow up abortion clinics only damage the positions of honest, sincere people when they commit murder themselves. These extremists see the struggle as a war and framing it in those terms only inflames a legitimate struggle in very damaging ways. Terrorism is terrorism no matter who engages in it.

There are two other areas involving the sexual aspects of our nature where legal arguments have been made that could potentially change the landscape of our society. The first is more philosophical than legal, but could have profound legal ramifications on the fabric of our society. The argument that homosexual behavior is determined genetically or bio-chemically before birth is a precursor to arguments involving pedophiles and those who engage in sexual acts with animals. The homosexual community is intent on making the argument that their sexual orientation is predetermined to remove any personal responsibility from their behavior. Once the legal precedent has been established that sexual orientation is based on these grounds it will only be a matter of time before it is used as a defense for any deviant sexual act.

The second area involving the sexual and reproductive aspects of our nature is in changing the definition of a marriage from being one man and one woman to being open ended. A legal argument, proposed on constitutional grounds, is being simultaneously attempted in many states by groups wanting to give homosexuals the right to marry. Once a legal precedent has been established here it would open the door to ‘group marriages’ like polygamy and other social experiments.

All of these are moral arguments that have crossed over into the legal realm. All of them have the potential to destabilize and weaken the fabric of our society. None of them are rights originally guaranteed by the constitution but, given the overstepping of authority that the Supreme Court has engaged in the last few years, the court could very well interpret them to be constitutional rights as it has in the case of abortion.

The law is logical, if not moral, in its application. Once a legal precedent has been established it can be used in any case where a similar argument may be made. That’s why it is important to have thoughtful and moral men and women on the bench. It’s also why the legal ramifications of every decision a court makes should be thoroughly considered before a ruling is handed down.

With no moral compass, like the Ten Commandments, to guide us there is no social cohesion and no telling what kind of free-for-all society we could end up with. Because its’ citizens aren’t self-policing, the only force that can keep such a society in place is physical force. Where there is no moral code that guides its citizens, the void is usually filled by a strong, over-reaching government to bring external stability where none exists internally. That’s a lesson of history…

In many ways, we are already on that ‘slippery slope’ that we hear so much about. The irony of all of this is that every time the court guarantees another ‘freedom’ it relaxes the concept of personal responsibility; it chips away at the moral code that has held our society together and it takes us one step closer to a totalitarian state.

An Eye for an Eye...

While I believe strongly in the dignity of human beings and in the sanctity of human life, I also very strongly believe in the death penalty. Some people see that as a contradiction. My answer to that is that human life is so important that if someone takes it unlawfully they should pay for it with their own life. That’s recognition of the sanctity of human life, not a contradiction.

I am always surprised to see Jewish and Christian clergy among those gathered at death penalty protests. Judaism and Christianity are based on the Bible. They should be true to the teachings of it. The Bible is Gods revelation to mankind. It says that the death penalty is necessary for justice and for a stable society. The first five books of the scriptures, the ‘Torah’ in Hebrew, are the books laying down God’s law. The one law that is found in all five books is the injunction to take the life of someone who has taken human life unlawfully.

While the legal system laid out in the Torah bears little resemblance to our form of government, there are some aspects of it that our founding fathers incorporated into our law. A study of the history of our founding fathers will reveal that they believed in the moral code laid down in the Bible. They considered it so final that they didn’t feel the need to reiterate it in our law. Our constitutional law nowhere says: “You will not commit murder”, like the sixth commandment, what it says is: ‘If you do commit murder, the government has the right to try you and to punish you’.

The principles of justice in the Bible are clear. Justice should be universally applied, there is to be no special treatment for those with rank or position. The penalties should be applied swiftly and with full knowledge, and in many cases the participation, of the public.

Unfortunately the death penalty is not universally or swiftly applied in our system. It has often unfairly been administered along racial or other lines. And, perhaps worst of all, it only happens after years of legal wrangling. It seems like every year there is some new legal defense that allows someone to get away with murder. The length of time between the crime and the punishment is usually so long that the death penalty is often, correctly, cited as not being an effective deterrent to murder. For it to be an effective deterrent it must be applied swiftly, and to all murderers.

People should be held responsible for their own actions. Provisions are made in the law for negligence, accidental killing and self-defense where they are appropriate. But, if anyone commits murder…they should be put to death. The issue is not about rehabilitation, as some would have us believe. And it’s not about revenge. That's why the death penalty isn't carried out by vigilantes...it's only carried out by lawfully constituted governments. It’s about punishment and about justice. The issue is about the sanctity of human life.

It is never a joyous occasion for the government to exercise its authority and take a human life. The death penalty should never be carried out in a carnival-like, or lighthearted fashion. It should be carried out with the appropriate amount of sobriety. The issues of justice and punishment should always give us pause. They are issues that are important to every member of society. They apply to us all. The death penalty reminds us all that to find justice we have to apply a firm, and unwavering, hand.

That's how important human life is…

Stem Cells and Human Dignity

The current debate over the use of embryonic stem cells is yet one more battle in the fight for human dignity. The legal issues surrounding abortion, the most readily available source of embryos that could be used in research, are complex and thoughtful people, of good conscience, will sometimes disagree. But, they should at least seriously ask the questions. Also complex are the issues surrounding the use of cloned embryos as a source not involving abortion. The argument over whether or not an embryo is indeed a human life lies at the heart of the battle. That is THE question that should weigh on all our minds.

What we know is this: a human embryo doesn’t grow up to be a palm tree, an armadillo or a chimpanzee…it grows up to be a human being.

We know too that the founding fathers considered the right to life to be the first right mentioned in our sacred documents. A legal argument can be made that, if we had a constitutional right to make a journey of, say, a thousand miles, that to keep someone from taking the first step would be to deny them that right. In the same way, to deny a child from being born is to deny the right to life to a human being.

The two sides involved in the debate talk at each other and rarely to each other. They won’t even agree to a set of terms. The ‘right to life’ and ‘the right of choice’ are not opposites, they address different aspects of the issue. I will state here that I believe some abortions should be legal. If abortion is indeed a sin in the eyes of God, then it is no more a sin than adultery. And adultery, like most other sins, is legal. The real issue to me is whether a right in the eyes of the law is handled with responsibility or it becomes a license to corrupt behavior.

The latter is what worries me about abortion and stem cell research. Terminating a life should be seriously and responsibly considered. Instead, making it legal was the first step in giving many people license to abuse the right. The right to have an abortion has become a license to use it as a means of birth control for many women. If a pregnancy is inconvenient for some women, they simply kill the embryo.

I believe in the dignity of every human being and I believe in the right to life of every innocent human being. Stem cell research requires the use of potential human beings and that’s a very dangerous area to me. I know, from being an observer of human behavior that, if science finds that stem cell research can indeed cure some of the ailments and diseases of our age, the demand for embryos will drastically increase. And it is a fact, borne out by history, that the supply will be met some way. Some women will be encouraged to abort their babies to supply the demand. They may even be encouraged to become pregnant and then abort to supply the demand. That would clearly be unethical. For that reason, I believe it's an area of research that shouldn’t even be considered. Just because something can be done, doesn't mean it should be done. Even cloning embryos to use for research cheapens the life of the innocent. Cloning human beings denies human dignity. The kind of society that would do so is not the kind of society I want to live in.

We all have the right to life. And we all have the right to choose. We don’t have the right to use each other. We especially don’t have the right to end someone elses life for our own use…

A human embryo is a baby human being, just ask any mom or dad waiting to meet their new child.

Symbols over Substance

There was a time in America when, though our citizens held different faiths and came from different cultures, we were bound by a set of ideas that defined America. Those ideas are stated in our sacred writings: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the Gettysburg Address among others. Increasingly, our nation finds its citizens at odds with the ideas and ideals of those writings. They no longer bind us like they once did. For example, it was once a common value that we believed in God, the Creator mentioned in those documents. That’s not to say that every individual believed in God, or that everyone believed in the same god, but we commonly held that there was a God watching over the affairs of men, one that we would answer to one day. It was important to hold that as a common value because it meant that ultimately we would be held accountable for our actions.

Since a common set of ideals no longer binds Americans, about the only thing we have in common, the only thing that now binds us as a culture, is exposure to the same media that enters our homes every day. Every day in America we are bombarded with images of the Hollywood elite and Washington ‘beltway’ politicians…and those that make their living watching and commenting on them. Slowly, and with an almost imperceptible intent, these images have altered the values that we once held in common as a culture.

The enemies of moral standards, the enemies of decency, know that to affect change in our culture they must affect a change in the hearts and minds of its citizens. To accomplish that, they must utilize the popular media. It’s no longer as important that our public figures actually are decent people, so much as it’s important that they ‘appear to be’ decent people. Real agendas have become hidden. Everything has become about appearances. We’ve developed a culture of symbols over substance.

Our symbols mean what we want them to mean. We infuse them with power like we infuse them with meaning. We wear symbols to signify our affiliations. We fly our symbols on flagpoles. We wear symbols to identify with our religious beliefs. Simply wearing a cross, or Star of David is more important to some people than actually living the principles those symbols represent. We represent wealth with the symbol of money. Never mind that real wealth can’t be measured in money. Many have come to see it as an end in itself instead of a means towards an end. Criminals steal our symbols then attack the symbols that maintain order in our society, the police, because they cease to see them as people. Our enemies have attacked the symbols of our system of economics and military might, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, because they know the power of our symbols and they see the decadence that hides behind them.

Make no mistake, we are in a cultural war. On one side are those who see freedom as only existing when there are no moral standards except the ones handed down from Hollywood, or some other phony, pretentious source at the moment. You can be a person of absolutely no moral values as long as you jump on the bandwagon and appear to be for ‘saving the trees’, or whatever the cause of the day is. These people believe freedom exists apart from responsibility. Personal responsibility is something they want to eradicate. They’ve distorted the freedoms that our country was built on into a license to engage in any form of decadence that one can imagine. The very acts of decadence themselves have become symbols of freedom…symbols without substance.

Prostitution is illegal in most parts of our country, unless it’s being filmed, then we call it pornography and it becomes a symbol for freedom of expression. We’ve let murderers go free when they’ve become symbols of racism. We allow the most base, vile language to fill our airwaves because it’s a symbol of our freedom of speech.

On the other side are those who recognize that freedoms demand responsibility if they are to have real substance. Responsibility demands a strong sense of right and wrong. For our culture to produce anything of real value…it must have values. For our culture to last it has to nourish its citizens and give them a sense of real values. There is no freedom apart from a strong moral standard…there’s only debauchery. If men and women of good conscience don’t act now that’s where we’re headed…

The founding fathers of this nation understood the need for personal responsibility. When they wrote: ‘You have the right to freedom of speech’ what they saw in the statement was ‘You have the right to responsible freedom of speech’. A study of the history of our sacred documents will bear that out. I doubt they could even envision a time when the freedoms they ensured for us would be turned into the license for decadence that we’ve made them.

It’s time to stop our decline into moral decay. It’s time to repent as a nation and turn back to God who made us strong. He is watching. It’s time to put His Ten Commandments in every public square, every church, every school building and every courtroom in the land. If we are to survive as a positive force in the world we need to write them into our hearts. They too are symbols…symbols that have been ignored because of what they represent…real values. And real freedom only lies within real values.

Honest Tears

A friend of mine and I were talking about the subject of grace recently. It was fresh on my mind, having written a blog on the subject. I shared with him how I experienced grace in the death of a friend last year. He shared with me how he experienced a true moment of grace in the death of his newborn child. His eyes welled with tears while he smiled and told me how he was given the gift of being able to hold his daughter in his arms while she drew her last breath... There is something pure in the tears of honest emotion.

Everything in our nature tells us that it's contrary to the way the universe should work to experience the death of ones child. We expect our children to outlive us. That is the way. But, this is earth and life is sometimes a veil of tears. Human tears have fallen like rain in our history. Like rain, they have nourished new growth in human hearts. They may be all that preserve us sometimes.

If there is anything positive in the death of a child, anything redeeming at all, it is that it strips away everything unnecessary in life. For those with the eyes to see, it allows them to glimpse the essence of what is important in life. No ego exists in that moment; no pride; no pettiness, only the simple, pure feeling of love for a life cut short. And, while it breaks our hearts to see our children, the most innocent among us, suffer and die...we can remember that a broken heart is also an open heart. Open hearts are the hope for our race; they preserve it. In the tears of a broken heart are true moments of grace. Often it is through such tears that we can see God the most clearly. Blessed are those with a broken spirit...

My faith calls on me to open my heart. It calls on me to realize the connection that exists between all of us. My friends' tears touched my heart and it went out to him. The death of his daughter was my loss too...it was a loss to all of us. We are all family.

Never have I’ve seen it more beautifully put than in the prose of the poet John Donne: (Excerpts from: Meditation #17, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1623), XVII: Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris)

“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Amen.

How we play The Game

Did you ever sit down to play a game, like Monopoly, with other people and get so caught up in the game that you forgot about everything else? Did you, or any of the people you played with, take it just a little too seriously? How about this…did anyone you ever played with surprise you by revealing a side you hadn't seen before, like being greedy or perhaps cheating?

It’s easy to get caught up in such things for some people. The game becomes their reality. It becomes a reflection of their ego. They seem to forget that it’s not ‘real’ life; that the stakes don’t really matter. What matters is how we play the game.

As a Christian, I have come to see life like that kind of game. I have come to believe that the ultimate reality is what we are being prepared for. I don’t mean to say that what goes on in this life is unimportant at all. I just mean that 25 million years from now the details of what happened in this life will be meaningless. Just think of our board game again. Chances are you may not remember any details of a particular game, but you may well remember if someone showed a greedy or cheating nature. This life is a kind a game, one that reveals our character. Some positions we land in are just luck of the draw or the throw of the dice. What we do once we're there is entirely a matter of our choice; a reflection of our character. It is the character that we develop here that will have lasting value in that ultimate reality.

It is a fact of our existence that our days on earth as mortals are numbered. We are all going to die some day. How one can really know that and still get worked up over how much stuff they’ve accumulated is beyond me? A popular bumper sticker declares that: “He who dies with the most toys wins!” Wins what??? It is a well-known truth that we can’t ‘take it with us’!

What we do take with us is the kind of people we have become. We take our character with us. If we’ve lived as honorable people or liars and cheats, it will go in our ‘permanent files’! If we have lived as people of faith or people who believed in nothing, I believe it will matter.

I’ve heard some non-believers declare that Christians just ‘must not be that bright’ for believing in something that’s little more than a fairy tale. None of it can be proven they say. They’re right, I can’t ‘prove’ what I believe is true. But, I’ve decided that, even if what I believe turns out to be completely meaningless, I still think it is the very best kind of life! I will have lived a life of faith, a life believing in something bigger than myself. I will have spent my life to try and become a better person and to help others become better people. I will have spent my energies learning to love. That’s surely a better life than one without purpose. And what good is a life devoted only to oneself??

I choose faith in God. I see proof of Him every time I open my eyes! And, I pity those that don’t. I try to see the big picture of what is going on here on earth. I realize that I'm nobody and nothing in the grandness of the universe. But, I believe, the very Creator of the universe knows my name. I feel humbled and exalted at the same time because of that. The older I get the more I realize just how short this existence really is. An inner voice declares that it all means something more; that what’s going on here will have lasting value.

What I believe is that Jesus the Christ conquered death by His resurrection and God holds out the promise of eternal life to me through His sacrifice. That is the hope that I live with.

To live a life of faith and hope and love…what could have more value than that?

Save the Baby Humans!

I’ve often heard it said that mankind must survive as a species, by colonizing other planets for example, otherwise what has all of human history been for? The achievements of our species, they say, would come to nothing if we ceased to exist.

To be sure, the accomplishments of our race have value. We’ve spent thousands of years climbing out of the darkness of ignorance. The arts, the literature, the technologies and the culture that we've striven so hard to develop…all of these have contributed to the betterment of human life. To see value only in what we have accomplished as a species, however, is to ignore the value of individuals. I think that’s the wrong way to view what’s going on here on earth.

Traditional human wisdom from many cultures recognizes that it is not the man who conquers a thousand cities that is superior, it is the man who has conquered himself. That’s a recognition of what has real value.

Every human life has value. Every human being is a child of God. What God values isn’t what we’ve accomplished as a species, it’s how we have grown as His children. The true value of mankind is not what we have accomplished as a race, it’s what we’ve accomplished as individuals.

Virtually every religion on earth has some concept of laws that the universe runs by. If we live in harmony with those laws we are in harmony with the creation. If we choose to disobey those laws…we are outside of that harmony and we risk harm to ourselves and each other.

Eastern philosophies, like Buddhism, teach that consciousness is a fundamental energy in the universe. What we choose to do affects the world around us. The scriptures teach us that our obedience to Gods law, or lack thereof, is connected to the fabric of time and space in a similar way. If we sin, disobey the laws of God, even the world around us suffers. Every human life is connected to the universe. Every human life is woven into the fabric of time and space.

The universe exists to create life. The purpose of life is growth, in consciousness and in character. To grow, we must make the right choices. We, as sentient beings, have free will. We have choice. The message of the scriptures is that we can live any way we choose. But, if we want to grow into healthy and happy individuals, and live in a healthy, happy society, we need to choose the way our Creator instructs. If we are to be deemed worthy of eternal life we must yeild to His will. God revealed His laws to us for our own good. He doesn’t send and angel down to slam us into the ground if we choose to jump off a high building. If we ignore the law gravity, our disregard of that law harms us. Spiritual laws work the same way. If we choose to disobey them, it is our own disobedience that is out of harmony with creation and that harms us.

Ultimately our growth comes from the choices we make. It is within our power to decide what is most important to us and what we will devote our energies to. Every sentient being has that right. God gave us free will so we can choose. He then asks us to choose life... That makes every human life important.

The Pull of Islam

Even after all the acts of terrorism committed by Muslims in the last few decades, Islam is still the fastest growing religion in the world. Our knee-jerk response to a terrorist attack might be to condemn all Muslims. That would be wrong. Many Muslims are decent, upstanding people that try to make their corner of the world a better place. I know Muslims that I respect as decent people. What they have maintained is something too many Christians have forgotten...a strong sense of right and wrong.

Individuals most often are the face of a religion to non-believers. Christian martyrs were responsible for the world taking notice of the faith, and for the conversion of many, many people. Unfortunately, in our time, Christianity has become so filled with paganism and so watered down as to bear little resemblance to the faith once delivered. Christian churches and their ministers have adopted so many of the worlds values that the church is almost indistinguishable from the world. They've made the faith appear to be a joke to many non-believers. Modern Christianity has failed to do what ‘the faith once delivered’ did. There are people calling themselves ‘Christians’ with little to no moral values. The message this sends the world is that the faith is no better than a collection of myths filled with hypocrisy. That's far from the light to the world it was intended to be.

In our modern world we have adopted a kind of ‘anything goes’ philosophy. Moral relativism, the ‘buzz word’ of the day, says there is no ultimate right and wrong. It says that those are relative values determined by time and place; every culture is different. This can leave honest people, who sincerely seek the right way to live, feeling empty and without purpose. This attitude has even crept into Christian churches, infecting them with a sense of moral ambiguity. They removed the Ten Commandments from their pulpits long before the ACLU began removing them from government buildings.

Islam appeals to many people because of the failure of Christianity to live up to its true purpose. The very first words Christ is recorded to have uttered when He began His ministry are: “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand!” Repentance is to return to obedience to God. That’s a message that has been lost by Christians trying to fit in to a world without a moral center.

Islam has some measure of righteousness, where much of the Western world has none. Islam often appears to be uncompromising in its moral code in many ways. The way of Islam is submission to 'The God'. (Al = the, Lah = god) The faithful of Islam live by a strict religious code that demands that submission. Right and wrong are moral certainties. To a world without a moral code, that certainty can be very appealing.

Unfortunately many ‘Christian’ churches that offer some kind of moral certainty are actually cults. Cults tend to focus on their leaders and their own agendas more so than Gods. They tend to pick and choose their list of do’s and don’ts from the Biblical tradition and strictly enforce them, while missing the bigger picture of the message of the Gospel.

Many mainstream ‘ministries’ have removed the less palatable parts of the Gospel to try and appeal to more people. The result is a gospel devoid of any real meaning other than some ambiguous emotional appeal. The message of Jesus the Christ was meant to bring people back to the knowledge of, and obedience to the one true God.

When looking for the reason why Islam’s growth is on the rise…Christians should look first to their own failures. The world needs the Gospel of Jesus the Christ now more than ever. We’ve lost our way because we follow our own desires and deny that there is an ultimate code of right and wrong…and it’s found in the pages of the Bible.

Instead of putting the Ten Commandments out of public view in more and more places, we should be putting them in every public square, every school, every church and every government office in the land.

We should be writing them on the tables of our hearts….

Reaching out...

An interesting thing sometimes happens to people who work in the healing professions. They often find themselves attuned to people’s pain. It’s a kind of empathy that allows them to enter into the feelings other people have to find the best way to help them. When it happens to those in the mental health field another thing sometimes happens as well. They start to see pain everywhere…

Most of us have some level of empathy towards others in physical pain. If we were to encounter someone who say, had a motorcycle accident and had an open leg wound a femur was sticking out of, the sight would be so horrific to us that we would experience a level of shock ourselves. Those of us so inclined might try to stop the bleeding and treat for shock. Most people would certainly call for help. In the mental health field things aren’t quite so clear.

We encounter people every day who have open wounds to their psyches. Instead of ‘stopping the bleeding’, treating for shock or even calling for help, we most often just expect them to straighten up! Wounds go unnoticed and untreated, they scar over and they continue to cause pain. Such pain is everywhere.

The sad fact is that often the only thing needed to treat such pain is the simple recognition of it. If we could see the pain that others are in we might not be so quick to expect them to simply straighten up. We might begin to develop a level of empathy towards them. That empathy can be just the recognition of someone else’s pain that they need to begin to heal. Unlike physical pain, sometimes just the witness…the testimony of our troubles to another human being can be all that it takes to begin the healing process.

We often refer to some unseen pain as ‘emotional baggage’. We sense it sometimes in the form of defense mechanisms or rationalizations. Sometimes no one sees it until it manifests itself in the form suicide or violence towards others. There are all kinds of wounds to the psyche. They manifest themselves in all kinds of ways. And they are all around us.

Perhaps, if we could take some time in our lives to put our own problems and concerns aside and begin to notice the wounds other people carry, our world would begin to change. Forgetting our own problems and helping someone else with theirs can begin the healing in two people. It's called outgoing concern, and it has the power to heal wounds there aren't even words for.

Christians will know it by another name...Love.

In the Company of Saints....

As a Christian, I am heir to a religious tradition wherein thousands of my fellow believers have died, sometimes violently, for our faith. While, unlike Islam, the Bible nowhere encourages some kind of violent martyrdom, it does record the lives of many who willingly died as martyrs.

What they believed to be the truth was more important to them than their own lives, and they held that truth until their last breath. They found something worth living and dieing for. Christianity, for the first centuries of its existence was a minor religion of little importance to the societies around it. Early believers were easy targets for political or religious leaders who needed a scapegoat. Persecution of early Christians was quite common. It was partially the example of some of these extraordinary individuals that caused the world to take notice of this small new faith.

In one story of the ‘purges’ of Christians in early Rome, believers were rounded up and killed for sport in the colosseum. One 19-year old young woman was led out into the floor of the colosseum where wild lions were to be released. The thousands of spectators laughed and jeered in anticipation of her ‘punishment’. She remained calm...she held her faith in God. Her lack of fear quieted some of the laughter. She began to sing hymns as the lions were released. While the lions tore her apart, the laughter and jeers fell silent. She believed. After witnessing her courage and faith it is reported that thousands of people converted. In the chapter on faith, Hebrews 11, the writer says the world is not worthy of such people. He was right.

In our time, we Christians have it very easy…at least in America. While we endure some criticism of our faith, we are allowed to worship any way we see fit. There are no Christians being rounded up to be tortured or put into prisons. Perhaps because of that, many of us have become complacent. We believe…because it’s easy. The biggest threat we face is not people intent on killing us. The biggest threat we face today is non-Christians we like and want to be accepted by. Many of us compromise our faith to be accepted. We don’t want to be ‘un-cool’ after all! That’s an even more deadly threat to our spiritual lives than facing death for what we believe… Sometimes finding something worth dieing for is easier than living for it.

We all know stories of people who say they believe certain things only to find out when push comes to shove that they really believed them only while it was convenient. How many of us have something that we believe so completely that we are prepared to die for that belief? How many of us believe so completely that we are prepared to live an uncompromising life? How many of us are prepared to be ridiculed for what we believe? To live a life of faith, a life of hope in Christ’s return may one day call on us to sacrifice our lives. What it calls on us to do now is to be the salt of the earth, the light on top of the hill. We can’t do that if we’re doing what everyone else is doing just to fit in.

How many of us, I wonder, really believe enough to lay down our lives? How many of us believe enough to commit our lives to living it? What's worth dying for...is well worth living for.

Religion or Faith?

It’s common these days, when you ask someone if they’re religious, for many of them to tell you they’re ‘spiritual, but not religious’. That most people can’t even define what ‘spiritual’ means makes this response virtually meaningless. But the point should be taken that organized religion has failed so many people that it has been rejected by many of them.

So much evil has been done in the name of religion throughout the centuries that the very concept is distasteful to many people. Fanatics in the name of every religion have rationalized and justified their lunacy as being “the will of god”, even when their actions have been pure evil by any standard.

Typically two things exist in a religion, the body of beliefs that individuals adopt as their faith, and the culture that develops among its believers. The first, the body of beliefs is the idealistic part of a religion. The second, the culture of a religious community, often goes unstated in its official beliefs. It is the culture that develops in a religious community that usually comes to dominate it. A particular religion can give one a community wherein one is supported and strengthened when it is working like it should. When it has gone wrong…it ceases to be idealistic and can become oppressive, even dangerous, to its members.

Religions should exist for individuals and families…individuals don’t exist for the religion. When the focus of a religion becomes the organization and not it’s individuals, it has lost its way. When a religion becomes about itself or about it’s human leader(s)…it becomes a cult. A religion should never be about the personalities of its leaders…it should be about the beliefs that define it. Those beliefs should make its members better human beings. That is the ‘why’ of religion and faith. Human beings can and do often corrupt religion…but they can’t touch a deeply held faith.

Faith and religion are not the same thing. Faith is what guides us in what we do; it’s what we expect from ourselves. Religion is what we expect other people to do. Faith is within individuals, religion is in organizations. Faith gives people purpose. Religion gives them ceremony. Faith gives individuals a connection with something unseen and much bigger than themselves. Religion gives them affiliation to other people. Faith gives you power. Religion gives others power over you. Religions usually become static bodies of beliefs. Faith is a living thing wherein beliefs may changes as one grows and matures. Religion, at its worst, has served to divide people and to fuel hatred. Faith has quietly gone about changing the world one individual at a time.

Religion can be a true force for good in the world but only by doing good. Religion must be guided by, honest people of good will…people of faith.

By definition, since there is only one truth, there is only one true faith…one truth that we can hold and have hope in. As a Christian, I am convinced that the Christian world-view is the true one. That doesn’t mean that all, or even most, people calling themselves Christians would agree with it…and they certainly don’t live by it. Most are divided by their respective religions. Imagine that...people who claim the same faith divided by their religions? The only people who benefit from that are the religious leaders. This serves to do the very opposite of what Christ taught. When a ‘Christian leader’ teaches something different than what Christ taught…he, or she, has left the faith once delivered and they should be left behind.

It is not a human leaders place to live a Christ-like life for their followers…it is every believers place to do so. What the world needs is fewer religions and more faith.

Still, it is not what we believe that makes us decent human beings…it’s what we do. Religion, all too often, makes us complacent. Simply belonging to a religion doesn’t make us better people. We must act. Faith prompts us to action. And, faith without works is dead.

These three abide…Faith and Hope and Love. (Religion isn’t even in the running…)

Casual Sex

“If it feels good do it”... That’s the unofficial motto of my generation. Casual sex was just one expression of that when it began (as a movement) in the sixties. It’s one that we are paying a heavy price for now. Divorce and it’s effects on all the members of a family, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, unwed and unwanted pregnancies and the resulting war over abortion, emotional pain…and even murder, these are just a part of the resulting problems from treating sex like a casual, recreational activity.

The most fundamental drive in living beings is to reproduce. It is the most powerful force among living things. Call it Libido, Ki, Chi, Prana, Orgone, L-fields or whatever you like. The sexual impulse is the life force expressing itself.

We, human beings, seem to go from one side of the road to the other, from trying to completely suppress the sex drive to letting it run unchecked. Sex is, without question, one of the greatest things in life. It has the power to heal and the power to destroy. Sexual energy has the power to bind two hearts together and the power to drive them to hate each other like no other hatred on earth. Sexual energy can build stable families and it can destroy entire civilizations. Sexual energy can cause us to love one another and it can cause us to use one another in the vilest ways. The sexual impulse can produce everything from jealousy to suicide to serial killers. There is nothing casual about sex. Those who treat it casually ultimately harm themselves.

For those who choose a faith based life like Judaism or Christianity the very heart of that faith is that our Creator knows what is best for us…His creation. Only He can dictate how we should live our lives. The ultimate authority for many people of faith is the Bible, the revealed Word of God. Just as God has laws governing His physical creation, He has laws governing His spiritual creation. Sexuality spans both realms. What goes on in the bedroom affects all of us ultimately, so our Creator has revealed His guidelines for how sexual energy should be used and directed.

It rankles many people that there is a moral code that would presume to dictate how sexual energy should be used and directed. What goes on in the bedroom is no one else’s business, they say. Human beings are a stubborn lot. We don’t like to be told what to do. For something so personal and so powerful as our sex drives we like it even less.

But the Judeo-Christian moral standard is clear…what goes on in the bedroom IS the business of everyone in a society. It ultimately affects all of society.

One can argue their case for personal freedoms. God certainly allows personal freedoms. We have the right to choose how we want to live. What God tells us is that if we want happy and healthy families and a happy, healthy society we need to obey Him. His laws are for our good. A young child may rebel against his parents’ rule that he not go out into a busy street. He may not be old enough to see the danger that his parents do. The message of the Bible is very much the same. God sees the end result of our behaviors and has given us guidelines for avoiding the dangers…if we’ll only listen.

There is no point in restating God’s laws governing sexuality here. They’re well known, even among non-believers… Suffice it to say that IF God’s laws were obeyed by mankind there would be no sexually transmitted diseases, there would be no children born out of wedlock, there would be fewer divorces and fewer genetic diseases, and there would be far fewer abortions. The gospel, the good news, of God is that such a world is coming.

Sex is a beautiful gift from our Creator. It shouldn’t be completely repressed or allowed to simply run unchecked. There is a right way to direct sexual impulses just like there is a right way to eat and to exercise. It’s time mankind grew up and began listening to our Creator.

Right here, right now…we can make our world better if we’ll only choose to obey Him.