Intimacy

It is a part of the human condition for us to reach out to other human beings. We seem to need to connect with, at least, one other human being. It seems to me that, that need, is a part of our nature, in our ‘spiritual DNA’ if you will. Maybe we need to make connections to help us define who we are for ourselves. It could be that we need someone to accept us for who we really are and not for the face we show the world. It could keep us from getting lost. Maybe we sense our isolation on such a deep level that it drives us to seek out other human beings like fear of the dark drives us to seek out the light. Or maybe we just need another human being to bear testament that we’ve been here. I think of the human heart like a seed with a hard shell. It needs the proper environment and nurturing to break open and become greater than it is. I think we need to grow. Whatever the need is, it causes us to crave intimacy with another human being.

To be completely vulnerable to another human being, to trust someone so completely that you absolutely ‘know’ you’re safe with them…that’s the dream. It’s a powerful thing, intimacy. It has the power to totally transform one who gives ones self over to it. The problem is that while we seek it, we still tenaciously cling to our autonomy. It’s an odd paradox of the human condition that, while we crave intimacy, we fight against it at the same time. It’s a paradox that each of us has to come to peace with. If we are to ever truly make the deep connection with another person that we seem to need, we have to learn to let our barriers down. We also need to learn to put someone else’s needs before our own. That’s just another way to define love. If we don’t do that…we just end up sabotaging what we hope to build.

Love, trust and letting one’s defenses down, those things aren’t easy to achieve. Even calling our inner barriers ‘defenses’ means we sense a kind of battle going on. If you sense no attack…no defense is necessary. Life on earth with other human beings teaches most of us not to trust, so we erect barriers to protect ourselves. But the barriers we erect make us feel our isolation even more acutely. The barriers themselves can drive away the very people we seek to be intimate with. We then may conclude that the barriers protected us! It can become a vicious cycle.

To completely trust another human being…how do we learn that? All I know is that it goes against everything experience has ingrained in me. Looking through the window from here on the outside it does look warm in there, but at what price I wonder?

This much I know…Love and trust are the cornerstones of what most of us hope to build. I also know that the firmest foundation one can build on is God. How one could build without God as the foundation is beyond me. That would be like building a house on shifting sand…or trying to plant seeds on a sidewalk.

Seeds need a ‘growth friendly’ environment to break through their barriers. They need good soil, water and sunshine. They somehow seem to ‘know’ that they can be greater than they are if they can just break through their own barriers. Witness the lowly acorn… It can push up a sidewalk to become a mighty oak tree. But it has to take that first step.

I suspect that we need to make intimate connections to know what it is to grow beyond ourselves. It may be only the first step in coming to understand what is possible. We are all connected after all. Possibly the biggest stumbling block to individuals, and to humanity is not realizing that. It takes courage, it takes love…it takes a ‘growth friendly’ environment, but God’s promise is that it can be done.

The Sabbath Day

Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it Holy… That’s how the forth of the Ten Commandments begins. Most Christians today believe that the need to obey the Commandments was done away with by the sacrifice of Jesus the Christ. What His sacrifice did, in fact, was do away with the penalty for breaking Gods Commandments. (Sin is the transgression of Gods law.) Christ didn’t come to do away with the law, He came to fill it to its fullest measure. You shall not murder became more complete when Christ taught that even to hate one’s fellow man was a violation of it. You shall not commit adultery became more complete when Christ added to it that even to lust after someone elses spouse violated the commandment. In a like manner, a spiritual dimension was added to the Sabbath commandment. We are not only to cease from our daily labor in it, we are to do good in it; we are to seek to feel the presence of God in it.

The Sabbath Day was made for man, for our good. One cannot argue that the law of God is for our own good and simultaneously argue that we need not observe it anymore. That makes no sense.

The Sabbath serves to remind us that God created the universe and everything in it…including us. The Sabbath foreshadows the 1000 years that Christ will reign on earth when He returns. It reminds us that we can do nothing of ourselves for our own salvation. Salvation is a gift from God. Keeping His commandments is not a salvation issue…it is an issue of Love. God says, “If you love Me…Keep My Commandments”.

The Sabbath is a temple in time. It is Holy time. Only God can declare something Holy…set apart for His special purpose. I sometimes wonder what God would have done if, when He told Moses to remove the sandles from his feet near the burning bush because the ground he stood on was holy, Moses had said, “I don’t want to take my sandles off here, I’ll take them off over there!” (I doubt we would know the name Moses today if that had happened. )

God has declared The Seventh Day Holy. Man has, in effect, said: “We don’t want this day Holy, we’ll make tomorrows holy instead!” That’s not obeying God. That is choosing for ourselves what is good and what is evil…the same sin Adam made. The traditions of men are never on a par with the Law of God. God is clear many times over in scriptures…He will accept only the worship He commands and none other.

The Sabbath is a gift to us. It’s not a work as some would claim. It’s just the opposite. It is a time to step out of our daily concerns and allow God to work in us. The Sabbath is new every week, it is a reminder, a guidepost of Gods Way. Keeping it isn’t a burden…it’s a joy!

Those who see it as an outdated burden only for Jews are missing out on one of Gods great blessings to mankind. Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it Holy…it was made for you after all!

Lift Your Eyes

Oh that men would look to the Most High God... If only we would yield ourselves to His will. We would find the peace that has forever eluded our race. We would find the happiness that has only existed in our dreams. We could find that ‘Better Way’ that our songs and poetry tells us about. We could come out of our solitary existence and know that we are a part of something so much greater…

The Bible, the Revealed Word of God, shows us that there is a beginning, a purpose and an ultimate destiny to history. It reveals to us that there is a spiritual dimension that interacts with our world and has affected our history. God, our Creator, reveals to us that there is a right way to live to achieve health and happiness. He reveals His laws to us so that we may know that right way. God reveals to us there is missing dimension in human psychology and that there is an evil intelligence working against us. Without understanding these revealed truths mankind operates in the dark. The sad fact of human nature is that mankind doesn’t even want to know these things. Human beings want to put, even the knowledge of, God out of their minds. That knowledge stands witness against the purposes of the human heart. Our very nature rebels against the way of our Creator.

Yet another blow was struck against the Way of God recently. The Ten Commandments, the law of love, so offend the godless that they can’t tolerate even the sight of them. The supreme court of the land has yielded to the twisted reasoning of those that make war against the truth. It doesn’t matter much at this point. Even most of those who claim a knowledge of God have put the law of liberty out of their minds. The Ten Commandments have become only a symbol…a dying vestige of the truth they represent.

This is only one small voice amidst the rush and throng of humanity. I use it to say this: Beware…The God of Heaven will not be tossed aside. The Creator of the universe is still on His throne. He sees, He cares, He rewards the obedient and He punishes the unrepentant. His purposes will be served. One day every knee will bow to Him. Every tongue will confess that He is God.

While there is time, while you draw breath…turn your heart to your Creator. If you do that your eyes will be opened to the thousands of miracles He performs every day all around you. It is only in Him that you’ll find the love for your fellow man that makes life worth living. It is only in Him that you’ll find real life at all. Freedom doesn’t lie in lawlessness…that’s the way of chaos and destruction. Freedom lies in our willing obedience to our Creator.

Our Witness

Most Christians will tell you they believe in putting sin out of their lives…but most couldn’t tell you the biblical definition of sin. The Bible, the revealed Word of God, says that sin is the transgression of Gods law. The cornerstone of Gods law is the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are the only part of scripture actually written by the very hand of God. He spoke them directly to the people of Israel assembled at the foot of mount Sinai. They heard His voice and were terrified. They asked Moses to intercede for them and the law of God became known to many as the law of Moses. They remain the law of God however, and yes, they were written in stone…

The ninth of the Ten Commandments says: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” (KJV) Other scriptures tell us plainly that God hates lies and that no liar will enter His Kingdom. The spirit of the ninth commandment goes beyond lying however. Christ expounded on the commandments and taught that the spirit of the commandments also binds us.

Any attempt at deceiving others in thought, word or deed is a part of bearing false witness. While there are many honest Christians that would not overtly lie, there are those that would turn back the odometer on their car or not disclose a fault in a home they want to sell. There are those who would attempt to deceive by not speaking up when they should. There are those who rationalize cheating on their taxes or taking advantage of others in other ways. These are also attempts to deceive others and they are contrary to the spirit of the ninth commandment. That makes all of them sin.

Perhaps the most common practice of bearing false witness against ones neighbor is gossip. It can seem innocent enough simply to pass on a story one heard about a third party. In a court of law that would be referred to as ‘hearsay’ and would be inadmissible as evidence against a defendant. To speak ‘against’ any other person without first hand knowledge of their actions is gossip. Gossip is, however harmlessly intended, a violation of God’s ninth commandment. By gossip we can harm the reputation of another person in ways that they can’t even defend against.

As Christians, we should control what comes out of our mouths. What comes out of us should always be truthful. It should never intend to deceive. It should never be hurtful and it should never be used to tear down another person. (That doesn’t mean we should never correct someone for doing wrong. In correction, however, the goal should be to uplift someone…not tear them down.)

Search your heart and ask yourself if what you are saying or doing is an attempt to deceive someone else. Does what comes out of your mouth harm or uplift others? What comes out of you is a reflection of what is inside of you. Is it the province of light…or darkness?

Scripture teaches us that Satan is the father of deception. As Christians we should put all forms of deception out of ours lives as an act of worship to The Most High. Our individual walk with God should be one wherein we seek to become more like Him on a daily basis. His Holy Spirit will lead us into becoming more like our Father IF we listen to it… We have the freedom of choice.

With Outstretched Arms

There is a joke about the afterlife to the affect that when the subject of the joke dies he goes to hell. He finds that he is there condemned to an eternity of having his arms and hands held outstretched at his sides among all the other inhabitants of hell. They are all unable to use their hands to feed themselves. To make their condition worse they are all within arms reach of a banquet table filled with all the finest foods and beverages. Each tries to eat and drink and are all unable to do so. Hence they are all miserable. It seems they are only concerned with getting for themselves in hell.

The picture then changes to Heaven to find a similar scene. The inhabitants there also have their hands and arms held outstretched at their sides. They too are within reach of a banquet table filled with an unimaginable feast. But in Heavens scene the inhabitants are full of joy and laughter. The difference is that in Heaven the inhabitants use their outstretched hands to feed one another.

Now the world has distorted the images of Heaven and hell beyond all recognition of the Biblical images revealed to us, but the joke still contains a good lesson. There are two ways of life, the way of get and the way of give. Both ways are open to us. We have the freedom to choose which way we live, no matter what condition we find ourselves in. The fact is that, no matter how miserable a condition we find ourselves in, we still have it within our power to choose. We can choose the way of getting and seek only for ourselves. Or we can choose the way of giving and thereby uplift others.

Uplifting can be something very simple, like telling someone to have a good day or offering them a drink of water when they are thirsty. Or it can be very profound, like showing mercy or offering forgiveness. Uplifting always involves reaching out to someone else. In reaching out to someone else we acknowledge their existence and their value. In reaching out to someone else we open ourselves and in so doing can be transformed.

While I know that Jesus the Christ was resurrected and now intercedes for us with God the Father as our high priest and is no longer on the cross, I can’t help but to think of Him with outstretched arms hanging on the cross. He reaches out to us, showing mercy and forgiveness. He redeems us, seeing something of value in us, something God deems worthy of eternal life. He set us an example of how to live. He lived the way of give until He gave His last breath…for us.

Each of us has the power to choose the way we meet life, as solitary individuals intent only on getting for ourselves, or as reaching out to others and, in so doing, uplifting our fellow man and becoming a part of something much bigger. God offers us the choice, what we do with it is up to us.

Reverence...

The third of the Ten Commandments states: “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name. (NIV)”

Now, most American Christians will tell you that simply means ‘Don’t cuss.’ That is not the intent of the third commandment at all… It’s intent is much greater in scope.

Anyone who calls them-self by the name of God represents Him on earth. Anyone who claims to represent God, anyone who takes His name, had better make every effort to live a life without blemish, because everything they do is a reflection of God to believers and non-believers alike. For those who claim Christ as their savior to represent His name with anything but the utmost reverence is, at best, disgraceful and, at worst, can also be a sin. The name of the Most High should always be borne with reverence.

This is an age where nothing is held in reverence anymore. The common and the profane have been elevated and brutish, cynical and sarcastic attitudes abound. Everything, every value, every hero and every institution are fair game for the lowest kind of attacks these days. It is shameful and it is dangerous to have a society wherein nothing is sacred. Where nothing is sacred, nothing is stable. That is the kind of place America is quickly becoming.

As Christians we are called on to be the salt of the earth. Salt is that which preserves the world. In some American Christian circles, it has become commonplace to take the most powerful name under Heaven, Jesus the Christ, (Yeshua ha Meshia for those who think there is some magic in the original language) and lower it to whatever is selling at the time. Coke is the ‘Real Thing’ so Christ becomes the ‘Real Thing’. ‘Got Milk?’ has become ‘Got Jesus?’… To drag His name down to pop culture is a sign of disrespect. It is not one of reverence, it is a misuse of His name and it does inestimable damage to the image of God.

For those who make the name Christ and Christianity a laughing stock to the world by their behavior and their language there is a stern warning. Behaving in such a way as to reflect badly on the name of God serves as a stumbling block to many non-believers. Of those who are such stumbling blocks it is said that “it would be better if a mill stone were tied around their necks and they be tossed into the sea…” We are called to be a light to the world! In representing God…we should always be on our best behavior. We Christians should clean up our behavior and our language like true Ambassadors for Christ…not defile the name of God by using it irreverently. We should be setting the example for the world…not lowering the standards of our own behavior to fit into it…

"If the salt has lost its saltiness…how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”

For Erica...

Erica Michelle Marie Green was identified this week after being known for years only as "Precious Doe." Her body was found near an intersection in Kansas City in 2001. A few days later, her head was found nearby, wrapped in a trash bag. It had been cut off with a pair of hedge clippers. Erica had been severely beaten by her mothers husband in the days before her murder. Her mother, Michelle M. Johnson, and her mothers husband, Harrell Johnson, have been charged with murder and endangering the welfare of a child. Erica had been brought to Missouri by a mother she barely knew, after living with Betty Brown, who raised Erica from infancy until April 2001.

This is a news story that came and went without much notice today. How the title ‘Mother’ could be used in reporting it makes me sick to my stomach. This woman and her husband are pure evil. There was a time when I would have wanted to take their heads myself. I've come to the point where I'm only heartsick by people like them now. One day even their memory will be forgotten. They will be dust under the feet of the righteous in the Kingdom of God. It's the children they abuse and murder that I care about now. Dear God...how could someone do this to a child?

My heart cries for Erica and all the children God has entrusted to adults that have abused and neglected them...then tossed them away like garbage. The world is full of such stories. Most don’t even make the news. Most are forgotten by the world as we go about our daily lives.

I know that NONE are forgotten by God. He will see to it that Erica knows His love.
Erica will breathe again. She will know the love she was denied in her short life. She will have a family that will treasure her and always be there for her. She will…because our Savior, Jesus the Christ, conquered death. She will be resurrected and made whole because Jesus the Christ is coming back.

All of the children, all of the human beings that have faced short miserable lives and been forgotten in their graves will breathe again. They will know the love of God. There will be no more tears or sorrow because the former things will have passed away.

For now...while you breath, while it is in your power...Love your children…Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Jesus the Christ is coming back.

Creation vs. Evolution

It is ironic to me that so many Christians go to such efforts to prove the various theories of evolution are only scientific fantasies to displace God from His throne. The argument rears its head every few years somewhere. To begin with, it is arrogant to think that God needs us to defend Him. It seems to me to be just another effort to elevate our own status. God doesn’t need our help Thank You very much…

There are various theories of Creationism too, other schools of thought within Christianity itself. Each believes they are correct, and the others wrong, even though they read the same Bible they have come to understand it differently. That in itself is a red flag to me.

Perhaps the most ironic thing is that the people who are the most insistent that their version of the creation story is the correct one only want to prove that the Bible is the revealed word of God. They don’t really want to ‘Do’ what it says… If they spent as much time actually living a ‘Christ-like’ life as they spend in gathering evidence for, and making their arguments, it would draw so many people to the faith from their example that churches would overflow. Why someone would spend so much time and energy on ‘proving’ that the Bible is the Revealed Word of God and then not make every effort to live by it’s precepts is beyond me?

Personally, I don’t get worked up over the issue. The Bible is not a book about ‘How’ God created the universe…It’s a book about ‘Why’. Science can’t answer many ‘why’ questions, but it is excellent at answering the ‘How’ questions. Both science and faith work best when they play to their strengths. ‘How’ God created the heavens and the earth is a subject not many human beings would be ready to understand even if He did reveal it. He inspired a very short version of the creation story to be recorded in the Bible. The focus of the story seems to be to point to Him as the ‘ultimate cause’. Once again, it is not ‘how’ He did it that’s important to the story.

I don’t really have a strong opinion one way or another about the issue. I tend to side with a version of creationism, but I’m not married to it. God could very well have used some form of evolution to achieve, at least part of, His purpose. The fact is that I’ve believed the scriptures said one thing quite clearly at times…only to come to believe they meant something different later. I honestly think the creation story is the wrong place to take a stand. It’s the wrong line to draw in the sand. I think our energies as Christians could be better used elsewhere. Instead of arguing with scientists we could show them, and everyone else, a better way to live by living it. That would be living proof that the Bible is the Revealed Word of God...

Irons in the fire

New experiences and pursuits in life often teach us the lessons we need to learn, if we take the time to look deeper into them. I’ve learned to see life from the perspective of a student, a teacher, a follower, a leader, a warrior, a scholar, a hunter, a fishermen, a carpenter and a gardener, to name only a few. I’ve never been an artist until I took up blacksmithing a few years ago. Blacksmithing has also given me a perspective on life I’ve never had before, the perspective of a creator.

I see junkyards completely differently now. I now know there is no such thing as junk. There are only discarded things that the right eyes haven’t seen yet. You see, when you look at something with the ‘right eyes’, you see it for what it can become. A scrap of steel is no longer just a scrap of steel. With the right heat and pressure it can become almost anything. It could become a tool under the right hand, or perhaps kitchen utensil or a piece of architectural hardware. Perhaps it could become a work of art. You have to first see it with the right eyes… Next you have to apply heat to transform it into a malleable material. Then you apply your will between an anvil and a hammer. The rest is up to your imagination!

Blacksmithing is unique among the arts in one respect. You make your own tools. In most arts you use tools someone else has made to create your vision. In blacksmithing you often envision creating something that can only be made with a certain tool…so you create the tool first. That reminds me of a short story by Hermann Hesse I read once. In the story, a young man had a conversation with a priest about soldiers and war. The priest told him that, like a carpenter, God uses some as hammers, others God grooms and corrects as His servants. Like the blacksmith, God makes His tools out of the same materials and uses them to create His art.

It is little wonder to me that blacksmiths were once revered. They were the alchemists that commanded the forces of earth and water, air and fire. Without them civilization, as we know it, would not exist. Iron and steel, like everything else we know, was created in the stars. There is something romantic about that. To know that the fundamental building blocks that make up…me…were created in the same processes makes me feel connected to creation in an intimate way. To be able to manipulate iron and steel with air and fire and water makes me feel connected to The Creator. When I create a work of art out of steel, I put a part of myself into it. When I look at it…I am reminded of that that part of me that it represents. I can’t help but wonder if God sees us in that way somehow.

I once saw life as a warrior. I saw in it the opportunity to bring glory to myself…by destroying. That’s what a fighter does, he dreams of destroying for his own glory. In some ways it is ironic that martial arts, created to kill the ego, first inflate it. But like the line in the movie, “Enter the Dragon” wherein the bad guy says of martial artists…”we forge ourselves in the fires of our own wills”…martial arts too, ultimately transform the practitioner…IF the practitioner takes the time to look deeper into the art. As a blacksmith I dream of creating, not just for my own glory, but to bring glory to my creation. That too tells me something about my Creator.

In Blacksmithing when you want to weld two separate pieces together, you have to heat them both up until the area where they are to join becomes malleable. Then you apply flux on the area and lightly hit the two sides together before applying force. Then you make the line that distinguishes them as separate pieces disappear, and they become one. Surely there is a life lesson in that!

I’ve only begun to learn the lessons blacksmithing has to teach me. I’ve found a new passion in the forge. I want to plumb it's secrets and learn its lessons. I’ve certainly felt the heat and the blows of the hammer in my own life. Perhaps I can come to understand something more about my Creator and about myself if I look deeper. Only time and the forge will reveal those secrets...

Back to the anvil!

True Faith

The Roman Catholic Church, the largest religion on earth that lays claim to Jesus the Christ, also lays claim to being the final authority in theological matters within the faith. They do not pretend that the Bible is their ultimate authority. In the hierarchal form of their church government the Pope is the head of the church and he speaks for Christ.

There have been great abuses in that form of church government historically. If the Pope makes a declaration on a theological matter, there is no higher authority to which to appeal because he speaks for God. Because of the abuses of that form of church government Martin Luther, and others in the Protestant reformation, appealed to the authority of the scriptures. The Catholic Church had gotten so far off that track that it needed a major shake up. The ultimate authority in theological matters for Protestants became the scriptures.

There are many Protestants today that will tell you that what they believe comes from the Bible. Many will, in fact, insist on it. It is true enough that the Protestant Reformation began with the motto: “Sola Scriptura”. But the fact is, a great deal of what most Christians believe is not found anywhere in the Bible.

What actually happens is that some person or group interprets what the Bible says and ‘that’ is what is then taught as being ‘only the Bible’. One group will assert that a particular teaching is correct and point to the scriptures to justify their view and another will point to the scriptures to prove just the opposite.

There are a lot of misconceptions about the ‘faith once delivered’ among Christians. The truth is, traditions from non-Christian sources have been grafted into the faith for centuries. The result is a religion that is far different in some of its principles and practices from the one that Jesus the Christ taught. The Protestant churches today have gotten so far off track that they now need a major shake up.

Some Christian sects have pointed to such things as Christmas and Easter as having pagan origins and no relationship to the teachings in the scriptures. These are some of the more obvious extra-biblical traditions that have been grafted into Christianity. But there are even more subtle teachings than those that permeate modern Christianity.

Teachings rooted in non-biblical traditions have been handed down for so long that they are most often not even questioned. They serve to cloud the true nature of the God revealed in Holy Scripture. Some teachings even contradict the principles revealed to us so completely that they would be recognized as anti-Christian to the first century church.

It’s difficult to examine the foundations of ones beliefs, especially when we grow up assuming them to be true so completely. It is in our nature to only see, that which supports what we already believe, and to not-see what is contrary to what we believe. For the sake of intellectual and spiritual honesty, however, I believe every aspect of our faith bears close scrutiny, especially our preconceived ideas.

Some will argue, quite correctly, that the Holy Spirit leads us to the truth. Without the Holy Spirit we can’t understand the true depth of the scriptures. It’s also true that there are other spirits that will readily lead us away from the truth. We are told to try the spirits to see if they speak the truth. The only test we have is to use the scriptures as our foundation. The true Holy Spirit would never lead us in a way contrary to the scriptures. God has given us both to guide us.

If something is found to be contradictory to the scriptures it should be discarded…no matter how engrained it has become. The motto of every honest Christian should be “Sola Scriptura”. The Bible should be the “sole basis of authority”. Tradition that does not find its roots in the history or principles of scripture should not be considered a part of the faith. Any ecumenical creeds should also be judged in that light. The Bible continually warns of false teachings finding their way into the Body of Christ. The only true authority of the church arises out of the principles and practices found in the scriptures. Anyone who teaches otherwise should be considered suspect. Anyone who teaches something contrary to the principles in the scriptures should be considered a false teacher…no matter how sincere.

One of the biggest misconceptions in modern Christianity is that God and Satan are somehow equal. Nothing could be further from the truth. Satan, is a created being that rebelled against God. He is completely under Gods authority. There is no equality between good and evil. God allows Satan and evil to exist as they suit His purposes.

Stemming from that misconception is the notion that God is somehow in competition for the souls of man. Many believe God is desperately trying to save as many people as possible, and anyone who doesn’t accept Christ as their savior is hopelessly lost. If that were the case God would be losing miserably because the vast majority of mankind has not accepted Christ. People that believe this misconception unwittingly elevate Satan in status. The God of the Bible is absolutely supreme in power and authority. God opens the hearts and minds of man in degrees. He is working with all human beings and calls them in His time.

Some people will tell you that even infants who die without knowing Christ are doomed to an eternity in hell-fire. They take one or two scriptures out of context to come to such misunderstandings. The god that that view describes is not the God revealed in the Bible. The God of the Bible is revealed to us as a just, merciful and loving  Father in many, many scriptures. No fair minded judge on earth would condemn an infant in such a way, and there is no way the God revealed in the scriptures would.

Every teaching asserted by a church should be true to the principles laid down in scriptures. In other words, it should fit into the Big Picture harmoniously. The principles of eternal love, mercy, justice and humility should guide our understanding of all scripture.

Another guiding principle is 'obedience to God'. What God does not want is to create another Satan, another spirit being that rebels against Him. So, if it comes down to a choice between obeying God…or rationalizing why we don’t have to…go with obedience. Christ obeyed His Father unto death... If you love Him you’ll keep His commandments. Love is not what you feel…it’s what you do. And when it comes to someone else’s obedience to God, let them work that out with Him. You do what you understand. God didn’t create us, or call us, to sit in judgment on whether someone else receives the gift of eternal life. He'll do that himself.

Always keep in mind, the Bible is not a book of theory or philosophy. It is not a book to simply be read and walked away from...or studied, for the sake of studying. The Bible is a users manual. When you read it, and come to understand something, you need to put those things to practice in your life.

Ultimately the Bible was written to each of us personally. We should take what God reveals to us from it and work to improve our own lives. If every Christian would do that, the example it would set for non-believers would draw them to the church in droves. God called us to walk humbly with Him and to work out our own salvation in fear and trembling, not to take it for granted. When one is focused on the beam in ones own eye…one has very little time to find the motes in others.

Where others are concerned…be ready to always to give an answer for what you believe. Love them like you love yourself. Forgive them when they wrong you. Feed them if they’re hungry. Clothe them if they’re cold. Visit them if they’re lonely. And be there when they need a hand. Treat them they way you would like to be treated. Always remember that love isn’t just what you feel…it’s what you do. You can’t go wrong with those principles. Live those and you’ll get it…

Uri Hofi

Today I met a Master Blacksmith. Some say Uri Hofi is to blacksmithing what a modern Beethoven would be to music. Hofi was trained in blacksmithing by Grand-Master Alfred Habermann but he added his own contribution to the art and asked why things were done the way they were. Why hold the hammer that way? Why stand at the anvil that way? Hofi has refined the art in many of his own ways.

I must add here that he is not a man without some controversy. Some claim that Hofi is a simply product of the marketing of Tom Clark, the late founder of the Ozark school of blacksmithing in the US. Many say that Hofi takes credit for things he had nothing to do with..like the 'so-called' Hofi hammer. To be sure there are other masters of the craft that are just as good, and some better than Hofi. We have many here in the US that are masters in every sense of the word. These controversies don't take away from the fact that Hofi has helped spread the art of blacksmithing to a new generation. For that alone he deserves some credit.

Hofi is a seventy year old, Israeli citizen, who calls himself a Hippie. He uses the term to mean that he is in touch with life. He loves flirting with the ladies! He says he doesn’t pay any attention to time and he doesn’t waste any energy on anger. He says to waste time on such things is just stupid. He teaches his students to draw on their own experiences, all of them, to express their creativity in iron. I didn’t quite know what to expect from this old gentleman. What I learned was was a unique perspective on smithing and on life.

Hofi's focus in blacksmithing is on the simple, the basic. He has elevated basic skills to perfection the way only a master can. He studied the Discipline of his art before he struck off on his own tangent. That’s something too many people who call themselves ‘artists’ haven’t done these days. He says without mastering the basic skills you can’t bring the images in your mind into existence in iron.

The real artist creates a love for the art in his students by sharing his own passion. This, Hofi has done. I am fortunate to study with one of Hofi’s students…William Bastas. William is an instructor at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas. It's one of two schools in the US where blacksmithing is taught for college credit. William has studied under several masters of the craft. He is a believer in the stream of consciousness approach…he follows his thoughts wherever they take him. That's allowed him to come into contact with his own creativity. William has turned his life into a journey of understanding and creating. He freely, and happily, shares everything he finds to ignite the passion for his art in others. After meeting men and women like Hofi I can see where William gets his passion. He, too, is on the path to mastery. He may not have Hofi’s years or his ability to make things look so simple but he is well on his way. One day he will. I told Hofi that William was carrying on in his spirit. His reply was that William 'is' his spirit... I can't imagine a nicer complement from a teacher to his student.

The Talmud says: “Find thyself a teacher.” Hofi found Habermann; William found Hofi and I found William. Such men and women are an inspiration. People like these are true teachers. People like these draw you to them. They draw you into their passion and it becomes contagious. I’ve been fortunate in my life to know a few teachers like them.

Smiting the black metal dates back to Tubal Cain in the Bible. It's written he forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron. Without blacksmithing there would be no modern world. It was instrumental in building civilization. Blacksmithing almost died out after World War II. Modern welding and machining has replaced the need for most of it. The world could have lost an art almost as old as humanity.

Metal artists like Habermann, Hofi and the several masters of the craft we have in the US have revived the art and it has found new disciples like William Bastas to preserve it and pass it on. The circle of life becomes complete by passing on one’s passion to the next generation. Alfred Habermann did that. Hofi is doing it. William is too. Hofi travels the world to spread the Habermann school of blacksmithing. William does it from the halls of a community college.

Today I had a good day. Today I heard echoes of Alfred Habermann. Today I met a Master Blacksmith.

The Path to Mastery

The concept of mastery of a skill has been poorly understood and poorly defined in the West. In the East however it is an essential part of many cultures. Like many Westerners I was exposed to the concept through martial arts. The beauty of it however is that it can be applied to almost anything. It is one more piece of the puzzle of what it means to be human.

In the beginning of learning any skill there is the introductory phase. One is exposed to ideas and movements that are unfamiliar. I have come to call this the Unconscious-Unskilled phase. You have no idea what you are doing and no clue how to do it!

As you become aware of what is expected or desired you begin to get an idea of what you hope to achieve but still lack the specific skills to get there. This I call the Conscious-Unskilled phase. Now you know that you don’t have a clue!

The third phase comes from practice of newly acquired skills. This I have come to call the Conscious-Skilled phase. You know what to do now but you still have to think about how to do it.

The forth and final stage of growth is the Mastery stage. You know your skill so well that you no longer have to think about it…it has become programmed in you. This is the Unconscious-Skilled phase. At this point you simply do what is needed without much, if any, thought.

To master an art you must first master the discipline of that art. This is very poorly understood in the West. It takes work…the kind that too many modern Westerners aren’t willing to exert these days. In Japan if you worked for say, a textile mill, you would be expected to learn the history of where the fibers come from and how they were originally dyed so you would understand how the modern processes developed. You would be expected to have an understanding of the big picture of your craft.

In the US…if someone merely claims to be a painter, they can just throw paint at a canvas (some have!) and call themselves an artist! A whole culture has developed here in the ‘art world’ wherein people with NO talent praise and admire the work of other people with NO talent in a kind of unspoken conspiracy that the rest of us are expected to fall for! (They all see the Emperors new clothes too!) A REAL artist would master his or her discipline before developing their own style. Pablo Picasso could match any of the great old masters doing landscapes or portraits but he went on to develop his own concept of abstraction. You can love his work or hate it…but it was the product of mastery!

There is a story told in Zen Buddhist circles of a rich art patron in ancient China who wanted a painting of a cat. He was willing to pay very well…but he wanted the best his money could buy. He sought out the best known artist of his day and told him what he wanted. He even paid a large advance. The artist told him to come back in a month. The patron returned in a month only to be told it would be another month. He returned time after time for months before he finally became angry and demanded that he get his painting for which he had already paid handsomely. The artist put a piece of paper down in front of his patron and in two minutes painted the most perfect cat the patron had ever seen! The man was stunned… Why, he asked, did you keep me waiting for months if you could do such remarkable work in minutes? Without a word the artist opened a cupboard door nearby and hundreds of paintings of cats fell out... He understood mastery.

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of speech is one of the pillars of the American way. It’s a fundamental freedom that is so important it is listed with freedom of religion in the First Amendment to the constitution.

The right to freedom of speech has been limited by the courts in some ways. You can’t yell “Fire” in the middle of a crowded theater when there is no fire. You can’t stand in front of a Synagogue on the Sabbath and preach racial hatred for Jews. Those things are not about expressing alternate social or political views. They’re about creating havoc and stirring up hatred. They lead directly to harming other people.

The Supreme Court of the land, in an action many claim is unconstitutional, has extended the principle of freedom of speech to include the ‘freedom of expression’. (The constitutionality issue is one that claims the high court oversteps its powers when it, in affect, creates new rights by such rulings.) One can burn the flag of the United States and it is protected as freedom of expression. A prostitute can be arrested for trading sex for money…but put a camera on that same transaction and it becomes ‘freedom of expression’. If an ordinary citizen were to follow a celebrity (or anyone else) everywhere they went it would be considered stalking. Let that same bottom feeder do it with a camera and it becomes freedom of expression again.

Those in the media itself argue that the public has ‘the right to know’…another ‘right’ not mentioned in the Constitution. It doesn’t take a close examination of their motives to see that their only motive is to sell their product…newspapers or airtime. Witness the farce that the O.J. Simpson trail became. That was all in the name of the publics ‘right to know’. The same philosophy has made names like Joey Buttafuco, Amy Fisher, Jessica Hahn and Tanya Harding a part of our culture…instead of the embarrassment that they should be.

What fundamental right is being denied the public by not hearing every little detail of some sorted and twisted tale? Doesn’t it actually harm ones ability to get a fair trial when such cases are tried in the media?

Just watch and see what the Michael Jackson case turns into. This guy is an absolute freak created by the media. They say he’s a black man…but I’ve seen no evidence for either assertion. Any man in his forties that likes to sleep with children completely unrelated to him has some serious issues. Now, he may or may not actually be a pederast. I don’t know. I know he has the right to a fair trial and, in court at least, is innocent until proven guilty. He may not be someone I’d want to have over for dinner but he deserves his day in court. Unlike the sound bites the media feeds the public to sell their wares, the jury will hear all the facts of the case. I’d like to say we can count on them to deliver a fair verdict but based on Jackson’s fans that automatically declare him innocent, the race card that will no doubt be played, and the leaks that the media has unabashedly published (in the name of freedom of speech/the press) I have my doubts.

It seems that the camera has become so much a part of our culture, thanks to Hollywood, that bad behavior in front of it is excused in the name of ‘freedom of expression’. While Hollywood and the media put up the pretense that they are protecting our freedoms and wrap themselves in the flag, they’re spitting on the true spirit of the Constitution in the name of profit.

Freedoms aren’t free. Ours have cost the blood of many good men and women over the two centuries America has been a nation. Indeed, without freedom of speech a free society would be impossible. My question is: Have we gone too far with it? Has it become a license for irresponsible behavior? Freedoms demand responsibility if they are to survive and responsibility is something that’s in short supply these days. When we sell ours for a profit…what does that make us? The freedoms the media has turned into a 'license to profit' have only hurt the cause of justice. Call me old-fashioned but I think when justice suffers…we all do. I know the founding fathers didn’t intend that…

The most Helpless among us...

OUTRAGE! That's a word that doesn’t begin to describe what I feel about adults abusing and neglecting children…especially when parents abuse their own children. It is the ultimate betrayal!

Children look to their parents for everything. It is the DUTY of every parent to feed, clothe, shelter, teach, love, nurture and protect their children. Even most animals know that! If you are not prepared to do those things then DON’T raise children! Give the ones you have to someone who will do those things!

I have to insert here that I don’t believe abortion is an acceptable, or moral, way to rid oneself of the responsibility of raising children. The Supreme Court, in over stepping its constitutional authority, created the ‘right’ of a woman to choose to kill her unborn children if they are ‘inconvenient’ when she allows herself to become pregnant. (God forbid that there be consequences to ones actions!)

The Declaration of Independence, one of the founding documents of our way of life, says that “…all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,,,”
Yes, the Holy Writ of the United States of America declares that there is a God and the very first right He endows every human being with is Life. Now, I’m no lawyer but it seems to me that the legal argument is very simple here…If the Constitution gave every person the right to take a 1000 mile journey and someone prevented another from taking the first step of that journey they would be violating the civil rights of the latter. Abortion prevents a living being from exercising their God-given right. There…that leaves the Bible out of the matter for those who can’t stand to even think about what their Creator intended.

Getting back to my point. Children are not here for us to use for our own gratification. They are a gift from God. They are His opinion that life should go on. They embody the hopes and the dreams of our race for the future. To abuse them is tantamount to taking a baby bird out of its nest and breaking its wings. It will never learn to fly right afterwards. It will carry those scars for all its life…

In the news recently there was a couple that adopted their children, took them into their home and then beat them with hammers, pulled out their fingernails with pliers, locked them in closets and starved them among other things. They CHOSE to take on parenthood. Their betrayal is even more heinous than that of parents who give birth to their own biological children… Even animals raise their offspring with more compassion than these two evil human beings.

The news is full of such stories. We hear them, along with what’s going on in the Middle East and who won the latest sporting event and we go on about our daily business.

What happens to the least of us reflects who and what we really are. What happens to the least of us affects us all. You want your own children to live in a better world? Then you’d better care about how your neighbor is raising theirs… How we raise our children today is what the world will be like tomorrow.

A Mother's love...

I recently saw an episode of 48 hours on CBS. It covered the Islamic terrorist takeover of that elementary school in Beslan Russia Sept.1-3, 2004. The final figures are 1200 plus people in the school were taken hostage by 32 terrorists, 330 of them were murdered…176 of them children. After the first day of the takeover the children and adults were not allowed to eat, drink or go to the bathroom for the next two days while they were held hostage. When the situation erupted bombs killed many of them, many more were shot in the backs as they tried to escape. Over 500 people were injured all told. 24 children were orphaned. Of the 32 terrorists at least ten of them were Arabs from the Middle East.

Any civilized person on earth would call this an act of pure evil. All of it was done in the name of the ‘religion of peace’ by Chechen rebels.

The story of one mother stood out to me in the midst of it. The terrorists allowed the infants and very young children to leave with some of their mothers before the end. Those mothers that also had older children in the school were given the choice to leave with their youngest children or stay with their older ones. All the mothers except one left with their infants. That one mother gave her infant to the Mayor of the town who was attempting to negotiate with the butchers who did this and she decided to stay with her older child. Some of the older children watched, horrified, as their mothers left the building with their younger siblings. The Mayor of Beslan left with the infant.

Now I don’t mean to put down any of the mothers in this. They were all faced with a choice that no parent should ever have to make. They were all dehydrated, hungry, sleep deprived… and horrified. I pray for God to bless each of them in their recovery. But this one mother…she stayed with her older child to suffer whatever the consequences the children would face. This woman looked into the face of pure evil and she was still guided by her love and her courage.

In that one mother, in that one act…I saw hope for all humanity. I never heard her name. I’ll never meet her. But I salute the courage and the love that flows in her veins. She embodied what is best in humanity in that act. I am humbled to be a member of the same race as she. One of Gods' jewels...

Revealed Knowledge and True Believers

I am always curious why people would claim any connection to the Bible when they don’t really care for what it says. The fundamental issue to me is that it claims to be revealed knowledge. If you accept that it is revealed knowledge, truth that we could not come by another way, then shouldn’t you make every effort to let that knowledge guide you in your behavior? And if you don’t believe it is revealed…why keep it around at all, surely you can find another book or perhaps even write your own?

For those of us that do accept the Bible as knowledge revealed from God it seems to me it would serve us well to remember a few things. The Book of Genesis, the book of origins or beginnings, sets the tone in its first few pages. Whether you believe the stories to be literal or metaphorical doesn’t matter, the lessons are the same.

The first truth revealed in the scriptures is that God is our Creator. We all came from Him and that linage can be traced back through the generations. We are directly connected to God. After our creation, the first lesson He instructs us in is that we have been given freedom of choice. We can choose to obey our creator, to accept what He declares is good and evil, and we’ll live. Or we can take it upon ourselves to decide what is good and what is evil and be subject to death. Being the independently minded creatures we are, we chose the latter…and have suffered with that decision ever since. You see, only God, our Creator can determine what is good and what is evil. Who could be better than The Manufacturer to know how His creation works best?

God’s next lesson, revealed through the story of Cain and Able, is that God determines what is and what is not acceptable worship to Him. We have largely ignored that lesson through the millennia and have opted to do what feels more appropriate to us. We have wanted to feel, more religious, so we’ve created our own rituals and temples and rules among other things to satisfy us…and tell ourselves that we are satisfying God.

In a like manner, only God can determine what is and isn’t holy. Only God can lift up something from the mundane and set it apart for a special purpose…one dedicated to Him. What makes both time and space holy is the presence of God. God created holy time in His creation of the Sabbath. He set that time apart from the mundane as specially consecrated to Him. He declared a physical space in the tabernacle, and later in Solomon’s temple, to be holy space. Here again, we humans aren’t content with what God declares holy so we step in and correct His mistakes for Him. What do you suppose would have happened, when Moses approached the burning bush and God told him to remove his shoes because the ground he walked on was holy, if Moses had said: “ I’ll take my shoes off over there…that patch of ground looks more holy than this one”? (We probably wouldn’t even know the name Moses today is my guess. )

So, God reveals Himself to us in scriptures, He reveals what is good and what is evil, He reveals what forms of worship He finds acceptable and He reveals what is holy. God reveals the laws that should govern our behavior individually and socially. These are themes that run throughout the Bible in story after story. The scriptures reveal for us the Creators instruction manual for the care and maintenance of the human race. These should be the very things that guide everyone calling himself a believer. God reveals much more if you reflect on it. For the believer, history has a beginning, a purpose and a destiny. For the believer a missing dimension in human affairs is revealed, a spiritual dimension that interacts with this physical dimension in human psychology and in human affairs. That revelation alone gives us new insight into so many things.

Two questions should be on the minds of every believer. The first question is whether or not we are really making an effort to know what God reveals? The second is: are we willing to accept that revelation and make and effort to live by it? No one understands all the truth the scriptures reveal. The Bible is a book of layers, each time one reads it one can glean new levels of understanding. God reveals to us that we are responsible for what we come to understand. If we are faithful and obedient in a little…more is revealed.

Some, calling themselves believers, have attempted to distort every aspect of the revealed knowledge in scriptures. They ignore the danger in doing so at the risk of their own lives.

There are churches these days that claim to be Christian and worship ‘the goddess’. No doubt God has feminine aspects in His nature since He created men and women in His image…but He reveals Himself to us as a father throughout scripture. To ignore that is to disobey the God revealed in the scriptures. That is addressed in the very first commandment. Some attempt to remake God in an image more comfortable to themselves, one that fits, not what the scriptures reveal, but what their own hearts and minds limit Him to. That's a form of idolatry and it’s addressed in the second commandment. Many call themselves by the name of God and make little or no effort to follow His way of life. That is addressed in the third commandment. The forth commandment reveals what time God has declared holy. Most believers don’t bother with that one either. They choose instead to pick their own day and declare it holy while trampling on the one God has designated.

The last six commandments don’t so much reveal things that man can’t find out another way. In fact many human cultures and traditions have come to understand what they contain as the best way to live. Those obedient to them are rare and are among the wisest of human beings. Life itself has instructed them in the wisdom of obeying the way of life laid out in the last six commandments. To the believer, obedience to all the commandments against our own desires is an act of worship. It is an act of worship that God readily accepts. In fact He says if we love Him we will keep His commandments. To one who understands the truth of the commandments and still disobeys them their own understanding condemns them.

One of the biggest misunderstandings among believers is taking knowledge that has been revealed to them and, instead of using it to become a better person the way it was intended, they use it to hit each other over the heads with. There are many traditional churches full of people who will readily tell you who is and who isn’t saved. But God reveals to us that He is the judge…we are told not to judge. God reveals that He is a just and merciful father, but many twist some verse or two to claim that infants dieing before reaching maturity or people who have never heard the message of the Christ will be condemned to an ever-burning hell. These people miss the big picture by misconstruing the details. These are the folks that will no doubt lecture Christ that He should never have allowed the thief on the cross to enter paradise! Where would God be without our advice!?

Then there are those that go to the other extreme and distort the meaning of love to excuse whatever they want. “I only beat my wife because I love her too much!” “I slept with my best friends wife because I fell in love with her!” There are those that call Sodomy, ‘homosexual love’ and pederasts ‘lovers of children’. God calls love obedience to Him. Love reaches out to give to others…it doesn’t desire for self.

The road to being a believer is full of pitfalls and everyone of us will fall into more than one. We can always find our way out if we remember that only God determines what is good and what is evil, what is holy and how He will be worshipped. To believe Him is to trust Him. The measure of a believer is in openly and honestly seeking to understand what God reveals to them…and in making an effort to live it. The true believer repents when they fall and they get back up and continue on the path that God has revealed to them. The true believer lives justly, loves mercy and walks humbly with their God.

To Be a Christian...

There was a commercial that recently made the news because it was produced by a church and network TV refused to air it. It staged a church building to look like a night club where there was a line of people waiting to get in and there were two 'bouncer-like' figures that decided who would and wouldn’t be allowed. While it never mentioned gays, or any other group per se, the implication was clear that homosexuals were not allowed in that church. The church that produced the commercial then made the pitch that, unlike the church that wouldn’t let some people in, everyone was welcome in it.

Network TV had their reasons for not airing the commercial. I’m not concerned here with what their thinking was. It generated controversy in the religious community over the implication. Some believe that homosexuals shouldn’t be allowed in Christian churches because the Bible clearly labels that lifestyle as sinful. The other side says that everyone should be allowed in church and Christ wouldn’t turn anyone away from fellowship. Other commentators have correctly identified the heart of the issue as being the central controversy of our time in religious circles…literal interpretation of scriptures versus a metaphorical interpretation.

First I’d like to say that I think both sides that have polarized around this are wrong. Anyone should be allowed to attend a church. No one should be turned away for who they are….not homosexuals, not adulterers, not fornicators, not liars…no one.

The issue of allowing them to remain in a church is quite different. Church is supposed to exist to change people…not to be changed by them. Sinners should all be welcome…but they should be expected to put their sins out of their lives to remain. Homosexuality is no different than adultery or fornication. They are all identified in the Bible as sexual sins that must be repented of to atone with God. All sins need to be repented of to atone with God…period. To repent is to put that behavior out of your life and return to obedience to God. That is a keystone message of Christianity. God decides what is sin and what is not, no one else does, including a church. Another message of Christianity is that the scriptures identify what God reveals to us as sin…literally. In other words…the book means what it says.

There are many things in scripture open to interpretation. When such things are encountered a consistent set of rules should be applied. The first rule should be that the Bible interprets the Bible. When scriptures tell us that wise men followed a star to where the Christ-child was, it could mean a literal star, except that stars don’t move that way. A star is symbolic for an angel in other parts of scripture. The interpretation that the star was an angel can be supported by adhering to the rule that the Bible interprets the Bible…without having to suspend the laws astronomical bodies must adhere to.

The problem with metaphorical interpretation of the scriptures is whom is qualified to interpret what the metaphors mean. Some argue that the church has that authority and that each age of the church can reinterpret scriptures for the needs of their generation. This is not a new controversy…it is one that has divided Catholics and Protestants for centuries. The Protestant reformation began with the motto: “Solo Scriptura…only the scriptures”. In our time the old controversy is dividing Protestants too but, unlike the Catholic church who asserts that it is the final authority, there is no clear authority recognized by Protestants for who correctly interprets metaphorical symbolism. If such interpretation is open to change with each generation then why have scriptures at all? They would become meaningless in such a system.

The last issue around this “central controversy of our day” is whether individuals have the right to expect a church to change to accommodate them. An African American may want to join the Ku Klux Klan…but why? Why would one want to join an organization that is against who one is? Wouldn’t it be better to simply go off and start one’s own organization…one more sympathetic to one’s own cause? For Homosexuals and Adulterers (and any other sinners) to join a church and refuse to change is only to delude themselves. God demands that we change to atone with Him…He will not change to atone with us. He has given His only begotten Son as a sacrifice for our sins…if we will repent, accept that sacrifice, and continue to work to put sin out of our lives He will allow us to come to Him. A part of the message in God allowing His own son to be sacrificed to atone for our sins is just how repugnant sin is to God...it smells of death because that's where it leads. Your faith should make you better than you are. If it is doing its job, your church should make you too uncomfortable to live in sin. To come into contact with the will of God should make you change for the better.

We will never be without sin in our lives as long as we are mortal. But we will have the help of God’s Holy Spirit to aid us in fighting sin as long as we are willing. We can’t give up the struggle and expect God to change to accommodate us. The reward is in the struggle.

Human beings may be able to storm the gates of a human organization…but they will never storm the gates of the spiritual Body of Christ. The only ones welcome to stay there are repentant sinners…and that applies to all of us.

THE BOOK

I have in my possession a book. It is the product of many years of compiled wisdom. Many authors contributed to it. This book purports to be a guide for how to remain safe and get along with each other.

It gives specific laws that if everyone obeyed…would make our society much safer. Many people have read this book and figured it was only a guide to live by, it was never to be taken literally.

Most people rationalize that it need not be taken literally. We can pick and choose what we would like to obey in it. After all…we are all rational adults and can decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong…

Most people that have read it don’t live by its’ laws on a daily basis…even though they know on some level that to disobey those laws can endanger them.

All who have read it know that it speaks of a higher authority, a higher authority that is always watching us. If we continue to break the laws of the book, it tells us that one day we will stand before that higher authority and have to answer for our actions…

That authority can and does impose penalties for breaking the laws contained in the book. But most people behave as if they aren’t being watched?

You see there are basically two kinds of people…those that take the book literally, and believe that it means what it says. These folks believe that the book is an instructional manual and should be followed as such. And then there are those that believe that it is only a guide, written metaphorically, and needn’t be followed to the letter… The problem with the latter is deciding exactly who is qualified to interpret the metaphors. If it is, in fact, only intended to be metaphorical….why have a book at all?

Each of us has to make a decision about how we feel about the writings in the book. Each of us faces the choice about whether to obey the laws in the book or to just hope that others obey the laws in the book. That is the choice after all… We ALL want everyone else to obey the laws of the book!

Everyone knows the book I’m referring to… The State Drivers Handbook of course!
What did you think I was talking about??

From these shores...

The estimated death toll of the earthquake generated tsunami in the Indian Ocean stands now at about 150,000 souls. The hearts and pocket books of the American people have opened to the less fortunate members of our human family affected by this catastrophe. Say what you will about this nation. We have our problems and our faults to be sure…but this people also has true nobility in their veins. This is a nation with a huge heart. It is in moments like this that our light truly shines on the world. It is in moments like this I have hope for humanity. I am proud to be a member of the most generous nation in the history of the world…I am proud to be an American.

So many lives...

Tsunami hits Indian ocean nations and kills over 100,000 people….

It sounds just like any other news headline if you say it quickly enough. Over one hundred thousand people lost their lives…and the numbers are still climbing as I write this. We, here in America, just go on about our daily activities. Many of us haven’t even stopped to take notice because it hasn’t affected us.

Most of the people killed were the poorest in already poor countries. The poor don’t have the material possessions that Americans and Western Europeans have been blessed with. What they have…had…were families. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, grandparents...that’s what the survivors lost. Sometimes the only thing that makes poverty bearable is family…and that was taken away from thousands and thousands of people in only a few hours.

The loss is incomprehensible to me. To those who survived the loss it was their child or their parent, perhaps their neighbor, perhaps all of those. It was personal. I can only think of the quote by John Donne: “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."

I don’t have the ability to help any victims of this cataclysm directly…but the survivors are in my prayers. I take note that humanity has lost a great deal in the last few days. They’re not strangers or aliens to me…they’re human beings, made in the image of the Living God…they’re part of my family. My heart goes out to my family. May the hand of the Most High bless and comfort His children. May He heal the hearts, bodies and spirits of those left behind...eventually. May we open our hearts and our purses to our family in their time of need. Humanity has the opportunity to show it's heart in this too. May we all stop and take note that the bell tolls…

Well in Europe they say...

After listening to the talking heads on TV, my little sister who went to school in Switzerland, and a neighbor who lived in Belgium for far too many years… I’m a little put off by the weight some people keep putting on the opinions of ‘Europeans’ about the goings on here in the US. Most of the branches of my family came to this country before it was the United States. My ancestors fought the British in the Revolutionary War. The fact is that all my ancestors came from Europe at one time or another. They left countries were they were persecuted for their religious beliefs or where they had no futures because of the crushing weight of poverty thanks to the cultures ‘Europeans’ developed. Our ancestors came here and founded the greatest country in the history of the world!

This nation has poured out it’s money, it’s sweat and the blood of it’s young men to free the oppressed peoples in every corner of the world…including ‘Europe’. In fact if not for the selfless service of hundreds of thousands of Americans the ‘Europeans’ would all be speaking German today! And after soundly thrashing the Germans in the field we paid to rebuild their country and to rebuild the countries that they had pounded into the dirt…and then forgave the debts!

We’ve provided a military umbrella to shield the Europeans from the threat of Communism for almost fifty years and the ‘Thanks’ we get is to be snubbed and told we don’t do enough in the United Nations!! We started the United Nations! We put the headquarters on our soil and let most of its’ members get away with breaking the laws of their host country. We have footed the bill for most military and humanitarian actions that have served to make the world a better place and all while the ‘Europeans’ look down their noses on us!

I say let’s leave the Iraqis alone, go to war with Europe and make them all learn English! They need a lesson in respect since they haven’t learned anything from the lessons of history!

The Passion of the Christ

I recently watched Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion of the Christ’. True to it’s advertising it was very brutal… But it brought many things to mind. The first thing I thought was that people haven’t changed at all since that time. There are still politicians that make decisions not out of conscience but out of pressure from the populous. There are still cruel people who take pleasure in inflicting pain on others. And there are still hypocritical religious leaders that are more concerned with their positions among men than they are with the things of God.

For God the Son to step out of eternity and into the form of a human being is still mind boggling to me. For God to love me so much that He was willing to suffer indescribable pain on every level…I take that very personally. Knowing that He could have wiped humanity off the face of the earth at any moment during His humiliation at our hands serves to make His sacrifice even more incredible. These are thoughts that many of my fellow Christians share.

The thing that stuck me the most was that Christ made it possible for me to go straight to the thrown of God. Christ is my High Priest and my Intercessor. I don’t need to belong to a church to go to God. Even among many Christian churches that is a fact that is barely addressed. It is even underplayed. To focus on that fact would be to undermine the authority of the church. Too many religious leaders couldn’t have that! Remember that the ones who wanted Christ dead were the religious leaders. The people loved Him. The leaders of the synagogues feared Him. They still do.

The thing that was missing from the movie was the message of the Christ. Almost all Christians agree on the person of the Christ…that may even serve as a loose definition for a Christian. His message is in dispute among the various sects however. And of the number that actually believe He meant what He said…the number that really try to live by it is infinitesimally small. He loves us…scripture tells us that if we love Him we’ll keep His commandments. Instead too many Christians would rather argue with each other about what is necessary… It’s a shame.

I can just imagine a national football team spending millions on a new coach because they ‘believed in him’…then not doing what he told them to do on the field. We agree on the coach. How many of us trust Him enough to actually ‘DO’ what He commands on the field? The world could be a much better place if we’d stop our in-fighting and simply live what we understand. Now that would spread the gospel!

Life Lessons

When I was a boy I was fascinated by all things Native American and everything that had anything to do with the outdoors. Spending so much time out of doors I was bound to encounter some of the ‘less-than-desirable’ aspects of nature. When I was about twelve I had one such encounter…with poison ivy. I got it all over me! I was miserable for two weeks itching and trying not to scratch. My favorite uncle, who shared my love of outdoors, told me that he knew a sure fire way to never suffer so again. He told me when he was a boy an old Indian woman taught him the secret to avoid my misery. “An old Indian woman”…that got my attention! He told me she taught him to spit on poison ivy and poison oak whenever he saw them in the woods and he would never suffer their ill effects. I had to try that!

Sure enough over the years when I would see poison ivy or oak I would spit on them. And I have never suffered their ill effects since! I guess it was sometime in my early twenties I was backpacking through the woods when I came across a thick patch of the evil weeds and, true to the old Indians teaching, I spat on them. I then walked around the outgrowth and realized in that moment that every time I had spat on the plants over the years I walked around them. I had to smile at my uncles’ wisdom. He knew that if I would consciously identify the plants I would avoid them and their ill effects. The spitting was just a way to get me to pay attention. I have wondered over the years if there ever really was an old Indian woman. My uncle has long since been dead but I owe him so much for the things he taught me and the ways he did it. That was just one of many things…

I have long suspected that God has attempted to teach us in a similar fashion. He didn’t try to explain to the ancient Israelis that bacteria was the cause of many communicable diseases, He simply gave them laws of sanitation and quarantine and ordered them to follow the law or be cut off from their people. They observed those directives in a ritualized manner for centuries. During the Bubonic Plague in Europe, in the mid fourteenth century, it is estimated that 25 million people, about a third of the total population, died from the disease. The bacteria was carried by rats but the fleas that infested them transmitted it to humans. Once in humans it spread rapidly.

The Jews were the segment of the population least infected by the outbreak. Many Christians accused them of an international conspiracy to kill Christians since they didn’t seem to be so devastated by the plague. But the Jews were simply observing the laws of sanitation and quarantine that had been passed down for centuries as a part of their faith. When the cause of the disease became understood centuries later the importance of sanitation and quarantine practices began to be understood more widely. Had the Jews not practiced the laws that had been revealed to them in the Bible they would have been just as devastated as the rest of the population of Europe.

Our Creator wove spiritual laws into the fabric of the universe just as He wove physical laws into it. Human beings seem to intuitively know that we need to live in harmony with the universe we are a part of. We sense, on a semi-conscious level, that to fulfill our ultimate purpose we must find a way to live in harmony with the laws of Creation. To the extent that we obey those laws we are blessed because we are in harmony with the fundamental operations of the universe. Ultimately every religion teaches some form of this concept. Though our understanding of why may be lacking…God has revealed the ‘what’ to us.

Parents universally teach their children what to do before attempting to teach them why. As the children grow up they learn the whys. Just like a child may want to eat only deserts at a meal, a wise parent knows better than to let them because to do so would eventually harm them. What is needed is a more balanced nutritional approach…even if it must be forced at first. Sometimes to to encourage their children to eat more nutritionally, parents give their children a reason to that may not be related to "just because it's good for you". In a like manner the Israelites would not have been ready for understanding the real purpose behind some of their laws had it been given to them, but they did understand..."if you don't do it, you'll be cut off from your people". The Christian population of Europe had flat out rejected the very knowledge that had been handed down to them in the form of scripture. They threw out the very thing that could have saved many of their lives.

God’s laws were given for our good, some were given to aid in our understanding of spiritual things and some to ensure that the physical, psychological, and social aspects of our lives would be in harmony with the way the universe works. We may not know why some of His laws were given and we may never be able to find their ultimate purpose in this life. An element of faith is always present in the practice of religion. Perhaps to have faith is also to live in harmony with a fundamental law of creation.

In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the three great Western religions who base their respective faiths on a body of scripture, there is the additional element of obedience or submission to the will of our Creator. Some laws revealed in scripture may simply exist for the purpose of teaching us obedience. To yield one’s own desires to the laws of God is a true act of worship. To reject those laws is to find ourselves outside of the harmony of creation...dis-ease and death often follow. Our understanding of some of those laws has grown and our observance of them may no longer be necessary because they’ve taught those who have obeyed them the lessons they were intended to teach. Often times, in our stubbornness, we have rebelled against the laws of God because we, like the average seventeen year old, think we already know better. The Christian population of Europe during the Black Plague didn’t think the laws of sanitation and quarantine were any longer necessary because they ‘knew better’. They were privy to the same body of scriptures that the Jews they hated were privy to. The Christians rejected obedience to those laws and they paid a heavy price.

Christians today argue over what parts of the law bind us. We believe many are unnecessary because we ‘know better’. What I have come to wonder is whether we have indeed learned the lessons the law was meant to teach us? Like my experience with poison ivy in my youth, perhaps we should simply obey the advice of a much wiser source and err on the side of obedience rather than rashly disregarding it. If we really believe it's for our own good...what could it hurt? It could be that what is has to teach us…we have not learned yet.