Labels

Nigger, Kike, Spic, Cracker, Faggot, Bitch…these are all words that people have used, and in some cases still use, to demean and dehumanize other people. They’re labels that people have attached to others to categorize and pigeonhole them into some preconceived notion of what those others are supposed to be like. Most of these words have largely fallen out of use because of the negative, and even hateful, connotations that they are associated with.

Not everyone who has used such words has meant them to have hateful connotations. I remember when I was a child my grandmother used the word ‘nigger’ to refer to black people. Though she was a product of her generation, having some of the preconceived notions about race that were common in that era, she had no hatred of any black people. She treated everyone with simple respect…because “that was what Jesus would do”. The label didn't mean to her what it came to mean to so many others. We give our labels their power.

It's politically incorrect to use such words these days…even if the underlying feelings are still around. It is the underlying feelings that are so hard to eradicate. That's where the power of our labels comes from. I believe there is just as much, if not more, hatred in the hearts of people now as there ever was. Just mention that you are a Conservative Christian in some circles and you’re automatically reduced to the labels: racist, sexist, homophobic and narrow-minded bigot. The labels, Christian, Conservative and Republican evoke contempt and even hatred from many “enlightened” people. The same can be said of the terms: Liberal, Democrat, Feminist, and Gay among other people. None of them tell us who the individual is...

The funny thing about labels is that, once you pin one on someone, you no longer feel any need to get to know them personally. With the act of labeling someone, the other person is summed up and nothing else need be known about them. It is a peculiar power of human language that naming something gives us a sense of power over it. We all do that to some degree.

The truth is that human beings are more complex than any label. Most people are much more multifaceted. We only tend to see the sides of them that we want to see, or are conditioned to see. Kids tend to see their parents in only one way. Parents tend to see their kids in only one way. Men sometimes see women in only one way. Women sometimes see men in only one way too. We can even become socially conditioned to see, whatever race we're a member of in some preconceived ways. We can also learn to see other races in preconceived ways. When we limit ourselves to see others so, we tend to see only those things that reinforce our preconceived notions and ignore everything else.

A big part of human history can be summed up as people rebelling against being seen by others in only one way. Minorities in every age and nation have fought to be seen as the equals of those in the majority, just as varied, just as complex and just as worthy. It’s an old story that has replayed over and over in our history and literature.

When someone does something we disapprove of, we typically see only how they’re different from us and ignore how they’re the same. That’s the root of prejudice…seeing only the differences and ignoring the similarities, then labeling “them” as “all the same”. They’re just not like us after all!! Among human beings, things will always be this way until our human nature is changed. It is a strange irony of life that the thing that makes us all the same is the very thing that makes us focus on our differences? The good news is that individuals can change…if they make the choice and the effort.

It takes energy to do so, but each us of has it in our power to learn to see the world differently. We all have it in our power to see each other as individuals that could never truly be labeled and should never be dismissed out of hand. The results of learning to see the world in such a way makes it a far more interesting place. Seeing people as individuals instead of numbers in some category makes them more real…and harder to hate. Not a bad goal if you ask me…

Have YOU seen this little girl?

The beautiful little girl in this photo is four year-old Madeleine McCann. Madeleine is a British citizen who was vacationing at a resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal with her parents. On May 3, 2007 Madeleine was kidnapped out of the room she was staying in and hasn't been seen since. Police have been doing their jobs to the best of their abilities but they need the publics help. If you think you might have seen Maddie, especially if you live in Portugal or Spain, please contact your local law enforcement agency.

Maddie's abduction is a Crime Against Humanity…and she’s just one of many, many children that go missing every year. You can just imagine the nightmare that Maddies parents are enduring. It's a horror that no parent should ever have to endure. Maddies parents have the means and the financial support of many of their countrymen to try and help find her. Most abducted children don’t have parents with the money to engage the national media…but we bloggers can put our two cents in.

There are around 100 child abductions and murders every year in the USA. About 74% of these children will be dead within three hours. The statistics are similiar around the world. The kidnapping and murder of the most innocent among us should bring an outcry from all of us! The perverted animals that perpetrate such crimes hide and scurry in the dark like the cockroaches they are. Governments need to pass legislation to deal quickly and harshly with such animals. They are guilty of stealing our future; of destroying our innocence. These truly are crimes against humanity! We cannot allow them to perpetuate this perversion generation after generation! We cannot allow them to continue to harm our children!

Pay attention to the children around you and how the adults they're with treat them. Be alert to their cries for help and call the authorities if you suspect neglect or abuse. Don't just throw away the milk cartons or fliers with pictures of missing children on them. Look at them. Remember their faces. One day a child you know may go missing.

Mine is a voice that may only reach a few people, but I believe this is what a public voice is for. I can’t, in good conscience, pass up the opportunity to add my voice to those who have done likewise. If you're a blogger, a web page owner or have some other kind of public forum, imagine that you put up a photo and some information on a child who has been abducted - and that your site is visited by someone who has just seen them. You could have saved a life...

This, and my fervent prayers for little Maddies safe return, are what I have to offer...

Symbols versus Substance

There is an, often overlooked (or ingnored) , scripture in Matthew 25 verses 34-40. In it Christ likens religious people to sheep and goats. He says to the sheep, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you took me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” (NIV)

When the righteous asked ‘Lord, when did we do these things for you?’ His answer was: “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

This is ‘Nuts and bolts’ Christianity. This is Love in action. This is loving our fellow man like we love ourselves. It is the heart of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ. To be sure, there are truths that it is important to have, and live by, to be a true Christian. One can’t believe just anything and be considered Christian. But for those who claim ‘The Way’ these words of Christ are more important than which church one attends. These words are more important than having the nicest clothes and sitting in the front row of a church every week. They are more important than any ceremonial worship of God. This is the Spirit of God in action.

It’s often overlooked because it’s easier to appear to be righteous than to actually ‘be’ righteous. Too many Christians want to appear to be decent, upstanding people without actually ‘doing’ the things Christ said to do. That was the attitude of the Pharisees. Those folks are addressed in the next verses when He speaks to the goats. Their reward isn’t quite so appealing. The reader can see those verses for him or herself. My point here is simply to go straight to the heart of the matter of what it is to be Christian. I say go ‘to the heart’ because that is where it all starts. The heart is where true faith and hope and love come from.

The world today doesn’t want to deal with Christians. It asks us to leave our flaky, religious views outside when we come in to deal with them. They’re tired of the theme parks and the bumper stickers and the hypocrisy. If more of us simply lived our faith instead of talking about it, if more of us practiced ‘nuts and bolts’ Christianity, we would be invited in much more often. The impression we make would be much more positive and much more lasting. We would find people coming to us and asking what is it that causes us to behave so. We should then be ready to give an answer… Until our lives reflect something of Christ, He would be better served if we remained silent. That’s the real meaning of ‘Taking God’s name in vain’. When we advertise our religion the world scrutinizes everything we do.

In the meantime, a life lived like Christ would speak much more loudly than any Sunday morning TV show, bumper sticker or pamphlet. A life lived like Christ is a light to the world. It is an announcement that there is a better way. People that live Christ-like lives are the salt of the earth; they preserve it. They're the kind of salt that there can't be too much of. Unfortunately, the world is running out of salt...and it's beginning to rot for the lack of it.

Boys and Girls...Men and Women

I like women, but not just in the way one might think. I like they way they look, the way they smell, they way they move, and I like the way they are with each other. Women will freely open their hearts to each other in ways few men would ever think of. A wise man can learn a lot from women. Women can also learn some things from men.

I’ve given it some thought and I think the genetic make up of women drives them to behave completely differently than men. I don’t believe it's all in how we’re are raised. Contrary to what some PhDs’ would have us think…men and women really are different. Luckily, there are enough people still endowed with common sense to see that. That’s a perspective I believe one has to start with if one ever hopes to understand how men and women interact.

Men and women are only whole when they’re together. When we remain separate and only spend time with our own sex we tend to get a skewed perspective on life. Children, especially, need mothers and fathers to get a complete picture of how separate parts make up the whole.

When I was a little boy, if I were to fall and skin my knee, my father would tell me to pick my chin up and take it like a man! If one of my sisters were to do the same, he would speak softly to her, hug her and kiss her bruise to make her feel better. I don’t resent that in any way…it’s what I would do myself if I had children. I think boys need to be strong and that’s the proper way to teach them. Only the shortsighted among us apologize for that.

In a related way little girls are encouraged to show love and affection. They can do with it their dolls, with their pets, with other little girls and no one thinks anything of it. Boys are just expected to be more…‘manly’...than that. To develop that strength, boys are not encouraged to show all their feelings. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes that can go too far, but on the whole I think it’s a good way to raise young men. The world is tough and it takes tough men and women to deal with it.

When men learn to let their guards down it’s usually with a woman. She’s the more experienced in showing love and, while that can be a problem, if he’s open to it, she can teach him how to love. Men and women can learn from each other. Again, I think that’s a good way to do it. When boys are raised to be men this way they don’t open their hearts often. When they do love though…it can be a strong love. Call me a sexist, but I think women are the best at teaching men how to love. Mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, girlfriends even neighbors are all teachers for boys.

I don’t think women are as good at raising boys as men are. Women, in general, don’t understand what it takes to raise a little boy to become a man. Women want to nurture and keep all harm away from their children and that’s a great thing…but it isn’t always the best thing for little boys trying to become men. Sometimes they need to experience pain to prepare them for a tough world.

There is a concerted effort in the US today to eradicate all the traits from little boys that feminists feel are ‘undesirable’. What that amounts to is the emasculation of young men and it won’t work. It has the opposite effect in fact…it makes boys meaner and more violent in the end.

Boys need the guidance and influence of good men to become good men themselves. Unfortunately, good men are in short supply these days. Frustrated single mothers have had to step to the plate and try to take the place of good men. That’s a shame on men everywhere. While I admire and applaud single mothers, they just aren’t equipped to teach boys some of the things young men need to know. Women can teach men and boys how to love. That’s one of the many strengths of women. But, only a real man can teach a boy to become a man.

Women need to stop trying to be men and stop trying to change men. Instead of trying to emasculate them…women should encourage them to step up to the plate and be real men! That isn’t the same as being a woman with different plumbing… Men and women are different! Women need to realize that, and be grateful for it instead of trying to remake men into what they ‘think’ men should be.

Men need to realize that being a real man has nothing to do with sexual exploits or what you drive or what sports you play. Being a Real man is about having integrity; having the strength of character to stand up for what's right. Being a real man is being honorable and doing the right thing. It means giving the women and children in your life someone to look up to and respect.
Real men don’t walk out on their responsibilities. Real men don’t walk out on their families. They take care of the women they love and the children they bring into the world.

We need to dump the idea of unisex that pervades and infects our society. Men and women are different…and we need each other to be whole. We need to be glad we’re different and take pride in it!

It Ain't Over...till It's Over!

No one hates war more than a military man. They’re the ones that have to do the killing and the dieing. Most of the men who have served in Iraq in the last couple of years will tell you that they believe doing so was the right thing. They believe in bringing the freedoms of a democratic system to a people that have never known them. No one involved ever believed it was going to be quick or easy.

We went into Iraq because of the intelligence reports that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. All sides agreed on that until none were found. Then, for political reasons, Democratic politicians started playing to the most liberal elements of their party and started calling the president of the United States a liar and worse. He was called a “liar” for actually acting on what they all believed!

President Bush never lied to the American people about Iraq. He has steadfastly held to a course of action that he decided was the right one. The majority of American people elected him to do just that. George Bush Jr. believes in Democracy and believes it will bring stability to the Middle East. Whatever else can be said of the man, he has been true to his principles. They are American principles.

The fact is that we are now in Iraq. The Iraqi government is too new and unstable to effectively control their country. For us to pull out before they are able to do so would be a disaster that would reverberate far and wide. Iran would become the major power in that part of the world. The very existence of Israel would be threatened, as would the flow of oil to a power hungry world. We cannot let that happen. To do so would be condemning us to a much more widespread war in the future. And, if you don’t like gas prices now…just think about what they would be with even more instability in the Middle East.

Most of the people that are demanding that we end the Iraq war now may mean well…but they are letting their feelings cloud their common sense. The politicians that are playing on those feelings are doing so for their own ambitions. America finds itself, once again, embroiled in a conflict that is setting our own people against one another. We need to remember the American principles that President George Bush hasn’t forgotten. We need to remember that freedom demands a price.

We are in a war against a sworn enemy. Radical Islamists want to destroy us and they won't stop. To pull out of Iraq now would give them a breeding ground where they would multiply like rats! To leave a stable democracy in Iraq would be to stop a good deal of that at its source. We can fight them there...or we can fight them here.

As for those in Hollywood and the media spewing hatred for our president and sympathizing with dictators in lands where the people don’t enjoy our freedoms…there was a time when what they are doing would be considered treason. It is a slap in the face to the troops they claim they support!

Just so I’m clear here…I hate this war. I hate the fact that innocent people on both sides are dieing every day. I was against going into Iraq in the first place…but we’re there now. To support our troops means to support their victory…anything less would be to make the lives of all of those that have given them meaningless. And it would leave the world a much more dangerous place. We have to see this through. We have to see this through!

The Darkness and The Light

In a movie I saw recently, one character was an Apache witch. He had a line that struck me as very insightful about human nature. He asked the question, ‘You have two dogs fighting inside of you, one good the other evil…which one wins?’ The protagonist answered: 'The one you feed the most'.

I don't believe there's a battle between good and evil in the universe. That presumes goodness and evil are equal but opposite. Good and evil are not equal. God allows evil to exist as it suits His purpose. In the human heart it’s a different story. We are at ground zero for our own battle between good and evil. We can understand those that do evil because we know the evil in ourselves. We all draw from the same nature. We take that nature with us where ever we go. For that reason there can never be a Shangri La or a Utopia. We would take our nature, who and what we are, with us there and it would eventually destroy what we hoped to find. We can pass laws to try and reign in our nature. We can look to our heroes for their examples of how they have overcome. The battle still belongs to every human being and the fight is still a personal one. The battle between good and evil in the human heart is a battle that must be fought in every human heart. Those that win in conquering their own evil can’t conquer it for anyone else. Every newborn child is a new battleground.

Incidents like the recent slaughter of 31 innocent people at Virginia Tech make it clear that some people give themselves wholly over to evil. The most ironic thing in our modern American culture is that the very things that serve to constrain the evil in our hearts are being slowly eliminated from our national consciousness. Our sacred writings declare that there is a Creator and it is He who endows us with our human rights. Dark forces, in the name of the separation between church and state, are attempting to erase all mention of that Creator from our national consciousness. They are promoting the concept of cultural relativism, the idea that there isn’t one standard of right and wrong but many depending on the time and place they are conceived. The same forces deny even the existence of evil. These dark notions are destroying the strongest safeguards we have against the evil that is among us. Those behind the ideas know that when light shines into your life, it doesn't just make the road ahead more clear, it reveals your own dark places too. And, it is in our nature to want to hide our own darkness. That's the very reason we need the light so badly. That light can only come from God.

It isn’t so important that every individual in our society believes in God so much as it is a cultural value. We need to have something to look up to. We need someone to answer to. We need a common value to give us purpose. Without that we are finding ourselves in a moral free fall. We need to recognize that there are some things that are right and some that are wrong and they always will be. We need to recognize that evil exists. It is among us. It is in us. To erase those very ideas from our national consciousness is to cloak ourselves in darkness. To deny those truths is ultimately to commit suicide.

As a Christian, I have a firm faith that God is; that He is watching and that He cares about His children. My faith gives me hope for a better future. God gives me a clearly defined moral value system. He defines what is right and wrong. God is my light in the darkness...even my own darkness. God gives my life purpose. I believe that God will prevent us from destroying ourselves one day. He will change our very nature one day so that our utopian ideals will be realized…in His Kingdom. If I didn’t have my faith, and the hope that comes with it, I sometimes think I would succumb to a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness. I look around our culture and see that many, many others have done so.

Knowing that I will stand before God one day scares me a little. It makes me feel the need to change; to work on being better than I am now. That makes me uncomfortable but it also makes me a better person. I don’t insist that anyone believe what I believe. I don’t ever try to convert anyone. I don’t use my faith to judge others. I am guided by my faith to see my fellow man as the children of God, made in the image of the living God. I am guided by my faith to love them as I love myself, to forgive them when they wrong me, and to serve them wherever I can. Without that, I honestly don’t know where I would be or what kind of person I would be. That’s a part of what knowing God has done for me.

It is the dog we feed the most that wins out. Character is built, brick by brick, by what thoughts we give power to. Every time we do the right thing we strengthen that part of ourselves. Every time we give in to our darkness we fall a little deeper into the pit. The darkness is closing in to be sure. But in the darkness I see the light. It is the desire of my heart to share that with my fellow man. All I can do is try, to the best of my ability, to be a conduit of the light in a dark world. I have no doubt, whatsoever, that the light will prevail!

God Spoke and...

We live in an amazing time in human history. We make strides in knowledge and understanding about our world and the universe in which we live almost daily. We're beginning to understand things about our universe that would have sounded like science fiction a few years ago. Like Einstein, I think the most amazing thing about our universe is that we are capable of understanding it. We are a part of the universe. We are a microcosmic reflection of the greater whole. To come to understand it is to come to understand something about ourselves…and vice versa.

I’ve always had an interest in the sciences and in Physics in particular. Physics gives us insight into how the universe works; it uses the tool of mathematics to do so. There have been many noted scientists that have believed knowing the natural laws that govern the universe give us an insight into the very mind of God. They are the framework upon which God has designed and now sustains His creation. To be able to utilize mathematical formulae to predict the orbit of a planet around its sun or to calculate the distance to another star are amazing feats but, they’re only the beginning of what we're learning.

One of the most simple, yet profound, mathematical formula that predicts and directs some of the natural order around us was discovered by an Italian mathematician named Fibonacci centuries ago. I imagine that he was just playing with numbers one day and found that if you add consecutive numbers together, then add the last two numbers used, the series of numbers they produce predicts a specific relationship in many natural phenomenon. 1+2=3, 2+3=5, 3+5=8, 5+8=13, 8+13=21 and so on. The numbers this produces are: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 etc. These are now known as the Fibonacci sequence. The relationship between 3 and 5 is almost the same as that between 13 and 21 and so on. That relationship is about 1:1.618. We now call it the Golden Mean. It’s a very simple proportional relationship found many places in nature. From the design of the human body the curl of a nautilus shell this relationship is found over and over.

On a related front, fractal geometry is teaching us something about the formation of non-Euclidian geometrical forms. It seems that nature doesn’t so much give every detail of how things like clouds and shorelines are formed so much as it follows mathematical formulae that dictate such things. One such formula produces the ‘Mandelbrot set’, the most famous series in fractal geometry. From a simple mathematical formula repeated over and over one can find complex forms that trail off into infinity.

In the field of Physics, scientists have believed for decades that they can find a Unified Field Theory or ‘Theory of Everything’. Such a theory will unite the various other theories into a single, harmonious ‘One’. Newtonian physics were considered the be-all, end-all word on the subject until about four hundred years later when Einstein came along and demonstrated that Newtonian physics only explained one element of the way the universe works. Quantum physics then came along and Einstein’s theories were found lacking in explaining the physics on the sub-atomic level of reality. The ‘Theory of Everything’ will have to harmoniously unite all of these.

The most promising candidate for a Theory of Everything, at the moment, is Super String Theory or ‘M-Theory’. In a nutshell M-theory explains the workings of the various levels of reality by postulating super small strings that vibrate at different frequencies to produce different physical phenomenon. One string vibrates at a frequency that creates an electron; another vibrates at a frequency that produces a proton etc. The theory dictates that there are multiple dimensions in which the strings vibrate. They exist in our universe and outside of it at the same time. It's really quite a fascinating explanation. It is, at one time, very simple and immensely complex. The mathematics to flesh out the theory are still being worked out .

From a Christian perspective M-theory is especially captivating. Scriptures teach us that God spoke and the universe existed. That is somewhat akin to the Hindu creation story wherein it is believed that sound was the first energy in the universe. It was Gods use of sound, or more precisely, standing vibrations that created everything. If M-theory proves to be ‘The’ theory of everything it would fit in nicely with Biblical theology.

All of these things point to mathematical formulae that dictate the shape and functioning of our universe. Mathematics seems to be the language of God 'The Architect'. We, ourselves, are a product of it. The Word of God is written into the very fabric of the universe. And we are capable of understanding it! Just think about that for a moment...we can know the Mind of God!

The Artists' Eye

The process of becoming an artist is really quite fascinating to me. Psychology has trained me to observe people closely to find what motivates them. Martial arts have trained me to observe what’s going in myself to gain some measure of control over it. The artist observes things only with an eye towards recording, or interpreting, them. Other than that, there seems to be very little judgment about them. When studying someone’s face to paint or sculpt, for example, you forget about whether they are beautiful or not, the goal is simply to examine the lines and color and so on. That information is then filtered through the artists’ lens and the moment recorded in whatever medium they employ. It seems a very Zen-like process to me because it prompts one to live in the moment.

I used to wonder what a painter or photographer was thinking by producing a picture of say, a pair of sneakers or a simple window. Such things have begun to make sense to me. There is a profound beauty in the most simple, everyday things if we can only learn to look at them with new eyes. This brings to mind The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius , one of my favorite books of all time. The emperor says:

“Make for yourself a definition or description of every object presented to you, so as to see distinctly what it is in it’s own naked substance, complete and entire, and tell yourself its proper name, and the names of the things of which it is compounded and into which it will be dissolved. For nothing so elevates the mind as to be able to examine methodically and truly every object which comes before you in life, and always to look at things so as to see at once what kind of universe this is, and what kind of service each performs in it, and what value each has in relation to the whole, and what it has for man, who is a citizen of that loftiest city, to which all other cities are families.”

“Look beneath the surface. Let neither the peculiar quality of anything nor its value escape you.”

I have found that it does indeed elevate the mind to see things for what they are and where they fit into the big picture. It's helped me to grow as an individual to learn to see things the way some artists see them.

I don’t mean those 'works of art' that are supposed to make some kind of statement and are devoid of any beauty. I have often thought that people who pretend to see deep political or social ‘statements’ in a work of art are also the kind that see the emperors' new clothes. To be sure, many people who call themselves ‘artists’ produce pure garbage. I'm not talking about beginners here, or those who haven't yet found their own style. The 'artists' I mean seem to have somehow secretly agreed with other ‘artists’ (who also have no talent) to esteem each others' work. The rest of us are told we ‘just don’t get it’ when we don’t see the emperors new clothes too. I don’t buy into the delusions of such folks.

I do find that others have a unique way of perceiving the world around them, and in their quiet ways, try to share a glimpse of that with the rest of us. Rembrandt has made me see people a little more thoughtfully. Monet has made me see beauty in simple forms. Picasso has taught me that forms and my feelings about them can be separated. Mark Rothko has shown me what deep emotion there can be in color without form.

I've only mentioned the visual arts here but, sculptors, dancers, writers and actors can all do the same kind of things. They have the power to uplift and transform, the power to help us be carried away in the everyday. They can add richness and texture to our lives. I’m of the school of thought that art should be beautiful. I believe artists are here to make the world more beautiful. There is enough ugliness in life. We don’t need to see it reflected in works of art too. Art, at it’s best I think, uplifts the daily and mundane and helps us to see the beauty in it. It helps us to see the same old things with new eyes.

Life is renewed each moment when one sees it with such eyes. What a gift that is…

Love and Only Love

I am endlessly fascinated by the subject of love. It warms something in me to see the love of a father or mother for their child; the love of a man and wife; the love of grandparents for their offspring…and all the other variations of love that open and bind the hearts of human beings.

When we open our hearts to allow something or someone in, it changes us. I have observed that love changes with people as they mature and grow older. It can deepen and mature along with them. It can communicate what no words could ever say. It is no wonder that more songs and poems have been written about love than any other subject.

I’ve heard love defined in many ways: an emotional need for someone; an outgoing concern for others etc. I’ve decided that the best working definition I can come up with is: Love is building a sense of connection between us and someone else, it is the expanding of our sense of ourselves to include others. When we love things or plants and animals, we come to include them in our sense of ourselves. We identify with them as a part of what makes us whole.

When two people marry they ‘become one’. We get a glimpse of love in the act of sexual union. For a brief moment we can drop the barriers that separate us from another and we can experience the joy of at-one-ment. In the union of two spirits, when one experiences joy or pain, the other feels it too. There is no longer a sense of you or me, it becomes ‘we’…ideally. When children come from such a union the sense of ‘I’ or ‘we’ is expanded further to include them. If ones sense of self is not expanded in marriage and having children then something is amiss. One has not learned the lessons from these experiences.

When we love someone their needs and desires become important to us, ideally as important as our own. We have expanded our sense of our-self to include them. I have come to believe that expanding our sense of ourselves is one of our primary purposes for existing here on earth, if not THE primary purpose. Whatever one believes, one has only to look around to see that life is about growth. Acorns push up sidewalks to become oak trees. Love is growth. Love can be painful because it breaks through the barriers we erect for ourselves to separate us from others.

We can expand our sense of ourselves to include our clubs, our sporting teams, our villages and towns, our states, our countries and even our planet and beyond. When one of the things we identify with experiences something good or bad we can experience it too, depending on how much we identify with it. Most of these forms of love are only glimpses of the real thing. The real sense of being ‘one’ with another is beyond the power of words to describe.

Most religions teach some form of love, however imperfect. Faith invites us to become ‘at-one’ with God. That is the ultimate love. He feels the connection with us because we came from Him. It is we who have broken the connection and need to learn to re-connect. On some level we all know this and feel the need for that ultimate connection. We rebel against it at the same time because we want to keep the barriers that separate us. That’s the conundrum of our existence.

Just think of the admonitions in the scriptures:

Love God with all your heart, all your mind and all your strength and
Love your neighbor as you love yourself...
Love one another as Christ loves you...
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you...
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love...
God is love...

It's never been said better.

Love comes from God through us, but we have to make the way clear for it to come out of us. We have to reach out to express it; to grow and to connect with each other. That's why we're here...

To Save Our Children

Christian churches are losing the children that grow up in them to a world of smoke of mirrors. What our children see is a world filled with pleasures but so many of those pleasures turn out to be traps. Ours is a world filled with violence, pornography and meaningless lives. There are forces capable of saving our children from the world but many are failing for lack of knowledge. Churches have failed for the most part, but churches are built on the foundation of solid familes. The greatest influence in a childs life are are his or her parents. Below are recommendations dedicated to those whose job is to raise the children of God....the parents who love their children.

1. Set them the right example of a man or woman of faith. Don't tell them one thing and do something else. Even at a very young age they will be watching you as parents. They will be learning how to be a man or woman and how men and women interact from you. Let them see how the Holy Spirit works in your life to change who you are...

2. Be honest and straight with them. Let them know what you believe and why. Don't try to hide the realities of life from them. This is especially important in matters of money, sex, drugs, alcohol, tobacco...etc. Don't put your own head in the sand! If they don't learn them from you...they will from someone else.

3. Get involved with your children's lives. Go to their sporting events and school shows. Show them you care. Know who their friends are...(That is very important!) Eat dinner with your children and talk about your day.

4. Let your children know you believe in them. Let them know their ideas and opinions are important to you...that they matter. If they don't know you believe in them...they will find someone who does, and that will make them susceptible to being manipulated.

5. As they grow older, let them make more and more decisions for themselves. They need the experience of making their own decisions to become responsible adults. You'll show them you respect them as responsible and you'll build a bond of trust with them.

6. When you have to correct them, make the punishment fit the crime. First, make sure they know what you expect of them. Only then will you be justified in any punishment. Ask them how they should be punished. Many times they will be harder on themselves than you would have been. (Only an openly rebellious spirit should merit corporal punishment.)

7. Pick your battles with them...don't fight over every little point.

8. Establish a merit system for them. Don't just punish bad behavior, reward good behavior and encourage it. Let them know when they've done something that makes you proud or happy.

9. Be as concerned with what goes into your children's minds as what goes into their bodies. The Internet is an ocean filled with reefs of pornographic and violent images. Television is little better. Know what is going into their minds from these sources and from their school.

10. Limit their use of video games and other modern electronic devices. There is an element of addiction that is only beginning to be understood about using new technologies. There is also a link between Attention Deficit Disorder and computer use that is only beginning to be explored.

11. Pray with your children. Let them see you are honest with God during your prayers

12. Institute a family night once a week. Turn off the TV and the video games. Play board games. Talk to each other. Make it a fun time that they look forward to...not a burden to bear.

13. Get the men and women, and their families, in the local churches involved with preaching the Gospel and carrying it on. Set up a system for older members to visit newer families once a month to teach and discuss church doctrines. (This will be the equivalent of a family night for your spiritual family.)

14. Get them involved with the church. Youth programs are great but unfeasible in every church. Institute a kind of mini-missionary program where the children are involved with carrying out the great commission. Use your imagination!!

15. Always...ask for Gods guidance.

The Language of Numbers

I’m a writer; a wordsmith; a sculptor of English. I love words. They can be used to paint pictures or evoke images in the minds of others. Words can be used to tell stories. Words can be used to construct ideas and convey them to others. Words can be both precise and imprecise. That’s their beauty.

It’s been my good fortune to learn a little more about another language of late…mathematics, the language of numbers. Unlike say, English, numbers relate to each other in very precise ways. Numbers strip away everything but the essential qualities of things, their units of measure.

When you are only concerned with units of measure you can ignore all other qualities. Color, texture, sound, smell, and taste are no longer considered…unless they are the subjects broken down into units of measure.

Units of measure involve individual things and groups of them; they involve length, width, depth, height, weight and so on. When one designates a standard for the units of measure involved one can begin to speak in the language of numbers. Coming to understand their relationships is coming to understand precision itself.

There is a beauty in the language of numbers that can’t be denied. There is a certainty that’s very appealing. There is an austerity in the language of numbers because they strip away everything but that which they address. Its relationships are clear and pristine. Knowing those relationships allows one who speaks the language to start with the known and find the unknown.

The language of numbers is rigidly logical; it’s rules unwavering. The universe is run by it and we can, quite literally, set our watches by it. Like any other language though, it is lost on those not conversant in it.

Admittedly, I’ve only scratched the surface of the language of numbers. I stand on the outside looking in, quite enviously, at those who are fluent in it. I can sense its beauty like that of any exotic language. It's musical to my ears but only a few of its utterances mean anything to me. It’s quite appropriate that the universe was written in the language of numbers. I am awed by the beauty of the universe. Its complexity eludes me, but on some level I sense that it's rules are really quite simple. I can say the same about the language of numbers. There is an old saying that chemists only talk to physicists and physicists only talk to God. They do so in the language of numbers. There have been quiet nights when the thought has crossed my mind that the language of numbers is the real Word of God.

Like the cabbalist, on a deep level I sense that the answers to the biggest questions begin with the language of numbers. In the beginning is emptiness, zero…and then there is one. From one comes two, and from the interaction of the two comes the myriad of all things. Simple as it seems, even this only floats on the edge of my understanding.

From nothingness…one. From one…two. From two…all. Hmmm. Sounds almost like A, B, C…
And to think there's a vast library out there waiting to be revealed!

Pornography

Sexuality is a gift from God. When used the way He prescribes, it can draw two people closer together in a bond of intimacy. Sexual energy can be used to create stable families and provide children with a strong foundation to become decent adults. Like Gods other gifts to us, sexuality can also be misused and perverted. When that happens it destroys the very things it was given to us to create.

Just like other things we human beings need and desire, our desire for sex is often exploited for darker purposes. The beauty of women has long been manipulated and exploited.
Men have manipulated women for their beauty and women themselves have used their beauty to manipulate men since there’ve been men and women. They don’t call prostitution the ‘oldest profession’ for nothing. Societies moral standards have usually held those desires in some kind of check. They have helped us to focus our sexual energies into positive, uplifting pursuits and provided some balance in helping us to rise above our desires. Today even that balance is disappearing, and with it the stability of our society. We’ve thrown out the very moral code that has served to uplift us and help us rise above our basest desires.

Now, I love women. Just like most men, it’s written into my genetic code to respond to them in a chemical way. Their eyes, their hair, their figures, the way they smell…something about all of those attributes pushes buttons in me that make me want to, at least, be closer to some women. That’s perfectly natural. If it weren’t that way our species would have died out long ago. Like most men, I feel the desire to look at women. No big surprise there. Unlike some men though, I have no desire to debase them or see them perform sexual acts with others. I believe God made them, and me, to be better than that.

At one time most men had access only to paintings or pictures of naked women. Whether those constituted pornography or not may be debatable, but that’s all changed, especially with the Internet. The pornographic industry has exploded in recent years. The quality of pornography has declined over the decades to include images of intercourse, homosexuality and lesbianism, group sex, sadomasochism and vile displays of oral sex to name a only few of the more common types. The lowest, and most destructive forms of this phenomenon involve rape, physical violence and even sexual acts with children and animals.

What pornography has served to do is demean and debase women and even innocent children to little more than toilets to be used by men. Pornography has turned what was meant to give us intimate, loving relationships into one of the most destructive forces in our society. It’s ironic that so many people these days realize the need to watch what they put into their bodies, because their physical health depends on it, but then fail to realize the need to watch what they put into their minds...because their spiritual health depends on it. When it comes to sexuality the rule seems to be ignore any ‘outdated’ moral codes based in Biblical principles; practice ‘safe’ sex, and if it feels good do it. Pornography has fueled that attitude.

Pornography can be addictive for those who provide it and for those who consume it. The nature of any addiction is to seek stronger and stronger forms of the thing that satisfies the desire. Those desires can easily cross over from fantasy to reality. Countless men who are addicted to porn have been known to act out their fantasies after having fueled them on porn. (If you don’t believe that seeing images in a photograph or on a screen can alter behavior, just ask yourself why sponsors spend billions on advertising for thirty-second spots during the Super Bowl.) We are a society that’s beginning to drown in our own lusts. Nothing could be more destructive to personal relationships, marriages and families!

Though it's often asserted, it is by no means true that only women with low self esteem work in the porn industry. It is a fact, however, that many, if not most of the women in the industry do suffer from low self-esteem. It’s not uncommon for the victims of sexual abuse, as well as other forms of abuse and neglect, to find employment in the porn industry. Some part of them may believe that’s all they’re worth. That we could use each other so… That a fellow human being could believe that their only value is in being used as little more than a toilet is a shame on us as a species. It diminishes us all. And, it only serves to perpetuate the culture that is pulling us down.

One of the greatest shames is that this is all being done in the name of freedom of expression. I wonder sometimes if our founding fathers aren’t turning over in their graves for how we have twisted the meaning of the rights they secured for us.

Pornography destroys lives and it destroys families. When healthy families cease to be the building blocks for a society…that societies days are numbered. Because we are being led only by our own unchecked desires, and not by our Creators instruction manual for His creation, we are on a self-destructive path. It's time we stop letting others manipulate and exploit our natural desires. It's time we take control of ourselves, and what we allow into our minds. We need to learn to redirect our energies into positive and uplifting pursuits instead of fueling our own self-destructive lusts.

It's time we learn to see the value in each other as unique Children of God to be prayed for... not just objects to be used and preyed on. Let's bring back the concept of shame. Let's bring back decency…

The Tao

I am a Christian or, what some call, a Messianic Jew. That is to say, when I read the Bible the truth of it resonates in me and I can’t deny it. I believe it is the revealed Word of God. It contains instructions for the way for human beings are to relate to each other in harmony. And it contains instructions for the way we are to relate to God. I believe it's the instruction manual for mankind and I am bound to live by its principles. Those revelations are the things that we human beings couldn’t find out on our own. That does not mean that the Bible contains all the truth there is to be had.

To be sure, every culture in every age and in every corner of the earth has discovered some truth that is relevant to our existence here on earth. While I draw on the Bible to understand God and His will for us, I have learned to draw on the truths of all cultures in coming to understand what it is to be human. One body of wisdom I have come to respect and draw on is Taoism.

Taoism teaches that everything is part of one ultimate reality. That reality comes to express itself in a duality. In searching for words to express the duality of the universe the early Chinese chose the terms Yin and Yang. They were words that originally referred to the light and shaded sides of a mountain. Yin and yang are equal but opposite. In yin there is some yang and in yang there is some yin. The duality of yin and yang is expressed everywhere in nature. Male and female, light and dark, expanding and contracting...many other pairs of opposites express the duality that is all around us. Everything is a part of the Tao. Yin and yang are a part of everything. They interplay continually. If that interplay is balanced there is harmony between them. The most well known symbol displaying the interplay of the yin and yang is the black and white circle called the Tai Chi. Translated into English it means 'the Supreme Ultimate'. The Tai Chi represents the essence of what cannot be defined or quantified; it represents the Tao... The Way.

While I do not believe in Taoism as a religion, I do believe it contains a fundamental truth of our reality. I don't believe it extends to include good and evil as equal but opposite pairs, so I don't believe the truths of it include all truth. The ultimate reality that Taoism points to is impersonal and is the sum of all creation. Some may call "it" god but it is not. God is not a part of creation, He exists outside of it. So when ‘the one’ is spoken of it does not mean we are ‘one’ with God in this life, but we are one with His creation. That's the level of truth that the Tao speaks to for me.

While I see the Tao played out everywhere in nature I see it's duality played out most clearly in the interaction of men and women. I believe that men without women, or women without men, are out of harmony with The Way. I have often sensed that when men and women congregate only with their own sex something is out of balance. The views that they develop are out of balance and dis-harmonious because they're lacking the perspective of their opposites. We live in a culture where this is becoming increasingly true and I believe it to be dangerous. In the health of the body when energy is out of balance it's called dis-ease. In the health of a society where energies are out of balance there is also a kind of dis-ease.

Men and women need each other to be whole, to be balanced. We need the perspective of our opposites to have a clearer picture of our world. That perspective is quickly being lost in our ‘war between the sexes’. The result can only be chaos and confusion. We are in need of a wake up call. We need to come back into harmony in our homes if we are to have harmony in our world. We need to learn to see the Word of God written into creation as well as that revealed to us in scripture. We are a people out of harmony with ourselves. We are out of harmony with the natural world and with each other. We are out of harmony with God. We have lost our way and are on a path that leads only to our own destruction…

We need the Hand of God to intercede and keep us from destroying ourselves...to put us back into harmony. The Good News is: ...that day is coming...

Giving Thanks...

That we can look out over the sea or into the stars and feel thanks for this life is evidence enough that there is someone to thank. In this, our national time of Thanksgiving we should reflect not only on what we have to feel thankful for…but on whom we should be thanking. We accepted the guidance of The Most High God in building this, the greatest nation on earth. Now that we are enjoying the fruits the labor of our forefathers we need to remember our Heavenly Father. Without His guidance and blessing we would be nothing. Without Him central in our lives we will come to nothing. We need to give thanks every day because every day is a gift from God. I could not demean the Most High by referring to Him as my ‘higher power’ or lower Him by equating Him with something He created. God is above and beyond anything we can conceive. The most amazing thing about Him is that He cares about us… We owe Him every breath we draw because each one is His gift to us. For those that feel they have nothing to be thankful for…look around. The hand of God is everywhere. The blessings of God are everywhere. Because we have become so accustomed to seeing Gods miracles every day…we have forgotten that they are miracles. Stop and take notice. If you do…you’ll find a "Thank You" coming out of you almost without thought. It is as natural as the air we breathe.

Amen...

For Marian Fisher

The news today reported that one of the little girls in the slaughter that took place at an Amish schoolhouse a few days ago asked to be shot first. Marian Fisher made an effort to save the younger girls by offering herself first. She was 13 years old. Her little 11-year old sister Barbie offered herself next and, by God’s grace, survived to tell the tale.

There are times when I am ashamed of being a human being. When I first heard about the monstrous evil that one demented man inflicted on such a peaceful community it grieved me to be a part of a race that could conceive of murdering it’s own children.

The fact is that we all draw from the same well that is human nature. If we can conceive of a thing, either good or evil, someone somewhere has done it, is doing it or will do it. That we can conceive of it means it is not foreign to us. This is both a blessing and a curse. We can understand the hopes and the dreams of other human beings because we all draw on the same nature. We can understand their thought processes. It’s a blessing because it can give us empathy. We can know what it’s like to be in another person’s shoes. It’s a curse, too, because it means that the evil that was / is in their hearts is also a part of us… We are all in this together.

While I am sometimes disheartened by the darkness that is in human hearts, I am also uplifted by the love and the courage that human hearts are capable of. This little girl, who never got a chance to live, showed such love and such courage that it leaves me in awe. Inside this little girl was true nobility. Inside that little chest beat the heart of a lion!

I am also in awe of the forgiveness that the Amish people have shown. They have consigned themselves to the will of God and are content to turn all over to Him. I can’t say I’ve ever met an Amish person, or even seen one in the flesh, but I am moved by their light to the world. That’s one good thing that’s already come from this.

I know that some goodness will come from this and touch other lives too. I know that little Marian and the girls that died with her are asleep awaiting the return of Jesus the Christ. They will be awakened one day to everlasting life. In that day our very nature will be changed and the darkness in the human heart will be banished forever by the light of God. The suffering of Marian and her schoolmates is over. For now I pray for God to heal the broken hearts left behind.

Marian Fisher is a name that will be remembered long after the name of the man who butchered her is forgotten. This little girl will be a jewel in the crown of God one day. Of that I have no doubt.

Sin and Christs' Sacrifice

We, Christians, should be ashamed of ourselves. Instead of pointing our fingers at the splinters in the eyes of other people we should be concerned with the beams in our own eyes.

The Bible wasn’t revealed to us for us to tell other people how to live…it was written to us to tell us how to live. We, collectively, believe that Christ died for us to pay the penalty for our sins. He did so with His life’s blood. Too many of us accept that sacrifice and continue to live in sin like we now have a license to do so.

Imagine for a moment that you owed a credit card debt of thousands of dollars. If someone stepped in and offered to pay off your debt and bring your balance back to zero…would you continue to rack up more debt on your credit cards because you knew you had a benefactor to square the debt? Most of us wouldn’t. We would understand the value of what had been done for us and we would endeavor to not go into such debt again.

Too many Christians treat the debt that Christ paid for us like it’s a get-out-of-jail-free card and continue to, not just live in sin, but embrace it! There are stories of ministers, those who believe that they are doing God’s work, that have somehow come to believe they are exempt from obeying God because they are so useful to Him? What a distortion of the Gospel!

Too many Christians, or at least those claiming the title, are busy condemning other people…not just their sins. They have set themselves up as judges over their fellow man. Instead of using Gods word to make themselves better people…they have used it to bring more evil into the world. Instead of using their energies to be a light to the world they add to the darkness. Not ONE of them lives a life without sin. Not ONE of them. They have used the Gospel of Christ to do evil. That is an abomination!

The way Christians are supposed to influence the world is by the example of their lives…not by picketing, or blowing up abortion clinics or bringing shame to the name of God. We are called to a better way. By obeying Gods word in our own lives we publish the Gospel in a more significant way than through anything we say or write. We have forgotten that…

Most Christians don’t even look to the scriptures to come to a better understanding of what sin is and how to live to please God. Our faith doesn’t end with accepting Christ as our sacrifice… we have to then act on our faith to keep it alive; to allow it to grow.

We have turned the sacrifice of our savior into a joke by our behavior. It is no wonder the world is so skeptical of the message of Christ. They see the followers of Christ acting no differently than anyone else, so why should they embrace it?

We need to remember the very first words of Christ’s ministry…Repent (return to obediance), for the Kingdom of God is at hand. That was written to us…not for us to hit others over the head with!

What has happened to us?

October 2, 2006 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

A man walked into a one-room Amish schoolhouse with 27 students. He allowed the boys and adults to leave and kept the little girls, ages six to thirteen, hostage. When surrounded by police he murdered five young Amish girls and wounded five more by attempting to shoot them all in the backs of their heads...execution style.

...He put a gun to the back of the heads of little girls and attempted to murder them all...

This was a story that came and went in the news for most of us. It didn’t affect us so we paid little attention to it. The children of ten families attended that school, seven of them had daughters that were murdered or wounded in this evil, senseless attack.

The tranquility of one of the most peaceful, non-violent, communities on earth was shaken to its core for no reason other than the demented machinations of one man.

There was a time when the entire nation would have mourned for the loss of these families. That time is no more. The land is full of senseless, bloody crimes these days. We hear about them while having our morning coffee or while sitting down to dinner. Many of us then change the channel to listen to the latest sports scores or some other distraction.

The Amish have already forgiven this man and reached out to his family. They've set us an example of how Christians are supposed to be a light to the world. It's an example our world needs more than ever. We are surely cloaked in darkness. Dear God, how have our hearts become so hardened?

Like Rain from Heaven

I have often pondered the billion, billion tears that have been cried by human beings in our time here on earth. I have seen tears of joy, tears of sadness, tears of despair, tears of relief and tears of exhaustion to name a only a few. My heart has been touched by many of them. As I have written before, there is something pure in the tears of honest emotion.

It was a recent encounter with tears of faith that got me to thinking. They were evidence of the conflict going on inside my friend. Their appearance was almost if to say, “I believe, please help my unbelief”. The thought occurred to me that each tear represented hope…hope of the way things could be, the way things should be. Maybe that’s what most tears represent, the difference between the way things are and the way we wish they were.

We wish our children never experienced any pain; that they never died before their time. We wish our faith was pure and without conflict. We wish ours was a better world. We wish that we were better people. Our tears are evidence of the difference between our dreams and our reality.

I believe that our tears keep us healthy. They preserve something vital in us. They may be all that does sometimes. Our tears preserve our humanity. Human tears have flowed like a river down through history. They’ve opened human hearts like a river opens dried seedlings. They’ve nourished new growth and kept us from drying up and blowing away. I have seen those who were no longer able to shed tears and it was as if something had died in them. I know in some of them something had died…their spirit.

There was a time not so long ago when men considered it ‘unmanly’ to shed tears except in the darkest moments of life. They paid a price for that... Men believed the world was hard and they needed to be hard to meet it head on. I believe that still…but I don’t believe there is anything unmanly in shedding tears. Sometimes it’s even a sign of real strength, the strength of an open heart. Hopefully more men in my generation are learning that. The women and children in their lives need them to have open hearts as much as they need them to be strong.

As I have written before, tears can represent moments of grace. It is a truth that a broken heart is an open heart. In the tears of a broken heart can be found moments of grace. While they cloud our eyes they can clear the vision of our hearts. Such tears can be like magnifying glasses that allow us to see the evidence of God the most clearly.

In my search for the evidence of Gods hand I am constantly amazed where I find it. Tears, too, are a blessing and a miracle from the Most High. The day is coming when He will dry them all and they will no longer be necessary.

Till that day…

Socialism...or something like it

I’ve been thinking about the formula for socialism lately. It goes: “From each according to their ability to each according to their need”. It sounds simple enough. When it’s applied to the world of economics it has proven not to work very well. Human nature and our proclivity towards greed and self-aggrandizement make it a pipe dream. In some cases where it’s been applied the results have been disastrous. Capitalistic reforms have proven to be the best efforts in tempering socialism.

Capitalism takes into account human nature and even encourages greed. By itself capitalism also has its evils, greed being the major one. In a wise society it’s tempered with social welfare reforms. No government in history has pulled off a socio-economic system flawlessly, but the United States and some of the other Western democracies have made a valiant effort. They've done so by seeing the value of individuals.

What struck me recently was the thought that the socialist formula can be applied to other, less tangible, things in life with some success. Plug ‘goodness’ into that formula for example. “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” Now, that sounds like a wise equation to me. Each of us has gifts we can offer the world. In some they may be a small thing, but even the smallest things have value in the world of goodness. We all have the need for goodness in our lives. Even the worst of us, in some cases especially the worst of us, need goodness. Just imagine a world where each of us contributed to our fellow man what we have of goodness. That’s a dream too, but a nice one. The difference is, paradoxically, when we give away our goodness we lose nothing. In fact, when we give away our goodness, we find that it actually increases in us. If money did that…we’d all be devout socialists!

Instead, too many of us practice capitalism in our goodness too. We are only concerned with what we can get for ourselves. That usually proves to be disastrous. You see, if we all only work to amass goodness only for ourselves we usually end up losing it. There’s that paradox again! The scriptures say to not lay up treasures for ourselves on earth where moths and rust corrupt, but rather to lay it up for ourselves in heaven. We can only do that by giving away our goodness…

I’m convinced that people who are drawn to socialism are drawn to it because, in their hearts, they plug goodness into the equation instead of money. They mean well but don’t seem to get that that’s not how it works…unless everyone ponies up. They see human nature as basically good. Capitalists too, often see human nature as basically good. We might like to believe that, but what it turns out to be is FAILURE TO READ THE BIG PRINT in history and psychology. That’s a subject for another time.

For now I only want to add that the world I’m describing here is a dream too, because our very nature would have to change to achieve it. The good news is that the essential part of the equation is within our power. Each of us has the power to choose to give away our goodness. Each of us can choose to live the way of get or the way of give. We create the world we live in by the choices we make. Choosing to live the way of give will begin to change the world…because that will change us.

May God Bless Mothers

Sometimes, I admit, I get to feeling a little jaded, a little cynical, about my species. It seems we, human beings, are capable of the lowest forms of debauchery and the vilest forms of evil against one another. If an alien species were to listen only to our news broadcasts they would probably steer clear of this little blue planet all together. It can be very disheartening if that’s all one sees. But, if one takes the time to look there is also beauty in our species; there is a nobility in human beings that can’t be denied. Often, it’s only as far away as the person next to us.

I recently made a new friend. I met a young mother in a sculpting class that single handedly has restored some feeling in me for the human race. She has two small children and when she speaks about them her eyes light up and a smile almost involuntarily crosses her face. She begins to glow. Listening to her, it’s hard not to hear the love that she can’t contain. Her heart is completely open because of the love of her husband and those two little human beings God has entrusted to her care.

I recently told her the story of another friend and how he lost his little girl when she was only an infant. Her eyes began to well up with tears. I found myself being touched by her open heart. That simple thing was evidence of the hope for all humanity to me. If we are capable of that feeling, that empathy, then there is something worth preserving in us. This new mother became an ambassador for all that’s good in us. For just a moment I saw us the way God sees us.

Most of us love our mothers. Even the most hardened criminals have a soft spot in their hearts for the woman that gave them birth and their first glimpse of love. If we can hang on to those first lessons of love we learned, those from our mothers, they can strengthen us against the hardships ahead of us in life. Other things in life can harden us and twist our views of the world, but having a mother like this one…that’s a blessing, one that can see us through some very dark times.

I have no doubt that God has specially blessed the children of my young friend. What they will learn from their mother will give them a strength of spirit that will last them for a lifetime. Her light will shine on all those around her…like it has on me. And, that light will shine on through her children. I only hope that something of the light that shines through my mother shines on through me.

Therein lays the seed of hope for humanity.

May God bless all mothers…

The Idea...

When you look at the flags of the countries of the world you can see some hint of their values and their histories. The governments of most countries of the world were built on history. Unlike most others, the government of the United States of America was built on a philosophy. Our flag represents an Idea. That Idea is that all human beings have value.

In our ‘sacred writings’ we declare that all men are created with equal rights under the law. All people have God-given rights and among them are the right to life, to liberty and the right to pursue their own happiness. That’s a radical break from most governments in history! The divine right of kings in European history, for example, assumed their citizens were at the disposal of their monarchies. Most countries have treated their citizens like they existed for the sake of the country. Many countries still treat their citizens that way. The Idea of the United States is that the government exists for individuals. The purpose of our government is to ensure and protect the God-given rights of every human being…even from itself.

We Americans are often ridiculed around the world for our up-start ways. We have one of the youngest cultures on earth. We’re barely over two hundred years old…a mere youngster in the eyes of history! What many of our detractors fail to realize is that we also have one of the oldest governments on earth. That’s because most of us believe The Idea. We hold the truths of it so dearly that we want to share it with the rest of the world. We’re excited about that…and rightfully so!

We believe in The Idea that our flag represents so strongly that our people have shed their own blood in every country on earth to spread the message! Men and women in the service of arms for our country have laid down their lives for over two centuries to spread The Idea that all human beings have value. They gave their life’s blood for the freedom of their fellow human beings. They shed their own blood for The Idea! They are still doing so today…

We have detractors among us that have never worn the uniform of our military. They have never faced the possibility of death for The Idea. They are content to exercise the rights that other people have sacrificed their lives for. That’s OK. The men and women who died to give them those rights ensured that they, too, have the right to be heard. We don’t begrudge them that. The right of individuals to speak with dissenting voices keeps our republic strong and vital! That’s a part of The Idea.

Our citizens have come to these shores from every country on earth because of The Idea. Many of the countries, that are our loudest detractors, sent us the dregs of their societies. We took them in…happily. Together we have built the greatest country in the history of the world!

We built it on The Idea…

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…