The Last Word

I am gratified that my blog is read in such a way so as to elicit conversation and comment from those who read it. Although that is not why I write (I write because it satisfies me to do so), I understand and encourage respectful conversation with differing points of view or additional ways of looking at an issue.
Almost no issue is exclusively black or white. Almost no issue has unanimous agreement. And almost no issue has a single solution component. It matters not to me, for the most part, how we choose to approach a problem that needs a solution as long as that approach is made in such a way that it is not illegal, immoral, or unethical and that it at least honestly tries to get the job done. I know that’s a big generalization, and someone could surely pick it apart…give me a little license with it, please. Anyone honestly reading this knows what I mean.
My mind has wandered these last few days, and although my basic tenets are intact, I think I am better able to articulate my concerns through alternate words and phrases. I’ve done my best to lay them out here. In all of this, my points seem to boil down to these:

1. Somehow, some way, we must celebrate and respect the dignity and personhood of everyone, recognizing the existence and value of sub-cultures which may work with values different from our own.
2. Government is not the one and only (or even main) answer; government is not the ogre, either.
3. God has, I believe, a special affinity for the poor, the children and the helpless. It behooves us to recognize that and work accordingly.
4. In sharp agreement with the writer immediately below, I believe the church working corporately and through individuals has the primary responsibility to care for those in our society who have need. Much is being done already. Much is NOT being done that could be done.
5. I believe many people within the church haven’t a clue of their responsibility to the poor, the helpless, and the children, and that many more outside of the church not only don’t have a clue regarding the plight of the poor among us, but don’t want to have a clue, let alone be part of the solution (albeit from outside of the church).

I commend the following to you, written by a reader. Please read and consider.


As we discussed your post last night. I wanted to respond. You can feel free to post this or not as you want. I am cc'ing it to others at the discussion last night.

1. We will always have poverty-even Jesus said that we would always have the poor with us. Society and government will never, ever, cure poverty. Never. When the widow dropped her two mites in the offering plate, which was all she had, and a mite was 1/100th of a cent, did Jesus, who was an eyewitness to her giving, and even commented about it to his disciples, hand her a 100.00 bill or its equivalent? In His earthly ministry, did Jesus magically produce money, health insurance, or a home for people? The record seemingly oes not support that-but a caveat here- I think we don't know all the ways He worked and ministered to people. However, it is curious that He, our Ultimate Example, with compassion unending for children, for us, and dare I say it, even for those such as "the rich young ruler", did not address how these needs should be met. Paul, in his writings, places the responsibility directly upon the church, and charges them to "qualify" who they help.
2. Having worked in a neighborhood center for many years ministering directly to those who could not meet basic needs for food and shelter, I firmly believe that this is the responsibility of the church. And I hold fast to one of the basic tenents of our ministry at the Good Neighbor Center-that we help folks with what we've been blessed with, and always with redemption of the heart as our motive for our service. Jesus did not come to this earth as a cure for financial sickness, He came as the only Cure for a sickness of the heart. Always, we should meet people's needs because of the grace that's been shown us, because of the mercy God gave us at the cross, and because we want to be an instrument to meet spiritual needs.

Once we understand that Mr. Obama will not cure the world's ills, that financial bailouts won't bring eternal life, that government spending won't give peace of mind, and that everything, absolutely everything in this world is temporary, and is fit for the rubbish heap, then we can focus on truly what is important and what we the church have been called to do.

Many people, conservative and liberal alike are spun up in the latest antics of our leaders in Washington, and postulating what COULD be, what SHOULD be, what the ideal government should do-all the way from, "Get out of my backyard and let me mind my own business", to "Government needs a bigger role in providing for people who are unable to provide for themselves." My question-what does is matter? God continues to work through His people no matter who sits in the Oval Office. God continues to move His church and get her ready for a home with Him. He continues to minister to the world through us-no matter what. Our role in all the chaos is to let the politicians - Republican, Democrat, or in between, fight it out with words, angry rhetoric and bail out money, and we then, must continue to be busy meeting needs whenever God brings someone in to our lives to do so. Our job is to say "Yes", to Him. To be available to Him. To do His work.

I say this as I wrap up my 3rd year at an elementary school in Wichita with far more poverty than I ever saw in all my years at the Good Neighbor Center. If you know me, you know that it hurts me, but if you know the church, then you would be delighted to see the ministry occuring there, all the way from a staff member purchasing brand new underwear for a little girl who had never had any new ones right out of the package, to several people making home visits, to community people coming in once a week to read to kids, to our mentoring program which pairs kids and adults in an academic setting, to a church down the street hosting a Bible club every Tuesday with 50-60 kids in attendance, to the countless times we've collected food and Dillons cards for families, to the recent episode of someone affiliated with the school receiving some much needed dental care-the list is endless.

My challenge to you and all others who read this blog is this: We can either sit around on our hineys and wait for the government to usurp the place of the church in ministry, and wail and gnash our teeth because of what we see (and truly, what we see is horrendous), OR, we can get on our knees and say to God, "What can I do? Where can I minister? Show me how to act in Your love!" Hello Church? Your call to action is clear, your mandate is set before you. I can state unequivocally, because I've seen it first hand, ministry IS being accomplished - some is being done corporately, some is being done privately-we won't know until we get to heaven how many people with two mites to their name have ministered to others in need. But the need remains and is great. The responsibility is ours. We move as He directs.

In all this, we have to be cautious. I hate generalizing, but am going to do so here. Middle class people who want to help often view those in poverty through middle class rose-colored glasses, and in doing so, try to force middle class values upon those they minister to. It doesn't work, folks. Ruby Payne, a well-known expert in this area says that those in poverty have their own set of values, and in meeting needs, we need to understand that they place importance on different things than we do. God's ministry transcends class values. It transcends racial barriers. It cuts to the heart of what's important and that is, that God so loved YOU, that He gave His Son for YOU, that YOU might have a forever relationship with Him in His family.



The following is from World Magazine, March 14, 2009 I am printing it all here, even though it is lengthy. Maybe we can learn from what has already happened.
Giving that worked

Christians want to be generous, and that's as it should be. But we can learn from our predecessors who emphasized that generosity is only the first step. If we act without discernment, our generosity may actually be selfishness that gives ourselves a warm glow but hurts others.
We can learn from the oldest charity still existing in the United States, the Scots' Charitable Society of Boston, founded in 1657. The Society from its start resolved to "open the bowells of our compassion" but to make sure that "no prophane or diselut person, or openly scandalous shall have any part or portione herein." They viewed poor people not as standing at the bottom of a ladder but halfway up, capable of ascending to independence and even wealth if they saw themselves as created in God's image and were willing to live and work accordingly, but likely to descend into abject dependence and despair if they started to see themselves as animals.
Boston pastor Cotton Mather three centuries ago asked his church members to be charitable but also careful not to "abuse your charity by misapplying it." A half-century later prominent pastor Charles Chauncey instructed leaders of the Society for Encouraging Industry and Employing the Poor to be careful in "the Distribution of Charity" so they would not "dispense it promiscuously" and "bestow upon those the Bread of Charity, who might earn and eat their own Bread, if they did not shamefully idle away their Time."
We tend to think of generosity in a linear way as the opposite of selfishness, but there's actually a spectrum: Generosity is in the middle, the selfishness of not giving at one end, and the selfishness of giving that warms the giver's heart but hurts the recipient, on the other. Jesus' parable in Matthew 25 emphasizes that "as much as you did to the least of these, you did to Me." That cuts both ways: A person who offers help is helping Jesus, but a person who gives money that goes for drugs is shooting heroin into Jesus' veins.
Two centuries ago Americans did not subsidize others in self-destruction. Some 23 Boston charity societies declared in 1835 that recipients should believe it "disgraceful to depend upon alms-giving, as long as a capacity of self-support is retained . . . [To] give to one who begs . . . or in any way to supersede the necessity of industry, of forethought, and of proper self-restraint and self-denial, is at once to do wrong, and to encourage the receivers of our alms to wrong doing." The groups declared that "Christian alms-giving" means that relief should be given only after a "personal examination of each case," and "not in money, but in the necessaries required in the case."
Similarly, the Boston Provident Association (established in 1851) gave food, clothes, and coal to those willing to work but in temporary need. The association refused requests from drunkards and asked supporters to give beggars not money but cards proposing a visit to the Association's offices, where volunteers would examine needs, make job referrals, and provide food and temporary shelter. It also developed a list that in 1853 contained 201 names of "impostors"—able-bodied persons who refused to work.
If these groups had developed such rules as a way to hold onto their funds tight-fistedly, we would be right to scorn them today. But the records indicate a generosity that flowed more regularly when contributors felt assured that their donations would help rather than hurt those in need. Pastors regularly exhorted listeners to give both with generosity and discernment. Leaving out either one or the other was wrong.
Later in the century, charities emphasized jobs for adults "able and willing" to work, or "able and willing to do more." Help in finding work also went to "the improvident or intemperate" who "are not yet hopelessly so." The "shiftless and intemperate" who repeatedly refused work gained classification as "Unworthy, Not Entitled to Relief." In this group were "those who prefer to live on alms," those with "confirmed intemperance," and the "vicious who seem permanently so."
Charitable organizations did not pretend to know from momentary observation the categories into which applicants fell: Instead, they offered "work tests." Agencies gave an able-bodied man an ax and asked him to chop wood for an hour or to whitewash a building. A needy woman generally took a seat in the "sewing room" (a child-care room often was nearby) and sewed garments that would be donated to the helpless poor or sent through the Red Cross to families suffering from the effects of hurricanes or tornadoes.
In 1890 woodyards next to homeless shelters were as common as liquor stores are in 2009, and the impact was sobering: Work tests allowed charity managers to see whether applicants who held out signs asking for work were serious. Work tests also allowed applicants to earn their keep and to realize that they could help others: The wood went to widows or others among the helpless poor.
Groups kept records to show their donors that poor individuals were earning most of their meals through labor. The New Orleans Charity Organization Society described its woodyard as a place "where heads of families can earn household supplies, and the homeless food and lodging," with assistance given "in a way that does not pauperize." At the Friendly Inn in Baltimore, the count was 24,901 meals worked for in 1890 and 6,084 given without work.
Other Baltimore groups emphasized self-help for the poor and material transfer only to those unable to work. In 1890, the Thomas Wilson Fuel-Saving Society helped 1,500 families save on the purchase of 3,000 tons of coal. The Memorial Union for the Rescue of Homeless and Friendless Girls offered free rooms in private homes for teenagers and young women until long-term housing and jobs could be found. The Presbyterian Eye, Ear and Throat Charity Hospital offered free beds and Bible readings to the poor and illiterate.
Terms such as "worthy" and "unworthy poor" tend to be used today only with scorn, but organizations during the 1890s were careful to indicate that they were evaluating only willingness to work, not spiritual standing. For example, at Boston's Associated Charities in one typical year, 41 percent of all applicants were considered worthy of relief because of old age, incurable illness, orphan status, accidents, illness, or short-term trouble. Another 33 percent were to be helped to find jobs, and the remaining 26 percent were "unworthy" of support largely because work tests and investigation had indicated that they were without "desire to change."
Annual reports from Associated Charities in the stacks of the Library of Congress show that in a typical year 817 clients found and accepted jobs that year and 278 refused them ("98 refusals with good reason, 170 without"). In addition, the Associated Charities gave loans to 81 persons (the repayment rate was 75 percent), legal aid to 62 persons, and medical help to 304. Volunteers helped 185 families to save money, influenced 53 relatives to offer aid, and pushed 144 alcoholic breadwinners to make progress in temperance. Volunteers worked with 600 children and found adoptive families or guardians for orphans, influenced truants to attend school more often, and placed other children in private day nurseries or industrial schools.
The New Orleans Charity Organization Society also emphasized "personal investigation of every case, not alone to prevent imposture, but to learn the necessities of every case and how to meet them." Some 1,328 investigations in a typical year there led to the classification of 926 individuals as worthy of help, 276 as "unworthy," and 126 as doubtful. In the "worthy" category were 271 individuals found unemployed but willing to work, 252 who had jobs but wanted additional work, 205 who were ill, and 64 who were aged; 48 women had been abandoned by their husbands. Among the "unworthy" were 41 drunkards and professional beggars uninterested in changing their conduct, 143 who were "shiftless" and unwilling to work, and 72 found not to be in need.
Generosity and discernment were to go together like sodium and chloride to produce salt. Baltimore charity manager Mary Richmond wrote that it was hard to teach volunteers "whose kindly but condescending attitude has quite blinded them to the everyday facts of neighborhood life." Volunteers had to learn that "well-meant interference, unaccompanied by personal knowledge of all the circumstances, often does more harm than good and becomes a temptation rather than a help."
Discernment by volunteers, and organizational barriers against fraud, were important not only to prevent waste but to preserve morale among those working hard to remain independent. One charity worker noted, "Nothing is more demoralizing to the struggling poor than successes of the indolent or vicious." St. Louis volunteers were "to give relief only after personal investigation of each case. . . . To give what is least susceptible of abuse. . . . To give assistance at the right moment; not to prolong it beyond duration of the necessity which calls for it. . . . To require of each beneficiary abstinence from intoxicating liquors. . . . To discontinue relieving all who manifest a purpose to depend on alms rather than their own exertions for support."
The New Orleans Charity Organization Society tried to impress on its volunteers maxims of discernment by printing on the back cover of its annual reports statements such as, "Intelligent giving and intelligent withholding are alike true charity," and "If drink has made a man poor, money will feed not him, but his drunkenness." One official emphasized that "the question which we try through investigation to answer [is,] Are these applicants of ours ready to work out with us . . . some plan which will result in their rescue from dependency? If such elements are entirely lacking—no basis of good character, no probability of final success—then we do not assume the responsibility of asking societies or churches or private persons to help."
Discernment was also important among individuals approached by beggars—and teaching that proved to be a very difficult task! Charities Review once asked the designer of an innovative program whether its success satisfied "the 'gusher' who desires to give every evening beggar 25 cents." S.O. Preston responded, "No, nothing satisfies the 'gusher'; he will persist in giving his (or someone else's) money to the plausible beggar as often as he appears." The magazine was filled with criticism of "that miscalled charity which soothes its conscience with indiscriminate giving."
Our late-19th-century predecessors saw as unethical what many today see as humane. Charity leader Humphreys Gurteen called giving money to alcoholics "positively immoral" and argued that if givers could "foresee all the misery which their so called charity is entailing in the future," they would "forgo the flutter of satisfaction which always follows a well intentioned deed." New Haven minister H.L. Wayland criticized the "well-meaning, tender-hearted, sweet-voiced criminals who insist upon indulging in indiscriminate charity."
Similarly, Charities Review criticized "that miscalled charity which soothes its conscience with indiscriminate giving," and proposed that individuals and groups restrict "material relief to those cases in which such relief would be given by the true friend." True friendship was not encouraging "lazy imposture . . . such mercy is not mercy: it is pure selfishness." Instead, true friendship meant helping to deliver a person from slavery to a bottle, a needle, or his own laziness.
Charity leaders frequently checked their own assumptions about the availability of work; they were not so foolish as to insist on employment when none was available. In 1892 charity experts from several major cities, asked whether honest and sober men would spend more than a short time out of work, all said such a situation was "rare" or "very exceptional." Most of the able-bodied poor accepted the work obligation, partly because of biblical teaching and partly because they had little choice. A New Haven mission manager reported that fewer than one out of a hundred refused to work in the woodyard or sewing room, perhaps because "there is no other institution in this city where lodging can be secured except by cash payments for same."
Hang tough, charity leaders demanded, or else problems would worsen: New York charity leader Josephine Lowell wrote that "the problem before those who would be charitable, is not how to deal with a given number of poor; it is how to help those who are poor, without adding to their numbers and constantly increasing the evils they seek to cure."
The typical 19th-century approach—generosity plus discernment—garnered strong support from many Christians but criticism from others. Some called for governmental welfare, but late-19th-century pastors typically opposed governmental welfare because, as Amos G. Warner wrote in American Charities, "It is necessarily more impersonal and mechanical than private charity or individual action. . . . There is some tendency to claim public relief as a right, and for the indolent and incapable to throw themselves flat upon it."
Minister Joseph Crooker noted that "it is very easy to make our well-meant charity a curse to our fellow-men." Social worker Frederic Almy argued that "alms are like drugs, and are as dangerous," for often "they create an appetite which is more harmful than the pain which they relieve." Governmental welfare was "the least desirable form of relief," according to Mary Richmond, because it "comes from what is regarded as a practically inexhaustible source, and people who once receive it are likely to regard it as a right, as a permanent pension, implying no obligation on their part."
Perhaps the most credible observer of the entire era was liberal reformer Jacob Riis, author in 1890 of How the Other Half Lives. Riis, who had been a penniless immigrant himself, lived his concern for the New York poor by hauling heavy cameras up dozens of flights of tenement stairs day after day to provide striking photographs of dull-eyed families in crowded flats. Riis documented great misery, but he also saw movement out of poverty and concluded that "New York is, I firmly believe, the most charitable city in the world. Nowhere is there so eager a readiness to help, when it is known that help is worthily wanted; nowhere are such armies of devoted workers."
Riis wrote of how one charity group over eight years raised "4,500 families out of the rut of pauperism into proud, if modest, independence, without alms." He noted that another "handful of noble women . . . accomplished what no machinery of government availed to do. Sixty thousand children have been rescued by them from the streets." He compared such success with material distribution to the able-bodied that led to "degrading and pauperizing" rather than "self-respect and self-dependence."
With the understanding that anti-poverty progress was incremental and tied to economic growth, Riis pointed to problems but declared, "The thousand and one charities that in one way or another reach the homes and the lives of the poor with sweetening touch, are proof that if much is yet to be done . . . hearts and hands will be found to do it in ever-increasing measure."
Riis and his contemporaries were not arguing that the war on poverty a century ago was won, or was even winnable in any final sense: Riis wrote that "the metropolis is to lots of people like a lighted candle to the moth." Those who climbed out of urban destitution were replaced quickly by others awaiting trial by fire. But dreams then were alive: The poverty-fighting optimism among Americans then contrasts sharply with the demoralization among the poor and the cynicism among the better-off that are so common now.
Edward T. Devine perhaps put it best in an article in an issue of The Charities Review published in that turning-point year, 1900. The goal, he insisted, was not "that poor families should suffer, but that charity should accomplish its purpose." Thoughtless generosity was akin to selfishness if it made charity misfire. Generosity plus discernment was key.

(Note: This article has been corrected to reflect that the parable quoted is from Matthew 25.)
Copyright © 2009 WORLD Magazine
March 14, 2009, Vol. 23, No. 5

The Judgment

What follows is my response to a private reply from a good friend and reader of my blogs. I have her permission to post my reply to her. She agreed with my blog, but said that the ideal would be for less government help and more help from individuals and groups. I have no quarrel with that, and posted the following to her.
Text of response: I agree that by far the best way for this woman (see prior blog) to receive the help she needs is through the generosity of individuals, churches, and businesses.  I am an individual, and I helped the woman with the bad tooth...she's one of my employees...receive the opportunity for dental care, medications, and housing.  I continue, through our church, to work with her.  That's far better than any government bureaucracy. 
You are also correct that your concept of private, individual help for all in need is very near utopia.  What do we do in the meanwhile?  Will the woman with the kids raise them on the streets until we get there?  I've seen strong evidence that where government once was the primary opportunity-maker, when private interests stepped in, government left.
In the aftermath of the Hesston, KS tornado in 1990, government set up offices to help those in need, but no one came.  It seems the Mennonites in that area and from all over had been out helping their neighbors from the first moments after the twister struck, and there was little need of government and their disaster programs, by and large.  They folded up operations and left town earlier than they had planned.
I think that notion also works in situations such as this.  Can government step in to help this woman until private interests find her and work with her?  I think that's emphatically yes, if that's the only place she can receive help.  And we need to see that the public programs are in place and funded such that she and her kids can receive the opportunities they need until private interests take over. 
Now, I may have caused some misunderstanding on the blog.  It was not my intent to say that government is the cure for our social ills.  The tea party struck a nerve in me (we had one not two miles from our home here in Wichita).  I don't like taxes and the way they are being used (in some instances) any more than anyone else.  Government is bloated, inefficient, and wasteful.  I don't like the idea that we're buying cheap products from China, shipping them boatloads of cash, then borrowing that cash back to finance a deficit that is off of the charts.  That seems to me to be just a notch or two short of lunacy. 
However, although I dare not paint each participant in the tea parties with the same brush, it is my opinion that most of those who were protesting were anglo middle class people upset at government spending, wanting to keep more for themselves, to use on themselves, to benefit themselves.  One homeless man said in an interview regarding the tea party, "Don't make no difference to me.  I don't pay taxes anyhow."  I suspect the homeless and poor were not well-represented at those events.  They wouldn't have had the transportation available to get them there in any event. 
My real thrust is the kids.  Regardless of the dumb decisions of the adults in their lives, the kids are the future of this society.  The kids are the innocent victims.  And the kids, I think, are the ones Jesus is especially concerned about...and it terrifies me to think that we're (whether individually or collectively through government) throwing them away in the interest of greed and self-indulgence.  It matters not if that is manifested in our individual unwillingness to give to those without, or whether we rally for low taxes so we can maintain our lavish (yes, compared to the rest of the world that's a good word to use) lifestyle.  The result and the judgment of the Almighty are the same.

Their Reward

I am sick to death of hearing yet more stories of people who just don’t have the means or the opportunity to make their way in this world. Today on NPR the story was told of a woman who was 21 years old, had a 3 year old and a 1 year old, was pregnant with her third child, and was homeless. Her boyfriend/spouse left her some time ago and she is now living on the streets with her kids.
Conservatives love to say “equal opportunity, not equal wealth.” Pray tell me just where is the equal opportunity for this woman? Where is her opportunity to get off of the streets, find a home for her family, turn on the utilities, get a job, find child care, and get back to being a productive citizen? Give me a break. How is this woman going to keep her one year old clean (he’s in diapers, if she has any to put on him)? Who will she leave her children with while she looks for work or goes to school to learn a trade? What will she do with her kids when it’s time to deliver her third? After the third one is born, assuming it’s healthy, how will she have time to do anything toward a job or schooling? Where will she go to clean up so she can apply for a job? How will she afford deodorant, toothpaste, and other necessities? Where will she find clean water? How will she cook for her kids? I could go on and on. This woman and her children are well into the point of no return in the whirlpool of absolute hopelessness and utter helplessness.
Tell me that the woman has made poor choices. I agree. But have her kids made those same choices? Where is their opportunity? Where is their hope? Are they human beings? Or are they being punished for the sins of the adults in their lives? In order for the kids to have opportunity, the adults in their lives have to have opportunity. And much of the time, that’s something that has to be given in some way. There aren’t that many situations where someone can make his own opportunity. How could this woman possibly do that? Give me specifics of what she could reasonably do given her situation that involves only "pulling herself up by her bootstraps" and making her opportunity without help from anyone else.
Where is the opportunity for the children of illegal immigrants? These kids are citizens of the United States…they were born here. Will we deny them basic needs because the adults in their lives are here illegally? The children aren’t here illegally. They have just the same rights and privileges as you and I have. Yet they many times don’t benefit from their citizenship because of misinformation, discrimination, or even hatred.
Where is the opportunity for the woman on the edge of poverty, working at a low-paying job, living in a cheap motel with her husband who also works at a low-paying job? She has dental problems that cause her pain and suffers from infections. She earns too much to have a medical card, yet can’t afford to see a dentist. Sometimes the pain is so bad she can’t work. But if she doesn’t work, the family falls even farther behind. Even if she sees a dentist at no cost, she can’t afford to buy the prescriptions for antibiotics and pain that he prescribes.
How do they make it when the place where the husband works doesn’t issue payroll for a time because the owner is laid up in the hospital and doesn’t have a backup plan for payroll? Where do they go? What do they do? Where is their opportunity?
And here I am, sitting in a house that many people can only dream about, with a full gut and much, much more than I could ever possibly need. I am blessed beyond measure. I have a decent job, gas in the vehicle, payments up to date, money in the bank, and food in the cabinet. I can’t fix everything. I can’t help everyone. But I can do what I can do as I have the opportunity to do it. Bring it on.
There were about 700 “tea parties” across the nation today. People were telling government that they were being taxed to death, and they wanted no more of it. Give me another break. These are people who drove to the tea parties in vehicles less than three years old, live in homes and neighborhoods similar to ours (upper middle class), have money in the bank, bills paid up, gas in the vehicle, decent jobs, and food in the cabinet. They don’t, for the most part, have a clue. They’ve never been up close and personal with abject poverty and utter hopelessness. They know the catch phrases, but don’t know anyone without hope. Their voices are shrill, clanging gongs, dripping with the selfishness and smugness of “Me first, last, and always.”
Verily, they already have their reward.

A Song For You

We’ve just passed the Easter season for 2009. I don’t know if you celebrate this distinctly Christian special day and time of year or not. Even many who are Christians don’t necessarily celebrate this day or time of the year, not because they don’t believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, but for other reasons. Some say that the life, death, and resurrection should be celebrated every day. Some say that religious holidays aren’t appropriate. Others don’t care that much about any holiday, religious or not.
I’m one of those that doesn’t really care that much about holidays. They’re OK, and I take the time off from work. I also buy gifts or whatever so as to not be too much of a stick-in-the-mud. But holidays just don’t do that much for me and I’m usually glad when they’re over.
I do, however, want to leave you with the lyrics of a song that has been sung for generations and is very appropriate for the Easter season. I first heard this song sung at a funeral when my grandfather was laid to rest. The choral group sang it at the cemetery. As a family, we chose to carry on that tradition and sing this song graveside at the funerals of my parents. The words evermore inspire me. The music that goes with these words gives them even more power and inspiration; if you don’t know the song, you’re missing something good.


Lift Your Glad Voices – Henry Ware

Lift your glad voices in triumph on high,
For Jesus hath risen, and man shall not die;
Vain were the terrors that gathered around Him,
And short the dominion of death and the grave;

He burst from the fetters of darkness that bound Him,
Resplendent in glory to live and to save!
Loud was the chorus of angels on high,
The Savior hath risen, and man shall not die.

Glory to God, in full anthems of joy;
The being He gave us death cannot destroy:
Sad were the life we must part with tomorrow,
If tears were our birthright, and death were our end;

But Jesus hath cheered the dark valley of sorrow,
And bade us, immortal, to Heaven ascend:
Lift then your voices in triumph on high,
For Jesus hath risen, and man shall not die.

The Robin

Tonight as we were coming out of the Y, I remarked that there was a robin around somewhere because I heard the distinct song not far away. Sure enough, he was perched in one of the young trees in the front area of the building complex, singing away.
Robins have a unique song that they use many times in the early morning as dawn breaks, and also as the sun sets and twilight fades. I don’t really know how to describe it, but I know it (and you will too) when I hear it.
The bird people will probably say that the robin sings this particular song because he is marking territory or he is calling for his mate, or some such other practical thing. And that may be entirely true.
But I suspect that even if that is the case, there may well be more to the robin’s message than just marking territory or finding his mate. The early morning/late twilight song of the robin is one that tells me that he’s glad to be alive and is thankful that he has made it through another day (or that he’s grateful to have another day ahead of him). I imagine him singing to his Creator his thanks for providing his nourishment and strength. And I imagine the Creator looking on, listening to His creation and calling it good.
You say I’m putting more into it than is there. Maybe so. But I suspect we don’t know the half of what we see and hear in the wonderful universe that is God’s workshop.

The Space Program

I just finished watching the end of “Apollo 13” on the TV. I’ve seen the movie several times, but the end always makes me think about the space program and the moon landings of forty years ago. As we hurtle well into the twenty-first century, we take for granted many things that did not exist in the 1960’s and 1970’s which would have made the moon landing program much safer than it was.
If you have had the chance to see a lunar lander or the capsules that took the astronauts to the moon, you know that those ships were not only engineering marvels of the day, but were also very crude-looking compared with some of what we know today. Their electronic computer and guidance systems were less powerful than a modern calculator. Many of the systems were stressed to the very limits of what they would do, and the technology of the day was pressed into service far beyond normal limits. There were a lot of seat of the pants decisions made on the fly, so to speak, and the astronauts really did take chances and put themselves in danger more than once for the good of the mission.
There will always be people who believe that it all was a hoax and we really didn’t go to the moon. My grandfather was one of them, as I understand. There will also be those who believe that the moon program (and other space programs) was (is) a waste of money. But the overwhelming evidence is that the program paid for itself many times over in new technology and scientific knowledge. And the notion that we didn’t really go to the moon is so laughable (sorry Grandad) as to not be given serious consideration.
Technological benefits range from cordless tools to medications and new metal alloys. Everything in between such as accurate maps, new camera technology, improved communications, new fabrics, pacemakers, engine lubricants, Doppler radar, insulin pumps, fire resistant materials, and on and on ad infinitum came from the space program.
Could it have been done differently? Absolutely. Could we have spent that money on other efforts? Yes, we could have. Did the program have flaws? It was conceived and run by humans. Yes, it had (and has) flaws. But it is a shining moment in history, one that I was privileged to have witnessed.

Getting Things Done

I must admit that I’ve been negligent in following the blogs I used to follow with Metamucil regularity. One sister is traipsing to Ohio to look for a long-lost great aunt and the other is trying to find herself amidst the many changes of middle age and life. A cousin is relishing her first year of teaching school and other people either haven’t written in a month of Sundays or have closed down their blogs. Is blogging going out of style? Do people not have enough time any more to even blog? I know I don’t do it as often as I’d like…it’s not a question of time for me but rather of inspiration. Many times in the evening I just don’t feel like writing; I’ve already been “consumed” by the events of the day.
Let’s see. Today is a day off for us because the nursing home where I work has this day (Good Friday) as a holiday. I went to the bank, got a haircut, and will take a load of trashy yard waste out to my brother’s place where he can legally burn it. The wife is shopping for stuff and isn’t back yet.
I was going to work on our goldfish pond today, but the wind and cold may prevent that. Tomorrow we will be going to the in-laws so that day is shot for anything productive around the house. Sundays I usually don’t like to do a lot of heavy work, but may have to in order to get things done.
Weekends seem to be more fully occupied than ever. We go here or have this to do there. And it many times is an all-day thing, or at least enough of the day so that we can’t do anything else. Then we get into the work week and before we know it, we’re behind.
My sitting here writing in my blog isn’t getting anything done today, so….

An Eclectic Group

It was 78 degrees yesterday; 38 degrees today. Such is the weather this time of the year. The rapid change in weather conditions is not unique to Kansas or even the Great Plains. Many places in the temperate climates of the world are like this.
For some reason, however, we like to gripe about, or at least talk about the weather, changes in the weather, and how crazy the weather seems to be at times. It’s interesting that something we can do very little to change and something that we spend huge amounts of money avoiding (air conditioning, heating, etc) occupies such a great part of our time and energy.
Those things we can change, however, we don’t often take the time to do. This coming Tuesday we expect about 12 percent of eligible voters to go to the polls and select local leaders for the next several years. That means that 88 percent of eligible voters will not take advantage of something that they can do to effect some real change in local government. Oh, they’ll still gripe about high taxes and what they perceive to be dumb decisions, but won’t vote anyone in or out of office. Maybe it’s just too much trouble to stop at the polls. Maybe it’s too much work to vote in advance. I don’t know.
We humans are an illogical and irrational lot at times. I guess that’s what makes life interesting, though, and may be why many people have a hobby of watching other people. We see so much of ourselves in them…we can only laugh knowingly and remind ourselves that we too are part of that eclectic group of souls called humanity.

Newfound Elegance

Even without the clouds, it was a pretty sunset. I don’t see as much of the setting sun as I used to because other houses to the west of ours blocks the horizon. However, our main living room window is high enough above ground level to afford us a view that is within a hair’s breadth of the horizon, and a full sky.
Most of the time, sunsets that are cloudless are less than a spectacular sight. Especially in summer heat and dust, the sunsets are many times not much more than a gradual darkening of the sky as the sun sometimes is obliterated by the dust and smoke hanging thick in the hot air of summer. The dust comes from farmers working their fields, and the smoke many times is a result of farmers burning off their stubble or last year’s growth of pasture grass. (For some reason, farming and polluting the air in this manner is exempt from EPA regulation, something I haven’t figured out to this day).
But the setting sun tonight, while not in the category of a wowing spectacular view, still left no doubt that sometimes the creation is a beautiful place and that the Master Artist continues to create canvases for his people. Relatively simple, yet elegant was the theme of the Master tonight.
It is indeed true that beauty many times is in the eye of the beholder. Where some may see a slimy, slithering monster, others see the gorgeous markings of a snake. Where some may cringe at the thought of touching a common housefly, others see the awesome organ that is the eye of that fly and marvel at the One who created it. Where some may consider the snow and ice a major inconvenience, others see a renewal and replenishing of the earth.
We all have things in our lives that we don’t appreciate or just plain dislike. And that’s OK. But sometime, in some way, take some time and try to find the good, the beautiful, the artistic, and the elegance in these things. You may see things in a whole different light.

What's Happening

I’m not sure what has happened to me these last months. I can’t even begin to describe some of the feelings inside; however, being an aspiring writer, I’ll try. Most of what is coming is religious or otherwise serious in nature. If you don’t want to read things like that, you can stop now.
I seem to alternate among feelings of incredible blessedness, mild apprehension regarding the financial mess and whether I’ll retain a job, the also-incredible incomprehensibility of the God of heaven and earth, the joy and delight of family and friends, the goodness of life, the brevity of life, and the boundless truth that is revealed in holy writ and by the handiwork of God Himself.
Now, as you look at that list (which is kind of a mess in and of itself), can you begin to understand why I’m not able to give full descriptive service to what’s inside?
Something is opening up for me whole vistas of possibility, reality, and hope. I’m not sure what (or who) that something is, but I’m grateful. It seems like we all too often go through life with perpetual blinders, never seeing to the right or to the left. We never leave our ruts and consider life to be successful if, when we die, we’re able to have enough money for a proper burial and something worthy for the preacher to say at our service. How we miss the mark!
God calls us to an abundant life of service, joy, love, peace, and happiness. He has plans for us that would stagger our imaginations and cause us to immediately say something stupid such as, “I could never do that!” He desires the best for us (the very defining principle of love) and enables, encourages, and expects our best for His service. He is constantly prodding, poking, and stirring us into humility and service, ever aware that He created us as beings free to accept or reject Him at will.
Service. Servant. Eternal. Love. Servanthood. Peace. Delight. Servant-leader. Humbleness. Low estate. Undeserving. Blessed. Abundant. Secure. Hope. Life. Evermore unto the ages of the ages. What a life this is!

Where Are They?

On this night when the snow is blowing, the wind is howling, and a massive, major storm is upon us, as we are safe and secure in our homes, warm and fed, where are the homeless?

Today

So, today is cooler than it has been for awhile, and dry. The sun is out and things look good outside (except for the wind).
I'm in a sort of lull in work now (10:50am) and thought I'd "dash" off a note. I woke up with a headache, but after a couple tylenol and ibuprofen, it seems to be abating. I'm also feeling better and not quite so sluggish as I was this morning earlier.
Let's see. No potties unplugged today (but one yesterday). However, I have cleaned the stains off of two carpets in two resident rooms, installed Java on a PC (have to log in as administrator), had a meeting, fielded approximately 11 calls (phone ringing again), fixed a resident's rain gauge, took in the weekly nursing supply order, and am now getting ready to install an anti-rollback device on a wheelchair. Some day so far, huh.
On a more serious note, I know that we each have our own issues, problems, and "giants" in our lives. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about those in my life and those that I know of that are in the lives of others that I love. I once wrote in a blog about how I think that God creates a unique "present tense" for each of us and unfurls it before us as time goes on. As I continue to ponder that, I am more convinced than ever that He spreads the here and now before us and waits to see what we do with it. The present tense is where we do battle with the "giants" in our lives. The here and now is where we deal with the issues that clog our existence. Today is when we face our foes and fears.
Whatever your situation, you have only the here and now. The past is gone. The future (even five minutes from now) is uncertain. Only you can decide how you will use what you've been given.

The Best

Coming home this evening from Central Kansas and some time with the in-laws, we were listening to an oldies station out of Wichita. Kind of in the middle of the drive home, an Elvis Presley tune came on (Can't Help Falling In Love With You). I told my wife, "He DID have a good voice."
Yes, he did. For all of his faults and insecurities, he had "the voice". Not many singers of today or yesterday have or had "the voice", but there were some. I started thinking back to those singers that I knew and decided that there were three that stood out.
Elvis Presley. I don't know what it is, but it's just an effortless, milk chocolate smooth delivery. I don't care if it's the falling in love song or the hound dog song. His baritone is up there with Bing, who also had it. Sinatra had it, but didn't always use it.
Karen Carpenter. Taken entirely too soon by an insidious illness, Ms. Carpenter's voice just slides out of the speakers and eases into every recess, every corner, every cubic foot of the room as well as into every cell of one's being. She just fills the environment with beauty.
Sandi Patty. It was said of her by a fellow performer who was introducing her once, "No one ever has heard a voice like this." Her three octive reach beyond high C and below middle C is under her perfect control. She plays her voice as a maestro plays a Stradivarius, and like the violin, her voice responds...in spades.
You may well know other singers that I do not know, and your list may look different than mine. That's fine. These are the ones that I gravitate toward, and turn up the volume whenever they appear on the radio. Elvis is a more recent entry into my list, but he's there.
Others worth mentioning: Diana Ross, The Mills Brothers, Barry Manilow, The McGuire Sisters, The Lettermen, The Martins, Dean Martin (when sober), and maybe Patsy Cline, Mariah Carey, and Art Garfunkel.
Who would be on your list?

Relationships

We attended a wedding yesterday. A member of our family was being married, and we were privileged to be able to witness the ceremony. They had a dinner and dance following the wedding, held in the same area as the ceremony. It was the first time we had been in that building, and I thought the staff of the facility did a good job with things.
We took a table at one corner of the room for the dinner and dance. I chose to sit where I could see the rest of the room without much effort. I like to watch people, and enjoyed doing that in this instance, because there were a lot of people there that I didn’t know along with several that I did know.
During the toast, the father of the groom told of a time when I had given him some “fatherly” advice about how to get along with a spouse (Something about choosing your battles). I don’t remember that time, but don’t doubt that I gave that advice. I’ve lived by what he said I told him ever since we have been married.
A while later, I was sitting in my spot thinking about what the Dad said in his toast and how I had positively influenced him in some small way. I then thought about others that I may have influenced in some way in times past and gone. I didn’t do that mental exercise very long until I figured out that I probably have influenced many hundreds of people in the past in some way, shape, or form. I then wondered if my influence was for the better or for the worse. I would hope that for the most part, my having had a relationship with someone would have been a positive experience for the both of us.
It’s not possible to go back and make those relationships any different than what they are. We can’t go back in time and take back the things we’ve said or done. That makes it doubly important that we do it right the first time. One never knows what parts of a relationship are fleeting and what parts are lasting. One never knows what kind of influence the relationship will have on life and living. And one never knows how the relationship will impact future action and thought.
In my case this day, something I said was handed down many years later to the next generation, and hopefully will in turn be handed down yet again in years to come. And I had the privilege of seeing it happen. I like that.

Anger Management

I was going down the hall at work the other day when I came up on a therapist walking a resident back to her room after a therapy session. They were visiting about something, and as I got closer, I overheard the resident say to the therapist, “...I thought you were going to be mad at me.”
Now, I know this therapist. She's probably one of the most even-keeled people here. Even at that, I have never, repeat NEVER, seen any staff here lash out in anger at a resident. Yes, we become somewhat frustrated at times, knowing that a resident has the ability to make positive and good decisions for his/her life, but instead chooses to continue a life of dependence. Yes, we become frustrated at times, as other staff for whatever reason chooses to not fulfill his/her work obligations. But anger at residents? No.
Residents sometimes make messes. Residents sometimes wander. Residents sometimes make extra work for staff. Residents sometimes make poor choices. We know that's part of the job here. We know that we will have to deal with these kinds of things. Anger or lashing out at residents should have no part in our work lives.
The sad part of all of this is that the resident I overheard thought, rightly or wrongly, that whatever it was she did was going to anger a therapist. This upsets me. This resident should feel that in a nursing home, of all places, she would be safe and well-cared for.
I don't know what her experiences have been insofar as long term care is concerned. I would hope that what I heard her say was said without having to have gone through some kind of anger tirade on the part of a staffer somewhere. But I suspect that somewhere, some time, someone whose job it was to care for her got angry and stupid and lashed out at her in some way.
We can do better than that.

Communication

It’s difficult, at times, to know what to write. It’s even more difficult to do it in a way that will communicate what I intended to say appropriately. This thing called communication is something that I have yet to be able to put my finger on, even though I’ve been trying it out for nigh on to sixty years or so.
As an example, today we stopped by a local Quick-Trip type place to get gas and pick up some hamburger buns for the sloppy joes we were having for lunch. I got the gas, then went into the store to pick up the buns. They were out. I came back out to the car with a loaf of bread and some chips.
As I got into the car, I said to my wife something to the effect that they were out of hamburger buns. We then had, over the next 10 minutes, a disjointed sort of conversation about hamburger buns, sloppy joes, and why didn’t I go on down to Dillons and get buns. Turns out that we were on two different wavelengths. I said that I told her as I got into the car that we were out of buns, and carried on my end of the conversation as if she had that information. She tells me that she never heard me say that, and only found out that we had no buns later on in the conversation; she was conversing from the idea that the buns were in the sack that I carried out of the store.
No wonder that the conversation didn’t seem to make much sense to me. No wonder we both got frustrated in trying to communicate with the other one. No wonder that the end result was less than satisfying.
I don’t know if I said what I thought I said as I got into the car or not. In my mind, I can hear myself clearly as I slid into the seat. I suspect that in her mind, that scene is playing out much differently. Which one of us is right? We’ll never know, and it really doesn’t matter.
What does matter is that we learn from the experience and continue in our efforts to better communicate with one another as we hurtle down the road of life at what seems to be an ever-increasing speed. What matters is that we don’t give up on each other or just shrug our shoulders and say “whatever” when things become difficult.
As an aside, this episode points out to me the incredible thought that has gone into the writing of Jewish and Christian scripture. And even at that, the Bible is interpreted in just about as many different ways as there are people who offer interpretation, simply because everyone sees things differently, and everyone has a slightly different world view from which they operate. Is it any wonder that there are literally hundreds of commentaries…thousands of books…tens of thousands of people who offer up vastly differing ideas on what was meant by this passage, why this saying is in the Bible, or what Paul (or John or David or Luke or…) meant when he wrote whatever it was he wrote.
Yet to bring out from that cacophony of voices a religion that has as its basic tenets things that on which by far most of the Christians can agree is nothing short of amazing. And to make those tenets understandable by most of the world’s population (when heard or read in one’s language of understanding) is even more amazing.
Communication is the elephant in the room that no one wants to recognize, sometimes. Yet unless we do, we are bound to wallow around in ignorance and misunderstanding at a minimum, and possibly hostility and outright anger or hatred as a not uncommon result.

Foundational

I've blogged about this before. I've seen it again today, just as I see it almost every day of the week that I go to work. It's something that has more power than almost anything else on the face of the earth, yet is gentle, forgiving, and kind. It is something that everyone longs for, many don't have, and even more who don't know how to get or give it. It's love.
I see it in the husband of the woman in our facility with dementia. They used to be dairy farmers not far from here, and he talks well of the business and how successful they were. There is a picture of the farmstead on the wall of her room and a couple of awards that were given to them for something having to do with dairy farming.
She doesn't say anything any more. She may well not know where she is or who is with her. She is incontinent much of the time, stares into space, needs to be fed, and can no longer do much of anything except sit, stand, or lay down.
Yet her hubby takes her for walks, encourages her to eat, talks with her, is with her much of the day, sees that she is clean and presentable, and otherwise cares for her in ways that truly demonstrate his comittment to her.
Other spouses also are much like this gentleman. They dote over their loved one, look after them, advocate for them, love them and serve them. The bond is unbreakable; the love is intense, mature, and resolute. These people truly understand that they made a comittment long ago in which they promised to love "in sickness and in health, for better or for worse."
These are the people who are the examples to those younger, mostly women who work there who are in and out of relationships, have children as a single parent, and don't seem to be able to figure out life and living. These are the people of whom others scratch their heads and just can't figure out why they are so devoted to someone who is dying and isn't even really there in a large sense. These are the people who uphold the sanctity of committment and the honor of marriage.
These people are the foundation of our civilization.

Your Opinion?

Christian musician and writer Danny Oertli tells the story of coming home one evening after doing a concert. His daughter was still up, and they did some quality time together by watching a retreating thunderstorm from a window of their home. The lightning flashed from time to time, but was somewhat faint due to the fact that the storm was many miles away.
They watched for a time; then Danny told his girl that it was time for bed. She was enjoying the time so much that she protested and said she’d like to see just one more lightning flash before bed. Not knowing when or if there would be another flash of light from the distant storm, Danny encouraged her to go on to bed.
Before she did, however, she stood up and raised her hands much as Moses might have done in parting the Red Sea and prayed, “God, let me see one more lightning bolt before I go to bed.”
Danny was somewhat taken by her child-like faith, but said nothing. His daughter then began counting backwards from five…"Five, four, three, two, one…CRACKERJACK!”
Just as she said the word “crackerjack,” Danny says the sky lit up from seemingly all directions as lightning lit up not only the sky, but everything outside the window. His daughter turned to Danny, gave him a look like “Right on!” and went to bed. Danny, for his part chalked it all up to coincidence and something that just happened to happen at the right time.
A few days later, Danny says he was reading in the Bible and a verse from Job just jumped out at him. God is talking to Job, explaining to Job that He, Jehovah, is God and Job isn't. God says, “Can you shout to the clouds and make it rain? Can you make lightning appear and cause it to strike as you direct it?”
Coincidence, or answered prayer? I’ll let you be the judge.

Outdoor Living

I went outside this morning to get the newspaper, which was out on the drive. It was cold this morning. The weather service says it was 12 degrees when I went outside at 8am, and only 10 degrees an hour later. The wind was out of the northwest at 30 miles an hour, bringing a wind chill of about 12 degrees below zero. As I ventured out in only a long sleeved shirt, I suddenly thought of something disturbing.
“My gosh, there are people who have to live out here!” That thought came on me like a ton of bricks, and I suddenly appreciated all the more the house behind me that was my home. And I had renewed feelings for those who, for whatever reason, had to spend the night in the wind and cold.
And now that I’ve had a few hours to think about it, I have to wonder if I will have anything other than “renewed feelings” for these people. Yes, some of them made their own beds, so to speak. Yes, some are mentally ill. And yes, others of them are chronic homeless and prefer, for whatever reason, to be that way. There are also countless others who are now living in cars or some place else that don’t want to be there, perhaps had a job and home until recently, and are on hard times.
I don’t care what the reason for the homelessness may be; there is something inherently wrong with allowing people to live outdoors in weather like this, and not at least making the indoors available in some way. And I think there’s something wrong when people who are blessed with comfort out of the weather don’t at least make an attempt, in some way, to provide for shelter for those who have none. Whether that attempt is working with a homeless shelter in some way, or just contributing funds to some worthy homeless effort, it is incumbent on us all to look at what God has given us and find some way to use that gift to His glory. I don't care if what God has given us is only a small home that we have to set the thermostat on 60 degrees in order to afford the heat bill, that's more than others have, and is a blessing from God.
Our church works with the homeless in more than one way, and we are part of that work through our giving of funds. That isn’t something that we can congratulate ourselves for, but rather is something that we humbly should continue, and continue to seek out other ways to fulfill the admonition of Jesus to “offer a cup of cold water” in His name.

Heroes

Captain Sullenberger (you know, the pilot of the airliner that landed in the Hudson River) and his flight crew all have a new job. Oh no, they didn’t leave the airline (at least that I know of). But they all, and especially Capt. Sullenberger, have a new job. That job is defined as someone who is admired for his talents and noble qualities; someone who shows great courage. That job is the job of hero.
They didn’t ask for it; they just did the jobs they were trained to do, and in doing so saved the lives of 155 people, including themselves. They kept families intact and together, made certain that kids would have a Dad or Mom come home that night, and stopped a huge fountain of grief from overspreading this nation.
So far, it seems, these folks have handled the hero job with poise and composure, if not a little discomfort. I suppose that sometime, somewhere, some idiot will dig up some kind of dirt on at least one of them, and try to tarnish the image. And something may happen in the crush of publicity and media coverage that causes one or more of these good folks to “break” in some way and do or say something stupid. So far, none of that apparently has happened, and I trust it never will.
We all have dirt in our closets. We all are susceptible to temptation. We all are imperfect. Only someone who wishes to get a leg up and who sees himself as better than someone else takes any kind of pride at all in exposing the sins of another. Yes, there are exceptions…prosecutors, police, etc. I’m not talking about them. This is another subject.
We need heroes. We need the Captain Sullenbergers and the rest of the crew of that flight. We need the John Glenns, the Betty Jeffreys, the Stan Musials, the Norman Schwarzkopfs, the Christa McAuliffes and others who give us hope, inspire us, and prod us to do things we’d otherwise never attempt. We need people that we can look to for inspiration and promise.
Old people, young people, men, women, children, rich folks, poor folks; all of us need heroes. Who’s your hero? Who are you a hero to?

Tempered

We talked today in Sunday school class about the process of maturity and how we tend to see things differently as we grow older and more mature, chronologically as well as emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. We talked about how our sometimes “black and white” ideas and notions are often tempered by age, experience, and knowledge. We looked at the man John, the disciple of Jesus and writer of several portions of the New Testament as an example of someone who, over the years, comes to moderate his persona and becomes known as the Apostle of love.
I find myself in that same position in many aspects of my life. What used to be so black and white to me no longer is, and what seemed to be such simple and easy solutions to problems and issues no longer are. I’ve become more tolerant in many ways, even as I become more set in my ways in other areas of life and living. And I’ve come to appreciate more and more those things in my life that are blessings. Grandchildren, family, work, music, health, God, wife, past experiences and friends all come to mind pretty much all at once and in no particular order.
I find myself thinking more about the past, marveling at the rich and full life I’ve lived to this day. I hear music of whatever variety from years ago, whether on an LP record, in church, or on the Lawrence Welk show on PBS, and I think of the good things that I’ve associated with that particular melody. I see old TV shows and recall pleasant times of comfort and security at home with Dad and Mom, knowing now that they were providing me with the best they had to offer. I see movies like Apollo 13 and think back to what I was doing and where I was and how I was astonished at the ability and capability of men and women to do things like that…and that I am still filled with wonder at the sight of portions of the universe never before seen until now through the Hubble space telescope.
Is this a sure sign of aging? Is this a precursor to life in retirement? Is this a mark of a man readying himself for the inevitable? I don’t know.
One thing I do know is that however much time I am blessed with here in this life, it has been given to me by God to use productively and wisely. And although I don’t always do that like I’d like to, I’d like to think that my age and experience enable me to do a much better job of being a good steward of the things I’ve been given. And if that means being not so much black and white and looking beyond the simplistic and naïve, so be it.

It Happened Again

Well, it happened again. Tonight as we were just finishing eating at a local restaurant and getting up to leave, someone in a close booth greeted me by name. I looked at them and vaguely recalled them from our home community an hour or so southwest of here, but I couldn’t place them any more than that.
I was surprised, and said so, and tried to find some connection that would help me with the inevitable ensuing conversation. I found nothing in the 18 brain cells that I have left, so I just went along for the ride.
Come to find out they were up here after putting her dad in a care facility. They were eating before they went home. We visited some about our work, their situation, and not much else. Then I found an opening and left.
After we left the restaurant, I told the wife to not ask because I didn’t have a clue. She allowed as how they must be connected with me by EMS or the hospital, since she would know anyone else, but may not know some of those folks. I still don’t have a clue.
I suppose after the conversation, they asked each other, “Do you suppose he knew who we were?” I hate it that I can’t remember names, and don’t recognize people. I looked at them pretty much the whole time we were in the restaurant, as they were just beyond our table, but I never had a flicker of recognition the whole time.
I have to think that it doesn’t get any better as I age, but it wasn’t good when I was young. So I guess I’ll just have to swallow hard the next time and say something like, “You look familiar and I should know you, but can you help out an old man?” Maybe that would do it with enough humor that it would get us past the awkward part of my not remembering.

Work Appreciation

Years ago, in another life, I worked EMS in Harper County as an EMT. We took call from time to time, and could be called out on a moment’s notice at any time, day or night. Most of the time we dealt with the more routine things, but once in awhile we’d deal with a car wreck, fire involving people, car-train collisions, medical emergencies, or other more serious medical or trauma issues.
As part of what we did, when we had information on a patient we were bringing in to the hospital, we’d call the hospital by radio and give preliminary medical information to the staff there so they could prepare for the arrival of the patient by having the equipment, medications, and other needs already there. Because it was a small hospital, the charge nurse on duty was literally in charge of the hospital, and would often answer the radio and communicate with the ambulance crew. That communication was vital, and we knew it was important that we all be on the same page, especially if the patient was seriously ill or had major trauma.
I was always set at ease when I called in a report and Lisa would answer. I always knew that everything would be fine. Lisa would be ready, would have staff ready, equipment and supplies handy, and that things would go well. She was competent, efficient, intelligent, and organized. She knew what she was doing, knew how to think on her feet, and knew how to make decisions.
Some other nurses could have learned a lot by just opening their eyes and watching her for a day or two. Sometimes I wished they would, because some nurses were just not organized and seemed to never quite be totally in the present tense.
Lisa gave me a good feeling when she answered the other end of the radio. I told her so more than once. Have you told anyone recently that they’ve done a good job for you? You might not supervise anyone at work, but you do have people work for you. The waitress, the clerk, or someone at the bank who helps you all work for you. Let them know how much you appreciate their work.

Today and Tomorrow

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day. The weather was like that in mid to late April, even though it’s February. We’ll not have this kind of weather continue, as rain is coming tomorrow and Monday, they say. But today couldn’t have been nicer or better.
Everyone, it seems, was outside today doing something. The trail in the park behind our house was busy both with those who walked and those who rode. No, they don’t allow ATV’s. We saw riders today on mules, ambling along the trail.
People were out in their yards with their kids, working in their garages, washing their cars, and doing things people do on a nice day. Most folks seemed to be a little friendlier than normal. And the prospect of longer days, spring, and the coming months of the year just make everyone sort of perk up.
We’ll be going to see my uncle tomorrow. It’s his 90th birthday and his daughter has planned a come-and-go reception for him tomorrow. He’s a joy to be with and seems to enjoy life. He was a farmer all his life, and never was much for mucky-muck or high class stuff. He’s always been a down-to-earth, simple man.
Yet he has worked wonders with wood, carved beautiful things, and has done taxidermy. He has had an invaluable impact on the lives of many, having taught both adults and children in church. He has a wisdom that comes from knowledge of and observation of the world around him, and carries too a wisdom that comes from a relationship with his Creator. He has a love for the creation and all of God's creatures, whether human or animal. He maintains a curiosity and a sense of wonder about the world and about God that amaze me.
We are blessed to have him in the family, and it is a privilege for me to go tomorrow and in some small way help him celebrate 90 years in this life.

Give God a Chance

Today our nephew’s fiancé came to our home to stay in the spare bedroom in the basement for a few weeks while they finalize wedding plans and get things ready to go for their married lives here in the Wichita area. We offered to have her stay some time ago and have been looking forward to being able to help out. Her mother is also staying with us for the weekend, having driven down here with her from their home in Wisconsin.
We enjoy being able to do things like this, and hope that their stay with us will be comfortable and pleasant. We aren’t great entertainers, preferring instead to have our house guests just find what they need and make themselves at home.
Our “things” aren’t that important to us. We have things that we enjoy; we have things that have sentimental value; we have things that make our lives pleasant. But all of those things don’t provide us with what we truly need for life and living. So they are like tools to us. They are here for us to use. We have them so we can make others’ lives more enjoyable and so…yes, I’ll be honest here…we can let others know that we live by a different standard.
Christianity (not religion) is that standard. We put out what I consider to be poor, weak efforts at making this world a better place and telling others about the love of God. But we also believe that God takes those poor, weak efforts and multiplies them, making them work out to His glory.
Now you may think that’s all a bunch of garbage, and you’re entitled to your opinion. However, if you’ve never tried it, how do you know what it is? Have you ever really looked objectively at Christianity? At God? At a way of life and living that offers hope, peace, and love? I thought so.
However you look at life and living, know that the Author and Creator of life loves you and desires a relationship with you that is beyond anything you can think or know. Give God a chance.

So the close of another Sunday rapidly descends. Although this day is the first day of the calendar week, for many of us tomorrow will actually seem like the first day of the week because it is the first day of a work week.
Some enjoy the coming of the work week because they like their jobs, like their work environment, and take pride in a job well done. Others are ambivalent about their jobs and the work week is just something that happens regularly. Still others don’t really like their work, greatly dreading the start of the work week.
I’ll not tell you where I fall in, but will only say that there are things in my life right now that are more important than work. I like the job well enough. The hours are good, the environment is friendly, and the pay is fine. I’m just at the stage in life where work isn’t all there is to life. I’ve been there, done that. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. There are experiences of life that are more challenging than anything work can throw at me, so the challenge of my work isn’t where it’s at, either.
Some of you reading this know what the term “knob-farkeler” means (Yes, I know, the spellchecker doesn’t like that word. It suggests “darkener”, “foreleg”, or “fickler.”). For those that don’t, the term is a family expression which that means that things are working somehow to make things turn out in a certain way. We “borrowed” the term from the dice game by the same name. Our family chooses to use that expression to mean that God is working in someone’s life.
I get the rather unsettling (although not in a bad way) idea that there is some knob-farkeling (spellchecker: parceling, freckling, barreling) going on, and that there is some setting-up of things by Someone that will result in yet another, shall I say, adventure in my journey through space-time.
Now, I don’t know that’s true, but I’m not a young man any more. I’ve lived life, and believe that with maturity and observation come a kind of sense that starts nudging, picking, and poking when such things are happening. That poking and nudging has begun. I can’t explain it…but my antennae are perking up, fine-tuned to pick up the vibes.
Lord knows I’ve had enough adventures. And bless her heart, my lovely wife has gone on many of them with me. Thankfully I don’t see that this farkeling has to do with job loss or moving, although I don’t know for sure. I do know that whatever happens, we will be fine and things will work out; they always have.
I don’t claim to know (or want to know) the future. I’m not obsessed by what may or may not happen. I’m more concerned about the here and now and whether I’m in the place where I’m supposed to be, doing the thing I’m supposed to do. It’s been a great ride so far, and I’m looking forward to what is ahead, however far or near those events may be.


All I Ever Have to Be
By Amy Grant

When the weight of all my dreams
Is resting heavy on my head,
And the thoughtful words of health and hope
Have all been nicely said.

But I'm still hurting,
Wondering if I'll ever be
The one I think I am.

I think I am.

Then you gently re-remind me
That you've made me from the first,
And the more I try to be the best
The more I get the worst.

And I realize the good in me,
Is only there because of who you are.

Who you are...

And all I ever have to be
Is what you've made me.
Any more or less would be a step
Out of your plan.

As you daily recreate me,
Help me always keep in mind
That I only have to do
What I can find.

And all I ever have to be
All I have to be
All I ever have to be
Is what you've made me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohkdMXx_JlQ

More Thoughts

I've had a chance to think of a few things this weekend. In an effort to let you get "inside my head" (sometimes dangerous, I know), I'll tell you what some of those things were that came to my mind.
Family provides a kind of grounding that cannot be obtained from any other source.
Church family provides a different, but no less important grounding that cannot be obtained from any other source.
FCC Chairman Minow was right in 1961. Television was a vast wasteland then. It hasn't improved in the last 48 years.
Sometimes, I wonder if we'd be better off if we didn't borrow the hundreds of billions of dollars and just let the recession run its course.
What happened to the coffee pot that sat on the stove in Matt Dillon's (Gunsmoke) jail?
Some people seem to have more than their share of bad things that happen to them.
I don't tell people that I love them.
I haven't a clue what it's like to lose a child. I can only imagine the pain and sorrow.
Pizza sounds good.
Drifting off into an afternoon nap is probably one of the most pleasant things a body can do.
Waking from that nap can be one of the more unpleasant tasks.
I don't tell people that I love them.
Just having one's spouse in the house brings about a kind of peace that can't be found any other way.
Hillary was right. It does indeed take a village to raise a child. (And no, that's not a socialist...in the bad sense of the word...viewpoint.)
I have to wonder how many people I know who are literally one paycheck away from financial ruin.
What happened to the great comedians? Jerry Seinfeld and Ray Romano don't hold a candle to Red Skelton, Bud Abbot and Lou Costello, Jackie Gleason, or Flip Wilson (to say nothing of many others I could mention).
While on entertainment, I wonder how many people living today know who Jimmy
Durante is.
I don't tell people that I love them.
Christian service isn't glamorous or glorious, but is an everyday, every hour thing.
If this life is all there is, what meaning is there to that?
How much longer will we be able to remain where we are and in the jobs that we are in?
What is it like to be 90 years old?
I am cheering for Mr. Obama. I hope he doesn't forget where he came from or allow himself to be overly polluted with the stench of politics as usual.
I'm actually somewhat excited about work this week. I don't know why.
I don't tell people that I love them.

The Crown

I came to work for an 8am meeting this morning. During the meeting they had bagels. As I was chewing on a bagel, I heard (and felt) this rather sickening "ccrrraaccckkk!!" in my mouth.
I had broken a tooth. Not chipped. Not cracked. But broken. I could wiggle part of the tooth independently of the other part. Upper right, fourth one from the middle. I thought it was one that I knew already had a small crack in it, but no, this is a brand new one. The one with the old crack is right behind this one, and needs a crown any day.
In pain, I call the dentist (Dr. Dakin). The woman says, "How soon can you get here?" I say, "In 20 minutes." She says, "We had a cancellation, and if you can get here, we can fix you up this morning."
Needless to say, I jumped (so to speak) at the chance to minimize the length of time I was in pain. I go into the office, and am ushered to the chair in just a couple of minutes (after they ascertain that, although I have no insurance, I can pay the bill). The woman asks how I am and if I'm comfortable. Yeah, well, what else does she really not wanna know? I ask if the head rest can be lengthened, and they take care of that. I am lowered until I think the back of my head will hit the floor.
The dentist makes his grand appearance and shakes my hand, grateful that he has a paying customer after all. He looks at the tooth and says, "Let's hope that the break radiated from the middle to the outer part of the tooth above the gum line, because if it cracked straight up the middle, we'll have to extract it and I'll need to make a bridge for you."
I slink even lower in the chair, certain that the worst has happened. I have visions of blood, gauze packing, pain pills, and a day off at home. Dr. Dakin grabs hold of the inside part of the tooth and pulls slightly. The chunk comes out and falls onto the back of my tongue. They suck it out with the suction thingy.
He looks at it again. "Hmm," he says. "Well, it radiated outward, so I think I can crown it."
Grateful for the small blessings, I said, "OK, let's do it." He dopes me up, grinds away, and makes computer images of what is left of the tooth. He sends all the info to his computer and crown-grinder and tells me to have a seat in the waiting room for about 30 minutes.
I go to the waiting room, doped up. I look for a magazine. There's one "Consumer Reports" that some woman is hogging. There is a magazine in the rack dated 1994. All the others are ragged "Woman's Day" or some other such tripe. No man stuff. No Reader's Digest. No more Consumer Reports. Sigh.
I decide to just sit there and wait. So I just sit there and wait. About 30 minutes later, the woman comes out, smiles, and says, "John, we're ready." So I go back and the Dr. tries my new crown on for size. When he pulls it off, he drops it and it falls onto the back of my tongue. My immediate reaction was to swallow, but fortunately, I was able to control that. He quickly sticks his instrument down there and finds it, bringing it up from the abyss, but never saying anything. I know, though, that he was sweating it for a minute or two.
He farkels with grinding it here and there, trying it on, etc., about 10 minutes, then shows it to me. I'm amazed at how big it is. He dries my tooth (which by this time is an exercise in pain, as the anesthetic has worn off, but I don't want any more), cements on the new crown, grinds some more, and I'm done.
So, two hours (and $750...thank heavens for HSA's) later, I am the proud owner of a new crown, courtesy of a bagel.
Isn't it wonderful!! Crowns made while you wait. No more wax impressions, temporaries that come off, waiting a week or more, etc. Of course, the cost is something to consider. When I went in last fall, the crown for the old cracked tooth was going to be $700. Now this year it went to $750. I wonder what happened that he had to up his price by 8 percent or so.
In any event, things are getting back to normal; my mouth feels like a truck drove through the right side, and I'm ready for the weekend.

Winners All...No Losers

Over the Christmas holiday, we went to my brother's place for dinner. Most of the Wichita family was there...sis and her extended family, my brother's daughters, and our sons and their families. We did the things we usually do at a gathering such as this. We ate, visited, played games, ate, and visited. A good time was had by all.
One thing we did, though, that I really enjoyed for more than one reason was later in the afternoon, we went outside and had a touch football game for awhile, then played workup softball.
This may not seem like much, but I think the last time we did this was 8 years ago in the family's home town, on the home place, just before we moved away from there. We went out into the patch (as we called it), set up some bases, and played workup softball after Thanksgiving dinner 2000.
We aren't very good. We don't try to kill the ball. In fact, we usually have a rule that if the ball goes so far into the outfield, it's an out. That saves us out of shape oldsters from having to shag balls all the time and levels the field for all.
The point isn't who wins or loses. The point is doing something that we've done as a family over the years and keeping the tradition alive. And this last time, we had some newer members of the family that played with us. We welcome them and hope they can play workup with us for a long time to come.
However, there will come a time when we won't be able to play workup or divide up and play football. There will come a time when those things will be memories, just as the home place now is a memory. But at least for now, we can still throw a softball. We can still work up fancy schmancy football plays (that seldom work as planned). And we can cement the memories and familial relationships that have made this life so extra special for us all.

New President

Mr. Obama is the President of the United States. Now, that isn't news for most of you, and for some, it may even be bad news. But the fact is that he is the President, and we now have, for the first time in history, an African-American President. Just as many have already said, I never expected to see this day. Since I am Caucasian, I never put the personal emphasis on it as some have, but I have always been interested in things like this.
I recall as a child in the 1950's, growing up in a small, white community. I recall hearing the stirrings of the civil rights movement, and in the 1960's some of the tragedies of that time. I recall being somewhat confused by it all. After all, I didn't have to find a restroom that said "colored" on the door, or be careful where I went to conduct business. It wasn't that I was racist...I just didn't have an understanding of what was really going on.
I also recall as a child in the 1950's, when Dad ran cattle and an African-American veterinarian came to our town. We never talked much of it, and most of the people in the community pretty much left them alone, but Dad acted like there was nothing out of the ordinary in having Dr. Hurley treat his cattle.
I learned something from that experience of watching my father and this good doctor interact and transact business with one-another. And I suspect that most of us learned about race and race relations in exactly the same way. Fathers and mothers teach through their actions and words much more than they may ever know. Little eyes are watching and little ears are hearing, and little brains absorb it all.
Like it or not, Democrat or Republican, we have an obligation to support the President and to do all we can to make this republic all it can be. We have an obligation to pray for those in authority. And we have an obligation to be good citizens, pay our taxes, petition our government, and participate in the solution rather than remain part of the problem.
May God bless Barack Obama.

Crows and Memories

I went to the restaurant this morning to have breakfast with my sister. It’s Saturday, and I sometimes go out for breakfast on Saturday. I parked in the lot and got out of the pickup. No sooner had I gotten out than I heard a loud “caw, caw” from above. A crow had perched on the parking lot light and was eyeing me carefully, letting me know that he was there.
I muttered, “Yeah, I see you,” as I went on into the restaurant. He cawed at me all the way into the restaurant.
Now, I don’t know that most people would make much of that, but I had the thought that even though I was in the restaurant parking lot where no one knew me (or cared that I was there), here was this pair of eyes watching my every move from atop a lamp post.
Wiki says that those caws were probably the crow marking out his territory. I presume that he was letting me know that I was not welcome there, and to move on, which I did.
Many animals have taken to the city and have become accustomed to the noise, vehicles, people, and buildings. We don’t often see them, but they are there nevertheless. All manner of snakes, rodents, and small animals inhabit yards, brushy areas, and flower beds. Raccoons, opossums (opossii??), skunks, rabbits, and other larger animals flourish. And although some birds are driven out, others take their place. Crow, starlings, sparrows, robins and others are avian neighbors in most city areas.
Of course, we also have the usual assortment of spiders, roaches, and other insects that sometimes make our lives more complicated. I’ve always liked spiders, however, and particularly enjoy the fall of the year when the orb spider makes large webs around homes and in yards. I continue to be amazed at the ability of that spider to be a structural engineer, manufacturer, builder, and consumer all in the same package.
The world around us, even in the city, can be awe-inspiring and can open our eyes to something greater than ourselves. One of these days, I’ll again hear the hooting of a great horned owl, just as I have for most of my life. It’s one of those sounds that for me carries with it a flood of memory and emotion of times past and gone. Although I like to think I’m a forward-looking person, I also enjoy the memories that God has given me. But that’s for another blog….

On The Way

Well, I guess I need to draw myself up and blog again. I chastise others for not blogging and now find myself more days down than I care to have between blogs. I don't know, though, it was kind of nice to take a brief break, especially since I haven't been feeling well the last couple of weeks.
You may well know what that's like; you get some viral bug that settles in your sinuses, then seems to migrate to the various parts of your body that cause the most grief for you when disturbed. It seems those bugs can't settle in your earlobe or your hair; no, they have to lodge in your intestinal tract, you lungs, or your sinuses. I was going to say "Stupid bugs," but that isn't true at all. They seem to know how to be one step ahead of the latest medicines and two steps ahead of the home cures.
Life continues, even when you'd much rather it just all stop until you're feeling better. Meetings, work, church, and all the rest just continue on, and your choice is whether or not you're going to submit to the bugs and miss them all or endure in spite of them. Sometimes one can endure. Often the bugs win, though, and whether we like it or not, our bodies say, "I'm not taking another step. I think I'll just lie down right here."
On a more serious note, one of these days when my body says it's going to lie down right here, it won't get up again. It'll be the final curtain call. I still don't know quite what I think about that, but I continue to become more and more enamored with the idea that there is a better life ahead where the bugs not only don't win, they don't even exist. My uncle signs off his blogs with "Pilgrim on the way." He may or may not be closer to wherever "on the way" takes him, but I know we both agree that what is there is so much better than what is here....

The Present Tense

Just as it has for eons past, the new year really doesn’t look any different from the old. One must get used to the idea of rolling the calendar year number to the next digit upwards, and must get used to the idea of yet another year falling away, but that’s all a mental exercise, and not an observation of nature.

Nature, it seems, regards this day as any other. “This is the day the Lord has made.” The emphasis, it seems, is in the here and now. The past is for learning and experience. The future has not yet taken place. Here and now is the time that is of importance.

Recently, I’ve begun to think of the verse of Christian scripture quoted above in a little different light from what I’ve normally thought. What if God continually “unfolds” the present tense to each one of us on a continuous basis? What if God continuously creates a unique present tense for each one of His created beings? What if we can somehow visualize God unfolding or unrolling the present tense before us in real time in an act of supreme and loving continuous creation and renewal?

That notion kind of changes things, at least for me. Gone are the notions that God created everything (or didn’t create at all) and now just sits back and watches what happens. Done is the idea that God doesn’t care about the mundane and routine of my life. Finished is the concept of God taking a hands-off attitude toward His creation.

Now I can better understand passages such as John 5:17 where Jesus says that His Father is working “even unto now”. I can better grasp the idea that God intervenes in the lives of man, and that He causes “all things to work together for the good (Romans 8:28). And it is more comforting to me now when I read that the very hairs of my head are numbered, and that “He cares for” me (I Peter 5:7).

I don’t know if that concept (where God creates and unfolds a unique present tense for each of us) is valid or not. However, I choose to believe it now because of what it does for my faith and because of how that concept brings to life passages of Christian scripture that heretofore have been somewhat muddled and unclear. So when and if you hear me say something about God “unfolding the present tense,” you’ll have an idea what I’m saying and why. And if it helps you in any way, so much the better.

The Holidays

I’ve sat down to write several times these last couple of days, but it just hasn’t come out. I’ve wanted to write about the holidays and of the events of the days and my feelings about them, but it just hasn’t been able to come out. I’ve puzzled over why I’m not able to put into words what is inside, since I’ve not had this problem to a great extent before now.
We attended evening church today. Normally, we have small group, but that isn’t meeting over the holidays, so we went to the evening services. It’s a small gathering, and there weren’t over about 25 people there. We sang, prayed, and heard a lesson from Nehemiah about worship. These services hark back to the older style of worship, as we sing from older song books, sing the old songs, and have a more traditional service than we usually have on Sunday morning.
I don’t know why, but as I sat there this evening listening to Jerry talk about Nehemiah and worship, I decided that the reason why I was having so much trouble writing (yes, I was listening to the sermon, too) about the holidays was that I always started writing about the wrong thing.
I’d start writing about what we did, what we ate, or where we went, but that always fell flat after just a sentence or two. What I need to write about is the reason we had such a good time this holiday season…family.
It was family that made the holidays what they were (and are). What we did, where we went, and what we ate are a small part of that, but it’s who we were with that really made it something special. Without family, our holidays are nothing more than just another day to scratch off on the calendar in a seeming endless parade of days and nights.
I’ve been there and done that. Long years ago, I had a job that required me to work some holidays. Some years I actually volunteered to work those days just so I wouldn’t have to face the holiday alone. It was just another day for me…just like any other. It was that way not because I had to work, but because there was no family around and no way to be with family.
Our Kansas family has 18 to 20 members, depending on who is counted and who is not. If everyone (including adopted sons, girl friends and boy friends, other hangers-on, etc.) is counted, I think there are 20. Each one is special. Each one is valued. Each one is unique. Each one is loved. And each one helped make the holidays special for the others.

Peace and Quiet

I am taken by the change in the environment of this house today compared with yesterday. Oh, I know that when 17 or 18 people invade a home that one can't expect anything approaching peace and quiet. And it wasn't at all peaceful and quiet yesterday. We had a good time being together.
Today, however, it's just me. Late this morning, I was puttering around the house. No TV, no radio, nothing but just me. The house seemed so...well, empty.
That's a good thing, I think. To feel an emptiness when loved ones are not around is a good thing. Peace and quiet is fine at times, but we long for companionship, company, and being with others. I'm glad to have the quiet time, but I'm even more pleased that I enjoy the company of my family and friends.

Today

Today is Christmas Day. It was declared to be a Federal holiday in 1870 by President Grant. However, it has been celebrated for hundreds of years prior, and has its true origins in rather murky areas of history. The story of the Christmas holiday and of Christmas day is cloaked in legend, story-telling, fact, history, and the inevitable twisting of that fact and history to meet some end.
No matter. The day is what we make of it in the here and now. Never mind whether or not our nation was founded on Christian principles. No matter whether or not the holiday was originally a festival day in some pagan sense. Not important is whether or not the Catholics (or Lutherans or Orthodox or whoever) thought the day was to be observed.
What is important is the here and now, and what we make of the day today...this year. You may choose to not celebrate the day. You may or may not be a believer or follower of Jesus and come to this conclusion. That's OK. You may have no connection with Jesus or any religion, yet you may wish to celebrate the day in all the secular fullness that can be had. That's OK, too.
That's all OK with me because, you see, what I am concerned with is how I celebrate the day (or not). It pleases me when others think as I do and celebrate it as I do, but why should I get bent out of shape if someone decides that the birth of Jesus should not be celebrated in this way? Why should I be concerned if someone should decide to make this a purely secular day for themselves?
The answer is, I shouldn't. My concern, rather, should be as it should be each day of the year. Am I living my life so that others know that I am a follower of Jesus? Am I living in such a way that Jesus is made known to others and I can be someone who can tell others who wish to know the good news of God Incarnate?
We who are Christians tend to get bogged down in the relatively inconsequential and forget what our responsibility is to those who do not know the story of God and how immensely He loves humanity. Of course, it's easier to rail against the secularization of Christmas for a month or so at the end of the year than it is to display the love of Jesus every day of the year.
Yes, Christmas is what we make it, here and now and in every here and now to come. The story of God as a baby born without human father in a barn in a nondescript rural area of a small country in the Middle East is at once remarkable, unbelievable, faith-building, challenging, and breath-taking. Take the time this year to read or hear it again, or perhaps hear it for the first time. Let it enter into your consciousness and exercise your simple faith.