You Can Always Say You KNOW

My weather apps do a great job of telling me the weather. They are not always right but I have made allowances for that. Yesterday, one of them said at my location that it was raining. I went outside and it was not, I repeat, not raining.

If you take things literally as I often do, you will either make accommodations, some would say excuses, or you will forever expect every word someone or some app to be true. They said it, so it must be true.

What changed?

When flying around Fort Hood in central Texas we had a radio channel where we could call in and talk with live weather forecasters. Fort Hood is a massive chunk of land, 340 square miles I believe, so the weather from north to south, east to west could be radically different across the area.

Sometimes on rare occasions your life and that of your crew and passengers depended on accurate weather info. More than once we entered storms where you couldn’t see more than a 100 feet in any direction. I’m pretty sure we weren’t supposed to be in that position. But we were. And it would get pretty hairy. You had to make a safety decision about continuing the mission and a call to the Air Force weather guys was just the help you needed. They never let me down.

The trust I had then has never been repeated. Granted, they were only telling you about the weather in your area for the next 2 or 3 hours but I look at apps that tell you incorrectly the weather for the next 5 minutes to ten or more days.

I still like weather people, I just don’t plan my outdoor day by their words. That is one of those accommodations I mentioned. In fact, I often believe that if they say it’s going to be partly cloudy, it will turn out to be mostly sunny. Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one.

Until you are actually witness to the weather, saying you Know what it is like out there isn’t a true witness. You say it’s snowing because the app says it’s snowing and you can go outside and witness no snow. Something is amiss with claiming that you Know something when you are not a first hand witness. We have taken secondary witnesses and tertiary witnesses as first hand witnesses, or even AI witnesses. We are losing the check it out for myself idea of scientific inquiry.

This I Know.

Research Your Life

For years, I used to think about three things. Cars, Computers and Health. I thought about them because they were either expensive to buy or expensive to maintain or both. They still are for the most part. Now computers maybe not as much and you get a lot more out of a similar priced computer today than say the Tandy Radio Shack model I paid $1500.00 for. I still think they are overly expensive but you could try to persuade me otherwise and I might agree with you some.

Cars on the other hand, no, I would not move in that direction because, I mean, have you tried to buy a new car lately? Or anytime in the last 30 years or so for that matter. I’m not sure, but I think I have bought maybe 4 or 5 new cars in my whole life, and all of that 30 years ago or more. Why? you might ask. Because I did research into the difference between new car costs and used car costs and how quickly a new car depreciates, and how much money you spend on maintenance for a used car and how you might save money if you fix the car yourself.

This was also the pattern I learned from my father. Fix what you can fix and then turn it over to the repair shop. So we changed radiators, alternators, tires and brakes and minor repairs like that. If the engine went bad, it was probably time for a new to us used car to replace it.

He did his research and learned how to fix things.

In order to be like this, you have to take responsibility for your own knowledge and for the source of that knowledge. And you have to know your limitations. You can’t fix everything on the car, especially these days. And if you have lots of money, you might not care to get your hands dirty at all, even changing something as simple as a windshield wiper. But having lots of money doesn’t help you to learn more about your life in this case, it just means you don’t have to do something that you can pay someone else to do. That’s a nice bit of luxury that we all can enjoy today, as long as we have money to cover it. But what have you learned?

The downside of having that money is that we never really learn to research for ourself what is going on, with Cars or Computers or Health, or now I would like to complicate it, just about anything else that is important in our lives like family or economics or political leadership or our future welfare or how late will I have to retire in life because I have very little in my retirement fund? And one of the big questions about retirement goes back to health, will I have enough to retire on to pay my cost of housing and food and health care?

To many of us, most of the above doesn’t seem to matter much. That is, until you wake up one day and it really does matter. Then a crisis of health or economy hits us head on and we have not done the research to get though the crisis with a high quality of life on the back side.

When my wife got cancer, the whole trajectory of her life changed, in ways I could write a book about. But research was the foundation of that change. She dug into her type of cancer and the treatment for that cancer and what kind of success she could attain from following different kinds of advice about treating that cancer. Research is what distinguishes the successful from the average life or even inadequate life.

Search, research and source your research. All this is another way of saying, fall in love and become an expert in Learning again, no matter your age. Your life will thank you for it.

Applying Yourself In Old Age

I gave quite a bit of thought to how I might apply myself to life after I retired. Mind you, I didn’t die on that retirement day, only moved into a new phase. If not death then, a passing of sorts took place. A door closed and a new one opened.

I had a business card made up many years ago with a red barn on the plains. Added to this serene picture were a phone number, an email, and two words, Pastor/Writer.

I had no idea many years ago when I designed that card that I actually retire one day and still do what I did for so many years; write messages of encouragement and encourage people in their day to day living pastorally. The beat goes on it seems.

I don’t know when I realized I was a writer but it had a lot to do with studying and writing a weekly sermon. There were other writing activities as well, but my most important writing was that of the pulpit sermon. As you can tell, I’ve continued that is this social media form somehat, allthough I quote scripture less and offer more gentle direction than I often did in the sermon.

And to continue the pastoral work I simply decided to turn over my daily rountines to trying to let Jesus have His way with me and by extension, those I come across each day. Practicing His Presence you could say.

So my business card still works to identify me missionally and purposefully. I apply it every day. I do not worry as to the quality or quantity of the application because that is in His hands. He orders my steps and prepares me to take them. As always, I wish I could have done better or done more, but I finish almost every day feeling well applied.

What will your business card look like at 65 or 75? I suggest you give it some thought.

Pain Avoidance

"The art of life is the art of avoiding pain."

Thomas Jefferson

I'm not sure what kind of pain Jefferson was writing about when he wrote this parting letter to his lover Maria Cosway but I'd venture to say it was more than physical pain. It appears that Jefferson was becoming more of an Epicurean by this time and less Stoical. The stoics would take issue with the idea of avoiding pain and suggest you learn how to master it I suspect. Jefferson seems to have gone soft in the head as it were over time, not really as much of an adventurer or rugged as some of the other political elites. Nonetheless, there is something to be said for avoiding pain, wouldn't you say.

What's Government Good For?

“If Men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.”

―James Madison

If we take Madison at his word, government is to control its citizens. Then he goes on to say that government is to control itself. That’s a lot of control I would say. And the more important question, is it working to the benefit of all. Another important question, Why aren’t we angels? Or at least angel like.

Bear Watching-Or I Don't See No Bear

Many nights I can walk out my front door and meet up with a pair of bears, named Big Bear and Little Bear. One is more shy than the other it seems because I don’t often see her as well as the other Bigger Bear.

If you and I were standing next to each other and looking out for the Bears, you and would find it fairly easy to meet Big Bear, often called Ursa Major. She is not shy, in fact, in most city spaces, she is quite visible and social. Now her baby, or little one, or Ursa Minor, not so much. I could show you the North Star and tell you that is part of the Little Dipper, Ursa Minor. You might see it, you might not. Even if you did see it, you probably would see the other 6 stars that make up the baby bear body. Say that a bunch of times fast.

I know it’s there, I’ve seen it with my own eyes many times before, all seven stars in fact. Text books and scientists have confirmed it and many other observers as well. But you don’t see it.

At this point, you have some choices, do you believe in what you can’t see? Because someone told me so, or they promise that one day I will see it? Or it’s in learned books? Do I lie and say, Oh, Yea, I see it now, when really I didn’t see a thing? Do I say, whatever man, glad you see it but I don’t see it. Or do you suggest that we go over to the observatory to try to see it, or anyone of a dozen other questions or ideas.

This little exercise is an attempt to try an understand what/who we will put our trust in. Do you listen to trusted resources more than random resources and why? I tend to. Do you quit at the first sign of divergence from someone’s guidance or do you go on to the next step? Do you try something else or do you dismiss your source or resource? Do you take an opposing view such as, no way is there another Bear in the air up there, there is only one. My eyes don’t lie.

Well, you get my point, I hope. There is a lot of stuff that is being said these days, right? More than when I was growing up, that’s for sure. What is your way of figuring out how to respond to all that stuff?

Guy standing on corner in New York City, lots of people walking by and they see him clapping so loudly that you can’t ignore him. New Yorkers are good at ignoring people like him, just put their heads down and keep moving on. But someone, probably not a New Yorker comes along and wonders what the guys is clapping about. Hey buddy, what are you clapping for? I’m keeping the elephants away he says. Elephant, I don’t see no elephants around here, says the tourista guy. Exactly says the clapper guy and goes on clapping.

I suppose you could say they wee both right, but I wouldn’t. I would want to dig a little deeper before I thought poorly or proudly about them crazy New Yorkers. Anyhow, if it’s not cloudy tonight, give the Bear thing a shot. I will if you will.

Greco-Roman Ethosphere is the Birthplace of America

Somewhere in the millennium of the Greek democracies and the Roman power and politics, was the seed of US philosophy and political structures. Our founding fathers were motivated mostly by Greek ideas about politics born of democracy and nation building born of Roman power. Jefferson was keen on Roman legal strengths more than the others perhaps and maybe this is why he is often seen as the president that moved America to the west at a rapid pace.

The other founders were very well versed in democratic ideas, more so from Greece. And it fell to them to craft together our current forms of government and political culture. They took their efforts seriously and used every bit of knowledge about the good and the bad of other cultures to craft the Constitution.

A student of those times and more specifically the U.S. Constitution looks at current culture in the U.S. and has to wonder what happened and where are we going? There are at least 3 fault lines when it comes to this subject of the constitution. The framers of this document started from a logical and pragmatic belief that good government could be had, at least for a season. Adam’s was not so sure it would last very long, but he seemed to enjoy his pragmatic pessimism in humanity. Hamilton considered it would go on for longer if we just gave it the right balance and checks and distribution of power. Washington wanted to make sure that no one could become King and tyrant and the rest took on lawyerly like roles in just trying to get all the delegates to agree on the document we call the Constitution.

I wonder quite a bit, perhaps too much, as to what they would think of what we have done with their work? Let’s say, we had another Constitutional Convention Checkup and Catchup meeting. What would we argue about and rack our brains over as to what they predicted would happen and what warnings or guidance they might give us today for the the further health of the Constitution as it guides our country into the future.

On an individual level, we are all and each a constituent being served by and serving for that document. We are knowingly or in many cases unknowingly bound by it. It still is the supreme law of the land. We ive within the framework of those laws.

That can be troubling to so many today because they simply don’t agree with those laws, or the interpretation of those laws. As long as they can go on living by ignoring those laws, that seems to work for them. But when those laws cut across their path, they take umbrage and discontent with those laws and disconnect with our society rises up. We all feel that discontent around us and we may not know why its there or how to address it, but we know its around us.

Will we basically ignore the ethos of the founders and replace it with a more current ethos or will we go back and rediscover what they accomplished and more importantly why they accomplished so much. I don’t think our current culture is set up to go back and learn from that history. Such a pedantic exercise seems unnecessary at best and pointless or even destructive at worst.

There is a wonderful garden in Israel called Neot Kedumim. It means something like taking the old and restarting it, refreshing it to move forward with the new. The garden takes the old lifestyle of the ancient Bible naturalists and people that lived so close to the land and harvest and try to open up those principles into new policies for life today.

To me, Principles never change. It’s the Policies that change. The Preferences change over night sometimes, Policies take a bit longer to change and Principles remain the same. We rarely see major western countries change their principles such as freedom and liberty. But the policies and preferences and procedures are all up for grabs. And in some cases, the principles are in jeopardy as well.

This then, this 4P ethos of using these Principles to give us a good foundation for the other Ps is at stake right now, right here. We are being moved along by currents and winds that are taking us into the unknown. We would do well to reexamine how we got this far and where we should be going, not where the current weather patterns are taking us. Perhaps a trip to Greece is in order, virtual or otherwise.

Mobility Counters Misery

For over two years now, getting close to three actually, I have fought to stay mobile and active and moving around. Sometimes the pain in my chest was so heavy that I would struggle to breathe as I went up a 50 foot climb behind my house. That lasted for several months and I got over that. When a virus got ahold of me it would set me back for a week or ten days, that happened several times. A year ago, a golfing instructor was teaching me how to swing through my hips and turn with the golf ball swing. I still feel pain from that day, mostly gone but a whole year to get back to some sort of base line. A week ago, one of my calf muscles went into spasms and severe pain. I’ve been healing from that, too slowly but at least some healing.

All the while, all these things really mess up my daily activities and routines. They are routines built around body movement and brain usage. The various pains or illnesses lay me up and make my brain too tired to use.

Now, it’s not like this every day, but enough of them to feel like it is. And it’s not as bad all the time as I made it sound, but bad enough to feel like it’s pretty bad. And yes, I’m way better than I was after my stroke.

It’s the ability to feel good and to move and to process that I appreciate so much these days because I’ve had days when I just didn’t have that mobility and thinkability. I’m not frightened easily but there have been some pretty frightful days. And much of it takes me away from having fun with my sweetheart as we walk every morning around the lake behind our home.

I had a feeling that hasn't’ gone away in the last three years. I call it the First Bite feeling. It’s like someone has been building up this wonderful food dish, a gastric event, which you’ve never had before or even imagined you would have. The food is prepared, you sit down, fork up, napkin tucked in, taste buds all firing and then you place that first morsel on your tongue and you savor it and it’s just wonderful.

I still have that First Bite feeling every day. I had a sandwich the day after my stroke and it was so good, unbelievably good. I had that same sandwich many hundreds of times before my stroke, but now, after the life changing event, every bite is a First Bite event. Years ago after a visit to the dentist where he had every size of pliers in my my mouth he could fit in there, I lost my sense of smell, and along with it, my sense of taste for over two months. I was never more miserable than those two months where I thought I might never taste corn on the cob or chocolate, or peach pie again. It frightened me a lot, depressed me a lot. But it came back. There wasn’t much I could do except wait for it to come back.

It’s the same way with mobility for the most part. I get pretty discouraged when I lose mobility because I am so crazy curious about what’s outside my front and back doors that I can’t stand being cooped up for more than a day or two. And that first moment when I can walk again, or shuffle up the hill is like a First Movement moment. I am so impatient for it, that I try too hard to make it come back before my body has healed enough and I end up causing more trouble for myself. I eventually heal, at least I always have in the past, but man, it sure is hard to wait.

At some point, in the next few days or week, I’ll be back at it, probably not skipping or dancing around the lake, but that First Movement moment is not far away. I can’t wait, as they say. I’m ready to get my mobility back, all the way back.

Law And Values and Love

Law is a snapshot of what we value. We have so many laws, over 30,000 of them from the US Congress alone since we began as a Constitutional Republic. Big documents full of laws to be clear. That means we have codified a lot of things that we value. I’ve always found Biblical Law interesting. It too, is a collection of underlying values expressed as law or codes.

There are not as many laws in the Bible, but still quite a few. But they get down to a set of basic laws, or Core laws, that reflect Core Values, called the Ten Commandments. You break those laws and you seem to be really tanking in your core values.

The thing about values though, not everybody shares them at the same time in the same way, and may never feel that their core values match up with others core values. And then I may have a core value that is higher up on my list than yours.

Here are the last 6,

Honor your father and your mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet.

Now are these equal or similar or as consequential to each other? In other words, should the penalties for each of these laws be the same weight?

Should you be put to death if you murder someone? Perhaps, maybe, probably, maybe not? And then should you be put to death if you lie about your neighbor? Not so much probably, right?

Core values are those values that dare I say it, you are willing to fight over, die on that hill for, or consider the most important. They rise higher in importance than your other values. In some ways, they are like the difference between felonies and misdemeanors. One is more serious than the other, reflecting the underlying values. Murdering someone is worse than lying about them. At least in our society.

But I have this nagging suspicion that the Ten Commandments don’t quite shake out that neatly. If you look deeper at these 10 values or laws, the consequences of ignoring them or breaking them can be very damaging, in all ten cases. Should you be put to death for dishonoring your father or mother, I don’t think so. But that doesn’t mean that this kind of dishonor is any less than if you actually murdered them. At least not in Biblical times. One was physical murder, actually very bad, and the other was a different kind of murder, with words and character attacks and disrespect.

Generally laws are not codified to show how bad the punishment will be, judges and juries seem to make those end stage decisions. Laws are codified to get you to rethink and reshape your value system.

And even this is so arbitrary with California having nearly 400,000 laws or regulations and Idaho having about 41,000. Now what’s going on there? Are they a bunch of lawless types up there in the Gem State? I don’t think so. I think they are just trying to show what their core values are. Who knows, they may get under 40,000 some day. California on the other hand, not likely. They are more likely to head toward 500k.

No, we are lawbreakers by nature. In the Bible, we call it Sin. It still baffles me that God could get the core laws down to 10. Why is that? What does God know that our state legislators don’t seem to understand?

And the New Testament authors seemed to even get it down to two, Love God and Love Your Neighbor, as you love Yourself I might add. They went back to the Core Values that matter most of Love.

They got it clearly, that love of the law is a reminder to live in love toward all around you. That’s why I like law so much. It’s about love more than anything else.

1787 A Party In Philadelphia

In the City of Brotherly Love, 237 years ago, very reluctant colonists came together from the states and were often miserable as they tried to hammer out a constitution so that we could have a balance between states rights and responsibilities and the federal rights and responsibilities. It’s a bit misleading to say that government has rights since government is an organized entity and if you believe like many Americans do, only citizens have rights.

The thing about that meeting that eventually produced a signable constitution in September, they were afraid of government and other forms of control over their lives having too much power. Charitably speaking, they were trying to craft power sharing among the states and the federal government. More to the point, they did not want anything that smelled like a king or kingly power to have control over their lives. They wanted to control their own destiny in fact.

They argued, connived, made voting blocks, and tried to shoehorn every protection into the document they could to protect their states interest. And yet, they came up with what is probably the best system on paper that the world has ever seen for self government. It is up to make it as powerful a code in our lives as it was in theirs.

As I watch society today, I think we have come a long way in both directions when it comes to self government. The fact that it has lasted this long is incredible when you think of what we went through to start this government. The word Amazing x100 comes to mind. The other direction is that the US Constitution is dying a slow death or sometimes being helped along toward that death by those that care very little about it.

I took an oath to defend that constitution when I graduated from Army Flight School. I stuck my hand up in the air and said this I will do. Amazingly, I still feel that way 47 years later. I now know so much more about that piece of paper and why they were willing to pledge their lives to it‘s goals and values and I renew my commitment, such as I am able to, to see the long and prosperous life envisioned in the Constitution come to pass for our society today. So much depends on that parched piece of paper.

Fear Not---Why Not

One of my questions as I got to know my patients or clients as we often called them in Hospice was a simple one, “What do you fear?” I often approached this question carefully, especially with men. I generally did a good job of asking it and not making people defensive about their fears. It’s an intensely personal question, and most people do not like to admit that they are afraid of something. It takes some verbal skill but I was very successful at calming people and addressing their fears, once we spoke them out loud.

I don’t know if every one is afraid of something, knowing that would make me way smart. But I do know that most people have fears, spoken or unspoken. I also know that most people find a way to face their fears and most of the time they get through it or past it. You have to, right?

But when you are near the end of your life, writing your last chapter as I often said, you are more willing to face your fears and not grow so defensive about speaking of them. I met a few folks that were so settled into their faith and so confident in God’s promises that they had little if any fear. I can only count those people on one hand though. Most, the vast majority are afraid of something.

Who’s going to take care of my spouse, is there enough money to help her live comfortably for the rest of her days, what will happen to the side of the family that does not get along well, What will happen to the son or daughter that is a drug abuser or addict? There are hundreds of these kind of fears. A little deeper fear is, will God look favorable on me and will I spend eternity with Him? This fear rarely came up without some guided questioning and responses. Sometimes I would ask this question like this if I saw a lot of fear in someone. What do you think is beyond this life? Almost always this was such a deeply personally question that it took a moment of reflection to gather a response. A lot of the time, it was a I hope so kind of response. Sometimes people had no worries about the afterlife because they simply didn’t believe in one. I honored their belief as much as I could and yet even they had some fears.

Occasionally there was a clear understanding of God’s promises and what one could expect. My work was done then and I knew this person was in a good place, ready to receive God’s will as God saw fit. But most people needed further questioning and then a quick Bible story about about King David and how awful and murderous he was as a leader in Israel but also how much God loved him and helped him repent and learn and turn from his really wicked ways. Sometimes I think that the story of David is the best example of God’s plan for humanity next to Jesus Himself.

And then you have a bunch of comments, some call them commands about Not to Fear in the Bible. Maybe as much as 200 times in the various phrase of fear not or do not let your heart be troubled, etc. I was not in a place to preach that to many people. Most people have enough trouble admitting they are afraid of something in the first place and do not need me to come along with a Big Fear Not hammer and shut them down. They need to learn to find something greater than they fears, not to be told to stop fearing as if it were a magical switch they could turn off or on at will.

I have a theory, that what people complain about is associated with what they are most afraid of. We are seeing it with the comments about losing democracy as the Presidential election draws near. The fears show up as insults and taunts and anger at this political candidate or the other one. He is going to destroy democracy, she is going to take away your rights, they are going to get us into world war 3, and on and on. These are thinly veiled fears that should be addressed and the more skill we have at bringing them out, the better we will be as citizens of this great nation.

What are you thinking about these days that worry’s you or scares you? Economy, world war, rights, relationships, the American Dream, jobs, health and reproductive rights? I don’t need to know the answer, I’m not going to assess you, but you do. You do need to know what troubles you, so you can face it and enjoy life at the same time. Just a theory.

American Fairness

When Americans see something that is not fair, they react powerfully to the unfairness. I think I saw it almost everyday growing up in the New York, New Jersey area. I think that the basic level of fairness goes through the whole country, but up there, New Yorkers can be so lippy, so mouthy, so in your face that fairness is more pronounced.

When we moved to Kansas back in the 80’s people were a touch kinder, maybe quite a bit kinder and it took them longer to object to unfairness. I didn’t like the kindness so much because it masked how people really felt. Growing up in that eastern environment, you knew where you stood and you knew what people thought about you or various subjects. That was real to me and moving to the midwest kind of threw me for a while.

Midwesterners had their own way of voting for fairness I would say. I’m still trying to figure it out after some 30 years out here, but basically they don’t say much but they get a touch passive aggressive, withdrawing their support over time. Up there, they tell you to your face that they don’t like you, out here, they tell it to someone else that they don’t like you. To be fair, both happen in both places, but I think what I’ve described is largely accurate.

I say this to point out that fairness is more or less universal in these United States. The response to unfairness may be different or nuanced, but there is a response. And the country may be balancing out anyhow. Cut in line at the supermarket and you're likely to get an ear full back east or out west.

My main thought as I write this is that much of our Social posts are about unfairness. Some one did not win at an event because the refs were bad, or someone was tossed out of the game on a technicality. There are dozens of other fairness stories, I won’t describe them, maybe safer that way. But we have a phenomena in this country that has always been there but is currently in full beast mode.

We set ourselves up as judge and often jury for just about every event that takes place. This has been true for many decades, but today, we have far more cases to judge. Every day, some new unfairness occurs and we are ready to collect the facts, the evidence and render a judgment and a verdict.

Nevermine that we are lousy detectives and almost never do any really investigation or research into the matter, we sure know how to arrive at a conclusion and a judgment. It’s a rush to judgment on steroids. And we are hanging a lot of innocent people. And we are proving ourselves unfit to judge on so many matters. We could use a heavy dose of Judging school. Real American Fairness depends on it.

Do You Trust Pastors?

I read last week that trust in pastors is about 21% of the public. One in five trust pastors. That’s been in my head just about every day since. There is no way of fully understanding why there is so little trust in pastors, but I am more interested in should we even try to restore trust in pastors. We could guess rather quickly why they have lost public trust and I could come up with a handful of reasons, maybe you can too. And we might say we need those reasons to know what to do to restore trust again. I understand that as well. I’m wondering if it’s a lost cause all together.

Trust is the ability to know that what someone says is true and acurate, born of integrity, and they tell you what they are going to do and then they do it and then they act this way day in and day out. When push comes to shove, they won’t change their opinion to go with the wind, they will stay with their reasons and wisdom in the first place.

If you drive around the town square of the last century, the county courthouse was at the center and still is. Somewhere nearby on a corner or in the middle of the main street is a church or two or three. Several denominations were represented. You could safely call these trusted institutions, along with the police department, a small hospital, maybe a school or a library, a fire house, a local doctors office.

I’ll wager that the trust in all those institutions has gone down seriously, even in a small town or county seat. But it still pains me that trust in pastors has gone down so much. These are men and women that are called to speak for God and do it with skill and wisdom and patience and love. They are to watch over their flock as if their lives depended on their care. And we can’t even trust them or that idea anymore.

I’m pretty sad about that. Distressed might be more accurate. Where are people turning today for a true and accurate word? A life changing word? A wise word and viewpoint? An eternal word? A life affirming word?

I still think pastors should be leaders in Trust. My feeling is that this will be the greatest challenge that we face as a nation. Learning how to build trust again and how to trust our leaders, both inside and outside of the church. Pastors are called to be trustworthy and faithful, both to God and to His people, all of His people. I don’t know how or even if that is going to happen, but I feel it must happen.

Arugment

We are living in a terrible time for Argument. Many argue, so there is that, it’s a popular and well attended activity. Some like to argue, some hate it, almost all do it. The problem is simple, the purpose and the skill for Argument is almost non existent and almost no one knows how to effectively argue.

Argument has turned into weaponized speech and cancel culture instead of human caring and persuasion in the service of human betterment. Why is it that we can remember arguments better than we can other kinds of engagement. We may not even remember what we were arguing about, just that we had a big fight or disagreement.

Being naive as I must be, I wonder if we will ever be able to achieve a mindset of argument that does not feel like one side or the other or both for that matter is wounded, or destroyed in some way. Every day, my Social Media is pasted with Gottcha videos. Someone got the better of someone else and they celebrate it with a title that says it all. I don’t watch those videos because you already know that someone said something smarter or more clever or more damaging and took the other one down a notch. Both parties were injured in the making of the video, they just don’t realize how much.

I watched Vivek Ramaswamy at a very small gathering of folks in some town do his best to listen to someone and have a discussion/argument with someone in the audience. He did all right. I don’t think he convinced the person that he was right and she was wrong, but he didn’t seem to devolve into disrespectful speech or confrontation. Maybe in easily agitated times like this, that’s all we can ask for. If we are always trying to win the argument instead of discover the truth(whatever that may be) we will fail to collaborate and specialize in destroying ourselves and others.

Will we come to the place where we can say, no humans were hurt or misrepresented in this video or book or podcast or article. I’m fairly certain that would be a big ask, perhaps impossible.

But you can’t fault me for trying.

Self Revelation

I came across an article about how much you should reveal about yourself in your sermons from week to week. Now I like to talk about myself at times, but not so much in sermons. I know others that feel like it’s a good time to be open or transparent or genuine or something like that.

It takes me a while to share with somebody about my personal life. I don’t just cast it out there. My blog has been fairly transparent and sometimes I surprise myself about how much I say about me and my wife. Sometimes I say things about her that I think might get me in a bit of trouble, but so far, I’ve stayed in her good graces.

As a general rule, I don’t think my work and life is about me when I’m around others or serving them in some fashion. Of course, I really love it when someone takes the time to be interested in me and what’s going on in my life, but that doesn’t happen very often. Most folks want to give their story and I’m usually eager to hear it.

In sermons, I always felt that it really should have very little to do with me. I did tell stories that often had me or something about my life in them but I tried to keep the interest off of me and on God.

So in one sense, I was not very transparent, since I didn’t talk about my self or really my feelings very much. I don’t preach any more, but if I did, I would still feel this way I think. I just have too much respect for what God has done for me and mine that I don’t want to take much away from Him. Truth be told, I don’t think He needs the spotlight. But neither do I.

Calm Down---Say What?

Most married men at some point learn to be careful with the Calm Down advice. When my wife is in the middle, beginning, or ending of a grievance airing session, commonly called a rant, I’ve learned to take a breath and let her finish it. I’ve also learned not to ask her if she is done. I let a minute or two or three pass and try to understand some of what she was saying and then trying to figure out why she was saying it.

I still have the manly flaw of trying to fix things but I am better now at disguising it and holding it off for a few minutes. I do it by using my version of asking gentle questions to probe a bit. I don’t know if she knows what I’m doing or not, but she will now for sure.

Try as I might, I still like to get to the heart of the matter which is a prerequisite to fixing things. I’ve just learned to be a bit more patient on the way to getting there. She is not prone to tantrums or excessive ranting and I am getting more patient these days so I think we are meshing better than ever in our communications.

But I still know something is bugging her. And I don’t like to see her bugged out. I know it would be good for me to get over that, but that’s the way it is.

But lately, more than in many years past, I’ve noticed that one of my favorite personality disorders, Histrionic Personality Disorder is spreading more broadly throughout society. This is kind of a bugged out on steroids on a societal level disorder.

I got a call one time from one of my church members and she was screaming very loudly, hysterically into the phone trying to tell me that her cat was caught in the wheel of a bike that was hanging up in her garage. It took quite a bit of talking and time to get her to calm down for me to get her to walk over to the bicycle and gently lift the cat out of the top of the spokes that ensnared her. Crazy cats, they get in some weird spots, right? But they are cats, we get it. The image of a cat hanging by its neck in the spokes of a bike hanging from the ceiling would freak me out a bit too, but wouldn’t paralyze me. It would send me into action.

The histrionic behavior doesn’t know how to go from freak out to action, it gets stuck in freak out. Freak out is the desired behavior it seems, as if the act of being freaked out is what is most important, not solving the problem. I don’t know why this is so, but I’m seeing it more today than ever. So many are freaked out about what they think is coming that they can’t do anything about it and something terrible is going to happen.

We always live with the possibility that something terrible is going to happen. We have no idea as to how close we have been to nuclear disaster among the nuclear powers, and still remain in a dangerous situation today. But we don’t freak out about it too much. We’ve learned to face it, in some cases put it out of our minds, or whatever. Right or wrong, we have some way of calming down.

We can’t stay amped up as much as we are all the time. We simply have to calm down. And talk to each other. Most of what we think is going to happen that is so bad simply is not going to happen. Something might, but we can deal with it. We can get the cat out of the spokes. But we have to calm down.

Don’t you trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. I’m not saying to forgo planning or practice to face future problems or even catastrophes, in fact some prep work will increase our confidence. I’m just saying, slow down, calm down, plan your work and work your plan.

What Do You Think About That?

At times we are urged, even shamed into taking a side. Some loud controversy comes up, which they seem to do weekly these days, and the forces that are passionate on both sides of the controversy try to pull you into their camp and garner your support. You must join these causes because you are wrong, even complicit in the current crisis if you don’t.

I’m not passive aggressive by nature, but that approach just doesn’t fly with many. People tend to go the other way when they are shamed or belittled because they don’t see things a certain way. Unless there is something in it for them, some status or some value, or they are protecting themselves from some embarrassment of some kind, they don’t feel right in joining the group of protestors. They may even share some of the values of the group, but they refuse to yield to the pressure.

While preaching for three decades, on one or two occasions, I would have a member come up to me and ask me why I never took a stand in my sermons on some current hotly contested issue in society. The one time that comes to mind, I did not have a good enough response for the man who was passionate about his subject and question and he threatened to leave the church. He did and never came back while I was there.

I felt the loss to a certain degree. I liked him and thought that we could have useful conversations but that ended abruptly. Perhaps it was worth it to him to make a statement and lose the relationship or influence he might have in my life and pastorate. I don’t know.

With the powerful platform that social media affords us, we get to say what we think about almost everything, anytime, anywhere on subjects we hear about anywhere in the world. And we can go on and on about it, till we wear out our little typing fingers or we finally run out of ways to insult others because they don’t share the same thoughts that occupy our brain so throughly.

There are two things that seem to be missing, a voice out there on any of these platforms that hasn’t really researched what they are talking about is more often than not going to do more damage for their cause than they are good. Almost all things are made clear over time and people are easily turned off to that same voice that was unreasonable and turned out to be worthy of ridicule or as we more often say, ridiculous.

Secondly, I think that my words and my voice and my influence are worth a whole heck of a lot more than to offer them up in such a haphazard way. Say what you mean and mean what you say, comes to mind.

My dad painted signs for a living and at some point he came upon the great idea of painting some simple one word signs and strategically placing them in my room when I wasn’t looking. On one, the word THIMNK was painted. Now he knew how to spell and he also knew how to get a desired effect. In this case, the misspelled word has stood with me when so much of his other guidance has long departed.

My essays, word of mouth communication, writing and social media posts usually reflect that I’ve been thinking about something, maybe for a long time. Of course, I am tempted like others to jump on the latest hot topic and make my thoughts known in print or my viewpoint obvious, but I don’t. I can’t remember anything like that anyhow. Please go back and fact check me if you find that doubtful. I just don’t. I don’t like looking like, sounding like and acting like a fool unnecessarily. And so much of what is said or offered is just foolishness. Maybe there is a place for some foolishness, I don’t know. But I don’t hunger for much of it.

I hunger for thoughtful, reasonable, well thought out, caring, purposeful conversation that builds and does not tear down. That’s what I Thimnk about that.

Language and the Words

Most words are the result of analysis and persuasion. There are many words for Perfection in the Bible. In English, we have one. I have heard that far north people have many words for ice, water, snow, that I have never heard of. I wonder what words they have for rain that might be similar to those that live in the tropics.

Life has to be analyzed to come up with these words. You watch the driving rain as opposed to a gentle rain and you distinguish between the two and come up with two different words for the same liquid dispensed in two different conditions, Stinging Rain or Refreshing Rain. Some languages are more refined than that and come up with subtle variations of the same word so that you don't have to have an additional word to come up with a qualified type of rain. I don’t know the names of all the types of chisels that Japanese craftsman use off hand, but I think that might be a good example. Here is a sample of what I’m talking about.

Some cultures take great care in the naming of their tools, their relationships, their possessions, their way of life and so on. They put a lot of effort into seeing, experiencing, tasting and seeing all that is around them.

On the flip side, they are more careful how they use those words in day to day life. With such precision in the discovery, they exhibit similar precision in the delivery. You can get this sense in the dentist office, the doctor asks for a mirror but is handed a probe instead by the assistant. Well, that is not good. It can get worse, she might ask for a small drill bit that rotates a certain way, and gets handed a large bit that rotates the other way.

We tend to like to be served by people that are precise in their language. They just do a better job. In the end, they use words to persuade us that it will turn out well, or better. The word for this is Rhetoric. The use of words to persuade people that things will get better or, in some cases get worse. There is often some action that must be taken as well.

We seem to be having trouble with rhetoric today. Far too many people use words to push people away from them. It is as if some people don’t want anyone around them within a certain distance unless they have been vetted and largely agree with or identify with them. Our political speech is a good example. Perhaps it is something that we feel more keenly as a major election approaches. But it doesn’t take long to see someone using political words to separate people out instead of bringing them together.

Why do so many want to separate themselves or distance themselves from others? What are they afraid of? What do those words do to us when we use them or hear them? We don’t even have to say the words in many cases, just use the color blue or red or purple.

I wonder what we want out of words. Why do we use them and what do we hope they will gain us? I suspect we don’t even know much of the time why we talk. What does Social Media really mean? How social is it, how does Media fit in to the equation? What words do we use to explain our lives? Why do we feel like we have to explain our lives? Is something missing? Are we trying to reach out for something? Do we find it, whatever it is we are looking for? Why do we read newspapers or consume internet videos? Are we completed by any of these sources? Are we depleted by any of these sources? What would happen to us if we had none of these sources for a week, a year or more?

My questions have to do with communication and the art of Rhetoric. Why do we communicate and how effective are we at it? Is it possible that the more we observe and think about our words that we will take more time to use the right ones, the most effective ones and the most edifying ones?

Other Healing As We Walk

We don’t hear about Leprosy very much. There are drugs that have turned the condition into a manageable, even curable state. It is a bacterial infection and is not so much infectious as was once thought. And added to that is the damage that is done to the nerves or what we call today neuropathy.

When I first started reading the Bible, back in the 80’s, I found Leprosy in the Gospels, like this text in Matthew.

Matthew 8 When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. 2 A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!”Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. 4 Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

I also came an across a book called Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. Doctor Brand and Phillip Yancey I believe. Brand did healing work with Leprosy patients.

Leprosy is still a serious disease but not as scary or widespread as it once was. For some reason I woke up this morning thinking about it and the recent pandemic at the same time.

Both induced Distancing. Lepers learned to hide from others, or if they were on the same road or path to call out themselves as Lepers. Imagine walking around the lake and crying out Leper, Leper. This would alert others to your presence so they could avoid you.

As you can imagine, Lepers were hated or detested and completely shunned. And the isolation or distancing turned them into social outcasts, easily discarded like trash.

It was a horrible part of society to know that on the outskirts of town there was a leper colony or on some Hawaiian island Lepers were living as marginalized humans, but living inhumanly and you best not go there.

Something similar to this took place with the recent pandemic. We got the illness, we self isolated or were put into isolation, we left work, left society even, we were ill and often felt like there was little healing available and lost many of our connections to others.

I wonder as we walk around the lake if we are learning how to reconnect again, that we are coming out of a period of disconnect and distancing. Some might be hungry for connection, others might be wary, lest they catch the virus, others might be in some form of shock or limbo, others just want to be done with it all and just get over it.

At any rate, we are not Lepers, no matter what illnesses we might have been afflicted with and we are not outcasts no matter our mental or spiritual or physical condition. We are humans, a very special species, given life for a grand and noble life.

We have started coming back together again, we are making progress. For some it is awkward, others fearful and others have no trouble at all. Jesus went right up to the man and touched him. He went right past his skin eruptions and touched all the way into his heart. Quite a contrast between standing 6 feet away and covering our face and letting everyone know whether we are ill or not.

It seems to take some effort to relearn how to socialize together again today. We are learning how to stop and visit and regain our smile and friendship instead of passing others on the path without so much as a howdy or smile. It’s getting better, even easier; I just hope we learn to treat others the way Christ did, with abundant kindness no matter the circumstances or current issues of the day. He had a baseline love and communication that He never abandoned or lost, in storms or on peaceful days. His tranquility was more infectious than all the diseases of humanity combined. I think it is what this decade will be all about, Tranquility. Let’s practice it together as we walkabout the Lake.

Place to Heal

When an animal is wounded or traumatized, it seeks a place of safety and supply where they can rest up, restore, to heal or lick their wounds we say. In my case, a human animal, the same thing has taken place over the years.

Life is not always a picnic, right? Stuff happens, sometimes very painful and damaging stuff. Instinctively, we move toward the safe space, where we can get our functions and courage back in shape for the rest of our living. Some have so much trauma in their lives that not having this place of safety will probably retard their healing and shorten their lives.

When we lived in western Kansas for 18 months, I sought out such a place. I had them back east in New York State and sometimes in northwest Jersey, wonderful natural spaces. But living in Goodland Kansas was tough. We had four churches to care for, thirteen counties, two time zones and two states where those churches were located. It was something else. Lots of good people in those churches, salt of the earth farmers, teachers, salesman, ranchers and the like. The missing ingredient for me was a place to heal.

So we went to the mountains most months, Rocky Mountain National park or some part of the front range. One time we were just north of Colorado Springs in Castle Rock. Sometimes you would come across a piece of land for sale that bordered the national forest areas. It was a good deal to find an acre at 20,000$ or so, with a huge backyard playground or forest just beyond your property line.

I really wanted a place like that but ended up settling for trips out to the mountains, never having a permanent place of my own. I was happy to have the temporary places in nature but I would have loved something more in my name that I could put my life into.

After 30 years of ministry, we never found such a permanent place. Add 8 years of Chaplaincy for some 38 years and we ended up with something very much like what I always wanted. It’s smaller, less rugged, less natural eye candy, but it is 15 feet from my back door. And it fits the bill of what I always wanted, a place to heal.

After my stroke, I knew I needed a place for such healing more than ever. And so we began a new leg of our journey in healing and family here at Holmes Lake. My name is not on the deed to the park, I think the Corp of Engineers probably feels it belongs to them, but I’m good with that. What they don’t know, won’t hurt them, I still feel like its mine.

Mostly I feel that way because it’s where I live my life with my wonderful wife and son and daughter and our furry ones. It’s mostly where I am learning to move into healthier living than I ever have before. It’s a place to heal. Every morning we walk the circuit around the lake and we check on her health as well as ours and we check on the health of its inhabitants and patrons as well, animal and human.

It’s a place of healing and I hope you have one, big or small may not matter as much as just having a place to stop and slow down and heal. You can only do good work when you have good health. Argue with that if you like, but it is largely true. A good place to heal is a great place to embark from into the surrounding community. I think you need such a place.