... or a woman, as the case may be. I had the great privilege to hear Kelly Green today. You can check him out at www.kellygreen.org , and i suggest that you do.
So here's the gist, Kelly Green travels the globe meeting people where they are, providing for their physical needs (medical care, dental care, fresh clean drinking water) and shares the gospel of Christ with them. He shows them how to be followers of Christ and the love of Christ and how to be saved. He goes to places like Uganda and Brazil and Germany and Botswana ... he is like the John Wayne of evangelism, he looks like an old, retired Irish bare knuckled boxer and talks in language that can be understood ... basically he talks like people you know ... with one exception. No one you know is in such awe of the awesomeness of Jesus and our God, when he talks about the Bible there is real passion and amazement in his voice. He really gets excited, and it delights me.
So here's this globe trotting messenger and today he talked about witnessing to people where you are. Telling them about Jesus and living your life in a way that they wonder about you, what is so different about you, why you love strangers and the jailed and widows and orphans, the fatherless ... and they will wonder enough to ask you and then you can tell them ... Jesus is the reason for the hope that you have, the living resurrected Christ. So the question i have to ask myself is, do i live my life in a way that people will ask that? Are my actions extraordinary enough? Do people see Jesus in the things i say and do? ... and the answer is a disappointing "sometimes". It's time to get it right, like it says in II Corinthians 5:15 "And that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again." The one true God became man, allowed Himself to be tortured and killed and then rose again, for ME! The least i can do is live this short life for Him! Thank you Kelly for coming and talking today.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Liberty or Death
... now that's the kind of passion that can really change something. Patrick Henry has been immortalized for expressing the very thing that a nation was feeling ... a nation of people who longed for liberty, a nation of people who had taken all that they would from a government that did not represent them. The colonists of the late 18th century considered themselves British and were incensed that the government of the nation that they thought themselves a part of refused to allow them to be represented and forced them to abide by the policies of a government that they had no voice in. That is where the idea of "no taxation without representation comes from" ... which brings us to today. I have a job and so i pay my taxes ... and i own a house so i pay a mortgage, and then the government of this nation gives my tax money to the mortgage company that made bad choices, i also have insurance on two cars and a house that i pay and because the insurance companies have made bad investment decisions my tax money goes to them too. So i say i want liberty! If there must be a government then i say it must represent the best interests of the people of this nation, not the best interests of international banking and insurance conglomerates who are owned by saudi princes (Fannie and Freddie). So i'm not sure that i'm quite ready for death, but we need to band together and stand up for ourselves ... so tune in for next time, i'm going to figure this thing out!
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Blogs, blogs, blogs ...
I have to get up in 4 1/2 hours, and i really don't have anything to say, but here i am. So here is the thought of the day.
Beware of moral relativism. There is no grey area, there is right and wrong, and sometimes right is convenient and sometimes wrong is easy, but convenience and ease do not make them more right or less wrong. We all admire those who do the right thing at the cost of great personal sacrifice, we all admire those who oppose the wrong thing when it is difficult to do so. And then we take the convenient and easy path, ignoring right and wrong, just doing what fits us at the moment.
Do the difficult thing, do the right thing ... be someone who is too weak to do it's hero ... the person they look up to when trying to make important decisions in their own life. Be my hero!
Beware of moral relativism. There is no grey area, there is right and wrong, and sometimes right is convenient and sometimes wrong is easy, but convenience and ease do not make them more right or less wrong. We all admire those who do the right thing at the cost of great personal sacrifice, we all admire those who oppose the wrong thing when it is difficult to do so. And then we take the convenient and easy path, ignoring right and wrong, just doing what fits us at the moment.
Do the difficult thing, do the right thing ... be someone who is too weak to do it's hero ... the person they look up to when trying to make important decisions in their own life. Be my hero!
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Poppa
What can i possibly say? When i was little my poppa was retired and he would come to my house, pick my brother and i up and take us to McDonald's ... just because. He lived 40 minutes away, never called first, but he knew my mother did not have a car and was stuck in the house with us. He would order a "seniors" coffee ... back then it was like 57cents ... he never ate any of the food there. He used to take my brother and i to "The Great Escape" ... for all you non-upstaters, it was the smallest spot of ground ever to be called an amusement park (except maybe Hoffman's playland) even if now it is a six-flags park. He never rode the rides, just watched us.
When we spent the weekend there he would take us to the library and let us take out whatever we wanted, then on to the movie store to rent whatever we wanted ... he taught me to hit a golf ball (which is not like riding a bike i recently learned), he taught me to shoot, to play ping pong, how to think about women ... how to be a gentleman. He used to tell us that if we woke him up at the "crack of dawn" we'd be in trouble ... the following morning we would inadvertently wake him at some predawn hour and not get in trouble. He was big and strong and clever and funny and he loved us.
In his younger years he was the epitome of the self made man, he worked his way to being a battalion chief in the NY FD, he retired as a general from the Army National Guard, he sent 5 children to college and went from the brink as a young man in the depression to being quite comfortable as a young retiree.
He and my father would argue, and it delighted me. My father would volunteer on a home improvement project or to fix up the antique apartment he (my poppa) bought as a rental property ... this is my father's arena, home repairs, woodwork etc ... and the older could not stand the idea of the younger knowing more and being right. At the end of the day he invited my father because he needed the help and knew that his oldest son was the man for the job, but he had something in him that demanded that he be in charge. It was delightful to watch, even if it seemed to frustrate them both to no end.
The last time i saw him he did not know who i was, eight months earlier he knew me on the phone but could not remember where i lived, a month ago he knew no one, last week he stopped eating. He is gone now, and i knew it was coming ... all the same i wept like a baby tonight. I wept for not calling him back after the call where he didn't know where i lived, i wept for leaving so quickly when he did not know me last summer, i wept that my children will never know the man i knew, that my wife won't ... he was weak even when she met him (but still sharp). The last few years it's as if i have been looking through a doorway at him, "He's there ... it's OK." But never going in the room, and now the door is closed. I wept because i will miss my poppa forever and today is the first day of my life that he has not been there, i wept because we lost a great man who loved his country and made sacrifices to provide for his children and his country. I wept because i loved my poppa and i knew he loved me every moment he was alive, i felt it every time i saw him, i miss you already Pop and i love you!
When we spent the weekend there he would take us to the library and let us take out whatever we wanted, then on to the movie store to rent whatever we wanted ... he taught me to hit a golf ball (which is not like riding a bike i recently learned), he taught me to shoot, to play ping pong, how to think about women ... how to be a gentleman. He used to tell us that if we woke him up at the "crack of dawn" we'd be in trouble ... the following morning we would inadvertently wake him at some predawn hour and not get in trouble. He was big and strong and clever and funny and he loved us.
In his younger years he was the epitome of the self made man, he worked his way to being a battalion chief in the NY FD, he retired as a general from the Army National Guard, he sent 5 children to college and went from the brink as a young man in the depression to being quite comfortable as a young retiree.
He and my father would argue, and it delighted me. My father would volunteer on a home improvement project or to fix up the antique apartment he (my poppa) bought as a rental property ... this is my father's arena, home repairs, woodwork etc ... and the older could not stand the idea of the younger knowing more and being right. At the end of the day he invited my father because he needed the help and knew that his oldest son was the man for the job, but he had something in him that demanded that he be in charge. It was delightful to watch, even if it seemed to frustrate them both to no end.
The last time i saw him he did not know who i was, eight months earlier he knew me on the phone but could not remember where i lived, a month ago he knew no one, last week he stopped eating. He is gone now, and i knew it was coming ... all the same i wept like a baby tonight. I wept for not calling him back after the call where he didn't know where i lived, i wept for leaving so quickly when he did not know me last summer, i wept that my children will never know the man i knew, that my wife won't ... he was weak even when she met him (but still sharp). The last few years it's as if i have been looking through a doorway at him, "He's there ... it's OK." But never going in the room, and now the door is closed. I wept because i will miss my poppa forever and today is the first day of my life that he has not been there, i wept because we lost a great man who loved his country and made sacrifices to provide for his children and his country. I wept because i loved my poppa and i knew he loved me every moment he was alive, i felt it every time i saw him, i miss you already Pop and i love you!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Mother's Day
On mother's day i think of course about my mother ... and my grandmothers. My father's mother who is still alive and i miss because i live so far and see her so infrequently, and my mother's mother who passed away a few years ago, with whom i was very close (we even lived together for a while). I think of my wife who i have the pleasure of watching her be a mother to my three girls. All four women share the same "mommyness" the gentle spirit, the way that they can scold a child and love them all in the same moment (daddy will correct you and love you again in just a minute ... it is a subtle, but distinct difference). I have always loved the women in my life, of course my mother and my grandmothers, but my great grandmother was alive until i was a teenager (and quite healthy) i have 4 great aunts (three by blood) and then there are the teachers and sitters and neighbors that i have had the pleasure to meet along the way. I would list them, they deserve to be noted, but i don't know that anyone other than me would be interested. It's just on this day i think off all the wonderful things women have done ... not just the things they have done, but the thing that they ARE!
Our entire history is held up by stong women in the wings, and everyone knows an unhearlded, coragous women who just goes about her business of making the world a better place without looking to have anyone notice. It is as if making things better is reward enough (a foreign concept to men) and is exactly like motherhood ... raising children (as difficult as it is, as thankless as it is) IS the reward. What wonderful creatures specifically mothers are, and women more generally ... potential mothers. God has gifted all of you with the spirit of "the mother" the capicity to love without bounds, to protect and teach and nurture and nourish ... what a gift it is! God bless you all today! And everyday! Mommy, Angela, Grandma and Gram I love you so much!
And to close the perfect thought from "The Quiet Man" "... what's a house without a woman in it? Why, even Father Lonigan had a mother. (Father Lonigan responds) 'Whad'ya expect?'"
Our entire history is held up by stong women in the wings, and everyone knows an unhearlded, coragous women who just goes about her business of making the world a better place without looking to have anyone notice. It is as if making things better is reward enough (a foreign concept to men) and is exactly like motherhood ... raising children (as difficult as it is, as thankless as it is) IS the reward. What wonderful creatures specifically mothers are, and women more generally ... potential mothers. God has gifted all of you with the spirit of "the mother" the capicity to love without bounds, to protect and teach and nurture and nourish ... what a gift it is! God bless you all today! And everyday! Mommy, Angela, Grandma and Gram I love you so much!
And to close the perfect thought from "The Quiet Man" "... what's a house without a woman in it? Why, even Father Lonigan had a mother. (Father Lonigan responds) 'Whad'ya expect?'"
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
There is a trade off, or a balancing act, that goes on in every society between personal liberty and order. Certainly a there is a necessary amount of control and restraint that must be placed upon every population ... a family, a village, a city, a state, a nation ... and then the question comes, what price do we pay for order?
In the catholic neighborhoods of Northern Ireland during the "troubles" (war for self determination) there were no drugs ... NO drugs. This was the 1960's and 1970's while the rest of the world was high as a kite and beginning to understand the violent, criminal baggage that comes with permissive attitudes towards drug use, there were no drugs, no drug dealers ... none. The reason? If you were found out to have drugs or to be selling drugs the first time you would be not-so-gently warned to stop, the second time you would be shot in the knee and the third time (if you happened to be dumb enough to make it necessary) you would be killed.
In NAZI Germany there were no petty thieves ... if you were caught stealing or burglarizing some one's home you would be put on a train and shipped off to a work camp where you would be beaten, or shot, or worked to death.
I, more than anyone, do not want drugs in my neighborhood, nor do i want thieves in my home ... but at what price. These activities can be eradicated with violent-iron-fisted ease. So we can probably all agree that we do not want a crack dealer in front of our children's elementary school, and at the same time agree that we do not necessarily want any aging hippies shot to death for partaking in a joint.
In the same vein, i do not want to see anyone steal the Mona Lisa from the wall of a museum, but i do not think that a 10 year old who steals a pack of Wrigley's Spearmint gum from the grocery store should be publicly executed.
So here it is quite easy to see the grey area and understand that order can be maintained (to some extent) without extreme reactions to bad behavior. A father can explain to his child why we do not run after a ball in the road without knocking out any teeth. A person speeding in their car can be given a ticket to pay a fine and not sent to prision.
But what when the order that is desired to be kept is not that of civilized society but order in the realm of thoughts and ideas? What happens when a government, or an outspoken minority seek to use any means at their disposal to distroy dissenting views, thoughts and facts.
"That would never happen!" you say.
Don't be too sure. In 1798 the congress of the United States passed the "Alien and Sedition Acts" and then president John Adams signed them into law. The purpose of the law was to protect the U.S. from "alien agents of hostile foreign powers" and it was in fact used by the party in power to round up rivals and imprision them. In 1802 Thomas Jefferson became president, declared the laws unconstitutional, pardoned the offenders convicted under the acts and had them released from prision. That's right, four years later thay were still in prision.
Too old an example? Ok, fast forward 117 years to Schenck v. United States. In 1919 the U.S. army was full on recruiting volenteers to fight in WWI. Schenck was the secretary of the Socialist Party and had the audacity to encourage young men to think (with letters and pamphlets and newspapers) about what the purpose of the war was. Who's war was it, and was it worth dying and killing for? In this Supreme Court case the sainted Oliver Wendall Holmes ruled that this speech was not first amendment protected because "...the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic." (that's where the " you can't shout fire in a crowded theater" from). No one actually shouted anything. A man wrote a letter envouraging young men to think unpopular thoughts.
So that brings us to today ... war in general is unpopular now, political opposition to the status quo power structure is welcomed and in some cases put on a pedestal ... so we don't have any issues with that right?
Are people allowed to point out the lack of evidence that exists for the idea of one species evolving to another? Are school children? Are people allowed to express the belief that marrige is a covenant from God for a man and a woman to share in? Are beauty pagent contestants? So there is no gun barrel, there are no interment camps for those who violate the unwritten ... yet. But children are being suspended from school for expressing beliefs that have 10 times more scientific merit than the idea that we evolved from salamanders to iguanas to i don't know what to monkeys to cave men to people. The military industrial complex has given way to the media industrial complex. All the necessary facts can be found in popular opinion ... not majority opinion, but the opinion of a few "news" people in NYC. I think that cars are making the polar bears starve, i think that hairspray is causing the deserts of the world to grow (oh wait, desertification has been reversing for almost a decade ... bust out the "hair net").
The foundaion of our society is that of unconventional thought, and the scars upon our nation come in silencing of the small voices, small voices who, more often than not, are right in hindsight.
In the catholic neighborhoods of Northern Ireland during the "troubles" (war for self determination) there were no drugs ... NO drugs. This was the 1960's and 1970's while the rest of the world was high as a kite and beginning to understand the violent, criminal baggage that comes with permissive attitudes towards drug use, there were no drugs, no drug dealers ... none. The reason? If you were found out to have drugs or to be selling drugs the first time you would be not-so-gently warned to stop, the second time you would be shot in the knee and the third time (if you happened to be dumb enough to make it necessary) you would be killed.
In NAZI Germany there were no petty thieves ... if you were caught stealing or burglarizing some one's home you would be put on a train and shipped off to a work camp where you would be beaten, or shot, or worked to death.
I, more than anyone, do not want drugs in my neighborhood, nor do i want thieves in my home ... but at what price. These activities can be eradicated with violent-iron-fisted ease. So we can probably all agree that we do not want a crack dealer in front of our children's elementary school, and at the same time agree that we do not necessarily want any aging hippies shot to death for partaking in a joint.
In the same vein, i do not want to see anyone steal the Mona Lisa from the wall of a museum, but i do not think that a 10 year old who steals a pack of Wrigley's Spearmint gum from the grocery store should be publicly executed.
So here it is quite easy to see the grey area and understand that order can be maintained (to some extent) without extreme reactions to bad behavior. A father can explain to his child why we do not run after a ball in the road without knocking out any teeth. A person speeding in their car can be given a ticket to pay a fine and not sent to prision.
But what when the order that is desired to be kept is not that of civilized society but order in the realm of thoughts and ideas? What happens when a government, or an outspoken minority seek to use any means at their disposal to distroy dissenting views, thoughts and facts.
"That would never happen!" you say.
Don't be too sure. In 1798 the congress of the United States passed the "Alien and Sedition Acts" and then president John Adams signed them into law. The purpose of the law was to protect the U.S. from "alien agents of hostile foreign powers" and it was in fact used by the party in power to round up rivals and imprision them. In 1802 Thomas Jefferson became president, declared the laws unconstitutional, pardoned the offenders convicted under the acts and had them released from prision. That's right, four years later thay were still in prision.
Too old an example? Ok, fast forward 117 years to Schenck v. United States. In 1919 the U.S. army was full on recruiting volenteers to fight in WWI. Schenck was the secretary of the Socialist Party and had the audacity to encourage young men to think (with letters and pamphlets and newspapers) about what the purpose of the war was. Who's war was it, and was it worth dying and killing for? In this Supreme Court case the sainted Oliver Wendall Holmes ruled that this speech was not first amendment protected because "...the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic." (that's where the " you can't shout fire in a crowded theater" from). No one actually shouted anything. A man wrote a letter envouraging young men to think unpopular thoughts.
So that brings us to today ... war in general is unpopular now, political opposition to the status quo power structure is welcomed and in some cases put on a pedestal ... so we don't have any issues with that right?
Are people allowed to point out the lack of evidence that exists for the idea of one species evolving to another? Are school children? Are people allowed to express the belief that marrige is a covenant from God for a man and a woman to share in? Are beauty pagent contestants? So there is no gun barrel, there are no interment camps for those who violate the unwritten ... yet. But children are being suspended from school for expressing beliefs that have 10 times more scientific merit than the idea that we evolved from salamanders to iguanas to i don't know what to monkeys to cave men to people. The military industrial complex has given way to the media industrial complex. All the necessary facts can be found in popular opinion ... not majority opinion, but the opinion of a few "news" people in NYC. I think that cars are making the polar bears starve, i think that hairspray is causing the deserts of the world to grow (oh wait, desertification has been reversing for almost a decade ... bust out the "hair net").
The foundaion of our society is that of unconventional thought, and the scars upon our nation come in silencing of the small voices, small voices who, more often than not, are right in hindsight.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Return of the Pinko
For what it's worth there was once a Pinko ... and he's back. Not like "he's baaaaack", but back. Maybe he was never gone, just quiet ... really, really quiet.
So, for those of you who do not know, the term "Pinko" is a 1950's anti-communist epithet used often to describe anyone who did not agree with the black list or McCarthy's campaign of absurd paranoia against any person who once wore red socks ... or sold state department secrets to the soviet union. Both of which were frowned upon in polite circles at the time, and red socks are still pretty risque in certain arenas. At any rate, much after the end of the McCarthy era in American politics i found myself thinking very unconventional thoughts ... crazy things like workers maybe should have an ownership stake in the place they work at and possibly even have some control there of, children shouldn't starve to death, "representative republic" is a dirty word and is NOT synonomous with "democracy", you know, thoughts like that .... it got so bad i gave pennies to the poor and everything. At any rate, some lovely people who thought i was a tad off center and unreasonably outspoken about it (but who loved me none the less) began calling me " The Pinko". So, here we find ourselves a decade or so later and the Pinko is back after a time of introspective silence. So, i looked inside myself and realized there was not a whole lot there to look at ... so i looked outside myself and now i'm back with all the same views about working people and feeding children and giving pennies to the poor (no need to even mention the failure of "representitive republic" to be democratic) and now i have the added support of Biblical truth and a relationship with Jesus Christ to add to the mix. I used to say that Jesus was the very first communist, but now i realize that i was never really a communist, just an uninformed christian with red socks. So that's were the name came from and where the name is now and so forth and so on.
So, for those of you who do not know, the term "Pinko" is a 1950's anti-communist epithet used often to describe anyone who did not agree with the black list or McCarthy's campaign of absurd paranoia against any person who once wore red socks ... or sold state department secrets to the soviet union. Both of which were frowned upon in polite circles at the time, and red socks are still pretty risque in certain arenas. At any rate, much after the end of the McCarthy era in American politics i found myself thinking very unconventional thoughts ... crazy things like workers maybe should have an ownership stake in the place they work at and possibly even have some control there of, children shouldn't starve to death, "representative republic" is a dirty word and is NOT synonomous with "democracy", you know, thoughts like that .... it got so bad i gave pennies to the poor and everything. At any rate, some lovely people who thought i was a tad off center and unreasonably outspoken about it (but who loved me none the less) began calling me " The Pinko". So, here we find ourselves a decade or so later and the Pinko is back after a time of introspective silence. So, i looked inside myself and realized there was not a whole lot there to look at ... so i looked outside myself and now i'm back with all the same views about working people and feeding children and giving pennies to the poor (no need to even mention the failure of "representitive republic" to be democratic) and now i have the added support of Biblical truth and a relationship with Jesus Christ to add to the mix. I used to say that Jesus was the very first communist, but now i realize that i was never really a communist, just an uninformed christian with red socks. So that's were the name came from and where the name is now and so forth and so on.
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