Welcome to the Club!

There's a old joke about coming to church.

The curmudgeon says, "I won't go to church!  That place is full of hypocrites!"

The church member replies, "No, come on, you'll fit right in!"

The current OUTRAGE over sexual harassment seems a tiny bit hypocritical. Most of America, and particularly Hollywood, are most often moral relativist.  Many of my friends will aver, "What people do that is not illegal is their business, not yours.  Don't go imposing your Christian morality on me or anyone else".  Their position is Moral Relativism.  the larger position is Cultural Relativism, wherein culture determines the norms and one culture, say USA should never impose our culture on any other people group.

Suddenly Moral Relativism and Cultural Relativism have been abandoned by some of their staunchest supporters.  Now, let me be clear, sexual harassment is wrong, and I base this absolute statement on Christian principles, independent of public or cultural opinion.  All others, females and males, are created by G^d, and worthy of respect, care, protection and concern.

So, from my philosophical foundation, what Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, and others have confessed to doing to women is absolutely wrong.  But, if you are a Moral Relativist, or a Cultural relativist, though I am very sympathetic with your outrage, you have to abandon your philosophical foundations to condemn this definitely WRONG behavior.

Do you follow what I am saying?  We cannot hold to Moral Relativism and Cultural Relativism 99% of the time, then abandon it the 1% when we feel moral outrage!  But, that appears to be what is happening in the USA right now.

So, do you agree, or can you explain to me why I am wrong?

Awaiting your counsel!

The foundation for this post was derived from my friend Stan Wallace's blog post on 28 Dec.  You can see it at:
https://www.stanwallace.org/blog/2017/12/28/when-it-comes-to-weinstein-et-al-no-one-is-a-moral-relativist-and-thats-a-good-thing-1-of-2

I recommend Stan's blog to you!

Irredeemable Man!

The USA is in the midst of a terrible revelation:  Mankind is fallen, particularly men!

It seems that every few days another revelation is made that some guy somewhere has some history of sexual harassment, or downright sex abuse of somebody.  Likewise, a glance at the news reveals news of further fallenness.

The government of Peru appears ready to fire their president, Myanmar is accused of genocide, Venezuelans are starving, and I am not doing so well myself. The long persistent racism, which to me appears universal, shows little signs of abating. In my pessimism, my only hope for the end of racism is the end of race itself when all of us are pretty much the same race.

No doubt, I am feeling pretty pessimistic today.  The weather is gloomy, and so is my outlook. Look around, and there is plenty fuel for pessimism.

But, don't ONLY look around, look UP!

One of these days, and it's closer than ever in history, our L^rd is coming back! One of these days, this old corrupt earth will pass away, and a new earth and a new heaven will be ushered in.

Maranatha!  Come quickly L^rd!

I'm feeling better at the prospects already!

Life Review: Family Trips

Our family has a long history of trips.  We lived in San Antonio, and in Houston for several summers, Houston for a 15-month stretch, as well as a year in West Point, NY, and 10 weeks in Frederick MD. We made trips to Yellowstone and Cru staff training in Ft Collins, CO.

But, we did a lot of short trips to state parks, The Smokey MTN national park, Gettysburg, and lots of other places. We wanted the education, and we enjoyed seeing and learning. Late last summer we made a “family trip” to Desoto State Park, near Gadsden, AL, and now we are at Cheaha State Park, near Anniston.  Though it is a “family trip”, we have gone from 7 to three. Now it’s Andrew, Brenda and me who are tripping.

We have spent a lot of money on these trips over the years, but no individual trip was ever overly expensive because we had 5 kids, one income, and had to live economically. For instance, we don’t eat out that much, we NEVER buy souvenirs…you get the picture.

Once in Cheaha, except for eating out once, we spent our time hiking or sitting by the super camp fire.  Nothing too exciting, nothing too expensive.  But fun for us.

These trips, perhaps are a symbol of our thinking as a family.  We do stuff, we do it cheaply, we enjoy the world that G^d  created.

3 Trillion Trees…

While we were at Cheaha Park, we saw a sign suggesting there were 3 trillion trees in the earth.  That’s a lotta trees.  Think about it.  There are only roughly 7 billion people on earth. That’s over 4 thousand trees per person.  Wow! 

I love trees, so I was buoyed by that thought.

That’s  more than all the brain cells in the US Congress!!  Just kidding (maybe).

In fact that is more trees than a lot of other things.  Take a moment, can you think of anything besides ants and germs and congressmen (just kidding, maybe) more abundant than trees?

Yepper!  The US national debt ($19.8 trillion) dwarfs the number of trees, substantially. 

Pretty sad, eh?

Befriend the Rich and Powerful

Our men’s group is going through Scott Saul’s book, “Befriend”. On 3 Jan I taught  the lesson on “Befriend the Rich and Powerful”. It was interesting, because all of us in the study group, could justifiably be called “rich”.  Instead of focusing on the book, my mind immediately went to the Scripture dealing with money.  Most everyone is passingly familiar with the 1 Timothy 6 passage that “the LOVE of money is the root of evil”.

This is an important passage, but maybe more important is the ending of the rich young ruler story (Lk 18).  At the end of the story, after Jesus has seen the young man go away “grieved, for he had much wealth”, Jesus remarks, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of G^d”.

“Then who can be saved?” asked the disciples.

“What is impossible with men, is possible with G^d.” says Jesus.

Thanks be to G^d for that.

But let’s consider for a minute. Wherever I travel, I find that MOST people have a strong desire to be rich.  Yep, despite the Biblical warnings, everyone figures they will be the ONE to be rich, but do it correctly!

There are several more easily located Scriptures dealing with rich folk. In Luke 12 we get the story of the rich man who tore down his barns to increase his wealth stores…but he was a fool, because he was scheduled to die.  Then we have in Luke 16 about the rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen, but who wound up tormented in hell, whilst poor Lazarus lay in Abraham’s bosom in heaven.

But, enough said, let’s get to the punch line.  Back in I Tim 6: we read the instructions to the wealthy.  They are to: “do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves…”.

Okay, rich friends, “You go, and do likewise”.  (Lk 10:37)

The LAST Star Wars Movie

IF You are a deep lover of the Star Wars Movie Series, or any aspect of Star Wars, please STOP reading right now.  I don't need any HATE mail!

My prediction is not only this the last  Star Wars Movie (most recent, we saw its opening on 14 Dec), but it may well be so bad as to be the death knell, making it the LAST movie of the series.

A group of us went, and perhaps I hopes were too high.  I don't think that was true for me, as I really had NOT given it much thought.  To summarize:
     Things are looking bad for the rebels,
     The nice-looking heroine seeks help from Luke Skywalker,
     Not surprisingly Luke is very reluctant to do anything,
     There are a few decent scenes of air-to-air explosions and dog fights,
     The bad guys are really unappealing in all respects,
     Except for one bad guy, who is kinda appealing for some reason, and
     Heroism by Luke, et alia saves the day.

Well, just WHAT else were you expecting?

I found most of the scenes with Luke to be painfully tedious. I found the story to be pretty much the same story, with everyone a lot older than when this started back in the late 1970's.  No surprise there.

As a person who tries to take a Christian worldview on everything, the movie had no philosophical or otherwise helpful insights.  Sure, Good vs Evil, was the theme, but that is hardly a helpful insight. There is no hope in anything except non-existent help from unspecified "other rebels" who never showed up. There is no explanation as to why the two forces are fighting, except the old, old story of war.

So, save your $15.50 (yep) for something more worthy.  And, if you must go, for the sake of your movie completion needs, keep your expectations really, really, low. Or, take my advice and spend your time and money on something that will stimulate some thinking, or reflection, or at least entertainment.

Sorry.

Life Review: The Lost Coin

If you read in Luke 15 (8-9) about the woman who lost the coin, and lit a lamp and swept to find it, and then rejoiced greatly, then you know what our family experienced yesterday.  And, whereas it might be a small stretch to call this story part of our life review, I'm doing it anyway.

On Tues, 5 Dec, I was traveling back from DC to Alabama.  I called Brenda to check in, only to find her distraught. She tearfully related to me that she had lost her necklace.  Now, this is not your ordinary necklace.  It was fabricated using a diamond that Andrew gave her. We took some old jewelry, including one of my class rings to trade for the hand-crafted setting. It has great sentimental value that far exceeded its high wholesale value. Brenda could hardly tell me about it through her tears.

When I got home we searched further for the lost necklace.  I took the traps off the bathroom sinks, and searched the shower drain.  We looked high and low and even visited all the local pawn shops, hoping someone had found it and pawned it.  But mostly we solicited prayer that it would be found.

Well, G^d answered our prayer, almost exactly one week after it was lost.  On Tuesday, while I was in a meeting (this time locally) a woman called to tell Brenda she had found a necklace.  Brenda sms'd her a picture of it-- and it was the one she found!  She had found it in the aisle of Toys R Us.  She called the store a few days later to see if they knew who lost it, and they had given her Brenda's number.  Thanks be to G^d that she was both honest & diligent to follow-up.

The rejoicing was very illustrative of the woman describe in Luke.  Thanks be to G^d for his mercy and grace to restore the lost coin/necklace.  Scripture come to life!

G^d is good.  We realized in the BIG scheme of things, many more important things can be lost than a necklace. Nevertheless, we still rejoiced.

Thank you L^rd that you give us even little things- little jewels.  Thank you L^rd!

Tempus Fugit... and That's Good News!

I have always been overly time conscious. I am constantly seeking the shortest route, the fastest way, the best way to save time. I have quoted Benny Franklin who said, "Dost thou love life, then do not waste time, for time is what life is made of!".

But I have recently had a change of heart. Time goes by faster than ever for me.  The days just blow by and 2017 came and went extremely fast.

But that is now a good thing from my view.  Instead of Franklin, I quote St. Paul, "For me to live is Christ, to die is gain."  We Believers are on a journey to Heaven.  We anticipate a glorious day when we will enter into G^d's presence. We join with our Believing forefathers who said, "Maranatha, come quickly L^rd Jesus!"

I have been enormously blessed.  As King David said it, "Who am I and who is my house, that you (G^d) have brought me to this place (of Blessings)!" 

And yet... the best is yet to come!  Maranatha!

Life Review: Happy New Year, Again!

Well, this is my 67th New Year's Day!  Our family has never made a really big deal of New Year's celebrations, beyond staying up until midnight- which was highly unusual to be up that late.

We ate the traditional Southern New Year's day fare. We ate greens and peas, because that represented a financially prosperous coming year- some how!

This year is a noteworthy New Year.  I retired from a long career of teaching.  I was prepared for an adjustment - but not prepared enough.  It has been strange NOT being in the classroom starting in August. It is strange NOT to have to be someplace before 0800 each work day. It has been very strange NOT to be anticipating weekends and holidays from work.  This latter one, really has surprised me.  Brenda and I did a LOT of pre-retirement training back about 2004, when I first became eligible to retire.  I am guessing I heard a good bit about adjustment, but I don't recall these sort of specifics.

I still look at the job adverts, but I tell myself it is to keep up with the market and to advise Ph.D. students, with whom I still have some contact.  I won't leave my present job with Cru, because we are doing what G^d has called us to do. But there was a LOT to be said for the terrific career of teaching young, and some not-so-young, people.

So, as we look to the coming NEW Year with eager anticipation, I also look back at 2017, and the many years before that year. I have so many pleasant, positive memories of my time in the work force. I know several people who DO NOT have such a blessing.

Thanks be to G^d for a Blessed career, really for a BLESSED LIFE! It is almost inconceivable to be so blessed, so I can only say, THANKS BE TO G^D!

I pray your 2018 will be a Blessed one