I’m so stupid… and so are you!

Let me begin this post with the dictionary definition of stupid because right now some of us may be ignorant of its meaning… uh, what’s that? I used the word ignorant in my discussion of defining stupid and that seems redundant? Whoa.. wait.  Let’s get the cart behind the horse where it belongs then.  Here is the the dictionary definition of ignorant:

lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned

versus the dictionary definition of stupid:

characterized by or proceeding from mental dullness; foolish; senseless

So there is a difference between the two – one can be ignorant without being stupid.  However, an example of stupidity would be to act as if you have knowledge of something when you don’t.  Because that is just plain foolish.  For example: a person who has never sky-dived (lack of knowledge of the sport) decides to pack his own parachute and go base jumping from a bridge (very, very foolish – aka, stupid).

I like to characterize that as the highest level of stupidity and have deemed it willful ignorance – choosing to remain ignorant but acting or speaking as if educated in the subject.

So how am I stupid – and how are you stupid?

While I could give multiple societal examples, especially in the political arena, I want to steer this conversation to a topic called sanctification. Whew.. another big word.  Let me simplify it this way – its the work of the Holy Spirit in conjunction with teachings from the Word of God to make change in a person to become more like Christ.  I know that sounds churchy but it’s a churchy word so I don’t know how to make it less churchy.  Yeah, this is one of those posts.

Most people in America can by some form or another, possibly osmosis, create an image of what is expected of a person who claims to be a Christian.  That very term creates a checklist of morality that we confuse for godliness and because of our ignorance we strive in our own power to accomplish our task list in order to be acceptable before man.  And in our stupidity, we call that sanctification.

It is the highest level of stupidity because we choose not to be educated because we don’t plug into the Holy Spirit and we don’t pick up the bible.  Or if we do, we have become so callous to our condition that we don’t believe we can be taught anything new.  Don’t believe me?

Ask yourself this question:

When was the last time the bible challenged my beliefs?

Now I am not talking about those times when we recognize a truth that we already know and haven’t obeyed that we agree we should obey – but won’t.  That is a whole other topic that we could dig into but I don’t want you to miss the point of this topic.  When was the last time you read something in the bible and it shook you to your core because it broke a long-held belief that you had accepted as truth?  When was the last time the Holy Spirit said, “You’re wrong”?

Maybe in our cockiness we believe that we have already arrived and there are no new truths to learn about our character in light of God’s word.

In our willful ignorance we are willing to live by our own definition of what Christianity should be not realizing there is no joy in that.  Stupidity has consequences like base jumping with no instruction – there may be a short-lived thrill until the realization sinks in that the chute won’t open.  At that point the only thing left is desperation.

Know any desperate Christians?  Maybe you are a desperate Christian.

Sanctification was never about what we could accomplish.  It has always been about what God could accomplish in us through the redemption of His Son, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the instruction of His Word.  It doesn’t start with a predefined, mental checklist.  It takes humble obedience over a lifetime…. and even then we won’t have learned everything there is to know.

Run, Onesimus, Run!

The book of Philemon details the story of Onesimus, a runaway slave.  His owner, Philemon, was most likely a wealthy man as he was able to afford to own slaves and his house was large enough for the church to meet in it.  In Paul’s letter to Philemon, he had nothing but praise and good things to say about this wealthy man.

So why did Onesimus run away?  If Philemon was a generous and godly man, what prompted Onesimus to flee?

I would like to hear your thoughts before I add mine.  It’s a short book so it won’t take you long to read it.

An Ecclectic Reading List

I am sitting in my reading/tv watching chair and there are several books next to me – much to my wife’s chagrin.  She will probably migrate them to my office at some point and then slowly they will migrate back to their current location.  It’s as inevitable as the tide’s coming in and going out.

My current reading list includes:

• Think Orange by Reggie Joiner
• And He Dwelt Among Us by A.W. Tozer
• Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
• Game Plan For Life by Joe Gibbs

2 of the books are contemporary books that are concerned with topics that face men and families in today’s society.  The authors are of those 2 books are still living and at least one of them is a very well respected celebrity in the sports world.

The other 2 books were written in the previous century and the authors are no longer living. But…  their words are still applicable and speaking today.

So, what are you reading?

Running Scared

I don’t know that it would take a great deal of bible study to recognize there was a difference in the disciples before the day of Pentecost and the days that followed.  Those days following Christ’s crucifixion and before the coming of the Holy Spirit, the church was running scared.  Including those that had been closest to Christ – His disciples.

But then something happened on that day of Pentecost that put power into the early church movement.  The people gathered obediently and were filled with the Holy Spirit.  No more running.  No more denying.  No backing down. No watering down.  No dressing up.  Just the pure simple beauty of the gospel message presented through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Thinking on that I can’t help but be introspective about my own beliefs and the impact of the Holy Spirit in my life.  I feel that I fall miserably short of the example set in that early church.

Am I the only one?

But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.  2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 1-7.

Am I running scared?  Are you?

What will it take to galvanize the church to lay a hold of the power?

Think on it.  Let me know your thoughts.

Ready or Hoping?

I was driving home this evening and I was thinking about this question:

Are Christians today ready to go to heaven or hoping to?

I believe there is a difference and I believe that difference has a vast impact on how the two different groups behave and are perceived.  Before I give my two cents on the subject, I would like to hear what you think on the subject.

Philippians, Chapter 1, has some application to this thought process… so I will give you that bit of help to get your cognitive processes engaged.

Collecting Tears:Chapter 2

This is the second installment of my short story, Collecting Tears.  These chapters are mostly rough drafts that I need to revisit and brush up, but I am posting them because they may push me to finish writing the story.

Chapter 2: Sweet Escapes

The spell of the scene was falling away and she was slowly returning to her sad reality.  Life had been long but not so long that she was ready to be collecting the rewards that she had feared as a seven year old.  Some things didn’t change.  In fact, some things only worsened with age.  She had always wondered what lay beyond the dusty shroud that separated this existence from the next.  Wondering only increased her trepidation.

She clasped her vial tighter, thankful that it offered an alternative to the unknown.  In those last moments, she would escape to her own comfortable reality – a lifetime that she had made for herself.

Being frightened caused her to grow angry – she shouldn’t be so fragile at this point in her life. Preparations had been made and carried out and there was no reason to fear now.  She caressed the vial once again, needing to return to a place that would bring her joy.  Yes, there were tears of joy here too.

…

She could smell the vegetable gardens that grew in everybody’s backyards.  Victory gardens.  She hated the fact that she had to spend hours a day weeding the rows of tomatoes, corn, and green beans.  “Plant More In ‘44″ was posted on posters all over down town.  When she looked at her broken finger nails full of dirt, she wanted to march along the streets and rip the hateful propaganda from its mocking edifice.  Victory indeed.  Seventeen and relegated to menial and meaningless labor.

The scent of the tomato leaves did nothing to soothe her mood.  The air hung hot and heavy across the night like a wet blanket.  She was going crazy with the heat.  Even the crickets sounded sluggish outside her window.  The moon was hidden causing the darkness to seem suffocating in the summer swelter. She bit her damp pillow case and screamed in frustration.

She could resist it no longer.  Standing at the foot of her bed, she removed her night gown and stood naked against the window frame.  There was no breeze to cool her skin, but getting the wadded up shift away from her body had made her think she felt cooler.  Feeling cooler didn’t remove the stench of the garden that lay beyond her sill leaving her mood still curdled by the heat.

She wasn’t sure how long she had stared out at the stars, being serenaded by soggy crickets, before she noticed a small whisper of a wind playing among the ivy tendrils that grew around her frame.  It teased her, calling her to come and play.  Why couldn’t she have been a boy, then she could simply step out into the night and enjoy the sweat being dried off of her skin by the small breeze.  No sooner had she thought it than she acted on it. Girls had a right to be cool, too.

Her bare feet hit the fresh turned soil that ran clear up to the base of the wall that held her window.  She could feel small stones bite softly into her soles but she didn’t care.  The sweat that was hidden by night’s dark cloak was being lifted off by gentle tugs of northern winds.  It was more than refreshing, it was chilling.  A shiver of excitement ran along her spine causing her to toss her hair as if she were a wild mare loosed on a vast prairie.

She took a few more timid steps into the night to taste the forbidden ecstasy of being unclothed in a world of that hid too much.  Her fourth step brought her heel down on a ripening tomato.  It popped deliciously.  The sweet green smell that it released was fresh blood in the tank shark of her mood.

She gave into the desire, running up and down the rows of vegetables stomping tomatoes, throwing ears of corn, and ripping beans from their vines.  It was heavenly.  She smelled like soup and felt like a silver fox hunting her prey.  She tipped her head back towards an invisible moon and yipped, a wild cub on the hunt.  Tears flowed down her jaw line, falling to her bare breasts where she eventually trapped one in the crystal tube that hung always in her budding valley.

Collecting Tears: Chapter 1

This is a short story titled Collecting Tears that I started about 3 years ago.  There are several chapters in this work so  I will post the first chapter today…

Chapter 1: Near the End

It had taken a life time but it was finally full. Trembling hands clutched a delicate crystal vial that rested against a bosom that rose and fell in shallow gasps. The final tear had come from Nelly, her long time nurse. It was a task that had nearly cost her the energy to continue breathing but one that had to be done never the less.

Why had the poor lass been so obstinate about holding her feelings in? An hour of story telling had finally broken Nelly’s resolve and she had let ocean waters streak down her face. A practiced brush of the child’s cheek had captured the precious liquid on a flattened nail where she could hide it until she sent the nurse away. Once she was alone, she had painstakingly collected that final material.

Now resting quietly, she had time to look back across the pages of time.

Her mother had christened the vial on her birthday some 87 years ago. Her first tear had rolled down her infant cheek and into the glass capsule coming to rest lonely on the bottom. Somehow that had saved the power of the moment and she was able to recall in vivid detail the moments before and after the capture of that single tear. Just by concentrating on the vial, she could draw on the pain and confusion that defined the passage of her life from the womb to the world. She could relive the searing despair of being removed from the umbilical and the lush caresses of her mother’s first kisses.

She always felt silly for wasting time on that first tear but she missed her mother more now at the end of her life than when she had lost her so many years ago. There was a tear in the vial for that day as well, but she wouldn’t let herself be drawn into that memory – no, they were more than memories. Each sweet dew drop represented life. Nothing less. To take a hold of the power they held was to be in their moment of life again.

She knew each tear and from whom they had come from. They were friends of delight and pain that she had visited with more times than she cared to remember.

The gray shadow of death was climbing closer about her but she held no fear. She was prepared for that final moment now that her collection was complete. With her last gasp she would swallow the contents of the crystal container and dance forever among their moments – each one so carefully harvested and saved for this day.

Until death got on with his business, she would enjoy calling on the power of a few more of her favorite collections.

…

There was one tear that was more powerful than all the others. It called to her when she slept – none of the others had ever done that. Just the one. She was careful to visit it on occasions when she was alone because it affected her so deeply to return to that moment.

She was seven years old. It was summer time outside the house, but winter seemed to hold sway inside on this day. She had woke up cold inside her bones even though it was quite warm. The only true break from the summer heat for the plantation house in 1927 were the large oaks that lent their shade to the gentle breezes that passed through screen covered windows.

Summer heat or no, she was shivering. She was sick.

Many of her neighbors had been sick as well. And many of them were now on to their eternal rewards – words her mother used to describe when someone had died.She wasn’t sure what eternal rewards were, but she knew she wasn’t in a hurry to be getting any. She climbed out of bed and stumbled to the bed pan that had been placed in her room since she hadn’t been feeling well. The cold porcelain made her shiver more harshly causing some spray to hit her calf. Mom wouldn’t be happy, but she used the hem of her night shirt to wipe her leg dry. The mere fact that she was thinking along those lines made her feel a little better. Maybe she wouldn’t be getting any eternal rewards anytime soon after all.

Her little brother slept in the room across the hall and she hurried to cross over to check on him. If she was feeling better, maybe he was feeling better too. Before she made it through his doorway, she could see her father sitting in the chair next to Bubby’s bed. She could only see his back but she could tell that he was sitting with his face in his hands. Every morning it was the same. Sometimes she felt jealous because he always spent time next to Bubby’s bed and so little besides hers. She had mentioned it to mother one night as she was being tucked in and had been told that her brother wasn’t as strong as she was and that her father was afraid for Bubby. That had shocked her because she had never seen her father be afraid of anything.

She stepped fully into the room and her father looked over his shoulder. She saw something this morning that she had never seen before either. Her father was crying.

She had collected her first tear while he had squeezed her in a tight hug. Her mother had turned the vial over to her just the previous week. Maybe its power came from that fact – that it had been her first. No, she knew the real reason. This was the only time her father had ever cried. The hug had hurt but somehow she had known that he needed to squeeze her hard because he couldn’t do so with her brother. Sometime that morning her Bubby had collected his eternal rewards whether he had wanted to or not.

80 years later she felt his warm tears splashing on her shoulder. She could feel the scratchy stubble that was rubbing her cheek raw and smell the cologne that he had put on the previous morning. His body had shook more than hers had when she was shivering from the sickness. More than anything though, she could feel the pain that tore her father’s heart apart.

…

Uncollected tears spilled fresh across time weathered cheeks lost in the power of this one greater tear.

Hollow Soundings – A Short Story

I fancy myself a writer from time-to-time so I thought I would post one of my short stories.  Maybe somebody will read it and enjoy it… and maybe not. 

Hollow Soundings

Mary limped along the forest path, her cane tip sinking slightly into the hard packed earth. She muttered to herself as she hobbled along, “Be vewy vewy qwiet. I’m hunting wabbit.”

She didn’t say it very loud. Actually the statements came out as more of a grunt through her labored breath.

Her slow-gaited swing eventually brought her to an old log that lay across the path. Without hesitating, she took her cane and banged it against the rough bark three times in over handed blows. The instant she lifted the cane from the last strike, a rabbit jumped from the open end of the trunk. Mary had speed that belied her physical appearance and she used it to good measure. She caught the rabbit in mid hop right behind the ears. Just as quickly as she had caught the small animal, her nails dug into the loose skin that surrounded the rabbit’s neck and with a quick jerk, twist, and tear the head was loosed from the body.

Mary turned around and headed back the way she had come now whispering, “Cook, cook! I have my hasenfeffer.”

It was a five minute shuffle for her to travel the hundred yards that separated the slaying field from the tree that she decorated with the heads of the animals that she caught. There were hundreds of skulls in varying forms of species and decomposition. They hung from the lower branches of the tree like a bizarre display of holiday cheer. She slipped a wire through the rabbit’s ears and tossed it over the point of an open twig, adding another bulb to her menagerie.

Everybody that used the road or sidewalk that ran along Mary’s property could take in the gruesome scene but there wasn’t anything they could do but shake their heads and quickly move on. The city held no jurisdiction over the property as it had been grandfathered under an old homesteader law that gave Mary protection to leave her yard in any state she felt satisfying. There had been many citizens disappointed by the answers to appeals to have the tree undecorated. Most people had just taken to calling the lady of the lawn, Mindless Mary, thinking she was crazy.

There was a story on how she had lost her foot that circulated around the downtown diners and barber shops. Most people believed the story and felt it held the secret to when Mary had started slipping a few gears.

Supposedly, as a child, she and a group of friends had decided to play hide-and-seek on a farm that had been left to grow over when the family that owned it could no longer afford to continue the upkeep. Mary had lowered herself over the edge of a well using her legs and back to prop herself against the lip. She hadn’t counted on one side of the wall giving way and sending her falling thirty feet to the bottom of the well. She had been knocked unconscious by the fall. Needless to say, the other children were unable to find her and had simply concluded she had headed home weary of the game.

Mary’s parents had been the type not to notice her coming and going and it was several days before they realized she was missing. It was another ten days before anyone thought to look down the well of the old farmstead. Two days before she was found, Mary had grown so hungry that she had began gnawing on her right foot. By the time she was found, the foot was infected and mutilated beyond what medical care could reverse. The foot was taken in order to save the leg.

It was her playmates that first noticed Mary was a bit off after the episode. 6 months after having her foot removed, she returned to school using the same cane she used to this day. Kids being kids, they asked the obvious question:

“How did that happen?”

To which she answered, “Playing hide-and-seek. I won and the prize was this stick.”

“But what happened to your foot?”, they would inquire.

“A girl’s got to eat”, was the matter-of-fact answer given with a shrug of the shoulders. “I heard the hollow soundings.”

Now, thirty years later, the rabbit was going to fill the latest wave of hollow soundings.

The Creature Perspective

I haven’t posted in a while.  Life has twists and turns and they take their impact on what can be accomplished in a day’s time.  Tonight I am going to post some thoughts that I have had about the inability of humans to understand the concept of God’s holiness.  I am not in bad company with my struggles to comprehend what that looks like.  RC Sproul and AW Tozer are two men that I have turned to in  my attempts to get a better grip of that concept and they have wrestled with that concept as well.

As creatures created by the Creator, we are left with but one perspective – that of fallible flesh grasping after the infallible.

We are used to describing things.  I would say that it is a God-given call since He asked man (Adam) to name the animals.  We naturally label things – we name them.  The problem with our present abilities with describing things is that we contextualize our perceptions of the thing being described.  Let me give you an example.

Imagine that you are walking down the street and you see a little girl eating an ice cream cone.  A big, purple smile is painting her face as she eats the raspberry chip flavored delight that is in her hand.

It would be easy to describe the girl as being happy and that the happiness is a direct consequence of the ice cream.  In the back of our mind, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine what would happen if the girl were to drop her ice cream on the ground. For the sake of the rest of my explanation on contextualization, let’s assume that we know the girl’s name is Susie.

Based on my hypothetical situation, I can propose the following issues with the human ability to understand God’s holiness.

• Qualify:  We look for reasons why situations exist.  With the Susie, we qualified her happiness by the presence of ice cream.
• Quantify: We expect that there are varying degrees to the state of things.  Susie seemed to be extremely happy with the raspberry chip flavor, but would she have been as happy with vanilla?
• Transitional: We don’t expect things to stay the way they are.  We understand that when the ice cream is gone, whether by accident or by consumption, that Susie’s happiness will dissipate.  In the chance that it is an accidental loss, her transitional state may be extreme.
• Meaningless Labels: We accept and expect that some labels are non-descriptive.  The girl’s name is Susie – a label that does not describe her.  Its just a mechanism by which we can separate her from the girl next door.

No wonder it can be so hard to get our minds around the thought of God’s holiness… especially when it transcends our ability to contextualize.

God is holy. Period.  His holiness does not have to be qualified.  We don’t have to seek a reason behind His holiness.

His holiness doesn’t ramp up or down based on circumstances.  It is an eternal, absolute state.

He cannot transition from holiness to some other aspect.  In His love, He is holy.  In His anger, He is holy.  In His compassion, He is holy.  And in His judgment, He is holy.

Finally, his holiness is not a meaningless label.  We can’t limit Him by thinking of His holiness as a way to separate Him from the unholy gods.  The most accepted definition of holy is Set Apart.  And, He IS.

As I have studied this concept, I looked to the bible for insight and Exodus chapter 3 has lead me to believe that understanding the holiness of God is impossible without experiencing it.  Read about Moses’ encounter with God through the burning bush and really look into what happens in those first 6 verses.  Moses was 80 years old and well acquainted with the concepts of religion and God. but look for yourself at how he responded in verse 6 to the holiness of God.

Don’t Pee on Me!!

This is another installment of my thoughts from World Changers in upstate New York.

Her tired eyes are shining as she instructs me, “Ask him what a transformer sounds like”.

It sounds like a simple request but the 6 year old has been bouncing off the walls and tables ever since he entered the cafeteria.  That’s why I had noticed them – he was literally bouncing off the walls and tables in his own unique way.  From his wheelchair, he would grab the corner of a support beam and swing his chair towards a table where he would use his arms or legs to bounce away from it.

He is the splitting image of the little boy from the movie Jerry Maguire right down the curly blond hair and glasses.  I keep waiting for him to ask a question about how much the human head weighs.  Instead, I catch up to him and ask him, “Hey, what does a Transformer sound like?”

He stops moving long enough to look up and articulate, “hol-hol-hol-uh-uh-hol-hol”, and then he is off moving again.  The impression is terrific and I am left standing there in the wake of air he created with a smile stretching across my face.  I watch him as he runs up against kids playing cards and he has the same affect on them as he steals a 4 of hearts and takes off with it.  They all look after him and smile.  He’s contagious.  His exuberance rubs off on those he comes into contact with.

His name is Joshua and he does a great job of breaking down walls.

Before I leave the cafeteria, I spend some time with his mother and she tells me their story:

“Joshua comes here every year looking for people that he met from last year.  We love World Changers and the church we used to attend would always support World Changers when they came into town.  But I haven’t been able to part of that since Joshua’s dad died and I have had to take care of all his medical needs by myself.  His condition is degenerative and he is going to need a lung and heart transplant.  And though he is a little mentally delayed, he is such a little Casanova with the girls and loves to be around the boys because he misses his daddy.”

Our conversation went back and forth for a while and Joshua would come up to us from time-to-time so that he could bounce to a new adventure.  Each time he was in reach, I would give him a high-five or ask him a question about his chair.  His answers were quick and to the point because he had bouncing to do.

I left the cafeteria not knowing if I would see Joshua or his mother again.  God knew.

Later that evening, I found a place to sit in the back of the auditorium that was serving as our worship venue for the week.  Just so you are aware, all good Baptists sit in the back to make sure no one takes the Holy Spirit with them as they try to sneak out the back door.  I had just got comfortable when I heard Joshua’s voice preceding the halting stop that his wheelchair came to right behind my seat.  I looked over my shoulder and was pleasantly surprised to see that both he and his mother had joined us for worship.

Joshua quickly whispered something to his mother that I couldn’t make out and I could tell she wasn’t sure how to respond to Joshua.  Her delayed response allowed him time to speak his request again, this time more loudly and clearly.

“I want to cuddle.”  This statement became a request because he was motioning to his mother that I was to be the recipient of that cuddle.

It wasn’t hard to see that his mother was struggling with how to respond to Joshua, so I offered, “If its okay, I will hold him.”  Those words were barely out of my mouth before he was crawling out of his chair and across the back of mine.  He sat down in my lap, laid his head against my chest and said, “I want you to be my daddy.”

Heart-warming.  Gut wrenching.  I didn’t know how to respond.  His mother saved me, “He can’t be your daddy, he has a wife and children of his own.”

Joshua didn’t sit still for very long.  The next fifteen minutes was his time to entertain those of us at the back of the auditorium.  He would bounce from lap to lap and try to bang people’s heads together.  At one point, he was standing on the chair next to me facing back towards his mother and she used that opportunity to get onto him for moving around so much.  He started to slide down the chair, to the seat of the chair, and eventually the floor.  The whole time he was sliding he was saying in his best witch voice, “I’m melting!”

I can’t say for sure but I think he was stealing the hearts of all of us that were part of his displays that evening.

When he finally melted to the floor, he crawled underneath my legs and the legs of the teen aged boy beside me.  He looked up and noticed where he was located and in a dramatic voice relayed the following statement:

“I better move before you guys pee on me.”

I have never heard that in a church service before.  I doubt I will again.  But this I can say, I wasn’t bothered in the least to hear it that night.  Joshua broke down walls and left smiles.  Before he left my lap for the final time that night, he leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.

There are several kids from Jersey that were heartbroken when Josh had to leave the following night to go to his next hospital appointment.  I hope they read this and add some of their own stories about Joshua.

We all learned something valuable from him.  In our desire to bless those around us, God sent a 6 year old to bless us.  Our circumstances and station in life do not limit the capacity to impact someone else’s life in a positive way… especially, if we will just be who God is working in us to be.