SSSC: (Sometimes Sarcastic Sermonettes for Christianettes) 2023.05.29 --> POLITICS AND MORALITY. 2023.05.29

I started this blog series a long time ago, then let it wither...but I've had this nagging feeling (thnx, H.S.) of a need to resume it. So, here goes! The naming is from my late and usually restrained father-in-law, who was asked to deliver a sermonette for some occasion. On recounting the tale, he practically snarled, "Sermonettes are for Christianettes!" Since I often feel like a baby-beginner Christian myself, stumbling and struggling along the path behind Jesus, please realize that these sermonettes are as aimed as much at me as at pick-anything/anyone-out-there in God's wide world. Oh, the sarcasm is definitely me, not my father-in-law.

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Why so much concern about legislating morality? Granted, we live in a far from perfect place. 

But...I thought the first and greatest commandment was something about loving God? And the second was about showering love on those around us? Oh, and that "not judging others" thing?? ...oops.

Something seems badly out of focus... and a mixture of religion and politics seems to terribly blur our focus on the greatest commandments.

About all Jesus had to say about living in an occupied land, under the political/military/pseudo-religious thumb of an emperor and his jack-booted followers, was 

"...Pay your taxes to Caesar." 

Period.

So...how's your focus on God doing?

    Need glasses? (I know I sure do--some days I'm beyond legally blind!)

And, howzabout that "loving your neighbor" thing? 

    Are your neighbors happy to see you?

         Is your little world a better and more loving place because you are there?

If not, beware of the next mirror u pass--it might reflect a Pharisee!

[Hi, it's me!]

Ouch.

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The Greatest Commandment

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Matthew 22: 36-39. NIV.

SSSC--UP

 UP

Yes, this is the title of a cute animated film that is both a tearjerker and an uplifting story.

--Abraham took Isaac up to the mountain

--Moses went up to the mountain

--King David lifted up his hands in prayer

--Elijah was up on Mount Carmel with the prophets of Baal

--Jesus went up to Jerusalem

--Jesus went up to the Mount of Transfiguration

--Jesus was caught up in clouds and said the words that General MacArthur would utter more than 1,900 years later, "I shall return!"

--Psalm 121, "I will lift up my eyes to the hills..."

Have you been caught up in something bigger than yourself lately?

   A dream? 

      A cause with a capital C?

           Something goofy that may seem childish to you...

                    or, more accurately, something that you fear others will regard as childish? 

Stretch for the brass ring, nobody else will do it for you. Go for it. And grab onto a buncha balloons while you're at it!

NIKE.

SSSC # 2023.06.19 JUNETEENTH (Sometimes Sarcastic Sermonettes for Christianettes and other wandering wonderers)

 Jesus strolled into the church in his hometown and was welcomed to come up front and read. He chose this passage, which is a quote from Isaiah:​

Lk 4: 18, 19

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,   
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

John 8:32

"...and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Paul, the great preacher who had to be struck blind for awhile in order for the Lord to get his attention, ​​later expands on this theme, reminding us that we are all enslaved, whether to personal comfort, political or business power, work or play or whatever... which is not exactly focusing on eternity, Paul would say. 

Ouch.

Jesus spread his arms wide and said, "Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." That offer is still good for today...we can join with Paul and all those who have gone on before us, and be set free. The chains that bind us, like those unfortunate souls in Texas up 'til 1865, have been formally broken and only wait for us to step out of them into God's glorious freedom!

May I suggest reading the short book of The Gospel of John. ​Read it as a chapter a day or all in one sitting. Either way, let me know, and I will be happy to read along with you and discuss.

.

SSSC--Works: Jas 2 (On FB today, 05.22.21)

 WORKS 2.0

Forgive us, Lord, for we have loved the institution more than the people who ARE your church; Forgive us, Lord, for we have cared more about doctrine and correctness than your people round the world; Forgive us Lord, for we have sought our own comfort more than compassion for the poor in our midst;

Forgive us, Lord, for we proclaim the profundities of our faith while our works are feeble and vain; Forgive us, Lord, for we have loved Netflix

and phones more than you we are idolators and unworthy-- Lord, have mercy upon us: open our ears and soften our hearts to love and live your way...Amen.

It was a refreshing wind...

It is one of those beautiful summer evenings, when the moon is almost full, way up in the sky, highlighting a few clouds. Thunderstorms just rolled through, windy and loud and full of flash and flare--there are still a few distant jags of lightning in the south. The humidity has not all been washed out of the air, but the air still feels cooler and refreshed.

For some reason, my mind wandered in the direction of Pentecost, when the fresh wind of the spirit blew over the gathered disciples. While I doubt that the breeze that day was cooling, I suspect that the gathering was refreshed and energized in a manner never before experienced by any one of them!

Thinking of breezes, when Elijah was in the wilderness, before God manifested as the little whispering voice, an earthquake and a rock-crushing wind were the opening acts.

Jesus told his audience that while they can feel the effect of the wind, the wind remains an invisible force...
I wonder if the wind of the spirit has had any visible effects in your life, or in my life, lately? The simple answer is, of course. And you're reading it right now.

Lord, blow through our lives, blow away the chaff, and instill fresh air within us. To your glory, amen.

Top-Heavy Musings for 4/18/2020, or, day 25 of Shelter in Place.

I am enjoying the irony of rain falling here in Portland, Maine, as it's snowing south of us in Massachusetts, but, Lord, they really need the snow in Greenland and so forth, as the ice melt is at record levels there! 

As is true for most weekends,one of the Icelandic container ships is in port. This weekend it's the Lagerfoss--I love this about Iceland: they name their ships after waterfalls, and their airplanes with the names of Icelandic glaciers! Sitting here at my desk, I enjoy the movement of the containers from the yard on to the container ship. I wonder what might be in all those containers: most all of them simply arrived on the back of a truck or are transferred from the rail spur, but occasionally I see them loading automobiles into a container. Sometimes, tightly veiled objects that look like vats for a brewery, or shrink-wrapped, oddly shaped components that are too big to fit inside a container are loaded on top, strapped to a flatbed, along with the occasional boat.

I wonder just who knows the contents of the myriad, mostly uniform containers? Do the various equipment operators and deckhands ponder these mysteries? Do they wonder just how many dead bodies, or kilos of methamphetamine are headed for Europe? (Or, am I reading too many thrillers and mysteries?) 

Did you know that container ships have a deck that, like a bifold closet door, opens up to allow several layers of containers to be stowed below decks? Having (mis-)perceived container ships as ungainly, top-heavy waddlers through the waves, my own sense of equilibrium was improved in seeing that a fair bit of the load was serving as ballast, below decks. 

And how true of life...we all need some ballast to rely on, as we negotiate the heavier seas of life. Faith, faith in something vastly bigger and more permanent than myself, outside of myself, helps give me a sense of stability.

May fair seas, following winds, and stable ballast be yours!

D.

Ask, Seek, Knock.

ASK, SEEK KNOCK.

It sounds so simple, doesn't it? But it doesn't take a lot of time to arrive at the notion that merely asking or seeking or knocking once is enough. I'm reminded of the woman who wouldn't give up on bringing her case before the judge...and he finally give in to her demands for a fair hearing because she didn't give up.

Simple to say, "Don't give up. Never say never. Persevere." The trouble is in actually persevering! Tolerating disappointment, day after day, feeling discouraged yet aware that the emotions don't alter the need to put the willpower in gear.

How often do your emotions keep you from persevering?

One of my favorite quotes about writing came from a British writer, who said that the most important ingredient in being a successful writer was, "bum glue." In short, you glue your bum to the chair and write. Don't feel like it? Tough, keep writing. Uninspired. Just keep writing and fix it, add sparks and fuel and fire later, just keep at it.

Jesus wants us to hang in there, fight the good fight, to remember Churchill's fiery speech every day, and "Never give up!"

"Fight the good fight of the faith to which you were called...." Paul told Timothy. "Never give up."

Dancing in the Dark

I just read Derek Hough's biography-inspirational book: TAKING THE LEAD (2014).

This is sort of an executive summary mingled with my reactions and reflections:

Derek found himself driven by physical energy and by fear...
--where can the fear attack me?
--He found his way to overwhelm the fear was by just DOING! Life is NOT what happens to us, it's what we make of it.

Passion is not difficult: passion is that sense of "flow," of being "in the zone,"
[Or, says David: as my daily devotional suggested this morning--passion moves easily on the wind of the Spirit! It is when we're fighting the Spirit that we suffer severe headwinds. That's my experience!]

Kids act--adults analyze. Oops, then they over-analyze.
--impulsiveness is okay [granted, we need SOME kind of boundaries!]

Free yourself to have ideas, lots of ideas...[work/write/do a lot of things that may end up destined for the trash can...but having 15 crazy crummy ideas or 10 poor poems might just gestate one or two good ones, but we won't have any ideas if perfectionism keeps us paralyzed and over-analyzed! We dance our way out of the darkness by going, doing, being and living, and daring to fail and daring failure to try to stop us! I used to tell the patients whom I was counseling/coaching for habit disorders--"How did you learn to ride a bike...did you get on the first time and cycle around the block? Of course not! You got on and fell off. You got back on and fell off on the other side...over and over, until one day it all clicked! That's how we change, that's how we grow, and that's how we create.]

SEE the successes, don't visualize the failures.

Don't ask "Why?" ask, "Why not???"

Be an eternal student, always pushing to learn and grow.

I am created to create (p167), Derek says. [David adds, OF COURSE. We are created in the image of our Creator-God*. We have the mind of Christ**--of course we are creative! It is hellish perfectionism, self-hate, pride, envy of others, and the pursuit of boring, repetitive, mind-numbing TV that all stymie creativity.]

__________
*Genesis 1: 26 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=esV
**1 Cor. 2: 16 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians+2:16&version=ESV

Enthusiasm.

Muppets creator Jim Henson said: "Follow your enthusiasm. It's something I've always believed in. Find those parts of your life you enjoy the most. Do what you enjoy doing."

Right. But what if your degree of enthusiasm is not balanced by the same degree of skill? For instance, the poor slobs who appear for auditions for "...Talent" or "Idol" but who can't sing worth a lick, or who dance like a dork. All the judges agree, the audience agrees, but somehow, just because there's "enthusiasm" we feel as if the judges are being "mean."

Balderdash! By all means, follow your enthusiasm until it leads to something that you're good at! But, so sorry, that may have to be a hobby: being really good at painting cute little pink butterflies, or sketching really cool race cars...fun, but it is not likely to pay the utilities! There's a reason why a job is called "work" and a hobby is filed under "play." Happy that rare human for whom the job is a joy and never contains even a moment of drudgery--hah!

Oh, and while I'm on the subject: $15/hour for flipping burgers? Wait till some of them grow up (well, we can hope that happens, but I think we're seeing more and more people stuck in perpetual adolescence) and want to pay their employees what the market demands or the work deserves, only to be told by a power-tripping bureaucrat what the unarguable wage rate is and must be. Cannot these idiots do basic math--higher costs lead to higher prices. Duh. Sure, go find a study that says the opposite--it's out there, but, they're having fun with statistics, finding results to prove their point rather than doing basic facts.

Kills me.

Okay, back to the point--follow your enthusiasm, pursue your passion, and you might end up with the best job imaginable. Just don't bet the farm on it--remember, most of us came from peasant stock, and our forefathers worked daggone hard on the farm, at the gristmill, in the shop, in the orchards and vineyards, fishing or mining or logging! Their passion was to survive! ...and their names survive...Farmer. Miller. Smith. Carpenter. Viticulturist (okay, joking here). Fisher. Miner. Sawyer.

So, dream big, but expect to work, and work hard. Go, go, go!

A world without...

A World Without You.

"I could have imagined and created a world without you...but, then, the world would have been incomplete. Without you certain people would have never received your warm smile. Kindness that you could have offered would have gone unreceived, while kindnesses that you may have benefited from would never have blessed the giver.

"My world would have been incomplete...without you in it.

"Does this help you to understand why I am particularly fond...of you?"

(Signed,
....God.)

Creative kids, creative adults.

“The creative adult is the child who has survived.” 

Ursula K. Le Guin

My wife, who still insists, "I can't draw well," related this story:

It was fall, and for our art project the entire fifth grade class had to color a picture of a jack-o-lantern. The teacher proudly hung them all about the room. Everyone's. Except mine. She said it didn't look at all like a pumpkin.

* * * * *

Have a similar story? Maybe not to do with the graphical arts, but with writing a story or an essay? Or a poem? Perhaps you had an invention-- A GREAT IDEA!!!! TRULY...and it got shot down as soon as the words left your mouth. In fact, you could see their bloody corpses laying there on the classroom floor...alongside your ego.

Yes, persistence is a crucial ingredient in being creative. Particularly because most GREAT IDEAS!!!! are, to be honest, not that great. But, who knows if the next one, or the twenty-next or the five-hunnerdeth won't be a truly great idea--that's the reality...the reality that is both full of failure yet boundlessly wide and deep and long! Doubt my words?...just ask Thomas Edison!

Share a story, I'd love to hear one. Meanwhile, I've got a very short story...I am still writing a poem a day. Many of them are mediocre. Some are silly and would be quite entertaining...for the average nine-year-old! (As if that were a bad thing?) Some are, frankly, future compost. But, every once in a while, that flowing stream of creative juices hits an eddy current and stirs something up that is actually worth listening to. Hmmm.

* * * * * 

Here's the daily scrawl from 1/22/14:

Adult pretensions

  ...shed 'em.

Along with fruitless contentions.

  Come, let us make peace in all dimensions.

That is my intention:

  the absolute suspension

of adult convention,

  so listen to the child within

and celebrate invention!

Tough Stuff

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason. They made no such demand upon those who wrote them. 
     ~Charles Caleb Colton

"A reader? That's what you call yourself?"

I shrugged. "Sure. I read lots of books! Why last year, I read over a--"

"--Quantity? You boast of quantity?" 

"I..." A good defense rose to my lips, except I knew it was no defense at all. I'd mostly read fluff: adventure/detective/spy stories.

"Look. There are great works of fiction out there...some are actually on lists of 'Great Books.' But, there are biographies, histories, memoirs--factual stuff about reality, not floofy escapes into unreality! When was the last time you sank your teeth into something that made you think?"

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The Average American Watches This Much TV Every Day: How do ...

www.fool.com/.../the-average-american-watches-this-much-tv-every-...

The Motley Fool

Mar 15, 2015 - If you watch less than five hours of television each day, then consider yourself below average. The typical American spent 4 hours and 51 minutes in front of a TV screen per day over the last few months, according to a report from ratings company Nielsen.

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75% of Americans 16 and older read a book last year. The median number of books read by readers last year was 6; the average, pushed up by those always-reading outliers, was 15.

How many books does an average person read in a year? - Quora

https://www.quora.com/How-many-books-does-an-average-person-read-in-a-year

 

 

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David speaking: last yr I read 160 books. 42 were non-fiction. Hmm. 

Writing is Magic.

Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. 

The water is free. 

So drink. 

Drink and be filled up.

 Stephen King, On Writing.

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To paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity. The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birth giver. In a very real sense the artist should be like Mary who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, 'Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.'

Madeline l'Engle. Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art.

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Art gives me life. It is the deepest expression of the human soul. 

I make it because I have no other choice.

T. C. Boyle, author.

+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+

 Sheesh, I'm thinking I have something to add to these voices? They're too brilliant...but, I can observe that these three different authors offer us powerful insights into the creative act. All three seem to see creativity as something that pulls them forward or lifts them up, something bigger than themselves...frankly, is something that transcends reality.

Writing wrongs?

I write because it's right.
I write because I haven't left.
I write because it'd be wrong to not write.

I cannot say, as does my hero Stephen King, that I have to write, that I sneak away to write on evenings and holidays and weekends and on vacation. Hm.

However, I do love the creative process, bringing to life something that has never, ever existed, something unseen, unuttered, utterly unique. A newborn baby, if you will.

I write because the voices in my head tell me they'll...oops, shhhh.



"To write, or not to write...that is the question."

“DEATH WITH DIGNITY”

[Okay, in this post I'm doffing my "creative writer hat" and regressing...to Doctor David--I studied and have taught medical ethics, so I feel qualified to speak on the topic of...]

“DEATH WITH DIGNITY”

Who hasn't heard of the founder of ethical medical practice, Hippocrates, or at least of that oath of his that doctors take? I'd bet hardly anyone reading this would even consider googling his name. But did you know what that oath was really all about?

By pledging to “first do no harm,” and to avoid medicines that were known to cause abortions, Hippocrates reveals to us two profundities:

1. He had a deep sense of the sacredness of life, both living and unborn;
2. He was reacting to a medical culture around him, a culture where one could apparently buy off a doc to have him commit murder-for-hire!

Thus, Hippocrates insisted that his trainees should make a solemn oath to provide unbiased, ethical care for all patients.

Over this last week, the sad case of Brittany Maynard brought to light once again the issue of “death with dignity.”

AKA, suicide.

AKA, a doctor slipped the ethical bounds that should transcend historically-ungrounded state laws. A doctor prescribed for her exactly what Hippocrates pledged to never do.

Why is this case touted as “changing the debate”?* Because our ADHD-addled media refuses to look long enough in the rear-view mirror of history to realize that the only reframing of the topic is that now we have a social media that multiplies the sense of proximity of this sad story. However, the story is as old as Job: “I'm suffering and wish I could die.” Job, you may argue, did not have terminal cancer. True. Neither do many of those who are terminating their lives in the Low Countries...as Belgium and the Netherlands are setting what I regard as unfortunate standards in this pursuit of “death must be better than living.”

No, in the Hippocratic, Hebrew, and Christian philosophies, life has meaning, above and beyond and through suffering. No, suffering is not good—don't trot out that old saw—nobody with any sense is arguing that, and if you insist that's what I'm saying...shut up, you're not listening to me but to your a priori conceptions. [Buh-bye!]

[Alas, there are some out there who might indeed argue or misstate that suffering is good. NO! There may come good fruit, as the Bible asserts, but suffering is not good in and of itself. Period.]

 

*Quote from USA Today, Mon, 11/3/14. “She's changed the debate by changing the audience,” the article continues. Since when do facts change because they're aired in a different setting? Really?

Too Much Media

Even without all the political ads, this is how I often feel about electronic media.

(Mebbe you feel this way about my posts?)

Turn off the tube and pick up a book, we say to kids, but do we model this behavior?

I hope so!

(Thanks for posting this graphic, Paul!)

Chasing the Truth by All Means, Part 3...

I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject

or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.

Robert Sapolsky, WHY DON'T ZEBRAS GET ULCERS. p xii.

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And...the same false dichotomy is drawn between science and Christianity. YES, one can do both, and, humbly speaking, I think they can both be done well. Case in point, Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project. I did find a reference to a few others, if yer interested.

And, many the scientific mind is captivated by the arts. As I write, there hangs on the wall to my right a vibrant painting in the Chinese ink-and-brush style by my friend, Phil Booth. A metals engineer. Cite your own acquaintances. A college roommate said his dad had to choose twixt pursuing career as concert pianist and surgeon. I started college not knowing whether to study biology or music or Spanish. So, I kept a coupla toes in the water with both other options as I delved and delighted in the mysteries of living creatures.

Okay, my main point here is that there's a lot of stereotyping:
--All Christians are mindless adherents to outdated, cultic belief systems.
--Scientists cannot have any integrity if they adhere to the Christian faith.
--The arts don't really matter, they don't have anything to do with truth, being products of the human imagination.
--add yours below....

Let's drop the stereotypes and try to do as Stephen Covey said, "Let's agree to listen to each other, until we understand each other...you go first."

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(Me, practicing perspective.)