Thank God for Mr. Biff!

Sitting on my porch today I was able to watch the world go by. It was hot and on a holiday all that moved were cars driving by. Our neighborhood is a development that is being constructed so there are random portable outhouses at the construction sites, provided by Biff's.

A Biff’s employee came by with his truck. He stopped at the outhouse closest to us, and stuck a hose into the tank, sucking the foul sludge out. I’m sure it wasn’t a pleasant job. Afterwards he took a bucket in with some sort of solution and swabbed the inside of the enclosure. When he was done, he waved as he drove by.

Compared to third world countries where buckets of sewage were brought out and poured into a large tank pulled by oxen, the Biff’s operation seemed so sanitary. Overseas you could always tell when the bullock cart was coming down the street to collect the sewage. The smell was overpowering. Here the Biff's guy was two houses away and I didn’t smell a thing.

Thank God for those who traffic in human waste. What a dirty job. At the same time, I'm sure, there is money to be made doing it. Thank God for the Biff’s guys. They work hard to tone down the fact that there are parts of our existence that are pretty foul.

Here's to you, Mr. Biff! You do your part to help us believe that our shit doesn't stink.

Journalistic tragedy

Two journalists died, and one was wounded in Iraq today. A soldier and an iraqi interpreter were also killed in the same attack. Six soldiers were wounded. We know the names and the ages of the journalists, as well as seeing their pictures The soldiers and thei Iraqi interpreter remained nameless and pictureless. The media is already touting the tragedy that this is. It is a tragedy, but what about all the other soldiers who were killed and wounded and die every day there. They don’t feature their pictures on the news reports. They don’t talk about their lives.

Go ahead media, tout your tragedies. You can express sorrow as to how horrible this was to happen to you. The soldiers that die every day there don't get the same treatment. And yet they are no less special than you. Maybe it would help to see soldier’s faces and hear their stories on every one who is killed. Sadly it may grow to be so many that we can’t feel sadness for so many, without being overwhelmed. Perhaps it is good to focus on feeling sad for the media, because their deaths happen so few and far between.

Cleavage

Shopping for flowers today, to plant in the garden, a mother/daughter duo entered the greenhouse. The daughter looked to be about 15. She was dressed modestly in a blue tee shirt and jean shorts of reasonable length.

Her mom followed her. She was wearing a black tank top with the sequin word “star" glittering across her chest. Even before you saw what was written on the shirt, you couldn’t help but see the cleavage. She was spilling out.

It is difficult these days for kids to grow up. How does a girl feel when her mother looks sexier than she does? Does it impact her self esteem in some way? The daughter didn’t appear bothered, but it seemed backwards to me. I have seen mother/daughters where the mom is continuing to badger the daughter to cover up. In this case mom was attempting to catch the male eye, and the daughter followed her around dutifully.

Who knows, maybe purity will be the issue that children fall back on. “I do not want to be like my parent," as they cover up from head to toe. It just may be a difficult if the mom attracts all the guys.

Maybe the daughter realized from what she has witnessed, that males who come around because of cleavage, might only be interested in one thing.

Playing God

I am so quick to judge other people. I perceive others in light of my own personal schemas and decide whether the person I am observing is worthy of my time. Many times I have judged people unfairly.

I have had a problem with people judging the disenfranchised harshly, even though, if I am honest, there are times when I have judged them harshly as well. The judged are usually those who have difficulty defending themselves. I need to be looking for ways to help, not making sure they stay down.

On the other hand there are people, I would gladly sit in the judgment chair and condemn. In my book they get what they deserved and I couldn't be happier. For example, I feel a sense of vindication when I see a speeder fly by me and then get pulled over by the police. I think “Good! They deserved that!” I feel no sympathy for them at all.

I feel noble defending the poor, the downtrodden, the discriminated against. The high and mighty, the arrogant, the dramatic, and the legalists I don't want to forgive. I don't want them to have a second chance. They get what I think they deserved.

The Bible says "judge not lest you be judged." We are all guilty of things that we should be punished for. Just like the child that quickly jumps in to be the parent, we quickly jump in to play God. We can be damned good judges. But sadly we don’t forgive like God.

The Confessional opens

Well, the material girl is at it again. Out to shock and offend. And religious leaders are up in arms about it. Madonna is promoting a feel good religion, whose offering plate is Ticketmaster. The service consists of worshipping Madonna's body and antics, and moving your body to the rhythms of her special night.

It's hedonism. She can whip up a crowd with her well muscled body. What a show. She can make political statements, compassion statements, social conscious statements. Her worshipers can adore her, cheer for her, hold her in their hearts and then go home to their empty lives believing they've been fed. "What an awesome concert". Not one person has been delivered from anything. And Madonna goes home with the resources to continue her empty material girl pursuits.

Why is the religious community up in arms? Jesus isn't sending lightning bolts. Criticism is good for the show. It draws more crowds. So what if she is on a glitzy cross with a designer crown of thorns? She will be held accountable for her self promoting, thoughtless acts, just as much as we will. This is theatre, well thought out movements to make a buck. Madonna is not Mother Theresa. Her sacrifice is not for others, but for herself. The images are designed to offend, which allows crowds to look her way, to notice her. Her religion demands her spending hours of dedication at the gym as she worships herself.

God will still be there long after Madonna's body, as well as the rest of ours are rotting in the grave. Truth will always win. Sometimes it just takes time. Real sacrifice always counts. Fake sacrifice always leaves us hungry for more.

Hey Madonna, can you save us? I'll hear your confession. Can you speak up, please? Did you say "What a ride?"

Anchors

Anchors are good things. They keep us from drifting. Dropping anchor insures that the boat you are in is going to be staying put in water that encourages movement.

Families are like anchors as well. They keep us grounded in a world that shifts. We can get lost in a crowd, losing our very sense of self. A family, like an anchor keeps us tied to understanding where we come from and is the keeper of our very identity. “I am a Cook”, is a very pregnant statement.

I had a student who in class said that one of the reasons she took the class was to see if we were related, as we both had the same last name. She was African American. I obviously am not. I asked her if she had gotten her answer. She said she had. We all laughed. A simple glance spoke truth.

Anchors have also killed people. I think of the old mob technique of killing called “cement shoes”. The goal of the shoes is to hold a person underwater, until they drown. If we are honest, I think families can be like that as well. The neediness of a family can constrain a person to feel like they are drowning.

If you have ever gotten an anchor stuck, no one goes anywhere until the anchor is freed. And sometimes, anchors get so stuck, you have to cut it free if you are ever hoping to move.

A beneficial fast

A friend went on a fast this week. He stopped eating on Wednesday and broke it this morning. That made a total of 4 days. We talked about the effects both physically and spiritually. He talked about how much God had spoken to him during the days of the fast.

As we talked about the experience he had and we started joking about how much our egos get in the way of spiritual growth, and how difficult it is to keep down. We talked about what it would be like to put the ego on a fast. Deny the ego for a length of time in order to achieve deeper spiritual advantage.

How does one do that? I suppose that you need to create an environment where you are thought of as undesirable. I think it would be difficult to create, as we work pretty hard to make sure that at least some part of us in lovable. What if I could do an ego fast? It would allow God to communicate to me that I am a loved and valued child of God, even if I was undesirable to the rest of the world.

But then that would be an ego boost, which your ego could feed on. So would it really be fasting?

Amazing grace

We sang Amazing Grace in church. Before the song was sung the pastor talked about why John Newton wrote the song. Newton was a slave trader who encountered a storm. There was fear that he would lose his life so he prayed out to God for rescue.

The storm stopped. John Newton was still alive and in gratitude he pledged his life to serve God. It truly is an inspiring story about the power of God and the gratitude of man. His occuation didn't change for a while, but it was said that he treated the slaves he was transporting "more humanly."

While this is an inspiring story, there is another side as well. What of the slaves in the hold of his ship praying out to God to be delivered from their nightmare? There are no stories of famous hymns written when God delivered the slave from his or her storm. The way I look at it, reading about the conditions of human trafficking, and watching the movie “Amistad”, it becomes apparent that the slaves’ fears and misery far exceeded the storm that Newton endured. Many of them died at sea thinking that God had forgotten them.

I think the truth is that our existence is far more mysterious than we know. The inhumanity of mankind to itself is mind-boggling. And whether God shows up in a storm, or appears a to be a million miles away, His word says He is with us at all times. The strange reality of suffering is that God is with us whether we are delivered from a storm, or dying in the hold of a ship. And while we can be pleased to see the redemption of one man from the calming of a storm, many times the greater peace of God's presence may come when there is no delivery. We may see in more powerful ways, God's true deliverance...from ourselves.

Talking about sin

In church a man stood before the congregation and revealed his past addiction to pornography, and how it destroyed relationships and almost cost him a divorce. He talked about opportunities lost, and the acceptance he was given when he was able to release it to God and receive healing. He talked about the goodness of God since those dark days. When he was done he took his place in serving communion.

I was amazed that a person would have the courage to share his experiences with a church. In my mind that is the mark of a great church. Others can praise God for his witness and not judge him as an evil person.

What I would find as unbelievable is if a person could stand before the congregation and confess one of the more “shameful” sins that they had committed last night and share forgiveness the next day in church without being judged off the stage. That would be an unbelievable church.

We like knowing that our stories have successful conclusions. We like things tied up neatly in a package. We like to look back and see resolution. We are uncomfortable with messes. They look too much like our lives. We are expecting the person who is sharing their story to give us hope that we can triumph too.

The simple fact is that we fail every day and any one of us could stand there and talk about our weaknesses. Also, sin is sin whether it is a more “shameful” sin having to do with cravings, or the more hidden things like resentment, pride and greed. What if a person could confess sin openly to the church, even if they are still struggling? What if the church could accept and love the person, even in the midst of their sin? That would be amazing!

Release

Reading what a person I care about thought of me, I was angry. Really angry. It cut deep and I felt the pain of the cut.

I vented. My poor friend endured my diatribes, my insults, my unreasonable responses. She sat there, she joined in, she gave me the gift of helping me process this painful information.

Next came the willingness to let it go, giving up the desire to hold on to it. Being willing to turn it over to God who can absorb even the strongest emotions.

Then came peace. Not right away. Not like an explosion, but like a shift of a breeze where you suddenly realize that it has cooled down, the heat displaced. You gaze into your heart and realize the anger and the pain is no longer there.

We can be angry and hurt, but we need to acknowledge it and be willing to let it go, or become its prisoner. We can find healing, but it is a process. It doesn't come of it's own. We have to invite it in and release the hurt like a dove into blue sky.

Surrender

A significant relationship was terminated by the will of the other party. It troubled me that there was no way to sustain the relationship. As a former therapist, as long as people were alive there was still a chance. I just had to figure out a strategy.

I came up with a great strategy today which entailed allowing the other person to feel in a visceral way, what I felt. This would probably ramp things up and force a confrontation, which could potentially provide some meaningful dialogue. And then again it could blow up in my face.

I started writing up the letter and in my mind confronting the imagined response I would receive.

A Small Voice that I hear if I am willing and quiet enough to listen to, said to me, "you are doing this under your own power. Why don't you trust me"? My pose was that of a surgeon fighting to save a life any way possible, desperately trying ANYTHING.

"Can you let go of your strategies and let Me deal with it? He is my child. I'll take over from here."

I let go of my control and trust the outcome to the One who is the Great Healer.

The chasm

Life moves in familiar patterns for us most of the time. Sometimes we are given a glimpse into the depths of what divides us. We watch our politicians posture and challenge and we usually believe our side is right so it doesn’t seem so frightening to observe the divide with people around us.

I have been dealing for years with a relationship that I have come to see recently with razor clarity that we are universes apart. This is not a misunderstanding. This is a complete breakdown of thought and language. I have come to see that there are no words or concepts to bridge this gap, that our divide is profound. And it is terrifying to see the depth of the chasm.

Acknowledging this gulf demands commitments from me. I have to commit to accepting the divide, I have to commit to moving on, and I have to commit to walking with a sense of honesty that my reality may not be the correct one.

Most of the time I can look at others and believe that everyone sees the same thing I see. Every once and a while, if we are looking and we are honest about what we see, we are given the opportunity to look into the blackness of the chasm so great that it splits us apart and clutches us at a distance. The more we look into and acknowledge that profound abyss, the scarier it can be.

Thank God for His merciful love and wild unfairness. He sees the gulf that disconnects us from Him as well and sends His love to us across that chasm. Kindhearted Father, help me to love others from my side of the chasm like you love me!

Consciousness

On a podcast, Alan Watts was talking about the myth of myself. He talked about how in western civilization we are taught to see through a spotlight consciousness, that is, focusing on one thing at a time. He talked about another consciousness he called floodlight consciousness, which encompasses all of who we are in totality. It shines from us, not on us. Put in Eastern mystical thought, he stated that we are all part of the larger consciousness and that when we die, we will live on by the "we" conscious. I suppose you could say that when I die the larger consciousness loses an appendage (me), but the consciousness continues.

This is very hard for me to wrap my mind around living in an individualistic culture. Does a person who lives in a communal culture have the same struggle? Is it easier for them to think of being part of a larger existence that the self is encompassed by?

If that is the case, would a person from a more communal culture having a hard time understanding "I"? Might he or she have a hard time believing the statement "God loves you", and think of it as his or her life only? Would it be easier for them to hear "God loves us"? Is it possible that when we attempt to convince a person that God loves them as a person, they are as mystified by the concept as I am thinking about floodlight consciousness?

Ambition

A struggle of mine has been the meaning of advancement. I work at a small business college and there is a feeling that I should be getting promoted and move into more of an administrative role. This would move me further away from teaching and students. That isn't what I want to do. I want to teach.

I am definitely an employee. I am ordered to do things, I lack the power to keep things in place, or make changes on my own. At times it is appealing to think that I could direct changes that would affect the classroom.

What I find to be satisfying to work with students and affect changes there. There are pangs that I am not keeping the progression going and that in the end I will be in trouble. And yet I find so much contentment in watching individuals grow.

I listened to an interview with Scott A. Sandage who wrote the book "Born Losers: A History of Failure in America". One statement he made was that Americans resent lack of ambition more than they resent lack of achievement. I relate to that. I find that I struggle with that within myself as well, probably even more than I hear it from others.

Waiting is tough!

It's a strange thing when you are trying to connect with someone and work through a problem using e-mail. You press send and then you wait. If an answer comes back you move. If they don't answer, you are left with conjecture alone. You wait for the reply to come. Every time your inbox notifies you of incoming mail, there is anticipation waiting to see if it is them. Then there is either movement or let-down. Silent treatment is a hard thing to deal with when you are relating face to face. With face to face meetings and on the telephone, you know your message was conveyed. When you send a e-mail, you just wait, and waiting can be long.

At other times in my life I have had to learn the waiting game. It is never fun, but it is instructive. It also allows you to practice contentment as letting go of control.