Scars

8^th Grade. Art class. Nail guns and Junior High boys. Disaster waiting to happen.

Day One: Mrs. Hawkins has us doing a project for the upcoming school play. Wisely, she has a few of the more trustworthy students using the nail guns. Definitely not Mike* and Darren*. These are the two class clowns. The classic example of an 8^th grade boys who have an overbalanced testosterone to brain ratio. Mike is a bully, malicious and obnoxious. Darren is his follower, mostly stupid, really ugly, and occasionally mean.

Day Two. Mrs. Hawkins is out sick. The substitute teacher lets Mike and Darren use the nail guns. Mistake Number One. Then, she leaves the room to get more supplies. Mistake Number Two. Mike discovers that if you unplug the nail gun, it retains enough power to shoot the nail out lightly. He proceeds to shoot a nail into the skin on the back of the hand. It has just enough force to enter the skin and hang there. Mike then goes about terrorizing the girls with the nail in his skin. They scream in that high pitched scream as only Junior High girls can. Great fun!

Darren thinks this looks like a lot of fun too, so he places his hand on the table and then places the nail gun on top of his hand. He missed the part about unplugging the nail gun. He pulls the trigger on his nail gun. THWACKKKK! The nail goes through his hand into the table beneath. Now, Darren is screaming in a higher pitch than any of the teen girls. The substitute teacher comes running back into the room, takes one look at Darren’s hand and promptly goes running back out of the room looking sick.

Paramedics are called, the shop teacher pries the nail out, and Darren heads off to the hospital while Mike heads off for a discussion with Vice Principal Niday (not his first such discussion and not his last either). Darren has such a discussion waiting for him when he returns to school.

Darren proudly showed that scar for the rest of the time that I knew him. He was proud of it. He and Mike continued to be punks and bullies and, as far as I know, they probably still are today. I did find a picture of Mike on Facebook. He’s fat, wearing camoflauge, carring a gun and drinking a beer. He still looks like the kind of guy who'd probably beat you up as soon as look at you.

Darren never learned anything from that scar. Scars are supposed to be a reminder of a lesson learned. I find myself incredibly saddened by people who carry their scars around, but never learn anything from them, or worse, learn the wrong lessons from them.

I see this happen regularly. Friends, relatives, acquaintances, people at work (especially my old secular jobs) earn scars that they don’t learn from. These scars are usually emotional and mental, but occasionally physical. Divorce. Family feuds. Arguments with friends. Bad relationship choices. Poor financial decisions. Again and again, they are hurt, and again and again they miss the lesson.

Single moms bring boyfriend after boyfriend into their family lives hurting themselves and damaging their children. I feel worst for their children who never get to see healthy relationships. They will continue that cycle.

Families spend and spend and spend in fits of materialism that leaves them deeper and deeper in debt and working long hours to pay the bills. This often drives a wedge in the marriage and leaves the family broken and bruised. And yet, they keep spending what they don’t have.

Young women give themselves to guy after guy in an effort to find love and companionship. There is a breed of guy who preys on such women. These users and abusers leave emotional and physical scars on these women and the women continue to let them do it.

There are men who ignore their wives and take them for granted. Then, when the woman finally leaves him, he refers to her as the ‘The Old Bitch’ or some similar denigrating reference. He then makes it very clear to anyone and everyone that he meets that marriage is a mistake, never learning that what you put into something directly affects what you get out of it.

These are just a few examples of unlearned scars, scars that are earned, but never learned from.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Darren probably learned never to shoot himself with a nail gun, but I’m pretty sure that he didn’t learn not to blindly follow Mike. Darren and Mike needed wise counsel in their lives, someone who has been there and learned the right lesson from their scars. We all need that.

It is important to seek out someone wiser and older. This just can’t be anyone. Many people get old and full of scars that they never profited from. Look for someone who has lived well and is still doing so. Seek someone with strong values. Build a relationship and ask them to speak into your life. Learn from their scars and ask them to help you learn the right lessons from yours.

Socrates was credited with saying, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Examine your life. Earn your scars so that you can proudly wear them, so you can point to your scars and say, “This is the lesson I learned from this.” Then someday, you will be able to pass on the same lessons to others.

And, for the record…Don’t shoot a nail gun at your hand.

* names have been changed to protect the stupid

The Problem With Religion

I would argue that religion is addictive by its very nature, leaving the victim with a closed mind, unable to cope with real life. It demeans and belittles people (of other belief systems) often leading to violence and war

Organized religion has brought nothing but death and destruction to humanity since it's inception. ALL religious writings including the Bible, the Koran and the Torah are nothing more than manifestos of intolerance. I am FAR more worried about devout religious people

RELIGION is the true problem. nothing but flocks of brainwashed minions, controlled by old men through fear. cant people see above this nonsense today? think for yourself, people! stop using what was and IS nothing more than a means to control people as a crutch to judge others. Its sickening

News articles on the internet often give the reader a chance to comment and discuss the issues in the article. It seems that each time that I go out on the internet to read an article with any mention of religion, there are broadbrushed, vitriolic attacks against religion that are posted by other readers. Sometimes they are amusing, sometimes they are annoying, and most of the time they are based in ignorance.

The three comments above are not my beliefs or statements. They are real examples of the type of comment that I have seen. The first one is amusing because the author accuses religious people of having closed minds and religion of demeaning and belittling people of other beliefs. The irony is that he is doing that very thing. His post shows him to be closed minded and he is demeaning and belittling people of other belief systems.

The second comment and third comments are funny for the same reason. Number two mentions intolerance as a characteristic of religious writings, but the author’s writing is a perfect example of his or her intolerance of a belief system that doesn’t fit with theirs. And, the last one talks about ‘thinking for yourself’ and ‘control’ but in its very message is trying to get the reader to think his or her way and to control them away from something that he or she doesn’t believe in.

Have there been wars caused by people proclaiming religious reasons? Of course. But, any serious thinker and historic observer would have to take issue with a statement that says, Organized religion has brought nothing but death and destruction to humanity since it’s inception” sic. The truth is quite the opposite in most cases. I wonder if the author of that comment ever stopped to think about why so many hospitals are called Saint Something or Other, or if they have wondered at why so many social relief agencies have a religious affiliation. There are significantly more charities, social relief agencies, family support groups, medical aid groups, and similar helping organizations that are based in religious (especially Judeo-Christian) systems. According to the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey of 2000, religious people of all types were 91% likely to give money to charity or volunteer where secular people were 67% (non-religious conservatives) and 52% (non-religious liberals). The survey results put this in perspective by noting that people who classify themselves as ‘religious’ make up 33% of the population but are responsible for 52% of donations and 45% of volunteering where those that classify themselves as ‘secular’ make up 26% of the population and are only responsible for 13 percent of charitable donations and 17% of volunteerism. Survey Info

Yes, there are frauds, jerks, charlatans, manipulators, abusers, idiots, fools, degenerates, fiends, and criminals in the church. This is true of any group of people. That’s humanity. That does not mean that all people in that group are that way and it doesn't even mean that most of them are. You won’t catch me saying that all atheists are ignorant, arrogant blowhards that are responsible for the evils of Pol Pot, Stalin, and Hitler. There are plenty of atheists that fall into that category, but that doesn’t mean all of them. I would venture to say most of them are people who just want to live their life as well as they can, but there is the temptation to color the entire group based on the actions of a few.

When you scratch the surface of most of the atheists that I have personally encountered and had discussions with, almost always you will find a person who has been hurt by a dysfunctional church or by an abusive religious person. In my experience, there is rarely much deeper thought than that. Their reaction is based in feeling and not rational thought (the very thing they accuse religious people of).

I grew up without religion. I was never atheist as I found them to be the same as the religious people that I met, universally proclaiming a truth that could not be proved. I was always agnostic as that was a logically defensible position (to this day, I have much respect for agnostics who actively question). I ultimately found God through careful logic and thoughtful deliberation and by meeting reasoned, intellectual Christians who challenged me to open my own mind.

This logic and thought are the reasons for which I take offence at the type of blanket statements made by these authors and so many like them. Their intolerant statements are no different than saying that all black people are criminals, all gay men are pedophiles, all corporate CEO’s are greedy, all southerners are hicks, all women are weak, all Jews are stingy, all lesbians are ugly women, or any other similar statement denigrating an entire group of people based on stereotypes.

Instead of across-the-board condemnation of an entire group of people and belief system, why don’t you get to know some of them (and not just the ones that offended or hurt you). I’d love to sit down with you and have a cup of coffee while we discuss ideas, heck, I’ll even buy your cup for you. I’d be honored to go serve lunches to the homeless at St. Vincent de Paul with you. Let’s fundraise together and raise money for Rapha House. Come see real, intellectually sound, faith in action. It’s hard to be hateful and antagonistic towards people that you’ve actually gotten to know and have worked alongside. But, I warn you…it might actually make you think. It might even change your mind.

That is, unless you are an intolerant, brainwashed, close-minded, victim unable to cope with real life who demeans and belittles people for their beliefs.

P.S. – my offer in the second to last paragraph above is very real. If you take issue with my religion then I invite you (heck, I dare you) to sit down with me, to serve others with me, or to attend a church service with me and then have lunch afterwards to discuss it. I’ll buy the coffee or pay for the lunch. I’m open-minded, are you?

Wisdom of the Ages

You accumulate a large amount of wisdom in life, if you just pay attention. Some of this is very deep, but much of it is mundane. For example, it doesn’t take long to learn that it hurts to touch a hot stove burner or that throwing yourself backwards while having a temper tantrum just hurts you and makes you even more mad. Both of these are learned at a very young age. The longer you live, the deeper and harder the lessons are.

I have been reading Proverbs in the Bible. This is a book of wisdom passed from father to son and from king to successor. There is some great stuff in there and some funny stuff that you just know there is a story behind. I realized that it is important to pass on life wisdom. So, I’ve decided to put down the life wisdom that I learned. None of this is the deep stuff and none of it is the mundane. The following life lessons fall in between somewhere, but I promise you that all involve a painful lesson.

Life lessons that I would like to pass on:

When you are powdering an infant’s bottom, be sure that there isn’t a fan on in the room. This is especially important if the fan is aimed at you.

When carrying several gallons of paint through the church office, be sure that the handles are not loose. An additional lesson here is that latex paint cleans up well and even comes out of carpet if you jump into action immediately. And, the pastor won't find out about it until years later when you tell him.

When your mom says, “don’t play swords with sticks, you can put your eye out”…She is right. And, pulling large wooden splinters out of your eye hurts a lot. Eye patches are cool for awhile, though.

When seasoning a cast-iron pan, do not try to speed things up by spraying PAM on it while it is still extremely hot. Also, when you put out the kitchen fire, be sure to get out of the room for awhile so you don’t breathe too much smoke.

If you are going to ask a girl to go steady with you, be sure that you aren’t wearing roller skates at the time. Also, falling on your rear when she says ‘yes’ is no way to look cool.

Playing tug-of-war with a group of college age guys is fun, but broken tailbones take months to heal and are excruciatingly painful.

When your dad says you can light the grill for the first time by yourself and runs inside to get matches…don’t dump the rest of the bottle of lighter fluid on the coals because you don’t think he put enough on. It is important to note that eyebrows and the front part of your hair take a little while to grow back.

If you are riding your bicycle up a steep hill and think it might be cool to ride up the ramp into the back of a trailer, try to remember that a 50 degree angle + a 30 degree angle = a 80 degree angle which is a bit much to expect to be able to pedal up at a slow pace. By the way, landing on your back in a bike crash knocks the wind out of you.

When running to catch a bus at dusk, don’t take a shortcut behind a grocery store, jumping over a short 2 foot high retaining wall. The other side of the wall is the low end of the loading dock and is six feet lower. A further lesson here is that you can’t run to catch the bus anymore when you have twisted your ankles.

If the woman in the upstairs apartment says she is moving out of state and is selling every piece of furniture in the apartment, don’t buy anything. When the sheriff comes with the rent-to-own store employee a week later after she calls them to tell them where to pick up the stuff, they’ll just take the stuff away from you and you can’t do anything about it.

If you’ve had a little too much to drink last night, don’t let your friend mix macaroni, tuna casserole, and cream of mushroom soup and microwave it for breakfast. Urrrp.

If you are the chubby, nerdy kid in ninth grade and a star player on the football team asks you to tutor him, take advantage of the opportunity. Who knows, maybe there will come a time when a bully has threatened to beat you up after school and a certain star player on the football team beats him up and throws him into a barb wire fence for you.

The newspaper should not publish warnings about the dangers of mixing certain household chemicals when there is a chance that a teenage boy can read those warnings. Also, mixing pool chlorine and a certain automotive fluid does cause instant and intense fire which will burn your friend’s hand. Please note that I did not list which automotive fluid.

Encouraging a friend to put a bunch of salt in his older brother’s brand new coffee pot will get him in trouble. Salt does not come out of a brand new coffee pot once it has gotten inside the works.

Ford Aspires do not take turns well on sandy roads in the middle of nowhere. Yes, time does seem to slow down when in an accident and you can watch an airbag slowly unfold in front of you (even though it is going several hundred miles per hour). Yes, it hurts a lot to have the skin rubbed off of your face and your nose broken by the airbag. A lot.

When you are locked out on a balcony at a hotel and you think that it isn’t that far to drop down to the pool deck; you are wrong. It is much, much farther than you thought and, as I said before, getting the wind knocked out of you is no fun at all. Also, the pool deck entrance door is locked from the inside because the pool is closed for cleaning, so you are still trapped, but now you are in pain too.

When public speaking, always check if your fly is zipped, your tie is clean, and your suit-jacket is not buttoned in the wrong holes.

On your first day at a job, do not have lunch anywhere that you might possibly get food poisoning. Explosively vomiting on yourself, the carpet, and the restroom door is not the way to impress your new boss. However, a good dry cleaner can get puke out of a suit.

If you feel it necessary to comment on a person parking in a handicap space who is not handicapped, be sure to check first to see if the person is built like a linebacker and ready to beat the hell out of the person commenting on them parking in that space.

When you are playing on a frozen creek with your friend, do not push him out onto the deep part where there is still water flowing; it just isn’t as funny as you thought it’d be as you are trying to pull him out of the icy water. Also, it takes an eternity to run back to the house through the snow, while you are soaking wet.

If you are in the back of the band room leaning on the backs of chair during band practice and your best friend kicks the chair legs out from under one of the other guys, making him fall to the floor... Don't laugh. Trust me on this one. The band director will look back and see your best friend (who caused all the ruckus) helping the fallen guy up and he will see you laughing. Who will he think did it? That's right - one free ticket to the office for you.

If you are an agnostic or atheist arguing about the Bible, be sure that you don’t argue with a pastor who knows what he is talking about and is highly educated or he might just make you look like a complete fool as he uses logic and facts to disassemble every argument you’ve ever used.. Then again, that’s why I am now a pastor, so go ahead and do it.

These are just a few of the many life lessons that I have learned. I invite you to comment and share any life lessons that you have learned.

BOO!!!

What is it about Halloween that gets Christians all weird?

Each year, as this one little holiday comes up, some American Christians feel it necessary to drag out their baggage and fuss. This doesn’t apply to all Christians, just some that feel it necessary to bounce up and down and burn some steam. These people fall into two groups.

Group Number One includes all those that insist that this holiday Satanic and it has no redeeming value. They get all worked up about not letting their kids trick-or-treat and make sure to let everyone else know about it. They get angry when a church wants to hold an outreach event like a fall festival. I don’t want to post another history explaining all about the roots of Halloween, but suffice it to say there are certainly some questionable roots. I agree. But there are also Christian roots including All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day. The problem with looking at all the historical roots from Ireland, Ancient Europe, Mexico, etc., is that no one in the U.S.A. really cares or even knows about that. When the average American mom buys her kid a Buzz Lightyear costume, she is not thinking about scaring off spirits, celebrating the dead, or worshiping some obscure Celtic god. This holiday no longer has any connection to those times and is just another secular holiday on the calendar. What these people forget is that God was in control on October 30^th and will be again on November 1^st. Why don’t they believe that He is in control on October 31? Why not use it as a teachable moment for their kids and let them have the joy of dressing up and eating too much candy? Relax. Set some ground rules if you want, but ultimately, the American holiday of Halloween is no more or less in Satan’s control than the American holiday of Christmas.

Group Number Two includes the really weird ones. Each year, some church holds a ‘Hell House’, an alternative haunted house that purportedly shows all the bad stuff in the world. A church in Chandler just did one this year called Final Destination http://www.hell101.com/. There, they show an abortion, teen girls raped, drug dealers murdered, and the sancho of a cheating wife have his head sawn off as punishment. The idea behind this is to ‘Scare the Hell’ out of non-believers by showing them all the most gruesome results of their bad choices in life. It never seems to occur to them that people make bad decisions daily even though they see this stuff on the news, in movies, and on T.V. In theory, this has an outreach purpose in order to save people’s souls. I’m not entirely sure how effective this is, but I’m pretty sure that it’s not. This type of in-your-face evangelism is a far cry from the way Jesus treated non-believers. A quick read through any of the gospels shows that he was firm but gentle with those who were hurting, sinners, and those who needed God. He only got in-your-face with loudmouth religious types who were using religiosity to beat people down. My biggest issue with these types of things is the incredible money spent on fancy special effects, sound equipment and decorations. Surely this money could be used more effectively to feed the needy, clothe the naked, treat the AIDs patient, care for the orphan, house the widow, etc., etc., etc. You know… Those things that Jesus called us to do.

My message to both groups is to get back to your Bible. Spend some time there. When you are done, spend some more time. Then, when you are ready, step out into the real world and share the message of hope, the Gospel of our Lord. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Remember the power of grace. Understand that the only offense you should give is that all sinners are welcome at the foot of the cross. Relax.

As for me, I’m going to go take my costume off and raid my daughter’s candy bag. I think I saw some Bottlecaps and Reeses Cups in there. Now THAT'S what Halloween is all about.