Bottom of the barrel

I ponder from time to time what some of the master teacher's words meant. The beatitudes begin with (depending on the version one uses) "Blessed are the poor in spirit." When I first learned the Greek language, I thought it was neat to explore some of the meanings of words in the original such as, "How fortunate are the beggars in spirit."

But, trying to put either the idea of "blessed" or "poor" into something understandable has proven to be a challenge over the years. The word for "blessed" is a challenge in itself. Then the phrase "beggars in spirit" has multiple meanings depending on one's view of the time period. I wish I could definitively come to a conclusion about this saying. But, I can see that my lifetime is too short for a definitive conclusion.

Tonight I came close, I think, to the idea of this beatitude. It was in a group setting in which I usually have something to offer. But, the chat that went on at the beginning of the group time took my mind down a melancholic path. So, I had nothing to offer. As much as I may have wanted to offer something, my mouth was muted, and I listened mainly. I don't think I gained great insight from listening. The nature of the comments didn't pertain to issues needing great insight. The group discussion centered on a topic I was disinterested in. My inner person was impoverished. And as I understand "blessed," it would have something to do with being honorable or having integrity. So tonight I experienced the honor of feeling impoverished. Now I think I know what the bottom of the barrel looks like as far as it depends on me to do anything for myself or understand my own life.

The first beatitude was suddenly my reality. It was a weird place to be in. But, since I wasn't able to look to myself or anyone else for insight or understanding, the only place left to turn was to heaven. And that is exactly how the beatitude ends.

How honorable for you when you finally discover that you have an impoverished spirit because it is then that you will find/understand heaven. Jesus

Waiting on the Master Mathematician

I think the one who offers serendipitous moments did so yesterday. I had been praying for a certain enemy of right to be exposed to the one who could do something to rid the evil. After talking to someone about a related matter, this enemy's name was brought up and the person said that a certain distance had been created. I said that that was an answered prayer because it allowed more objectivity for the person who could rid this evil. Perhaps seeing with more objectivity would spur the action that needed to happen.

All of this cryptic language to say that the Master Mathematician can still cause 2 to be added to 2 to get 4 by allowing for circumstances to develop in the mind of the right person to get what the human equation is all about.

Relief with trepidation

Today I was privy to watching someone face his future being mapped for him. I have often wondered what that would be like. Of course, I was thinking of a fortune-teller mapping out the future or some religious so-called prophet engimatically telling what would happen. But, this sight today was directed and specific. The person watching his own future mapped stood there with two airs about him. One was relief mixed with trepidation. The other was courage to trust in a system that might fail him. The relief was evident by the confidence in the voice that the right decision had been made to put his fate in the hands of a single person. The trepidation involved the uncertainty that comes when you hope that circumstances will dictate something better than what you deserve, but you don't know for sure that the person holding your fate agrees that you don't deserve worse. The courage was evidenced by trusting the one who is your main advice giver. You hope against hope that the advice is sound.

So, I briefly had a chance to reflect on my own future for a moment having been taught by the scene I had just taken in. How much trust do I put in the one who holds my future? Is it mixed with courage? How much trepidation do I have when trying to see down the path a ways? Is it mixed with the relief that I have done the right, true, and honest thing?

So, I ask the One who holds my future to help me be poised to act honestly, to cherish right, and to be true to the CEO I serve on earth and to the One who spoke often of His father to earthly audiences a few years ago on the historical timeline. And I say ditto for the person who showed me courageous trepidation this very day.

Not courage, just trust

I went to a funeral today. The secretary's mother died at age 63. After the funeral one of the men riding with me said that he hated funerals. He hated death and admitted being scared of death. He' s still in his 20s.

One of my favorite songs was written 20 years ago by a group named Harvest. It was about Jesus conquering death. The line in the song that I still remember was, "He stared at sin and conquered death and now I'm a mountain climber." I liked the song because I admired the tenacity and sheer courage it takes to stare at sin and conquer death. I was in my early 30s when the song was popular.

Since that time, many around me that I knew have died, not the least of which were my father and son 8 days apart. Most recently my aunt died. But through those experiences, I have found that a person doesn't have tenacity nor courage to stare at sin and conquer death. Nor is it a matter to be frightened about. A person simply stares death in the face and trusts that the unknown parts of the actual crossing from one life to the other is handled appropriately by the one who hides those parts from us all. No courage really. Just simple trust in the capability of the creator of the life here and there to smoothly transport us from one side to the other. No tenacity, just trust.

"In my father's compund are many houses, many rooms. If it weren't so, I wouldn't have told you that it was. I am going to prepare this place for you." Jesus

Blessed are the merciful

I heard something today that made me think twice about my relationship with other people. What I heard today was not from someone talking about relationships with others so much as it was about requesting a prayer. The request was for me to pray for mercy. This is a prayer I am very familiar with since I have requested mercy for myself on a number of occasions. But I am much too hard on people I am around. And as far as I know, God always answers prayers for mercy when it comes from a contrite heart leading to a change in behavior. So I need to be more merciful. Thank you to the person requesting that prayer. May the Grantor of mercy be generous to him for it has certainly reminded me of a principle in life that I need to reconsider.

A little knowledge

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,
Drink deep, therefore, or taste not Pierian Spring,
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
But drinking largely sobers us again.
Alexander Pope

One thing about having some age is that there is no reason to have an arrogance about what we know and don't know. Why bother wasting breath if we don't honestly know. We know that someone in the nation has studied a particular area. So, we simply defer to that person.

But on Thursday of this week, I came face-to-face with one of those young upstarts who thought her experience was the end-all word on a matter. She even decided to let her experience guide her thinking in direct opposition to a well researched idea. Her remarks, couched in rather stinging terms, didn't end with her notions being spoken. She decided that she needed to provide her great wealth of life's knowledge with everyone else in the city since it was so beneficial through mass producing a notebook of her ideas.

It is hard for me to be too diplomatic in such a situation. I excused myself from the conversation after about 10 minutes to go to more productive work left to do in the day, but the young woman droned on with a couple of other people for another 15 minutes. If I had thought to do it at the time, I would have quoted Alexander Pope's pithy saying listed above. But, there will be another occasion or she will discover this truth on her own. I can only hope she drinks largely to sober her from her intoxicated state.

Circumstances generalized

A note from my mother came today. It read, "I wish we could have met at the lake [for Labor Day], but that's life." My family canceled the reunion due to scheduling conflicts of mainly the spouses (outlaws) of the family. It seemed like sagotage to me, but as mom put it, "That's life."

Life is made up of individual circumstances. So depending on who is in charge of the circumstances, so goes life. It's always a give and take between those who control circumstances. But, whoever has the upper hand for the moment controls the circumstance. Since upper hands are subject to change, directions in life switch back and forth. So, we have come up with the expression so as not to blame the controllers of circumstances for the moment. "That's life," we say.

Dreamworld

Dreams and fantasies are mere hoaxes, right? They take the information in the brain and, while asleep, the information gets scrambled into something plausible although unlikely. They appear in story form at times and mere rapid paced fragments at other times. They entertain the taboo, the immoral, the uncouth, the imaginary. We can learn from dreams, smile at dreams, and forget dreams because they really don't matter.

That's what science would have us believe. But, on two very distinct occasions they have been something else - once a special insight, once a warning of what was to come. The Maker of dreams made them to relax us, to give us entertainment for the night, or to otherwise allow us to live in a truly surreal place. But, occasionally, He interrupts them for something He wants to deliver specially. He can do that when I'm awake also. But, that is the subject of a different blog.

Surreality

It was only a pause in time, only for a moment. The park was empty. My footsteps on the walkway were the only noise. Birds were absent. The sky misted the park's trees, paths and playground equipment. A near-fog hung in the air. Occasional, distant street sounds could be heard, but a person would have to be listening for them. It was just right for conversing with the Maker of just such scenes. The time went fast. A mile reeled off in what seemed like a couple of minutes rather than the actual 20. The subjects of conversation were the usual. It was the scene that was surreal. If I could have a steady diet of those kinds of surreal scenes, I think I would never have a dissatisfying moment in life. They help me see a side of life that is rarely seen. They are those moments when time is suspended and all is well in my inner world.

"Sometimes God calms the storm. But, sometimes, God lets the storm rage and He stills His child."

Down with fairy tales

In the familiar Wizard of Oz story, Dorothy starts her journey toward Oz following a yellow brick road. She collects friends throughout her journey. When she finally ends up in Oz, she has to overcome several obstacles before finally being given a blessing by the wizard. Then, she returns home to Kansas.

Here's the familiar story of a person today. People start their journeys toward adulthood following the American Dream of being whoever they want to be. They reach adulthood only to realize that the friends they picked up along the way led them off the American Dream and they didn't realize it, or the friends were in it for themselves and they are abandoned only to have to start over again with friendships in adulthood. Adulthood does bring its share of obstacles and often they end in job loss, identity loss, depression, or other dire straits. Then, if people are strong enough to have a spiritual experience, that is see the wizard, then so much baggage has been collected that they may or may not have the stamina to make it out of this life and into the next with a sense of wonder of the Creator of the universe.

Well, one of the stories was designed to be a fairy tale, one a reality check. But I have to wonder about fairy tales. They blow so much smoke of idealism into the world that they are not appreciated any longer. When is the last time you knew a young person who knows fairy tales or was told a fairy tale. That's because reality TV has dominated the air waves. And maybe they should since fairy tales take people nowhere in their worlds.

Operating from proverbs

Proverbs of a country are telling of what the people in the country see as important. Here' a recent one - hasta la vista, bebe. It of course means that a person is about to wreak havoc on another person. I appreciate well-placed aggression. Right now at my work is a highly ranked individual that is covering for someone who should have been fired for misrepresentation of reporting to a state agency.

Of course, this highly ranked individual is also covering for himself, at least from all apprearances, because he has probably hidden away something of value in several places not easy to detect. So, my prayer for this enemy is for the Maker of exposing opportunities to finally say, "Hasta la vista, bebe" to this individual. It would right a great number of wrongs in a palace of smoke and mirrors.

Perhaps, to expose this person would be the equivalent of taking off the head of the snake so the rest of the evil bodies involved would die with it. In this humble person's opinion speed is also of the essence. Otherwise, the cover-up will be complete before it can be discovered.

That would employ a second proverb - carpe diem. I think it's time for the CEO to be made aware of the snake, declare "hasta la vista, bebe," and then proceed with carpe diem posthaste.

Given enough time...

My sister lives in a place that usually receives about 25 inches of rain each year and is plush with greenery. She's had 40 days of 100 degree weather this summer and the place is brown. I live in a place that usually receives about 13 inches a year and the lawn is green only during May and June. It's brown the rest of the time. I've had very few days of 100 degrees and the month of August has had as many rain days as hot days.

I guess I can learn from nature here. What is here today is gone tomorrow or vice versa. So, if I can get this principle through my thick skull, then I will be able to live life on a more even keel. I certainly need that. I thank Mother Nature for her lesson.

The real life

What happened? I was rocking along in my 20s doing all the right things. Going to college, picking a career, getting married, being ambitious. I turned 30 and started having children, raising them "right," according to all the gurus of parenting, taking them to places that would help them morally, exposing them to dance and sports so they could more intelligently pick their own paths when the time came. I turned 40 and started noticing that life wasn't working out according to what I had been taught. Kids had a will of their own, wife had a will of her own, everyone's ends and means to ends were different at home and work. Then the kids left home. Now life really is upside down. What used to not bother me, bothers me so-o-o much now. My toleration level is up in many areas of life, but not in a few. I know where the skeletons are and which battles are really worth fighting. But I have to say that the parenting gurus were wrong, the childhood preachers were so idealistic that their teaching has lost all value, the kids of my loins depend on unconditional love rather than displaying any sense of genuine care of family ties. Life's a bitch and then you die. From the vantage point at the end of this day, it's true.

Bloglections

Tonight I got to comment on blogging in an unlikely context. I meet with a group on Tuesdays that gets together to study various parts of the Bible and apocrypha from time to time. We are studying Psalms at the moment. Someone asked if the Psalms attributed to David were written throughout his life on the spot of an incident that may have sparked his poetry or if he wrote of his experiences after the fact, years later.

I truly don't know since I wasn't there, but that allowed me to make a comment about blogging. If one were to go back and read my blogs from the time I started blogging, then I think you would have a pretty good idea at what point on life's path I am on. And judging from the tone of some of the blogs, you could guess that the events were near or far from the writing of them. And you would find that some blogs were mere musings while others were strong opinions. Some are philosophical in nature, while some are very much associated with direct experience. So in some ways, David's ancient psalms are like modern blogs.

What would a collection of blogs be called if they were collected like the Psalms? Maybe Bloglections. Someone ought to try it. Maybe they would assemble a modern, inspired book.

Ripping hearts

The thing about children is that they rip your heart out. Yes, there are those good times and memories, but on the long, rocky road to maturity, so many do not make it to the end of the tunnel. It is torturous to watch all the mistakes children make. The mistakes are the innocent kind during early adolescence. But, oh how they get more treacherous. They are our DNA. They mimic our habits both good and bad. It seems that they inherit the bad from both parents sometimes. But, when they leave home and follow their own roads that lead to nowhere, but they don't realize that the road goes nowhere, it empties your being of any redemptive value you might have thought you attained from having raised them. They just rip your heart out.

About starting points

My friend told me not long ago that I didn't belong any longer to the church denomination that I grew up in. We, of course, belong to the same denomination. I got further confirmation of this full force this morning.

I had gone to a Bible study class that I had studied for, but a guest speaker was in the usual teacher's place. The guest teacher was a leader in this particular church. His topic was Deuteronomy 13. The chapter is one of the harshest chapters in the Bible since it tells the Israelites to basically kill anyone, including wife and children, who takes them away from worshiping God. It's not that I don't know that chapter is there, it's that the ensuing explanation for that chapter by the teacher followed a whole different hermeneutic than I am willing to accept.

First, the teacher said Moses wrote this. Second, he started applying what he read there to strict adherence to following God in today's society. Third, he juxtaposed a passage from Matthew 10 (no person should love father or mother more than Jesus) with the Deuternomic passage. And finally, he asked the question of whether God's grace had become a god to lead us away from obedience to the true God.

I usually know that if I am listening to someone else teach and the starting point or premise of the lesson is different from mine, then there is never going to be a point in the lesson that will line up with my way of thinking about a passage. So, I knew right away that I probably should leave when he said that Moses wrote the passage. Scholars of Deuteronomy usually date the book to somewhere after the time of the kingdom split when priests became important. After all, the meaning of the title of the book is "Second Law" not "Moses' Law" or "Law in Moses' time." Second, there are few places in the Old Testament that have direct application to modern times. Today is a different time and place, so distant from Biblical times that not even the terrain of the world is the same, not to mention that an intervening covenant happened between Deuteronomy and today. Third, what Jesus taught in no way resembles what the Israelites were asked to do, so juxtaposing verses from Matthew 10 against Deuteronomy 13 is a non-sequitur - they're not even close to having the same meaning. And finally, to attribute a quality of God the same status as the deity himself is not even a possibility. Who would worship God's love without acknowledging the God behind the love? So, who would worship grace without acknowledging the God who grants the grace? I don't even think that is possible!

Once again, someone thought that the Bible was seamless, that the Bible's words to different people at different times in history were applicable to any group of people at any point upline in history. The leader was a federal judge. It escapes me how anyone that educated can buy into the same religion he learned as a child. Shouldn't the investigation taught to anyone who gets a post-secondary education mitigate childish notions about the Bible? Shouldn't those uninvestigated ideas that come historically from Medieval times and that slip down the time continuum be relegated by 21st century college graduates (especially those with advanced degrees) to the bone pile for not passing muster? I can't even believe I heard that grace could be worshiped as a god! That is doubly disgusting coming from someone with a jurisdoctorate degree no matter what his religious heritage is. It's as if he has mastered the many laws of the land but is still a high school dropout when it comes to hanging on to Medieval notions about the Bible.

It goes without saying that I will not be back for the next lesson that this person teaches next week. Fortunately, a saner person will be back the following week to teach. And he's not a leader of the church, but he at least knows that the Bible has different interpretations. He and I disagree often, but our starting point is usually close.

Deuteronomy having a modern application... Whoever heard of such a thing!

Light and dark

In a rerun of one of the CSI series, one of the CSI characters gave a homeless lady a flashlight. The lady took it and said, "Now I can see the stars better in the dark." I find myself thinking that books or church attendance or overcommitment on doing good things will illumine THE star (the Maker) so that I can see Him better. But they're just flashlights, and they don't illumine the star better. In fact, they interfere with it just like the flashlilght does. Light on earth just interferes with the light from the heavens. So, I accept more readily these days that to see the light better, I have to operate in the dark more often. So be it.

THE day

I wrote this blog a few days ago when I was unable to connect to the internet.

8-13-06

This is a special day. My son of 19 years changed his residence from this world to the next. That was 3 years ago. I miss him terribly, but I will catch up to him soon. His memory is a joyful one. On one hand, the experience gutted me of the will to carry on. On the other hand, the experience inspires me to do what it takes to meet him again. I used to be afraid of death. Now I know to just look it in the eye and welcome the unknown state with joy because it is merely a passage way to God’s place.

I really haven’t been able to express the utter anguish that I have felt for the last 3 years and don’t have the will power now to try writing about this experience. All I have to say is, “Jordan, I love you. I’ll see you soon.”

A map - I don't think so

I wrote this blog a few days ago even though I couldn't put it on the internet until today.

8-12-06


I have heard that the Bible is like a map to life since it guides a person to a destination. Well… yes and no. Mainly no.

Life contains many specific situations. The New Testament contains general principles. I guess I could take the position that the general principles guide the behavior to manifest in specific situations. But that’s a position that doesn’t hold true very many times.

Maybe I don’t know how to apply the general principles. But, here’s an example. A woman castigates me to her supervisor, who in turn complains to my supervisor, who double-checks what I said and did. What is my reaction to the immediate circumstance? And since I have to work with the original complainer for the long term, what should be my standard working relationship? I guess I could apply the principal of being slapped on one cheek and turning the other to her in the short term and continue to be nice to her and pray for her as an enemy in the long term. Or, I could say that Jesus doesn’t mention anything about how to treat subordinates, and go confront the woman. Or, I could take the way I would want a person to address me if I had lodged a complaint against someone. Or, I could consider her a sister in Christ and take a witness to let her know of her offense to me. Or, I could ignore her behavior and chalk it up to the passage that refers to the attitude of allowing the filthy to continue in their filthiness and the righteous continue in their righteousness.

All of the above is just dealing with one circumstance. What would happen if I tried applying principles to the daily little circumstances that arise? I suppose that is why Jesus promised that after he left, there would be a spirit to guide us, stand beside us, and allow us to understand what a correct reaction would be.

Of course, the above statement opens up a whole other can of worms. But that is a matter for another day.

Leaves for the moment

Walking in the park, I noticed that the leaves were very green because it had rained the last 3 days. But my mind jumped back to the winter months so that I could only see tree limbs and no leaves. That time period seemed as if it were only a week ago. I knew that the leaves would be gone soon again and I could expect the same leafless limbs as before in just a short while.

That's pessimistic in a way - looking for the lifeless season in the midst of the season of life. But it's realistic in a way - noticing or anticipating what patterns are around and trying to prepare mentally for the recurring patterns.

But it's the recurring patterns that make my heart ache. Only the Maker of patterns can reach down and allow someone to change a pattern. That's why we need Him. I count on His forgiveness, but I also know to ask for His attention to my patterns so that I can change to a pattern of hearing his communication with me more clearly. And that's my prayer for today and tomorrow. It's my prayer for my enemies. It's my prayer for my daughter and wife. It's my prayer for my friend's wife and son.