This Church is Big Enough for the Both of Us

I used to go to a church that, hmmm, how to say this...was very isolationist. Provincial. Well insulated. An island of sorts. Like no man is. That kind of thing. It was impressed on the congregation that it was THE church and the other ones just couldn't measure up. Those churches did things we would never do in ways that we would never do them if we ever did do them. The first few years I went there I often invited friends to come because the teaching was sound. After awhile I invited friends because I figured they needed a church as good as mine. And eventually I quit inviting friends because I was embarrassed at the arrogance of my church.

For a stack of reasons my family moved on from that church and I've noticed a change in my heart that wouldn't have been easily rendered had we stayed. I first noticed it when a very charismatic couple visited us. I was able to talk with the wife briefly and found just how different we were but saw a glimpse of how much they could add to our growth. And maybe we could do the same for them.
I've also found myself inviting friends, not because I thought that we had so much to offer them but because they had so much to offer us.
And an even weirder thing, I've been excited for friends who have left for a different church and for others whose ministry in their church is growing.
Admittedly, it is weird that this is even weird.

I want to spend time with fellow believers who might do things differently than I would, but whose goal is still Gods great glory. And I wouldn't be wrong to say that this new (to us) way of thinking is shared by our church and its leadership.
We come from and maintain a mindset rooted deep in the knowledge of Scripture but we haven't been the best at exercising that knowledge in the kind of love that Jesus was known for. We are willing and learning. We want you, brothers and sisters, to come alongside us. We are seeing where we have been weak. 
We are seeing that this Church is big enough for the both of us.

Now I know that some will see this as some white flag waving ecumenisism. I would have called it that several years ago. No, this is not that. I'm not offering to help set up chairs at a consortium of the maritally confused. Nor am I offering to open the doors for a prayer to the generic god of the deificly deficient. Rest at ease, we should keep this all in the Family, realizing that the family is, more (cough, cough) diverse than we might admit. That word is ours. We can use it.

I'm looking forward to seeing you at church on Sunday, in serving during the week, playing with our children, or on the front porch with a beer.

Unsocialized Homeschooler

My son is at the age that compels people to ask if he is going to be attending preschool soon because "you have to get them socialized at this age".
Yeah, because putting together twenty plus toddlers will teach them great things.
Isn't this what parents are for? Barring, of course, extenuating circumstances.
A mother and her children getting together with another mother and her children do a far better job "socializin' the youngin's" than pre-school ever will. Mothers know what sin issues their children are dealing with and can instruct and discipline appropriately. At least they should be learning to be competent on the subject of their children.

The other question that comes up is what plans we have for our sons K-12 education. Growing up myself as an Unsocialized Homeschooler I have friends (shocker!) that all fall into the three main categories, so I'll make sure to offend with equality. Our response to each is generally thus:

-Private school, preferably.

-Homeschool, er...uh..ugh maaayybee?

-Government school? Cue crickets, wind dusted tumbleweed and a lone coyote howl... I hope not. Maybe waaay later?

But in answering those three questions the first response is often "Well, if you homeschool, how will you socialize your child? They have to be socialized, you know?" This is when I try hard not to laugh at them, pat them on the head and hand them a lollipop. It's not that it is an unnecessary question but that it is so ignorantly biased and insulting.  I've never been compelled to ask someone who is considering private school how they plan to keep their children from becoming snobby and insular. Nor have I asked someone considering public school how they plan to keep their child from wearing a trench coat, bringing a gun to school and slaying their entire classroom.

Simple observation can answer the socialization question. I can take 20 people I know, who are over the age of 22 and you wouldn't be able to tell how they were schooled. Most government schoolers make it out alive and without killing anyone. The private school snobbyness looses its shine, the awkward homeschooler is no longer awkward. And he probably would have been awkward at any school.
Schooling has little to do with your post-school social life. Parenting has everything to do with a childs in-school social life. Proper socialization and fighting snobbery is equally important for the government schooler, the private schooler and the homeschooler.

Easy stuff for me to say when it's all theory and my child hasn't started school yet.

For What It's Worth...

This little section (should I make it a series) might be my sitting around the campfire version of current events; part rant, maybe humor, what-ev. Basically a mini multi subject blog. Regardless, you will get what you paid for it.

Ferguson-
From the way things are shaping up this looks to be a combo package of Trayvon Martin shooting/LA riots redux. And par for the course is the reactionary "two wrongs oughta make things right" mentality with one of the wrongs being perpetrated (in the form of looting) against an innocent-in-the-matter third party.
Unfortunately news reports tend to give fodder to what the real racists want to see to support their racism- black people behaving horribly- and the professional racists chime in and make it worse. And everyone is sacrificing lambs or preparing to. Those lambs being the business people and more than likely the cop.

ISIS-
How many people in the West are sickened by the recent beheadings but champion pre-natal homicide? I'd no sooner watch that vid than I would watch the recent video of an abortion counselor filming her childs demise. This is not liberal moral equivalence. This is just acknowledging that we as country are all for crushing the head of the innocent when convenient and hidden but recoil at the thought of a post-natal choice.

More ISIS-
Our country has the capability to do serious damage to ISIS. We could easily shatter their teeth and hammer their kneecaps. But our current president and the culture of our country has left us impotent. And that is nothing new. My study of wartime only goes back to the early Vietnam era but every president and politician then and since has tied our soldiers hands with political correctness. There is no sense in waging a tender war.

Health- This week scientists are saying coffee will kill you and chocolate will make you live longer. Combine the two and it neutralizes the effects of both. It's science.  Don't argue.

For what its worth, thanks for reading.

A Fools Prayer

This is one of my favorite poems and one that I have some how been able to retain in my brain fairly accurately since high school. Would it be that we, like the proud king, be moved by such a prayer, church leaders and nation leaders as well.

From the pen of Edward Rowland Sill,

The Fools Prayer.

The royal feast was done; the king sought some new sport to banish care, and to his jester cried "Sir Fool, Kneel now, and make for us a prayer! "

The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool.

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin: but Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"Tis not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
Tis our follies that so long
We hold earth from heaven away.

"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go on crushing blossoms with out end
These hard, well meaning hands we thrust among the heartstrings of a friend.

"The ill timed truth we might have kept-
Who knows how sharp it peirced and stung
The word we had not sensed to say-
Who knows how grandly it had rung!

"Our faults no tenderness should ask.
Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; But thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!"

The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low
"Be merciful to me, a fool! "

That Stormy Sunrise Feeling

There is some sweet beauty in the sunrise after a black, stormy night. The clouds still black on their edges, centers of chrome and bright yellow, sometimes even red. Red typically tells us the storm isn't over but the rising of the sun gives a morning truce to the foulness to resume later.
If you're a Christian and have had that deep, long lasting pain that happens to everyone at sometime in their life, whether it be failing health, strained family relationships, death of a loved one, divorce, (insert pain here), you have probably had that stormy sunrise feeling. Sometimes it just feels like that gasp you get when can't swim and you've been under water way to long. It hurts, but you needed it and it gives hope that you might live. You might make it to shore. You might see a summer day again. You might win back the heart of your spouse. You might not have a migraine. You might stop crying from a broken heart. You might, please God, have another child. There is always that hope, that encouragement as a Christian.
The worse kinds of pain are the ones you can't see the end of. "Will I ever feel normal again". You avoid people because they ask those questions that well meaning, good people should ask. But you've heard them so much that you want to gag. Instead you want someone to ask about relieving diaper rash on a baby or for a recipe for that casserole or for help doing the brakes on their car. Anything to take your mind off your pain. Anything normal.

The most glorious, exhilarating time in these trials can be when you actually see how it has grown you. That stormy sunrise feeling reminds you briefly, the burden is not so burdensome. There may even be a point when you say "God, don't let this end until You've done Your work". Really that might just happen. There is nothing that compares with God bringing you to that point. There is victory in our defeat. It is sanctifying to be brought to our end, the beginning with God.

To often we want to end the pain before the trial, the surgery, is over. The Surgeon has not yet completed His operation and we roll off the table.It is ok and natural to want to avoid hurt. I think to often that I have not had satisfaction after a trial because I have artificially removed myself from it. It leaves one wondering "why?" and never finding an answer, never fully learning our lesson. We can escape God's lessons by seeking divorce, leaving a church, or ending a friendship, moving away or quitting a job.
This life is full of hurt. We cannot escape it. But our God is faithful to complete His work on us. We need to faithfully glorify Him for it.

It is a hot day today. Storms of winter and spring seem far away. But I will still be thankful come fall.

Milk and Whiskey, Cigars and Tanning

I'm no cigar snob. I have a torch lighter. But something about the zing of the Zippo just gets me. So it may be uncouth but its my preferred means of toasting the foot of a coffee colored stogie. And a sip of rye in a Glencairn glass from a local distillery completes the celebration. 
And that is what those two things together constitute for me. A celebration. It could be as simple as the end of a long week at work and relaxing, finally.  It could be the goodness of the fellowship of a friend from across town or one come visiting from across the globe. I often call it our time of "Solving the World's Problems", because frank and deep discussion always burn at the end of a robust Churchill stick.
From Bonhoeffer's cigarettes to Lewis' pipe the greats have often enjoyed burnt tobacco.
But in this modern age we Christians have decided that there are no fireplaces in the bodies temple. And definitely no whiskey to warm our celebration. What would Jesus do? What did He do? Well He would provide the finest of wines to celebrate wedded bliss AND to kick off the next three or so years of miracles. 

Most Christians today wouldn't drink that wine.

I recall a friend of mine discussing (on Facebook) his quandary of smoking pipe or cigar. And there were all his good Christian friends commenting on caring for "his temple" and such. And I remember commenting (and not knowing any of the prior commentators) that many people will turn their nose up at the man smoking a cigar yet give no thought to their ritual at the tanning salon. And for what good but vanity is the faux rays of Solarium?  Lo and behold one of the ladies confessed that was exactly where she was heading when she had warned him of the dangers of smoking.
How could I have known? 

For what its worth I smoke cigars slightly more often than I eat a carcinogenic steak off the grill. And much less often than you eat a donut.

I like milk. There is a reason I say that in my little bio over there in the corner. Because I also like whiskey and bourbon. And I like them for the same reason. They taste really good! But if I walk out of the grocery store with two gallons of milk and run into a fellow Christian they usually won't give me the "dirty glutton" look. But "oh,the humanity. He's gonna get drunk" if I walk out of the local stop n rob with a six pack of barley juice.

I make no argument for there being any health benefit to smoking. But I put it in the same realm as skydiving, swimming in the deep end, and bungee jumping. And of course, tanning.  Sometimes the things we do are risky but are socially acceptable. Sometimes they are not. My rule in whiskey and cigars is to make them expensive enough to prevent the formation of a bad habit and just inexpensive enough to be a responsible hobby. And to involve interested people in responsible, even God honoring drinking. A Christian who appreciates a fine beverage can set an example for both the knee-jerk teetotaler and the no limits drinker. Don't believe me ? Join me on the front porch some time.

Love is Not Herd (Yes, I meant to spell it that way)

Valentine's Day is a hoax, right? 

When you stand in line at the grocery store in front of and behind four guys who all are shelling out a sweet premium for roses and chocolates, do you get the urge to belt out a resounding "MOOOoooOoo!"?  Do you feel like so much cattle when you go out for your "romantic" dinner for two with every other couple in the county? I envision the waitstaff all wearing chaps and cowboy hats herding the cattle to their seats. Is this love? Or extortion? Or guilt?

Let it be neither of the last two. Married man, love your wife so much the rest of the year that when you hand her your chocolate donation today that she laughs, because you're usually not that type of schmuck. Wives, be an active participant in this holiday. Buy something, or plan something for your man. Valentine's Day should be about relationships and not about you. And each member of the relationship should act like it is about the other. There should be receiving AND giving. Just like the rest of the year, right?

Rant over.

Are You Not Entertained!?

If you've seen the movie Gladiator you will likely remember the scene where Russell Crowes character slays four competitors with relative ease. The bloodthirsty crowd looks on with little reaction at the brutal death of the combatants. Crowe, disgusted with the "we're just killing people for entertainment" attitude hurls his sword into the the stands and demands "Are you not entertained!?"

                                           Well, are you?

I think the question is a worthy one for us Americans. Us guys get home from work and turn on the TV. We play Angry Birds on the bus or during business meetings. Our wives know what the Kardashians ate for dinner and who wore what on the red carpet. We know the stats for every baseball, football and basketball player and what they are getting paid. 

But we don't know or care about the 3,000 plus babies that we slaughter every day. We don't know or care about what the government is taking away from us or forcing down our throats.
And often the excuse is "It's to big for me to do anything about it" but yelling at the ref on your big screen seems to have such great effect in swaying him for your team.

Are you more concerned that Rob does (or doesn't) get voted off the island than you are about who your daughter is dating? Are the draft picks more on your mind than teaching your son what being a man is?

Of course some who are reading this are getting a little defensive. "What's wrong with entertainment?" "Our TV show is our family time." "Real men are into baseball, football, soccer!"  I'm just asking the question. Is your entertainment taking the place of reality? Of your family? Of your (gulp) social responsibility? Of your time with God? Do you have balance? Have you taken a break from your entertainment to see if you are unbalanced?

So here I am asking these questions, but what have I done and from which direction did I ride in on my high horse?  I cheered and jeered for Rob on Survivor, not missing one show in the first 20 seasons. Yes, seasons, not episodes. I watched the first season of 24 in a weekend, the second season the following weekend. And I've spent countless hours fighting imaginary bad guys on Xbox while ignoring my family and ignoring the world around me. So hopefully I've sent my high horse to the glue factory.

In all honesty what finally encouraged me to knock the dust off this topic that had been languishing in the dusty shelves of my brain was a series of posts on Facebook. If I recall I had posted about government theft of private property, an entire town in fact. There was a "like" or two at best. One comment. Then I had a series of posts about the Seahawks game. Likes and comments came in like water over Niagara Falls (30+ comments and 40+ likes anyway). There was so much passion and force behind the comments and really I got a kick out of it. It was good. And each one of those that posted are people that I truly love.
But then I posted about a serious matter. A senator or rep out of California was describing a gun he wanted to ban. His description was of something out of a science fiction movie and not an actual gun, though he was holding an actual gun and giving it sci-fi attributes. He wanted to ban something that he knew absolutely nothing about. Nothing. He knew nothing and was willing to use his complete lack of knowledge to remove his constituents right to defend themselves from a fool such as himself. After that display of foolishness I wouldn't have trusted him to put a toilet paper roll on correctly and yet he is still sitting in his office. And the comments on that posted initially were around one or two and maybe a like.
I hadn't posted any of those posts as a social experiment. But later it struck me that people have such a passion for entertainment and so little passion for living. I think its easy for us to get overwhelmed by it all. The gov alphabets (DEA,NSA,FBI,CIA) are all overstepping their boundaries, babies are slaughtered, wars rage, earthquakes flatten villages and cities, presidents are turning into dictators all across the globe and one is tempted to just curl up in a ball and suck a thumb. Or watch a game. Or unreality TV. Its a form of looking for a friend in the bottle. Its drinking away the broken heart. It is really a way to escape the trauma of life.
I write this blog to encourage Christians. I understand when an unbeliever says "I just like to be entertained,man". But I don't want to hear that from fellow believers. We have reason for hope! We have reason not to be apathetic. We are fellow heirs with an Overcomer. We can't take on the world by ourselves. We can't address every social issue or save every child from an the clinical executioner. We can't feed the poor or rescue the destitute. But we can do a lot more than sit on our asses and entertain our lives away. Because we have a Father who wasn't complacent we have an example of what we can do and a resource of encouragement. Some of us can adopt a child (and show them the joys of having a favorite football team). Some can make a small hot meal for some guy under a bridge. Some can make people aware that we have killed off babies (Not tissue. Not a non life form) so that we can have lives of convenience. Some can take our sons out camping, our daughters to their favorite restaurant. We can always serve our spouse more.
Be entertained. Be involved in celebration. Jesus knew how to have fun. Do enjoy the good things that our God has given us, by all means! But don't let those good things consume you. Let living, honoring and glorifying God be what consumes you. Improve your relationships,improve you neighborhood, improve your town and see what else God has planned for you.

                       Oh yeah. And GO HAWKS!