He's A Santa Kinda Guy

He knows when you are sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows when you've been bad or good, and the number of stars in the sky, how many grains of sand are on the seashore, the number of hairs on your head, every breath you take, and every thought you make. He lives at the North Pole, the South Pole, and every pole in between. In fact, his presence is everywhere! He gives a gift to every boy and girl, BEFORE they've had a chance to be bad or good: It's the gift of life, and only he can give it, because he created life, and everything that has life. Obviously, he's not your average department store Santa. On Christmas we celebrate his birth, but alas, he's not Santa. On Easter we celebrate his resurrection, but his ears are not long and furry. On Thanksgiving we gather to thank him for our sustenance at a harvest feast, but he's not a turkey. And if we don't accept his gift of salvation, regardless how good we think we've been, we snub him and treat his life, and death, with complete disregard. This Christmas, accept the Gift of God.

Easy now!

While searching for a local church's web site, I happened upon a site claiming to have news and information about the church. Apparently the site, formerly the official church web site, had nothing good to say about the church, which indicated the site administrator had become discontented, disenfranchised and discombobulated. I chose not to delve. I did, however, contact the church office to voice my concern and to find their current web site. Once there, I used the current administrator's e-mail address to reiterate my concern, and suggested they make themselves easier to find than the other site. Okay, moral time: First, NEVER alienate your site administrator. Second, follow the Biblical imperative, "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath." (Eph 4:26) Third, beware! "Righteous indignation" isn't always righteous. Too often, it is self-righteous indignation, and becomes a rationale for vengeance. And that, friend, is sin.

Moonbeams

Maddy was immersed in her own olfactory world, nose to the ground, assimilating information humans can scarcely imagine. I on the other hand, held my head high, in my own visual world, eyes to the night sky. About two hours into its nocturnal journey, the full moon played behind a horizontal, roughly oval cloud, one of a sparse band of low-lying clouds. Behind the moon, and the silver-lined clouds hiding it, a field of stratus clouds picked up the lunar brilliance, streaked as a fine silver platter carelessly polished. Cast far beyond that silvery idyll, almost directly overhead, tapering, transparent shafts of silver light penetrated a star-specked, deep blue sky. How many precise, meteorological elements did God have to arrange in the heavens for me to behold that magnificent, sky-filling display? Yet, it was but a small thing compared to the Gift of His Son's blood, spilled to cleanse my sin, to transform my life, to open my eyes to His nature and His creation so I might praise Him.

Treasure Hunt

Today's Our Daily Bread suggested to me a new interpretation of Matthew 6:22-23 "The lamp of the body is the eye. Then if your eye is sound, all your body is light. But if your eye is evil, all your body is dark. If, then, the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" Those verses always seemed an opthamologist's creedal statement. But consider the verses preceding it, Matthew 6:19-21 "Do not treasure up for you treasures on the earth, where moth and rust cause to perish, and where thieves dig through and steal. But treasure up for you treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust cause to perish, and where thieves do not dig through and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Now it's obvious the "eye" means priorities, goals, aspirations -- anything you set your sights on. And the "body" means the spirit, the soul, the seat of consciousness -- the very center of your being. Now hold onto your hat: We have a values judgment to make, despite the politically incorrect overtones. It is possible that your "eye" can be evil, darkening your soul with wrong, that's right, wrong priorities. Okay, what in the world would be a wrong priority? I submit that would be anything that might lead you away from God, and bearing the fruit of His Holy Spirit. The Bible is replete with lists of specific acts and attitudes that lead people away from God. One of them says, "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." (1 John 2:16) At first, that seems a pretty broad stoke, but the Bible's most telling verses deal with principles and concepts. For those who need something more specific, try this on for size: "Now the works of the flesh are clearly revealed, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, fightings, jealousies, angers, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and things like these; of which I tell you beforehand, as I also said before, that the ones practicing such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." (Gal 5:19-21) For contrast: "But the fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control. Against such things there is not a law." (Gal 5:22-23) Need I say more?

Giving Thanks

I can't help it! The government names a day, "Thanksgiving Day," and somehow I have to give thanks. Makes me feel like one of Pavlov's dogs. The truth is, I love giving thanks. How else can I endure the countless blessings God has poured out for me? And how else can I appreciate His many wise and wonderful, albeit painful, lessons in living? Blessings are lessons, and lessons are blessings; its all the same. This mortal life is far too short for casting recriminations about what seems, at first, like crap, but in retrospect always works to our betterment. If my estate has an extra ten bucks or so, I intend to have the words, "Always Give Thanks," engraved on my grave marker. That is the most valuable lesson I've learned during my brief, wisp of life, and if I convey nothing more through it, I will not have lived in vain.

The New Tolerance

I hope Chuck Colson will forgive me for borrowing a brief quote from his Breakpoint column; I know my local newspaper editor won't have a problem with that. Today, I will unload on my blog instead of his Letters column.

Today's progressives like to consider themselves open-minded, diversity-honoring Humanists. Their compassion for the downtrodden is eclipsed only by their thirst for scientific enlightenment. Such is their modest self-adulation.

Historian Garry Wills, writing in the New York Times, called November 2 the "day the Enlightenment went out." His characterization of American society, and Christians in particular, made it sound like you can expect your doctor to prescribe leeches at your next visit. -- Chuck Colson, Breakpoint 11/22/2004

Today's literati consider "censorship" the most obscene word in our language--as long as what's published doesn't offend them too much. They defend primary school libraries that stock their shelves with graphic apologetics for the homosexual lifestyle, natural science books that openly ridicule the Biblical world view, cultic, and occultic, scripture and instruction books, and revisionist history books. But honoring the extra-constitutional doctrine of separation of church and state, they strip their shelves of anything that might shed a favorable light on Christianity. Our cherished right to freely express ourselves depends on what we want to say.

Again, those who most vociferously defend freedom of expression are the very ones who label conservative values as "hate." Didn't Jesus say some pretty harsh things to the hypocrites of his time? Contrary to popular belief, today's hypocrites, as well as those from any other period, are found lots of places besides in evangelical churches.

I think I have the vapors!

If thoughts are but a vapor, why do I put such stock in them? Though conceived without form or substance, thoughts take shape and mass when I apply words to them. But what use are those isolated, abstract products of my neural chemical reactions? Like the round stone, the spontaneous fire or the deep lake of ages past, I fail to recognize their potential at first. Perhaps my words serve as playthings, at once, serious and fun: parts of a construction kit, from which I might build useful or fanciful ideas. I gather my ideas, sort them out, and assemble them into concepts. And concepts are the versatile, sturdy stuff that form my body of opinions, beliefs, attitudes, and prejudices. Will they prove useful, or vain? Will they languish in a journal, on a weblog, or combine to form compelling, lifechanging stories? But take care of your words! Unspoken, they are a reservoir of potential power. Held in check and released as needed, they flow out to irrigate the fertile ground of uncounted souls downstream. If the dam breaks, however, they will gush forth, uncontrollable and irretrievable, to wash away the soil and destroy what was sown.

Where’s Scrooge Today?

Though my mother was eighty-nine years young, to my family, her passing last week seemed premature. Having heard horror stories of older people receiving less than stellar medical treatment, we can’t help asking questions about what steps the medical professionals followed during her decline. But all we get is what those in the business call, “damage control.” Before corporate medical care, the kindly country doctor grabbed his black bag containing all the medical tricks known to science, and traveled to his patients’ homes. Poor folks payed him in chickens and cucumbers, expecting--and getting--his best effort. When he guessed wrong and bad things happened, he mourned with the family. To him, they were family. The Hippocratic Oath once expressed the medical profession’s intent to do only good. But that was before “We, The People” began taking our constitutional guarantees for granted. That was before we began expecting more--always more, unaware that expectations seldom deliver what’s promised, their bitter fruit setting our lives on edge. That was before we discovered insurance companies and lawyers, mistaking them for money-trees. That was when avarice was still a sin, and not the crowning virtue it is today. That was when Dickens caricaturized the greedy capitalist in Ebenezer Scrooge. Today, we’re likely to find Scrooge working on an assembly line, driving his kids to soccer practice in his SUV tank, or lounging on his sofa, mesmerized by his home entertainment system. In fact, we’re likely to find today’s Scrooge looking back at us from a mirror. Of course, we could try to make ourselves feel better by continuing to blame the "thems" of big business and fat-cat politicians for today’s mess. But confession heals the soul. Let’s admit “We, The People” have multiplied Scrooge’s greed millions of times. With, or without the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, let’s repent of our societal avarice, one Scrooge at a time.

It's Harder Than It Looks

I used to fancy myself a writer. Part of my networking included participating in Writing.com, a supportive online community of aspiring writers. I submitted several of my writings, expecting all the authors and editors who frequented those hallowed pages to praise my obvious talent. And, yes, some reviewers said I was really good. So, after buying all new hats, I decided to share my expertise by reviewing others' work. First I learned that lots of unpublished writers are a whole lot better than I am(What did I do with those old hats?). And second, critiquing the newbies proved an exercise in frustration. It wasn't long before I noted a pattern among them: Too often they write like chimps turned loose with a keyboard. by this, i meant, they ofgen rote like this, ant thuoght it was artsie. We have a generation of progressive education's byproducts whose work closely resembles digestion's byproducts because they believe the system's three-fold lie: 1; Everyone has equal talent. 2; Technique and craft should fall a distant second and third place to "creativity." 3; The real world, like sensitive, compassionate, bleeding-heart teachers, gives "Attaboys" for halfarsed work. That fact, and all those folks who believe their desktop publishing software makes them "publishable," conspire to flood traditional publishers with unsolicited or inferior manuscripts. Of course, that's a boon for vanity "publishers." Thousands of poor--and soon to be poorer--souls suffer the delusion that getting "published" makes one a best-selling author and guarantees they'll soon be rolling in dough. They'll be rolling alright; rolling in debt and the pain of disillusionment. Though I didn't fall for the vane appeal of vanity publishing, the disillusionment I experienced through the normal process of rejection taught me several valuable lessons: 1; People who believe they are good authors, good Christians, or just good people, share a common trait: they aren't. Instead, they are impossible to live with. 2; Being good isn't good enough. 3; Striving for greatness is a wonderful aspiration, though usually not realistic. 4; Perfection is as reachable as the end of any other rainbow. 5; It's not what you know, or even who you know. What makes you successful is both of those, plus knowing yourself--including your weaknesses--and believing in your calling and your craft strongly enough to persist despite unimaginable rejection and discouragement.

New Definitions

Is any high school graduate of the boomer generation not haunted by memories of struggling over endless word definition lists? Those painful experiences likely scarred us for life, and who knows the extent of psychological dysfunction such oppressive “educational” methods inflicted upon us? Never fear! The era of fixed, precise word definitions is ending. Just think: No more long lists to memorize! No more restrictive concepts to cramp our style! If we feel an idea’'s traditional definition is too insensitive, intolerant or irrelevant, we can just redefine it any way we like. Public figures enjoy this new flexibility when weaselling out of misconduct accusations with statements like, “"Well, that depends on how you define (fill the blank)."” Even benign, soft-spoken, mild-mannered social progressives have joined the movement toward conceptual flexibility. By redefining, or castrating, such biased concepts as truth, good, bad, right, wrong, morality, evil, character, community, culture, home, family and marriage they are reinventing society's archaic, unfashionable wheels and setting them on the road to Utopia. Victims of our oppressive history join such social progressives, screaming from their pauper's graves for more sensitive, tolerant and relevant social definitions. The quest to remedy that intolerable intolerance began over forty years ago, when our government educational establishment, along with the more progressive private schools and many of the old-line religious denominations, began realigning their philosophies and teaching their constituents to be more sensitive and tolerant. And look at our progress! Though right-wing extremists try to argue against the benefits we've reaped from our social revolution, today's more compassionate, sensitive and tolerant culture benefits everyone. Religious fundamentalists enjoy pointing out the few insignificant statistical anomalies such as single-parent, broken and non-traditional families and the paltry number of resulting dysfunctional and violent relationships. But they won't mention how resilient the affected children can be. After all, the state doesn't mind placing them with the child-welfare system or relegating them to the loving hands of our clean, safe, well managed prison system. Our legislators are wrestling with the Federal Marriage amendment. Its passage would do irreversible harm to the progressive social climate we've tried so hard to implement. And that just wouldn't be fair!