Today there were thirty-five obituaries in the Dallas Morning News. One of them was my friend. I am amazed at the number of incredible saints that God has brought into my life. Perhaps God knows that I desperately need their courageous examples. Becky Matthews was one of those saints that inspired me. She died Saturday night, September 5th. The obituary accurately portrays her courage and attitude. Her faith in Christ allowed her to persevere through a seventeen year battle with cancer, never complaining and always encouraging others. Think about that. Seventeen years. I never heard her complain. I never heard her question her fate. She fought with courage and dignity until the fight was clearly lost. And then she simply accepted that she would go ahead and wait for the family reunion to come. I am so humbled by Becky’s example. I remember her smiling when I knew she was suffering. Encouraging when she was the one who could have expected
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Today’s humble ramblings comes from the a song that was released when I was three years old. Fifty-three years after The Platters released the song the group appeared randomly on the trusty iPod during a morning stroll with dog friend Hannah. The song is written about a guy pretending to be happy when his love interest has left him. The lyrics to The Great Pretender led me to think again about one of my pet peeves in the churches of America. I get angry, frustrated and sad when followers of Jesus go to church and pretend to be something we know we are not. That we are okay all of the time. I lived those lyrics out Sunday after Sunday for too many years. Oh yes I’m the great pretender Pretending I’m doing well My need is such I pretend too muchI’m lonely but no one can tell We go to a place where honesty should be encouraged. Where shortcomings ought to be accepted. Church should be the place
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I am afraid I need to polish up my descriptive words in order to compete in this world. If I describe myself (accurately) as Christian and conservative I find that I am immediately stereotyped and dismissed by the free-thinkers and progressives. See how much cooler their words are? Because I have chosen to follow Christ and believe in God I can’t possible be a free-thinker. And since I have conservative values I am not progressive. Bummer. But I am prepared to struggle through with my cro-magnon worldview. The topic was revived this week by a story in the Dallas Morning News. A camp for agnostic kids recently wrapped up in the Dallas area. The parents described a place where clear thinking and good questions can be encouraged. While they may be free-thinkers I fear they are not always clear thinkers. For example, one high school student had kept his atheism a secret because his fellow students would likely avoid him if they knew. But
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I have watched with bemusement as the NY Times scrambles to apologize to all of us simple folk who live in Flyover Country. The Grey Lady has had to remember her manners and ask for forgiveness over a recent review in the paper. The aptly named column “The Critical Shopper” recently reviewed the arrival of American icon J.C. Penney in upscale Midtown Manhattan. The author of the piece is not a fan of J.C. Penney. That is okay. She is not a fan of their merchandise. Again, that is okay. But her tone in dismissing those who might shop there was instructive of how those big city folks view us simple Midlanders just now learning how to walk upright and use utensils. Here is a part of the column. Why would this dowdy Middle American entity waddle into Midtown in its big old shorts and flip-flops without even bothering to update its ancient Helvetica Light logo, which for anyone who grew up with the company is
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I have been known to partake of the product of Jesus’ first miracle. If you slept through Sunday School the first miracle was changing water into wine. (Note to spiritual hall monitors: I understand that not all share my freedom to partake and I am cautious about where I consume the fruit of the vine). In fact I began my journey in a church where drinking wine (and nearly everything else) would doom you to eternal hellfire. H.L.Mencken’s quote about Puritanism summed up our miserable little assembly. “Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy” I remember hearing a complete sermon dedicated to the theory that the wine of the New Testament was not fermented and therefore did not contain alcohol. That sermon led me to puzzle over Paul’s admonition to the church at Ephesus revised to reflect his view. And do not be drunk with Welch’s Grape Juice, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit… I could pound gallons of Welch’s and not
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I have written a great deal about civility in the public discourse. I have to confess that I am losing heart. Internet forums make cowards courageous. You can write things to me from the cave of anonymity that you would never say to my face. The rules at my site have been consistent. This is not an open forum. We have one basic rule at “Bad Christian” World Headquarters. Verily, verily, all words that proceedeth out of thy posts and thy comments shall be civil…thus saith the one who payeth the server bills. Thy vile words shall be cast forever into the sea of delete and I will blocketh thee forever. King James style rules just sound more authoritative. So if you demonize around here you get blocked. No apologies. A couple of years ago Rick Warren had a conversational debate with Sam Harris. The discourse between the two of them was civil. Neither party changed their mind about what they believed. The
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My ministry of making other Christians feel superior continues unabated. Last week I promised the conclusion to the hypocrite series and then I failed to deliver. So I was a hypocrite while writing about hypocrites. Thanks to faithful reader Wilma for pointing out my omission. This is bonus material that I did not have time to address with Pastor Jeff but I did post at the World Magazine site. I have written a lot about how people in the church do considerable damage with actions and words that do not reflect Jesus. I have been frustrated by Christians who receive grace willingly and deny it to others. I see division in the body of Christ where we should see unity. It occurred to me that the church does not understand a few key principles that winning baseball teams understand. The first thing that winning teams understand is that every teammate brings strengths and weaknesses to the team. A great team
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