Deadlier Than H1N1

SEEMS EVERYWHERE YOU TURN these days, you run into a free-floating rage. TV “news” has degenerated into a nonstop series of shoutfests, talking heads shrieking over each other to create utter cacophany. Road ragers pack heat and all too often, use it. It’s as if nearly everyone everywhere is ticked, angry, mad, and some other synonyms I’d rather not use.

Today I found a new and mostly satirical Facebook group that mobilizes the seething masses of the “Had it up to here” crowd: AN ARBITRARY NUMBER OF PEOPLE DEMANDING THAT SOME SORT OF ACTION BE TAKEN.

Yeah. Like the crazed Howard Beale in “Network,” multitudes seem to be shouting “We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore!” So this new Facebook group should have wide appeal.

The Rage Pandemic is potentially deadlier than H1N1 is ever likely to become. For one thing, it’s spreading, becoming more virulent, and shows no signs of ever abating. The world is becoming increasingly a dangerous and deadly place, as too many people no longer feel normal societal restraints and vent their hostility on whoever gets in the way. The daily evidence is appalling in every day’s news.

Civility in discourse, courtesy, being polite, tolerance of other viewpoints and opinions—these are no longer modeled in the worlds of politics and broadcast news as much as name-calling, bullying, and threatening. Even too many religious leaders join in to sling mud and fuel the flames of intolerance.

What’s the cause? What’s the solution?

Perhaps the answers aren’t easy. But if I had to speculate, I’d say that we’re in a world on its last legs and that the battle between good and evil is in its final ugly showdown. The Rage Pandemic is only likely to get worse. So bad, in fact, that the way things are could soon look like “the good old days.”

Until…in the midst of all the raging and shouting, the Prince of Peace steps in to end the pandemic once and for all.

Another New Beginning

THANK GOODNESS FOR fresh starts—new beginnings. They’re not just for New Year’s Day. Every new day is a great chance to just start all over. Cut loose from the past—at least the parts best left behind. Chart a new course.

As Paul the apostle said: “I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize.” Philippians 3:13, 14, NLT.

It’s been more than three months since I’ve posted here on my blog. The reason is that affliction common to us all: too much to do and not enough time to do it.

So I’ve had to decide whether to follow the path taken by other bloggers in the same predicament and shut down the blog entirely—or try again to continue, but with some changes. I’m going to attempt the latter. What stays the same is the blog title, and I’m also preserving all previous posts and comments.

But I’m also making some changes:

• I’ve chosen a new theme called “Spring Loaded,” to give the blog a fresh look.
• I’ve eliminated a page I had called “Blog Potluck”—an occasional round-up of interesting items I’d found on other blogs in my blogroll.
• Till now, I’ve featured what I called “The Largest Adventist Blogroll on the Net”—some 300 or more blogs. I’ll no longer attempt to locate and add new blogs. In fact, I’ve pared my list to just the few that I personally visit on a regular basis.
• I may post less frequently but will try not to let months pass between posts.
• I’m intentionally re-slanting my topics to speak not so primarily to Adventists but to any interested Christian readers—or non-Christian ones, for that matter.

With these changes, I’m hoping for a new blog-beginning and to trim off some add-ons that were making the time investment to maintain this site  impossible.

In this age of blogging and Facebook and Twitter and Skype and email and a thousand other ways to link up and communicate, some time discipline is absolutely essential. Hope now to preserve this avenue, stay sane, get my work done, and stay active in the blogosphere. We shall see!

The Tragic Power of One Wrong Choice

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

THE MUSEUM GUARD POLITELY held the door open for the old man approaching. But as the elderly gentleman arrived at the door, he pulled out a gun and shot the guard in the face at point-blank range.

James Von Brunn, now 88, seemed to have it all when a young man. The grandson of German immigrants, he excelled in his university years. A talented commercial artist, he also played football, spoke French, served as president of his fraternity, and was on the staff of the college literary publication.

But one day in college, James borrowed a classmate’s car and totaled it. The father of his classmate, a Jewish man, demanded compensation for his son’s car. After this episode, James complained that Jewish students on the campus gave him the cold shoulder. “Word got around,” he wrote later, “that I was a Nazi.

So James made a choice. A choice of hate. A choice of seething resentment.

His anger apparently continued to smolder during his military service in World War II, during which he served as a PT boat captain, decorated for his service with a Navy commendation and three battle stars.  Returning from the war, he married into a well-connected, pedigreed family in the Chesapeake Bay area. His future looked bright—he seemed to have it all.

But the choice to hate and resent fueled a growing anti-Semitism and paranoia. He found New York after the war to be “the largest Jew city in the world.” His life descended into a black hole of obsessive anti-Semitism, white supremacy, denying of the Holocaust, run-ins with the law, and fomenting hatred for the Jewish and black races through his actions and writings. He would write a book entitled Kill the Best Gentiles, praising Hitler.

His marriage crumbled. His alienated first son dropped out of his life. He remarried, but because of his abuse and alcoholism and toxic hatred, his second wife lived in her own private hell till their divorce.  His second son said his father’s beliefs “have been a constant source of verbal and mental abuse my family has had to suffer with for many years. His views consumed him, and in doing so, not only destroyed his life, but destroyed our family and ruined our lives as well.”

His divorced wife said that his twisted hatred “ate him like a cancer”—and that “it’s all he would talk about.”

After spewing hatred most of his adult life, James Von Brunn on June 10, 2009, walked toward the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., apparently intent on mowing down as many people as possible. But after shooting guard Stephen Tyrone Johns  in the face, who died of his injuries, Von Brunn was taken into custody before he could wreak more violence. He awaits trial.

Such a waste. A promising life derailed early on by one tragic wrong choice. A cautionary example to us all of the enormous influence our own choices have—on ourselves, on those we love, and on who know how many others.

A Christian “New Ager”?

I’M A CHRISTIAN. BUT THAT doesn’t mean that I live in a peapod, all shut off from the world (see my past post on the Three Peas in a Pod). I truly believe that we can be both “in the world” and “not of the world”—and that too often we repeat the mistake of Old Israel in being rigidly exclusive and intolerant of anything outside our Christian “cocoon.”

Is it possible that we lose much by walling ourselves off from other ways of believing and behaving? Can we learn and even benefit from those we often reflexively dismiss or even spend energy condemning? I’m not advocating that we abandon our personal or church belief system or our lifestyle convictions and choices. But I would suggest that we sometimes risk throwing out “the baby with the bathwater” when it comes to how we relate to other ways of believing and living.

Today, in connection with a project I’m working on, I needed to research the background of a certain New Age teacher. As I am wont to do in this Age of the Net, I went to Wickipedia as one of my first stops. In the article, I found the following list of key New Age themes:

Age of Aquarius · Alternative medicine · Angels · Astral projection · Astrology · Atlantis · Aura · Channelling · Charmstone · Conspiracy theories · Cosmic ordering · Earth mysteries · Environmentalism · Feng shui · Gaia hypothesis · Goddess worship · Indigo children · Intuition · Karma · Law of Attraction · Meditation · New Age communities · New Age music · Odic force · Parapsychology · Pantheism · Perception · Quantum mysticism · Qi · Religious pluralism · Reincarnation · Spiritual healing · Wellness · UFOs.

Now, I’ve bolded in this list a few of the themes that—though I may define them somewhat differently than the committed New Ager—I have personally found of value. It simply reminds me that even my own chosen “home faith” is not 100 flawless and that other belief systems are not 100 flawed.

Perhaps if we Christians focused more on the bridges of agreement that link us to others instead of condemning and warning against the areas where we disagree with them, we’d enjoy greater success in getting out the Good News.

Of course, perhaps one great reason we may sometimes wall ourselves off from “the world” around us is fear that it will win us over, rather than the other way around. But if our own faith is built not on sand but on the Rock, it should be secure enough to venture into the world beyond our comfortable borders and be exposed to other ways of believing and living. We should be able to distinguish between what is truth and what is error.

Am I a New Ager? Well, maybe partly! As a Protestant Christian, I may also (horror of horrors) be partly a Buddhist, Atheist (see another post on this), Muslim, or Roman Catholic. Without denying that these other belief systems contain much that I consider error and with which I cannot agree, I may also accept that Jesus said He was the “Light of the World…that lights every man who comes into the world”—and that therefore even the most error-riddled belief systems may contain some truth and light.

And my own personal conviction is that I’m better served, as is my faith, by focusing on what unites me to others, than on what divides me from them. Now, back to work, with soaring, transporting New Age music playing in the background!

Blogroll, Anyone?

SINCE THE COUPLE OF YEARS that have elapsed following my launching of this blog, I’ve invested quite some time in assembling what—in the absence of any challenge to the contrary—I believe to be the largest Adventist blogroll on the Net.

Unfortunately, that’s time I no longer have to invest. So with this post, I’m inviting any Adventist readers who would like to offer taking it over and further developing it, to do so.

It’s in need at present of a review and update, to be sure all information is current. Sometimes blogs disappear. Other times, they change their names or URL addresses.

What I’m looking for is someone who would be willing to:

• Do the review/update just mentioned.
• Keep the blogroll current (with a suggested review of each entry at least once a month).
• Engage in an ongoing search for new blogs to add (I can suggest how I’ve done this).

Now, I have my own chosen guidelines as to which blogs I include in the roll. I avoid church institutional blogs or those primarily with something to sell. I try to avoid the “MySpace, Facebook”–type blogs that are primarily personal “chat” forums. And I include primarily blogs by Adventists, though I have a few by former members in my roll.

Finally, I’ve periodically posted a “Blog Potluck”—a roundup of interesting items from the blogroll. Whether to continue this would be a decision left to the new “Blog Tender.”

If you are interested in taking on this project, leave a comment here with your name and email address. If I receive several offers, I’ll need to make a choice. Thanks in advance if you respond.

Signs of the Times

ONE SURE THING ABOUT this sign: It’s original and startling enough to snag attention—and for a panhandler, that’s at least half the battle.

Some assorted thoughts about it:

• It’s not really possible to hate someone who doesn’t exist—so there’s an Object to this fellow’s anger.

• At least there’s no passive-aggression here. Mr. Panhandler, like King David on occasion, is right up front with how he feels about God the Son.

• Mr. P. clearly has strong feelings about Jesus, but he may not realize just how strongly the feelings of Jesus run toward him. Truth is, there is nothing Mr. P. can do or say or think—ever—to make Jesus stop loving him.

Quite possibly, Mr. P.’s feelings of anger (as is so often the case with most of us), issues from hurt—from feeling that Jesus let him down. Then again, maybe his anger is connected more with THIS sign (a little hard-to-read…it says, “Jesus Is Coming to Kill Everybody Except for Born-Again Christians”):

Nothing like “witnessing” by telling lies about God!

Looking Up to See Bottom

BLISS AND DEPRESSION. The mountaintops and the valleys. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

At times in life, I’ve known such joy it’s as if I’ve overdosed on endorphins. At other times, I’ve felt really, really low. So low that, as I’ve told friends, I’d need to look up through a powerful telescope just to see bottom.

But in at least one way, I’ve never been as low in all my life as I was this past weekend. How low? Well, 282 feet below sea level—that’s how low. Badwater Basin. Death Valley National Park. Lowest point in North America. Fortunately, it was a cloudy February day with a temp of about 60. By July and August, the temps will be about double that at 120 or more.

Directly behind the Badwater parking lot is a sheer rock cliff rising up hundreds of feet. Far up the face of that cliff is an amazing sign that says, “Sea Level.” Truly, one must “look up to see bottom”!

Within an hour or so of walking the salt flats of Badwater, I drove around to Dante’s View—a panoramic overview of Death Valley more than a mile above Badwater. And I marveled again at how quickly my perspective had changed.

From my new viewpoint, I saw so much more than I had down below. And it reminded me of how, in the midst of depression, one’s view of things is regrettably limited. So limited, hope is out of view. So limited, the possibility of anything every changing for the better can’t be seen.

But my fast trip from 282 feet below to 5,475 feet above made a world of difference. It reminded me that when I find myself in a low place, I won’t always be there. And when I do find my way to a higher place, the whole view of life changes. It’s a view with a far larger and more accurate perspective.

If you’re down right now, even if you have to take this on faith, cling to the certainty that your fatigue or disappointment or heartbreak or even certified Grade-A depression is not likely to last. Time will bring amazing changes.

But so too will making the choice to leave Badwater and step by step, mile by mile, head for the viewpoint thousands of feet above.

Space: Final Frontier…and Final Home

THE REMAINS OF “STAR TREK” CREATOR Gene Roddenberry and his wife, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, will be launched into space by Celestis Inc., a company that specializes in “memorial spaceflights.”

According to Celestis spokesperson Susan Schonfeld, the couple’s cremated remains will be sealed into specially made capsules designed to withstand the rigors of space travel. A rocket-launched spacecraft will carry the capsules, along with digitized tributes from fans. The Roddenberrys’ remains—and the spacecraft—will travel ever deeper into space and will not return to earth.

The intent is that the Roddenberrys will spend eternity in space.

When I have shed this mortal coil, bought the farm, checked out of this vale of tears…my intent too is to spend eternity in space. At least part of the time. As I read my Bible, at some point a thousand years after the Second Coming of Christ, God has plans to create a New Earth out of this old one and set up that new world as the primary eternal home-base of those who accept the “second chance” Jesus made possible.

Maybe one reason I’ve always been drawn to Star Trek in its various incarnations is the lure of its sense of adventure and exploration, as set forth in its mission:

Space… the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.

Oh, for sure…sign me up, but for the Real Thing instead of the Fictional Drama!

The First Stone

ON ONE OF THE POLITICAL BLOGS I often read, one Majestic Pundit—one of those imperial Talking Heads who condescend to share their wisdom with the ignorant masses—posted about Chief Justice John Roberts’ flubbing of the inaugural oath.

“Roberts,” he groused, “should be impeached and removed from office for this unforgivable error.”

Unforgivable? Well, at the very least, we now know what the “unpardonable sin” is!

The universal pandemic of the “sin virus” since Eden means that every human being—past, present, or future—is flawed. We ALL make mistakes. We ALL mis-speak, flub, mess up, fall short, stumble, and fail. In addition, we each develop bad habits through repeated wrong choices and give in to the basic weaknesses of our sin-damaged nature.

Yet Jesus said it’s only the sinless who have the right to cast the first stone. It’s only the ones without logs in their own eyes who have the right to remove splinters from the eyes of others. Be careful, Jesus said, about putting on your Judge’s robes and pronouncing sentence on others, because you’ll reap that same kind of “justice” when the tables turn and you are the Accused. In fact, He said, don’t even try being a judge…that’s My job.

If one sure symptom of being sin-defective is to make mistakes, another symptom is the overwhelming urge and need to condemn the mistakes of others.

How ridiculous would it be for one man on death row to rail against the guilt of the men in his neighboring cells? Yet there’s something in us that—in the absence of immediate divine grace—drives us to delight in the failings of others. “Gotcha” journalism thrives. Preachers and politicians thunder against moral lapses, too often in due course to be exposed as guilty of the very sins they condemned.

Just within the past week, an unexpected light focused on one of my own sinful behaviors. In my case, my failing wounded someone else about whom I care deeply (as almost always, our sins ultimately do). And I’m learning again that when I know I deserve stones but instead get…as I have…grace, it goes deep and opens the door to real repentance and the possibility of change.

It’s another reminder that—in a variation of Christ’s warnings to the hypocritical Pharisees eager to stone a sinner—we ALL live in glass houses and should think twice about tossing rocks around. And it’s a reminder to me that I need to remember well my own weakness before saying a word about the failings of anyone else.

It seems an expected given in this world that we find the “feet of clay” in other people…catch ‘em red-handed…and then, with smug delight and glee, expose their failings, punish them, criticize them without mercy, embarrass them.

The woman caught in adultery (then brought to Jesus by the very men responsible for that sin) waited in a heap at Christ’s feet, writhing in a hell of shame and expecting any moment a hail of stones as soon as Jesus endorsed the judgment of her accusers.

But Jesus was all about covering sins…not exposing them. He was about redeeming, not condemning. He was about forgiving and healing, not judging.

He was about saving, not stoning.

No More Bears Under the Bed

RIGHT OUT OF THE GATE, there it was. Newly minted sinner Adam’s first words: “I heard You in the garden, and I was afraid…”

One sure symptom of sin is FEAR.

When sin goes, fear will go with it. You can then, if you wish, scour every square acre of heaven and come up empty of fear. Meanwhile, here in this life—on this planet—fear is a daily companion.

I’ve thought a bunch about fear, and totally free of charge, herewith offer my thoughts on the topic.

• A real difference exists between fear and the natural, built-in instinct for self-preservation. If you choose to call that fear, be my guest. But to me, there’s a huge difference between a natural and healthy response to a real and present threat—and the debilitating fear of threats that exist only in potential or imagination.
• If fear is a symptom of sin—and if the Church is ostensibly in the business of opposing sin and its symptoms…even helping deliver people from that—then for the Church to employ fear as a motivator has to be one of the most sinful things on earth.
• FDR said it: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Yet our own government resorts constantly to fear as a tool for controlling the populace. Color-coded charts for how afraid we should be this month of a terrorist strike. If we vote for or against something or someone, then a terrible fate will follow our stupid choice. The world is full of people “out to get us,” so we should retreat under our desks covered in goose-bumps and wide-eyed as barn owls.
• Fear IS a motivator. So is guilt. So is hate. So is jealousy. So is greed. And many others. But because these motivators do work, should a good country, a good Church, a good Christian, a good human being, USE them? Don’t you ever get tired of people or governments appealing constantly to the worst in us? I jolly well do!
• The litany of things, real or imagined, of which we are afraid, is appalling. We’re afraid of what other people think. We’re afraid of being different from other people. We’re afraid of people who are different from us. We’re afraid of growing old, of getting sick, of dying. We’re afraid of failure…and of success. We’re afraid of not having enough money or not enough love. We’re afraid of the IRS and the boogeyman and disapproving bosses or spouses and getting mugged and our own shadows.
• “Perfect love,” the Bible says, “casts out fear.” That means love trumps fear. It’s ultimately stronger. In the short term, fear may seem to win the battle—but ultimately, love is going to clean fear’s clock.

To my government: If you are addicted to fear-mongering, then lay on the fear all you want. But I’m not going to become one of your Pavlovian canines, salivating every time you ring the fear bell. You’ll have to find something more positive to motivate me.

To the Church: Lay off fear and guilt entirely as motivators. Do you really think that by using the devil’s tools, you can get God’s work done?

To everybody: Yes, sin is a disease. Fear is a symptom. But symptoms can be treated. Love is the divinely prescribed antidote. We have it within our power to choose a life of fearlessness. You do. So do I.

When I was a little guy, I would lie awake in the dark, just sure that the bears under my bed would any minute crawl out to have them a little-boy snack. But bears under my bed no longer scare the bejabbers out of me. And I’ve learned by now that most fears are no more real or scary than the grizzlies that used to hang out under my bed.