“I’d like to say a prayer, and drink to world peace.”

[If you don’t know where that’s from, take two minutes and watch this.]

I’ve been thinking about peace a lot lately. Not necessarily world peace (although that would be nice to see), but more like the peace I need in my life. I wrote a previous post about peace a couple of months ago, but I think there are some more things I need to flesh out here.

I really believe that I need to make time for being peaceful. It gives me time to rest, time to decompress, but also time to think. At my weekly Bible study a few months ago, one guy challenged the rest of us to make quiet time a regular part of our day – I have struggled to meet that challenge. Of course, that has hurt my prayer life, my time with God. Even Jesus went off by himself to pray – maybe someone like me, who isn’t exactly on par with Jesus, should follow suit.

This article doesn’t focus strictly on Christianity, but it gets the point across about the importance of the “spiritual disciplines” of solitude and silence. It’s pretty long, but it’s worth your time. Here are a couple of excerpts:

The re-charging spark of silent solitude is needed by all. Extroverts may need less, and introverts more, but neither group can entirely do without. One’s circumstances don’t alter this equation either. Solitude remains a need whether one lives in a situation of luxury and noise, or deprivation and quiet.

And:

In the hush of silent solitude, you find the space needed for undistracted and thus fruitful reflection; you can finally focus on picking up on sacred signals and listening to their urgent broadcasts. The more time you spend alone with God, the better you can hear the “still, small voice” and discern his will. The more you can quiet the cacophony of the crowd, the better able you’ll be to attend to your inner nudgings, and become self-reliant.

Even if you don’t believe in God, making time for silence and solitude means more time for thinking, and more time helps us to think better. I haven’t read the book yet, but I’ve seen multiple positive reviews (like this one) for a new book called How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds. If we can think first, and think more, instead of reflexively getting upset, we can do better and do good in the world. Coincidentally, the reviewer concludes with this advice:

Read this book in silence. Consume it in periods of quiet contemplation. Don’t snack on it in between refreshes of the Twitter feed or during a break in your online debating. Steal away to a good library or a quiet field, pen in hand, and learn how to think.

When I took public speaking in college, our big final project was to do a persuasive speech on a topic of our choosing (although I vividly remember our instructor making clear he didn’t want to hear any more speeches about abortion or legalizing marijuana). Anyway, being a know-it-all 19-year-old, my final speech was aimed at prodding the audience to “think” in life because I was convinced that many of society’s ills sprang from little more than people not spending enough time really thinking about things.

As simplistic as that approach was, maybe I was on to something. Anyway, a close cousin to thinking is gaining knowledge. After all, we can’t sit around thinking about nothing forever. We can often think better if we have more knowledge; studying my Bible and spending quiet time in prayer are both good ways to gain more insight and knowledge about God. (And in case you’re wondering, Hosea 4:6 (which begins, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”) isn’t really about accumulating knowledge. … I think the Violent Femmes misunderstood.)

Of course, a solid grounding in current events and secular knowledge is important, too. I try to read a variety of news sources – Washington Post, Drudge Report, Google News, Economist, and even ESPN.com, as well as relatively new sites like Splinter and The Root. As Emil Faber reminds us, “Knowledge is good.”

If we’re not careful though, all this “knowledge” can get in the way of our peace. It will destroy our silence, solitude, and ability to listen to God. (Charlie Brown needed some solitude when he told Schroeder, “Tell your statistics to shut up.”) And that will get in the way of our contentment, and that gets in the way of joy: “Like Paul, I’ve learned that abiding joy flows from my relationship with Jesus, where I listen to what he tells me to do and then I do it in obedience. No matter the circumstances, God can grant us joy.” (emphasis added) So my joy doesn’t come from knowledge, or from solitude for its own sake. To borrow a phrase from C.S. Lewis, we must avoid being “far too easily pleased” by the things around us when our ultimate pleasure should come from our relationship with God.

As I’ve been finishing this post, I haven’t had much silence or solitude. I’ve been interrupted by a puppy, a child, a phone call, and a smoke alarm, among other things, and my house is rarely silent. The lesson, I suppose, is that sometimes getting to a point that feels like peace (in this case, finally finishing a post I started weeks ago) is not easy. If it were easy, everyone would do it, right? The “spiritual disciplines” of silence and solitude require just that – discipline. As we head into the homestretch of Christmas and year-end madness, let’s be disciplined – with some more silence and solitude, the peace of Christ will truly be with us.

A couple of other Bible passages related to peace:

• “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1
• “Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.” – Proverbs 29:25

And finally, a couple of interesting articles:

• Boredom can be good.
• Having a sense of purpose helps you sleep better.

Before it’s too late

At the end of last week, my family went to our neighbor Paula’s funeral service. Paula was in her 50s, so this was not one of those things everyone saw coming. She had been sick for a while, but no one had expected things to become so serious as quickly as they did.

Paula was the first person to visit us when we moved into our neighborhood. She and her family made us feel welcome immediately, and over the past seven-plus years, they have invited us into their home many times and helped us just as many times with house repairs, letting us borrow things, watching our pets, and even helping with the occasional medical emergency.

Paula’s oldest son delivered a very powerful eulogy at the service and went through a list of things that he had learned from his mom. The final lesson was, “It’s never too late … until it’s too late.” Specifically, her son had accepted Jesus as his savior at some point in his life, and he kept meaning to talk to his mom about it because he wasn’t sure that she had done the same. He shared that during the last few weeks of her life — while she was in the hospital — Paula mentioned it to him: how she had always had an idea of who Jesus was but hadn’t really known what it meant to follow him until she saw her son living it out. She told him that she understood now and had chosen to accept Jesus into her heart.

As I said, very powerful. Especially so because of what else had gone on in our cul-de-sac over the past few weeks. My wife had woken up in the middle of the night a couple of times and felt God clearly prompting her to pray for Paula’s soul — not physical healing, but eternal healing for her spirit. My wife was talking to one of our other neighbors about it, and our neighbor said that she had felt the exact same thing during the day at work and had prayed for Paula’s spirit, too. So we had two women on our street praying for Paula’s spirit, and to hear the end result in what was otherwise a time of mourning was one of those times when God makes us say “Wow” (among other reactions of praise and thanks).

It got me thinking about a couple of things. First, I thought back to when I started this blog and how I made the point that anyone can argue points of theology and philosophy, but they can’t argue with my personal experiences. If you discount what my wife and our neighbor heard/felt, then either you think they’re making it up, or you think it was some product of their imaginations that came from how they were feeling about Paula. That would be quite a coincidence for both of them to imagine or fabricate the exact same thing. Maybe you believe in coincidences. In this case, I don’t.

Second, I thought about when it’s too late to become a Christian. In short, as long as you’re conscious, it’s never too late. A prominent example of this in the Bible comes with one of the criminals who was crucified at the same time as Jesus; he spoke up after another criminal had insulted Jesus:

Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what we deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong. Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.   — Luke 23:40-42

Jesus didn’t reject the criminal. He didn’t tell him he wasn’t good enough or that God had no use for someone like him. Instead, he said, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

One of the typical rejoinders here is along the lines of, “Great — so you’re telling me I can do whatever I want, and I’ll just accept Jesus at the very end and ask for forgiveness, and I’ll get into heaven.” Strictly speaking, that’s correct: If you truly repent and accept Jesus as your savior, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done before.

I had an uncle who took this approach. His standard line was, “I’ll become a Christian when I’m too old to have any fun.” While he was dying from lung cancer, sure enough, he accepted Christ.

There are a couple of problems with deciding to follow that path, though. One is that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. I’m thankful my uncle didn’t die in a car crash or something else sudden and unexpected before he decided to become a Christian. I wonder how many people die while still thinking they’ll eventually “get around” to the whole Jesus thing.

The other problem is something that it has taken me several years to understand: During all those years without Christ in our lives, we miss out on blessings that God had in store for us here on Earth. (And maybe we miss out on rewards in heaven, too, but that’s a theological rabbit hole I’m not going down.) I used to look at some of the things I did in the past through the lens of “oh, the things everyone does when they’re young and stupid”, but obviously not everyone does those things. Some people figure it out much earlier and spend more time walking with God and enjoying his presence and his blessings. People like the criminal and my uncle, on the other hand, look back at the end of their lives and probably see a lot of brokenness and missed opportunities.

The invitation from Jesus is open to everyone; there are no prerequisites — you just have to say “yes”. Jesus didn’t quiz his disciples on their beliefs or recent conduct or approach to life or financial situation; he simply said, “Come, follow me.” You may not be in a good place, you may feel like you’re searching for something, or you may be ashamed of certain things. Don’t worry, you have plenty of company. As my Sunday school teacher said recently,

We don’t have to change to follow Jesus. We have to follow Jesus so we can change.

Paul put it this way:

[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. – Romans 3:23-24

Let’s put that in caps: ALL of us are sinners, but ALL of us can be redeemed through Christ.

My last point is about my failure. As best as I can remember, I never invited Paula to my church or talked to her about my faith. I’ve never done that with her family or with any of my other neighbors who I know are not Christians. It’s pretty awful to sit here and read what I just typed. I have this great thing — this eternal thing — and I haven’t tried to let them in on it, too. Not good.

To go a little easier on myself, in-person witnessing about my faith isn’t one of my strong suits. Writing, however, is a strength (no comments from the peanut gallery), and I hope that my obedience in doing this blog bears fruit in the form of it helping to lead someone to Christ or perhaps strengthening someone’s wavering faith. Looking at my statistics, though, I could use some more readers — yet I’m always hesitant to tell people about my blog. I guess I have this nagging feeling that it’s not good enough for wide distribution, even though I know that’s an evil thought coming from the same place as the thoughts many people have about not being good enough for God.

In other words, I still have some things to change in my life. I’ll keep following Jesus and see what happens.

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Random news article for today: Hawaiians really love their Spam.

angrymadupsetsadtickedofffuriousenrageddespondentdespairing … peaceful?

On any given day, I can find plenty of things to be upset about. It’s as easy as hitting a few news websites and finding things like these (in no particular order):

1. Senseless killings
2. Unrest in [pick a country]
3. Human rights abuses around the world
4. Irresponsible sabre-rattling of all kinds – economic, military, etc.
5. High unemployment rates
6. Untenable debt levels of both households and countries
7. Elected leaders acting like children
8. Multinational corporations cheating on their taxes
9. Natural disasters and their aftermath
10. Political corruption
11. Cyberhacking
12. Sexual assault
13. Child abuse
14. Racism
15. Illnesses and epidemics
16. Stories about a bad [insert occupation of your choice here] causing problems

That’s just stuff that I can read about. Now add in all the things I may experience personally during a normal day: unreasonable co-workers; rude people; awful drivers; news that one of my friends/neighbors/relatives is seriously ill; problems at a child’s school; car trouble … you get the idea.

I take small comfort in that I’m not alone. According to this columnist, Americans are angry about everything. A graphic with the article shows how trust in seven “institutions” (organized religion, the Supreme Court, Congress, big business, public schools, newspapers, and banks) has declined across the board over the past 30+ years. We don’t trust anyone or anything that much, and we’re angry about stuff. Not a good situation.

How to fix it? And who should fix it? That’s what we do, right? We face problems, and we fix them on our own. This article wonders if Gen X-ers are the answer, thanks to some of our innate generational characteristics, or as the author puts it, because Gen X represents “[t]he last Americans that know how to fold a newspaper, take a joke, and listen to a dirty story without losing their minds.”

As a Gen X-er myself, I see some things I like in the article, but on the other hand, I know plenty of people my age who lose their minds about any number of things. But that’s when we look at the immediate, the short term. How do my fellow travelers look at the big picture?:

Detachment, remove, disgust with the busy-handed do-goodism of the older brother in the peace shirt. History is big and we are small; grand projects end in ruin; sometimes the best you can is have a drink-that’s what we know. And that all we’re going to die anyway.

That last part tends toward hopelessness, and that’s not good either.

So what can we do? Negative emotions abound, and happiness is fleeting.

My answer is peace. Not world peace, or peace as in the Nobel Peace Prize (which is forever tarnished when a former winner is currently complicit in a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” of Rohingya Muslims in Burma). Instead, I’m talking about a more personal peace that doesn’t depend on earthly things for its foundation.

I’m talking about the peace of Christ. I’m talking about the peace described by countless pastors through the years:

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:7

I bolded “which transcends all understanding” because peace in Christ really makes no sense from an earthly perspective. Just go back to the list of horribles at the beginning of this post and think about all the junk in your life, in your friends’ lives, in politics, etc.

How can anyone be expected to have “peace” when faced with such a constant barrage for days, months, and years on end?

Perhaps an even more challenging question is, what does this peace look like? I definitely don’t read many news articles about it, but I do have a couple of examples.

I knew someone in law school who clearly had this peace. He simply projected a certain calm, an ideal combination of quiet confidence and humility. He didn’t proselytize much about his faith or lecture other people, but everyone knew where he stood simply because of how he lived. At one point, he mentioned to me that we should pray for a mutual friend of ours at the school to come to Christ because that person had basically asked, “Why are you the way you are? Why do you come across differently than everyone else? It seems like a really good thing, and I’m curious.” That’s what peace looks like. It stands out (quietly) in a loud crowd.

I heard another example of this a couple of weeks ago when I went to see this movie about the actor Steve McQueen. [One more encore showing – October 19!] McQueen had everything you could want in material terms – looks, fame, money, power, women – the very definition of success. But he was also an insatiable thrill-seeker, which eventually led him to take flying lessons. Even with all he had, he was still looking for something else to fill that invisible hole inside himself.

His flight instructor was a quiet, older guy. And eventually, McQueen asked him almost the exact same question as my law school friend: “What’s different about you?” His instructor responded that he was a born-again Christian. That intrigued McQueen, and he eventually accepted Christ as his savior and found exactly what he needed to fill that invisible hole. (I’m leaving out a lot of really cool details.) After years of seeking peace in everything else and failing, McQueen found the peace of Christ.

In the absence of peace, we usually find anger. Jesus warned us about anger in the Sermon on the Mount:

You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[1] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. – Matthew 5:21-22

That sounds pretty drastic, but it just pounds home the point that we need to have peace about everything, including the people around us. Of course we will get upset about things (see my earlier post on grace, pride, and anger, which cited the same passage from Matthew), but that anger will dissipate if we have peace. It shouldn’t lead us to rash words or actions, or to bitterness. In other words, we’re created to have emotions, but those emotions can’t be the foundation of our lives.

I wrote my previous post while dealing with sadness and anger. I do my best to steer clear of politics on this blog because that field is usually full of hate and division, but after what happened in Charlottesville in August, I felt compelled to just get everything out at once on what I was thinking about a lot of intertwined issues.

I hope that post came from thinking rooted in my faith and not from my earthly “wisdom”, but one person challenged me on it, essentially asking, “Of all the things going on in the world, why pick that one to get so upset?”

I still don’t have a good answer, other than what I said at the end of the post about my experiences in, and feelings for, the Charlottesville area. (Coincidentally, two of the times I’ve felt most content recently have come after visiting Charlottesville, but I digress.) I guess I’m simply an example of how we all have things that push our buttons. Some people have more buttons than others, and everyone’s buttons are different, and sometimes we even get mad at other people simply because their buttons aren’t the same as ours.

So yeah, the whole Charlottesville thing pushed a button with me. But the challenge I received also got me thinking about peace – about the process of identifying those buttons and getting rid of them as much as possible.

Let’s stop for one moment to make clear what I’m not talking about: I’m not talking about going up on a mountain and chanting some mantras, or meditating, or anything like that. Those things can help us in a temporary sense, but the peace I’m talking about is permanent – eternal, even. To circle back to Steve McQueen and my law school friend, the peace I have in Christ is what should make me different.

In order to gain the full benefit of this peace, I have to examine everything I do (and don’t do). I once read that a good way to declutter your house is to pick up every object and ask yourself whether it brings you joy; if the answer is “no”, then it’s time to get rid of that object.

Life is the same way. I need to look at everything through the lens of whether it helps or hurts in terms of my peace. If my peace is damaged, after all, I’m going to have a hard time sharing it with others.

I finally realized that one huge thing was hurting: social media. I’m just not wired for it. There are obviously some good things about it, but more and more, it had turned into a vast sea of pointless junk and negativity for me. I scrubbed my Facebook information and activity, I unfollowed a lot of people, and I took multiple apps off my phone. (And yes, I realize many of you may have gotten to this post via Facebook – like I said, social media has its good points, but it also can be very harmful.) Since I’ve stepped away from the noise, I’ve definitely felt better.

And what can I actively do to help my peace? This is where the “in Christ” part of “peace in Christ” is especially important. Jesus told us to love God and to love others. So I’m not going to sit in my room, withdraw from everything, and enjoy the lack of hassle. I’m going to go out and serve and love.

And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. – Hebrews 13:16

Recently I had a conversation about someone I know who is definitely struggling on the peace front. Someone else made the point that trusting God (i.e., having peace about all things) is an action. It’s not passive. Maybe I don’t have as much money as I need to feel secure, but I can give something to a neighbor who has huge medical bills, or to a person begging at the street corner, or to a homeless person who needs shelter from the rain. I can take action, even when it may not make a lot of sense in others’ eyes. A bank account isn’t going to give me the peace that will shine through to others and make them ask, “What’s different about you?”

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Here are a few other verses I’ve read recently on peace:

1. “When I said, ‘My foot is slipping,’ your unfailing love, Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.” – Psalm 94:18-19
2. “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.” – Colossians 3:15
3. “The fruit of that righteousness will be peace; its effect will be quietness and confidence forever.” – Isaiah 32:17

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Since I’m not posting news articles on social media like I used to, here are a few recent things I found interesting:

• Are “thoughts and prayers” pointless? Maybe not.
• Many college endowments are very large, but for what purpose?
• The time Snoopy’s doghouse burned down.
• Write a computer program that solves the Queen’s Puzzle, and win $1 million.
• The role of Congress and lobbyists in the opioid crisis.

[1] “Raca” probably comes from an Aramaic word that translates roughly to “empty headed” or “foolish”.

Evil in our midst

When it comes to the events of the past week, many other people have already made similar points to those that I want to make, and that has led me to ask why I need to say the same thing. If I’m going to be serious about this undertaking (which, I need to remember, I feel called to do by God), I need to start acting like a blogger, not a guy who just “has a blog.” Plus, I need to stand up and be counted. I can’t be silent, even if some of some of what I say strikes me as pretty obvious and repetitive. Not all of this relates directly to my faith, but as a person of faith, my opinions in these matters are hopefully shaped by wisdom revealed to me by God.

For the tl;dr crowd (since I wrote more than 2,500 words), here are the high points:

1. I’m fine with relocating Confederate statues, monuments, etc. to a more museum-like setting instead of a setting that glorifies the subjects.
2. I reject the twin evils of racism and hate, and I reject those who spread them. I especially reject those who twistedly use the cross – the cross my Savior died on – in an attempt to justify a hate-filled, white supremacist view of the world.
3. I tried to warn everyone about Donald Trump 18 months ago. (I know I’m not alone on that one.)
4. This isn’t about politics. This is about taking an honest look around us, perhaps noticing things we didn’t notice before, and deciding what’s right.
5. I’m a lifelong Virginian who has lived in five different towns around the commonwealth, but more than any other place, I consider Charlottesville to be “my town” (again, not alone in that sentiment). Reading about what happened there Friday and Saturday moved me to tears.

Whoever lets black be white and evil good for the sake of outward calm does not deserve peace and is putting his head in the sand. But whoever knows at all times the difference between good and evil and does not doubt it, however great the triumph of evil seems to be, has laid the first stone for the overcoming of evil.   — Helmuth James von Moltke, Letters to Freya 1939-1945

And now it’s time for the deeper dive.

I’ll start with the legacy of the Confederacy because that’s how the Charlottesville tragedy started. The city recently renamed Lee Park to Emancipation Park. There is a statue of Robert E. Lee in the park, and the city plans to remove it. Hence, the “Unite the Right” rally planned for this past Saturday.

Before I deal with that, though, some background: I grew up in central Virginia, not even an hour from Appomattox. Civil War battlefields are everywhere in Virginia, and going to Appomattox was a standard elementary school field trip. The Confederate cause was not necessarily glorified, but I definitely grew up thinking that Lee was a fine man who just ended up on the losing side. Why else would we have Washington & Lee University in Lexington, or Lee Chapel at VMI, or Robert E. Lee High School in Staunton, right?

Now I live in Richmond, and of course here we have Monument Avenue, where extremely large memorials of Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and Matthew Maury stretch over the span of a few blocks. Recently, the mayor appointed a commission to study the best way to “add context” to the statues while leaving them in place. I suppose “context” could be added by creating informational exhibits in the surrounding intersections – presumably to provide a complete picture of who these men were, why the statues were erected in the first place, and why Virginia chooses to keep them there today. On Wednesday, in light of recent events, the mayor added removal/relocation to the list of options he wants the commission to consider.

One of the things I never, ever thought about growing up is why the statues were there, or why any Confederate memorial existed, for that matter. They were just there, and I never had any reason to question them being there. Now that I’ve read a little more about it, though – and I’ve seen this expressed on Facebook several times recently – it’s clear that most Confederate monuments were erected as a great big middle finger to black people and to the federal government. Most of them were established as the Jim Crow era cranked up in the early 1900s, and one final wave of them came in protest of the civil rights era in the 1960s.

Given that background, I get why people on their daily commutes don’t want to see these reminders of whites’ efforts to subjugate, intimidate, and commit violence against blacks. I don’t want to “erase history”, which is what the Confederate heritage types would have us believe. (As an aside, you should know I have plenty of that heritage. Two of my great-great-granddaddies fought for the Confederacy. And one of my great-great-great-granddaddies was taken as a prisoner of war when the Union army captured Saltville, VA.) But we can re-examine our history. Those memorials on Monument Avenue come across as glorifying those men and their misguided cause, and when thousands of people are driving by them every day, most of them aren’t going to stop what they’re doing to check out exhibits that provide “context”.

So why not move them? Move them to the grounds of a Civil War museum, where the only people who will see them are the people who want to see them, and where there is plenty of room to provide a full picture of the Confederacy, its aftermath (Jim Crow, massive resistance, etc.), and how these memorials came to be. Maybe I’m being naive or simplistic, but we shouldn’t erase the ugly parts of our history. I don’t want to make Confederate memorials vanish. But as I’ve seen said by multiple people on Facebook, the place for them is a museum, not a pedestal.

Back to our “Unite the Right” friends in C’ville: These were not a bunch of Civil War re-enactors who like to play dress-up and just feel a bit sad that a piece of Civil War history might be removed from a park. These were hate-filled white supremacists – when you march around shouting things like “Blood and soil”, “You will not replace us”, and “Jews will not replace us”, you’re not talking about the right way to remember the Civil War. You’re talking about white power. You’re talking about hate for anyone who doesn’t look like you or believe the same things you do. One demonstrator told a reporter that Charlottesville “is run by Jewish communists and criminal n——.” Another one told a counter-protester, “I hope you get raped by a n—–.” (For some background on why Jews get brought into this whole thing (since most of them are, you know, white) – read this.)

So yeah, as a Christian, I reject these guys. I reject their ideology. I reject any attempt by them to claim any Christian basis for what they believe. As a Southern Baptist leader said, their beliefs “are anti-Christ and satanic to the core.”

He may not be satanic to the core, but President Trump has not covered himself in glory with his statements over the past few days. I’m not going to rehash everything here – there are literally thousands of news articles out there about his mis-handling of this situation.

Contrast Trump with times in U.S. history when we have looked to our president for leadership and reassurance. Some great speeches live on: Washington’s Farewell Address; Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address; Kennedy’s pledge to go to the moon. A more recent speech that most of us watched was George W. Bush’s address on the evening of 9/11/01. His most memorable line was probably, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.” A turn on that phrase captures where our current president has failed miserably: “If you’re not against white supremacists, you’re with them.” Yes, I know Trump finally condemned racist groups when he read a prepared statement Monday, but his off-the-cuff statements both before and after that prepared statement speak much more loudly.

Plenty of the “Unite the Right” guys were looking for a fight last weekend, and unfortunately, some of the counter-protesters were happy to oblige. So while Trump’s comments about violence on “many sides” is technically correct, it’s correct only at the kindergarten schoolyard level – “Hey, they were doing it, too! They should get in trouble, too!” Please. While a few counter-protesters may have been the first to attack, it’s pretty clear there were plenty more instances where it was the white supremacists initiating violence. The fact that some counter-protesters may have started some skirmishes doesn’t validate the views of the people they attacked – it doesn’t work that way. And I didn’t see any counter-protesters getting in their cars and mowing down people in the street.

I don’t know why Trump says what he says; I’m not inside his head. Maybe he’s a racist. Maybe he’s terrible at articulating what he really thinks. Maybe he knows he needs votes from David Duke and his ilk. Maybe all of the above. What I do know, though, is the solution to this mess isn’t going to come from Trump or any other politician.

This is not a time for politics, and it is not a time for politicians to try to score points for their parties. This is not a time for Republicans to get on the “whatabout” train and remind us that while the white supremacists are awful, what about that time the New Black Panthers were at a polling place? What about that time protesters broke windows at Trump’s inauguration? What about Obama refusing to say “Islamist terrorists”? What about … you get the idea. Yes, it may be true that the “liberal media” gave some of those people a pass or didn’t cover the episode adequately – but that doesn’t mean a widespread outcry against what happened on Friday and Saturday is wrong or unfair. I understand that the media’s (perceived) glossing over some of these situations can fuel the resentment felt by others, but that doesn’t excuse the kind of thing that happened in Charlottesville. Go grind your axes and nurse your grudges somewhere else, because at this moment, they’re irrelevant to the fact that we all should be standing firmly against hate.

So where does the solution come from? At the risk of being simplistic again, it comes from each one of us. We examine our actions and thoughts. We teach our children not to be racist – man, that sounds so obvious, but it’s important. We call out racism when we see it – whether it be a co-worker’s remark, a family member’s opinion, or anything else. We make clear that it is not OK.

Everything in the previous paragraph goes double for my fellow Christians. Jesus said the second-greatest commandment is, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” To state yet another obvious point: Racism is hate. It is the opposite of love. Jesus didn’t offer any qualifiers – our “neighbors” are all around us, and they include all the people who don’t have the same skin tone as you. The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary wrote this letter Monday while he was in Berlin, where they have some firsthand experience with dangerous notions of ethnic superiority. The key passage:

We must see claims of racial superiority – and mainly that means claims of white superiority – as heresy.

That is not a word we use casually. Heresy leads to a denial of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the eclipse of the living God as revealed in the Bible. A claim of white superiority is not merely wrong, and not merely deadly. It is a denial of the glory of God in creating humanity – every single human being – in his own image. It is a rejection of God’s glory in creating a humanity of different skin pigmentation. It is a misconstrual of God’s judgment and glory in creating different ethnicities.

Most urgently, it is a rejection of the gospel of Christ – the great good news of God’s saving purpose in the atonement accomplished by Christ. A claim of racial superiority denies our common humanity, our common sinfulness, our common salvation through faith in Christ, and God’s purpose to create a common new humanity in Christ.

You cannot preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and hold to any notion of racial superiority. It is impossible.

The obligation doesn’t fall solely on Christians as individuals, either. The church must step up as an institution. Churches, particularly those in the South, don’t have the greatest history when it comes to race relations. This piece in the Atlantic covers a lot of ground on churches and race.

Where I grew up, we had white churches and black churches – I remember it striking me as odd, but as with other things, that was just the way it was, and I didn’t question it. There was a “black” Baptist church practically right across the road from my house and a “white” Baptist church a mile down the road. (I went to a United Methodist church, and everyone there was white.) I rode the school bus with friends who went to the two Baptist churches, and the arrangement didn’t seem to bother anybody.

Now, the fact that my current church is mostly white makes me a bit uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable in the sense that I think it’s wrong, but I just wonder why we still have this division – there is even a “black” church in the same general area with the same name as the church I attend. History leaves us with strange outcomes sometimes. For comparison, when I lived in the DC suburbs, I belonged to a Baptist church that was the most diverse church I’ve ever been to – white, black, Hispanic, African, immigrants – everybody.

So what does a still-divided church do? One passage from the Atlantic article hit me:

Many people within the church are frustrated with what they see as passivity in the face of bigotry. In the same way that Muslims are often expected to take responsibility for those on their fringes who commit violent acts of terrorism, people demanded that white Christians account for the violent racists who claim to share their faith.

I cannot account for it. (And I was disappointed that the pastor I listened to on Sunday did not even mention the events in Charlottesville.) My best guess is that these bigots have taken God’s word and twisted it to the point of being unrecognizable, and now they use it as a weapon against anyone not like them. That is not Christianity. There is no room for debate.

Finally, I come to Charlottesville – my town. I lived there two separate times for a total of more than seven years. I made memories and friends for life – friends from different parts of the country, friends of different faiths, and friends of different colors. It is not a perfect place by any means – that place doesn’t exist on Earth. But it is a wonderful place, a diverse place, a place where all kinds of people come to live, to learn, and to love.

I know that free speech – even when it’s hateful speech – is important. You can question the wisdom of how the local government and authorities handled things last weekend, but let’s not question the wisdom of the First Amendment. Even though I understand that intellectually, it’s a lot easier to ignore hate when it’s somewhere else. But not in Charlottesville. Not in my backyard. Not at my school. Not in MY TOWN. The photographs from Friday night – of the Unite the Right crowd on the Lawn, of them surrounding a statue of Thomas Jefferson as a small group of people (including students) defied them – are impossible for me to forget. I couldn’t have imagined that kind of thing happening when I was a student, but here we are.

The UVa community received multiple emails about what happened – from the school president, from the rector, and others. Law school alumni received an email from our dean, and she pointed to words from Thurgood Marshall:

I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust…. We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.

Listen up, Richard Spencer. You, too, Jason Kessler. I dissent. I’m not going to fight you with batons, shields, or tear gas. I’m going to put on the full armor of God, and I’m going to live a life that bit by bit, piece by piece, and person by person will defeat everything you stand for.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.             — James 3:13

Doing real, actual work

In the 1999 classic “Office Space”, anti-hero Peter Gibbons tells the Bobs, “In a given week, I probably only do about 15 minutes of real, actual work.”

I know the feeling — not that I’m sitting around doing nothing at work, but it’s easy for me to feel like very little of what I do in a given week is worthwhile. (“Today, I successfully handled 200 emails! I’m the man!”) I’ll touch more on work feeling pointless below, but the danger is clear: As Peter says, “It’s not that I’m lazy. It’s that I just don’t care.”

Peter also complains about having “eight different bosses.” That’s where he and I part ways – at least we should, if I’m doing things right. I’ve written about this before, but this came up in my Bible study group a few weeks ago: Who are we working for? Who should be our (only) boss?

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

– Colossians 3:23-24 [my emphasis]

I keep that passage taped to the bottom of my monitor at work. Too often, though, I have found myself ignoring it. I struggle with it at work when I’m not as productive as I could be. I struggle with it at home when I focus too much on “resting” (which is usually code for watching sports on TV) instead of doing something with my family or doing something around the house or even doing something good for myself (like exercising or praying). I struggle with it at church when I have a poor attitude toward some of the service I’m expected to do.

What we’re expected to do – that concept hangs over many different parts of our lives. A few weeks ago I went camping with my next-door neighbor and the men’s group at his church. After breakfast on the last day, the church’s youth pastor gave a short talk with two main orders: (1) Do the unexpected; and (2) strive for “extra credit”. His point was that Christians are called to do more than what’s standard. Jesus told us the same thing a long time ago:

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

– Luke 6:32-36

There are different reasons/excuses for not doing more than what’s expected. What if no one notices? What if I fail miserably? One of the key points from this blog post is that if we fear failure (which may be the reason for not working when we should) or refuse to admit failure, that’s a sign that we’re still trying to rely on our own accomplishments, instead of perfect redemption through Christ. (See Romans 3:21-25)

And if we’re relying too much on our own accomplishments, it’s a good bet that we’re also focused on glorifying ourselves instead of glorifying God. This post describes how Martin Luther (who triggered the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago) hit on the importance of glorifying God by loving our neighbor through our “work” – i.e., what we do in all aspects of our life — even when that work may not be what we had in mind:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”                      — Isaiah 55:8-9

God’s ways and thoughts are often not apparent to us in the moment, or even over a span of months or years. The day-to-day tedium of a job and everything it entails — commuting, dealing with co-workers, etc. — leads to questioning. What’s the point? A job without any greater purpose easily feels pointless. To rely on yet another post by the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics:

We must get up every morning, lace up our sneakers, and run the best we can. Some days the wind is at our back and everything seems easy. Other days, the wind is in our face, and it seems like our entire run is uphill.

Regardless, we are called to run the race every day—to do the work that God has set before us no matter how simple, mundane, or commonplace it may seem.

Working usually means earning money, too, which leads to thinking about money. Financial planning (or worrying) takes up vast amounts of time and energy, but it’s going to pay off, right? Eventually, we won’t have to work at a job, and the sooner, the better.

Not so fast, my friends. Planning wisely is fine, but the goal of financial independence — of escaping from work — can get us off-track compared to what God has in mind for us. I have a friend who is a financial planner, and he captured this sentiment here by asking “Do we really want financial independence?” He uses several pieces of Scripture to lead us to the conclusion that “the good life” probably isn’t what so many of us think it is.

Finally, for the past few weeks, my Sunday school class has been studying Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work by Tim Keller. In last week’s reading, Keller describes the story of the Tower of Babel, which ends with God confusing and scattering the people who had tried to “make a name for themselves” by building a tower to the heavens. Keller writes:

Our pride and need for personal significance necessarily lead to competition, disunity, and strife. So a life of self-glorification makes unity and love between people impossible. It leaves us with the dreary choice between making the self an idol (which leads to the disunity of individualistic cultures) and making the group an idol (which leads to the suppression of individual freedom in tribal or collective cultures). The two things we all want so desperately — glory and relationship — can coexist only with God. [my emphasis]

Our work simply cannot be selfish or prideful. Our focus cannot be on recognition by those around us, or money, or the things money can buy us. We have to seek the “extra credit” by realizing who our work is for, and we have to be ready when He asks us to do some real, actual work.

Grace > Pride + Anger

I have not written a blog entry for several weeks. I have thought about writing a blog entry many, many times, but I haven’t actually done it until now. Writing entries is hard, and it often involves revealing parts of myself that I’m not terribly comfortable discussing … so I’ve put it off repeatedly.

This isn’t the first time I’ve dealt with this. Blogging has been harder than I expected. I don’t want to write something just to say that I did it, and often I just haven’t come up with a good topic or what I want to say about it. But just as often, I have plenty of good thoughts and think, “I should write about this” … and I never do.

It’s just one more example of the human struggle. Why don’t I do the things I know I’m supposed to do? Why do I keep repeating the same errors and omissions?

Paul was no stranger to this conundrum:

When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death.  – Romans 7:21-24

When I’m worshipping at church, I have lots of godly thoughts. When I’m at Bible study, I learn more about God and feel close to him. When I’m reading the “verse of the day” on my Bible app, I usually find it to be something meaningful for my day.

But when I’m at work, I get stressed. I get worn out. When I’m at home, I want to relax. I want to mindlessly watch TV, or check out social media, or just go to sleep. I end up putting God to the side pretty often. I know he wants me to write this blog – I feel it – and I continue to delay. “I want to do good, [but] evil is right there with me.”

The constant presence of evil led Christians to codify what are known as the “seven deadly sins”. When you boil any sinful behavior down to its essence, you’re going to find one or more of these sins at the core.

My church is doing a sermon series on these sins, with the overall goal of having each of us look in the mirror to identify where these sins have taken root in our lives so that we can combat that behavior with actions that honor God.

Two of the recent sermons have focused on pride and anger. I’ve tangled with both of them in the past – and continue to do so – but recently I’ve realized that some of my experiences with them have equipped me to help others who are wrestling with some of the same demons that have plagued me.

I had a long talk with someone close to me last week. (We’ll call them Ophelia.) Ophelia was having a hard time accepting love and encouragement from other people. I know that sounds strange, but that’s what pride and anger can do to us. It can turn us into miserable, selfish people who are quick to belittle others – even those who love us – by viewing everything through the lens of the “gospel according to me”.

It starts with pride. The sermon on pride made a few points that I jotted down:

1. If we’re looking down on others, we can’t see God above us.
2. Pride causes us to resist guidance and correction.[1]
3. Pride leads to self-pity and self-deception.

Pride really gets going, though, when it teams up with anger. The sermon on anger talked about how we use “righteous anger” to justify our sin and how we choose pride and anger over patience and grace. Carrying pride and anger in our hearts also squeezes out any room we may have for love.

The sermon touched on some of the very things I had pondered in my discussion with Ophelia. Ephesians 4:26 was the starting point:

‘In your anger do not sin’: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.

In other words, it’s OK to get angry … but it’s not OK to let that anger fester, because then it will take root and lead to bitterness. Instead, we need to recognize our anger, pause to deal with it, and then move on. That’s almost exactly what I had told Ophelia: Everyone gets angry, but it’s how you deal with it that affects you in the longer term.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was very clear about anger:

I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.  …  [A]nyone who says ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Here is a classic example almost everyone should be familiar with. Anakin Skywalker let his anger accumulate inside him, and he ended up executing Count Dooku in cold blood and becoming Darth Vader. Luke Skywalker, on the other hand, resisted the urge to act on his anger and refused to kill Darth Vader despite the Emperor’s urging. (We’ll have to wait until December to find out more about what Luke has been up to lately.)

In Ophelia’s case, she felt like no one else could understand what she was going through. The “I’m special and my problems are special” line of thinking is awash in pride. Whenever someone tried to encourage her, Ophelia got angry because she felt like their efforts were uninformed (because they didn’t know what she was facing), or token (because they didn’t have anything useful to say), or pointless (because she was strong enough to deal with everything on her own and didn’t need their help).

In response, I told Ophelia about my struggles with the same kind of thing. For example, there are times at work when people ask me questions. If I’m not careful, my first reaction is to be exasperated with a “stupid” question, be resentful that the person is taking up my time, and mutter about what an idiot they are. Instead, I can catch myself and realize that (1) they simply need an answer, and (2) they think I can help them. They don’t have any sinister to-do list that includes annoying me. (At least I’m pretty sure they don’t.) So instead of “righteous anger” – combined with my pride in how smart I am, especially compared to them – I can be patient with them and show them some grace (and, you know, do my job) by answering what is an easy question. Problem solved.

I also talked about my long history with someone else in my life and how I used to consistently shut down any time that person tried to help me. I didn’t want their help; I could do it on my own; and if I wanted help, I would have asked for it. When I think about it now, I was really being ridiculous. Someone wanted to help me, and I would actively choose to get angry and resentful about it. It took a long time – and wise counsel from someone else – to realize what I was doing and take steps to knock it off.

For Ophelia, my main message was to show people some grace. Chances are, most of them are simply saying, “I love you”. They’re not sure how else to help, so they just want to let her know that she is loved. And for her to get angry about that is just as silly – and rooted in sin – as my getting angry when someone wanted to help me.

The problem, of course, is that showing grace to other people is just like my sitting down to write a blog entry – it is hard to do because “evil is right there” with us. But it’s the right thing to do, and if we seek God’s help and guidance, we can get it done. And since Paul laid out the problem for us at the beginning of this entry, we’ll go to him for the last word, too: “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:13)

[1] Proverbs 26:12: “Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.”

Don’t be a Doubter

My younger kids like to call me “Doubter” because whenever there is snow in the forecast, I almost always discount the possibility. After many years in central Virginia, I’ve gotten used to the fact that the reality rarely matches the snow-fueled hysteria that precedes it.

I doubt in other ways as well. Whenever someone tells me something they saw or heard in the news, I reflexively start asking skeptical questions about missing details, overstated conclusions, deceiving anecdotes, etc. Even if I don’t actually come out and ask, I’m at least thinking of a lot of questions. (My poor wife has often borne the brunt of this character trait. It’s not you, honey — it’s me. Really.)

In the past few months at church, I’ve heard a couple of good sermons that relate to doubt.

The first sermon was about Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. An angel appears to Zechariah to tell him about the son that he and his wife will soon have, and his first response is, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” (Luke 1:18) The angel responds with something along the lines of, “You big dummy. Are you really going to doubt the word of one of God’s angels?” and strikes Zechariah mute until the day John is born.

After John is born, and Zechariah can finally speak again, he immediately praises God without restraint … and without any doubt about who his son is:

And you, my child, will called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him; to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins. (Luke 1:76-77)

The sermon laid out three things that Zechariah learned from being mute:

1. Pray while I wait.
2. Trust that God is listening and working, even when He is silent.
3. Doubt is dangerous because it makes us dumb.

To run with the last point: Doubts can make us do silly things. Doubts crowd out wisdom and discernment in favor of cloudy, ill-formed suspicions of what might be, rather than what is.

And that brings me to the second sermon, which was about Daniel. Daniel was a captive Jew whose faith and wisdom had earned him a high place in the Babylonian court of King Nebuchadnezzar and his son Belshazzar. Darius became king after Belshazzar’s death and thought so highly of Daniel that he “planned to set him over the whole kingdom.” (Daniel 6:3)

Some of Darius’s other advisers didn’t think much of this, so they set a trap for Daniel that resulted in Darius ordering Daniel to be thrown into a lions’ den. (Daniel had continued to pray to God, violating a decree Darius had issued at his advisers’ urging.) The next day, Darius went to check on Daniel, and Daniel had survived the night, thanks to God’s protection.

Strangely, Daniel’s first words to Darius (spoken while he was still in the lions’ den) were, “O king, live forever!” Despite what had happened, Daniel still loved the king, but he had kept God first in his heart.

This is no small thing. What is the very first commandment? “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3) The problems (lions) in our lives will always be there, but as long as we put God first, our problems won’t devour us.

We all have other gods — money, security, happiness, recognition, etc. We all crave these earthly things at times, but we have to put God first. The pastor used some math to illustrate this point.

God is represented by the number 1. If we put our other gods (the zeros) before him, we end up with 0000001. The value is still only 1, no many how many zeros we add. We haven’t increased the value at all.

But if we put our other gods after God, we get 1000000. The value keeps growing and growing as we handle all of our affairs with a God-centered approach. Daniel kept his “1” at the beginning of the string, not the end. (If you’re not familiar with Daniel’s story, read the entire book of Daniel (it’s not long — about 20 pages in my Bible). It’s a short story about a very remarkable man and the people around him.)

The pastor concluded the sermon with the point that it’s the problems we create in our own minds that keep us from fully committing our heart to God. In other words, we doubt. We come up with reasons, with questions, with reasons for delay — and we put our trust in our own wisdom instead of God’s.

A couple of years ago, one of my Sunday school teachers handed out a sheet called “Dare to be a Daniel”, and I’ll close with the points from that sheet. They are challenges for all of us as we live out each day. Be a Daniel, not a Doubter.

1. Daniel was secure in his identity.
2. Daniel knew the source of his wisdom, prayed to God and praised Him no matter what.
3. Daniel honored relationships with his friends.
4. Daniel and his friends were willing to lose it all rather than compromise.
5. Daniel wasn’t afraid to have hard conversations.