Monthly Archives: May 2017
Was Jesus the most handsome dude of time?
Artists of ages past are criticized today by identity purists for portraying Jesus as having traits considered handsome in European culture. He was poor, he lived in the wilderness, he was fully man in an age of no antibiotics.
After his crucifixion he was scarred and disfigured from torture. Even after his resurrection, since his own followers didn’t recognize him at first, there is a good chance in his glorified resurrected body he still carried the scars of his torture.
And yet, Psalm 45 is about the Lord, and can be read as a prophesy about Jesus. The psalm says it is addressed to David’s king when David was the earthly king. Moreover, “blessed by God forever” is reminiscent of the priest in the line of Melchizedek. “You are the most handsome of the sons of men” says verse 2.
Blessed forever, and most handsome — even after crucifiction and with scars. Could it be that we do not understand what true beauty really looks like?
The color in the sunset is caused by impurities being hit by the sunlight. Is beauty like that? Is all the pain of the world the “dust” that becomes beautiful when healed to a miniature prism able to cast the colors of God’s glory? Will we in eternity someday be able to look at the aggregated pain in this world and see only sunset?
It is Memorial Day week-end. Each soldier fallen, like Jesus, gave a life for something larger. Each represents pain given toward a higher purpose. If we have eternal life in Christ we will see the glory of the eternal sunset at the end of days, and there will be pains and sorrows no more. In the meantime we honor their sacrifice.
Originally published on Medium in We are all Overcomers.
Order historical fiction novel Rekindled with the button below.
Photograph courtesy of Unsplash by Wes Powers
When you want something done, and it is very difficult or seems impossible, here are five approaches that can help. They work for physical activity but also for improving interpersonal skills and many other types of objectives.
- Dream about it. Envision the end in your mind, awake or asleep. Feel yourself mentally going through the steps to get there. “Sleep on it” actually does help you learn, by letting your brain play with this envisioning the end state while disabling interfering thoughts or inhibitions.
- Spend the time. Many hard things require training. That means spending time on objective, or a component of the objective at a scheduled or determined pace — every day or three times a week. Anything less that that and a build in skill level becomes unlikely.
- Do it in slow motion and then speed it up. Find a way to act out the hard objective in slow motion. Only after it is fluid in slow motion see how fast you can make it to perfect form and lose unnecessary motion.
- Listen. Feedback can come from experts, those around you, or a camera recording what you have done that you can compare to the objective.
- Perform first in a low risk environment. If you are an acrobat, do your first act with a net. If you are learning Greek, learn in a low pressure conversation, not an emergency.
None of these steps will get you doing something difficult without one other thing. The most important thing is to choose a challenging objective. We don’t just show up speaking a new language — we have to choose to learn it first. Choose something worth doing!
Originally published on Medium in We are all Overcomers.
Order historical fiction novel Rekindled with the button below.
Photograph courtesy of Unsplash by Vincenzo Di Giorgi
In the wealthy USA where 99% of people have running water and adequate sanitation, authorities are not kind to moms without resources. The surrounding geographic area often has resources like running water that a mother can access without charge and at most hours of the day. The water is more accessible than to most mothers in Bangladesh, more accessible than clean water is to 633 Million people on this planet in this day and age. Americans sponsor projects to get the 633 Million better water access so the women and children won’t have to spend most of their day lugging water. But here, in this wealthy land, we threaten to take away children if there is not money to pay for a water bill that provides running water.
In this wealthy country, there are many women with children who spend a portion of their lives living from a car if they are lucky, or in a makeshift tent. Cars and tents don’t have running water. We know with our heads that when we go camping we lug water. I would love to see a society where we didn’t put single moms in these conditions. We don’t have one. Our single moms spend part of their lives in conditions more similar to Bangladesh, yet surrounded by people so wealthy they think the children should be removed if there is no running water.
I do not have statistics on how many children are actually taken into protective services due to lack or running or hot water. I do know this. When a mother is rising up in economic status and wants to come out of hiding to close her case with protective services there are visits. They always check for running water. Every time they do it is like two worlds colliding. The mothers are afraid if there is no water for any reason including a plumbing issue they will be in jeopardy. And yet, in the surrounding houses and the fast food joints down the street there is incredible, often drinkable, running water that the occupants take completely for granted (not in Flint, but that is a different story). Moreover, Compassion and World Vision kids those neighbors sponsor are not in jeopardy of having children removed, even as the kids and their moms spend hours per day lugging water.
Children need their moms more than they need running water. If we can camp with no running water and not be given protective services notices, moms can live for periods of time without running water without jeopardizing kids —as long as someone is doing the required lugging.
If mom can acquire better conditions, she will. If we can help, we should. Mean time do recognize the catch-22 we put so many moms through and recalibrate the human capacity for love and survival when resources are scarce.
Happy Mother’s Day
Originally published on Medium in We are all Overcomers.
Order historical fiction novel Rekindled with the button below.
Photo by Albert Dega courtesy of Unsplashed (size reduced).
How many Bible verses do you know by memory that you can recite right now? How much of the Bible have you read? Why would you bother, you ask?
In times of trouble, what is oldest and deepest returns to mind. When there was a fire in my house and I had a bit of smoke inhalation I called a fire department in a town I hadn’t lived in for twenty years ( I should have called 911 but because we got the people out my muddled mind didn’t register emergency). The young not only memorize more easily, but memorizing young sets verses deep down where they will be recalled in times of trouble and will provide resilience, the kind of resilience our forefathers had when there were no pain pills or antibiotics or even effective civil authorities to keep the peace.
Since moving to AZ, I’ve noticed many churches here have a program for kids we’d never heard of where I was from back east. It combines activities and memorizing verses and is called AWANA. AWANA is no walk in the park where every kid gets an AWARD. AWANA is intense.
Older elementary students memorized forty-one verses this year, and perhaps the top third to fifth of the class achieved that where I watched awards get handed out tonight. That is forty-one valuable gems stored inside them that no one can take away per year. Congratulations to the ones who got that award! If you have kids and don’t have something like AWANA, start one. I wish I had known to do that when the kids were small.
I’ve noticed that many that scoff at the Bible’s authority haven’t read it. You wouldn’t do that to another book. Reading it is valuable at a minimum because it contains accumulated human wisdom for thousands of years but at maximum because it is God’s revelation, His instructions for how to operate humankind. Holding it close enough to recite it back is priceless. One way to learn more from Bible reading is by listening to an expert who has really studied that part of the Bible. That is what Albert Mohler provides in his podcasts of his Sunday School lectures, which are free.
Originally published on Medium in We are all Overcomers.
Order historical fiction novel Rekindled with the button below.
10 Principles
John D. Inazu, a lawyer, examines how to survive and thrive as a country with deep differences in his book Confident Pluralism. His recommended principles account for what we have learned since Roger Williams first successfully cleaved church and state apart in 1644, and they account for faith-like organizations that do not meet in a church. If Moses’s 10 commandments, that Roger Williams split down the middle, divide between an individual’s responsibility to God (church) and to fellow man (state), Inazu’s principles add to them government responsibilities and personal values for citizens residing with disparate world views.
GOVERNMENT
1. Encourage voluntary groups.
Government must not interfere with voluntary groups absent a defined compelling interest.
2. Construct public forums.
Government must be accountable for the provision of public forums, setting defined standards for both publicly funded and privatized forums.
3. Public funding without orthodoxy.
If the government offers generally available resources(e.g. funding to encourage playground safety, public library meeting spaces), it must not then limit the resources based its own current orthodoxy.
4. Value the voice of the powerless.
Respect and value the contribution of boycotts, strikes and protests as the sound of the voiceless speaking to those in power at great cost (cost of time, commitment of travel, personal safety).
PERSONAL
5. Soften the tone.
Avoid hurtful insults and conversations stoppers like name calling.
6. Listen and then respond softly.
Respond only after seeking to understand. Even if provoked, respond softly.
7. Encourage tolerance which is the enduring of the offensive.
Tolerance is not approval or agreement, but is the preservation of civil peace in the presence of deep difference.
8. Encourage humility.
Always recognize it is possible we are wrong.
9. Encourage patience.
Patience is a pause, a restrained response, a delay between provocation and reaction.
10. Activate hope.
Persist.
Originally published on Medium in About Rekindled.
Order historical fiction novel Rekindled with the button below.
Photo courtesy of unsplash.com John Körntopp
