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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 97: God as a ‘helicopter parent’

June 30, 2016

Fhff7 crop
One of the PBS shows I enjoy watching ended a recent episode with the main character entering a church for the first time in years, and ranting against God and his claim to be a loving father…‘What kind of Loving Father would allow evil to happen?’

People seem to want God to be a ‘helicopter parent,’ always intervening in their lives… and yet no one likes ‘helicopter parents.’ We want our freedom from our parents; we don’t want our parents telling us what to do. We want to cheat on our taxes and not get caught; and not receive a lecture from our parents. We want to drive faster than the speed limit; and not get caught; and we do not want to receive a lecture from our parents. We want to live our lives in happiness; and we don’t want our happiness shattered by a man with a gun…

People ask God why [He]* allows evil to occur, and why [He] does nothing to stop it.

I watch a lot of ‘cop shows’—stuff that friends of mine would not watch because it doesn’t follow Paul’s direction as to how Christians should think, and what they should fill their minds with. Paul is correct; it would be much better if I didn’t watch cop shows, and a lot of the movies that I watch. The ‘problem’ is that most of the world is watching this stuff all the time, and far worse. I believe there is a great disconnect between Believers and the World that causes great misunderstanding as to the motivations of those who follow Christ. It’s better when I can believe the best in people. I can do that more readily when I am filling my mind with better things. It isn’t that I am better than anyone else; it’s a matter of choosing what I fill my mind with. I watched three movies the other night in 15 minutes; I turned each of them off after the first 5 minutes—I’ve watched a thousand movies in the years since the eighties; movies have standard plot devices—people aren’t that creative—I could tell that the behavior of the protagonists was only going to get worse as the movie progressed.

It’s a matter of choice as to how I want to think.

My wanting to think this way does not mean that people who make different choices are bad. I think it makes it harder for them to find hope in the world; there’s very little hope in what they see.

In a world where death becomes a video game, there is little cause for hope.

I just watched a PBS documentary about an optometrist traveling through Indonesia, without revealing his identity, to confront the men who butchered his brother during the genocide that happened in the Sixties; a genocide to ‘fight Communism,’ encouraged by the American government. He asks leaders of communities, people living in comparative wealth and authority today, if they have any remorse for the evil they did, and for the evil they condoned. His interviews included his uncle; a guard in the prison where his brother was taken before being butchered. Absolutely no remorse. ‘It was political. I didn’t actually do the killing; it was ordered by men who had more authority; it was ordered by the government; it was ordered by the Americans.’
Two men captured on film, explaining in graphic detail exactly how they had butchered his brother, finding humor in the situation. They did not appear to feel the slightest remorse. ‘The past is the past.’ They were under orders; they have no remorse. ‘If I had refused, I would have been killed, too.’

Genocide is happening today. I know it is happening; I am doing nothing to stop it. I am no better than the men in the documentary. I want to pretend that there’s nothing I can do; therefore, I have no responsibility for these crimes. I believe that when I stand before the Creator at the end of my life, I will have to accept this responsibility; and that all I can do is fall on the Creator’s mercy.

I believe that the Creator vomits when [He] witnesses the Evil that WE do. I believe [He] vomits over the fact that we don’t vomit.

And we want [Him] to bless us with prosperity.

Jesus didn’t just talk about behavior being evil—such as the act of adultery or theft being evil—Jesus said that lusting after some other person, coveting their stuff, was itself evil. Intentions can be evil, motivations can be evil; and that part of Jesus’ teachings we aren’t comfortable with. We want to be able to justify our behavior based on the behavior of someone else; not because some book says we should behave differently.

Psychology suggests that our brains really can’t tell the difference between an actual event, and a vividly-imagined event. The same brain activity occurs…it’s only the self-governing portions of our thinking processes that separates the two.

We don’t want to believe that we are evil, or are capable of evil…
Civil Religion called ‘Christianity’ has little to do with Jesus.

Donald Trump supposedly has recently become a “Born Again Christian” [a concept in itself that will become hateful to most Trump haters]; the dark part of me assumes that this is a method to gain votes. If Trump is serious about his faith, and his pronouncements don’t start sounding like the words of Jesus, I think his philosophical concepts shouldn’t be part of his rhetoric. I think the biggest problem for Evangelical Republicans today is that ‘their’ candidate is supported by White Supremacists. Where does that leave them?

The only candidate who is using the language of Jesus is the ‘atheist Jewish’ guy… How ironic.

 

Jesus doesn’t edit the words that are spoken from Church pulpits. Ideally, the preacher will prayerfully submit his sermon to Jesus for ‘editing;’ using the teachings of Jesus as the source of the preacher’s wisdom. Preaching doesn’t automatically create Church doctrine; but from a functional perspective, most ‘Christian’ teaching doesn’t come from the Bible, it comes from the pulpit, or from the songs that are sung in church, or the ‘dumbed-down’ versions of the Bible that are taught to children. From what I’ve observed over 40 years, in different congregations and denominations, most Christians’ ‘Bibles’ really only have a few chapters—the parts of the Bible they like. They ignore the parts they don’t like or don’t understand. The same observation applies to me.

So where does that leave us? The majority of the world either wants God to be some sort of magic genie who will protect them, but knows He probably won’t; or they give no thought to God at all, because they can see no evidence for God.

I watched Star Wars: The Force Awakens again last night; I continue to believe that The Way of the Creator is far closer to ‘The Force’ than most people can imagine. And like most people in that far away galaxy, a long time ago, it is only a strange few who actually believe the Force exists…

Jesus shed his authority as the One through Whom the Universe was created, to become like one of the beloved creatures over whose behavior He vomits, so that He could walk with us through our tortured lives; trying to speak love and hope into our broken minds…He died, mutilated, so that we don’t have to. He rose from the dead, and said that we can, too. Real life isn’t here; this life is simply a bad parody of the Life we were designed for.

Brendon Manning, that Ragamuffin Saint, believed that the only question we will be asked, when we stand before our Creator, is, “Did you believe that I loved you?”

Joshua Ryan Butler, another Ragamuffin Saint, wrote that when we stand before our Creator, the only question we will be asked is, “Will you let me heal you?”

ecstacyEcstasy, Maxfield Parrish

 

* I don’t believe gender applies to the Creator; it’s somewhat important to written English. I prefer [He] to ‘Shim’.

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 96: The Choices We Make

June 24, 2016

heroes horizThere’s an old platitude that ‘art imitates life’. It’s probably true.

I think it’s also true that life imitates art.

What we experience on a daily basis becomes our ‘new normal’ unless we aggressively work to change ‘normal’. Sometimes we have to adjust to the fact that ‘new normal’ will be the story of our lives for the years to come. This happens with physical limitations, emotional stress/PTSD and a host of other maladies. Nonetheless, we do not have to become victims of ‘new normal’. It’s a choice. Sometimes an awful choice…

I watch movies and DVDs every day, always looking for ‘hero stories’. There are some Marvel Comic Book Movies I enjoy; but a large number of them are what I call ‘Property Damage’ movies. I often wonder if the creators ever put themselves in the position of the inhabitants of the destroyed buildings. At the end of the movie, Metropolis looks like Syria… Mostly bombed out buildings where no one can live; precious memories destroyed; precious lives destroyed.

Recently I read Philip Yancey’s The Question That Never Goes Away: Why? Philip’s attempt to address the problems of terrorism and disaster as it strikes cities. Philip, in his preface, comments that the books he writes are usually attempts to understand a question he does not understand. Much of the book deals with school shootings, and mass killings by terrorists. His search for answers began with his first book, Where is God When It Hurts?

Philip does not provide an answer; there really isn’t an answer that we can understand, to the question: Why does a loving Creator allow violence to occur?

Why does the Creator allow you to hate your neighbor?

Why does the Creator allow you to hate?

To stop you from hating would have required the Creator to make you into a robot, pre-programmed from birth.

I watched the first five minutes of three movies tonight and turned them off. I knew from the outset that this might be my reaction. Each of the movies had cast members I’ve admired in previous performances. Makes me wonder why these “A List” people would take part in such crappy movies…

I’ve spent the last hour or so perusing Facebook and associated news blurbs, and what I keep seeing is hatred and fear…

I don’t know nearly enough about the Animal Kingdom to make any pronouncements…I have yet to see posts on Facebook or in news blurbs about how Scientists have discovered that those creatures we call ‘lesser’ animals hate. “Lesser” animals rarely go on rampages, destroying all the life that is in their path. “Lesser” animals are pre-programmed with some of the most amazing behavior—birds that are not that far from being newborn, flying across continents to some location they’ve never been to. Butterflies, whose brains are about the size of the period in this sentence can fly across continents to go to locales where their ancestors have flown for centuries. It’s programmed into them.

We have very little pre-programming.

We hate because we choose to hate. That’s it. Pure and simple. We make the choice.

We choose fear because we choose fear, rather than faith. I’m not talking about religion; I’m talking about trust. To choose to trust that the stranger will likely believe in the same things we believe in. My family, if they read this, will know that I am writing words I haven’t often demonstrated. I am a hermit; a curmudgeon; one who doesn’t like strangers. My family, for years, has been showing me the reality is that we need to trust. We need to trust that in their heart, the people we don’t know believe the same kinds of things we believe in. We will frequently be disappointed. We still need to trust.

Terrorism is the responsibility of Free Will—we can shoot/blow away anyone we feel like killing. The Dark Side of Freedom; my guess is that in order to stop humans from killing, the Creator would have to start with every kid who pulls the legs off of an insect. Or a bored kid in Eastern Oregon who can’t find anything better to do than spend hours destroying ants; sort of like playing with toy soldiers… Children play at killing each other. As a whole, we don’t seem to feel that this is odd…or evil.

We humans choose to be inhuman. We choose to throw away the gift of our Creativity, that aspect of our being that I believe makes us ‘a little lower than the angels’ and we choose chaos. When we are wounded, our natural reaction is to wound others. As Jason Gray chooses to say, ‘the wound is where the Light gets in.’ We are vessels of clay, fragile and easily broken. If we are wise, we realize that the wound is where the Light gets in.

The Creator’s answer to our inhumanity is to become a human, so that He can be with us when the terror comes. I once realized that this is a lot like what happens when I turn over a rock—a whole bunch of squiggly things start crawling and wriggling around. Critters that are as unlike me as I am unlike the Creator [I don’t believe ‘made in the Creator’s image’ has anything to do with our physical appearance].

The Creator became one of those squiggly critters living under the rock called Earth; an act of Love so huge I can’t really begin to understand it. I would NEVER become a centipede, so that I could be with the centipedes while stupid children kill them without thinking.

School shootings don’t shock us anymore. We have come to accept them as part of life in America. Why?

I grew up with a television as my babysitter. I grew up with hero stories. My heroes were the characters in the image above. Most of them had weapons. Marksmen who didn’t aim for the 10-ring when they fired. Too improbable? The stories have been rewritten now, and the heroes are hard to find. We couldn’t stand the thought that we can’t be heroic; so we used the heroes for graffiti.

Somewhere along the journey, we decided as a nation to stop looking for heroes; we don’t really believe they exist. We talk about the heroism of the 19-year old kid who gets sent across the world to ‘defend freedom.’ We talk about his heroism when he comes home in a box.

When he comes back broken because of what he witnessed of man’s inhumanity toward man, we ignore him. We act ashamed because we don’t know how to fix him. Thousands of homeless veterans wander our cities; and we consider them a blight upon the landscape. We sue City Government because City Government allowed them to camp on the rights-of-ways during winter, rather than kicking them out of town… We curse them for using our yards as toilets…simply because no one offered them to use a toilet in their house.

We have choices. We can be heroic. It takes a lot of effort.

We can choose to welcome the refugee, imagining that they are just like we are; or we can decide to build a wall and keep them out.

In Jesus’ parable, the listeners ask, when did we ever mistreat you? ‘When you mistreated the least of these, you mistreated me.’ There are no Exceptions to this concept. Whenever you mistreat another, you mistreat the Creator of all life; whether or not you believe there is a Creator. There’s a t-shirt floating around the internet: ‘Science does not care whether or not you believe in Science’. The same thing holds true for MUCH LARGER concepts than Science.

angel.grief_mj

 

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 95: restarting my creative engine

June 11, 2016

MJ Arts announces the opening of its retail store!

https://society6.com/mjartscom

  jazzI started writing this a month ago; much has happened in the last month. Our political climate really bothers me. According to polls, the American people currently have two choices for President, and 3/5 of the country don’t like either of them. The one who hoped for change seems to have been outgunned by Wall Street and those corporate entities who seem to functionally run the country. Life in an oligarchy.

The last few days have been challenging for my body. I’ve been sleeping 3-4 times per day. Fortunately, I get paid for breathing, so it hasn’t been problematic for my business….
everything keeps revolving around my business… I identify myself by my business, and have never been able to shake the disorder…

I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ “Jazz;” something I do when I need to restart my creative engines… Jazz was born of the blues; born of discontent; the discontent of a people who were constantly under the foot of the white population. So many stories of tragedy, geniuses who never made it into their 50’s’; geniuses that didn’t make it much further than their early thirties. Some of my favorite quotations come from Artie Shaw, one of the ‘rock stars’ of the Swing era:

“I’m not conditioned to be an entertainer. An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself. The problem with that is artists are misunderstood by all. I’m not interested in the clarinet but in music. we speak our emotions into music. An artist should write for himself and not for an audience. If the audience likes it, great. If not, they can keep away. My situation is the same. Let them concentrate on my music and not on me. I like the music. I love it and live it, in fact. But for me, the business part of music just plain stinks.”

“Whatever you do in life, aim at perfection. It will not be understood or even appreciated by most people. However, in the long run, the closer you come to achieving your own inner standards of perfection, and they’ll be rising all the time, the better you’ll be. In your lifetime you will come reasonably close (two or three times) to perfection. I’ve come about twice where I can say that is as close to perfection as I can get. I consider myself an 80-percent loser, of which I am proud. So, have fun. Get into your life and do what you enjoy and be the best at what you can be. Maybe you won’t be successful and rich by the world’s standards, but you will have the best life capable of having. If you don’t do that, you’re cheating yourself.”

“I did all you can do with a clarinet. Any more would have been less.”

“I wanted to resign from the planet, not just music. It stopped being fun with success. Money got in the way. Everybody got greedy, including me. Fear set in. I got miserable when I became a commodity.”

Back in another lifetime, I was a General Contractor, building and remodeling houses. I aspired to be a craftsman in wood. I made custom moulding, and wanted to build furniture. More often than not, I would come down to the tail end of a job, when I was doing the finish work, and would discover that I had used up all of the time that was allocated to the job—at least in terms of dollars. I was doing the work that I enjoyed most, and for all intents and purposes, I was ‘working for free’. Every hour spent on finish work would reduce my hourly wage for the project. All of the time had gone into the invisible, but necessary work that enabled the visible work to be seen. It was the finish work that would ‘sell’ the job, in terms of customer satisfaction. The money got in the way of the work. Like Artie Shaw, I become miserable when I become a commodity.

Several years ago I illustrated a Korean-language version of one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories: A Scandal in Bohemia. The story used a very simplified version of the original text; the illustrations were hurried; and the company eventually went out of business. I would like to think that my book wasn’t the cause—I didn’t get paid all that much. Again, illustrations as a commodity.

I decided to publish the book myself, using the original, now-in-Public-Domain manuscript and the now-available world of digital publishing. My goal has always been to illustrate great classics. Since the publishing world isn’t willing to cooperate with my goals, I’ll take the desire on myself.

This was the original page 1 illustration:
sherlock p1 old

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I decided on a new page 1 illustration:
sherlock p1 new

 

 

 

 

 
And now the whole book needs to change…

 

…but it’s my choice. The primary difference between the two books is time. Am I willing to invest the time to make a better book? It’s not what I’d planned. I get paid for breathing now; so it’s not about money; it’s letting go of the concept of commodity. If the story is a commodity, then it needs to be placed on the market in the near future; rather than the far future. If the story isn’t a commodity, it needs to go on the market when it’s done.

Every day we have choices between the good and the better. I know, sometimes it seems like we only have choices between the crappy and the not as crappy. At the end of the day, I cannot control the political process; I probably can’t even make a dent in it. But at the end of the day I can look at what I did and either be pleased with my choice, or regret my choice.

I think this is one of the keys to a good life.

 

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 94: This is your moment. Be extraordinary.

April 16, 2016

MJ Arts announces the opening of its retail store! Marty has dug through the image vaults from his 30 year illustration history, and combined his efforts with Society 6. Wearable art in various sizes and formats.
https://society6.com/mjartscom

 

The Doctor finally shows up in Amelia Pond’s life, twelve years late. The Doctor is trying to save the world from oblivion—
DOCTOR: … why should you trust me? I’ll let my best man explain. (sotto voce): Jeff, you’re my best man.
JEFF: Your what?
DOCTOR: Listen to me. In ten minutes, you’re going to be a legend. In ten minutes, everyone on that screen is going to be offering you any job you want. But first, you have to be magnificent. You have to make them trust you and get them working. This is it, Jeff, right here, right now. This is when you fly. Today’s the day you save the world.
JEFF: Why me?
DOCTOR: It’s your bedroom. Now go, go, go.
(The Doctor runs out.)

The Doctor always encourages people to be the best that Humanity can offer. Sadly, they don’t always live up to the expectation.

BeExtraordinary

Be Extraordinary. I first heard these words my Senior year of High School, thanks to ‘Captain Bob’ Bonniwell. One of the teachers that changed my life.

At some point in the year, he played a long-playing record [yes, the dinosaur age] of the stage play, Man of La Mancha. The story awakened me. For the first time that I realized that my life didn’t have to just be about me and my parents, and the ordinary stuff of life. I learned that one can live life for a higher purpose.

“I will impersonate a man. His name… Alonso Quijana.
A country gentleman, no longer young. Being retired, he has much time for books. He studies them from morn till night and often through the night till morn again.
And all he reads oppresses him fills him with indignation at man’s murderous ways towards man.
He ponders the problem: How to make better a world where fraud, deceit, and malice are mingled with truth and sincerity. He broods and broods and broods and broods and broods and finally his brains dry up. He lays down the melancholy burden of sanity and conceives the strangest project ever imagined: to become a knight-errant, and sally forth to roam the world in search of adventures; to right all wrongs, to mount a crusade to raise up the weak and those in need…”

Be Extraordinary. I heard these words again, three years later, from the most unlikely source I could imagine. Like Jeff, the explanation was that it was my dorm room.
The story of another man, one who had not lost his sanity, but one who was filled with the same indignation. We might call him Joshua; he’d been trained as a craftsman. One day he decided that he would lay down his tools and set out ‘to roam his world, to right all wrongs, to mount a crusade, to raise up the weak and those in need.’

I met him in Eugene, Oregon in 1973, during the 3rd of my 5 years at University.

I’d heard about him earlier, while in Corvallis at Oregon State. Some people called him a god. I wasn’t interested in that; religion wasn’t any part of my upbringing. His followers were arrogant, rude and judgmental. I wanted to have nothing to do with him, or with them. I crossed the street when they approached.

In time I met Joshua. The odd thing being that he had been executed as a criminal some 1,940 years earlier. He’d also been brought back to life, and was still alive…Science Fiction right before my eyes.

I was watching “Poirot” tonight; he was chastising the characters in the story about believing in superstition—it had to do with murders associated with the opening of a 3,000 year old Egyptian burial chamber.

“Superstition” is a word I generally ignore [Stevie Wonder being one exception]. I started doing some googling and reading on the subject, and the unwelcome thought came to me—‘There are probably people in my life who consider me to be superstitious in my belief that there is a Creator of the Universe; and that [He] sometimes interacts with the world we know.”

To me, the idea of my being superstitious is preposterous; I know the struggle I had with accepting the concept of a Creator. C. S. Lewis was probably the biggest bridge I found—enabling me to overcome the unwilling suspension of my disbelief. Then the ‘incursions’ started coming. Odd things in my life, unexpected situations and strange timings; each being fairly innocuous by itself, but when added up over a period of time, fairly difficult to ignore, or accept as being merely coincidental…

I eventually started going to church, which was really odd. There are a lot of strange religious people in the world, and they go to church.

Mostly I was interested in the gatherings of this group of college students who seemed to have a different way of living life. A life as a follower of Jesus, [the transliteration of the Hebrew term, “Yehoshua”/Jehoshua (contracted to “Joshua”), which means “Yahweh saves” (or “Yahweh is salvation”)]. The next three to five years brought amazing insights into a world that has been surrounding me for my entire life; a world I hadn’t seen, would not have seen but for the Grace of the Creator. Science Fiction right before my eyes…

Following Jesus became the pattern of the rest of my life. Church, not as much, a statement which may surprise my children, if they read this. Nearly 40 years of Sunday mornings. All sorts of Sunday mornings. I attend Church because that is where people talk about following Jesus. Doesn’t happen all that much, elsewhere in my life. Not, that is, prior to Facebook…

There is a lot about church that I ignore or overlook.

It’s harder to overlook, in these days of unGrace.

I think this time in history is one of the things that brought tears to Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane. He didn’t die so that religious hatred could flourish.

jesus leaves the tombFrom “Passion of the Christ”—the only shot I really enjoyed.

“Be extraordinary.”
Why do I write so often about the Man in the Blue Box?
Because he encourages people to be extraordinary. The world needs extraordinary people to bring us out of the mudhole my generation has dug ourselves into. I don’t find a lot of people in popular culture encouraging people to be extraordinary.

I believe that the Millennial Generation has the ability to change history; if they will simply get out and vote. There are a lot of people investing huge amounts of money in making sure that they don’t.

Be extraordinary.

 

 

 

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 93: Easter/Holy Week

March 25, 2016

Christ Washing Peter - FM BrownChrist Washing Peter’s Feet – Ford Madox Brown 1852–56

An innocuous scene, to the eyes of those in the 21st Century. The controversy innate in the scene isn’t obvious to modern viewers. The controversy is a little more obvious if one has followed the Papal career of Pope Francis—the Pope who began washing the feet of women seeking an audience with the Pope—and who compounded the controversy this week by the washing of the feet of refugees, including women and those of the Islamic faith. The Donald was no doubt unhappy. Not that I particularly care about his opinions.

Feet washing—a kindness given to those who wandered about the unpaved landscape in sandals. A kindness assigned to servants. Not one of the kindnesses expected from the Messiah, the King of Israel—as Peter believed Jesus to be. Jesus came to serve, not to be served. I was a ‘public servant’ for 14 years, working for the City of Portland. One of the memorable debates that often arose was the question as to whether we were ‘public servants’ or ‘City employees’. There were many who rebelled at the concept of being servants. I came there to serve.

I grew up an atheist. Never heard about God, but my [favorite] Grandmother called my parents and I ‘heathens’. We did not go to church; she seemed to overlook the obvious-to-me-fact that she didn’t go to church either. She couldn’t find a Norwegian “Hellfire and Damnation” church in Portland. So she watched church on TV on Sunday mornings. Apparently there was an adequate amount of “Hellfire and Damnation” available on television. From what I can tell, there still remains an abundance—and more channels.

I came to faith, kicking and screaming, during my 3rd year of University. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the religious people I encountered on campus. Religion has never had much meaning for me; still doesn’t, after 40+ years of doing church. I encountered faith among a handful of students on campus, a philosophical concept I studied fairly thoroughly. Over the next 3-5 years, I encountered Belief. I encountered the Intangible, the Unexplainable. In Church terms, I encountered the Holy Spirit; in more non-Church terms, I encountered ‘windows’ between this dimension and the dimension of the spirit. I can’t prove it to anyone. I see the openings between these dimensions all the time. There are many who can’t see them at all. A concept I do not understand.

For much of my life there has been a connection between Cosmology and Theology—the study of the Cosmos and the study of the Creator of the Cosmos. Stephen Hawking and others are fairly convinced that the nature of the Cosmos is such that it could come about without a Creator—the Laws of Physics are sufficient. I tend to wonder how the Laws of Physics came into being. How gravity came into being. For some, the concept of God is unnecessary; as if God was some sort of ‘great and powerful Oz’—with a man behind the curtain. I doubt that we have the capacity to perceive the Creator with our senses.

Jesus was a failure as potential monarchs go—being crucified meant that one failed. This is why Pilate posted a sign over Jesus’ head—“King of the Jews”. Pilate didn’t understand; Peter didn’t understand, nor did any of the other guys at the table above.

The Doctor would understand, if his creators understood. A scene from The Zygon Inversion:
“DOCTOR: No, it’s not a game, sweetheart, and I mean that most sincerely.
CLARA-Z: Why are you doing this?
KATE: Yes, I’d quite like to know that, too. You set this up. Why?
DOCTOR: Because it’s not a game, Kate. This is a scale model of war. Every war ever fought, right there in front of you. Because it’s always the same. When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who’s going to die! You don’t know whose children are going to scream and burn! How many hearts will be broken! How many lives shattered! How much blood will spill until everybody does what they were always going to have to do from the very beginning. Sit down and talk! (sigh) Listen to me. Listen, I just, I just want you to think. Do you know what thinking is? It’s just a fancy word for changing your mind.

CLARA-Z: I will not change my mind.

DOCTOR: Then you will die stupid. Alternatively, you could step away from that box, you can walk right out of that door and you could stand your revolution down.
CLARA-Z: No! I’m not stopping this, Doctor. I started it. I will not stop it. You think they’ll let me go, after what I’ve done?
DOCTOR: You’re all the same, you screaming kids. You know that? Look at me, I’m unforgivable. Well, here’s the unforeseeable. I forgive you. After all you’ve done, I forgive you.

CLARA-Z: You don’t understand. You will never understand.

DOCTOR: I don’t understand? Are you kidding? Me? Of course I understand. I mean, do you call this a war? This funny little thing? This is not a war! I fought in a bigger war than you will ever know. I did worse things than you could ever imagine. And when I close my eyes I hear more screams than anyone could ever be able to count! And do you know what you do with all that pain? Shall I tell you where you put it? You hold it tight till it burns your hand, and you say this. No one else will ever have to live like this. No one else will have to feel this pain. Not on my watch!”

On this night called Maundy Thursday, some 2000 years ago, Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. He knew what was ahead of Him, and had known it for a long time. Scripture says that Jesus was sweating ‘drops of blood’ for a long time, while his best friends slept instead of praying with Him. I am of the opinion that during this time of prayer, the Creator of the Universe, the One who lives outside of Time, the One that could never fit into the body of a human being, allowed Jesus to see the barbarity, the cruelty, the hatred that would take place in His name for the centuries to come; and Jesus wept.

He said to Himself, to the Creator whom He was, “when I close my eyes I hear more screams than anyone could ever be able to count! And do you know what you do with all that pain? Shall I tell you where you put it? You hold it tight till it burns your hand, and you say this. No one else will ever have to live like this. No one else will have to feel this pain. Not on my watch!”

And no one has to. In our foolishness, and our arrogance, we decide to do it anyway.

Until we find release.

May you find release.

christ-the-redeemer

 

 

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 90: The Doctor

February 10, 2016

These days, I spend time, nearly every night, with The Doctor. The Doctor brings Grace to a world that knows little Grace.6 Doctors_webThe world is so crazy. Tonight the Republicans of New Hampshire nominated for President a man who will horrify the leaders of every country on the planet; perhaps with the exception of North Korea… The sort of American President so often presented by the BBC…

I was ill for a couple of days, and to keep my mind from spending too much time thinking about my belly, I did a Torchwood marathon. The creator of Torchwood commented that the production company wanted to create ‘an adult science fiction story with more sex and violence than is usually seen on British television.’ I haven’t figured out why; but I’m not yet done with the series. Maybe I’ll figure it out. However, from what I’ve seen in life, ‘office affairs’ always screw up the working of the organization involved; and I guess the violence is the part of the ‘logical progression’ of our aggressive societies. I think what surprises me most is the notion that the same production company produces both Doctor Who and Torchwood. To me the two series are nearly the opposite of each other in terms of ‘guiding philosophies’. In Torchwood, at least in the first two series, the end of life is darkness. While there are glimmers of hope, that hope is that maybe luck will turn.

To me, Doctor Who is a story about Faith, and The Doctor is a ‘type’ of a Christ figure.
[Type—a: a person or thing believed to foreshadow another]
[            b: one having qualities of a higher category: model]

Not that The Doctor has any real similarity to the Incarnation of the The Creator into time and space. However, The Doctor was at the Incarnation—as David Tennant’s Doctor comments in one episode:
Astrid: This Christmas thing? What’s it about?
The Doctor: Long story. I should know. I was there. I got the last room.
Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned (2007)

As near as I can tell, neither Russell T. Davies nor Steven Moffat would consider themselves as persons of faith; I suppose that means that the two creators of the series are brilliant writers—they write about something they really don’t understand…

I’m not talking about religion; I rarely talk about religion except when I’m with religious people. Faith is about believing that there is some order in the Universe, even when all we see is chaos. Faith is about believing in ideas like redemption and forgiveness. I believe there is a Creator of all life; I believe the Creator loves everything [He] has created. Much like I ‘love’ every illustration I’ve ever created. They are labors of love, and every detail has a purpose. Not all of my illustrations reflect my original intent—I sometimes reach beyond my grasp and I fall short. But I still love the work, even when it flops.

The most common objection to the concept of the love the Creator has for us is, ‘if God loves us so much, why is there so much shit in the world?’ We cause most of the shit. We don’t like to admit it; we like to blame it on other people—shifting the blame doesn’t usually shift the truth. We cause most of the shit.

Earthquakes, typhoons, tornadoes… we each live on a large chunk of rock, floating on molten lava, grinding against other chunks of rock; spinning at 1,000 miles per hour and rotating around the Sun at a speed of 67,000 miles per hour. Shit happens. Thank God we don’t ever come to a stop. We live in a closed environment into which we have been pumping pollutants and radiation for most of the 20th and 21st Centuries. Why would we imagine that there might be negative consequences for such stupidity? There are a lot of children in Flint, Michigan who will never have a ‘normal’ life because some politicians made some disastrous decisions about water. They can’t be fixed. Thousands of children today will never live a normal life because a virus is being spread across the world by mosquitoes. They can’t be fixed either.

We want the world to operate like a simple mechanical engine. We want every doctor to have the technology we see in Star Trek—Dr. McCoy runs a tricorder over us and can diagnose every medical problem we’ve ever had. Instead, we live in a world where all life starts with two cells; those two cells start dividing and subdividing and multiplying as needed, to form bones, organs, eye balls and the brain. Sometimes the cells forget to stop multiplying. The two cells create creatures who don’t even have a recognizable brain and yet have information programmed into them that we can’t even understand. One of our greatest flaws as humans is that we fail to recognize our shortcomings, our lack of understanding.

Enter The Doctor—
“I’m the Doctor. I’m a Time Lord. I’m from the planet Gallifrey in the Constellation of Kasterborous. I’m 903 years old and I’m the man who is gonna save your lives and all 6 billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that?”

10 th Doctor_bust_webThe Doctor brings Grace to the world; and he offers forgiveness. Rather than automatically killing his enemies, he offers them the opportunity to stop the evil they are doing. He offers them the possibility of a different life.

Clara Oswald: You’re going to help me?
The Doctor: Well, why wouldn’t I help you?
Clara Oswald: Because of what I just did, I just…
The Doctor: You betrayed me. You betrayed my trust. You betrayed our friendship. You betrayed everything… you let me down!
Clara Oswald: Then why are you helping me?
The Doctor: Why? Do you think that I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?

12th Doctor_col2_bust_szdI would like to think that The Doctor learned this from the Creator.

I recently ‘discovered’ Brennan Manning; priest, alcoholic, author of the Ragamuffin Gospel, mentor to Rich Mullins and thousands of others. Brennan wrote:
“Some have labeled my message one of “cheap grace.” In my younger days, their accusations were a gauntlet thrown down, a challenge. But I’m an old man now and I don’t care. My friend Mike Yaconelli used the phrase unfair grace, and I like that, but I have come across another I would like to leave you with. I believe Mike would like it; I know I do. I found it in the writings of the Episcopal priest Robert Farrar Capon. He calls it vulgar grace.”
“In Jesus, God has put up a “Gone Fishing” sign on the religion shop. He has done the whole job in Jesus once and for all and simply invited us to believe it-to trust the bizarre, unprovable proposition that in Him, every last person on earth is already home free without a single religious exertion: no fasting till your knees fold, no prayers you have to get right or else, no standing on your head with your right thumb in your left ear and reciting the correct creed-no nothing….
“The entire show has been set to rights in the Mystery of Christ-even though nobody can see a single improvement. Yes, it’s crazy. And yes, it’s wild, and outrageous, and vulgar. And any God who would do such a thing is a God who has no taste. And worst of all, it doesn’t sell worth beans. But it is Good News-the only permanently good news there is-and therefore I find it absolutely captivating.”

“I am truly convinced that when each of us stands before the Lord, He will ask us one thing, and one thing only: ‘Did you trust me when I told you that I love you?”

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 85: Rest

November 21, 2015

Magi_p7

“…if we see rest as something that we deserve, then we just get trapped into trying to become worthy of deserving it. But if what Jesus and the Psalmist are talking about is sacred rest that comes, not from our deservingness but from God, then I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like employee benefits do where you earn a certain number of Sabbath days for every hour you work.
“See, if there is true rest in the presence of our loving God, (and there is) then we’re not on the clock. Because there is no clock. That’s why it’s called Grace and not reward.
“The rest of the Shepherd who makes you lay down in green pastures is not about time off from work, it’s about time off from all forms of worthiness. Resting in the sacred is a blessed break from the “You deserve a break today” deep-fried culture of the self-obsessed. Sacred rest is a break from the am-I-productive-enough, lovable enough, safe enough, thin enough, rich enough, strong enough-worthiness system we live under. The sacred rest that is yours never comes from being worthy. It never comes through adopting the right kind and the right amount and the right quality of spiritual practices (although if those bring you a sense of well-being then by all means don’t set them aside) the rest that is yours and mine comes from the promise of the Gospel: that Jesus came to save sinners, that Jesus came to heal and love and save the sin-sick and the over-functioning, that Jesus came to give rest to the weary, and the restless, to give rest to harried housewives and overworked social workers and mildly depressed executives.”

Nadia Bolz-Weber

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2015/07/a-sermon-on-no-time-to-rest-and-also-no-jetpacks/?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nadiabolzweber_072015UTC040719_daily&utm_content=&spMailingID=49138571&spUserID=Nzg4MDU4MDc2MzkS1&spJobID=722569057&spReportId=NzIyNTY5MDU3S0

 

“Child, lift up your eyes ’cause mercy remembers your name
And those tears you’ve been holding back, let ’em fall down like rain
‘Cause today is the day, yeah today is the day
Oh, the healing has begun
“There’s a world full of people dying from broken hearts
Holding on to the guilt, thinking they fell too far
So don’t be afraid to show ’em your beautiful scars
‘Cause they’re the proof, yeah you’re the proof
Oh, the healing has begun”

Matthew West, The Healing Has Begun

There are so many people in my life right now that are plagued by brokenness that I cannot fix. I am by nature a ‘rescuer;’ a ‘fix it’ kind of guy. And I am powerless to fix other people’s problems. I can’t really even fix my own problems on my own.

When I get stuck I turn to a group of friends for prayer. I don’t specify what kind of prayer I want. I usually explain what my concerns are. In my own prayers, I don’t tell the Creator what I think needs to be done; I simply ‘lift up’ the person by name, as if I was holding them up the way it happens in the Lion King… The Creator knows all of our needs; and is never surprised by the events that surprise us.

People tell us that there is a ‘plan’ for everything; I think the ‘plan’ is the foreknowledge of the Creator plus the Creator’s constant love for us; and the reality that 90 years of pain here will be an eyeblink in the span of Eternity. Nothing happens in our life that the Creator doesn’t mend. It may not be mended in the time frame we want; it may not be mended in our lifetime on this planet; but this lifetime is such a small portion of our Eternal lives…

When I get overwhelmed I watch Hero movies. In Chinese Hero movies, the Hero usually dies; this is how we know that his journey had an element of sacredness in it. I watched 4 episodes of Matt Smith’s “The Doctor” last night and another 3 episodes tonight. Hero stories remind me that there are possibilities that I can’t imagine happening; they remind me that my vision is too limited, and that I focus on the problems too much.

The answer is rest. Resting in the knowledge that in the end it will all work out well. If it’s not working out well, it means that this isn’t the end yet.

I wish I could download faith into people’s hearts and minds, like I can download software and data into my computer. Download the right software, and a file that couldn’t be opened can now be opened.

The faith I’m talking about isn’t some sort of Pollyanna-ish notion that things will work out if I think happy-thoughts. It’s a faith based on the fact that I am loved by my Creator; and that nothing happens in my life outside of [His] knowledge. It’s a faith that comes from 40 years of experience and a lot of reading. If the world were fair, I could make this faith available as a download from my website. The world isn’t fair.

It begins by acknowledging that you can’t do it on your own; and that you need help from however you see your Creator. Or the hope that maybe there is a Creator who loves you.

I know a guy who can’t believe in a God that would allow him to endure cancer. What he doesn’t see is that cancer is the least of his problems. He thinks the world is supposed to revolve around him, and the way he thinks. His life is filled with broken relationships.

Faith isn’t religion, although sometimes religion can help.

Faith is believing that nothing can separate you from the love of your Creator; even if you’ve made a mess of your life.

Faith is trusting that we aren’t alone when we feel like we’re alone.

Faith is realizing that you are a miracle.

Some scientist may be able to explain everything about you by biology, or genetics, or neurology, or psychology. Science can come up with brilliant explanations for nearly everything except the one, tiny, inescapable piece of the puzzle: Life. And the next inescapable piece of the puzzle: our imagination.

Most everything on this planet, as far as we are able to determine, does not have life—the oceans, the mountains, the dirt and concrete under our feet. Life may exist within those elements of our world; but their presence doesn’t make the water alive. Most of that which makes up the Earth does not have an imagination; the ability to see things that don’t yet exist as if they already do. As far as we know, only humans have that ability; and the systems of this world do their very best to make sure we forget the miracles we are. Here in America, the world system tells us that we can buy a new thing that will make us happy. And it never does.

There may be billions of us on this planet; but we still are a very small portion of all that exists here. And then, there’s the universe. The possibilities are endless.

n6914mcquillan

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 83: The Search for Meaning, Part Two

October 25, 2015

I meant to send this out later in the week; I just watched a movie that changed my mind.

Della's Brain“Della’s Brain”

We can change the way we think.

The flashes of light in the above image represent the electro-chemical signals that cross between connections in our neurons. The flashes of light represent thoughts in Della’s mind. What those thoughts are, are known only to Della…

Our brains contain thousands of neurons, and tens of thousands of connections between those neurons. Dr. Eagleman, quoted in Chronicles in Ordinary Time 82, comments that about twice as many connections are created in our brains in the first two years of life than we normally use as adults. I don’t think these connections disintegrate, they simply stop being used. The fading of memory isn’t due to degradation of the nerve cells that make the connections; it’s simply due to the fact that we aren’t using those connections very often. The pattern, the map, between those connections and our conscious mind is still there; it just takes a while for the connections to be made.

We have the ability to make new connections between the neurons that register ideas, and we have the ability to think in new ways. During the teenage years we start questioning our parents’ beliefs; we can choose to follow them, or not. We can make new connections between our ‘stockpile’ of past experiences and sensations, and come to new conclusions. These new conclusions can change our lives.

We can change the way we think.

Prejudice starts in the mind.

Hatred starts in the mind.

Healing starts in the mind.

My appendix ruptured in 1988, and I came close to dying from peritonitis—an infection of the membranes that hold our internal organs in place. The docs pumped me full with antibiotics, and killed my immune system while killing off the bacteria. A ‘napalm process’—while killing off the bacteria that was damaging my body, the bacteria that aids my body was killed off as well. For the first few months, I caught every germ that entered the Portland Building.

I did a lot of research during the 6 months it took me to fully recover; I discovered that adult-onset appendicitis was frequently a result of stress that had occurred in the patient’s life. For most of the year before the appendicitis attack, I was heavily involved in the fund-raising for, and the care of my sister, who needed a liver transplant. I firmly believe that the circumstances around her transplant were miraculous—I perceived the working of the Creator in the events that took place, and soon the events began running ahead of us.

I realized that if Donna’s new liver was connected to the Miraculous, then my appendicitis was in some way an extension of that miracle process. I don’t believe in coincidence. I don’t believe in accidents. I gave my life to my Creator 40 years ago, and asked [Him] to direct the events of my life. Therefore, the appendicitis wasn’t a surprise to the Creator; it was only a surprise to me.

In the early weeks of recovery from the peritonitis, it became clear to me that there was a ‘connection’ between my experience of a diseased appendix and past anger that I had toward my Dad; the anger wasn’t so much about the man he was, or what he did, but the reality of the father he wasn’t; the father I had wanted. He wasn’t very good with Grace; I doubt that he’d ever experienced it. I could be wrong—we never talked.

I realized that the anger I had felt toward him was gone—the burst appendix was like a boil that had been lanced. New connections had been made while I slept for days. I believe I was Healed. The healing of my anger did not remove the patterns of behavior I had learned while protecting myself from my Dad’s loud behavior. Changing many of
those patterns became part of the work of bringing my own children into this world.

I realized that my Dad was probably very much like his father, and that family of wheat ranchers—he didn’t know how to do things differently, because he hadn’t had a different role model. I decided, with the help of a lot of books and tapes, that I could cause myself to become more like the father I had wanted. I could change my life. It required the making of a lot of new connections in my brain.

I grew up without a concept of faith. The Creator wasn’t a part of my thinking until my college years; and the change of thinking mostly came from religious people who got in my face… And then the Creator ‘hit me upside the head’ in my third year; and I started making a serious change in the direction I traveled. It was at least a 45-degree turn, maybe as much as a 90-degree turn. I began looking at the circumstances and emotions of my life, and started seeing them in a new light. This is the actual definition of the word that is translated from the Hebrew and Latin as “repent.”

“God loves you and has a plan for your life”—a phrase that usually gets heard when bad stuff happens in one’s life. Often the people who say such things don’t really think about the concept that in effect says, ‘oh, God gave you cancer so that you can learn something.’ I’ve struggled with such concepts for the last 40 years. One of the guys in my life at present is angry at the god he doesn’t believe in because that god
allows people to be tortured by pain and death. He sees his cancer-related pain as torture that keeps him from being able to do the things he wants to do with what’s left of his life.

I experience a large amount of pain each day; several neurologists have no idea why it has occurred. “Idiopathic sensory nerve disorder.” A description, rather than a diagnosis. I have pain all over, even in places that have no external sense of touch. The most likely candidate [meaning, the one that hasn’t yet been ruled out] for a cause appears to be the large amounts of analgesics and muscle relaxants I consumed while working for the City of Portland for 14 years. I got through each
day on pain meds and I possibly poisoned myself in the process. Now I work at living without pain meds, in hopes that some of the damaged neurons will heal. Instead of viewing my pain as torture, I use it to help me learn compassion for a whole lot of people who deal with much larger health challenges. It’s a matter of perspective. The pain doesn’t disappear, but the fear of pain can diminish. I learn not to react to pain.

Does God have a plan for my life? I think ‘the plan’ is that I was created with a brain that is capable of changing the way I perceive the world. I learn to make new connections in my brain when I encounter new situations. I don’t believe that anything will happen in my life that is larger than the Creator can use for [His] own purposes. Occasionally it seems as though the Creator dips a hand into the ‘river of my life,’ and alters the flow; usually this happens in a manner that I cannot prove, and it usually only has a direct effect on me. Broken cars that mysteriously come back to life without the aid of a mechanic or tools; events that come strangely together in a manner I could not predict. However, the Creator is not a genie; I can’t rub a lamp and get my wishes fulfilled.

Shit happens in my life; and good stuff happens in my life. I can change my attitude toward the rotten stuff by making a conscious decision to view life differently. I know each day that I am surrounded by the prayers of people who pray for me. Some of you who are reading these words are lifted up in prayer by me, each day. Some of you are supported in prayer by people you don’t know, because I’ve told others of your needs. I think the prayer makes it easier to make new connections in your brains; and these changes can strengthen the soul we cannot see.

I can’t download faith into anyone. I wish I could. There IS Light in the darkness; and that Light is on a wavelength that is easy to miss unless you are looking for it. Sort of like Luminol fluorescing when in the presence of ‘alternate light sources’. Or wearing 3D glasses to watch the movie—there’s a depth to life we can’t normally see, because it isn’t hardwired into our brains. We have to choose to look for it, and keep working at seeing the Light in the midst of ever-growing darkness.

Stars [1926]““Stars” Maxfield Parrish [1926]

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 77: Imagination and Inspiration

August 18, 2015

Martian landscapeImages: http://mars.nasa.gov/mro/multimedia/images/?s=326

 These are aerial photographs of the landscape of Mars.

This statement blows my mind. It ought to blow yours.

Not Hollywood. Not CGI. Photographs made with a camera that sits aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a satellite that’s been orbiting Mars for about 10 years; shooting photos of strangely colored sand dunes, enormous ‘dust devils’ that extend thousands of feet into the air, and create strangely beautiful shadows; avalanches near the snow-covered Poles of Mars.

However, we live in the 21st Century; and the world of the Internet. All sorts of wonders happen all of the time, and we yawn and scroll down to the next item on Facebook…

When I was a kid, back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, I read the John Carter of Mars novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I read of Barsoom and its canals and an adventurer from Earth who found himself a stranger in a strange land. The books are better than the movie was.

I was 10 years old when JFK spoke these words at Rice University:

“We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man…”

Full speech below

 We went to the Moon by the end of that decade; and we have gone far beyond that goal. Astronauts have inspired children the world over to “seek out new adventures and to go where no man has gone before…”

I read the works Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov as well as dozens of other science fiction authors. Tom Swift Jr. was one of my literary heroes, and the subject of many of my internal adventures—a young inventor traveling the world and outer space, seeking to make life better. And now I can view photos of Mars, I can watch videos of Mars and its moons…as easily as I can watch Facebook.

Should we be trying to go to Mars? I’d rather see us fix up the planet we have, than to encourage us to continue wrecking this one while we find a new planet to wreck…

The problem isn’t money.

cost of war

The bottom number starts with One Trillion. A number, when applied to money, that none of us can accurately imagine. You can probably find a graphic somewhere on the Internet. These numbers of course are significantly smaller than the numbers are at this moment, as you are reading these words. You can find current numbers here.

There is no lack of money in the US and in the world for solving most of the problems of mankind; what is lacking is the willingness to sacrifice our comfort for the sake of people we don’t know. We can take pictures of Mars!—surely we can provide clean water and electricity to the planet. Can we reverse global warming? Probably not. Maybe we can slow it down.

You can inspire a child to dream; you can inspire a child to do something for good that no one in their history has ever done. You can inspire a child to become a better person than you are. By training your mind you can become a better person than you are now.

 JFK_Rice_University

 

“We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic?

We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.”

President John F. Kennedy in front of a large crowd gathered at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas on September 12, 1962.

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 76: It’s always too soon to quit…

August 10, 2015

peacock window

A dear friend of mine recently posted some quotations from Marcus Aurelius on Facebook; a mutual friend, a woman we don’t know all that well, in reading his post remembered inspiration she received by reading the writings of this this long-dead Roman Emperor; and baby Aurelia was given her name. In the annals of history, being the instrument of the naming of a child is probably a small thing; however, she is only a few weeks old, and has her entire life ahead of her. Who knows what the inspiration from a Roman Emperor of 1900 years ago might have upon her life? The naming of each of our children was a well-thought-out experience, and I imagine it’s the same for many parents. We can never overlook the possibilities that our smallest acts contain.

This dear friend of mine has a lot of reasons for doubting the value of his life; he battles a chemical imbalance in his brain; probably a result of genes—something he cannot control. One of my ‘fears’ is that one day the chemistry will win out over what he knows in his heart-of-hearts to be true. When such ‘fears’ come upon me, I turn them over to the Author of Life, in whose name my dear friend was raised. Whatever events happen in our earthly lives, I know that we will meet again in the Life to Come. This is a promise from the Author of Life.

Sixty-three years of life; forty-two of them walking with the Author of Life. I rather wish I’d kept a list of the ‘small things’ that have happened in my life that ended up being extremely significant. Many of the ‘small things’ were barely noticed; like the song that just happened to start playing as I’m writing this paragraph [statistically, a 1/1340 chance]—The Impossible Dream, which caused to realize that there is more to live for in this life than the stuff we find around us. The story of the ‘Man of La Mancha,’ presented in a Senior AP English class in high school by “Captain Bob” Bonniwell opened the door to faith in my life. The older I get, the larger the pile of ‘stuff’ gets, and the more potent-smelling it becomes. And still I contend that it is better to live life as it could be, to live life as it ought to be lived; rather than to live life as it often presents itself in our circumstances. I never made the opportunity to thank Captain Bob. Should have.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to create a life for myself that allows me a lot of time to think, to ponder, to hope and to dream. The dreams are harder now, partially because the Dreambuilders I once surrounded myself with aren’t around. But I still am able to ponder and hope. I too often fail to realize what a gift my lifestyle has become for me. Most people have little time to think about LARGE concepts, such as faith. I wish I had the ability to download faith into all those who need it; I’d post it in a Dropbox and plaster the URL across the internet. Sadly, I can’t do that. By “faith” I’m not talking about religion; it often starts with religion; however, there is a Faith that transcends religion. I’m not there yet, but I can see it in the distance.

One of our shortcomings as human beings is that we tend to think that we are something special; just by being human. In today’s world, “American Exceptionalism” is probably the most insidious version of this curse—at least within the American culture. I believe that when the Creator said, “let us make man in our own image,” the Creator wasn’t talking about form. I believe that the gift we were given, that gift which is in the Creator’s image, is our ability to Create. There are other creatures that use tools; creatures like the spider that can build a web we can’t even begin to replicate—and these abilities are hard-wired into their tiny brains and neurological systems. Birds make nests; I don’t know if there are birds who have realized that all that plastic garbage we leave lying around can become weather-proof roofs over their heads…

We have the ability to create our own realities; and by this gift we are human, slightly lower than the angels. As animals, humans display a lot of behavior that is far from special. We are more than animals.

I’m in an *interesting* place in life. I don’t have ALS—it’s clear that I don’t have ALS—and yet I can’t help but wonder if what I experience is similar to those with ALS: watching my body ‘dissolve’ around me. I end most evenings [early mornings to much of the world] watching ‘hero stories’ on DVD. I find that drawing-time seems to work best after 10p or 11; and lasts for 3-4 hours; after which it simply hurts too much to keep sitting down. So I move to the couch, and watch a couple hours of ‘hero’ stories; and then I try to figure out how I’m going to get off of the couch, and make my way to bed. I was at a friends’ house yesterday, and sat down on a footstool; I immediately realized that this was a bad choice, because the footstool turned out to be much squishier than I expected it to be. When it was time to leave that room, I waited until I was the last one there, so I could figure out what method I’d use to get myself from footstool to standing up… I honestly can’t tell if it’s a strength issue or a function [lack of] issue. Getting up from the footstool was awkward, and I am innately self-conscious.

There are a couple of old guys in my life, guys who cannot [yet] cope with the idea of ‘new normal’—a new set of conditions in their lives that make their former plans extremely difficult to achieve. Neither of them live with the difficulties that one of my heroes lives with; a woman who has lived most of her life in a wheelchair, with a body that mostly does not respond to her control. She’s endured more operations than she has years in her life. Her physical abilities are far less than those of the two old codgers I’m writing about; and yet they have trouble finding a reason to stay alive. My hero-friend has been making that choice for a long time.

We make choices as to how we will live our lives. Some of us have horrible crap to overcome; some of us merely have inconvenience to overcome; and we think that it’s ‘horrible crap’ because our view of life is too small… Each day above ground is a gift, whether or not we want to see it that way. And we are given tremendous flexibility as to how we will use this gift.

How will you use your gift, today?

How will I use mine?

Summer King

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