Sunday, March 27, 2011

Section 2: George Washington's Left Hand

I have always loved history. I don't know when I learned to read, but my earliest memories are of reading stories of heroes of the past.
The first book I remember reading was The Child's Story Bible. I read two stories over and over: of the young David and his exploits as an outlaw, and of the prophet Ezekial, when he stood up to the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. I read them almost to the exclusion to every other story in the Bible.
And then stories of the Civil War (the War of Northern Aggression). I couldn't get enough of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. I remember one time at the dinner table when Frank Clark - my parents' best friend, a man whose family my family took vacations with, and spent what seemed like every weekend in their basement eating chocolate ice cream and watching The Flinestones - told my mother that Lee was the greatest traitor in American history. My mom was as mad as I'd ever seen her with someone who was a friend. I thought for sure it was the end of chocolate ice cream and summer camping trips with the Clarks.
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table ... Arthurs' charge that "God make you a good man and fail not of beauty. The Round Table was founded in patience, humility, and meekness.Thou art never to do outrageousity, nor murder, and always to flee treason, by no means to be cruel, and always to do ladies, damosels, and gentle women succour. Also, to take no battles in a wrongful quarrel for no law nor for no world's goods. ..." I learned to both love and loathe Lancelot, even as I imagened Arthur did.
But America's colonial period and the Revolution was my favorite. It was a war of great ideas, really a revolution of ideas and beliefs. I read stories of Lighthorse Harry Lee (an ancestor of Robert E.), and Francis Marion (the Swamp Fox); Ethan Allen and the Green Mountin Boys, and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and John Adams ...
And of course George Washington.
When George Washington was finally convinced to accept the presidency of the United States, he was sworn in with his right hand in the air and his left hand on the Bible.
Nothing ever seemed to be random back then. While at his first inauguration, Washington asked for a Bible and apparently because everyone was in a hurry it was opened and he placed his left hand over a random verse.
However, at his second inauguration, tradition has it that Washington specifically put his left hand over a particular verse: Micah 6:8: "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.''
Washington established a tradition, as American President after President was sworn in with his left hand over that same verse. At one time it was true - and it may still be - that the majority of the Presidents of the United States were sworn in with their left hand placed over Micah 6:8.
Because it sums up what is indeed expected of those of us to whom God has indeed shown what is good: to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly.
A lot of people talk about justice. We all say we love justice, but what most of us really mean is we want justice. And there is a difference.
We want justice for ourselves. And we want it for other people, but usually only when it doesn't infringe upon our being treated with justice - or what we consider as "fair."
The truth is, life is not fair. Think about it. Most of us get away with far more than we should if life were truly fair. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten away with things that, in a truly fair world, I'd have faced consequences. Stupid things, dangerous things, hurtful things I've done to others, things that were just plan wrong. Speeding, little deceptions, warnings I ignored successfully.
Oh, I know that's not what most of us think of when we think life is not fair. We like to think about the times that we were treated unfairly. But come on - be honest: haven't you gotten away with far more in this life than you've been unjustly punished in some way for?
Now I'm not saying loving justice means we make sure we pay for all those indiscretions that are known only to ourselves. Heavens, no!
But maybe a good start is realizing that the fact that life is not fair tends to work in our favor more than not.
So what does it mean to really love justice?
Not making sure we're treated fairly. There's nothing particularly difficult or noble about crying when we're not treated fairly Babies do that instinctively.
No, loving justice is when you are willing to see justice done even if it works against you. And sometimes when one side has had the advantage for a long time, it means giving the disadvantaged the upper hand for a time - yes, being what we'd call "unfair" to the other side.
It means to stand up for what is right; standing up for the poor, the picked on, the weak, the outcasts, the helpless and the hopeless. It means when you see wrong being done, you take it upon yourself to try to make it right. It means never being afraid to stand up for what you know is right, even if it is unpopular or – especially, perhaps – when being fair may actually work against you.
God is not "fair,'' because He does not give us what we "deserve." 
But God is a God of justice, and as such He recognized a wrong (sin) had to be atoned for, so He took it upon Himself to take the punishment that we could not possibly have survived and place it on Himself in the form of His Son.
And God means for us to follow His example. ,He has left it to us, as men and as His sons, to see that justice is executed for all; not just ourselves, but in fact probably more so for other people than ourselves. We're called to represent God to the World, including His concept of justice. That means doing what is good, right, honorable, noble, and true. To "do justice'' is to act according to God's heart in our individual actions as well as in the institutions that we are a part of.
I have been a part of insitutions that had no interest in "doing justice,'' just as at times in my life I have had no interest in really seeing justice done.
I have been part of institutions - such as the church - that honestly desired to "do justice'' but struggled with the social implications, just as at times in my life I have honestly wanted to represent God's Justice but had the same struggle of social implications.
Confucius is credited with saying, "To see what is right and not do it is cowardice."
Which brings me back to George Washington's left hand, the one he placed over Micah 6:8 as he raised his right hand and swore to do all these things "to the best of my ability."
Or, as Thomas Jefferson once said, ``It is reasonable that everyone who asks for justice should do justice.’’
Tempered, of course, with mercy ....

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Chapter 1: The conflict of growing up a traditional Southern Baptist

The church I grew up in was Southern Baptist, with all the paradox, irony, and guilt that the words  "Southern Baptist" carried in 1960s Georgia.
It was a church that struggled with the same complexities that afflicted most of the South during that time, a struggle between the Old South and the New, a South that was trying to find itself in the midst of the look-ahead attitude being shaped by "the greatest generation'' and holding on to the traditions from which the South drew so much of its identity.
The conflict was everywhere in the church in which I grew up. We had a pastor that taught scripture and understood that so much of the Southern church tradition was not Biblical, yet he also knew years of tradition couldn't be changed with one or two sermons. It would take time.
It was like the woman at the well. When Jesus got her to admit that she had been married several times and the man she was currently living with wasn't her husband, He didn't tell her that she needed to marry this man or else leave him because what she was doing was living in sin. Jesus simply said, "Go, and sin no more." I think Jesus understood coming to know Him takes time, that it was going to be a relationship that needed to grow, which meant it might take time for people to realize what that phrase "go and sin no more" means. The truth is, it's a phrase that means more and more the closer we get to understanding Jesus, and what might not have seemed like "sin'' yesterday becomes something we know we have to put behind us before tomorrow.
Just because you become a Christian, you don't immediately stop sinning. Sometimes it takes awhile to learn what sin really is. It's called maturity - spiritual maturity.
It wasn't just that the culture of the Southern church looked down on drinking, dancing, card-playing, cussing, going to movies, even what was known as "mixed bathing" (relax: it means boys and girls swimming together).
It was also very segregated. There were deacons posted at the doorway to turn away blacks who might want to visit. They weren't posted to be mean. In fact, the men told such visitors that they'd be glad to share the gospel with them and direct them to a good, solid, Bible-teaching black church.
Sure it was wrong. But it was actually a pretty progressive attitude for the time and place.
I can remember one Sunday afternoon at youth group when the assistant pastor gathered us to explain the "Biblical reasons'' for separation of the races. He did a great job of expressing love and respect for "all of God's children, red and yellow, black and white," while explaining that God made us red and yellow, black and white for a reason.
We - teenagers affected by the changing times of the late 1960s and early 1970s, who were already a source of consternation with our long hair, jeans, and rock music - heard it. We didn't buy it, but we heard it.
And while that assistant pastor expressed beliefs that were held corporately, in the individual homes of many of the individual families, it wasn't that way. It wasn't that way in my home. I was even allowed to go to dances and movies, something my older brothers and sister were not allowed to do when they were my age - a sign of the growing maturity of my own parents, particularly my Southern-born and Southern-bred mother who was very much a woman of her changing times.
Still, it was a church that taught the Bible, even if some of the adults teaching us didn't quite know how to apply it outside the constraints of the tradition they'd always known. We were encouraged to learn the Bible, to memorize scripture, and especially - and here we get to the point - to have our "life verse."
Everyone had one. Or was supposed to have one. Even if you didn't really have one. It was just expected that, when asked to give your "testimony" (which everyone was supposed to be prepared to do), you had to have that verse that God had given you that really shaped your life.
Never mind that, at 15 or 16 years old, our lives were hardly close to being shaped.
And being the smart-alecs that we were, some of us picked life verses that were ... well, non-traditional.
The goal was to find the most obscure verse, take it completely out of context, and somehow convince people that it had real meaning for our lives. We explored Song of Solomon and obscure Minor Prophets and long passages of Leviticus, searching for the one that the adults would hear and be too embarrassed to admit they probably had never heard it before, or certainly never heard it the way we were going to apply it. And we knew we were safe, because to suggest that we were not being sincere was to run the risk of doubting the work of the Holy Spirit, which was considered dangerously close to the "unforgivable sin" of blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
My own personal favorite was Ecclesiastes 10:19, which says, "A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes life merry, but money is the answer for everything."
You should have seen the reaction. Even now, when you quote that verse, you get almost horrified looks from people who don't know what to do with that verse (primarily because they don't know the context of Ecclesiastes).
It was supposed to be a joke. But as it turns out, the joke was on me. The older and more experienced I get, the more I look back and wonder if Ecclesiastes 10:19 didn't really become my "life verse." I can look back now and see much of my life was indeed lived that way.
But eventually I found two verses that really had meaning. I found them separately, one in the Old Testament and one in the New, through completely different circumstances, at completely different times of my life, only to have them eventually merge, seamlessly, tying together the Old and New Testament seamlessly.
Maybe I grew up.
And that's what the next few blogs will be about, as we explore Micah 6:8 and Philippians 2:5-11.
There will, of course, be some history, some politics, some social justice, a lot of opinion, and hopefully some of God's Truth will come out as well.
Stay with me?

Friday, March 18, 2011

Don't forget good St. Patrick, lest we see ourselves surrounded by those snakes again!

I went to a St. Patrick's Day Parade with as much of the family as I could gather down here on the coast of Mississippi, then we went to dinner surrounded by people dressing in green and wearing beads (this is the land of Mardi Gras, after all), wearing tee-shirts that said things like "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" and "Wanna Get Lucky" and various variations of all the themes we've come to associate with St. Patrick's day - including a "pub crawl,'' the enticement to go from drinking establishment to drinking establishment (the city even closed off several blocks to make it easier for 'crawlers' to move about).
Being me, I also decided to educate myself on traditions of St. Patricks' Day, primarily that people started wearing green because leprauchans were supposed to be blind to the color green, and if they couldn't see you they couldn't "pinch" you, which in the old days meant kidnap you. Leprauchans were the bogey-man of Irish fables, not the kind of people who gave you breakfast cereal or granted wishes or any of the other happy-go-lucky attributes that the modern marketing campaign has led us to believe.
But then, I also looked up St. Patrick himself.
He was not Irish, but British. As a boy, he was captured by Irish raiders and held as a slave. He managed to escape back to Britian, where he studied and became a Catholic Priest, at which time he felt called to go back to Ireland and bring the Gospel of salvation, love and hope to his former captors. He used the Shamrock - a three-leaf clover - to explain the Trinity of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And while he is credited with driving the snakes out of Ireland, it is probably closer to the truth that he drove out those who were deceivers, those that twisted the truth, the human "snakes'' that have plagued us always.
Patrick died on March 17, 461 - St. Patrick's Day.
I wonder what Patrick would be doing on "his" day now. I have a feeling he'd be sad at first, then realize his work was not done, and he'd probably be out there in the midst of the revelers, with his shamrock, quietly trying to explain the love of The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit in hope of driving out the snakes that still torment us all.
To quote Patrick himself, from his "Confessions" (written around the year 450):

"I am Patrick, yes a sinner and indeed untaught; yet I am established here in Ireland where I profess myself bishop. I am certain in my heart that "all that I am," I have received from God. So I live among barbarous tribes, a stranger and exile for the love of God. He himself testifies that this is so. I never would have wanted these harsh words to spill from my mouth; I am not in the habit of speaking so sharply. Yet now I am driven by the zeal of God, Christ's truth has aroused me. I speak out too for love of my neighbors who are my only sons; for them I gave up my home country, my parents and even pushing my own life to the brink of death. If I have any worth, it is to live my life for God so as to teach these peoples; even though some of them still look down on me."

That is a life worth celebrating.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"He was a terror to any snake that came in his path, whether it was the cold, slimy reptile sliding along the ground or the more dangerous snake that oppresses men through false teachings.  And he drove the snakes out of the minds of men, snakes of superstition and brutality and cruelty. " ~Arthur Brisbane

Saint Patrick was a gentleman, who through strategy and stealth
Drove all the snakes from Ireland, here's a drink to his health!
But not too many drinks, lest we lose ourselves and then
Forget the good Saint Patrick, and see them snakes again!
~Author Unknown




Friday, March 11, 2011

Inflationary sex

My best friend was getting married.
Now understand, this was something a bit surprising to both of us, seeing as how we were both in our 30s and neither of us had ever been married.
But my buddy - and that's what I'll call him for the sake of this story, "Buddy" - Buddy had found a girl he'd decided was "the one."
And of course, I had to know how he knew she was "the one."
"How,'' I asked, "did you decide it was time to get married?''
And Buddy said something to me that will sound callous, chauvinistic, cold, and just plain wrong on so many levels ...
But at the time, it made a lot of sense.
He said, "Well, I finally realized I was not going to 'date' every girl in the world. So I decided to pick the one I enjoyed 'dating' the most and stick with it."
Now, he didn't actually use the word "date." He used another word. But you get the idea.
Not the most romantic notion in the world, I realize.
And truth be told, Buddy was not really a guy who was out to "date" every woman in the world, or even really as many as he could. He was not a guy who counted scalps, or whatever euphemism you want to use. He wasn't a "ladies man" by any stretch of the imagination, although he certainly did all right and had dated - and by 'dated' this time I actually mean 'dated' - several really nice, wonderful young women.
But quite frankly, I think to a lot of guys out there, Buddy's rationale strikes a chord and in some sick, guy-only way, makes sense.
So this is for the guys out there.
Let's be honest: sex is everywhere. And it's very appealing.
Just about every movie and TV show has it as either a plot or at least a subplot.
As a result, we think sex is happening everywhere (except, perhaps, where we are). Certainly it seems to be happening a lot more than it used to.
And maybe it is.
But a lot of things happen more than they used to. I remember when I was a kid, it was a big deal to be a  millionaire. Back then, it meant something. Now, there are so many millionaires that, quite honestly, it's not as big a deal as it once was. Oh, don't get me wrong; it's still nice. I wish I was one. But being a millionaire isn't quite what it used to be.
Maybe  that's because so many more people have so much money, causing money to have lost some of its value.
And you know that's true. Call it inflation. Or the devaluing of the dollar.
Economies are based on the exchange rate of the dollar, and we like to keep the value of the dollar high. But there are disagreements over how to do that: do we save it, or do we need to spend it? Yet deep down we recognize that the more dollars that are out there in the market, changing hands, the less value the dollar has, even though some people say that's the best thing for the economy.
Do you see where I'm going?
Sex is like the dollar. (In fact, there are places where you can exchange dollars for sex, but that's another story).
Back in the old days, sex didn't seem to be quite so easy, so it maintained a certain value. Oh, we talked about it, and dreamed about it, and lied about it - just like we did when it came to how much money we made - but because getting it was so elusive, it really meant something.
Which is the way God meant it to be.
Think about all those books and movies and TV shows that picture people "hooking up,'' seeking and having sex with as many people as there are episodes in a season, making sex seem about as special as finding a penny on the sidewalk.
For all that activity, in the end what almost every one of those people want is a meaningful relationship with someone. They want something special with someone special that is shared only with the two of them (and I know you can find exceptions to this idea, but even those exceptions I'd argue are people who somewhere along the way lost the ability to have a real relationship with another person; we can argue about this one later, if you'd like).
What it means is that - to borrow a phrase - we have to learn the value of the dollar.
It's not easy, because so many people think they understand the value of the dollar. They'll do anything for a buck, while at the same time throwing money away on things they believe to be "necessities'' that really aren't; things our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents never even dreamed of and got along quite fine without.
Try getting someone to "save" today, when most of us live paycheck to paycheck, or even start our lives in debt, hoping we'll get caught up someday, down the road. Economists tell us that people in America just aren't saving the way we used to, and that's a major concern for the future of the economy.
And so the dollar is cheapened and loses its value. We can see what that has done to the country.
The same thing happens when relationships between people are cheapened, and sex is traded like a commodity.
If we saved money and treated it carefully and with respect, how much better would our economy be?
If we saved sex and treated it carefully - just decided today that we'd be monogamous for the rest of our lives - think of all the trouble, not to mention disease, that would end within a generation or two. We'd be so much healthier.
In the end - as so often happens - God turns out to be right.
Oh, and my friend Buddy?
He was ready to give up dating, and got married. Unfortunately, after a few years, his wife decided to start 'dating' again. So they split up.
As hurt as Buddy was by all of this, down deep, he still years for something special, some connection that takes place between only him and that special person that is his and his alone (just as he wants to belong to that someone alone).
It's not easy, trying to have values different from so many around us.
But then, we see what the easy way leads to.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Community of Death

It wasn't a good week.
It began with the news that the 22-year-old son of two of my best friends died, and ended with a late night phone call on Saturday with the news that another friend was driving to dinner with his wife when a tree fell on their car, crushing his side and killing him instantly, while the wife walked away barely scratched.
Even though the deaths were very different in nature - the young man's death was the result of a poor choice on his part, while it is hard to explain how a car driving down a city street and a tree falling across that street should meet at that exact moment - both events had one thing in common:
Community.
In both instances, as soon as the word got out, friends gathered at the homes of the affected families. Because both families go to the same church, many of the people who gathered on consecutive weekends were the same people.
We gathered, not knowing what to say.
We gathered, knowing that whatever we said wouldn't - couldn't - be enough.
But we gathered just the same, to sit together, and take turns holding a mother who'd lost her "baby" boy or a wife who'd lost her husband.
We prayed, and we talked, and we comforted each other as much as we could.
 But mostly we just sat together - in the later case, from 10:30 at night until after 4 in the morning. And even then, some stayed on all night just ... because.
This was no "Facebook" social network.
There was no instant messaging or texting or tweeting.
This was true community: real people, sharing the same space, breathing the same air, touching each other on so many levels - physically, emotionally, even spiritually.
As I sat quietly in this house, I thought of three men: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite.
Friends of the Old Testament character we know as Job.
When what seemed like inexplicable trouble befell Job; when he lost his family, his fortune, and eventually his health for no humanly explicable reason; when his shame and suffering forced him into the outskirts of the very city in which he once walked the streets as a respected leader, a judge; the Bible says these three friends of Job "... set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him ... Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was."
Seven days and seven nights, without a word; just sitting there, keeping Job company.
It is a powerful image of what it means to "share each others' burdens."
I realize that later on Jobs' friends have plenty to say, and some of it is pretty judgmental. Some of it sounds like good, solid, even Biblical advice, but we can see that it is not because Job's friends do not know what we, the reader, know: the real reason for Job's trouble.
And as much as I love talking about the book of Job (the Trophy Wife accuses me of having been obsessed with it, and she's probably right), I'll save that for another day.
Because the point of this is that in these most senseless and inexplicable tragedies, I was blessed to witness the true "fellowship of the believer."
And in a world where we can "friend" and "de-friend" people with a simple key stroke, these were friends bound by something more.
Faith.
Hope.
And Love.