Critters

Could the term “separated” apply to the present condition of humanity and is that a bad thing?  

A Paul Harvey, writing a book review for Christianity Today, describes the antebellum motivation that drove slavers to wealth in America as “animal spirits.”  Mr. Harvey might not agree, but could this term be descriptive of the thinking that places “me” first, superior, and separate from “them?”  Have we survived as humans because of this, our “survival instinct?”  

Religion that fosters this separation teaches that “being saved” means being in a condition in which I conform to that religion’s beliefs. Then I become a person separated and superior from others who do not conform.  That’s survival of the right-est.  

And since a separatist mind-set is one of survival, it’s easy for this thinking to become a cultural norm for tribes, ethnic groups, entire nations.  Politics, economic practices, lawmaking, foreign policy can all fall into line.  We’re wired this way and it is “natural” for us to fall into it like the rest of the animal world.  That’s why we’re still here.  So if someone asks, “Does this really work?”  and the answer is, “Yes, it’s defense, it’s self-preservation, and it’s essential,” then Jesus was wrong.

Impossible

Our property adjoins the sixteenth fairway of a nice, private golf course.  I have a bucket in my shop filling with golf balls that land in our yard.  The course makes for a beautiful, manicured view from the bay window of our living room.  But it’s the players that are most interesting.  

It’s true.  People lose their tempers out there, at least the men.  Even though it probably happens, I’ve never seen or heard a woman golfer do any of the following: 

      Give a descriptive name to a golf ball,

-         Speak to the golf ball like it was a person,

-         Coach the golf ball along in its flight or rolling progress,

-         Comment extensively on the golf ball’s performance.  

More and more, I’m coming to believe that women in general are more rational creatures than men.  Granted, it takes passion to win a war but wars get started in the first place quite often from the most irrational motives.  And dare I say, as a rule it’s males who love to start this stuff.  Women as a group aren’t perfect  either but right now I see the human race drowning in a sea of testosterone.    

In all of this, we still cannot ignore the gospel.  Here and there in the Hebrew tribal writings are glimmers of total right-ness.  Isaiah’s lion lying with the lamb, and the suffering servant-king perhaps were formative of Jesus’ demand to love one’s enemies.  All this is so radically right and at the same time so radically impossible in a world where we have to kill just to eat.   It’s impossible, so it can only be a hope.  

People of faith know that hope can become reality in God’s World, so perhaps it’s the women and the little children who will lead us there.  I’m convinced I’ll never see it in this world, but in the distant future perhaps a person bearing some of my genetic material, will.  

And what’s wrong with getting started now? 

The Squirrel

All this happened, I’m pretty sure, in less than two seconds.  

The speed limit on Ashland Avenue is 30mph.  That translates to 44 feet per second I think.  There was a minivan ahead of me and I was far enough back that I could see clearly underneath it.  

A squirrel ran off a lawn and underneath the minivan.  Once underneath, the squirrel reversed course to go back, and then reversed course a second time and shot out from underneath the minivan on the opposite side.  

In order to accomplish these maneuvers and still stay underneath the vehicle he had to run an additional 80-or-so feet in the direction of travel.  

Is there a spiritual lesson here?  Nah.  But I have to admire the speed and agility of the little guy -- either that or incredible luck.  I just wanted to give him a standing ovation, and it makes me wonder if I shouldn’t start believing in luck again. 

(Let’s be fair.  It could have been a girl squirrel too.) 

Stupid!

She was almost frantic.  She had to get to work and couldn’t find her car key.  I was hoping that she was referring to the circumstances and not to herself.  She’s not a stupid person.  I helped in the search.  

No luck.  No place clever, like left in the ignition or near the frig since she had brought in groceries last night.  No time.  I took the key off of my ring and handed it to her.  “Thanks.”  Relief.  

Then she found it.  

How many times has a childless couple adopted…  then came the pregnancy?  

How many times has an anxious family situation finally, maybe after years, been just “given up on.”  Then came the solution.  The troubled child, the lost friend, the puzzling question, a war, a game of chess, anything unresolved can be food for stress.  

Karma, I’m told, means “action.”  It’s the things we do, and it’s also the consequences of any action for the universe.  I like the idea of God’s one-ness with the universe.  I like the idea of God’s interaction with all things, and some people believe that a kind of universal connectedness is true to a degree for everyone.  Maybe our attitudes move things.  Maybe there’s even physical change.  

Anxiety, fear, anger, negativity, just “lock things up.”  And although there is a clear time to strive and work toward a goal, there are also times to “go with the flow,” wait, calm down and find “God’s will” in my circumstances.  In my life a “coming-together event” happens too often to be coincidence.  So even though I can explain some of these results up to a point, I can’t explain them away. 

It's not stupid.  It's awesome.

The End of Your World

It’s horrific to see one’s world come to an end.  Just facing the possibility of that event is frightening.  

Many people have been experiencing the end of their world already as humanity discovers more about the universe, human makeup, and events of history including the writing of scripture.  Ancient ideas such as virgin birth, bodily resurrection, male dominance, heaven and hell, authoritarianism, scriptural inerrancy and church tradition once had a purpose noble or not, but not so much now.  Supposedly, the human race is becoming more intelligent, but now there seems to be a backlash.  

Wealth and its power over what once were democratic processes is on the rise.  It’s in the interests of these forces to return things to a previous state.  So our nation walks back to hostility toward science, diversity and civil liberties.  Those of us who strove for a new world now face the end of it and it becomes our turn to experience the same gut-wrenching fear.  

It’s in times like these that I’m so glad I no longer see God as some personality we can understand, and manipulate.  God is not some separate being out there in another world who intervenes at my humble request.  Instead, God is everything, including our social order. So when everything becomes incomprehensible to me and I just want to die, the one thing I can trust is the presence of God, and that is the presence of love.  Repeat: That’s all I need.  That’s all I need.  That’s all I need…  

Whether I am the type to rush into a new world or whether I’m the type to cling to the old, all I need is love.  And when I let myself see that love I can live it, and it spreads.  It’s God’s kind of pyramid scheme. 

The Storekeeper

In God’s world a young man walked from his village to the mission station and asked the missionary, “Papa, would you lend me five hundred kina so I can set up a small trade store in my village?  The missionary said, “Okay, I'll trust you.” And he did.  

Next, the new storekeeper ordered some things to sell in his trade store, then he went back to his village and built a small shack of bush materials: bamboo, pitpit and kunai grass.  Then he waited for two weeks.  

Then the storekeeper gathered some village youth and they all walked to the mission station.  And they waited some more.  

Finally the airplane came, and the storekeeper and the young men unloaded the trade store goods from the airplane and put it all on their backs and the storekeeper paid the pilot for the goods.  Then the men walked the goods to the village and the storekeeper put them in his new trade store.  His first customer was one of his smolpapas (small-papa: uncle). 

The smolpapa need an axe-head.  “How much?” he asked.  “You can have it,” said the storekeeper.  

You see, the storekeeper owed his uncle for a loan he had floated him.  It was to pay part of the brideprice for the storekeeper's new wife. Now, every adult male in the village, except for one, was the storekeeper’s smolpapa.  Soon the store was empty and so was the cash box.  

When the missionary heard of this he confronted the storekeeper about the five hundred kina loan.  The storekeeper said that everything was gone, and the missionary said, “You people are all idiots.  You don’t know how to conduct business.”  

So the storekeeper went back to his village and sat on the front step of his house.  And he was happy. 

I.Q.

Sometimes I think that we get dumber as our numbers grow -  that collective I.Q. is inversely proportional to the number of people in the group.  It has been said that we behave more intelligently, and morally, as individuals.  Congress springs to mind as an example of an ethically challenged, ignorant group.  

But I shouldn’t be so offhand in the matter.  Who elects members of Congress?  Whose values do these members of Congress reflect? I’ll repeat the remark made by Winston Churchill that people get the government they deserve.  

Isn’t government whatever structure that people tolerate, or are forced to tolerate, to order their communities?  Democracy is, in theory, a form of collective government and it isn’t working anymore in America, partly, I believe, because we’re ignorant, we’re deceived, and we’re unmotivated.  When voters send the message that they don’t care enough to be rational and informed in their actions, this is what we get.  Nobody is minding the store. 

Helpless?  Perhaps.  Hopeless?  Never, for spiritual people (on a good day!)  

I think that the solution is basics, that is, a focus on our own spiritual growth.  What intelligence anyone has, what money, whatever influence we can exert is really just control.  Instead, we must hear the common thread of Jesus’ message.  It’s a challenge to our worldly, controlling thinking and an invitation to enter into God’s World in a radical way that opposes “conventional wisdom.”