The Tribe Scribe Rises

The Tribe Scribe Rises

2014 Hanna Christmas Memories

Lovingly dedicated to the memory of Maurice “Uncle Ric" Sexton

PJ: "Has anyone seen my new Star Wars blanket?"

Tribe Scribe: "No, but I might let you borrow MY new Star Wars blanket if you’re really good . . .and get it right back to me!"

____________________________

In many ways Christmas is like a DeLorean, ripping across time at 88 miles per hour, enabling us to visit the past, the present and the future. We gather all of our carefully preserved decorations and place them lovingly around the house and on the Christmas tree; we revel in the memories those decorations inspire, and we prepare hopefully and joyously for a new round of memories to be made in the days ahead. Making the long trek to North Carolina from Texas I had plenty of time to reflect on my favorite Christmas memories, many of which involve the Hanna side of the family. 

Since those early Christmas memories of being at Grandmommy and Pop’s house and involve trying very hard to go to sleep so Santa could come, Christmas has been transformed in my mind. Certainly the religious aspect of the day has become more prevalent in my life, but I have also gone from being the wide-eyed child eagerly anticipating the magic of Christmas morning to being one of the parents in charge of preserving that magic for my own little wide-eyed child. Most of all, I have come to value quality time with friends and family over anything that could be wrapped up and placed under the tree.

Needless to say, the most exciting part about Christmas this year was being around the extended family I love so dearly, and the most valuable gift I gave my beautiful and vibrant daughter Riley was quality time with her cousins from around the country . . .though I’m sure she will tell you her favorite present involved “Frozen” princesses!

Monday, December 22: The Arrival

Tribe Scribe: "PJ! I really like that Star Wars blanket!"

After breaking the 16-hour drive from Dallas to Winston-Salem into two days, the Ingram contingency of Clan Hanna arrived at Lamm Lodge East with a car full of presents, luggage and all of the accoutrements necessary to stage a successful Christmas. Hurricane Christmas was already in full force, of course, with Grandmommy and Pop doing everything from piling in groceries and preparing menus to writing holiday homilies and preparing for what promised to be our Christmas Eve service at First Pres Thomasville.

Riley hit the door running  . . .well, chasing . . . after Ginger, who does not enjoy being chased nearly as much as the faithful beagle Bear who resides at Casa Ingram. Hungarian ghoulish was already on the stove, with bread and final preparations waiting for the final ETA of the Heusinger clan from San Antonio. Meanwhile, an entire bag of those new Ritz chips was hungrily consumed. (You should try them! And this is not a paid endorsement!)

A couple of hours later, dinosaurs, Star Wars gear and rum in hand, Sharon, PJ, Emma and Mikey (we missed you, Zoe!) piled in through the door and the partying commenced. After dinner and following the all-important construction of a Frozen princess castle made out of cookies and candy, Christmas movies took center stage. Once the children we adequately worn out (by each other!), the adults settled in for multiple episodes of the new Cosmos . . .and multiple glasses of Coke Zero and rum.

The Christmas holiday had officially arrived!

Tuesday, December 23rd

PJ: "I could have sworn my new Star Wars blanket was here when I went to sleep!"

With the Christmas blizzard officially in place and Lamm Lodge East suitably buried in toys and the blur of children very busily not playing with them, several expeditions went forth into retail mania to fill out those final holes on various wish lists. PJ needed coffee, Sharon and Bill needed rum, and Riley just needed to get out of the house. (Here I insert a special shout-out to Chik-fil-a, with the comparatively healthy fast food and the indoor playground - also not a paid endorsement!) 

After filling out the rest of their Christmas shopping, PJ, Bill and Riley returned home and Sharon and Bill embarked on two very important missions: 1) Find long pants for PJ, who packed for Texas weather instead of North Carolina weather. 2) MORE RUM!

Comfort food, more Christmas movies, a gingerbread castle, LOTS of popcorn and more Cosmos . . .and the house seemed as prepared as it could possibly be for the arrival of Christmas Eve.

Wednesday, December 24th

Tribe Scribe: "Sharon, I really love this Star Wars blanket you made for me!"

You know, it’s a real shame that Disney has apparently misplaced one of the most wonderful movie series of the Christmas season. We looked everywhere for the Santa Clause series, and we just couldn’t find any of them. The Ingram set didn’t make it from Dallas, where they had already been watched at least 5 times each, and no one else had them or could find them. Note to self for next Christmas: Take all three Santa Clause movies wherever we go. Tim Allen is simply wonderful!!

After facing three stores with gaping holes where the new Ritz cracker chips were supposed to be, we finally found some. They didn’t go as fast as the hot, fresh communion bread did after the service as First Pres, but they certainly didn’t run any risk of going stale, either. Now, if we could just find some Bisquick . . .

The family then bundled up and headed to First Pres for a warm and wonderful Christmas Eve service including music from various members of the clan and what may have been Pop’s last Christmas homily, as the plan is for him to retire to the mountains this summer. Riley even did an impromptu interpretive dance during special music to the delight of all! Following the service, the kids made sure there that any crumbs of the communion bread were much too small for Who mouses and we returned to the house to make final preparations for the big red guy’s arrival. 

Yes, of course Meet Me In St. Louis is a Christmas movie! And so is Mary Poppins! (Especially when we don’t have the Tim Allen Santa Clause movies.) After Mary Poppins saved the Banks family once more, Riley, Emma and Mikey put out the reindeer food, the freshly-baked Frozen cookies for Santa, poured him a tall glass a icy cold and festive egg nog, and headed for bed. With the children nestled all snug in their beds, having been read The Grinch, Twas the Night Before Christmas and Rudolph, Santa enlisted the help of PJ and Yours Truly, in particular, to do the annual construction of North Pole presents.

Portions of this entry have been redacted by the CIA (Christmas Intelligence Agency).

The XXXXXXX was XXX and XXXX XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX when XXXXX PJ XXXXXX screwdriver XXXXXXX didn’t work! So we XXXXXX the XXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX XXXX and put it in the XXXXX. When that didn’t work, XXXX hit the XXXX with the XXXX and XXXX XXXX XXX a band-aid to try and stop the bleeding. Bill tried XXXXXX the XXXX with the XXXXXX and wished like hell that the people who wrote the directions had been English-speaking. Then they tried XXXXX the XXXXX with the XXXXX and by some miracle it worked. XXXX XXXXXXXXX XX X X X XXXXXX XXXX XXXX X X X  XXXX X X X X XXXXX X XXXX and there was a beautiful new Frozen Big Wheel sparkling under the Christmas tree!

Redactions end here.

With all presents wrapped, the stockings … laid … by the … wood stove … with care, Santa’s elves resumed their enjoyment of Cosmos and popcorn until sleep overcame them.

CHRISTMAS DAY!!!!!

Tribe Scribe (warmly wrapped up in a comfy blanket with X-Wing fighters and other sci-fi-looking things on it): “Let the unwrapping begin!”

PJ: “Has anyone seen my new Star Wars blanket????”

Wrapping paper flew, presents piled up, small children squealed . . .and Sam’s Wholesale Club started bidding on Pop’s super-sized supply of Yukon Jack (be careful what you wish for!). The beautiful weather allowed for plenty of outdoor fun for the kids while the grownups cooked and basked in the success of the presents they so carefully chose for the younger generation. The day after Christmas would see the Lamm Lodge contingency headed up the mountain for a few days in Burnsville with the extended Hanna Clan, so preparations were also underway for a massive migration to the high country. 

An evening of Christmas movies, including “A Very Merry Muppet Christmas,” ended with the kids only slightly less exhausted than the adults. 

Friday and Saturday, December 26th and 27th

Mikey: “Where’s my bedroom?”

Tribe Scribe: “It’s right there - on the floor in front if the living room window!”

It just wouldn’t be a family reunion if someone didn’t have car trouble, and this time it was the Ingram transporter that needed attention. Thankfully, one replaced tire later, the caravan was ready to hit the road to the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

PJ: “What’s in the new Lamm Cottage?”

Tribe Scribe: “Only what you take with you.”

This particular part of the trip required a little more imagination than did the preceding days. Lamm Cottage was not quite ready for prime time, so the bare living room floor became the master suite at the Hilton for a couple of days. The lack of internet, refrigerator, and basically any other technology made it something like a camp out in the mountains, only with heat and electricity. The microwave performed admirably and the local restaurants and grocery stores benefited from the other shortfalls.

The best part, of course, was quality time spent with family for most of that evening and the following day. No matter what lies waiting, wrapped in mystery under the tree, nothing could be more special than the simple gift of time with loved ones. I took particular delight in watching Zoe, Riley, Mikey and Emma run around the beautiful yard around Ward Warren playing pirates and exploring secret places they discovered. It reminded me of many a trip to Galveston, where Cathy, Andy and I did very much the same things. I also - always - enjoyed the heightened intellectual climate inside the house … as well as Uncle Jon’s resplendent rum recipes!  It was also wonderful to meet Christine, the lovely young lady who seems to have plucked Sean’s heart off of the season’s proverbial pear tree.

It was all over too quickly, of course, but then Christmas always is. Before we could wink  the families who traveled so far to bask in the glow of each other’s company were scurrying back to their corners of the country to resume their journeys through the more mundane parts of the calendar. 

But what a fine time we had . . .and what a wonderful bunch of people with whom to pass the most sacred time of the year!

My fondest and dearest wish is that my own daughter will think back on this Christmas and remember how special her parents made it . . .how wonderful it was to be with family and have so many cousins to share it with . . .and seek to carry on the tradition when her time comes.

TS

Tribe Scribe: "Fine, PJ! You can go ahead and have my Star Wars blanket that your mom made for you!"

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Confessions of a Political Philosophy

          When Jean-Jacque Rousseau sat down to write his influential and controversial “Confessions,”

he unintentionally started two revolutions. On the one hand, the idea of an autobiography was

something new to the literary world, so “[f]or the first time, an author’s intimate emotional life

became the subject of his work” (Puchner 385). At the same time, Rouseau’s book also offered a new

kind of hero to his audience, a hero who was an “isolated but extraordinary individual, unhappy in his

solitude but brave in his resistance to social mores” (385). That last part was especially relevant, as

Rousseau’s themes of revolution and resistance became wildly influential both at home in France as

well as some 3,700 miles away in a blossoming new country.

            Rousseau’s strong sense of individuality, in particular, would ring in the words of the founding fathers of the United States of America when they penned the Declaration of Independence. Rousseau wrote, “I feel my heart and I know men. I am not made like any that I have seen; I venture to believe that I was not made like any that exist” (Rousseau 387). Indeed, the entire reason the American colonies decided to declare their independence from England was because the King of England had lost touch with what the colonists wanted and needed. It inspired them to write that: “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect [sic] their Safety and Happiness” (Declaration). Those early American colonists very much believed, as Rousseau did, that their needs were best served through self-governance, and thus they threw off the yoke of the far distant English king.

            Rousseau is the product of a good family, including a hard-working, humble father and a mother whose “beauty, intelligence, and accomplishments won her many admirers” (Rousseau 388). As such, he grew up as a thoughtful and caring person who would not think of trampling on the rights of others for his own purposes. He wrote that the most important gift his family bequeathed to him “was a tender heart; but to this they owed all their happiness” (389). Happiness, then, stemmed from being kind and loving, not from the acquisition of wealth and power, as so many seemed to believe lead to happiness and contentment.

This is very much the same kind of person that George Washington was, and similar values enabled him to win the war of independence from the British (Waldman 64). Washington’s commitment to religious tolerance, as well as keeping church and state separate led him to chastise his own troops for making fun of Britain’s Catholicism, writing, “at such a juncture, and in such circumstances, to be insulting (England’s) religion, is so monstrous, as not to be suffered or excused” (65). As a result of Washington’s own outspoken stance against religious intolerance, the Continental Congress sent a letter to (Catholic) French Canadians, asking them to join the cause of freedom for the colonies, and their decision to join the fight was an enormous turning point in the war.

            Unfortunately, the concept of religious tolerance and the importance of being tender-hearted have often been lost over the years. As America has grown from an upstart colony

of Great Britain into the world’s biggest super power, her leaders have often lost sight of those all-important principles upon which she was founded. In his bestseller, American Theocracy, political and economic commentator Kevin Phillips goes so far as to say that American became a Theocracy under the presidency of George W. Bush and to call the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 an era of “disenlightenment” (Phillips 1). Phillips bemoans the death of the Republican Party, once founded on ideals of small government and conservative spending, and its transformation into something that sees itself as “a ruling political party that represents religious true believers and seeks to mobilize the churches” (8). He goes on to note that the modern Republican Party believes that “government should be guided by religion, and top of it all, White House implementation of domestic and international agendas that seem to be driven by religious motivations and biblical worldviews” (9). The problem with that kind of religious worldview, of course, is that it tends to be extremely judgmental and looks down on those who disagree. It does not allow for civil discourse and alienates both Americans and their neighbors in the global community.

The truth is, the further we get from a worldview similar to that of Rousseau and George Washington and America’s founding fathers, the further we get from the vision of America as the land of the free and the home of the brave. That can be especially dangerous at a time when Americans are spending less and less time paying attention to their elected officials and to world events as other distractions reach an all-time high. Reality TV has replaced what used to be news, and there are now entire networks calling themselves “news channels” that do little more than promote divisive thinking and spread disinformation instead of actually reporting the news. More than a few progressive political analysts from both sides of the ideological aisle foresee this as a growing problem that could ultimately spell the end of America as the founders intended it.

In her book, The End of America, feminist, social critic and political activist Naomi Wolf warns against complacency and the impact it can have on a culture’s way of life. She says Americans tend to think of democracy as being “eternal, ever-renewable, and capable of withstanding all assaults” (Wolf 25). According to Wolf, however, the founding fathers would have found it “dangerously naïve, not to mention lazy, to think of democracy this way” (25). The founders thought “that it was tyranny that was eternal, ever-renewable, and capable of withstanding all assaults, whereas democracy was difficult, personally exacting and vanishingly fragile” (25). The founders, in Wolf’s view, did not see Americans themselves as special, but rather saw America as special.

One of the biggest threats to the peace that Rousseau so valued and the America that the founding fathers were hoping to build is the radical change in the way information is disseminated to the American people. For years America had network news that was presented in an unbiased way, was a public service, in fact, that was required for stations to use the national air waves. Instead, we now have news with an agenda, sometimes called “infotainment,” that works to forward the agenda of its corporate sponsors (119-122). The George W. Bush administration used such outlets as well as falsified documents to convince both Congress and the American people that the country should go to war with Iraq, for example. This tactic of manipulation was eerily similar to tactics used by Adolf Hitler during the rise of Nazi Germany (126-127).

The bizarre thing is that all of these tactics have been done in the name of preserving “freedom,” as George W. Bush constantly put it. Of course, what Bush was talking about when he evoked the word “freedom” was not always the same for everyone hearing it. “The progressive and conservative versions are very different,” writes George Lakoff, a world renowned linguist (Lakoff, Freedom 39). The concept of freedom that is most clearly threatened by the Bush-era worldview also threatens the way of life espoused by Rousseau and engendered by America’s founding fathers. It is “the imposition of a dangerous worldview without public awareness. When free will itself is threatened, that is the ultimate threat to freedom” (62). The Bush administration would come up with their own definitions of words that were not necessarily in line with common understandings and then evoke them as often as possible to get people used to hearing them and make them feel like they understood them. All the while, the Bush administration was working behind the scenes to undermine the very freedom that the founding fathers fought so hard to establish.

When progressives talk about freedom they refer to a dynamic freedom, the kind of freedom that has defined America since its founding. These freedoms include “expanding civil rights, voting rights, property rights, education, science, public health, workers’ rights, protected parkland,” which includes the infrastructure that supports those freedoms: “the banking system, court system, transportation system, communication system, university system, scientific research system, social services system” (73-74) and other aspects of the common good which is paid for through taxation and the common wealth. The conservative view of freedom is based on the nurturing parent model, in which debate is healthy and the government is commission to care for the needs of its people.

When members of the neo-conservative movement talk about freedom, they mean something entirely different. This worldview is based on the strict father model, in which there is an absolute right and an absolute wrong and the strict father is morally right and never questioned. In this view, neoconservatives see the United States “as the moral authority in the world, and it is its moral duty to maintain its sovereignty and to use its military end economic power maximize American interests, which are, in this view, also the interests of other countries” (109). Never mind that what best serves the interest of this worldview might not be accepted by other countries, and might not even be in the best interest of the majority of Americans.

The neoconservative (anti-Rousseauian) worldview, with its skewed version of freedom, has begun what political analyst Thom Hartmann calls “an undeclared war against the middle class” (Hartmann 2). The short-term impact of the neoconservative approach is already clearly observable. Most worker unions have either been disbanded or stripped of the powers that made them the defenders of the working class, minimum wage is no longer a living wage, the inflation-adjusted income of corporate CEOs went up from $7.8 million in 2002 to $9.6 million from 2002 to 2004, and from 2000 to 2004 the inflation-adjusted median annual household income went down from $46,058 to $44,389 (3). From 2001 to 2005 America lost 2.8 million manufacturing jobs, the number of employers offering a full pension dropped from 91 percent to 67 percent and off of employer-provided health care (4). The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is struggling to avoid falling into the latter category.

Possibly the biggest issue threatening America’s democracy, and with it the vast majority of Americans, is the failing definition of democracy itself. Democracy “is found among virtually

among all the indigenous peoples of the world,” and “is the way humans have lived for more than 150,000 years” (Hartmann 5). “There are no rich and no poor among most tribal people,” and the European insistence on creating a hierarchy among the Native Americans made it very difficult for those newcomers to understand their hosts (6). Yet the democracies already in place among the native tribes very much informed the way in which America’s Founding Fathers framed the Constitution (6). The Founders believed in the individual’s right to self-government, and thus created a form of government in which We the People had the ultimate say.

America’s form of government is no longer a true democracy, and opinions vary on what, exactly, America’s political system really is now. Hartmann makes a strong case that America is now a feudal aristocracy (10), where the elite rule. Unfortunately, without a thriving middle class, a democracy cannot exist for long, and becomes “caricature of itself. There are leaders and elections and all the forms, but they’re only for show. The game is now rigged” (10).  The rich don’t want a democracy because what’s best for everyone does not involve the vast majority of the nation’s wealth resting in the hands of a small elite class at the top. A democracy will, by its very nature, strive against such a phenomenon, so the ruling class must constantly work to subdue and destroy democratic processes at every turn. In particular, they are opposed to free and public education, limits on the monopolistic ownership of media outlets, and social security and universal health care. Policies like these produce a strong middle class, which will constantly work towards a stronger and stronger democracy (11). The ruling elite can’t let that happen if they want to hang onto their ever-growing wealth.

There is a solution, thankfully. There is a way that Americans can reclaim the kind of democracy that those founding fathers established, one that is in line with Rousseau’s way of thinking. It is even a way that is compatible with both Democratic and Republican ways of thinking. “Progressive may see this as an ‘American awakening,’ as a liberation or, at the least, as a campaign, while conservatives may see the same movement as ‘conservative’ in the truest sense – a return to the stewardship of the Founders’ vision” (Wolf 152). Americans must take advantage of a community that is becoming more global by the minute, using the internet, social media and grassroots movements to “truly encounter their counterparts across the political spectrum and learn to talk to each other once again directly, as neighbors, interlocutors and fellow patriots” (153). In other words, it’s time to stop listening to talking points and 30-second sound bites purporting to cover an entire issue and start talking to each other as human beings with the same needs, desires and dreams.

An amazing film written by Aaron Sorkin and starring Michael Douglas as the President of the United States sums up America’s democracy dilemma as well as anything possibly could. In a speech that was the climax of the movie, President Andrew Shepherd (Douglas) says the following:

“America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the ‘land of the free’.”

Democracy is an idea as much as it is a system of government. It does not exist in a vacuum and it does not grow organically unless the soil in which is it planted is constantly cultivated. Greed is a weed that threatens the very survival of democracy, whether that greed manifests itself in the form of a love of money or power. The acquisition of wealth and power subverts the very nature of democracy, and in turn subverts what is best for the welfare of the people within a culture. Only though the diligent defense of democracy, which starts with an educated and alert population, can a culture fight hope off the weeds of greed and power mongering and restore the kind of society that Jean-Jacque Rousseau and America’s Founding Fathers would endorse and expect to thrive.

Works Cited

The American President. Dir. Rob Reiner. Prod. Rob Reiner. By Aaron Sorkin. Perf. Michael Douglas, Annette Bening, Martin Sheen, and Michael J. Fox. Columbia Pictures, 1995. Film.

The Declaration of Independence. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992. Print.

Hartmann, Thom. Screwed: The Undeclared War against the Middle Class--and What We Can Do about It. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2006. Print.

Lakoff, George. Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate: The Essential Guide for Progressives. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Pub., 2004. Print.

Lakoff, George. Whose Freedom?: The Battle over America's Most Important Idea. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. Print.

Phillips, Kevin. American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century. New York: Viking, 2006. Print.

Puchner, Martin. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Third ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. Print.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. “Confessions." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Third ed. Vol. 1. New York: W. W. Norton, 2013. 381-401. Print.

Waldman, Steven. Founding Faith: How Our Founding Fathers Forged a Radical New
Approach to Religious Liberty. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2009. Print.

Wolf, Naomi. The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Pub., 2007. Print.

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Christianity Applied Chapter 6: The Almighty Grudge

One of the central principles around which the Christian religion (and many others, for that matter) is built is the idea of forgiveness. Whether we are seeking forgiveness for our sins, asking for forgiveness on behalf of others, looking to relieve ourselves of guilt, or even just trying to ease our minds and find a degree of inner peace, forgiveness is the path along which we approach God as we ask Him to ease our pain.

Too often, however, we confess our sins, we ask for forgiveness or seek to release our grudges by leaving them at the foot of God’s almighty throne, only to pick them right back up and take them with us as we leave the throne room.

The question, then, is why do we insist on doing God’s work for Him? Do we not believe that God is powerful enough to handle our particular problem? Do we think we’ll handle it better? If so, why take it to God in the first place? Do we just not know how to actually let go?

Admittedly, it isn’t easy. If it were easy, self-help books wouldn’t be the billion-dollar industry that they are. We want to relieve stress by letting go of our problems and putting the past behind us. We want to be able to forgive ourselves for our past mistakes and poor choices to better enable us to think clearly about the future.  We want to get past the addictions and bad habits that often stand between us and the better, more evolved people we aspire to be, yet when it comes right down to it, we are unwilling to take the final step in the process.

We are unwilling to let go.

Fortunately, this is not a new problem facing humanity. Like the other questions we have explored, our ancestors have wrestled and struggled with forgiveness for as far back as we have any way of knowing what people have struggled with. Again, we can turn to the Bible and find wisdom and a few answers to the dilemma of truly forgiving others and forgiving ourselves.

I think it starts with wanting God to forgive us and help us to forgive, but then not being willing to let Him handle it. We really seem to want equivocation, vengeance, when we ask for forgiveness. Lord, make the score even, please!

We need to learn that when we ask God to handle it, we have to trust that it will be handled.

The problem may be that we think in economic terms.  You get what you pay for.  There is no free lunch, as the popular saying goes.  For the world to be fair, people have to pay for their mistakes.  So we see the whole sin and forgiveness thing in economic terms.  If you run into the back of my car while you’re texting, you’re responsible for repairing my car, my medical injuries, the income I lose while I’m recovering, a rental replacement car for me to drive while my car is being repaired, compensating me for pain and anguish, and if I have to sue you to get you to pay for the way that you’ve “sinned against me,” then you pay my lawyer’s fees, as well.  Fine.  By your stupidity and recklessness you’ve done me great economic harm and you should pay economically.

But let’s consider another personal offense.  Your spouse is out with the gang while you’re out of town on business.  After having a couple of drinks too many, and feeling lonely and left to deal with everything while you’re out of town, your spouse ends up sleeping with your best friend – and you find out.  Here again, we tend to look at the situation in terms of a transaction.  If we’re totally unforgiving, we sue for divorce and we expect to get the house, the better car, the kids, generous child support, and the savings account in the settlement.  He/she is going to pay!  It’s a transaction.  After the shock and pain diminish a bit, you might be willing to try to work things out, but that means negotiation and transactions.  He/she has to convince you that they’re really, really sorry about what they’ve done, they’ve got to swear that it will never happen again, there’s no more going out with the gang when you have to be out of town, and most important of all, they have to ask (beg?) you to forgive them.  No money is involved, but it’s still a transaction.

The French philosopher Voltaire wisely observed, “If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.”  That’s certainly true.  We often, perhaps always, think of God as being just like us, only older and stronger.  But as Karl Barth put it, God is not man writ large. 

In 2 Corinthians 5:15, Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, “He [Jesus] died for the sake of all so that those who are alive should live not for themselves but for the one who died for them and was raised.”  Paul says that Jesus died for the sake of all.  Right away, we often fail to think clearly about this.  We say, “Jesus died for my sins.”  We say to someone else, “Jesus died for you.”  It’s always about an individual, but Paul said, “Jesus died for the sake of all.  “All” is a very big word, even if it is only three letters long.  All.  You will never meet anybody, you will never see a news story about anybody, you will never hear about anybody who isn’t included in the word “all.”  All includes the newscaster you just can’t stand, the dirty, smelly person pushing the grocery cart filled with garbage bags containing all they own, the rich snob who doesn’t know you exist and doesn’t care, the drug user who abuses his children, the ex-spouse who hurt you to the quick.  All goes places we don’t even want to think about.

           

Now, why would Jesus die for the sake of all?  The rest of verse fifteen gives the reason – and Paul doesn’t say what we might expect.  Paul says that Jesus did this so that we would live not for ourselves, but for Jesus.  All this time you’ve been wondering where the expression, “It ain’t about you!” came from.  Well, here it is.  Paul says, “It ain’t about you.  Stop living for yourself.  Live for Jesus.”  “Live for Jesus” is catchy phrase, but like that little word all, it’s bigger than we might think.  Living for Jesus isn’t just about singing a powerful praise chorus seventeen times until everyone has a mildly hypnotic and ecstatic experience.  That’d be about our internal feeling, not our outward love.  Paul says in verse fourteen, “The love of Christ controls us,” but that doesn’t mean that we’re to be all focused on ways to say and sing, “I love you Jesus.”  No, Paul is saying that Christ’s love, the love that Jesus showed, is to take charge of how we love.                

“Therefore,” says Paul, “from now on, we won’t see people by human standards. We used to see Jesus by human standards.” It was important to us that he was a descendant of David. We judged his actions with regard to detailed interpretations of the law regarding the Sabbath. We worried about the company he kept, and whether he was off his rocker at times, but that isn’t how we know him now. Now we realize that he was so filled with God’s Spirit that it was no wonder that he didn’t act like most people. And now we understand that seeing people in light of human standards isn’t what we need to be doing. We need to be inspired and moved by the love that Christ showed, and then we, too, will be motivated to show that same love to others. Jesus was all about all, not just about some. In fact, Jesus said if we love just our friends and family who are nice to us, so what? Murderers, thieves, and all kinds of evil acting people do that. 

That’s acting by human standards, but Jesus loved strangers. He ate with pompous people who thought they were better than anybody else. He talked to despicable Samaritans and those hated Roman army officers. He sought out greedy tax collectors to eat with them. Jesus was all about all.

           

Paul goes on to say, “This changes everything.”  This is a different way of seeing each other; this is different from the world you’ve known.  This isn’t how Caesar’s Roman Empire works, this isn’t the dog-eat-dog relationship that you see all around you, this isn’t tit-for-tat, this isn’t grab all you can because you’re afraid someone else will get it.  This isn’t about you.  It’s about all.  This is a whole ‘nother country – this is God’s world, this is God’s kingdom. This way of seeing the world, this way of seeing each other, this way of living is from God. 

           

Some of us worry about what God thinks of us.  We’ve been told that we need to “get right with God.”  And we can fret and worry and try to figure out if we’re good enough for God to like us.  It can consume us to try to figure out what the minimum standards are for us to have paid up eternal fire insurance.  What does our ticket to “glory land” cost?  Whatever way we express it, what we’re trying to do is feel like we’re reconciled with God, but Paul has more gospel, more good news to share with us. 2 Corinthians 5:19   “God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people's sins against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation.”  God has reconciled us to himself through Christ by not counting people’s sins against them.  That’s what it says.  We just can’t seem to believe it, but that’s what Paul says.  God isn’t out to get us.  God is out to save us. We just can’t seem to get that through our heads.  We can’t imagine that much love.  We can’t let go of our guilt.  We can’t imagine a relationship where vengeance isn’t even a factor in the equation. But Paul says God has reconciled us to himself. 

           

That being said, do we just close our Bibles, and forget about God because our future is signed and sealed?  Is this kind of like having your gall bladder removed – now you never have to even give gallstones a moment’s thought?   Well, no.  We’ve been given something to do.  We’ve been given a ministry.  We might expect Paul to say that now we have the ministry of saving souls, or the ministry of bring people to Christ.  But Paul says that we have been given the ministry, the task, of reconciliation.  We’ve been trusted with the message of reconciliation. That’s what Jesus did.  He went about doing reconciliation.  Now we are ambassadors who represent Christ. What we’ve received, we’re to give to others.  We can think of this as paying it forward, or we might think of it as paying it outward. 

           

How can we spread the message of reconciliation?  On a huge scale, that’s what was done in South Africa after the end of apartheid. Instead of seeking revenge for all of the beatings and killings in the streets – or in the courts – a system was set up to promote reconciliation.  Instead of being mired in a blood bath for years, South Africa experienced peace.  At the end of World War II, instead of imposing reparations on the defeated Axis, the Marshall Plan provided help and promoted reconciliation.  We’d do well to remember that we’re to be ambassadors of reconciliation.

This is just as important in our personal lives.  It should color the way we talk about our ex-spouse, especially in front of our children.  It needs to affect how we look at the person down the street who has an accent, the man or woman who is trying to keep their family together on a part-time minimum wage job, the young adult who made a really bad choice and is now suffering from addiction.  Reconciliation is found in offering love and compassion instead of dispensing guilt and judgment.  Reconciliation is about seeing worth where many would only see worthlessness.  Reconciliation is when we see others though the eyes of Jesus and treat them in a manner reflective of the way Jesus treated even those deemed as incredibly unworthy. 

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Is Democracy A Failure in America?

According to a recent round of Gallop polls, our representatives in Washington, D.C. have an unprecedented opportunity to execute some important legislation before the end of the year.

Poll number one asked Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike where they stood on stricter background checks for individuals looking to buy a gun. The results were as follows:

83 percent of Democrats said they supported stricter background checks.

81 percent of Republicans voted to support stricter background checks.

80 percent of Independents thought stricter background checks were needed.

On issue number one, 81 percent of all voters polled were in support of stricter background checks, which should send a clear message to Washington that it’s time to pass better legislation regarding how Americans acquire handguns.

Poll number two asked registered voters if they believed that gay and lesbian workers should be protected from discrimination based on sexual preference. The results were as follows:

80 percent of Democrats were against discrimination in the workplace.

75 percent of Independents were against such discrimination, as well.

60 percent of Republicans were on board with equality in the workplace.

On issue number two, 73 percent of all registered voters polled said they opposed discriminating people based on their sexual preference, sending another clear message to our legislators that it’s time to eliminate discrimination in the workplace.

Poll number three asked registered voters if they were in favor of an established path to citizenship for illegal immigrants to America. Even on this heated issue there was considerable agreement on which course of action to take.

86 percent of Democrats were in favor of a path to citizenship.

88 percent of Independents concurred.

86 percent of Republicans (don’t adjust your screen!) agreed.

On issue number three, an overwhelming majority of 87 percent of registered voters polled were in favor of providing a path to citizenship for workers currently living in America illegally.

In our fourth and final poll, registered voters were asked if they favored raising the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour from its current $7.25 per hour.

91 percent of Democrats sad they were in favor of the raise.

76 percent of Independents agreed it is time to raise the minimum wage.

58 percent of Republicans concurred.

Overall, on issue number four, 76 percent of registered voters said they felt it was time to raise the federal minimum wage, and agreed to the $9 per hour figure.

In a true representative government, the next steps would be fairly straightforward. We elect people to go to Washington and make sure that our best interests are represented by passing laws that reflect those interests. Whether or not you agree with the four issues represented in the polls above, you can’t argue that the American people are unsure about those four issues. An overwhelming majority opinion is clear in all four cases, which means that there is a mandate to have all four issues passed into law.

It won’t surprise anyone who pays much attention to politics to learn that not a single one of these issues is likely to be addressed any time soon, and certainly not before the end of the year. If recent history holds, any version of these laws that might actually get through Congress would likely be so watered down as to be completely ineffective anyway.

What we have in Washington is an “us against them” mentality that pervades the entire operation of government. We have one small minority of one of the major parties that is currently dictating the agenda for that party, which is inexcusable. Party leadership should be held accountable by its membership and thrown out in favor of someone who can unite the party. That person must then make it his or her business to work with members of the opposition party to craft compromises that allow important legislation to pass into law.

This is not government.

It is certainly not representative government.

Whatever the reason, be it the corruption of our political system by the corporations that truly rule the world, or just an unwillingness for one of our two political parties to silence their backward-thinking minority and participate in governance, America's system of government simply doesn't work.




An outsider looking at America as a model of democracy would have to conclude that it is an ineffective system of government in a society where greed is the ultimate driving force. Money and special interests simply drown out the voices of the governed.

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Art of the 1980's

Celebrating the Art of the 1980's

Music of the 80's

There is no art form that ingrains itself in the heart and soul like music, and the 80’s were featured some of the all-time great icons of pop music. Madonna pushed the limits of socially acceptable stage shows with her “Like A Virgin” album, videos and tour.

 

 Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” earned him the title “King of Pop,” which he retains even posthumously.

Phil Collins was not only one of the top stars as a solo artist and as the lead singer of the band Genesis, he also became one of the top movie soundtrack talents.

 

 Hall and Oats were the most popular band of the decade after topping the charts repeatedly in the 70’s.

 

Billy Joel may be best known for his Piano Man hit from the 70’s, he established himself as one of the most popular singers of all time with his 80’s hits that included “Uptown Girl,” “The Longest Time,” “Innocent Man” and “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

Music often becomes the voice of a generation, and for those of us who were raised in the 80’s these artists represent the soundtrack of our lives. What’s more, their enduring popularity among the following generations shows that they reached a level of artistry that spans more than just their own era.

Movies of the 80's

Just as the 1980’s brought us iconic music stars, it was also a golden age of film. New technologies and visionary directors brought us an array of films that became multi-generational hits. Steven Spielberg laid the foundation of a career that would lead to his reputation of one of Hollywood’s all-time best with films like “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “E.T. The Extraterrestrial.”

 

George Lucas brought us the second and third films in his genre-busting “Star Wars” saga, the second of which, “The Empire Strikes Back,” is widely regarded as the best science fiction film ever made. 

“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” gave the youth of America a hero, one who wasn’t afraid to buck the system in favor of the freedom of self-expression. Bueller and his friends even take in an art museum, reinforcing this film as a work of art in and of itself.

“Driving Miss Daisy” is a proven and enduring classic, both on the Broadway stage and as a film that made Morgan Freeman sought-after actor. It addressed one of our culture’s biggest issues, that of defining people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.

Artists of the 1980's

The 1980’s also featured some interesting and influential visual artists, and what follows are some representative samples of the work of those artists. The works themselves are probably familiar, even if the names might not all be as familiar.

 

Jasper Johns

Keith Haring

William de Kooning 

 

Andy Warhol

Roy Lichtenstein

Authors of the 1980's

As much as music, movies and the visual arts have an impact on our senses, so, too do great books. Carl Sagan’s body of work regarding space and the human journey were ground-breaking and are incredibly influential even after his death. 

In the fiction realm, no author has ever captured the darker side of human nature the way Stephen King has, while Tom Clancy and James A. Michener also gained huge and sustained success with their detailed masterpieces. The writings of all three, and particularly King, have inspired a long list of films, as well.

To call Bill Cosby an author is to unfairly minimize his contribution to society, but he had a number of bestsellers in the 80’s. He was also the star of one of the top TV shows of the decade, “The Cosby Show,” and became an important voice of social activism for African-Americans, in particular. He remains one of America’s most beloved figures.

The End

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NBA Player With MS Inspires Aspiring Writer

The following interview and story was written by a former intern of mine, Zach Lewis. Zach has spina bifida, and is working hard to get out of his wheelchair and chase his dream of being a journalist. He found inspiration in the story of NBA player Chris Wright, and I hope you'll find Zach's piece inspiring, too. - Bill 

As he comes into the locker room from pregame shootaround, takes a drink from his water bottle and relaxes in the leather chair in front of his locker, newcomer Chris Wright seems like any other player just trying to make the Dallas Mavericks. However, it was nearly a year ago when Wright started experiencing things unlike any other player… things would leave him barely even able walk.

Last March while playing basketball over in Turkey, Wright was running sprints in practice. As he went down to touch the line, he slipped.

That slip would change his life.

"My foot gave out and I thought nothing of it,” Wright said. “I thought I just slipped, but eventually it got worse and I had numbness in my right foot, and then it started the next month to progress to the whole right side of my body. I lost basically all sensation, and I went to the doctor and that’s when they diagnosed me with Multiple Sclerosis,”

Multiple Sclerosis or MS is a neurological disease which impacts the brain and spinal cord when the protective sheaths around the nerves are damaged. Common symptoms of MS include numbness, fatigue, loss of balance, blurred vision, poor coordination and problems with memory and focus. In severe cases, MS can cause paralysis and there is no known cure.

Wright originally was told by Turkish doctors that his basketball career was finished but that thought didn’t sit well with him. He had two things that no doctor could give him: Faith in the Lord and the will to overcome.

"The doctors told me that (my career was over), but I didn't think so. I just knew it'd be a process, and when I got back, it'd be a good story," he said.

While in Turkey, Wright had to take cortisone shots for about 10 days before he could travel back home. He really wasn’t able to walk and wasn’t able to do too much on his own, but the cortisone shots relieved the pain so he could start getting back on his feet again.

“Then I took about two-and-a-half months off from playing just to get myself together and figure out what medicine I was going to use and figure out how I was going to go about things, because a few doctors told me that I wouldn’t be able to play again. So once I did that, I got back on my feet and started the process,” said Wright.

Wright disease is in remission. He takes a drug called Tysabri, which he says is the strongest MS medicine, and has not had an episode since the one in Turkey, which lasted two weeks. He also visits a specialist for a checkup every six months.

"(Tysabri) is an IV injection I take once a month, Wright explained. “It’s about a two-hour process and it’s something I have to do for the rest of my life. There's not a cure for MS. Can there be a relapse? Absolutely. But with the way I've been progressing and the way my body has been, it helps that I'm an athlete as well, it reduces the risk of that happening again. I just go from there and see what happens.”

The climactic moment in Wright’s journey came last week when the Mavericks called him up from the D-League and signed him to a 10-day contract. With that he became the first known NBA player to acknowledge having MS. Ironically, or as fate would have it, he was called up during MS Awareness Week.

"Everything kind of happened at the right time,” Wright smiled. ”It’s not a coincidence that I got called up during MS week, and I played during MS week, and I had my family with me when I got called up all during MS week.

His first field goal came against Cleveland when Wright scored two points while playing the final precious seconds in the Mavericks’ 96-86 victory.

"That’s why you believe in a higher authority,” he said. “And God blessed me, so I feel great.”

Since joining the Mavericks, Wright continues to inspire and motivate not just his teammates but the entire organization.

"It’s incredible that he’s able to fight through it and be fit and still play professional basketball,” forward Dirk Nowitzki said. "That’s a great story and I think everybody’s happy for him. It’s inspirational, so hopefully he’ll be OK for a long time. He seems like a really stress-free and a cool dude, and we wish him the best and hopefully he can succeed.”

Head coach Rick Carlisle also had praises for the 6-1 guard.

"It shows determination and an element of resourcefulness, which I think is a very important quality on any NBA team, to have as many resourceful guys as you can,” said Carlisle. “I know he's very pleased to have this opportunity. And it's going to give inspiration to others that may have similar conditions."

Since his diagnosis, Wright has learned about MS. His desire is to be one of the advocates for the disease and also help raise awareness as well. Wright wants to help raise the necessary funds so that one day doctors may find a cure for a disease that causes the nerves in the central nervous system to degenerate. He knows many people look up to professional athletes and views them as role models.

"I knew I wasn’t going to shy away from my story, because my story is part of me, and I didn’t know the impact that it would have, but I’m glad that it’s inspirational to a lot of people,” Wright explained. “And I’m definitely going to get heavily involved with MS and try to bring as much awareness and notoriety to it as possible. It’s a big platform for me and it’s something that I definitely cherish. One of my goals was to get here and to finally be on an NBA team, and to just show people with MS and give people hope that they can do what they want.”

Wright has since been released by the Mavericks, but wherever his next basketball home is he will continue to inspire others with similar setbacks to work hard to overcome as they chase their dreams.

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Christianity Applied Chapter 5: What Is Heaven, Anyway?

I vividly remember the time it occurred to me to ask my mom what it meant to go to Heaven. We were driving to my grandparents’ house in San Antonio, and we were probably a block or two away. I’d been thinking about it for much of the drive from our home in Houston, and I finally just spit it out.

“Mom, what do we do in Heaven?”

The fact that I so vividly remember asking the question but have absolutely no recollection of the answer is probably telling, but I was legitimately concerned. Do we all sit on clouds and play harps for eternity, as is depicted in so many paintings? That seems a little boring. I mean, I like harp music as much as anyone, but eternity is a long time and doing pretty much any one thing for that long would have to wear on a person . . .er . . .angel.

Do we return to Earth to visit the living, perhaps setting up interviews with additional ghosts who will convince evil-doers to change their ways via glimpses of the past, present and future?

One of my favorite TV shows growing up was Michael Landon’s “Highway To Heaven,” so perhaps we have the option to come back as travelers, wandering the world working miracles and doing good?

Do we hang out with our loved ones who went before? If so, are we all old and stooped, or do we get to live in Heavenly equivalents of our youthful bodies for all eternity? What fun would it be to sit around on clouds, so old we can barely stand to just sit?

As we have done with all of our questions, let’s take a look at what our ancient ancestors had to say about this complex question.  That won’t take long. The Old Testament says almost nothing about an afterlife of any sort.  Generally, there are passages about going down to sheol , which was simply the place of the dead, not just the good dead or the bad dead, but the dead.  Most of the time, when the word heaven is used it clearly refers to the sky, not an afterlife residence.

Actually, the New Testament isn’t much help, either. Almost all of what we picture about heaven or hell is the cultural picture we've accumulated over time.  Scripture does mention angels (the word literally means “messenger”) but there’s no indication that angels are good people who’ve died and been rewarded with harps and wings.  There’s nothing about sitting on clouds.  Even some of the things that are mentioned in scripture are more likely to be metaphorical, figurative speech rather than literal descriptions of a physical attribute.  The reference to streets of gold is one example of that.  They are mentioned in Revelation 21:21 where it says that, "the street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass."  Gold can be pure, but it is never transparent.  Obviously, poetic speech is intended here, not literal facts.

We build stories and jokes around the heaven we want, instead of the few hints we find in the Bible.  For example, at funerals people often talk about seeing those who have died earlier when you get there.  It’s comforting to talk about how Mom will be welcomed by Dad, whom she has missed terribly since he died five years ago.  There are old gospel songs that sing about seeing Mom when I die.  But in Matthew chapter 22, Jesus is asked about a case of a woman who was widowed and married repeatedly.  Whose wife will she be in the afterlife is the question put to Jesus.  He replies that there is no marriage in the afterlife, but people will be like angels, which seems to mean that angels live independent, perhaps asexual, lives.  Some people would picture an unending life without sex (as they have been subjected to it) as heavenly – others would picture life without sex as hell.

In Revelation chapter 21 there is a description of heaven.  This is the only place where gates of pearl are mentioned and it is the roots of our expression about the pearly gates.  Each gate is made from a single pearl and there are twelve gates.  It sounds like it would be difficult for St. Peter to be the gate keeper when you read that there are three gates on each side of a square walled city, 1500 miles on each side. The questions quickly arise: What all have we dreamt up about heaven over the years?  What descriptions in scripture are poetic speech, and which are factual in some way?  The wisest approach may well be that suggested by Reinhold Niebuhr, who said that we shouldn’t worry a lot about the furniture of heaven or the temperature of hell.

The question in everybody’s mind is, who ends up in each destination, who is in glory, who is in torment?  Or, put differently, what do I have to do, how good do I have to be, to go to heaven?   There are a wide variety of suggested answers to those questions.
   
As a child, I heard a lot of sermons about the straight and narrow path to heaven and the broad superhighway to hell.  Maybe you did, too.  Many people understand that only a small portion of humanity will be saved in heaven - and that hell will have a much larger population.  The most extreme form of this view says that there will only be 144,000 souls in heaven.  That number is based on Revelation 14:1- 4 where verse three speaks of “the 144,000 who have been redeemed from the earth.”  What doesn’t get mentioned very often is that the next verse says that these are people who have not defiled themselves with women -  and they are all virgins.  Reading this passage as an exact and literal description of heaven’s citizens  is not good news for almost all of us.  However, nowhere else are we told that non-virgins need not apply!  In Revelation 7:4, we're told that there will be 144,000 from the tribes of Israel.  Perhaps we're to understand this as an additional group, bringing the total to 288,000.  Even so, this is a pretty small number, roughly two people out of every million of all the people who have ever lived.  That would be 600 people in the whole US today.  I think if that were really the situation, a lot of people would say, “why even try, if the odds are that steep and you have to either be a Jew or a virgin?” 

Obviously, I think claiming that 144 thousand or 288 thousand are all that will be going to heaven is a misuse of scripture; in fact, it’s manipulative and toxic.  Preaching that tiny number to be saved will either motivate people with great fear and anxiety to do exactly as they are taught, or cause them to give up on God in despair.  But, we can see that taking these small numbers as exact really is a misuse of the Bible.   Chapter 7 in Revelation also says, “After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.” (Rev. 7:9)  A great multitude, too big to count, from every race, every ethnic group, every nation, and every language – that's truly massive and truly inclusive.  It also agrees with other scriptures that describe God’s dream, God's hopes and plans for the creatures he made in his own image.

Many of us are familiar with John 3:16, which reads, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.  The next verse is just as important, but less often quoted,  John 3:17 NRS  "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."  God's intent, God's purpose in sending Jesus is not to condemn, but to save.  It doesn’t say, "For God was so disgusted with people that he sent his only Son, that whoever never heard of him or didn’t obey him in every detail, would be in terrible agony for time without end.  You mess up some time in your 70 years and God will make you pay with excruciating pain for thousands and thousands of years." 

Think about how Jesus lived his life.  He didn't go around condemning people.  He went around healing people, feeding people, comforting and blessing people.  Think about how Christ loved outsiders, how he hung out with day laborers, prostitutes, thieving tax collectors, crazy folks, lepers, and the poor.  We tend to see Christianity as a religion that limits God's love to people on the inside, to the believers, to those who belong to some specific group.  What if we saw Christianity as a religion where people spend a lot of their time and energy in the same way that Christ did?
   
How good do we have to be to have God's approval?  The eleventh chapter of Hebrews has an interesting list of people who had that approval.  There's Abraham, who told people that his wife was his sister and let Pharaoh add her to his harem.  Abraham gave up on God's promise of a son and took a concubine to have a son.  There's Rahab who worked at the world's oldest profession, Samson the womanizer, David the murderer and adulterer, and Jephthah who sacrificed his own daughter.  These are people who are held up as examples of those who had God's approval.  How good do we have to be?  This list should impress us with God's unimaginable mercy and forgiveness.
   
How merciful is God?  While Revelation mentions 144 thousand Jews being saved, Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, chapter eleven, verse 26, that all Jews will be saved.  That's pretty audacious!  What about people who aren't Jews, and who have never heard of Jesus?  Turning again to Paul's letter to the Romans, we find in chapter two that "14  When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. 15 They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts."  Emil Brunner noted in his commentary on Romans that everybody knows something about right and wrong, or good and evil.  This passage offers a lot of hope for those who instinctively seek to do what's right and who love their neighbor as themselves.   This passage also reminds us that God's favor doesn't rest on one nation alone, or on one culture or ethnic group.

There are some texts in the Bible that stretch God's mercy and pardon beyond our ability to comprehend.  1Timothy 2:3-6 reads, "This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, 6 who gave himself a ransom for all."  This passage clearly says that God wants everybody to be saved.  With overflowing love God pursues each and every one of us, the good and especially the bad.

An even bolder claim is made two chapters later.  1 Timothy 4:10 NRS  "For to this end we toil and struggle, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe."  The phrase "savior of all" certainly claims again that God doesn't have a favorite race, ethnic group, or nation.  When "Savior of all" is followed by "especially of those who believe" then the surprising thought expressed is that God is also the Savior of unbelievers, as well.  Some people read this passage and understand it to say that all people, both unbelievers and believers, will be saved.  That's certainly a radical interpretation, but with that in mind, read the scripture again.  ". . . we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe." 
   
We find the same sort of pronouncement in Titus 2:11.  "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all."  In this text, too, we can hear the concept of universal salvation.  You might protest, "But that isn't fair.  Evil people should be punished and good people should be rewarded." I agree, it isn't fair, but it's a risky thing to ask God to be fair.  We might not be as good as we think we are.  Don't pray for God to be fair, pray for God to be forgiving! 
   
"But it isn't rational," you may say.  Again, I agree.  It isn't rational.  But it wasn't rational for God to choose a tiny, weak, and flawed people to be a light to the nations of the world.  It wasn't rational for God to repeatedly forgive the people of Israel despite all of their complaining, railing against God, and generally being ungrateful pains in the neck in the wilderness of Sinai.  It wasn't rational for God to come in the flesh of a poor peasant in a dirt water town in the boondocks of a conquered country.  And it isn't rational of God to forgive us for ignoring our Lord Monday through Saturday and then complaining if worship takes more than an hour out of our Sunday! 

Be glad that God isn't rational. 

Before we complain that God might save someone who is less deserving than us, we need to be very glad that God is merciful and generous, and that God can choose to do whatever God wants to do without being restricted to fairness or logic.
   
Don't fret that someone who doesn't deserve it might make it to heaven.  Don't worry about that one bit – because it is bound to happen!  After all, you will be there!  The Apostle Paul explained the good news of the gospel this way.  He told the folks in Corinth, "in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them."  God was doing the reconciling, not us.  God wasn't counting up their sins and keeping score.  That's good news for all of us.  "O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good; for his mercy endureth forever." (1 Chronicles 16:34, among several texts)
   
Scripture gives us various descriptions of who is going to heaven, but the overarching theme of the Bible is that God has loved us from the beginning, God has been patient beyond belief, and God has pursued us and forgiven us of terrible misbehavior.  It is God's prerogative to draw the circle around the saved – and God will draw the circle larger than we would.  Don’t focus too much on heaven.  Don’t be so preoccupied with heaven that all you think about is whether you will get there.

Don’t be so preoccupied with the future that you fail to live in the present.  Some people are so focused on their final destination that they fail to enjoy the journey.  Returning again to the twenty-first chapter of Revelation, we find an interesting description of where heaven is located. "2 I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 I heard a loud voice from the throne say, "Look! God's dwelling is here with humankind. He will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples. God himself will be with them as their God." This passage says two intriguing things.  First, rather than us "rising" to heaven, heaven descends to earth.
 
Second, instead of us going to live with God, it says that God will live with us. This isn't the way heaven is portrayed in our culture, as some sort of escape off to an eternal vacation.  The passage goes on to talk about transformation."4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. There will be no mourning, crying, or pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.5 Then the one seated on the throne said, 'Look! I'm making all things new.'"  Madeline L’Engle noted in her book, The Rock That Is Higher, “Heaven is wherever and whenever God is present; when he is present within us, then heaven is within us. . . .  It is that place where our souls continue to be taught to grow in love and wisdom.”  L'Engle proposes that the verses in Revelation refer, not to a distant future in a distant place, but to a possible immediate future here and now.  God's place is with humankind says Revelation.  L'Engle says, yes, within us.  That does indeed, "make all things new."  It makes us new.  It makes how we see the world new.  It makes how we see other people new.  It makes how we treat each other new.

We can be so wrapped up in looking for salvation later that we fail to live in salvation now.  We can be so heavenly minded that we’re no earthly good.  God isn’t out to get you – God’s out to save you.  We don’t get what we deserve – we get forgiven!  "O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good; for his mercy endures forever."
Finally, as we struggle to comprehend what Heaven might be like, we can listen to the words of Jesus Christ, who, when asked about the kingdom to come responded, "Nor will people say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There it is!' Don't you see? God's kingdom is already inside you." (Luke 17:21)

It seems to be a defining characteristic of the human race that we enjoy intertwining our history with our mythology and then conflating the two. The popular vision of Heaven that we see in Christian book stores, on stained glass windows and even on greeting cards is little more than an example of this phenomenon, as we have seen. With that in mind, we are better served by focusing on the here and now, on getting ourselves right with our God and leaving the afterlife, whatever that may be, to Him.

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