Striking at Syria!

I think my new favorite question is:  Just what would you like me/us to do?

There are many sad situations in this world.  Our hearts grieve as we see them.  

But there is a diabolical heresy out there that, just because you are the person/nation with the most resources in a situation, you owe everyone your help.

Sometimes people even think you should go beyond offering help and force help on people.  

This is all the result of us not learning proper boundaries.  Sometimes, in a fallen world, choices backfire.  But we have become a world of professional rescuers, often rushing in unbidden to save people from themselves when they have not solicited our help.  

Syria is one such example.  Yes, the rebels have asked for our help several times along the way but . . . 

Syria is a sovereign nation.  If we throw our lot in with the rebels, we are deciding for regime change in a sovereign nation.  Do we really want to do that?

I am old enough to remember a few times that didn’t work out particularly well.  We sided with the Shah of Iran, we sided with Battista in Cuba, we sided with the Contras in Nicaragua, we sided with Mubarak in Egypt . . .

Any regime can turn murderous.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely, remember?  It doesn’t matter if it is Islamist power, fundamental Christian power, power among secularists, or power in a police state.  Give people unlimited power over other people and see what eventually happens.  

We are naive when we believe that forcing an imbalance of power in a country can solve anything long term.  And when things explode, the U.S. gets blamed. 

So . . . should we go in unilaterally and bomb Syria because they deployed chemical weapons against their own populace?  Should we do it without even consulting our own Congress under the war powers acts?

Heavens no.

Just because we have weapons that could inflict extensive damage on Syria from a good standoff distance does not mean it is wise to do it.  

How did this become the U.S.’s issue?  It is an outrage that chemical weapons have been deployed in Syria.  But it is an outrage for the U.N.  

If we take this on, unilaterally, we neuter the U.N.  Let them do their job.

To will make an analogy to a family situation I observed last night.  Someone publicly upbraided a pastor for not disciplining a man for unfaithfulness to his wife . . . after the family had dropped their church membership in this pastor’s church.  

Really?  

Where would this pastor get his authority to do anything in a home that did not choose to be affiliated with his church?  

Yet, such is our boundarylessness in the modern era that a daughter of this family was publicly slandering the pastor on Facebook for not forcing her father to stop his evil actions.  

Again, I ask my question:  Just what would you like him/us/me to do?

It is heartbreaking to be a familymember when unfaithfulness in a marriage rears its ugly head.  But the only people empowered to help are people the family has accepted into its circle.  Their former pastor doesn’t qualify. 

Let’s find the appropriate people/nations/entities to involve in our difficulties.  

There are many sad situations in this world requiring assistance.  But we need to find someone who is actually involved in the situation before demanding that actions be taken.

Go, U.N.!  

Striking at McDonald’s

My husband and I went to our favorite breakfast place, the Broken Egg Bistro in Chesapeake, Virginia, after our Weight Watchers weigh-in today.

As we thought about our lifestyle as Americans in 2013, we remarked on the fact that our breakfasts at Broken Egg, $7.99 for my French toast, hash browns, and bacon, and $8.99 for his skillet, were about the same price as we would pay at McDonalds, except at McD’s you pick up your own food at the counter and don’t leave a tip!!!

Obviously our breakfasts tasted much better at this most popular mom-and-pop’s breakfast spot in Hampton Roads than they would have at McD’s, with its prepared, prepackaged everything.

So where is the incentive to go to McD’s? The food is no faster there. We were in and out of Broken Egg in half an hour.

Why go to McD’s? To avoid paying a tip?

I think that the strikes of fast food workers in New York City this week taught us a valuable lesson. In order to keep the prices where they are at McD’s (and not raise them higher than mom-and-pop places serving fresh food), they have to pay minimum wage. Meaning less than $10 an hour, which is less than $400 for fulltime work.

No one can live on that, but no one was meant to live on that. It was meant to be entry level work.

If McD’s decides to accommodate the strikers, their options appear to be to either raise wages to $15 an hour, in which case their prices will rise much, much higher, or they could convert to traditional restaurants with waiters and waitresses who work for a lower wage plus tips.

No one is pointing out that that could be the unintended outcome of these strikes. They may bring an end to the fast food industry as we have known it since the 1950’s (McD’s is nearly as old as I am).

But the world is full of unintended consequences these days. As businesses are required to provide health care for fulltime employees, many are cutting everyone back to part time status, too.

It is quickly becoming a world where a person can work 25 hours a week at Burger King, go across the street and work 25 hours a week at McD’s, and still not earn a living . . .

God help us! We surely do need jobs on which young families can live, but I am not sure that just demanding them is going to solve any more problems than it creates . . .

For Monk-ophiles: Check out Foyle’s War

I, a longtime Monk-ophile, have found another totally addictive detective show to follow on Netflix.  It is Foyle’s War, a BBC detective show set on the South Coast of England during World War II, before the U.S. entered the war.  Mmmmmmm, exquisite stuff.

I just found out Foyle’s War has been on PBS.  And it is coming back in early September at 9:00 on Sunday nights for about four weeks.  

The way the series has been made, since about 2002, is to film 2-4 1.5 hour segments in Britain.  They are sometimes divided when shown in the States.

Kind of like movies, with a constant ensemble of characters.

Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle is an older man who conveys his thoughts with quiet mannerisms, usually a quick blink or a raised eyebrow when he figures out a case. He is very like Monk in his attention to detail and in his brilliance in putting together the story line of a murder. 

His crime-solving ensemble includes Milner, a former soldier who was retired from active duty after nearly being crippled in the action in Norway, and Samantha Stewart (Sam), the “police driver” who more often than not becomes part of the action!

Additionally, Mr. Foyle’s son, Andrew, is an RAF pilot who shows up in about one-third of the episodes.  He has an on-again, off-again relationship with Sam.

As with the ensemble in Monk, the cast is very strong together.  Every viewer probably has a favorite in the cast.  Mine is Foyle himself.

I love the balance of having 3-4 characters work as a team to move the narrative ahead. The detective shows that are one-man or one-woman teams (think Columbo or Murder, She Wrote) take so much out of their lead, who has to be “on” for a straight hour every week.   

I love the clothes and period details in Foyle’s War.  It is definitely worthwhile to make it a period drama, particularly about a period with which we are all somewhat familiar.

Great show.  Try it! 

Why Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is my Hero

This video still makes me cry 50 years later. Makes me cry with its poignancy. Makes me cry with its promise. Makes me cry with its evocative qualities.

I am listening to it right now. “I Have a Dream . . .”

Today is the 50 year anniversary of that speech. And we still have so far to go in racial reconciliation. In basic respect and human dignity.

“Now is the time . . .”

Dr. Martin Luther King was introduced on that day as “the moral leader of our nation.” I believe that was true. I was raised to deny that, but I have come to believe it was true.
If not, who was? John F. Kennedy? Lyndon B. Johnson? Richard M. Nixon?

I am aware that Dr. King most certainly had extramarital affairs. My relatives brought that up as I was growing up as their objection to making him a hero. I say that that was a double standard.

JFK had extramarital affairs, too. Only the press turned a blind eye to his affairs as the FBI followed Dr. King around, believing him to be a possible danger to our country.

Ironically, one of JFK’s affairs has subsequently been tied to someone in the mob (not saying that he had mob ties, but just that he shared a woman with a mob boss, not cool!). Yet the FBI pursued Dr. King and ignored JFK. A total double standard.

And in all that, Dr. King continued his work for racial equality. He didn’t stop to face down the FBI, he didn’t address the rumors about his personal life, he didn’t argue that what was being done to him was a double standard. He could have done that, but he did not.

He had more important work to do, and only 39 years in which to do it before someone ended his life!

Be careful what you say when you hold up a moral standard for heroes. Only Jesus Christ qualifies for that ultimately!

Certainly not many modern politicians can claim the moral high ground of being one man married to one woman for life. Even my modern hero, Ronald Reagan, divorced and remarried.

And I refuse to get into the debate of whether it is better morally to have a series of “serial marriages” or whether it is better to remain married to one person and have affairs. The Lord defined the standard as one man and one woman for life, so it is obvious that many of our generation have fallen short of his definition.

In fact, I think if we are seeking a heroic marriage in one of our heroic leaders, we might have to go all the way back to Abraham Lincoln and his tender care, for life, of his mentally ill wife. That was a touching story, for his generation and for ours. However, no president of the modern era could ever have a mentally ill wife in the White House, under the constant scrutiny of videographers. So let’s just put Lincoln in a hero class of his own forever.

I will get back to my point, with apologies for the digression. Having been raised in the culture of the 1970’s, it is necessary for me to denounce the things I was taught about Dr. King, the things people said to try to disqualify him as a hero. It is necessary for me to address those things because some members of my generation still believe them and still repeat them. I have come to vehemently disagree with those views and with those people.

Dr. King was a hero. He was willing to be jailed for his beliefs. He personified non-violent resistance. No one could dismiss him. No one could shake him. He changed our world.

Not enough change, yet, but he changed our world in many significant ways. I believe that I owe most of my warm, easy friendships with people of all races in the Navy to Dr. King’s leadership and influence.

So watch the video. Watch the introduction where blacks and whites together, with the men all clad in suits on a sweltering August day, march arm-in-arm into Washington singing “We Shall Overcome Some Day . . .”

Watch the video and weep for our potential.

Back to the Subject of Bullying: Watching my Son Struggle!

It always amazes me how God weaves a theme into our lives for several weeks at a time.  

Little did I know, last week when I wrote a couple of posts about how someone attempted to bully me and I learned to push back, that this would become the theme of several of my conversations this week.

But it has.  As I have repeated the old saying several times “Hurt people hurt people” so I have watched some things be purposely done to hurt people I love.

Yet, I have not the slightest doubt that, if I were to call any of the people who have done these hurtful things to task, I would get to hear a story about how someone first hurt them.  

We so love to justify our bullying of other people (and let us use the correct word for it–it is bullying).  

We live on a fallen planet.  God wants to grow us up into maturity, but not into hardheartedness.  So we need to learn to have compassion on hurting people.  We need to learn to not go for revenge when others lash out at us.  But we also need to learn wisdom so that we can shield the precious people we love from becoming the targets of these people who have been hurt so much that they have turned into bullies themselves . . . 

I think of a time when our sweet, naive son was about ten years old.  

He has always been so trusting, with those wide, steady brown eyes watching us in absolute confidence that we would be wise enough to tell him how to solve his problems.

 I shudder to remember the times I have fallen short, either being impatient with him or just flat out telling him I don’t know the answers.  So many questions, so many inadequacies revealed in me.  

But those wide, steady brown eyes keep watching me with confidence.

And there was that Saturday morning when a neighborhood girl, whose name shall remain unspoken (for I have no intent to embarrass her), got Joey to wake up early.  

He was around age ten and had not often interacted with this young girl.  But she told him she had a present for him.  She told him that on Friday night–said she would meet him at 8 AM on Saturday morning outside our house with the present.

I kind of saw through the story right away.  I didn’t trust it.  But how do you deal with a naive child in such a situation?  If you teach him that he is never to trust anyone, you teach him to harden his heart in advance, before anyone ever has a chance to hurt him.

I decided to give her a chance–that there was at least a possibility that she really did have something for Joey.

He hardly slept that night–he was so excited.  When a person has autism, it is not often that his peers reach out to him, so this was definitely an exciting development.  He didn’t want to oversleep and miss it.

He was standing outside of our house at 8 AM sharp.  And, just as I had suspected, the young girl never came out of her house, never brought up the present in conversation again.  

I had to look in those wide, steady brown eyes and see the disappointment of being let down.

in an ironic sort of way, I was thankful that, since Joey has mostly known kindness in his life, the letdown was a big shock to him.  If he had always been bullied, I guess he would have grown to accept that as normal.   

But nothing stops the pain in our hearts when a loved one trusts someone and gets let down, does it?

May we grow to be truly wise in protecting our loved ones from wanton hurt, while never retaliating against those who have become bullies due to being bullied themselves!  

 

 

  

 

“I’ve Been Bullied, therefore you have to accept any behavior I choose to exhibit . . .”

Had a great talk with my Sunday school ladies today, so I wanted to make sure I was crystal clear in a point I was making the other day about verbal abuse.  This point applies to any verbal abuse, whether someone is doing it to me, I am doing it to someone else, or two totally different parties (or more) are involved.

Verbal abuse/bullying is never okay.  

You should always remove yourself from any situation where verbal abuse/bullying is present (well, if it is a child too young to be left alone, you are unfortunately going to have to stay and help that child make right choices.  But otherwise . . .).  

Do not let the person make an issue of whether you have done “the right thing” in the situation until now.  The other day when I was being verbally savaged, it came down to whether I could prove I had written an email response to something that was sent to me two weeks before.  I had intended to write the response.  I probably did write it.  But I could not find a copy of that email.

And that whole issue was a red herring.  You see, even if I did forget to send that email, nothing ever justifies the torrent of abuse that person was sending my way.  

Understand?  The verbal abuser will try to tell you that you “deserve it.”  That you have done something wrong and that the verbal abuse is so that you will “get yours” in the situation.  

Wrong!  Refer back to my first two paragraphs, above.

Verbal abuse is never justified in any situation.  Full stop.

The other thing that my verbal abuser tried, once she realized (after about three seconds) that I had not the slightest intention of trying to find that email to justify myself in the situation, was dusting off her history.

It went like this, “Well, I have been abused my whole life so this is the only way I know to relate to people.”  

She immediately regretted that, I think, as I told her that, while I will always be her friend and wish her well in her journey, she has more need of a counselor right now than she has need of me (or anyone) as a friend.  

See how that works?  She was pleading, in essence, that she is too pathological to have a normal friendship.  But she wanted the sympathy vote in which I would let her get away with murder verbally and still call the relationship “friendship.”  

Instead, I suggested that, if she is that broken, she needs to work on the brokenness before she can even hold out hope of having an even relationship with another person that would be labeled “friendship.”  

That is sad.  But that is true.  

And isn’t it kindness to tell someone that, instead of letting her think she can go through life verbally attacking people who are trying to help her, then becoming puzzled when they pull away from her?

Like what did she think was going to happen?

I believe our public schools have led the way by letting people use the victim mentality so much that we now believe we can throw the “victim card” to cover any atrocious behavior we may exhibit.  

Not true.  And the way to stop that is to not accept it when someone tries that tack with us.

It is not only for our best, it is for theirs, too.  

Rage just begets more rage.  Studies have shown that.  We do people no favors by letting them vent all over us.

Regardless of their history.

Help them get straight with their history.  

Don’t let them keep on perpetuating a cycle of bullying!  That would go on forever and only diminishes everything in its path.  

Ya know?

Childhood Exposure to Pornography

Childhood Exposure to Pornography

One of the most important posts ever, as my friend Tara presents the best of the best blog entries and research about our children, even Christian children from protective homes, being exposed to explicit pornography, on the average by the age of nine!!!

We are shown how, in teaching our children to google everything rather than to ask us for information, they are learning to enter words they don’t understand, like “sex,” into a search engine. They are then directed to Google images first of all! An innocent quest for information goes astray and a serious addiction may begin . . .

Tara, who is one of the bravest and most compassionate teachers and counselors I have ever met, shares how her childhood innocence was ripped from her by pornographic images that overlaid virtually every activity she observed in her childhood.

It is happening to more and more children now.

In fact, it happened to our son with high functioning autism when he was about six or seven.

He was in our room, sitting on the floor looking at my laptop, while I put some books away in his room down the hallway. He had certain sites on which I allowed him to play as I worked nearby.

Suddenly I heard him say, “Naked people on the Internet!”

I cleared the hallway in about two leaps and was next to him, trying to back out of a four-panel picture of a couple having sex in every possible configuration. I ended up having to turn the laptop off to get out of the website.

How had my sweet, innocent son gotten there? He had a little Steiff chick/duck that was sent to him at birth by a German friend. It was his most loved, most cherished toy. And he had decided, since he had seen pictures of other Steiff chicks online, that he would surprise me by showing me other chicks like his.

Only in his innocence he thought entering chicks. com would get him to the Steiff chicks.

My heart hurts to even say that.

God help us!

The Irony of Ironing!

I iron, therefore I am.

Or something like that.

Fact is, there is something immensely calming to my soul about ironing. About moving that heavy piece of metal back and forth across fabric as the wrinkles break up and dissipate.

It is mindless and that may be its beauty. I often tend to turn to it when my mind and heart are overwhelmed. It is something I can do with my hands without having to think anymore!!! Or feel!

Thus it is with chagrin that I admit that my son is having a bear of a time learning to do his own wash at college. Much more, his own ironing.

I should have known this would be an issue. My lessons at home on washing his clothes seemed to need to be repeated step by laborious step each time he did the wash here.

I finally relented, believing that this may be one area where he just could not learn from me. I counted on him “getting it” very soon after he arrived at college.

And, mostly he is getting it now. He is scheduling his laundry and doing it, with supervision.

Except for the one time out of three he totally forgot to do it on the weekly rotation. And had to wait a week . . . Yikes!

He ran out of clean pants and texted me. Not much I could do at that point!

But what a good lesson to learn. When we don’t wash our clothes, we end up rewearing the least soiled pairs of pants for a second time until washday comes around again!

I just find it ironic that the only child of the ironing fanatic is going through this!

He will overcome that laundry beast eventually. I know he will.

Our Son is on Holy Ground!

Our Son is on Holy Ground!

The day we had anticipated, August 3, 2013, arrived just like any other day. It was strange that it didn’t seem to be totally different from the other days of our lives thus far. It was undeniably normal.

Yet, at 5:00 that afternoon, Wisconsin time, we would be departing the campus of Shepherds College, leaving our 21-year-old disabled son in the midst of strangers who were becoming fast friends.

Joey would be going to college at Shepherds. In a three-year program. Learning horticulture, and life skills, and Bible, and other academics. The four things we wanted for him in a college experience were all there, in a small-town setting. Yet close to the big city. Half an hour south of Milwaukee; an hour north of Chicago.

What a wonderful setting!

And what a history the Shepherds campus had! Begun in the 1950’s as a group home for disabled children (back in the day when parents did not keep their disabled children at home), the enthusiastic staff there had honed their skills set in working with the disabled for over fifty years.

Yet, in the early years of the new millennium, Shepherds Ministries had had to face the inevitability of death (and acute care facilities) slowly claiming the original population of the group home, as they aged into their 60’s and 70’s. Among the staff of Shepherds, so gifted in loving the disabled population, each death or departure was grieved deeply.

The leadership remained in prayer about what the mission of Shepherds could become, in an age when parents keep their disabled children at home until they reach adulthood.

Lo, the idea loomed to begin a college for people with disabilities. Not an add-on program for a state university system, with aides to shadow the disabled students, but a whole college experience geared to disabilities. And centered on Christ.

We heard the story of Shepherds College that first week of August as we parents gathered together with our offspring in the college gym, preparing to say goodbye.

We heard how it was begun in 2008, with six students. How the population has nearly doubled every subsequent year to reach the current total of 60 students. How the growth of Shepherds is off-the-scale astronomical because it is a unique ministry uniquely resonating with a population of families who come through the door and immediately become part of the Shepherds family!

It is holy ground. Holy ground inhabited by real people. People with disabilities, wanting to learn and grow and serve God with the best of their abilities. People who are called to minister to people with disabilities. Called from every corner of this nation. In fact, when the 35 or so staff fanned out across the front of the gym to dedicate themselves to God and to our children for this schoolyear, I can honestly say I have never seen such a loving, talented, dedicated group of young people all together anywhere in my life!

We fight back the tears of joy!

In fact, I shared during our time together how, when I faced breast cancer in 2008, my chemotherapy began in June, just as they were gearing up for their first schoolyear in August.

Only . . . I did not know about Shepherds then. I had heard of the group home back in the 1950’s, when my church in Michigan supported it. But I knew nothing about how the ministry had evolved since then.

And, in one of those wonderful displays of God’s sovereignty, my desperate prayer that summer of 2008 when I was afraid I might die and when I pleaded with God to help me find a place where our disabled son might belong–that prayer was answered. It was answered across the country in the small town of Union Grove, Wisconsin, in the very moment I was praying it . . .

It was answered on the holy ground of the Shepherds campus.

As my husband and I drove away that day in August, we became aware, for the first time since we found out our only child has autism, that if we had an auto accident or something else happened to us (because no one lives forever), our son would be just fine. He belongs to us, but he belongs to others now as well. He belongs to the Shepherds family. And that is a wonderful development in his life!!!

My Hero: Antoinette Tuff

My Hero: Antoinette Tuff

She remained a wave of calmness in the midst of school chaos as she talked a gunman with a semiautomatic weapon into laying his weapon down and surrendering to the police . . .

I missed seeing her on Anderson Cooper tonight, meeting the dispatcher who was on the other end of the 911 call. Wish I could have seen that.

“You Have My Permission to Walk Away . . .”

I was angry.

Angry . . . and remembering God’s command that, in our anger, we not be sinful.

I was quietly praying for wisdom as I communicated with a younger friend via Facebook Messenger.

I had mentored this young woman, who has similar disabilities to my son’s, for years.  She had idolized me for most of that time.  Then, in the moment most realistic counselors dread, she came to the point that she decided it was okay to use me as her mental punching bag, to blame all of the things that were out of control in her life on me, as though I were her god.   

I had never allowed her to make me a god in her life, whether a good one or a bad one.  And now the moment for action was here.

With tears in my eyes, I texted back that we were not going to continue this exchange until she could talk to me as one adult to another, with our dignity and respect for each other intact.

I withdrew from the conversation for the course of about three months.  When she protested that that was not necessary, I assured her that it was.  That she needed to work on herself and to stop the torrent of verbal abuse being flung at me (and at her parents) more than she needed to try to woo me back as a friend.  

I said I will always be here for her, but I will not be her human garbage disposal.  That part does not fall within the definition of friendship.  Nor of any human relationship.

Yes, Jesus became our human garbage disposal in order to remove our sins.  I get that.  I also get that no other human can do that for me, nor I for them.  Theologically, that would make me a god in their lives and that is a role I cannot and must not take.

I have used those lines:  “I love you and I will be here for you, when you are ready to talk to me as two adults, with respect and dignity” many times in my life.  They work with angry spouses.  They work with angry children, after a certain age.  They work with friends.  They set a limit that is healthy and good. 

I highly recommend them, not as something magical or superspiritual that I have discovered, but as a practical way to keep our relationships clear of clutter.

You see, it is a universal human dilemma to want to let our hurt go somewhere.  Hurting people hurt people.  We have all heard that.  

But only I can impose limits on others that stops that from happening.  

While I acknowledge that there is much wrong in this world, that there is much hurt in this world, that still does not make me the human garbage disposal for anyone else’s hurt.  

And they need to know that, in no uncertain terms.  We do them no favors by letting them think it is okay to blow up and verbally abuse another human being when our own hearts are hurting.

Walk away.  Tell them you will resume the discussion later, when it can involve mutual dignity and respect.

You owe that to each other.  

P.S.  If my friend’s father asks me, I am going to give him this exact same advice, with the twist that he needs to actively protect his wife from the verbal abuse of their daughter. The way she described it to me, it sounds as though he is so anxious to defuse the daughter’s anger, when it ratchets up, that he sympathizes with her and soothes her, rather than telling her that she is not allowed to speak to her mother that way.  I believe he will regret that tactic, as anger only begets more anger.  Allowing her to spew at her mother will only create more of the same.  He needs to actively protect his wife and his marriage.  I believe I have the full weight of the Scriptures behind that counsel.

Walk away, folks, not to get away from your relationships, but in order to save them.   

Fiftieth Anniversary of the March on Washington

It is amazing to me that next week we commemorate the passing of fifty years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s great “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial. It was actually the same year JFK was assassinated, only in August, so three months earlier than the assassination (and five years before MLK Jr. himself was assassinated). Such brutal times, but such hope shone from the life of Dr. Martin Luther King (and JFK’s life, too).

Book Review: “Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart” by J.D. Greear

Book Review: “Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart” by J.D. Greear

I totally believe in the perseverance of the saints. That means, in layman’s terms, that a truly saved person will still look truly saved in five years, in ten years, and at the end of her life (this is also known as “finishing well” in Biblical/theological language).

I am more than troubled by the number of people who walk the aisle for salvation on Sunday morning, then don’t return to church on Sunday night, nor Wednesday, nor the following Sunday morning . . .

I am not a legalist and I know it takes time to grow and become what Christ created us to be. But I balance with that the idea that a person totally in love with Jesus should show some signs of wanting to learn more about Him . . . (just a thought . . .).

We are not judges of other folks’ salvation, but we also should avoid the pitfall of assuring them (perhaps falsely) that because they walked the aisle once twenty years ago, they really are saved. What does their life look like since then? Any fruit of the Spirit in evidence?

Fact is, we can’t know for sure about anyone’s salvation except our own.

And that is the personal way J.D. Greear wrote his book. To help those who truly are saved but have assurance issues (like me, for years. There is a kind of OCD that can attach to the salvation issue and keep us from assurance, even as we show evidence of Christian growth). He also uses his book to help people diagnose themselves if they falsely believe they are saved due to saying the sinner’s prayer years ago, but have never subsequently shown any evidence of new life in Christ.

This is a good book. The title is a bit shocking, but the contents are theologically sound. I highly recommend it.

When Liberal Eugene Robinson and Conservative Mary Martin Agree . . .

When Liberal Eugene Robinson and Conservative Mary Martin Agree . . .

I am still very concerned about the idea that the government/NSA can justify snooping into anyone’s private communications based on “three degrees of association with a terrorist.”  The way it works is:  1) anyone who is in contact with a terrorist can be examined without warrant 2) anyone who is in contact with anyone in #1 can be examined without a warrant and 3) anyone who is in contact with anyone in #2 can be examined without a warrant.  The Virginian-Pilot detailed this last week, while we were on vacation, but any news service you google will have it.  Don’t take my word for it. Research it for yourself!

As the cartoon accompanying Mr. Robinson’s editorial reads:  “You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say on your cellphone or type on your computer or file with the IRS can be used against you . . .” (not funny, but a good reminder of what we are letting ourselves in on!).  

The Homeless in Philadelphia!

We spent Wednesday to Saturday last week on our first ever tour of Philadelphia. As you can see from the photo, we got into Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell building, even getting the first tour of the day on Saturday so we could depart for home by noon (ish).

I am no stranger to the cause of homeless people. I lived in London for two years where I came to know many of the homeless around my work, church, and home by sight. My husband and I had just toured Chicago, where many homeless sleep during the day in doorways along the Magnificent Mile (glittering area of shopping and restaurants). We have homeless (or homeless poseurs) at many intersections of Virginia Beach, where we live.

Nevertheless, I was stunned by the number of homeless in Philadelphia and by their lifestyle in the central part of the city. This post has no answers, but raises many questions. Jesus said the poor would always be with us. Yet we can help individual homeless people. How do we best do that?

I googled the number of homeless in Philadelphia (around 500) vs. the number in Chicago (much higher, because Chicago is a much larger city, with a higher percentage of homeless people among its citizens). I am not sure why the homeless are so much more prominent in Philly, but they are everywhere and they are much more aggressive than the homeless in any city where I have been previously. In fact, I can say pretty authoritatively that the homeless I saw in Philly, perhaps one fourth of the 500 mentioned in the survey I saw, all seemed to either be alcoholics, drug addicts, or severely mentally ill (my internal alarms went off around them, in fear that their fast, jerky motions could result in physical injury to me or someone else. I have nearly been hit by homeless people in London on three occasions, so my heightened state of alert generally has a basis in reality).

Here are a few observations I made:
1) The city parks are beautiful. There are lots of homeless in them. Along Benjamin Franklin Parkway between the downtown Marriott, where we stayed, and the Art Museum, to which we walked, there is mainly parkland, with museums scattered throughout it. We saw the homeless waking up in their bedrolls in the morning as we walked to the art museum; we saw them staking out their places on the lawn as we returned to our hotel at day’s end. On the way back, we also saw two feeding stations (one for liquids and hydration, one for food) along the curb as we walked by on the sidewalk. There were probably 30 people in line there, total. The food outreach seemed to be sponsored by churches or other religious bodies, as several very gentle-spirited women were distributing the food and water.
2) There were homeless living by the Marriott signs down in front of our hotel. I can’t say I blame them. I am sure it is pretty safe to sleep on the property, although Marriott can’t, of course, guarantee the safety of people sleeping outside its building. We had a key-activated hospitality lounge on the 23rd floor of the hotel, as Gold Card members of Marriott. When I asked at our free breakfast whether the excess could be given to the homeless down below, I was told that legally it could not. If the homeless left food out in the sun and it spoiled, they could then sue the Marriott for any food poisoning that occurred. The Marriott dumps its excess food rather than risk litigation. And, in all fairness to them, they would become a magnet for the homeless if they fed them. The homelessness in Philly is not just a Marriott problem and can’t be left solely in their court.
3) There are many homeless between the downtown Marriott and the national monuments, along Market Street, which is a street of shops and restaurants. In fact, we went to the national monuments at 7:30 AM on Saturday, in order to be first in line for the (free) tickets for that morning and saw only about half a dozen other people out walking that early (we covered almost half a mile of Market Street in our walk). Yet almost every doorway had a person curled up in it, asleep. Yes, we were walking in their bedroom early on Saturday morning, as they were sleeping in.
4) It was a bit of a chore to find a park bench anywhere in Philly that was open for seating, even during the day. About one out of four was occupied by someone sleeping, even in the daylight hours.
5) There are some very unsanitary places in Philly due to lack of facilities for the homeless to use. There was a place near the historic City Hall (which was right by the Marriott) where I paused to check my GPS because three roads came together and I was unsure which one led back to the hotel. I looked down and remarked to my husband to watch his step, as there were used pieces of toilet paper and sanitary napkins tossed all over a segment of the sidewalk about half a block in length. I guess that is where the homeless use the bushes, right in the shadow of City Hall. I actually ended up nearly jumping out of my skin as I consulted my phone. I was okay standing there, avoiding the detritus on the sidewalk, but just then an obviously mentally ill woman coughing up a lung and spraying everyone in her vicinity crossed the road toward me. I was not proud of myself, but I jumped out of her path. I just came undone in that moment . . .
6) The one very bright light in all of this is the Reading Terminal Market, next to the Marriott, where samples of food are given out in the various farmer’s stalls there. My husband liked one of the sausage samples being given out by a butcher’s stall. He and I stood and watched a homeless man take 4-5 pieces of sausage while Noel had his sample(s). I was glad the sausage was there, to keep this man from starving (and my husband, too, LOL!). I suppose it is the Reading Terminal that draws so many homeless to the area around the Marriott. It may be the one place they are guaranteed to get their daily bread.

Now, all that said, what does Jesus teach us? He certainly does not tell us to lean on city authorities till they make the homeless go away or become invisible at the national monuments. Although it appears that Philly’s policy toward the homeless is to let the tourists and private enterprise take care of them, we can’t simply turn away as Christians. We are not allowed that option.

We also are not allowed to simplify the issue by blaming the homeless for their own problems. We are all sinners and we all bring judgment on ourselves in many ways all life long (that is called “natural consequences” in layman talk). But even if the alcoholic, the drug addict, and the mentally ill person have made decisions leading to their acute states, Philadelphia made it obvious to me that they are now held captive by a dark power that cannot be broken by human will alone. There, but for a supernatural move of God’s Holy Spirit, they will remain caught in sin and darkness. And they are a metaphor for us, and the times we have been caught in sin and darkness, even if we don’t like to remember those times and instead preach self-sufficiency. We are Jesus-sufficient, not self-sufficient, as Christians. May we never forget that.

It is a fallen world. Many poor people have remained in poverty due to bad choices, but not always due to their own bad choices. And some have been impoverished without warning from some more affluent state. No one among us knows every street person’s story, so it behooves us to not be arrogant!

Jesus told us to minister to “the least of these,” however we would define that. I am sure some of the “least of these” would be homeless people. I am just not sure of how best to help these individuals. I tended (in my young days) to believe in taking them into the nearest fast food place to buy them a meal. I did not believe in handing them cash, and I still don’t.

My next post will be about a place that is making a difference in training disabled people. At the place I will mention, the mentally disabled are taught a skill that will allow them to work and retain as much dignity and independence as possible throughout life.

Sometimes just helping a couple of hundred people stay financially afloat is doing the best work you can do in Jesus’ name!!!