In memory of John

I saw an old friend today. And he filled my heart with love. That was the overwhelming emotion I had this past Sunday as I sat in church. I was listening but my eyes were roaming around seeing the faces of those in our new church, none of which are familiar to me yet. I suddenly spotted him. He wasn't quite the stature of my friend, but there was much about his face, his head that instantly transported me back 20 years in time.


I was in my twenties, single and going on my first missions trip through my church. John was a retired truck driver and he was going to be our bus driver, from Kansas to Monterrey Mexico. There are some people whose physical attributes are memorable and some whose personality is just so big and open that you'd never forget them. He was both. He was a large, muscular man that always wore boots. His head was like Kojak. His eyes and persona was the most loving of anyone I have ever known. Everytime he saw me headed his way, he greeted me with wide-open arms ready and waiting to embrace me with the best hug in the world. Not a squeeze-the-stuffing-out-of-you hug, but a cacooning, encompassing hug. Everyone that met him became his friend.

John and I had many opportunities during that week to talk and share. He had only been a Christian a few years and shared that he had been the stereotypical truck driver before. Memory has made some of the details a bit fuzzy, but around the same time of his conversion, he met the most wonderful woman in the world and they married. He shared with me about his wife's faith and was probably the first person I encountered that challenged my beliefs regarding denominational boundaries. He was very sensitive to that fact and made it perfectly clear he wasn't trying to make me believe as he and his wife did. But I was at a point in my own walk where I had some questions and never heard satisfactory answers. Some of the things John touched on answered those questions and my spirit knew it was truth. John and his wife were just the kind of people you could lay your complete and total trust in their walk they experienced as true and honest.

I left my hometown 20 plus years ago but there's always people, no matter how long or how far you go, never leave your heart. John was one of those. I would hear news about he and his wife from time to time through the grapevine and see him from time to time when we would go home for visits. I always felt like I had talked to him last week. John died of cancer a couple of years ago. I grieved the loss of such a wonderful person from this earth. It needs all the Johns it can hold. But I was so happy to think of him reunited with his wonderful wife in heaven and being a new bright light in the multitudes there.

As time has passed, I have thought of John, on occasion, fondly. And then Sunday, there he sat in front of me. As you now know, it wasn't actually him but someone that looked a great deal like him from a distance. Even though this particular bout of remembering John was fraught with missing John, it was a a good journey of remembering a soul that was one of the best this world has ever known.

Hope, Joy and Despair

Tis the season of hope and joy. But did you see or hear all the news stories during the Thanksgiving holiday of family tragedies all over the country due to people that have run out of hope and joy? It was shocking to me the number of reports. It's a well-documented fact that a number of suicides that occur, do so during the holiday season. How can a season that is known for extolling the virtues of such hope and joy also be so full of despair?

First, let's look at the reasons for despair. I'm sure a percentage of those that experience despair, anger and hurt are due to mental illness. We have an entire society that is diagnosed with some sort of mental condition or disease. It's common for the common-man to go to therapists these days in attempts to gain tools of dealing with their lives. Whether they simply need the ear of a unbiased third-party or not, it seems that most are prescribed medicines for depression or something more serious. I don't mean to implicate that I don't believe in real mental illnesses, but I do believe we've become much too comfortable with the idea of taking a pill to fix all our ills and we are too ready to let a doctor throw a diagnosis on us. After all, it provides a great reason for the way we are feeling, or a great excuse. We can easily say, "See, it's not my fault, I have a condition."

We have also become a society of people that don't know how to take responsibility for our own actions or lives. Granted, life happens to all of us. Things come along that we didn't ask for. We all have hopes and dreams and many times we fall short of seeing the fruit of those desires. There can be many, many reasons why we fail to achieve, but the negatives in our lives are oh, so much easier to focus on, aren't they? Think back in your life when something wonderful happened. How long did you fly high on that blessing? Now, on the other end of the spectrum, let's think of something bad that has happened, or something good that DIDN'T happen. How long did you hang onto that disappointment? I would venture to say that many of us continue to hold onto those kind of failures. We hold onto them as if they are a fond friend and then we add the next disappointment to it, and the next, and the next till we find ourselves in despair and broken. It's no wonder the phychiatric field is booming so well with people reaching out for something, anything, to make them feel better.

The other side of this story is the hope and joy that the season offers to everyone via bells ringing, carolers singing and the hope of the perfect present from the perfect person. We dream of apologies, forgiveness and loving, functional families. The Christmas season has encompassed the religious and the secular hopes. Again, it's easy to be dazzled by the pretty sounds, glistening sights and wonderful smells of the season. It does become magical. But, again, it's pretty fleeting. How long into January does it usually take to begin feeling the isolation and cold of the winter set into your soul? The hope that the religious celebrate is much, much less attractive to the eyes, ears and nose. It is only attractive to the soul. Many find that grasping hold of a faith and belief in God during this time gives them something more to lean on and learn from and a promise of Someone that loves them. But as is the case in the rest of the world, the church has it's share of hurting, broken people that fall short of living up to someone else's expectations simply because they find them in a church. So church and Christians get a black eye overall for the fact that people naturally look to people for fulfillment and not to God.

We all experience these things. We all hope for things that are likely unrealistic to expect. We all have our failures and disappointments that we can dwell on and hold onto. But not all of us do. Some people seem to just naturally look at the positives in life, not exactly like positive-thinking, just seeing the hope in any situation. Some positive souls have it in their DNA, they come from families that are just more naturally happy and see the silver linings. The rest of us have to work at it. But we have support, if we know who to turn to. God's Word is full of hope and support. When we turn to Him and keep Him close to our hearts, He will teach us. There are also people that are encouragers. Start finding the positive and negative people in your lives. If they like to tear you down only to help themselves feel better then they probably aren't adding anything positive to your life. Some are very crafty or hold positions of authority so it would seem easy to rationalize that their criticisms and suggestions are for our good. Be honest with yourself and if you can't think of times when they extended love, friendship and support, then you need to make some decisions about their influence.

During this holiday season, let's surround ourselves with hope and encouragement without expecting anything materially specific. Our expectations should be in a hope and joy and contentment that flies in opposition to the world we live in these days. The more we seek and find, the more the negative influences this world provides will be attractive, tempting or snagging. Let's look ahead to 2010. Let's make it a year of encouraging, hoping, fulfilling, contentment and lifting up each other. I'd love to hear from all of you about the good reports that I feel is all of ours to claim.

"The Search for God and Guinness"

What a privilege it's been to read Stephen Mansfield's "The Search for God and Guinness: A Biography of the Beer that Changed the World". I was especially intrigued by the title and it was immediately a must read for me. The respect that Mansfield gives the history of the Guinness family is quite apparent as he gives account of the lineage from the first Arthur Guinness through each generation, the apparent heirs along the way and how each made their mark in making the brand "Guinness" into what it is today. He tells the story of the God-given talents given to many in the family that resulted in three main categories of Guinnesses, the Brewing Guinnesses, the Banking Guinnesses and the Guinnesses for God. He also provides a very good overview of how beer was accepted and its purpose through the ages in accordance with religious views of the times.

I truly loved this book. Having grown up in a small denomination that embraced the Prohibition, my own views of alcohol use has evolved slowly, albeit it has evolved. I loved the time travel through religious views through the ages and how beer and alcohol was part of the culture and easily accepted as a healthy choice and necessary choice, in many cases. The religious overview was very helpful and held my attention. The only problem I had in reading this book was keeping straight which generation accomplished which milestones and accomplishments due to family names being passed down from fathers to sons. But I certainly don't blame Mansfield for my confusion.

I highly recommend this book to anyone that is interested in history, business practices and how one person's faith and integrity has built a brand and a family that is still highly revered two hundred fifty years later. If you are like I was, open your mind and consider something that is bigger than your box. You'll be so glad you did.

Kids and Today's Society

After much thought and consideration, I have concluded that the responsibility of how the youth of today have become, falls in a few different places. It's not a cut/dry issue. But it is definitive of an entire generation. Even the good kids, from good families, exhibit attitudes, if not behaviors, of their peers. And I fully believe it's because it's the world they live in. No amount of parenting can change the far-reaching influences they are bombarded with. We cannot fully shelter them away from the world. Nor, do I think we completely would want to. But that's a completely different subject. I would lay the responsibility at the feet of the following,

•1. Parents
•2. Liberalism
•3. the Church

First, and foremost, the responsibility falls on the parents. Regardless of other influences, parents still need to parent. The kids today have been raised by adults that were latchkey kids. They either had two parents working to pay for a higher level of living than they had growing up, or they had a struggling single parent that was caught in the perpetual merry-go-round of increasing costs of goods and services because business skyrocketed because people expect more and have the money to pay it. The former household wanted to be known as part of the best, the cream of the crop. They want to be seen by their peers as successful and everything in their home and family needs to fit that definition at all costs. The latter worries about paying bills and the guilt of not being able to provide the kids with the now average things most kids have. In both types of households, the parents do not want their kids being left out, being different, causing them to suffer possible self-esteem issues. To finish the perfect picture to these families, their children are also to be seen as successful. When they do something wrong, taking responsibility for their actions is not taught anymore. Responsibility requires admission. Responsibility requires ethics. Responsibilities required contrition. None of these things fit into the mold of providing the picture of a successful family. Look at who our kids look up to as heroes these days. Mostly, it's professional athletes. And many of them have been men that were raised in the current no right or wrong culture and no responsibility and suddenly they are provided a lifestyle of fame and extreme fortune. We would like to think that would give them what they have been lacking and they could live a good and upstanding life. But more often than not, they are getting into legal troubles, much like the poor, urban kids they used to be. When children are not taught to take responsibility, a symptom to that is created, entitlement. Entitlement expects things to be handed over without the worry of failure or judgment. With the outcome not in question, the next casualty of virtue is work ethics. In our attempt to have the best and be perceived as successful, we have become a society that is completely entrenched in celebrities and the manner in which they live. We have become a society of expecting the finer things of life without the sense to realize that all things are not fair in life. The self-absorption into the world of "having" quickly becomes an addiction. One I truly believe is just as gripping and difficult to break. One that has those in its grips completely unaware of and in denial.

Thanks to the socialistic direction that this country has been taking for the past 30 years, we now have two generations that feel all things should be fair, aka evenly distributed. Those without the means should be helped to live in a manner they cannot achieve on their own. Those with the most money should be forced to distribute the money they worked for to people that do not have the education, or even possibly, the desire, to acquire the types of jobs that pay well. In their "perfect" world, a janitor should get to live the same as an engineer. Not that one job is any better than another. Both are equally necessary. But the required time and education it takes for one is out of proportion to the other. It is the major reason for the current economic crash this country, and the entire world, has experienced. Making home ownership more available to the lower-economic rungs was the motivation behind the creation of subprime lending. The same basic philosophy is in the auto industry, it's called leasing. Lower monthly payments and less paying down of a principle, letting those that cannot afford the traditional payment plans to afford to drive nice, new cars and live in bigger, more expensive homes than their salaries would support in traditional loans. In both scenarios the ultimate goals are not to own those items. It is simply to have and use those items. Our current judicial system and government has little by little whittled away at the things that defined various groups of people in this country. They have diluted the line and definition of right and wrong. Those that break the law are allowed to live in such conditions that would be desirable for many households on the outside. They are allowed resources in frivolous court cases, as well as full educations, all at the taxpayers' expense. They have diluted the line between the haves and have not's.

All of this has permeated not only those families not taught morals anymore, but Christian homes. And the Church is failing to secure its place in our current society. For so many decades, the Church has been defined by denominations. Each denomination has their particular list of rules and guidelines that can be defined only by their particular boundaries. Each has interpretations of Scripture to support their teachings. And many have relied on those rules and boundaries as much and more in their teachings, and more importantly, in their measurement and judgment of each other and those outside their walls. They have raised families to look at everyone in judgment. They have raised families to judge themselves not by God's love, but by the rules of the Church. And that can only beget arrogance or self-loathing and guilt. When the Church cannot show that it has relevance in a true and workable application in a culture that prevails today, it shrivels, becomes shallow and does not teach another viewpoint or reason to live any differently than the current culture. In fact, it simply supports an argument for a reason to look elsewhere for happiness. One that is much more self-motivated.

I don't know what will need to happen to turn our society around again. Unfortunately, it often takes catastrophic happenings to change current tides. But, if this is not a time of catastrophic happenings, I would hate to see what more it would need to include. We have come through hard times economically in the past. We have come through hard times politically. And we have come through hard times socially. We are not really in anything new that we haven't been before, but we must stop and ponder and find reasonable priorities for new values, new ethics, new heroes and a much wiser world.