Ecclesiastes And My Tin Foil Hat

You know I really like a good conspiracy theory. I just love it when someone comes up with ideas and concepts the defy conventional wisdom or fly in the face of what is commonly considered. There is very little that I won't read or give a good listen to if it makes some sort of sense. I would dare say my tinfoil hat is as large as it gets. Having said that I have to say that at some point people need to get a grip on reality.

I go to a lot of different websites that feature all sorts of alternate news, the kind of stuff that you don't usually hear in mainstream, and I have noticed an interesting pattern; Once something doesn't happen they tend to ignore it and move on to the next disaster scenario that they can think of. The whole Mayan calendar date is a fine example of that.

Over the last few years ,leading up to the winter solstice of 2012 , I swear there were new doom and gloom scenarios posted on line every other day. I know that between the Mayans and the idea of a mysterious planet “X” that was supposed to come and screw us all up many different groups and individuals wrote countless books and articles of how to prepare for the end of the world. Yet now that nothing has happened there is a whole lot of silence from those same people.

Today we have everything from the new Pope being the antichrist, to the DHS wanting to start a war with the American people,as well as more ideas and thoughts of how the world is going to end through various prophecies or from alien influence. I am not saying that some of this isn't true, there isn't any real way to know until something happens, but because of the spin that is usually put on things, by both sides of whatever theory, I have found almost everything hard to believe anymore.

So here is my solution and feel free to make it yours.

Life is too short to waste on worrying about absolutely everything so I'm not going to. If the Pope or President Obama is the anti-Christ or DHS starts a war with the rest of us, there isn't anything I can do to stop it. Yes, I can pay attention to what is going on ,and I do believe me, but I can't make it so much of my focus that I stop enjoying the life that God has given me. Which is something that I have done and I know others who still do. Here is a couple of verses from Ecclesiastes that I like to read just to remind me and to make the point.

I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives, and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor—it is the gift of God. Eccl. 3: 10-13

Here is what I have seen: It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under the sun all the days of his life which God gives him; for it is his heritage. As for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, and given him power to eat of it, to receive his heritage and rejoice in his labor—this is the gift of God. For he will not dwell unduly on the days of his life, because God keeps him busy with the joy of his heart. Eccl. 5:18-20

Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity; for that is your portion in life, and in the labor which you perform under the sun. Eccl. 9:9

I could be wrong here but it seems that God , through the writing of Solomon and his life experience, that we are to enjoy this life that God has given to us and not only should we enjoy it we should remember that this life is a gift from God. No where does it say that we should spend out time in worrying about the things we can't change nor should we spend our time racing after worthless things, rather, instead, we should eat , drink, and enjoy the spouse that we have and celebrate the life that God has given us.

So I guess this is my simple solution. I can't change much of anything that is happening or is going to happen so therefore I am going to rejoice, rather than worry, in this life God has given. That is not to say that there won't be moments of banging my head against a wall, but I am refusing to let disaster and doom be my focus. No, I won't be putting my tinfoil hat away any time soon, but I think I'll spend more time on the things that are more important; have aliens actually landed in DC ?

Shalom.

Real Social Justice

There has been a lot of talk, for quite a while now, on sequestration. Who is going to loose what, what programs are going to get cut and just how badly our countries economy is going to take a hit from it. Depending on who you ask, everyone from junior enlisted military personnel, who won't see any raises, to veterans and other disabled persons, having services cut back, are going to feel the pinch. The elderly and poor are going to loose a percentage of their income and hundreds of thousands of employees of government contractors could suddenly find themselves with out work or with seriously reduced pay. Add to that the number of major companies that are seriously considering closing hundreds of stores, because of increased regulations and being forced into major health care increases and you have the potential of thousands more being unemployed. Combined with an economy that is already in serious trouble and is on the brink of collapse you have the potential of a tsunami style disaster. This post is not to blame any one particular party or person. In fact it has little to do with politics at all.

The other day, after my mothers funeral, I stopped in to visit some old friends that still lived in the neighborhood that I grew up in. In the course of catching up one of them commented that they don't know anyone in the neighborhood any more. I was really surprised. When I was a kid growing up we knew everyone on the street. Even today I can name just about everyone who once lived there and, in some cases anyhow, either those who took their place or their grandchildren. We knew everyone. You could guarantee that if you got in some sort of trouble by the time you got home it was already known there, at the same time if someone was hurt or seriously ill everyone knew that as well and once that was known people would go out of their way to help each other out. I remember many times when my grandmother or other folks at church would get food and clothes together to help out others who were suffering in some way. If they had a fire or some other disaster furniture would appear and people would open up their homes until things were fixed and settled. I remember my grandparents basement walls collapsed while we were living with them, the house had old stone foundation and I remember men from the church coming with their equipment jacking the house up and fixing the foundation. There was no talk of who deserved what, or cost, it simply needed to be done and it was. If a farmer was sick and couldn't harvest his crops others pitched in to help. There was no talk of government help, at least none that I ever heard, people and churches simply took care of each other.

It was, however, at about this time that welfare programs started to kick in. We were poor, my mother, a single mom of two boys, qualified for welfare and so we lived on the welfare system, at least until my brother and I were able to get out on our own. I didn't understand much about that at the time this was simply the way things were.

I tell you this so you will understand that I am quite sympathetic to the working poor and the middle class. I understand being disabled and barely being able to keep your head above water but I think we have brought this disaster upon ourselves.

As our society has become more advanced, technologically speaking, we have become more distant from each other. We have our made up social networks and worlds but we rarely actually interact with each other. When I was a kid all of us played out doors. Our families all knew each other because we were either friendly or fighting but we knew who our neighbors were. Today most young people know how to use an smart phone or an iPad but they don't know how to communicate with each other on a personal level.

At one time, if people needed help, there were church groups who could be asked, but many churches have shut their doors and in other cases regulations, that didn't use to exist, keep them from helping those that are in need and so, because there are government programs out there, people turned to the government for help rather then their neighbors.

We ,as a people, could have stopped all the government red tape. We could have said no to them taking over our God given responsibility to each other but we didn't and as we have become more advanced in some ways, we have failed each other and now may be forced to go back to those principals that we should never have abandoned.

God Himself laid out various laws that, if we followed them, would give us the kind of “social justice” that many would like to see, and it would be virtually painless to our society as a whole and would improve things for the poor with out government intervention.

“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger: I am the Lord your God.” Lev. 23:22

“But the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove.” Ex. 23:11

Just imagine those two laws by themselves being used, you would end hunger in no time. One of the promises God gave was that if they let the land rest and took care of the poor they would still be eating the fat of the land even as they were planting for the next harvest. In other words, they would never lack for food.

“If you lend money to any of My people who are poor among you, you shall not be like a moneylender to him; you shall not charge him interest.” Ex. 22:25

If that was followed you could likely end homelessness because people could actually afford to get a mortgage. As most of you know it is usually the taxes and the APR that really hurt peoples chances of finding decent housing. Imagine a banking system that didn't charge interest. You could change everything over night.

“You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness you shall judge your neighbor.”

Lev. 19: 14-16

Our justice system has become such a farce that only the well connected seem to have any chance of winning. A fine example is Monsanto, one of the biggest corporations in the farming world, going after small farmers, who may have inadvertently picked up some of their patented seeds through wind or cross pollination. Every time it goes to court the individual farmer looses because they simply don't have the money to fight the suits. This is not justice. This is Goliath beating up on David. Just imagine though if we used the biblical principals then we could all have our day in court.

The list of laws could go on, these are but just a few of them. The point is that if we had been following these principals instead of letting the government do what we were commanded to do we wouldn't be in the mess we are in. In Israel and Judaism, as a whole, these aren't just suggestions, these are commandments. Some have said that because of these laws Israel is technically a socialist country. If it is its only because the people as a whole follow these principals and laws and from what I understand, they have a high quality of life because of it.

I am not suggesting that we should have government run socialism. I am suggesting though that we as a people can make all the difference if we were to follow those laws laid out in the Bible when it comes to helping the poor and having a fair system of justice. We could virtually end all government programs because we, as a people, wouldn't allow for others to suffer while we could help them.

I believe however that most people will think that this is impossible either because they believe the Bible is a foolish thing , not to be taken seriously, or they actually believe that the government is the only answer. Others do believe in the Bible but they ignore the laws of the OT and have come to believe that only rugged individualism is the way, so the idea of caring for each other disappears.

My simple minded solution is this: We need to take care of each other. Government safety nets are good, but they shouldn't be our only source of help and we as a society need to embrace the biblical principals that I have mentioned then we would have real social justice.

Soon and Very Soon

Soon and very soon....

This past weekend my brother and I, along with other family members and old friends, celebrated the life of our mother and mourned her spark of light and life leaving this world just a bit darker because of her passing.

Life was hard for her. For the past 30 years or so she had battled with various diseases and conditions that eventually led to her liver giving out and her death. I admittedly was a royal pain in her backside from the time I was old enough to cause trouble until the day I left home. Our parting, at that time, was not good but we reconciled our differences and in the end she was my friend.

During her memorial service I learned things about her ,from old school friends and church members,that I hadn't known. It was like hearing about a woman that I never really knew anything about. I found out who she kissed and that she was an excellent student in school. I had completely forgot about her love for poetry and my brother told about the times she would read stories to us before bed just before she would head off to work at night. My own memories had more to do with music. I remember her love of Elvis and the Statler brothers, the Gaithers, Johnny Horton and the Gatlins. I learned to love blue grass and gospel, barbershop and Celtic and eventually sang in a barbershop quartet all because of her taste in music appealed to me so much.

She loved cats and birds. She had multitudes of wolf pictures. She used to write to prisoners, before her writing became to bad and she spread the gospel to anyone who would give her a minute of their time. She didn't just talk the talk, she walked it. Where ever she went, when she was feeling well, she would try to spread some joy and happiness and help others in whatever way that she could and though life was hard for her she did what she could to spread some light.

I am glad that my mother and I reconciled our differences a long time ago. I am so glad that my last memory of her will always be the smile she gave me and the way her eyes lit up when she knew that I was there and her hug. Until we meet again I get to have that memory.

These last few weeks, in many ways, was very healing to my soul. I got to see my mother at the end and get re acquainted with some old friends and family. My brother and I spent a lot of time together just talking and being brothers. It almost seems that my soul finally gave itself permission to heal the old hurts and wounds and bring peace to my heart.

If only all of us could learn this without having to go through the pain of losing someone. Why is it that we feel justified in holding a grudge? We are only hurting ourselves. Why do we waste so much time arguing over politics and religion when neither one is going to stop our end from coming? Wouldn't it make more sense if we allowed ourselves to be wronged and yet be filled with love then having to be right and filled with hate?

I am lucky, several times in my life, I have had the opportunity to reconcile with others, including my mother, and I took it. I have never regretted it. Do it yourself while there is still time because you simply don't know what kind of time is left.

In the Bible, when talking about the death of people, they use a couple of terms that I like real well, one is they were gathered to their ancestors old and full of years or that they were gathered to the bosom of Abraham. That is how I want to think about her, resting in the bosom of Abraham or in the arms of God.

“Soon And Very Soon”

Soon and very soon
I'll be going To the place
He has prepared for me
There my sin erased
My shame forgotten
Soon and very soon

I will be with the One I love
With unveiled face I'll see
There my soul will be satisfied
Soon and very soon
Brooke Frasier

Isaiah 56 and Sabbath

If you were to hear the word “Sabbath” what thoughts come to your mind?

In the Christian world there is some debate over the idea of the Sabbath, most main stream denominations do not follow the biblical sabbath of Saturday, as do the Jews and some Christian denominations such as the Seventh Day Adventist, because it is said by many that the “laws and ordinances were done away with at the cross” and so therefore the requirements of the law no longer apply. This, I believe, is wrong for several reasons, not just because I am not a Christian and wouldn't believe that in the first place but because its wrong for another more important reason, by not honoring the Sabbath, whether you believe it to be on Saturday or Sunday, you are missing out on a great excuse to stop and rest from the insanity of this world.

The word Sabbath simply means “to rest.” It means that we are to stop doing all the crazy things that we do all week and slow down. It means that this is a day that we should stop and worship God and focus on Him and the world that He has created and the blessing He has given us.

I have been a pastor. I have seen just how hectic “Sabbath” can be no matter what day you keep it and I have to wonder is that really what G-d meant for us when the Sabbath was instituted? I don't think so. Probably the sad part, for pastors anyhow, is that they can miss the sabbath rest because they are so busy they have to take another day off just to get the rest they should have had on the Sabbath.

I also tend to believe that by not keeping the Sabbath we are depriving ourselves from a great blessing.

I know that in Jewish communities that the Sabbath is a time of family and worship and that they literally stop doing anything that might resemble work of any kind, they even make sure that their food is cooked ahead of time so that during the Sabbath all they have to do is serve the food and eat. For them its a blessing and a day of rest.

For us we start with Kiddish(sp?) that's the traditional blessing of the bread and wine that the Jews do to welcome in the Sabbath on Friday night, we light candles and let them burn and we remember the blessings that G-d has given us during the past week. Saturday mornings my wife likes to make a special breakfast for us that is usually large and quite filling. We don't usually rush the process though and many times it will be close to noon before we even eat. After that we may go hike in the woods either outback or somewhere else and just make a relaxing day out of it. We try to leave everything else behind. Its usually the most peaceful day of the week.

I have a friend who is a Baptist minister who believes in the spirit of Sabbath. He doesn't believe that the day is important ,especially for Gentiles, but rather we keep the spirit of the law. In his case as soon as he is finished at the church he and his family go home and they literally do nothing but relax. They eat and play outside but nothing resembling any work is done, they literally rest.

G-d Himself promises us a blessing if we honor the Sabbath and yes that means us Gentiles. Isaiah 56 starting with verse 2-3, 6-8 “Happy is the man who does this,The man who holds fast to it: Who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and stays his hand from doing any evil. Let not the foreigner say,Who has attached himself to the Lord,The lord will keep me apart from His people;...” “As for the foreigners Who attach themselves to the Lord, to minister to Him,And to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants—all who keeps the Sabbath, and do not profane it,And holds fast to My covenant—I will bring them to My sacred mountain,And let them rejoice in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be welcome on My altar;For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”Thus declares the Lord God, who gathers the dispersed of Israel.

I don't know about you, but for me it fills me with great happiness and brings me comfort to know that my prayers and my sacrifices will be welcomed by G-d because I choose to keep and honor His sabbath and his commandments.

So given my choice between believing that it all been abolished, which I suppose for me is a moot point, or keeping His commandments,especially the Sabbath, I am going to go with keeping them.

Shalom

You Are Unique

Have you ever played the game I like to call “what if ?” You know the game where you wonder about how things might be different if you had chosen to do something different than you did? One of the episodes of “Dr. Who” has Donna, Dr. Who's companion, making a a right turn when she had originally made a left and not only did that effect her life but it effected the whole course of human events from that point on. The episode not only shows how one individual choice makes a difference, but how much one individual can truly effect the course of events and just how unique we all are.

I look back at my own family history and it amazes me just how many things had to come together for my children to even be here today.

My grandparents meeting was pure chance. My grandfather had had a boxing match the night before and was walking to work when he stopped at a farm house for a glass of water, the person who answered the door was my grandmother. What if my great grandmother had answered the door instead? What if he had gone to a different house?

My mother was in love with a man from her hometown, so much so that she wanted to run off with him, but my grandmother interfered, so instead my mother went to Boston where she met my father. What would have happened if she had run off with the other man? My father was here in the United States because Castro had taken over in Cuba, he too had someone in Cuba that he had loved, yet he had no real choice he had to leave. What would have happened if he had stayed in Cuba because Castro hadn't taken over? Luckily for me things turned out the way that they did and so here I am.

What about my own children and wife? When I was 19 I joined the Marine Corp. While I was at the hotel ,that they put us up in, a very pretty young lady spent a good chunk of the night trying to convince me to join her and many of the others in going to the Air Force. I didn't have to go to the Marines at that point because we hadn't been sworn in yet and we hadn't signed any papers so I could have switched. I didn't , but if I had, I would not have ever met my ex and as a result my oldest would not have been born. If I had re enlisted at that time I wouldn't have come home, after my divorce, and would not have run across an old roommate of mine who consequently introduced me to my wife and as a result, years later, the birth of my other two children.

Just using my own family history, what little I know of it, shows me just how unique all of us are. Thousands of years in the making and here we are; there is no one else in the world just like you.

I believe that the spirit in us belongs to God and is from God (how you view God is up to you) so I believe that even if things had been different we would have been born anyhow because really it's not the DNA that counts nor our ethnicity its the spirit of life that God gives that matters.

So next time someone is trying to put you down and tear you apart just remember how unique you are and that you are who you are because of the spirit in you. Whether you turn left or right will make all the difference in the world.

Time Of The Year

This morning while I was in the woods, watching for the elusive whitetail, I started thinking about this time of year and all that it means. Not only is it the first of December and snowing, but it's one of those rare times of the year when all my friends are celebrating one holiday or another. So what is it that we are celebrating? For Jews it's a celebration of Gods deliverance from the Greeks and the miracle of 8 days of oil burning when there shouldn't have been enough. For Christians it's the birth of Jesus and the hope of salvation and for my Pagan friends is a celebration of the renewal of the solar year. For Christians and Pagans many of their holiday traditions are similar because the Roman Catholic church copied many of the Pagans traditions as a way to try and convince them to convert. For all three celebrations there are lights and candles, gifts and food and music, but what is it that really links the three groups together? What is it that all of us are really celebrating?

I would humbly submit to you that all three celebrations are celebrating light,life and hope.

We are celebrating these holidays at literally the darkest time of the year. We light candles, light fires, and put lights on our trees and on our houses all in celebration of the holidays but also, in some ways anyhow, in defiance of the darkness and in the knowledge that the light is going to return.

We celebrate life in the deliverance of the Jews from the Greeks, the birth of a savior bringing salvation to the world and a renewal of the year as the sun starts its progress back into the sky.

We celebrate hope that the new day will bring a longer day, that God preforms miracles for His people, and in a baby the grace of God came to earth.

This is not about religion, this isn't even really about the holidays themselves. It's about what we all have in common. We spend to much time looking at our differences and trying to claim superiority over each other and yet in our hearts and in our celebrations we show that we are not so different after all.

Blessings to all.

Cylcles Of Life

Lately I have been able to spend a lot more time out in the woods or walking out on our road and I have started to notice some things that for reasons that are lost on me that I had never noticed before. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t see these things, it was just that I hadn’t really understood what it was that I was seeing, it wasn’t until I opened up my mind to see that I really started to get a grasp of what it was right before my eyes.

What I have seen, played out before my eyes for years, is that life renews itself after death. Go take a walk in the deep woods and take a serious hard look at a fallen tree or a stump and look at the life coming from it. You will find everything from moss and lichens to mushrooms and, in many cases, you will find new trees growing out of the stumps of the old. Life coming from what we would consider to be dead.

What does that say about us? We who have the breath of God living within us? Do we simply die and rot away in the ground and all that is a part of us disappears? Or is their more to it then we think?

Just about every religion that I have heard of share two things in common; one is that there is a big change coming in the not so far distant future, a subject for a separate post, and the second is that there is something beyond this life. If you’re a Christian you likely refer to it as heaven, if you’re a Jew it’s likely to have something to do with the messianic kingdom or if you’re a Hindu it’s likely to be some sort of re-incarnation, no matter what you wish to call it, it all boils down to that there is something after this life and nature shows it to us day after day.

There is a school of thought that I subscribe to, that suggests our lives repeat themselves until we have learned the lessons that we need to learn. I don’t mean that as soon as I die the clock rewinds for me and I go back to 19-- and start over, no, I believe that we are reborn as different people but we retain some of the knowledge, through our spirit, that we have taken from this life and as we interact with the same people, the same souls if you will, that we have interacted with in this life, we relearn and grow as in our previous lives and times. I don’t have any proof of this mind you; I can’t pull out some sort of theological study or scientific publication to prove this. I can only offer a couple of ideas as to why I think this way.

First is the above mentioned cycle of life that you can see in nature, the cycles of the moon, the seasons, life and death in nature. The second is not so concrete; dreams. I have had dreams that have been so real, so vivid and detailed that when I woke up I was disorientated as to what was actually real. I have seen through the eyes of people that I don’t remember and yet in the dreams I knew who I was and who all those around me were. One dream in particular I was in a battle during the American revolution and I was running with a group of other men and we were crossing a bridge, just as we got to the other side there was an explosion from a cannon ball and I was knocked down to the ground. The last thing I remember was faces looking down on me as everything fades to black. Then there was one dream that I had that I was getting ready for work as a nurse, I am assuming based on the clothes, and as I looked into the mirror the face looking back at me was my face but with long red hair and freckles but the real surprise for me came when I went to a battlefield and realized that this was the place that I had seen in my dream. I had never been there before so I had no way of knowing what it looked like and yet it was like I had just walked back into my dream. Are these proofs that I had been there before in a past life? No, but it’s very compelling.

My last reason has to do with people. Have you ever had the experience of meeting with someone for the very first time but feeling like you have known them your entire life? Or you’re certain that you know them from somewhere but as you compare notes you realize that it’s not likely? Or you meet certain people and you just immediately click? Why is that? I would humbly submit to you that it’s because of the spirit of God living in us points you to those that you have been with in past lives or times and so your spirit knows them even when your mind has forgotten.

Some will argue that this is not theologically sound, that’s OK, but let me ask you a question; if it’s the breath of life that comes from God that gives us life in the first place, where does that breath of life go? If God is eternal and He is spirit than I would submit to you that this breath of life or spirit of God goes back to Him and He does what He wants with it. Yes our bodies die but if nature is any example to us than I can see where our lives are renewed and we begin again.

Just my own humble opinion. Shalom