How can you be a Christian and...

There have been several times in the past few years where I have heard others say and uttered the same words myself.  The saying goes something like this usually, “How can you be a Christian and…”  Today, someone said they said they didn’t see how someone could be a Christian and support abortion.  I’ve heard both sides of the political aisle say they don’t see how someone could be a Christian and be a Democrat or Republican.  I’ve heard people say they don’t see how someone could be a Christian and support the military.  I’ve heard people say they don’t see how someone could be a Christian and support gay marriage.  Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

I am not going to pick apart each of these sayings, that would take too long although maybe I’ll make a new blog series addressing these sometime in the future.  What I would like to try and tackle here is the saying itself.  It’s the equivalent of saying, “God told me…” right?  I mean, you’re essentially playing a holy trump card, right?  Rather than having meaningful dialogue, we just throw that trump card out right at the beginning of the discussion and consequently start on the wrong foot.

When we say things like this, we imply that we are taking the moral high road and that Jesus is on our side.  We neglect to admit that following Jesus is a messy process and leaves room for disagreement among believers on a variety of matters.  Some prominent leaders would have us believe that of course there are some things that are debatable, but there are certain ones that are not debatable.  They then go onto tell us how women can’t be in leadership or something similar.

I am all for meaningful dialogue.  Simultaneously, I love arguing.  Like I said before, I have been guilty myself of saying something along the lines of how I didn’t know how someone could be a Christian and do such and such or support whatever it was they were supporting.  The thing we need to ask ourselves is what is our primary motivation?  Is it to love someone, draw them closer to Christ, or prove our rightness?

When we play a trump card like either “God told me” or “How can you be a Christian and…” we presume the role of judge either in society or our individual lives.  Personally, I’m going to trust God to work it all out in the end anyways.  Furthermore, I am more concerned with loving God and loving others on a deep level no matter their views whether in Christianity or outside of my faith system.  As for me, I’d rather be known as someone who loved others well rather than as someone who argued well and was usually right.

What is more likely to display Jesus to people, believers loving one another well or believers passionately debating how one or the other is clearly in the wrong?  They will know you are My disciples by your passionate arguments.  Wait, that’s not what Jesus said I’m pretty sure.  They’ll know you are My disciples by what you’re against.  Oh man, that’s not in there either.  If only I actually knew what the Bible had to say on the subject.  Oh well, it eludes me now.  Wait for it, they will know you are My disciples by your love for each other.  Was that it or something similar?  I mean, I’m not a Bible college grad so please correct me if I’m in the wrong.

Dave Ramsey and Defending the 1%, part 3

In spite of all this, I in no way am defending the rich as it being okay, better or worse.  What I am arguing is for some perspective.  A friend of mine named Jill Shaw informed me back in 2008 that wealth is relative.  My parents had said this for years but I didn’t really get it.  Jill said she would tell her teenage youth she worked with in Zimbabwe that they were wealthy too.  You see, they would complain about how rich Americans were and how they didn’t give any of their money away.  Jill would simply reply, “Do you have a pair of shoes?  I assume you know someone who doesn’t, right?  Doesn’t that make you relatively wealthy?”  I remember arguing at the time, as did the teenagers I’m sure, that those two examples weren’t even in the same category.

I have since come to appreciate the idea that wealth is pretty relative, my parents and Jill were right all along.  There is the 1% top wealthiest in America.  Within that top 1% though, there is a further top 10% that is insanely richer than the other 90% of that top 1%.  As I stated before though, if you make a net income of $31,100, you yourself are in the top 1% of the world.

In light of this, maybe a better argument would be one for contentment.  Be content with what you have.  Get out of debt, have an emergency savings account, and all the rest.  Just be sure to be content with what God has given you all along the way.  Maybe you’re not wealthy or even making ends meet, but be content.  Not content in the way that it keeps you from pursuing a better living in order to provide for your family’s needs; rather content in your spirit.  God blesses some people with wealth and others with poverty, either way it comes from Him and His hand. 

I can remember praying Proverbs 30:8 which states, “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.”  While I kind of regret that prayer now since I can honestly say I sometimes covet wealth just like everyone else, at the same time I can attest to the fact that God has always answered that prayer and will continue to do so.  Also, he has blessed me with riches as I mentioned earlier.  I just choose to try and live simply within my means and live contentedly.

Dave Ramsey and Defending the 1%, part 2

As Dave started the interview, he mentioned how the author had purposefully used his name to get more hits on his article.  At first I thought, well that’s pretty much a cheap shot.  After some consideration, I thought why don’t I do that?!  So that’s the reason I included Dave’s name in the title of this blog entry.

I saw one of Dave’s tweets the other day that his latest show was going to be on the demonization of wealth.  I didn’t listen to it but wish I could have.  I’m currently in a third world country so the internet isn’t always reliable to say the least.  I’ve listened to him enough throughout the past few years though that I have a pretty decent idea of what his arguments were.

I can practically guarantee you that he spent time quoting Scripture and pointing to men in the Bible who had wealth as a defense as to why having wealth isn’t a sin.  He probably said something along the lines of how broke people can’t help people.  There are some other things I’m sure he mentioned but I don’t remember them currently.

I’d like to take a different route completely.  Dave defends the 1% (as well as the middle class in general by the way), while the Occupy Wall Street movement vehemently opposes them.  Personally, I kind of appreciate the Occupy movement as a fresh wave of democratic voices being aired.  They just went about it the wrong way.  Regardless, that’s not what I want to focus on here.  They were undoubtedly against the 1 percenters, in spite of many of them being 1 percenters themselves.

How can this possibly be??  They would probably assure me they are NOT 1 percenters; those people are pure evil after all, right?  Well, head on over to globalrichlist.com and prove yourselves wrong.  If you make a net income of $31,100, you are in the top 1% of the world.  According to Ramsey in The Total Money Makeover the average salary of an American family is roughly $50,000, maybe it was $48,000, it doesn’t really matter for this case.  I’m not sure if that was gross or net, again it doesn’t really matter for this.  On the globalrichlist.com site, they ask you for your net income, so if you’re making $48,000 gross then your net is definitely more than $31,100.

I know, I know, that’s surely a ridiculous argument to make, right?  Maybe it should be considered though for a couple of different reasons.  For starters, talk about giving you perspective, right?  I mean, I happen to love going overseas and on mission trips, so I’ve met a lot of the people who live below $1 a day.  They have an amazing faith that makes us rich Westerners realize the poverty of our own hearts.  That being said, I’d love to help them start their own businesses and am starting down that road while learning with an internship with Opportunities Now! an organization here in Myanmar that provides business classes and start up capital for underprivileged youth.

Secondly, maybe we would be wise to consider how wealthy we really are.  Countless people have repeatedly assured me they are NOT rich.  I have no idea what their salary is nor do I desire to.  I can assure you though, many of them make at least what I make and that is $40,000 (gross) a year.  My argument to practically all my friends and family is that you/we ARE rich, in spite of what you may believe.  Let’s go based on the facts, shall we?  Let’s not base our confidence in our perception that is based largely on what we see on TV as to whether we are rich or not.

Thirdly, we would be wise to realize we ourselves are in the top 1% before we lash out against the super-rich.  My friend Ryan and I were laughing the other day as we discussed this.  He said he uses the globalrichlist whenever he speaks to churches back in the states in order to raise money.  He said he had good friends who were very concerned about America and our current direction, saying things like we’re heading down the tubes.  He humbly asked them, well maybe not so humbly since we’re somewhat similar in this area, to check the globalrichlist.com for some perspective.  I went a step further and said maybe we should reply to people who complain about the 1% they need to just shut up before they speak from such complete ignorance.

Dave Ramsey and Defending the 1%, part 1

I have to admit, in spite of being called a liberal by almost all my conservative friends, which happens to be probably at least 90% of my friends by the way, I LOVE listening to Dave Ramsey.  I often listen to his podcast while walking or running.  I went through Financial Peace University.  I’ve read The Total Money Makeover at least 3 times and probably closer to 4.  I want to read Entreleadership in spite of being an elementary teacher.  This irony doesn’t escape one of my best friends, who is about to do a debt-free scream on the Dave Ramsey in a few short weeks by the way.  I asked him for a shout out so we’ll have to wait and see if he does so.  We shared a pretty hearty laugh when we thought about how Dave would take that.  “Wait a minute, Curtis.  You’re telling me your friend is a liberal through and through but likes listening to me?!  You’re right, that’s just insane!”  Regardless, I couldn’t be prouder of him and his wife and their hard work to get out of debt.

I was listening to good ol’ Dave in the Bangkok airport the other day when I had a few hours to kill.  He was interviewing an author for the Motley Fool who had claimed Dave was doing damage by saying people could get 12% on their retirement accounts.  Dave started the show by quoting this author’s article.  After he announced he was going to interview the author, I instantly felt a little uneasy as to what was about to come.  Thankfully, they were both civil and Dave proved the author’s idiocy in a nice way, which would’ve been particularly difficult considering how the author had disrespected Dave to say the least.  His essential argument was that you can only expect 10%, not 12% in the longer term.  In reply, Dave showed several things that backed up his 12% figure and the author still argued saying those were not to be believed.

As I was listening, after I got over the initial uneasiness of the situation, I found I thoroughly enjoyed it for a couple of reasons.  For one, good for Dave, right?  I mean, you have to have some brass to invite someone who outright came against you, right?  Good for the author too for coming on the show in spite of sounding like a complete moron while Dave tore him to pieces albeit politely. 

Here’s another thought for Dave that I wanted to tweet him but realized he wasn’t as small as I am so he probably wouldn’t have appreciated it anyways.  He introduced the author as a former middle school teacher who worked for a charter school who had a goal of a 100% graduation rate.  I wonder if his middle school had a 100% graduation rate if they followed all those same students on into high school?  Did they have a 98% graduation rate, since 2% was apparently a big deal in this author’s mind?  I mean, Dave can back up his 12% with other stats but also with his own experience, can the author back up his claims to have a goal rate of 100% graduation rate with any solid numbers?  If we were to look back at all his students in his tenure at the charter school, did they all end up graduating high school?   Admittedly, I can’t remember if they said they had a graduation rate of 100% or if that was simply their goal.  I do remember thinking though that a 100% graduation rate isn’t exactly a novice goal, is it?  Do you have to be a charter school to have a goal of a 100% graduation rate?

Secondly, I think it’s because Dave reminds me of my dad, who also happens to be named David ironically.  He’s a strong male leader who is very opinionated and loves to take on challenges bigger than him.  In the case of Ramsey the debt culture; in the case of my dad a board of executives that sometimes is hesitant to spend money to expand the business.  The crazy thing is, they’re both relentless enough that they usually get their way in the end.  Not to mention my dad got me on the right track financially long before I had ever heard of Dave Ramsey.

Bipolar, Guns and Obamacare, part 2

If you’ll indulge me to proceed, onto gun rights and gun control go I.   I have had a change of heart in regards to this recently due to a great article written by a gun owner who made some persuasive arguments that made a lot of sense.  Again, perhaps the travel author’s saying can be applied to this as well, not hard or soft on guns but smart on guns.

First off, we need to recognize that by and large we’re too far gone for gun control legislation to make much of a difference at this point.  As a gun seller relayed to this gun owning author, “What else can I pay $400 for and have it passed onto my grandchildren in working condition?”  In addition, a student has now made a 3D printer model for an AR 15 that he has made available for free on the internet.

So, what’s a smart way forward on guns?  Require gun safety classes as well as gun safes.  Opponents of gun rights would probably argue that what I just wrote is an oxymoron, but that is a fairly short-sighted view, isn’t it?  If we’re going to allow you to own a gun, the least you could do is know how to handle it.  You owe it to society as a whole to be responsible with such a potentially dangerous weapon.  As far as gun safes, this author said something like 70% of gun deaths were made with guns that had been stolen.  Again, please be responsible if you’re going to have a gun.

For supporters of gun control legislation, I want to ask you a few things.  Do you think it’s wise to take guns out of everyone’s hands except the criminals’ hands?  Guns are a reality in America, and the quicker we realize that the better we are.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say the incredibly ignorant quote, “An armed society is a polite society.”  This is proved largely untrue by anyone who has been anywhere overseas.  America is known for a lot of things outside her borders, I can assure you our politeness isn’t one of them.  However, guns are just a part of America and always will be, and we regress if we pass stringent controls that make it impossible to even own a basic hand gun.  Take Illinois as an example, Chicago in particular to what happens when you implement strict gun laws.

For opponents of gun control legislation, I want to ask you a few things as well.  Would some very basic measures such as background checks be such a terrible idea?  Is it a strong argument for individual freedom that an ex-con can easily buy an AR-15 at a gun show without so much as a background check?  Would it kill you to pass a basic measure like that?  I can assure you it will kill you or others if we don’t pass a basic measure like that.

Where is this magical land where we enshrine gun rights but protest providing healthcare for everyone?  Where is it implied wisdom that it’s better to give a person who has a mental illness better access to potentially massacre-inducing weapons than it is to let them have access to affordable health insurance so they can then buy affordable medication to help ward off a mental collapse and the subsequent larger likelihood of previously mentioned massacre?  Only in America, land of the free, home of the brave.  Only in America, land of the armed, home of the sick.

“Give me your tired, your poor.  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

“I will provide them with all the guns they could ever hope for, but not affordable health insurance!”

Bipolar, Guns and Obamacare, part 1

Allow me to introduce myself.  First off, my identity is wrapped in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Secondly, I am an American citizen.  Please don’t allow either of those things to make you write me off so quickly.

Why, as an American who happens to have bipolar disorder, is it easier for me to buy an AR 15 than it is for me to buy affordable health insurance?  Perhaps I’m short-sighted and my mental illness is making an illogical argument; it’s happened before I do confess.  But maybe, just maybe, we can agree on some common sense legislation for guns and health care.  Otherwise we stay where we are currently. 

Alright, let’s get started now that I’ve given you a background.  As I said, I love Jesus with my whole heart.  That being said, I’m going to address both sides of both issues that are aforementioned in the title.  Two of my national representatives have sent email updates in the last week or so stating how they have supported legislation to repeal Obamacare.  I would humbly request that if you’re going to repeal it can you please at least keep the clause in there requiring health insurance providers to not discriminate based on preexisting conditions?

For supporters, I ask you to consider a few things.  Why should employers provide their employees health insurance?  They don’t provide car insurance, do they?  That’s solely because of tradition.  As a Christian, can you please agree that part of the law strikes out strongly against religious liberty; specifically requiring employers to provide insurance covering birth control even though it goes against their religious beliefs?  If we required pharmacists to pray with patients before they gave them their medication, would you be okay with that?

For opponents, I also ask you to consider a few things.  Why shouldn’t we require and mandate health insurance?  Many states mandate car insurance if you drive a car.  Shouldn’t we also mandate health insurance for people who have health?  A travel author stated he believed Europe wasn’t hard or soft on drugs but smart on drugs; perhaps we could be smart on health insurance?  Not health insurance covered by the government mind you but at least health insurance covered by private companies.  Are private car insurance companies struggling due to car insurance being mandated?

God, bipolar or big?

There was a documentary that came out several years ago defending believers against secularists.  It was pretty good to say the least, but something stuck out to me then as it does to this day.  Ben Stein starts the documentary by interviewing a famous atheist who says the God of the Bible is a whole list of many terrible things, one of which is bipolar.  First off, am I the only one who finds it funny to go on and on about how bad Someone is when you claim they don’t even exist?  It’s the same as writing a thesis on how unicorns are the ultimate evil in the world, right?  I have to give credit to Matt Chandler for that little line of thinking by the way.

Anyways, that obviously struck a chord with me.  It’s not too hard to see where this author came up with that conclusion, is it?  Any short perusal of the Old Testament in particular and you’re met with some passages talking about the punishment of the Israelites through the pagans followed by promises of a land flowing with milk and honey.  What I’ve come to appreciate about God though is just His bigness.

 

As someone who struggles with a mood disorder in particular, it’s difficult to comprehend how God can be pleased, while at the same time heartbroken, all while being incensed with jealousy and wanting to redeem us to Himself.  Does that strike anyone else as pretty crazy to think about?  Over here someone is putting their faith in His Son and heaven celebrates.  Over there someone is blaspheming the Holy Spirit and trafficking a child in the sex trade.  On the other side of the city, someone else is having an affair with an idol of their own making.

How does someone handle all those emotions?  Well, that’s kind of the point I’m trying to make.  No single person could handle all of that at the same time without entering into a state of psychosis following shortly thereafter.  The only Person who could handle all those emotions is One who is just as much Divine as He is human.  Only a God beyond our comprehension can handle everything the people of this world throw at Him.

So, the question remains in the atheist author’s mind, why would anyone worship a bipolar God?  Well, in response to this elementary question, God isn’t bipolar, period.  He is infinitely bigger than we could ever imagine.   Simply put, He can handle it. 

I love it when a show like Sons of Anarchy display these strong male characters and they’re always shown as being able to handle anything that comes their way.  Similarly, at the office I now work in, we have a saying that I simply love.  Whenever we ask one another if they can do something for us; no matter how difficult the task may be, we almost always respond to each other with one word.  Done.  Nothing more, nothing less.  All you have to know is that I got this, it’s going to be done.

How much more does God ‘got this’?  We offer up simple prayers in simple faith and maybe instead of God responding, ‘Done’ He replies with something akin of, ‘Come on my child.  You are not asking for nearly enough.  Your view of me needs to be expanded.  So instead of answering your original prayer, I’m going to move mountains in your life and the lives of those around you.  I will do immeasurably more than anything you could ask or imagine.’  And maybe He follows this up with not saying, "I got this" but rather, "I got you."

Emotional God

Everyone connects with God on different levels, but bipolar disorder has caused me to question His goodness on a deeper and more soul-wrestling level at some times and stand in awe of how infinitely greater He is than me at others.  It has also helped me to read Scripture with a different set of eyes.  I know this is going to sound heretical to many of my readers, as I seem to be doing more and more lately as a side note.  However, I am almost thoroughly convinced that good old King David was bipolar and just undiagnosed.  Have you read the Psalms lately?  I mean, he goes from one extreme to the other, some might say from one pole to the other, in a few short chapters, right?  In one chapter he’s talking about how crazy good God is and in the next he’s obviously depressed and asking God to remember him.

There’s other examples of amazing and godly men who God chose to work through who definitely went through some serious bouts of depression.  Elijah took on how many prophets of Baal only when you turn a few short pages in your Bible later and he suddenly is asking God to take his life?  Even Paul, the hero of the New Testament in modern-day evangelicalism (as opposed even to Christ Himself mind you in extreme cases) despaired of life itself at one point. 

Furthermore, how many cases of great and godly men who have suffered from mental illness have there been since then?  I was highly offended when I heard Mark Driscoll give a sermon on leadership and say if someone was bipolar they shouldn’t be an elder in a local church.  Ironically, he has also said one of his favorite modern-era preachers was Charles Spurgeon.  Well, Mark, if someone had followed your advice good old Chuck would never have become an elder.  He may have not been bipolar but he was undoubtedly depressed at times, even to his own admission.

We do ourselves, our neighbors, and God Himself a great disservice if we focus on loving God with all our minds at the expense and replacement of loving God with all our hearts too, not to mention strength and soul too of course.  I’m not saying we should trust our emotions by any means, believe me; that would be a complete disaster if we truly lived that way in spite of late teenage and early 20 something girls in particular who assure us to just follow our hearts and everything will work out alright.  Are you completely insane?  Surely you’ve lived long enough to realize the heart is fickle, right? 

That being laid aside for a moment, how do we love God with not just our whole minds but also with our whole hearts?  Maybe we let loose in worship and act like the little kids in their worship song service.  When did we lose the ability to lose ourselves in worship just because we cared too greatly about what others might think of us?  I can still remember commenting to a friend how I loved watching his kids worship at camp when they came to visit him.  They were young at the time, probably 2 and 4 maybe.  They just let loose and danced man.  And why not??  Why don’t we do the exact same thing??

Perhaps God is just as emotional as He is intelligent?  Again, here I go into heresy, but allow me to explain myself.  God is infinitely wise; we are rest assured of this.  However, doesn’t the person of Christ show a God who embraced every type of emotion, albeit without sinning?   Jesus wept, he got so incredibly and righteously angry He overthrew tables in His Father’s house and drove the moneychangers out.  He faced temptation like we will never know.  He cried in his mom’s arms as a baby, contrary to what some renditions of the first Christmas might inform you.  He loved incredibly deeply and perfectly.  He felt everything that we feel, that’s pretty much the definition of empathy right?  I mean, we do serve a God who is able to empathize with our problems because of the temptation He faced, right?

Please don’t mishear me here.  I am not advocating for some semi-spiritual good feeling salvation nonsense.  What I am saying though is that God is a God of emotion just as much as He is a God of wisdom.  We do Him a great disservice when we spend all our time reading theologians and endless theologies and neglect to love Him with all our hearts and encourage others to do the same.

Expressionism in Bible reading

I remember my youth pastor thoroughly enjoying when I read Scripture for him for the first time.  He, and everyone else in that particular Sunday school or Wednesday night service for high schoolers, seemed to be completely dumbfounded and caught off guard when I was asked to read some of those dangerous red letters we find in our New Testaments.  You see, my momma always taught me to read with inflection, expression and emotion to make reading more enjoyable for oneself and their hearers if they’re reading out loud.  All I did was simply apply that to whatever particular passage of Christ’s words that I had been asked to read aloud.  By the time I finished almost everyone was sheepishly grinning at what I had just done.  Gil said something along the lines of, “Well, thanks man.  I’ve never heard anyone read it like that.”  Guess I surprised him that time, he quickly learned I was a little weird to say the least.

In light of that, why don’t we read Scripture aloud with more emotion and inflection in our voices?  Surely we don’t pretend to think Christ was a boring character with a mono-syllabic voice, do we?  Several years ago during one of my first years of teaching 5^th grade I remember helping a girl find her ‘reading voice.’  Allow me to set this up for you.  This girl was one of the most dramatic girls I’ve ever had.  And she hated reading; I mean hated it with a passion of a thousand burning suns kind of hatred. 

Anyways, I quickly realized she didn’t hear herself when she read.  I asked her, “Do you realize how you sound when you read?  You are the most dramatic student I’ve ever had and add inflection to your voice at every turn when you’re trying to express yourself.  Why then, when you read, do you neglect to add any expression whatsoever?  It’s no wonder you hate reading!” 

You may think that was too harsh, but I hopefully made up for it.  I would have her take the tape recorder over to the corner and listen to herself read into the mic.  I also gave her bigger parts in Reader’s Theater to practice making reading come alive.  She ended up reading with expression and it was simply beautiful, or at least as beautiful as a 10 year-old girl’s voice can be.  She found her reading voice, you see?

Similarly, when I read Scripture and in particular the words of Jesus, I can’t help but read it in my mind with expression.  Maybe the reason so many find the Bible incredibly dry to read is that we forget to apply our reading skills of expression and inflection to our times of Bible study.  There are some parts especially in the Old Testament where it’s dry no matter what you do, but I’m more focused here on the gospels themselves.

 

My mentor teacher from my first year of teaching and who has continued to be a mentor in education as well as in the faith, has a great motivation for wanting to and loving teaching reading.  She told me her primary motivation was so that students could read for themselves and find the truth of God.  She said there are so many lies in our culture today and if we don’t teach our students to read and find out truth for themselves than they will stay with veiled eyes.  That’s beautiful, isn’t it?  The part about students finding truth for themselves by the way, not staying with veiled eyes in case you were wondering.  Of course, they will inevitably come to a point where they question the Bible itself, but why not encourage that questioning period with more reading on both sides of the debate as to whether or not the Bible can be taken literally?

In short, read the Bible.  Don’t just read it either, read it with expression and enthusiasm in your voice.  You owe it to yourself and whoever else is going to hear you read Scripture.

The Benefits of Being Bipolar

Rest assured, at this stage I have come to the point that I neither find pride in nor insecurity in my having bipolar disorder.  Well, maybe sometimes that’s the case, at least when I’m at my best.  Embracing our weaknesses for God’s glory and power to be made perfect is a life lesson.  It is so difficult to learn, isn’t it?  Our culture, inside and outside the church I might add, screams at us to hide our weaknesses, I mean, you don’t want to be seen as weak, do you?  The logical conclusion is that you should hide your weaknesses, whether spoken outright or implied.

At this stage in the game I can honestly say I enjoy being bipolar.  There are some crazy stories in my past which I’m not going to share here, that’s for a later book to be written at a later date.  Whenever I share some of those stories they’re bound to get people, including me of course, into nothing short of belly laughter.  I mean, some of the things I went through when I was first diagnosed in particular are the stuff of movies.  Any aspiring actors want to play my lead role in the movie that will follow my autobiographical book??  Alright, so maybe I’m exaggerating a bit there, but it would probably be a mix between a comedy and drama of some sort.  We could call it a comedrama perhaps?  Maybe a dramedy? 

And please don’t forget to include all the grandiose delusions of differing levels that I’ve had through countless episodes of mania.  If you want any ideas about pretty much anything; whether in reference to solving the world’s problems or starting a multi-million dollar business that is profitable in the first quarter of operation, just ask me while I’m manic.  There is a great chance that if I’m not already an expert on that subject matter than I will soon be an expert after an hour, maximum, of research on the always reliable and truthful internet.

In addition to providing some great tales that my grandkids will someday hopefully love and ask me to repeat when they get older; I have been able to provide hope to sufferers of the disorder themselves or family members of bipolar patients.  Do you know how many people I’ve known who either have bipolar disorder or know someone in their lives who was just diagnosed?  It’s an insanely high number.  Coincidence doesn’t quite explain all those instances in my humble opinion.  We have to be willing to boast about our weaknesses though, which doesn’t come easily.

I remember having a conversation with someone at work about faith.  She said something along the lines of asking why I needed a crutch in my life like God.  I assured her I didn’t need a crutch, but I did need a wheelchair, to quote Billy Graham’s daughter I think?  If having a mental illness is to have taught me anything in this life, I can honestly say it’s to teach me to increase my faith.  You see, I see God differently than most on account of having this disorder.

I have been drawn to my knees so many times on account of deep levels of depression that all I’m left with is praying my way through each day.  My pride has been broken so much and so often that I’m left knowing in my heart of hearts that I can do nothing on my own apart from His strength.  I remember sharing with my pastor back home of how everyday all I could do was to wake up and pray for strength to get through the day, that was just where I was at during that period of time.  He replied that was beautiful.  It took all of me not to punch his lights out right then due to my extreme frustration at his seeming inability to comprehend what I was going through on any level whatsoever.  After I got through that episode of depression, it occurred to me that he was in fact right, I just didn’t want to hear it at that time.

The "B" Word

Allow me to focus on bipolar disorder in particular, since that’s in my wheelhouse so to speak.  How many people have ever heard of one good thing a bipolar person ever did that made national news?  I am pretty sure I can offer a few examples of bipolar people causing some type of severe pain.  Such is the news though, right?  Maybe it’s the example of the Florida educator who got arrested for giving oral sex to a 14 year-old boy and was later acquitted on account of her being misdiagnosed as depressed when in reality she was bipolar.  Or maybe it’s the TV drama that starts out with a horrific crime only to have the mystery resolved by realizing the poor bipolar person had simply gone off his lithium. 

Either way, I dare say it’s fairly difficult to find a genuinely good news show or sitcom in how they address bipolar disorder.  Silver Lining Playbook did a decent job, unless you’re led to the conclusion that bipolar people all have a mate waiting in the wings who also happens to be bipolar.  That doesn’t sound like a particularly great idea, does it?  Gee, I’m bipolar so I guess I should seek out someone else who is bipolar, yep, that sounds like a great idea that will end well.

Thankfully, that has started changing albeit slowly.  I just read a thing where Catherine Zeta-Jones has been a reluctant spokesperson for people with bipolar disorder.  She may be reluctant, but at least she embraces her weakness and shares hope with others who have the same issues.  For every Catherine though, how many unmedicated lunatics are there in our country who are one simple stress trigger away from a massacre? 

I know, we shouldn’t have background checks for guns.  That way, it’s easier for a person with a mental illness to buy an AR-15 than it is for them to get health insurance and pay for their meds.  Yep, perfect sense, because by God I have my rights enshrined in the Constitution, and health care isn’t one of those rights!  Repeal Obamacare!  We don’t want people with mental health issues to have access to affordable health insurance so they can pay for their meds!  We’d rather have them untreated and accept the inevitable consequences of some of them committing atrocities.  We don’t want gun control either!  No!  Not even reasonable measures!  You can’t require a background check in order to purchase a gun, what are you, a friggin’ Socialist or something?  I’ll write more about that at a later date, rest assured of that.

Let me get back to the issue of bipolar.  I saw a wonderful documentary on Youtube dealing with bipolar disorder that was simply heartwarming and heartbreaking simultaneously; pretty perfect considering it dealt with bipolar disorder, right?  I think it was entitled Up/Down or something less than clever like that.  There was a woman who had a quote that was the best description of having bipolar disorder that I’ve ever heard of.  She said having bipolar disorder is similar to sitting in a boat and holding on to two strings.  One string has a kite and desires to lift you high above the reality of the boat.  The other string has an anchor on it and desires to bring you down to the depths of the ocean below reality.  Being bipolar is like holding onto both those strings and keeping a balance.  Perhaps the title of the documentary should’ve been Kites and Anchors with a picture of the tattoos that she had on her hands of a kite and an anchor, just a thought.  Almost anything would be better than “Up/Down” right?  Everyone’s a critic, including myself I suppose.  They did do a fabulous job of educating anyone who watches it about the disorder in a respectful way and I definitely appreciated it for that.

The "D" Word

There is a lovely art exhibit every year in Sarasota titled “Embracing Our Differences.”  The essential ethos is for students to do exactly that, ‘embrace their differences.’  It’s a great exhibit and this last year they put it in the park by Marina Jack’s which made it an even greater exhibit in my opinion.  This may have been done before but I just stumbled across it in that park this past year.  Students of all ages draw pictures that show how and why we should embrace our differences.  All of them are beautiful, although I will admit I have a particular appreciation for the simpler ones from elementary students since that’s where my background is.

Embracing our differences is definitely needed, especially in today’s multi-ethnic culture.  Right now, though, I’d like to shift the attention to embracing our weaknesses.  This doesn’t sound very practical, does it?  The passage that I’m going to be referring to is found in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10.  The one verse in particular I want to focus on is verse 9 which states the following, “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me."

This is one of those passages that has always stuck out to me.  When I first came across it, I hated it with a passion.  I remember crying out to God, “Why does this have to be?  I have plenty of strengths that You have so graciously blessed me with!  Why would I boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses???”  At the time it was in reference to when I was asked to share about being bipolar to my campus ministry.  My campus minister actually had the audacity to ask me to share about the very thing I hated the most about myself.  How could he do such a thing?!  Didn’t he love me?  How in the world was Jesus going to use this message to bring glory to Himself?

Ever since then, I’ve learned to embrace my weaknesses.  Bipolar is the obvious one of course in my life, but rest assured there are plenty of other ones to choose from.  Sometimes I share them depending on the situation, sometimes I don’t.  Bipolar is the one weakness that I choose to share with just about anyone willing to listen.  There are several reasons for this. 

For one, I like to blow people’s thoughts out of the water when these supposedly, I would even say arrogantly is often the case, intelligent and tolerant people have desperately naive preconceived stereotypes about mental illnesses.  How many times is someone going to say something completely ridiculous about people with mental illnesses before they wake up and realize there’s a good chance that at least one person in their lives is struggling with a mental disorder at this very moment?  25% of American adults experience at least one major bout of depression sometime in their lives.  Statistically speaking, if you know more than 3 adults, than you know at least one person who is currently struggling with depression or will at one point or another.

Don’t let that stop you though, go ahead and talk about how you’re so ‘depressed’ today because you didn’t sleep well last night.  I have to be honest here and say I take offense to that seemingly harmless response to the question of how a person is doing.  I’m just as guilty as the next person, but when someone pretends that they’re depressed or have been in the past and knows what I’m going through when I’m in a major bout it’s pretty insulting to say the least. 

Obviously, we have no control over how words are used and abused in our vernacular, but can I please request of you to not say you’re ‘depressed’ when you’re just having a blue day?  Or if you do continue to do so, please don’t pretend to know what someone is actually experiencing when they’re in the throes of depression and suicide seems a lovely alternative.  Your careless words of so called encouragement saddled with ‘Let go and let God’ or ‘You just have to have faith’ are not doing anyone any good, I can assure you of that.

Test God and Money in the New Testament

I remember the first time I taught on money at my church.  I was slightly manic so that certainly helped my cause.  Whenever I’m a little bit manic, I can think pretty clearly and am on a natural high that can be quite engaging to a congregation or a room full of five-year olds.  Either way I can choose to exploit it for good and represent Jesus well or choose to exploit it to instead bring the focus onto myself.  With that in mind, allow me to relay what I shared that Sunday, at least part of it.

Basically, I challenged some preconceived notions in the church that I had come across while growing up in the Christian subculture.  People have often said that tithing was an Old Testament teaching, to this I respond Jesus not so subtly alluded to the command to tithe in the New Testament as well.  Let’s say you don’t agree with that as a pretty undeniable implication in that passage.  Even so, where does it talk about money in the New Testament, in the gospels or any book, in which case it states you should give less than a tithe or 10%?  Pretty sure it argues that 10% is a basement, not a ceiling.

I also shared how some people I’ve come into contact with have shared they don’t give because God loves a cheerful giver and He wouldn’t be happy with my gifts because it wouldn’t be with a cheerful heart.  To this I simply responded, out of love for this person and because I had the right relationship to speak this into her life, “Well, don’t you think that has more to do with your heart being in the wrong place then?!”  All this to illustrate the fact that using the cheerful heart argument is simply and utterly a total cop out of having to actually obey God.  Do you think the first time you give 10% you’re really going to be overjoyed?  Is that really realistic?  Or is it just as likely and I would even argue more likely that it takes a while for you to feel the joy.  It takes a while to see how God is going to use your alms to serve Him.  If you stick with it though, He is faithful and you will indeed become a cheerful giver.

Finally, I wrapped up with a challenge to sacrificial giving.  My preacher growing up was amazing at this.  He used Malachi where it says to “Test God” as his usual text and I chose to use the same.  You do know that’s the only place in all of Scripture where God says to test Him, right?  That should probably stick out to us on account of that, don’t you think?  For some people 5% is a sacrifice, others it’s 10%.  My main concern here is the people who have grown comfortable in giving 10% to where it’s just something they do now.  If it doesn’t even register on your heart when you give, if it doesn’t hurt at least a little, are you really giving anything at all?

What’s funny is that people never want to talk about money in church.  There’s a good reason for this in that it has often been abused and misguided people to be sure.  However, we do the gospel a great disservice by neglecting to preach on the subject of money.  I don’t know the stats off hand but I’m pretty sure Jesus Himself spent quite a bit of time teaching on money, right?  It seems to me like it was a pretty consistent thing He taught about in the Gospels if I remember correctly.  Again, I could be way off base there as I surely don’t have a Bible college degree, please correct me if I’m way off in thinking Christ spent quite a bit of time talking about money, okay?

In short, what does the New Testament teach about money?  Is it mainly about a percentage or about the state of your heart?  It’s plainly obvious it’s much more about the state of your heart, right?  Some of us need to start giving something, even a little bit is better than nothing.  Others need to step up their games to give 10% because that’s what we’re called to.  Still others need to give a far greater percentage of their wealth or perhaps, dare I even suggest it, all of it.  Maybe we would do well to trust Jesus that when He says where your treasure is there will your heart be also that He actually meant it and furthermore knew what He was talking about.

Jesus and Money

I agree with you though, we need the whole of Scripture to get a big view of God.  With this in mind, didn’t Jesus Himself say something along the lines of, “You have read where it says this, but I say to you…”?  Not to be blasphemous here because I know it may come across that way, but isn’t that essentially playing a trump card?  Doesn’t that necessitate us taking the words of Jesus a little more seriously than perhaps other Scripture?  Scripture is complex, I get it.  However, are we reading Paul and the rest of the Bible through the lens of how it is lived out in the light of Jesus and His Words, aka the gospel?  Or are we instead reading the gospel through the lens of the Pauline letters and the Old Testament?

Here are a few examples to get us thinking along those lines.  Jesus said, “Whatever you did to one of the least of these, you did unto me.”  This is said in light of how He is going to separate the sheep and the goats.  Now, do we emphasize works at the risk of misguiding people in a works-earned salvation?  Or are we more likely to err on the side of how grace covers all our sin and it will be okay as long as you  believe in Jesus?  There are Scriptures on both sides of the issue of course, and often they’re coupled together ironically.  John 3:16-21 starts out by saying whoever believes in the Son has eternal life but finishes in verse 21 by saying that “so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”

Another one or two examples; I’m glad you asked.  How many times do we quote to each other Ephesians 2:8-9 to assure one another that we’re saved by Christ?  What percentage of those same times do we neglect to mention the very next verse that states we are “created in Christ Jesus to do good works”?  Or what about all those pesky verses that say things like if we believe in God we will obey His commands?  1 John 3:24 states that, “The one who keeps God’s commands lives in Him, and He in them.”  I dare say His commands even in the New Testament didn’t solely talk about belief and accepting Christ into your heart, did they?  Random thought, is the sinner’s prayer even in Scripture at all?

Let’s get back to Jesus and Mammon, or money as it is often referred to today.  Money isn’t evil in itself, as with just about everything else in life, it is simply a tool.  You can do wonderful things with it, but you can also commit atrocities with it.  The love of money, not money itself, is the root of all kinds of evil, not all evil.  We need to remember that when we’re criticizing one another.  At the same time, don’t just go idly by in your life when it comes to how we view our money and how it affects our lives on so many levels.

The fact of the matter remains though, we simply cannot have two masters.  You can’t serve both God and Money.  What does that look like practically speaking?  It means that Jesus Himself will call some of us to literally give it all up in order to get our hearts straight.  It means that Jesus Himself will sometimes bless us with incredible wealth because He has prepared us for that incredible responsibility to use wealth to expand the kingdom.

In short, it means that Jesus will do whatever it takes to bring glory to Himself and expand His kingdom.  It means having to break us from our pathetic grasps at our wealth in some cases or blessing us beyond our wildest dreams so we can turn that blessing onto others in other cases.  You see, the older I get, the more I think that Christ simply does in fact meet us where we are and simply does in fact refuse to leave us there.  For some people that means Christ will rescue them from an empty life hooked on drugs and never having money to bringing them to a stable job that then produces a good income and an ability to pay for the needs of one’s family.  For some people that means Christ will wreck their comfortable Christian lives that they’ve always known when they finally decide to submit to His will even when it causes discomfort.

Teaching About Money

Yeah, exciting title, right?  Well, let’s get right into it then, shall we?  First off, I want to start out by saying my views have changed significantly in regards to wealth over the past few years especially.  With that in mind, I readily admit that I might be completely off base with what I’m about to share.  Please bear that in mind as you read this.  It is a dangerous responsibility to ask for the grace to teach others, isn’t it? 

I’ve preached about money and stewardship in my church and loved it.  I will say though, that although I enjoy the accolades just as much as the next guy, I often think I was probably closer to Biblical truth on the Sunday’s when I don’t get congratulated.  That’s a scary thought to embrace, isn’t it?  It really boils down to your primary motivation, doesn’t it?  Is your motivation to bring glory to God and make much of Jesus or to bring glory to yourself?

For some reason, people like to think this doesn’t happen; that preachers sometimes teach for their own self-worth as opposed to just bringing the gospel for the glory of God.  Well, let me reassure you that it happens way more than any of us want to acknowledge or admit.  It doesn’t start out that way of course, please don’t mishear me on that.  Preachers have the best of intentions usually.  They have a fire burning in their souls that must be let out.

However, do you think preachers and teachers are exempt from temptation?  From my limited experience, if anything, preachers and teachers face more temptation than anyone else.  I can usually tell when I’m really on fire for God because shortly thereafter I face an unusual amount of temptation that I’m simply unprepared for and not anticipating it at all; although it has become a pattern so I need to watch out for it more often. 

Let me be perfectly clear here.  Whenever I’m asked to preach on money or any other subject, I see it as a great chance to share some Biblical truths with God’s people about money.  In spite of this, sometimes my sermons just plain suck and do nothing to advance the kingdom of God nor challenge anyone to grow deeper in their relationship with Christ.  Thankfully, my pastor and best friend is patient with me and allows me more chances to teach/preach.  It takes practice, just like anything else.  Sometimes you’re going to hit it out of the park, and sometimes you’re going to be left wondering if you said anything that even mattered.

Whenever I’m asked to teach on money, I count it an incredible honor and an incredibly dangerous proposition.  An incredible honor because I think this is a hugely lacking area of teaching and practice among God’s people in my church and the West in general.  An incredibly dangerous proposition because what if you’re simply wrong?  What if all the study you’ve done on the subject, from the Bible verses you’re going to use to the podcasts you listen to; from the books you read on personal finances pointing towards a Biblical view of stewardship to the classes you’ve even attended to get a better understanding of how God and money work; what if in spite of all this you’re just plain wrong?

I mean, there are a million and one ways to view money based on different Scriptures, surely we can agree on at least that, right?  Personally, I tend towards what I consider a more balanced view of money with a definite lean towards idealism in my life and the lives of my fellow believers.  That being said, if you look at Jesus Christ Himself and His teaching on money, it wasn’t exactly balanced, was it?  He commended the widow for her mite that she put in the offering.  He told the rich young ruler to sell all his possessions and give to the poor.  A tax collector met with him and as a result gave away half of all he owned and paid back anyone he had cheated four times the amount.  He told a disciple to get the tax out of a fish’s mouth for crying out loud!  Can someone please point me to a verse or two that shows a ‘balanced view’ on money that came out of the mouth of our own Savior?  This should probably concern us at least a little bit, right?

Marriage, Maturity and Peacemaking

My mom has always excelled at being a peacemaker in our home, particularly in my teenage years.  My dad and I or my brother wouldn’t see eye to eye on a particular subject and if my mom hadn’t stepped in as a peacemaking representative on behalf of both my brother or I and my dad, well, frankly I shudder at what might have been.  That being said, my dad has become better at making peace over the last few years; whether it’s in relation to one of his employees or with his or mom’s extended families respectively.  Whether he has to fire someone because of unethical business practices or tell my Grandma on my mom’s side not to mow her own yard anymore, he is often the one to act first.

Now I realize they’ve both done well at peacemaking in the past, they just approach it differently.  Dad has no problem with confronting someone and as a result he and the person whom he has confronted are usually easier able to address the problem at hand rather than dicker around it for ages on end.  Mom has an unusual knack at hearing both sides of a problem and finding a third way forward that works for both parties involved.  Perhaps they should run for the Presidency in 2016?  Haha, I can just imagine it now, David Hemming for President and Lesa Hemming as his first running mate.  I mean, let’s face the truth; the first lady usually does more good than the Vice President anyways from what I’ve been able to tell at least.  Then you add on a couple of liberal sons to add another voice to their cabinet of conservative advisors, and they’re a shoe in. 

Well, maybe not in reality.  I can hardly imagine my dad being able to handle all the nonsense that comes out of people’s mouths in DC, especially in Pelosi’s case as he has assured me several times that anything that comes out of that woman’s mouth is either a blatant lie or just idiotic when looked at logically.  Not to mention my mom would have very little patience in spite of being the saint that she is for people’s finger pointing and plain refusal to take any responsibility for their own actions and consequences that arise naturally as a result.

It has been humorous in my twenties in particular to see people psychoanalyze me as to why I would believe very strongly that I was not meant to be married.  “But you have such strong role models in your parents’ marriage!”  Then I reply to not forget extended family and ALL of my close friends in Florida as well.  Yes, I have had incredible role models on both sides of my family as well as incredible mentors in the faith that have fantastic marriages to look at as hope that in spite of outrageous divorce rates both inside and outside the church.  That doesn’t mean the culture at large and some specific personal examples haven’t played a role in keeping me away from any serious relationship for a decade though.  That also doesn’t mean that married men or women or people who desire to be are all that more mature or intellectual in my humble opinion.  I saw many a man in college who was incredibly mature yet single and wanted to stay that way and at the same time many a woman in college who was incredibly immature yet desperately wanted to get a ring on their finger before graduating college.

Some might argue that marriage necessitates maturity and I would agree with that on most counts.  Surely we can agree though that we all know married people who are still incredibly immature though, right?  To make a sweeping generalization that if you get married you’re automatically more mature is equivalent to a boy claiming he’s a man because he now needs to shave.  In college and afterwards as a single man, I was often confused at many pastors’ seeming obsession with getting their young people in their churches married off.  They would lament at our societies’ embrace of extended adolescence.  I would lament this right along with them of course. 

However, I would add that just because a young man or a young woman decides to put off tying the knot it doesn’t mean they’re stuck in a state of extended adolescence, does it?  How many married men and women can’t keep a good job to save their lives and end up living back at their mom and dad’s homes?  Sometimes that’s necessary of course for a season, but as my dad lovingly put it when I graduated college, “Son, if you’re ever in a bind and need a place to stay your mom and I would of course let you stay with us.  But only for like a few months, then you better get a job!”  That has always stuck with me for some reason, partially due to how much we both cracked up when he said it but perhaps even more so because of how many so called adults who are married that can’t seem to take that advice themselves. 

Not only are they living at their wife’s parents’ house or their own parents’ house and have the nerve to complain about having a free place to stay, some have no intention of ever even leaving!  They may say they do, but look a little beneath the surface and you would be hard pressed to find much motivation for wanting to move out.  I can still remember a so-called friend complaining to me that his wife was perfectly happy to stay living at her mom’s house even though it was causing a strain on their relationship.  I agreed with him whole-heartedly, but then asked that all important question that some people simply hate to hear when all they really want is for you to offer a sympathetic ear.  “So what are you going to do about it man??”  I lovingly asked him.  “Well, I’m gonna get some more side work and go from there.”  Really, you surely can’t be serious, can you?  That’s your brilliant idea man?  Then it shouldn’t surprise you in the least that she’s content to stay at her mom’s house, should it?  I mean, you’re not exactly offering a compelling alternative in my opinion and I can assure you not in her opinion which is infinitely more important in this case.

My Parents Have Changed Man!!! part 2

Anyways, back to where I was originally going with this thinking.  As I stated before, while I was in college and the years that followed, people always asked me what my parents were like and I had always replied that they were just so different it was nothing short of a miracle that they had stayed together.  I even remember asking both of them privately while a student in college how in the world they had made it work in their marriage since they were so clearly different.  Both of them replied in the same way, which I should’ve expected even though I went to them individually because they always made sure they had the same response for when my brother and I would try and ask one or the other in hopes of getting the answer we were after.  We both tried that approach less than a handful of times in our entire childhoods I’m sure because we quickly realize much to our chagrin that our parents actually communicated outside of our awareness. 

Over the past couple of years, maybe since January of 2012 especially was when I started realizing it in particular, I no longer see them as individuals.  While I do tend to gravitate towards one or the other in relation to certain aspects of my life be it retirement planning or how to handle interpersonal relationships, simultaneously I’m just as likely to go to one or the other on even those issues in addition to the vast majority of issues that may arise in my life.  You see, over the past couple of years and probably over the last 31 years of at least my life and a few years before that, they have become one.

As I said before, I used to be amazed at how they had made it work in spite of being so different.  I used to even lovingly joke once or twice that they were the cause of my having bipolar disorder.  When two people who are so opposite marry and have babies, it’s only a matter of time before one of them turns out bipolar, right?  Well, I laid off that joke fairly quickly due to realizing they didn’t think it nearly as funny as I did, but I found it quite hilarious at the time.  However, over the past couple of years I no longer see them as two opposite but equal individuals in their marriage.  They have truly become one, as I’m sure they always have been, but it has just started to be blatantly obvious in my life over the last year and a half.

My dad even concedes this on some levels.  My mom jokes about how much he has calmed down since he was a younger man and I have to agree.  He’s taken on more of her personality in relation to just going with the flow, particularly when it comes to them going on vacation.  As kids, whenever we went on vacation it seemed to be that dad had the whole vacation planned out almost to the minute by minute playbook by the time we arrived to our various destinations.  If we got off that schedule, rest assured he would be less than thrilled to say the least.  After a few decades of trying to teach my dad how to relax and actually enjoy his vacation and not see it as yet another excuse to stress about time and meeting real or perceived deadlines, my mom has finally succeeded in converting my dad to someone who can actually go somewhere and not have it all planned out to the minute ahead of time.  I realize you probably think I’m exaggerating here and perhaps even my own dad would argue this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone found a minute by minute schedule of a planned vacation were they to look through our trash from my childhood for whatever reason.

Similarly, my dad has rubbed off on my mom a fair amount.  When I first got a couple of roommates in my parents’ new investment property, I can remember my mom being pretty visibly pissed off when she came down to visit once and realized how much Rich had taken advantage of my kindness by taking over well over his third of the house.  In addition to that, he had the nerve to smoke pot in their house, after my dad had already confronted him to not do so anymore.  Eventually even I had to step up to the plate to finally kick his lazy but out in spite of my fairly strong aversion to confrontation.  In college I used to love confrontation but lost that afterwards for some reason.  After having to kick a stoner out of my house though, I have come to the place where I rather enjoy it again.  Not that I’m going to start seeking it out like I used to, but I certainly no longer have a strong aversion to it. 

With all this in mind, I can’t ever remember my mom being quite visibly that angry at someone in my past.  The reason I think this shows how my dad has rubbed off on her isn’t because she was angry but rather that she allowed herself to be angry at someone when they fully deserved it.  My dad has never exactly struggled with letting someone know if they pissed him off.  In fact, you have always been able to rest assured that if you upset my dad you wouldn’t have to wait really long to find out. 

The crazy thing is, he’s usually right.  There is usually a very good reason you’ve upset him, people just aren’t used to hearing it come straight from someone’s own mouth as opposed to just being gossiped about behind their backs like most people are accustomed to.  Which would you prefer, honestly?  I’ve always been a big fan of being criticized to my face as opposed to behind my back personally.  Not everyone shares this perspective of course, but I could make a fairly convincing argument would I choose to do so here that confrontation is a lost art that we have suffered greatly due to the replacement of confrontation with gossiping or not saying anything at all and just letting that anger boil under our skin.

The Beginning Of My Single Life's Ending

Question: How do you know you’re all about someone?

Answer:  When a new person you just met laughs at you because she says you ‘sound so in love with your girlfriend.’

Well, here’s your fair warning, fellas.  Don’t bother reading the rest of this if you don’t desire to be in a relationship.  Believe me, I totally get it.  So much so that for about a decade I was bound and determined to not get bit by the love bug.  I was perfectly happy being single and honestly was convinced that I would be single for the rest of my life.  I celebrated this fact all the time, telling anyone who would listen about the benefits of singleness and why my life was better than a married person’s life.  There is definitely still some truth in that and I have the Scriptures to back it up if someone wants to argue about it.  However, something has changed in my heart and mind over the past year and a half or so, starting around 4 months before the time I turned 30 ironically.

I can remember the specific moment that things started to change if you’d like to hear about it.  You’re reading my blog so I’m going to go ahead and assume that even if you don’t want to hear about it you’ll at least excuse me to do so as I try and wrap my mind around what has happened in my life over the last year and a half or so.  It was January of 2012 and I had just moved into my parents’ new investment property that they had just bought.  My mom had come down to help me furnish the place so it wouldn’t look like a total bachelor pad right off the bat.  I can distinctly remember her calling my dad to talk over the phone when we were finished working on the house for the day.

It finally occurred to me, and looking back it should’ve occurred to me much earlier, that my mom and dad simply cared for each other.  They were genuinely interested in hearing how each other’s day had gone.  The reason this should’ve occurred to me much earlier was because I grew up with having them as an example of a beautiful marriage.  Don’t get me wrong, they went through their rough patches I’m sure just like everyone else does.  They were very careful as I have learned since being out of the house, to never fight in front of my brother and me.  This was especially true in our early childhood, but I think they just decided to keep with it as we got old because although I remember a few times of my brother or I getting reprimanded, I sincerely don’t remember a single instance of them fighting with each other in front of us.

As I said, I’m sure they had their rough patches and still do to be sure as in married couple does, but that doesn’t take away from them genuinely caring for one another and each other’s needs and desires.  My mom has joked before that she’s not so sure she wants my dad to ever retire.  If he goes for more than about 4 days at any given time without working at all, he’s liable to go crazy at least on some level.  Mom jokes that he would cause her to go insane if he didn’t go to work every day.  Honestly, I can’t see him as ever being retired for any length of time myself.  I’ve joked with friends that I see him taking about 3-4 months of traveling, maybe around New Zealand as that’s been his dream with mom for when they retire, but after 4 months the poor guy will be bored out of his mind. 

If you’re reading this, don’t worry too much dad, I’ve got some ideas for you to consider when it gets closer to the time of retirement.  I can hear you cackling now and mom laughing too, but don’t laugh too much!  You always like to say how Grandma B. and I seem to have a fairly strong connection with the Big Guy upstairs and rest assured I’ve been laying down my ideas for your retirement at His feet.  You better be prepared for some big things, that’s all I’m going to say about that for now.  I don’t want to give away too much right now, just know that it’s going to be good.

Where do I begin with my mom?  She has always been a rock by my side when I’ve gone through various struggles growing up and on into nowadays.  Dad has always said she has been the glue that got us through the difficult times growing up, and I couldn’t agree more.  My dad rightfully admires her, although he does like to tease her, a fair amount, something Steffani will have to learn to love because I certainly come by it fairly honestly on both sides. 

For a while in college and in the years following that, my friends would ask me about my parents and I’d lovingly share how they were complete opposites in my opinion but just made it work in their marriage.  Now either I’ve started to change how I view each of them as individuals or they’ve started to change in their respective personalities.  I remember getting a basic outline of my Grandpa’s funeral when he passed a couple years ago in my email.  I balled like a baby when I read that and still do to this day which is why I don’t open that word doc very often.  Anyways, in it the man who had prepared it mentioned how people never really knew my grandparents apart from each other.  They were simply known as John and Shirley.

Isn’t that the point of marriage?  A friend of mine relayed to me the sad story of one of her friends getting divorced because of some ridiculous reason along the lines of, “We had started to lose our personality as individuals.”  My friend told me she had reflected on that a little bit and quickly reached to conclusion that it was kind of the point, wasn’t it?  I mean, two become one is kind of the overall picture we’re given in Scripture, right?

Perhaps following Jesus...Rights, part 5

The premise of this blog entry series is as follows:  Perhaps following Jesus is just as likely to lead us to lay down our rights as it is to lead us to fight for them. 

 

Another way we can lay down our rights and be more concerned about the rights of others is in relation to the alien, or the illegal immigrant as they are so often lovingly referred to in today’s vernacular.  Let’s take this from a strictly economic standpoint to start out with before I even address the Scriptural side of the need to provide for the alien living among us.  I’ve read that as much as 40% of farm workers are illegal immigrants. 

Now, were we to deport them all as is the argument of several people including several Christians I might add which has always baffled me by the way, our entire farming system would collapse over night.  In addition, the hospitality industry and what’s left of our textiles industry rely heavily on undocumented workers to accomplish their tasks that help provide for the rest of our societies’ needs.  So, you’ve already collapsed the farming industry, add to that the hospitality industry and our textile and clothing industry and it’s not really looking all that appealing anymore, is it? 

Surely we can’t just provide amnesty for 11 or 12 million illegal immigrants, can we?  I mean, they broke the law after all, didn’t they?  The current law that the Senate passed allows undocumented workers to obtain citizenship, but it will take no less than 13 years.  Not exactly the fast track to citizenship that politicians assure us will be the result of passing immigration reform bill.  In addition, once they are citizens, we can finally tax them.  Why do we want to keep them as illegal immigrants when they necessarily have to be paid under the table?  Is there a reason we don’t want to ‘broaden the tax base’ as I mentioned before?

If you didn’t pick up on it already, I am a strong advocate and believer in immigration reform.  A friend on the trip to Haiti I went on earlier this summer said we should just deport them all, to which I replied that would be insanely expensive.  He quickly replied that it’s going to be really expensive either way.  We need to take a longer term view of this though, and maybe even a shorter term view as well.  If we were to deport all 11 or 12 million of them, several of our systems would simply collapse.  This would not exactly be a great idea for the economy.  In addition, we lose potential tax payers and not only that but also potential future entrepreneurs who can start businesses were they given legal status and provide jobs for other American citizens.  As Americans on their way to obtaining citizenship, they could hopefully pay for healthcare insurance.  We are morally obligated to meet the medical needs of everyone in our borders whether we like that fact or not.  Why not have them pay for part of it alongside the rest of us?

Alright, now that I’ve laid out the economic argument for passing immigration reform and defending the rights of the alien, let’s look at it from a Biblical perspective and historical perspective.  The Bible is pretty clear about providing for the widow, orphan and alien living among you and your people.  Plus, couldn’t it be argued that Jesus’ own family was somewhat illegal immigrants themselves at one point?  Obviously I don’t know what the law was back then, but they definitely went to a foreign land, right, to avoid persecution and the killing of boys two years of age or younger.  They were escaping very harsh conditions and an overall environment that wasn’t exactly inviting to them.  Can’t the same be said of Mexicans and Cubans who leave their home countries due to corrupt government and a lack of opportunity?

In addition is the fact and ideal I’d refer to it as that America is a nation of immigrants.  My best friend and pastor has told me how he loves watching the US team in the opening ceremonies of the Olympics because it really is a microcosm of just how diverse we are as a nation.  What’s the reason for all that diversity?  It’s because we’re a nation of immigrants!  Granted, that was during a different time and from a different continent altogether, but the fact remains that we are a nation of immigrants.  Immigrants helped build this country and similarly they will help rebuild it if we allow them to.

I know, I know, I’m definitely a heretic at this point, right?  I mean, who would sanely lay down their own resolution to keep their own rights at all cost in exchange for advocating on behalf of the downtrodden and aliens among us?  No one in their right mind surely!  That is sincerely what I believe God is calling us to though, and it would be hard to convince me otherwise to be frank. 

May we all learn to put others’ needs and rights ahead of our own.  May we advocate on behalf of the least of these in our society.  May we speak up just as loud if not louder on behalf of our needy neighbor’s behalf.

Perhaps following Jesus...Rights, part 4

The basic premise for this series of blog entries is as follows.  Perhaps following Jesus is just as likely to lead us to lay down our rights as it is to lead us to fight for them. 

As with anything else, there is of course a flip side to the growing movement of people who are choosing to live downwardly mobile lives.  There are still quite a few people who seem determined to fight for their rights in relation to keeping as much money as possible without any thought of how someone living in poverty is effected by a low national minimum wage.  I specifically remember listening to a podcast by a group named Crown Financial and the host interviewing a guy about the state of the economy.  The economist assured the host that if Obama and the Democrats were successful in raising the rates of the super rich back to where they were pre Bush tax cuts; that it would result in a significant increase in overall tax revenue.

In response to this, the host assured the guest economist that many of his listeners didn’t share the same opinion.  They believed instead in broadening the tax base by getting more people to work.  I definitely agree with getting more people to work and broadening the tax base, but if you take a small percentage of many people living at minimum wage as opposed to taking a bigger percentage of people who have extreme levels of income, then the comparison and economics simply don’t compare. 

I remember seeing a clip of Jon Stewart on the Daily Show interviewing Mitt Romney when he was running for president.  Stewart asked Romney how he felt about the fact that he paid the same tax rate of someone making $50,000 compared to his million-dollar plus a year income.  Romney responded that Jon surely wouldn’t want a president who paid more taxes than what he owed.  Jon quickly quipped back that while he doesn’t want a president who paid more taxes than he owed that he would like to see a president who sees a problem with that fact.

All that to say, I’ve listened to Crown Financial Ministries podcast and the Dave Ramsey show podcast for at least 3 years at this point, and I have yet to hear one single caller complaining about how the minimum wage and average wage for the average worker hasn’t increased since the 80’s in terms of actual buying power.  Granted, Crown no longer does a 25 minute show and hasn’t for over a year probably, but surely you get the idea that I’m trying to prove here, right?  That’s not to say it hasn’t crossed any listener’s minds as I’m almost positive or at least would hope that it has surely done so by now.  If they were truly concerned with putting others’ rights ahead of their own though, don’t you think that might come up in conversation somewhere along the way?

I understand the whole argument that America is a land of opportunity and that’s what makes this country great and all of that and agree with it for the most part you might be surprised to learn.  The part that I struggle with is the extreme levels of inequality in terms of pay that we now see in multi-national corporations in particular.  The average wage of a CEO in the 80’s was 30-40 times greater than the average wage of the factory worker.  Since then that number has increased to 300 to 400 times greater.  How is that even possible?  Some might argue that the CEO has earned his income because he worked hard to get where he is.  Isn’t there some point where we have to say enough is enough though?  My dad is a CEO and has assured me repeatedly he makes no more than 10 times his factory worker.  My dad has never shared his salary but I can assure you he is doing just fine financially speaking.  

In light of this, is there any solid justification for a CEO making 300-400 times as much as his/her factory worker?  I don’t want to sound like a socialist or anything and want to be very careful here, but didn’t God Himself talk about how managers need to pay their workers their due wages?  Not to mention the whole Year of Jubilee thing as an obvious example of, God forbid these words from exiting my mind onto a word document, redistributing wealth.  With that in mind, the Israelites are reported as having never actually practiced this command.  That doesn’t take away from the fact that it was God’s idea, does it? 

Yes, I agree that shouldn’t be left up to the government necessarily, but I would say that we need to help certain CEO’s do some heart checking to see if they’re paying their workers a fair amount and how much they’re paying their workers in relation to their salaries.  If it’s not even in the same ballpark that should probably be a fairly strong indicator of a misaligned heart in regards to God’s purposes for that person’s wealth.  How much money does one person need?  Whether that be a CEO or a pro athlete at the top of their respective sport, just how much money can one person possibly desire to have?  When does it become enough to satisfy their hunger for more and more?

The drive to succeed and make money is perhaps one of the best motivators out there that we have available today.  Capitalism can even be criticized as being a system based on people’s inherit greed.  With that in mind, we need to develop stronger motivations than what motivates people around us.  Work as if working for the Lord, those kinds of things.  If you do those things, you will likely succeed and climb the corporate ladder to the top eventually.  When you get there and I sincerely hope you do, don’t forget where you started and how hard it is to make a living when you’re on the bottom of the ladder so to speak.  Pay your employees a fair wage and be generous with your remaining income.