Lost Crusader #155 Blessed Are the Poor

 There seems to be an active idea within the church today, the idea that being poor is synonymous with being just and that the poor exist only because they are oppressed. It’s not surprising that it should be that way given the Church’s desire to be indistinguishable from society. Modern media and politics have declared the blessedness of poverty and the evil oppressive bent of “the rich” who are to be taxed and pulled down into equity. Contrary to what you hear from pulpits and in Sunday School, there is no such idea in scripture; the above text is only one proof.

First, let me point out that it is not the poor who the Sermon on the Mount described as blessed. It is the poor in spirit. That is, the humble, those who do not think too highly of themselves (this may or may not be easier to do based on possessions). The poor in spirit are those of a broken and contrite heart, not a depleted wallet.

Consider for a moment those to whom Jesus said the gospel was addressed. The whole have no need for a physician. If poverty makes one just, then why should there be a need to preach to them? The difference between the rich and poor in the gospel accounts lay in the respective numbers who responded in a positive manner to the gospel.

Be aware that distinction is not exclusive. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were both rich and politically connected, yet heard and acted on the gospel message.

In truth, poverty and wealth each have their spiritual pitfalls and opportunity for blessing. Some of these pitfalls come from within, from our attitudes. Other attacks come from outside, from society’s judgment of us (Woe unto the minister who prospers!). Fortunately, it’s not what you have or lack that determines blessedness, but who you have.

Jesus taught an infinite value of personal worth without regard to money, talent, or appearance.  This brings me to an important point our society has forgotten. You do not lift up the poor by tearing down the rich. Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the God of very rich men. However, their true riches were not in material possessions. It was in their possession of a relationship with God. A relationship which, by the way, they didn’t fail to share, even with servants.

Why does God make some rich and others poor? You might as well ask why some are black and some are white, or why some are male and some are female. When I was an aircraft mechanic, the answer to such questions was simple—designer’s choice.

Rich or poor, God made you as you are for purposes only God knows. The divine expectation is that we be grateful and content with His design and follow His plan as it is revealed to us. Be prepared to understand that plan will include lifting up others as the means to being blessed.

Maranatha

Know Jack #367 Writing on a Budget

 “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”

Stephen King

Jack Benny (Google him) was famous for two things: being 39 for decades and being a notorious cheapskate. I tend to be rather manic-depressive when it comes to money. In my writing style, I tend to emulate the late Mr. Benny. I try never to use a $100 word when a ten-cent one will do. Neither do I like using five words where one good one will do the job.

There are as many writing styles as there are voices in the world. Some sound alike but unless there is a conscious effort to emulate someone else, writers who are serious about their craft work to develop a unique voice. I am of the opinion that the voice they finally decide on reflects their core personality.

As long as it is your own voice, there is no right and wrong to finding it or what it sounds like. This is something that, when working as an editor, I try to constantly keep in mind.

Some writers tend to be rather wordy. Alexander Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo runs over 444,000 words and is replete with extensive, flowery descriptions of people and places. Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote is 900 pages and over 344,000 words. Both are classics and personal favorites.

On the other hand, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is a classic that I have read and reread a dozen times. It might be 30,000 words but that’s stretching it a bit. Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea falls just short of 23,000 words.

I have read each of these books and like them all. A quick read of my books is evidence of the direction in which I lean while writing. I once had an editor who often objected to my having a character walk across the room without first detailing that he got up out of his chair.

It is true that I use obscure references without bothering to explain them. In my defense, many writers do. If you’re a Stephen King fan check out how many books have a character named Dwight Frye. It’s fun when you get it and goes unnoticed if you don’t, so why not have fun?

In the name of economy, I also refuse to write a sentence, add a comma and then explain or add a description of what I just wrote. In today’s market that may or may not be a good thing. However, it is my thing, my voice, and, so far, it has worked.

Talk is cheap, so I try to be thrifty with my words. If a word ends in “ly”, I have to ask myself twice if I need it. The exception may be blog posts in which I ramble.

Maranatha

 

Lost Crusader #154 But Then…

 “Behold your King!”

Pontus Pilate

Israel looked but didn’t see a savior or a king in the bloodied prisoner in Roman custody. “Away with him, away with him! Crucify him! So they took Jesus and led him away…where they crucified him…”

When I was a young man, I wrote a masterful paper on the Hundred Years War. My theme was that the savage slaughter of innocents across Europe was definitive proof that God did not exist. It was thoroughly researched and well-made case complete with numbers and statistics about deaths in battle, wanton civilian massacres, and corrupt kings. Man’s inhumanity to man run amok and where was the loving God? He must not be real.

But then, I saw Him on the cross… and the world changed.

Years later, as a young Christian minister, I was persuaded to abandon a military career to become Minister of Youth and Christian Education. The job offer vanished the day after I left the service. I was asked by the church leadership to move away so as not to draw members of the congregation away. I was devastated and I admit I held a grudge.

But then, I saw him on the cross… and I changed.

Severely depressed, thousands of miles from home, and alone, I was at my wit’s end. Deceived into believing I had been abandoned by God and family, and questioning my own faith, I was at the point of giving up.

But then, I saw him on the cross… and our relationship changed.

The point I hope to make here is that life presents difficulties that seem impossible to overcome. Christian faith is not all sunshine and miracles delivering its disciples from every distress. It is about being made into a person fit for another world in which the highest ideals here are the mundane. It is not a world where people jockey for position, riches, or fame, but one based on love.

Love given, is the picture God painted on the cross. There is a line in the song that bears the same title as this post that says, “Redemption’s cost for me display, how could my heart have not been swayed…” Love received and shared is my answer to the picture God painted.

My King is no longer on the cross. He has risen, as He said. I was the cause of his crucifixion and the object of the salvation he won there. I have but to look at the cross to find the cost paid for me. In doing so my hope and faith are reborn.

Who or what then can separate me from the love of God? As long as I can see the cross, the answer remains the same—neither height nor depth, neither things present nor things to come for I am not my own. I was bought and paid for by Jesus on the cross.

You don’t have to “see” it, nor understand it. Derision and slander change nothing. He was crucified for me; I can do no less in return.

Maranatha

Know Jack #366 Faking It

“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with bovine biscuits.”

Anonymous

Although that’s not exactly how it was told to me, I’m planning on utilizing the above bit of wisdom on my upcoming road trip. I’ll let you know how well it works when I get back in October.

I signed up to attend a writer’s conference a few months ago. On the application, they asked if I would be willing to sit on a panel in one of the sessions. Forever one to jump in over my head, I answered yes. Well, I found out about a week ago that I was going to be on a panel talking about crossing genres with Raymond Benson of James Bond fame. Given my cryptid, paranormal, supernatural, western, and Christian writing, I may be safe there.

I was also told that I would be moderating a panel with the title, Death by Any Other Name: Natural, Homicide, Suicide, Or ? My mission since I agreed to accept it, is to get a pathologist, a rheumatologist, and a healthcare executive, who are all fiction writers to discuss post-mortem implications for writers.

I’ve worked with doctors before. I have even said nice things about some of them. It’s not their clinical expertise that is intimidating. That is the result of my feeling that moderators are often considered the least qualified of the people involved. The organizers probably figure that, with my background, I know enough to pronounce all the words correctly and to stand aside while the experts talk.

No problem.

However, occasionally I’m a bit of a realist, and let’s face it, I’m a small-time writer, I don’t belong to any writer’s associations, I haven’t coined any unique new names for genres, nor won any prizes. Unlike the panelists in the group, my books have critical reviews. At the moment, I feel both small and insignificant by comparison.

That’s why I’ll put on a suit and tie, walk in like I’m in charge and try to bamboozle the you-know-what out of everybody in the place. I hope to call on the great wolfbat hunter Sandbar Jack to help me. He’s the hero of one of my stories and the personality I need to take over. Kit Mann is too upfront; Ed Landry would put up a fight. Sandbar Jack will stand on the sidelines and laugh to himself while poking fun at how seriously everyone takes the proceedings. In the end, he generally leaves everyone scratching their heads wondering how he fooled them. 

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #153 Let’s Talk About This

 “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow…”

Isaiah 1:18

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis says that all clear thinking in the universe is based on two observable phenomena. First, human beings all demonstrate, by word and deed, that they believe in an objective, rule of right and wrong that they didn’t make up but that governs human behavior and is employed by people when they disagree. Secondly, they knowingly break that rule.

The response, “Well, nobody’s perfect”, perfectly illustrates his point. The very idea of human imperfection, if rationally approached, has ramifications that go to the heart of what it means to be human. Rats may gnaw their way into your house and eat your food. But when they do, the rats are just doing what rats do. As far as we can know, there is no evil intent. The same can be said for every animal and plant, except one—mankind.

When people do us wrong their intent is weighed and innocence or guilt of violating the rule of behavior is assessed. If a person walking down a crowded aisle, into which my foot protrudes, trips over my foot, I will ask to be excused (from wrongdoing) as I did not mean to trip them. Generally, a reasonable person will agree there was no intent, and all is settled. However, if I see another person coming and purposely extend my foot tripping them, that’s an entirely different situation.

Now, enter our scripture. In weighing right and wrong, whether we think about it or not, we are employing a standard against which to measure. Since everything is not necessarily black and white to us, things are seen as good, better, best and bad, worse, and worst. That is, we are using a scale, and the scale has preferences. It is not a mindless scale, but a scale designed by a mind based on a constant.

Christians call this mind, God. The top of the scale, the gold standard, is God’s own perfection. Now, because God is love and seeks us to join in a love-based relationship. It is God’s desire to elevate us to the divine level at the top.

Knowing we are not perfect, God says let’s talk, get to know each other, and have a relationship that will lift you up to share the divine life. If you never hear the offer, you have an excuse for not responding (but not for wrong behavior because that you do know.). If you hear the offer and ignore it or reject it, you are without excuse.

It's not a choice between churches or personally held truths. It is a choice to share the divine life or reject it. Sharing it is heaven, standing apart from it is hell. There’s nothing blind about the choice, nothing unreasonable, and nothing imaginary about it.

Accepting God’s offer doesn’t make a person perfect. It starts them on a journey that leads there. It’s no easy road. Things can and do go wrong. People lose direction and wander off the road. Some are always trying to find shortcuts. Still others refuse to ask for directions.

Thomas (the doubting guy) once said to Jesus, “Lord we don’t know where you are going, how can we know the way?”

The reply is memorable. “I am the way, the truth and the life…” Which is the short answer to how to find God.

Mraantha

 

 

Know Jack #365 Just Cruising Along

 “Cruisin’ and playing the radio with no particular place to go…”

Chuck Berry

Lost in the mists of long ago, kids spent their evening “cruising the drag”, driving up and down through a particular part of town in a kind of social media on wheels—and what wheels they were—muscle cars, no-go showboats, or just dad’s old pickup. For me and my buddies, it was a ’57 Chevy. Wolfman Jack was blasting on the radio; the windows were down and there was no particular place to go.

But just because we were cruising and going nowhere in particular, didn’t mean there was nothing to it. There were preparations to undertake before hitting Main Street. We didn’t realize it then, but this was preparation for life. There was more to it than just going along for the ride. There were winners and losers, successes and failures, and in-crowds and outcasts. Life on the street was no cakewalk, there were no safe rooms, and participants were entitled to nothing—except maybe the occasional single finger salute. Yeah, I had that coming once or twice.

In the course of all that cruising, I learned that I really was going to some particular place—my own unique place in the world. I had to find that place myself because the world, in those days, didn’t stand aside to accommodate participants. Looking back, the place I made back then somehow resembles the particular place to which I have arrived. What a coincidence, right? Well, maybe not.

People cruising through life in warm fuzzy cocoons and staring at screens are going someplace too. Fortunately, they have evolved and no longer need to learn the lessons of the past. They are woke to the fact that the world owes them a place of their choosing and need only identify it to make it so.

I’m not complaining. I like my place, it’s still under construction, but I made it. I’m proud of it and I defend it. To again quote Mr. Berry, “C’est la vie, say the old folks…”

Maranatha

 

Lost Crusader #152 Passing the Wet Paint Test

 “Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet and they have to touch it to be sure.”

George Carlin

There are two assumptions in the above statement. One is merely wrong. The other is dangerous. When I was young, my friend Gronk painted on the cave wall, “When you assume, you make an…out of u and me.” As the joke proves, a great many “old” truths still apply today.

It takes a giant leap of faith to consider that everything Christians believe is handed down to them by ecclesiastical authority. It takes an even greater leap, to think that they accept it as true without personally testing and trying what they hear. It is true that scripture says faith comes by hearing. It is equally true that the message is meant to be put to the test in real-life situations. If the message produces no positive results after a post-trial evaluation, it is quickly discarded.

Christianity is experimental by nature. Like learning to walk, there is often much trial and error encountered on the way to running your first marathon. God’s invitation to the hearers is: “come now, let us reason together” … “prove me hereby”… and “taste and see, the Lord is good.”

The idea that a person hears a sermon, swallows it whole, and without testing it, or taking time for deeply introspective sound reasoning, then declares himself a believer, stretches the truth beyond the limits of my rather extensive imagination. Yet, those outside Christianity have no trouble believing it of us. To then think that a Christian stumbles blindly through life from that point on led only by church doctrines he is handed, is a delusion only those outside the faith are capable of believing. Christians know better. And we’re supposed to be the mentally weak ones?

There is no step in modern scientific method that is not employed by those who have a real interest in a relationship with God (Christian or not). Well, except maybe the step where someone pays them to reach a predetermined conclusion—that only happens in “real” science. To assume Christians do not base their faith on the evidence they gather is to willfully turn a blind eye to any conclusion that does not support the critic’s hypothesis.

On the other hand, those who think it’s reasonable to accept, on authority, that the paint is still wet are the duped believers. They are the same folks who in blind obedience donned masks, hid in their homes, and had “emergency vaccines” injected into their bodies because politicians and talking heads told them it was the right thing to do. If you cannot see the danger in that scenario, then you are in for bigger trouble than you know.

To those who would point out to me that churches closed because they were told to. I will tell you this, judgment begins at the house of God and except they repent, they shall not escape unpunished. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

Maranatha

Know Jack #364 Class Struggles

When I finished high school, I enrolled in the school of hard knocks. My dad was an alum as was his father, so I was expected to keep the family tradition alive. On my first day of class, I was greeted by an angry man in a Smoky Bear hat. It was soon obvious to me that someone had forgotten to inform him how special I was or that I identified as privileged. He had much to say about me, my family, my hometown, and just what I was entitled to. It was difficult. To this day I believe it was made that way on purpose. Something was said about difficulty teaching me a lesson about life.

Later, because I was privileged, I was able to go to a “real” college. All I had to do was work a minimum of forty hours a week making minimum wage, help raise four children, and take out a loan from my employer. It was difficult. But I can’t say I wasn’t warned. On the first day of nursing school, the instructors advised everyone in the class not to try doing both.

 When I graduated, the employer who loaned me thousands to go to school reneged on the pay he promised me. I left for greener pastures, but you know what? He insisted that I pay him back. A judge agreed with him. It was difficult, but I paid for it all. Not one of the five men who were President in those years ever mentioned that it was possible for the government just to “forgive” my debt.

In fact, of the debts, and there have been plenty of them through the years, the government hasn’t offered to forgive a single one—and did I mention that I’m privileged! It is my privilege to help pay for those weeping about how difficult it is to pay back the loans they took out for their college education.

I don’t expect anyone eligible to pass up the money. The insanity behind the “forgiveness” is not on the recipients of it. What galls the hell out of many of the alumni of Hard Knocks is that the recipients feel they are entitled to the money and should be spared life’s difficulties.

In hopes of deflecting any further anxiety in those entitled to attend a university, here’s a soothing poem that’s also nonsense.

Ignore the Loanerwock, my son,

          The terms that bite, the debts that catch!

Ignore the Workwork bird, and shun

          The hoary Repaycatch!

Sorry, Mr. Carroll.

Maranatha