Category: personal

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Why Does (Should) the Church Care About Immigration?

You need to take seven minutes and twenty-three seconds to view this video from Scott Hicks. Scott is an immigration lawyer, pastor, one of Pam and my friends, and one of my college roommates (he was also kind of an usher in our wedding – I say “kind of” because he was an usher but he couldn’t do his “ush”ing duties because he became violently sick minutes before the wedding). He (with another friend Joy, Pam, and me) is also apart of perhaps the longest Facebook message thread the world has ever known – aptly named “We Have All The Best Answers”.

Anyhow, watch this!

I love how often he uses the word “obligation” because if you are a Christian then how we treat the foreigner should be based off the commands of the One we call Lord. The Bible is full of commands concerning how we are to treat the outsider and the foreigner. If you aren’t a Christian then you have to make up your mind on other criteria, but if you are a follower of Christ you have proclaimed that Jesus is your Lord and therefore you need to do what He says. We need to do what He says. It is an obligation.

Far too often we choose to just think that God is on our side of an issue rather than asking if we are on His side. A while back I read Jospeh Loconte’s “A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War” concerning Lewis’s and Tolkien’s experience in WWI and how it shaped them. One of the things that struck me was how many of the parties in WWI were convinced that they were doing God’s work by fighting that war. For example,\ the German Kaiser makes the following statement.

“Remember that the German people are the chosen of God. On me, on me as German Emperor, the Spirit of God has descended. I am His weapon. His sword and His visor … Death to cowards and unbelievers!”

The same was true for proclamations of evil. If we were on God’s side then those opposed to us must be on the devil’s side. This is why Billy Sunday, the baseball player turned Christian evangelist, could make statements like the following and be cheered.

“If you turn Hell upside down, you’ll find ‘Made in Germany’ stamped on the bottom.”

Few people stopped to ask “are we doing what God wants us to do?” I would imagine it is hard to fight a war if both sides are asking that question. Those of us who are followers of Jesus (i.e. the Church) should be asking this question all the time. Are we doing what God wants us to do? I believe when we ask and respond to questions like that we will be more concerning with treating the immigrant as Jesus would have us to, than we are concerning with  our political ideology.

The Church SHOULD act like the church. This means we need to act like the Church in regards to how we face the issue of immigration. One day we will face Jesus and He won’t just ask us about our personal piety, He will also ask how we lived out our faith in Him concerning societal issues like immigration.

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Narnia Lamp Post

Not a good picture, but today I put up the birthday present Pamela gave me this year. It’s a lamp post to put at the entrance of the 60 acre school forest behind our house. Once the snow arrives it will be very narnia-ish.

Seemed appropriate to set it up today since the 29th was Mr. Lewis birthday.

Thanks Pamela!  Continue reading “Narnia Lamp Post”

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The Past Isn’t Dead

Sometime when Adam and Noah were really young the Terrell family started going to a Thanksgiving day afternoon movie (I know we were doing this by at least 1999 because I remember us going to see Toy Story 2 with my parents). Yesterday we went to see Pixar’s latest movie, Coco.

Miguel and his great, great grandfather.

The plot references  the Mexican holiday of Día de Muertos (which is why I immediately texted Eric G afterwards to tell him to take Natalie to watch it). The main character, Miguel, deals with the ramifications of his family’s past while trying to chase his future.  He does this by meeting and interacting with the past family members whose choices have influenced his present. There are several scenes of the dead walking around and “interacting” with the world of the living. In the movie the dead are still with us.

First, you should go see it. The movie is really good.

Second, it got me to thinking about the dead still being with us. I don’t mean this in some strange ghostly sense. Nope, I am thinking of the influence of our past family members on our present lives. For good and for bad. I have relatives that I have never known (because they were generations ago or they were gone) who have influenced my present life. The movie did a great job of showing this.

The main character, Miguel, is a child and the movie shows how his great, great, grandfather and great, great grandmother shaped his life. I’m not spoiling anything here but the plot revolves around the way the family lives out the choice that the great, great grandmother makes concerning music out of her anger concerning the great, great grandfather’s choice to be a traveling musician. That simple choice influences the way four generations of the family live their lives. This family’s dead relatives are still walking around them during their daily lives.

If I remember correctly my parents went to the hospital immediately following their wedding so that Mom’s father could feel the ring on her finger.

This is true of all of us in real life, for good and bad, even if certain family members’ were absent. For example, my biological paternal grandfather’s choice to run out on my dad, aunt, and grandmother shaped a large part of my life even though I only met my dad’s father once. My mom’s dad didn’t make such a choice. He wanted to be there with his family. Sickness made the choice of leaving for him. He was so sick that my parent’s wedding was moved up so he could know that my mom was married before he passed away. He was way too sick to attend the bumped up wedding. I never met my mom’s dad. My mother’s dad’s absence shaped my grandmother, and parents’ lives, and thereby my, Pam’s, and our kids lives’. The circumstances of both my grandfathers’ absences are why I have fishing lures that belong to my mom’s dad and nothing that belonged to my dad’s father. The dead still walk with us.

To quote William Faulkner from Requiem for a Nun

The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

Our present lives and choices are shaped by the lives and choices of those who went before us, and our choices and lives will shape the lives and choices of those who come after us. Therefore, it is our responsibility to consider how our behavior is shaped by the past so we are able to continue what is good and helpful, and change what is harmful for the future. As I have previously written several times – The dead still walk with us.

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Maybe it is just me but I find it concerning when I SMS my legally blind friend and get this auto-reply text message back – “I’m driving right now – I’ll get back to you later.”

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2017 Adventures in Bad Deer Hunting – Day 1

As I have written before I am a lousy deer hunter but an excellent deer hunting reader. The reason for this is that I like to read in nature while “looking” for deer but that isn’t actually very conducive for seeing the deer that I am hunting. So I assume that I miss seeing a large number of deer.

The good news is that I read a lot during deer gun season each year and in the six years I have been doing this (I was raised with a dad who loved to dove hunt but refused to deer hunt – because he had been aimed at once and hit with buck shot another time – which, in my opinion, are good reasons to avoid deer hunting) I have averaged getting a deer every other year. I believe the reading helps me to do what I actually want to do – which is harvest the weak and the stupid.

I realized today that part of what I like about being involved in the Wisconsin deer gun season is participating in the cultural element of the whole thing. I have been around hunting most of my life, but I have never been around any culture that is as focused on the deer gun season as Wisconsin is. Wisconsinites loves to hunt for deer. Seriously, there will be deer strapped to car roofs and in truck beds & trailers all week. Deer hunting is an excused absence from school. I like being a part of the cultural phenomenon.

Some kind little owl left me two owl pellets to make the tree stand more interesting.

Also, as I have written before, I enjoy all the cool things of nature that I get to see while I am deer hunting. Today that include a bald eagle flying VERY low across a field, a falcon dive bombing and catching some prey, and finding owl pellets in one of the tree stands that I sat in.  How cool is that?!?!?!

No I didn’t see a deer that I wanted to harvest. I did watch two young does wonder across a field 30 yards in front of me and if it had been later in the week I may have taken one of them. Right now it is early in the week so I let them walk on. I am fairly sure these two would qualify as “weak and stupid” and therefore will quite possibly make themselves visible again and again.  If not that’s no big deal since my average of every other year would indicate that I’m not due for a harvest this year.

So here was the reading for today.

I do love deer hunting/reading.

SIDE NOTE – I think I must have done something to offend Erig G because the tree stand he recommended I sit in was the most uncomfortable tree stand I have ever sat in. He must have been getting me back for something. I just don’t know what.

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It’s Always The “Unloaded” Gun That Hurts Someone

I am not opposed to guns. I am, however, opposed to some people who own guns who are reckless with those guns. This article details one such person

He removed the magazine, cleared the chamber, and showed the gun to some of the men in the church. He put the magazine back in, apparently loaded a round in the chamber, and returned the gun to its holster, Parks said.

“Somebody else walked up and said, ‘Can I see it?’ ” Parks said. “He pulled it back out and said, ‘With this loaded indicator, I can tell that it’s not loaded.’ “

He pulled the trigger.

“Evidently he just forgot that he re-chambered the weapon,” Parks said.

The gun was lying on its side on a table. The bullet sliced the palm of the man’s upward-facing hand, then entered the left side of his wife’s abdomen and exited the right side, Parks said.

There are some basic rules concerning handling a gun. The first of which is “the gun is ALWAYS loaded”. ARGH!

Here’s the general list of gun safety rules:

  • The gun is always loaded
  • Never point the gun at something you are not prepared to destroy
  • Always be sure of your target and what is behind it
  • Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target

Please don’t be an idiot!

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Doesn’t Matter That It Is Cold, The Steak Has To Be Cooked

Yes it may be 16° outside (right now we have unusually cold weather for this time of year) but Pam is gone to the ASHA convention (because I married a boss), therefore it is time for me to cook myself a rib eye.  It doesn’t matter if it is cold outside, charcoal still burns.  There were four pork chops also available to cook so that I can eat them later in the week.

Why does this have to happen even though it is cold? Well, because when Pam is gone I cook myself a good steak. That’s what I do. It is what brings me comfort when she is gone. There might not be any sunshine when she’s gone, but there is rib eye. 🙂

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Discipleship

I don’t know when discussions of how to disciple someone (lead them in growing closer to Jesus) began, but I know it started long before (as in millennia before) I began studying to be a minister. People have written really good books on the subject, preached amazing sermons, and developed grand traditions that were meant to help people grow as follower/learners of Jesus.

Many of them are very good and you should probably go read one of them right now. I’m a big fan of Brother Lawrence’s “Practice of the Presence of God” (a wonderful little read that focusing on seeing the work of God around us) and Richard Foster’s “Celebration of Discipline” (a wonderful book on disciplines that are meant to point us to God). I’ll add a new work I like, John Ortberg’s “The Life You Always Wanted” which has a cheesy Oprah Winfrey cover and title but solid content on spiritual disciplines, though Foster’s work is still my first choice.

Still I struggle with programs that are designed to disciple a follower of Jesus. My struggle is that I believe they can be very helpful while also being very detrimental. It seems to me that Jesus very clearly defined what one of His disciples is supposed to be about when he described the great commandments 1a and 1b. We are to 1a” “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37), and 1b: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). That’s what disciples of Christ are supposed to be about: loving God and loving others. So if certain actions help with 1a and 1b then they are good for helping in discipleship.

The problem is that I believe often the things that are meant to be means to help us reach our ends (1a & 1b) regularly become ends in and of themselves.  We become more focused on the actions of the program, rather than loving God and others as the program is supposed to help us do. Means are not meant to be ends. When our means become ends we usually call such situations legalism, because the actions have become more important that the actions are meant to help us achieve. This is part of my struggle with such programs.

The other part is that the opposite of using such programs is to simply throw a new believer in Jesus Christ into “deep water and hope they can swim”. That’s not cool.

So here are my simple suggestions for growing as a disciple of Jesus. i.e. here’s my recommended list of means for growing in the ends that Christ set up for us, 1a & 1b.

  • Try to notice something for which you are thankful to God for this week and thank God for it/them. (gratitude)
  • Ask Jesus for something you need this week (dependence & prayer).
  • Try to forgive someone this week because of Jesus forgiving you.
  • Try to help someone this week because of Jesus helping you.
  • Read/listen to the Bible or someone talking about scripture for 10 minutes this week.
  • Try to tell someone something Jesus has done for you.

If these help you follow Jesus better then great. If they don’t then skip them. There is nothing sacred about my recommendations. They are just means and means that don’t help us reach our ends should be dropped. The only things that matter are our ends. In this case those ends are 1a love God and 1b love others.

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Best Friends?

One of Pam‘s dreams happened this morning – our dog and one of our cats snoozed together.

For a long time Pam wanted to get a dog and a cat at the same time because she was convinced that they would become best friends. It looks like she might actually be right. I can’t say that Helen (the cat – who I generally call Hellion) is Clive’s best friend (obviously that would be me), but I can say that Clive is Hellion’s best friend. She loved being around him and generally has to be where ever he is (which, obviously since I am his best friend, is with me).

As usual Pam is correct. I may not be a very good hunter, but I marry very well.