Category: Life and culture

Just A Thought…

Published by mhelbert on April 18, 2020

I follow several blogs and news sources every day.
Yeah, I like to keep up on what’s happening outside of these four walls that have become a sanctuary of sorts.
Most of the blogs I read pick up on some current event or news report. They share the parts that resonate with them. Then reflect or offer their opinion. Every one has an opinion!

This here blog thingy of mine generally follows a different path.
I share my thoughts and feelings about a lot of topics.
The reasons I do this are manifold.
First, I feel an obligation to counter some of the prevailing religious ideas and doctrines that have proven to be harmful. So many people have suffered, have found themselves in emotional and psychological bondage because of false and inaccurate interpretations of Holy Writ. For Christianity, a religion that speaks of Freeing the Captives, this is especially problematic. So, I write about it.

Second, I believe that by sharing some of the struggles that I deal with others may find it easier to share their own. Things that trouble us, our thoughts and feelings, can be extremely harmful if left hidden. People need ways to vent some of the pressure that builds from deep within us. But, because of shame or social stigma, we keep that pressure bottled up. Eventually, the chains that bind the heart may become too strong.
So, I share my story.
And, thereby, encourage others to do the same.

I also write these things because, well, words are what I do best.
My mind has a lot of things bouncing around in it. This is how I get them out so that I can see them and think about them. Because, until I do, I really don’t understand some of them myself. To put it simply, sometimes I don’t know what I think until I say it.
I don’t think that I’m alone in this. Until we hear or see our thoughts concretely, they are simply wisps of the æther flowing through the synapses in our brain. Allowing them to form a shape that can be seen is important for me.

That being said, I want to deviate a bit today.

There is something happening in the U.S. today that, I believe, is worthy of a brief report.
Yeah, I know, current events. Big deal.
No, really, this kind of is.
The Covid-19 crisis has shown me something that I think I knew was real. But, because of all of the polarization, hate, and mistrust that usually blankets the airwaves, it has remained hidden from view.
This thing is the heart and compassion of a vast majority of American people.
Folks have really stepped up to support the so-called “Front Line” workers in the medical field and all of our first responders. I can actually understand that a bit. These are the truly visible people who are trying their best to help, comfort, and heal the sick.
So, kudos to all of them!

But, then there are the unseen warriors in this battle.
Those who leave snacks for people delivering our food and packages because we don’t want to venture out into the wilderness ourselves.
The artists and musicians who draw on the concrete messages of hope and who stand outside the windows of nursing homes to encourage the scared folks who are trapped inside.
The educators who have had to completely change the educational paradigm in order to continue supporting and teaching our children. They changed direction on a dime! Way to go, Teachers!
Kudos to our state and local governments for getting into the trenches with us in order to ensure that we are adequately protected. Yeah, they get flack for not being quick enough to respond to the unemployment crisis that this pandemic brought on. They are trying, though, with limited resources and personnel.

I could go on to include others.
But, I think that you can grasp my point.
In a culture where violence and hatred seems to run rampant, there is a spark of hope.
This crisis has revealed that their is something good in humanity.
We are able to reach deep within ourselves and draw up empathy for others.
We can band together to support one another when we really need one another.

My true hope is that, when this current crisis passes, we can continue to do so.

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The Rugged Individual

Published by mhelbert on April 15, 2020

One of the hallmarks of life in the U.S. is the ideal of the “Rugged Individual.” While it seems that this image had been brewing ever since the birth of the nation, it really didn’t take off and become a mark of American exceptionalism until after the Second World War.
We have become a nation where everyone considers their right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is a personal guarantee that no one, especially not the government, can tell me what I can do, when and where I can do it, or ask me why I’m doing it. After all, the Constitution says so.
Of course, when the Constitution says that I can do something that you want to do and there’s a conflict, my rights always supersede yours. And, if you don’t like it, we’ll see you in court. Because, you know, my rights are given to me by no lesser authority than God!

What escapes most people’s attention is that those so-called ‘God given rights’ are not in the Constitution.
They appear in the Declaration of Independence. And, as I have said in many other places, Context is everything.
The Declaration, besides being a rallying point for the nascent United States, was first a notice to King George III that the American Colonies would no longer put up with British rule. The inalienable rights part, especially the God given wording, let George know in no uncertain terms that God was the only source for these rights. The crown was not.

So, there was a war and a new nation was born that began a long experiment in democratic government that is still under way today.

Soon, individuals began trekking into the wilderness of this land. They fought and worked and died in order to provide for themselves and their families.
It didn’t matter what obstacles lay in their path toward this inevitable destiny. They had a God given right to this land and its bounty. So, facts like the land was already populated by Indigenous people were tossed aside.
“God gave this land to us. Not to you.” (But, that ‘s another post.)

As I began to deconstruct the Ziggurat that was my protestant, evangelical life, I started to wonder about this.
To explain a bit…
In Protestantism individual faith is paramount. After all, Jesus died for me. Yeah, he may have died for you, too. But, that’s between you and God and doesn’t effect me at all.
It’s all about Me and Jesus! Hallelujah!
In the church that I was a part of at that time this was absolutely the underlying ethic to their theology. It was no more apparent than when, once a month, we had Communion. We asked that the head of each family, or family unit, would come and take the bread and cup back to their individual clan. There the elements would be taken. I questioned the leaders about this. Because, to me anyway, it seemed that the celebration of Communion should be a community celebration. Not an individual family thing. This seemed more like a fracturing of the Body of Christ than a joining together in communal Thanksgiving.
Silly me for thinking such things!

Eventually, I did leave that church. There are many, many reasons why. But, that idea of fracturing the Body of Christ is near the top.

Here, in an admittedly compressed version, is what I have learned, and am convinced of, since my departure.
The church I left, and all of those churches that think that same way, follow a modern version of Reformation theology. Every individual is a sinner in need of grace. Ok, so far so good. This thinking also leads to the idea that every individual is responsible for how they live that faith. That pretty much means that I can do what ever I believe God wants me to do.
Of course, there are the big ‘Sins’ that must be avoided. But, if it’s not listed as sin, then I’m good to go.

That idea has driven much of our Western culture as it formed over the ensuing 500 years. It led, inevitably, to our old friend the Marlboro Man. It is readily displayed in the people who yell about their own rights. Just look at the churches that are openly defying stay at home orders during the current Covid-19 crisis. Their rallying cry?
“No government can tell me what to do! My God is bigger than you. And, My God has given me the inalienable right to gather. So what if the virus is spread among the congregation and then back to their homes and friends and family.”

And yet, the very Bible that these people tell us that they believe in and follow is clear.
“Consider others above yourself.”
“Anyone who tries to save their own life will lose it.”
All of the letters written by the Apostle Paul are attempts to build communities who live their lives sacrificially in order to display God’s mercy to the world.
The idea that we are all just individuals who should live our lives in isolation from one another would be totally foreign to the people who actually wrote the Book.

As I wrote before, the in the Body of Christ there is no room for me; my; mine. It is always “Us.”
We are a community.
We must live like it.

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There’s Madness in My Method…Or Something Like That

Published by mhelbert on April 9, 2020

Some of you may be wondering why I have suddenly gone off on some weird theological tangent.
“Why is he getting so worked up over something like this? It doesn’t have anything to do with what’s going on in the real world right now!”

I get that.
It does appear that I’m taking something that is not relevant pretty damned seriously.
Especially, something that I don’t really have any control over.
I mean, who am I to presume that my tiny brain and even tinier voice could have any impact on something as deeply entrenched as Western Christianity.

And, you would be right!

My voice is like a whisper in a hurricane.

That doesn’t give me a pass, though.
For, at this particular moment in time the Voice in my heart speaks loud enough.
That Voice compels me to speak.
If only to one other person.

So, back to the question I asked.
Why does this call for a new Reformation get me worked up?
Why should I, or anyone, care?

I’m glad that you asked that question!

I believe with all of my heart that the Faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah and the trust that Paul, Peter, and all the rest of the nascent Way of Jesus was misunderstood by those who followed them. Particularly, those who, I’m sure in good faith, tried to reconcile a specifically Jewish narrative with the prevailing Hellenistic world.
The introduction of the philosophies of Greece, particularly Aristotle and Plato, in effect
co-opted Israel’s story and planted it firmly in soil that was unable to sustain the growth that Jesus, Paul, et al had begun.

Ok. So what?

In the Greek mind, as I wrote yesterday, the rich tapestry that was Israel’s story was reduced to binaries.
Good/Bad; Black/White; Us/Them.
Paul’s theology was likewise reduced to fit this worldview.
What had been a beautiful Gospel of hope in the God of Abraham to reconcile the Cosmos was turned into a Frankenstein’s monster of Greek pieces with Biblical language used to justify the creation of such an aberration.

The result?

A dualism that allowed theologians to find in the Scriptures a way for humans to gain entry into some Ideal, Spiritual realm called “Heaven”. While at the same time creating a necessary antithesis to this called “Hell.”

The Gospel, and the Church at Large, became a means by which humans could receive salvation for their Immortal Souls.
From there it was a very short step to compelling people to assent to some Church prescribed proposition that would somehow, (magically?), insure that they would one day walk with God in heavenly places while avoiding the Inferno that awaited Everyone Else.

Today, that’s pretty much the same false gospel that churches foist on unsuspecting people.

What? You want proof?

Look around!
So called ‘evangelists’ standing with bullhorns on college campuses yelling at people to Repent or Burn!
Evangelical groups standing at the entrance to clinics that offer Women’s Health care abusing women who may be at the most vulnerable time of their lives.
People carrying signs outside of funeral homes that carry the message, “Death to Fags!”
Scamvangelists like Paula White who is a counselor to donald trump.
Hate mongers like Robert Jeffress and Franklin Graham who speak of God’s love out one side of their mouths while proclaiming eternal hellfire for anyone who doesn’t buy into their particular form of religious belief.
Bircher and false prophey Tim LaHaye.
Pseudo-Historian and christian nationalist David Barton.
The dangerous heresy of the Seven Mountains.
The damnable blasphemy that states the God. Hates. Your. Guts.
Indigenous Genocide.
Manifest Destiny.
The wholesale destruction of our environment by people who believe, (Falsely), that God has mandated that humans subdue and use, (re. ‘Exploit’), the environment.
The fact that I cannot walk into any Evangelical church without anxiety rearing up in my chest and mind.
How about that thousands and thousands of people who have been abused by those who preach such a hateful message?

Need I continue?
I surely can.

All of this…ALL OF THIS…is the result of humans who were deceived into believing a false gospel.

So, I write and I speak.

Do I claim to have all the answers to these issues?

Oh, hell no!

But, I do know a fake when I see it.
And, the Western Church, by and large, supports and acclaims a false gospel.
The true Gospel is one that reveals God’s love, not only for humans, but for the entire Cosmos.
The true Gospel has the power to reconcile, not divide.
Paul wrote that in Messiah Jesus there are no walls to separate.
There is neither Jew nor Greek; Free nor Slave; Female nor Male.
We can extrapolate this to say that there is neither Black nor White; Gay nor Straight; Republican nor Democrat.

The bastardization of the Gospel cannot say any of those things.
It sole purpose is to divide.
There is Saved and Damned; Believer and Pagan; Us and Them.

May that Gospel be damned!

So, yeah.
I’m worked up about this.
It’s of paramount importance to me to speak against these abuses and Blasphemies.
Yeah. I said it. The “B” word.
That’s what that false gospel truly is.

So, there it is.
And, I will continue to speak out.
At least as long as I must.
If that bothers you, well ok.
But, not sorry.
If you have similar thoughts and feelings, please share this.
Perhaps our collective voices may amplify these abuses until people begin to notice.

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Generations Lost

Published by mhelbert on February 6, 2020

Yesterday I reflected a bit about how nature and nurture can conspire to bring about dysfunction. See here. There is no doubt that we all carry baggage that was put upon us by those who came before us. Nor is there any doubt that we will pass some kind of burden to those who follow.
What is important is that we recognize that for what it is and accept our own responsibility in the process.
And, I think for most people who, like me, belong to the dominant culture there can be a real possibility that we can have a pretty good and fulfilling life.

But, what if the damage was not within a couple generations?
What if those who were hurt were not damaged by their own human frailty?
What if that hurt was imposed on them by forces well beyond their own abilities to cope?

Imagine with me that you are out on an errand. Perhaps shopping for food to feed your family.
Suddenly, men with guns walk out of the shadows and force you into a van.
They take you to some private dock by the ocean where they chain your hands and feet and force you onto a small ship.
Onboard, you find several hundred others like you. They are chained and packed together like so much cargo.
For, that’s exactly what you all are.
Cargo.
After several weeks at sea, and after much sickness, hunger, thirst, and death, you finally make landfall.
Forced from the ship you are taken to a warehouse.
There, men who look nothing like you and who speak a strange language that you cannot understand are pointing and shouting.
Some of them come up to you and force your mouth open so they can inspect your teeth. They poke and prod you in places that are private.
Humiliated, sick, hungry, and without hope, you soon find yourself in another vehicle that takes you to a large factory where you are put to work.
Long hours and little food become your life.
After some time, you find a person with whom you begin a relationship.
Those with whom you work and live celebrate as you and your new-found partner begin a life together.
Soon, children are born.
There is Joy, albeit guarded. You are still held captive. Those who lord it over you make sure that you never forget that you have no rights…no life…outside of the work.
Then, one day, your partner and children are gone.
They have been sold in order to pay a debt.
Your heart is ripped from your chest as you wail and mourn this loss.

Now, multiply that for generations over more than 200 years.

How great is the damage that has been done to generation upon generation.

And, we dare say, “That’s all in the past! Get over it!”?

Or, say you and your people have lived in a certain place for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. You have culture with deep roots in the soil, in the lakes, in the trees, and in the other creatures who share the land.
One day a group of strange people with weapons enter your village.
They tell you that the land you are living on no longer belongs to you.
You must move or be destroyed.
They force you and all of your people to travel by foot for days upon days upon weeks.
Many of your friends and family fall by the wayside. Unable to keep up they are simply jettisoned by your captors as so much refuse.
Eventually, you are released into a new land that looks nothing like where you came from. Your life, your culture, your heart is gone.
After awhile, others come along and tell you that your God is no God. That you must accept their god or you will be destroyed.
More of your life ripped from you and trampled under foot.
Soon, others come and gather the children.
They take your sons and daughters, your lifeblood; your hope; your future and take them away to boarding schools.
These are places where the dominant culture says that they will, “kill the Indian and save the man.”
Your language and culture are systematically destroyed in front of your eyes.
And, there is not a thing that you can do about it.

We DARE say to these people, “Oopsie! Sorry! But, you’ll get over it. Just get a job and start earning a living. Then you can be happy! Just like us!”

How deep are the hurts for these Generations Lost?

Can we not have empathy?
Cultures and lives were destroyed because of greed and lust for power.
And, now we wonder why there is rampant drug and alcohol use within these communities? We seem utterly surprised when some of these people rise up with guns and harm themselves and others.
How blind must we be to think that after all that these Human Beings have been through that they can simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get on with life?

I have no answers. My people have created this mess. So, I actually have no rights to even suggest answers.
The healing can only begin when we stop talking and start listening.
Listen to those who are hurt by generation upon generation upon generation of abuse, mistreatment, death…genocide.
Let them guide us in how we should, or even IF we should, be part of the solution.

One thing that we can do, though, is to stop trying to tell these People how they should feel and act. It is Their pain, not ours. It was their lives and cultures that were ripped from them.
Not Ours.

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Why All That Divisiveness?

Published by mhelbert on January 29, 2020

Yesterday I had a good time talking with some atheists.
Well, not really “talking.”
We were on twitter. No one can have a real conversation on that platform.
But, it can quickly get main points out there.
“Out there” being the twitterverse where all kinds of magical, (not necessarily good), stuff can happen.

Simple thoughts can become cannon fodder used to destroy anyone who dares to question your very deeply held beliefs about yourself. Or, beliefs about your beliefs.
Even those with whom we seem to be allied may turn on you with rapid ferociousness.
I don’t know, that may even be part of the thrill.
We don’t know for sure how anyone will respond to the stuff we toss out there.

This happened to someone that I follow who is an atheist.
And, this person has some very good reasons for thinking that way.
I will not be a judge.
Not my job.

The idea that we as humans should embrace pluralism was up for discussion. Apparently, some folks don’t think that people who oppose this can be rational atheists. They feel that only the religious can be anti pluralistic. So, of course, they took exception to being lumped in with the religious. In fact, they went so far as to claim that pointing out that anti pluralism can be an overall Human thing was an attack on them personally.
It wasn’t.
It was simply an observation that fundamentalists, religious or non, tend toward exclusivity. They deny that pluralism is even a possibility.
And, the observation was absolutely correct.

Some of the most vicious attacks on those who are deemed “Other” come from avowed atheists. In many cases the “Other” are religious people. Vague generalizations get made that try to make sure that all religious are cut from the same piece of cloth.
That’s the same way that many religious people view non-religious folks. I don’t know, maybe it makes it easier for their tiny minds to grasp the simplicity of certainty and absolutes.
Nuance takes way too much effort.

Anyway, as the thread grew and more people weighed in, I was very happy to see that we are surrounded by people who DO get it. People who understand that we are complex beings. Our thoughts and beliefs are like the many facets of a fine gem that refract and reflect the light creating myriad colors and hues.
This is the true human condition.
The ability to grasp the dignity of each and every person and honor them for simply being.

No, we don’t need to all think the same.
No, common belief does not necessitate sameness.
Yes, we need each other.
Yes, we must accept the failures and foibles of those who are NOT US!!!

Yesterday, I found hope in that twitter thread.
Hope that maybe, some day, our species will finally find unity in our diversity and completeness in the “Other.”

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Ta-Nehisi Coates Writes

Published by mhelbert on January 23, 2020

I just finished reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ novel, “The Water Dancer.” I’m not going to review it here. I found the story compelling even though, IMHO, the telling of it was lacking a bit.

There was one part of it that really did affect me. A look inside of Coates’ mind through the mind of his character, Hiram Walker.
Let me summarize…

Walker is a slave on a Virginia plantation as the Golden Age of the Virginian Gentry is waning. He happens to be the illegitimate son of the landowner and a slave woman. Eventually, he became a part of The Underground. This network of people worked to smuggle slaves into the North and freedom.
One of the chief instigators in this network is a white woman who is part of the Virginia Gentry. She spent time in the North and became enlightened to the plight of the slaves. The result was a deep shame in the system of slavery that demeaned her people and was a blight on their legacy.

Through the eyes of Hiram we get a glimpse of something that very few of us ever consider.

Objectification.
To Objectify.
To reduce a person to an object.

How did I get to this from that story?
First, let’s consider why we objectify others.

Fear.

Yes, Fear.
Fear of those who are Not Us.
Fear of losing wealth; identity; power; property; self.
Fear of being shamed.
Fear of becoming Equal To.

I could go on listing things that we fear. But, I think you get the idea.

In the case of Hiram’s white benefactor, she feared the shame that was a necessary part of her complicity in owning other human beings.
Don’t believe me?
Who is the subject of her philanthropy?
The slaves?
Look again. Closer.
She, and her people, are the subject. According to Coates’ portrayal, she works in order to assuage her own guilt and shame. She, and her white society are absolutely guilty of heinous crimes against humanity. So, she does what she can to combat that system.
What we learn from Hiram is what she does not do. Perhaps, she cannot do.
That is to see the slaves as Human Beings.
Real people with real lives and real needs and real feelings.
To her they are simply objects to be used in her personal battle against her personal demons.
To Hiram, they are family.

Now, I want everyone to understand that I think that kinds of efforts that people like Coates’ female benefactor are good and necessary.
Any and all efforts to alleviate suffering and instill a sense of humanity and self-worth to people is positive and should always be encouraged.

There is more, though.

We can still be what may be called ‘Good’ in our actions.
We must also become Good in our Intent.
Empathy is what stands against Objectification.
Empathy may be defined as an ability to share and understand the feelings of others.
I would take that a step further and say that Empathy is our ability to live in the skin of those who are Not Us.

We humans are naturally Tribal.
From the first time we left the arboreal life and set out across the Savannah we have grouped together for self preservation. This is ingrained deep within our DNA.
That is where Homo Sapiens came from.
It’s time now for Homo Empathicus to emerge.
Our survival as a species may depend on that.

For sure our identity as Image Bearers of God demands it.

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Diversity is Not a Dirty Word

Published by mhelbert on January 9, 2020

The first entry in Merriam-Webster defines Diversity as, “the condition of having or being composed of differing elements : VARIETY especially : the inclusion of different types of people (such as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization.“

In today’s American culture wars diversity is considered by many people to be something evil that should be avoided at all costs. After all, if we achieve true diversity then White-Protestant hegemony would end. We can’t have that.

But, that’s a topic for another post.

This morning in the quiet hour before I had to get ready to go to work I considered diversity as it relates to our various faith communities. The reality of Euro-American dominance in the world raised its head and looked at me with its blood-red eyes.
I have written about this as it relates to world missions before.
The predominantly white North Atlantic Church has arrogantly forced its own cultural brand of Christianity on a world that neither wanted nor needed that. Yet, that Church still considers itself to be the Only Real True Church. Even today we send groups out into other cultures in order to form the people who are indigenous to those cultures into little versions of ourselves. Because we know best.

Well, we actually don’t.

We have lenses that color our vision. We only see what we want to see. People who are lacking. People who are missing out. People that We. Need. To. Save!

I think that there’s a better way.

I had the pleasure of studying under the Director of Black Church Studies at Ashland Theological Seminary, Dr. William H. Myers. Besides New Testament classes that I had with Dr. Myers, I also had the opportunity to study Womanist Hermeneutics with him. That is a way to read and understand the Scriptures taken from the point of view of African-American women.
That class stretched me. I was the only white person in that class. So, it was a total immersion experience for me.

And, it was uncomfortable.

Not because of who I was. But, because of the lives of the women I met in that course. Women who lived as slaves in the U.S. South. Women who survived that hell only to find themselves buried neck deep in Jim Crow America. Women who raised families.

Women who found peace and solace in the White man’s Jesus.

How they did that was an amazing feat of faith and trust in God.
They learned that God was not the provenance of the dominant culture. They learned that God sets captives free and leads those who love God to the Promised Land.
They learned that God was above the status quo.
They learned that God loved them.

Diversity.

I also learned about a man named Randy Woodley. He is descended from the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee. Dr. Woodley has spent his life discovering the Creator God of all people. He is also a follower of Jesus who is learning how to understand the God of the Colonizers in a way that those who were colonized can love.
He, and other Native Americans, work to, as Dr. Richard Twiss, himself a Native American, “Rescue the Gospel from the Cowboys.”
These faithful followers of Christ have found that Jesus isn’t White and doesn’t wear a clerical collar.

Diversity.

I mention these things for one reason.

The Church needs these voices.
We will die from inbreeding if we don’t listen to them.
They have truth that the hearts and minds of the dominant culture simply don’t have.
If we want to have life, and that abundantly, we must push back against those small minded culture warriors who think that there is only One Way to Live.
Their way.

That’s a lie from the pit of hell.
There are as many ways to live as there are people and cultures.
And, there are just as many ways to follow Jesus.

Diversity.

Not a dirty word.

It is Grace and Life.

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Priorities: What Idols Do We Bow Before?

Published by mhelbert on December 3, 2019

Yesterday I ranted a bit about how desire for more ‘stuff’ seems to be the driving force behind the current news cycle as well as virtually all advertising across all media platforms.
It is disheartening.
We place such a premium on our comfort and status that we have lost sight of our obligations in human society.
Yeah, I said Obligations.

That whole concept is foreign to our Western mind.
I remember my Dad telling me one morning as we drove to work together that I needed to make sure and watch out for “Number ONE” because no one else will.
Number ONE in that context was Self.

That one phrase is damning on different levels.

First, it raises ME to the pinnacle of of importance.
“Look at me! I’m the most biggest, importantest Person EVER!”
(Loud applause!!!)
This, alone, creates a problem when Everyone considers themselves Number One.
I mean, the last time I checked there could only be 1 Number One.

While that idea must lead to conflict, there is another part of what Dad said that may be even more damning.

I must look out for my own interests Because NO. ONE. ELSE. WILL.

Really?

Has our society really come to the point where we can count on no one to have our backs?

If you listen to the news and advertisers the answer must be a resounding YES!
The whole world revolves around what I want and to hell with whatever you want.
Did anyone see images of Black Friday shopping?

By definition, an idol is “an object or picture that is worshiped as god.”

In the case that my Dad made, then Number One is an idol.
I am the focus of time, talent, attention, and adulation.

Then, of course, there’s the other idol that comes along with that.
(I bet you didn’t no that we were polytheistic, did you?)
That idol is a picture of a little, green guy named George.
During the 1992 presidential campaign one of the candidates, in attempting to illuminate the most pressing issue on Everyone’s mind coined the phrase, “The Economy, Stupid”!
For the last three decades our culture has taken that to heart and created a god of the economy. A god that needs to be fed with our lust and greed. This god has an insatiable appetite.
This god destroys everything that tries to stand against it.

But, there is Another.

This Other is humble and meek.
He considers the needs of others before His own.
Make no mistake, He is also quite powerful.
He can stand against the idols of Self and George.

During this Advent season, why don’t we stop and listen to that Other.
Let the sound of our heart beating for someone other than Number One drown out the noise and clamor and the demands of those other false gods. For, false they are.

I don’t know.
Just a thought.

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Here Comes Santa Claus

Published by mhelbert on December 2, 2019

Ready or not, Here He Comes!
Hoppin’ and a-Boppin’ right down Santa Claus Lane.

I remember way back when the Sears catalog was the biggest thing in the world. I had no idea where this magical book came from. But, when it arrived I grabbed it and ran! That’s because in the middle of that blessed catalog were page after page of glorious toys!
Everything that a kid could possibly desire could be found in those pages.
I would go to the kitchen to ‘that’ drawer by the phone where the pencils lived and find one with a nice, sharp point.
Then, in my little corner of the world, I would circle all of the full-color pictures of the toys that I would ask that jolly, old Elf to bring me.

I had no idea that my mom would take that catalog later and see what I had circled so that she could make her shopping list.
All I knew was that the stuff that I circled, those things that I then asked every Santa’s Helper in every store we went to, somehow magically appeared under our Christmas tree on Christmas morning.

Hallelujah!

Those were the days! Right?

Simple faith in what appeared in a book.

It wasn’t until I was maybe 7 or 8 years old that I heard that Christmas was really all about celebrating the birthday of someone named Jesus.
And, even when I did hear about that, I really had no clue who this Jesus fella was or why we would celebrate his birthday.

My parents, like many other folks in the late 50s and through the 60s, wanted to live up to a standard of life that told everyone, “Look at us! We made it!”
So, they made sure that we had the requisite Stuff that affluent middle-class folks had. Stuff from the Sears catalog, for instance.

The reason I’m bringing this up today is because I think that my parents, and all those other parent from that era, taught their children well.
We do like us some ‘stuff.’
We enjoy the comfort that our status provides.
There’s something ‘nice’ about having kept up with the Jones’s all of these years.

But, it’s really kinda sad.

Every day I hear on the news, usually as the lead story, how Americans spent more than 7 billion dollars on stuff on Black Friday.
So-called experts expect today’s Cyber Monday sales to set all kinds of records.
People are spending freely in order to snag their SWAG.

Yeah. Top story.
Biggest EVER!

While somewhere later in the show, or below the fold in the newspaper, the story of the teenager who was shot and killed over the weekend is reported.
Near the end we get to find out that dozens died in this or that conflict somewhere in the world.
Poverty and disease don’t even make the final edits.
The fact that millions will go hungry this season doesn’t register.
Oh, but, the last story will be that ‘feel good’ one about a church feeding 1,200 people on the holiday.

We need a feel good story, don’t we?

Because all of the time and money we spend engorging ourselves on stuff that we neither really want nor need makes us feel a bit guilty.
Well, maybe for a minute or two.

Yeah. We caught up to the Jones’s. And, the Smith’s and Clark’s.
But, at what cost?
Our soul?

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Published by mhelbert on November 28, 2019

To all who celebrate Thanksgiving…

May your day be filled with joy and peace.
May those around you bring you comfort.
And, in these things may we be thankful.

Also…

May you be safe.
If the stress and pressure mounts,
May you find a peaceful place where your heart may be quiet.
For soon enough the day will pass.
Then, we may be thankful.

Blessings to you all.

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