Category: Musings

I’m So Tired

Published by mhelbert on June 9, 2020

I’ve struggled with writing this post.
The reason for the difficulty is that
I’m tired.
I’m tired of listening to the news day in and day out
about how the Left hates America and the Right hates everyone.
I’m tired of hearing that Covid-19 is a hoax and that the
murder of innocent children and educators at Sandy Hook was staged.
Right now the streets of the country are filled with righteously indignant people protesting yet another act of Street Justice Capital Punishment inflicted on an African American man.

ANOTHER ONE!!!

How. Freaking. More. Lives. Must. Be. Lost?
I’m really tired because we’ve been through this all before.
Apparently, to no avail.
So I guess I can add frustrated to tired.
I’m tired and I’m frustrated.
And, I’m losing hope.
I was a kid in the early 1960s. I didn’t watch the news. I was only interested in Superman and Roy Rogers. But, by the time ‘65 and ‘66 rolled around I was beginning to see scenes of people marching with signs and police officers and soldiers trying to stop them.
My father, whom I loved dearly, grew up in small town America. He had no use for these people with the signs. And, he was fairly vocal about it.
1967, “The Summer of Love,” came around and, again, the news was flooded with images of people dressed rather unconventionally dancing and getting high. Rock-n-Roll was definitely here to stay.
The images of people being killed in some far-away jungles were also appearing on the nightly news. In all honesty, I had no clue what that was all about. I was a 12 year old aspiring rock-n-roller who spent most of his time with a guitar in his hands. Oh, and chasing 12 year old girls. Yeah, that was important, too.
In 1968 I sat in front of the TV and witnessed the murders of MLK and Bobby Kennedy. Soon, the nation was burning and people were getting their heads caved in on the streets of Chicago.
More people marching with more signs.
More police and soldiers standing in their way.
And, you know what?
Some things actually changed.
In the mid-60s the Voting Rights Act was passed.
People began to talk to one another.
Flower Children planted flowers in M-16s.
By the time I graduated from high school in 1973, we began to
have hope that the Times, They Were A-Changin’.

Then, something changed.

In the words of Steppenwolf, I think we “grew fat and got lazy.”
We thought that the Monster was dead. But, it had just slunk into its hole somewhere to lick its wounds.
We grew up. We started families and gained responsibilities: bills to pay; jobs to work; soccer practice…
Reagan promised us prosperity and we believed him.

Now, here we are.
Again.
Throwing rocks and tear gas at each other.
Shooting unarmed Black men and wearing body armor.
Squeezing every cent out of poor people who can’t afford to be squeezed. Watching the poorest bear the brunt of a global pandemic while politicians squabble about pennies.

I really hate some cliches, but it seems to be a truism that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

And, I’m tired of it.
I’m too fucking old to keep seeing this play out the same damned way time after time after time after God. Damned. Time!

Is there hope?

No. Not if we try to deal with society and culture the same way we did 50 years ago. If we simply throw money at it the Monster will simply sate its appetite and demand more.

Perhaps, there is a way to slay the beast. Or, at least one tactic in the battle.
I’ll muse about that in another post.

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Why Follow Jesus?

Published by mhelbert on May 18, 2020

Of course, there are many reasons why people choose to follow Jesus.
“He was a great teacher,” some say.
Others may reply as his original disciples did, “You have the words of Life.”
Many, perhaps too many, say that they follow Jesus because of the promised blessings.
And, still others say that they are worried about an eternity in hell. Jesus provides them with the necessary fire insurance.

None of those reasons are really very good.
I mean, the Buddha was a great teacher. As were Confucious, Moses, and Muhammed.
These, and others, have also laid claim to having the words that lead to a full and satisfying life. Granted, other than Muhammed, the others don’t promise any blessings. But, Jesus is still not unique in this. Where hell is even mentioned, there have been many who profess a way to avoid it.

So, again, why should anyone follow Jesus?

The following text was one of the lections for worship yesterday,

22 So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects.
23 “For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands;
25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;
26 and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,
27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’
29 “Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.
30 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,
31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge cthe world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Ac 17:22–31). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

Within that short passage are the words,
“That they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.”

Those few words have been grasped by folks who, in our post-enlightenment, post-modern Western culture, take that as a promise that everyone has a chance to know God if they only pay attention to the world around us.
God may be found in the delicate beauty of a flower or in the awesome vastness of the night sky. After all, Paul stated that God was the Creator of the world and all that is in it. We should be able to recognize God’s Hand in all things.
And, if we can detect God this way, then we may worship God as the true God worthy of our worship.
So, those religions that focus on nature may have a better understanding of the Creator God than others.

If that’s true, then again I ask, Why follow Jesus?

If there are ways to know God other than what the Christian Church has taught, what makes this Church special?

Again, back to Paul.

The context for the above passage tells the reader that Paul arrived in Athens after he was chased out of Thessonlinica and Berea by Jews who didn’t like him talking about a crucified Messiah.
While in Athens Paul walked around town observing things. He became distressed at all of the temples and idols that were there. So, he began to proclaim Jesus and the resurrection to the Jews in the synagogue and to anyone who would listen to him in the Agora, the marketplace.
Eventually, some of the locals decided that Paul was teaching about some foreign deity. They led him to the Areopagus where there was apparently a council who judged whether a philosophy or religion would be permitted to be taught in the city.
They questioned Paul, asking about this strange, new teaching.

Paul immediately opened his résumé that confirmed his status as a teacher of this new religion. After observing how religion was of great importance in Athens, he pointed out how he had spotted an altar To An Unknown God.
He said, “Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.“
This is not to say that the Athenians truly worshiped God when they worshiped before this altar. How could they? They did not even know who this God was!

Paul stood before them and proclaimed, (the word that was used was one that inferred a Prophetic speech), Jesus the Messiah and His resurrection.

And, that’s part of the reason, Why follow Jesus.

Yes, God may be observed in Nature. God may be observed in some human actions like empathy and self-sacrifice.
But, rather than this developing a true Natural Theology, it invariably results in Natural Idolatry. This was the gist of Paul’s statement when he wrote to the Church at Rome,

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made.”

New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Ro 1:20). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

So, followers of Jesus have the privilege of letting people know who the Unknown God is.
We may share that this God is not far away, but is near to each of us. We are all part of God’s Grand Story. Those who follow Jesus are the storytellers who also are those who welcome others into God’s family.

Of course, writing this post like this begs the question,
What is that story?
Why is it worthwhile hearing?
Those questions are ones that I hope to muse on in upcoming posts.
So, I invite you along as we hear,
Once Upon a Time there was this God…

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Mind Your Mind

Published by mhelbert on April 20, 2020

Besides simply venting my opinions on this here blog thing, I also share a lot of autobiographical musings. I believe that sharing some things may be helpful to others who, like me, may feel that I am the only person on the planet that is experiencing this.
Well, I’m not.
And, neither are you.
We share in this being human thing. Not least, the hurts and miscues and out-and-out total fuck ups.
Together, however, we can be “community” to one another. We can encourage and help each other to heal.
Or, we can just be a dick and say, “Yeah, I always knew you were an ass.”
Hopefully, we won’t be dicks.

That said, I want to share a little background to what I hope to share in the next day or so.
I think that having a foundation for these thoughts will be helpful to the structure I hope to build.

I started following Jesus when I was a teen. I was excited about this new faith that had sprouted in my life. My eagerness led me to go ‘all in’ to try and learn about what a Jesus Follower should be.
I became more active in my local church. Through the youth group there I became aware of others who were vocally and visibly demonstrating christianity. So, I started to hang out with them. Together we grasped onto something that was more of a lifestyle than a rigid belief. We started our own “Community” that we thought was modeled on the first communities as we read about them in the early chapters of the Book of Acts. We lived together and shared our resources. We were truly Jesus Freaks! And, we loved that identification.

One of the first things that we constructed was a hierarchy of sorts. We recognized a couple of men as Elders. These men exercised absolute authority in our community. After all, didn’t the Bible tell everyone to ‘obey the elders’ and ‘don’t make their job difficult?’
So, we sat at their feet and soaked up all of the God-given wisdom that came out of their mouths.

This was our reality.

We were told how to behave; how to spend our time and money; how to treat our spouses, how to raise our children. We were pretty much told to put our brains on hold and simply follow directions.

As that original community aged, it morphed into a more ‘presentable’ church. We found ourselves in line with most conservative evangelical churches in the U.S. Even in this iteration of community the same power structures were maintained. We gathered so that one of the male leaders, (always male), could unscrew the tops of our heads, pour some kind of propositional teaching into our brains, then screw the tops back on.
We called that ‘discipleship.’
We were taught that our ‘minds’ were dangerous things. They were part of what they called the “soul” of a person. That soul defined as the part of humans that contained the “mind, will, and emotions.” These were always seen in opposition to the pure spirit of a person. Let’s see, Spirit-Good; Soul-Bad. Sounds like Plato to me. But, that’s another post.
I think that this idea came as a knee-jerk reaction by some christians to the Enlightenment and Modernity. Science was growing by leaps and bounds. And, of course, Darwin!
People of faith became alarmed at how human intellect was becoming elevated over faith in God. We are still dealing with the fallout from that today. Just watch the news and see how people react against so-called Intellectuals and the Elite.

But, something happened to me on my journey through this intellectual desert called evangelicalism.
I began to think. With thoughts came questions. And, if there’s one thing that evangelicals will not tolerate, it’s questions!
I decided that I needed to know more about all of this. I NEEDED answers!
So, I entered Ashland Theological Seminary in search of answers.

Something happened there.
In my second quarter I took a class, Theology 1. A good place to start, I guess. Now, I had studied theology at my church. We used a systematic theology written by a conservative evangelical man. For those of you who are not familiar with systems like this, let me put it simply. One person has asked the accepted questions about God and the Bible and provided proof texts for the answers. These are then to be poured into your brain and accepted as the way God actually is.
Sound familiar?
Anyway, back to seminary.
My professor quickly dispelled that idea. She opened us up to many different ways that people had done theology over the years. We were shown how those who came before us had wrestled with the Bible and tried to understand what God might say to them in their own time and in their own lives.
One night in class I suddenly realized, It’s OK for Christians to THINK!
Tears began to fall as this realization washed over me.
No. You can’t understand the impact of that if you’ve never been caught up in an authoritarian culture where individual thought and questions were considered “fleshly” and “evil.”

Throughout the rest of my time at Ashland the idea of Thinking Theologically, that is thinking and reflecting deeply, was encouraged. It was demonstrated by the professors every day. these folks were examples of people who knew the importance of using our minds.

All of that brings me to this point.

The Apostle Paul wrote a lot about the mind. He never said that it was the part of that ‘soulish’ trio that I mentioned earlier. In fact, when you come down to it, the will is animated by the mind and emotions are a construct of it. The Mind is central. And, apparently, it cannot be separated from the body. Together, at least according to the earlier testament, the body animated by God’s Spirit becomes a living soul. A single entity. So much for Plato.

One passage that Paul wrote became a key for me as I continued to learn and grow.
It is found in his letter to the Church at Rome.
He wrote, “don’t let yourselves be squeezed into the shape dictated by the present age. Instead, be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you can work out what God’s will is, what is good, acceptable and complete.” (Paraphrase from N.T. Wright in “Paul and the Faithfulness of God”, Fortress, Minneapolis, 2013, p.1,123.)

Be transformed by the renewing of your minds.

I don’t know, but that looks to me like our Minds are pretty important.

Paul goes on in other places to build an argument that people must be able to think clearly so that they can navigate life with wisdom and integrity. So that they can develop what he calls “the Mind of Christ.” He wrote that we must be able to think, and think deeply, so that we can figure out what salvation looks like right now; in this particular situation.
It’s not simply a case of learning rote instructions that one would then copy and paste into unrelated circumstances. But, it is a living, breathing reality to bring all of our faculties to bear on our lives.
That includes our mind.

Thinking is not a problem.
For too many in the church, and the world at large, NOT thinking is.

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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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Sabbath Rest

Published by mhelbert on April 11, 2020

Yesterday.
The dreams of a nation died.
We hoped, Oh, how we hoped, that this time…
Well, we were wrong.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob PROMISED!
He promised Abraham that one day one of his descendants would come.
That person would be raised up by GOD alone!
That person would lead God’s own people, Israel in God’s own Glory!
And, Israel would be a blessing to the whole world!

We listened to him.
We followed him.

“He is the One that was Promised!” some said.
One of us even said that He was the Messiah, our hoped for deliverer.
The Person that would lead Israel to freedom!
This One would end our domination by foreigners and their gods.
You should have seen all of the people just a few days ago!
Lining the road into the Holy City!
Proclaiming Him as the One.

But, now?

He lays in a tomb of cold stone.
Dead.
As are all of our hopes.

Yet, the story says that God, after finishing all of the work of creation
Rested on the seventh day.
The Sabbath.

That’s today.
Grim irony.
Our would be Messiah rests on this day.
Was His work finished?

Will there be an eighth day?

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A New/Old Paradigm

Published by mhelbert on April 8, 2020

I think that I wrote somewhere else that during this time of healing and life changes that come with retirement, my brain has been awash in “stuff.”
Thoughts and ideas flit about like Lake Erie midges gathering above the trees in June.
Millions of them creating an undulating cloud and an eerie whine as they search for a mate in the few hours of life granted to them.

Such, it seems, are the clouds of thoughts in my head.
And, just as difficult to grasp.

There are, however, moments when something breaks away from the cloud and comes closer for a better look.
One of these has been a thought that I have considered and wrestled with for the better share of the last year.
That is the question:
“Who are You really…God?”

I think that is the correct way to frame my inquiry.
I’m not interested in knowing about God. As in, what is God like or what are the attributes of God. Those questions are for the systematic theologians. And, if you know me at all, I have no interest in systems. They always fall short of whatever aim the theologian intends. And, they always only provide that theologian’s opinion. For me, that’s so much useless information.

Really, I think that any question that doesn’t deal with the “Who” issue is always going to fall short of the mark.

And, I believe wholeheartedly that the religious forms that have developed since about the 3rd or 4th century have completely missed this.
As far back as Origen the tendency of theologians has been to try to explain what happened in the 1st century through the lens of Hellenistic philosophy. After all, that was the natural habitat for all of Greek culture. The consequence of this was, and is, a Christianity that is steeped in the world of Neo-Platonism. (I have mentioned this in previous posts.)

This influence, I believe, has skewed the story of Jesus and the early church in a very unhelpful and unhealthy direction.
From Augustine through the Patristic Period, Greek philosophy shaped and molded what we now see as a deeply flawed and needy Church.
Luther and Calvin received this notion from the Fathers and, building on a flawed foundation, compounded many of the errors and misconceptions inherited from that earlier time.

This led me to my last post pointing out a need for a new Reformation.

So, why do I think like this?
Can’t I just accept that people who were smarter than me and who wrestled with all of this for centuries have created a building that must stand, no matter what?

In a word…
No.

I question things. I ask and ask and ask.
Sometimes I come up with plausible answers.
Most of the time, I just end up with more questions.

In this case, though, I need to look back a few years.
Even before I started seminary I wondered about some things.
One of those things was the unquestioning acceptance of how a human is put together. In the Western Church a person is said to be made up of a body and a spirit. Sometimes a third component, a soul, is thrown into the mix.
In this concept, at least in the Evangelical world that I once inhabited, the body was viewed as flesh. It followed it’s appetites and those appetites always led to a bad place. In a not so uncommon view, the body/flesh was, is, and always will be fraught with evil.
On the other hand, the spirit is something that is dormant in most people. It’s only when God breathes life into it does it spring back to life and works to draw the person into a closer relationship with God. So, the spirit is a good thing.
What most people don’t see in this is that it is completely Platonic. It pits the lesser, the body, against the ultimate, the spirit. It is also sot through and through with what is known as Gnosticism. Again, the physical is evil and the spiritual is good.

Both of these ideas are, quite simply, mistaken.
They have no basis in Scripture nor the heritage from which the Church has its roots.

I have believe since those early days when I began to ask these questions that everything that we can know about God, Jesus, the Spirit, or the Biblical text comes to us from the story of Israel and Israel’s God.
So, why didn’t the Church search for its identity there?
As a quick example to think about…
The illustration I shared above about the way a person is made up of various and disparate parts would have been completely unrecognizable to someone in 1st century Judaism. In the Scriptures, this person would say, a person is a single, living soul. Period. There is no dividing into parts.
For these early theologians in the Greek world, the thoughts of anyone from the backwaters of Palestine would have been incomprehensible and ignored.
(Of course, the defense could be raised that they were simply doing theology and trying to make sense of God in their own context. An admirable pursuit. But, that will always render a qualified and relative answer that must be taken with a large chunk of salt.)

This was the beginning of my search for the Who is God question. Because, if we don’t even know anything about Who is a Human, how can we know anything about God? If we can’t get the questions right, we will never come close to finding answers.

This has been the focus of much of my prayer, contemplation, and study for the last year.
Of course, the question that I ask can not be adequately answered by anyone. We can, however, make certain deductions and come to some conclusions that may help to carry the conversation forward.

And, that might just shed some light on where God may be directing God’s people as we muddle our way forward.
I hope so, anyway.

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It’s All About the Context

Published by mhelbert on April 6, 2020

If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time you know that I am absolutely passionate about the Bible.
I love reading it and studying it.
Mostly because of the huge impact that this little collection of myths and stories has had on the history of the world. I think that it is quite safe to say that no other single source has driven so much of our culture and art, as well as our treatment of one another and the world itself, as the Christian scriptures.

So, what animates my desire is to look with open eyes and listen with an open heart to find out what these ancient texts may really say to us in the 21st century. How may they inform our own lives and culture? And, perhaps more importantly, how can we faithfully critique the beliefs and understandings of those who have engaged them in the past?

As I look around at the way that religion in general and the Christian view in particular, I see a lot of chaos. There is a tectonic fault that has appeared over the centuries that threatens to send a temblor of unprecedented magnitude through the culture.
The source for this threat, I believe, is in how we seem to accept former understandings and interpretations today as if they were, in fact, gospel truth.
Spoiler alert:
They’re not.

While I could go back to the 2nd and third centuries to show how things began to come off of the rails, today I just want to focus on a slice of history.
About 500 years ago there was another tectonic shift in theological understanding. Although the shift began in the 15th century, it came to fruition in the Reformation of the 16th. Martin Luther, John Calvin, and a bit later Thomas Cranmer, revolted against the abuses of the Medieval Roman Church. And, rightly so. Change was desperately needed.
These people rethought what it meant to follow Jesus more authentically than what the Church of Rome allowed.
As far as I’m concerned, the Reformation was a good thing.

FOR THAT TIME!!!

However, what was good in 1520 is not necessarily good in 2020.

That brings me back to where I started today.
So much of the Church, especially the Protestant variety, still holds to the ideas and reflections of those 500 year old white guys. And, they do so uncritically.
I think that is a really, really bad thing to do.
I just need to look around at all of the abuses, terror, and genocide that has been inflicted on people in the name of this Old Time Religion to know that it is indeed flawed.

One of my professors in seminary mentioned that she thought that, perhaps, we were ripe for a new Reformation.

I agree. With my whole heart, I AGREE!

We have more information and scholarship available to us than those old reformers had.
We can now put Jesus and Paul and Peter and the rest into a context that must inform the way that we view the ancient texts that they, and many, many others, were responsible for creating.
Earlier theologians, like those mentioned above, but also going back through Aquinas and Augustine and others, did not have the resources that we do today. They wrestled with the texts in a context where Neo-Platonism and the philosophy of Aristotle were used to try and make sense of a Bible that was created by people who lived and breathed a completely different worldview.
It was a lot like how we say that they were comparing apples to grapefruit. Not gonna be a good fit no matter how you slice it.

Today’s scholarship has begun to ask better questions of the texts. And, subsequently, has been able to offer better interpretations to us.

As I lead Bible studies, I always try to hammer home the idea that Context is Everything.
Scholars over that last few decades have been able to provide this context for us.
The information available enables us, that’s you and me, to view the words of of the Bible with a more critical eye. We can better understand who wrote the texts. To whom were they written. Why did the writer record these specific words to these particular readers?
This IS Context!
This IS what we need to get a better grasp on what these stories and letters and poems and myths might give us something that is useful for us.
Now.
In this Place.
In our Culture.

What I am finding out is that the Church is, indeed, in need of Reformation.
The Church needs to step up and do the same hard work that those earlier reformers did.
We must reflect theologically on these Ancient Texts so that they can be, as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews wrote, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.”
If the Word of God is, in fact, living, then we must seek to revive it in our day.

Or else, it will atrophy and die.

And, that death will take us down a road that I don’t think we want to.
Especially, since many churches in our culture are already showing us where that road leads.

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Thursday Musing

Published by mhelbert on April 2, 2020

First, I gotta tell you that yesterday was pretty rough.
I shared a bit about how beginning this new phase of life was, well, a tad anticlimactic.
So, I pretty much slept all day.
I do that sometimes when the melancholia shows up to play.

But, here we are!
Another day to try again.
While I’m still not feeling great, (I’m sure that the fact that my body is still pretty weak isn’t helping), I am up and actually accomplishing things.
So, that’s a good thing. Right?

There have been so many thoughts and ideas coursing through my brain over the last month that I have not been able to keep track of them.
So, let me just get some of them out there for your consideration.

Many of my thoughts have drifted toward God and what God may desire for me personally. But, also for us as a species in a rather chaotic period.
I spoke with one friend yesterday who said that he didn’t know what God was up to. But, God must be up to something Big!
I don’t know. I really don’t think so.
I wrote in another place that things like illness and disease are simply the product of evolution. They “Happen” because that’s what goes on in our natural world.
I’m all for giving God credit when it’s due. But, stating that God is using such things to get our attention or judge sin or whatever cult-du-jour idea you want to use is not only not helpful, but borders on blasphemy.
God has always, and ONLY, promised to be Present with us in these times. To that I can bear witness. God has walked with me, mourned with me, felt my pain and anxiety, and held my hand during this time of distress.
God will surely continue to do that as we slog our way through the days of coronavirus.

I am a die hard separation of church and state person. While I realize that individuals will carry their worldviews with them wherever they go, including the public square, it is dead wrong for any one person or group to impose their particular beliefs on anyone else.
Period. End of discussion.
That’s why it really, REALLY, pisses me off when I read and hear about religious organizations that think that quarantine and stay at home orders are for everyone except them. These misguided idiots think that their particular religious group is somehow “Essential” in the same way that grocery stores and pharmacies are.
Hey, Numb Nuts!
You’re not!
They endanger not only those who attend their open services, but all of the other people those folks will come in contact with.
If they truly want to embody their so-called love, they will shut their doors until this is all over.

Finally, I want to again thank all of those people who have shared their concern over my health. I really appreciate every one of you.
I do hope that I never need to return the sentiment. But, if I do; I will.

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Well, We Made It

Published by mhelbert on April 1, 2020

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

So goes that old saying.
Today is supposed to be different. At least, so I’ve been told.
I officially enter the ranks of the Retired.

I don’t know.
I feel kind of ambivalent about the whole thing.
Maybe cuz of everything else that’s going on.
Cancer; surgeries; coronavirus; stay at home orders.
This is certainly not how I imagined this day would be.

But, time moves on in spite of what may be happening around us.
And, here we are.
We made it.

I’m sure that eventually I’ll settle in to a new way of living without a time clock.
Maybe I’ll even celebrate! When the restaurants open and we’re once again allowed to gather together.

I don’t know.

Maybe.

Until then, I appreciate the well-wishes from all of you.
I hope that we can remain in touch as time moves on.

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Perhaps, Back Again!

Published by mhelbert on March 28, 2020

I know that I said a couple of week ago that I was back after surgery.
At that time I was beginning to feel pretty good again.
I thought that the worst was behind and that, soon, I would be back in fine stride working toward full restoration.

That was before a perforation in my bowel knocked me back down.

On Thursday, March 12, I was suddenly assaulted by an acute pain in my lower gut. I thought that I had eaten something that didn’t agree with me. So, I took some pain meds and went to bed.
Friday I awoke feeling somewhat better. At least as far as the pain was concerned. But, I was pretty weak and listless. By Friday evening I was spiking a fever. We called my surgeon about it. He sent me to get a CT scan of the area.
The scan did show some abnormality. They ordered an ambulance to take me back to Fairview Hospital where the surgical team was waiting for me.
So, at about 2 A.M. on Saturday the 14th, I had emergency surgery to repair the perforation.
I awoke from that surgery with an ostomy bag hanging from my belly.

I gotta tell ya, two major surgeries in less than two weeks tends to sap the life out of a person. I don’t recall feeling so weak and frail as I have these past couple of weeks. I’m 20 pounds lighter than my pre-surgery weight. I have little strength left. They told me not to lift anything over 10 pounds. Hell, I can barely lift that much!

The next step will, hopefully, be near the end of May when the ostomy is to be reversed and I’ll be put back together.

I appreciate all of the concern that has been expressed to my through social media and the phone. You are all good people.

Thank you!

As far as moving forward, well, next Wednesday, April 1, will be my first full day of retirement. I am looking forward to it. Who knows, maybe my life will be able to develop some form of ‘normalcy.’ (Although for me, what really IS normal?)

I hope to get back to some form of creating content here as well as some other projects that I have swimming around in the back of my brain.
It will be an interesting time, to be sure.

So, thank you again to all of you who have stuck with me on this strange journey.
I look forward to walking with you further on down this road.

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