Category: Musings

And, The Fun Begins

Published by mhelbert on January 14, 2020

1971.
Ah, I remember it well.
I learned to drive that years. Keep pets and small children away from the roadway!
I started my junior year of high school that year. Rah-rah…oh, crap.
I also began a journey that I would never have thought possible.
My first job in a print shop came that year. My dad worked at Lorain Priniting Co. in Lorain, OH. He felt that I needed to have a real job. I guess full-time student didn’t count. I should really have a paying diversion from all of the rock-n-roll stuff that was fogging up my brain.

Anyway, my first position was cleaning the overhead. For those who have never been in a commercial print shop, the overhead is the ceiling, pipes, ductwork, and lights. Basically, everything “Over Head.”
Commercial offset presses used a spray powder that coated each sheet as it passed out of the printing units and was stacked at the delivery end of the press. The powder was to keep the sheets with wet ink from sticking to each other.
However, the powder was not particular about what it actually attached itself to. It floated everywhere. And, stuck to everything. Including, yep, the overhead.
The problem with this was that once the powder built up above the presses, any vibration would cause the powder to fall into the press and possibly cause unwanted spots and dirt on the final printed sheet.
The powder had also been known to become explosive when enough of it built up and a static electric charge was applied.
So, yeah. Someone needed to get out the 30 gallon vacuum and suck up the powder.
Anyway, that was, what? 49 years ago.

I had, at one time, planned to go to college after high school. I had been accepted at Malone College for the fall semester of 1973. But, I had a job in a print shop. I was no longer cleaning the overhead. I had moved up to making deliveries and there was a position on a press that was available.
Hey! Don’t judge!
I was 18 and had gas money coming in.
So, I rationalized my future and skipped college to remain in the work force.
Yay, me!
(The stupidity that led to that decision will have to wait for another time.)

Anyway, this is all a long way to say that, as I wrote in an earlier post, I am retiring from printing this year.
I think that 49 years is long enough.
It’s time to move on to a new chapter of life.

Today I went to Social Security to get that ball rolling so that on April 1 I will start receiving benefits.
Yeah, you heard that right.
March 31, 2020* will be my last day of being gainfully employed.
On the next day, April Fool’s, I will be officially retired.
The date does seem kind of appropriate.

So, here’s looking to the future.
I have no idea what it will hold for sure.
There are several possibilities that I’m currently weighing.
It will be a journey, though.
One that I hope you all will come along with me on.

*Date updated to March 31.
No, I am NOT staying until May!!!!
Sheesh!

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Passionate About the Scriptures

Published by mhelbert on January 13, 2020

I think that I wrote somewhere that I am really passionate about the Biblical text. Studying them rates as one of my all time favorite things to do. Part of why I find these ancient texts fascinating is the significance, for good or ill, that they have had on the cultures of the world. These words are not confined to one specific group of people or particular region. Unlike, say, the Hindu Vedas or Upanishads which are located pretty specifically in South Asia, the Christian Bible has influenced virtually every culture and people group on the planet.
That reason, alone, is enough to cause one to want to know more about it
Who wrote these texts?
To whom were they written?
When were the composed? Compiled? Redacted?
What’s so important about the words in these 66 books, poems, laws, narratives, stories, and myths?

Sadly, these questions, and the subsequent answers, are lost on a vast number of people who say that they reverence these texts. They truly seem to not know the questions to ask. Or, perhaps more concerning, they don’t want to hear the answers.
It’s far easier to let someone else do the hard work. They can then try to follow the path of those others and pretend that they are engaging The Word.
But, that’s a topic for another post.

The reason I’m writing this today is because of the study I had to prepare on this past week’s lections for the Baptism of Jesus.
We looked at Matthew’s take on Jesus trip to see his cousin, John, at the Jordan river. Jesus went there so that John could baptize him.
The story’s pretty straight forward.
John tells the people around him about the person who is coming after him who will baptize with fire. The Coming One is greater than John. In fact John said that he was not worthy to even untie the shoe of the Coming One.

Enter Jesus: stage left.

The two men talked a bit. Jesus indicated that he was there to be baptized.
John, who apparently recognized Jesus as the Coming One, balked at Jesus’ request
He told Jesus, “Whoa! No, no, no! I’m the one who should be baptized by You!”

Well, Jesus prevailed upon John so that John dunked Jesus in the Living Waters of the Jordan.
When John brought Jesus up from the water, the story says that the Heavens opened and the Spirit descended in the form of a dove and lighted on Jesus. A voice from heaven said, “Behold, this is my Son, the Beloved in whom I am well pleased.”

Now, at first blush this looks like a pretty simple story.
Right?

I’m not going to go into any detail here.
You really don’t want me to turn my inner geek loose on you.
It could get real ugly.
Or, at least pretty boring.

What I do want to point out here is that when we start to ask questions about this story, the answers aren’t quite so simple.

Here’s an example:
Why did Jesus need to be baptized by John?
Hmmm….
Did Jesus need to be cleansed from sin?
Most orthodox folks would freak out about even considering that!

As I studied this one question I found no less than 16 different possible answers.
All of them viable. All of them considered by skilled and knowledgeable scholars.
Yet, the answers were all over the place.

If one simple text, straight forward, no big issues with languages or other issues can elicit such wide variations in interpretations, how can we think that any of the other texts can be reduced to simple talking points?

The correct answer for those keeping score is,
They can’t.

That’s why it’s so important to dig and ask and dig some more.

These sacred texts have been used and abused for millennia because people refuse to ask the hard questions. Or, worse, they refuse to listen to all of the possible answers before resorting to actions that, unfortunately, have done much more harm than good in many places.

The other part of why I’m so passionate about the Scriptures is to find the treasures that are life affirming and graciously full of God’s Love that are there for the diligent to find. I hope to show myself diligent in this labor of love that I’ve undertaken.

I hope that I haven’t bored you too much.

But, hey, I’m not really sorry.

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Friday Morning Musing

Published by mhelbert on January 10, 2020

A vault impregnable, impervious, impossibly shut and locked
Is the Heart of Humans.
Desires, hopes, dreams, lusts and longings closed within it.
Steel encased in concrete is like Butterfly wings compared with
Its hardened walls of Flesh.

What kind of dark Humors reside therein?
The swirling mist of “Myself.”
Gazing always inward.
Unable to see or imagine a world outside of
Self-imposed confinement, Completely alone.
Companionless.

There is One.
Who has a Key.

Can we allow this One,
With Pure motives
To unlock the Vault?
So that Light may enter unhindered
And, “Myself” might “See”?

There is Hope
That Freedom may penetrate
And the Heart may become…

More.

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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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Change is in the Air. And, It Smells Like French Fries

Published by mhelbert on January 8, 2020

Last week I wrote that this year, 2020, is not going to be like most other years.
There are new things sitting on the horizon. If you squint just a little and tilt your head to the left a tad, you should be able to see them.

In just under three months I am going to enter the ranks of “Those Who You Used to Work.”
Aka: Retired.

I began working in the printing industry 49 years ago. For those keeping score, that’s a loonngg time ago. Little did I know then, as I cleaned spray powder off the ceiling and pipes, that I would spend my entire adult life helping to push paper through machines.
But, I have come from those first days of cleaning the overhead to sweeping floors and working in the warehouse, through helping on presses and nearly 45 years in prepress, to here today getting ready to say goodbye.

I have a lot of different feelings right now.
So much has happened during the last nearly half century. Most of it good. Some time spent in the valley. But, that’s the way life is, right?

There is so much that I would like to write about.
But, I am still processing some of this.
Yeah, I’ve been planning for this for quite a while.
That doesn’t change the feelings of anxiety and fear that lurk around the periphery of my heart and mind. It’s not until you etch the decision in stone that the reality of change begins to truly come into focus. As long as you’re talking about what’s coming it still has a fairy tale feel.
But, when you actually bite into the apple and feel the truth coursing through your veins, well, let’s just say that it’s different.
It’s real.
This is actually happening.

Yikes!

So, change is coming.

No stopping it.

We just try to not get squashed by it.

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Alchemy of Words

Published by mhelbert on January 7, 2020

What strange Majick is this?
What Craft has loosed this power upon the Universe?

Tis not Majick that raises such music as this!
Listen!
The Mind gathers the elements which flow
Freely through the vales that course through
Its fertile folds and hillocks.
Without incantation, wand, or spell,
Sparks ignite within and current races through
The tight weave of thought
Forming,
Sculpting,
Creating.

Behold these words of mine!
Like the Cosmos before them,
Created Ex Nihilo.
Meaning,
Substance,
Language!

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We Had And Epiphany

Published by mhelbert on January 6, 2020

We had a what?!
Epiphany.

i-ˈpi-fə-nē

The word comes from a Greek word that means, “appearance, or manifestation.”

We tend to use that word when a person comes to a sudden understanding or realization of the significance of some event or discovery.
“Wow! I get it now!” he said as he grasped that moment of Epiphany.

There is another Epiphany that followers of Jesus celebrate today, January 6.
This one looks to the revealing, or appearance, of Jesus as God Incarnate.

Here in the West we use the image of the Magi who traveled from the region where Eastern Iraq is now. They gathered gifts to present to the One whom they considered the new born King of the Jews. Traversing deserts and desolate routes, they led their caravan to a small, podunk town in the Province of Judea. When they arrived they fell down and worshiped Jesus. This was their Epiphany. They experienced the appearance and manifestation of God in the face of a young child.

The Eastern Church celebrates with remembering Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River at the hands of His cousin, John. As Jesus came up out of the water, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descended upon Him and the Voice of the Father spoke revealing that Jesus was God’s Son. A Son in whom God was ‘well-pleased.’ In this act, this Epiphany, Jesus appeared to the World as the manifest Presence of God.

Here in the U.S. we don’t think too much about Epiphany as a religious holiday.
We’re usually pretty busy cleaning up after the REAL holidays of Christmas and New Year. We get back to work and business-as-usual moaning about the fact that the next paid holiday for most of us is months away.

But, Epiphany?
Yeah, who cares?
I still have to go to work.
School’s back in session.
It’s no big deal.

What if we stopped for a moment and considered this event?
Who is Jesus in the world today?
Is He a child at His mother’s side holding a blanket?
Excited, yet too young to understand why these strange men are standing around praising God and offering Him gifts?
Or, is he a young man standing in the living waters of the Jordan, dripping from being immersed in the cool wetness of the river?

Well, yes and no.

Yes, Jesus was all of that and more.
We celebrate the events that revealed Him to the World.

However, are we who follow in His footsteps not truly His Body right here; right now?

If His Body, then bearers of His Image and Presence.

We are, in a very real sense, the Epiphany of God today.
We are God’s appearing and manifestation in our own culture.

Perhaps it’s time to live into that reality.

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Where The Heart Wanders

Published by mhelbert on January 3, 2020

My heart wanders out into dusk
Not quite night; No longer daylight.
Stars wink behind a light veil of clouds
Reflecting off of the shimmering, blue-gray surface of the water.

“Where are you going?” I asked.
My heart looked back and shrugged.
“Off to the forest where once I found in dappled sunlight
the Love of Life.
Then, across the Savannah in search of Hope Immeasurable.”

“But, what if the Beast of the Forest who hides among the
flowering Rowan should appear?
Or, the ravenous Lion of the Great Grasslands?
Surely, you will be devoured!” said I.

With a gleam in his eye and lilt in his voice, he said,
“My Friend, how can I know the exhilaration of living without
a life fraught with such things?
How can I thank the Heavens for Life and Light if I have not
seen the possibility of Death and Darkness?
Where is Joy when there is no sorrow?”

I nodded and watched as my heart turned toward
his destiny and wondered,
“Shall I ever see him again?”

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Words…Yeah, I Believe in Words

Published by mhelbert on January 2, 2020

Well, it’s back to work today.
I enjoyed a little over two weeks off over the holidays. I really could get used to that!
Most of the time spent was very good. I needed the rest. Plus, it was really nice navigating the season a more leisurely than in some years.

I alluded to changes coming in the New Year in a post yesterday. 2020 is shaping up to be unique in many ways. I’ll get to each as I am able.
Right now, though, I’m considering Words.

Most people consider words and language as a means to an end.
We communicate our wants, needs, and desires in a manner that others can understand. We see a color and say, “That’s red!”
Images may come to mind like a fire engine or a nice, ripe apple. From there we may associate the smell of smoke or the fragrance of apple pie. We can feel the firmness of the apple’s flesh in our imagination. That may trigger a memory of a baseball. Or, perhaps the opposite. The softness of a peach. And, that in turn, may send our neocortex into overdrive with myriad sensations cascading through our mind.

All because of “Red.”

Words are far more powerful than many of us consider. In ancient Greece and Rome special schools were established for the sole purpose of teaching students how to shape and form words. The schools of rhetoric flourished and great orators gained renown for their ability to shape, not only words, but the thoughts and opinions of those who listened to them practice their art.

And, art it was!

People could paint pictures and sculpt monuments using only words. Civilizations flourished and fell because of words placed in their proper, (or, improper), places. A slip of the tongue could cost thousands of lives. On the other hand, a well craft oration could establish Queens and Kings.

Today words have largely become common currency in the culture. Yes, they still contain a modicum of power. Fortunes can be won and lost because of a timely slip of the tongue. But, tomorrow someone else will say something that will undo that in a heartbeat.

We have lowered the importance of language to the point that it is merely one of many different media to consume. From television and radio, to books and magazines, we eat words to satisfy an appetite. When the effect wears off, we hunger for more. It seems that an unending supply of tasty words are available for us to gratify our hunger. We become gluttons for more words to stroke our egos and indulge our baser appetites.
One simply needs to see the content of Facebook or twitter to experience this.

Words are Power.

Even in the diminished form in which we hear and see them today, they are Power.

Are we capable of wielding it?

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The Times They Are A’changin’

Published by mhelbert on January 1, 2020

First, I wish that you all will have a happy and prosperous New Year in 2020. The ball dropped. The old is past. Hope looks ahead.

Many of us look to this date as a resetting of the clock. We are full of optimism and hope for fresh changes in the twelve months that lie ahead. Resolutions for personal improvement and growth are made once the effects of last night wear off. (Hint: Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate!)
Then, by February the resolutions are largely forgotten and we get on with life as usual. In my entire life I only made one resolution that I successfully implemented. That was to never make a New Year’s resolution. I have kept that one.

I am not going to have the luxury of allowing life to simply carry on as usual this year. There are changes coming that will upend the routines that I’ve spent nearly 50 years building and reinforcing. They say that time waits for no one. This year is proof of that.

And, I have to admit to no small amount of fear and uncertainty. Any changes that come our way cause anxiety. Major life events, no matter how well prepared for, bring that anxiety on steroids.
I remember how my wife and I walked into marriage 43 years ago. Yeah, there was great joy and celebration. But, our lives were changed that day. We looked forward to our life together with optimism and fear. A strange emotional cocktail. We drank it, however, and for better or worse we have muddled our way through.

We looked forward with happy expectation as our children entered the world and joined us on this journey.
Again, though, worries and anxiety came to the party.
How would we be as parents?
Concerns about finances, health, housing, education, etc., etc., etc. clouded our minds every day.
Life as we knew it had changed forever.

We watched as our own parents aged and walked on from this life.
Our friends and siblings grew up and apart over the years.
People change.
That’s part of the journey, isn’t it?

And, still we trek on. Putting one foot in front of the other.
In the midst of, or perhaps, in spite of the anxiety.

The alternative is to stop walking.
The result of that is to wake up on the wrong side of the grass.

All of that to say, 2020 will be a year of profound change for us.
And, yes, I am afraid of what lies ahead.
It is an unknown.
If thar be beasties out there, then we’ll meet them together.

Perhaps, though, there is a new world awaiting us with new joys and gifts and promises.

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