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Happy Milestones and A New Friend

Published by mhelbert on February 8, 2023

I have a new friend living with me. He gets to stay in my office on my desk. I’m sure that he will get on famously with Henrietta, Pickett, and Dobby. His brother, Gerald, used to live with us a lot of years ago. My wife picked Gerald up a couple days before we were married. That guy lived a lot of years and grew to about 8’! Eventually, though, he became compost. Cycle of life and all that. We haven’t named this one just yet. Maybe Gerald II, esq. That would be fun!
He, like Gerald before him, came to live with us at a momentous moment. Gerald was our first almost 47 years ago. (It doesn’t seem nearly that long. Besides, I can’t be that old!) This occasion is my wife’s birthday and her retirement. She is hanging up her stethoscope after 25 years in a neo-natal intensive care unit at one of our local hospitals. Twenty-five years of caring for the sickest and frailest of all humans. Many of these kids enter our world weighing in at a whopping 2 pounds! Some never get to go home.
Working in the NICU takes a special kind of person. The person must be focused and engaged all of the time. They have to be tender and hard at the same time. Not only to these nurses need to care for their young charges, they have to balance the fine line of dealing with doctors who don’t know half what they think they know. In these cases they truly have to be the patients’ advocate. Then there is the PR work that is necessary when talking to parents and other family. At some hospitals the parents are in no condition to care for their child. Nurses need to advocate for these children, also. Sometimes it’s hard to talk to a mother who will not get custody of her baby.
The hours on their feet, the all too infrequent trips to the lav, and many missed meals are only the physical stresses these folks need to manage. There are the hospital rules and policies that are really not employee friendly. Many times concern over this or that policy adds stress to stress. It’s truly no wonder many of these nursing professionals suffer physical injury and illness. Such is the role they choose to play. Oh, and for my wife, she has had to put up with me. No easy task.
I know that I painted this in rather stark terms. There are always the rewards of this work. When the child responds to treatment and begins to flourish. I have seen the pictures of children that my wife cared for, sometimes for months, who finally went home. The grateful mothers have sent pictures to my wife as these children turn 1, 2, or 5 years old. They are growing and learning and loving. This is the payoff for all of the difficulties that the doctors and nurses, respiratory therapists, social workers, and all of the staff receive.
And, it is enough.
So, after all of these years I say, “Happy Birthday!” and “Yay, You! It’s time to retire!”

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Dragons! I really like Dragons!

Published by mhelbert on February 7, 2023

I enjoy a good story as much as anyone. You know, “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away there lived a beautiful princess.” And, so the story moves on from that introduction to the problem. That can be a poison apple or a wicked stepmother. Or, it could be that the beautiful princess desperately wants to wear armor and carry a broad sword. She desires nothing less than to ride on on her white war horse and slay some great dragon that has been terrorizing the countryside. Of course, at this point the handsome young prince enters into the tale. His sole regard is to save the beautiful princess, get married, and live happily ever after. The End.
The best stories like this are when the beautiful princess knocks that arrogant prince right off of his horse and onto his pompous keester. She then rides off to slay that dragon alone. The New End.
I like these stories because they help to right many historic wrongs.
Wrong attitudes about princesses.
Wrong attitudes about princes.
Wrong attitudes about dragons! (Hey, even dragons need some lovin’!)
It seems that we humans have evolved in such a way that we need to be the best; the strongest; the most correct. We gotta get out there to prove to the princesses of the world that they really, really need a big, strong prince to save them from themselves. We must set them on the straight and narrow where everything is in its right place. Dragons, sadly, on the bottom. (Yeah! I really like dragons! Deal with it!)
This kind of stratified reality is something that most folks will go to great lengths to maintain. No one wants to be the one to step out of line and be the odd person out. We, as my Uncle Al used to say, “Gotta go with the flow.” I might agree with that as long as the flow is a class 5 rapid rushing to a waterfall. But, that’s me.
In our culture we tend to conform to what society says in the norm. Get a job. Find a mate. Raise a family. Oh, and make sure that your 401k is filling up nicely. We turn a blind eye to the players who seem to be the decision makers. In fact, if our political reality is any indication, we desperately want to get on the band wagon of those who seem to be the loudest and most cock-sure of themselves. These are the “winners.” No one wants to hang with the losers. Well, because they’re LOSERS! So, day after day, year after year, we follow. Always looking at who the popular trend-setter du jour is. When we get to our very own personal The End we look back and say, “Well, I got through that.”
I read, recently, where the Apostle Paul called what I just described living in the flesh. All that really means is that a person lives naturally. They follow their natural desires, inclinations, and appetites. They look to the powers that be for cues on what they should wear; eat; think. There is not much of a life in that. Eventually, The End. No credits. No postlude to inspire.
Paul also wrote about living a different way. He called this living in the Spirit. We can tell when someone is like this. They are like that princess kicking the prince to the curb so she can seek a greater purpose. They walk with confidence knowing that they are being their most genuine self. Perhaps, most importantly, they characterize something that is truly counter-cultural. They have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control. For those paying attention, these are what the fruit of the Spirit looks like. Just like a ripe apple has a certain scent, a nice crispness, taste that is sweet and juicy, so folks who live their lives according to the Spirit can easily be identified by their own character that doesn’t warm up to the socially acceptable power-brokers or trend setters. They don’t follow people who are confident and assertive like a dog sniffing up the dog in front of them.
It’s not always the easiest thing to leave the prince sitting in the mud and horse-hockey. It takes a special kind of commitment to buck the system and forge a new path. But, no one said it would be easy.
Now, where’s that dragon?

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No Longer Working for the Other Guy

Published by mhelbert on February 6, 2023

It’s Monday. For us retired folks, that means it’s Saturday. Every day is Saturday. And, Saturday after Saturday can get old after a while. It would be so easy to get up late and have a cup of coffee with the morning news. Maybe do a couple chores. Then, of course, the obligatory afternoon nap. Then supper, the news, and bed time. There are variations on this depending on the season or where you live. You can throw in a round of golf before the nap. Or, maybe take up that yoga class that someone said would help with the aches and pains that seem to be getting far more frequent and severe. Yep, retirement. This is what I worked to achieve for those 50 years. This is the fruit of my labors.
Actually, it’s pretty underwhelming over all. When I was working for someone else there were always deadlines to be met. Everything ABSOLUTELY HAD TO GET DONE NOW! And, ERROR FREE! Every. Single. Time. This kept us active and on our toes. There was no time to sit back and chillax. Schedules don’t change. Even when they’re completely unrealistic.
Then, there was dealing with people who, well, let’s just say lacked. I remember after a meeting that I had been fairly expressive in my somewhat even-keeled demeanor. Actually, I had basically told someone that they were fucking crazy if they thought that what they wanted was going to get done. My boss took me aside afterwards to add a corrective to what I had said. I told him that I can’t help it. I just have a very low tolerance for ignorance. That didn’t fly too far. But, it kept me active and on my toes!
Even though I was working for the other guy for most of my waking hours, that didn’t change any of the responsibilities that I had after working hours. For a lot of years I spent every evening save on each week driving one child or the other to soccer practice. Or, we had teach conferences or band/choir concerts, drama club, or to this one’s or that’s friend’s house. I enjoyed all of that. It’s what makes parenting fun. I would not have traded any of that for the world. Then, there was band practice. I spent most of the 80’s and early 90’s either playing in bands or mixing sound. This took up what little time that I had after all of the aforementioned activities were done. Yep, this surely kept me active and on my toes.
All of those years on the move, keeping everyone happy, including me, are a happy memory now.
I’m retired. Every day is Saturday.
I think I’ll go take a nap.

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When Fish Rule the World

Published by mhelbert on February 2, 2023

It’s Thursday. Since this is my blog I have made a Magisterial Decree that I would write something lighter than many of the other missives that I have graced the World Wide Web with.
So let it be written; So let it be done.
This morning as I was journaling, my mind drifted to something that’s been on every one’s minds. Well, maybe not the GOP. But, that’s a story for another time. That thing is the possibility of a Mass Extinction Event occurring in the not too distant future. (See, I told you it would be lighter subject matter!) What this event might look like is anyone’s guess. We can choose from Climate Change to Nuclear Devastation. There is always the possibility that a chunk of rock and ice from the outer reaches of the solar system could smash New York City. Or, just maybe the Earth herself will simply open up like she’s had enough and finish us off.
What isn’t discussed too often, though, is what might happen after such an event.
There have been 5 Mass Extinction Events over the course of the Earth’s existence. They have been caused by diverse conditions. From catastrophic climate swings to the big one that finished off the dinosaurs. That one, at the end of the Cretaceous Period, about 65 million years ago, reset the evolutionary trajectory of the world. The giants who ruled were reduced to stone and dust. Whereas, the small mammals who effectively hid, evolved into us. Pretty slick!
I wonder, though, what the next event will change. Will mammals survive? If the sun is hidden behind a layer of thick atmospheric gases, that seems unlikely. Other terrestrial critters my also find survival difficult.
What if the next evolutionary step takes place under the sea? What would the world look like at the end of another 65 million years of aquatic evolution? Rather than land based animals growing into humans again, what if our gilled and scaled friends became true Merple? A very advanced submarine life that became sentient. These creatures might learn how to control the vast currents of the oceans in ways that could control the climate around the world. Of course, by that time the land masses that we know would likely be different. The tectonic plates of the world slowly returning to some future version of Pangaea. So, the oceans would also look much different.
I know that some of you are thinking, “Wouldn’t it be more likely that the mammalian sea life that we know today would take the next step toward sentience? Not if the air breathers like dolphins and whale couldn’t continue to breathe a possibly toxic atmosphere. We must consider that.
No, I think fish make that leap.*
Now, what if two lines of evolution take place. A sea based one and a land based one. Would one serve the other? If, like I speculated, and enlightened civilization of Merple learned to control the currents, and therefore the climate, would they be regarded as gods? Creatures who could decide where the rain fell and the crops grew might be seen as divine. It wouldn’t be the first time that climate gods were worshiped.
But, we also need to consider the fact that the Merple can’t walk on land. Would that give the land-dwellers the upper hand? As we have witnessed in our run on the planet, land-dwellers can learn to travel on and under the oceans. Might that allow them to retaliate and control those in their coral castles under the water?
Or, would they learn to cooperate? The Merple helping the land-locked species by providing a suitable climate. And, the land-dwellers providing from the bounty of the land food and assistance with whatever needs the Merple might have.
I’d like to think that this would be the outcome. Species living in caring relationships knowing that they could harm the other at a moment’s notice. But, choosing not to.

*No, Q people. The reptilians don’t win. It’s the fish. Guaranteed.

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God’s Heart’s Desire is to Know Us…For Real

Published by mhelbert on February 1, 2023

Recently, I wrote a post about knowing God. In that post I mentioned a bit about the changeability of God. I stated my thought that God does indeed experience change in many ways. I made a brief case against those who say that God is above any human understanding. God does not have emotion. God is so transcendent that it would cause God to become somehow contaminated if God engaged with people on a human level. This thinking came to fruition during what is called the Scholastic period of Church history. Thomas Aquinas was the primary mover in this. The primary error of Aquinas and Anselm, (and, later in the Reformation, Calvin), is that they began with a Hellenistic (Aristotelian) philosophy to define God by reason rather than by revelation in Christ. By regarding human reason above Divine Revelation, these thinkers got off on the wrong foot. And, the Church has suffered for it ever since. This so-called Classic Theology of God simply creates God in the image of humanity. This has left us with the obvious corollary that reveals the gross error of reason before revelation, “God hates the same things that I hate.” Aquinas et al. may not have used those words, but the end result is the same. God is reduced to human reason. Therefore, it is insufficient in helping us understand God.
The most important change I said was how I believe God’s experience of the human condition in and through Jesus was new. God could not completely understand humanity. Just as we, not being God, cannot understand the Divine Reality of God. God, however, was able to come to a solution by “pitching God’s tent among humankind.” In this way, God was able to experience all that we humans experience. From being an infant with dirty diapers to a teenager with raging hormones, Jesus was truly human. He had friends that he played with as a youth. Jesus may have even had a crush on that cute girl who lived up the street. You know, the baker’s daughter. Every thing that we experience as people, Jesus experienced. This must include experiencing Sin as we experience it. In this way, and only in this way, was God able to finally and effectively destroy Sin and Death.
There are other instances in the Scripture about how God interacted with people and, in many cases, changed His mind. In these instances language like, “and, God repented of (you fill in the blank)” describe God changing direction and not allowing something to happen. There have been many arguments made that allow God to somehow remain impassible in the face of these texts. I don’t buy them. I think that God did indeed change God’s mind in response to humans changing their actions at the time.
There is one aspect of God, though, that I do think could be considered immutable. There is, in fact, something about God that God has chosen NOT to change. It’s the one constant that runs through the Biblical text like a red thread.

God’s Character.

I think that God’s character remains the same from age to age. It is the one guarantee that God is Who God says that God is.
That, of course begs the question, “What does God’s character look like?” Fortunately, we have a living example of God’s character. The One who came from God and returned to God. Jesus of Nazareth is that One. In that previous post I mentioned the words from the Gospel According to John where the writer said that God came and pitched God’s tent among humanity. Actually, the text says, “The Word pitched his tent.” The Word in John’s story is Jesus. He is the Word who lived with God and was, himself, God. So, God did come and join with us on this pale, blue dot. God did that through Jesus.
In this way we may see glimpses of God’s character. Like a person adrift in the ocean who sees something out of the corner of their eye. Realizing that it is land, hope blooms and the person finds themself casting a longing eye at the promise of salvation. So, too, we may glimpse God’s character in Jesus and place hope in the unchangeableness of that character. In Jesus we see that God’s character is made of Love. Love is the center of who God is. It is the force that inspired God to engage with the world and with humanity in the beginning. It is what sustained God’s people as they tried to follow God’s commands. God’s tender touch lifted Israel and guided them in the wilderness. And, it was God’s love that caused God to go to the cross so that we might finally be free from the power of Sin and Death.
God’s love is immutable. It can never change or weaken. It is what allows us to know God as God’s children. It is that glimpse of God’s character that causes our hope to bloom and blossom into the reflection of God’s own Glory.
So, while I still contend that God engages intimately with us and is capable of emotion and change, I stand firm in the belief that God’s loving character will always be the bedrock of hope for all people.

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Yes, We Can Know God. But, Not.

Published by mhelbert on January 30, 2023

I know that I’ve published blog posts about my journey to find God. I have spent years asking the question, “Who are You God…Really?” Actually, I have learned a lot. It seems that my theology changes and morphs day by day.
Of course, no human can know God fully. God is wholly Other. God’s essence and being lives somewhere outside of where we live. But, God appears to desire that we DO know some things. God, for whatever reason, seems to like us and the Cosmos that we call home. I still haven’t figured out the why. But, I’m glad that God does.
This past Sunday, our parish priest spoke on the text from 1 Corinthians chapter 1, “For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”
Which is kind of a riff on Isaiah 55, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares Yahweh. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways. And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
With this in mind it’s difficult to see how anyone can possibly grasp God at all. The Scripture seems to make it clear that God is so completely transcendent that to even attempt to know God is, at best, an exercise in futility.
But, (there’s always a “but,” isn’t there?), that whole Jesus thing seems to contradict what the Scripture clearly teaches. Ok, ok, I see that, too. If God’s ways are beyond our ability to comprehend, then Jesus makes perfect sense. Whoddathunk that God would pull something like the Incarnation out of the Divine pocket? Right?
“What is the Incarnation,” you ask?
That’s the thing where God, in all of His Godness chose to stoop down to accommodate our humanness. The writer of the Gospel of John put it this way, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” Actually, the text is closer to “and God became flesh and pitched His tent with us.” That is the Incarnation in a nutshell. God, the Holy and completely “Other” chose to join us right here in our own lived world.
I believe that in the reality of Jesus as a human person, God learned something new.
Ok, stop! I know that there are a lot of folks who think that God is so far removed from our reality that God cannot possibly learn anything new. The theological term for that is that God is “Impassible.” God cannot experience any emotions, changes, alterations, height, width, depth, or any other temporal attributes. God is also “immutable” for these folks. That’s another theology thing that basically means that God cannot change in character, will, or covenantal promises.
Now, if anyone out there has followed or read anything that I have written knows how I feel when people tell me that God “Can’t.” You fill in the blank. God can’t change. Yeah? Who says? You? Well, I think you’re mistaken. I think that not only God CAN change, but God does it all of the time! This means that when God stooped to join with us in our human condition God learned what it’s like to actually BE human. God experienced our joy and our sorrow. Our comfort and pain were altogether something new that God had never felt.
So, while God is eternally Other, God is also, somehow, one of us.
Please don’t misunderstand me. God is always God and Divine. Something that we will never experience. That’s what I meant when I wrote above that we can’t truly and completely know God as God is. The whole Isaiah 55 thing is still a thing.
However, we can, and must, allow God in Jesus to introduce us to God Who is known as Father. Jesus, the Scripture says, has opened a way for humans to know God in ways that we CAN understand.
Jesus is the first person who truly knew God. God is Jesus’ Abba.
And, God can be ours, too.

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C’mon Local News! You Can Do Better!

Published by mhelbert on January 27, 2023

Am I the only one who thinks that local newscasters should probably try a little harder? I don’t mean that they don’t work hard. In fact, I think that their jobs are sometimes thanklessly difficult. These poor folks are required to fill a fixed amount of time day after day. Sometimes, those days are pleasantly newsless. You know the days when the only story to be told is that someone’s dog got loose and dug up the next door neighbor’s petunias. How does one transform that into a complete newscast? So, yes, I have sympathy for them.
What I find questionable, however, is how poorly many of these news professionals communicate their stories. While they are all able to speak English, they don’t always speak it in ways that are comprehensible. Most newscast attest to this. The person read something from a teleprompter that makes little sense. This may be caused by poor grammar, mixing tenses, lack of coordination between subject and predicate, and language that simple doesn’t match the person speaking. This is obviously caused by poor writing or editing. Now, I could give this a pass for most folks. We have not chosen public communication for a career. Nor, have we spent time and money at university learning communication skills.
They have.
So, there’s no excuse for the aural abuse we viewers are subjected to every day.
The most egregious errors are made by those who don’t work from a teleprompter. You know, those who report from remote locations and, perhaps the worst offenders, Meteorologists. Yes, those weather folks who try to educate and communicate the fraught world of climate. I suppose that I should give them some slack. After all, they are speaking without the benefit of a prepared script. There reports are supposed to flow seamlessly from one projected graphic to another. And, they have to do that in a finite amount of time or risk the Wrath of Khan, er, the Producer. I get it.
What I don’t get is how a weather caster can take a 30 second tease and turn it unto a word salad that no one can possibly understand. I watched that happen not long ago. The person was, I think, trying to describe an event called an Atmospheric River flowing out of the Pacific Ocean. Somehow he presented our risk in Ohio in terms that, well, I don’t really know. He made no sense whatsoever. Now, I think that he is truly a wonderful person. He seems like it in his interactions with others on the set. His butchery of the English language, however, is difficult to listen to. “Titrate?” Really? Who talks like that? I have a pretty fair vocabulary and I had to look that up. It reminds me of a sign my Dad used to have over his desk, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance; baffle them with bullshit.”
Part of the problem is that these folks try too hard to impress us with their knowledge. They have spent large sums of money to learn the science of weather. So, they naturally want to prove to themselves, (and their parents?), that the money was well-spent. However, the very best meteorologists on air are the ones who are their genuine selves. There is one person in our market who sometime jerks and stammers through the weather like any regular, blue-collar person would. It works for him. His entire persona is regular, blue collar guy. He rarely wears a jacket and many times appears without a tie and his sleeves rolled up. His presentation and character match. He doesn’t try to appear as something he is not.
There is another who appears completely unpretentious. He jokes with others on set and presents the facts in a way that allows viewers to feel like they are friends.
There are too many others who don’t seem to know the difference of East from West. And, please, don’t get me started on the overuse of the word “corridor” when speaking about geography. “Rain will impact those west of the I-71 corridor” is something that should be spoken by no one, EVER! Especially when the rain event is actually happening EAST of I-71!
While I’m on a nice rant, let me mention one more thing.
Who ever told local news outlets that watching someone play with a computer is entertaining? I say this about how stations turn over their broadcasts to meteorologists for hours on end during sever weather events. Please don’t misunderstand me! I get it that sever weather can have devastating impacts on people. We just need to look at how that Atmospheric River affected millions of folks on the west coast. Warning people is a public service that must be engaged in.
But, not for hours on end by weather folks who have absolutely no aptitude for it. They are trained, and paid, to fill a time slot of several minutes. They prepare for that and form a weathercast that will inform and entertain people. When the weather turns severe, however, they are called on to ad lib while showing various views of radar and wind and all sorts of mean, nasty things. Then it becomes painfully obvious that they are totally out of their depth. No one trained them to speak coherently and meaningfully for that length of time. It would absolutely be more effective to live report the initial risk then run a crawler at the bottom of the screen with necessary details. If conditions deteriorate, break in for a few moments to update live. Then, back to the crawler that actually reveals more than the droning on and on about things that truly have little meaning for the lay observer.
Sorry. That’s a pet peeve of mine that I really needed to get off of my chest.
All in all, most people who inhabit the world of local news perform a service that our communities need. Especially, with the collapse of national news into sound bites that try to create fear so that viewers will not change the channel. Local news can truly present stories that have real meaning to their viewers.
But, really, could ya try a bit harder to communicate in language that is clear and understandable?

Oh, and quit with the “Breaking News” already! It’s like that boy who cried Wolf! No one listens anymore!

Ok, I’m done now.
Thank you for listening!

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So, God, You Think You’re Pretty Funny?

Published by mhelbert on January 25, 2023

I’m not exactly sure what to write. I was out walking last week and said as much to God.
“You want me to write,” I said. “Ok, so, what do I write?”
The response?
“You will know when it’s time.”
That is so God! I think that God enjoys putting me into positions like that. God is sitting in
the divine recliner laughing. I, too, had to laugh.
So, here I am. Sitting at this machine poking at lettered keys trying to make some sort of sense.
Not feeling inspired right now.
I think that is also part of God’s joke on me. You see, I keep putting off writing anything. I feel totally inadequate to the task. Who do I think that I am? I don’t know anything of any real use to anyone.
Hell! I spent my working life if commercial printing! Commercial printing is simply a way to keep landfills in business. Nothing to see there.
But, God got me to promise to sit down and write. Sneaky, that God. Always good for a joke.

I think that we all tend to take God too seriously.
No, seriously, I do!
I say, that if God is God, the Creator, then God must have invented humor. As they say, just look at a platypus! If that doesn’t prove God’s sense of humor, I don’t know what will.
I don’t see God as a Big Bully or a Cosmic Killjoy. I know, I know…someone’s gonna say something about “Have some respect! That’s God you’re talking about!”
Yeah, whatever. Prove me wrong! I dare ya! I double-dog dare ya!
You can’t do it, can you?
No, because if God is all and in all, then God must be in humor. Period.
To further prove my point, I am in my office with a one year old German Shepherd mix who demands all of my attention. I gave her a chewy to keep her busy. Now, she’s walking around my office, whining and looking for a place to bury it. She will gladly chew the walls and the woodwork. She takes special delight in chewing on my shoes. But, a chewy that has only one purpose in life, to be chewed on by a dog? No. Let’s bury it in the cushions of the furniture. Or, like just now, next to some dumb bells.
At least she’s happy now.
See? More of God’s humor. Give the guy a task, then do everything possible to make it difficult.
Ha! Ha! Ha!

This is more like the God that I’ve come to know in the last several years. This God is large and
expansive. This God loves the World so much that nothing is to much to give. Nothing is so low and profane that God will not engage. I think that there is always some kind of dirt and grime under the Divine Fingernails. This God laughs with us, (And, sometimes at us!). God walks with us when all is good. And, God cries with us when things aren’t.

I don’t know if I’m making any kind of sense.
Then again, God didn’t say anything about making sense.
“Write,” God said.
So, here I am trying to oblige.

My hope, I guess, is that anyone who decides to take the time to read this far will realize that I am not someone who takes himself too seriously.
I do take God seriously, though. Seriously enough to do what I can to break down the walls and barriers that the Church has erected over the centuries in order to keep “those people” out.
And, to attempt to keep God’s so-called purity from defiling. If you hadn’t noticed, God really doesn’t need our help with that. God doesn’t need us to have state-sponsored prayer or any other kind of special treatment. God’s perfectly capable of protecting God’s own identity and character.
Nor does God need any one nation or culture to be God’s chosen. Nope. Not. At. All.
God has already chosen from every tribe, people, and nation as God’s own.
Oh, BTW, those who are chosen?
EVERYBODY!!!
That’s part of what’s Good about the Good News!!!
God loves and chooses everyone to be the Chosen.
So, let’s live like it and stop worrying about what we can or can’t do to please God.
That’s already settled. We can, however, show God our appreciation and gratitude by being
Mindful that God is near. That God loves us all unconditionally. That we are cherished.
That, too, is part of the Good News.

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Two Types of Voters: Don’t Push Me! and Full Speed Ahead!

Published by mhelbert on November 1, 2022

I don’t know about you, but I’m just about done with the political world. It seems that for the last several months we’ve been barraged with ads for this candidate or that one; this party or that other one.

And, they ALL LIE!

They lie about each other’s stance on the economy, immigration, election monitoring, redistricting, blah, blah, blah.

WILL IT NEVER END!!!!

AARRGGGHHH!!!!

Whew! Ok. I’m back.

People want to be heard. Yeah, I get it. Me too.
So, they take to social media to find like-minded folks to reinforce their own ideas and opinions until they think theirs is the only opinion worth considering. We call that being in a ‘silo’ or an ‘echo chamber.’ You only really hear the sound of your own voice reverberating all around you.
This is endemic to any and all political ideals. I don’t care if you call yourself conservative or liberal; Republican or Democrat. People want to be heard. More than that, they want to feel that they are RIGHT. So, as I spend all my time in the silo of my choice, my opinion is heard and amplified by all of the voices that sound just like mine.

That’s a problem.

When we become so entrenched in our “Side” we forget that there are other “Sides” out there. We forget that ours is NOT the only voice. In fact, there are more voices in the world than we can possibly imagine. Society, and surely not politics, is a black/white; either/or proposition. Like everything in life there are myriad voices and ideas out there. We can never, ever assume our own superiority in the field of ideas.

That requires something that is hard to find. Especially, in our special brand of Western culture in the U.S.
That something is Humility.

Yep. There, I said the “H” word

Humility.

Before you all have a conniption, let me explain just a wee bit.
First, humility is not allowing anyone to walk all over you. You are not being humble when you consider yourself a worm. That’s something that might require some counselling to help out.
Neither is humility remaining silent while everyone else talks over you. No, your opinion is important and necessary in any conversations we have about our World.

Humility in this case is simply listening.
Not listening like, “Yeah, I here a noise.” But, listening with the intention to really Hear what each other has to say. Nor, is it simply listening while forming a rebuttal to whatever the other person is saying.
We all want someone to:
PLEASE HEAR ME!!!

All of us want that.

When I think about the divide that the media seems to want to describe, I think not in terms of Right/Left; Conservative/Liberal.
Hell, I don’t even know what those terms truly mean.
I think rather of Conservatives as people who don’t want to be pushed. I can visualize them as rank upon rank of people marching slowly toward some unknown, yet desired, future. They are working hard in their lives to keep things from moving too fast. Fast and Change are not good words for them. Yet, change will come. Eventually. Hopefully, on our terms.
On the other hand, I find Liberal to also be a misnomer. These are folks who are like a river flowing to that still unknown, yet desired future. They meander and rush over rapids and over falls. They pick up a lot of stuff along the way and carry it with them. They don’t always see beyond the next bend. But, ‘Hell, Yeah!’ we’re going there!

Both want to move forward.
Both want to be seen and heard.
Both want peace.

I’m writing all of this for the simple reason that for me this is therapeutic. I need to get these thoughts out of my head so my head doesn’t explode. No one wants that. It would be a hell of a mess to clean up.
Plus, I don’t think that I’m alone in these thoughts.
Feel free to comment with your own ideas.
After all, your thoughts are important for all of us.

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The Last Month: Feeling Tired And Worn Out

Published by mhelbert on September 11, 2022

Last week I wrote a bit about how I am encouraged by how things at St. Barnabas have been going. Activity is active; Attendees are attending; Spirit is Descending.

All Good.

While my life is not as wrapped up in church life as it was in the days of the evangelical grist mill. I still work hard and smile when it appears that God is smiling, too.

This past week has seen a different part of life here at the Old Homestead in the Suburbs. Life has been tossing the proverbial lemons. But, they’ve been rotten. No lemonade here.

I don’t recall spending much time on this here Blog-thingy writing about personal events. Yeah, there have been the milestones of seminary graduation and birthdays and holidays. But, in general I choose to keep my personal life personal. I mean, I don’t want to be off-putting. But, my life in general is no one’s business but mine.

However, sometimes what we experience may be something that resonates with others. How we deal with these experiences could just be the tonic that someone else needs. Or, it could just state the obvious that we’re really not alone and our experiences aren’t so weird. Others experience the same kind of stuff. So, what I experience might encourage someone else.

Over the last six weeks we’ve been dealing with health issues that have been as frustrating as they are serious.

(No, I’m not the one with the issues this time.
But, that doesn’t lessen them.)

There have been 4 trips to the ER, 2 inpatient stays in hospital, several rounds of tests and scopes and such, and multiple doctor appointments.
There has been a lot of pain and discomfort.
And, like I wrote above…
FRUSTRATION.
We now have a handle on most of it and there is in fact a positive end in sight.
While that is encouraging, it doesn’t cover for the sheer exhaustion, both physical, mental, and emotional that this has taken.
We are well and truly Tired!

On top of that we recently lost two members of my extended family to domestic violence.
It’s a situation that sux horribly.
A young mother and son gone in a senseless act of madness that should never have been allowed to happen.
Yet, it was.
We have gathered around our family member to support and protect as best we can.
But, the pain lingers and the anger burns.

We humans are a resilient species.
We have to be.
We are a very breakable creature that must be cared for carefully.
Yet, even in our fragility we have developed the ability to heal and bounce back.
Sometimes, (most times?), stronger and more capable than before.
I am sure that all of us will walk or crawl through the adversity that we find ourselves in.
I am equally sure that our relationships with one another will grow strong and be more than able to support the weak, infirm, and hurting.

Yeah, life’s hard.
But, we can, we must, live it as it is.

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