I'm Sorry

Revisionist History? Balderdash! (Alternate Title)

WE have been studying revisionist history all our lives, every last one of us who are now living and breathing and all who have gone through modern day educational systems. To say that the removal of Confederate statues and public memorabilia honoring the breakaway republic is revisionist history is balderdash. To say that removing racist and offensive team monikers and removing the Confederate flag from public symbols is changing history is bunk. WE cannot change history.

I do not often write regarding politics as I believe Jesus is a-political and I wish to be in line with His political thinking. However, I am seeing on my limited social media outlets, Instagram and Facebook mostly, that some of my friends and colleagues are decrying the removal of Confederate icons, statues, and symbols, as well as the removal of racially offensive corporate symbols, as an attempt to change history. I am trying not to think less of them for doing so and my struggle is raging.

WE cannot change history. To borrow a tired phrase, it is what it is. WE have been offering in our schools, our textbooks, our museums, and a host of other media outlets, a revisionist history constructed by those in power in order to shade themselves in some sort of romantic light so they can feel better about themselves and justify the continued oppression of races of people different from themselves. WE have romanticized the genocidal actions as WE tried to wipe out our American Native brothers and sisters. This is historical.

I was not taught of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 in school and yet it is a part of history. It took the murders of several black people in rapid succession by white policemen to bring it to light for me and put it in the news. I would have loved to say that those murders culminated in the murder of George Floyd but sadly it has continued, and continued with a blind eye from those in the highest levels of our leadership.

I did not learn of the Trail of Tears in the classroom. I picked up a book about, and perhaps by, Will Rogers, a Cherokee citizen. The first chapter was about the hardships and degradations he suffered on the Trail of Tears. I was so ashamed that WE did this and so much more to inhabitants of our land that I could not continue reading. I don’t know where the book is. It is a treasure I snagged from a church rummage sale to support work we did at the Vah Ki Presbyterian Church and it is still in this house filled with hundreds of books. I will find it, take my medicine, and read it cover to cover.

WE weren’t satisfied that we had denigrated a race of people and forced them to live in designated reservations set in the most inhospitable parts of the continent. I am friends with residents of the Gila River Indian Community and while reading of their history and the history of a man who tied our church into this community I learned that WE had to take this reservation and dam the river which gave it life, beauty, an agricultural culture, and their identity and plunge them into a depth of poverty that made them wholly reliant on the WE that never publicized or taught this bit in our history classes.

WE cannot rewrite history. We the People can rewrite the history books and the anthologies WE use to teach history and continue the righting of wrongs. WE must name them so that We the People might be truly free.

We the People are making moves to stop the romanticizing and glorification of the vilest parts of our history and are naming it what it is, teaching what it is, fighting what it is – the sin of racism, the sin of discrimination, the sin of genocide…

There is one act, and one act only, in the history of creation that can erase any act in one’s personal history and that is the once given sacrifice God made of his son, God in the flesh, Jesus Christ. This one act atones for the actions of an individual who accepts it as true and confesses his sins. It does not change history nor the way it should be taught.

Sadly,

jj white

Tail of Tears Map

Regarding Grief

Grief comes upon us in many guises and we often wonder what it was about the little nuance that caused us to weep with a sadness best left undefined. It can ride in on the wings of a random hummingbird to touch our cheek as a kiss blown from across the room or it might crash over us as a Banzai Pipeline wave, one we’d have much rather ridden the long board on or even watched from afar.

It would be best if we could embrace and accept it as our own but it just isn’t always ours to enwrap. Our empathy for another, one stung by the sharp barbs of loss, locks us into their hearts and we feel as they do but we can only wrap them in our arms and hold tight while they are wracked by nameless pain. It is theirs to claim, they are ours to love through it.

When it is our own though, do we push it away, run from it into some escape hatch, or deny it all together? Make it our own I say, let it rush through us to cleanse and bring new joy at some forgotten memory of our lost one. Hold the best of them to ourselves to inform and shape a future without them at our side. After a while the rivers of feeling will run clean and pure like the rivulet from the base of Bridalveil Fall.

Writer’s note: the Ahwahneechee Native Peoples called the fall Pohono which means “Spirit of the Puffing Wind”. I ran across this today while looking into the fall and after I’d already used the simile, ‘as a kiss blown from across the room’. The Ahwahneechee called the falls Pohono because the fall is often blown sideways and during a lite flow of the creek may not reach the ground directly below the origins of the fall.

I note it because I think grief can often be like this - blown here and there by winds of time and emotion only to find rest in places we can’t predict.

Peace friends.

To Laugh or To Cry?

(courtesy of my storyblocks.com account)

Romans 12:15 “¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”

Phil had me read a short, powerful scripture the other morning during our Zoom Men’s Meeting. The impact on me was immediate and many-faceted and continues to expand for me as I write this post. Let me lay the foundation that I would have hoped would have been known to me a bit more than twenty years ago but, as it turns out, was laid down in the beginning, as in ‘In the beginning was the Word…’

It was an earlyish Mission Arizona (MAZ) and when the senior high students were doing a project on one part of the reservation (Gila River Indian Community) and I was off with Julia, James, and the junior high students painting the interior of the Sacaton Presbyterian Church. Earlier in the week Julia and I were talking about things and a subject came up where she wanted to know what was in store for her and a tad frustrated at the progress in the area under discussion. In my hubris, I told her I would pray about it and come back to her with something. Nothing seemed forthcoming as the week rolled on.

Thursday is generally the last day of major work during MAZ with Friday the day we clean up and put the final wrappings on our projects so that we can enjoy a fun evening before trekking home on Saturday. Our painting wore on deep into the night while our paint supplies ran short. So we instructed the students that only an adult was to pour paint from the 5-gallon bucket into the individual cans and roller pans to make sure we didn’t waste any.

It was somewhere around one a.m. Friday morning when I went outside to pour paint for someone and found a good quart had been spilled on the sidewalk thus wasting the paint and making a mess that needed to be cleaned up. I probably said some inappropriate things as I went down on my knees to scrub the paint up as best I could. I know I mumbled things like, ‘those thrashers!’. I love those kids but junior boys and girls are thrashers. Everybody stayed clear of me while I worked out the week’s frustrations on the sidewalk.

A coyote jogged through the parking lot, stopped, and stared at me while cocking his head to the side to help him figure out what he was seeing. I sat up from my scrubbing and had to laugh with him and that is when I heard as clearly as I hear His voice, “It is not for you to know or determine. It is for you to laugh with her when she laughs and the cry with her when she cries.”

Reading that scripture on this Wednesday morning for me was like jumping off the rocks into a cold alpine lake. It was shocking and it awakened me to more of God's. When I was spoken to it was directly out of scripture and for twenty-three, twenty-four years, I had never realized it.

The implication is plain to me – if I want to hear God speak to me, I need to read the Bible. While I’m reading it, He will speak to me. While I’m praying or being silent, the Lord will speak to me from the Word. Homer Simpson said it very well for me, “D’oh!”

A more timely aspect of this passage from Romans is how much need the world has for us to pick it up this scripture and live it. We need to grab hold of this and in Christian empathy and concern weep with those who are in mourning for the loss of family and friends and their way of life. And we need to laugh and celebrate with those who overcome and persevere and find accomplishments in spite of a world gone sideways.

We must resist those who live in the ‘me-first’ moment. You know, the attitude that led to the ‘America First’ movement and the continued and ever deepening of America’s isolation from a world shrinking in on itself in misery and international effects? That is not of God and never will be. We are to be in the world. Not of it, no. But in it and among those who weep and laugh, celebrate and mourn. If we are to be Christ’s ambassadors in the world, we need to become really good at heeding this short verse.

Find someone and mourn or laugh with them as required.

In His grip

jerry

(images courtesy of my storyblocks.com account)

Foul Ball!

A tangent inspired from a men’s meeting filled with enough baseball coaches to run a team and baseball mined men to field one:

We have been playing this game since birth. The Game of Life. According to some theologians and philosophers we’ve been rigging the game since our first breath, if not outright cheating at it. Original sin, some call it. I’ll leave it to you to figure out when you started moving the pieces when you thought nobody was looking and you can determine the why of it all for yourself. That’s not the point here; well, other than a starting point.

We have runners on base in our game regardless of how far along we were when Spring Training Interuptus struck. Nevertheless,  the game of life continues. We have people we want to see on first, things we gotta do on second, and maybe our future on third. Runners all over the place – some at peril of the force out while other are vulnerable to the pick-off. The pitcher is crafty, he’s throwing heat and the hook, the backdoor-slider and the spitball and there doesn’t appear to be anyone to check for the hidden emery board or foreign substances.

We are in the midst of a long at bat with a three and two count and something less than two outs. It seem as though it doesn’t matter if we are knocked down by a pitch because it hits the bat for a foul ball and the count remains full anyway. We have to swing at everything because the umpire is sometimes sane and into the game while at other times he’s coming from left field and everything has been called a strike. We don’t hear a trash can lid or a whistle and the buzzer in our wristband stopped working in the third inning.

There are runners in scoring position. All we have to do is squirt the ball through an infield with a major shift on, even players shifted from the bench to the field and there must be fifteen studs spread out between the foul lines, one or two straddling the lines and it feels like the only safe hit will be into the stands, fair or foul. Studettes too, it’s a friendly coed game, right? No pressure, the game’s not fair.

Your runners are tired, they’ve been breaking on every pitch because the run-and-hit has been called every windup. You’re tired because you’ve swung at everything since the count went full and you’ve had to pick yourself up and climb back into the box for an eternity. Here comes the heater and you swing hitting the ball foul right into fastball alley and you hope a spectator doesn’t get brained. The ball gets tossed back at you from the stands. What the heck, this is a home game!

The runners on base slog back and touch the base. At this stage of the game it’s about the only rule in force and it’s most important to touch up before the next pitch is thrown or the runner will be called out. The pitcher knows this and is ready to quick-pitch when the ump isn’t looking. Nevertheless, your runners know and are faithful to do it while you give them time keeping one foot in and the other out the batter’s box until the runners are reset. While you watch them the base-coaches and runners are both restored and refreshed when the base has been touched. They are more relaxed, focused, and ready for the next pitch. All you need to do is put the ball in play past the drawn-in fielders and you will bring a runner home.

Even if you feel like doing it, don’t lean into the pitch to ‘take one for the team’ and move the game along. With this umpire, he’ll call you on it and with two strikes already you’ll be out and walking to the dugout with no way for you to advance your runners.

Shoot, there are less than two outs. All you really need to do is put a ball deep enough and the runners can tag up and advance. The keys being tagging up and timing their sprint to the next base.

These days with our world turned sideways and the rule-book thrown in the dumpster we need to remember the one good and safe rule - Tag Up! Touch the base and check in with your base coach for the next sign. Take a load off even if for just the span of one pitch. Relax, be ready, and stay sharp. Check in with your friends and family, the people you work with, play with, or do business with. Check the batter; make sure he or she is ready for the pitcher to make his next play. And pray. When all is said and done, that’s the base we need to touch.

In His grip,

jerry

Hebrews 10:23-25 “²³Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. ²⁴And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds(to run the bases), ²⁵not giving up meeting together (be it from six feet away or some sort of chat), as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching(the next pitch).”

A Believer’s Quarantine Protocol

In our home we are easily five weeks into shelter-at-home as we adopted those initiatives early on so that we could be the safest possible when we went out to Ely, Nevada to help with our daughter’s family during the time she delivered her second child via C-section. I haven’t met friends in person with the exception of blessed happenstance and on provisioning runs in all that time. But I have attended several Zoom meetings with various committees of the church and held an online class for our communicants. I have listened and watched a few online bible studies and worship services. Today was the first live Zoom meeting with a group of believers in order to read scripture, pray, and share. I’ve missed the men of our Wednesday morning gatherings and this was a much-needed time for me; in fact, I’d say it was priceless and won’t go so far as to put a value to it.

Phil opened our time by calling for our traditional third man prayer and a reading of selected segments from the Gospel of John. Then we checked in with each other buy going around the Zoom and briefly talking about how we and our loved ones are fairing with the virus and its widespread impacts. Our central discussion was regarding how and what we, as Christians, need to be doing during this traumatic time. I’ll share some of what I gleaned from our talk in amplified bullet format.

My Believer’s Quarantine Protocol:

U  Remember that God is in control

V  Pray with that foremost in your mind.

V  Look for ways to express His control of things

V  Be wise in how, where, and when to express it – aka – be considerate of others

This one may be the hardest one to live by and project to a world that will shout back at us, “What God would visit covid-19 on people? If He is in control why is this happening?”

Isaiah 41:10 – “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

U  Limit social media, news, and generally negative input and filter everything through a Kingdom Perspective

Colossians 3:1-4 – “¹So if you been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ²Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, ³for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”

U  Connect with your brothers and sisters in the faith

V  Stay in tune with your families

V  Talk it out

V  Be open and genuine with both your faith and your fears

V  Let others help with your burdens

V  Do this in such a way as to be a responsible member of the community and don’t limit Jesus to meeting with us as believers only when we are physically together

Hebrew 10:24-25 – “²⁴And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, ²⁵not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

U  Stay in touch with your ministry area

V  If you lead, connect with those who you shepherd

V  If you serve under another’s leadership, connect with and pray for the leader

I believe the Hebrews verse above applies here but let’s try a little Ephesians 6:18-19 – “¹⁸Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication for all the saints. ¹⁹Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel…”

U  Stretch – body, mind/soul, and spirit

V  This is how you will increase your talents, don’t burry them and expect that to suffice

V  Reach for something new, it’s likely you have more time for a new field – go for it

V  How and what you exercise with is what will grow and what you will end up doing better at the end of the day

Check out the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30

U  Worship. Find ways to lift praise and adoration to the Father

V  Find a source online to worship with. So many of the churches are embracing this, find some that work with you

V  Sing out loud God’s praises as you listen to songs on the radio or online

V  Be creative in your worship – take time to be quiet and let your love rise like incense to the Father

V  Be one whom the Father seeks

John 4:21-23 – “²¹Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.”

U  Pray. It’s part of worship. Intercede on others behalf.

Phil left us this morning with a charge and I’ll extend it you anyone reading – reach out to one of the brothers or sisters that have been on your heart and mind and take action on what the Holy Spirit has placed within you.

In His grip,

jerry

OJT

During the last few walks with Oliver, a wonderful lad of mixed canine decent, I have been considering that putting ‘Grandfather’ on my resume has been one of the coolest things I’ve added since June of 1979. It amazes me that I’ve come into the position with a certain amount expertise that, until I began considering it more fully, has baffled me.

When I was a child I was able to observe my own four grandparents and benefit from their love of the job. Grandpa White gave my sisters and me wheelbarrow rides around the double cul-de-sac in Gardena and let us play with his wooden hardware organizer drawers as a place for us to put play money and act like we were a store. Grandma White fixed her wonderful English cuisine meals. I especially liked the way she prepared carrots. Grandma Matt (Mattingly) always made a couple of my favorite dishes when I visited at Bass Lake – lemon meringue pie and shrimp cocktail were her specialties for me. Grandpa Matt had a way of teaching me the practicalities of daily life and snuck a $5 bill into my hand for gas as I was driving away when I was able to go up on my own. My favorite memory was him sitting us down at McDougal’s for our favorite ice cream dish. It was a banana split for me.

Those four could be gruff at times and I suppose that was due to coming through the depression and other depredations of the lives they had. I never once felt they didn’t love me. I know they did, or do. I seem to still have conversations with them now and again. Most of them were great huggers even if Grandpa Matt liked to rub his stubble on our young cheeks. I suppose the good long time I had with them burned the programming into my firmware.

When I became a man and after June, 1979 I was blessed with observing Cindy’s and my parents take to the role of grandparent and man, they are hard act to follow. From the moment each of the four held Ashley in their arms the first time I knew we had an awesome foursome of grandparents for our kids. Our mothers were creative and attentive and our fathers were watchful and protective. All of them were playful at times. One thing that stands out about them is the sense of wonderment at the joy of being a grandparent was. It is as though my observations of my and Cindy’s parents reemphasized the programming that took place when I was a boy and maybe did some debugging as well.

With all that training by osmosis I still needed some more practical lessons and there is nothing better than On the Job Training (OJT). The best teachers for grandparent OJT started with Teya and Jeremiah, then Logan and Nairi, and now Becca. Grandchildren are the best teachers of grandparents and it happens in the field, on the playgrounds and on living room floors, in their highchairs and on changing tables. We get tested here and the programming gets beta-tested right then and there and we adapt.

After twelve years of experience, one great lesson I’ve learned from them is that expectations from them are going to change as they get older and their needs get more…sophisticated. Add to it that I’m just getting older and rolling around on the floor and tossing them in the air isn’t quite as graceful. I know Teya’s experience of me will be far different than Becca’s.

Those are a lot of words to get to this point and you are likely wondering, if you’re still reading, what does this have to do with a Calvary’s Thread post about my Christianity? And these days, what does it have to do with covid-19 and faith?

Let me go here with my tangent: How did twelve fishermen, tax evaders, and otherwise tier-one individuals come to be the founders of Christianity? OJT. There were no seminaries and no Bible schools to mold them into Apostles other than the rabbinic teachings they got growing up and those somehow missed who the Messiah was to the point the leaders of these schools had Jesus put to death. Only the revelation that poured from the disciples turned some of the teaching into truth for the Jews at the time.

These guys hung out with Jesus for three and half years and were taught on the run and in the field. They were instruments in Jesus’ hands for the feeding of the five thousand, were sent out by twos to minister in His name (Mark 6:6b-13, Luke 9:1-6, and Luke 10:1-24) and otherwise assisted Jesus with his ministry. On the Job Training.

Then their mentor, teacher, and the Father of their faith was killed and they scattered only to be reeled back in to have their training refreshed. Their OJT continued in Acts and when a new teacher, or rather a teacher with a different aspect of the Father, came upon them, the lessons continued. The first big evidence that they were ready to graduate into Apostleship was Peter preaching and adding three thousand to the faith. He’d never really preached before. OJT baby.

Do you want your faith to expand, your effectiveness to grow? Wade into the river and get hip deep into the work of the Kingdom to the point the Holy Spirit has to come upon you to succeed. Learn by doing, live by grace.

In His grip,

jerry

Early Morning Foray Into the Sanctuary

I went into the Sanctuary this morning, the first time I’ve been on the church campus in a couple of weeks or so, a notable rarity for me. Such is the advantage of being a key-holder, though in days long gone by we kept a key on the ledge over the door to the Fish Bowl as the room was known. Well okay, it was a bread-knife and the doors were not the higher quality of security doors we have in place today.

The pre-dawn sky back-lit the stained-glass windows, at least the ones still in place during our refurbishing process. (give people!) Being in the place alone and in the dark is one of my favorite times there and only in part because the darkness masks the scars technology is leaving on the walls but more so because I feel God's presence. The hush was reverent as I eased my way along the empty pews, so unlike the hush that’s come over the streets and malls and parks and our beaches during our time of social distancing and hunkering down at home.

It’s easy to pray here along but difficult to focus on the greatest area of need for prayer. I’ve been wondering what the story arc is for covid-19, how its epilogue will read. I decided to ask Jesus whose likeness looked down from the round window above our altar. Alas, no answer was forthcoming. However, I’ve decided to ask it of Him each time my random reminder to pray goes off. I am surely not the answer and I’ve no brain power to bring to bear on the problem. Who is? Who will rise up and bring the answer and allow us to return to a more level and even new normal? I suspect that the answer will only come when God’s people humble ourselves in pray and heat up our passion for His Kingdom. 

Surely the answer is not to return too soon to how things were and simply power through the crisis as though the loss of even one extra person is worth the ‘boost’ to the economy so the rich can maintain robust portfolios and tout how the middle class is so better off because of it. You know the rich, those folks with concierge healthcare that can buy a covid-19 test at the drop of a hat when the folks on the front lines can’t find one to save a life? This is a folly preferred by the ignorant and greedy.

Who will rise up and provide the definition of a new normal and give guidance on how we should live and thrive? I’ll ask, and ask again and sometime someone will come forward…

Come quickly Lord.

In His grip, jerry