Welcome To My Mind

I would like to say that mine is a family who pray fervently, but that would be a lie. Like most, we don’t speak with the Lord nearly enough.  What I can say however, is that our family dinner time, (keep in mind that I said “dinner time.”) while often filled with laughter, and an occasional serious discussion, is always begun with giving thanks to Him.  Ever since my kids were little, dinner has unceasingly been not only family time, but prayer time.  Nothing fancy, just a common table prayer, but if one of us sits down and decides that it’s more important to eat first and thank God later, when we can find the time, there is always someone prepared, and more than willing, to correct that misconception.

Leland, my 20 month old grandson has taken to the traditional “dinner” prayer too.  He dutifully interlocks his fingers as we begin to pray, occasionally babbling some incoherent sounds which makes be think that maybe he is speaking in tongues, then as we all finish with a hearty “Amen!” Leland adds his own personal touch by grinning widely and breaking into applause.  We of course follow suit and begin to applaud as well and I can’t help but think that God himself is clapping also.

So it was this past Saturday morning, that our family, minus my daughter who was at work, sat down for a rare family breakfast.  Never really sure how Leland will react to meal time, we decided to prepare something that he’s never been too fussy to pass up, scrambled eggs.   The eggs, along with corn beef hash, toast and juice was placed on the table and everyone began to dig in.  My wife, seated next to Leland and in charge of feeding him this morning, positioned a forkful of scrambled eggs in front of his mouth and waited for him to devour it.  Leland grunted and turned his head away, refusing to eat.  Okay, that happens sometimes, he’s starting to get older and already is attempting to exert his independence.  “He probably wants to feed himself” I said.  My wife placed his fork on his plate as we all watched intently.  Nothing, he wouldn’t even look at it.!  My son had the idea that, “Maybe he’d like to try something else” and attempted to force feed him a heaping helping of Mary Kitchen corned beef hash.  Leland jerked his head away so fast that I half expected to see him spin it completely around and start spewing out pea soup like that scene in the movie the Exorcist.  If that happened I was pretty sure that my breakfast was going to go uneaten.

As we all sat staring at him, (me peaking between my barely parted fingers, still worried about the Exorcist thing happening)  Leland folded his hands and rested them on his high chair tray.  My wife who’s never seen The Exorcist, and didn’t know what she was possibly getting herself into by speaking to him said, “Did you want to pray Leland?”  I closed my fingers a little bit more and started to squeeze my eyes shut when I heard him speak one of his two best words, “YEAH!” he said.  I exhaled loudly and quickly began to pray, “Come Lord Jesus be our guest, and let thy gifts to us be blessed, and may there be a goodly share, on every table everywhere.  Amen”

Leland started laughing and clapping, then shoved a large forkful of eggs into his mouth, cleaned his plate, and topped breakfast off with about a half container of blueberries.

I have no idea what kind of man my grandson is going to grow up to be, but I think he’s off to a pretty good start.

Proverbs 22:6  Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

A few weeks ago my Alma mater, Ridgewood High School, made the news, not for winning the state baseball championship, although that certainly would have been cool had they done it.  They also didn’t make the news for coming in second which would have been almost equally as cool had they done that.  No, what happened was this;  The graduating class at Ridgewood High (ironically with a mascot name of Rebels) threw their caps high into the air at the end of the commencement exercise.  What?  That made the news you say?  Yes it did, let me explain.

The story is really quite simple.  The superintendent of the school made a request to the graduating seniors; Please do not throw your caps in the air as is traditionally done at the end of the graduation ceremony.  If you do he stated, there would be consequences to pay.  A simple request but one that many thought was unreasonable.  So as the ceremony ended I’ll bet you can already guess what happened.  That’s right, a majority of the students in their youthful exuberance, or defiance, depending on how you look at things, tossed there caps high into the air.  The superintendent, obviously unhappy with this rebellious act, (Get it? Rebels) followed through with his threat and true to his word, imposed a punishment.  Before I explain what that punishment was, let me tell you that this story, according to one of my Facebook friends, got so much publicity that it made headlines as far away as the UK.  Now  you’re probably saying to yourself, “Oh my gosh, what did he do to his students for this to generate a news story half way around the globe?  Did he make all of the boys pull their pants up so their underwear wouldn’t show?  Did he force all of the girls to retake their yearbook pictures without makeup on?”  No, nothing quite that drastic,  what he did was this, he withheld all of their diplomas.  That’s right, just flat out refused to give one to anybody.  And what an uproar there has been!  Social media feedback was swift and heated.  My unscientific survey showed a ratio of about 9 to 1 against the superintendents decision.  Comments on Yahoo News and Facebook in response to the story, called out the Superintendent as an “Egomaniac,” and a “Dictator,”  In a conversation I had with a friend, he stated that the superintendent must be on some kind of “power trip” to not allow the students to have a little fun.  I couldn’t pretend to know what was going through the superintendents mind when he made his request to the students, but wondered aloud to my friend if maybe he was worried about someone getting hit in the eye with the corner of one of those caps, resulting in the school being sued.  He looked at me as if I were nuttier than a fruit cake and said, “Really Dale, a lawsuit over getting hit with a graduation cap?  Aren’t you being a little crazy ?”  I suggested he go to the website legalzoom.com, search the site for frivolous lawsuits, and then get back to me with another, and possibly different assessment of my sanity.  I in turn, decided to go to the bible to see if I could figure out what God would have to say about this story, and here’s what I discovered;  It’s not a tale about egos, lawsuits, withheld diplomas, or ruining someones fun.  It’s one of respect and obedience.

When Jesus was asked in the book of Matthew whether or not it was right to pay taxes to Caesar, His response was, “Give to Caesar what is Caesars, and to God what is God’s.”  What does that mean?  Well, according to the NIV Study Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, the explanation is this; There are obligations to the state that do not infringe on our obligations to God.  In a nut shell, I understand that to mean that God does not want us to obey the authorities only when we agree with them, He wants us to regularly obey them, as long as by doing so, our obedience does not place us in direct conflict with His word.

So here’s my take on the great cap throwing caper;  Was the superintendent at my former high school being an egotistical, power hungry dictator with no good reason for what he did?  Maybe he was, I don’t know, but does it matter?  I don’t think it does.  He was placed in a position of authority and made a request of the students, (for whatever reason) not to throw their caps in the air.  This was a request which the students may not have agreed with, but it did not put them in direct opposition with any of God’s laws.  In other words, in no way did the superintendents request infringe on any obligation the students may have to God.  My opinion, apparently an unpopular one, is that they were asked not to throw their caps and shouldn’t have.

But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that this is a story about disrespectful teens, because it’s not.  It’s a parable about people in general.  It’s who we’ve become.  It’s an attitude we’ve adopted.  “Who are you to tell me what to do?”  “That’s a stupid law!”  “That’s a ridiculous rule!”  “I’m going to do it my way!”   We’ve become like the 6 year old child who says, “You’re not the boss of me!”  News flash!  In some cases yes, that person is the boss of you.

It reminds me of one of my neighbors who consistently rolls through a stop sign at the end of our block, because according to him, “I’m in a hurry, and besides, that’s a dumb place to have a stop sign.  In order to justify doing things his way, those will always be good enough arguments.  Right up until the day he’s in such a hurry that he fails to see that little kid on his bike approaching from the right.

Not the same as throwing a graduation cap in the air?  I’m not so sure.  It kind of sounds like different symptoms, same illness.

In an episode of the old television show ‘Leave it to Beaver,’ Beaver gets into trouble for spilling ink onto some important papers after he’s repeatedly been told to stay away from his fathers desk.  The punishment he receives is to stay home all day Saturday while his parents are away visiting friends.  Of course Beavers best buddy Larry comes over and convinces him to go to the movies, so in direct disobedience to his fathers commands, Beaver goes.  When the movie ends, a raffle is held at the theater and as luck would have it, Beaver wins a brand new bicycle.  Unable to bring the bike back to his own house without his parents finding out that he has disobeyed them, he allows Larry to take the bike home with him.  Of course when Larry’s mother asks where the bike came from, he immediately lies to her about it, saying that a rich man in a long limousine gave it to him.  Eventually he comes clean and tells her the truth, causing her to call Beaver’s father with the whole story, creating even more trouble for both boys.

At the end of the show Beaver and Larry are talking;  Larry says, “Boy Beaver, if you hadn’t won that bike, no one would have ever found out  we went to the movies and we wouldn’t have gotten into all of this trouble.”  Beaver replies, “Yeah, out of all those kids at the movie, I wonder why I ended up winning it?”  Larry answers, “Maybe God was trying to fix you.”

What an interesting choice of words for the writers of the show to use.  I don’t know if kids still use this expression today, but back in the 1960’s when ‘Leave it to Beaver’ was made, it was not uncommon for kids to get angry and say, “I’ll fix you!”  It was a way of letting someone know, “You did something bad to me, and I promise, I’ll find a way to get back at you for it.  I’ll get even with you!”   That sounds like the way Larry is using the phrase when he says, “Maybe God was trying to fix you.”   Beaver did something bad by disobeying his father and Larry thinks that maybe God was getting back at him for it.  He was being punished for his transgression.  However, the word fix is more commonly used as a way of saying that something has been mended.  Websters dictionary says;  to make (something) whole or able to work properly again : to repair (something)

What the writers of ‘Leave it to Beaver’ had in mind when they wrote those seven words, we’ll never know.  But what Larry and Beaver ended up doing with the bike might hold the clue.  They dropped the bike off on the doorstep of a church with an attached note asking that it be given a good home.  Larry had once seen a movie where a woman did that with a baby.

If you’ve ever seen ‘Leave it to Beaver’ you know that Beaver and Larry are generally pretty good and obedient little kids.  So why do bad things sometimes happen to them?  Why do bad things occasionally happen to all good people?  Maybe it’s because regardless of how good we are, when like Beaver we disobey our father, there are consequences to be paid.

And I guess how you interpret the line “Maybe God was trying to fix you.” depends on which side of the cross you  choose to stand on.  I choose to stand on the side that believes God is not angry with me.  He’s not trying to punish me.  He’s not trying to fix me.  He loves me, He’s trying to repair me.  He’s trying to fix me.

1 Peter 5:10

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

January 4th 2012, as I was ready to enter my office and begin work, I got a nose bleed.   There’s no need to go into all of the details, let’s just say it was severe enough that emergency medical was called.  As I lay in the ambulance waiting to be taken to the hospital, one of the EMT’s announced my blood pressure reading to the other, “280 over 160, transport immediately.”   Needless to say, at that moment I didn’t feel blessed.  Laying in the emergency room with doctors trying to get my B/P down and control the bleeding, I didn’t feel blessed.  During the weekly doctor visits that followed, I didn’t feel blessed.  Then one day my doctor said, “You’re doing much better.  Do you have any idea how lucky you were?  How easily you could have died?”  Only then, when I could see things more clearly, did I recognize my blessing.

One night a few months later, as my family was finishing dinner, my then 19 year old unmarried daughter, summoned all of the courage she could, and announced to us that she was pregnant.  Needless to say, at that moment I didn’t feel blessed.  However, my daughter, as frightened as she was to give us the news, still came to us.  She didn’t run away, she trusted her families love.  My son, already grasping his role as uncle and eventual godfather, stepped forward, as a man, and helped to calm a situation that could have easily gotten out of control. Now, along with two great children, I have a beautiful 19 month old grandson who has become the light of our world.  Can God take sin and change it to perfection?  It appears that He can.  Only now, when I can see things more clearly, do I recognize my blessing.

Just weeks later, about a month before my 33rd work anniversary, I was informed by my company that my services would no longer be needed.  I was being let go.  Needless to say, at that moment I didn’t feel blessed.  It’s been almost two years, I’ve lost touch with people whom I once considered friends, that does not make me feel blessed.  I’ve been told by many not to worry, that God has a plan for me, and although past experience tells me that He most assuredly does, I still don’t feel blessed.  Time and again God has proven His faithfulness to me, yet far too often, until He makes the results of His blessings clear, I am unable to believe.  Once again I hear myself saying, “Show me God.  Prove yourself.”

John 20: 24-29

Now Thomas (called Didymus) one of the twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.  So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them.  Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”  Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it into my side.  Stop doubting and believe.”

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Then Jesus told him, ” Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

If you take my story and change the details, it becomes your story; maybe instead of the loss of a job, it’s the loss of a loved one.  Instead of an unplanned pregnancy, it’s a broken relationship.  And maybe, just like Thomas and me, you cannot yet see the blessings that God has planned from these “tragedies.”  Remain faithful to Him, you will.

Sacrilege: violation or misuse of what is regarded as sacred

Last week I mentioned to my wife that I was considering, for the first time in 20 years, not attending Easter church service this Sunday.  The way her eyes bugged out as she looked up from her morning bowl of oatmeal told me one of two things, either this information was coming as a complete shock to her, or I had suddenly sprouted a full head of golden locks and now resembled the 1990’s version of Fabio.  I didn’t think the Fabio thing was likely but just to make sure we were both on the same page, I nonchalantly reached up and checked my scalp by scratching an imaginary itch.  As I suspected, she was merely surprised about my Easter comment.  “Are you serious?” she asked.

I didn’t know, was I serious?  After all, I went to church this week, last week, and most weeks before that.  I plan on going on Good Friday and possibly Maundy Thursday.  I intend to be there the Sunday after Easter and those that follow as well.  So you might ask, as I asked myself, why in the world would I go almost every other Sunday and then not attend on one of the holiest of days?  Am I angry with God, or my pastor, or my church?  No, that’s not the case, in fact at the moment I’m not angry with anything.  Am I experiencing a crisis of faith?  Not at all, I’m actually more into His word than I’ve been in quite some time.  What is it then?  The simple truth is that quite often I don’t enjoy the Easter “show.”  While I love that dozens of people who normally are not church goers will be in attendance to hear God’s message of salvation, I personally don’t look forward to what occasionally feels to me like choreographed excitement.  The ritual, at times, feels awkward and somewhat strained, it’s one of the things that kept me away from church for so many years.  On Easter, above all other Sundays, I feel as if I’m expected to show enthusiasm,  shout “He is risen!” or risk appearing unappreciative of the sacrifice He made for us.

Trust me, I’m not mocking God, I’m both too respectful and too fearful of Him to do that.  And to be sure, my hesitance about participating in Easter Sunday this year does not mean I’ve allowed doubt about His rise from the grave to creep into my mind.  My faith is built on the truth of His resurrection, and I’m secure in that belief.  However, I don’t revel in belting out a perfectly timed “Hallelujah!” on cue as if I’m an actor in a play,  just as I don’t wildly cheer when my favorite football team makes a first down with 15 seconds left in a game they already lead by 25 points.  In both instances I understand that the outcome has long since been determined, I’m confident that we’ve won, the excitement I experienced when I first realized that came long ago, and can’t be recreated no matter how loud I shout.

So here’s the plan;  My son will be home from college this weekend.  He, along with my mother-in-law, wife, daughter, grandson and I, will have our Easter meal on Saturday so that he can head back to school early Sunday afternoon.  When we wake on Easter morning we won’t rush, we won’t wolf down a dry slice of toast and cold cup of coffee so we can make it to church early enough to find a parking place.  We won’t race through the house looking for our “Sunday best.”  “Sue, where the heck did you put my tie?  What do you mean which one?  The one with the cross on it!  The one I wear every Easter!”   We’ll wake up at our leisure, and sit down to a relaxed family breakfast.  We’ll  band together, a small group of believers, say a prayer, discuss what the resurrection means to us, and thank Him for this wonderful moment in time.  We probably won’t shout, “He is risen” but we’ll all be confident in the fact that He once did.  And when the day is done, maybe I’ll discover that I missed being, where for the last 20 years I’ve always been.

Whatever your feelings about Easter, whether you agree with me or not, I wish you a happy one.  For truly, “He is risen!”  “He is risen indeed!”  “Hallelujah!”

In case you hadn’t heard the story, a baseball player on the New York Mets named Daniel Murphy, took 3 days of paternity leave last week to be with his wife as she gave birth to their first child.  The leave caused him to miss the first two games of the 162 game 2014 major league baseball season.  Though he’s entitled to the time and his employer seems to have no problem with his decision, there are still people in an uproar, mainly sportscasters who are generally paid to be controversial and critical about things that have nothing directly to do with them.

For example, on the Boomer and Carton sports talk radio show, co host Craig Carton decided that 3 days off to support his wife following the birth of their child, was far too long for Murphy to spend away from his team.  Carton said, “To me, and this is just my sensibility, assuming the birth went well, assuming your wife is fine, assuming the baby is fine, 24 hours you stay there…(then) you get your ass back to the team and you play baseball”.  I think his use of the word “sensibility” is an interesting choice.

Mike Francesa another radio “personality” said, “Whaddya gonna do, sit there and look at your wife in the hospital bed for two days?”  God forbid Mr Francesa, sit with your wife for a couple of days after she just gave birth to your child?!?!  You’re right that would be crazy!!

And Boomer Esiason a former NFL football player even went as far as to say that Murphy should have told his wife to, “have a C-section before the season starts. I need to be at Opening Day, I’m sorry.”   That makes perfect sense doesn’t it?  “Hey Honey, be a dear and have unneeded major surgery so that I won’t miss the game next week will you?  Pleeease?” 

If you think I’m way out of line in being somewhat critical of these three guys, imagine for a minute that Daniel Murphy isn’t the second baseman for a professional baseball team, imagine he’s a forklift driver at ABC Manufacturing Company.  What would you think of Danny the fork lift driver saying to his wife,  “Hey Babe, could you schedule a C-section for yourself tomorrow?  I know it’s not necessary but I have a big semi trailer coming in on Thursday that I just have to unload and I don’t want the birth of our first born to get in the way of that.  I’m sorry”  

I used to believe this type of thinking could be dismissed as generational.  Young men in their 20’s or 30’s, certainly no older than that, attempting to sound macho, trying to make sure everyone knows that they’re the man of the house.  The flaw in my theory is that Esiason is 52, Carton is 45, and Francesa is 60, they’re not kids.  How have grown men come to the conclusion that there are things like a baseball game, or any job for that matter, that are more important than family?   The logic, if it can be called that, confuses me.

To be fair, Boomer Esiason has since apologized, but I’m cynical. It feels like the type of apology we hear far too often these days.  The social media apology.   The one where a celebrity tweets, or says something they think is witty or funny or provocative, only to realize that a majority of people didn’t think it was clever at all, just the ignorant ramblings of an over privileged, clueless personality.  That’s when they go into damage control.  An apology is issued not because they’re sorry for what was said, but because they’re sorry about how it might affect their career. It sometimes seems that hardly a day goes by anymore without there being an article on MSN or Yahoo about some twit apologizing for a mindless tweet.

I’ve found myself becoming less forgiving of people who fail to think twice and speak once.  People who don’t mind hurting with words as long as they can wave the magic “I’m sorry”  wand, and pretend they’ve made all of those words disappear.  I’m not suggesting that a sincere apology shouldn’t be accepted, after all the bible references the word forgive or a form of that word over 100 times.  However one such reference from Luke 17:3  reads, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.”   In other words the apology should be genuine.  I like that one, I think we should all live by that one, but I like this one too;  Proverbs 21:23  He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity. 

As for Daniel Murphy, thank God for men like him who have their priorities straight.  I’m his newest fan.