"Afterthought.........................."

The Elementary school where I’ve worked within the Special-Ed department for over a decade now is the largest such facility in our county, the addition of pre-school classes a few years ago bringing our student population to somewhere around a thousand. This tragedy that occurred in Connecticut Friday hit home with me. We have a security system. People are monitored and buzzed through our front entrance each and every day. Adults all need either an identity badge or a visitor sticker; and a lock-down drill is but one of several practiced on occasion. Nevertheless, in truth it would not be all that hard for someone to gain entrance and wreak havoc if they were so inclined. I think about it often. It is, after all, part of who we are anymore as a society. Some would blame the 2nd Amendment. Some would point their finger at the educational system, itself. For me, it's simply a matter of humanity being humanity and the place to start looking for answers is in the mirror. The problem, of course, is far beyond one person's ability to eradicate. One person can, however, be a vessel for the Holy Ghost, can allow "Christ in me" to be more than a doctrinal tenet, and can give witness to the Resurrection being a reality in our midst, not just a hope we hold of Heaven. It's why the Detention Center is important. It's why each day matters. There are no guarantees; but we can know His hand in the next step......

"Whoville..............."

One might think a fellow over forty years a believer in Christ would really be into celebrating His birth; but, in truth, there’s not much about all the hoopla we’ve attached to it that speaks to me. When you boil it all down, gifts, decorated trees, mall crowds and traffic jams, Santa Claus fun to share with the little diddles, if the Babe in the manger hasn’t been born as well in a man’s “belly”, all one really has is man still searching to answer the emptiness inside himself. Tuesday evening the Elementary level at our church school brought forth a Christmas cantata. All of the kids were in holiday colors, red, white, and black, with a splash of grey here and there. One chubby little dark-haired girl in the front row to the far right, no doubt in the First Grade or Kindergarten, however, was wearing a blue satiny dress; but what really one’s drew attention to her was the way she held both sides of the skirt as she swung her hips to the rhythm of the music. On the other end of that same row to the left, her counterpart, another child, thin with long brown hair and in a red velvet outfit, continually danced around as well, her focus more on her mother than the program. Eventually she would be repositioned. If my heart was captured from the very start by such simplicity, though, the message within the lyrics of the carols they shared touched something deeper within me. For a little over thirty minutes the Grinch was gone. The Spirit had me rejoicing in “the reason for the season”……

"Breakthrough...................."

A friend at school introduced me, Friday, to a beautiful new contemporary gospel song entitled “Redeemed”. The lyrics speak of struggling, being “haunted by ghosts that lived in my past”, and being “bound up and shackled in all of my failures”; but also declare God enabling us to “shake off these heavy chains” and to “wipe away every stain” while we go forward in Him. I find them powerful words, yet the message easily misunderstood if one doesn’t wrap it all up in the one line that points to a need to remember “O God, You’re not done with me yet”. Indeed, this is part of the message that went with me this morning to the Youth Detention Center, this plus some dialogue between two different women I know only through blogdom, each battling breast cancer and mentally dealing with what seems to them partial loss of their identity. Two separate view points about the journey and yet compassion between them in realizing Christ meets us where we are as individuals, every experience in Him “tailor-made”, His patience and His love bigger than our humanity. Such points were concluded with an old hymn, the whole kit and kaboodle tacked on in a few short minutes at the end, the Holy Ghost weaving it into what had already been said by the others in our group. We concluded in prayer. The hour was over….or was it? The three girls there asked our women to step into their unit; and then one of the boys raised his hand for us to enter into petition on his behalf. Then another, and another. For at least half an hour, tears flowed and the Spirit ministered. Ten years we’ve been doing this, but this was the closest we’ve come to encountering “Pentecost”. I am still rejoicing……

"Depth.............................."

While the temperature here in northern Kentucky has not dipped deeply enough thus far to require anything more than an occasional early morning warm-up from my furnace, rain has held us in its grip nearly every day this past week. My sinuses have had my mind “circling the runway”, thus far dissatisfied with all previous attempts to put something down on paper. Indeed, the scenario seems to me descriptive of the very word that continues to occupy my thoughts. Faith is a particular tenet of the Gospel that this old man has long considered greatly distorted by the Church. For whatever reason, I asked my Catholic friend, at school Monday, why he was so assured of his salvation; and, without blinking, he responded with nothing more than that one word. When our Wednesday Bible study got into a discussion concerning its definition, the teacher suggested such claim to be only as good as that into which it is invested. My own reasoning, however, declared even that truth leaving us flexible, each to their own theology, the infallible Book, filtered through men, becoming a mixed bag of opinions. People, after all, are just people. On my way home from school Tuesday, a sticker on the rear window of an SUV caught my attention: “God bless our soldiers,” it read, “especially our snipers!” Bill O’Reilly last night, arguing with an atheist, declared quite boldly that Christianity was not a religion, merely a philosophy followed by various denominations. Celebrity preachers are in abundance, each with their own following, their own version of “claiming the kingdom”. For me, “faith” has been a resurrected Reality who goes with me through the fog, His “hook in my belly” an anchor-line that secures me in my journey, my connection my correction, my one thing stable in a world where everything else seldom makes sense. In Him, I trust……

"Transition............."

My old Toyota Corolla was growling like a bear on my drive home from school yesterday afternoon. Beth was supposed to follow me to a scheduled appointment with a mechanic, my gut telling me that the exhaust pipe had somehow lost its connection with the engine. About two miles from the house, however, the sound of metal now scraping the pavement removed all doubt. I motored the remaining distance at a slow pace and, for a few minutes, considered crawling under it in the rain to somehow secure it before going any farther; but, at my age, somehow the cost of having it towed seemed to make much more sense. Life, after all, when you think about it, is just a continual series of events. Some good. Some bad. There doesn’t appear to be any particular reason for what comes to whom or any way to know just when it will come. I read a little poem in Reader’s Digest once that suggested “The rain falls on both the just and the unjust fella, but mostly on the just because the unjust has stole his umbrella”. That may well be true. It seems to me, though, that the difference is an inner support system possessed by a believer, a well within that doesn’t necessarily eliminate all the unpleasant parts of the journey, but does provide an oasis of refreshing, an unending supply of what one needs to face the day. One of the best verses in the Bible, as one person in my church used to opine is “and it came to pass”…….

"Chance and Circumstance....."

We drove to the Detention Center Sunday morning through a rather heavy off-and-on-again rain, the two women who usually go with us having opted out on this occasion. There were five of us, nonetheless, the young Catholic teacher in charge of my Special-Ed unit having accepted weeks ago my invitation to join us. Years ago, a friend of mine, who now pastors that particular inner city church to which I had attached myself for a few years, suggested to a Bible class that it was impossible for two believers with different doctrinal opinions to witness Christ unto others and my immediate response to him was: “Give him to me!” Kevin now not only proved my point, but connected well with the kids in sharing his testimony. In truth, it was a good group, all of them “with” us from beginning to end. The boys, though, tears in their eyes giving obvious notice of our words hitting home, yet remained silent at the end, preferring to keep any commitment made to God a personal matter. It was the two girls who stopped us as we were leaving, the one asking Bob about where he lived. He had mentioned, in sharing, the fact that his home had recently been burglarized twice; she, as it turned out, was familiar with the area; and the conversation then led to a request for prayer. Indeed, it was one of those moments we wish would happen more often. The young women began weeping, to the point that even the female guard would later comment on feeling His presence in our midst. Tony, however, the last guy out of the room, spoke to Bob of hearing that one crying out as we were leaving, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” and we all are really wondering if perhaps she wasn’t one of those who had broke into his house. According to police and a few others likewise invaded, the perpetrators were a man and a female minor. It makes no difference, of course, other than stirring our curiosity for next week’s visit. You never know.…..

"Reality......................."

It took me several years before finally surrendering to other’s reviews of “The Shack” and then discovering another “Joan of Arcadia” approach to the Godhead didn’t really offend me all that much. My theology is Biblically grounded, yet flexible enough to at least consider truth is bigger than what I hold in my head, that statement, indeed, what is on my mind this Saturday morning. “Crossroads” is the latest work out there by the above author. It caught my eye while shopping in Sam’s the other day and the storyline, thus far, has me amused as well as deep in thought. In this one, the spirit of a man in a coma is somehow transposed by the Creator, allowing him to “exist” within other people, not in the sense of actually becoming that particular person, but in a sort of being able to see through their eyes and, at the same time, maintain communication with them. Crazy, I know; yet it speaks to me of what we, as believers, do claim to possess in Christ: God’s Holy Ghost alive within us, in our “belly”, however, not in our head. Indeed, it is this gift, given us through Calvary and the Resurrection, that is, for me, anyhow, the crux of the Gospel. Exactly what that equates to across the doctrinal spectrum of the Church as a whole varies, no doubt; but, for this old man, the “anointing” which comes to me in prayer, in worship, and in witnessing has an identity. It is the Third “Person” of the Trinity. While there has been, two or three times in the last forty years, an audible voice and, on occasion, that still, small, inner utterance usually given question as to its source, mostly what we share is a relationship governed by both my thirst for and my willingness to allow a “fusion” between us. Deep calleth unto deep on either end of the spectrum. That doesn’t make me holy, nor does it mark me as anyone special. It just comes with the Covenant……