Johann, I’ll Be “Bach”…. June 30, 2012

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Babies aren’t cute.

I felt it was my responsibility to step in at this point and dispel what seems to be a universal misconception. When you factor in their bald, often-misshapen heads, with eyes that are threatening to cross and drool that spouts from their mouths like a Texas oil-well gusher, you really cannot insist that these creatures possess the stamp of approval from Cute, International. And that is without mentioning the weapons of mass destruction they often leave in their diapers for unsuspecting parental victims.

And of course, they cry a lot. Inconsolably.

That being said, I do have to admit that the four little sprouts I had the privilege of fathering were reasonably attractive. But recently I discovered that we are going to be birthing a new grandson. Before I discuss this new little boy–who has already been named Johann–I would like to give you a brief history of my experience in having children.

My first son was conceived on our senior prom night–obviously, not by design. He was born nine months later and we were married five months prior. The doctors were concerned that my wife was going to be startled by this first birth, so they put her under, losing a great ally for pushing out the newborn package. Forceps were required, rendering my first-born with the appearance of a child that possibly should have been placed in the “rejected” pile.

My second son was born a year-and-a-half later, since my wife and I had no concept of birth control–and we were white and possessed no rhythm. She was not sure she was in labor, so she walked down the street to see my mother, who was working in a loan company that she owned and operated. When my wife didn’t come back immediately, I became concerned, so I trotted my way down to the loan company, only to arrive as my child was being born in the back of this institution–on a couch normally reserved for nervous patrons seeking financial assistance for home improvement. It was the talk of our little town, as literally hundreds of people lined up outside that loan company to see the baby who was born “abnormally”–outside the hospital.

My third son was unique in the sense that my wife was nervous about informing me that we were going to have a third one, so she waited until she was six months pregnant to tell me. So my enthusiasm only had three months to hatch, and then on top of that, she called me and told me that she was in labor, so I drove the thirty miles to the hospital and arrived just after the baby was born. Her entire labor was forty-three minutes.

At this point, we decided not to have any additional children, which didn’t make any difference in the scheme of things. At the worst possible time, while we were traveling around the country with our children, one of whom had been severely impaired by a hit-and-run car accident, my wife once again discovered she was pregnant–this time informing me. But as it turned out, she was not correct on the exact time of her conceiving, so the baby arrived two months early by her count, but absolutely correct by the other mother involved (nature). The blessing was that I actually got to be there for the birthing of this one.

My two granddaughters, Isabella and Lily, were born without my presence. My grandson, Wyeth, was born in China, where I also wasn’t, and my other grandson, Justice, was born before my son was married to the woman who is his mother.

So as I head off this week to Nashville, Tennessee, to continue my tour, I am also directing myself towards the possibility of being in the town where my latest grandson, Johann, is due to be born soon. Understanding my history, I am sure some unusual occurrence will prevent me from having full access to the event. But I am still optimistic over this latest arrival. I know some grandparents would object to a child being called Johann–because we Americans are so fixated on the top-twenty names for the little ones. But I think we need some distinctions–and having a unique name is a great conversation starter. And conversation is the ultimate starter to all things good.

And Johann certainly has great tradition, with the sprouting of beautiful music from Johann Sebastian Bach.

So even though I don’t think babies are cute, I do think they’re really important. They are God’s way of reminding us that we are not doomed to our own mediocrity. New possibilities are offered all the time, and as long as we can survive the onslaught of drool and poopie, we might just be able to raise up the next human being who will teach us how to love one another.

So before I arrive in Nashville, Tennessee, to have some sort of experience with this new grandchild, I would like to state the three hopes I have for his future:

1. Johann, don’t imitate the world around you. Society often tends to be erred, and then adds the curse of stubbornness and pride to keep change from happening earlier. Ignore the masses; listen to your heart.

2. Be unashamedly creative. Being creative is not gay. Being creative is not feminine. Being creative is finding God in every situation.

3. And finally, my dear grandson, Johann–would you go ahead and be bold and brave, and do better than us? To achieve this, you will have to be able to possess the better parts of our efforts and forgive us our trespasses. Don’t let your genetics rule your dreams, nor follow the traditions of family and nation simply because they seem to be so prevalent.

So there you go. I am off to pursue a birth. There is no star to follow, which is fine, since I am not a Wise Man; there is no history of inspiring stories to propel me on my merry way. I am happily looking for a new experience with a new human being. And I hope in the process that I may be able to find the very first baby in the history of mankind that truly is … cute.

   

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Thorny…. June 29, 2012

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It was really a sweet, precious thing to do.

Last year, a lady who attended one of my presentations went home, grabbed her calculator and figured out from the facts I had provided in the evening’s dialogue that after my forty years of travel, based upon the normal amount of mileage to achieve that odyssey, that sometime in the middle of September, 2011, I would have journeyed my one millionth mile.

That’s a lot of scenery, folks.

When I started out, I did it with more brawn than brain. I possessed much more determination than the ability to determine what was always right and wrong. I was convinced that lifting all my own burdens was much more practical than soliciting fellow-lifters. Time marches on.

Now I find myself in the position of the Apostle Paul, who candidly told his readers that he possessed a thorn in his flesh. Although I have to admit I find his phraseology a bit too elusive and eloquent for my taste, I can appreciate the sentiment and share in the need.

I have always had a thorn in my flesh. Even when I thought I was superman, leaping tall buildings with a single bound as I traveled across the country, there was the obvious visual of being an obese man, lugging my hot, sweaty body through ordeals as I panted my way to completion.

I was never ashamed of it. I continued to play tennis, exercise and take on physical feats beyond the scope of my size until about ten years ago, when my body asked for a renegotiation of the contract and a deeper discussion of terms. Somehow or another, I needed to use my brain more than my brawn, my spirit more than my muscle and my inspiration to replace my perspiration.

Now I arrive at engagements with a full heart to share, but requiring other noble souls to help me get my equipment in the doors, set up and back out into my van afterwards. Once again–I am not ashamed.

I wouldn’t have it any other way–because I will tell you of a certainty, the most devastating concept propagated in the common drivel of everyday human philosophy is the doctrine of self-sufficiency. It is contrary to everything we know. It is counter-productive to relationship. It is without meaning or merit. Yet people will still insist that they don’t need help; they don’t need assistance; they don’t need ANYBODY to achieve their goals.

Matter of fact, we think that if we just had one more apple’s worth of knowledge we wouldn’t even need God.

It makes us unattractive. It makes us childish and oblivious to reality. I will be frank with you–I am a talented man with great humor, a soul for my fellow-humans and the God who made them. I am also completely incapable of achieving my own aspirations without the aid of others.

Paul said this was a “thorn in his flesh.”  But if it is a thorn, then like Jesus, I will wear it as a crown. If it is a weakness, then I blatantly display it as evidence of the value I have found in interspersing my efforts with those of others. If it is a sign of incompletion, then may I post the notification that when you enter the highway of my life, beware of road construction.

Here is the formula that makes us powerful in our lives on this planet called earth:

1. I have an idea. Please do not show up to the party without at least a bag of chips. Have an idea; don’t view yourself as worthless. Be prepared for your idea to change, grow or even diminish, but have an idea. The greatest turnoff to the human ear is “I don’t know,” closely followed, in second place, by “I don’t care.” When I arrive to see you for the first time, I will come with an idea. We will feast on the energy of possibilities.

2. I have some talent. Humility is not insisting that you are incapable, but rather, being capable and insisting that others bring their package along, too. I have a talent. I would never bore you with these daily writings to merely promote my fantasies or preferences in life. I have a gift and I have a talent. It is not the ONLY marvelous treasure available, but it is a few coins in the fountain. I would not bore you by trying to pretend that I am without means. I would not anger you by arriving at the party without favors. I have a talent.

3. But as you can see, I need your help. I do not have the ability to show up and dazzle you with every facet of my entity. I require your involvement. I show up absent of totality. I need your help. For me, I arrive with my spirit intact, my mind electrified, my heart engorged–and my joints creaky. Thank you for helping me. I send thanks to all of those souls who have taken an extra moment to literally lift my burden and allow me to share a thought or two that might have lifted theirs.

If you want to become annoying to the human species, continue to preach your message of self-sufficiency. No one is. Self-sufficient, that is. The best we can hope is to have an idea, bring some talent and be honest about the “thorn in our flesh”–and admit we need reinforcements.

I guess it’s what the Apostle Paul meant by the “thorn in his flesh,” although he insisted that God’s grace was sufficient. I would have to disagree. Sometimes God steps back and allows human beings to take over the divine space. It is very classy of Him. It is extraordinarily intuitive of Him on our behalf–to understand that we need to be a part of what’s going on. Because attempting to be the whole makes us weary in well-doing. I am not weary because I understand my weaknesses and display them with pride.

So let me be the first one to admit that I am a man with an idea and talent who has an obvious need for help. After all, it is a great American tradition. Abraham Lincoln, who suffered with Marfan Syndrome and was probably assassinated only months prior to the condition taking his life, still humbly had the ability to take his country-lawyer ways and stop our nation from severing itself in two.

Franklin Roosevelt, stricken with polio, still lifted himself to a podium to decry the injustice of Pearl Harbor and launch our country on a mission to destroy tyranny.

Weakness is sexy. It is our way of saying that we only become complete when paired.

I have a thorn in my flesh. After a million miles, my body aches. But like the weeble, I may hobble and wobble, but I won’t fall down.

   

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The Spirit of St. Louis…. June 28, 2012

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It seemed like a good idea.

Good ideas are like athletes. They all seem to be in great shape until they compete in the race against other formidable opponents. Then all of their weaknesses come to the forefront as they surprisingly finish dead last.

I had amazingly accumulated $931.26. Now, these were 1978 dollars. I had set them aside to move my family and my music group, Soul Purpose, from Centerburg, Ohio, to Nashville, Tennessee, where the first fruits of a budding career were sprouting many possibilities. I had just released my first national record album and had my book, The Gospel According to Common Sense, published. It was time to move closer to where the work was bringing benefit instead of finding myself eight hours away from my next possibility.

Everything was going along swimmingly until I floated into Nashville and discovered that our three-bedroom apartment was not going to be ready for occupancy for two weeks. So I decided to take our music group and my family on the road for that fortnight to try to sustain our livelihood–and maybe even expand our momentous treasure. As I said, it seemed like a good idea–except for the fact that the other participants necessary to make this notion complete failed to comply.

We got on the highway and couldn’t get any bookings, and ended up spending our money to survive, and by the time we landed at the last weekend before returning to Music City, we only had $314 left of our initial nest egg. Only one opportunity had been afforded our way. It was on the last Sunday morning and was at a start-up church in St. Louis,

English: Under the back of the Spirit of St. Louis. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

being held in a local junior high school and only had forty people in attendance. It seemed unlikely that I would be able to recoup my $931 need from these three-dozen-plus souls.So I cried, laughed and relaxed. This has proven to be a great combination for me. It’s always a good idea to cry first–get all the self-pity drained from the pus deep in your soul, lest it try to ooze out later, at a time when you need dedication instead of sympathy.

Next, I laughed–because if I thought this was going to be the last time I made a foolish decision leaving me in jeopardy, then I truly must be the king of comedy. For after all, bad decisions are just good decisions that were fairly unlucky.

Finally, I relaxed. Or at least did my best impersonation. Perhaps the greatest advantage we have in possessing faith is the childlike quality of nestling into the arms of our conviction and going to sleep, knowing that tomorrow will either bring great surprise and benefit–or defeat. But after all, even defeat requires a good night’s sleep.

Our Sunday morning church was pastored by a husband and wife team, Bob and Martha. Martha was a delightful woman who really did delight in everything. Bob was a thoughtful man who had learned how to be much more appreciative of life because he had been given a terminal diagnoses of leukemia. Honestly, there was nothing particularly special about the service or the time we had at this little congregation of people. Maybe I was tired; maybe I still was fretting a little bit over our financial need. Or maybe it was just forty people who wondered how we had stumbled into their midst.

It was warm but it was not toasty. We were appreciated, but not lauded. It was purposeful, but not terribly spirited. We finished up, an offering was collected for our journey, the equipment was packed away, and I stepped into the school’s bathroom to change my clothes, to journey onto Nashville, where there was an apartment waiting for me–which was now beyond my means.

I was sitting on the toilet seat, fully clothed–not needing to use the facility for its actual purpose, but rather, only as a perch of consideration. As I was musing my plight, I was all at once aware that Bob had entered the room and was standing outside my stall door. He thanked me for coming and told me that he had the offering. I was rather embarrassed to be having a conversation through a bathroom door, yet I didn’t exactly want to open it and emerge from the tiny enclosure to shake his hand with him wondering where it had been. So awkwardly, I continued to listen to him talk through the closed portal.

I could hear tears in his voice as he spoke. I think he took the opportunity to pour out his heart to a stranger because his personal thoughts might be too painful to those closest to him. He said, “They tell me I’m going to die, and honestly, Jonathan, I think they’re probably right. I welcome the prayers of my loved ones and family, and believe you me, I hope they are answered and I can continue to live. But truthfully, I think it’s my time. I don’t know how to tell them that. I don’t know how to tell myself that. But I wanted someone to know that I’m not afraid. I wanted someone to hear me say … it’s okay.”

He stopped speaking. I had no idea how to respond. Here I was, worrying about my lost treasure of money, listening to a man who was about to lose his treasure of life. I remained silent. To contradict his conclusions would be childish. To confirm them would be mean.

He didn’t say anything else, he just slid the envelope containing my morning offering under the door and quietly left the room. I remained seated on the little porcelain throne for a long moment, and then reached down and grabbed the gift. I opened it up and pulled out the contents. Pastor Bob had given the entire morning offering from the church to us. Checks that had been written to himself and the work had been signed over for our blessing.

I quietly sat there and counted the money and was stunned to discover that it added up to $935. I didn’t want to move. God, I didn’t even want to breathe–except that became necessary. The room was so still, so full of the presence of a generous, kind and perhaps even giggling spirit. I was being blessed and mocked at the same time.

“Oh, foolish man you are, who thinks that the power of life and death is solely within your confines and abilities. Stand back and behold the majesty of God and the generosity of another fellow-traveler.”

I drove on to Nashville, procured my apartment and began my life there. I sent a thank-you note to my new friend in gratitude from his confessor. I was overwhelmed. I had been whisked away and flown to the heavens by the Spirit of St. Louis.

Two months later, Martha wrote me a letter and told me that Bob had passed away. He was right–it apparently was his time.

I cried. They were selfish tears. Gone was a new friend who had blessed my life; and departed from this earth was one of those necessary souls we so desperately need, who now revels in his reward.

I had lost an earthly friend to gain a new witness in the heavens. The only thing I can do to honor Bob is to become Bob to the next foolish dreamer who has a really bad idea, craps out and ends up sitting … on the pot.

   

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Tossing the hot potato…. June 27, 2012

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It got tossed my way yesterday morning. The hot potato, that is.

In actuality, I think I’ve only played the game “hot potato” once in my life. I was eleven years old and a family in our neighborhood befriended me, inviting me to go on a camping trip, because, I think, they thought I was a fat lonely kid and a trip to the woods might do me some good–and who knows? Maybe Mother Nature would choose to adopt me.

I remember hating every minute of it. It was hot, sticky and demanded a lot of physical activity. The day culminated in a campfire, where songs were sung and potatoes were wrapped in aluminum foil and thrown into the fire, to later be extracted and tossed around an encircled gathering of human beings in some sort of alleged exercise of fun, to escape burning your hands before you passed the potato on to another person for their potential searing.

Once again, I hated it. First, I had never played before, so I wasn’t very good. So when someone tossed me my first potato, it shocked me and scorched my hands, so I quickly flicked it off in another direction and it ended up striking the family’s four-year-old son in the head, causing him to weep profusely, greatly diminishing the levity of the moment.

I didn’t get it. Why would I want to toss around a hot potato instead of just letting it cool down, opening it up and reaching for the butter and sour cream?

But as I’ve aged, I have realized that life is just a gigantic game of “hot potato.”So back to my story from yesterday–I was pulling out of the parking lot of my motel into a busy thoroughfare, feeling that I had adequately procured a space for entrance. I accelerated, attempting to join beehive of morning activity. Suddenly I was greeted with the sound of a blaring horn, and upon looking in the rear view mirror, I saw a man in his late forties shaking his fist at me, gunning his engine and going around me as quickly as he possibly could, continuing to honk. Apparently I had displeased him. It was obvious that I had interrupted his proposed plan–to refuse to slow up until he got to his destination.

As often happens, we ended up side-by-side at the next traffic light. He rolled down his window and cursed at me, explaining that he was angry because I nearly got killed. (Actually, he was driving a Mazda and I was in a large black conversion van. My demise was unlikely.)

But as I looked at him, I realized that he had tossed me the hot potato. He had reached into the fiery coals of his anger and had thrown a sweltering spud my way. I didn’t respond. The light changed and we were off on our separate paths.

But it got me thinking. Since life IS like a game of “hot potato,” where you are thrown things without much explanation and can often find yourself in the middle of heated exchanges, it seems to be very intelligent to learn how to handle the burning questions. So there are only three things I could do after this encounter with my belligerent brother: (1) I could lower my expectations of him, assuming that his intelligence rested somewhere in his buttocks; (2) I could relive the situation in my mind, playing up my innocence until I could conclude that I was simply accosted by an escaping mental patient who crossed my path; or (3) I could realize that our human journey is a game of “hot potato” and this one was tossed my way–and I could take a moment to review how well I coped with cooling down the situation and passing it on without bopping a four-year-old in the noggin.

Yes, I do believe that one of the secrets to life is reflection. Those who perform this action actually prepare themselves for the next game of “hot potato,” becoming a bit more aware of how heated each situation can be, and therefore prepare themselves for the encounter. Those who think it’s “over-thinking”–to reflect on such trivial matters–normally end up being constantly surprised by the pace of daily activity and bewildered by the negative reaction of the world around them. They risk becoming jaded.

Here’s the truth: we cannot afford to be cynical about human beings in any way, shape or form. Allowing one droplet of sarcasm into our existence takes away our ability to both participate with our fellow-travelers and also to dominate. Because in the long run, the person who knows how to handle the hot potato the best always wins the game.

So even though you may feel it’s silly, I pulled over into a parking lot and sat for five minutes and relived my situation with Mr. Horatio Hornblower. I asked myself three questions:

1. Is it possible that I misjudged the distance and did cut this fellow off a little bit?

2. Did I communicate anger to him simply because he was angry with me?

3. Is there anything I would do differently in the future, since this hot potato will certainly be thrown my way again?

It was an amazing five minutes of reflection. First of all, upon revisiting the situation in my mind, I realized that I might not have been as careful pulling out of that parking lot as I thought I was. I could have missed something. Secondly, I had to admit that even though I didn’t bad-mouth my attacker, I did internally question his sanity and call him a name or two in my brain. And third, I realized that the first thing we do in the day is always suspect and therefore demands more of our attention instead of taking anything for granted.

My dear sweet friends, I know that the hot potato is coming my way very soon. I don’t want to pretend that it’s cold. I certainly don’t want to become offended because I’m ill-prepared to toss it in the right direction. And I don’t want to criticize the game simply because I don’t play it well.

In a few moments I will rejoin human traffic. My fussy fellow from yesterday will be on my mind. I no longer remember him as my enemy, but rather, like one would a really bad teacher from high school who still managed to get you through chemistry class. In other words, he could have done better, but because he was there, I did learn something.

The hot potato WILL be tossed your way. You can walk out of the experience with burned fingers, cursing the game, toss it off in a bizarre direction, inflictiung pain on others, or you can realize it’s coming and be prepared to bounce it in your hands, taking a moment to find where you want to place it.

It’s up to you. It’s up to me.

And even though I now understand the nature of the game much better,  hot potatoes are still favored by me when loaded with blue cheese dressing and bacon bits.

   

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M.T.M.B…. June 26, 2012

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She situated herself at the edge of the pool in a white deck chair, peering closely at her three young ducklings, splashing away in the water. Seeing us arrive, she apparently judged by our age that we were older and therefor cranky, and warned her children not to splash us when we entered the swimming hole.

I laughed. I told her that if we didn’t want to get wet, we probably should have stayed in our room instead of coming to the pool. She looked at me, a bit surprised, asked me if I was sure, and then returned to her vigil of supervision. Since the children were given permission to scream, they actually ended up screaming less. (I think that’s part of being a kid–if your parents want you to do anything, that’s a good enough reason to do it less or not at all.)

While I swam around, I observed her. I like to observe people–not because I’m nosy but because I’m trying to learn how to make better choices myself and the only way I’ve found to accomplish that is to learn from watching the decisions of others.

She yelled a lot. It’s not easy having three kids. I know–I’ve had them. You’re always concerned that they’re going to hurt themselves or do something stupid or annoy cantankerous folks around you, so you always come off a little over-protective and possibly overly critical.

She was having a bad day. No one should ever be judged–but certainly not when they’re having a bad day. Did I happen to mention that she was also pregnant? So there was going to be another young troubador joining the trio to form a quartet, with her being the underpaid and underappreciated maestro of the traveling troupe. What usually happens at this point is that people who think that they care or want to contribute something of quality resort to offering an opinion, or even worse, advice. It even can begin with the humble approach of, “In my experience … ”

If I could give one pearl of great wisdom to everyone in the world, it would be to avoid opinions and advice nearly at all cost. They are both useless. No one really wants to hear your opinion unless it’s favorable and your advice would require that they submit to your ideas, which human beings rarely do. We like to follow the thoughts that come from our own heads. Good, bad or ugly–it’s true.  So with that in mind I decided to contribute something of worth to this dear woman, who was obviously struggling under a burden beyond my present comprehension.

It’s all about good cheer. Good cheercomes in two forms. You can give it or you can be it. Sometimes the greatest thing you can do for another person is to just cheer ’em on. Take a moment, find something they’re doing well, and just give them a great big hoorah. I told her I thought she was doing a good job with her children and that she was smart to wear them out in the pool so they would get sleepy and have a good night of rest. She was a little shocked, but very appreciative that somebody was encouraging her instead of suggesting different parental approaches.

swimming pool (Photo credit: freefotouk)

I also used the other part of good cheer, staying in a great mood myself the whole time I was in the pool around her children. Humor may be the only answer to every problem–at least to get us started in the direction of resolution. (This is why we, as a race, are heading towards doom–because when confronted with conflict, we choose to become more serious-minded, and therefore, incompetent.)Yes, the two greatest things you can do for other people is cheer for them or bring good cheer in your own attitude.

I have experienced this my whole life. I was once stuck on I-40 in a complete stoppage of traffic because of a major accident. People got out of their cars and started to grump, complain and become fussy with one another. I realized it was going to be a dangerous situation unless some good cheer came in. So I let my sons get out of the car with their Nerf football and start throwing passes back and forth among the cars. Now, some people did complain, but most folks started tossing the ball along with them. In no time at all, the atmosphere changed from pre-Armageddon to “picnic.” All it took was good cheer.

The night that my son, Joshua, was in the hit-and-run accident, I found myself in the emergency room, awaiting the doctors and nurses to report to me, completely absorbed in my own tragedy. Sitting nearby was a mother and her nine-year-old son, who were also waiting for a report on an operation about her husband and his dad. They were tense, nervous and the little fellow was in tears. I didn’t feel like being generous. I was sitting in the ashes of my own devastation, but so was the little boy next to me. So I started up a game of, “I see something blue…” with him. (Honestly, it’s very hard to do in a hospital, considering that most things are beige and off-white.) He started to giggle, and for a necessary juncture, I forgot that my son was lying broken in an examination room. We passed the time together. About an hour later, the surgeon appeared and the little boy’s father had survived the operation. Good cheer won the night.

What we want to avoid are opinions and advice. Opinions are limited to our upbringing and advice has the frailty of being limited by our own personal experience. But good cheer comes from God, and sometimes only a gift from God will satisfy the human need.

My dear woman at the pool left in better sorts, I think. And I departed knowing that the best thing we can do is M.T.M.B.–which, by the way, stands for: Make The Moment Better.

   

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The St. Peter Principle… June 25, 2012

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I do believe that Simon bar Jonah, a fisherman from Capernaum, who was renamed “Peter” by his friend, Jesus, would be quite shocked to discover that he was deemed to be a saint after his demise. Obviously, “grave” changes bring lasting impressions.

Whatever the circumstances of the bestowal of the title, I was delightfully refreshed to be at St. Peter United Methodist Church in Kansas City, Missouri, yesterday morning. Now, I happen to enjoy a congregation that is blended like a great fruit salad, with a few nuts thrown in for good measure. St. Peter did not disappoint. I watched closely as they struggled with the enigma of how to use spirituality to benefit human beings without ending up inhaling the stale sourness of religiosity. Quite a dilemma.

The pastor was an insightful fellow with a twinkle in his eye and a spring in his step, who is certainly ready for a new birth of energy and inspiration. The congregation is peppered with talent, creativity, generosity and human qualities which would make them very appealing to others of their kind.

So what’s the problem?

It’s really quite simple. It’s just difficult to try to create a revival of fresh ideas when you are insisting on maintaining traditions that have long since lost both their nerve and their verve. You can’t haul a corpse around and pretend that you’re anything but an undertaker. So we’ve got to get rid of the body of Christ that’s dead and stinky in order for the real flesh and blood of Jesus to come out and be alive to humanity.

So if those good, new friends at St. Peter will allow me to make a suggestion for their burgeoning awakening, let me just sum it up in three simple statements. As it turns out, these ideas i’m about to present could be classified as heading for each of the chapters of Matthew 5, 6 and 7–dubbed the Sermon on the Mount. Because when you take the trio of principles and join them together, they not only create a message sensitive to the human heart, but one that also stirs the innards of the Almighty.

1. Happiness is our goal. Jesus takes the whole beginning of the Sermon on the Mount to talk about happiness. If you’re willing to sacrifice happiness, you must be prepared to lose contact with mankind and end up with a mere dribble of souls who are determined to be miserable. So, St. Peter’s, we choose to believe that happiness is the natural state that God wants his children to possess. Because we know that Eden, had it been absent sin and rebellion, was full of ecstasy and joy.Happiness is our goal. We work towards happiness. We don’t merely invite people to church, but rather, encounter them outside the building, pray for them, work with them and counsel them until they see a miracle in their lives that makes them want to come in and add their giddiness to the bliss. If happiness isn’t your goal, why do you have a church? There are plenty of places to make people subdued, somber, miserable and to foster malcontents. So, St. Peter’s, tipping our hat to Jesus’ beatitudes, we establish our first principle for operation: happiness is our goal.

2. Moving over to that 6th chapter of St. Matthew, we come up with our second precept. “NoOne is better than anyone else.” Jesus makes it clear that we should stop stomping around, acting like we’re freakishly holy because we fast, pray and give alms, and instead, find a way to do it with joy. (There’s happiness again!) In so doing, we will remove the piety from loving God and replace it with the equality that we have with our fellow-men and women. You can’t have a church if you think you’re better than other people. In that case, what you have is a cult of personality. So the second step in our process is to realize that NoOne is better than anyone else. Even when we’re tempted to feel that we’ve established some new standard of excellent human behavior, we need to laugh at ourselves and realize there are footprints all around where we’re standing.

3. And the final insight I offer to my dear friends in Kansas City is a sound-byte-rendition of the 7th Chapter of Matthew. I feel it is an adequate, if not accurate, representation of Jesus’ thoughts. We don’t judge. We don’t even think about judging. We refuse to have opinions on things that involve dissecting the character of another human being. We giggle at folks who assume they have achieved some sort of supernatural authority to evaluate the deeds of others. We don’t judge. It isn’t that we could judge and we’re deciding not to–it’s that we finally admit that we suck at it, and rather than continuing to offend other people due to our short-sighted views, we have selected to not judge.

These three steps:

• happiness is our goal
• NoOne is better than anyone else, and
• we don’t judge

create a holy environment which proclaims, “We are a church which wants to show you the Father, and then let people be people. If there’s a need for change in them, let the Spirit convict. We’ll keep our eyes on the road so we don’t ‘tail-gate’ our fellow travelers.”

Those three initiative right there will keep you busy with teaching, instruction and edification for years to come. Just finding new reasons to be happy can fill up a month of Sundays. Pointing out the value of “NoOne is better than anyone else” will grant you the material for a dozen series of sermons. And maintaining the starship of “We don’t judge” will launch you into a galaxy of new frontiers.

St. Peter UMC–I love you dearly. But as Jesus made clear–the letter kills but the spirit gives life. In other words, any religion you maintain in your format will eventually drag you down–until you allow yourself to be humans, prompted by the Spirit.

Thank you for granting me your ears, and I relish your prayers as I journey on–and I certainly would love to hear what part of my little scenario you might deem worthy of your consideration.

For I will tell you this: No district office or national headquarters of any denomination will criticize anything you do if you are growing, prospering and helping people.

   

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

Jesus Was a Communist… June 24, 2012

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Jesus was a communist.

I know that’s quite a shocking opening statement. I was equally as surprised as I perused the Gospel accounts and realized that Jesus traveled with his disciples, living off the land and sharing all things in common. Thus, a communist.

Upon additional research, I realized that my first assertion of a Communist Jesus was totally erroneous. As it turns out, Jesus is a capitalist. For he said, “He that has shall more be given, and he that has not, even the little he has shall be taken away from him.” Capitalism.

I also discovered through my readings that Jesus would be very upsetting to the NRA, because he was anti-gun, proclaiming that “they that live by the sword shall die by the sword.”

Yet ironically, he did support the troops, because he praised the Centurion who was in charge of one hundred Roman Legionnaires, by saying, “Never have I seen so great a faith—no, not in Israel.”

A bit befuddled, I pressed on with my project. Turns out that Jesus is in favor of gay rights. He said we should not judge, lest we all be judged, for “the measure that is measured out by us to others will be measured back to us.”

I was about to unveil this revelation to some acquaintances, when, with further perusal, I realized that Jesus was also in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act, and might even be a homophobe, because he explained to the Pharisees quite clearly that God made male and female and that from the beginning that this was called true marriage—“that a man should leave his mother and a woman leave her home, and the two would be one flesh.”

By this point, I was fully intrigued, yet a bit shocked when I uncovered that Jesus was an Anti-Semite. Speaking to the women of Jerusalem on the day of his crucifixion, he told them that their “house was left to them desolate.”

So imagine how perplexed I was when I also read that he was a Zionist. Giving a partial rebuke to a Syro-phoenician foreigner, he told her it was not good to “give the children’s bread to the dogs.” That’s right—he called her a “Gentile dog.”

Now my curiosity was really piqued, so I started reading indiscriminately, trying to keep an open mind.

Jesus was a party animal. People referred to him as a “wine-bibber, a glutton and a friend of sinners.” Yet, bewildering, he was also a “refrainer.” For after all, he went into the wilderness and fasted for forty days and forty nights, and was hungry.

I then ascertained that Jesus HAD to be a Republican, because he bluntly said that “every good tree brings forth good fruit and every evil tree brings forth evil fruit.” So I was about to make my proclamation on the political nature of his message, when I determined that he was a Democrat, because he strongly believed in the separation of church and state. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.”

I then realized that some women might find him to be a chauvinist, because arriving at a well in Samaria, he ordered a woman to bring him something to drink. But this was quickly dispelled by viewing the narrative about the day of his resurrection, when he turned to Mary Magdalene and told her to go and tell the other disciples that he was risen from the dead. Yes. He made a woman his first apostle.

Did you know he was pro-life? He told the surrounding audience that if they “offended one of these little ones, it would be better that a millstone be hung around their neck and that they be cast into the sea.”

Of course, a case could be made that he was pro-choice. He said, “If your right eye offend you, pluck it out.” And we certainly know that some women would find an unwanted pregnancy much more disturbing than bad vision.

Was he a saint? Pontius Pilate, a completely neutral bystander, claimed that he found no fault in him.

Was he evil? The religious leaders claimed that he was “a sinner, a Galilean.”

I pressed on. With my additional readings, I discovered that he was a religionist. He advocated that we fast, that we pray, that we give alms, and even mentioned that we should continue our tithing. So you can imagine how I was a little bit astonished to comprehend that he was a revolutionary, standing toe-to-toe with the religious system. He told them that “he was the Lord of the Sabbath.”

A strong case could be made that Jesus was a humanist, for he told his followers that the”Kingdom of God was within them.” Yet, he did not leave out the presence and power of the Almighty, because he spoke clearly and said that “you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.”

Did he favor men? Well, he did have twelve disciples, all circumcised. Yet you might have the inkling that his heart went out to women, because Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna, members of his troupe, gave “of their substance” to make sure the work went on. (You’ve got to love contributors.)

Are you tired yet? Because honestly, I found out he was a liberal. Defending a woman caught in adultery, he turned to a gathered audience of those who assumed they were righteous and said, “Let he that hath no sin cast the first stone.”

Yet I have to tell you, he could just as easily have been a conservative. Because in his Sermon on the Mount, he warned his followers that “he had not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it—and not one jot or tittle of the Law would be cast aside until all was completed.”

Well, you can see—I’ve had quite a journey. But there were still a couple more that jumped out at me.

I had always believed that Jesus was forgiving, because even hanging from the cross, he insisted, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But also, he was a bit vindictive—because he warned that the individuals who did not stand with him were against him.

An environmentalist? Well, certainly a case can be made, because he said that “not one sparrow falls from the sky without God being fully aware of the loss.” But also a pragmatist, because he claimed that nature is fickle and unpredictable, with “the rain falling on the just and the unjust.”

So finally I asked myself the supreme question. Was he a savior? He made it clear that he laid down his life and it wasn’t taken from him. But you have to ask yourself whether he was perhaps a victim, because in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed in great anguish, “Father, let this cup pass from me.”

I finished my pursuit of finding the true nature of who Jesus was. And I ended up, as you see, with so many representations that it is no wonder why we have denominations aplenty, and nearly incomprehensible that we don’t have more.

Jesus can be just about whoever you want him to be. That is why over the years he has become the champion for many causes, some noble and others destructive. So my dear friends, how do we know who he really is? How do we know the best way to represent him? It didn’t take much more investigative reporting on my part to come up with a very simple outline—a prism, if you will—which we shine the light of Jesus through to determine his true colors. Because he makes it clear on three occasions why he came to this earth:

1.”I have come give you life and it more abundantly.”

2.”I have come that your joy might be full.”

3.”I have come to show you the Father.”

So as I looked over my thirty-two insights on the life of Jesus based upon fragments of his filibustering, I passed them through the acid test of these three obvious callings.

I decided not to teach anything that did not bring life to people in abundance.

No matter how many times it is shouted, I will not take partial theology to teach anything that does not encourage full joy.

And finally, it is ridiculous to pursue any path that does not show us a glimpse of God the Father.

• Full joy.
• Abundant life.
• Revelation of the Father.

It’s what human beings need.  Therefore, it’s what Jesus is.

   

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity