Over the Christmas holidays a friend asked me to go to a movie. I joked with him that two guys in a theater together might be perceived as “gay.”
In the midst of what we consider to be a great transformation of cultural awareness in the United States of America, we are also simultaneously becoming more cautious, provincial and suspicious. At times I wonder if I could take my fifteen-year-old granddaughter out to dinner without people musing whether it’s an episode of Law and Order: SVU.
And then there’s the issue that for eighteen years I have been traveling with a vibrant woman who is talented, plays music and is a great business partner, but I still have people asking if we’re married. How many married people do you know who make music together? There’s a difference between two turtle doves in a nest and a pair of eagles, soaring high.
This led me to think about the dilemma faced by Jesus in the Good Book, when he decided to send his friends and disciples out two by two. How controversial that must have been.
Could he send two guys together without everybody thinking they were Greek homosexuals?
How about a man and woman, without everybody speculating on their copulating?
Check this one out–could two women go out in that male-dominated society and make an impact for his Kingdom Movement?
One black, one white?
How about Jew and Gentile?
And what would happen if you mixed a Samaritan in there, whom, it seemed, everybody hated?
Yes, the decision to send people out two by two–coupling them–was probably one of the more radical propositions Jesus ever initiated.
Because even though we proclaim that our world needs more good news, human beings are actually drawn to bad news, even as they insist how ugly it is, and then whisper the gossip to every living soul they meet.
So this I know:
Do what works.
Don’t expect it to be accepted.
Get the chip off your shoulder and refuse to be defensive.
Keep doing it … and bear fruit.
America will be a much better country when we get out of our national funk of abiding arrogance … and crippling fear.
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Another popular assertion that is grounded in a lie is, “It’s your destiny.”
It is a POPULIE that is once again promoted by politics, religion and entertainment.
Politics loves it because it makes the voters feel that some leader is “destined” to become the savior of a project or movement.
Religion promotes the idea simply because it keeps the faithful in submission to the illusive will of God.
And entertainment advertises this populie mainly because there is an ongoing accepted premise that people “just love fantasy” and therefore want to escape their real lives to conjure big dreams of slaying dragons.
Yet in our private moments, when we are alone with ourselves and we’re not in a bad mood, blaming the world or some divine force, we realize that it is our own choices that create our situations. And we still persist in using words like:
destiny
soul-mate
being born a certain way
having talent sent from God
and feeling superstitious about “roads converging in our lives through cosmic energy”
Well, let’s look at the cosmic energy. What does this cosmic energy–in other words, God–have to say on this subject?
1. What we sow we will reap.
If I understand this statement, it means that I am in control of the harvest that comes my way by the planting I personally do. I am not under a family curse, demon possession, angelic fairy dust or the turn of a card.
2. If you do well, you will be accepted.
Interesting. When God spoke these words, He wasn’t relating the information to someone who was particularly spiritual. He shared it with Cain, who ended up being the first murderer. But He told him that the system is geared toward those who do and not those who wish.
3. Let every man prove his own work, that he has rejoicing in himself alone and not another.
So if God is in charge of my life, why would I need to prove the work? And if God is the one who’s manipulating everything, what gives me the right to rejoice in myself for achieving my goals?
4.Everyone will give an account of their deeds at the Day of Judgment.
If I am at the mercy of destiny–or even at its bequest–why should I be responsible for everything that happens?
When you remove the superstition, fear, tradition and anger from religion, you come up with one simple principle: no one is better than anyone else.
So if I work hard I will succeed. If I don’t, I will fail.
And it fascinates me that those who believe in the populie, “It’s your destiny,” would also become infuriated at the notion of someone removing choice from their lives.
It is your choice.
And today, you are about the business of determining what your life will truly be.
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Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling SpiriTed in 2014.
But it came to my mind, and when I counted up the days, that’s the number I ended up with.
It is exactly 504 days since I woke up in Fremont, Ohio, with my legs so stiff, sore, cramping and aching that for all intents and purposes I was not able to walk. Therefore I thought it was time for an update.
Let me start with one of the greatest statements that can ever be made by a human:
It’s not worse.
After 504 days, that original cramping and debilitation did not place me permanently in a wheelchair, unable to move, travel, interact with human beings or even dress myself. I think we miss a rare opportunity in life when we don’t celebrate the absence of things getting worse.
Because quite bluntly, my friends–they can. There are diseases, problems, afflictions and habits that are avalanches toward disaster. It did not get worse.
Secondly–it’s better.
How is it better? I’m walking more than I was before. The stiffness is not as bad. The knees are still achy, but somehow or another, the beautiful construction of my human anatomy has enabled me to get accustomed to it, and I am able to perform all of my tasks with the same vigor I had in my twenties. Now for a third thought:
I am better.
Here is something I want you to consider: we are temporarily blessed in pleasure but perfected in pain. Why is that?
If we don’t feel a sense of our own mortality and are unaware of our own weaknesses, we begin to think that everything that comes into our minds is valuable instead of in need of a good interrogation.
I am better because complete mobility and self-sufficiency is not at my fingertips–or in this case, my toe tips.
It makes me appreciate everything more.
It makes me plan more efficiently.
It causes me to be sensitive when I look across the room and see someone with a cane, a walker or nursing a limp.
And finally, it has transformed my meager thinking into the understanding that life is about “better.”
Although I hear both religious and secular people lamenting the condition of the world around them, our thermometers should be set to notice the slightest change in degree of improvement.
Those who have the sensitivity to peer through the darkness and find one candle of light are the souls that sustain us to a better tomorrow.
So on day 504, I am happy to report that my condition is not worse. It’s better.
And because I have gone through it, I am better, converted to the philosophy–and powerful it is–that life is about better.
The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity
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Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling SpiriTed in 2014.
What would it be like to spend one day with Jesus?
Would there be a lot of prayer involved? Or would it end up that he was being honest when he said he did most of his praying in a closet by himself?
Would you get lunch, or would he be in the midst of fasting? Actually, the religious leaders criticized him for not fasting, and called him a wine-bibber and a glutton.
Would there be a lot of preaching and studying of Old Testament scrolls? Word has it that when he was around folks he just told stories, inviting them to interpret and therefore involve themselves in their own spirituality.
Would he be critical of the weaker members who surrounded him? I’ve read stories in which he was willing to forgive even adultery, if there was a heart for transformation.
Was he a good Jew? Jews sure didn’t think so. Matter of fact, it was against their law to kill one of their own, but they had no trouble putting a hit out on the Nazarene.
Was he a theologian? A deist? A philosopher? A manic healer? Or a humanist?
This is what we know for sure–he marveled at two things: people who had great faith and people who had no faith.
He believed his mission was to make better humans, not to make people dependent on either their faults or some vision of God.
He was delighted when he saw those who broke through their own insecurities and frustrations, to believe there was more. And he was equally as surprised with those who decided to ignore the evidence of blessing in their lives and take the road of doubt.
This I know–Jesus wanted to make better people.
It’s why the religious people didn’t like him. They wanted a quick work of salvation that got them off the hook through the shedding of blood through sacrificial lambs.
He asked them to be involved in their lives and take responsibility for their actions. They left him hanging, on the bad side of town.
If you’re not grounded in a place where Jesus is being taught to you, with the aspiration that you will continue to grow in your love, appreciation and creativity, then you’re just at the mercy of a gaggle of religious fanatics.
And all religious fanatics have one thing in common–when they run out of enemies on the outside, they start killing off each other.
The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity
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Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling SpiriTed in 2014.
At twelve years of age, going through puberty, it would have been wonderful to have a “she” that loved me. Yeah.
But when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show February 9th, 1964, my parents refused to let me watch. They didn’t know anything about the Beatles, they had just seen a picture, and from that had determined that the young gentlemen from Liverpool were freaks, queers, girls, Communists and immoral.
So instead, they sent me to church, where I got to listen to our preacher expound upon Peter and the lame man at the Gate Beautiful.
Lame.
I returned home, realizing that the Ed Sullivan Show was not over yet, hoping that I could still negotiate permission to watch the last part and hear the Beatles’ final selections. My father, even more irritated, refused. He turned the channel to Bonanza–an episode called The Cheating Game.
Yes, I felt cheated.
Even though I liked the Ponderosa, I did not want the Cartwrights on this night. I needed the Beatles.
Yet the next day, when I went to school, out of some sense of fierce loyalty, I explained to my friends, who were ablaze with excitement over the performance by Paul, John, Ringo and George, that these guys were freaks, queers, girls, Communists and immoral. (Honestly, I didn’t even know what most of the words meant.)
What happened next was chilling to my bone. Rather than arguing with me, my friends looked at me with a combination of horror and pity. They couldn’t even imagine how miserable I must be … Beatle-less.
So over the next few months I broke out of my shell, slipped over to my friend’s house and listened to the Beatles. This eventually led me to Herman’s Hermits, the Monkees, and even a little taste of the Animals and Jimi Hendrix. To that revolving play list I added the Oak Ridge Boys, Beethoven, Strauss and Sousa.
As the diversity of my musical taste increased, so did my openness and willingness to accept others and absorb new ideas.
Music saved my young soul from turning into a lame man, which certainly would not have been the gate to anything beautiful.
I never got to hear the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. But on the long and winding road … they rocked my world.
The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity
Click for details on the SpirTed 2014 presentation
Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling SpiriTed in 2014.
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