G-Poppers … December 4th, 2015

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2772)

 

Come listen, my children, and you will hear

How we’ve learned to hate and live in fear.

G-Pop wonders.

Will his children fall victim to the negative pundits who spin every news story into a situation which cannot be resolved, lending itself to despair?

Does G-Pop have the fortitude to step in and say that our problem is not as complicated as presented by those who seemingly make a living out of baffling us?

There are three approaches to people. If you use the wrong one, you can end up with disastrous results. Finding the correct attitude is the doorway to the possibility of peaceful coexistence.

Even though this week, two people took guns and killed their neighbors, hundreds and thousands did not. That seems to be lost in the discussion.

Do we really believe that the millions of us who would not harm anyone cannot effectively address the tiny handful who are determined to be destructive?

It all revolves around our approach. Here’s the first school of thought:

1. People are good.

For you see, if people are good, all they really require is praise and encouragement. Yet I will tell you, people are not innately good. Every thing born with an appetite over-consumes. Human beings have too many lusts, apprehensions and greedy moments to ever be classified as good.

Therefore praise bolsters the insane while often being insufficient for the saint.

2. People are bad.

If this is true, they should be punished. They should be degraded. They should be viewed as expendable.

Religion and politics certainly cannot survive without maintaining the philosophy that human beings suck. Once we believe that “bad” can wear a human face, killing it off can almost seem heavenly.

3. People are people.

They’re not just good, they’re not just bad. Having consumed the knowledge of good and evil, they are constantly torn and teased with the options–without ever arriving at a true conviction. So praising them will be fairly unsuccessful, and punishing them will limit their scope for angelic deeds.

Because people are people, they need to be motivated.

You can’t simply make new commandments, new laws, new restrictions and think you’re going to stop the bad part of people.

Likewise, you can’t assume that every mortal is filled with demonic proportions, and should be locked away and disconnected from their passions.

We need to be motivated.

• Why should I love my neighbor?
• Why should we encourage the Jew and the Palestinian to get along?
• Why should we take care of our children?

Give me reasons that have benefits and I will listen. Give me demands with no obvious personal value, and I will rebel.

G-Pop hopes his children understand. People are not just good or bad. This thinking leads to a dead-end of discouragement.

People are people.

So be prepared to motivate them–or stand back and watch as they choose good or bad, solely based upon convenience.

 

 

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. . . knew what to do … October 26, 2013

Jonathots Daily Blog

(2048)

Committees can be powerful as long as they are headed by a visionary person of principle who reminds the gathered of the power of truth instead of giving in to convenience.

We should never throw a good idea aside, but also never embrace one when it has fallen by the wayside and is being maintained for the sake of tradition.

If they had held a committee meeting on a hill so many years ago when five thousand hungry people, who had been listening to teaching for days, were famished and in need of nourishment, the vote taken by the thirteen members of that body of consideration would have been to “send the folks away” and hope for the best. Even though a young itinerant minister named Jesus asked the opinion of his fellow-travelers, the story tells us that he, himself “knew what he was going to do.”

And because of his sense of mission and mercy, the folks were fed, using the resources of the reluctant committee members, stimulating their faith by giving them the chance to be part of a miraculous event–even though they might have voted against it.

In 1861, a less-than-popular Abraham Lincoln ascended to the role of President of the United States. He surrounded himself with both advocates and critics, trying to form a government that would cohesively address the issue of slavery.

Yet I will tell you, if Abraham Lincoln had left the decision up to his Cabinet and Congress, we would be two nations today–one of them probably still having some form of sophisticated slave labor.

Abraham Lincoln knew what he was going to do–and somehow or another found a way to get those around him to come along and appear as if they were part of the solution instead of being entrenched in the problem.

Over and over again, throughout history, men and women of purpose and conscience have sat in front of committees, and rather than surrendering their leadership to the temporary will and often insanity of the popular opinion of the day, they guided their constituents to better conclusions.

Recently, even in our country, on the justification of gay Americans to have civil rights, there has been a committee of those who have focused on the morality or normalcy of the issue instead of the liberty and justice that is required for all. Even in the face of such comprehensive division, we, the people, found the impetus to begin the journey to grant our citizens their due.

Do we all agree?

Absolutely not.

Is there a right and wrong here?

Often, my dear friends, freedom dictates that we abandon the notion of purity in favor of equality.

There is much to do in this country–and since we cling to a notion of democracy, it probably will require committees for accomplishment. But we do need those who chair the conclave of “deciders” to have an understanding of history, an appreciation of freedom and a stalwart will to abandon popularity in favor of posterity.

Can we find such individuals? Will we take the time to select leadership that will spur us to discover the inspirational choices … which will make our children call us blessed?

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The Big Tow… December 27, 2012

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Yesterday at 2:46 PM I walked out of my motel and into the parking lot to discover that my van had been towed away. Let me share the three steps that led to this dispersion:

1. The motel was painting the floor where I usually go to my room via the wheelchair ramp.

2. I had to find a parking place in the back near another ramp.

3. As it turns out, my selection of parking places was their tow-away zone, and rather than calling me on the phone and asking me to move my vehicle, they apparently took some glee in punishing me.

Let me make a long story short. Both Jan and I went to the front desk and explained our situation as calmly as we could, considering the fact that we were battling a bit of anger, and they corrected the mistake, took us to pick up the van and it ended up costing us nothing but a bit of time.

But it did get me thinking. (I guess if you’re going to write a daily column on the Internet, you should think occasionally. Otherwise you get boring not only to yourself, but also end up disappointing your readers.)

You see, what happened here was that a simple error was overly punished because no grace was given. We talk about grace a lot in religious institutions, and I have never been satisfied with anyone’s definition of this magnificent virtue. The classic definition for grace is “unmerited favor.” Whether a church is liberal or conservative, they all contend that human beings are a lost cause and God tolerates us by offering us salvation because we’re helpless.

I don’t think that’s what grace is. If those people at the front desk of my motel had just picked up the phone and given me the opportunity to change my own circumstances by moving my van, I would have been more than happy to do so. But to trap me in my accidental mistake and to follow through with swift judgment, with little regard for my feelings, does not make me very appreciative, even when the outcome is to my favor.

See what I mean? Telling me that God thinks I am a miserable, despicable individual who Jesus came to die for on a cross, and that without accepting his gift of blood atonement, I am destined for a hell-of-an-ending to my journey doesn’t make me particularly glad that I believe in God.

If that is the way you view our heavenly Father, you are welcome to continue to pursue that theology. I find it repulsive. I, being a father, certainly would not treat my children in that way–and I expect God to exceed my efforts.

Here’s what I think about grace, in the form of what I needed from the front desk people at my motel:

1. This person with the big black van is a guest of ours. I don’t know why he ended up parking back there–maybe he was ignorant of the rule. Let’s give him a chance to make it right.

2. Let’s not assume our guest is helpless, and let’s not believe he’s hopeless. Let’s take a moment and just believe that he made a bad choice.

3. Give him an opportunity to do better work.

You see, I don’t think God believes I am a depraved sinner. Why? Because God, for a while, wore a human body when his name was Jesus, so He knows what it’s like. He understands that it often is not an issue of temptation, but rather, too quickly choosing convenience over being smart. He doesn’t want to trap us in our moments of dumbness. He believes there is better in us. If He doesn’t, He’s a lousy Father.

Grace is giving people a chance to realize their error and do it again before any punishment has a chance to arrive. Therefore my life isn’t over when God saves my soul. I’m just given a clean sheet of paper to do better scribbling.

Because the people at the front desk decided to be judgmental instead of generous, they ended up paying for a tow that they thought would be levied on me. Such is the end of all vindictiveness.

Let’s learn grace. Grace is when we believe that people still have a chance to do good… because they came from good stock.

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