Bounding the Problem

     Okay, I don't want to get tooooo mathematical on people here but I do want to get something across that is import to understand.  Please! I ask you to be patient in reading this.

     Let's start with a question.  Can mathematics solve ALL problems?

     The answer to that question is NO.  It can't.    Some problems are by there very nature unsolvable and those in mathematics know this to be true.   It's for this reason that all math theorems put boundaries on the issue they are trying to address.  These boundaries are extremely important in defining the solutions it can provide.  Some examples of this are:

• For every function of Real Numbers...
• For all positive integers....
• For all functions that are contiguous and homogeneous between x0 and x1

      In all of these cases we are defining the boundaries of the problem space so that those who try to use this theorem on problems that are outside this space will know not to waste their time trying to use it.  It doesn't just save time, it insures answers they might derive will be viewed as wrong by construction.   It also, says to those applying your idea on their problem that does fit this boundary that their results will be of use to them.

     The problem today in society is we fail to define the boundaries of the problems we are trying to fix and we jump right into the solution space.   To illustrate this, take for example Sacramento's recent decision to carve out $130 million in funds to combat homelessness.   If we were to put this into a mathematical form it would look like this:

For all homeless people living in the city of Sacramento, $130 million is set aside to build Tiny Homes for the homeless so they don't have to live on the streets or tents.

    So the boundaries of this problem are:

1. The homeless 
2. Living in the city of Sacramento

    On first glance it seems to define the boundaries quite well.  If you are homeless in Sacramento then you will be given a Tiny Home to live in.   But is that adequate?   Here is why it is not.

• What does it mean to be "homeless"?   
• Does having a backpack and a sleeping-bag automatically make me "homeless" ?
• How do I prove I am really homeless or just someone looking for a cheap place to live?   
• How do I show I have been homeless for a term of time you might require?   
• Am I homeless by choice or by life's circumstances?

     Next, we need to look at the issue of Sacramento being the boundary of where we are trying to fix this problem.  Again, on the outset it seems to be pretty clear.   We can draw on a map the city limits of Sacramento and say that bounds the problem quite well.   We are not solving homelessness for California or even Sacramento County.    Here are the issues that make this boundary not a boundary:

• How do you define a homeless resident of Sacramento?  
• By definition they have no residency because they have no physical home
• If someone hitchhikes from Roseville, would they instantly qualify for a Tiny Home?    
• How long do they need to be in Sacramento to qualify and how do you assess that time?

    Without proper bounding, this issue will not be fixed but will probably grow exponentially as more homeless will come from other areas to take advantage of this new program.  It will not SOLVE the problem at all.   Here it is not that the solution is "bad" it's just that the bounding of the problem is deeply "flawed" and will lead to more problems than solutions. 

     Of course we might just say we accept that people will abuse the system and disregard our porous  boundaries and do nothing to address them. If  you do that you might as well have no boundaries at all.   You might as well let the world know we are opening the Tiny-Town to all who want to come and use them.

 

When to Quit

   Other boundaries we fail to add to projects like this deal with results and when to end a solution.  In many mathematical theorems the concept of "until" often plays a role.   The theorem may require you to repeat a process either until a solution is found or there is found a problem from which the algorithm cannot resolve itself.  Often in combinatorial problems this can be the case.  We cannot try ALL possible combinations for some problems and the search algorithm we employed has tried skim through those combinations might spend too much time and has find no solution. We must QUIT and try something else. 

    When bounding our social problems we often fail to measure if any improvements have been found and quantify if those improvements were "worth it".    No one likes to fail, but it's part of the search process.   Edison tried over 10,000 different filaments before he found carbon-thread worked.  If he had kept trying solution #1 without quitting he never would have found his answer.  Tiny-Homes might be a solution for homelessness but it might not be too.  We can try it, but we need to be willing to admit our mistakes and move on to the NEXT solution no matter how married to that idea we might feel. 

   This often happens because people become emotionally and economically connected to the solution.  Take the Tiny-Homes project.  It will need someone to spearhead it.  It will take people to manage the property and the buildings.   It will take others to care for the residents and maybe extra law enforcement and security.    These peoples lives are economically connected to this never ending.   If it ends, they lose their jobs and thus lose their economic security.   They lose their objectivity in the process and will do anything to make it look successful or an absolute necessity to the community.

A Better Boundary

 I am not entirely opposed to this idea of helping people who really need it. 

    Maybe to better bound the problem, the solution should be written as this:

To combat the problem of homeless working families, who currently cannot afford decent housing. $130 million will be set aside to build low cost Tiny-Homes for a small rental fee to allow these families a temporary housing while they work towards better economic stability.   The project will be reviewed annually and if costs to the community outweigh the benefits to the community it will be shutdown

   Here we have bounded the problem to solve the problem of homeless working families first.  Second we have bounded the problem to those who can work but can't make enough to rent a place (work could even be provided to them if needed). The Tiny-Home site could also provide the "address" they will need to fill out job applications to employers.  The rental fee insures that people coming here will need to find and keep employment and also provide them with a sense of honor and value.

Conclusion 

   Does this fix ALL homelessness?  Of course not, but it solves one big piece of it that we care about a lot.   For other homeless bound people we might need other solutions.  For the drug-addict we need treatment facilities to get them off the drugs and re-connected to families and communities.   For mentally-ill people we need to get them back into mental health facilities and not prisons.  Those problem-spaces need much different solutions than tiny-homes.  The tiny-home solution will not work for them, but instead will probably exacerbate their problems and make things worse for those it would help.   Maybe for some who get the help they need, the tiny-home would be a step in the right direction for them, but they need to first get those other problems out of the way.

   We must resist searching for simple answers to complex problems.   They are as rare as unicorns.

   PS - this solution is not new at all.  A "shanty town" was erected in the middle of New York Citiy's Central Park in the 1930's to deal with the Great Depression's homeless problem.  Readers will note that it was a disaster and the cause of many deaths by violence and disease.


 

We should not punish people for crimes they have not committed

    Recently "60 Minutes" did a story on Red-Flag-Laws.   In their article they led with the story of a man who was mentally unstable and had a large assortment of guns in his apartment.   The police had dealt with him in the past, but never were able to hold him on any law he could be charged with.  In the story, he shoots several police officers as they were in the process of breaking down his door to investigate an issue and talk to him.  One office was killed by the man.   60-Minutes talked to a police-chief who was in support of passage of Colorado's Red-Flag-Law.   He believed it would save lives in the long run.

     How do Red-Flag-Laws work? 

     First you have to go to a court and issue a statement showing that a person has made "threats" to your life and safety.   The defendant is not required to be at the hearing, but if they are they can make counter claims to the judge.   The judge then issues a judgement of whether the guns should be confiscated or not.   If the judge does, then the police are sent to the persons home to confiscate them.  The person can come back in a period of time (30 days usually) to prove that they are not longer a threat and that they should be given back their guns.

     Sounds easy... right?

     Here is what is wrong with it. 

     First of all, judges will side with the threatened person nearly 100% of all the time.  Why?  Because it's safest for them, the judge.   If they rule in favor of the gun owner and he does shoot someone then that murder will be on the judge because they "could" have stopped it.   There is no upside to letting you keep your guns, but there is plenty of upside to take them away. 

     Second, you have not been charged with any crime, but you are considered "guilty-until-proven-innocent".    On top of that, you now have the impossible task of proving to the judge you are NOT a threat.   How do you do that?   If a judge asks you "Will you never use these guns to harm a person?" and you reply "Never, your honor!", then the judge has a choice to either believe you or keep your guns.  What is safer?   It is impossible to "prove" you will never ever do something.   Yet here you are, guilty of nothing, but punished for life because not only can you never get your guns back, you will never ever be allowed to buy another gun.   You can go before a judge a 100 times and declare you are no longer a threat to others but have no way to prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.  It will always be in the best interest of the judge to keep your guns rather than let you have them back.

    It's a life-sentence without committing a crime.

    This is the biggest problem with Red-Flag-Laws.  They go against the most fundamental basis of our Constitution and Legal System:

 INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW.    

     Nothing is more sacred in our legal system than that.  NOTHING!   If we allow our legal system to do away with this in these cases we now have a legal precedent to do away with it altogether.  We cannot let that happen, no matter how many "lives it might save". It moves our legal system from one of trying crimes that have been committed to one in which we take away rights in order to prevent crimes that "could" be committed.  While we do have laws on the books to put restraining orders on people who pose a threat to others, those orders do not take Constitutional Rights or Property away from them or there ability to protect themselves.

      It reminds me of the Tom Cruise movie, "Minority Report", where people are tried on crimes that are "foreseen" by 5 girls who have precognition abilities.   It seems to work until it is found out that the girls "visions" can be tampered with to put innocent people away.  Our legal system must never become a system to prosecute people for crimes they "might commit", no matter how many lives it "might save".   . 

     That brings me to my final issue.  I take issue with the Sheriff who sided with the Red-Flag-Law, who claimed it would save lives.   It is the police officers who will have to serve these judgments.  They will be put into harms way to confiscate the guns.   In the story 60-Minutes used, the mentally ill man would have been met with the same police officers at his door who wanted to talk with him.  Only now, they would have had to tell him they are there to confiscate his guns.  Would he have handed them over peacefully?   I very much doubt that.  Instead, the might have wounded even more police officers and killed even more of them.  To me, the only people who would hand over their guns peacefully are mentally-stable-law-abiding-citizens.  But if they are mentally-stable-law-abiding-citizens, then most likely they were no threat in the first place and the issuance of the Red-Flag-Law is completely unneeded.

First they came for....

    Recently I was in comment-section at work on an article dealing with the future of the Automated-Car.   I had made the comment that I believe the "force" behind this technology is not the consumer, but the heads of corporations.  I say this because you hear very little support from your average person.   Google has tried automated taxis for sometime now and there has been very little increase in their usage.  The idea of letting go of the wheel and letting a computer do the driving is still unnerving for a lot of people (me included).   Our guts tell us that the world is a very complicated place and no programmer could think of every possible scenario. 

    This is why I said in my comment, "This is coming from corporations wanting to get rid of delivery jobs like truckers and home-delivery-drivers".   Another person from my work replied that these jobs will eventually go away but other jobs will take their place.  He ended it with "we should not worry about this".

    Of course he can say that...he's not a truck driver.  Tell that to a person is over the age of 40 and has 20-25 years left to work that he needs to change careers.   Look him in the face and tell him it's all for the better because now he can buy his stuff from Walmart even cheaper!   But what does he buy all that Walmart crap with???  His tears??

    My reply to him was that it's easy for us to say that... we are not truck-drivers.   But engineers have a target on their backs as well but don't want to face it.   I have written before how Moore's Law is shifting it's methods to achieve its goals.  For those of you not acquainted with it, it goes like this: The COST of the transistor will be cut in HALF every 2 YEARS.   In the past, we have had the luxury of a silicon process system where we could make transistors 50% smaller every 2 years (ie - double the number of transistors on a chip).   Year after year we grew the number of transistors on the chip and added more and more functionality.   Everything else could stay the same and our costs would be cut in half and Moore's Law kept marching on.  But now today, that is not possible.  Transistors are getting TOO SMALL and it's taking 4+ years (AND GROWING) to improve the silicon processes. 

    In order to keep the law going, focus is not on the transistor, but on those who put the transistors together to make new products; the engineers.  Some of this has been done by standardizing our designs.  By turning parts of the design into small "LEGO blocks" we can reuse them over and over again ( motto: design once and use many ).   But now the attention is focusing on the validation process.   What if I can write a specification in a way that a computer can read it and create validation content to verify it works or not?   I can get rid of teams of validation engineers. 

   Artificial Intelligence is the engineers "automated truck".   If you think it's too complicated you are wrong.   If I can have AI read medical documents and kick out cancer-treatment-recommendations I can surely have it read a design spec and kick out design-verification-tests.  What's really crazy is it's engineers who are putting these systems together.   It reminds me of a famous episode of the 1950's TV series "The Twilight Zone" in which a factory manager keeps automating more and more of his factory until all that is left is him.  Then on the final scene the board replaces the manager with a robot too.  We are designing our own replacements as we speak.

We should all pay heed to the old poem, "First they came for the socialists"

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Maybe a 21st century version would be

First they came for the Bank-Tellers, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Bank-Teller.

Then they came for the Checkout-Clerks, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Checkout-Clerk.

Then they came for the Truck-Drivers, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Truck-Driver.

Then they came for the Engineers—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Fighting over LAST place

      In week 9 of the 2019 NFL season, the NY Jets and the Miami Dolphins went to battle.   The Dolphins won the game with a score of 26-18.   The reason this game got little attention from the media was because both teams came into this game with a record 1 win and 7 losses. In a sense, both teams were fighting to not be in last place.  While at the end of the game one team was in last place, the other team could only claim to be in NEXT-to-last place.  Both teams were essentially mathematically eliminated from any Super Bowl or Playoff hopes for that season.  I seriously doubt either team was chiding the other at the end of the game with touts of "YOUR IN LAST PLACE!!" as their situation wasn't much better.   Nor do I think the players would have enjoyed watching a group of fans in the stands fighting with each other over the result of the game either. 

    In the long view, politics in our world is much like game between two last place teams.   In the end, God will bring an end to all political systems as they are not needed.    They have no future.  Yet we are like the fans in the stands fighting over our respective teams.  When seen from the long view it is quite ridiculous. 

    I believe this is why St. Paul doesn't mention Nero or the Roman Senate or issues with Roman Law and his predicament in jail.  Paul writes in Romans 8:18 

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

   For us, much our present sufferings is watching our once great country fall into hatred, division and basic lawlessness.   We must be like Paul and take to "long view" to keep our perspective.    Capitalism/Socialism, Left/Right, Democrat/Republican, White/Black, Male/Female will all be gone and relegated to LAST PLACE.  If that is the case, should we place such importance on these things as we live out our lives?

Molek lives on today!

    In Leviticus, God commands the children of Israel,

Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.

   In other verses we find out that the children of Israel offered up their children as "burnt offerings" to Molek who was a fertility/harvest god.   For a long time, many archaeologists thought that this did not really happen and was Jewish folk-lore made to create hatred of the Canaanites.   However, as usual, the Bible is found to be right.  In the early 1990's an archaeologist found an altar littered with burned baby bones.   How could people do such a thing?

    Well, before you just cast them off as "primitive people who have no connection to you", let's look at what they were facing.  In their culture, there was no welfare system to fall back on.  If your crops failed, you starved and so did your family.   You were at the mercy of nature and if rain did not come, or your crops were destroyed by bugs or disease you were screwed.  A father looking at maybe his third year of failed crops and a starving family may be forced to take some very drastic measures.   Offering up his children may be a "two-fer" or "win-win" in his mind.   One or two less mouths to feed, a quick merciful death for his children and MAYBE this god Molek would be appeased and the rain would come back to the land.  It's a harsh reality but it's one that I am sure happened quite often.

    Today, we look back at people like this with some level of self-righteousness.  Certainly WE would never do something as awful as that!   If WE lived back then we would make other choices.   WE would know better! 

    But would we?

    Do we still make offerings to Molek today?

     I think we do.   No, he doesn't go by the name "Molek" anymore.  He goes by other names like:

• Abortion
• Career advancement
• Me-Time
• Entertainment

      Is the baby you carrying coming at a bad time in your life?   You're not ready to be a parent yet?  The child won't have everything other children will have?   The baby is not going to be perfect? The baby will not be a boy? (in China).  All these questions come to young mothers today who are faced with whether or not to allow this baby to be born.   Molek stands there with his arms open wide begging you to offer the baby up in return for what you want in life.   Alyssa Milano said in a recent pod-cast that she is glad she had an abortion when she was younger, because she wouldn't have been able to have the amazing career she has if she had gone through with the pregnancy.   Molek rewarded her offering with a chance to be on TV and Movies. 

      Molek, however, doesn't stop with aborted babies.   Children can be such a nuisance in our lives.   They are sooooo needy.    They need food, clothing, changing, teaching, training .... loving.  All this takes sooooo much of our time we need for ourselves.  Maybe it's a career.  The need to prove yourself to the world and staying home with a young child doesn't work towards that goal.   Maybe it's because you have this thing called a MORTGAGE (Another "M"-god) that demands you pay homage to Molek.   I once heard a woman say that she could never stay at home with her kids because she needed her time away from them. 

     But maybe you do stay at home and care for your children.   Do you also make offerings to Molek?   Maybe you need your "ME-time" (Another M-god), and the only way to do it is to employ inexpensive baby-sitters like smart-phones, tablets or PCs.   Children today spend 6-8 hours a day on these devices and studies are showing it is having a disastrous affects on their developing brains.    Oh, but it makes your like SOOooo much easier doesn't it!    On a long car trip?   It's easier to have them watch a movie, play games or watch YouTube than to teach them about the world or how to get along.   In the grocery store?  It's much easier to use the electronic baby-sitter to keep your kid entertained than to spend time teaching them about food and making good choices.    Score another offering for Molek!   While we don't set our children ablaze like people 3000 years ago,  little by little we scorch their growing brains in ways that will damage them for years to come all because we want our own little ME-time, or "Peace and Quiet". 

    I know this blog is harsh.  Personally I don't believe I would be ANY better than a lot of parents if I had to raise my kids today in our Internet-driven world.   I have my own problems dealing with today's screen-time-obsessed world.   I only write this to help raise the awareness to families today that are facing these problems.   Technology today is moving faster and faster than we can adapt.   Our children have little "bulls-eyes" on their brains that business-marketers, perverts and social/political-manipulators aiming for and we need to protect them from their constant onslaught of attacks.   We, as parents, need to make their needs a priority in our lives and stop sacrificing them for our own petty needs and desires.  There is no "win-win" when it comes to our children.  There is only "win-lose" at best and "lose-lose" at worst.
   

Contemporary vs Traditional

    You may not be aware of it, but there is a silent war going on today in many American churches.  Some call it the Worship-War others just see it as a difference in opinion.  My church offers both styles to their members (two are traditional and two are contemporary).   A church I attended for many years prior to moving to this church was clearly on the side of the traditional (or liturgical) style.   At that church, they still used acolytes, followed a liturgy which included the pastor chanting his part to the congregation and using only the hymnal for their music source (unless it was the choir singing).   At my current church they do much of the same except the pastor does not chant and much of the liturgy is gutted for a simpler and shorter worship form.

    There seems to be very little middle ground in the worship wars.   You are either for strict adherence to the traditional form or you view a more 'anything goes' form.  Each side views the other with a little animosity.   The liturgical side views the contemporary as falling into false-teaching and no one being held accountable.  The contemporary view the liturgical as stiff and unbending and pushing people away rather than bringing them in.

   What these two sides hold in common is that both sides feel theirs is more "spiritual".   So who is right and who is wrong?   Answer: both/neither (in my opinion).   It depends on what you call "spiritual".   To the traditional, spiritual is connecting with the ancient ways.  It's doing it the way Peter and Paul would have do it if they were here with us.  If they wore robes, then we should wear robes.  If they chanted, then we should chant.    To the contemporary, spiritual means "feelings".   If you feel closer to God through singing a certain song then that is more spiritual.  It's not what the words MEAN, but more about how they make you FEEL.  In a way, both sides have this in common they just have different ways of getting there.

   Let's look at the traditional side first.   An argument made by some on their side is that our early church was more "spiritual" and we should follow their guidance in worship.   But is that really true?  Does everything in the liturgy stem from a spiritual center or purpose?   All too often we have a limited view of what the early church was like.  We don't put ourselves into their 1st century sandals.  They were not stupid people who were by their nature more spiritual.   They were highly intelligent and practical.   They may have not had the science we do, but they knew what worked and what didn't.   They knew that putting a speaker up on a platform that was higher than the crowd would aid in projecting his voice over the heads of the crowd.  They knew that putting a curved wall behind the speaker would help amplify his voice too.  How do we know this?  Because early churches and synagogues were designed this way.   We also don't take into account that paper and printing was expensive.  They did not have hymnals like we do and so to lead a group in singing would require a simpler form which could be followed along.  You take ANY song and have a singer stand in front and break up the song into smaller pieces that the crowd can repeat back to him.  This is what they did and when you hear it, it sounds a lot like a liturgy.  Having the worship leader singing their part also makes sense in the early church because your voice carries a lot farther when you sing than when you yell.  Singing occurs in the chest cavity, yelling occurs in the voice box.  I am sure this did not go unnoticed by the early church either. 

     So why should we keep all these old methods when new technology makes them obsolete?  We have electric amplification now, hymnals and electric lighting.   Shouldn't liturgy, chanting and candles go by the way side?   Yes and No.   Yes, if you think it creates a stumbling-stone to bringing in new believers (the mission of the church).   No, if you are just doing it to be different or keep up with the 'jones'.    The reason to keep these ancient ways is not because they are more "spiritual" but because they bring us into Christ's church triumphant.   We come to church wanting to connect with the first church.  We want each Sunday to be as if it was the FIRST Easter Sunday.   Jesus resurrection was not 2000 years ago, but TODAY!  We in the Lutheran church view the church on earth and the church in heaven as ONE church.  We see Jesus' words to his disciples as his words to us as well as if we are sitting on the shoreline with him in the boat.  We connect our voices with theirs in the worship and holding on to the "old ways" serves us by helping our minds feel as if were are right there with them.  It's more psychological than it is spiritual.   Take for example if I took my wife to see Hamlet being performed and when we got their the stage was bare with no props, the actors wore street clothes and they spoke with American dialects.  Shouldn't I be racing fore the door to get my money back?   Of course I would!  The same goes for the church and it connecting us with the "host of all believers".   The robes, the candles, the music, the altar all serve us in worship.   As Jesus said, "That Sabbath was made for MAN, not man for the Sabbath".   The service serves US and not us serving the service.

    The contemporary side of the war views the old with much contempt.   They seem to ask the question, "Why should we be held back by ways that no longer fit with the modern era?"    Yes, it is true that we don't have just 5 string harps to lead us in worship now.   We have guitars, and electric pianos and drum sets.   We have wireless microphones,  fancy lighting and even fake smoke if you want it.    To them, old is just old and not more spiritual.  People today reject the argument: "We've always done it THIS way!".     Music should keep up with the times and serve as a replacement for "secular music".  In some ways, I do see what they are saying.   We do need to connect with our culture at some level and meet people where they are at.   Often they quote Jesus words to the Samaritan women, "God wants people to worship him in SPIRIT and in TRUTH".  From this, they believe that if your SPIRIT leads you to worship in a certain way, then that is OK because that is what God is looking for.    The problem is defining what is "spirit" and what is "truth".   If you define spirit as your feelings then you will come away with a different style of worship than if you define spirit, as God's presence in your life and in your worship of him.  Personally I don't think Jesus is opening the door for "anything goes" here.   First of all, in the context of his words to the Samaritan woman, they are debating the issue of "where to worship".   Samaritans believed it was on a mountain in Samaria you were to worship God and the Jews say it is in Jerusalem.  Jesus corrects her by telling her that Salvation is from the Jews and the right place for worship is in Jerusalem ... for now.... but a time will come when it won't be a place but the reason for worship.   This is where the TRUTH comes in.   It's not some wishy-washy New Age spiritualism Jesus is talking about, but a REALITY and a TRUTH that solidifies our faith and worship of God.   The truth that we are all horrible sinners deserving of death, but God has saved us by dying for us and taking 100% of the punishment on himself.   To me, as long as contemporary worship leaders hold to this TRUTH they will be fine, but too often this is not the case.   Too many churches choose to water down this message and not confront the sin that is very real in our lives.

     I do want to also say I have great concern for the WORDS that are sung in contemporary worship.  Music is art, but I believe words have meaning and should come from God's word.   Historically, from the days of King David, song has served as a way for God to bring his truth to our hearts and lives.    God knows that there is something about singing that resonates with our minds in ways we don't fully understand.  Words that are sung are more easily remembered.   Words that are sung are internalized in ways words we read are not.   So, music leaders in churches need to take their roles with urgency and respect.  As in the movie Spider-Man, "With great power comes great responsibility".   Song leaders must make sure their words are in keeping with the Gospel and in keeping with the Faith.  Historically this has been the direction of many of the great hymn writers of the past.  Some hymns would pull from a single verse while others managed to pull several verses from God's word together and serve as a teaching aid to God's people.  Sadly, this is not the path of many modern Christian music writers.   One song I heard in a church (and later on the radio) took a single non-biblical phrase and repeated it OVER and OVER and OVER again.    The words "mind-numbing" came to mind when I heard it.   Am I saying all songs should just come exclusively from the Psalms?   No.  But we do need to hold Christian artists to a higher standard.  (actually it's not just a Christian music problem but also very much present in secular artists too).   Just because you label yourself an "artist" does not preclude from being held to a high standard of quality.   We do the artist (and ourselves ) no service by applauding every song that comes out of their mouth.   There is no shame in asking them to "Go back and try again!"    If you don't like the song your "praise-band" performed or it was impossible for you to participate in then you owe it to them to let them know.

     What contemporary churches get "right" is their willingness to meet people where they are at spiritually much like Paul did with the Greeks on Mars Hill.   It may seem odd to some that people want a church that doesn't feel like "church" (which I think translates to old and stuffy).  Maybe its a product of the YouTube culture and wanting to be "entertained".  I don't really know, but I do know we must not let culture limit our ability to reach out to them.  This is what they get right.   If they can receive the gospel thought fancy graphics on big TV screens then that is what they do.   If it's offering ways for them to connect with each other outside of church, then they do that as well.  Most people are not into "sewing circles", "LWML" or "Ice Cream Socials" anymore and want instead "Running/Cycling groups", "Yoga classes", "Drone clubs" and the like.  Some wag their heads at this and call it "marketing", but even traditional churches "market themselves" when they put a sign out front with their name and denomination clearly shown.  Of course church members should come more than just connection.  Hopefully the spirit will lead these people to want a more meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ over time and they will move beyond spiritual "milk" as Paul talks about.

What should the Church do?

     What is needed today is BOTH sides to EMBRACE the other in LOVE.  We need to hear Paul's words in Romans 14,

5 One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. 6 Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. 

We could easily substitute "day" or "method of worship" and it would speak volumes to our situation today:

5 One person considers one way of worship more sacred than another; another considers every way of worship alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. 6 Whoever regards one way of worship as special does so to the Lord. 

     We need to accept all forms of worship as special and necessary and not put unnecessary restrictions on them.  In Paul's day, Jewish-Christians wanted to control who worshiped by adding additional requirements like celebrating various Jewish high festivals.  In a sense, they wanted to convert the Gentiles not only to Christianity but also to Judaism as well.  Of course, you can see how they must have felt.  They saw their heritage as a blessing and wanted the new Gentile converts to "enjoy" those blessings as well.   But that was not how it was perceived or received by them.  In some ways we do this today.   We don't just want to make believers in Christ, but also what we consider to be our variety of Christian.  Not everyone is a lover of Bach or liturgical style.   Bach's music may not be in your taste, but that should not be a reason you should not come to church.  You may like the message, but if the worship style puts you to sleep or makes it difficult for your children to participate you might think about going somewhere else that doesn't.   The world is changing whether we like it or not and we need to adapt so we reach the world with the Good News! We should not put "stumbling stones" (in ancient times stones were placed in a path to a house to cause people you don't want coming in the night to 'stumble on') in the way of people coming to Christ, even if those 'stumbling stones' are stones we like having. 

     But contemporary worshipers need the traditionalists as well.   They need them to help guide them and keep them from straying into teachings that are not in line with our faith.   Not all Christian music is "good" Christian music.  Music needs to be edifying and educational.   Worship needs to help train the believer in doctrine and faith.   The traditionalists serve the purpose of keeping the standard.  For the traditionalist, the benefit of using the liturgy/hymnal is that you don't have to concern yourself so much with the problem of false teaching because all that has been done for you.   But the contemporary worship leader is left all to their own vices.   They are left to make all these decisions all by themselves.  While this can be freeing, it can also be terrifying.  Traditionalists can help in these decision making processes by helping review song choices or methods of worship to keep things in check.   Traditionalists can also serve as a mirror to the contemporary worship leader.   Too often, contemporary worship falls victim to "concert mentality".   It too easily morphs into being singer-centric and not worship-centric.   The leader can sing the song, but the congregation is incapable of following along and ends up sitting as a concert-goer rather than singing along. 

    Maybe the church will end its worship wars and begin finding common ground once again and focus their energies on reaching our world with the Good News of Jesus Christ.





  
   

Do you like Maple Syrup?

    I love maple syrup.  I put it on pancakes, waffles, french toast and even scrambled eggs!  Maple syrup comes to you exclusively from the New England area of the US where maple trees are in abundant supply.    These trees not only supply us with a sweet treat for our breakfast meals, they also supply us with a beautiful array of colors this time of year that millions of people flock to every year to get a glimpse of.

    Ever wonder how New England became a bastion of maple trees?   If you thought it was some by-product of some ice-age phenomenon you'd be wrong!   No, the reason the New England area is covered in maple trees is all do to deforestation.   When New England was still owned by Great Britain, New England was covered with pine trees (and in many parts it still is) that Britain wanted for its ship-building.   Trees were cut down in large swaths for this purpose.   Later, dairy farming became big business as well and more trees were cut down to make room that as well.  When dairy farming stopped being profitable, many of these farms were abandoned and Mother Nature took over and filled in the empty regions with trees that were still left over.   That tree was the tasty maple tree.

    The mistake that many environmental purists make today is thinking that areas that are deforested never grow anything back in its place.   We think that the land will become a barren desert or wasteland.  It turns out, however,  nature is remarkably resilient and adapts.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  It fills in with something else.  Sometimes something even better than before but was not given a chance because of the abundance of another inhabitant. 

    So next time you are sitting in your favorite breakfast restaurant and enjoying a stack of pancakes dripping with maple syrup, be thankful for the lumber and farming industries that deforested the New England Area in the 1700 and 1800's.   It wouldn't have happened without them!

 

God jumps right into our messiness

      I love the show "Dirty Jobs" with Mike Rowe.   Mike takes on some of the most disgusting jobs there are in our country.   He has done everything from pig farming, sheep neutering, sewer cleaning, to worm farming. There seems to be no job too dirty for him to try at least once.  Often he will don a plastic hazmat suit and look at what he is about to encounter and say, "Well I guess I just have to jump right in!".  

   The Christmas story is in reality at story filled with dirt, filth and the outcasts of society.  We have cleaned it up over years and in the process have lost much of the message God is communicating to us.  

   First we have the angel appearing to Mary in the small town of Nazareth.  A town in northern Israel with a bad reputation. We know this because later when the disciple Philip is called to meet Jesus of Nazareth he comments “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”   A dirty little town with a bad reputation.  

    Next we have a Virgin who is pregnant.  Not even Joseph believes her until he is visited by an angel as well. A scandalous e relationship.  In todays world it wouldn’t even be noticed but in their day it was on par with Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.  We have Joseph who needs to go to Bethlehem where his birth record is kept to pay a Roman tax.  Under normal conditions only Joseph would go and Mary , who is 9 months pregnant, would stay home with family to take care of her. Instead, we have both of them traveling to Bethlehem together.  Message: Mary is disowned by her family and she’s Joseph’s business now.  Upon arriving in Bethlehem the rejection continues as none of Joseph’s extended family has no spare room for either of them. Apparently the word about Mary has spread to there as well. 

    Second, we have the shepherds watching over their flocks by night.  It sounds so quaint doesn’t it?  It’s not.  Shepherding was not a glamorous job and it paid very little. These were the most likely the homeless of their world just trying to get by and survive.  Because of their constant handling of livestock they would be “ceremonial unclean” and unable to go to the Temple in Jerusalem.  Poor , outcasts and ignored by everyone.  Yet it’s these outcasts God makes his first Gospel declaration to.  

    Next you have the scene at the manger. In Israel there are very few trees , but lots of rocks and caves.  The barn we view in our mind is most likely a cave and the manger is not made of wood ,but instead is carved out of rock.  The scene of the shepherds visiting the manger with Jesus wrapped in swaddling cloths has more meaning than what meets the eye. To understand this you needs to understand Bethlehem’s connection to king David and their connection to the Temple. 

Bethlehem was the town of King David’s birth and growing up. Having this very important leader gave Bethlehem a unique position.  They became the main supplier of sacrificial lambs to the temple of Jerusalem.  These sacrifices were for the atoning of their sins.  But no ordinary lamb would do.  It had to be without blemish and so it had to be examined by the priests.  But touching a newborn lamb would make the priest unclean.  To deal with this the priests supplied the shepherds with “swaddling cloth”.   They would wrap the lamp in this cloth and place it in a manger for the priests to come in and do their examination.  

Do you see the connection now?  Here we have the shepherds present and Jesus wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. The message is unmistakable from God: “This is my chosen lamb without blemish to be the sacrifice for all the worlds sins”. 

   Finally we have Jesus wrapped head to toe with dirty cloth used to swaddle newborn lambs , making him ceremonially unclean as well.  

    So often when we start a new job or new endeavor we want a grace period. A time to get warmed up to the new environment or new people.   We want to "ease our way into it".    Most of the time we want this so if we find out it's not really our thing to do or not.  If it's not, then we can just exit without having been inconvenienced too much and go back to what we were doing before.   But not Jesus.   He doesn't ease his way with a nice birth and a nice middle-class upbringing and later expose himself to the more lurid parts of our world to see if it "fits him".   Instead, like Mike Rowe in “Dirty Jobs” “, Jesus jumps in with both feet to take on our filth and our separation from God.  He’s associated with scandalous people, the unclean, the unwanted and the unnoticed.  
   
      He does this to show you how much he loves you and how much he wants to help you.  He wants your filth. He wants it all.  Only then can he take it away as Gods own “sacrificial lamb” 

There's nothing you can do

  Okay! This blog is going to be very different from all the others I have done before.

   First of all, I need YOU to participate in this blog and not just read it.

   Here are my instructions:  (better if you can have someone READ them to you if you can)

1. Lie down in a quiet place (or sit if you can't lie down)
2. Close your eyes
3. Take 3 or 4 deep breathes 
4. Imagine you are soooo weak that you can't speak, move or even open your eyes.  The energy in your body is sapped.  
5. Now imagine you are on your death bed.  You are minutes away from taking your LAST    breath.  There is NOTHING you can do right now to earn your righteousness.  Nothing you can say or do.  You will be meeting God very soon.  All you can do is rely on your faith in his word that he has done it all for you.

Now open your eyes.   How did that make you feel?

The Bible says, "The Righteous shall LIVE by FAITH".    Yet for most of our lives we live our lives out feeling like we need to do something to earn that salvation.  However, on your death bed, when it all comes down to it, you have nothing to offer God and must rely on faith that he has done it all.

The same person who is reading this post now is the same person a few minutes ago was imagining themselves on their death-bed.  God accepts that same person, who could only breath a few minutes ago, who is now fully alive and awake.  There is nothing different between the two people they are one and the same.   God accepts you just as you are right now... not just on your death-bed.    He loves you right now!

Live your life by faith!
 

Nobody likes to see something good come to an end

    I remember taking a class on Roman history at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana.  This class was so popular it had to be taught in the largest auditorium the school had on campus (known as the Pantheon because it was built to look like the Roman Pantheon).  Professor John Scanlon taught the course and he walked us through 1000 years of Roman history in just one semester.  I was enthralled with how much Rome was like the modern United States in its art, science, engineering, military might and politics.  I eagerly awaited each class and took detailed notes.

    Then on the last week of class he covered their eventual demise.  The long, slow decay of the once mighty empire.  He showed us how the Goths and Visigoths were able to cut Rome of from its water supply and that Rome surrendered without a fight. He covered how Rome had spent its wealth to hire mercenaries to do their fighting for them because they could not get enough of their own people to defend the empire. 

    I remember leaving the class that day feeling angry.   The dark ages were to come and the world would lose 1000 years of advancement.  Imagine us going to moon in 969 AD instead of 1969 AD.   Imagine where we would be now in technology. 

     But God had a better plan....

     From what I see today, our "advancement" does not always serve God's plan.  We don't become better but instead become worse.   Maybe God's plan was to slow our human-advancement down so his Gospel could "advance" throughout the world.   I am not saying this is the only reason, but it could be a reason for God allowing Rome to fall as it did and when it did. 

     But whatever the "reason",  God does it all out of love and we have to trust him.   I am sure there were many back in Rome that were dismayed as Rome had just become a Christian Empire with the conversion of Constantine to Christianity just 50 years earlier.   I am sure they were scratching their heads as well.  They probably thought the whole goal of God was to conquer the Roman Empire with the Gospel and then issue in some new age of a Christian Empire to advance the Gospel.    But their misguided hope was soon to be dashed to the ground.

   That is not how God works.   He doesn't need the Roman Empire to advance his Truth.  He also doesn't need the United States to advance it either.   God works through the hearts and minds of his children and not by politics or military/economic might.   Yes, God does make use of these things to save man from himself and give order to the world, but they are not end-all we want them to be.  They are tools he uses for his purpose.   Like this laptop I am using right now to write this blog.   It serves my purpose to get my word out for others to read, but eventually this laptop will be sitting at the bottom of a landfill someday as it will wear out and no longer be useful for anyone.   So also, the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany ... and so on will no longer serve God's purpose and will be scrapped just like Rome was in 415AD.

   As believers in Jesus Christ we know our hope is not diminished when this happens.  God is still in control.   Evil may seem to be "winning the day" much like it seemed to the people of Rome when their water supply was cut off by the Goths.  God wins in the end.   Our victory is already certain because Jesus is raised from the dead. 

Delivered

*****************************************************

             Your wire transfer of funds has been delivered

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     I remember getting a similar message from our bank that final payment on our house has finally gone through and the transfer was completed. We had decided to pay off the remaining amount early and went to the bank to fill out the paperwork.   We ordered a wire-transfer of the needed amount and waited for the funds to transfer and the mortgage company to give us the deed to our house.  The house was now 100% ours and we owed nothing more to the bank

Done. Finished. Completed.

We can relax knowing there is nothing more to do.

Jesus cried out in a loud voice on the cross “IT IS FINISHED!!”   I am sure many people around the cross were perplexed as to what Jesus was declaring.  To them, he was the one that was "finished", but he was declaring the work God the Father had given him was 100% complete.   Jesus resurrection from the grave was receipt that God accepted the payment.

The transfer of righteousness for sins is complete. There is nothing more for us to do. God has done it all.   You are FREE!

They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them

       When I was in high school I was really into reading about the Shroud of Turin.  The Shroud is thought to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.   I read a lot about the cloth and all of the amazing facts about it that were hard to explain.   I read about it's amazing photographic-negative image that was a PERFECT negative (hard to do even by pros today).   I read about the studies done on it and how everything matched up for it to be the actual burial cloth of Jesus.

       When the Shroud of Turin was carbon-dated and the date came to be from the 13th century, my heart sank.  I wanted science to re-enforce my faith.  I wanted so badly to have something that I could point to and say, "See this??  Look at this!!!"   Then later I saw a news-piece that showed a woman from Iowa challenged the finding by showing the scientists that they had drawn their sample form a part of the cloth that was repaired in the 13th century after a fire burned part of it.  The chief scientist was amazed that a woman from Iowa was right when she pointed out that the cloth had been repaired using a method of "inter-weaving" a new piece of cloth into the old in such a way the naked eye could not tell , but a seasoned weaver would see that the weave changed directions where the new and old meet.   This inter-weaving also explained the big date difference in dates the carbon-dating method found in the samples no one earlier could explain.   Now they knew it was because the samples closer to the old cloth had more old cloth woven into it and it accounted for the large discrepancy in the dates.    Now all that had to be done was to get a new sample from the cloth again.  But this is impossible now.   When the scientists were brought in to examine and test the Shroud of Turin they showed the church that the cloth was slowly deteriorating from UV light.  To slow this process down the church treated the cloth with a chemical that now makes it impossible to do carbon-dating. 

    I find all of this to be too coincidental to just be "fate".    It's too coincidental that:

1. The cloth would be in a fire and burned in the 13th century but mostly saved intact and only a small part of it needed to be repaired.    
2. The scientists would just happen to take their sample from the wrong section that had been repaired by a fire (of all the areas they could have taken, they took it from the worst part).  
3. They can't take any samples because their research showed the deterioration of the cloth causing the church to take actions that would prevent any future dating.   

     Coincidence? 

     I don't think so. 

     I think God has shut the door on yet another "scientific-faith-proof" we so desperately want.  We are like the "rich man" in the story of "The rich man and Lazarus" who pleads with God to send Lazarus back to his brothers to warn them and Abraham says, "They have Moses and the Prophets to warn them. Let them listen to them".  We want more proof than just God's word.  We want science to back us up.   We want something physical to point to that says, "You faith is real!"    But God will not give that to us.   We have more than Moses and the Prophets.   He has given us his Son and put his Spirit into our hearts.   That is all we need and no more.

Faith needs an alternative

      When I was younger, I used to hold to the Apparent-Age-Theory that when God created the Universe it had a pre-designed-age built into it that would make it appear to be older than it is.   I don't hold to this idea anymore because I see it goes against God's nature to not lie or deceive.   The Apparent-Age-Theory says God created the universe to "look old" but that is like me taking a new piece of furniture, denting it, scratching it, putting on old varnish and selling it as being an "antique" when it really isn't at all.  It's forgery.  Same would be for the Apparent-Age-Theory only on a much grander scale.

      Could God create the universe in 6 days? Yes.   Absolutely!   But God, knowing we would later create telescopes to probe the depths of space, would know we would look out and see the farthest stars are only 10,000 light-years away!   He knew we would find ways to tell the age of rocks and see that they are only 10,000 years old or less.  He knew we would dig the earth in our efforts to find fossils of ancient creatures only to find nothing older than 10,000 years.  Everything would point to a very very young universe and that there would be no other answer to HOW we got here than for us to BELIEVE there is a God.    There would be no alternative for him ponder or choose.   We would HAVE to be believe.

     That, of course, would make our jobs as God's children/disciples a lot easier wouldn't it!  We would have science on our side.  We could just point to hundreds of articles showing how there is no other answer and that God is very real and the Bible is 100% correct.   Maybe that is what we want, but no matter how we look at it today we will always be at odds with the "alternative".

    Why would God do it this way?

     Because he wants us to seek him out in FAITH.... NOT FACTS!

     As Paul says, "The righteous shall live by FAITH!"

     Paul talks about how God in his wisdom has nullified the wisdom of the wise. He has essentially made it futile for them to know him through their own thinking.   Yet we keep trying to prove the scientists wrong even though God already has sent them away empty. 

     Going back to idea of if God had made the universe in 6 days, 10,000 years ago, we could then conclude that the wise and learned would actually have a leg-up on the rest of humanity in their search for God.  Their knowledge would make them more able to find God. The could proudly write long dissertations on how certain they are that God exists and how anyone who looks at the data could not think any other way.   But God doesn't want the proud.  He wants the meek.  He wants the simple and the needy.  Jesus says, "Unless you enter the Kingdom of God like that of a little child you shall never enter it!"

     In order to "nullify the wisdom of the wise", there has to be an alternative for them to believe in.  Of course no matter how well drawn up this "alternative" is,  it will always run into a wall with a sign that reads "Where did it all start?".   For example, the Big Bang was thought to be "the start", but then people asked "Where did the singularity come from?" and so they scientists have developed String-Theory to explain the singularity, but then the question becomes, "Where did the multi-dimensional strings come from?"  and so on....  Science cannot think itself to God and it cannot (if it's truly honest)  think itself away from God either.  In the end, it's never "I CAN'T BELIEVE!" , it's always "I WON'T BELIEVE!".   It always comes back to faith.

    As Christians, we often wish there wasn't an alternative. God calls us to trust him and know his love for us.  We want to be liked by the world and our faith always puts us at odds.  But that is how it has to be.   Jesus said that we cannot be friends with God and friends with the world.  If they called Jesus, "The Lord of the Flies" (Beelzebub) how much more will they call us. 

   We are called to be loving and faithful as Christ was towards us.    We cannot think our way to God and so we should not be scared of science or it's findings.  The "alternative" is a false path and has no hope in the end.   Jesus said, "When the Son of Man returns, will he find FAITH on the earth?"   The answer to that question seems to be baked into the question.  The answer is : NO.  All of these "findings" serve God's design to bring this about.   As we become more and more "intelligent" we will become less and less "faithful".   Man will become the "god of his own making", in essence his own ideal view of what he thinks God should be.

    This is not to say Christians should not be in the science fields or that we should ignore science.  We just need to stop looking for science to back up our faith or to be in place of our faith.  God doesn't need to be "proved" and neither do we need it either. 

The ONE thing evolution cannot explain....

     I have seen many proposals from Christians who try to take on the Theory of Evolution.  Most of these proposals play the game I call "Stump the Evolutionist" in which very complex systems we see are shown to the Evolutionist and then dared to find a way to show how such a complex system could possibly come about.   Whether it's the Bombardier Beetle, or Blood Clotting or the Process of Vision the end result to the person who believes in Evolution is the same.  All they do is re-iterate in the voice of Carl Sagan, "Billions and billions of years!"  and off they go shaking their heads.

    The problem as I see it is not playing "Stump the Evolutionist" in the first place.   Or at least not playing by their rules.  If I want to prove the Law of Thermodynamics wrong, I don't come up with some complex Rude Goldberg machine, instead I find something that violates the laws of thermodynamics.  What is needed is not some highly complex system, but instead a system or species that exists that BREAKS the rules of Evolution and yet.... for some reason.... is still here.  Such a system does exists and it's all around us.

    First you have to understand the basic rules of Evolution.  They are pretty simple rules.

1. Live as LONG as possible (i.e. don't get eaten)
2. Make as MANY copies of yourself as possible  (have lots of sex)
3. Do all of this using the LEAST amount of energy (if you can escape a predator with camouflage then hide)

     So what exists all around for billions of years and yet for some reason violates these laws?   The answer is simple:  the difference in the sexes and their desire for sex.

      Throughout our world, wherever there are male and female of a species, the male side wants to have sex and it wants it all the time.  Whereas the female, on the other hand, does not want sex all the time and actually forces the male to perform sometimes trivial tasks before mating.  These tasks, might be singing, dancing, gift-giving and fighting.  All of these violate rules 2 & 3 of Evolution and yet are still here.   It doesn't make sense that after billions of years of playing this game, no species has figured out the best and easiest way to win the game is to produce a species where both the male AND the female want to have sex all the time.    If a species did, they would out produce any competitor species that is limiting its reproduction to a few days a year and only after some energy wasting processes has been accomplished.

      Now some evolutionists, would say that the system of female sex limitations would possibly create a stronger mate or stronger children.   But most species (and I would even throw in humans) are not future driven in their picking of mates.  They are not looking at a mate and thinking about their great-great-grand-children and how strong they will be.  Evolution does not have the LONG view of life but only the here and now.   So you can't use the argument that the difference of the species comes from that.


      The difference in males and females is what we call in engineering a "negative feedback loop" (NFL).  Most people who don't have a science background would think that positive feedback loops (PFL) are good and NFL's are bad, but actually it's the other way around.   PFL's explode and run out of control eventually.  Take for example the famous Tacoma Bridge Collapse back in the 1950's.   Tacoma Washington had built a bridge that was a small version of the Golden Gate Bridge.   Because of it's smaller size it was more susceptible to lift from wind.   The cross section of the bridge mirrored that of a planes wing and experienced lift from air-pressure difference. This lift was then countered by the tension of the road and it would swing back down.  This caused a "feedback loop" which resonated and the lifting and falling became more and more pronounced until the bridge collapsed altogether.

      Male and Females relationship needs are a NFL.   Men want physical love and Women want emotional love.   I am not saying Men don't love emotional love (sharing, caring, talking etc) it's just not as big of a kick to us.  On a scale of 1 to 10, its' about a 5 or 6 but sex is a 10 all the time.  Women on the other hand, give emotional love a 10 and sex more of a 5 or 6.   This means that when men give emotional love, the immediate feedback to them is not all that great so there is not immediate "Wow! Let's do this again!".   It's only when the woman returns it with sex that he gets his big payday.  The same is for the woman.  She doesn't get a big WOW out of sex (not to the same level as the man) but when it's returned with lots of sharing of feelings, thoughts, expressions of love she gets her real payback.   Of course, neither is going to be willing to DOUBLE their efforts to get more in return, because what they have to give they are not really good at doing or get a real immediate satisfaction from doing. 

    That is the Negative Feedback Loop in action.

     What is interesting is that the Rules of Evolution would never produce this NFL on it's own.    Left to itself, it would only produce the PFL because that answers all the rules with best possible outcome. This is what we should get in our world, yet we see none of that.

    Why is that?

     Genesis gives us the clue, "And God made them male and female".   It is an engineered system and not a randomly evolved system.  Natural system move towards PFL's and engineered systems know to stay clear of these and move towards NFL's.   Only an all-knowing God would know to create such a wonderful and self-balancing and self-regulating system.

Dear Intel.... I forgive you

    With Labor Day fast approaching I felt it was a good time for me to finally write this blog.  Labor Day is the day we set aside to show appreciation for the workers in our country and all they do to make our world work.   Appreciation is nice to have, but so often it is not shown the other 364 days of the year by our company heads.  Too often they love the work we do for them.... they just wish it didn't cost them so darn much.... and they find ways to stop that from happening. 

    As Christians we are taught to "Forgive others as God has forgiven you".   That is all good when you are sitting across a table from someone you have a relationship with and they pour their soul out to you that they have wronged you and want your forgiveness.   It's a whole different thing when you get a check in the mail from a law firm saying your company settled out of court (along with Apple and Google) to a tune of $415 million because they got caught creating a "No Hire List" to prevent workers from moving from one company to another and driving up wages (this was done from 2005 to 2010).   The money is nice, but where are the tears?  Where is the "We are soooo sorry!"?   Where is the "We did something wrong!" (by the way, part of the agreement was that they did NOT have to admit to any wrong-doing).    

    To describe my feelings when I got that letter I can only say it would be like coming home and finding your wife in bed with your best friend and then finding out it's been going on for 5 years (no, my wife has never cheated on me and loves me to death... but that is the only comparison I could come up with).   By 2015, I had worked for Intel for 25 years.   It was a dream come true to work for them.  I proudly wore Intel Inside T-shirts and loved to tell people I worked for Intel.  I worked long hours at Intel and put in many 50 to 60-hour work weeks.   It was so great it didn't even feel like work most of the time.  During the Microprocessor War years with AMD I would urge friends and family to buy Intel over AMD and loved sharing our latest product release information.  I was one of Intel's best cheerleaders.  The check from the law firm was a gut-check and not a pay-check. 

     Fast forward to today and here I am writing about what some would call "ancient history" or "water under the bridge".  But I keep finding myself drawn back to this like a dog to its vomit.  After much soul searching and discussion I realized the answer was in a past blog I wrote to my daughter about graduating from college.   The blog was titled, "Swinging from the monkey bars".   In the blog, tell her that moving through life is like swinging on the playground monkey-bars.  The trick to making it across is to not lose your momentum and to "let go" of the bar you are holding onto as soon as you "grab hold" of the next bar.  My advice to her was simple: Reach, Grab and Let Go!   I told her that if you don't let go, you will lose your forward momentum and you will be "stuck between two bars".    As I read that advice, it occurred to me that I was the one that was "stuck" and not her. I needed to "let go" of the past with Intel with forgiveness. Yes, I am wiser now to the world and will never be 100% the same again, but I need to move forward and let go of the bitterness. 

     Maybe someday I will wear the Intel T-shirts again......after I put some distance between me and the "2015 bar".   For now, I am at peace with myself.  I love my co-workers, my projects and my work.   I enjoy the challenges that are given me to work on every day.  I hope that maybe this letter will serve as a guide to others who find themselves in a similar predicament as me.   I hope that maybe it will serve as a guide to other CEOs or VPs who need to be reminded of the relationship they have with their employees who work for them and to not take them for granted.  Maybe upon reading this they will have a new appreciation for their workers who invest not only their time and energy into them but also their passion and emotions.   Maybe they will see that money can't buy that kind of allegiance or fix all wounds. 

Strength through Weakness.

   Most Christians are aware of Paul's "thorn in the flesh sent by Satan to torment me" and that even though Paul prayed fervently 3 times to have it taken away, Jesus responds,

 "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness"

   We don't know what the "thorn" was because Paul doesn't give us any insight into it.  I think the reason for this is because it doesn't really matter what it is.   It's meant for you and me to be a sort of "fill in the blank" or "insert your problem here" type of issue.  This prevents us from tossing off our problems as either "nothing compared to Paul's" or just the opposite and assuming ours is so much worse than his.

    We love to hear of stories of people being healed or overcoming an affliction like alcohol or drug addiction.   It empowers us to feel we can overcome as well.   But that is not what we as Christians are supposed to be all about.  It's not about our strength but God's strength.   Paul says is was sent to keep him from becoming conceited because of God's revelation given to him.   It was a blessing God was giving him and not a curse.  It was the only way to keep Paul humble and remind him that he is only flesh.   How many Christian leaders do we see today that are all puffed up.  Paul could have easily become just like them and the thorn was there to pop his little ego-balloon. 

    What is interesting to me is Jesus words on "grace".  Grace is loving someone who doesn't deserve that love.  Grace is unconditional love.   How does that play into Paul's thorn?   I think everyone hates thorns.  I have a lemon tree in my backyard.   I learned quickly that lemon trees have very large and sharp thorns ( I did not know that before ).   Even after you have moved away from the thorn you can still feel it's pain of where it has stabbed you.   Pain brings out the worst in us, especially when that pain is constant and never ending.   I have a friend with neuropathy of the feet.   His feet will suddenly feel like he is being stabbed with a bunch of knives and he will utter the most foul words you have ever heard (unless there are women in the room).  I too, can be a monster when I am in pain for a lengthy period of time and I have to ask forgiveness a lot of my wife.  It is here we are reminded that we are sinners at the core.   It is here that we must rely on God's grace.   It is here that God's power is shown in our lives and not our own power. 

    I am reminded of the movie "Cinderella Man" where the main character, James Braddock , falls on hard times as a boxer in the Great Depression.   He loses his license to box and must work as a loading dock hand to feed his family.   He breaks his right hand during a car accident and is forced to use his left hand to lift the heavy bags off the ships.   Later he gets a chance to box again and even though he hasn't fought or trained in over a year he knocks the other boxer out.   His manager asks him about how he was able to improve his left hook so much and he says "I broke my right hand and had to rely on my left down at the docks!".    His injured right hand was a blessing because it strengthened his left.  Often that is how it is with us and God.   God can't work on us relying on him until he has taken away the part of us we have relied on for so long.    He perfects himself in us by making us less reliant on ourselves and more reliant on him. 

    I have learned what that means more and more as I get older.   When I was young I was so self-reliant.   I could do it all myself.   I could always rely on my intellect to get me through life.  Whether it as school, work, church or even home I could always figure things out.   When I hit 45 something suddenly changed inside me.   I went through a terrible time of what I can only describe as intense brain-fog.  It was the most scary time of life I had ever gone through.   I felt as if God had abandoned me.  He hadn't.   He just took away the part of me I counted on to get me through jams.  I later found out I was Low-Testosterone and I had the brain of a 90 year-old man.  Even after addressing the low-T I was never really ever the same again.    I cried "Why Lord??  Why now??".   I still don't have that answer yet.   I am like Paul, hearing God's "My grace is sufficient" message. It's not easy but I know that God loves me and his grace is all that matters.

    On a final note, I think Jesus points to his grace to show Paul that our situation, our pain, our suffering is not a measure of how much God loves us.  We must trust that he loves us just as much when we are in the worst of pain than when everything is going great.   We often have this sort God-math we use without knowing it.    We think

    MY_SITUATION =  Function( GOD's LOVE );

or

GOD's LOVE = Function ( MY SITUATION )

   We fall into the false premise that if you are doing great then you are being BLESSED and if you are doing horrible then you are being CHASTISED (or DISCIPLINED) for some wrong.   I must admit I have often had this wrong view of God too.   We see fellow Christians running around trying to "figure out" what they had done wrong to deserve this.  They often think "If I can just figure out what God is trying to teach me then God will take all this away because I learned my lesson".   I have felt that way too, but it's wrong.  WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!   Our suffering may just be a consequence of living in a sin-filled world.   There might not be any "lesson" at the end at all other than we are mortal

    What we can all take away from our suffering is this: God's love doesn't change.  When Job was going through all his misery God was not there sitting by waiting for Job to "get it".    He loved Job through it all.    God's grace was unchanging and Paul had to accept that this problem was not going to go away and that God loved him.   He loves you too.

Losers can be winners too

   In sports, there can only be one winner.   In Super Bowl 51, the first ever overtime Super Bowl game was played.   Before the referee flipped the coin to decide who got the ball first, he told both teams that overtime would be played until there was a winner.  No ties are allowed in the Super Bowl.   There has to be winner and there has to be a loser.

    We read in Romans 8:28 :

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

  Too many who read these words, read into the word "good" as meaning "rosy outcome" or "good ending" but is not always the case.  Take for example of the Super Bowl I mentioned earlier.  How can God work for the good of players who may be on different teams where one will go home "happy" and the other "depressed". 

   The answer is in the 3 words "who love him". 

   When we love God, we love what he loves.  We love what he gives to us and also what he gives to others.   We are pleased because God is pleased.   Maybe our "purpose" is to LOSE so someone else can WIN.   Jesus gives us the best example of this.   He loves the Father and loves us so much that for us to WIN he had to LOSE.  He suffered hell so we could receive heaven.  If God is pleased that someone else wins then I can be pleased that God is pleased.

   In God's world the losers are really the winners.   Their loss is someone else's gain.

Lord,
      Please help me to love what you love and to want what you want.  If my loss is someone else's gain and you desire it to be so, then let me be happy with whatever comes.  In Jesus' name!

Amen