The dead are better off than the living

In Ecclesiastes 4:1-3 Solomon says,

    I saw the tears of the oppressed and they have no comforter;  power was on the side of their oppressors and they have no comforter. 

    And I declared that the dead who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. 

    Better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.

     I don't know if it's just a product of getting older, but I often feel akin to what Solomon writes in these verses.  How often do we see news-stories of people who are taken advantage of by those in power.  It may be city council person who doesn't want a certain person to speak at a town-hall and has that person physically removed from the premises by "security guards".  It may be a person whose house has been "condemned" by a county who wants to sell their land to a business or owner of a shopping center because they would get more tax money from those uses of the land than from the homeowner.   It could be a high school principal who fires a teacher because they "go off script" and teach what the 1st or 2nd Amendments are really about or maybe a YouTube channel we tune into that has been taken down because some people down like what they say.

    These stories punch us in the gut and we throw up our hands and say "How can this be happening in America?!! How can these people abuse their power and destroy people's lives so carelessly and callously?"   

    Oppression is a subject we all can relate to on some level in our lives.   We have all felt it's effects.  Maybe it was a teacher who didn't like us and made our lives hell.   Maybe it was a boss who played favorites to others who didn't have families to care for.   Whatever the cause, we have all been on the receiving end of oppression.   It's painful and it can feel like you have no options but to leave and try somewhere else.

   Solomon goes on to say that the dead are better off than those living through oppression.

   I had a good friend of mine, Tim, who I had known since the 3rd grade.  Tim and I were fast friends.   He was the first kid to reach out to me when I moved to the new town.  We did everything together.  We graduated high school together and were at each others weddings.   I remember getting the phone call from my brother telling me the news that Tim had just been diagnosed with terminal leukemia and would not live more than 48 hours.   He left behind a wife and 3 kids in the blink of an eye.    At first I was sad for Tim because he was going to miss out on seeing his kids grow up and have kids of their own.  But lately I have felt more like Solomon and in many ways I feel jealous of Tim because he doesn't have to see this country he loved (he served in the Navy) fall apart and politicians abuse their power to destroy those they don't like or agree with. 

    Power is a corrosive force in nature.  It's like salt water which will destroy the strongest of metals given enough exposure and enough time.   Power seeks more power.   Finding people who can withstand it's siren's call is a daunting task.  When King George heard that the famous General Washington, who had defeated his once proud army and navy, had returned to work as a farmer and had not allowed himself to be anointed "king"  he said,

"He must be the greatest man to have ever lived, for it takes great power to say 'no' to power". 

     George Washington showed us how to handle power appropriately by walking away from it.     Sadly, today we have no George Washington's in America anymore.   Instead, we have many lining up for the job as President who see it as a way to control its citizens rather than to give freedom to them.   They want to wield power to put people in line with their views by punishing those who don't.   We are a nation slowly disintegrating by the abuse of power and oppression. 

     May God have mercy on America.

Safe, Legal and ..... RARE?

    Today when people talk about abortion, they often say "We want abortion to be safe, legal and rare".  The comedian, Louis CK, first brought this to my attention in one of his stand-up routines.   He said, 

"Why on earth, if it's safe and legal would you want it to be RARE?  I mean, come on!  If it's safe and legal it should be all over the place?". 

   What Louis CK is point out is that the only reason to make something "rare"  is because at the heart of the activity is something that is inherently wrong and a drain on society in some way.   If there is nothing wrong with it, then it should be common place.  

    Before Roe-v-Wade, abortion could be obtained from some physicians willing to perform it.  These doctors were not armed with coat-hangers as many would want you to think.   They were not sitting in some back alley next to a trash dumpster doing the deed.   They could be found for a price, but that price could be high because of its illegality.   After Roe-v-Wade there was an explosion of abortion providers and it has been an epidemic ever since.   It was already safe, it just wasn't legal yet.   

   So, what would it take for abortion to become rare?

   Today we have all the tools imaginable to prevent pregnancy.   We have multiple types of "pills", we have a plethora of condoms to choose from, many different IUDs and foams to reduce the risks.  So it's not that we don't have the means.  What we lack is the responsibility to use them. 

   So what drives a person to take responsibility?

   What drives a person to NOT do one thing and replace that with another thing is always Cost/Value.  A person becomes responsible when they simply recognize the cost involved.  This is what drives the person to become a responsible human being.   My daughter, for example, totaled 3 cars in 3 months’ time of receiving her driver's license.  Two of the cars were ours and the third was the other driver that ran into her when she thought it was her turn to take a left-hand-turn, when in fact it was not.  That night she stopped driving and would not drive for another 3 years.   That night she became a responsible human being because she saw she was not ready to be an automobile driver.  Because she valued her life, our cars, and the lives of other people on the road she stopped driving.  That was the RESPONSIBLE thing to do and it was that VALUE that drove her decision.    

    Value drives responsibility.   Low value yields low responsibility.  High value yields high responsibility.   Any person who as a child ever received a present from Santa will tell you they often took little care of those items as compared to things they had to save their own money for and purchase for themselves.  Think of it like balance scale.  One one side of the scale is YOU and YOUR NEEDS and on the other side is the COST to you (and others).   In the case of my daughter, her need to prove she can drive was outweighed by the cost to her of hurting other people and damaging our cars.  

    In the past, two things influenced young men and women to take their reproduction responsibly: Social-Pressure (value of your reputation) and Risk of Pregnancy (value of the child).   Social-Pressure has been effectively removed from the table in our society.   Hollywood has done a very effective job over the last several decades to turn the tables on social-pressure by making it almost a sin to not have sex before marriage.  For example, just look at how people like Tim Tebow (a self-professed virgin) are treated by the media.  This leaves us with the risk-of-pregnancy one as really the only factor to influence an unmarried persons choices to become responsible.   This leaves us only with the risk of pregnancy as the only real influential force on people to make better choices in regards to their sex lives.

   But therein lies the problem.  Abortion can only be made legal if the baby is treated as "thing" inside the mother’s womb.(Louis CK also pointed that out in his routine as well).  Instead of being treated as a human being, it must be treated as a cluster of cells reminiscent of a cancer growth that has no feeling and  ZERO value.  The null value of the pre-born yields zero driving force for men and woman to take their sexuality seriously and to take the precautions necessary to prevent pregnancy.  As long as this is the case, there will be many unwanted pregnancies.  This is why it's mutually exclusive ( you can't have them both at the same time).  To reduce the abortions, we must RAISE the value of the unborn from a cancerous-growth to a fully-viable-valuable-human-being with intrinsic value.  But doing so requires abortion to be viewed as murder of an unborn child and therefore cannot be made legal. 

 Abortion can only be illegal-and-rare or legal-and-rampant.   

Sometimes you have to get knocked off your horse!

   Luke records in Acts 9:3-4,

As he (Saul)  neared Damascus, on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.  He fell off his horse and onto the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?"

   Saul was on his "mission" to destroy the church and head them off at Damascus by bringing all those who belonged to "The Way" back to Jerusalem to be tried and put in prison to die (note that Rome had taken away Israel's right to capital punishment, but leaving a person in a dungeon to die was often used as a way around this limitation).  Many believers I am sure were praying for Saul to be stopped on his travels.   We know that Christians in Damascus were fully aware of Saul's mission and exploits.   Saul thought he was doing God's will.  He saw this branch of Judaism to be a false teaching that needed to be snuffed out by all means necessary.

    Yet God comes and knocks Saul off of his horse and confronts Saul with his actions.   Jesus doesn't say, "Why are you persecuting my followers?"   Instead, he says "Why are you persecuting me?"   So Saul was not guilty of just harming God's people, but harming God himself.  This is not a place anyone wants to find themselves.

   How many of us need to be knocked off of our horses?    We are hell bent on what we see as "our mission" only to find we are working against God himself.   In my own life, I have seen times where God had to knock me down to get my attention.  Too often, when things got tough I retreated to my work as an engineer.  At my work I got accolades for my work.  To many, I was a super-star and was looked up to by others around me.   Several years ago, all that ended.   Things were tough again but this time I could not fall back on my work.  I went through a tough time and I saw my energy level drop dramatically on the treadmill in the gym (used to run 9 mph ... now could barely go 6 mph).  I experienced what I can only describe as "intense brain fog".   I couldn't think.  I couldn't remember how to do things.   It was a terrifying feeling for me as an engineer.   I thought I was experiencing early Alzheimer's (but I was only 44 at the time) and 5 years later I would find out that I had severe-low-Testosterone brought on by stress.   It was during this time, I had to rely more on God than on myself.   I could not run away from my troubles but I had to confront them.   God was stopping me and saying,

"John! John!  Why don't you come to me?"  

    Paul (formerly Saul) looked back at this time as being the best thing that ever happened to him.  But while he was going through it, the experience was not enjoyable.  We read that Saul was made blind after meeting Jesus and he had to be led by the hand to a home in Damascus.    Luke records that he neither ate nor drank anything for 4 days.  He saw his life as being over.  Yet in his anguish Jesus was there and had already planned for Saul's help to come to him.   A disciple of Jesus by the name of Ananias was sent to restore Saul's sight and bring him the good news of Jesus!  He ate something and was baptized.  The murderer of Christians was now it's most ardent advocate and soon it's biggest missionary.

     We may not be in the same place of Saul by persecuting believers, but we may be in a place where we are wrestling with God or causing him pain because of where we are headed in our lives.  Where in your life have you been going on your own?  Where do you need to be knocked down so God can get your attention?

Look in the mirror!!

    Almost never, when someone tells you to "Go look in the mirror!" does it mean good news for you.  Often it means you have some big blotch of dirt or food (or a booger) on your face that has been there for some time.  As you wipe whatever it is off, you ponder to yourself "How long has it been that way?" and "Why didn't anyone else tell me?"

   Mirrors are wonderful things.  That have been around for thousands of years as a way for us to see who we really are and what we look like to others around us.   Sometimes when we feel really horrible about ourselves we may even find ourselves looking intently into the mirror to stare into our own eyes to tell ourselves to fix what ails us.   In movies, main characters often stare at themselves intently trying to tell themselves to "get with it!" or to motivate themselves to take on some great task by urging them to have some backbone or hold it together as they face some great challenge ahead

  Today our country is deeply divided.  Some say we are more divided today than we were in the days of the Civil War and Slavery.   We all like to point the finger at a small group of people to hold the responsibility.  Maybe you blame Trump or Obama for the mess we are in.  Or maybe you blame more broadly the GOP or DNC as the culprits.  It doesn't matter really because the real person to blame is much closer than that probably.   That person may be, in fact, staring you directly back at you in the mirror.

   I feel that to really see the cause, everyone should take a good look in the mirror and say "I am the cause of our nations division!".  Ask yourself intently

• Have I posted or shared angry articles on Facebook?
• Have I issued snarky Tweets on Twitter?
• Have I gotten into comment wars on websites?
• Have I stopped talking to people I know because of their party affiliation? 
• Have I made jokes about the other sides ideas?

But it's not enough to just look at those questions and say "I have not done any of those!" but to also ask yourself

• Have I offered any kind comments in response to others Facebook articles?
• Have I offered positive Tweets on Twitter when I find agreement?
• Have I tried to be a peacemaker on website comment boards?
• Have I made amends with those I disagree with politically?
• Have I apologized for any rude jokes that others might have not found "funny"?

   Wars only last as long as there are people on BOTH sides willing to fight them.  So also, our country will only come together when BOTH sides stop fighting and antagonizing each other.  This is where it becomes very difficult.  The question is WHO will stop first?   We are shown countless videos of the other side calling US all kinds of names, fighting, hitting, spitting, hurling bricks and other objects at each other.   We want our side to win and by stopping what we would consider our defense of "our values" we view that as "losing".   But understand that even if your side eventually wins, you still lose.