tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52845248983505036482024-03-13T03:49:07.620-07:00The Apostle Paul and Post Traumatic Stress"The Apostle Paul and Post Traumatic Stress" deals with the Gospel account of the woundedness and healing of the great Apostle. In this unfolding story will be seen the anxiety, trauma, and stress so familiar not only to veterans but also to so many who suffer in similar ways. This blog reflects the professional experiences of a pastor, pastoral counselor, social worker, and hospital chaplain. It also reflects their personal experiences with PSTD, as wellRMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.comBlogger154125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-29367901824251378532012-10-03T08:59:00.000-07:002012-10-03T08:59:23.912-07:00Madeline Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton: American Secretaries of State<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Astonishing:
three presidents, three women named to manage our relationships to the nations of
the world. One had experienced the family life of a refugee, one had
grown up in one of the most repressive racially controlled southern cities in
our nation, one had managed one of the most disruptive marital episode of
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I had been
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the church. That morning I had brought the Harvard philosopher’s book on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Justice</i> – I referred to Dr. Sandel in a
previous blog, you may remember. There were four women in our group, including
my wife. The discussion was involved, brisk. As I read selected passages the
focus quickly became on the two classical philosophical positions represented
by the Democratic and Republican conventions. I thought to myself that I would
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graduate seminars I ever attended. There were, however, missing participants
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She is a
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In a similar
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Sandra Lisa Rice. She was the first woman graduating from her law school. After
passing her state licensing examination, she discovered she would not get a job
as a lawyer with any law firm. Now, much later, she retired early from the
Supreme Court in order to give full time care to an elderly progressively ill
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The United
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well as its “oh, my gosh(es)!” and “ugh…good grief.” As I think of all that I
have seen and heard and wondered about, however, I think its most remarkable
gift is The American Woman.</span></div>
RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-27534443970481816862012-09-27T17:38:00.001-07:002012-09-27T17:38:04.794-07:00That insulting movie trailer about Mohamed; what’s an offense to honor anyway?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The most
shouted about perspective of that trailer is, of course, the rioting eventuating
in an ambassador’s murder. Such a trailer, as obscure as obscene, was twittered into
wider violence. Actually, trying to apply the cultural norms of the Twenty
First Century to the Seventh takes a leap of the imagination long enough should put
a cramp in anyone’s fingers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My son works with a couple of Hollywood companies</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> so I asked him what was being said..<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He just rolled his eyes. The editorials in professional media were that
it was so amateurish <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everyone </i>associated
with it should go into hiding! Maybe there ought to be more stand-up comics on
Middle Eastern television to handle such problems.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">From another
perspective, however, we can learn from the event by seeing the response as
similar to “an affair of honor.” This makes sense of why a smart American
ambassador in Egypt after the initial rioting issued the statement he did rather
than “throwing his gloves on the table,” to use a traditional phrase.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We actually see the prickly sense of honor in
our western world, too. One Christmas Eve my wife and I were having dinner in a
small dining room in Bavaria. She nudged me and I looked at the next table. An
elegant elderly gentleman was sitting there with his party. On his check were
two elongated scars, proud remembrances of a duel in a German university
fraternity. We hear mutterings about male relatives in the Middle East
executing some young female with stone throwing because she had gotten
pregnant; I have also heard rumors about sewing a horse hair into a saber cut
to ensure its prominence. The whole thing died out back in the time of World
War II. There was enough blood spilled to satisfy several generations of
students. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Actually, we
Americans are not too far away from such events. Andy Jackson – President
Jackson - was murderous enough to kill a man in a duel for making a snide
remark about his wife. About twenty years later the multiplicity of small
printing presses had changed the tide of public opinion; Abraham Lincoln could
write his comic political pieces – by using an equally funny sounding made-up
name. My father once told me, as a matter of fact, that when he first ran for
public office in Texas the application form had a section in which he had to
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Things do
evolve. I like to switch around the television news channels after a big event
to see how each handles it. On one there was a loud mouth shouting that Hillary
Clinton, as Secretary of State, “had blood on her hands.” Lucky for him. In
another time he would be pushing up grass under some oak tree as the sun came
up. I haven’t heard, but you would think, however, that a TV executive and a
security guard would have marched him to an outside door and thrown the contents
of his desk out in the street after him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I have not
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Paul writing to Timothy, “Speak the truth In love.” It’s a goal. When my wife
edits this piece she will undoubtedly have her opinion…</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If you are married, how
about reading this piece to your spouse, </span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> discuss it with your family </span></b></div>
RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-51604315049537590202012-09-20T14:57:00.000-07:002012-09-20T14:57:05.282-07:00Abraham, Jesus, Mohammed, Joseph Smith: how do the remembrances turn so violent?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On the night
he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, broke it and said, “Do this is remembrance of
me.” As soon as his followers took power a few centuries later, they were
chasing each other out of town – or worse – about some interpretation of
remembering him.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Father
Abraham wanted so much to have a homeland: made friends with the natives,
treaties, and he and his sons took on wives (or adds on to the family) from
them. Sensible. Last night a friend of mine pointed out there are now 2.4
million Palestinian displaced persons in Jordan. Abraham also had this
magnificent dream that all the world would be blessed through his descendents.
What has happened is understandable, given the Holocaust, but I can’t help but
wonder how poor Abraham would feel about such an outcome among kinfolks?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Then we have
this wide spread Muslim outburst over that awful betrayal of American free
speech coming out in a movie trailer on the internet. It is easy to understand
the anger at insulting one’s revered Prophet, but I can’t help wondering if
Mohammed himself would be less embarrassed by being called a “womanizer” than
humiliated some of his followers have actually been involved in killing people
over it.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Joseph
Smith, the founder of the Mormon movement, was assassinated, as you may know. A
couple of decades later some followers massacred a wagon train of people from
Arkansas as they were passing through Utah. Smith, of course, had been fleeing
his enraged fellow citizens, but courageously chose to return and face them. I
suppose, knowing how the followers of the great religious leaders twist and
turn in their remembrances, we should give some thought to all of this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Personally,
I grew up as a Christian; it was a given in our little rural town you were
either Methodist or Baptist (and hardly anything to all right thinking folks).
Being considerably older now, I have decided to be a Christian. Now when the
bread and wine is given out, my remembrance is to internalize His teachings a
great deal more. Please, God. Please make it so – even it makes me </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">even mor</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">e</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
universalized </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">in my feelings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My neighbors are so wide spread.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Please feel free to
share with a kindred spirit</span></b></div>
RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-63303982703419849842012-09-15T07:57:00.000-07:002012-09-15T07:57:33.260-07:00In this election, the debates are about the individual and community, the issue is rather the “narrative”<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Michael Sandel’s work on <u>Justice </u>is richly rewarding<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am going to suggest it to our Friday Morning Book Group. His exposition on the themes of Choice versus Community, with the contrast of individual rights and fairness, helped illuminate our recent political conventions for me. I was especially struck, however, by his thoughts on the significance of the person’s sense of narrative – not “tradition,” but internalized story line. Our interpretation of reality is not only based on our experience of events, but also greatly colored by the tales we have incorporated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It no longer makes any difference to me that I am a “Texan.” Yet that mythology surrounding the “ Old West” molded my sense of self, continues to do so. Puzzling. I got to thinking about my wife’s swearing in ceremony as an American citizen. It altered a legal status, but much more. She was formally accepting the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">narrative</i> of being “American,” embracing its story , enlarging who she is. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This line of thought clarified the speeches of the presidential candidates’ wives at the convention. It actually matters little (although it does, of course) that each man is a good husband, father, religious, a nice guy. “Nice” actually was the descriptive word. Their speeches were a part of these two women’s personal experiences but had little to do with the issue bothering many of us: what is the candidate’s personal narrative? For Romney, it is the incorporation, right into his very bone marrow, of what it means to be Mormon, Joseph Smith, the trek to Utah and all. It suddenly made sense why so many persons are peculiarly concerned with where Obama was born. It isn’t<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>a question of place of birth, but an issue of “What is his narrative?” Obama’s first book struggled with this. The choice to become both a community worker and a professor of Constitutional Law suddenly fell into place. So did their choice of wives: it helps illuminate their narratives.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The idea of narrative makes sense. It helps with an understanding of the ancient creeds some church members find difficult to voice in a worship service. They are not an intellectual acceptance of by-gone assertions countering evolving scientific world views. Joining in reciting one of those creeds is rather an affirmation that we stand within that grand narrative of Abraham, the Second Isaiah, the preaching of the Carpenter from Galilee, of Peter and St. Francis (and acknowledging the Judases, too).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To own the biblical narrative as one’s own, is not to become a literalist or to be some how “converted.” It is to deliberately falling into step with the four thousand years parade now evolving into new ethical understandings of the depths and reaches of slavery, the role of women, and – now - the protection of children.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Who do you know who might find this interesting?</span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-40804446232880363662012-09-07T16:11:00.000-07:002012-09-07T16:11:09.460-07:00Politics can be fun, even educational, so have a laugh with cartoons from American newspapers<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A ‘thank you’ to those who read your blog is always in order, especially a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">merci, danke, </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gracias.</i> I ran out of my appropriate words early, but not out of appreciative words - thanks to my German-American wife.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">First, to the American language readers’ ‘thank you.’ It is to be found by googling “Best Political Cartoon of 2012 (so far).” They are in a section of LiveCitizens, which is dedicated to thought provoking dialogue.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Now to those non-primary English speaking readers of this blog: an especial ‘thank you’ – and a referral to that same google site. In fact, this blog started out with a thought given to those whose </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">English is a </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">learned language . Languages don’t necessarily imply communication, particularly humor. Humor doesn’t translate readily. When I got through laughing at the cartoons it struck me that they might be helpful to those who read my blog as a way of increasing their “American” language skills. The cartoons are clever, rather than subtle, and the written lines are short and colloquial -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ideal for appreciating what Americans think is funny..</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We all look forward to the time when evolution makes revolution just items on a quiz in a history class. A good laugh at a political cartoonist’s satire can help that along.</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">English language learning discussion groups might have a problem. I mention such groups because the number of hits from countries sometimes falls in about the right number for a discussion group. The difficulty is that the theme is political and so uproariously funny that it might very well kick off questionable exchanges between individuals. Concentrating on language and the current American situation would solve that problem, though. The selection of cartoons is explicitly non-partisan.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What particularly snatched at my hopes, however, is that some teachers of English might be included in the folks who read this blog. It struck me that the cartoons would make a marvelous power-point presentation over several sessions. They would include language, culture, and current events. A lecturer would have a ‘field day’ using those cartoons with a group of students – oh, yes: I intentionally use colloquialisms for their learning value; I write as I speak. English read as literature is one thing, but conversations in a plane, train or as an exchange student is another…not to mention that we Americans would love having you come and visit.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There is another thing. Associated with the LiveCitizen is “fixus.com.” It encourages dialogue and particularly ideas useful for the common good. It would be worth studying the site to see how you and your friends might want to use computer networking in your own setting. </span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Why not forward to a good friend?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-26375811915260580242012-08-30T19:21:00.000-07:002012-08-30T19:21:34.861-07:00Slavery: its feeling tone lurks in the American political shadows –and in my mind, yours, too?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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</style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026"/> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapelayout v:ext="edit"> <o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"/> </o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When you are googling, do you ever turn to the innovative topics on TED.com? Lisa Kristine’s “Photos That Bear Witness to Modern Slavery” got to me. 27,000,000 world wide. Many are enslaved financially, especially so in Africa and India. Some women – and even children – are enslaved sexually, including some young women lured to America by false promises. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When words in the political campaign turned to “enslaved” and “chains,” surprise! - the issue glowed. Shadows stirring in many minds, mine, too. Go back only two generations and there was a grandfather growing up as a child on a small <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">southern</i> farm, with all that implies. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Feelings over slavery may have lurked for years. The person learning most from a book, of course, is the one writing it. Thinking through the Letter to Philemon was slow moving. It may be the shortest in the New Testament, but not the shortest to work through if you think about Paul’s concernss. Try reading it contextually – even if it leads to a little “mind reading.” Oh, good grief:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it was on such a letter that slavery was justified in some Christian circles for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">centuries</i> afterwards. Poor Paul: to be damned “in absence” in that way. Don’t you wish he could come back and see how we finally did away with legalized slavery - even if some of his followers killed and were killed to keep it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What also hit me was an urge to read through the Bible once again; I react to such an urge, don’t you? When I started in Genesis 1:1, it began to gnaw. I couldn’t hear it now as subconsciously I had been hearing it since my mother started reading stories to me at bedtime. After we did that book on Paul and he became alive to me as a man, I suddenly wasn’t reading devotionly, yet I was also not reading it academically – even though I had studied it all my adult life. I realized I had held those perspectives apart. Now I was reading the old myths as myths, but also experiencing them as about living persons. Abraham was a man, a person, so were those women. I thought about the aching wife who had aged, but I suddenly felt for that poor adolescent girl slave handed over to an old man. Those are tough stories, friend; try rereading them once more. I realized suddenly how I had changed over the years; my ethical sensibilities had shifted, grown in ways I had not recognized.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In many an American political campaign there is so often a fist-banging speech of “The Bible says.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think we are all being invited to re-think and re-think, not to disbelieve but to respond to that Creative Spirit we experience welling up in us – although what one of us doesn’t have to own up to a little kicking and screaming?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">27,000,000 more to go.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Please share with someone you like.</span></b></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-39231392624067462052012-08-23T08:55:00.000-07:002012-08-23T08:55:55.530-07:00“Dirty” Politics, The Attack Advertisement, Name Calling: ah, “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who is…?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We have had a large outcry over Vice President Biden’s use of “chains” and “shackles” in speaking to a black audience about financial entrapments coming out of Wall Street. I am inclined to shrug off such metaphors and also to admire someone who tunes in emotionally to his audience. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The issue hinges on whether the protests are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">defensive</i>. If the Vice President was being insulting those who cried out they were being unjust attacked would have previously identified with those fighting up from bondage. If his emotionally evocative words were “too close to home”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– a red and raw response raises eyebrows. I suppose we need to wonder if the sale of risky mortgages and deceptive credit card practices do not feel like shackles and chains to many persons.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">All we are working with are our individual perceptions. That awareness arises just from our five senses – and that includes what we overheard our grandfathers muttering. The consequences are that all things appear to us in relational ways, and that just gets magnified around the water cooler and at the hair dresser. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Take, for instance, that charge scattered about on the media that some politician has called an opponent a “liar.” Perhaps; lying happens. A matter of sin, if one is grounded religiously, but we more often talk about the “spin” about what was said or the judicial editorial red penciling done to a quotation. Facts, like financial figures do get juggled. Please come in Jesus:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Do not judge, so that we may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Jesus, as always, had astute observations. The Beatitudes are loaded with them. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The person pronouncing a another person a liar opens to our questioning whether we are not seeing a projection exploding out of the shadows of the attacker’s perceptions, an unintended self description in an unintended way. The ”lie” denounced so publically is a “transference,” if that comes up on your crossword puzzle.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What goes beyond what was in Jesus’ world is our new reality of the 24 hour TV news channel and the need for story. Journalists can play a hard game of “let’s you and him fight” in order to entertain and rack up the viewer ratings.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Why do you see the speck that is in your neighbor’s eye, but do not see the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, Let me take the speck out of your eye, while the log is in your own eye? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We</span></u><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> hypocrites. Politics is so personnel, and our choice of who we listen to on TV is, too. But it all has the potential of broader perceptions. There is no “splat” of mud slinging that can silence that “still, small voice” from within each of us that is a calling to a widening spiritual maturity. A large forward step is the ability to reach out and try to grasp what the other person is<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> feeling</i>.</span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-25721651498695859662012-08-16T10:03:00.000-07:002012-08-16T10:03:26.990-07:00Obama/Biden, Romney/Ryan: which way, America? The future is now, or is then? <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It is one of those days that every married couple knows too well: every time my wife wanted to say something to me she had to repeat herself. I was locked in on some far horizon or wandering about in an inner fog.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It started last night. A political commentator observed that Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as a vice presidential running mate was the first time in our national history that a political party has candidates for the highest elective offices, neither of whom are Protestants. Romney is Mormon; Ryan is Catholic. Are discussing sociology? Politics? Religion, of course. Psychological earth tremors? That, too. And. That’s the problem: the “and.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It is, of course, compounded by the first black being elected President. He was a Protestant – a much questioned reality you may recall, as the sermons of his black pastor erupted on the national media – while Biden was Catholic. That, too, is no longer a jaw dropper only since President Kennedy’s election.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What compounded this for me was watching the Olympics. Attempting to identify the national displays by skin color, eye shape, and other biological displays was of no use. You couldn’t tell an athlete from the USA if you couldn’t check out the name tag; we equaled the yellow skin of the Chinese on the parallel bars and were second cousins to the Japanese on the diving board; we were blacker than a lot of folks from the Dark Continent. Who could know what country that athlete was from with the German sounding name? It was clear we Americans had cheated: we skimmed off athletes from any and every country that gives out passports…It was natural to chant “USA! USA!” but our American athletes were “World, World, World.” On the other hand, if some countries didn’t enter athletes usually playing for some American university they wouldn’t have had entries. When we read the national lists of medals being awarded I couldn’t help but wonder if we were getting a geographical lesson or history one. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So what is it for Romney to be a Mormon and Ryan to be a Catholic – and having a Tea Party Base largely of Fundamentalists? If you don’t feel confounded, you and I are not on the same page. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We keep hearing it said that this election is a historic game changer. I am not sure but the game hasn’t already changed. We make our observations as best we can, but the one thing of which I have some clarity is that is it increasingly wise to be observant. </span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Please feel free to forward this blog to a friend</span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-27660474988451025682012-08-10T14:04:00.000-07:002012-08-10T14:04:20.015-07:00The Lincoln-Douglas Debates then, and the Romney-Obama debates now?<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Recently Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader, spoke to reporters about his being told that Republican presidential candidate Romney had not paid income taxes for a number of years. Curiously, the reply was, “prove it.” It set off a dust storm – with variations in moisture content – but should not obscure what is an important opportunity for national shaping, now, as a century and a half ago.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">First of all, it needs to be stipulated what the occasion of the payment of taxes is NOT about.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We have been informed by Mrs. Romney, I believe, that Mitt served as governor of Massachusetts without taking pay. She remarked that he is a generous man. Very believable. He also served the public good<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, </i>I suspect, in the same way when he re-organized the Salt Lake City Olympics. Certain the payment of taxes, in general, is not an issue: real estate, for instance - car licenses, that sort of thing.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What is at issue, pure and simple, is the right not to release one’s internal revenue forms, even if one is running for the presidency. Especially, perhaps, is that it focuses on a necessarily debatable principle. When you get down to bedrock, who owns your money, your tax forms, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you, me.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To delineate what is at stake, by way of principle, I would like to refer you to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Justice, What’s the Right Thing to Do? </i>by Michael J. Sandel. It is a part of a series of his philosophical lectures given at Harvard; they may also be found as a Public Broadcasting System series and you may also google them there. His book was on the New York Times best sellers list and you may have come across it in that way. I ran into these originally as a part of our Wednesday Nite Discussion Group at church. You may want to have your book club or church school group to explore it, especially the first chapters dealing with these two extreme positions, individual choice versus community. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sandel is a philosopher and his discussion of the libertarian position – which may be attributed to Romney, in regard to taxes and individual liberties – and that of the utilitarian – which may be attributed to Obama, in regard to taxes and fairness – is extremely interesting. The debate as to which of these positions dominate in our national life is a crucial one. It affects gun control legislation, universal national service, and birth control issues, among other discussables. We really got into it with our Friday morning book discussion group. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When you can have fun talking about taxes, you know things are up-scale for you.</span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-88275200312401930222012-07-30T13:33:00.000-07:002012-07-30T13:33:41.662-07:00The American Rifle Association, a biker, and Switzerland, too<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I was aware of not looking at him and he was aware that I was aware of not looking at him. It was during a motor bikers’ convention here. Like most of them, he was middle aged; unlike most of them he did not wear a helmet; what he did wear around a 46 inch waist, however, was a tiny pistol with a two inch barrel. I guess he was a part of our “organized militia” entitled to bear arms. It sent me back some summers in Davos.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Walking back to the hotel that late Swiss afternoon I encountered a couple of what looked like seniors in high school. One had a light machine gun on his shoulder. They were laughing and must have been talking about girls. I guess I am showing my age: they looked like they had just finished their home work, but obviously now were on their way to a drill. In Switzerland, every male at eighteen is issued a rifle, twenty rounds, and obliged to show up at a drill regularly for most of the rest of his working life. He better not lose one of those twenty rounds, either.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The way of the militia in Switzerland can be astonishing. One year we happened to catch a week end maneuver and some guys were shopping while wearing their summer camouflage uniforms. The mountain roses were in bloom and so were the blooms on the uniforms. The only way the mountain sides could have been prettier would have been to have hidden a division on them in plain sight. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One time, as we were coming down a pass from a border cross into Italy, I stopped to admire the road as it took a sudden bend about a thousand meters away. I happened to look down at my feet and there was a handful of rifle shells of various sizes and ages. Generations of farmers had sat there and sighted in that slow point in the road.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Well, here it is again about the time of the year when we get the annual Rifle Association article in the newspaper glorifying the right of the individual to buy any and all sorts of weapons. Some how I just don’t feel all that safe, though. In Switzerland I love to stand in front of one of those sporting goods stores and admire the beautiful hunting rifles; I just don’t get the same feeling when I walk past a local gun store and check out all those pistols with their multi-magazines.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I guess “only in Switzerland” and “only in America.” In one, you can discuss guns in the particular; in the latter, you can only discuss guns in the peculiar. It does seem like a good subject to discuss, though. </span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-67300215876685264092012-07-26T12:51:00.000-07:002012-07-26T12:51:12.701-07:00Gun rights. For the individual? Or are we talking about a “given” in American history?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Like a lot of people, I have been reluctant to write a blog or a letter to the editor about gun issues – and not proud of it; just the sense that it is a sure way to invite a whack on the nose from noisy sources. There is no question of personal concerns; too many random shootings even in random neighborhoods. Like any careful parent, I wouldn’t want my kids playing at the neighbor’s house if I thought they had a pistol lying around; this week it looked as if it was a good idea not even to let them go to the movies. We all have a concern about terrorists; the trouble is that you might be seeing one hanging over the neighborhood gun counter and examining a pistol. “Who’s going to shoot first?’ is a question all too much up for grabs.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There are some assertions that ought to be made about the right to bear arms in relationship to an organized militia; the time for stating that being in the 1780s. Folks were proud of what had been done at Lexington and Concord. Actually, the reference to the right to bear arms is a social one, just like freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, freedom of the press. Most immigrants were glad to come here and get away from guns.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Having grown up in a rural area – of which the former colonies certainly were -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>having a gun in the closet or on a gun rack in the back of your pickup is more of a “given” than some sort of “right.” If your family has been in this country for a while there probably are a couple of guns in the closet; granddad’s, a great uncle’s. The subject of having a long gun was about as much one for discussion as a shovel or an axe. Its usefulness ranked right up along side that of a hoe, as I recall; more fun, though. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We use to have a neighbor my grandmother called “Old Man Bendy.” He and granddad liked to go fishing. His one claim to fame was that when he has a deputy sheriff out in El Paso he had made John Wesley Hardin take off his gun when he came to town. I think we have just seen too many John Wayne cowboy movies and haven’t gone fishing with enough Old Man Bendys.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Actually, most of us have had some sort of that experience. I had an Uncle Ray who was invited by our mutual Uncle – Sam – to an extended hot weather vacation. Ray loved to target shoot. When he left he sold his gun, but entrusted me with the safekeeping of his very expensive rifle sight. When he came back, I returned it to him. He gave it right back to me without touching it. </span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-29393646593144669462012-07-23T17:25:00.000-07:002012-07-23T17:25:45.248-07:00.Gun rights, gun controls, terrorism, the Aurora killings: a time for public discussions?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Well. Well. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What’s to say.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I had actually started earlier in the week to save the local newspaper so I could count how many killings in a month. Huh.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I guess maybe I’ll write about something later in the week.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Those poor people. Here. There. Not just here, not just now.</span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-79631246696241866072012-07-17T14:37:00.000-07:002012-07-17T14:37:49.345-07:00Heat, wind, no rain – and is it part of climate change?<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Back on line: two weeks off. That wind had come straight at 91 miles per hour – hurricane force is in the range of 70 to 75. Trees went helter and whatever, mostly over electric power lines, not people and houses, thanks be. Then came a week of four days with the temperature over a 100 degrees. The drought here in the Mid West is largely without relief, did I say? Then a second surge of windstorm, and more trees down, more telephone lines, more computer interruptions. Still, no one even hurt.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Now the telephone lines are up, electrical power is on, the computer works again. The service crews must be out with their families buying new cars with all that overtime!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Unusual weather, indeed. Single events do not make for significance – such as a record setting day when we had 106 degrees. Given a range of years and it does add up. The climate is changing, the weather warming. Some doubt, I don’t. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">About fifteen years ago my wife and I were on a cruise to Alaska, finally circling in Glacier Bay. The glacier was staggeringly immense: a mile on our left, a mile in front of us, a seemingly endless reach upwards when the captain turned to closely parallel the whiteness. About five years ago we went back with our sons. The glacier had peaks and valleys, rotting greyish holes everywhere. It was an open mouthed grasp of articles written about the formerly unrelenting ice fields of the far north and far south.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">So what is my individual responsibility – our collective responsibility? We are posed with questions unforgiving in their confrontations; I had never <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">felt </i>them<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>before, we did not<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> know</i> the outlines before. There is much denial, much manipulation for immediate corporate self interest, while other persons persist in living within a bubble of disinterest.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> If a person were a person of prayer, now is the time to let fall the assumptions, loose the mind, the ego, to allow for the kinship of our earth. Answers are uncertain, as prayer itself is uncertain, but now is the time for an expanding spirituality, is it not? </span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-53995599257698394592012-06-25T17:36:00.001-07:002012-06-27T08:13:56.410-07:00That ‘hate name’ blog got responses: France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, India, Russia<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">It took me by surprise. I was late in the week getting in my blog and – twelve hours later when I went back to check a dubious sentence, there were six countries listed </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">with hits </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">beyond the United States. I shouldn’t have been surprised, after pushing that hate name theme up and down in my mind for several days, I couldn’t easily cut it loose, it seems.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I have been called a name, too – “Ami,” – but by the time I was around it had lost most of its negatives; actually, not much more than we Americans used for Germans during that war, “Jerry.”</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I did recall getting a word-to-the-wise. Some friends and family were over and I dropped in the word, “wetback.” One of my sons called me down the hall for a whispered talk. It seems in the back of mind I had left a pinch of the Texas small town of my childhood.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">It happens. A couple of politicians recently unloaded loftily the word “communist” on some opponents. If that word were a fruit it would be regarded as over-ripened by shoppers. Maybe that's why they throw it.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Then, of course, there is “socialist.” That person may be well-traveled, but it must have been all by tour bus.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">So much is context. It is the “N-word” in polite society, just a kidding use and a slap on the shoulders with a laugh if you happen to be passing a bunch of young blacks on a street corner. Use It in a bar and the punch won’t be on the shoulder. Hate words are contextual in the ear of the recipient. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">What I finally got to wondering about is the lack of some hate words. Take that awful, “mother-f” - big, bad hate word. But there are no words referring similarly to a sister – or brother. Professional confidentiality forbids me to, well, you know, tell some… </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">We have been having lots of child abuse trials and charges lately: no hate words for that. I wonder…I guess you do, too.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> By the way, have you looked at our book on Amazon> </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-33439649000390733152012-06-23T13:57:00.001-07:002012-06-24T03:32:57.994-07:00The hate mail is going great guns, isn’t it? wetback, nigger, liar, nazi, socialist, right winger…<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The recent big one was in the Euro bailout back and forth. Some Greeks got all hot to let the world know the Germans loaning them bailout money were a bunch of Nazis… If you haven’t signed up for a Greek vacation this summer, I suspect there is no problem with rooms, no waiting in line for dinner. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The funniest hate name thing was the difficulty in bringing back <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">West Side Story</i>. The producers sweated blood over how to reframe all the old jargon: slang words back then, hate words now, big No, No’s. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The one I roll my eyes over are these tv and radio “journalists” who fling around LIAR at every turn of the script. It is beginning to sound like they are too intellectually lazy to bother to hear accurately and respond appropriately to whatever is under discussion. Yes, I usually have to buy a new TV channel changer about once every year; no surprise, I guess.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Anyway, this month I have been back doing the Gospel of Matthew for my private devotions, so the Sermon on the Mount is fresh in my mind, particularly the part on judgmentalism – the “judge not that ye be not judged…” I got a laugh when it occurred to me that it was like that wicked stepmother in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Snow White </i>whose vanity would prompt her to stand before her magic mirror. </span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Mirror, mirror, on the wall,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Who is fairest of them all?</span></div><br />
Then I didn't get a laugh when I realized that judging others is the quicksand of the soul. The mirror on my wall.RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-47113310223331632142012-06-12T17:21:00.001-07:002012-06-27T08:12:55.165-07:00The suicide rate of our military this year: almost one a day. Suffering upon Suffering.<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">In the newspaper there was a picture of a returned GI, obviously walking with difficulty, a dog by his side looking up at him. It illustrated a program development encouraged by the VA and others to help sufferers from the Post-Traumatic condition.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ll bet you know some war stories, too, about that sort of relationship. One of the most unusual I know was of this German who had served in Russia. You would have thought he had suffered from the cold. “No, I took care of twenty one guard dogs. When I lay down to sleep I would just call some over by name and point to where I wanted them to sleep next to me.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the war memorials I remember best is in Canada. We had gone into a state building to pay our respects to the memory of those in WWI. And there, above the center of a wide door was a pictorial statute of a dog. In Memoriam. Truly.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">We have such a dog, a Yellow Lab. A neighbor asked us to take her. She belonged to a sight impaired man; at age ten such service dogs are retired. A meeting was arranged with him and Jacy. When he felt down and removed her harness, she raced around our backyard at full speed, then came back and sat down, ready to have the harness put back on. A week later he came, gave her a final pat, walked slowly away on the arm of a friend. Jacy looked at him, then at us. It was instant bonding. When I looked at that newspaper picture and the beyond-all-telling war wearied man and his canine friend, I knew what I was seeing, knew those feelings.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">What I did not realize was what was happening to me. It was a completely new insight into a Gospel story; it took days to happen and maybe it is not yet at the full, but it is worth sharing.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Do you remember that parable Jesus told about Lazarus, the beggar, and the Rich Man? Lazarus was so poor and sick that he lay on the street and the dogs would lick his sores. I had always gone, “ugh” at the thought. Suddenly, I thought, “Of course, a dog would come and lick his sores. How like a dog to do that for a hurting person!” And then I thought, “And how like Jesus to know that about a dog and make it a part of one of his parables.” Know anything personally about 'total acceptance' and healing? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Next time I am feeling “down” and just flop in my chair and my friend comes over and sits down by my foot so she can be close, I am going to remember that parable. I hope that hurting GI I saw pictured will, too. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> <b>Have you looked on Amazon for our book?</b> </span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-40364880305291103192012-06-07T08:34:00.000-07:002012-06-07T08:34:09.333-07:00“In Christ,” the crucial acceptance leading to Saul’s healing after being sickened by violence<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Saul’s collapse on the way to Damascus does not resemble a “conversion” so much as it does that flipping in their lives some persons experience after a post-traumatic event. A person who has been converted moves from guilt to forgiveness to joy; after a flashback the person is more apt to be in a sort of paralysis and then on to anger and problems with other people. Most of them – us - find it hard to go “back home” again in one way or another; withdrawal is common. There can then be years of struggle with negative feelings, Saul seems to have followed this pattern. He disappeared into Arabia for a time, afterwards emerged to have a brief stay in Jerusalem, and then disappeared again. What followed must have been a lot of street corner preaching and fists…rocks, too. But then something happened that eventually led into an inspiring life. If we think about flashbacks, we can make a good guess about the transition.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">His first flashback was of a Jesus alive and challenging his persecutor; Saul’s denial collapsed in this confrontation of a Messiah who had been brutally tortured before being crucified. It would have been God’s murdered messenger who appeared in Saul’s mind in an intense and immediate re-experiencing. No wonder he was caught up in overwhelming anxiety. But then a healing process began; Ananias was inspired to reach out to him, the Damascus followers of The (Jesus) Way accepted him, later Barnabas welcomed him, Peter even invited Saul to live with him. Then Saul relapsed – no surprise, if you know your PTSD. But that wasn’t the end. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Now comes something new; time passes and post-traumatic experiences are flexible; the brain has its healing ways. Barnabas has found him and now Saul begins to “find himself.” Once he was an outstanding scholar and now he is invited by his friend to start teaching. How’s that for trust.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Soon after this followers of The Way are being called “Christians,” “little Christs.” Saul must have accomplished a conversion. The Jewish Messiah – crucified, dead, buried and resurrected – was re-figured as the eternal Christ, as an internalized experience: now a healing one. His flashbacks had evolved into an accepted memory, a transformed and transforming one. Being accepted had led to an acceptance of a damning interjection. Reality, as an anxious memory was now one of a spiritual p process. The process continued to evolve, and we can continue to wonder, to marvel - and challenged to admit that healing is possible for us, too.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Saul was wounded, Saul groveled – as lots of us have groveled in all sorts of ways. There is more, however. Saul knew acceptance; realized that in a larger sense that God had been reaching out to him in Jesus, <u>was</u> reaching out. The flashbacks moved – in time – from the horrendous to a grasp of a new and peace filled understanding. It happened, can happen, does happen. “Much obliged” as they say in Texas, much obliged that even the most dreaded unforgetable can process from self-hate, to Christ being in us, and we in him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-37520152480004036352012-06-01T16:42:00.001-07:002012-06-27T08:16:34.053-07:00The Post-Traumatic: shock, disorder, syndrome, brain injury? Yes. We’re watching evolution<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">PTSD is up for renaming after the – what war is it? But we know the post-traumatic experience is more than just in war. There are accidents, the domestic violence, disasters – and more.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Shakespeare paints this so clearly, Lady Macbeth wringing her hands and shrieking in midnight panic,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> Out, out damn spot!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">but the remembrance of blood would not be washed away.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">We perhaps think of this scene as one almost out of the depths of our human trek; it is not so. Read with me, if you will, the monthly tales in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Archeology Today. </i>Do not quickly flip the pages with the pictures of sites of human sacrifice; quietly contemplate accounts of Troy and Achilles dragging the body of Hector around the city walls of Troy, triumphantly taunt the widow’s tears; look at the reconstruction of the Roman Coliseum and imagine the jollity at the sports club bar after the entertainment had finalized – with the blood yet drying. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">As curiosity, is there a record earlier than what Homer sang about in the emotional overwhelming of Achilles at the death of his friend? Or a fuller and more hopeful one than Luke’s account of Saul of Tarsus?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">We can track before only so far, “before” that is, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> Nature,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> Red in tooth and claw.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">In the time of the hunter and gatherer, it is hard to imagine any recall that would plague the mind with dreaded recurrences. At the same time, as story tellers stood before a campfire, we are aware of acts we can only describe as cruel, even sadistic. Yet there is no telling and retelling that we would associated as a flashback of an event, a perpetuation of hatred, perhaps, but not of re- imagined immediacy of some horror.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">We humans go away back, back to the swelling of the prefrontal lobe so prone to injury by shot and shell. Our ability to consciously remember is a very human one, even though linked as it is with the more recessed parts of our brains. It is associated with our awareness of the mortality of our fellows, and the anxious realization of our vulnerability.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Shell shock, Post-Traumatic Brain Injury – however named and however to be more adequately re-named – is, of all things the hurtful gift of our humanness. Some would think it “weak” to have flashbacks: but who would want to admit to be less than human? We kill and are killed, we strike and are struck; it is our uncaring and calloused response to this that is in question. Caring is so costly, yet rightly so precious. It is an evolutionary thing, this specialty of feeling human among humans. It is a fall forward into the humane.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Thank you, Luke, for leaving us a written record of a gallant man struggling out of his woundedness. We trace those foot steps and pray for the courage to walk the walk. It is the blanking out that is weak; to become whole as a person - not again - but to be and be beyond. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> Have you looked at our book on Amazon? </span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-32983379242070162142012-05-24T08:51:00.000-07:002012-05-24T08:51:02.937-07:00The poetry of Paul, the language of the New Testament at its most beautiful<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the things that was helpful to me in realizing the greater dimensions of Paul was reading in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Good News Bible, Today’s English Version.</i> The translators of the New Testament printed Paul’s poetry as poetry. Other persons suffering from long imprisonments have turned to writing to emotionally survive, a portion of these became poets. Paul’s prison letters attest to his use of speculative theology as one way of keeping his mind alive, but it is his poetry that gives us an insight into his continuing growing wholeness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">We can see this beginning in his first letter to the Corinthians. He combined short harmonic couplets from both the Hebrew Bible and its Greek translation. It represents a steady growing of his identification with his religious heritage, of course, but also that the emotional side of his brain was catching up with the intellectual half. This premise about Paul is in our book, of course, and you can read it there.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">What I didn’t realize, until the first review of the book came out, was that a sense of the lyric and the melodic was also beginning to be expressed although the passage is always translated as prose. This was pointed out by the very gifted man who writes the book reviews for our monthly church newsletter. He pointed to this poetic passage as his favorite one in Paul’s letters. Paul did not write the passage as poetry – that would have been too early in his literary development – but let me do so.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I may be able to speak the languages of men and even of angels,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">but if I have no love,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I may have the gift of inspired preaching;</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets;</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I may have all the faith needed to move mountains –</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">but if have no love, I am nothing.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I may even give my body to be burned –</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">but if I have no love, this does me no good.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Love is patient and kind;</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">It is not jealous or conceited or proud;</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">love is not ill mannered or selfish or irritable;</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">love is not happy with evil, never gives up;</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">and its faith, hope, and patience never fails.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">When a person has read all the poetry of Paul as poetry, I think he or she will come to the same conclusion that we expressed in our book: the several poems Luke cites in his opening chapters could only have been written by Paul. My guess is that it is his poetry that Paul asked Timothy to bring to Rome; he wanted his literary heir - Luke - to have it and use it. He did.</span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-79111597895481816622012-05-15T08:54:00.000-07:002012-05-15T08:54:56.697-07:00Gay marriage: As Obama and Romney weight in, this pastoral counselor has a perspective, too<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There used to be an American Indian saying, “White man speak with forked tongue.” Characteristically when Joe Bidden – God bless him – came out for the right of gays to marry nobody had to reach for a dictionary. The commentaries jockeyed for position, and I want to comment, too. I’ve had my experiences.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The first observation is one that I have read others also having. The first involuntary sexual emissions at night for heterosexual males will be about age twelve. For males whose sexual preference will prove to be homosexual, that first similar event will occur much earlier; I have known it to begin as early as age seven. This biological marker apparently is in place before some male children are aware of a gender preference.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I confess I am puzzled at some therapists’ attempts to change gender preference. Homosexuals of both sexes feel the pressure to marry and be seen as “normal.” They most often have children from these marriages. The females apparently are more successful in carrying out appearances; the males are not. Usually in early middle age physiology catches up with them. Wives often become frustrated; some seek divorce. These instances are the saddest of all my counseling experiences. Good faith intentions just do not appear possible in matters of sexual preferences. Some of the formerly married couples remain good friends. It is all very sad. Cultural pressure to sexually conform just has a lousy outcome - to put it bluntly - is the sum of my professional experiences.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The prejudice against homosexuals weighs heavily on individuals. The rate of alcoholism is above average, in my understanding. The gay bar and cruising must contribute to the level of sexually transmitted disease. The attempt to raise the ideal of what it means to be mature as a homosexual and have an enduring intimate relationship runs counter to a lot of dubious homosexual practices. Understandably, I have read some negative religious pronouncements on gay marriage with a lot of curiosity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If the “right to gay marriage” prevails, I hope for a couple of outcomes. The first is to lower the overall divorce rate. Too many marriages break up due to one of the persons feeling the pressure to be heterosexual and therefore socially acceptable and perhaps even religiously so. The second is that the environment of the gay bar will begin to lose its influence, and both alcoholism and socially transmitted disease rates will begin to fall.</span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-926642816055600762012-05-10T13:05:00.000-07:002012-05-10T13:05:27.120-07:00A pilgrimage to visit America: a time in Boston<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Boston is filled with places that nudge you into, “I read something about that, I wish I could remember what!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My wife and I have had our share of first time visitors to America. To our on-going surprise, so many want to see Niagara Falls. Awesome, but equally so for the sales ability in tourism offices. Go Boston.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We spent some days there last week. Annelie had never been to Boston as a matter of circumstances; it was the last great American city that we had not visited together. As usual, she read up on things prior to a visit; this time it became for both of us a pilgrimage to understand America afresh.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So much to learn, and so much unanticipated. Our hotel was across from Faneuil Hall, the scene of some of the memorial meetings leading up to the American Revolution. That I knew, “Faneuil” I did not. My multilingual wife simply proceeded to wonder if it harkening back to the Huguenots. I had thought of that persecuted people coming to the colonies in the Carolinas, but possibly here was another reminder of the so-many who had suffered for their faith and had prospered in America.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I have visited forty-three countries now, but I will say that breakfast in our hotel was unique. In part, it was pure joy: all those high school student groups on their senior day trip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tall teacher in the front of them, big teacher in the rear of them, quick teacher in the middle of it all. Give them a pay raise, folks! It was beautiful as they surged along the Freedom Trail. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Equally marvelous were all those college kids going helter-skelter, backpacks swung, earphones ringing, and never missing a punch on their twitters. We took a bus tour and the guide remarked there were a hundred and fifty colleges and universities in the city; a full share of these must have flowed passed as we drank a second cup of coffee. It was like seeing the United Nations dumped out, an overflowing river of college students from every part of the globe. And then there were those eating breakfast close to us. I think there were a couple of different languages going every morning. Our favorite was the obvious joy of the Japanese parents who must have come over to be at their daughter’s graduation. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Amid that frenzy, the breakfasting was splendid. We were not seeing some New World Order emerging, but rather I think we were observing that process by which some day there will be a more agreeable world.</span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-23397620279949103422012-04-30T14:35:00.000-07:002012-04-30T14:35:22.995-07:00A theologian’s thoughts on Predestination: a night to forget or remember?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Actually, it was one of those delightful occasions, of one sort or another, in which you get invited. The occasion was the invitation to a small group by a philosopher in a university here to meet a distinguished colleague. Soon the topic arose, that of “predestination.” It is a head slapper if you are not familiar with it. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Basically, it is the doctrine that we are all, individually and collectively, destined from out of eternity by the mind of God to bliss or damnation – to heaven or hell. Queer notion to many, as most folks might imagine; it does get a rise out of some people, of course. Actually, it is only one slice of the intellectual pie called ‘determinism.’ When you consider all the studies of genetics, and that sort of thing, it is something to consider. Think about tobacco smoking and cancer, nutritional deprivation and school achievement or over-indulgence and diabetes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are lots of ways to get a discussion going and this one did it. It was a fun evening, a small room full of smart individuals, both accepting and challenging.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The problem arises, of course, with folks like myself and my wife, who have seen and heard a lot of trauma, post-traumatic and otherwise. I don’t think a loving God wills these things; allows it as a part of creation, granted, but when I committed myself as Christian to the Jesus way of thinking and doing, it came with the conviction that God is a Father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are dimensions to that, but a loving Father. But then… why would a loving Father…You, too?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There are so many determinates for each of us: genes, geography, language, weather, time in history. And a thousand more, and a thousand more beyond these, the way the Knowledge Explosion is accelerating. Still: there is choice. Limited, but nevertheless open.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I was listening on television last night to the Dali Lama being interviewed. I include him in my choices, how about you?</span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-897432858325238072012-04-25T08:05:00.006-07:002012-04-25T12:48:27.632-07:00A new thought on what may be increasing PTSD: a new problem with a medication?<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Another re-thinking. For me, it was about a story shared as part of the fallout from Viet Nam. Will it never cease? Not the re-considering, I can assure you. Nor the re-evaluating, either. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">This one began with Richard Friedman’s article on April 21<sup>st</sup> in the New York Times, “Why are we drugging our soldiers?”</span><br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Now with three, four, five tours of duty it is all too common in current combat zones for medications to be given so the soldier can stay at peak during long, draining periods. It conditions the fear to be bearable. The article indicates a sudden rise in PTSD among veterans from 2008 on. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">What apparently happens in the brain is that the medications involved – Ritalin and Adderall were specified – increase a person’s alertness. Each also facilitates memory. They were developed for students having problems concentrating in class and later broadly prescribed for Attention Deficit Disorder. Now they are also used for those in lengthy combat assignments.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">It would be a curious turn of events, that while we are still struggling to find ways to cure PTSD, we have unfortunately now determined how we may have been augmenting it. This may turn out to be one of those stories of various medications misused; sometimes it happens when trying to find new applications. There have been several instances. What we all have to do, of course, is to find better ways to cope with anxiety.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">If we regard the Apostle Paul as having to work his way out of the post-traumatic condition – as Annelie and I have described in our book – then we have at least a historical account of a route to the healing of a person. There are some identifiable steps that led the younger Saul of Tarsus to becoming the Apostle Paul of maturity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">It began with forgiveness; I think it safe to believe it broadened in time from himself to others. It gave him a new sense of self identity from the beginning, but to continue to grow he had to work at it. Nothing unusual about that.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">It centered on the acceptance of the precipitating event, giving up any denial. There is a lot of re-thinking that goes before re-feeling, but it happens and Paul led the way in how it works.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">It involved learning from that event, for there are always lessons to be learned about ourselves and of actuality, itself.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">It eventuated in a new sense of the meaningful of life, and of meaning and purpose under God.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">It climaxed in a lot of intimate communications, near and far, even in his imprisoned situation.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">This gives us a new lift to the saying, “the just shall live by faith.” We can now add on a phrase for ourselves, “not alone.”</span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-49845660958336931042012-04-19T18:52:00.000-07:002012-04-19T18:52:35.807-07:00In the War on Women, a report from the battle lines: all's quiet on our front<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A recent political bellowing was that 92% of those persons who lost their jobs in the recent recession were women; with great blaming, of course, and without further explanation. It is the season, and not particularly jolly.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Today there seems to be a surge against the female, a world wide one. About forty years ago the tide started running in for that half of the specie, and now the tide goes out. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A generation ago a congressional hearing on sexual issues would have lined up five women to pound the table; now the group being photographed were five highly Religious Males. Piety giving a shove to a passing issue, expressed in certainty of its traditional…</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In Morocco, a fifteen year old suicided after she was raped, then quickly forced towards a legalizing union. You can imagine the flashbacks, having escaped stoning and now comes an impending…You name it.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In Indianapolis an ex-nun, who had left her order to protest against the prohibition of women being ordained, was able to achieve her lifelong goal in a Protestant celebration.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In Afghanistan girls in schools were again the targets of religiously conservative militias.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In Mississippi, it now appears, a woman will no longer be able to even explore professionally her need for an abortion. (Personal financial circumstances, as always, not to be mentioned.)</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Everyone can go on and on; maybe it even gives “cynical” a good name.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We had a funny experience with the co-authorship of our book – well, not amusing, you understand. With the publisher it was a back and forth, “do you really want that?” “why not use ‘with’?” Then on Amazon, first it was with Annelie’s name alone, at one point I think I remember seeing it as “and,” but now it seems settled on Robert as author. I haven’t checked the Kindle.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">All those tries at being proper were well taken. What scholarly study would go under a husband and wife’s yoking? How to alphabetize dual authorship, even if such a thing were the reality? We represented a problem in insisting on equality. That is just how it is, and is, and is.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In Church circles, the Apostle Paul gets either the blame or the credit for setting women in an inferior relationship. One thought is that Paul, as a man, just went with the cultural given, or perhaps fell into step with some part of his religious upbringing. What we suggested in our exploration of his traumatized situation, was that he suffered from a difficulty with intimacy, a gender problem often associated with a post-traumatic dynamic.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On Paul’s theology, we often hear the phrase, “the just shall live by faith.” It seems to us a pathway for the overwhelmed out of an emotional quagmire. It is so very, very personal. And freeing. For an individual.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” That is an intellection proposition fit for a Church rather than an individual’s emotional escape route; it is a core affirmation for those lifted up by a larger sense of the Real. </span></span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5284524898350503648.post-19247366262597400372012-04-11T12:38:00.000-07:002012-04-11T12:38:38.581-07:00Conservatives love the fall colors; liberals celebrate the blossoms of springtime: and I?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Christ is risen! It is springtime; the moon is full; now the bud, soon the leaf.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">How we need the affirmation of growth after a long, meditative pause, the restive cold. There is more to life than what was, however good, for life is cyclical.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There is a truth in “back to basics,” more than nostalgia for “the good old days.” “In the fullness of time” comes harvest, and Thanksgiving has a truth even as Easter does.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The wise man, the wise woman have roles not to be denied. The prophet is to be heard even if feared, the priest is a necessity with his powers of structuring, the reformer must play out her intensity; like the seasons, society will surge, fragment, contend and consolidate And rebel. What is real is the whole cycle. What is the act of faith is that the Creator does not will use to march in place and life demands of us more than going round in circles.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And where are we? You. Me. We each have a place in the life cycle of the individual, just as we fall into some place within a larger cycle, and perhaps a cycle of cycles if only we could grasp some larger scheme of things. We lash out in rebellion, we look backwards with longing, yet strive for balance, some maturity of perspective. Through it all, let us hope for some vision, an openness to the creative next step, intentions that do not sag with frustration<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>or give vent to unusable anger.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What I think we must realize is that Easter is more than an up-tilt of mood; it is both an affirming of what is and an evolving of what is to come. It is born of long days of self discipline; it is an endurance of the Dark Night of the Soul, and it is even standing with leaden faces before the potentiality of nothingness.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Give us rightful expectations, Lord, as we look into an empty tomb.</span></span></div>RMColliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13407127824515227340noreply@blogger.com0