My Black and White America

I have lived my entire life in tension between black and white Americans.  I observed the 60’s race riots in Louisville when I was in the 3^rd grade, was bussed to an all black neighborhood and school in the 6^th grade, watched my dad kicked out of his pastorate for bringing black children to VBS in the 8^th grade, lived in an all white county in high school, was severely beaten in a race riot in my early twenties, received a Captain’s Accommodation at a Captain’s Mast in the Navy for my role in quelling racial tensions and am the proudest grandfather of a biracial granddaughter.  I have been truly innocent in willing harmony with all men and I have been truly guilty with a heart filled with bigotry.  Some truths I have learned:

1) I have known only one kind of true racial harmony.  That was found in a church upheld by scripture based on the foundation of Christ’s love for all men and led by a true man of God.

2) My season of racism was born and fostered by a massive arm of the state.

3) America has an institutionalized, deeply powerful, ongoing role in oppressing the black man.

4) Racism is often a two way street, but should be viewed by the white man in relation to my third truth.

5) The issue of racial reconciliation can only be solved by my first truth.

Come quickly Lord Jesus and make a GRAY table for our reconciliation. 

The only true racial harmony I have ever known, VBS at my dad's church.  He is knelling at far right, my
mom on far left, I am in the middle, second row from the back underneath the second window.
My parents were racial and
social activists in the south and didn't even know it.  They just loved Jesus and loved others. 

Presto Magico Wake Up Grateful

God desires a personal love relationship with you.  He proved it by offering His Son Jesus the Christ, as an offering to provide a way for us to have that personal love relationship.  Many of us will be off today to do religious work for God when what God most wants is some personal love time with you.  One habit that might help in this is to think of one thing you have no control over but you greatly benefit from and be grateful, like consciousness.  Most of you were unconscious or are unconscious as I am writing this (5:57 a.m.) but will by Glory Magic become conscious any moment now.  Becoming unconscious, sleep, and conscious, waking, is one of the greatest parlor tricks of all time.  We do not command either one.  The next time you become conscious, immediately, while you are laying in your bed, begin your love relationship with God by thanking Him for once again making you aware of everything, most important of which is the fact that He made you conscious once again. 

  

Since You Are A Scoundrel Go Get In The Boat With Another One

Remembering Christ Was Always In The Boat.

"Despair is the natural destination of the isolated.  Any pain, loss or difficulty is materially magnified by the belief-true or false- that one is alone in experiencing it…The value of a peer in the midst of the unknown and terrifying is almost inestimable…The church silently bears witness to this abyss with its scores of believers who struggle quietly with shame, believing the lie that their repeated sins and failures are evidence of some unnatural moral deficit, some singular defect that no one else can understand, let alone help them to escape…Our discipleship is crippled by the distillation of the spiritual life to a single dyadic relationship: “me” and “Jesus.”  When this kind of exclusive pairing is marred by sin, the believer is cast adrift at sea, bereft of any peer aid.  Lost to the castaway is the invaluable gift of the wisdom of more experienced, wiser Christians who have lived through and learned from the very same struggles.  What struggling believers need is the companionship of these mature Christians, who would provide words of encouragement, empathetic prayers, and practical advise to bear them above “a bottomless dismay.”"

Martindale, Root, Washington, The Soul of C.S. Lewis pg. 267

“Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back into the right path…Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.”  Galatians 6:1-2

A Mulligan

Hardly a day goes by that I do not wish to start over.  I begin well but sometime, often rather quickly, I stumble, I mess up, I blow it.  When I was growing up I played organized sports year around.  When you blow it in sports everyone knows, the whistle blows, the infraction is pointed out and your name tagged to the offence. 

What got me to thinking about this is that I have once again begun my morning in night’s darkness and am watching the day dawn.  I love watching night become day.  It is such a hopeful experience filled with the chance to start over.  No one has blown a whistle, no one is upset, and no one is penalized.  It’s a new day, a new beginning a fresh opportunity to have a go at it.

There are a limited number of opportunities in our life to start over but I am convinced that one of the primary reasons God made night was to make day, a new beginning, and a fresh start.  Thanks God!!!

Post Script: A Mulligan is a free retake of a bad golf shot.

Sun's Up. See!

We live in evil times.  All times on earth are marked by evil and ours is no different.  The trouble we have with evil is that it is now possible to have it brought to our attention 24 hours a day.  God never disguised the fact that evil would exsist only that we should focus on the good and in that be strengthened to overcome evil with good.  There is only one good.

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone. Luke 18:19

Turn off CNN, Fox, and MSNBC and turn your attention to The One Good (Who manifested Himself in Christ) who is keeping the sun burning this morning that we all might see.  Now that He has made it possible for us to see let’s go forth and help others to see.