A Lotta Romp Left

I am 61 years old today.  There is no difference in 60 and 61 except the number and the fact I am actually a year older.  61 is far better than 21 in almost every way except physically.  Physically I am 61 years old and 61 years can put a lot of wear and tear on.  Think of your car for instance which mostly just sits around waiting for an occasional romp around town.  Your body, however, is mostly on the go, your organs, your muscles, your fluids, enzymes, cells, and electrical signals always romping around your body.  A lot of miles 61 years.  Betty will walk around me today, kick my shins and assure me there’s still a lot of life under my hood.  I’ll have to admit I believe it too.  Lots of life I am eager to live and a pretty good old Ford body to romp around in.  God is good; all the time; God is good. 

The Wall Called The Womb

We have made great strides in our sympathy for the ultimate worth of all life.  We have organizations for the ethical treatment of animals and to ensure that endangered animals have a chance to re-establish their numbers.  We have passed laws to treat prisoners more humanely and to have places where the sick, elderly, affirmed and most special among us can thrive and live.  We are a compassionate people.  The great debate on abortion is not a religious issue it is a human rights issue.  There is no logic that supports the idea that a child in the womb in the last months of pregnancy is not a human being.  As such we have such a strong national foundation of advancement in our support for basic human rights that should be the guide when we seek to make decisions on the human being in the womb. 

I believe there is another national issue that we should also tie to this national human rights issue and that is the human rights of those that stand at our border wanting nothing more than to be able to flourish as a human being.  I do not seek to debate the wall or the standards by which we allow access to our country.  I fully understand the responsibility of our government to protect our borders and to establish and defend the rule of law. Both are paramount truths that support a strong, free and stable America.  The only point I seek to make is that we should be able to do both, allow the government to do its job and each of us as individuals, participate in the framework of law to support immigration.  

These are both human rights issues, not religious issues, and as Americans, we should believe and work for the life of all, those behind the wall of the womb and the border. 

The Point of College, Getting Ready For Spring Semester

One of the greatest burdens ever carried is that of teaching truth to youth.  Most wisdom is obtained over long periods of time grappling with the issues life presents you over these long periods.  Youth haven’t the longevity of years in order to provide them with the wisdom to be aware of their great need for truth in successfully living the long periods of time living actually requires.  What would bring youth to the point of a great longing for truth?  Life, I think, is that great prod.  If one can create for them a vision of life, that grand life of living, it creates in them a strong desire to trade in their existence for what you are sculpting in front of them. 

Most students want one thing, a great life, and have bought into the American Dream as the pattern for achieving it; career and money, that is the goal and purpose of their college experience.  Others, only slightly more sincere, say preparing to serve God is the reason I am at college.  All of these are wrong reasons for attending college or for any other area of life.  Life, above all else, has to center first and foremost on a pursuit of our personal relationship with God.  No, career, money, job, activity, ministry or calling trumps that one central goal.  And that is the joy of youth, they are young enough, naive enough ie: “like a child” enough, to believe, if presented to them correctly, that this is not only achievable but also, truly is the point of life, including their college education.   

NOTE:  This is not the goal of a secular institute of higher learning.  If you are going to send your child to one of these many great institutions you had better make sure you have taught them this truth at home before they leave. 

The truth of fires ability to make better work than you.

When Your Heart Is Broken What Should Spill Out?

We have all sat on the earth and wondered, “How can I help this desperately broken place we all live?”  One of our children actually asked me that question this week.  I don’t know!!!  Approximately 27 million of us are enslaved.  HIV/AIDS rages across Africa.  Genocide!  143 million orphans, sex trade, killings, poverty and over a million abortions every year in America alone, and then there is New York and their leaders cheering on the laws to kill many more of our most helpless.  What can we do?  Quit asking and start doing something.  Rage against the evil in our world in a voice filled with compassion, with an open billfold, hand, bent back and our precious time.  Just do something today.  Just do something!!!  And when the time comes and you stand in the market place and the machine is pumping wrongness out all around you, stop, slowly stand up and raise your hand and speak out, because—when your Christ heart is broken only love will spill out.