I'm Baaaaack!

At the end of 2010 I ceased publishing my blog. That was right after putting out my 50th submission for the year. It's been almost three years since then. I don't even know if anyone is keyed in to get notice that I am resuming, but I have a little more time now, so I am thinking I will try it for a while. No promises on how many I will do in any given period of time. I think of at least four reasons to start back up (besides having the time).

1. I want to tell my story of me. That part will not draw a big crowd, but it will help me to understand me better.
2. I want to share some thoughts about the church. I may have shared some of these before, but some parts of that will bear repeating. 
3. I want to write about my point of view of what is going on in the world. Maybe, even from my recliner, I can make some difference there.
4. I need to know whether I can still "connect the dots." More about that in my story.

We Have Started The Reintegration Process

We have started the reintegration process. It might be too soon, but we are people people. We are taking it very slowly – half steps.

We went back to church several weeks ago. We are a small group with a building big enough for quite a few more, so we can and do spread out. We avoid every other pew and have the pews marked as to how far apart the families must be. Everyone wears a mask.

Even before church we went back to in-person grocery shopping. That was the first step in our process. One son and another grandson took turns leading a small expedition to get our groceries before that. We started out trying to do our shopping early in the morning, per COVID instructions, but that effort has faded and now we hit the stores any time of day.

We invite family to eat with us, outside on the lawn. We even eat out, maybe once a week, no set day of the week. We try to find places with outside dining but will settle for a place with adequate spacing between tables inside. Even bought an ice cream from one food truck and got a pork chop on a stick from another – just like the fair.

A couple of weeks ago we drove to Fargo, about three hours north. We followed Mike and Diane as they drove up to deliver David to North Dakota State University. We spent the weekend. Our grandson Kevin lives there. He has finished school and is waiting for the expiration of his lease before returning to “The Cities.” We got to know his roommate and another friend. By all reports David has settled in well and found his way around the university. The university is huge!

Our next adventure is a train ride to Glacier National Park in about two weeks. Charlene found a “buy one, get one” deal. I am the get one free. We will be gone about a week. It looks to be an exciting trip.

We still wear our masks whenever we leave the apartment – anywhere we go in the building - but if we need something from Lowe’s for a project we just go there.

Hope you all are well.

Who’s Waiting for You?

We met yesterday afternoon as we do every Sunday afternoon with two ladies who live in our condo building. We have a prayer, sing some church songs and usually read a part of the book of Luke, though occasionally we’ll go to another of the four Bible stories of the life of Jesus to fill in a gap. It is a fun and fascinating hour.

One of the ladies has been raised in the Catholic church and is very faithful there. The other lady is Danish and is a non-attending member of the Danish church. Neither of them, though, is familiar with the stories in the Bible.

We started with Shadrack, Meshack and Abednigo; went on to Daniel; to Moses; John the Baptist; then to Jesus. We are all four thoroughly enjoying it. It began as a response to being locked out of church because of COVID-19 but have now agreed that we will continue even after we return to church services.

Yesterday we sang the songs, “This World is not My Home” and “I’ll Fly Away.” I pointed out that I love the phrase in the latter song: “When I die, Hallelujah” by and by.” And we got to talking about death. One of the ladies told two stories.

The first was of a man who had been very near death for several weeks, but who was holding on. She just asked him, who was in Heaven waiting for him. He smiled and named a brother and his mother. He relaxed and was dead two hours later. The second was a similar story.

Those were powerful stories for me. So many of us are afraid of death, but we have no reason to be. God lives before, during and after the creation of time. He was, He is, and He is to come. Jesus has prepared a place for us and is waiting for us there. There is a welcome party planned, just waiting for the guest of honor to arrive. If God really has good works planned for us here (Ephesians 2:10) it is good for us to stick around here awhile to work on some of them, but when He is done with us here, we should be more than ready to go on home.

George Floyd

I have struggled with what to say about the murder of George Floyd. So much has been said by so many who are much more articulate than I am. Mainly I have a few observations:

  1.   I don’t understand why it took as long as it did to arrest Derek Chauvin. The delay made it appear that the police department and the prosecutor were waiting to see if they could get away with letting the murder slide. That is consistent with Chauvin’s apparent confidence as he was killing Mr. Floyd while looking at the camera. He appeared to think he had no reason to fear any repercussions.

2.   Likewise, I can’t imagine any legitimate reason that the other three officers have not been arrested. It makes some sense that the authorities would have to figure out what charges to bring, but aiding or being complicit in a blatant murder could be a good starting point and they could do the remainder of their figuring while the guys are in jail. What kind of message are they sending to the rest of that police force?

3.   The rioting, burning, and looting have nothing directly to do with George Floyd’s murder. The gap between rich and poor in this nation has been growing rapidly. There has been growing anger about that. Combine that with the highest unemployment rate in decades and people with nothing to do because of the virus restrictions and we had riots across the country waiting for a cause. Rioters were both Black and White. There has been some talk of "outside agitators", but there is little evidence that outsiders have driven all the violence.  Mr. Floyd’s family has pleaded with the public to stop the violence, but the violence is not really about George Floyd’s murder.

4.   What is the role of the church? My prayer throughout this time has been that the Lord’s church will be a light in these dark hours. That is made much more difficult by the stay at home orders. The church is its people; the people are the church. We need to be peacemakers; to be loving caring, gentle people; to speak up when someone is insensitive or unkind. We need to planfully and deliberately work together on improving relationships between the races. We need to help figure out how our economy can function without leaving so many people out. And we need to insist that our representative democracy does not hire people to protect us who have murderous intent or who are afraid to confront their counterparts who do.