Thunder

 Sitting peacefully in my recliner listening to the thunder. It is coming regularly. It reminds me of my early days in the South. We don't get as many thunderstorms here as we did down there. Some people were frightened by it, but as a kid we used to go out and play in it. Some today would get apoplexy from the idea that we would be running around in the rain with the lightening flashing overhead. The sound of it reminds me of God's creative power.

Me

 I have had two strokes. Before that I was diagnosed with "Mild Cognitive Impairment". It sounds like I should be a basket case. I'm not. I do sleep a lot, though not as much recently as I did for a while there. Charlene is my closest observer, and she says that I have improved a lot in the last few weeks. She has said that it seems like she has her husband back. She is a tremendous encourager, but she would not tell me that if she did not truly believe it. I am more engaged in whatever is going on. 

Charlene does most of our driving, but I can still drive when it will keep her from going somewhere she has no need to go to. I remember the old family stories, even when others don't. My short-term memory loss is a little hard to describe. By the end of the day, I may not recall what we did that morning. Our activities over the last few days are spotty in my memory. I can tell you of some of them, but not all. 

I am proud of my two on-going accomplishments.  I put out a monthly newsletter for our condo association. It is one page, divided into several sections by topic. I think it looks good. If you would like to see a copy of the latest edition, email me at outofthepews@gmail.com and I'll send you one. It always has pictures.

The other accomplishment is that I maintain the electronic sign in front of the church building.  I keep it current, and I use it to advertise whatever is going on at the church, like the monthly appearance of the food truck, or a potluck dinner, or a special speaker, or an open house for the community. 

That's enough info for today. I plan to be back is a few days. May God bless every one of you.

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.

Where Is the Record of Our Forgiven Sins?

Where Is the Record of Our Forgiven Sins?

For the record, I decided at the beginning of 2020 that I would blog four times a month throughout the year. This entry marks the conclusion of that commitment. I wrote six in one month bringing the total to 50.

Have you ever seen a cotton-picking sack? Ever used one?

I was a child and I never picked cotton all day every day for a week, but I spent the summers on my granddaddy’s farm and picked cotton a few days. The local schools in that part of Tennessee started early in the year so they could take a break for cotton picking. The kids did not go to school during picking season because everybody was needed in the fields.

Each person had their own sack and the kids’ sacks were no different from the grown ups’. It has a strap that goes over your shoulder leaving the opening at the top of the sack at about the middle of your chest. The sack is about eight feet long, so it drags behind you as you walk down the row.

You would choose a row and start picking. The cotton plant has some sharp parts that will scrape your hands. As you pick a boll, you put it in the sack. The sack is light when you start off – easy to drag behind you, but as the day goes on it gets heavier and heavier. You do not empty the sack until the end of the day when they weigh your sack. They pay the pickers by the pound of cotton they have picked during the day.

As it gets later in the day, you get more and more tired and the sack get heavier and heavier, now approaching one hundred pounds for adults. I never picked that much, but my sack was heavy for a kid. You’d take another step down the cotton row and drag the sack, Then you’d do it again; step, drag; step drag.

Some of us carry our forgiven sins with us like that. Everywhere we go we are dragging along that heavy sack of forgiven sins. Everyone we meet, every opportunity we encounter is done with that sack right there with us. We just cannot shake it. God does not intend for it to be that way. Psalm 103:10-12 says it like this:

¹⁰ He does not deal with us according to our sins,
    nor repay us according to our iniquities.
¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
¹² as far as the east is from the west,
    so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

When he says as far as the east is from the west, he is not talking about the East Side and the West Side of St. Paul. He is talking more about the Middle East and the West Coast U.S. Far enough that they cannot see each other or think about each other. He has removed them from us, picked up the cotton sack, emptied it into the trailer and hung it up. We do not have to pull it along anymore.

He also put it in another way. In Jeremiah 31:33-34 the Bible says;

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.
³⁴ No longer will they teach their neighbor,
    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
    and will remember their sins no more.”

That does not mean He has amnesia or Alzheimer’s. God knows everything. It is more like we say on Sunday morning when we take the Lord’s Supper. Jesus asked us to remember Him, to be reminded of Him and His gift to us. God says he will not be reminded of our sins. He is not harboring them or keeping a list. He has emptied the cotton sack and hung it out of sight somewhere. His love for us is as high as the heavens are above the earth. If God does not remember our sins, we shouldn’t dwell on them either. They will just drag us down and get in the way of our mission here on this earth.

 

 

 

Trump, Israel and Palestine

I believe President Donald Trump’s policies toward Israel have been misguided by his belief that most Christians buy into an odd theory about end times that requires modern Israel to occupy all the territory in the boundaries of ancient Israel, among other requirements, before the second coming of Jesus. It is a convoluted theory pieced together by taking odds and ends of scripture from various places and cobbling them together. Some call this Zionism, but “Zionism” is an emotion laden word with several different meanings, so I am not using it in this context.

There are a few very vocal Evangelical Christian religious leaders who do indeed subscribe to these beliefs and who make a lot of noise about it. They have been some of President Trump’s ardent supporters. But they do not represent most Christians.

The modern movement to reestablish a nation of Israel tracks to 1897. The current Israeli/Palestinian conflict though began in 1948 with the establishment of what is now the State of Israel in territory that had been occupied by Palestinians. Ever since, Israel has been expanding its borders into previous Palestinian territory. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip are the two primary areas still held by Palestinians that are constantly being encroached upon by Israel. President Trump has exacerbated the situation by strongly supporting Israel’s establishment of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory for religious reasons rather than legitimate political ones.

Moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was another way in which President Trump supported Israel against the wishes of the United Nations and the international community. Both Israel and Palestine claim Jerusalem as their capitols, but most other nations consider Tel Aviv to be Israel’s capitol and keep their embassies there. Charlene and I were in Jerusalem on the day the American Embassy moved there. American flags were flying from every light post.

You can be a supporter of modern Israel and not support the politics of some Israeli leaders who are trying to bully the Palestinians out of the country. Most reasoned observers favor what is called a “two state solution” to the conflict, working out permanent boundaries and ceasing encroachment from either side into the territory of the other. Israel to date refuses to participate in the development of such a plan.

Some would call me anti-Semitic for suggesting that Israel’s leaders are wrong to continue to bully the Palestinians. Not so. When I was working for the State of Florida, I called a juvenile half-way house director in Miami to tell him that unless he changed some of his procedures, we were going to jerk his license. A couple of days later I got a call from the Jewish Anti-Defamation League saying they had received a complaint that I was harassing this young half-way house director because he was Jewish. I explained that I had not realized that he was Jewish and told the caller about the policies at the half-way house that were in violation of state laws and regulations. She thanked me for my time. She went on about her business and I went on about mine.

I am hopeful that the United States can now take a more reasoned and balanced approach to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

 

Early Christmas

A few years ago, Charlene and I both bought new laptops. I bought mine capable of maneuvering pictures, blogging, building websites and the like. At the time, the only thing we could think of that Charlene would do with hers was to write her book, “Roberta”. So, we just bought her a basic laptop. She used her phone for almost everything she did. She wrote and published the book on the laptop.

Our internet connection is top of the line, so that was not a problem, but over the last few years Charlene’s usage has far outgrown her little machine. It seemed she was spending half her time waiting for it to catch up to whatever she was doing. She is the local Zoom guru. She uses it to host three or four formal groups a week and other less formal family gatherings. “Waiting for Zoom” was her most common pastime.

SO, we bought her a powerful new laptop for Christmas. She loves it. We got one that was reasonably small and light weight – not especially expensive, but it is quick. She now picks up her laptop to do short little things she would have gone to her phone for a few weeks ago. She smiles at it a lot and utters appreciative words to and about it. Christmas morning, she will open it like she does every other day. It has been the most rewarding gift we have gotten for her in quite some time.