A Worthy Essay Worth Reading - Thanks to Janie Allen

To Fear is Human. To love is Divine.

Janie Allen

“I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.” Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

Confessing God before men sounds too formal, like the world is a courtroom. But speaking to people with respect no matter their station proves to go a long ways in showing the love of God to people. Every year at Christmas time growing up, I saw my mom bring homemade peanut brittle to our doctor’s office. Yet, every Christmas, she also gave it to the men who came by with the garbage truck once a week. Being well read, she might have known about this quote. Nevertheless, the scene of her tiny frame handing peanut brittle up into the cab of the garbage truck spoke volumes to me as a child. Thus, reading this quote made me reminisce about my mom’s boldness in loving others. She spoke of Jesus to her Sunday school class, but “lived” Jesus everywhere. I try to do that. Yet, there is a time to speak of Jesus. How that comes about, I believe, is through the art of loving people.

And when I do speak of Jesus outside a Christian meeting, I hope it is more like adding special seasoning to a well prepared meal. Isn’t the main course our caring actions? Speaking of our relationship with Jesus is the seasoning, right? And a little seasoning goes a long way. A meal without spices can look delicious, but is a bit blah. In the same way, as we serve up the love that is in our hearts to others outside the Christian faith, there comes a time to add a bit more spice and speak of the hope within us. I believe that we can be “salt and light” in this world without speaking…definitely. Nevertheless, let’s be ready to speak, too!

When I share anything with words, my words must come from faith and not fear. Isn’t it inevitable that fears will get the best of us at times? We fear saying the wrong thing or saying it the wrong way. We don’t want to mess up the mutual respect that we have carefully cultivated. Still, a simple barometer for me, as I share myself and my faith, is the “love” barometer. If fear is present, I might as well just smile, listen and wait for the latent love that is in me to rise up and wipe out the fear.

I like to put a little twist to Alexander Pope’s “To err is human, to forgive is divine.” To fear is human. To love is divine. Fear can be heavy and paralyzing. Like an avalanche of icy apprehension burying me alive, fear of rejection can crush the spunk right out of me. As fear grows within me, my thoughts speed or erase from my brain. It is an awful feeling, isn’t it?

Fear is real, even if what we are afraid of is not. Like the time a woman screamed “Snake!” during my water aerobics class this past summer. We all froze in fear with little echoes of gasps circling the pool. As the instructor reached her hand toward the scary object, we held our breath. To our amusement she pulled out a long thick piece of snaky looking grass! Then we roared with laughter at the ability of the innocuous to appear dangerous. How many times do we see a threat where there is none?

Anger, worry, and fear may start with the truth, but are perpetuated by lies. My friend, Melanie, introduced me to this acronym: fear is False-Evidence-Appearing-Real. When irrational fears about how I appear to others take over my thinking, the real “me” suddenly dies or slips into hiding. I’m stunned into conformity. Someone else’s expectations take over my body. I’m buried under this nebulous configuration of what others think I should be. I resurrect altered, only to play a role. With fear my master; I am a phony, a puppet, an actor. I am living a lie. Where did my life of love go?

At first, pretending feels right. Before long, though, I start gagging at my secret fear, my silliness and theatrics. God’s little pinky, in a sense, is pushing on my gag reflex. God tends to tug in the direction of authenticity, much like a bull dog. His standard of love calls me to meaningful and genuine relationships. Which is harder, being genuine out in a mixed crowd or within our intimate circle of friends? I’ve discovered that being genuine is harder outside my inner circle of relationships because there is little accountability. A fake is not as easily recognized among strangers. With God, though, all is laid bare! This is a little scary, but true.

The best news ever: God is the one who put in us this craving for the genuine. He steers us on the path toward truth, vulnerability, and transparency. He knows us all too well. We have a tendency to stray. Nonetheless, if we but ask, He makes us bold in our expression of mercy and love, and resolute in being fully human. This translates into “being real”. He helps us leave behind the fear-based stuff of apprehension. Love is always a risk. Yet, think about what we risk. We mostly risk our pride. Loving others well makes for a wonderful life. The wealthiest people on the planet are not those sitting on huge stacks of money, but those lost in love’s expression, saturated by the richness of giving it away. Love is like a “bouncer”. Perfect love casts out fear. Perfect love hauls fear out the door and bounces it on its ear.

True love, Christ’s love, is tall, broad, muscled, deep, wide, pure, strong, and purposeful. When the weight of society threatens to crush my spirit and I feel like who I am in Christ is crumbling, I pull out the fiery sword of truth spoken in love and use it like a chainsaw to make my jagged destructive mark upon the steel pillars of my own pretense. Doing this may feel awkward, but I am thankful to God that the better side of me is alive, thriving, and able to relate to others without discounting my identity in Christ. I can’t pretend that I am naturally sweet. Jesus sweetens me up. Where we are weak, He makes us strong. Where we act fake, He makes us true. Where we are blind, He helps us see. He’s the transformer.

In Christ we want to find ourselves content with just being naturally tuned into what would honor Him. No, we don’t get it right all the time. I absolutely refuse to get “strung out” on being the perfect Christian example. I’m just me and you are just you. I am trying to avoid making acceptance by others my main goal. I should expect some people to reject the Christ in me, but I must actually live the Christ in me in order for them to have the choice of rejecting Him. In this way I pose a choice much more difficult than just rejecting me, the more serious choice of rejecting Christ. And, of course, acceptance of the both of us would be just amazing.

We all like to be appreciated for our convictions and helpful attitude. When we feel like we’re doing it right, we don’t like to be dumped, ignored, or snubbed. It’s painful. This is when godliness with contentment is great gain. Being satisfied with God’s love and acceptance helps each of us take the risk of being rejected by others. Whose applause counts most anyway, that of man or God? Walking down the aisle of godly contentment, who cares where the applause went? Our savior is saying, “Well done.” He wants us to love well, and sincerely. Nobody likes a fake. Let’s encourage one another to be true to God and authentic in relationships.

For The Love of ...Old Stuff.

Sorry, but I just love old stuff; lots of old stuff. It may be from an underlying belief that not much has been improved upon in the last 100 years. And some stuff has been messed up in that time. For example:

Old Towns - I just love visiting old towns. I often wonder why a town was established, what made it thrive, what made it decline, who are the founding families, what was its primary industry, and who there is still alive that remembers the glory days of the place.

Old Houses - I am enamored with old houses, even old buildings. I marvel at the craftsmanship, remembering the unavailability of power tools, the attention to detail. My friend Ron owns an old 2-story home in Galveston. Up in the attic the work on the roof beams and joints, and how everything comes together is truly a work of art. And that's in the part of the house you don't see!!!!!!!!

Old Glass - the stained, beveled, and cut glass from 80 - 120 years ago is just beautiful. Hard to find workmanship like that today.

Old Radios - I love the old tube radios, and my favorites are the AM/FM type that showed up in Europe before America. Mine still work.

Old Clocks - I love the idea of my old clocks keeping time for people no longer living, for times that are now past, often with a tick-tock, and some with chimes marking the passing of seconds, minutes, quarters, hours, days.

Old Guns and their Cartridges - I like older guns. I see new guns and cartridges as improvements on old designs, and often just for the sake of marketing. I am building a custom rifle using a 1943 Turkish Mauser 98 action. Some believe the Mauser 98 (as in 1898) to be the pinnacle of bolt action rifle design. It is chambered for the .35 Whelen cartridge, a 1922 design. I love this stuff (my wife calls me obsessed).

Old Furniture - I love old furniture, especially old wood furniture. I like to see an old arm chair or rocking chair that the arms are worn smooth and patinaed from someone's granddad's hands upon it. I love to caress the worn places and imagine the previous owners hands where mine are.

Old Hardware Stores - There are a couple still left that do things the old way, with courtesy and respect for the customer and their project. I love the hardware stores in New Braunfels, Texas and the one in Placerville, California (thanks Mark Adams). You can still buy gold mining supplies at the one in Placerville, where the California gold rush began.

Old Places - These would be the things still left virtually untouched and unspoiled, the kind of placed that when you gaze upon them a sense of wonder comes over you as you ponder to yourself "This is the way it looked 500 years ago." This would not be the case with rivers as they change with each flood.

Old Music - What can I say but the 50s and 60s for country and the 60s and 70s for folk and rock music. I do like lots of new stuff, but as I think about it, usually when it sounds like the old stuff. Again, I do not consider rap or hip-hop music, but perhaps that is because I myself am old (be nice).

Old Friends - Of course these are the most precious of all old things. An old friend would be someone you've maintained relationship with for 25+ years or more. In some cases this would also mean you and your friend are also old (sorry Brewster).

Of course I do appreciate some of the new things, not least of which are new friends. But new roads, new cars, new A/C units, new jobs, new babies, new cell phones, new flowers, and new love are not too shabby either in my opinion. Of all my favorite new things, new birth is Christ (who by the way is also known as the Ancient of Days) is the most exciting.

Confessions of an Extrovert

Us extroverts naturally seek out others, desiring to connect. We don't relish being alone. When I was young (some of you knew me then) I avoided aloneness at all costs. Truely, I'd have rather done devotions with others than by myself. Us extroverts are energized around people, but in the absense of others our energy is drained. When alone, with my energies waning, I get anxious, uneasy, unsettled. Not a fear of being alone, just a great distaste for it. In my youth this unsettling sent me into efforts to alleviate the feeling, and I exerted great amounts of emotional energy in efforts to reconnect with others.

Now that I'm older, when alone and feeling unsettled, I find myself wanting to push into the feeling further; to be more alone and isolated so I can hear the voice of God. I now welcome the unsettledness, and rather than become anxious, I recognize a call to come away with the Savior.

I am hearing that call now, and am planning a driving trip that will take me away from the din of the nation's 4th largest city, and to isolation in a remote place on the Texas coast where the only sounds will be water, wind, an occasional seagull, and the still, small voice of the Spirit of God. I can't wait!

Questing for Intimacy...Outside of Marriage

In Genesis we read God pronouncing that it is not good for man (a human) to be alone. Scripture also tells us that if we seek God's kingdom first, he will add to us all we need. Assuming this is true, and one is single, how does God go about meeting our need for intimacy, or "non-aloneness", outside of marriage? "Through relationship with others." is the simple answer. There's a lot of instruction in the bible about how to treat one another well; how to love well. Beyond laws that govern societal behavior, I believe God wants us to treat one another in loving ways for another reason - to ease the aloneness of one another. There will always be those among us who are not married. Even so, God does not want them to be alone, "It is not good..." So how does a single Christian alleviate their sense of aloneness? If they are primarily seeking God's kingdom, how does God meet their need for intimacy? Let's examine a few answers I've heard over the years.

In small groups. Truly in a healthy small group one has opportunity to experience biblical community. Small group involvement can help alleviate a sense of aloneness in a corporate way. But was corporate relating what God was referring to when he said it was not good for man to be alone?

Through friends. We all enjoy the friends God has brought into our life. Some of them are good friends. Some are close friends. A few we may consider intimate friends. With an intimate friend we have opportunity to make our self vulnerable, and be known in ways much closer to what I believe God intended in his pronouncement "It is not good for man to be alone..."

This begs the question (at least in my mind) "Can a single man and a single woman be intimate friends, without romantic involvement, and thus still meet the need for intimacy in one another?"

I think it depends on the man and woman. I've known those who have tried and failed. One or the other became interested romantically in the other, but with no reciprocation. Eventually the relationship became painful to the otherwise interested one, and they were no longer willing to be friends, much to the chagrin of the friend.

However lofty it may seem for a man and woman to be friends and nothing else, I believe it is entirely possible, and even a healthy pursuit. Yes it takes maturity on both parties part, and lots of communication and fortitude. Of all places to work out such a thing, the community of faith, or the Church should be that place. With biblical instruction, and encouragement from those mature in faith and willing to mentor, nonromantic male/female relationships can be very fulfilling, even if they are challenging. I truly believe that men have much to learn from women, and women from men. I believe the complementarity that can be enjoyed, one gender to another, is mutually beneficial.

Furthermore, I believe the world is eager to see the Church model such relating, for it has rarely been seen, much less experienced. For a man and woman to relate to each other in a healthy intimate way, without emotional dependence, without objectification, without secret expectation, has yet to be seen by many, even in the church. Additionally, could we be missing God's efforts to meet our needs because we are not mature enough or brave enough to have close intimate friends with the opposite gender?

The dialog will be ongoing, but the subject does deserve open discussion. I myself am looking for those brave souls willing to risk the journey. Many who are perhaps still fearful and unsure are looking for the answers.

Brothers (and sisters) In Arms

Some song lyrics challenge me; some connect me to emotions I previously didn't have vocabulary for; some evoke a memory of times past.

These lyrics remind me of those I've done christian ministry with...to borrow a phrase from another...wounded healers:

Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I've watched all your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

-by Mark Knopfler From Dire Straits 1985 album 'Brothers in Arms'

Some who dared such feats of ministering to a broken world sometimes came away from the field of battle wounded ourselves, only to find that the unit we fought with had no MASH unit. For others of us, serving on such fields only served to remind us of the wounds that had never healed in us in the first place from when we ourselves had previously dwelt in similar desolate places. Some of us found solace in the arms of a committed lover. Some of us returned to former addictions that had bound us long ago. Some of us have no peace to this day, and we wander this world seemingly all alone in battles we are convinced no one else could understand.

I pray for myself and all of you that we would know the healer. He is the same who called us into battle to begin with. The battle still rages higher, and though we still be hurt so badly, 'there is a banqueting table the Father and his Son have prepared'. I will count it a privilege to dine with you there, along with those whom have been invited by us, 'both good and evil'.

As Knopfler writes further:

Some day you'll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms

See you at the table.

David

Back to Noah...

According to the bible, all of us descend from Noah and his sons. There were many before Noah, but all perished in the Great Flood. It has always fascinated me that all cultures trace back to Noah, this great figure in Jewish/Christian scripture. All cultures spread out from Mount Ararat, where Noah's ark settled as the flood waters descended.

Therefore my fascination has to do with how Noah's descendants spread out from the ark's resting place, the settling of those regions, and how, by the time of Abram, the knowledge of the Creator God, the one true God described in the Hebrew scriptures, the God of Noah, had fallen to the place of myth, legend, and folk lore.

So all of the ancient cultures, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Armenian, Chaldean, Egyptian, etc. and their religion, beliefs, practices, societies, art, architecture, economies, agriculture, governments, armies, trading, and history give me clues regarding their origins. And knowledge of them helps contextualize my reading of the scriptures that refer to these cultures, religions, nations, and armies that touched the Hebrew nation in one way or another. With my perspective adjusted on these cultures referred to in my bible I sometimes can read the inferences previously missed.

Currently I am reading Michael Grant's The Ancient Mediterranean 2002, History Book Club. I recommend it as it has served to expand my knowledge of the cultural influences upon the region.

Healthy Distraction

For me it has always been healthy to have a distraction, hobby, pursuit that when occupied with it completely takes all of my concentration, and therefore takes my thinking away from all other items.

Many know that I love shooting guns and hunting. Though related, those are not the distraction I'm referring to. Actually the distraction is...reloading.

Reloading is the practice of cartridge assembly, either of rifle and pistol cartridges, or of shotshells.

The simplified process is

• removal of (decapping) the spent primer
• resizing of the brass case
• seating a new primer in the primer pocket
  
• placing a charge of gunpowder in the brass case
• seating a new bullet in the brass case
• crimping the bullet in place

Most of these processes are performed on a reloading press, which will produce enough leverage for these operations. The handling of gunpowder safely should take one's full concentration, as it does mine.

The apparent reason for reloading is economy. Reloaded cartridges can be much less expensive than buying factory loaded ammunition from the likes of Winchester, Remington, Federal, etc. But there are many additional benefits derived from reloading.

There are many different bullets available for each caliber. One can therefore choose the bullet's weight and profile for each shooting scenario. The target shooter, the hunter, and the S.W.A.T shooter each have different uses for their bullet, though the caliber they use may be the same.

Additionally, each rifle will prefer a different bullet weight and profile and velocity to achieve optimal accuracy. Because of the differences between one gun manufacturer and another, as well as different barrel lengths and rifling techniques, and even small variables in the manufacturing process itself, each gun will prefer one load over another. Reloading affords the shooter the opportunity to "tune" his load to the individual rifle.

Detailed records of various loads can be kept in order to document each of their performance in a particular firearm.

Example:

My Marlin 1894 is chambered in .44 Magnum with a 20" barrel. I recently developed a load for a gas checked hard cast lead bullet weighing 265 grains that has a wide flat nose (WFN). So I assemble different cartridges with everything the same except powder charges. I test each for velocity and accuracy at 100 yards, as well as record pressure. All of this info is recorded in a spreadsheet. The optimal load for this bullet in this gun ends up being 24.4 grains of H-110 powder for a muzzle velocity of 1820 fps and accuracy at 100 yards of a 1.65" group size (3 shots).

The process is repeated for each bullet I want to try in .44 Magnum, and any other gun shooting the same. Multiply that times the number of calibers I'm reloading for. As you can see, there's a lot of experimentation and record keeping, all in the quest for accuracy and terminal performance.

I'll write more on specific loads I'm developing, but let this serve as an overview of what I mean if you see me write on "reloading".