I had the privilege of singing today at a local Memorial Day event. Though the morning started off rainy a few people managed to show up to pay respects to our passed military veterans.
The event started with a few songs by the community band. With them, I sang the National Anthem and God Bless America. There were some prayers and some quick words of gratitude, in length, the whole event lasted maybe 45min-1hour. The most moving part though was when the Band played a medley of military hymns. The instructions to the Vets were to stand when you hear your song being played. And so it went. First out of the gate was the Air Force tune, followed by the Marine Corpse, then the Naval Hymn "Eternal Father, Strong to Save", finally, the Amry's song. More touching than the music itself, was the inherrant strength and pride in each tune that moved these often frail older veterans to do their best to stand up and represent their loyalties. When the Army's song was being played, I watch two men. The first was in a wheelchair. With the aid of his wife, he was able to stand the best he could. The second was sitting in a chair, and tried to stand. The emcee even went over to him and attempted to help him to his feet. When that didn't work, he simply remained seated. (I think I must be a softy) My eyes welled up and I felt as though I needed to go and help him stand. Sadly, I didn't. I could tell he wanted nothing more than to represent his Army by standing, he just wasn't able.
In that moment I looked around again, probably the oldest veterans in attendance served in the Korean War. I doubt anyone there was from WWII, every year we see fewer and fewer of these folks. And to me, that is a great loss because they are, in my mind, the greatest generation of Americans. The trials and injustices they overcame seemed insurmountable, yet, with grace, vigor, and humility they triumphed in the face of evil. Their evergrowing absence from this earth is a great loss to our future generations.
As we were leaving the cemetary, we decided to look around a bit. We noticed that this cemetary did not allow above ground headstones. I think that gave the place a more somber, less creepy, feel. We didn't walk far before we came across the Masonic Quarter of the cemetary. All the in-ground headstones bore the Masonic Emblem and in the center of the quarter was an above ground masonic monument that represented the three degrees of freemasonry as a foundation upon which the rest of the monument stood. At each of the three tiered levels were written "Eternal Apprentice", "Fellow Craft" and "Master Mason" appropriately. The main body had the emblems of different masonic branches all the way around, emblems such as the Eastern Star, the Shriners, etc. At the top of the monument sat a stone Bible open to Ecclesiastes 12:1, 7. The experienced sparked a quick conversation between Amanda and I regarding Freemasonry, I offered that those people who have a problem with Freemasonry are probably the same sort the take issue with Harry Potter.
Anyway, it is an interesting day and I am thankful for the services of our men and women in uniform, especially those who paid for freedom with their lives.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Giving
Amanda and I were volunteering our time today at the Monroe County Community Kitchen (the kitchen's goal is to provide free meals to anyone who would like to partake of its services). We quickly learned that husband and wife should be separated and not allowed to work together because they quickly become hypercritical of each other's decisions in how to prepare the meals. We had a good time :)
The interesting thing happened when I was cleaning up. I was wiping down the tables with bleach water when a gentleman came in. He had obviously walked to the location, and I assume he walked from Kroghetto (the 2nd street Kroger) which was probably 5 or 6 blocks away. He was wearing some unkempt clothing and was unshaven. If you had to picture what a man would look like after living out of his car for a week or two, he might look like this gentleman. He walked up to me carrying 2 plastic bags with food and handed me a box of storebought oatmeal raisin cookies and said "These are for you all, I made them myself" as he smiled and gave a light chuckle. I quickly realized they weren't for me personally but rather for the Community Kitchen. He added that he appreciated what the kitchen does for everyone.
Immediately I was reminded of the widow's mite and how the poor widow, owining next to nothing gave all she had to God's work. Jesus praised the woman and said that her gift, though far less than what others had given, was the largest gift because it was everything she had.
The most astonishing part of the moment wasn't the size of the gift, because honestly, in size, it wasn't much. Rather it was the thought. He obviously was thinking about the community and the kitchen and decided that he ought to give back something for the services he was being offered. But he didn't wait until it was time to pass the collection plate at the designated Offeratory time on Sunday morning, he took the opportunity at that moment to give what he could.
I don't think I need to say anything more about this, if you want to see how this ties into my views on charity, just scroll down and read some of those posts. But I clearly think this was an awesome demonstration of how human nature is fundamentally good and that if we, as a society, saw the need to help each other out, then even those of us with the least means would donate what they could to aid their fellow neighbors. We don't need federal intervention to provide for those in need.
The interesting thing happened when I was cleaning up. I was wiping down the tables with bleach water when a gentleman came in. He had obviously walked to the location, and I assume he walked from Kroghetto (the 2nd street Kroger) which was probably 5 or 6 blocks away. He was wearing some unkempt clothing and was unshaven. If you had to picture what a man would look like after living out of his car for a week or two, he might look like this gentleman. He walked up to me carrying 2 plastic bags with food and handed me a box of storebought oatmeal raisin cookies and said "These are for you all, I made them myself" as he smiled and gave a light chuckle. I quickly realized they weren't for me personally but rather for the Community Kitchen. He added that he appreciated what the kitchen does for everyone.
Immediately I was reminded of the widow's mite and how the poor widow, owining next to nothing gave all she had to God's work. Jesus praised the woman and said that her gift, though far less than what others had given, was the largest gift because it was everything she had.
The most astonishing part of the moment wasn't the size of the gift, because honestly, in size, it wasn't much. Rather it was the thought. He obviously was thinking about the community and the kitchen and decided that he ought to give back something for the services he was being offered. But he didn't wait until it was time to pass the collection plate at the designated Offeratory time on Sunday morning, he took the opportunity at that moment to give what he could.
I don't think I need to say anything more about this, if you want to see how this ties into my views on charity, just scroll down and read some of those posts. But I clearly think this was an awesome demonstration of how human nature is fundamentally good and that if we, as a society, saw the need to help each other out, then even those of us with the least means would donate what they could to aid their fellow neighbors. We don't need federal intervention to provide for those in need.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Crisis? and the nature of God
I think there is no denying that we are in some tough times right now, although the media often blows this way out of proportion. Yes, unemployment is on the rise, some very large companies are in some pretty bad shape, but this is NOT the great depression that the media would have you believe it is. Unemployment is not at 20%, a wheel-barrow money still purchases much much more than 1 loaf of bread, and Americans are NOT standing in soup lines.
However, this is a bit of a problem that could last for a long time depending on the spending choices of the administration, which up to this point have been anything but hopeful.
The problem, I think, is a problem of idolotry. As a people, who/what has become our god? Becaue of the pluralism of American culture, there are as many gods as there are people, but I think that largely, money or more specifically, Credit, has become our god. Now, I'm not enough of a historian to know when this all started, but I suspect that sometime after the Great Depression (after WWII), in a booming American economy, Credit became widely available to the masses. All the WWII boys coming home to thier sweethearts and wanting to build families had access to the new GI Bill which not only provided funds for education but also gave veterans access to loans to build new homes or start new businesses. Don't misunderstand, this really helped the returning vets and the good economic times made it possible to fund this (rightly or wrongly). But I wonder if this massive loaning system replaced conventional wisdom with social wisdom; that is, I wonder if it replaced debt-free life with credit-based life. I can't speak authoritatively on the issue, so I can only rely on personal experience with people of that generation and I must conclude that the WWII generation certainly did not live for debt. In fact, it was Grandfather's wisdom that warned against taking out loans for things and against the dangers of credit cards. So how did credit become such a big deal?
I suspect housing is the root. Here is a brief history of the government's involvement in housing borrowed from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Housing_and_Urban_Development:
--July 1947 - The Housing and Home Finance Agency established
--July 1949 - The Housing Act of 1949 is enacted to help eradicate slums and promote redevelopment
--September 1959 - The Housing Act of 1959 allows funds for elderly housing
--September 1965 - HUD is created as a cabinet level agency by the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act
--April 1968 - The Fair Housing Act is made to ban discrimination in housing
--August 1969 - The Brooke Amendment establishes that low income families only pay no more than 25 percent of their income for rent
--August 1974 - Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 allows community development block grants and help for urban homesteading
--October 1977 - The Housing and Community Act of 1977 sets up Urban Development Grants and continues elderly and handicapped assistance
--July 1987 - The Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act gives help to communities to deal with homelessness
--February 1988 - The Housing and Community Development Act provides for the sale of public housing to resident management corporations
--October 1992 - The HOPE VI program starts to revitalise public housing and how it works
--October 1992 - The Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 codifies within its language the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 that creates the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, and mandates HUD to set goals for lower income and underserved housing areas for the GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
--March 1996 - The Housing Opportunity Program Extension Act give public housing authorities the tools to screen out and evict residents who might endanger other existing residents due to substance abuse and criminal behavior
--October 1998 - Government laws are proposed which would allow local housing authorities to open up more public housing to the middle class
--November 2007 – HUD initiates program providing seller concessions to buyers of HUD homes, allowing them to use down payment of $100
Of course all of these are an enrochemnt upon the private market, but the one's I've put in bold have been, I think, the most damaging. Some of them gave the government too much control over private property but others dictated how much people will pay for housing! Especially terrible was the October 1992 entry of that set up the GSEs (Goverment-Subsidized Enterprise) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and MANDATED these GSEs set goals as to what percentage of their loans (assets) should be signed to sub-prime candidates. With Loans and CREDIT so easy to obtain, housing prices inflated under an artificial bubble because of government involvement. The inflated housing prices opened the doors for lenders to give 2nd mortgages which allowed home-owners to borrow against the new equity that was growing into the houses through inflated prices.
So I'm not sure how it started, but this trying economic time is how it ended. I told you all this to hopefully prepare you for the idea that with all the credit all over the place, most of Americans would buy things with the idea of "how much will this cost me per month" instead of "what is the price". This mentality and misuse of money put us where we are. Consider this, if even 60% of Americans were debt-free, would we have ever been in this position? If we had not allowed Credit to become our god, would we be in this problem?
I haven't reconciled how God operates yet, but I often equate the Old Testament to rules for society, while the New Testament is the playbook for personal daily life. As such, the blessings and punishments for Israel were as true then as they are today. Often when I'm reading Kings or Chronicles, I try to equate God's reaction to Israel's leaders to our leaders. Is this punishment for worshipping at the altars of Bael? Or is this the natural consequence of our actions?
This brings me to a bigger conversation on the nature of God. Let me reiterate that I'm not sure yet, so allow me to postulate a bit. I've heard arguments that because of God's absolute holiness, he is incapable of doing Evil. If God told the Israelites to kill off all the Canaanites including women and children and animals, then how can God be holy? And then there is some difficulty in reconciling that with the idea that God plays a passive role in our lives and when bad things happen they are the consequences of our actions not an active punishment from God. But then how does God change from the Old to the New Testaments? How does He shift from the pnishing, just, jealous God to the God of Love, Peace, and Forgiveness? I wonder about this: what if Jesus, who sits at the right hand of God, is our counsel who constantly pleas on our behalf to the Supreme Judge of the Universe? God the Father is unchanging and punishes and rewards today as He did 5,000 years ago, while Jesus, our doorway to God the Father, is the buffer. It's almost like when a child does something wrong and dad wants to punish the child. Mom steps in, soothes dad's mood, and the child is forgiven and given a warning instead of a spanking. Is this possible? Could this be how God opperates within Himself?
But then, maybe this is problematic too. Maybe this assumes that God changes His mind. But I think it's possible for God to be persuaded. Why pray if He can't be persuaded? Didn't Lott prolong the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by asking God to spare the cities if 50...... 5 righteous people could be found therein? I'm open to hearing arguments on both sides.
However, this is a bit of a problem that could last for a long time depending on the spending choices of the administration, which up to this point have been anything but hopeful.
The problem, I think, is a problem of idolotry. As a people, who/what has become our god? Becaue of the pluralism of American culture, there are as many gods as there are people, but I think that largely, money or more specifically, Credit, has become our god. Now, I'm not enough of a historian to know when this all started, but I suspect that sometime after the Great Depression (after WWII), in a booming American economy, Credit became widely available to the masses. All the WWII boys coming home to thier sweethearts and wanting to build families had access to the new GI Bill which not only provided funds for education but also gave veterans access to loans to build new homes or start new businesses. Don't misunderstand, this really helped the returning vets and the good economic times made it possible to fund this (rightly or wrongly). But I wonder if this massive loaning system replaced conventional wisdom with social wisdom; that is, I wonder if it replaced debt-free life with credit-based life. I can't speak authoritatively on the issue, so I can only rely on personal experience with people of that generation and I must conclude that the WWII generation certainly did not live for debt. In fact, it was Grandfather's wisdom that warned against taking out loans for things and against the dangers of credit cards. So how did credit become such a big deal?
I suspect housing is the root. Here is a brief history of the government's involvement in housing borrowed from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Housing_and_Urban_Development:
--July 1947 - The Housing and Home Finance Agency established
--July 1949 - The Housing Act of 1949 is enacted to help eradicate slums and promote redevelopment
--September 1959 - The Housing Act of 1959 allows funds for elderly housing
--September 1965 - HUD is created as a cabinet level agency by the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act
--April 1968 - The Fair Housing Act is made to ban discrimination in housing
--August 1969 - The Brooke Amendment establishes that low income families only pay no more than 25 percent of their income for rent
--August 1974 - Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 allows community development block grants and help for urban homesteading
--October 1977 - The Housing and Community Act of 1977 sets up Urban Development Grants and continues elderly and handicapped assistance
--July 1987 - The Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act gives help to communities to deal with homelessness
--February 1988 - The Housing and Community Development Act provides for the sale of public housing to resident management corporations
--October 1992 - The HOPE VI program starts to revitalise public housing and how it works
--October 1992 - The Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 codifies within its language the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 that creates the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, and mandates HUD to set goals for lower income and underserved housing areas for the GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
--March 1996 - The Housing Opportunity Program Extension Act give public housing authorities the tools to screen out and evict residents who might endanger other existing residents due to substance abuse and criminal behavior
--October 1998 - Government laws are proposed which would allow local housing authorities to open up more public housing to the middle class
--November 2007 – HUD initiates program providing seller concessions to buyers of HUD homes, allowing them to use down payment of $100
Of course all of these are an enrochemnt upon the private market, but the one's I've put in bold have been, I think, the most damaging. Some of them gave the government too much control over private property but others dictated how much people will pay for housing! Especially terrible was the October 1992 entry of that set up the GSEs (Goverment-Subsidized Enterprise) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and MANDATED these GSEs set goals as to what percentage of their loans (assets) should be signed to sub-prime candidates. With Loans and CREDIT so easy to obtain, housing prices inflated under an artificial bubble because of government involvement. The inflated housing prices opened the doors for lenders to give 2nd mortgages which allowed home-owners to borrow against the new equity that was growing into the houses through inflated prices.
So I'm not sure how it started, but this trying economic time is how it ended. I told you all this to hopefully prepare you for the idea that with all the credit all over the place, most of Americans would buy things with the idea of "how much will this cost me per month" instead of "what is the price". This mentality and misuse of money put us where we are. Consider this, if even 60% of Americans were debt-free, would we have ever been in this position? If we had not allowed Credit to become our god, would we be in this problem?
I haven't reconciled how God operates yet, but I often equate the Old Testament to rules for society, while the New Testament is the playbook for personal daily life. As such, the blessings and punishments for Israel were as true then as they are today. Often when I'm reading Kings or Chronicles, I try to equate God's reaction to Israel's leaders to our leaders. Is this punishment for worshipping at the altars of Bael? Or is this the natural consequence of our actions?
This brings me to a bigger conversation on the nature of God. Let me reiterate that I'm not sure yet, so allow me to postulate a bit. I've heard arguments that because of God's absolute holiness, he is incapable of doing Evil. If God told the Israelites to kill off all the Canaanites including women and children and animals, then how can God be holy? And then there is some difficulty in reconciling that with the idea that God plays a passive role in our lives and when bad things happen they are the consequences of our actions not an active punishment from God. But then how does God change from the Old to the New Testaments? How does He shift from the pnishing, just, jealous God to the God of Love, Peace, and Forgiveness? I wonder about this: what if Jesus, who sits at the right hand of God, is our counsel who constantly pleas on our behalf to the Supreme Judge of the Universe? God the Father is unchanging and punishes and rewards today as He did 5,000 years ago, while Jesus, our doorway to God the Father, is the buffer. It's almost like when a child does something wrong and dad wants to punish the child. Mom steps in, soothes dad's mood, and the child is forgiven and given a warning instead of a spanking. Is this possible? Could this be how God opperates within Himself?
But then, maybe this is problematic too. Maybe this assumes that God changes His mind. But I think it's possible for God to be persuaded. Why pray if He can't be persuaded? Didn't Lott prolong the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by asking God to spare the cities if 50...... 5 righteous people could be found therein? I'm open to hearing arguments on both sides.
Friday, May 1, 2009
America, the Christian Nation?
I have been reading a fascinating book: Founding Faith by Stephen Waldman. The book analyzes, very neutrally, the role of faith in Colonial America and its influence on the founding of our nation (I think later, it ties that faith and original intent into the "separation of Chruch and State" stuff).
It's interesting that while the colonies were escaping religion persecution from Europe, they were practicing their faiths very dogmatically. Government and Religion were inseparable, in fact, if you were a practicing Quaker in a Puritan Colony, you could be imprisoned, evicted from the Colony, or sentenced to death (think Salem Witch Trials... of course this was the extreme situation which, as we're taught in school, "always happens when you mix Church and State"). Religious Tolerance was non-existant until the mid 18th century; however, while the protestant Christian sects were becoming more tolerant of each other, there was still a great fear of the Catholic faith (or as they called it, Papism). Part of the reason for these settlers' departure from England was the growing influence of Catholicism in the Anglican Church.
When England, the Crown included, heard what was happening over here religiously, they decided it was time to Anglicanize the colonies because at least that way, the colonies wouldn't be killing each other over religion. This book suggests that perhaps more of the Revolution was about Religious freedom (anti-Anglicanism) than even about Taxes and government representation.
It wasn't until the revolution and George Washington that the effort was seriously made to unify all sects of Christianity under one common God (for obvious reasons). He seriously believed the successes of the Continental Army were purely based on their obedience to God and that their defeats were not due to "bad soldiering" (he knew there was plenty of that) but because of disobedience to God. In his most bitter moments, Washington despaired that he must surely rely on God because he wasn't going to be able to count on his poorly trained and occasionally mutinous army. "Providence has heretofore saved us in remarkable manner and on this we must principally rely." (pp. 70). Another quote from the book, Chapter 7: Holy War:
Given the tremendous debate in recent years over whether the Founders believed America was a "Christian Nation," it's worth noting that, at this particular moment, the Continental Congress seemed to view it that way. Most public declarations sipmly assumed a Christian audience and vocabulary. On November 1, 1777, representatives approved a resolution to celebrate December 18 as a time of thanksgiving and call for acts to "please God through merits of Jesus Christ" and to nourish "the means of religion, for the promotion of enlargement of that Kingdom, which consisteth 'in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy ghost.' " (pp. 71)
There is no doubt our heritage is a Judeo-Christian one. So how did we get from there to where we are today?... I have my suspicions. I think that it has much to do with the growing influence of Darwin in the mid 19th century which blossomed into the Modern Progressive Movement of the early 20th century. Growing from his theories of evolution and survival of the fittest, a number of conclusions have been made. His theory does not only effect science, it effects world view and that effects every aspect of a person's life. I'm not quite ready to post about it yet, but stay tuned, sometime this summer (hopefully) I want to dive into Darwinism: The Political, Philosophical, Religious, and Moral Implications of an Evolutionist Worldview (hehe, that will be the title of the post). Anyway, I have a few more books to read before I'm ready to tackle that issue. For now, understand that while you may not consider the United States a Christian nation today, I assure you, our original intent was to be so.
It's interesting that while the colonies were escaping religion persecution from Europe, they were practicing their faiths very dogmatically. Government and Religion were inseparable, in fact, if you were a practicing Quaker in a Puritan Colony, you could be imprisoned, evicted from the Colony, or sentenced to death (think Salem Witch Trials... of course this was the extreme situation which, as we're taught in school, "always happens when you mix Church and State"). Religious Tolerance was non-existant until the mid 18th century; however, while the protestant Christian sects were becoming more tolerant of each other, there was still a great fear of the Catholic faith (or as they called it, Papism). Part of the reason for these settlers' departure from England was the growing influence of Catholicism in the Anglican Church.
When England, the Crown included, heard what was happening over here religiously, they decided it was time to Anglicanize the colonies because at least that way, the colonies wouldn't be killing each other over religion. This book suggests that perhaps more of the Revolution was about Religious freedom (anti-Anglicanism) than even about Taxes and government representation.
It wasn't until the revolution and George Washington that the effort was seriously made to unify all sects of Christianity under one common God (for obvious reasons). He seriously believed the successes of the Continental Army were purely based on their obedience to God and that their defeats were not due to "bad soldiering" (he knew there was plenty of that) but because of disobedience to God. In his most bitter moments, Washington despaired that he must surely rely on God because he wasn't going to be able to count on his poorly trained and occasionally mutinous army. "Providence has heretofore saved us in remarkable manner and on this we must principally rely." (pp. 70). Another quote from the book, Chapter 7: Holy War:
Given the tremendous debate in recent years over whether the Founders believed America was a "Christian Nation," it's worth noting that, at this particular moment, the Continental Congress seemed to view it that way. Most public declarations sipmly assumed a Christian audience and vocabulary. On November 1, 1777, representatives approved a resolution to celebrate December 18 as a time of thanksgiving and call for acts to "please God through merits of Jesus Christ" and to nourish "the means of religion, for the promotion of enlargement of that Kingdom, which consisteth 'in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy ghost.' " (pp. 71)
There is no doubt our heritage is a Judeo-Christian one. So how did we get from there to where we are today?... I have my suspicions. I think that it has much to do with the growing influence of Darwin in the mid 19th century which blossomed into the Modern Progressive Movement of the early 20th century. Growing from his theories of evolution and survival of the fittest, a number of conclusions have been made. His theory does not only effect science, it effects world view and that effects every aspect of a person's life. I'm not quite ready to post about it yet, but stay tuned, sometime this summer (hopefully) I want to dive into Darwinism: The Political, Philosophical, Religious, and Moral Implications of an Evolutionist Worldview (hehe, that will be the title of the post). Anyway, I have a few more books to read before I'm ready to tackle that issue. For now, understand that while you may not consider the United States a Christian nation today, I assure you, our original intent was to be so.
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