One Nation Under God

     VOLUME 1                     ISSUE 24

                  

              “ONE NATION UNDER GOD'

Courts possess very potent powers, both coercive and moral.
Although that power is asserted over an entire culture it is not
dramatic because it proceeds incrementally, but since the
increments accumulate, it is all the more potent for that. What
Judges have wrought is a coup d'etat-slow-moving and genteel,
but a coup d'etat nonetheless.   Robert Bork
                

          Each day, after a moment of silence, over 47,000 children enrolled in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School system begin the day by standing with their hand over their heart, facing the flag of the United States of America and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. It is the policy of the school system, a requirement for every class.  “One nation under God” each child proclaims.  For the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Constitutional rights of these children are being violated.  Circuit Judge Alfred T. Goodwin, wrote in a recent opinion:

In the context of the Pledge, the statement that the United States is a nation ‘under God’ is an endorsement of religion. It is a profession of a religious belief, namely, a belief in monotheism. The recitation that ours is a nation ‘under God’ is not a mere acknowledgement that many Americans believe in a deity. Nor is it merely descriptive of the undeniable historical significance of religion in the founding of the Republic. Rather, the phrase ‘one nation under God’ in the context of the Pledge is normative. To recite the Pledge is not to describe the United States; instead, it is to swear allegiance to the values for which the flag stands: unity, indivisibility, liberty, justice, and — since 1954 — monotheism. …A profession that we are a nation ‘under God’ is identical, for [constitutional] purposes, to a profession that we are a nation ‘under Jesus,’a nation ‘under Vishnu,’ a nation ‘under Zeus,’ or a nation ‘under no god,’ because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion. 

         

          Newdow vs. Elk Grove Unified School District *will soon be decided by the United States Supreme Court.  It is a curious case.

          The Pledge of Allegiance was the authored by Francis Bellamy, who was both a socialist and a Baptist minister.  In 1892, while serving as Chairman of a committee of State School Superintendents, he introduced the Pledge to celebrate of the 400^th anniversary of the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus.  The word “equality” was omitted from his original draft in deference to a widely held belief by some that equality toward African Americans and women was not required.  In 1954, after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, Congress added the words “under God”.   

Michael Newdow, an atheist, is the estranged father of an eight year old student in the Elk Grove California school district. Believing that the school system was promoting religion, Newdow filed suit. Despite the fact that his ex wife has legal custody of their child, he claims that his fundamental right to direct the religious education of his child is violated by the school opening each day with the Pledge. The child, a Christian who actively participates in her church, does not object to the daily recitation . Nevertheless, the Ninth Circuit considered “the coercive effect” of the Pledge upon the elementary aged child reason enough to declare it unconstitutional.

The First Amendment of the Constitution was adopted in 1789 and reads as follows:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”   Several states, including North Carolina, refused to ratify the Constitution until this Amendment was adopted. Considering the worship of God to be an unalienable natural right and owing to the fact that nine of the twelve original states had some form of established state religion, no one was in favor of a national religion.

 The Amendment prohibits Congress from making any law inhibiting the free exercise of religion.  Further it mandates that the Federal Government refrain from favoring one religion over another or  from discriminating against any citizen on account of religious belief.

Religion has always been intertwined with American government.  No serious study of the history of our Republic could conclude otherwise.  Reverent appreciation of the blessings of God toward our country has been a part of our Government since its inception.  America has been and remains a religious nation. The disestablishment of religion was a practical response to the government of a pluralistic society. It enabled citizens to reach a moral consensus concerning government without being distracted by theological differences.  It never was intended to create a secular government indifferent to the blessings of an Almighty God.

Over the years in one case after another, the Supreme Court has steadily moved our nation from its religious roots toward a secular indifference to religion. Historian Thomas West points to the obvious consequence of this movement: “Government's ban on God is particularly striking in light of this fact: the Declaration of Independence says liberty is our inalienable right only because we are "endowed" with that right by our Creator. Our principles supposedly require us never to breathe a word to school children about where those principles come from. But if we refuse to acknowledge that foundation of our principles in "the laws of nature and of nature's God," what do our principles rest on? If liberty is not the gift of God, it must be the gift of government. But what government gives, government may take away. As Jefferson said: without God, liberty will not last.”

 Liberty is not a creation of a secular world.  Liberty is a self evident expression of God’s love for mankind.  John Foster Dulles correctly observed: "Our nation was founded as an experiment in human liberty. Its institutions reflect the belief of our founders that men had their origin and destiny in God; that they were endowed by Him with unalienable rights and had duties prescribed by moral law, and that human institutions ought primarily to help men develop their God-given possibilities.”

The sovereignty of God is not affected by the removal of religion from the classrooms of this country.  It is the sovereignty of the people who are challenged by the omission. Only someone unfamiliar with religion could ever conclude that the historically descriptive phrase “one nation under God” is a prayer. Yet, if it is a prayer, let us hope that it is a prayer answered.  If it is religious coercion, let every citizen be so compelled. God speaks to the heart of mankind in a voice too loud to be muffled by the dictates of the Supreme Court of this land. Liberty is the legacy of our forefathers and the means by which life, justice and equality are secured.  For how shall we pass the blessing of liberty to the next generation?  How can “this nation, under God, have a new birth of freedom - and the government of the people, by the people, not perish from the earth” without each new generation understanding from whence our liberty comes?

As the Supreme Court considers this case,* will you pray with me a graduation prayer ruled unconstitutional in 1992:

God of the Free, Hope of the Brave –

For the liberty of America, we thank you.

May our children grow up to guard it.

May each of us strive to fulfill what you require of us: To do justly,

to love mercy,

to walk humbly with the Lord, Our God.

(* the case never reached the issue of whether the pledge contains a prayer in that it was ruled that the Plaintiff had no standing to sue- prayer answered I guess)

** Atticus penned this column years ago but with recent discussions of the Pledge in school I felt it appropriate to re-publish) 

The True Meaning of Christmas by Frederick Beuchner

First Sunday of Advent

“The house lights go off and the footlights come on. Even the chattiest stop chattering as they wait in darkness for the curtain to rise. In the orchestra pit, the violin bows are poised. The conductor has raised his baton. In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen. You walk up the steps to the front door. The empty windows at either side of it tell you nothing, or almost nothing. For a second you catch a whiff of some fragrance that reminds you of a place you’ve never been and a time you have no words for. You are aware of the beating of your heart…The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.”

— Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark

Frederick Buechner, "The Annunciation"

"In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary," and that is the beginning of a story – a time, a place, a set of characters, and the implied promise, which is common to all stories, that something is coming, something interesting or significant or exciting is about to happen. And I would like to start out by reminding you that this is what Christianity is. If we whittle away long enough, it is a story that we come to at last. And if we take even the fanciest and most metaphysical kind of theologian or preacher and keep on questioning him far enough – Why is this so? All right, but why is thatso? Yes, but how do we know that it's so? – even he is forced finally to take off his spectacles and push his books off to one side and say, "Once upon a time there was...," and then everybody leans forward a little and starts to listen. 

We want to know what is coming next. There was a young woman named Mary, and an angel came to her from God, and what did he say? And what did she say? And then how did it all turn out in the end? 

The story Christianity tells is one that can be so siimply told that we can get the whole thing really on a very small Christmas card or into two crossed pieces of wood. Yet in another sense it is so vast and complex that the whole Bible can only hint at it, a story beyond time altogether.

Yet it is also in time, the story of the love between God and man. There is a time when it begins, and therefore there is a time before it begins, when it is coming but not yet here, and this is the time Mary was in when Gabriel came to her. It is Advent: the time just before the adventure begins, when everybody is leaning forward to hear what will happen even though they already know what will happen and what will not happen, when they listen hard for meaning, their meaning, and begin to hear, only faintly at first, the beating of unseen wings.

from The Magnificent Defeat

by Frederick Buechner

Christmas is not just Mr. Pickwick dancing a reel with the old lady at Dingley Dell or Scrooge waking up the next morning a changed man. It is not just the spirit of giving abroad in the land with a white beard and reindeer. It is not just the most famous birthday of them all and not just the annual reaffirmation of Peace on Earth that it is often reduced to so that people of many faiths or no faith can exchange Christmas cards without a qualm. 

On the contrary, if you do not hear in the message of Christmas something that must strike some as blasphemy and others as sheer fantasy, the chances are you have not heard the message for what it is. Emmanuel is the message in a nutshell. Emmanuel, which is Hebrew for "God with us." That's where the problem lies.

The claim that Christianity makes for Christmas is that at a particular time and place "the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity" came to be with us himself. When Quirinius was governor of Syria, in a town called Bethlehem, a child was born who, beyond the power of anyone to account for, was the high and lofty One made low and helpless. The One whom none can look upon and live is delivered in a stable under the soft, indifferent gaze of cattle. The Father of all mercies puts himself at our mercy. Year after year the ancient tale of what happened is told raw, preposterous, holy and year after year the world in some measure stops to listen.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. A dream as old as time. If it is true, it is the chief of all truths. If it is not true, it is of all truths the one that people would most have be true if they could make it so. 

Maybe it is that longing to have it be true that is at the bottom even of the whole vast Christmas industry the tons of cards and presents and fancy food, the plastic figures kneeling on the floodlit lawns of poorly attended churches. The world speaks of holy things in the only language it knows, which is a worldly language.

Emmanuel. We all must decide for ourselves whether it is true. Certainly the grounds on which to dismiss it are not hard to find. Christmas is commercialism. It is a pain in the neck. It is sentimentality. 

It is wishful thinking. The shepherds. The star. The three wise men. Make believe. 

Yet it is never as easy to get rid of as all this makes it sound. To dismiss Christmas is for most of us to dismiss part of ourselves. It is to dismiss one of the most fragile yet enduring visions of our own childhood and of the child that continues to exist in all of us. The sense of mystery and wonderment. The sense that on this one day each year two plus two adds up not to four but to a million. 

What keeps the wild hope of Christmas alive year after year in a world notorious for dashing all hopes is the haunting dream that the child who was born that day may yet be born again even in us. 

Emmanuel. Emmanuel.

Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go to or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of man. If holiness and the awful power and majesty of God were present in this least auspicious of all events, this birth of a peasant’s child, then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can be present there too. And this means that we are never safe, that there is no place where we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart because it is just where he seems most helpless that he is strong, and just where we least expect him that he comes most fully.

For those who believe in God, it means, this birth, that God himself is never safe from us, and maybe that is the dark side of Christmas, the terror of the silence. He comes in such a way that we can always turn him down, as we could crack the baby’s skull like an eggshell or nail him up when he gets too big for that.

God comes to us in the hungry man we do not have to feed, comes to us in the lonely man we do not have to comfort, comes to us in all the desperate human need of people, everywhere that we are always free to turn our backs upon.

It means that God puts himself at our mercy not only in the sense of the suffering that we can cause him by our blindness and coldness and cruelty, but the suffering that we can cause simply by suffering ourselves. Because that is the way love works, and when someone we love suffers, we suffer with him, and we would not have it otherwise because the suffering and the love are one, just as it is with God’s love for us.

 Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark

Christmas itself is by grace. It could never have survived our own blindness and depredations otherwise. It could never have happened otherwise. Perhaps it is the very wildness and strangeness of the grace that has led us to try to tame it. We have tried to make it habitable. We have roofed it and furnished it. We have reduced it to an occasion we feel at home with, at best a touching and beautiful occasion, at worst a trite and cloying one. But if the Christmas event in itself is indeed—as a matter of cold, hard fact—all its cracked up to be, then even at best our efforts are misleading.

The Word became flesh. Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed. Incarnation. It is not tame. It is not beautiful. It is uninhabitable terror. It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light. Agonized laboring led to it, vast upheavals of intergalactic space, time split apart, a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself. You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this: “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God… who for us and for our salvation,” as the Nicene Creed puts it, “came down from heaven.”

Came down. Only then do we dare uncover our eyes and see what we can see. It is the Resurrection and the Life she holds in her arms. It is the bitterness of death he takes at her breast.

Fredrick Buechner--Whistling in the Dark 

A Christmas Prayer | Frederick Buechner

Lord Jesus Christ, thou Son of the Most High, Prince of Peace, be born again into our world. Wherever there is war in this world, wherever there is pain, wherever there is loneliness, wherever there is no hope, come, thou long-expected one, with healing in thy wings.

Holy Child, whom the shepherds and the kings and the dumb beasts adored, be born again. Wherever there is boredom, wherever there is fear of failure, wherever there is temptation too strong to resist, wherever there is bitterness of heart, come, thou Blessed One, with healing in thy wings.

Savior, be born in each of us as we raise our faces to thy face, not knowing fully who we are or who thou art, knowing only that thy love is beyond our knowing and that no other has the power to make us whole. Come, Lord Jesus, to each who longs for thee even though we have forgotten thy name. Come quickly, Amen.

— “The Face in the Sky” in Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons

Hurricane Lamp - Matthew 5:16

Vol. 1                                                     Issue 23

“Let your light shine before men, that seeing your good works, they will praise your Father in Heaven.”  Matthew 5:16

Just outside of the back door of the R.J. Reynolds High School gymnasium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, stands an oak tree.  On Friday evenings in the fall of 1973, this oak tree was the meeting place of high school football players attending pre-game devotions.  I don’t remember many of the devotions, but on one occasion the subject of the lesson was Matthew 5:16. The devotion was led by a senior tailback whose father was a Presbyterian minister. It was one of the first verses I committed to memory. 

What an awe-inspiring proclamation Jesus makes to the Disciples:  “You are the salt of the earth! … You are the light of the world! … Let your light so shine before men, that seeing your good deeds, they shall praise your Father in heaven.” (Matt.5: 13, 14, 16)

The order of the two pronouncements is interesting. The first is a proclamation of substance; the second is a proclamation of derivative effect.  A Christian must be something before he can affect others. A development of a certain quality of life must precede the dissemination of that life upon others. 

In the First Century,salt and light were essential and much sought- after commodities. Salt was an essential preservative. Meat, especially, would spoil if not salted soon after an animal was slaughtered. What a sad implication this description has for the rest of the world.  For if Christians are the world’s salt, the clear implication is that the rest of the world, absent the preservative, is nothing more than a rotting, decaying shell. 

What then is the purpose of salt?  Salt is an agent by which meat is preserved. It is an antiseptic temporarily preventing the natural putrefaction of a dead animal. Such is a function of a Christian in a dead and dying world. The presence of a Christian intermingled with the world will delay and sometimes even prevent the inevitable decay of morality.  Our presence alone reminds even the most degenerate of individuals of the principles of fairness, kindness and respect for others. 

Salt is also an element that brings out the flavor of bland and tasteless food.  The presence of salt changes the perception of food, making it more desirable. Similarly, disciples living in a cruel and uncaring world offer a different perspective to situations that most of the world finds tasteless.

Common perceptions often give way in the face of abundant- living disciples.  To Christians, death is not to be feared, but celebrated.  Service to others is not some burdensome obligation, but instead a joy. The vituperation of enemies is not met with retaliation, but with prayer.  Forgiveness as an essential part of life removes the clutter of grudges and vengeance.

The presence of Christians in the world is that of a good infection, healing wounds, relieving pain and suffering, and making the quality of life, even in the most miserable of places, joyful!

We become luminaries only as a result of the development of a saltiness in our life.  For a Christian, light is the natural derivative of salt. How the Christian interacts with those living in a dark world is the true measure of our discipleship.

In an age void of electricity, darkness was the curse of mankind.  All activity ceased without the presence of light. If Christians are light, the implication of a world living in self-imposed darkness is abundantly clear.

Observe how it is our light - our works, rather than our personalities which draws others to God.   We are beacons revealing the paths to God, but the same light exposes the ugliness, the pettiness and the evil of the selfish world in which we live. 

Last Sunday, Reverend Kevin Frack delivered the meditation before the communion service at Ardmore Moravian Church.  He held up a lantern to illustrate the point of his lesson. He explained that railroad workers and lighthouse keepers used this kind of lamp.  Even in the midst of driving rain storms, the light contained in the lamp would shine forth, protected by glass encasement.  Once he lighted the lamp, he waved it around to illustrate his point.  The flame shined forth.  Nothing he could do would affect the beacon.

It seems that this lantern was known as a Hurricane Lamp, for once lit, the light was quite safe from the elements.  Neither wind, nor rain would affect the beacon. Even in the middle of a hurricane, this lantern’s light would shine brightly.  Only impurities in the fuel could weaken the flame, and only mud or debris covering the lamp would obscure its beacon.  The Hurricane Lamp was a personal lighthouse for all who carried it, lighting paths in the dark night and providing warnings to unsuspecting travelers.

Our faith, then, observed Rev. Frack, is like a Hurricane Lamp. As the only light in a very dark world, the illumination Christians provide is what the world sees of us. Only impurities – the contamination caused by our sins – will ever diminish the flame.  Only the debris of life can obscure our beacon.  His meditation was an exposition of Matthew 5:16, a verse I learned beneath an oak tree some 30 years ago.

It was a fitting end to a busy week for me.  On Tuesday, I was in Washington, for the ceremony honoring the opening of the 109^th Congress* and the beginning of the term of Richard Burr as United States Senator from North Carolina. I recalled Matthew 5:16 on that day as well.  For you see, the tousled haired tailback, who led the devotions beneath the oak tree in 1973, is now the junior Senator from the State of North Carolina.

Being certain that good works are sure to follow the tenure of Richard Burr in the United States Senate, let’s make sure that praise is not given to the government he represents, but to the God he serves.

*(This article was written in January 2005...much time has passed Senator Burr is now the senior senator from North Carolina having been re-elected in 2010)

Self Evident Truths....the video

http://www.youtube.com/user/PatriotPost?feature=mhee#p/c/89BAEEE28D990CF2

Take Your Time Mr. President

       Vol.1                                          Issue 22

If you're reading this, then I've died in Iraq. I don't regret going. Everybody dies, but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it's not to me. I'm here helping these people, so they can live the way we live. Not [to] have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark.    Jeff Starr – USMC

President George W. Bush visited Kernersville, North Carolina on December 5, 2005.  He is only the second president to visit our little town.  Though he has driven through on the highway a time or two, on this day he stopped.

George Washington was here in 1791. Pausing for breakfast as he traveled from the village of Salem to the Guilford Courthouse battleground, he caused little stir among the citizenry. People still debate whether he rode in a carriage or was mounted on a white steed.  Few were present to mark the occasion so I guess no one really knows for sure.  A marker off Main Street commemorates the event.

Much time has passed since that first Presidential visit.  The dusty crossroads has grown into a community of 50,000.  So, when President Bush came to town, streets had to be closed. A manufacturing plant was shut down.  Elaborate security measures were enacted. Snipers climbed on roofs, and bomb sniffing dogs walked with stern looking security personnel. A mile long motorcade passed a few detractors as they stood in the rain with signs of protest. Sophisticated media from around the world descended upon us in a fleet of chartered buses. It was quite a sight.  A modern day motorcade now replaces the white steed.

Admirers clamored for tickets to an invitation only event. About 100 folks were lucky enough to make it inside. They joined another 100 or so manufacturing workers in eager anticipation of the arrival of the most powerful man in the world.

After a two hour wait, President Bush took the podium and talked about the economy. He bragged on local politicians and commended the fine work of those who built earth moving equipment for the Deere-Hitachi Company. He chided opponents to his tax cut and asked us not to forget to pray for our soldiers serving abroad.

After he finished, he quickly moved among the crowd shaking hands and signing autographs.  He smiled, laughed and took extra time to tease a youngster about missing school.  Understanding how important it was for folks to be with the President of the United States, he patiently posed for pictures and even donned a few ball caps for effect.  

Then just as quickly as he appeared he was gone and we all stood and waited. Security requires that no one leave the building until the Presidential motorcade has departed. Basking in the afterglow of the event, few seemed to mind.

Nearly 200 workers, politicians and well wishers mingled and made small talk.  Thirty minutes passed and we were still not allowed to leave.  Growing impatient with the wait many asked: “Wonder what’s taking him so long?”  Then someone said: “He has a special meeting.”  “With who?’ inquired a man sarcastically.  “Some high dollar contributor I bet,” exclaimed another. Then someone spoke quietly to a man standing next to him. Then some hearing what the first man had said, told others.  Soon the entire assembly was aware of what the President was doing and to whom he was speaking.  We all knew why it was taking so long. We all understood.

How do you comfort the parents of a soldier killed in the service of our country?  President Bush must ask this of himself each time he grasps a young widow’s hand. How do you wipe a tear from the cheek of a grieving mother?  How do you embrace the trembling shoulders of a devastated father?  How do you convey the immense gratitude of a nation for the sacrifice of someone so young?

While we were waiting impatiently to get about our daily business, George Walker Bush, the 43^rd President of the United States sat and cried with parents of a young man recently killed in Iraq.  I don’t know what words he used or how he communicated our country’s sorrow for their loss. Words just don’t seem adequate.  But as far as I am concerned my President could take as much time as he needed.

A story about the Apostle Peter...throwing off chains....

LESSON SEVEN - LOVE: 

Another Reality Check! 

Simon, son of Jonas, Do You Love Me more than these?

                                                             Jn. 21

 

I grew up in the first television generation.  While I can remember the days when there was no cable television, I have always watched television.   Accordingly, when I think about how things were, whether reading a story, or listening to account of another, my brain considers what it hears and transmits a television image.  Therefore, when I read the wonderful stories of the Bible, I see the stories from a Cecil B. DeMille or Francis Ford Coppola point of view.  My favorite character in the New Testament has to be Peter.  In my mind's eye, he looks like a bearded Anthony Quinn, strong and tough, but with gentleness beneath his rough exterior.  Peter as you know always wore his emotions on his sleeve.  He did not always speak his mind, but his heart.  He fiercely loved Jesus, but was often held back by human frailties of faith.  Yet, in spite of his human deficiencies, he experienced the full gamut of emotions in his walk with Jesus.  His faith allowed him to overcome the fear of nature's storm to walk on water with his Jesus, but his cowardice allowed fear to compel him to deny Him as his Lord.  The very church in which we worship was founded upon faith such as developed in this simple fisherman.  What an emotional roller coaster he was on. What a compelling figure he is.  It is with my favorite story of Peter that I have chosen to end this chapter on the Christian Love.

The story is found in John 21: 1-22.  It is as if the old apostle had finished his gospel and then remembered a meaningful story he had to tell, so he stuck in at the end of the book.  Because of its location, you may never have really looked at it in detail.  It is a simple tale of night fishing on the Sea of Galilee.  It occurs at a time between the resurrection and the ascension.  The disciples have not quite recovered from the miraculous event of meeting with a risen Lord, and have yet to begin their evangelism.  Most were fishermen, so they decide to go fishing, and who should appear, but Jesus! (A clever preacher could make an hour-long sermon on the fact that you just never know when and where you will encounter your Lord-I will settle with a parenthetical reference)

  Peter, who is fishing in a loincloth, realizes that it is Jesus on the shore, and does two things just as you would expect of Peter. He impulsively jumps in the water to swim to meet Jesus leaving his other disciples to haul in the fish; but, before he jumps in the water he puts on his coat. (When I taught this lesson I pointed out rather scholarly that it was a Jewish custom not to greet religious leaders naked - in response a member of the class pointed out rather astutely this was also custom in the Moravian Church as well!)  Jesus built a fire and after drying Peter out and eating a meal, He had a very pointed conversation with Peter - a conversation that Peter, and those listening, never forgot.

“Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me more than these?” Jesus said, (perhaps standing, with waving gesture toward the other disciples). The question no doubt would have startled Peter.  For in the past Peter would have led with his heart and immediately declared his allegiance for his Lord.  Instead, Peter, still bearing the emotional scars of his infamous denial, simply responded, no doubt with a bit of distress in his voice: “Lord, you know I love you.”  “Then feed my lambs”, commanded Jesus.   Again, Jesus looked at Peter and inquired: “Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?”  More distressed, but still wary of speaking his heart, Peter replied: “Lord, you know I love you.”  “Then, be a shepherd to my sheep,” commanded Jesus.  A third time, Jesus looked into the eyes of Peter, and asked, “Simon, son of Jonas, Do you love me?”  Most translations say that the question vexed or deeply hurt Peter.  Such a description of the emotional state of Peter is perhaps an understatement.  Peter no doubt replayed the whole distressing story of his denial vividly in his mind.  He probably could even hear the rooster crow.  Nevertheless, he stood firm, and probably looked Jesus in the eye, and replied submissively, but in strength of character borne of a life of trial: “Lord, you know everything.  You know that I love you!” “Then feed my sheep”, says Jesus.  “Follow me!”  He commanded, as He got up and began to walk away.  Peter followed, and in a few steps, he turned and pointed to John, and said, “Lord, what about him?”  In a tone sharper than used previously, Jesus retorted, “Peter, what business is that of yours, if it is my wish for him to stay until I come again, so be it.  As for you, you follow me!”

How does all this pertain to the attribute of love?  At the first of the lessons, we looked at the three love commands of Jesus: Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength; Love your neighbor as yourself; Love each other as Christ loved you.    Let us perform a reality check.  If Jesus would suddenly appear at a time and in a place when you least expect, look you in the eye and asked: “My child, do you love me?”  How would you react?  What would be your reply?

If you have learned anything in this lesson, you know that love is not a cheaply purchased commodity.  It is a thoughtful, committed decision to give of yourself to your beloved.  It does not depend upon outside stimuli and is a self creating phenomenon.  “Christian Love does not mean an emotion.  It is a state of will which we have naturally about ourselves, but must learn to have about other people.” (Mere Christianity, p.100)  According to Paul, we are called to present ourselves “as a living sacrifice, consecrated to Him and acceptable by Him.”(Rom. 12:1)  When King David came to Ornah's threshing floor at a time when he wanted to make a sacrifice unto God, Ornah gave King David an appropriate unblemished lamb.  When King David offered to pay, Ornah refused; to which King David replied: “I shall not sacrifice unto my God that which costs me nothing.” (II Sam. 24)  What have you given unto your Lord?  He asks only for love. 

Remember Dr. Covey's response to the man whose marriage had lost the loving feeling? “Love her,” Dr. Covey instructed, and then explained, “Reactive people make love an emotion, we are required to make love a value.”  As a Christian, you are required to subordinate your feelings to values.  If you are not sure if you love God, or if you don't feel like loving God, try to love anyway; if for no other reason than He has commanded you to. Consider the wisdom of C. S. Lewis:

Nobody can always have devout feelings, and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. Christian Love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.”  He will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right. But the feelings come and go,  His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.

                                             Mere Christianity, p. 102-103.

The second love command is that we love our neighbors as ourselves.  Loving others is a lot like loving God.  We are not required to have feelings of affection for those whom we love, we are only required to love them.  C. S. Lewis continues his observations:

The rule for all of us is perfectly simple.  Do not waste time bothering whether you “Love” your neighbor; act as if you did.  As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets.  When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him . . . The difference between a Christian and a worldly man is not that the worldly man has only affections or “likings” and the Christian has only “love”. The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he “likes” them: the Christian, trying to treat everyone kindly, finds himself liking more and more people as he goes on - including people he could not even have imagined himself liking at the beginning.                                                                Mere Christianity, p.102

The third love command is that we love each other as Christ loved us.  Jesus loved selflessly.  Can you?  Jesus loved sacrificially.  Can you?  Jesus loved with understanding.  Can you?  Jesus loved with forgiveness. Can you?

Most of us do not consciously know how to love.  We often stumble upon love, but few decide to give of ourselves to anything.  We live in an illusion that love feelings are all we need to get by.  The truth is though, that I seldom have love feelings about God, but I am commanded to love Him anyway.   I never have love feelings for those who make my life a misery, but I am commanded to love my enemies.  Love feelings are nice, but, they are not necessary for Christians.   For a Christian, deciding to love is a required response to life itself.  When you decide to love, you consciously accept the risks associated with your actions.  In fact, you choose to give of yourself in a manner that may be quite contrary to your instincts.  If this bothers you, consider that Paul learned that if “you cut the nerve of your instinctive actions by obeying the Spirit, you are on the way to real living.”(Rom. 8:13)

If you find that loving God is difficult, rest assured that your labors are worth it.  If you find that loving your neighbor as you love yourself is not easy, especially at those times when you do not like yourself, love anyway!  Life will gain new meaning from your effort. If the standard Christ has set for loving each other is too exacting, remember Jesus' command to Peter. “What business is it to you . . . You must follow me!”

If following Jesus requires us to subordinate our feelings to His values, we must act as He has commanded, and have faith that the Creator of all things understands how it is best for us to live.  If His way of living seems too difficult, we need only to remember the words of Thomas Paine:

That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.  It is dearness only, which gives everything its value.  Heaven knows how to put a price on its goods.

Peace as I Ponder a Reunion in the Yonder

Once I was afraid of dying,
terrified of ever-lying,
petrified of leaving family, home and friends.

Thoughts of absence from my dear ones,
brought a melancholy tear once,
and a dredful fear of when life ends.

But those days are long behind me,
fear of leaving does not bind me,
and departure does not hold a single care.

Peace does comfort as I ponder,
a reunion in the yonder,
with my dearest one who is waiting for me there.

Swen Nader, UCLA basketball player

This poem was a favorite of the late John Wooden

Jesus and the South Carolina Witch

The Man in the Mirror

The Guy In The Glass

When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf,
And the world makes you King for a day,
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,
And see what that guy has to say.

For it isn't your Father or Mother or Wife,
Who judgement upon you must pass.
The feller whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the guy staring back from the glass.

He's the feller to please, never mind all the rest,
For he's with you clear up to the end,
And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the guy in the glass is your friend.

You may be like Jack Horner and "chisel" a plum,
And think you're a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you're only a bum
If you can't look him straight in the eye.

You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you've cheated the guy in the glass.

©Dale Wimbrow, 1934.

A Message for Teachers.....Be Like Mike

Vol. 1                                                       Issue 20

                WHY NOT THE BEST?

A young ensign, a recent Annapolis graduate, dressed impeccably in a new white dress uniform, sat nervously before a silver-haired Admiral who leaned forward to question this clean-cut Georgia farm boy of his qualifications to serve in the nation’s fleet of nuclear submarines.  They talked of world events, history, literature, duty, honor and country.  To each question, he provided the Admiral with eager and appropriate answers.  Then, at the end of the interview, the old Admiral finally asked of the young officer’s record at the Naval Academy.  With pride Ensign James Earl Carter, Jr., announced that he graduated in the top of his class.  "Very well, Mr. Carter,” replied Admiral Hyman Rickover, “But did you always do your best?”  Candidly the future President replied that he had not.  “Why not the best, Ensign Carter?  Why not the best…”

            Decades later another son of the south was asked to account for his performance leading the Chicago Bulls to their fourth NBA Championship.  Michael Jordan, the best athlete ever to play the game, with tears of emotion choking his words, dedicated the game, the series, the victory and his moment of elation to his late father, a victim of a senseless murder.  Such emotion, though touching and profoundly moving, was not unexpected. After all, it was Father’s Day – the young man’s memory of his last championship and his last celebration with his father merged with the moment at hand.  Yet, right in the midst of a most perfunctory interview, he said something else. “Those guys in the minor leagues, I want to thank them too…” Those unnamed minor league baseball players with whom he had spent an eighteen month sabbatical from the game he was born to play – an eighteen month reality check.  Michael Jordan, toiling with a bunch of major league wannabees.  Perhaps one in a hundred of these players would ever suit up for a big league team.  “I wonder why they work so hard?”,  Michael must have mused.  “That one can’t hit a curve ball; the blond headed boy could never beat out a bunt; the big guy from Brooklyn has a rubber arm.  Why do they give it their all every day?  Don’t they know that they’ll never make it?  Then one day he received an answer in the form of a question: “Why not the best?”

            We need to thank those minor league baseball players too.  While few of us have ever seen Babe Ruth hit a home run, or Jim Thorpe compete in an Olympic Decathlon, or Ben Hogan strike a golf ball in the U.S. Open, we have seen the very best basketball ever played by the very best basketball player who has yet to play the game.  He played not for money nor acclaim.  He gave his best for the love of the game – a lesson learned from some rubber armed minor leaguer whose name we’ll never care to remember. 

            Why did you elect teaching as you life’s work?  It certainly is not for the money nor the fame.  What then is it that brings you back every year?  Each of you are talented professionals who can make your way in this world in other professions.  What brings you back?  What keeps you going day after day, week after week, and year after year?  Have you stopped lately to think about what you are doing?  Perhaps you are afraid that if you do, you will never come back, but I am willing to take that risk.  If you are honest with yourself, you return each year for the same reason that you began teaching.  Inside each teacher is a spark, a small flame that burns incessantly.  You want to make a difference – a difference in the lives of our children.

            I recently heard a speech give by Charlie Davis, former Wake Forest basketball great.  He spoke about neighborhoods.  His neighborhood as a young boy was the streets of Harlem.  He described the poverty and the neglect, but surprisingly, he also described the love and attention that he received.  Even in Harlem in the 1960’s there was a neighborhood.  People knew his name, celebrated his accomplishments and cried with him over his failures.  “Where are our neighborhoods today?” he asked.  Even outside blighted inner cities, the streets of suburbia no longer resemble the neighborhoods that many of us grew up in.  Neighbors often do not know the person next door, much less care if anything good or bad happens to them.  Often our mobile society never allows any of us to put down roots anymore.  So where can we find our neighborhoods today?  “Right here in our schools,” Charlie Davis proclaimed, “may be the last vestige of neighborhood.”  It may be the only place where children find anyone who cares, or at least take time to care.  You know their friends, their frustrations and failures.  You pick them up when they fall and kick them in the tails when they slack off.  Most of all in this neighborhood, much as in the neighborhood Charlie Davis described, you share their dreams.  What a privilege it is to be a teacher!  You really do touch the future!!

           

In life, I have discovered that with every privilege you will find that there are corresponding responsibilities.  Few recognize it.  Certainly not the general public nor our politicians.  Occasionally a few parents think about it.  Yet, each of you knows it far too well.  Public education is the last best hope for a generation of our children!  The public rarely notices your successes in society, but your failures fill welfare rolls and prison beds.  If you do not succeed in turning on a child to learning by the time he leaves this school, chances are he will never find the spark on his own.  You are the last hope our society has for the future and it is a shame that no one else but your really understand how important you role is. 

            So what are you going to do about it this year.  All of you are excellent teachers.  You have proven yourself over the years.  Your students will, over all, be better than others in the system.  Most will pass and most will not menace society when they grow older.  At the end of the year, our parents and administrators will tell you what a good job you have done.  However, if you are honest with yourself, only you will be the judge of your success.  How will you measure it?

            The late Jim Valvano often said that in the final analysis there are really only two kinds of basketball players.  One kind is the player who shoots the ball and you expect it to go in and when it does not you are surprised.  The other kind is the player who shoots the ball and you don’t expect it to go in and you are surprised when it does.  The successful team is the one which has more of the former kind of players rather than the latter.  With schools a similar principle applies.  In the final analysis there are really only two kinds of teachers.  The first kind is the teacher who looks at a problem, a task or a student and asks “why?”.  The other kind is the teacher who asks “Why not?”  If  your school is to live up to its responsibility – If you really are the last vestige of a neighborhood – the last hope for a generation of children.  If you really want to share the dreams of children, you have to ask not “why?” but “why not?”

            Why do you return each year?  Why do you care so much?  What is it that drives each of you?  If you ask this question this year, do not be surprised if you hear Michael Jordan whisper – “Why not the best?”