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Archive for the ‘Commentaries’ Category

The Obstacle Course

Posted in Commentaries, Social / Political, Word Pictures, tagged , on September 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »

What kind of words would you use to describe a father, who builds an elaborate obstacle course for his children, and then disowns them if they can’t get through it?

Would the word “compassionate” come to mind?

Would your opinion of this man improve if I told you that he took the time to write a manual to let the kids know what was expected?

Would that be enough to convince you that he was really a “good” dad?

Would you think less of him if I told you that he wrote those instructions in such a way that most of his kids don’t really understand?

Would that make you question his sense of “justice”?

What if I told you that most of his kids don’t make it, and end up fatherless?

Would that seem “merciful” to you?

Maybe those questions seem absurd.

But as I talk to lost people out in the world, this is not far from the image of God they’ve received from organized religion.

They’ve heard of all the stuff they need to do.

And of all the stuff they’d better not do.

And of the dire consequences of failing.

And we wonder at their reluctance to accept our invitation to “church”.

And we wonder at their confusion when we say, “God is love”.

And we wonder why they aren’t excited about the “good news” of the gospel.

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Thought for the Day – Apples & Oranges

Posted in Commentaries, Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged , , on August 28, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I recently read an article about a popular young actress, who claims that she’d been a “born-again Christian” for 4 years.  She says that this all changed when, at 16 yrs. old, she had a major crush on a bisexual man, who liked to dress in women’s clothing.  Because of her great affection for him, she thought, “There’s no way this guy’s going to hell.  This guy is amazing.”  Since that was counter to the teachings of her church, she decided to leave Christianity behind.  Her take on the Bible is that it lacks “strong female role models” and that though “it was a nice guide”, “it certainly wasn’t how I was going to live my life.”  I would guess that her story isn’t all that unusual in Hollywood, or the rest of America for that matter.  At least this girl seemed to recognize that by throwing the Bible “out the window” she was fundamentally departing from the entire system of belief.  There are many folks who still count themselves “Christian” and even occupy a pew on a weekly basis, who believe that they can pick and choose which parts of God’s word they adhere to.

 

While I wasn’t really surprised by this article, I was struck by this girl’s utter confidence (i.e. faith) in her ability to discern what was acceptable and what was not.  In effect, she’s saying that she’s not willing to believe in a God who doesn’t agree with her conception of right and wrong.  As I pondered the source of her confidence I couldn’t help but think of the Garden of Eden, where man first got to choose between the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Interestingly, religion has confused people into believing that the choice was between the knowledge of good and the knowledge of evil, which really skews the lesson of the fall of man.  Ultimately, mankind’s folly is wrapped up in his desire to decide for himself rather than to depend on a Savior.  In fact, Jesus told his disciples, “The work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent.”  In the end, it will all boil down to what we’ve placed our faith in.  For this young woman, who is rich in the things of this world, that will likely be her own sense of righteousness.  For those who choose the tree of life, that will be the righteousness of our Savior.

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Prayers for Carl Harris

Posted in Commentaries, Personal, Prayers, tagged , , , , , on August 24, 2014| Leave a Comment »

On Friday night (08/22/14) the families, and fans, of both the Chillicothe & Unioto High Schools got together for what was ostensibly billed as a football scrimmage.  Even though these two schools aren’t in the same conference, or even in the same division, it would not be an exaggeration to call them cross-town rivals; or to acknowledge that this rivalry isn’t always friendly.  But for this gathering, we were more of a community coming together for a common cause; and we spent our energy battling the elements instead of each other.  With thunder, lighting, and torrential rains, the organizers of this event pretty much had to throw away the script in order to keep things going, and they did manage to pack a lot into the time they had.  Money was raised for the cheerleaders, and for the football boosters, and for the ALS foundation.  There was a helicopter dropping golf balls at a target, and ice bucket challenges, and even a little bit of football.  But perhaps the most significant moment of the night occurred off of the field, in a place that most of us couldn’t see.  In a parking lot adjacent to the field, where many members of Chillicothe’s team came face to face with their fallen star, Carl Harris.

 

People from our area have likely seen it in the paper, or heard about it around town.  But since these words might reach further than that, I can tell you that Carl was to be a senior at Chillicothe High School, and until about a week ago, he was their star running back.  Those who’ve seen him play would tell you he was absolutely electric on the field.  Unfortunately, if the police reports are correct, a week earlier Carl made a very bad decision, and now he is going to have to pay a terrible price for it.  For the guys on the team, it was a shock, and I think that many were hoping to find that it was all just some sort of misunderstanding.  But coming face to face with Carl made it all too real.  The emotions that flowed out of that moment were as profound and sincere as any you’ll witness from a group of teenage boys.  Their tears weren’t for the touchdowns that Carl won’t score for the team; they were for their brother who would no longer be a part of their daily gatherings. Their tears were for the young man they looked up to, and for the realization of what has been lost.

 

While I would never attempt to defend the actions that Carl allegedly took, I can’t help but point out that he is not defined by that moment, or even by what he’s accomplished on the athletic field.  Many of his teammates described him as a “leader” and my wife, who substitutes in the school system, confirmed that Carl was someone who’d stand up for her in the classroom.  Whatever caused him to make the choices he made, there is no way to justify simply writing him off as a bad kid.  On a personal level, my prayer is that, as difficult as this season of his life will be, Carl will battle through with the same grit and endurance he always displayed on the football field.  I pray that he will find that his gifts go well beyond his athletic ability, and that maybe someday he’ll be able to help young people avoid the heartbreaking situation that he finds himself in today.  I also pray that his Chillicothe teammates don’t allow this gut-wrenching lesson to pass by them too quickly.  I suspect that there are many other young men out there who are one bad decision away from their own disaster.

 

About an hour and a half after the scrimmage finally ended, I went out to get some pizza for my family; and as I was returning home, I saw a player from the team, walking along the road in the rain.  As I gave him a ride home, he mostly sat in stunned silence.  He did tell me that his head hurt from crying for the last two hours, and we talked about how your whole life can change in the blink of an eye.  I’m not sure what he derived from that conversation, but I can’t help but think it was a conversation worth having.  We often try to get past the hard moments quickly, but if we go too fast, we fail to learn the necessary lessons.  For now, we as a community need to keep all of these young men in our prayers, most especially young Carl Harris.

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Thought for the Day – Standing at Death’s Door

Posted in Commentaries, Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged , on June 12, 2014| Leave a Comment »

We seem to be going through a period where death is all around us. Within the last two weeks we lost a co-worker to cancer, my father-in-law had a stroke (which easily could have taken him from us), and a young man, who is close to our family, once again stopped his heart through his use of heroin (he is still in the Intensive Care Unit). Though the latter two survived, the sense of death’s nearness has been tangible. Then, a couple of days ago, we got word that one of the five soldiers killed in the friendly fire incident over in Afghanistan was from a small community that is immediately adjacent to the plant I’ve worked at for the last two decades. Though I didn’t know this boy personally, his family and friends are embedded in our community; and when I looked into his smiling face, I couldn’t help but think of my own son Patrick, who is enthusiastic to join the military when his school days are done. Finally, another co-worker was killed yesterday in a traffic accident, just outside the plant. This is the same intersection I’ve been passing through, on an almost daily basis, for over 20 years. Though the depth of my association to each of these individuals was varied, it’s hard not to feel a sense of connection to all of these events.

 

It’s probably a by-product of my age that I don’t necessarily turn my head from such things anymore. When you’re young, the concept of death can seem abstract, but as the years go by, the reality of it comes crashing in. Like these last two men, it can, and often does, come quickly and without warning. Such events should prompt us to consider each day as a gift, and to endeavor to make the most of them. Last night, as I drove past the site of the car accident, I thought about questions like, “What if that had been me?” “What would I wish I’d have said or done before that moment arrived; and what would suddenly seem like it had been a huge waste of my time?” Maybe that sounds morbid to some, but to me, it is a necessary part of making the most of my days. I’m not sure whether the man in the accident survived the initial impact, but if he did, I feel certain that he wasn’t thinking about the professional achievements of his career, or the balance of his IRA, or his golf handicap, or the status of his Fantasy Football team, or another one of the thousand things that compete for our time and energy. If we are fortunate enough to experience such a moment before stepping out of this life, I have no doubt that we will have a sudden clarity on what really matters. Unfortunately, by then, it’s too late to do anything about it. So even though it may seem strange, I’m not rushing to get past this recent rash of tragedies. As I pray for the families and communities impacted by these deaths, I also catch myself praying that the Lord will help me to make the most of the days that I have left. While a part of me hopes that I’ll have another 25 or 30 years of days, another part of me knows that I’m not guaranteed to make it to the end of this one. And if I die, before I wake, I pray that those closest to me would know how much I loved them, and that the Lord that I love will be able to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

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Crash Landing

Posted in Commentaries, Opinions, Personal, Social / Political, tagged , , , , on June 9, 2014| 1 Comment »

It seems that for much of this year I’ve been writing blogs about drug addicts, and drug addiction. This is mainly due to our interaction with a special family that God joined us with years ago. For those who aren’t familiar with the background story of Carleen and her three kids, you may need to go back and read some of my old posts (i.e. “4 Days & Counting” 01/17/2014, “4 Days & Counting Update” 01/21/2014, “Back to the Edge of the Cliff” 03/06/2014, “Back to the Edge of the Cliff Update” 03/12/2014, “Back to the Edge of the Cliff – End of the Chapter” 03/18/2014, and “Relapsing” 04/16/2014). When I last wrote of this family, Carleen was losing her battle with addiction, while her 21 year old son Christian (who had intentionally overdosed on heroin & had been brought back to life) was entering a rehab program. At that time, it looked as if Christian might be able to turn a corner, while Carleen seemed destined to crash; but the evidence for both of those cases would have to be considered circumstantial at best. Ultimately, it’s what’s in your heart that makes the biggest difference, and nailing that down is a little tougher. The subsequent reversal of fortunes between mother and son can definitely be traced to their individual values and priorities.

 

Carleen took Christian’s overdose hard. Part of her felt condemned, because her own issues had helped to fuel his; while a darker side of her felt abandoned by her partner in addiction. When Chris left town for rehab her struggles increased, and last month, Children’s Services took her two daughters (ages 9yrs. & 13yrs.) from her. I’d always known that this would be the watershed moment for her, and I prayed that she’d survive it. Despite her many failures, she truly loves her kids, and I knew that this would be the only incentive for her to go on. When she called, I was out of town, and unable to get to her; but when she shared her suicidal intentions with me, I told her that surviving was the best thing she could do for her daughters. By the grace of God, she made her way to the hospital, and checked herself into the Psychiatric Ward before succumbing to that little voice inside her head. From there, she began the long and arduous process of regaining herself, and hopefully (down the road) custody of her girls. Though it’s just been a few weeks, her progress has been steady, and the transformation apparent. She’s currently working part-time, attending group therapy sessions, and taking parenting classes. Every day since she’s gotten out of the hospital she’s been bombarded with opportunities to fall, and so far she’s managed to pass those tests. Not surprisingly, her biggest test came last week when Christian returned to town.

 

The trajectory of Chris’ journey has been steadily downhill since his March overdose. As I explained in my blog (from March 18th), even after experiencing death first-hand, his commitment to the rehab process quickly waned. A couple of days after leaving the hospital, he told his story at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, and actually said that he didn’t think he’d hit rock bottom yet. The woman running the meeting said, “You were dead! How much lower can you go?” In working with him I found that it wasn’t his love for, or his dependence on, drugs that created the problem. Instead, it is the fact that he does not want to adhere to anyone else’s standards or expectations. He essentially believes that no one should be able to tell him where to be, what to do, or how to live. While some younger folks may be able to relate to that mindset, we older folks know that, unless you’re independently wealthy, this way of thinking leads to starvation. Since getting a job would require showing up at a certain time, wearing certain clothes, and probably doing work he wouldn’t want to do, it was off the list. Going to rehab was the same way. They had a whole list of rules, and Chris believes that he shouldn’t have to follow rules that he thinks are stupid. After getting kicked out of the first rehab, I worked hard to get him into another program. I warned him that he was running out of options and that he needed to make this work. Though he lasted a few days longer than the first time, he was again dismissed. His call came within minutes of his mother’s suicide call, and he was clearly agitated that I wouldn’t come and bring him back to town. I told him that his opportunity to get help was much better in the big city than in a small town, where he was connected to every drug dealer in three counties. Despite his anger with me, he continued to call, and he eventually hooked up with one of his cousins and was contracted to build a pole barn. He continued to search for someone to bring him back home, but no one was willing to do it. That was the case until late last week, when someone paid Carleen to take them to the city, and when she agreed to give him a ride back.

 

Though Carleen made it clear that he couldn’t stay with her, and that she wasn’t willing to get high anymore, they did decide to go for pizza & a movie on Friday night. Carleen says that everything was fine at dinner, and that he said that he just wanted to stop by the room, where he was staying, before the movie. As she and some friends waited in the kitchen, it seemed like Chris was taking an inordinate amount of time, and so they went to check on him. Upon opening the bedroom door they found him face down on the floor, with no pulse. As one called 911, the other two began CPR, and blood began to pour from Chris’ mouth. They were able to restore a shallow pulse before the Paramedic’s arrived, but as the EMT’s went to pull off his jacket, a loaded gun fell out of the pocket.   This caused them to quickly back everyone out of the room, and for the police to be called in. Upon searching the room, they found a host of other drugs to go with the gun. Chris was at first taken to the local hospital, where he was placed on a ventilator due to respiratory failure. By the next the morning his kidneys shut down as well, and he was life-flighted to Ohio State Medical Center, in Columbus. As of this morning, he remains in ICU, on a ventilator, with major organ failure. If he survives, his prognosis doesn’t look good for a normal, functional life. If he emerges from the hospital, local law enforcement is going to have something to say about his near-term future, and will undoubtedly contact law enforcement agencies in neighboring counties, where they are likely to find additional warrants for his arrest. As I’d mentioned in a previous blog, I told Chris on several occasions that he needed to, “Seize the opportunity of a lifetime within the lifetime of the opportunity.” Today, it appears as though the season of opportunity has given way to a season of consequence. That’s not to say that there may not still be some opportunities down the line, but if there are, they’re going to be a lot tougher to grab hold of.

 

For her part, Carleen is still holding it together. She loves Christian, but recognizes that she can’t lay down and die with him. Part of her feels guilty for trying to keep moving on, but that’s exactly what she needs to do. She still has a long road, and every day is its own challenge. We’ll keep doing what we can to help her, and I know that God will continue to give her grace. Some might blame her for all of this, and to be sure, she shares some amount of responsibility. But in walking through these last four months with Chris, I can say that he really owns the state of his life. Despite the bad example he grew up with, he recognized that it was a dead end a long time ago, and he’s had many opportunities to walk away from it. He was not physically addicted to heroin, he just did it because that was the culture he chose to immerse himself in. For the last several years he’s been the beneficiary of a lot of generosity, from the hands and hearts of many different people. Even today, there are people who stand ready to help him, but they may never get that opportunity.

 

In as much as this may seem like an extreme story, about extreme circumstances, I can’t help but think that we all share in some aspects of this. Regardless of where we come from, and of what we’ve experienced, we all need to take ownership of our lives. We can blame it on our upbringing, or society, or bad church experiences, or bad marriages, or our economic state, or… But in the end, our lives are more a product of our will than of our circumstances. I firmly believe that all it takes to remain firmly planted on the path to destruction is someone else to blame for your condition.I suspect that if we could be truly objective, we’d see that (like Chris) we’ve passed up numerous opportunities to turn a corner. Years ago, I felt like the Lord said, “The fact that someone makes a bad decision does little more than qualify them as a member of the human race; and that ultimately it is the unwillingness to acknowledge and learn from those mistakes that eventually brands them a fool.” If we are not careful, we too will miss our seasons of opportunity, and quickly find ourselves reaping what we’ve sown. Please continue to pray for this family – God can make a way where there seems to be no way.

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Thought for the Day – Church Growth

Posted in Commentaries, Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged on May 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The standard measure of “church growth” is the number of bodies in the pew, though I’d suggest that the more compelling scale would be the degree to which people are being transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. Without that transformation, the church becomes little more than a benevolent order, much like the Elks or the Lions club.

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Thought for the Day – Repentance

Posted in Commentaries, Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged on April 3, 2014| 1 Comment »

Genuine repentance needs to be more than simply deciding to take an alternate path; it ultimately needs to be like a military coup.  It should result in a radical overthrow of the existing authority in our lives and the formation of a new government* going forward. Without such a change in command, our new road is likely to bring us back to the same destination.

 

* This is my articulation of a concept introduced to me by my dear friend and mentor, Don Atkin.

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Technical Difficulties

Posted in Commentaries, Opinions, Social / Political, tagged , , on February 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »

We certainly live in a time of amazing technological advancements, and while many of those developments have represented a significant enhancement from the status quo, there have also been some troubling side effects. I’ve listed a few of those below:

 

• Diminishing problem solving/critical thinking skills – Our minds are like our physical bodies, they need to be exercised to remain strong and healthy. Increasingly, we have an “App.” for just about everything, and we have quickly grown accustomed to doing things with the push of a button. More and more, the technology is doing the thinking for us, and we are progressively losing our ability to do things manually. When the technology fails us, we are generally thrown into a state of turmoil, and are often unable to proceed.
• Diminishing perseverance and endurance – Since most of these advances tend to make things faster and easier, our expectations are evolving accordingly. As time goes on, our patience and tolerance for anything that doesn’t come fast and easy is waning. The emerging generations are growing up with the concept that everything in life ought to be like that, and a growing reluctance to endure anything that is not.
• Trading the real world for virtual reality – The cyber-world has grown to become its own alternate reality, and for many, it has begun to eclipse the real world. Progressively, westerners are spending a lot more time interacting with digital screens than with each other. Most have a lot more “friends” on their social networking site than actual people they associate with regularly, and many seem to be losing their ability to express themselves in complete sentences or beyond 140 characters.
• A growing “faith” in technology – Young people seem to take great pride in the technological advances of recent years. They tend to view them as a defining characteristic of their generation. And because of this, they don’t necessarily feel bound to the lessons of history. In the minds of many, the failures of previous generations are rooted in their lack of good technology. For them, there is no problem that humanity has that technology won’t soon resolve.

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Thought for the Day – Fruitful Plains & Barren Lands

Posted in Commentaries, Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged , , , on December 10, 2013| 3 Comments »

When you grow up in your father’s cornfield, you can convince yourself that you know something about farming.  But over time, a lack of good seed, and neglect of the soil, take their toll.  With each successive generation expecting more, and less willing to replenish the land, a once fruitful plain slips into barrenness.  Such is the story of America, where we’ve scoffed at the wisdom of those who came before us, and find ourselves reaping of the hybrid seed we’ve chosen to sow.

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Thought for the Day – The Accuser

Posted in Commentaries, Parenting / Family, Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged , , , , , on November 19, 2013| 1 Comment »

The danger for parents, preachers, teachers, and coaches is that when the people we’re trying to reach don’t respond in the way we think they ought to, we can unwittingly take on the voice of “The Accuser” (e.g. your don’t think you have to listen to me, you think you know better than me, you’re awfully quiet out there – I must be stepping on some toes, you don’t really care, you’re just lazy, you have an attitude…) .  When our zeal to get our point across provokes us this way we ultimately undermine the value of our message.  We cannot lose sight of the fact that our role is to plant and water seeds, and that only God can bring the increase.

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