We Have A Problem

The past few weeks there has been one particular athlete making headlines and filling social media. At the risk of further polarization, we need to admit there is a problem.

Before we get too into that, I want to tell you about one of my college roommates. We’ll call him “Carl”. Carl was a bit of an odd duck. He had hair down to his waist, wore dog collars and JNCO jeans, played the tin whistle, and learned several languages just in case he visited that country in the future. Beyond all of that, he loved God deeply and loved the least of these. He was a Theology and Ministry major who interned at one of the poorest, most mission minded churches in Oklahoma where he would regularly have to deal with drug addicts, homeless, mentally unstable, and even violent people. 

After we graduated, he went on to seminary to get his Masters of Divinity. Halfway through his masters, he sent an email to several of his friends to tell them about a big change in his life. Carl was a hermaphrodite (and while this is a potentially offense term, it also refers to Carl’s real medical condition of being born with both male and female genitalia). Only two people knew outside his family, and after consulting with his therapist and several other medical professionals, he was going to stop taking the testosterone supplements that he had been forced to take his whole life and transition to living life as “female”. “Carl” became “Carla”. She had already talked to his seminary professors, and they were supportive. Carla finished her masters and graduated near the top of her class. However, during the ordination process, not only did the church prevent her from becoming an ordained pastor, but they also essentially excommunicated her because she was trans. 

Like I said we have a problem. However, the problem I’m referring to has nothing to do with NCAA rules and regulations or defining genders. The problem that is persistently in everyone’s face is the church’s failure to love. The past few weeks has given the world thousands of glimpses of Christians judging, name calling, condemning, and ostracizing, not only an individual, but a population group. How many people or instances can you point to where someone tried to build an agape (an unconditional love) relationship with a trans person? 

That’s the part that we keep missing. Yes, Jesus would call out sin, but he always did it after he treated them with love. In his encounter with the woman at the well, he broke cultural barriers just to talk to her and treated her better than anyone in society would have accepted. With Zaccheus, he embraced him gladly and went to his house (and out of that love Zaccheus decided on his own to repay what he had cheated). Jesus was known for eating with sinners, which for most people back then was just as controversial as it would be for us to do it today. 

We are not called to save people from their sins, or even really to point out all their sins. We are called to love people as Jesus would love them. Even if the world doesn’t know all the ins and outs of the Bible or theology, they know that love is one of the most defining attributes of a Christ follower. But until we do better, thousands of people will have the same opinion as Gandi who said “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” 

Pray for Ukraine

Every time you turn on the news, we are inundated with such horrible news it is so hard to watch in the morning and then try to be positive the rest of the day.   My morning devotional said, “34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:34)

It is difficult to do.  Years ago, when Walter Cronkite would give the news on CBS about the war in Vietnam, there would be video aired of the fighting.  This was really the first time Americans would see actual combat and loss of life in actual time.  It was horrible to see, and he would always give a death count at the end of the story.

I remember my mother watching this in horror because her brother, and two of her brothers-in-law were in Vietnam fighting.  All three came back from the war, however, her brother never was the same. 

Fast forward a few years and video gaming began to be popular and everyone was playing war games on the computer.  It seemed like the horror of war was a memory.  Because if you lost the war in your game, you just hit the start over button or new game button.

We went many years with this mentality.  There were many conflicts since the Vietnam war where brave men and women were in the dessert fighting and losing their lives to protect the freedom of this country.  This is not a game.  I have the utmost respect for any man or woman in the military and the sacrifice they put on the line to protect our freedom.

Ronald Reagan had one of the best quotes which rings true today where he said.

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

We live in very uncertain time right now.  And the war in Ukraine is horrible and we need to pray for the people trying to survive the bombing and fight for their country.  We have a friend of ours in Orlando and her son married a young woman, “Lili”, from Ukraine.  Lili’s mother reached out and sent a message days ago which reads:

“Thank you for praying for us and worrying. We live like on a volcano.... We try not to leave the house, only if we buy bread and water. Explosions and shooting are heard almost all the time. The siren, an air raid warning, is often activated. We immediately hide in the basement and sit until the cancellation is announced. It went on all night yesterday, it's terrible! They want to intimidate us and break our psyche! We are very scared. They have the worst weapons, but we're holding on for now. This is in the 21st century, this is happening, and no one can stop the killing of people!!! There are a lot of acquaintances who have gone missing with their whole families, they cannot be found .... Maybe they are no longer alive (((( take care of the peace in your country, this is important!

Join me and continue to pray for all those in Ukraine holding on to their lives with everything they have. 

Deuteronomy 20:4. 4 For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”

God Bless

Mike

Be The Change

"Be the change you wish to see in the World". Gandi

I am looking at this quote, and wondering what were the circumstances Gandhi was experiencing at the time he said these words. And what was the change that he wished to see?

And now I am looking at the circumstances that are in our news today, and applying this quote today seems so daunting to me. And yet, maybe this is not so hard to do.

What is the change that I would like to see in my world? And how about the world that I share with others? My family? My workplace?

To start, I would like the world to be kinder. And I would like the world to have more laughter.

I will be the kindness that I wish to see in this world. To do this, I will be the first to smile at someone. I will let someone in front of me on hwy 98. I will let the person in a hurry go first in the checkout lane at Walmart.

I will be the laughter I wish to see in this world. For this, I will pay a compliment to someone I don't know. I will find joy and humor throughout my day. And I will share this joy and humor with those around me.

I will be the change I wish to see in this World. And I will be that change in whatever circumstances I am experiencing.

Laura Beth Snow is the manager at our Good Neighbor Thrift Store and We Care. Her laugh and smile are contagious and she continues to break store records on a regular basis.

Just My Type

If you are sitting at a computer, look down at your keyboard. If you’re reading this on your phone, you can find some way of bringing up a keyboard (either by trying to send a text message, entering a URL, etc.) and see the exact same thing. You will see all the letters of the alphabet, but in what appears to be no logical order. We take this for granted today, but this layout (affectionately known as QWERTY for the start of the top row of letters) was carefully thought out and served a very practical purpose. Original typewriters had only two rows of letters and they were in alphabetical order. Because there are physical arms and levers that make a typewriter work, it is possible to type so fast that these arms would interlock or jam up. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the fastest way to type a paper was to slow down the typing process. 

WARNING: The next couple of paragraphs contain nerdy information. I find it very interesting, but if it’s not your thing feel free to scroll down a couple of paragraphs.

You might have heard that story before. And in a way, it still makes sense to use a QWERTY layout. After all, there was a long period where typewriters were still used after computers and their keyboards were created, and we all hate change so… But I learned something new today. Take another look at your keyboard. Have you ever thought about why all of the keys are offset the way they are? For instance, the letter “T” is exactly halfway between the numbers “5” and “6” right above it, but it’s not halfway between “G” and “F” right below it. Likewise, “G” is exactly halfway between “V” and “B” but not “T” and “Y”. This goes back to the same typewriter issues from the 1800’s. There are physical arms and levers that connect to the keys of a typewriter to transfer all that input from the keys to the paper. All 40+ keys and levers have a very tiny amount of space, and instead of having multiple vertical layers of levers, they offset the keys in this way so that all of the levers could be side by side. It’s really a brilliant move. 

But I can’t think of many better examples of how a “That’s how we’ve always done it” mentality has created so many unintended consequences that we just accept because we hate change. First of all, we have to acknowledge that the keyboard layout we use was designed to be inefficient. Secondly, we have to also acknowledge that the primary reasons for creating an inefficient keyboard are completely gone. We no longer have levers or physical moving bits. We have ones and zeros and can arrange them however we want. The offset doesn’t help, its just a relic from the past. As a side effect, because our hands and fingers have to “travel” more we experience more fatigue as well as increasing the likelihood of developing arthritis and carpal tunnel.

The kicker is we have people who have come up with much more efficient keyboard layouts, such as the Dvorak and the Colemak. In fact, they can be up to 60% faster than our standard QWERTY. That means that typists who use them can easily type over 200 words per minute while most of us struggle to type 100 words per minute. There are ergonomic keyboards that aid in typing and relieve the stress factors which leads to better health. 

So why don’t we change? I hate to say it but it really is just because that’s the way we’ve always done it. If we changed keyboards, there would be a substantial learning curve. Sure, it would eventually lead to faster typing and other benefits, but it would take a few weeks or months for it to feel natural. Then there are all of the keyboard shortcuts, the other developers or programs that would still use QWERTY, and it would just be inconvenient. So we settle for an outdated, inefficient, no longer necessary method of inputing data into devices we spend hours on each day. 

Why did I just spend so much time talking about a keyboard and bringing up issues that most of us don’t care about and pointing out problems we never knew we had? Well, there are at least two reasons. The first is that often in churches we get stuck on the ways we’ve done things before. There have been some amazing things that the church has done in the past, but they were for a particular time and context that might not be applicable anymore. It might even still work, but is it the best thing? And secondly, because I had to spend over 600 words trying to explain why most of us know we do something poorly but we’re ok with it. To an outsider, that should seem ludicrous. It might make perfect sense to us, and we see all the obstacles and problems with making a change. But to an outsider, they see all the obstacles and problems with staying the same. 

Beyond just the tech world, or even the church world and necessary changes, I have to think this same happens when we try to justify our actions to God. We know we are doing (whether by action or inaction) things that go against God’s will. But to do otherwise would require a change in our behavior, sometimes big changes that would make getting used to an entirely different keyboard layout seem insignificant. We see the things that we’d ‘lose’ by following him, God sees the things we are losing by not following him. 

Excuse Me!

Have you had those moments when you run into someone out of nowhere, and you know them but have forgotten their name?  It has happened to all of us at one time or another.  Pastor Alan is brilliant at remembering people's names, that is a gift I do not have.  Years ago, my son was about 6 or 7 and I was in line at K-mart when a female schoolmate of mine came up and said, “Mike, it is so good to see you.”  I could not remember her name to save my soul.  As hard as I was trying to remember I couldn’t, and my son was grabbing my belt and saying way too loudly “Who is this?” There just comes a point in time you must come clean and tell the person, “I am sorry, but I have forgotten your name."

We will not always be at our best and the times we are not, we need to make sure we are handling ourselves appropriately. 

Years ago, I witnessed a gentleman at the counter in the airport getting loud with a lady from the airline. His flight was canceled, and you would have sworn he knew this lady had canceled the flight just to spite him.  Of course, she had no control and was just the messenger.

In contrast, one time in Memphis we were running late to a connecting flight back to Orlando and as we got there, they were just shutting the door. I asked the lady if we could please get on our flight. At first, she said, "No,” but then she said, "Just a second." I did not realize the plane had just pulled away from the terminal and it had come back to pick us up.  I can tell you all eyes were on us when we boarded.  It was uncomfortable, but she did something very nice for us!

In this pandemic world, we are living in now, it is certainly different than two years ago.  We need to be more patient than ever. I have seen businesses trying to find employees who want to work.  Often, those who show up to work are doing the work of two or three people and they are tired.  Businesses are shorthanded.

We used to go to Joe Patty's seafood in Pensacola and if there were thirty people in front of us it would take about ten minutes... now because of the shortage of workers, it is more like forty-five minutes.

I read my devotional this week and it says, “Trust me enough to face problems as they come, rather than trying to anticipate them."

We all know the negative Nelly’s out there. Regardless of what kind of good news you have, there is always something devastating to bring it down.  I can tell you there is nothing that will pull the rug out from under your good mood than a negative Nelly!  In my life, I have tried to stay away from them.  In my eyes, my glass is always half full.  

Regardless of the negativity, we should face each day and its set of issues with faith.  Faith that Jesus is your constant companion.  Scripture says, “Fix your eyes on me.”

Be nice to people! I will close with this. There was a lady with two kids who were screaming and crying in the checkout line at Publix. The lady behind me looked at the screaming kids and said, “Can’t you control your children?” The mom with the kids looked at her and said, “I am doing the best I can with the hand I have been dealt today.”  This was the best response I have ever heard.  

We are all trying to do our best and should give grace to those who have not been dealt their best hand!

God Bless,

Mike