That's easy for you to say...

It's easy to be hard line, hard core when times are good (and when it ain't you facing the fire)...

Amish Facing the Dole

and another one

I read the first of these articles while visiting my mother-in-law over Mother's Day weekend. It really irritated me. Want to know why?

When Rick K had cancer and no help, the Great Leaders of our Amish sect told him, in effect, "too bad." There was nothing to do but to leave Tennessee for Detroit, to the VA Hospital where his sister worked, to have surgery. They removed his kidney, along with a huge tumor, and after he recovered, he returned to Tennessee... to be dragged before the Council. He was tried for his crime of taking government help and found guilty. He eventually left the church. And eventually died from the cancer that could have been stopped earlier had he been allowed to seek treatment earlier.

Now you know.

How NOT to read the Bible...

How many [Bible] readers... do harm to themselves....

If... they read the Scriptures without sincere prayer and the purpose to obey God, but only to get knowledge, to make a show, and to exercise their curiosity upon them....

If they do not observe what is useful for their edification, but only what they can use for their [own] glory and against others....

If they despise what the Scriptures simply stated and what is easy to comprehend. If, on the contrary, they take up only difficult passages, about which there is much dispute, in order to discover in them something unusual and to make a show before others.

If they use what they have learned with pride and for their own glory.

If they think they alone wise, obstinately refuse better instruction, love to quarrel, and receive nothing from others with modesty.

-- Philipp Spener

“To be filled with knowledge about the Bible but to be unwashed by it is worse than not knowing it at all.” -- John Ortberg

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” -- I Cor. 8:1

Redemption

We watch movies every now and then. My friend Mary Rose loves romantic comedies. I do not like them. At all. She keeps wanting me to watch Groundhog Day or Green Card, so far I have refused. I love history too, so she and my friend Lara just knew I would like one of their favorites - Last of the Mohecans. I thought it was an awful movie. Pretty in some ways, but the acting was horrible and historically it was not very accurate.

Some people just watch anything, no favorite genre, but I have a particular favorite genre which I have given a name - redemption movies. I like to see a movie in which someone or something is redeemed, or saved. Where the human spirit - what is good - prevails and people change for the better. I like a happy ending, I guess. Driving Miss Daisy, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, To Kill a Mockingbird, The End of the Spear, The Bucket List. Mary Rose thought I'd like The Mission - historical, about true Christian missions, and she thought it fit my definition of redemption movie. It didn't. Even thought I got to look at Robert DeNiro, it just was not a movie for me. The bad guys win in the end - no redemption exactly.

So I will admit to you one of my favorite movies... yes, one of this sweet, little lady's favorite movies is The Shawshank Redemption. Don't worry, I have not let any of my children watch it. They are horrified that it is one of my favorites, even. There is a lot of violence. Language. Mature themes. But the acting was excellent (it has Morgan Freeman in it, after all!) and the story was good. And there is redemption of a sort - and a happy ending. The bad guy loses, too.

My cousin is in prison for life. He is not from my father's side of the family, in case you were wondering (if you've read Death, Where is Thy Sting?). He is actually my first cousin, once removed. My maternal grandmother was his aunt. He has been in prison since 1976, when he went on a drunken sniper rampage. He killed two people, one of whom was a rookie cop, and injured eleven others. He is in a Maximum A security type prison - “maxi max” in prison lingo. He has been in prison with Son of Sam and Mark David Chapman, among other infamous guys. His case was used by a judge to disqualify New York's newly reinstated (at that time) death penalty as unconstitutional. His case was tied up in the courts because of that, until he plead guilty some months later and was sent to prison without a trial. He gets moved about every now and then - he's been in Sing Sing, Attica (twice), Clinton.

Back when I first began writing to him, he was pretty gruff and off-putting to me. But I stuck it out, and he soon softened up. My grandmother wrote him faithfully from the beginning and he thought she had made me write to him. But I began writing him because Jesus tells me to visit Him in prison. I can do that by loving and writing to my cousin. We've written back and forth for about 16 years now. He has always been there for me. I could write him about my thoughts and happenings without ever being judged. He has only showed me unconditional love and care for my well being, admonishing me to take care of myself - so instead of me ministering to him, as I supposed at first, he is the one who ministers to me. Sometimes God speaks to me through him. He has even sent me money to buy things for the children. When life got crazy for me a few years ago and I did not get to write much, a couple of my girls started writing to him as well. He's getting old now. He will likely die in prison, after all, “they don't parole cop killers in New York.”

So that has been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe that is another reason I like the Shawshank Redemption - through it I can imagine prison life. I can feel somehow my cousin's life, walk along side him in my mind a little bit. It is hard - what do you do in prison? My cousin was not sorry for his crime until he had been in prison five years. He has since made peace with God and studies the scriptures a lot. Prison life is unimaginably bad. He does not talk of the bad things very often, but once he told me that some of the men throw excrement at each other. Jesus is there though - like Corrie ten Boom says, “There is no pit so deep, that He is not deeper still.”

I do not believe in the death penalty. I know all the (Bible) arguments for it, but I cannot believe that anyone is beyond redemption. My cousin could have been the first person executed in New York after the reinstatement of the death penalty there. He could have been executed before he had the time and chance to repent to God. Yes, my sense of justice does like to see the bad guy get caught. But I don't want to see him die. Not without a chance to be redeemed.

Love your enemies...

This has been the most difficult thing for me in my walk with Christ. Having endured injustice since early childhood warped me a bit with an overweening sense of justice, along with that a desire for revenge and to know that my “enemies” will get what they deserve.

Sometimes I am able to quell this uprising in my heart with the true thought that as a fallen human, I deserve punishment just as much. And as a fallen human, I have hurt people and dealt out my own share of unjust treatment to others.

But I still fail in this area, time and again.

This morning I was pondering it, going over with the Lord my day yesterday, asking Him to show me where I could have been more like Him. One incident came very clearly to mind... I was purposely trying to avoid a certain “enemy” - I did not feel ready to talk to or see or be nice to this person (I'll call him “Fred”), so I did my shopping at another store altogether. Then my husband called and asked me to pick up some things for him at the store - the store where I might see Fred. Ugh. I just did not want to do it. But I did, stealthily and quickly, still hoping to avoid Fred. I did not see him anywhere, so I was happy to have accomplished this. Leaving there, I went on to get gas, paid at the pump, pumped my gas, and my receipt did not come out - it gave me a message “see cashier for receipt” so I walked over to the cube, and there behind the glass sat a friend of Fred. I was taken completely by surprise and was unusually terse with this fellow. I am a very smiley, kind person to people in general. But my inner self just could not be hidden at that moment. We are more real when taken by surprise, are we not?

So this scene came to me this morning and on the heels of this review with the Lord came the words of Jesus, “love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you”

So I found paper and pencil and wrote a list of “enemies”. Some were old, some are new. Now, I really don't have enemies in the strict sense of the word, but there are those who have hurt me or judged me or rejected me. Fred, by the way, has done none of this to me, but to a loved one. Well, he did lie to me. Anyway, it is not a long list. Much shorter than it has been in years past, so I thank the Lord for some progress by the Grace of God in this very hard thing for me. Then, once again, I gave each one up to Him. I prayed for them, tried to understand them as fellow humans, which is my way that helps me love and grow in compassion. This reminds me of a quote I used to have on my sink at the Community... “We would love each other better if we only understood.” It is once again time to apply that in my own life.

Thankfully, I have not passed my problems with resentment on to my children. Sure, they have their hard times, but none of them are as beset with this difficulty as I am. Even as I nursed my own resentments, I always admonished them to give others the benefit of the doubt. One of my children in particular amazes me in this respect. She has been looked over, had people deal unkindly with her, reject her - mostly by people who were supposed to be “friends” (as the old saying goes - “With friends like that, who needs enemies?”). Time and again, she has returned to them kindness and loyalty. Which amazes me. Actually, it is she that Fred had dealt dishonestly with. Her thoughts about Fred? “Good old Fred. He's my friend. I like him a lot.”

Lord Jesus, work some of that in me, for Your sake and the sake of Your Kingdom. Amen.

Match O Matic - Obama or McCain?

Try this neat quiz to see who you would put in the White House voting on policy issues only - not knowing who said what (of course, a few are obvious). 13 quote sets on a wide variety of issues - Obama said one, McCain the other. Click on the quote you agree with and in the end you will see who you favor most, policy-wise.

ABC News Match-O-Matic

I picked Obama, 8 to 5, which was not surprising. The surprising result was Scott's - he picked Obama 9 to 4!