Mental Musings

An Open Letter to the American Church: Political rights and doing the right thing often have nothing in common. Currently in the United States individuals, with varying ages of consent, have the right to kill their unborn baby, to marry a person of the same sex, to use the f-word in public, to have premarital sex, to pig out with fatty foods, to purchase pornography, and in some states to smoke marijuanna. These are rights endowed, not by our creator, but by our government. Yes, as Christians we can do whatever we want because God has given us free will. But this does not mean that it is pleasing to God just because it feels right or it makes us happy. "Everything is permissible, but not everything is helpful. Everything is permissible, but not everything builds up." 1 Corinthians 10:23 (HCSB) We were given specific guidelines by God as to what constitutes sin. That word is, or at least it should be, important to Christians because it was our sin that separated...

My dad with my brother and sister in 1963 If only I could have been a perfect dad. Imagine all of the wonderful accolades that I would receive from my family and my community and even the media. There might even be books written about my life and people would be requesting that I write a book sharing my secret to raising children and being a good dad. But I am not perfect. Far from it, in fact. Any man that becomes a dad will experience the same thing. You will be amazed that someone as smart as you could possible say something as dumb as what you just said to your daughter. You will regret many things that you did and things you failed to do. There will be days when you will feel as though you have ruined your son's life. And if not, he will probably be more than happy to tell you that you have ruined his life. No, father's are not perfect, but, in a day when so many children have absentee dads, those fathers who stay the course and put in the effort regardless of...

Every year, sometimes two or three times during the year, schools hold graduation ceremonies. When I was a student, I couldn't wait until graduation because I knew what that meant. It meant I was done. Finished. No more need to study. No more need to learn. No more papers to write. No more reports to make. No more tests. No more grades. No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers dirty looks. That feeling lasted for maybe a weekend. Then reality started to sink in. I had to get a job. That required me to write a paper, known as a resume. Then I got a call from a company and was told that I had an interview. That required me to study up on how to interview well. Then I got the job and was told that I would spend a week in training, which is job speak for learning. And at the end of the week I had to take a TEST. After a week of working I was told that I had to complete a report detailing what I did during that week. And none of this mentions all of the new thin...

I have a confession. I really find it hard reading Exodus 36-39. It has always been such drudgery to me. In Exodus 35 Moses tells Israel what God commanded concerning the construction of the Tabernacle. He goes into great detail. Almost as bad as an L.M. Montgomery book. Then for the next 4 chapters they repeat these details ad nauseam. So I wondered about the redundancy of this section. Why would God want it recorded? I believe that the phrase used at the end of each task gives us a clue: they did everything just as the Lord had commanded Moses. This continuing theme seems to show that God wanted a record of their obedience, especially following their failure to obey in chapter 32. God's anger had not completely subsided with Israel when Moses received his instructions. This detailed statement of the work that Israel did in preparing the Tabernacle of God was important for future generations to see. Following one of their greatest failures, they did everything the Lor...

You hide and I'll seek. At the sound of that simple phrase, children scurry in every direction in an attempt to evade being caught. Sometimes children are so good at hiding that the seeker never does find them. Today I was reminded of how well we learn to hide. After listening to a conversation about visiting Baltimore and never seeing the drug ridden and poverty filled areas of the city, I said, "Cities are good at hiding their faults." Another person responded, "We are all good at that." In a culture that has come to value the sharing of the most intimate details of our lives through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, 4Chan, and more, we are all still very good hiders. Some people are so good that we never learn the reality behind their masked smile or their cloaked comments. Why do we put so much effort into hiding? Perhaps it is because we have witnessed or personally experienced the humiliation of being found. Some seekers are bad sports a...

Today I met a man who is dying from AIDS. I don't want to use his real name because his family lives in this area. Let's call him Frank. This is the story that Frank shared with me: Frank has had AIDS for many years, but recently was told that he is now terminal. When he was 20 he moved out on his own after years of abuse at home. He left because he felt like killing himself, but he didn't want to die. He eventually moved to California. Frank never felt loved at home, so he turned to the streets looking for love. He found what he thought was love in the arms of another man. This led Frank into a lifestyle of homosexuality, going from one partner to another. Eventually he contracted AIDS. Something happened to Frank about two years ago that changed his life. Frank met a 17-year-old boy while in the hospital. This boy knew Frank had AIDS, and while he never judged Frank's past he shared with him about Jesus. Frank accepted Jesus as his savior and for the f...

I have a confession. Today I did something that I almost never do. It is not that I have a philosophical problem with doing this or believe that doing this is counterproductive. It is something that I have done in the past, just not something that I typically do. And I think I know the reason why. As I was driving through Baltimore on my way to a meeting, I rolled down my window and motioned over a man standing with a sign so that I could give him some coins. I didn't have much on me, but he was thankful for what he got. The light turned green and I rolled my window back up and drove on my way. I didn't judge him for his condition. I didn't assume that he would just take the few dollars in coins that I gave him and go buy alcohol with it (probably costs more than that anyway). I didn't insist that he let me tell him about Jesus if I was going to give him money. There wasn't enough time between lights to even get to know his name or hear his story. I ...