In Memory ...

Certianly one of the most profound and beautiful of human experiences is the way in which we experience the death of someone we love deeply. It's no cliche to say that we die with them, for we are never quite the same for having lost them.  

Nor is it inaccurate to say that they live on in us. At their memory we are compelled to laugh and to cry, to smile and to ache. They inhabit our waking thoughts and they visit our dreams. By sharing their life, they have shaped who we are, and they shape us further by their passing.

This, it would seem to me, is one of the most profound things that a human being can experience, and yet is experience by nearly everyone. It's something we feel because of our interconnectedness and deep loving bonds, and yet it is something we experience in an isolation and deep spiritual loneliness - this in spite of well wishers who would seek to give us comfort.

This post is long overdue, I suppose. God has, in the last 18 months, called home several people for whom I cared deeply. Some I called "friend". All of their passings came as a surprise, as all had seemignly a great deal of life stretched before them.  

To Chad, my boyhood friend. Throughout the span of my 35 years, God has blessed me with first-rate friends, and you were the first of those. I treasure the many memories I have of us. You've no idea what I would give for another day to be your friend.

To Frank, I could never have made it without you, man. You showed me kindness in ways you may not even realize. You were fond of saying that church was for girls 'cause they like to play dress-up and have social hour. It might surprise you to realize that you embodied the values that Jesus taught like few I've ever met. At a critical time in my life you were just the friend I needed - very literally a gift from God. I look forward to seeing you again.

Orval, as Tom said, you really were the best of us all in so many ways. I toiled and worshipped and ate my way through many a weekend with you. You were so important to so many of us, and had so much of life before you. May God receive you into his rest.

Finally, there was one of God's perfect creatures. Katie, I don't know what to say. I've never met someone your age so selfless and Godly. I miss your smile, and your help, and the real-life example that you set for my girls. The world is certainly dimmer without your light.

Chad, Orval, Frank, and Katie - God go with you and speed you on your journey... you are missed.

Joe's New Years resolutsion

NOTE: These were swiped from Matt Hayes' news letter, "Hayes Days", with slight re-wording by me. That guys makes me LAUGH! the rest was plagiarized from Scott and Douglass Adams.

As God is my witness, in 2009 I vow to:
1 - Grow a totally sweet beard.
2 - come up with a computer password that isn't "password goes here"
3 - Learn to juggle chainsaws ... flaiming chainsaws...
4- Become 30% more awesome
5 - Quit creeping myself out at night by thinking about how the grain on the window blind looks like a guy in a tuxedo glaring at me
6 - Quit filling our money jar with "hope"
7 - Finally Purchase a workplace-appropriate replacement for my beloved"bikini mishaps" calendar
8 - eat more oreos
9 - observe "talk like a pirate day" no matter WHAT.
10 - learn to enjoy the "whoosh"-ing sounds that deadlines make as they fly by
11 - dance like it hurts
12 - love like I need the money
13 - Work when people are watching

Hope everyone's 2009 is off to a wonderful start.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

I recently read the following comment in facebook:

fb x: is laughing that people are trying to sue so there won't be a prayer at Obama's cerimony.
fb y=:You know that our faith is real when people make such a huge issue out of prayer in the name of Jesus. I do not think that people would care if it was in the name of Buddha or any other false God.

I didn't want to hammer-head in on the thread (barely know the commenter), but I had to respond, so here it is:
The truth is that Christians wouldn't even let WalMart get away with "Happy Holidays". Obama is forced by tradition to have a prayer. He will be forced by popular opinion that it be Christian. Christians have this bizarre perspective that they are oppressed by secular law and culture. I think that it would be closer to the truth to say that popular culture is railing against oppression by Christians, and law is attempting painfully extricate itself from the views of Christian Fundamentalists.

While I believe in prayer and in Jesus, I reject the notion of the US as a "Christian Nation" as I would reject Afghanistan as a "Muslim" nation. I believe in secular government, and feel very strongly that the USA should be a place where all faiths can flourish under law, guided by laws based on common sense analysis of actions and consequences with a healthy sprinkling of "Do unto others ..." intermixed. But THAT'S CHRISTIAN!, you protest. Actually not. The notion of the golden rule is a common thread in many religions, and seems like the best way to make a civilization work, no?

An accurate commentary on Blogging? ;-)>

Blogging

Some funny phone-calls

if you wanna chuckle - call these numbers:
Psychiatric hotline: 781 452 2080
Rejection hotline: 312-588-3108

Reminders...

BibleGateway.com: A searchable online Bible in over 100 versions and 50 languages.

“[Be Holy] Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.”- 1 Peter 1:13

I note with growing dismay the following: I'm a thinker, not a doer.

Please do not mistake my claim to a much used intellect as implying a claim to any sort of intellectual potency. Is it not often the case that the most underpowered engines exhibit the highest RPM's? ;-)>

But, to the point: I find that my natural disposition is to think a great deal about pretty much everything while taking precious little action on much of anything at all. 

As is often the case, I am again in need of reminding rather than of teaching.  This has been a major point of emphasis in what I believe God has been trying to instill in me for 6 months or more.

I was doing well with this.  Working hard, trusting God for strength for the task at hand, etc.  However, I've gotten a bit lazy again.

I can almost hear God saying "What are you doing (metaphorically and literally) sitting there?  TAKE ACTION, Joe - ANY action! Well, not any action.  You know - something Godly."

Bless me, but I might have to get out of my chair for this ...

Gracious Heavenly Father, please continue to grace me with strength of back to match weight of cross, and nudges out out of my natural, neutral state to go and carry it somewhere.

Much obliged.

From MSN - "Why I Went AWOL"

This sounds so familiar.  I pray for people like this.  Whether they protest their involvement in the war out of conscience or more earthy matters.

If I were a soldier deployed to Afghanistan, I would be so discouraged that I was paying such an enormously high price, and that my civilian leadership had gotten distracted from our goals by deciding to invade Iraq when it did.  "This is MY LIFE, man.  I got Nothin' more VALUABLE than what I'm giving to this war...", I would think, and I'd think of my strained marriage and kids whose dad had been gone for half of their life - the price that THEY'RE paying, and I'd be VERY tempted to desert.

If I were a soldier in Iraq - well, I wouldn't be a soldier in Iraq.

Our troops have a right to certain expectations.  They should be able to expect us, as a nation, to honor the magnitude of the sacrifices (remember, their LIFE, shattered homes, mental stress and psychological trauma, risk of physical mutilation, etc. etc. etc.) that they make not with words, but with deeds. 

First among these: DO NOT SQUANDER the currency they provide in flesh and blood and pain on unwise or unneeded military ventures, plain and simple.

Second among these: BE RESPOSIBLE and A-POLITICAL about our war efforts.  The military is over-stretched.  Where's the draft to help us fight our two-front war?  Well, we can't have one, because then there would be no war.  Suddenly, people would get a lot less distracted and busy and the pressure would be applied.  So, miliatary families: sorry, you're boned.  Says the commander and chief: I can screw my troops and get my war, or I can be a man about this and not get my war.  It's evil that he's doing it, and it's evil that we're letting him.

And Thirdly:  God help us, why are we not giving these soldiers the support they need when they get home?  Why can we ALWAYS find budget for the fight, but NEVER find budget for the post-war care?  What is WITH US!? 

We owe our soldiers such a huge apology.  We (as a nation) were so busy letting ourselves be defined by the experience of the 60's that we couldn't stand up against a war that many of us (including me) KNEW didn't make any sense, even if we took the intelligence of the time at face value.  When we spoke up, we were shouted down as unpatriotic and "against the troops", and so we clammed up.  I'm sure that this is what happened to many members of congress as well.

Chris, Terry, Jon, & Ethan - I'm sorry.  I don't know what I could have done to stop this, but I am SO sorry that I didn't at least talk more often and more loudly about how it was enormously bad judgment to invade Iraq when we did and in the way in which we did.

I'm sorry that our political system is one in which we can elect such a thoughtless commander in chief who would squander your LIVES on a war that was over-reaching and absurdly damaging, with little return for the high price paid. 

I'm sorry that the major reason that this man is in office is that my Christian brothers and sisters see every national election as a one-issue race, and have sold their minds, if not their souls, to the Republican party; to the extent that Republican/Conservative & Christian are used synonymously in my church in the same way that Liberal and Sinner are.