Gary Mintchell

Author Archive

Facing The Consequences

April 23, 2025

Novelist Robert Louis Stevenson: “Sooner or later we all sit down to a banquet of consequences.”

I think the attitude that I can do what I want, say what I want, because I am free and unfettered exists not only in America. We find this often in America, though.

And then these people are criticized, lose friends, perhaps even jobs, and wonder why. Can’t I be obnoxious, hateful, hurtful and call it merely being my freedom of expression?

No.

We call it being juvenile. Immature.

A mature human realizes the wisdom of millennia of thinkers that “the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness, a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”

When we say things and do things, sooner or later we will sit down to a banquet of consequences. This may be a banquet without end.

Posted in Attitude, Freedom | Leave a Comment »

Pope Francis

April 22, 2025

Preparing to write this morning, the news centered on the passing of Pope Francis.

I am not Catholic, but I taught 7^th grade at a Catholic school long ago learning a lot about the faith and the organization. I also read many Catholic theologians in my day. My favorite is Pierre Teilhard.

I respected Francis from the first I heard about him in his days in Latin America. As Pope, he represented being a Jesus follower well. He did his best to move a huge, bureaucratic organization into modern times.

His predecessor, Benedict, had a marvelous theological mind. He was, however, the ultimate organization man protecting the organization as best he could.

Francis, rather, tried to deal with past indiscretions, treating people with humility and respect.

The best lesson we can learn from him is just that—living in humility and respect for others.

Posted in Humility, Leadership | Leave a Comment »

Monday People

April 21, 2025

Leon Festinger’s concept of Cognitive Dissonance was presented as part of an undergraduate class. I love the concept. It often applies to me.

Sometimes events just don’t make sense. We can’t wrap our heads around what’s happening. My life has experienced many changes—especially around employment. Accepting the changed environment and moving on can take time. Maybe some people adapt quickly. Not always me.

While I’ve been thinking about things during this Holy Week, I’ve concluded how unfair we’ve always been to Jesus’s followers. It was a tough week.

Sunday—a huge parade with thousands cheering them on.
Monday-Wednesday—teaching at the Temple, quiet dinners with Mary and Martha and Lazarus
Thursday—a quiet Passover meal with teachings they didn’t understand fully, quickly followed by arrest, trial 1, trial 2, judgement.
Friday—after a long night when they made themselves scarce, another type of parade through Jerusalem, no cheering, just jeering, ending with death.

Preachers will sometimes talk about Saturday people. This is the in-between time. The followers who had scattered and hid on Friday regrouped on Saturday completely unsure of the significance of what happened and fearful of what would happen. Would the Jewish leaders be satisfied with doing away with the leader? Would they search out followers to kill them and put an end of the threat to their leadership?

Sunday, the empty tomb. Try to wrap your head around that! No experience could have prepared them for the shock.

Then Monday. And beyond. How do we live with this new reality? We have to grow up and become the leaders he had trained us to be. We have to learn to live with a different experience of Jesus.

They did, and we can.

Posted in Awareness, Faith, Waiting | Leave a Comment »

He Meant What He Said

April 18, 2025

What if Jesus actually meant what he said?

It’s Good Friday—evidently a mistranslation from Old English for those of us who wonder about the term “good” referring to the day Jesus was executed. Could be a better word is “holy.”

How about some context?

The Romans build a world based upon power relationships. People sought power and, once attained, keeping it. This worldview, or mindset that we might call it today, filtered from the Emperor to family relationships. It was all about power.

The Jewish people had not lived under their own government for hundreds of years. Despite occasional revolts, the first Century dawned with them still under foreign rule. They longed for a leader who would lead a successful revolt and throw out the foreigners.

They thought Jesus might be the real deal, unlike the many before him whose naked corpses on short crosses (the pictures we see are not historically accurate, the reality was to demean the prisoner as much as possible) were often found along the roadways.

Therefore as I wrote a couple of days ago, the gospel writers point out that he had the equivalent of a Roman legion of followers ready to make him king. He entered Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday to those expectations that he came to the capital to overthrow the Romans.

What did Jesus actually teach? And live?

The inverse of power—love. He taught that our relationships should be come from a love based on God’s grace. He repeated frequently the need for a new way of living—the way of the Kingdom of Heaven. He said that his followers would be known by their love. He said that the greatest love was to give up our life for the sake of helping other people.

I’ve heard sermons and read books where the author was shocked that the crowd turned against Jesus on that Thursday. I am not shocked. Their expectations were crushed.

They didn’t listen to what Jesus said. They put their hopes and dreams on him instead of incorporating Jesus’s hopes and dreams for them into their lives.

Even his closest disciples hid on execution day and the following day. Even when Sunday came with the empty tomb and then his appearances, they could not comprehend. I don’t blame them. They also tried to put their interpretation on the movement (see James and John asking for places of power in the new kingdom).

Sometimes it takes me a period of time to digest new situations. I don’t blame them. They are us.

Then they understood that Jesus meant what he said and then proceeded to model it. It changed the world.

If Jesus actually meant what he said, maybe we should also believe it. And live it. Maybe we can change the world.

[Sorry, I usually try to keep these meditations to about 200 words. This one is like a sermon. I just had to figure out my logic. Based on 50+ years of study, this is as succinct as I can think today. I wish you all a happy Easter.]

Posted in Christianity, Faith, Thinking | Leave a Comment »

Setting a Compass

April 17, 2025

Sailors once upon a time checked a map to determine the direction of their destination. They left port, set their compass for that direction, and followed the course.

We have GPS today. I am contemplating a vacation to Scotland. Part of the desired destination is to visit the Shetland Islands. OK, only because we’ve watched a TV series based on a series of novels where the setting is there.

I visited Google Maps. We would fly into Edinburg and spend some time. A ferry crosses to Shetland from Aberdeen. The GPS told me the route from Edinburg to Aberdeen (1 hr 27 min if you’re interested). When we visit, I’ll set the GPs for the destination and follow the course.

Some people teach that the goal of someone entering Christianity is to go to heaven (sometimes incorrectly visualized as somewhere in the sky) by praying a magic prayer. And that’s it.

That concept has always made me uncomfortable in the sense that it’s (one) too easy and (two) there’s no “then what.”

I’m one of those strange people who believe that Jesus meant what he said. And, much of what he said taught how to live with God in the Kingdom of Heaven starting right now.

Perhaps instead of trying to short-circuit to the goal, we should set our compasses toward the goal and practice living a life with-God.

Just as I wrote a couple days ago, stories evolve in layers unveiling new and more important meanings. As we live out our vision of progressing toward a goal rather than being completed resting on our laurels, we live a better life.

Posted in Disciplines | Leave a Comment »

Empathy

April 16, 2025

Dialectic reasoning in philosophical reasoning contrasts two views that lead to a new level of thought.

Try these:

The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.—Elon Musk

The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.—Hannah Arendt

I tutored a fellow student in German in the university so that he could graduate and accept a good job back home. He did. His wife gave me a big, grateful hug. I was happy for him.

During a session we discussed the two professors of German at the university (it was one of the many small, quality Liberal Arts universities that Ohio is known for—Ohio Northern), I remarked about how one came from Vienna and wound up in small Ada, Ohio. “I don’t care,” he replied. And he didn’t. He lacked empathy.

I’ve met many since then who have an emotional gap where empathy should have been living.

Have you? Or are you missing that emotion?

Empathy doesn’t mean agreeing with. It’s sort of feeling with. When you meet someone, you can feel what they feel in the sense of understanding where they are coming from.

Looking at my guide, Jesus seemed always to find that empathy toward everyone he met. Then he knew how to interact with each individual person. He could be kind and understanding; he could point out flaws in thinking or living without any obnoxious arguing; he could guide people into a better and deeper understanding.

We would be wise to emulate him.

Posted in Attitude, Awareness, Grace | Leave a Comment »

5,000 Men

April 15, 2025

Scholars have debated the meaning of the report on feeding a crowd at one of Jesus’s mega-teachings that notes “5,000 men.”

Why men?

Perhaps the number 5,000 matters (I’m sure it wasn’t an accident, writers don’t add stuff just to add stuff—at least not good ones). And, men.

And consider that they wanted to crown Jesus as king.

5,000? That’s the size of a Roman Legion. If he had led those 5,000 at that point on a march to Jerusalem, think of how large the army would have been by the time they got there. And then the triumphal entry on what we call Palm Sunday. Jesus entered from one gate, so scholars say, at the same time the Roman ruler entered another gate with his troops in order to maintain order during Passover.

He could have been leading a 20,000-strong army on the capital. We know they were armed, since Peter drew a sword and used it at the time of the arrest.

What would have happened?

Well, consider what happened 35 years later when there was a popular uprising. Thousands were killed (and not Romans), the Temple was totally destroyed, and the Jews were dispersed.

Jesus and those 20,000 men would have been slaughtered.

I love stories that unfold in multiple layers. There is the immediate layer that Jesus saved his followers from immediate slaughter that would have nipped his growing project in the bud.

Of course, there is also the theological layer that we all know about–Jesus, the sacrificial lamb, killed for all of our sins.

Good stories bear truth in many layers. I don’t think the gospel writers could have made that up that quickly.

Posted in Christianity | Leave a Comment »

Handling Conflict

April 14, 2025

The political situation in the US has become so divisive this century that researchers have published several books on handling conflict or having difficult conversations.

Two additional thoughts:

Any reading of US history reveals that this period is not unique
This situation exists in many (most?) areas of the world

Writing is thinking. Since I claim to be a follower of Jesus, curiosity aroused within to discover how he handled conflict. I have been researching for some time and begun writing a slender volume of examples and thoughts.

Jesus was a rabbi. This fact is uncontested in the gospels. There was both a process to become recognized as a rabbi and a culture among rabbis. Part of the culture, I believe still today, entails deep memorization of the essential texts and the ability to debate your points versus other schools of rabbinic thought.

The gospels, especially John, portray these arguments often as attacks on Jesus. Indeed, he was different from the two mainline schools thus inviting debate.

But he also faced real conflicts. Internal (confronting the devil’s temptations in the desert) and physical (the threat of stoning the woman caught in the act of adultery).

What patterns have I uncovered so far in my thinking?

Jesus was secure in his mission given to him by God
He possessed the internal strength to confront others with God’s words
He possessed the internal strength, courage, and appropriate calm to face physical threats with grace
His “emotional quotient” was such that he could find the appropriate level of response

These are qualities that we can, through practice, also acquire. And we should.

More thinking to come.

Thoughts?

Posted in Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

Try Easy

April 11, 2025

A comic strip from long ago called Pogo where the main character remarks, “The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get.”

Perhaps we find ourselves on that great gerbil wheel of life. Running faster and faster, yet going nowhere.

Sometimes being still and waiting for God’s whisper to visit us is the best medicine.

Posted in Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

Teach Us To Pray

April 10, 2025

There was a marketing tag line for one of those gossip periodicals found in the grocery store check out queue—Inquiring minds want to know.

Well, I am blessed, or cursed, with almost infinite curiosity. Inquiring minds want to know.

Jesus’s friends had noticed how he regularly withdrew from them to be alone to pray. So they asked him, “Teach us to pray.”

Did Jesus give them a practice? No. He gave them words. Depending upon our tradition, we call these recorded words “The Lord’s Prayer” or the “Our Father.”

Of course, that is firmly in the Jewish rabbinic tradition. They were focused on words. Boys were accepted into what I call “Rabbi School” when they showed a proclivity as early as eight years of age for memorizing the Laws and the Prophets. They studied under a master Rabbi. They learned to debate the meanings of the words they had memorized.

Jesus surely went through such training. Check out the story of him at 12 in the Temple. Or the fact that everyone accepted him as a rabbi. Or that all his responses to questions except one reflected the teaching of the leading Galilean rabbi of the time. (One answer regarding divorce seemed to reflect the teaching of the more conservative Judean leading rabbi.)

So, he taught the disciples a prayer they could memorize.

I wish he had taught them his practice. Or at least, that his disciples had recorded it if he did.

I do like the prayer, though. As I pray it, I’m reminded of almost the entire gospel.

We are not alone but in the community of all God’s children (Our father). Remembering Jesus’s teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven being all around us, we recognize God as in heaven, that is, all around us, but spiritually not physically. We recognize God as being the leader/ruler/primary focus for obedience. We ask to be fed. We recognize we need to extend forgiveness as much as to ask for it for ourselves. We need help from succumbing to temptation. And it is all within God’s wishes.

But when I sit to pray, I may think of these words or the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner). But I have a practice of time, place, posture, breathing, awareness, focus.

Posted in Prayer | Leave a Comment »

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