Faith Venture

I’ve been involved with athletics for many years, even though I’ve never really been a “jock.” But I’ve worked with hundreds of young people teaching them about how to referee soccer and how to grow up (I hope). But there has been a lot of coverage this year about egregious moral problems with college athletics (gasp!). I know, that’s hard to believe. But the charges of sexual abuse garnered more headlines than the games at times.

The New York Times published an article citing some lawmakers’ needs to pass more laws. That always seems to be the human response. Years ago, there was a comic strip entitled “There Oughta Be a Law.” The purpose of the law? Make people behave in an ethical manner. I think that has been tried–and found wanting.

God tried laws to train His people so that they would become the light of the world. Instead, they found the laws inconvenient, at best. It just didn’t work. Paul wrote about that in Romans. We need the Laws written in our hearts–that is, we need to make them a part of our life. We live the ethical life that God wants for us.

All it takes is for one ethical person to stand up. Will I have that courage when it counts? Hope so.

“Always do right. It will please some people, and astonish others,” Mark Twain.

It is an unfortunate fact that often in the business world–and other times as well–when someone seems to go out of their way to profess being a Christian business person, I instinctively reach to see if my wallet is still with me. I’ve only worked for a couple of guys who made outward emphasis to being Christian. Both broke promises and did not pay me for work done or promised. Had a customer who did not pay for materials purchased. Saw a company president sell a company and pack up his office on a Sunday so that he didn’t have to face his employees on Monday to tell them he had sold and that most likely they would all be losing their jobs within six months.

On the other hand, I’ve worked with hundreds of deeply spiritual people who just did their thing. No bragging. No over-the-top proclamations about themselves. It was all about other people, not themselves.

Always do right. With some people I’ve met–especially in church–Twain was right, I’d be astonished.

I really like the writing of Donald Miller. I read his blog. “Blue Like Jazz” and “Searching for God Knows What” are two of my favorites. Miller deals honestly with his experiences and feelings about “church people” and other people he meets. I say honestly because the tone is not preachy, but rather something like working out the puzzle of life–his and others.

“Blue Like Jazz” is coming 0ut as a movie. Released today (Friday the 13th!) I think. I see few movies. Hopefully I’ll see this one. But he’s already attacked by the self-righteous because of his questioning about people he’s met in churches–and some institutional churches themselves. But it’s really about a story of someone searching for Jesus.

“Always do right.” Seems to be a paraphrase of how Paul told us to live in Romans. Not a bad practice at all.

Our church sponsors a summer camp with the foundational theme of JOY-Jesus, Others, You. Put Jesus first in your life, then others, then you. Our society, at least in America, seems to be It’s All About Me. When I read about the political situation in our nation’s capital and the state capitals, what I see is “entitlement.” The difference between the parties is simply which group of voters, er, people are entitled to handouts. Even the Tea Party is all about me–they want to keep more of their money (but they don’t seem to want to give up programs that benefit them directly).

I travel a lot, so I spend a lot of time on airlines. As a frequent flyer, I board early in the process. It gives me an opportunity to observe. Last week a middle aged couple boarded with way more than the allowed two carry ons. The plane was a small regional jet with small overhead compartments. The woman had the maximum legal size roller case. Flight attendant told her to leave it on the jet bridge. Woman got mad. Attendant said, “All the green tagged bags must be gate checked.” Woman said, “What if I take off the tag?” Thing is, it would not have fit.

Then the couple starts looking at the limited overhead space to store their goods. Tried to use the space reserved for the bulkhead passengers who don’t have underseat storage. Flight Attendant, now their enemy, explains some things about storage. Man winds up putting a large shopping bag behind his legs blocking seat access. Oops, violation of safety rules. They have a couple of other violations. Flight Attendant makes several announcements over the PA system. Then on final check asks the couple to comply with safety regulation. They get even further mad. “XX is going to hear about this.”

OK, maybe they’ve never flown before. But when the world revolves around you, you don’t notice others.

Yesterday I wrote about a church where all the members care about others. Then I wonder, given our narcissistic society, is it possible to move people from self-centeredness to caring about others. Guess it takes God to break through?

I spent last week at a very technical conference. Lot of talk about programming for industrial applications. You’ll have to bear with me a little for the analogy to develop. Anyway, I got to thinking about abstraction–that is a way of thinking where you ignore the details and focus on generalities.

The company whose user conference I attended has developed software that allows programmers to handle complex programming tasks with greater success and ease. It’s a process called abstraction. Instead of concentrating on lines and lines (sometimes thousands of lines of densely worded text called code), the code is abstracted into small pictures that can be “wired” together. In this case, abstraction works to great benefit.

Then on the plane ride home watching the TED Talks videos on my iPad, I saw a talk given by a marvelous teacher. Then I thought about much political debate (and many people’s thoughts) over the past decade or longer about teachers. Get the distinction? One teacher or a group known as “teachers.”

Where is our focus? Do we think of people in terms of a group? Or individuals? It’s easy to make villains you hate about a group when you know many  individuals in that group whom you admire. In this case, abstraction from the individual to the group is not productive.

I can’t think of a time when Jesus dealt with groups as an abstraction. He dealt with individuals. John, in his Gospel, makes some abstractions (he often talks of “the Jews”), but John is also full of irony. He makes a comment about the Pharisees (the group) but also has talked about an individual Pharisee (Nicodemus). John likes that kind of contrast.

But I have concern when we try to reduce everyone to groups and fail to see the individual. The pastor yesterday talked about meeting a “weird” guy and then discovering he was a pastor. He went from abstraction to individual. That is much more beneficial in our lives. Instead of getting ourselves all worked up and stressing ourselves over abstracted groups that disagree with us, perhaps we could see individuals who are fellow seekers. Who have different ideas for now as they are puzzling out the same things we are–how to live with God.

Don’t look at “them.” Look at her. Look at him.

I’m not sure where this post is going. I’m beginning without an end in mind, because this incident is a tragedy.

While I was in Florida, the Casey Anthony case was coming to a close. She is the young woman accused of causing her 2-yr-old daughter to die. I think the entire population of the state watched the trial on TV. The jury voted acquittal after almost no deliberations. The one juror who spoke (probably the leader of the small group) hung her vote on a comment the defense attorney made at the beginning–that since there was no way to know the cause of death, there was no way to convict her of first-degree murder.

The facts as I got them were that Anthony was a terrible mother. She fed the little child prescription drugs to make her sleep so that she could go out partying. After the girl died, she hid the body until decomposition set in such that it was impossible to conduct an autopsy, all the while saying the baby was at the nanny’s (there was no nanny).

To take the jurors’ side (which is difficult for me), the trial was in Orlando, but they brought the jury in from Tampa. They were housed in a hotel together with no outside contact for the duration of the trial. One juror was booked on a cruise that left the Thursday after the Fourth. His motivation was hardly justice. It was getting out.

Meanwhile, Anthony has been offered $1 million for her story. And she is now free–at least of jail.

What kind of society do we live in? My disgust with lawyers reaches the same height as my disgust with politicians. But the sensationalist media makes both of them look like amateurs.

I keep asking myself, where would Jesus fit into this story. What a tragedy that no one stepped in to guide Anthony into a responsible life. What a tragedy that the parents first went along and then turned on her, but never provided tough love and guidance. What a tragedy that a little child dies and there is no criminal justice.

But I can pray that somehow the tragedy breaks through Anthony’s shell; that the tragic results of her lifestyle brought nothing but grief to her and her family become clear to her and that she is shown a better life. Many people have overcome tragedy to become Christ followers with great effect. We can pray that the same happens to her.