Devotional for Brotherhood Meeting

DEVOTIONAL FOR BROTHERHOOD MEETING

Wed. 3-4-2015

My Bible passage is Psalm 1 verses 1-2.   In the Holman Christian Standard version it is -- How happy is the man who does not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path of sinners, or join a group of mockers!  2  Instead, his delight is in the Lord's instruction, and he meditates on it day and night.

(The King James Version* refers to "sitting in the seat of the scornful."  That might be a reference to a particular bench in the classroom, or to a particular table in the cafeteria.)

My devotional is on the Christian meaning of the word meditate.  I think here in the Bible to meditate simply means to think about something, in this case to think about the words of the Bible.  Or -- if we read the King James Version "his delight is in the law of the LORD" -- perhaps the psalmist is thinking day and night about the five books of Moses in particular, at the beginning of the Bible.

So I come before you to praise what I call your "thinker" -- that is, your mind, your brain -- which God gave you.

On this subject, I have a parable to share with you that I came up with.  Jesus did not name the characters in his parables, so I didn't name the characters in my parable either.

A man had two sons.  He said to his sons "An idle mind is the devil's playground."  His sons nodded, and they tried to please their father so as to honor him, but here are the thoughts that came to the two of them.  The elder son thought "My father is right.  If I have too much time to think about what my elders have told me, I would just use that time to plan robberies and other crimes.  It is best for me to keep busy."  But the younger son thought, "But I enjoy thinking, and it seems wholesome to me.  I think about how to work the farm more profitably.  I think about what my teachers have taught me."

Was the father's advice right?  Could it be that it was right for one son, but not the other?  Maybe the elder son's thought came to him because he had looked in his own heart, and the discipline of not allowing himself too much time to think was the best thing for him. Maybe the younger son's conviction that his thoughts were wholesome was the truth, and he could safely think because he was guarding his heart.

What about you?  If you are like me, your thoughts might sometimes be unwholesome -- President Carter admitted to having that problem -- but more often wholesome and useful, and if we pray to God and lean on him, he will lead us away from putting any unwhole­some thoughts which squirm into our brains into action.

So, part of my encouragement which I bring to you tonight, is the reminder that God gave you your thinker.  It is like a muscle waiting to be used, and you can use it in your Christian life, to examine how the suggestions and ideas you get from your supervisor, from your friends, from a man on the television, from political leaders, and so on, agree with or disagree with God's words.

(Of course, commands demand much less thought than suggestions, but life does not consist completely of commands.  I receive a lot of suggestions and advice in addition to commands, and I expect you do too.)

While we consider our minds and the possible applications our minds can have in our Christian walk, let's hark back to school for a minute.  I'm the son of a teacher (the son of a professor to be more exact), and when I read about people voting against school bonds and referendums to provide more money for our public schools -- money to reduce the student-teacher ratio, to buy more computers and photocopiers, to provide more help to reluctant readers, or a bigger lunch to the sons and daughters of poor people, and on and on -- I wonder: is that voter opposed to pouring money into public education because of an insulting remark which a teacher made about their brain, when they were younger?  That's not always the explanation, but it is a great sadness, and I suppose nothing can be done about it in some ways, in the sense that it's frightful­ly difficult to change other people's opinions.  Also, I did not come here tonight to urge anybody to forgive a teacher they had years ago.  BUT, I did come here to urge all of you to think kindly of your own thinkers!  Here's an example thought along that line: "My thinker doesn't always come up with a solution to a problem as quickly as my boss's thinker does, but it has stood me in good stead over the years and I'm glad God gave it to me."  The way I see it, we don't always need to forgive some teacher -- at least, we don't need to forgive them RIGHT NOW -- who had a fussy word on the subject of our brain many years ago, but we do need to love up on our own thinkers!  Nobody's thinker is batting 1.000 (a thousand of a thousand), but everybody's thinker has useful and wholesome applications in whatever situations God puts us in.

Let me end with an example of meditating on God's word: the fourth commandment, at Exodus 20 verse 8 (also Deuteronomy 5:12-15).  We are commanded to remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.  And the commandment continues "you must not do any work -- you, your son or daughter," -- and there's more after that.  So here's a meditation about this commandment: a scenario.  On a Sunday morning a father goes to church -- but his son, who has passed the age of sixteen, says "I will stay home today, because I am sick."  His father comes home after preaching is over.  His son is up and about, and he says, "I felt better, so I got up. See, I have done this work and that chore and this task while you were out worshiping God."  The fourth commandment has many ingredients -- things that feed into it, corollaries that come out of it, gray areas that arise because of changes in the institutions of the world -- for example, we are blessed that we no longer have the slaves which that commandment refers to, but on the other hand we have many, many stores which stay open on Sunday -- but here is one ingredient of the fourth commandment.  It is disrespect to God if one member of the family says to another "Look at all I have accomplished while you were out worshiping God."  So, that's an example of a thought which can come to you when you meditate on God's word: the reflection that one of the purposes of the fourth commandment is to prevent this scenario from occurring.

Don't say "My thinker can't come up with that kind of stuff."  Just read or listen to the news, and relate it to the Bible.  Many of you are already doing that, and any adult Christian can.

Notes

* Psalm 1 verses 1-2 in the King James Version -- Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.  2  But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

[I have the impression that the Holman Christian Standard version uses the word law and also the word commandment less often than the King James Version, but that doesn't really matter.  Here the Holman Christian Standard puts instruction (which means teaching) in the place where the word law is in the older translation.]

Our Foreign Policy in the Middle East

OUR FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Mon. Feb. 23rd, 2015

A charge of heartlessness has been made against ISIS, the Islamic State.  The charge is well-founded.

Can a well-founded charge of heartlessness be made against American foreign policy in the Middle East?

The questions has to do with bombs dropped from airplanes, and explosives projected by drone missiles.

Of the various parts of American foreign policy, the part that interests me the most is the part of our foreign policy which lives in the hearts of our people.  The foreign policy which lives in the hearts of our people is that bombs dropped from airplanes are completely unrelated to bombs exploded by suicide bombers.

This has to do with playing from a position of strength.  The strong player is against sneakiness, but in favor of using weapons which the other side can't afford.  ("They can't afford it" includes "they don't have the technology for it.")  In the current state of warfare, bombs dropped from airplanes, and explosives thrown by drone missiles, are weapons which the other side can't afford.

Let's get back to heartlessness.  Are bombs dropped from airplanes and explosives thrown by drones heartless?

The standard answer is "You don't want to know" and its mutation "You can't handle the truth."

Some can, some can't.  It ties in with the strange picture of the monkey with his hands over his eyes, whose name is See No Evil.

See No Evil is a heck of a weird saying.  Does it really mean, I am more virtuous if I don't see evil?

I think what the saying "See no evil" is trying to mean is, "Don't feast your eyes on evil, if evil excites you."  Because "See no evil" had better not mean "If you see evil, turn your face away."  Turning your face away from evil was the behavior of the priest and Levite who came before the good Samaritan, and Jesus did not praise the priest and the Levite for their behavior.  The only actually virtuous meaning which "See no evil" can have is the meaning that if evil excites you, you need to avoid that excitement exactly the same way the straight alcoholic avoids taking an alcoholic drink.

Also -- and this is based on a story I read about the sinking of the Titanic -- if something horrible is happening, it's all right to put your hands over your child's eyes.

But putting your hands over your own eyes when you see evil is not the point of the saying "See no evil."

So to me, the question is not whether one person or another person can handle the truth.  The question is whether our foreign policy will be more productive if the American people are keenly aware of the evil consequences which a military strategy of bombing has for many innocent families of people native to the Middle East.

I believe the bombs we drop from airplanes and the explosives we detonate from drone missiles, in the Middle East, are heartless.  That would put the United States in the same category with ISIS.

What to do?  Repent of our foreign policy in the Middle East, and make a better one.  Repent, before the other side learns how to use the weapons we have been using against them.

There is another important angle to the sorrow we are storing up for ourselves.  Namely, the whore of Babylon.  She raises her ugly head in the Book of Revelation, chapter 17.  When we Christians read it, we need to remember, this is Saint John's euphemism.  John was a citizen or a subject of the Roman Empire -- the Roman Empire had both citizens and subjects -- and when he wrote about Babylon, he was really talking about Rome.  He was talking about the enemy of Jerusalem in his own generation.  He wasn't talking about the enemy of Jerusalem five hundred years earlier.  Indeed, the United States has changed its enemies and its allies many times in half of five hundred years.  John was talking about Rome.  Many people hear this, and they say "Ahh, that is SO unimportant."  It's not.  Your country has absolutely no right to persecute Babylon (Iraq) because of Saint John's euphemism.  Word. 

Furthermore, you need to think very carefully about Rome's role in the persecution of Jesus.  Rome, Europe, and the United States owe reparations to the Middle East, which is the cradle of religion, because we have mishandled our Arabic policy.  "No posthumous victories for Hitler" said Fackenheim -- alas!  The shambles of our policy towards Arab and Islamic nations is a monstrous victory for Hitler.  We fail to notice, that Hitler would have been just as happy persecuting Arabs as he was persecuting Jews.

As far as reparations are concerned, a suitable place to begin would be by dismantling the Arch of Titus.  But, if someone says "Rome" today, it might be a euphemism for the United States.

We have prophets in the United States, prophets of good quality.  I urge my fellow Americans to listen way more carefully to the prophets among us.  We need to get much better at diving down into the mud and getting to the bottom of each other's hearts.  It will make our country both stronger and better-hearted.

My Gun Sadness

MY GUN SADNESS

Sat. Feb. 21st, 2015

Government control over gun ownership by private citizens has been a huge bleeding-point in the culture wars in the USA.  Not so much in some other countries.  What is the disagreement in the USA?  I think it is a disagreement about the Most Disgusting Thing.  Liberals and conservatives have deep-seated angers about wrongful gun killings, but the things that disgust and anger them the most are not the same thing.  The type of wrongful gun killing which angers conservatives the most is when the law prevents a law-abiding man from equipping himself to shoot back at a criminal.  The type of wrongful gun killing that angers liberals the most is when a law-abiding man who is minding his own business is carelessly killed by a law enforcement official or a gun-toting conservative who imagined that they were acting in self-defense.  Killed by a man who believes in doing unto others before they do unto you.  Killed by a man who is held harmless by a society that believes that if you want to protect the real right of self-defense, you have to protect the right of a man who uses deadly force when he thinks he's threatened although he's not.

The disagreement is whether it is more repugnant to be killed when you don't have the right to bear arms, or more repugnant to be killed by someone who can't read the signs correctly in a split second when you're minding your own business.

I'm a liberal about this, in favor of gun control.  I am more afraid of trigger-happy people than I am of criminals.  My gun sadness is that I know this giant divide between liberals and conservatives will never be bridged in my lifetime; maybe not in ten generations.

But -- there is something here which seems worth doing to me -- something which my country hardly seems to be trying to do, from what I have observed.  That is, trying to express your position in words free of threats, words which the other side can understand.  If your country is deeply divided by a culture war, and an outside enemy attacks, would you rather be fighting side by side with someone whose deep-seated beliefs have been explained to you, or side by side with a man whose deep-seated beliefs have never been explained to you, whom you consider irrational and whom you hated until the minute before the war broke out?

My response is, our country would be stronger if we would make an effort to clear the muddy waters of the river between us in the culture wars.

I read and hear foreign news less often, and with less understanding, than American news.  But I've heard enough foreign news in my life to believe that every country in the world is fighting its own version of the culture wars.  I don't believe the culture wars are winnable or endable, but I do believe that if they were reported more rationally and less emotionally, we might live in a less nervous and more hopeful world.

Though they are disgusted by different things, both liberals and conservatives are human beings.

A Commentary on "anyone lived in a pretty how town" by e.e. cummings

A COMMENTARY ON "ANYONE LIVED IN A PRETTY HOW TOWN" BY E.E. CUMMINGS

Fri. Feb. 20th, 2015

I felt this poem with a lot of pleasure a long time before I had any clear-cut thoughts about what it meant.  But if you love something, eventually you'll glom some thoughts onto it.  Here's what I've come up with.

1. (with up so floating many bells down) -- i.e. The other people in the town didn't notice how beautiful the church bells were when they rang, but anyone noticed it.

2. they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same -- i.e. They sowed their cynicism, they reaped what they sowed.

3. children guessed . . . that noone loved him more by more -- Possible reference to Emily Dickinson's poem "I'm nobody -- Who are you?  Are you nobody too?"

4. when by now and tree by leaf -- "When?" answered by "Now!", "Tree?" answered by "Leaf!"

5. she -- Same person as noone in the previous stanza.

6. they said their nevers they slept their dream -- Cf. Hamlet's soliloquy, "to sleep, perchance to dream."

7. busy folk buried them side by side -- i.e. After a funeral, the grownups who are still alive have to go back to work.

8. earth by april . . . if by yes -- Noone and anyone did a free association thing, and "Earth?" was answered by "April!" and "If?" was answered by "Yes!"

9. reaped their sowing and went their came -- The big gloomathon.  "Man tills the earth, and dies, and lies beneath" -- my inaccurate memory of Tennyson's poem "Tithonus."

10. anyone -- i.e. You can be this person, if you would like to be this person.

If I think of something obvious, I'll let you know!