Opinions

A historian said that Romans made their emperors gods, which showed not how much they thought of emperors, but how little they thought of gods!

After carefully looking through the Old Testament, an acquaintance quoted a passage which said that the wise goes to the right and the fool goes to the left......... therefore "the right" is godly. Therefore modern conservative political opinions are holy. And what the wisdom from 1000 BC had to do with political choice in 2010 AD was never clarified.

Like the Romans, my acquaintance did not reveal so much the wisdom of Scripture, but how little he thought of Scripture to bend it to suit the political preference of the moment.

It occurs to me that we are to bend TO Scripture, rather than bending Scripture to suit the moment. Think so?

About this, I'll always BCurious!

There have been good days when I've taken time to stand a moment at the chapel entrance in Methodist Hospital Houston. I'd read words from a poem written by Dr. Hyla S. Watters, a Methodist missionary and Chief Surgeon of Wuhu Hospital on the Yanhtze River during the WWII era.

The Hospital Speaks

I stand by the side of a current

That's deeper by far than the sea

And storm beaten craft of every draught

Come in to be healed by me

But some have more grief than pain

God help me make whole both body and soul

Before they go out again

Dr. Hyla S. Watters

We pray and build hospitals; that's always made a great deal of sense to me as a good theology about being the people of God.

Bronze Baby Plus

It was a hot day, and the shade looked very welcoming as I walked out the door at Lowe's. The shade was provided by one of those yard loungers, for sale, but occupied at the moment by a grandfatherly type holding a sort-of bronze colored infant.

At least I thought it was an infant. Tucked into his arm, maybe two feet total height, as he leaned down to kiss its little head. Sweet, I thought. Then, as I got exactly even with him, it was apparent that there was no baby at all.

A miniature Buddha. Nothing wrong with that. Object of devotion for millions. But the kiss on the very top of a bronze head in the summer heat outside Lowe's was just unique. It wasn't clear whether he had just bought the little fellow or brought him along on the shopping trip.

We live in a multilayer religious world. Many recognitions all around us. Lots to see. From the Sikh, to the Hindu, to the converts moving from one to another, to the claims of various Protestant groups and Mormons, to the YMCA camp at Estes Park, with a large group of Buddhist monks playing tennis for the first time.

Discovering the zest for life among Buddhists, the powerful commitments of the Sikhs, to the sheer numbers of other groups, we need an openness to discover how God is at work in other cultures and other religions.

Ask the question: could it be possible for 1 billion Chinese to be on their journey through life without God deeply wanting to be in touch? And already there? And wondering when we'll discover that and find our way in behind Him?

One More from the Eccentric

He was an encourager. He was a listener.

His first Sunday in worship he was noticeable. He did take off the hat, but the brown leather coat was the only one in the house. He wasn't sure about being there, and it showed in his posture.

He didn't sing, he did watch the readers and speakers, and followed in a relaxed sort of way. When the sermon started, he leaned back and slid a bit lower in the seat, giving the impression he just might slip off into a short nap.

Then he sat up. Then he leaned forward, soon resting his arms on the empty pew in front of him, obviously connected, face expressive as each part of the sermon moved along.

For me, it became a vivid and personal picture of what I and every preacher wants. It became the target in my mind from that morning forward, to engage, to communicate, to connect.

I don't know if he realized the effect he had on me; I know that it was an unforgettable picture of what I wanted to accomplish. A target. And I believe an inspired, God-given target.

Celebrating faith, after all, is intended to make something happen. This did.

The Mildly Eccentric Friend, One More

You never knew where you might see his broad-brimmed brown leather hat, walking along in strange places, and usually with the grocery cart in front. Driving one day between Anderson, TX and Navasota, there was the hat, marching along toward Anderson, the county seat. I waved and hurried on to Navasota, keeping to schedule.

Next day, I saw him downtown and asked: "Where were you going yesterday?"

"To Anderson; I got a jury summons. I never had one of those before. What a privilege!"

Well, 30 years a merchant seaman, summons never came to him. So, it was a privilege.

"You walked?"

"Sure, only about 10 miles. What a privilege!"

One of our great liberties is anchored in the right to trial by a jury of our peers. As the comic said, it can be a scary thing to rest your fate in the hands and minds of 12 people who were too dumb to get out of jury duty!

And securing that right is not done by mobilized armies and marching troops,or by laws passed in Congress. Securing that right is done inside the mind and heart that honestly considers it a privilege to serve!

Jesus talked about that, in the sense that the reality-issues of life proceed from the commitment of the heart. And if selfishness replaces the sense of duty in enough hearts, we're all in deep trouble.

Love liberty? Serve on that jury when called!

One Mildly Eccentric Friend

His sister died, so he inherited the house. 'Twas a good time to retire, so he left the sea, left the ships, and moved to Navasota. He walked everywhere. Found an old grocery cart behind a long-closed grocery store, cleaned it up, took it everywhere.

He made all the garage sales, walking all over town every morning. When I visited, he wanted to show me what he'd collected. A mechanic all his life, he'd bought outboard motors, dismantled and cleaned every part, and kept and cataloged the good ones. Salvage can be beautiful in the eye of the beholder, and valuable in the hand of a good mechanic.

Then people noticed he was bringing home BIG sections of what looked like scrap. Day after day. Suddenly, illness overtook him, and he was not seen again in the mornings, pushing his load of scrap.

A friend got volunteers to complete what none of us had known: his biggest project. Abandoned swing sets, cleaned, salvaged, cut and welded,combined into a huge set, almost finished. All primed and ready to finish. Volunteers painted, transported, and assembled his last great "salvage project": an enormous swing set for the Head Start school children.

Real values are transparent, credible, and powerfully motivation, even from a mildly eccentric friend. Makes you think of ancient words: "Go and do likewise."

The Downside

I'm new to this medium, but into communications all my life. Some days, like today, I think a blog is just an excellent way of getting a story out. Books are shrinking down, newspapers fading, TV shrinking, but this medium is exploding!

Sometimes, though, it feels a little like the chronicles of the sinking! Take today's MSNBC blog - http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/08/24/4961091-diving-down-to-document-titanic-debris - We know more now than we ever knew before, but facts are hard to come by. Let's go look!

In a world of "spin", we want to get down to whatever it is that's real. For example, today's other reading - jimvb.home.mindspring.com/2006/07/five-biggest-problems-in-world-today.html connected in such a good way. The biggest problems in the entire world come down to the Garden-of-Eden problem - I want my ME-time, my ME-stuff, no matter what the cost. Nothing new there! Just new manifestations.

I am determined to have my luxury foods, my air-conditioning, my on-and-on, and the world just needs to develop systems to manage that for me!

Getting down to it? Global warming and Peak Oil. That's getting down to it. Sometimes it seems that the downside of whatever we call the great final conflict is being laid out, with elaborate preparations that mask the seriousness of it all.

When we dig down, its' not just curiosity........ we need to find the foundation.

In a tricky world, sometimes we find the foundations flawed. In a south-east Texas town, in a housing subdivision, all the houses had broken foundations. Investigation revealed that when the foundations were poured, just before the concrete flowed into the mold, the crew moved the re-bar to the next foundation site. No re-bar. As the pace picked up, many foundations even had grass on the underside.

Ever wonder about getting to the downside of the world's great problems? I do.

Share a thought?