Where the Terrorists?

I had a lingering dream some time before I completely woke up this morning that later grabbed my attention. As dreams often go, the logic of the plot makes little sense to an awake mind, but the underlying concepts that are revealed sometimes are very enlightening.

I was dreaming about security lines that people are forced to pass through at airports. Now, I'm not going to comment on my intense feelings about such matters, but to dream about such a thing for so long is rather unusual for me as I don't even remember dreaming about such a thing before.

Most of the time in my dream, the lines of passengers were unusually sparse and the activity wasn't exactly as intense as in real life. After a time I actually found myself interacting with the security personal (when they were there) on a more friendly basis than is customary.

For whatever reasons I kept having to go back around and around through the various stations as some of the other people sometimes had to do. At times it seemed that the whole area was almost devoid of any people which I found a bit strange. Even the surrounding rails and walls were not all that secure. It seemed like these were more temporary setups, like they were portable or something. It was more like they expected you to honor the system more than forcing you to do so. But that was not the point that really got my attention later on.

After some time I became aware of a man who seemed to have been designated to pass through all the security processes in a very thorough way for a most unusual reason. It seems now a bit vague and even illogical, but in the dream it seemed like a bright idea. At this point in my dream it was even starting to take on religious connotations as this man was supposed to somehow function as a stand-in for a number of children that he would be responsible for in such a way so as to eliminate the need for them to pass through all that security themselves. It was assumed that if he could pass security well enough that he could then vouch for those under his care and they could pass on their way with less hassle.

Again, in the dream it seemed rather logical, even a great idea. But as I watched him try to implement this unusual idea my dream seemed to bog down. I found myself beginning to sink into a deeper sleep where dreams don't function very well, but then suddenly I woke up to a lighter sleep with a jolt. The following thought then struck me with force and I sensed that there was something very important to learn from this illustration. These thoughts came clearly to my mind about the dream:

Man can develop all kinds of strategies and equipment and techniques to try to detect weapons or figure out who might be a danger to others, while the real problem is in the motives of the heart. But there is no way for humans to create equipment or develop programs to scan that part of a person. In fact, as I pondered it after waking all the way up, I realized that the very people who most avidly seek to expose those they label as terrorists, in the very process of looking for them begin to cultivate the very same attitudes and attributes in their own hearts. It is a principle of reality that the very act of looking for faults in others unavoidably begins to develop those same character traits in ourselves.

Only God has the 'equipment' to be able to discern the motives and thoughts of the heart. And only those who are willing to come into close fellowship and humble submission to Him will have the privilege of Him sharing with them at the right times what they need to know about what is going on inside others. Only God can see the heart while the rest of us obsess about the outward appearances.

A terrorist is not someone who is discovered carrying weapons around but is someone who harbors hate and bitterness inside and seeks for revenge. Given that definition I suspect that most of us could easily be found to be terrorists, especially those who spend much of their time trying to detect them.

The real danger in our lives does not come from bombs or guns or any other physical weapons, but it comes in the attitudes that we harbor against others that we think to have less value than ourselves. The whole system of society that we have grown up in has become a mold for inducing terrorists. And the more we try to use force, fear and violence to eliminate or incarcerate those we consider dangerous, the more we create resentment causing others to join in seeking to oppose us and use violence against us.

Like attracts like. When we resort to force we activate this universal principle that always operates. When we rely on violence thinking to suppress violence, we only end up producing more violence that will react back upon us. Jesus told Peter that those who take up the sword will die by the sword. The methods that we are subscribing to as a nation now becomes the very thing that produces and proliferates our enemies. And trying to stay ahead of others in the ability to use ever greater force only intensifies and hardens the resolve of those who resist us.

By choosing to follow this path in the name of promoting freedom we are actually destroying both the freedom of others and undermining and disassembling our own freedoms. Our government has chosen to reject the principles of freedom that we claim were the foundations of our nation originally. We have been deceived into thinking that we can rely on a different set of principles, weapons and logic of the kingdom of darkness, and still enjoy the benefits of living in freedom. But just like love, when freedom violates others and abuses those who disagree with us, it quickly disintegrates and morphs into nothing more than an empty claim, a thin shell of pretense that covers up the presence of the very same motives as in those who now attack us. All the time we reject responsibility for our own horrific actions against our enemies by blaming anyone and everyone else while we are becoming the true terrorists.

I believe it was Winston Churchill that once made a famous statement with so much insight. “We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.”

Only by following the methods and principles of heaven will we be led to living in true safety and freedom. The more we obsess over security for ourselves the more we are destroying the freedom of our own people. The claim that it is necessary to sometimes exchange freedom for security is one of the most successful lies of Satan to enslave free people and throw away all that has been won for them at such a costly price by their forefathers along with the death of Jesus Christ. Security cannot be achieved by denying it to everyone but ourselves while abusing anyone we don't like. That is not real security, it is just plain abuse of power and only serves to corrupt and destroy our souls.

It could well be said of us if we were willing to admit the truth that Churchill discovered, “When we meet the terrorists we discover to our horror that the greatest terrorists are in the mirror.”

Washing Dishes With Gratitude

We are having a time of great interest right now in our lives, my wife and I. We don't know yet where it is leading us, but we sense that life is at a turning point and that quite likely it may look quite different very soon. But let me share how something little might reflect that something larger right now.

Because we had no children choose to come and spend the holiday weekend with us for Thanksgiving and had no invitations to spend the day with anyone, my wife called up a church in a nearby town to volunteer us to help out with their Thanksgiving day dinner offered for the public. We chose to arrive there not too long before they were to quit serving figuring that they would likely need more help cleaning up than serving.

Of course, when we arrived they wanted us to eat but we had just finished breakfast at home so declined the invitation, instead asking what we could do to help out. We knew no one there so we didn't really know how to fit in well, but we soon found a place at the washing sinks to relieve people better suited to do other jobs in the area. They had a very large sink well suited to washing the large cooking containers being used and then two more sinks next to that that we used for rinsing. I began washing whatever utensils were being dropped off and my wife started rinsing and drying them.

Given the ongoing nature of such a project, we spent the rest of the time there processing the containers and various utensils without any backup. From our corner of the kitchen we were also able to observe the interactions between the others and get a feel for the social network in place among these friends. Most of the lunch crowd had already finished when we arrived and so there was not a whole lot of activity going on except for a few meals being served and a number of take-outs made up for deliveries.

A half an hour before closing time even arrived it became clear that no one else was likely to show up and so they began putting everything away and cleaning out the big cookers. The servers were eager to go home after many hours of volunteering to leave the cleanup to whoever was left. We actually found it enjoyable to be able to efficiently and quickly clean all of the pots and utensils and dry them; it did not seem like a real burden for us. I noticed that my wife was often humming or singing some Thanksgiving song all through the time there which she enjoys doing this time of year.

As the staff dwindled down to just three or four and the decks were cleared, it was evident that there was a lot of mess around the counters and on the floor that no one was too interested in dealing with. I decided to wipe the decks clean and then located a mop and bucket in a nearby closet and thoroughly cleaned all the floor of the kitchen. I remembered with pride how well I had been trained as a teenager how to mop floors in the sanitarium that I worked in as a student by an old German lady who insisted on us doing an absolutely thorough and perfect job. She taught all of her students well and many of them later in life impressed many people as they demonstrated their ability and willingness to do an exceptional job handling a mop. It makes one feel good to know they can do a really good job when others are expecting far less and assume that this kind of work is to demeaning to enjoy.

As we left we were showered with appreciation but did not really make any social connections at all. I began to sense during that time that my own motives were not nearly so noble as my wife's and felt a bit ashamed of my selfishness and secret desires to get some benefit for myself out of this experience. I felt convicted that I need to learn to participate in acts of selfless kindness and generosity with no desire for personal gain as part of my training as a Christian. For too long I have focused on my own needs and how any situation might be used to profit me in some way. I have a long way to go to be free of this habit of looking out for myself first.

After we arrived back home, my wife shared something with me that really touched me. For the past several months, actually back in August, she was suddenly stricken with a severe condition of pain from bulging and ruptured discs in her lower back that left her crying in pain and lying on the couch 24/7 for nearly two months. Very slowly she has been recovering but it has been an intense time of reevaluation of priorities and heart searching to see how our relationship with God fits into all of this. Of course she had to quite her job and since I have had very little work myself our finances have been very if'y at best. We are finding ourselves forced by circumstances to seek to know much better how to live a life of faith rather than trusting in our own resources to take care of our needs.

Last night she shared with me that what was going through her mind as she was helping with the dishes at that church was a sense of extreme gratitude that she could actually once again stand there and do those dishes without the extreme pain that she has been experiencing for so long. She has recovered to the point now where by Thanksgiving day she was able to do this activity for several hours and not even need to rest or feel tempted to complain of the pain. For her, this was a wonderful cause for deep gratitude and she didn't even need to mention it to anyone else. She just chose to enjoy it and praise God for it from her heart.

God has given me a wonderful wife who is perfectly suited to meet many parts of me that are sadly lacking. She has been appointed by God to bring suggestions and promptings that, if I am humble enough and willing to pay attention, might save me a great deal of grief and problems. I am a slow learner in this area but am trying to practice being more sensitive and willing to listen and pay attention. I know that God designed each of us to be incomplete without a mate of the opposite sex designated by God to unite with us as a more perfect reflection of the wholeness of our Creator.

33 years ago today God sealed us into marriage. She was 18 and I was 22 and she felt like I had nearly robbed the cradle. She was shy and quiet and pretty and I still had enough hair at that time to be attractive. Within a couple years we had our first baby who is now a beautiful young woman with interest in a suitor for her affections. I pray that God will protect and guide her and that she will make Him the highest priority in all of her decisions. We later had a son, formed in our image just as God designed us to do, and now they both live at the other end of the country from us.

God is also very busy reeducating us in matters of the kingdom right now and we are seeking to cooperate with Him and be better students than we have been in the past. We are also coming much more into synchronization with each other's hearts more than ever in our union with each other and are finally beginning to experience a level of the love and respect we wish we could have learned long ago. But as the saying goes, 'Better late than never'.

We are thankful, but we desire to be much more thankful and have a more consistent attitude of gratitude all throughout the year. We are richly blessed with a house to live in, warmth in the growing cold, cars to drive, food to eat and love to share. We are blessed with friends who open their lives to share with us and who can challenge us to change when we need it sometimes. And most of all we are blessed with dramatic revelations over the past few months from various sources that God has brought to us concerning the real truth about God and how He really views us. We want to absorb and soak up these truths and allow them to wash our brains and our hearts of all the lies that have poisoned us for so long. It is time to live in the joy and freedom of real love for our Father in heaven and with each other.

Revisiting The Shack

Although I love to read, I find it hard to actually get all the way through any book and finish it. I have lost count of how many books I have started and really enjoyed but that ended up in the pile next to my chair still unfinished even a year or two later. (I am almost breaking my own pattern because in the past few weeks I have actually finished two books.)

But once in awhile I either take the extra time or I am so riveted in a book that I actually get all the way through in a relatively short time. The last book I could not escape until I finished it was when I purchased The Shack. I had been told about it by a good friend and it sounded interesting, but I had no idea how close it was to what I am coming to believe about God through my own personal study. This book was both intensely emotional for me and refreshing at the same time. And the insights about God's character were so advanced I was caught by surprise but very delighted. I can also see why there is so much intense opposition to it for it does not support the dark views of God held by mainstream religions.

As I looked over the ensuing books available that were ignited by the popularity or notoriety of this book, I noticed another one that caught my attention and I ordered it as well. It is called Finding God In The Shack. It is written by a theologian who wanted to come to the defense of The Shack considering all of the flack that it has received. The reviews sounded interesting so I have had it lying here for several months waiting to get into it.

Last night I picked it up and began about a third of the way through from where I had gotten and began to read the rest of it. Again, I was encouraged to discover a thinker who was willing to stand up to the traditional views of God and reexamine the long-held opinions in religion that have made God out to be the frightening terrorist that many teach Him to be. I was quite surprised to find this theologian willing to challenge even the fundamental beliefs held by many Evangelicals and Christians as he presented insights from the Bible few have taken seriously. I highly recommend this book and would even like the chance to dialog with the author myself if that were possible. But only read this book after taking the time to first read The Shack if you have not read that yet.

Freezing Holocaust

Last night I decided to go out and rescue the last of our tomatoes before the expected freeze overnight killed them off. Because of a new product I used this year on the plants and ground, we have been blessed with abundant tomatoes all the way up to now in stark contrast with previous years where the plants were all dead and gone by this time from a fungus in the soil. This household cleaner that is useful for all sorts of other applications dealt with the blight fungus that normally kills most of my garden and we have been very pleased with the results and the many tomatoes this year.

I picked all the ripe ones last night, all the ones even hinting at turning ripe and also all of the green ones of any significant size no matter how green. I did something similar a few days ago and set them in the window. They are starting to turn color quite nicely and also have very few bad spots in the process. We are so pleased with this blessing but still wonder how to eat this many tomatoes quickly.

As I was finishing up picking two more bags of tomatoes with a flashlight last night I was almost overcome with a strange thought. Here I was, like some diabolical monster deciding between which would go into my bag and which babies would be left to freeze to death in the coming holocaust. I couldn't shake the feeling of guilt even though with my logical mind it was an utterly silly idea. It made me realize how sensitive our hearts start to become the closer we get to viewing things through the eyes of heaven where nothing was ever intended to die.

This morning I went back out and sure enough there was heavy frost on everything. The tomato plants still look normal because they are only in the first stages of death by freezing, but I know that very soon they will wilt and turn yellow and die for the winter. I still felt guilty as I looked at all the little babies that I knew were past saving this morning because all the moisture inside them was frozen hard. What a guilt trip. I'm sure glad its only false guilt though it still doesn't feel very good.

Youth in Harmony

 

Yesterday was a long but quite enjoyable day. I made it even longer by waking up at 12:30 AM and not being able to go back to sleep. Leaving the house shortly before 7 I helped unload risers at the university and then spent the rest of the day singing with around 100 high school boys learning 2 songs with the help of a world-class trainer from Nashville.

This was the seventh annual Youth in Harmony event put on for all the area high schools who want to participate. This year we had eleven schools send students and teachers to participate with a 15% increase over last year. I believe we had around 350 students attend this year with most of the girls. Then in the evening a concert is put on with the students singing their music for the teachers and parents as well as visiting quartets and a Sweet Adeline's chorus putting on a good show for everyone.

It was tiring being on risers for hours but the music invigorated us and kept us going. This is the third time I have helped at one of these and it is something that is always quite rewarding. My wife came for the evening performance though with her current physical problems we had to bring her up in a wheelchair. She too really enjoyed the guest quartet's performance as well as all the music that evening.