Long Hair

 

Note: I did this video on my phone, and I never look at the camera. You're better off just reading this one.

A horse walks into a bar. The bartender asks, “Why the long face?”

I walk into a bar. The bartender asks, “Why the long hair?”

If you look back through my Fred on Faith blog posts and only look at the pictures, you may think you’re witnessing a descent into madness. But my long hair has a long story behind it, and I’ll share that with you now. Every year in June I work at a Conference in Springfield for a few days, and I always get my hair cut right before I go so that I look presentable to the all the people who only see me once year. So when I was given a cancer diagnosis in late May, I was already overdue for a haircut. My doctor told me that the chemotherapy might cause all my hair to fall out, but it would probably take a few weeks. Well, I wasn’t about to waste $10 on a haircut if my hair was going to fall out anyway, so I decided to wait and see.

Those few weeks came and went with no hair loss, at least no more than I’ve been experiencing in the past few years anyway. But my next MRI scan was scheduled for August 7. The results of that scan would determine if I needed more chemotherapy. So I decided to put the haircut off for another month.

My cancer treatment wasn’t just chemo= therapy, I also had a surgery that left me with a large incision in my abdomen, right about the waist line. It looked a little like I had a C-Section. Due to this wound, it was more comfortable for me to not tuck-in my shirt.

I decided to adopt my longer hair and untucked shirt as an intentional look. I thought I’d look like a west coast techie. I probably looked more like a Midwest meth-lab cook, but I could hope for better.

By the time my August 7 scan rolled around, my hair was longer than it has been since I joined the National Guard when I was 17. That scan came back clear. My next scan wouldn’t be until February. I then hatched my plan – I would keep growing my hair, and then donate it to one of those “Locks of Love” types of organizations that make wigs for kids with cancer. It would be my way of being thankful for my own health, helping those who aren’t as fortunate, and feeling self-righteous and extravagantly generous without giving up one thin dime. Plus, unlike the people who only cut the end off of their long pony tails, I am willing to cut my hair down to the scalp, so it shouldn’t take that much longer to meet the required eight-inch length. And  I could finally sing along to Charlie Daniel’s “Long Haired Country Boy” song with a degree of authenticity.

My decision wasn’t a popular one. My wife and my mother, the only two women in the world who have ever really loved me, mocked me and said I looked like a girl. But stating the purpose of helping kids with cancer has a way of silencing critics.

Their accusations didn’t go unheard, though, and I was already concerned about this. So to avoid any change of gender confusion, I have facial hair to accompany my long hair.

It occurred to me that with my long hair and unshaven face, I likely looked very much like Brad Pitt in the summer movie World War Z. But then I checked a mirror and found that rather than Brad Pitt, I simply look like a version of my former self who has been lost at sea for a few months.

All of this talk of hair length brings to mind everyone’s favorite long-haired dude in the Bible, Samson. Samson is another great Bible story that is popular with the kids, because it involves more carnage and killing than a Sylvester Stallone movie marathon. You can find Samson's story in the book of Judges, chapters 13 - 16.

It all started when Samson’s mother, who had been barren, was visited by an angel who told her she would have a baby, and he should be a Nazarite for life. That basically means don’t cut your hair, drink wine or handle dead bodies.  

I’ve found that abstaining from haircuts isn’t that hard. Wine is tougher, but it can be done. And being prohibited from handling dead bodies can only be a plus in my book.

Samson’s story starts out as a typical one. Boy meets girl from wrong side of the tracks. Boy marries girl. Girl talks boy into telling her the answer to his riddle, that she then tells his enemies. Boy gets mad, goes back home to his parent’s house. Girl’s father gives her to Boy’s best man. Boy gets madder, sets 300 foxes on fire an turns them loose to burn down his enemies crop fields and olive orchards. Girl and father get killed by enemy in retribution…

Then the Philistines decide to take out Samson once and for all due to his kills flaming foxes prank, and he kills 1,000 of them with the jawbone of an ass, which has lead many Biblical scholars to speculate, “Just imagine what he could have done if he had used the whole donkey!” You also have to question the logic of the last 800 to take him on after he killed the first 200. And when it was all over, he must have had a real hard time sticking to that “don’t handle dead bodies” rule.

The next notable event in Samson’s life was a one-nighter with a hooker that ended with some vandalism. Sometime after that, Samson then met and fell in love with Delilah.

We all know the Delilah story. She was paid 1,100 pieces of silver to sell him out. Three times she asked him the source of his strength, three times he made something up, and three times when the Philistines came for him, they were in for a surprise. But she kept bugging him. Finally he gave in, and said his strength was due to his long hair. She had his head shaved when he was asleep and collected her cash. The Philistines bound him, and gouged out his eyes. After sometime his hair grew back (I’ve learned it grows about ½ an inch per month), his strength came back, and he was able to use it topple a house where the Philistines were having a huge party, killing himself, but also killing more Philistines than he had ever killed before, which is a lot.

So what’s the point of the whole story of Samson? Maybe the story of Samson is just in there for some light entertainment. In the Red Box of the Bible, Samson is a Will Smith movie… lots of action, a love interest or two, a little crazy at times…

But there’s always a moral to the story, even in Bad Boys or Men in Black. One obvious moral to Samson’s tale is that if you stay faithful to God, he will help you kill a whole bunch of people that you don’t like, especially if you are willing to die in the process. But that’s not been a very popular moral of the story to go with, especially for the last 10 years or so.

Another point that you hear whispered among men whenever Samson comes up: “Never trust a woman!” But when you read the story closely, you’ll see there’s plenty of blame to go around to both genders.

Some say Samson is just another dumb jock story, a gifted athlete that goes pro and can’t keep himself out of trouble despite his super powers.

But let’s not be too hard on Samson. He didn’t choose his lot in life. He had a God-given gift of being the baddest man in the whole bad town. From the Judeo-Christian point of view, he’s a super hero, because all the killing that he did was of the bad guys, the Philistines.

But in the end, he was tired. His second wife betrayed him as quick as the first, and did it three times in a row. And she kept bugging him about it. So when he told her that if his head was shaved, he would just be like everyone else, I think maybe at that point being like everyone else didn’t sound that bad to him.

But he wasn’t everyone else, he was Samson. He didn’t go on to lead a quiet, normal life, he was imprisoned with his eyes gouged out. That put him in the perfection position to do some serious soul searching. And he then he prayed, the only prayer we know of that he ever prayed. He asked God to give him back the strength, one more time, to do what he was born to do… the one thing he was really good at. Then he did it in a big way.

Let’s pray.

Dear lord, we can see a lot in Samson’s story… hubris, obedience, love, rage, commitment, betrayal…. May we use the story to reflect on who we are, what gifts we’ve been given, what gifts we’ve given up because we’re tired, and what we can still do to live out our purpose in life.

A Little on Lot

 

Early in this blog I got a comment from my good friend Flippo, who said he couldn’t wait to hear my take on Lot. I’m not sure if he meant this as a challenge or he just wanted to goad me. See, Flippo is Jewish, and knows his scripture. And he’s probably interested in seeing if I can find any meaning of the debacle of Lot’s life.

You can read about this in Genesis 18 and 19. The story of Lott, taken as a whole, is often cited by the non-religious as a good reason not to read the Bible, or at least not to let your kids read it unsupervised. Which reminds me, I should give the disclaimer that the following blog post is not for children or the squeamish. Lot’s story is like a David Lynch film – but darker and way more disturbing.

It starts by focusing on two cities where everyone is doing very bad things. You’ll recognize the names of cities, Sodom, from which we get the word sodomy, and Gomorrah, from which hails the disease Gommorahria.

When God first mentions doing away with Sodom, the story seems more Mel Brooks than David Lynch. Abraham says, “Surely you don’t want to destroy 50 righteous people when you destroy the city?” , to which God calls his bluff and says, “50 righteous people in Sodom? Right. You’re on.” Abraham then says, “Well, how about 45?”, and continues working his way down in increments of 5, until he gets to 10, and then calls it good.

Meanwhile, back in Sodom, a couple of angels stop by to visit Lot. Lot offered to let them stay the night, but they said they’d just stay in the town square. Lot said, “No, you really don’t want to do that,” so they said OK and came on in.

But then the men of Sodom gathered around Lot’s house. They demanded that he turn the strangers, the angels, out so they can have their way with them.

OK, I’ve got a little aside here. I’ve heard this passage quoted by people as an example of how God is against homosexuality. If you believe that it is a common practice among homosexuals to form a gang-rape posy every time a stranger comes to town, I now understand why you homophobic.

Anyway, faced with the mob at the door, did Lot his sword and shout out, “Maybe I can’t stop you all, but I’m taking off the heads of the first three people through the door!” Sadly, no. Instead he offered, “Take my daughters. I’ve got two of them. They’re virgins. You can do whatever you want to them.” At this point I’m thinking that Lot may be the biggest jerk in the Bible.

The townsfolk were about to break down the door, but then the angels struck them all blind. Again, this seems like a good opportunity for Lot to go outside a settle some scores, but instead he just sneaks away. He told his sons-in-law to be that God was going to destroy the city and they should come with him, but they thought he was just kidding around, so they blew him off.

As they were leaving the city, and fire rained down from heaven destroying the city, Lot’s wife didn’t follow the instructions carefully, and she looked back. She was turned into a pillar of salt. In a conversation my friend Flippo challenged that this seemed like a pretty harsh punishment for breaking some arbitrary rule. I countered that after a lifetime of marriage to Lot, maybe being turned into a pillar of salt in the desert really isn’t all that bad.

So Lot and his daughters got away, and found a nice cave to live in. The daughters, the same whom I previously felt so sorry for, saw their prospects for men as being very limited at that point, so they decide to rape their Dad. You could say the Bible doesn’t say rape, but it does say they got him so drunk that he didn’t know when they were coming and going, and had intercourse with him in that state. I think even Todd Akins would agree that that is rape.

The daughters get pregnant from this encounter, as planned, and both have sons, who they name…  or never mind. This story has gone on long enough.

I’m not a Biblical scholar. I’m not even close. I haven’t studied the original writings in their native language from thousands of years ago. I can’t put this scripture in its proper context, as could someone who has spent a few years in a good seminary. I’m not familiar with the canonization process, or how exactly this x-rated trainwreck of a bedtime story ever made it into the Bible to begin with.

But I know there are a lot of Bibles out there, and some of them are even being read. Just because this story makes me want to shut my Bible and go take a shower, I’m not arrogant enough to believe everyone should have that same perspective.

Perhaps there is someone out there who has found himself in a very dark place. And maybe he encounters an angel in his life who encourages him to make a break from this place, to move on not look back. And maybe he convinces his wife or girlfriend to make a break, too. But midstream, she can’t make a clean break. She looks back on the old life, and she gets stuck there. And he has to go on without her.

If that’s been someone’s life experience, and he reads that part of this story, he may gain some encouragement by it. And he may feel like he’s not alone after all.

Let’s pray.

“Dear God, we can’t fully understand the experiences of another. We often don’t fully understand our own experiences. And there is much in the Bible that we don’t understand. But may we have faith that people will find their way to scriptures that intersect with their life in a way that will give them hope. Amen.”

John 3:16

I apologize for my lack of vlogs lately. It isn’t that Fred’s lost faith, it’s just that I’ve been kind of distracted. Maybe I’ll talk about that later.

Last week I did take time to watch the final NBA game with sons. It was the first professional game they had ever watched all the way through, and maybe it was for me, too.

One thing I didn’t see it that game was John 3:16. Remember when the whole John 3:16 sign craze got started by the Rainbow Man about 30 years ago? He stuck with it for a long time, but eventually got kind of off track, and got arrested after he took a motel maid hostage and had a stand off with the police. Sorry Rainbow Man.

Then a couple of years ago T-Bow put John 3:16 in his face paint during a football, back in the days when everyone cared about what T-Bow did. No one knows what he has on his face now.

So John 3:16:

For God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten son, so that whosoever believeth on him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

What’s this? You say. Does Fred have the entire Bible memorized? Sadly no.  But if you went to a Vacation Bible School or had regular Sunday School attendance as a child, John 3:16 was going to be your one take-away.

It’s a favorite verse among evangelicals, and is kind of an easy sell when your witnessing. Don’t want to die? Believe in Jesus and live forever. OK, deal. Where do I sign up?

But I’ve often wondered about the less Biblically literate, who saw a John 3:16 sign, found a Bible in a motel room or somewhere, and tried to check it out, but accidently turned to 1 John, 3:16.

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.

Whoa. That sounds way harder than just believing. Maybe I’ll read on and see if it gets better.

How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?

Hey, that’s even worse. Now I’m supposed to share my stuff with people in need.

Belief is fundamental, but you may have also heard that faith without works is dead. James 2:17. Let’s Pray.

“Dear Lord, scripture is full of places that tell us to do more than profess. Help us to know what to do when it’s time to do more. Amen.”

It's Not Fair

A few weeks ago Oliver got sick. After a few days of not getting better, we decided to have some tests done, which required a blood draw. Two days later we still weren’t sure, so we had another blood draw. That night we settled on a diagnosis of Kawasaki Disease, so we checked him into the hospital. They had a hard time getting the IV in, so they had to stick him twice.

It was around this time Oliver looked at me and said, or rather shouted, “It’s not fair.”

Oliver didn’t care about how Kawasaki Disease can cause heart attacks in kids, or do other long-term heart damage. He hates getting stuck with needles, and he cared about having to go through it four times in three days. He was right. It wasn’t fair.

I remember when I was around his age, and I said, “It’s not fair” about some perceived injustice, and the adult in charge simply replied, “Life’s not fair.” That didn’t help. Surely three decades later I can come up with something better than that.

So how do you respond to “It’s not fair!” I could tell Oliver stories of other kids that were in situations less fair. Kids in Africa dying of malaria, or in Haiti dying for lack of clean water. I could show him the picture of the kid on the wall down in the hospital playroom, who died of cancer at age four. But I didn’t think showing him greater examples of unfairness would make him feel better.

I’ve known of people to reject faith, or abandon it, based something that happens to them or someone close to them that is tragically unfair. We often carry this childlike, Sunday school version of God as being someone that will make good things happen to good people, and punish the bad. A heavenly father that divinely balances the scales.

That’s a nice, easy to understand concept, but it’s not based on scripture. Jesus didn’t say, follow me and everything will be a piece cake. Life will get easy. Rather, the Bible is filled with stories of great injustices imposed upon the faithful. In Matthew 5: 45, Jesus said the sun rises on the evil and good, and it rains on the just and unjust. Although we long for justice, God gives no promise of an imposition of supernatural fairness as long as we are breathing in this world. We’re simply asked to do it ourselves.  

Fairness doesn’t come natural. What’s natural is to put yourself first in all things. But we’re personally challenged by the scripture be fair. Micah 6, verse 8: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Be fair.

So I told Oliver that he was right. His situation certainly wasn’t fair. But I told him that I would do everything I could to make things as fair as possible. And so would his mother, and all of his family. And so would the hospital staff, who had just met him. He said it didn’t feel like we were all trying to be fair, but I think he knew.

Oliver was on an IV 12 hours, then monitored another 12 at the hospital. When he went to check out they needed blood for lab work and couldn’t get it from his IV, so they had to stick him two more times. That night his fever came back, and we checked back into the hospital the next morning. They had to give him an IV again. His little arm was getting tracked up like a junkie. This time they had a real hard time finding a vein, and had to stick him four times before they got it. We had a sedative for him this time. He still knew what was going on, and he still felt it, but he cooperated, and handled it better. After the IV was in, the nurse gave him a choice between a big Lego set, or two little ones. He picked the big one, and then nurse said, you deserve this, and gave him all three. It still wasn’t fair, but we were trying.

Shave Tuesday

 

So why the beard? It’s a Lent thing. I was clean shaven on Shrove Tuesday, and that was the last time I shaved.

Someone told me that she doesn’t think God’s going to be real impressed with my sacrifice for Lent. I don’t really like shaving anyway. And shaving consumes valuable minutes as I get the kids ready for school in the morning.

But I wanted to do something for Lent, but hadn’t really given it any thought before Ash Wednesday came around. So I went with the no-shave thing.

I grew up in a little country Baptist Church. We had heard of Lent, but thought it was just a Catholic thing, knowing only that it involved fish on Fridays, and we suspected that there was also beer, and maybe Bingo. It was also tied to Mardi Gras, which sounded French so we wanted nothing to do with it.

I started working for the United Methodist Church shortly after I started attending one. I heard a lot about Lent then. Straight away I had a three-day out of state work Conference. I figured food would be sparse at a Conference during the Lenten fast; maybe they wouldn’t eat at all on one day. I soon found out that most Methodist don’t take the fasting thing real seriously.

But many do give up something for Lent. Approaches vary wildly. I’ve seen pledges of abstinence from chocolate, soda, coffee, booze and Facebook. Some people simply choose a fast that will cause some kind of disruption in their day, or a break from their usual routine. They use it as a reminder to be more prayerful during this time.

Others take the 40 days of Lent as a time to do more of something; either some kind of good deed, better behavior, or some kind of spiritual development, like daily Bible reading or prayer.

So I realized on Ash Wednesday morning that simply not shaving wasn’t really doing much for Lent. But I’ve also been running to keep up lately, so I was hesitant to add much. So I thought I’d read the Bible daily.

This is kind of cheating. Since I work for a church, there’s a daily office email that goes out with office news, meetings of the day, etc., and it includes a passage of scripture. So all I would have to do is read this email.

But the person who sends out the e-mail had a family emergency, and had to take a week off. And even though I spend the day writing about churches, and even though there’s an open Bible on my desk all day long, and even though I have a Bible on my phone, I don’t think I’ve read the Bible every day of Lent. It couldn’t have been any easier, yet I’m pretty sure I missed a couple of days – at least.

But the good thing about Christianity is that just because you fail at something, that doesn’t mean that you’re out of the game. Lent is six weeks long, so I’m not even half way through the wilderness yet. Maybe the beard will remind me that it is high time for me to start getting my act together, and doing it in ways that go beyond reading a Bible verse everyday.

Whether or not you do Lent, religious practices like this can be helpful in making you take some stock in yourself, consider where you are, and where you want to go.

In Matthew chapter 6, a popular Ash Wednesday scripture, Jesus says whenever you give alms, pray and fast, to keep it to yourself. Don’t show off about it. He wraps it up in verse 21 by saying For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Let’s pray.

God help us as we live into the next few weeks of Lent. May we keep it meaningful, and personal. Amen.

What's the difference?

Someone once questioned how I would live differently without my faith, and then added that she didn’t think I would. She didn’t mean it as a criticism, and wasn’t trying to fight. She meant it as a compliment, basically saying that she thought I was a nice guy, with good moral values, and I would be just as righteous without my religion.

I thought, ha! If she only knew. My faith is all that keeps me from having several super-model mistresses on the side, embezzling millions of dollars and hiding it in Swiss bank accounts, hiring hitmen to get rid of people who displease me. There but for the grace of God go I.

OK, maybe she’s right. But if my faith doesn’t separate me from any other nice guy, that doesn’t mean Christianity is weak, it means I’m a weak Christian.

What’s a real Christian?

I was recently volunteering at the homeless shelter in Columbia… now I could just mention that casually and leave the impression that this is the kind of thing I do all the time, but that would be false. It is very rare I get outside myself enough to put forth any effort to help other people. This shelter is the only one in town that you can go to if you’re drunk or high. I’d helped once before, so I knew it can be a pretty rough crowd there. To be honest, I kind of felt like a tough guy when I went down there on my own, coming face to face with people who had no where left to go.

When everything is going as planned, there’s a big crew of volunteers there from one of the local churches. Everyone has their own little job. A police officer is present for the first few hours of the evening while everyone is getting checked in and settled down.  

The night I was there it wasn’t like this. There was one elderly couple that was there to help set up cots, and then they went home and it was just me and one other volunteer. No cop or other volunteers, just us and 30 homeless people.

This other volunteer was a woman a little older than me. She has muscular dystrophy, which makes it  a little challenging for her to walk. But whenever anyone needed anything, she quickly got up a made her way across the room, sometimes holding on to the wall when she needed to, and retrieved whatever they needed. She was doing this constantly.

That morning, when she was going to church, a car slid sideways on the icy road in front of her, and although she got over as far as she could, it hit her front fender. Her car wasn’t badly damaged, but the fender was pushed into the tire, and the wheel, and maybe more, was bent. It wasn’t driveable, and since it was an older car with a lot of miles, it was probably totaled, which meant she’d have to come up with some money for a replacement.

She went on to church, and after church she hung out at the library until the homeless shelter opened that evening. Then she reported in for her volunteer shift, just like she does every Sunday. I should say four shifts, because she does the set up shift, the 7 to midnight shift, the midnight to 6 shift, and a clean up shift. She said that since she comes all the way from Ashland, she might as well make it worthwhile, rather than just doing a single shift.

She was worried about her car being out of commission, because she didn’t know how she was going to get to the VA hospital, where she volunteers a couple of days a week.

When I left when my shift was up at midnight, this woman was joined by her daughter. Her daughter is a college student who also works at a convenience store. She had gotten off work a couple of hours earlier, and was going to volunteer with her mom at the shelter from midnight until morning.

There’s more to being a Christian than just being a nice guy who doesn’t steal and cheat. This woman volunteering at the shelter wasn’t Jesus, but she was sure getting a lot closer than I am.

In Matthew 25, Jesus reminded us that when we feed the hungry, provide water for the thirsty, clothes for people who need it, care for the sick, visit the imprisoned, that’s how we serve him. Let’s pray.

Dear God, it’s easy to give ourselves a passing grade, and feel good about how we could doing a lot worse. May our eyes be opened so we can aspire to the best rather than meeting the minimum standard. Amen.

Noah

Let’s talk about Noah. I know you’ve heard of him, and his float trip. His is probably the most famous story in the Bible. But I bet you don’t know the whole thing. Most people haven’t heard it to the end.

The story is often one of the first Bible stories taught to children. There are a lot of Arks and animals painted on the walls of children’s Sunday school rooms. As comedian Tim Hawkins says, the story about God killing everyone in the world except one family seems like a harsh one to start the kids with. If you wanted that wall mural to be complete, next to the smiling Noah waving hello from Ark you should have some drowning people clinging to a rock.

But let’s start at the beginning, that you all know. God looked at creation and found it bad. Really bad. In terms of what kind of wickedness was going on, the scripture just says, “every inclination.” Now most of our most popular modern day sinning, pornography, drugs, online gambling, wouldn’t even be invented for thousands of year, but whatever they were doing back then, it was nasty.

Except for Noah. Noah was a good guy, so he and family were advised to make a big boat, an Ark, and stock up on seven pairs of animals, of both the clean and unclean variety.

Then it started raining, purging all of the earth of bad people, and everything else. It rained 40 days and nights. But it wasn’t over yet, the Ark continued to bob around in the water for several months. This is all outlined in chapter 8 of Genesis. It  goes back and forth between days, months and years, so it’s a little hard for me to follow the exact timeline. Ask somebody who has been to seminary. But Noah was out there a good while.

Finally the water receded and the Noah family disembarked the Ark. God made a covenant with Noah, promising that he would never again destroy the world – with water. I’m sure Noah probably thought, “Well, if you do decide to destroy the world again, I was kind of hoping it would be with water. Because I’ve already got the boat.” He was probably thinking, “Oh great. In another 20 years he’s going to destroy the world with fire from heaven, and I’ll have to dig a great big hole.”

But the flood was over, a rainbow went across the sky, and everyone was happy. But the story isn’t over. We’re just getting to one of the best parts.

Having survived the flood and put the whole experience behind him, Noah just wanted to do what any of us would have wanted: to tie on a good drunk. But he’d been in Ark for months. Any wine him and the boys may have snuck on was long gone, no matter how well it was hidden. And the whole world had been destroyed, so he couldn’t just run down to the C-store and grab a bottle of Night Train or Mad Dog. Noah’s first step in getting a buzz on was planting a vineyard. Noah was a patient man.

Finally, the grapes were ready, Noah made wine, and Noah got drunk. Not just the tipsy drunk were he talks to much, or the stumbling drunk where he tells you how much he loves you. He got take off all your close in public and pass out naked drunk. Noah partied hard.

When Noah’s son Ham saw him, his reaction was to go and tell people. Biblical scholars speculate that if this incident had occurred today, Ham would have taken pictures of Noah with his phone and posted them to Facebook. Noah’s other two sons, Shem and Japheth, didn’t gawk. They just covered Noah up and took care of him modestly. After Noah woke, he cursed Ham’s son Canaan, saying he should be a slave to his brothers, and thanked Shem and Japheth for looking out for him. For our purposes, the story is now over, but the first few verses of Chapter 10 are worth reading just for the names. Ham’s son, Cush, named his son Nimrod. Good stuff.

So what is the moral of story? I would say it’s when you find someone naked who is passed out drunk, don’t mess with him or her. Cover the person up as best as you can without staring, and look out for that person until he or see comes to and sobers up. This isn’t a story for the preschool kids, it’s one for the high school and college kids. Don’t take advantage of drunk people, especially naked ones.

Let’s pray:

Dear God, the Bible has a lot of chapters and verses. Some we’re familiar with, some we aren’t. Sometimes the meaning of the scripture seems obvious, sometimes we have no idea why some passages are in the Bible. And sometimes when we think we know, we get it wrong. When we read help guide us through these words that were written thousands of years ago, and find ways to apply their wisdom in ways that will help us lead better lives today. Amen.

Henry and eight miles

When I was in the Missouri Theater on Monday morning reporting on author Andy Crouch’s discussion on culture, I started to cry. Then I cried quite a lot.

I’m pretty sure I was the only person of the hundreds gathered who was crying. Crouch’s talk made sense, but it wasn’t exactly heart wrenching. And why I was crying had nothing to do with what he was saying.

Or maybe it had a little to do with it. He was talking about culture, and how it makes things possible, and impossible.

Fortunately, I don’t think anyone saw me crying. It was pretty dark in there. I was setting down front, everyone else was sitting behind me. It was 11 degrees outside, and about 45 degrees in the Missouri Theater. If anyone noticed me going for tissues in my brief case, they probably just thought I had a cold.

I was crying because I had just realized why my son Henry wants to be able to run eight miles.

The other day my wife and I were asking our children if they had any goals, resolutions, or a bucket list so to speak. They both want to go to New York City. Oliver wants to go camping in the wilderness.

Henry said he would like to be able to run eight miles.

I told him if he works at it, that’s definitely obtainable.

I thought to myself that it was an odd distance to choose. He recently ran a 5K, his first race. I could see him aspiring to a faster 5K, or maybe a 10K, or a half marathon or marathon. But in our amateur sports world of many races, there is no such thing as an eight mile race.

Three days later, will taking notes at Missouri Theater, it came to me out of the blue. I’m in a running group that runs twice a week. The distance I run varies from 7 to 8 miles. Henry knows this because he’s heard me talk about my morning runs. I realized that this is where Henry’s odd 8 mile goal comes from. Either

a.       He wants to be able to run with me, and someday be part of the group I am so found of, or

b.      He thinks eight miles is all he’ll ever be able to do, because I never run further than that.

Either answer shakes my foundation, and causes me to become emotional with love, guilt, responsibility…

What I allow my kids to do or not do, how a discipline them, helping them study, signing them up for sports, what they eat, their manners, how they are with sharing, everything I try to teach them in my role as a parent… it matters… but

Who I am, what I do when I’m not working, not parenting, when I’m just on my own at 5:30 a.m. running down a dark trail with friends joking around, that matters, too.

It gives my son goals… and sets the limits of what he thinks he can do.

Maybe this is what matters the most.

1. 1 John 3:18

Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.

God help me.

Disclaimer

Disclaimer: I work for the United Methodist Church, but that has nothing to do with this blog. I’m a journalist, and they hired me to produce their statewide newspaper about 12 years ago. I was hired based on my professional skills, they same way they would hire a plumber or roofer. My religion had nothing to do it.

So although I’m talking about religion, I’m doing this project independently. It has nothing to do with my job. If you don’t believe me, I might have to smoke a cigarette, cuss, drink a beer, or do something else during my message that a United Methodist pastor would never do if he knew he was on camera.

I do belong to a United Methodist Church, but I’m a terrible member. The only reason they haven’t kicked me out is either because they are too nice, or their just really behind on their book keeping.

I have learned much about United Methodists, and have developed a deep respect for them. And I’ll personally vouch for all 850 plus United Methodist Churches in Missouri. If you feel like going to church, I would recommend you try one of them. If you do and you have a negative experience while there, tell me. I know people who can deal with them.