Alan’s Blog

In my last blog I said I would be taking a look at the stuff in my house to see what it really says about me. I have to admit I was more then a bit disturbed by what I discovered. My house is full of “stuff” that really says nothing about what I believe or who I am. That was a sad realization for me to have to admit to. I am not, as the line from Fight Club points out, “looking for the perfect kitchen wear to define who I am as a person.” Yet still some of who I am and what I claim to believe as a person should show in my home décor. Shouldn’t it? Maybe the real problem is that the person I want to be and the person I am are totally different people.

 As I wandered though my own home I discovered almost nothing that would give a stranger any idea of what I truly believe. What I found was a jumble of “stuff” that could be applied to almost any person of the face of the planet.

Two glass display cases with dishes from the 40’s that are never used

Two arm chairs from the 50’s

A sofa from the 60’s

A glass dinning table from the 90’s

A Navaho Indian sand painting

Several art projects from my child

An empty wine rack

A portable television in the living room.

Even my home office is full of inconstancies. I claim to value relationships but even now books surround me. My computer is my primary way of relating to and communicating with people. Then, of course, there is my cell phone. I jokingly call it my brain. The sad truth is that is truer then I would like it to be.

Looking at the junk that I own one could only come to the conclusion I really don’t care about much of anything. Not the world I live in, not the people I claim to value, not even the stuff itself. (The dust makes this clear.) Needless to say this was a depressing revelation for me.

Then I began to look closer.

The mail from Africa, where the young girl my family sponsors lives, thanking us for the clothing and the money for school.

The email prayer requests that come almost daily from Voice of the Martyr.

The voice mail of people contacting me for comfort, assistance or just to talk.

The scribbled notes cluttering my desk that represent moments in people’s lives.

A pile of sermon notes and thoughts scrawled on a legal pad for next Sunday.

A To-Do list that has far more tasks for others then for myself.

It was then that I began to realize something profound about myself. My stuff says nothing about me, because it has no value to me. The vast bulk of my time and money go into other people. Just a quick look at my checkbook proved this to be true. For what it is worth I believe that is significant. Just maybe investing in people’s lives gives a little more meaning to the words, “In God We Trust” that are stamped on our coins. Other then that they are just meaningless words.

Pornograghic Material is a multi-billion dollar industry and pervasive in every church.

Junk Food, or Fast Food, is destorying the health of American’s and their children but we keep buying it in record amounts.

Gixmos, Gadggets and Toys like the new Iphone or PS3 create such frenzy in our cluture that news agenices send reporters to lines that form days in advance of the release date.

Sporiting Events such as World Series or Super Bowl tickets sell for three even four times their face value.

Celebraty Tabloids sales go through the roof when Brity Spears, Paris Hilton, or Michel Vic do something stupid or illegal.

Clothing that turns our children, or ourselves, into walking billboards for a fashion industry that is totally our of step with the basic moral values we tout.

Music with lyrics that glorify permiscuity, killing cops, drinking and drug use, and even suicide.

The Newer, Better, Faster, Bigger car, computer, home and hair style are must haves for up-and-comers.

     Now please don’t think that I am some sort of religious “nut” advocating hidding from the less palatuble and even offecive aspects of our culture. That is not my point in that at all. As followers of Jesus I still live in the culture. The real issue is, am I impacting the culture or is the culture impacting me? The words “In God We Trust” on our money are simpy that, words. How we spend our money says more about what we believe then four words ever could.

     Here is a challenge if you are the type of person that values the words “In God We Trust” on our curreancy or “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. What does the stuff around your house, or even your house, say about what you believe? I will be taking inventory this week of my “stuff” and next week give you a report on what I have discovered. If you are willing to do the same consider posting what you discover as well as a comment.

Grace and Peace,

Alan  

A man sat on a mossy rock next to an old growth tree, drinking cool water from the bottle he carried, enjoying a shaft of early sunshine that had angled in under the thick fir canopy. He took a deep breath, smelling the sharp sent of evergreen sap. He saw ants scurrying up and down the Douglas fir, and watched them swerve to avoid the sticky ooze. One of the ants blundered to close and the rosin caught him. The ant struggled.
            Given another few million years, some creature, possible a man like him, might find a bit of amber with that ant in it and wonder about its life.
            The man smiled, reached over and using his fingernail, carefully freed the struggling ant. The creature hurried along its way. What would it think, if it did think, about the giant finger that had come from nowhere to spare its life? Would it speak of it to its fellows? Of how the hand of a giant god had saved it from the deadly trap?
 
            The above, I must admit, I stole from Tom Clancys’s book Net Force. Not to make myself look more literate, or to try and fool you into thinking that I could one day be a world-class writer. No, the reason that I borrowed this little story is that I could think of no better way to illustrate the grace of God working in our lives.
            For the moment imagine that you are the ant in Clancy’s story. Since dawn you have been working hard to store up food for the winter. Carrying bits of food, a seed, and other morsels that will help to carry the colony through the lean time of winter. Some of the other ants had warned you that the tree that you were foraging on was seeping sap and that an ant needed to be careful of not getting trapped in the sticky flow that seeped and oozed from the tree. By mid-morning you are beginning to feel the strain of the work on your body, and your mind begins to wander as you once again begin the arduous trip back up the tree. Suddenly your world becomes a sticky mess, in a moment of carelessness you had strayed into the sap flow. You struggle, you call out, you wiggle your little antenna, (what that does I don’t know but I have seen ants do that), all to no avail. The more you struggle the more stuck you become, vary shortly you will be completely encased in this sticky goop, a permanent reminder to those coming after you the folly of your ways. In just a few more moments your life will be over, and for all of eternity you will be encased in this slowly hardening ooze with only your shame and failure to comfort you. Then, just as you are ready to take your last breath, just as you are ready to submit to this damnation for all eternity, a gigantic object, something like one of your legs only much bigger, pushes you gently out of the amber death that you had condemned yourself to. Quickly you regain your composure and look around for your benefactor, but all that you see is the stick, or leg, or- - - whatever disappearing into the sky far beyond you.
            Isn’t that the way that God’s grace works in our lives. So often we get so caught up in our own lives, in our own tasks done in our power, that we forget that we are never alone. God is always there, ready and willing to be involved in any and all of our daily activities, and more then that, ready and willing to save us from our own shortcomings and failures.
            Think about this little story and ask yourself how you see God, not how God sees you. Ask the question, why would God be willing to die on that cross, to be forever linked with shame, just to save you from being trapped forever with your shame. We can learn a great deal from this little story of a careless ant, and a kind man.    

Alan Amos

I think I missed something in my U.S. history classes in school. Over the last several years I have been noticing that people seem to think they have a constitutional right protecting them from being offended.

Let see right to life - - check,

Right of liberty - - check,

Right to the pursuit of happiness - - check,

Right to tranquility - - hmm that seems to be missing.

This add-hock right seems to be seeping into every area of our culture. A recent example of this is the Imoe’s T.V. ad that uses a prisoner escaping so he can get a pizza. Some over zealous folks felt this was somehow connected to Devlin and demanded that it be pulled because they found it to be offensive. Interestingly none of the families involved in the Devlin case found the ad offensive. That however, did not stop these wacky people looking to sanitize every aspect of their lives from the germs of personal offensives. In their quest to rid the world of every personally offensive act they end up looking like Howard Hues washing his hands 20 times a day to protect himself from germs. This is insanity!

Let me point something out. We have the right to free speech and all the good and evil that comes with that liberty. This is a foundational part of our constitution. With that being the case you do not have the right to mandate personal pet peeves. The two ideas are simply incompatible. Now you are free to be offended by every single meaningless issue that assaults your sensibilities, but you do not have the freedom to impose your values on others. This is the nature and cost of free speech in a free society.

Some of you may be finding it strange that a pastor is willing to challenge this ideology of personal offense. After all the Christian Coalition, and several other religious organizations, have made names for themselves using this method. That however does not make it right. By overreacting to these minor offenses we actually minimize the real offenses that are destroying our culture. Let me put some meat on that last statement for you to chew on:

• Racism is a real offense in our culture. Racial Profiling however is a tool that is used to deal with and deter criminal activities.
• Teen Sex is a real offense destroying young peoples lives. Advocating abstinence until marriage however is not only wise thing but also the responsible thing.
• Morbid obesity is a huge health issue impacting our culture. The fast food industry however is not solely responsible for this offense.
• Sexual predators that attack and destroy children’s lives are offensive. A T.V. ad that is only loosely connected is not even in the same arena.

In each of the four cases I have given the real issue gets ignored while we feed our personal pet peeves to the point of gluttony on these side issues in the name of the original cause. The tragedy is we take away the truly offensive nature of the core issue in order to give value to a personal pet peeve. In doing that we free ourselves from really dealing with the true offense and we can feel better about ourselves. 

I believe it was Charles Swindoll that said, “As a culture we have forgotten how to blush.” I could not agree with him more. We should be embarrassed by the way we handle truly offensive aspects of our culture. We should be embarrassed when pointless side issues become more important then the true issue. We should be embarrassed when we read, “Talk of the Town” in the Suburban Journal. Our faces should burn crimson at the pettiness of our lives. 

So how do we get out of this quagmire of offenses? Well for starters we can stop blaming others and take personal responsibility. Stop looking for new ways to be personally offended and deal with real offenses in our communities. Second don’t expect people to think, and act, like you. As believer and followers of Jesus we don’t have the right to be offended. We gave that up when we said we wanted to be like Jesus. That means we take on the nature of Christ. A nature that so loved us that he died for us. Jesus was not offended by prostitutes or beggars or even thieves. The only thing that Jesus found offensive in humanity was false indignation. Another way to say that would be, Jesus was only offended by people taking offence to minor offenses.

To truly be a church about relationships and not religion requires us to give up our pet peeves and value people as God values them. We cannot do this if we are always looking for the next offense to float down the river. In saying this I hope I have not offended you. 

Grace and Peace,

Alan

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born Michael Luther King, Jr. on January 15, 1929. On April 4, 1968 he was assasinted, murdered becase he dared to dream of a better world.
 
I have to be honest with myself when I look back at this life. Honest to the point of questioning everything I believe. Looking at what I stand for and what I will not stand for. Honstley willing myself to be real, just for a moment, for more then an emotional high or a feeling of moral pride. At times I find honor and to be complelty honest there are times I question what I would have done.
 
I was not alive, or at least speaking in full sentences, when Mr. King shared his dream. But if I had been where would I have stood? Would I have been willing to challenge the status quo or would I, as a member of the white clergy, chosen safety and comfort? I like to think I would have behaved with honor and integrity but would I?
 
Just askinging this question will cause people to squarm. As a sociaty we have a knee-jerk reaction to think that we are somehow above, or beyound, the racisem that was tearing our country apart in the the 60’s. We say something like, “Now I’m not a bigot or anything but that________” you fill in the blank here. We hear a news report and we wonder, for just a split seconed, if we are getting the whole story. If Mr. King was with me today I would love to ask him, “Are we any closer to that dream of yours?”
 
Looking at the Civil Liberties issues I find myself thinking that they have become anything but civil. Money, power and control seem to be the issues that are driving the agenda not equality. Consider just these two facts.

1. The Political party that did the most to stall the Civil Liberties movement now claims they were and are the champions of that movement.
2. When Bill Cosby challenged Africa American Men to quit blaming and start working for a better world he was attacked by many of the so-called Civil Liberty organizations and leaders.

If you have not figured it out yet, I don’t think we are all that far along in the dream. On all sides of the race issue there is hostility, distrust, and power grabbing going on. I am disgusted. The blame game has replaced the quest for equality.

 
Where would you stand? No, that is the wrong question. Where do you stand? Forget all the PC feel good propaganda. Are you treating people with equality or is it about power, money or control?  This is the heart of the illegal immigrant issue as well. Yes, they are in this country illegally and that is wrong. But if you hire a Hispanic person does that mean you can pay them $2.00 less? Then hide the profit so you don’t have to pay taxes on it? How exactly is that equal?

 
How do you see people that are different from you? Forget how you treat them, because we are not anywhere near that. How do you SEE them? Do you see people? People that God loves passionately, even to the point of dying for them or do you see color?

 
Someday Mr. King’s dream will be realized, but not until we all begin to see.

The New Year is finally here! You can always tell when the New Year really sets in. It’s when you put that new calendar on the wall or on your desk. All those beautiful empty days just waiting to be filled with meetings, appointments, the kid’s school performances, vacations, and other moments of importance. In a relatively short time that new, clean and empty calendar fills-up with all sorts of things that gobble up huge chunks of time. Every year I promise myself that I will keep this from happening and every year around April I realize that I an being controlled by my calendar opposed to my controlling my calendar.

   Am I the only person that has this problem? Maybe there is name for this condition. Something like Temporalagroscriptophobea, the fear of open space on a calendar. After all there are names for people that eat weird things and even for people that grow hair on their tongues why not for people who dislike having empty space on their calendars? That way it would be a condition and not an obsession. Then when I am confronted with a pristine, clean calendar full of potential and possibilities I would not feel guilty about scrawling the phone number to a pizza joint across thee days.

   Unfortunately there is no such thing as Temporalagrosriptophobea. There is no excuse for letting your calendar rule your life. Margin in your life is a good thing. Now when I say margin I am not talking about the white space on paper, but the idea is the same. You see if you completely fill up a sheet of paper with writing, without leaving any white space, or margins, it would be incredibly difficult to read. Simply put a little space between the words and the edge of the paper and it get easier. Add regular space between the paragraphs and lines and it gets easier still. So the lesson that we learn from Margin is that we need empty space to perform at our peak.

   The bible calls this empty space Sabbath. The idea behind this is to rest, or simply be. It is not, as some teach, about going to church or even worshiping God. We are supposed to be involved in each other’s lives, (church) and offering praise and worship to God on a daily basis. So Sabbath can’t be about that. Truly Sabbath is about relaxing in the moment. Letting there be white space on the pages of your life. Things like sipping a cup of coffee while watching a sunrise, reading a good book one afternoon or even spending an evening playing Candy Land with the kids.

   I can’t tell you what the margin, or Sabbath, will look like in your life. I can however tell you that you need to have it. Otherwise you will fall victim to burnout. Then as they are carrying you away after your nerves breakdown you will hear, “Poor soul, cracked under the pressure of Temporalagrosriptophobea. To bad that no one told them about margin.”  

Grace and Peace,

Alan

Well I just got the results back from my, “vacation surgery” in Colorado. I have Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Some times this disease is called Hodgkin’s Disease but either way it is the same thing. Basically it is a malignant (that means cancer for the younger readers) growth in my lymphatic system. So, this is a specific form of lymphoma that looks and acts a specific way. Don’t ask me to explain it, I really don’t understand it. I do know that of all the various forms of lymphoma this is the one to get if you have to get one. It is very treatable and has a high recovery rate. One web site I looked at put it this way. “Hodgkin’s now has a high survival rate. Some doctors (like one I had in London) even go so far as to say a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s is preferable to being diagnosed with another form of cancer.”

   The disease itself is named after Dr. Thomas Hodgkin. He was a Quaker and an English scholar in England. While working in an English hospital he began to notice what he called, “Morbid Appearances of the Absorbent Glands and Spleen.” This became the name of his first paper on the issue, and, well, the rest is pretty much history. Take a look at http://www.lymphomainfo.net/hodgkins/timeline.html if you would like more info.  

So what does this mean for me and the church. Well I don’t know. Because of the early stage they are considering different options for treating this. Realistically I will probably go through chemo and radiation, but only if the CAT scan shows that I have other malignant growths.   

Well there you go. I will be able to continue with my obligations as your pastor, but I might need a hand from time to time. Oh, you might want to know, this is not contagious or anything.

You know we are all dying. There are absolutely no guarantees in this life. I can honestly say I am not in the least bit afraid or worried about this disease. I would like to avoid pain, but I am not afraid of death. That is not because I am foolishly brave, because in truth I am not brave. What I am is Loved. I know the God that created me and He loves me. I believe that He sent me here to do this job. I also believe that I will be here until God is done with me. Even down a road as dark as cancer God is still GOOD!    

No I didn’t join the Army again, nor am I involving myself in the cultural wars that are currently raging. No, my enemy is far more crafty and harder to root out then any Islamic nut job terrorist. The shear destructive power of this hideous enemy is nearly beyond the imagination. Past veterans still shake or drift off with a 100-mile stair as they recall their encounters with the foe that I now face.

The Mole.

Okay you can stop laughing now. The mole is a serious adversary to modern man. It is practically competing for the top of the food chain and evolutionary ladder! No one is even paying attention as these subterranean terrorists slowly take over the world one yard at a time! These evil fuzzy critters are down right nasty and we are ignoring them as they cunningly contemplate the destruction of all the surface dwellers. However I believe I have uncovered their current method of warfare! Death by frustration and self-inflicted wounds. We all know from the G.I. Joe cartoons that knowing is half the battle.

For the first month I conducted surveillances in the area of operation, (known locally as my front yard). From that time I ascertained the MSR (that would be the Mole Supply Route). According to the experts in MW (mole warfare) this is the initial step to fixing and engaging the hostel forces. Three weeks ago my campaign of Shock and Awe began. I have stomped down the ugly little routes, filled mole hills with water, placed poison bait, stood with shovel in hand over likely mole movement areas, and even, I admit, prayed. “Why God? Why did you create the mole?” There are no atheists in foxholes.

These operations were less then 100% successful. After three days of inactivity the enemy again made an aggressive move thrusting deep into the flowerbed region. At this point a new option was placed on the table of battle. WMD’s (Weapons of Mole Destruction) the likes of the Mole Guillotine. I, in my mole rage, chose to use WMD’s. I am not proud of this, but after all it is war. Let me say up front that these things are SHARP. In tests I have conducted these little spring loaded blades will slice nicely through a stick, a tomato, an old can, and even a leather glove with veritable ease. It slices, it dices, it is a two in one product! Kills moles in the yard and is a handy kitchen appliance. Well the sands of time are slowly seeping out for my worthy adversaries life, just like the blood from my veins.

And so the war rages on. Tonight I plan to stand guard in my yard armed with a spear, a shotgun, bowie knife, and lawnmower. Don’t call me a hero. I’m just doing my job. Saving my country and my yard from invaders one mole at a time.

Long Live Lawn Care,

Alan Amos