For the Joy of the Journey

A New Old Resolution

George December 29, 2018 Uncategorized 1 Comment

“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

I have been blogging for 12-15 years and at various times I have been afflicted with what I have called “blog slog”. That has been my state for the past few months. Actually, like the quote from Anne Lamott predicts: I’ve been feeling like hell and I am resolved to “write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of my heart — my stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. M truth, my version of things, my own voice.”

I realize this is ambitious and will require some intentionality. Fortunately, our two month hiatus to Florida provides a perfect opportunity to get my rhythm back.

Blogging has become a digital dinosaur of sorts. Podcasts have emerged as the next best digital communication, along with Utube and other video media. Of 70 +/- blog links on my feed, there are only a dozen or so currently active. Oh well, what would would one expect from a 76 year old dinosaur? I suppose blogging is my equivalence of a flip phone.

In any case, the journey joyfully continues.

Moral Dilemmas in the current culture

George November 11, 2018 Faith Challenges 0 Comments

I have recently read David Brooks book “The Path to Character”. The following is an excerpt in which Brooks addresses the idea of engaging moral dilemmas in today’s society.

For his 2011 book Lost in Transition , Christian Smith of Notre Dame studied the moral lives of American college students . He asked them to describe a moral dilemma they had recently faced . Two thirds of the young people either couldn’t describe a moral problem or described problems that are not moral at all . For example , one said his most recent moral dilemma arose when he pulled in to a parking space and didn’t have enough quarters for the meter .

They didn’t understand that a moral dilemma arises when two legitimate moral values clash . Their default position was that moral choices are just a question of what feels right inside , whether it arouses a comfortable emotion . One student uttered this typical response : “ I mean , I guess what makes something right is how I feel about it . But different people feel different ways , so I couldn’t speak on behalf of anyone else as to what’s right and wrong .

If you believe that the ultimate oracle is the True Self inside , then of course you become emotivist — you make moral judgments on the basis of the feelings that burble up . Of course you become a relativist . One True Self has no basis to judge or argue with another True Self . Of course you become an individualist , since the ultimate arbiter is the authentic self within and not any community standard or external horizon of significance without . Of course you lose contact with the moral vocabulary that is needed to think about these questions . Of course the inner life becomes more level — instead of inspiring peaks and despairing abysses , ethical decision making is just gentle rolling foothills , nothing to get too hepped up about .

As I reflected on that citation, I realized how much the last sentance characterized my state of mind as I engage the day to day moral dilemmas in my life. The implications run deep.

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Intersections – Religion

George October 19, 2018 Intersections 0 Comments

This post continues a series entitled intersections. As I reflect on my life’s journey, various intersections along the way come to mind. My ambition was for a straight and narrow path. but, that’s not how life goes.

In the early years of our marriage, our religious experience was mostly characterized by regular church attendance. The demands of small children and irregular shift work impeded the kind of church involvement we had experienced growing up in our respective families.

Moving to Louisville in 1964 we joined (placed membership) the Okolona Church of Christ. Our pattern of regular church attendance and nominal involvement continued until the arrival of a new minister and his family. We were immediately drawn to them and they became our surrogate family. That influence, plus the encouragement of the educational minister, led to some teaching opportunities ( my 2 years of Christian college education was a qualifying factor).

I experienced an emergence of religious fervor fueled, in part by the guilt of youthful indiscretions, abandonment of faithfulness (sins of omission and commission), mixed with a desire to be a good Christian. Also, there was the fear of going to hell.

As a result, I dedicated myself to correcting my life and trying to do everything possible to be a good Christian. Those days were exhilarating. I was a rising religious star.

During that time I was particularly convicted that Jesus calls us to help the poor and disadvantaged. I became aware of a need at the East End Boy’s Club in downtown Louisville. They were in need of coaches for youth football on Saturdays. I signed up and was pleased to find an opportunity for ministry that was also fun and rewarding.

It was on a Saturday while coaching at East End Boy’s Club that I experienced a memorable intersection of life and religion. I remember it with great clarity As I watched those young boys, images of my young, pregnant wife at home with our three energetic boys and no driver’s license, or car for that matter, flooded over me. Their husband and father had abandoned his responsibilities to them so that he could satisfy his religious needs. The voice I heard was clear, “What a fool you are”!

That was the first time I realized the destructive potential of religion. I resigned from that volunteer opportunity and returned home to ‘”coach” our young boys. I would like to say that event marked my transformation from religion to the pursuit of a relationship with Jesus, but it wasn’t. Only years later would I understand the implications of religion to my spiritual journey.

Family Lore

George October 2, 2018 Family 2 Comments

Recently I was reminded of a story from my mother’s family that has been a part of our family lore for as long as I can remember. Often we assume that everyone knows the family history but more often than not, important and interesting stories get lost in the passing of generations. For that reason, I though it would good to document the story for family who may not know or remember.

In my mind, mother’s family was a bit strange. There was the usual family drama but there were circumstances which set the Page’s apart. The subject story of this post is about my grandfather, William Columbus Page aka Mr. Billy. To me he was Papa.

Papa was a cotton farmer and had two brothers and one sister, Luke, Jimmy and Ninnie. My recollection is that Luke was the dominant brother, a hard, no nonsense man. Jimmy was a “good ole boy” and fun to be around. I only knew Ninnie in her later years when she came to live with Papa after being released from the “insane asylum” in Tuscaloosa. She had been confined there for decades and as a result of her shock treatments was a passive and compliant old lady who dipped snuff.

Two characteristics come to mind when i think of Papa. He was a deeply religious Methodist and stubborn to a fault. Hard headed as my mother would say. There is more that could be said about Papa, but I want to get to the story.

The following is a story in the life of William Columbus Page. I am sharing it as it was related to me by my mother, as best I can remember.

Billy Page married Nellie Thornton and there were five children born to them. Two died in infancy and three survived, including my mother Aurelia , sister Izora and brother Bill born in 1923. My grandmother Nellie died in 1926. At age 13 my mother assumed responsibility for mothering her siblings. I do not know the circumstances of my granmother’s death. As the story goes, Papa was deeply affect by her death to the point that her made a vow not to speak again until he heard otherwise from God. For the next three years he kept that vow despite his brothers attempts to goad him into speaking. Their harrassment might have seemed cruel except for the fact that Papa would read his Bible and pray aloud in the evenings.

On the evening of July 28, 1929, returning to his house with a team of mules ahead of a threatening thunderstorm, lighting struck. The mules were killed. Papa was struck unconscious. The metal buttons on his bib overalls were melted and the house was set on fire. As it happened there was a man passing by who came to investigate and finding Papa unconscious and not breathing administered artifical respiration until he began to breathe again. Bystanders extinguished the house fire using milk from near by milk cans. I presume that Papa interpreted that event as the sign he was looking for, as my mother said, he never quit talking after that.

That’s the story and I’m sticking by it.

As is often the case, there is more to the story. Cinflicting accounts have come to light as I researched for this blog post. Beyond my memory of mother’s story, there is a newspaper article that documented the events of July 28. I also had conversation wih my cousin Jerry Page.

Here are some twists to the story as I related it.

Jerry rembers being told that Papa was struck by lighting twice. The first occasion came several years before 1929 and his team of mules were killed. He was unable to speak following that event. There is no mention in the later newspaper article regarding mules being killed in July 1929.
The newspaper article reported that Papa had suffered a paralytic stroke in 1922 that rendered him speechless. He was able to speak after he was revived. It was noted that his son Bill was able to hear his father speak for the first time.

What seems to be relatively certain is:

When Papa was struck by lighting in 1929 he was unable/ unwilling to speak. He began speaking after the event.
There is no corrobration of his vow not to speak.
He was stubborn enough and devout enough to make and keep such a vow.
In any case, his survival was a miracle as was the return of his speech.

Since there are no surving witnesses or anyone who would have second hand information, I am going to hold on to the story that I was told. That’s how family lore goes.

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Reflection- How God has worked in my life

George October 2, 2018 Faith Challenges 0 Comments

How God has worked in my life

Notes from a talk at Central Church of Christ Sarasota, FL. 2008

Time will not permit me to retrace all the steps of my journey over the past decades, but I will share this with you. We are on a never-ending journey. When I reach heaven, I won’t suddenly “know God” and “know the whole story”. We’ll always be learning—even in heaven.

I believed, (until the past 5 or so years) that life was “getting things together”. I lived to get:

Control – manage my work life, my family life, my Christianity

Stability – manage my finances, be stable in my work and get ahead

Predictability – God would be pleased with me.

If I achieved this, I would be successful “Financially, in my work life, in my family or home life, and in my religious life.” I believed that I had to:

decide what I want out of life, and
decide how to get it done

If I did this, I was successful.

There are only two ways to look at life: Decide what you want and get it done

Live each day in search of God

I went with the first philosophy. I believed it to be true even in my religious life—

“Decide what God wanted of you and get it done.”

But I learned that it doesn’t work that way.

You will find a card in my Bible dated Jan. 4, 2003. What is recorded there is the product of an intensive personal search for God’s direction culminated by several days of retreat with Ann in the Smokey Mountains. On one side you will find Psalms 37:3-8:

Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this

He will make righteousness shine like the dawn,

the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

Be still before the LORD; and wait patiently for him;

Do not fret when men succeed in their ways,

when they carry out their wicked schemes

Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.

It was from that passage God revealed to me instructions for the journey ahead.

Trust in the LORD and do good.
Delight yourself in the LORD.
Commit your way to the LORD.
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him.
Refrain from anger and turn from wrath.

Also, from that retreat experience came some spiritual commitments, which I recorded, on the other side of the card. They are:

Continually and consistently seek the presence of God
Continue to identify and remove the “beam from MY eye”
Strive for balance between my inner focus and outreach. Be salt and light.
Continue to pursue a deeper relationship with my spouse.
Strengthen spiritual disciplines in my life on a day-to-day basis by adopting a “Rule of Life”—intentionality.
Develop a deeper understanding of spiritual leadership and model that understanding in my own leadership.

That retreat experience, joined with the journey before, carved out my pathway for the last three years.

Now, we think of commitments in an odd way. We think we need to be “committed” as Christians.

I’ll commit to 30 minutes of prayer daily.

I’ll commit to an hour of Bible study daily.

I’ll commit to Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights.

I’ll commit to the spiritual disciplines.

If I achieve this, I’ll be successful. But in my life, this hasn’t worked. Are these things bad? No, of course not. But if we’re doing them to be “committed Christians” or to be “successful in God’s sight”, we’ve missed the boat. Who has given you that image for what God has called you to do?

A. W. Tozer said,

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at any time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.” (book – “Knowledge of the Holy”)

Why don’t we stop being committing Christians, and start being “submissive” Christians? Commitment still leaves ME in control. Jesus did not ask for commitment. He asked for surrender. That’s what God asks of us. He wants our surrender to Him . . . not a commitment to activities. And when I think of surrender, I think militarily. If you surrender, you are stripped of everything. You are stripped naked!

If this tweaks your mind, you may think, “I can’t”, “I must”, “I couldn’t”. But keep in mind that it’s not a determination. It’s a transformation. IF I stop trying to make it happen; IF I stop using MY will power (I’m still in control, aren’t I?); IF I can relax and let God work; THEN, and only then, will it become a transformation. That’s what submission is. That’s what surrender is.

Even when “I determined” to do God’s will (on my own power), God brought tremendous good into it. My life, up till then, wasn’t negative. God was still working and using me. But after I came to realize to simply submit is when I really bloomed.

More important than any decision I might make it that each of us put our trust and confidence in God alone. Consider the words of Psalm 73:

. . . I am always with you;

you hold me by my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,

and afterward you will make me into glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heat

and my portion forever.

I want to close my remarks with lyrics from a song I heard recently and they express the thoughts of my heart in these days:

Give me one pure and holy passion

Give me one magnificent obsession

Give me one glorious ambition for my life

To know and follow hard after You

To grow as your disciple in your truth

This world is empty, pale, and poor

Compared to knowing you, my LORD

Lead me on and I will run after you.