Define Yourself!

 How do you define yourself?

By who you used to be? By who you are today? By who you aspire to be in the future?

Or maybe by all three? After all, we wouldn't be who we are today without being who we were in the past, and who we are today, both positive and negative, informs where we want to go in the future - what we want to build on and what we want to leave behind.

It is healthy to know and acknowledge your past. It is important to understand it and learn from it.

It is catastrophic to live in it.

When your focus is on your past, you lose sight of your present blessings and future possibilities. Dwelling on, and in, the past takes time and energy away from enjoying the present and growing into the future.

Acknowledge. Learn. But keep moving forward.

The same can be said of the present. Where is your focus? Are you dwelling on - or possibly obsessing over - the negative? Are you listening to, and surrounding yourself with, people who only tell you how bad things are? Are you turning off the lights and sitting in the darkness, and then crying because it's so dark?

Or are you acknowledging and learning from the parts of your life with which you are not satisfied ... and using that to motivate you toward something better? Are you focusing on and celebrating what is good in your life, and enjoying those things to the fullest?

We cannot go back and relive or change the past. It's done. And it's over with, for good or for bad. 

We are already in the present. We need to make the most of it.

But the only place to go ... is the future. That's where our focus should be and our energy should go. Who do I want to be? Where do I want to be? What do I want to be? What do I need to do to make that happen?

Acknowledge the past. Make the most of the present. And drive toward the future.

We are who we choose to be. Period. We decide how to feel, how to speak, how to act.

Do not let life happen to you. Do not wait for someone to solve your problems. 

TAKE LIFE BY THE THROAT AND BEND IT TO YOUR WILL.

Bodily Autonomy

 With the leak of the SCOTUS' possible majority opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade (which will NOT make abortions illegal, it will simply return the decision to the states, where it belongs), we've been hearing the term "bodily autonomy" a lot. This is the idea that women are in charge of what happens to, and what they do with, their body, including the idea that they cannot be forced to be pregnant.

There is an argument being made that makes some very good points. If your neighbor is dying of kidney failure, and you are a match for a transplant, you cannot be forced to save their life by donating a kidney. If a person is dying from blood loss and your blood type is a match, you cannot be forced to donate blood to save their life, even if your shared blood type is very rare. And a woman cannot be forced to take on the body altering, sometimes life-threatening act of taking a pregnancy to term just to save the life of the fetus/unborn child.

On first read, that seems like a pretty solid argument, and as a pro-life supporter, I have reflected on it for the year or two since it was first presented to me. While there is no denying that pregnancy definitely takes its toll on a woman's body and can be medically dangerous, I find three problems with this argument.

1. I have not found anyone who is opposed to an abortion if the mother's life is truly threatened. If the pregnancy will kill the mother, or have a life-long, severely debilitating impact on the mother, and especially if the child is not viable (meaning that the child is going to die if the mother dies), the abortion is warranted.

2. Not donating a kidney or giving blood are "inactions," whereas killing the unborn child is an "action." It's a subtle distinction, but allowing something to happen and making something happen - there's a difference there. On its own, it may not refute the bodily autonomy argument, but I believe it is still something that must be taken into account.

3. Bodily autonomy does not start when the pregnancy test comes back positive. A woman is in charge of her body when she makes the decision to have sex. She is in charge of her body when she decides to employ a birth control method, NONE of which are 100% guaranteed to be effective. Therefore, the mother (and father, but that is beyond the scope of this post) knowingly and willingly engages in an activity that has a real possibility of resulting in the creation of a unique human being, and being that she is responsible for her decisions and actions, she is therefore responsible for the life she helped create.

The neighbor needing a kidney is not a situation the woman created, and she is not responsible for it. The person needing a blood transfusion is not a situation the woman created, and she is not responsible for it. The creation of a unique human being is the result of an act in which the woman knowingly engaged, by choice, and therefore she is responsible for it. (That is why rape and incest are typically allowable reasons for an abortion - the mother did not choose to engage in the act that produced the unique human being, and therefore cannot be held responsible for it, but rape, incest, and health of the mother are a tiny fraction of all abortions being performed.)

I welcome reasonable debate in the comments section.

What holds us back?

 A story came out last night about a Black athlete competing in the US Olympic trials basically ignoring the playing of the national anthem. She is a self-proclaimed social justice warrior who says that the anthem doesn't speak for her.

Does racism and bigotry and hatred exist in American society? Yes, absolutely. It exists in *every* society, always has and always will, for one simple reason: Societies are made up of human beings, and human beings are not perfect. Mind you, I'm not saying this makes racism and bigotry and hatred okay. I'm simply saying they exist, and will always exist, because human beings are broken and flawed. We still need to deal with racism and bigotry and hatred, and do everything in our power to overcome them, while still being realistic about the situation.

But I can't help but feel like there is a disconnect between this athlete and her message.

She is black, and she is a woman, and through hard work and training, she has risen to the top of her sport. She wasn't denied the opportunity to excel because of her sex or skin color. She may feel that she only succeeded because she overcame the obstacles in front of her, but the key is, she was able to - those obstacles were not devastating. How could she overcome them, but apparently so many others can't?

Read Ben Carson's story. A Black male raised in the ghetto by an illiterate mother is pretty much the story of the deck being stacked against someone. But his mother insisted that he read and pursue an education, and he ended up being the best pediatric neurosurgeon in the world. He also became the 17th Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and has written/co-written six bestselling books.

A few minutes with Google will show you that statistics show that Black Africans who have immigrated to the U.S. since 1970 have performed *better* than Caucasians when it comes to education and income. Asian-Americans also routinely out-perform whites. If the entire system is set up to hold minorities back, how are these minority groups excelling?

It might be argued that the athlete's story and Ben Carson's story are outliers - they're special cases, not the norm. That's not supported by the previous paragraph, and there are many, many more stories of members of a minority excelling.

One area with a lot of minority success stories is sports. The NBA and the NFL include many Black athletes, and the MLB has many Hispanic players. How are they so successful if everything in American society is formulated to hold them down?

What do all these success stories have in common? Hard work. Commitment. Dedication. Effort. Getting up early and putting in a full day. Keep pushing even when you really don't want to. Refusing to quit. Attitude.

Think of the kids on the basketball court in the neighborhood park, day after day, night after night, playing and playing and honing their skills and mastering their craft. Yes, there are elements of natural athletic ability involved, but the main point here is: They work hard. People who don't have athletic skills (like me) have other skills that other people don't have - maybe they are creative and artistic, or have analytical skills. The key is, are they taking advantage of whatever skill or desire they have, working hard, putting in the time and effort ... or are they waiting for someone to solve all their problems for them because they've bought into the lie that they are hapless victims incapable of succeeding on their own?

This boils down to a theme that is very important to me: Personal accountability. Every individual is responsible for their own words, decisions, and actions. No one is forced to say certain things or do certain things just because they are poor or Black or female. We are each responsible for our own life. We have different situations and different challenges, but we can all improve our lot in life - if we choose to, and then follow that choice up with hard work, commitment, and dedication.

But children will not know any of this unless this is what we teach them. I truly believe that if we want to solve poverty, if we want to solve racism, if we want to solve sexism - whatever problem we want to solve - we must look at what we are teaching our children to believe and do. We must definitely root out laws and policies that have a disparate impact on certain groups of people. We must definitely not allow individuals to discriminate against other based on something meaningless like the melanin content in one's skin. But we will never make real progress until we change the way people think of themselves and their attitude toward life - that they *can* succeed and that *they* are responsible for doing so.

The Conversation We're Not Having

Just over one month ago (as of this writing), George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis LEO. We can argue the particulars, but at the end of the day, his death was brought on by the way he was treated by the LEO.

I have spent a month watching events unfold, watching news broadcasts and interviews, reading articles and opinion pieces, and generally taking it all in. This blog post is an attempt to galvanize and record my feelings and anger in the hope that writing them down will allow my mind - and heart - to find some release and stop obsessing over them. You are free to add your thoughts and feelings in the comments, and as always, I ask that honest conversation take place - with respect. Name-calling, baseless/sweeping accusations, and general hate-filled invective will simply be deleted.

There is a societal conversation taking place. Many are trying to reduce the situation down to "my tribe pure, your tribe evil," and they would have you believe that the solution is simple and straightforward.

I don't agree. I believe the situation is complex and has many layers, and the same is true of the solutions. That's where the conversations that are taking place, and the ones that aren't, come in.

One conversation is about law enforcement. I fully agree that reform is needed. There are cities where the LEO union is simply too strong and is protecting bad cops who should be fired. I understand that LEOs are unjustly accused by suspects and their lawyers of things they didn't do, but the absolute "arm-in-arm band of brothers in blue" mentality is only harming law enforcement when bad cops are protected because no one wants to be a "snitch." The *best* thing LEOs can do for each other is weed out the bad cops who are causing criticism of all LEOs. Reform of union power and LEO attitudes must take place. Period.

Another conversation is about systemic racism. I'm still working this one out, but I do know one thing - there are laws and policies that have a disparate negative impact on minorities, and those laws and policies must be changed. I'm not sure if I'm willing to call those laws and policies "systemic racism" because that would require a racist motive to proposing and passing those laws or putting those policies in place, and I'm not sure that's true across the board (i.e., some may simply be bad laws or poorly written policies). But I consider the motive to be irrelevant at this point - if the law or policy is negatively impacting minorities more than other groups, then it's a bad law or policy and must be changed or eliminated, regardless of its origin. Insisting on calling it "systemic racism" is, in my book, only getting in the way of moving forward on reform - we're arguing about the language and placing blame instead of implementing fixes.

But there are important conversations that are not being held:

50 years of civil rights legislation and affirmative action - minorities have never been more protected, and given as many advantages, by the laws of this country in all of history. So is it really systemic racism holding minorities back, or perhaps something else?

Why do cops need military style weapons, equipment, and techniques? There must be an acknowledgement that going into certain areas of certain cities is, in fact, the equivalent of going into a war zone. Who has made it that way? Law enforcement? Or the people living in the area?

Fatherless homes, drop out rates, choices. There are plenty of studies out there that show that young males growing up without a solid male father-figure in their life have a much higher rate of dropping out of school, committing crime, and ending up in prison. This *must* be acknowledged and addressed.

Democrat policies and the state of minorities in Democrat-led cities. What are minorities being told about their situation, what are they being led to believe? What are they being encouraged to do?

If I were forced to reduce the situation to a simple problem with a simple solution, it would be this:

(Problem: ) Human beings are inherently broken, (Solution: ) and must make a daily, conscious commitment to being a decent, civilized member of society that day. Every individual is responsible for their own words, decisions, and actions, and every individual decides, of their own volition, to be a decent person each day ... or not.

The Value of Jesus Christ Superstar

I have a bit of a tradition: I listen to Jesus Christ Superstar during Holy Week. (Sometimes I watch the movie, too.) There are some folks out there who object to JCS, saying that it's theologically incorrect, mocks Jesus, and a number of other, similar criticisms.

Well, I don't go to my pastor for a great rock opera, and I don't go to Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice for my theology. But that doesn't mean there aren't some interesting religious take-aways from the rock opera.

What I like about JCS is that it makes me think.

In the Christian church, while we acknowledge that Jesus is true God and true man, we really tend to emphasize the former and all but ignore the latter. JCS flips that and takes a good, hard look at the human side of the story, and largely leaves the divinity part out. I think there are a couple of places that JCS takes some dramatic license, but I can live with that because, again - it ain't church, it's a rock opera.

Jesus was true man (or human, however you want to put it), and he felt everything we feel. Not just sensorily, but emotionally. We know that he got frustrated with the apostles at times. He obviously loved them, his family, and even complete strangers. He was compassionate, and he was also willing to call out hypocrites in no uncertain terms - there was some anger and disgust there. JCS really explores that side of Jesus. It might go a little too far at times - there's no evidence that Jesus ever screamed "heal yourselves" when approached by those in need, and while he did ask the Father if it were possible for the cup of poison to pass over him during his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, he accepted the Father's will without arguing with or blaming the Father - but that artistic license does help drive home what the truly human Jesus appeared to be feeling. Exhaustion. Fear. Hesitancy.

Exploring that side of Jesus helps me connect to him and deepens my relationship with him. I can relate. We have some things in common.

But JCS doesn't stop with exploring Jesus. It really brings out what was (or might have been, or probably was) going on in the Pharisees' heads as well. Having grown up in parochial schools, I understood the Pharisees were all about law, they were hypocrites, and they looked down on people, but it wasn't always clear why they were so. freaked. out. by Jesus. JCS does a good job of bringing out two things - that Jesus could end up angering the Romans who would then lower the boom on Israel, but even bigger, that he was a threat to their power. It may have been about theology with some of them, but there was more to it than just accusations of heresy - he was a threat to their control, money flow, and positions of authority. In other words, JCS brings out the *politics* of the situation.

We also get a feel for how much the apostles really didn't get Jesus, and how they were looking for a military leader who would lead a revolution to throw the Romans out of the country.

And now I'm going to raise some eyebrows.

One of the things JCS makes you really think about is Judas. In general, the Christian church is not terribly kind to Judas. He is painted as a money loving traitor who sold Jesus out for cash.

JCS paints him pretty sympathetically, that he felt that Jesus had gone off the deep end and was going to hurt himself, his followers, and possibly Israel itself - and Judas was just trying to keep things from going too far. JCS shows Judas as going with the lesser of two evils, and pretty much hating himself for doing so. Judas is horrified by what is done to Jesus, and blames the Father for using him as a puppet to perpetrate the "crime" on the Son. Finally, his guilt drives him to suicide.

But is JCS all that far off?

Matthew 27:3 says that Judas was seized with remorse and tried to return the money. If he truly were just a money loving traitor, seems like he would have turned Jesus in and skipped town to go off and enjoy his bounty.

But what about the idea that Judas was manipulated, that he was used by the Father to make things happen? I don't think there is any denying that certain things needed to happen at certain times and in a certain order for the events of Holy Week, and especially Thursday - Sunday, to happen. I've often thought, well, *somebody* had to turn Jesus in, right? Because if they don't, he doesn't go before Pilate and Herod and get nailed to the cross. I suppose there were many possible paths, though.

But why would Judas suddenly turn on Jesus after accepting his call and following him for three years? Did Jesus know what kind of person Judas was, that Judas would be capable of turning on him, and called him for that specific reason - in the hopes Judas would fill the bad guy role? And of course, the next question opens up a whole new box of theological worms - did God know ahead of time that Judas would do exactly what he would do, and where does that leave free will? For Judas to truly have free will, he had to be able to choose NOT to betray Jesus, and if Judas didn't have a choice, then the whole concept of free will breaks down! And if Judas did have free will, and Jesus called him because he knew there was a good chance Judas would do what was needed but there was also a chance he wouldn't, wouldn't that have been Jesus kinda rolling the dice a little with the whole Jerusalem/Passover plot line? Or did Jesus figure that if Judas didn't betray him, he'd roll with it and come up with a new plan?

I don't know the answers to these questions. I trust God to have done the right thing, and I'll understand it at some point - I don't need to fully understand it in complete detail right now. But it is interesting to think about it.

Oh, and one of the biggest criticisms of JCS? That it ends at the cross, not Easter? That's where JCS' story ends. It's not where Jesus' story ends. JCS is focused on a very specific chain of events, from a human and political point of view. It's not trying to be church. It doesn't talk about Christmas, or Jesus as a boy, or events prior to Palm Sunday. It doesn't talk about the beginning of the story, and it doesn't talk about the end of the story, it occupies itself with six specific days. That's all.

Are You Entitled to Health Care? An Education? Housing? Food?

Today Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign for the Democratic nomination for president. In his speech, he used the word "entitled" six times. According to Bernie, we are entitled to:

• Health care as a human right
• Decent wages and working conditions
• All of the education we require to fulfill our dreams
• A clean environment
• Justice, democracy, and fairness

What's wrong with that? Those are all good things, right?

Yep, they are GREAT things. They are things that our society should strive to have. They are truly worthy goals for the United States of America.

So what's my beef?

According to Merriam-Webster, "entitled" is defined as "having a right to certain benefits or privileges." The Cambridge dictionary defines "entitled" as "feeling that you have the right to do or have what you want without having to work for it or deserve it, just because of who you are."  Vocabulary.com states that "entitled" means "you have a legal right to something."

Note that all three definitions include the idea of "have a right to." Having a right to something, being entitled to something, means that it is owed to you - you don't have to earn it or buy it or trade for it, it is yours simply because you exist. The Declaration of Independence lists three basic, unalienable (cannot be taken away from you) rights that human beings have simply because they exist: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These three rights are not given to you by a government, they are not earned or purchased, they are yours because you are you.

So do you have a right to health care? Doesn't that fall under the right to life, along with a clean environment? Do you have a right to decent wages, working conditions, and education - isn't that pursuit of happiness? And certainly justice, democracy and fairness fall under our right to liberty, right?

A "right" is a concept. Once you start talking about specific goods or services, things change. You do NOT have a right to a good or service provided by another person.

If you believe you have a right to something someone made, that means you don't have to pay for it or earn it. Taking something that belongs to someone else without paying for it is called "thievery."

If you believe you have a right to a service provided by someone else, that means they have to perform work for you without compensation. Forcing someone to work for you without compensating them is called "slavery."

Having the right to life means that someone cannot come along and kill you. It does not mean that someone is required to learn medicine, and then treat you or operate on you. It does not mean that someone must bear the expense of researching, inventing, and testing a drug, only to just give it to you. These things are goods and services that you purchase.

You don't have a right to a certain wage. You don't have a right to an educator's time and effort. You have a right to decide what makes you happy, and pursue it, but you have to pay for goods and services along the way - the "right" is that no one can tell you what job you must work or what vocation you must pursue. If you pursue a vocation on which society does not place much value, and/or that does not require special skills or education, then you're not going to earn much of a wage. You DON'T have a right to a certain wage. You DO have a right to pursue a certain wage, but you will have to pay for the goods and services of others that you need to get to that wage.

Bernie and those who think like him have confused "good things, honorable things, things that a good and decent society should pursue" with "rights." I believe in affordable health care for all. I believe in affordable education for anyone who wants it. I absolutely believe in a clean environment and safe working conditions. Those are things that we should aspire to.

But I don't have a right to them.

*IS* God really in control? Really?

Executive summary: Yes.

Long answer: We Christians are known for our catch-phrases, one of which is "God is in control." In the middle of this COVID-19 pandemic, it is quite reasonable for non-believers to ask: Is he really? And if he is, why doesn't he wipe out the virus and end the suffering? I'd like to share a couple of thoughts in response to those questions.

The first is that we have been created in God's image, but we have not been created like God. I believe that "in his image" has to do with feeling love for others, desiring to be in community with others, appreciating beauty and humor, stuff like that. I don't believe for a minute that God has two hands and two feet - that's not what "in his image" means to me.

But while we share some of God's attributes, he makes it very clear in the Bible that we and he are different. He tells us that his ways are not our ways, and our thoughts are not his thoughts. We are also told that a thousand years are like a day to the Lord - in other words, he experiences time and space differently (sometime I'll blog about my theories on the nature of God's existence, and God existing outside of time and physical space, I love thinking about that stuff.)

What this means is that we have to be very, VERY careful about assigning a human sense of right and wrong to God, a human set of priorities, and a human opinion of what is the right thing to do in various situations, especially since we're kinda messed up in this particular area. We also have to realize that God has a very different - and MUCH bigger - perspective on existence than we do. All we know is what we, as a single individual, experience in our little slice of physical space, during our tiny slice of time. God sees all of time and all of space, and is bigger than both.

Part of a relationship is trust. Part of faith is trust. Not a blind, unquestioning trust, mind you, but a trust built on a study of God's word and an acknowledgement of his greatness. If God wasn't okay with us asking questions, he wouldn't have given us a brain and free will, so I have no problem at all looking at this pandemic and asking God to please wipe it out. But at the same time, I trust that he will do the ultimately right thing, even when I don't see it or in my human hubris, don't agree with it.

The second thought I have about situations like this pandemic came from thinking about playing board games with kids. Stick with me here.

Let's say you're playing a game like Trouble with your kids, or your nieces and nephews, children who you love dearly. We enjoy playing games with kids, but there's another value to playing games - they are an opportunity to teach kids lessons in a way that they understand, that will help them as they go out into the real world that teaches lessons the hard way.

Therefore, we allow our kids to have set-backs in the game - my piece lands on their piece, sending them back to home base where they have to start all over again. We call them out if they try to cheat. We set examples of appropriate behavior when they send our piece back to home base, or when we lose, or when we win.

Now please understand, I am NOT saying that this pandemic is just a game go God. What I am saying is that it is conceivable that maybe God doesn't keep every unpleasant thing from happening because he understands that there is good that can come from trials and tribulations, that there are lessons that can be learned.

"But letting people DIE?" Think about this. What if there is a country you have never been to. You have no idea what it's like. You're happy with the house you live in now and the area you live in, you think it's very nice. You have a good job and life is comfortable. But then I make you move to this country you've never been to - and you find out it is so much better than what you had, and, you don't have to work! Every need is met, everything is beautiful, and you're having more fun than you ever even came close to experiencing back at your old house in your old country. Would you mind that I made you move? LOL, you might even be a little mad at me that I didn't make you move sooner!

I realize that the game playing analogy and the new house analogy are not perfect, but I hope they might spur some thoughts, or questions, or counter-points. Please feel free to respond in the comments.

Those obsessed by hate...

This entry may cost me some friends, may even cost my bands some fans, but it simply has to be said.

The people out there so obsessed with hating Trump really, honestly need to get some professional help.

I didn't vote for him in 2016. I don't like him. He has no class and no sense of decorum. He is an immature bully and is a terrible representative of the American people. His behavior is abysmal and not worthy of the White House, not by a long shot.

But let's be fair. He's had some real successes restructuring horrible trade agreements. He has increased the security of our southern border. The economy is doing well under him (COVID-19 notwithstanding) and unemployment was at record lows - including for minorities and women - prior to the pandemic. Jobs have returned to the U.S. and he is the only president to ever have direct negotiations with North Korea. He also got us out of the ludicrous Paris Accords (nothing but a wealth redistribution plan that would have cost us trillions and not made an ounce of difference, even if every nation involved fulfilled their commitments 100% - which would never happen) as well as that joke of a "treaty" with Iran. In other words, he's screwed up, he's had some wins, and he not seriously better than, nor seriously worse than, the presidents who have gone before him.

So why the hate?

In my opinion, it's very simple - he interfered with Her Majesty Queen Hillary's rightful ascension to the throne, and the liberals completely lost. their. mind. They can't handle it, they simply can't fathom what happened.

But you know what? They only have themselves to blame. They nominated the one person so hated, so divisive, so repugnant to a large swath of the population that someone like Trump - Trump! - was able to win. If the Democrats had nominated a rock, we would have President Rock in the White House right now.

However, one of the main tenets of modern liberalism is that no one can be held accountable for their own actions - people are victims and only react to things being done to them, they are not responsible for their own words and actions. Therefore, *they* can't possibly be responsible for Trump's victory, the only possible conclusion is that a horrible evil was perpetrated upon them and Hillary.

To my friends on the left - read my blog from November 5, 2008. I was crushed by Obama's victory. Seriously, read it. And understand that after I wrote it, I took a deep breath, and GOT ON WITH MY LIFE. I suggest you try doing the same.