Visiting the Cooper County jail

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’ “Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ “And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters,  you were doing it to me!’ (Matthew 25:34-40)

I am the Cooper County jail chaplain and visit the jail one night a week. I have even found that I am the only one out of the entire world (excluding guards) that they ever see one on one. everybody else they visit with through  glass on a phone. Me they can touch and shake hands with and talk to one on one. I listen to them and respond with comments and sympathy. I am a friendly face.

I really do not like jail work that much, but it is needed. Even though I have never been in trouble with the law, it always seems to fall to me. Someone has to be there to tell them that God loves them, that there is a way out of this misery beyond just a dismissal of charges. And I try to be that avenue to the grace of God.

When I go in, I try to tell them and show them that I care about them. one way is going to trial when they have their cases heard. They see me and know that I am there and the next time I see them, they will comment on it.

Today was court. I sat through several hours and only saw one guy. But several things came to me as I looked at the proceedings and the people that were there.

First was the amount of misery present. The cases are tawdry and it is a parade of foolish people. Drunk drivers, drug abusers and seller, bad checks, domestic assault, assault and battery – the list goes on. And none of the people on trial look like they are proud to be there.

Which comes to the second thing: the way people are dressed. The lawyers and the judge and personnel are all dressed in coats and ties. The accused are wearing all manner of foolish looking clothing. Women who are extremely overweight wear tight clothing, making them look elephantine  the guys wear torn clothing, t shirts with foolish messages, other stuff. Even though they are going before someone that will have to be swayed by their actions, they still will not dress in a way that is appropriate. It is kind of pathetic.

I recognize that the world in general is bent that way now – no rules as to dress – but still. They look awful and do not seem to care.

Third is the boredom of the judge and the lawyers. They have case after case of exactly the same thing with many of the same people day after day. In the TV show, Night Court, they covered this over with humor and making fun of stuff. But the boredom is real and it has to affect these people. They cannot see and participate in this misery day after day, year after year and just accept a paycheck. It has to impact them.

Another observation is the number of interracial couples. There seem to be a disproportionate amount there in court in trouble with the law. I do not see many interracial couples that are doing well. I am not against interracial marriages, but it seems that it tends to involved people who are lower on the economic scale.

Fifth is the size of the lawyers. Most of them are fat. I am not sure why, but it surprises me to see that many fat lawyers.

Last is the joy that those I am there for express when they see me sitting in the audience looking at them. They know there is someone who cares enough to put themselves out for them. there is no one else (or so they begin to think) that cares a fig for them and they are all alone. My presence, at least I am hoping, changes that.

I know in the long run it will not do much. I am not a fool. But it is something I can do. And when I do, I follow my Lord in his mandate.

daily java

Daily Java:

This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. (Genesis 2:24)

Our first apartment was a small one. It was in Germany in 1971 when I was in the army and it was really little. As I recall, it was big enough for a table and chairs with a small kitchen in a cupboard and a chest in the main room and a bed with a chifferobe in the bedroom. There was also a bathroom, which we were fortunate to have. Many had to go down the hall to one.

The bed was longer than American beds and really too narrow for my comfort. I was 6’3” tall and 190 pounds but I was a little too big for our bed. The pink and orange checked sheets we had brought were both too short and too wide for our bed. But it had one redeeming feature. It was ours.

The apartment was no more than 10 or 12 by 20 in all but it was ours. We were newlyweds and it really didn’t matter how small it was. It only had three windows, one in each of the rooms (bathroom included) and they had shutters that came down and locked out the light completely.

The main room had a tiny kitchen in a cupboard. It was a little sink with two hot plates and some shelves above. Below was a dorm sized refrigerator. We went down the street and bought our groceries every day like the Germans did. We laid meat against the freezer so it would last longer. We also discovered that if we took the dividers out of the one ice tray that fit in the tiny freezer we had more ice for our iced tea, something that Germans didn’t drink.

We were broke almost the entire time we were in Germany. We had enough to buy gasoline to drive our Volkswagen places and to buy minimal groceries, but we had no extra money.

But it didn’t bother us. We were, after all, newlyweds and were happy just being together. We walked and explored and drove around a lot. Even though German gas was expensive (over $1.00 a gallon at a time when it was less than 25 cents a gallon back in America), we got a gas ration from the army and it was enough to do what we wanted.

We drove to castles and to other cities during times when I was off from work and we had a great time. We visited museums and sat in restaurants in palace courtyards and had Coca-Cola with lemon like cultured Europeans. I learned rudimentary German and could make myself understood and we dressed German so that we wouldn’t stand out in crowds like American GI’s often did.

I bought German shoes so I didn’t have to wear GI brogans like other GI’s. I cut my hair at German barbers and Ella let hers grow. We fit in. She was beautiful and I loved her. We had a great time together.

This time together did several things. For one, it set us as a couple without the interference of parents. When you take your new bride 5500 miles from home where a phone call is over $40, it makes a difference. We learned to like each other as well as love each other. We were our friends. We also had friends in the Church of Christ there in Germany and that also made a difference. But in general, we were our friends. We were alone in a foreign country and we liked it.

We set ourselves as a couple and it has remained in our lives ever since. We are our family. As the kids have gotten older and left, we have gone back to being a couple, our own friends. We love each other and are bound in a way that a lot of couples are not. She is my home, no matter where we go. She feels the same way.

I love her and have loved her since we moved into that apartment in Germany on the third floor of that doctor’s house. We paid $100 a month and it was worth every penny. Even on the month when someone came in and stole what little money we had and we had to count pennies and eat cheese sandwiches for a month, it was still worth it. We had a furnished apartment with a $4 transistor radio for our entertainment, and it was great. I loved her then and I love her still.

I can imagine no life without her and still remember her in that tiny apartment in Germany. She knew no German and waited each day for me to come home to her, hanging out the window like all the other hausfraus. She was so beautiful and so lovely.

I will love her forever.

daily java

Daily Java:

Get the truth and never sell it; also get wisdom, discipline, and good judgment. (Proverbs 23:23)

Some things are so important that we will do anything to get them. We will work a long time and very hard to get a new car or a house or some fancy clothes. We will go far out of our way to gain knowledge or expertise. We will humiliate ourselves to gain the attention of a young woman or an acting scout.

There are things that are so important to us  that are not that important in the long run. The car, the house, the clothing, even the knowledge and expertise will be useless soon. What doesn’t wear out is rendered obsolete. We go to school to be informed about something that is soon replaced by something else we know nothing of. We buy things that are basically disposable.

But, there are things that are more important to us that are important in the long run, that will last and will gain us something great, things that are invaluable and beyond value.

The writer of the Proverbs said to get truth and never sell it. Gain truth, gain that which is always important and always valuable and never let it go. Truth is always the most valuable commodity. And no matter what else happens in life, truth is always there, always unchanging. Values may change, fashions sure enough, even knowledge and expertise. But truth is always constant.

And with that truth, that knowledge of what is real and unchanging, there are corollaries that come with it. The more you look at that truth, the more you meditate on it, dwell on it, move it around in your mind and make it part of you, the more you are able to gain the wisdom to use it.

Raw truth is good and necessary, but wisdom is the ability to use that truth. Discipline is the ability to keep on using it even when everybody around you tries their best to tell you that it is not real or relevant, and good judgement is how you show it to others.

Truth is not a bludgeon with which to beat people over the head with. It is a way through which we live our lives, a way that we know what is real. Good judgment is how we use it, how we deliver it, how we tell others about it.

Truth is never relative. But the way we present it is. And that way is with wisdom and discipline and good judgment.

But above all, without that truth, there is no wisdom, there is no discipline, there is no good judgment. All there is is relativism, change for no good reason, fear and distrust.

daily java

Daily Java:

Now go and write down these words. (Isaiah 30:8)

I have been writing these articles for about three years now, both for this bulletin and for my blog online. I also usually put this article into the blog. I know that the blog readers, both of them, are dying to read it and it also saves me from having to write another article.

Here lately, I have also been putting some articles on Facebook on my page, so when it comes down to it, many of my bulletin articles do triple duty. More bang for the buck.

This article makes 1300 posts in my blog. That means that I have put 1300 articles online. The total wordage (is that a word?) as of the last blog post comes to 597,737 words.

In the past three or so years I have written almost 600,000 words. At about 500 words per bulletin article and an average of 500 to 900 words per article in general, that comes to a lot of writing. That is six books.

Someone asked me why I felt compelled to write so much and I had no answer. I have always written, both for newspapers and magazines, multitudes of bulletin articles in my nearly forty years of ministry, other stuff. In high school, the one thing I always got good grades on was music and English. I could always sing and I could always write.

My voice has decayed a considerable amount now, but I still can write. And the advent of the blog made it easier to write and saves the writing for others to read. In case you don’t know, blog is a word that is short for web log, or online journal. It was shortened from web log to just blog. People have blogs for everything from fish to nuts, religion to pornography, travel to collections of thimbles.

Every blog post I have made has begun with a scripture. That limits my audience but I don’t care. I have always found one that fits even if I have to take it a little out of context, like I did today. The rest of Isaiah 3:8-9 reads:

Write them in a book. They will stand until the end of time as a witness that these people are stubborn rebels who refuse to pay attention to the Lord’s instructions.

I don’t think most of you are stubborn rebels so that didn’t really fit. But one verse which does is Ecclesiastes 12:12:

Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out. 

I have written at all conceivable hours from just getting up to late at night, 3:00 in the morning, when ill or angry, during fasts, just a whole bunch of stuff.

And I have always appreciated your comments about the bulletin article and am grateful you read it. It gives my offering of verbiage meaning when you know someone reads it and likes it.

This makes 1300 posts and 500 words right now. (God bless you – this is eleven more, but I don’t care.)

the Highway of Holiness

Isaiah 35

Even the wilderness and desert will be glad in those days.
    The wasteland will rejoice and blossom with spring crocuses.
Yes, there will be an abundance of flowers
    and singing and joy!
The deserts will become as green as the mountains of Lebanon,
    as lovely as Mount Carmel or the plain of Sharon.
There the Lord will display his glory,
    the splendor of our God.
With this news, strengthen those who have tired hands,
    and encourage those who have weak knees.
Say to those with fearful hearts,
    “Be strong, and do not fear,
for your God is coming to destroy your enemies.
    He is coming to save you.”

And when he comes, he will open the eyes of the blind
    and unplug the ears of the deaf.
The lame will leap like a deer,
    and those who cannot speak will sing for joy!
Springs will gush forth in the wilderness,
    and streams will water the wasteland.
The parched ground will become a pool,
    and springs of water will satisfy the thirsty land.
Marsh grass and reeds and rushes will flourish
    where desert jackals once lived.

And a great road will go through that once deserted land.
    It will be named the Highway of Holiness.
Evil-minded people will never travel on it.
    It will be only for those who walk in God’s ways;
    fools will never walk there.
Lions will not lurk along its course,
    nor any other ferocious beasts.
There will be no other dangers.
    Only the redeemed will walk on it.
Those who have been ransomed by the Lord will return.
    They will enter Jerusalem singing,
    crowned with everlasting joy.
Sorrow and mourning will disappear,
    and they will be filled with joy and gladness.

dialy java

Daily Java:

Hot-tempered people must pay the penalty. If you rescue them once, you will have to do it again. ( Proverbs 19:19)

Do it again. If I could do it again, what would I do differently?

First of all I would probably not become a preacher. It has brought me nothing but problems. I have given my life to the Lord and he has thrown it back into my teeth.

Second, if I were the kind of fool that would become a preacher (2 Corinthians 11:23), I would go to school and get all of my schooling in advance, rather than as I went along.

Third, I would save more. I really thought that the Lord would take care of me like he said when I got older. But he hasn’t and we are just about destitute. It would be nice to have some money at the end of my life so that we didn’t have to live in government housing. Some dignity would be nice.

Fourth, I would not make the mistakes I made in thinking that the Lord needed me in certain places. I would be a lot more judicious in where I went to pastor and wouldn’t think that the Lord needed me there when he obviously didn’t.

There are a lot of things I would do differently. But there are things I would do the same. I would try my best to convince Ella to be my wife. It would be hard because I would not be the little Church of Christ guy she married. That would be hard on her.

I would also make far more use of my music instead of being in some stupid church that didn’t believe that instrumental music was according to God’s plan, that only sinners used instrumental music. That was foolish for me, and I would not do it again.

On the other hand, if I had to be in the Church of Christ, as I probably would, since my parents were that, I would do what I could and leave when I could leave.

I don’t know that the scripture above really works, but I used it anyway.

I do know that my life in the Lord has somewhat been wasted and now that I am old, I am almost destitute. The Lord has hung me out to dry.

Yet I continue. Why? I am not sure. I teach class, am involved in the worship services, write for the church, do hospitality ministry, am totally involved in this little local church. Yet God has not rewarded me or shown me any of the blessings he promised. We live on less than $1000 a month combined retirement and disability. I really am kind of pathetic as one person said.

On the other hand, who else will I serve? Where else will I go. It is he who has the words of eternal life. So I am stuck, kind of like the apostles in John 6.

daily java

Daily Java:

When the Temple guards returned without having arrested Jesus, the leading priests and Pharisees demanded, “Why didn’t you bring him in?” “We have never heard anyone speak like this!” the guards responded. “Have you been led astray, too?” the Pharisees mocked. “Is there a single one of us rulers or Pharisees who believes in him? This foolish crowd follows him, but they are ignorant of the law. God’s curse is on them!” (John 7:46-49)

The Pharisees were the big-time religious leaders of Jesus’ day. They had degrees from important seminaries and thought they knew everything. They figured that since they were so smart, they had the right to tell everybody else how they were supposed to live and that those they told just needed to shut up and listen.

They thought that since they fasted, they knew the Scriptures, they had the degrees, they had the position of teacher – all that – they also had the authority to decide for everybody what was right and what was wrong. When people disagreed with them, which they really didn’t do much out of fear, they were usually pretty sarcastic with them, trying to convict them by their own words.

What they hated about Jesus (one of the things, anyway) was that he didn’t care what they said or what they thought. He never asked their opinion on anything, nor did he seem to care about their feelings.

If he had gone to them in the beginning, discussed what he was going to say, got their opinion, they probably would have liked him a lot and maybe even supported him. But instead, he just came in, with no real education, no real experience, just a nobody carpenter from nowhere and started teaching. He had no permission, no “authority” given him by the leaders, and he didn’t care what they thought or wanted.

When the devil was tempting Jesus in Matthew 4, one of the temptations was that if Jesus were to just kneel down – one little kneel – in front of the devil, the devil would leave him alone the rest of his life. With the devil’s permission, he would preach, people would believe him, things would go great, with no problems.

Of course, if Jesus had done that, he and the devil would know it, even if no one else ever did. And his ministry would be worthless. The same with the Pharisees. If Jesus had gone to them and gotten their permission, they would know he was under their thumb.

We do not need permission from anyone to tell people about Jesus and his grace. In fact, it doesn’t matter what people think about our message. If it is from God, it is fine. If it isn’t, all the certificates and diplomas, permission slips and memberships in official organizations will not matter. We will not be from God anyway.

People will try to stop us, but they will never stop the gospel. They couldn’t then and they will not now.

ask me anything

Ask me any question you want. I will give you an answer to the best of my ability.

daily java

Daily Java:

Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age. (Mathew 28:18-20).
It’s true that some are preaching out of jealousy and rivalry. But others preach about Christ with pure motives. They preach because they love me, for they know I have been appointed to defend the Good News. (Philippians 1:15-16)

Someone was talking the other day about the atrocities the early missionaries were supposed to have inflicted on the American Indians, making them into slaves and abusing them.

While there may have been isolated cases of this, I do not believe the major part was like that. I think that the reality was much different than what the historians would have us believe. There are several reasons for this.

First is the fact that, as a Christian, I have know personally many missionaries. I have not known one who was mean natured and would do something like this. There is a certain heart, a certain love that makes someone give up his or her life with family to become a missionary. When you become a missionary, you have to give up so much, especially if you are a missionary to primitive cultures like the early missionaries to the Indians were. That can only be done out of love, because desire to control people can only be maintained so long. And people will not be willingly dominated like that for only so long before they rebel.

Second is that historians are writing histories from their own perspectives and their own biases. Many historians, especially modern ones, are haters of our culture and are trying to figure out how to make us the bad guy. Read many history books today and all of our wars become imperialist aggressions, all of our foreign aid become blood money, all of our reaching out becomes guilt motivated of our “past sins.”

Look at what President Obama did when he came in office. The first thing he did was to go throughout the world and apologize for America. That same idea is common in most histories. And it is also portrayed in movies. Dances with Wolves (a good movie in many ways) and Avatar (not as good) are two recent movies that portrayed the Indian as wonderful, kind, decent human beings who were being oppressed by American soldiers, all of which were either stupid, brutish or greedy. Having been a soldier trying my best to be a good one, I resent the portrayal and consider it false.

The third is that it doesn’t take too much inspection of the Indian culture to see that these were people who were filthy, cruel and whose honor consisted of how many horses they could steal or how well they could endure torture. They had almost no sense of modesty or morality.

One could say, “Well, they just didn’t have what you consider modesty and morality.” And that is true. But what I consider modesty and morality is what I get from the Bible, so I will admit that I am somewhat biased.

It is also curious that this emphasis on the “bad American” has not come up until lately in our history. Much of it stems from the oikaphobia (hatred of oneself or people like you) that is so prevalent in the American liberal philosophy. Having heard so many talk about how good it would be if we had lost the Gulf War that we engaged in in the early 2000’s, it became apparent that many in this country do not like this country and wish it to fail. And one way they can do that is to rewrite the history books and make movies about how bad our soldiers and our missionaries are.

Yes there are times when our soldiers have not been their best. But those were the exception, not the rule. And to make one’s portrayal of soldiers based on the exception is wrong. That would be the same as saying all liberals are dirty, freeloading hippies because that was a picture given back in the 1960’s.

Missionaries had to have a certain heart, one of service, sacrifice and love, to do what they did in the first place. And those who write the histories do not like Christianity in the first place. But we have the mandate, whether others like it or not, of bringing the gospel to others. We do not do anyone a disservice by telling them about Jesus and his grace. If we do, the Bible is false and Christianity is worthless.

I suppose that is the main sticking point. These people do not want the gospel brought so they will do anything they can to impugn those who bring it. To them, it is as 2 Corinthians 2:16 says: To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this?

And we do the Lord and the memory of that huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith (Hebrews 12:1) a great disservice when we buy into this inaccurate portrayal of missionaries.

daily java

Daily Java:

The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Things do not always happen for a reason. Something happened and someone says, Well, it all happens for a reason. Sounds good, except that it is not true.

The engine on my van goes out. Why? It is because it is old, not to test me in the grace of God. Somebody dies and we tell the kids, God wanted him. Except that it is not true. We die because of sin. Someone who is a godly person gets a severe illness that is long and protracted and painful. A baby is born with a birth defect that will affect him and his parents the rest of their lives. You lose a fifty dollar bill.

Don’t blame God. If you blame anybody, you blame satan. You blame the devil. He is the one who brings sadness, not God.

James 1:17 says: Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father. Death, illness, pain – none of these are good and perfect and cannot come from God.

So what is it when these things happen? Do we realize we are adrift in the sea of life, cast about, and will die any moment. No, not necessarily.  God is there with us if we are there with him, even though bad things are happening.

And even though those bad things are not necessarily for a good reason, at the same time, we can use them to make something good. The old lemonade from lemons thing. Romans 8:28 says that we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

In other words, bad things happen, but God can use them to make good things happen.

There are always three ways you can approach a problem. One is that you can curse the problem, be angry, stomp around, kick the cat. Another is that you can ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen, in which case you are going to look rather foolish. The third is that you can allow God to work through your life and use that problem for something good.

When we were first married, we met a couple who had a daughter who was a Down’s Syndrome
 child. The father was talking about it to me one day and told me that before she was born, he was very impatient and somewhat intolerant of other people’s difficulties. Since they had raised her for several years, he had learned patience and compassion.

Did God send her to them? No, because bad things do not come from God. But could God use it to make that couple stronger? Yes. And he did.

Somebody up there doesn’t love me, why did God send this problem, I guess it was just his time to die – all these are messages of the devil, not the Father. So let God use what happens to you but don’t blame him.