Random thoughts

Have Mercy

Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the Pacific, has left more than a half million people without food, water, shelter, and medical care in the Philippines. The death toll is still expected to top 10,000. A list of vetted charities can be found here. The people affected are "losing hope." Please help if you are able.

Junk Food

The Washington Post discusses food stamps: too much is being spent on items high in calories and low in nutrition. It is a well-formed half-truth. The article barely mentions the absence of stores that sell fresh produce, abundance of stores that sell only junk food, and lack of living wage jobs in the community. That leaves an article with many words and little substance.

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Brain Damage

Researchers find that childhood poverty disrupts brain function related to emotional regulation decades later. Perhaps they should scan the brains of politicians that disparage the poor and slobber over the rich. I am curious to see what ethical bankruptcy does to the brain.

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Oops

An advocate of patriarchy gets caught committing adultery and resigns his "ministry."

Doug Phillips, an outspoken proponent of male “dominion” over women and a leading home-schooling activist, has stepped down as president of his Texas-based Vision Forum Ministries after admitting to an inappropriate relationship with a woman.

At least we know he is not without sin. It is ironic, however, that his sin also reveals that he is a clever money-changer.

In 2011, the San Antonio-based ministry reported about $3.3 million in revenue, the most recent available financial records. Phillips received $44,000 in salary from the ministry for a 30-hour workweek, according to the ministry’s financial documents. 

The related for-profit company was paid $193,176 in 2011 by the nonprofit for “labor and services,” according to records. 

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Say what?!?

Sarah Palin tells Matt Lauer that she loves the commercialization of Christmas while hawking her book supposedly decrying the commercialization of Christmas. Her book was released just in time for the Christmas shopping season.

"I love the commercialization of Christmas. It spreads the Christmas cheer. It's the most jolly holiday, obviously, on our calendar."

I could explain that a month long orgy of consumption and spending does not honor Christ in any way, shape, or form, but why bother?

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War on Thanksgiving

The list of major retailers forcing their employees to work on Thanksgiving is growing longer. Nothing is sacred but money for the vipers that run these companies.
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Good Grief

The inspiration for all those boneheaded 'rape victims cannot get pregnant' comments was a study done by a Nazi doctor, Hermann Stieve, on executed female political prisoners. At the time, Stieve was chairman of anatomy at the University of Berlin.

If the source were not repulsive enough, the original study was even dishonestly presented by Fred Mecklenburg, the physician responsible for the much cited gospel of the anti-abortion crowd. Mecklenburg claimed that women in concentration camps were sent to a mock execution before they ovulated and then re-examined to see if they ovulated as expected by their normal menstrual cycle. No such study was ever done. Instead, the Stieve examined women about to be executed as political prisoners and then harvested their ovaries, concluding that the stress of anticipating one's execution disrupted ovulation.

Extending Stieve's finding to rape victims is ridiculous. If a woman has already ovulated when she is raped, there is abundant medical evidence that pregnancy is possible.
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Martyring Truth

The often cited claim that 100,000 Christians are murdered each year because of their faith is wildly false. About 90% of those 'martyrs' were killed in the Congo civil war, typically by others calling themselves Christians. The source of the misleading statistic is unrepentant. Apparently it is more important to scream about persecution than it is to accurately report how frequently it actually happens.

"And ultimately I think making that point is more important than being precise about the death toll."

Anyone that uses religion as an excuse to kill another person has betrayed God. The religion of the victim and of the killer makes no difference. It is all a betrayal of the Holy One.

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Interesting

Some atheists have discovered they like church. In fact, they like it so much they are creating their own "mega-churches" around the world.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It looked like a typical Sunday morning at any mega-church. Hundreds packed in for more than an hour of rousing music, an inspirational sermon, a reading and some quiet reflection. The only thing missing was God.

Good for them. Just a word of advice. I understand why God will be missing, but it would be wise to teach all to love others as they would want to be loved.

By the way, Jesus laid out the criteria God will use to separate the sheep and goats in Matthew 25. The bottom line is that you have to love others and especially care for those that suffer from hunger, thirst, homelessness, sickness, despair, and imprisonment.

Understand this, brothers and sisters, God understands our inability to understand God. God defies our senses and imagination. As I read the New Testament, my take is that God is less offended by disbelief than people who claim to love God but ignore or increase the suffering of our fellow humans. We all understand what it means to be hungry, thirsty, scared, in pain, lonely, and broken in spirit. Every single one of us will experience these things at some point in our life, even if only briefly. That means we have no excuse for any lack of empathy and compassion.

They don't bash believers but want to find a new way to meet likeminded people, engage in the community and make their presence more visible in a landscape dominated by faith.

So can you avoid the temptation to proselytize and convert people of faith, instead seeking to stand out in in love for others? Remember the very thing you claim to hate is people of faith that do not respect your lack of faith. Intolerant atheists are just as ugly as intolerant religious folk. Search your heart. You know that is true.

Valor

Today is the day we traditionally celebrate the sacrifices of veterans. Many in my family have served in uniform. There are many stories I could tell. However, I want to focus on two lives intertwined with mine.

My maternal grandfather was a German. During the first of what we like to call world wars, he was a decorated U-boat commander. His exploits in his "little tin can" won medals galore during the war and he rose through the ranks after the war.

I knew little of this part of his life. He never talked about the war or what he did to earn all those decorations which included the Navy Cross. I did manage to badger him into opening the trunk that he kept locked. It held his dress uniform and a few other mementos. I was enthralled. Watching me joyfully (and I thought reverently) touch this part of his past, he shooed me away and closed the lid.

"War is nothing to celebrate."

Whatever his exploits on the high seas, those words that stuck with me.

His greatest act of valor happened after the war. He continued to serve as a navy officer and rose through the ranks. Coming from well-connected Prussian family, his future certainly looked bright.

During the 1930's, something changed in his outlook. He hailed from the town of Plauen, which had the dubious distinction of being the first place outside of Bavaria that the Nazis became active. He called them thugs, in no small part because they targeted many people he had known all his life to be people of integrity, compassion, wit, and charm. It changed him. At the same time, he could clearly see his beloved country headed back to war under leadership that he did not trust or respect.

In 1937, my grandfather chose to abruptly leave Germany and emigrate to the United States. It was certainly a courageous act, but not exactly an easy road. His English was broken and heavily accented. The only thing on his resume was military service to a former wartime enemy of the United States. The deck was stacked against him.

By whatever you call chance, luck, or serendipity, his story came to the attention of a woman that owned a chain of fur shops. She decided to take a chance on my grandfather, training him to be a master furrier and salesman. Before long, he was using his old world charm on the wealthy in Virginia. Ironically, this woman just happened to be Jewish and a devoutly religious one at that.

I knew her growing up as a family friend. Every year during the Christmas holidays, she would come by my grandparent's house and bring holiday gifts for all. (One year she gave me a ridiculously cool Tonka fire engine that even sprayed water.) When her health began to fail, we would visit her. My grandfather always brought sweets and a bottle of her favorite libation. He remained fiercely loyal to her and continued to work for her company until his eyesight failed.

My grandfather's decision to leave Germany strained his relationship with his relatives that were stuck behind the Iron Curtain in what became East Germany. During the height of the Cold War, he could manage a visa every decade or so to visit. His sister was allowed a few pilgrimages to the United States.  But for the most part, red tape and suspicion kept he and his family of birth apart. He died before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

I do not think of my grandfather a hero for what he did as a commander of a submarine. What took real courage was his decision to leave the country he loved because of what he knew in his heart of hearts to be corrupt and evil leadership. He gave up privilege and prestige in Germany to come to a country that viewed him with considerable suspicion as the world lurched towards a second war to end all wars.

He deliberately patronized Jewish merchants, in no small part as a sign of his respect for his benefactor and lifelong friend. In fact, every Sunday afternoon he went to a local Jewish delicatessen and load up on meats, cheeses, bread, and all sorts of strange goodies. A German Lutheran hanging out in a Jewish deli in the capital of the old South. I did not appreciate at the time how truly strange all of this was.

We often hear about Jews saved by the courageous actions of people under Nazi rule. My grandfather was German military officer that refused to fight for a monster and was saved by the compassion of a Jewish woman in America. It is just one of those strange stories that remind me of why Jesus put such a premium on loving others as we would wish to be loved.

On this Veteran's Day, I raise a glass to toast to a German submariner and his American benefactor. And never forget to celebrate the service and many sacrifices of men and women in uniform. It is the wicked in power that put them in harm's way.

Praise

Someone asked me if that prayer about how much I hate the cancer in my son might be considered irreverent on some level. It is ok to say what hurts to God. Having faith means I do not have to pretend. I do not have to tip-toe around.

I hate that this is the song he sang to his bride on their wedding day:




By the same token, I never forget to say thank you for the young woman that suddenly appeared in his life shortly after the symptoms started and has not left his side. She has had to conquer many fears to be up close and personal with everything that cancer brings.

She probably wishes his parents would hover less. (Rightly so, I would add.)

Nor do I forget to say thank you for his talent to express himself.

Being a person of faith does not spare you from injustice. It merely gives you the right to talk to God.


P.S. And thank you for this:

and this: