People Of Faith Should Support Immunizations

Having grown up in an era when diphtheria and polio threatened the lives and health of many in our community, I'm disheartened and dismayed by the number of good folks today who are refusing to get their COVID vaccines. 

Some resist because they feel there has been insufficient time to study the effects of the inoculations, and simply don't trust them to be safe.

Others are persuaded that the risk of COVID infection has been overplayed, and that our government is wanting to gain control of people's lives in ways that threaten their liberty.

Still others are buying into all kinds of conspiracy-based falsehoods circulated on social media, such as 1) vaccines are contributing to miscarriages, infertility and other serious health problems, 2) thousands of people are dying as a result of getting the vaccine, but the mainstream media is prevented from reporting this 3) Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci deliberately caused the spread of infections in order to profit from vaccine sales, and/or 4) vaccination campaigns are being conducted as a way of injecting computer chips into people that will enable an evil government to control and track everything we do--and that it is a sign of the "mark of the beast" described in the book of Revelation.

Here is an interview Dr. Francis Collins, an evangelical Christian and the head of the National Institutes of Health, urging everyone to become immunized out of love for our neighbors 

https://www.fox26houston.com/video/920059.

Time Out--Counseling As A Kind of Holy Huddle

I once had a cartoon on my office door of a doctor showing an X-ray to a patient and saying, “There’s nothing wrong with you that what’s right with you can’t fix.” 

I often reflect on that as I work with clients who come to me for help. Of course they have serious stresses and grave losses to name and lament, along with many wrongs they have suffered, often from childhood. But no one should be defined, limited or diagnosed only on the basis of their problems, but also appreciated for their strengths and their assets.

So my goal is to listen deeply to both what's wrong and what's right. I’m not the kind of doctor who has stethoscope- or x-ray-based insights into what’s going on in someone else’s life, nor do I have an array of pills to prescribe to help cure their ills. This makes me especially dependent on the insights clients bring with them to their sessions, and not just on whatever help or insights I may have to offer. 

Thus I always assume the "insider," who has actually lived their life and experienced their reality, knows more about themselves and their issues than I, the "outsider" ever can. An outsider's perspective can also be very helpful, but I attach priority importance to what clients have to say about themselves and their situation. And over the years I've become increasingly impressed with what's right with people, and with the wisdom they already have, but which may have become buried under the rubble of whatever is troubling them. 

Once clients get out from under some of their accumulated "rubble," I’ve learned that the most therapeutic things that happen in a 50-minute session aren’t based so much on the wisdom I can dispense (though I'm glad to offer whatever I feel may be remotely helpful) but rather the wisdom I can help the client put together for themselves. This represents the sort of help they might offer others who may come to them for help, assets they have gained through their own life experiences, through their own faith and their faith community, and through whatever connections they already have with supportive people in their lives. 

This is important because at the end of the day, or at the end of a session, that wisdom is what they have to take with them. They can't take me with them. I'm simply the coach, and our session is a kind of huddle. All of the successes, all of the positive changes in people's lives, are made on the field where the game is played and the touchdowns or goals are scored--and where the coach cannot go. 

So in my remaining part-time work as a part of FLRC, I’m deeply interested in encouraging clients to draw on their faith, hope and courage to survive and thrive on the field that represents their life, hopefully with the help of a team of supportive people with whom they live, work and interact.

As fellow teammates, coaches and cheerleaders, we can all be vitally important in the work of helping each other experience "hope, health and healing." But the person with the identified problem is the one who can, with God's help and the help of a caring community, do the most to make a winning difference.

A First Century Fund Drive For Foreign Relief

In addition to raising money through
food sales and the auction at the annual 
Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale, can we also
learn from the example of the early church?

Around the middle of the first century Paul's wrote instructions to the believers at Corinth urging them to raise much needed funds for foreign relief, this time for fellow believers experiencing a famine in Judea, some 800 miles away. Given the differences in modes of travel and communication, that would have been a far greater "distance" than the farthest location of any needy and displaced persons in our world today.

Here are some of Paul's instructions for that giving:

1. Set aside generous contributions on a regular basis. 

"On the first day of every week, each of you should set aside a portion of their income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will be needed."  (I Corinthians 16:2 Berean Study Bible)

2. Emulate the generous and joyous giving done by other believers.

And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us.    (II Corinthians 8:1-5 NIV)

3. Give out of a deep sense of Christ's love and compassion, the one who made himself poor for our sakes.

...since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you—see that you also excel in this grace of giving. I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.  (II Corinthians 8:7-9 NIV)

4. Give eagerly and willingly, based on all of the blessings you have been given.

Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.   (II Corinthians 8:10-12 NIV)

5. Give not as an act of charity, but as an intentional distribution of wealth that results in greater equity and equality. 

Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.”  (II Corinthians 8:13-15 NIV)

6. Give through trusted and accountable persons and groups whose responsibility it is to see that your giving goes to those for whom it is intended.

So we urged Titus, just as he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part... For Titus not only welcomed our appeal, but he is coming to you with much enthusiasm and on his own initiative. And we are sending along with him the brother who is praised by all the churches for his service to the gospel. What is more, he was chosen by the churches to accompany us as we carry the offering, which we administer in order to honor the Lord himself and to show our eagerness to help. We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of others.   (II Corinthians 8:6,17-21 NIV)

These God-inspired instructions have relevance for us today.

Four years ago an SOS (Sharing Our Surplus) Committee was formed to help the fall Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale raise additional funds for world relief through having a donation table for cash, check or credit card contributions. The proceeds were to augment funds the Relief Sale raises each year for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) through auction and food sales, with all of the SOS proceeds going directly MCC for refugee relief needs.

In the years since, a total of over $100,000 has been raised through this effort, and last year's SOS receipts enabled the total Relief Sale's giving to MCC to exceed all previous years, in spite of there not being the usual onsite auction and food sales at the Rockingham County Fairgrounds in 2020.

In light of ongoing and ever more pressing needs, this year's SOS effort hopes to raise even more funds to forward to Mennonite Central Committee, much in the same way as liberal and "cheerful" fundraising for foreign relief was done by the believers in the first century. The Greek word for cheerful, by the way, is hilaron, the root of the English word "hilarious," described as follows:

There is no need for me to write to you about this, for I know your eagerness to help. Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. As it is written:

'They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor;

    their righteousness endures forever.'

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!  (selected verses from II Corinthians 9 NIV)

I'm An Actual Blood Relative Of Donald Trump

Think about it. This means each of us has nearly 8 billion other cousins spread all over the planet. Too many are targeted as our enemies, and millions are homeless and in desperate need of. 

In the close knit church community I grew up in, a lot of folks excelled at what we call the "Mennonite Game." It's about meeting a fellow Anabaptist, Amish or Mennonite, and trying to figure out whether or how you might be related, with some degree of confidence that if we go back far enough, we're almost sure to find that we are distant cousins. 

I'd like to recommend our expanding on that exercise, so that whenever we meet even a stranger we assume a common ancestry, and look for all of the ways we might share a common DNA and common roots, based on the conviction that "God has made of one blood all people on earth."

Since this is so, then we are literally cousins of every other human being on earth.

Someone has said, "You can choose your friends, but you're stuck with your relatives." But the fact is, your friends are also your relatives, as are all of your enemies.

That means that someone like Donald Trump, whom I regard as neither an enemy nor an actual friend, is nevertheless a part of my extended family. And since I and the Trumps each have German ancestors, it means we are even more closely related than I am to most people on the planet. 

I am also related to all of Mr. Trump's supporters, including those who stormed the capitol building in January 6 and those who continue to insist the last election was stolen from him. And I also share cousin status with all other human beings everywhere, all 7 billion of whom are my blood relatives, literally all of them. And if we searched an Ancestry.com site with enough data, we could actually figure out just how we are connected.

What difference should that awareness make? Shouldn't it mean that we seek ways of showing love and celebrating kinship with each other, sharing with our kinfolk in need, setting aside our weapons and resolving our family differences and conflicts?

And let's go about arranging for some long overdue family reunions. Our Creator would like that.

War-Making--An Unimaginably Brutal, Barbaric, Bloody, Cruel, Insane, Heartless And Hellish Form Of Terror, Murder And Mass Destruction

Kim Thi Kim Phic, left center, fleeing napalm bombing by the
South Vietnamese Air Force in 1972. Three times as much
firepower was used in that horrific, senseless war as in all of WWII. 

A week ago, on Good Friday, I posted a blog with the title "Crucifixion: An Unimaginably Brutal, Barbaric, Bloody, Cruel, and Heartless Form Of Execution." 

Today's post is about nations continuing to inflict horrific forms of "crucifixions" in the name of "defense" and "national security."  

The only way we will ever bring an end to war-making is to be brutally honest about what it really is, and to stop using sanitized euphemisms and code words to describe it. 

So what would be more accurate and truthful alternatives to the use of toned down and misleading terms such as the following?

defense, as in "national defense," "defense departments," "defense contracts," "the Department of Defense" (once called the Department of War"). An enterprise utilizing explosive weapons designed to efficiently destroy, kill and cause unimaginable harm should hardly be considered a mere means of defending against harm.

national security, as in "national security forces" or "national security budgets." Can the investment of trillions of dollars on the part of nations around the world for such "security" really make the world a more secure and safe place ?

conflict, as in the "Korean conflict," "the conflict in Afghanistan," "conflicts around the world. " Would not a word like "conflagration" be more accurate?

engage, as in "engaged the enemy" or "military engagement." While this sounds totally harmless, it is the extreme opposite.

incursion, as in "Cambodian incursion," "Chinese Air Force incursion into Taiwan," etc. These are code words for unimaginably hostile and bloody invasions.

mission, as in "a bombing mission" or "on a mission to neutralize the enemy." Hardly the kind of benign activity we usually associate with the word mission.

service/duty, as in "tour of duty," "in the service," "active duty," "duty (or service) to your country," "service member," etc. No hint of any harm being done by anyone anywhere, or if there is, it is seen as totally necessary and justified.

campaign/raid, as in "military campaign," or "daring raid." The former is war-making on a more massive scale than the latter but both are intended to inflict irreparable damage to human life and/or property. 

sacrifice, as in "the ultimate sacrifice" or "sacrifice for your country." While we must never minimize the terrible toll war-making takes on those who wage it, a warring nation's goal is always to make "sacrifices" of as many enemy lives as possible, not their own. 

 fallen, as in "honor the fallen," or "fallen heroes." Yes, we must of course forever lament and mourn the extreme suffering and the many lives lost in all wars, while doing everything possible to prevent the tragic and untimely deaths of recruits forced to be "in harm's way" (another common euphemism).

So do we have the courage to call war the insanity it really is?

Mark Twain wrote his famous "War Prayer" in 1905, which was before the era of ever more terrifying weapons of mass destruction being dropped from the air or fired from long range missiles. It was his way of injecting some truth into the Orwellian language we typically use for war-making. 

Anticipating strongly negative reactions from his readers, Twain asked that the War Prayer not be published until after his death, stating that "only dead men can speak the truth in this world."

Here is the closing part of his satirical prayer:

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with hurricanes of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen." 

Lloyd And Orpha, Legends In Their Own Time

They knew true love was far more than a bed
of roses.

Lloyd and Orpha Gingrich's farm along Highway 35 in Juniata County, Pennsylvania, was one of our favorite places to visit when our children were growing up. Not  only did we love working and recreating together in this beautiful rural setting near Shade Mountain, but we were all blessed just being welcome guests of the most gracious and hospitable hosts imaginable.

Once when we were about to leave for home after spending time at their house our son Brent, then very young, was nowhere to be found. He had hidden under his bed covers upstairs as a way of saying he wasn't ready to go home yet, and wanted to stay just another day longer. 

We always wanted to stay longer. As Alma Jean's oldest sister, Orpha was like a second mother to all of us, and Lloyd like a benevolent father.

Monday all of our family but our oldest, Brad (who had not received his first COVID shot until yesterday), attended a memorial service held for the couple at their home congregation, Lauvers Mennonite, just down the road from the Gingrich homestead. After a lingering illness Orpha, age 94, was laid to rest in the Lauvers cemetery beside her husband, who had died nearly a year earlier.

Their seven children, twenty grandchildren, twenty-eight great-grandchildren and even two great-great grandchildren celebrated their life and sang their praises, together with members of their extended family and scores of their friends and fellow congregants.

Orpha, who taught school for several years before their marriage, was a devoted and lifelong mother and grandma whose heart and home were always open to friend and stranger alike. She was also an inspirational Bible teacher who could quote whole chapters of scripture "by heart." 

Lloyd loved church history and collected books of historical interest, served on the board of Eastern Mennonite Missions for much of his adult life, and was active in establishing a Mennonite historical center nearby, as well as being devoted to helping raise their wonderful family.

As I reflected on what made this couple so special, I thought of how they exemplified so many of the qualities described in the "love chapter" of the Bible (I Corinthians 13), consistently manifesting a love "so patient and so kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude, not irritable or resentful, never rejoicing in wrongdoing, but always rejoicing in the truth, bearing all things, believing all things and enduring all things. Their love never gave out or gave up... and their faith, hope and love always remain. But the greatest of their legacies is love."

The world would be blessed by having a lot more people like that.

"Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her." 

- Proverbs 31:28 (NIV)

A Muslim Reflection On The Resurrection Story

For many years our house church met for our Easter sunrise service at the entrance of Massanutten Caverns, the entrance of which is now sealed and with a no trespassing sign.

"Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher and miracle worker walked across the Galilee, gathering followers to establish what he called the "Kingdom of God." The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established order that he was captured, tortured and executed as a state criminal."

- Reza Aslan, religion scholar and author of Zealot--The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

Here's what Aslan writes about the resurrection:

"Jesus's resurrection is an extremely difficult topic for the historian to discuss, not least because it falls beyond the scope of any examination of the historical Jesus. Obviously the notion of a man dying a gruesome death and returning to life three days later defies all logic, reason, and sense. One could simply stop the argument there, dismiss the resurrection as a lie, and declare belief in the risen Jesus to be the product of a deludable mind.

"However there is this nagging fact to consider: one after another of those who claimed to have witnessed the risen Jesus went to their own gruesome deaths refusing to recant their testimony. That is not, in itself, unusual. Many zealous Jews died horrible deaths for refusing to deny their beliefs. But these first followers of Jesus were not being asked to reject matters of faith based on events that took place centuries, if not millennia, before. They were being asked to deny something they themselves personally, directly encountered.

"The disciples were themselves fugitives in Jerusalem, complicit in the sedition that led to Jesus's crucifixion. They were repeatedly arrested and abused for their preaching; more than once their leaders had been brought before the Sanhedrin to answer charges of blasphemy. They were beaten, whipped, stoned and crucified, yet they would not cease proclaiming the risen Jesus."

I don't agree with all of Aslan's conclusions, but I found this part of his book fascinating and provocative.

Have a blessed Easter!

Crucifixion: An Unimaginably Brutal, Barbaric, Bloody, Cruel, And Heartless Form Of Execution

"It's Friday, But Sunday's Coming" S.M. Lockridge (1913-2000),
pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in San Diego

It's almost impossible to imagine the kind of excruciating torture Roman and other ancient oppressors used to terrorize and execute people in the populations they controlled. It was intended to cause the most agonizing and prolonged pain and death possible.

In the church community in which I grew up Good Friday was day set aside  as a time of fasting and reflection on the incredible love of God, who in Jesus chose to redeem and save an evil world, taking on himself the terrible effects of human sin rather than by inflicting wrath and vengeance on us. 

"All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. He who knew no sin became sin for us."

- II Corinthians 5:18-21 (NRSV)

On this dark and momentous day I highly recommend your reading this description of crucifixion by Mary Fairchild, "Definition of Crucifixion, an Ancient Method of Execution."