Is Fuel Too Cheap, Transportation Too Plentiful?

The lower 1960 photo of the late Betty Byler and her three children, members of our congregation, was taken along highway 42 across the street from the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community. The top photo was taken recently at the same location, now a busy five-lane thoroughfare bustling with traffic.

Do we have a transportation shortage or is our increased demand for convenience and for consumer products from all over the world resulting in too many vehicles on too many streets and highways? 

Counting service and company owned cars and trucks, we now have more licensed vehicles in the US (nearly 284 million) than we have licensed drivers (just over 238 million). With their mostly fossil fuel powered engines, along with those of over 8 million registered motorcycles, our vehicles are the source of more greenhouse gasses contributing to climate change than any other sector of our economy except for the nation's power generating plants.

So it could be argued that the price of gasoline and diesel fuel is actually too low, resulting in too many drivers driving too many miles and choosing too many fuel guzzling vehicles. Our increasingly common oversized pickups, for example, are rarely found in countries where fuel is more expensive and/or taxed more heavily.

Here are some comparisons of average gas prices per gallon in other parts of the world as of May 2022. The average cost per gallon in the US was $4.79, compared to $6.49 in Canada, $8.17 in Norway, and $11.20 in the UK.

Without question our personal health and that of the planet would be enhanced if we walked and biked more and drove our two-ton passenger vehicles less, especially when occupied by only one or two persons, and if we were to:

1. Car pool regularly with friends and neighbors to work, worship, shop, etc.

2. Limit shopping trips to once or twice a week.

3. Use available public transportation (currently free in our town) as much as possible.

4. Travel more by rail and bus and less by plane, RV's and/or other private passenger vehicles.

5. Offer free "Uber" transportation to people who need it.

6. Partner with others to share electric vehicles.

7. Walk instead of drive to work out at nearby wellness centers.

8. Your suggestions?

Jewish Wisdom On Health and Healing

Our house church is focusing on physical and emotional healing in our August meetings. I found this gem from the Apocrypha in Willard Swartley's 2012 book, "Health, Healing and the Church's Mission," one of the resources we are using for our study:

Honor physicians for their services,

    for the Lord created them,

for their gift of healing comes from the Most High,

    and they are rewarded by the king.

The skill of physicians makes them distinguished,

    and in the presence of the great they are admired.

The Lord created medicines out of the earth,

    and the sensible will not despise them…

And he gave skill to human beings

    that he might be glorified in his marvelous works.

By them the physician heals and takes away pain;

    the pharmacist makes a mixture from them.

God’s works will never be finished,

    and from him health spreads over all the earth.

My child, when you are ill, do not delay,

    but pray to the Lord, and he will heal you.

Give up your faults and direct your hands rightly,

    and cleanse your heart from all sin.

Offer a sweet-smelling sacrifice and a memorial portion of choice flour,

    and pour oil on your offering, as much as you can afford

Then give physicians their place, for the Lord created them;

    do not let them leave you, for you need them.

There may come a time when recovery lies in the hands of physicians,

    for they, too, pray to the Lord

that he grant them success in diagnosis

    and in healing, for the sake of preserving life.

Those who sin against their Maker

    will be defiant toward the physician.

 Sirach 38:1-15 (NRSV)

Guest Post: A Great Hammer And Roof Story

Tabitha Hammer with Pat Martin by the amazing
 Paper Mulberry Tree outside Tabitha's house, 
now blessed with a brand new new roof.

I post the following piece by my friend Earl Martin with his kind permission. He is a founding member of a local group of volunteers known as the Carpenters Guild:

Over a month ago, Louise Jennings of Kingsway Prison Ministries contacted Harvey Yoder to see if he knew of someone who might help a woman patch the roof of her leaky house. Harvey contacted the Carpenters Guild and the wheels started turning.

The Guild has been a gathering of folks in the Harrisonburg area who for the last twenty years have been volunteering to help out in home repair for persons needing a hand. Often doing their work on Fridays, anywhere from three to 20 carpenters, plumbers, electricians, handy-hands, generalists and well-wishers would find themselves tearing out and rebuilding walls for a Latino couple, building a wheel-chair ramp for Paul Longacre or rebuilding the White House (now Vine and Fig) and their front porch. Not every month saw a project, but presumably there were at least six per year over the past twenty years, so likely well over 100 projects.

The Guild deliberately did not keep track of the projects. So there is no record. No, the intent was to lend a hand without bureaucracy, without troublesome “vetting” of each project, without attention or fanfare. Just an opportunity for some hammer-swingin folks to work together for a day!

So when the call came to help out the woman with her leaky roof came, it seemed like the perfect project for the Guild. “This kind of project is the very reason the Guild was formed.” 

Where is this project? Well, it's out beyond Elkton in the beautiful, hilly boonies. And who is this woman? When we pulled in one evening over a month ago to assess the project, we were met by a fast-talking, fast-chuckling firecracker of a woman named Tabitha Hammer. Tabitha explained that her house had been built by her grandfather, and built well. Alas, the roof has been leaking for years, forcing her son to live elsewhere rather than in his wet bedroom.

We climbed her ladder, homemade with an assemblage of boards, onto her low-pitched roof. (Less than two-twelve slope.) But Tabitha had arranged a variety of plastic sheeting here and there over the roof to prevent some of the rain from falling into her kitchen. Tabitha also had purchased 26 bundles of three-tab shingles and a half dozen sheets of three-quarter inch plywood to repair her roof. But she had no way of getting those remedies installed.

We told her we would see if we could help. Back home, we contacted members of the Guild for their counsel on what to do. Tim and others advised installing Ice and Water Shield over the whole roof because of the low slope. We contacted John Weaver about helping to install the shingles. He immediately said, “I'll do it!” Wow, what a spontaneous, beautiful commitment!

We set a date for the Guild to show up to remove the two (or three or four) layers of shingles on the roof. Probably bad timing, given summer vacations and people's earlier commitments, but Wick Fary showed up and soon we were attacking the old shingles, only to discover large areas of the roof where the one by six sheathing boards were totally rotted out. Well, that's what the ¾ inch plywood was for!

So lots of patching. At first we thought we would never get this roof ready for shingles. But then a newbie, Andrew Troyer–Ed's nephew--shows up and Wick phones his son Dylan who also shows up as did Miguel–bless their hearts–so by 5 pm three-fourth of the roof was stripped, patched and covered in Ice and Water Shield. Tabitha had provided a generous lunch and lots of cold drinks!

So four days later, we take another stab at the project, this time with added help from Ben and Russ. And most delightfully, the help of Chuck Kisling, a friend of Tabitha's and a true man of the fields and the hills. Chuck worked harder than any of us. When we had finished stripping, patching, and Ice Shielding the rest of the roof, and replacing most of the fascia, Chuck decided he would do a little extra, up to the peak.

The next day, John Weaver showed up to get an early start before the rain. By noontime, he had that nearly ten-square roof shingled and ridge capped. A miracle! With Chuck by his side, doing whatever he could.

That evening Chuck texted, naming with special thanks each of the folks who had come to help. He also said, “I hope we also keep in touch an if u have anything come up… an u think u may need a hand tex me call me an I'll do what I can the best I can for u or who ever it may be.”

A few days later, he texted again, “jus letting ya know other nite when we had rain not 1 drop of rain made it inside the house that was a pretty nice sign of relief finally. THANK TO ALL WHO MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR A INSIDE FLOOR TO BE DRY FOR THE 1ST TIME IN 25 YEARS ...”

And today, a big box from Amazon arrived at the door containing a large Gift Basket with specialty snack foods, with a note enclosed which I took for all who helped out with the roof, indeed, all who have given a hand with the Guild over the past, many years:

“A Gift for You. Thank you for being a generous soul and a beautiful spirit in a

world that could use a million more people just like you. Thank you so much for

everything. You're the best and you're appreciated more than you know."

                                                                        - From Tabitha Hammer

Volunteer John Weaver at work on the roof repair project.

Note: If any readers of this blog would be interested in occasionally volunteering with the Carpenters Guild (all levels of skills are welcome), please contact Earl Martin at patearl@aol.com.

"One Day Someone Should Start a Religion Based on the Teachings of Jesus"

The Mount of the Beatitudes, northwest of the Sea of Galilee.

Today's blog title comes from a tongue in cheek "tweet from God" I ran across recently, the point being that Jesus's role as a greater-than-Moses Prophet, or Teacher, is often underplayed in current Christian circles. This is in contrast to most  church leaders in the first and second centuries, to St. Francis of Assisi of the 13th century, and to later reformers like Menno Simons, who once once wrote, “Jesus is the perfect teacher, and his sacrifice is the perfect sacrifice.”

Ironically, some non-Christians like Mahatma Ghandi in the past century have more fully appreciated Jesus’s words and have tried to live by them. Ghandi read some part of the "Sermon on the Mount" (Matthew 5, 6 and 7), on an almost daily basis, and marveled at why so many Christians seemingly ignored it, or saw Jesus’s teachings as impractical and impossible. He once famously said,“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” This was in the context of an India that was then ruled with an oppressive iron hand by a supposedly Christian Great Britain.

According to Matthew 5, 6, and 7, Jesus clearly envisioned a worldwide God-movement in which there would be unconditional love shown to neighbor and stranger alike, even enemies, where generous sharing replaced the hoarding of possession, and where the love of money was replaced by a love of justice and compassion for all.

In his last words to his followers, spoken from what is almost surely the same place, the Mount of the Beatitudes, Jesus gave what is known as the Great Commission to his followers, urging them to  recruit disciples of people of all nations, teaching them all to observe all of the things he had taught them.

What a difference it would have made if even half of all baptized Christians, now numbering some 2.4 billion of the 7.8 billion of the earth's inhabitants, had been consistently trained to share instead of hoard possessions, do good for enemies instead of exacting revenge, live lives of sexual faithfulness instead of infidelity and promiscuity, and practiced consistent truth-telling instead of defending and promoting blatant lies and falsehoods? What a peaceful, safe, sustainable and just world that could have created. 

Meanwhile, our families and faith communities can strive to commit to become, by the grace of God, little colonies of heaven on earth, communities of shalom where there is "not a needy person among them." 

In one of Richard Rohr’s recent Daily Meditations he writes of Christians:

Our religion is not working well: suffering, fear, violence, injustice, greed, and meaninglessness still abound. This is not even close to the reign of God that Jesus taught. And we must be frank: in their behavior and impact upon the world, Christians are not much different than other people. Many Christians are not highly transformed people; instead, they tend to reflect their own culture more than they operate as any kind of leaven within it...We must rediscover what St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) called the “marrow of the Gospel.” It’s time to rebuild from the bottom up. If the foundation is not solid and sure, everything we try to build on top of it is weak and ineffective. 

May God help us do just that.

Beware Of False Dichotomies

In our attempts to arrive at right answers, we often ask the
wrong questions. Here are just a few examples:

1. Which is more important, one's work or one's marriage? It's not unusual for spouses to complain about partners caring more about their work than about the relationship, given factors like the sheer number of hours devoted to their jobs. So there can of course be a valid basis for some complaint, but it can also be an example of a false choice, in that both work and marriage are of vital importance. To work hard and to work well is essential to both one's wellbeing and to that of the community, and the income generated and life satisfaction gained can help enrich and sustain one's marriage and provide a good example to our children of how to invest appropriate time and give adequate attention to each.

2. Which should come first, our family or our congregation? In rearing our own three children, we found ourselves forever indebted to the good church people who invited our family into their hearts and homes, took an interest in our children and made a positive impact on us all. We could not have done it without them. In short, we came to realize that it does take a whole village, or a whole congregation to help sustain a good marriage and raise a whole and healthy family. So this is another example of what should not be an either-or question, or a "which is more important" question.

3. Which should have priority, preserving the lives of the unborn or of the already born? Most of us are both pro-life and pro-peace at some level. When it comes to the former, no "pro choice" people I know would ever support infanticide as a means of population control, most are appalled at the idea of partial birth abortions, and many believe a mother’s womb should be a safe place where life is protected and treated with respect at all stages of development. And when it comes to the already born, few would favor stoning as an acceptable sentence for a crime, encourage duels as a way of settling disputes, or condone having SWAT teams bomb whole neighborhoods to rid them of crime. Where people most often differ is in just how they demonstrate their desire for peace and their respect for human life.

The list could go on and on, as in, Should we advocate for stricter gun laws or support the Second Amendment? Should we focus on helping people with their spiritual needs or their physical needs? Should we seek change through legislation or through bringing about individual changes in people's hearts and behaviors?

These may all be examples of asking the wrong questions, or of framing them in an unhelpful way.

We Need Ongoing Conversations About When Human Life And Human Personhood Begin

I had the following piece published in the Daily News-Record on, of all days, my birthday:

I remember when it was still possible to have civil debates among people of faith over the issue of abortion. Most recognized a lack of consensus in both scientific and religious communities over complex questions about the beginning of human life and human personhood. Then almost overnight, largely through efforts by some on the political right, the issue became framed in a way that brought about a sharp and unreconcilable divide. On one side were those who felt the science was still unclear and that theologians had more work to do in determining beginning of life questions. On the other side were those who insisted that any termination of any pregnancy at any stage was equal to cold blooded murder.

Once the word “murder” became associated with even the use of an IUD as a means of birth control, or the use of a morning-after pill in the case of rape or incest, for many the debate was over. Either you were for preserving life from the very moment of conception or you become an accomplice to killing babies.

Historically there have been earnest debates by theologians over how soon after conception “ensoulment” happened, with some concluding it was somewhere around day 40, and some later. For many the question was important in order to determine when and whether a prenatal human life was under the condemnation of original sin and required baptism.

Meanwhile, most Jewish and some Protestant communities saw human life, while physically beginning at conception, as not being fully ‘ensouled’ until birth. They drew on the creation account in Genesis, in which the Spirit/Wind/Breath of God hovered over the earth, impregnating it with life. Then in a special moment of human creation, God fashioned adamah (dust) into God’s own image, then breathed into it the breath of divine life, at which point the human being became a living soul, a person, and was given a name, Adam.

Based on this understanding of humanity being first beautifully formed from clay and then wonderfully endowed with the divine breath of life, many faith communities made some distinctions between the existence of a human body in the womb and the God-breathed life of a human soul, or person, while recognizing each as a priceless gift from God.

Here are some of our actual practices:
1. We typically name, dedicate, bless, and/or christen infants after a birth has taken place. A name might be chosen before birth but is not officially documented until afterwards.
2.Traditionally our life stories, biographies and memoirs begin with the date of our birth rather than the date of our conception or viability. That date of birth is linked to our identity, required for verification at medical and other appointments, celebrated annually and is memorialized on our tombstones.
3. While there is an estimated equal number of natural abortions (miscarriages) as there are induced ones, faith communities have normally published obituaries and held memorial or burial services only for stillbirths or for infants already born. We have, however, hopefully begun to do more to support those grieving all of these losses, while not normally erecting grave markers to memorialize prenatal life.
4. In terms of census taking, a woman pregnant with a baby is still counted as only one person. Only after a delivery is the resulting birth added to the census and counted as a citizen.

If we truly believed full personhood, and not just life, began at conception, we should perhaps do all of the above, but I raise these points simply to recognize some of the complexity we have long associated with the issue, and to humbly ask whether we could agree that neither science nor religion have yet come up an absolutely definitive answer as to just when a human life in formation becomes a human person. 

Meanwhile, I join with pro-life-minded women and men everywhere who honor and protect life from conception (remember the awesomeness of that first sonogram!), with abortions performed only in cases of incest, rape, or for significant medical or health reasons, and not as a primary means of birth control. But I will also join with all who offer empathy and support for those who face gut wrenching beginning-of-life as well as end-of-life decisions for which there may not always be simple or easy answers.

In addition we should also support efforts at having men take full responsibility for the pregnancies they cause, and join in doing everything we can to help relieve the suffering of innocent men, women and children everywhere (including unborn ones) who face unbelievable hardships and trauma in the face of famine, war and other forms of violence and destruction.

Let’s work together at being consistently pro-life. All of us.

Why I fully support my church's stand on abortion. 

https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2019/02/yes-i-am-pro-life-and-oppose-abortion.html

Another perspective: https://www.phillyvoice.com/abortion-christian-beliefs-murder-roe-wade-supreme-court/?fbclid=IwAR3BiEerBld0bjaKhZLlTL1Yeb5tn4pwpe6SQ9qr1X7V4P2Ncug3MsPL4SE

John Wesley In His Own Words: When Human Life And When Spiritual Life Begin

 

John Wesley 1703-1791, in a treatise on the new birth

Before a child is born into the world he has eyes, but sees not; he has ears, but does not hear. He has a very imperfect use of any other sense. He has no knowledge of any of the things of the world, or any natural understanding. To that manner of existence which he then has, we do not even give the name of life. It is then only when a man is born, that we say he begins to live. For as soon as he is born, be begins to see the light, and the various objects with which he is encompassed. His ears are then opened, and he hears the sounds which successively strike upon them. At the same time, all the other organs of sense begin to be exercised upon their proper objects. He likewise breathes, and lives in a manner wholly different from what he did before. 

How exactly doth the parallel hold in all these instances! While a man is in a mere natural state, before he is born of God, he has, in a spiritual sense, eyes and sees not; a thick impenetrable veil lies upon them; he has ears, but hears not; he is utterly deaf to what he is most of all concerned to hear. His other spiritual senses are all locked up: He is in the same condition as if he had them not. Hence he has no knowledge of God; no intercourse with him; he is not at all acquainted with him. He has no true knowledge of the things of God, either of spiritual or eternal things; therefore, though he is a living man, he is a dead Christian. But as soon as he is born of God, there is a total change in all these particulars. The “eyes of his understanding are opened;” (such is the language of the great Apostle;) and, He who of old “commanded light to shine out of darkness shining on his heart, he sees the light of the glory of God,” his glorious love, “in the face of Jesus Christ.” His ears being opened, he is now capable of hearing the inward voice of God, saying, “Be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee;” “go and sin no more.” 

This is the purport of what God speaks to his heart; although perhaps not in these very words. He is now ready to hear whatsoever “He that teacheth man knowledge” is pleased, from time to time, to reveal to him. He “feels in his heart,” to use the language of our Church, “the mighty working of the Spirit of God;” not in a gross, carnal sense as the men of the world stupidly and willfully misunderstand the expression; though they have been told again and again, we mean thereby neither more nor less than this: He feels, is inwardly sensible of, the graces which the Spirit of god works in his heart. He feels, he is conscious of, a “peace which passeth all understanding.” He many times feels such a joy in God as is “unspeakable, and full of glory.” He feels “the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost which is given unto him;” and all his spiritual senses are then exercised to discern spiritual good and evil. By the use of these, he is daily increasing in the knowledge of God, of Jesus Christ whom he hath sent and to all the things pertaining to his inward kingdom. And now he may be properly said to live: God having quickened him by his Spirit, he is alive to God through Jesus Christ. He lives a life which the world knoweth not of, a “life which is hid with Christ in God.” God is continually breathing, as it were, upon the soul; and his soul is breathing unto God. Grace is descending into his heart; and prayer and praise ascending to heaven: And by this intercourse between God and man, this fellowship with the Father and the Son, as by a kind of spiritual respiration, the life of God in the soul is sustained; and the child of God grows up, till he comes to the “full measure of the stature of Christ.”

Note: We now know that a human life prior to birth is far more aware than John Wesley could have realized https://www.parentcircle.com/what-babies-learn-in-the-womb/article. In any case, while he never addressed the issue of abortion in his sermons and writings, Wesley would have certainly supported preserving human life as precious at all stages of development. Yet it seems clear that he believed human personhood began at birth, which would be consistent with traditional Jewish teaching regarding the first human becoming a living soul when God breathed into him the breath of life. 

Here's link to my own position on abortion: 

https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2019/02/yes-i-am-pro-life-and-oppose-abortion.html