Did you know that pictures and paintings of faces prior to the 1500s are not literal? A painting of the king or queen was simply a painting done by an artist and then a name was placed under it. It wasn’t necessarily the face of the individual. There is only one picture of Shakespeare and there is great debate about whether it is actually the man himself. No problem walking the streets of Europe when no one knows what your face looks like. With the advancement not only of artistic skill and technology some faces are not instantly recognizable around the world. Anonymity is “virtually” impossible these days. Gradually surveillance cameras are going up around my area To Catch a Thief, as they say.
I am trying to understand the Russian culture as I prepare to go there this November. It seems that it isn’t a good idea to be recognizable as American in Europe these days. Some of the “rules” of traveling are: 1. Don’t smile at people in public. 2. Don’t say hello to people you pass in public. 3. Keep your hands out of your pockets. 4. Do not wear colorful clothes as Russians wear neutral, drab and mostly outdated styles. These customs are the result of nearly a century of Communism. No one was to be trusted outside one’s own family and if you betrayed your family even once, the door there might be shut as well. It has been a matter of survival. Since the fall of Communism, things are beginning to change, but the differences are subtle and very slow as one might imagine if you have ever been betrayed.
As I think of this pending journey, I wonder if there is anything about Christianity that is recognizable in appearance. Of course, modesty is identifiable, but I know other non-Christ believing religious people (Buddhists, Islamic, Mormon) as well as atheists and agnostics who are modest. What sets us apart in our countenance? Can you think of anything?
A Christian writer I know has written of his time in South America where there is the philosophy of treating others according to the “Eye for an Eye” principle. He was well acquainted with a young man who had a family member who had been murdered. He went after the perpetrator and planned to exact punishment according to the tradition, a life for a life. When he found the man, he grabbed him and looked at him in the face. He wanted to look into the eyes of the man who had violated his family so horribly. What he saw was two eyes, a nose, a mouth, and all of those features of most people. In that moment, all he could think of was the Creation story where God said to Jesus, “Let us make them in our image.” The South American could not take the life of one made in the image of his God. It was the recognizable face that saved him.
Faces. Behavior. Attitudes. All three are recognizable in ways often where no words are necessary. I wonder if my face, behavior and attitude will be recognizably American. Probably there will be something that gives me away. I am praying that the things that stand out to identify this American will be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Seems everybody is surviving something these days. I have several acquaintances who are cancer survivors. I know a few military folk that are WWII survivors, or Korean War or Vietnam or Persian Gulf 1. I have an uncle who is a shipwreck survivor. He survived 2 shipwrecks, or was it 3? I can’t remember, but I am not going on a cruise with him anytime soon! There are World Trade Center Survivors, plane/car/train/bus/subway crash survivors. TV now has entire shows that spotlight Survivors. I saw a t-shirt on a boy this week that proclaimed, “I Survived High School.” There is so much play on the word survivor until the actual feat of the accomplishment is sometimes minimized.
So, it is painful when our soldiers come back from Iraq or Afghanistan only to lose themselves in post traumatic stress disorder. That is a cleaned up clinical word for nightmares, personality disorders, substance abuse, homeless, unable to keep a job, depression or other heartbreaking conditions. Are they really survivors?
I drove down a major street in front of the local Veteran’s Hospital here today. I saw two men being pushed to the front door of the hospital in wheelchairs. Both were missing limbs. There were other bandages, so I don’t know what else had been taken from them. I saw another in varied colored brown uniform dirty and in desperate need of a bath and a shave lying on the curb a few blocks down. He had a brown bottle in his clutch oblivious to the people stepping over him in their rush to lunch or meetings or wherever they were going. Did these guys really survive? They are still alive, so perhaps they did, but it seems that they are having some trouble living.
I wonder how they feel when and if they ever hear the radio and television pundits espousing what should or should not be taking place in this war. I wonder if a part of them in quiet frustration says, “How dare you sit there and act like you know this enemy?” I wonder if they see the newspaper headlining party politics of one side or the other and ask themselves, “Where is unbiased journalism we knew for decades?” I wonder if they ask themselves, “Is this what I fought for?” when they see the behavior of some of our citizens arguing about who said what to whom. Is this freedom of speech worth the life of the young soldier? When one church spews venom at another because they believe differently? Is it worth his life? His sanity? His sacrifices?
On the matter of the latter, church derision, I suggest we had better get our act together. Christians divided into various sects was never in the plan. We should be engaged in frantic dialogue figuring out a way to come back together. The future of Islam appears to be gaining strength and popularity throughout the world. It is fast becoming a curse to be an American. Perhaps not inside our borders, but outside of our borders the bloodshed and hatred is gaining a stronghold. If we are to survive, we had better be prepared for a battle of spiritual proportion.
No posts last week. I went to the beach with friends. Gotta love it! I love sitting on the sand right at the water’s edge. It is cooler there for one thing, but watching ocean waves is mesmerizing. Almost every afternoon a black cloud came over us and rained us back into the condo. That was welcomed, because at night we did other things. On Friday, we watched a black and angry crowd to our north meet a similar cloud coming from the south. They collided right in the middle of our view as though a theater performance in front of us. At first there were spidery like tenacles that touched and then circled one another. The tenacles danced forming beautiful designs. They grew thickers and seemed to dance in unison. Eventually the massive billowing darkness met full force. Warm air met cold air. The thunder raged and the lightning bolted in jagged, bright, fierce crackling, boom-filled sounds. Ka-boom and rumble-rumble-rumble for countless seconds. Moistened air descended rapidly as waves of cool seemed to argue with the anger overhead.
My mother always said I didn’t have sense to come in out of the rain. Well, I didn’t that afternoon either. I couldn’t pull away. It was absolutely fascinating to watch. The “Beach Patrol” officers decided I needed a mom and advised me to get to shelter. I obeyed, but as slow as a rebellious 48 year old could. Note: I left behind two stragglers.
Nature is an intriguing thing. I admit much ignorance when it comes to it’s intricasies, but that doesn’t stop me from marveling. I guess I may be a little weird. I love looking close-up at leaves and flowers. The tiny little sections with “veins” that separate the little compartments fascinate me. Darker on one side, lighter on the other. How did the plant “know” to do it? My favorite cat sleeps on my pillow with me at night. When I touch her silky black coat her “motor” starts up automatically. She doesn’t move a bit. It is just the noise that acknowledges me. Amazing how that constant sound happens. Then, there is my favorite thing…food. Generally, it is colored according to the nutrients it provides. Yet, each plant tastes different. Taste buds are fascinating, aren’t they?
The beach reminds me of all of those things every time I go. Communing with nature is an important way to get back in touch with the basic construction of life. I don’t worship nature, but I still find the diversity, creativity and wonder of it all a mighty glimpse into an Author whose imagination is more than my mind can comprehend. It is in these times that I say to myself, “If this is what he prepared for us to enjoy here what does He have in store over there?” Hmm.
Filed under: misc.
At work, I have a standing file on the corner of my credenza that has a multitude of manuals placed in it. There is an “Indicator Manual” which interprets the “Rules and Regulations Manual” based on the Official Code (law in this State). There is a “Program Manual” that outlines our various programs. All of those manuals have to comply with the “DFCS Manual” and vice versa. There is a also a “Personnel Manual” and a “HIPPA Manual” as well as a few others. I keep a Bible there too to remind me of the most important manual to live by.
I sat there looking at my Bible among the manuals and thought about how so much of my job centers around teaching others. I have to know those manuals backward and forward so that I can present it accurately. They are constantly changing, so I have to stay current. It isn’t easy and sometimes I have to re-read a policy to be certain that we are proceding accordingly. It sounds kind of boring as I describe it, but it isn’t. We are applying the principles all of the time to different people we are serving so it is useful and interesting. Having a manual that deals specifically with a certain scenario gives tremendous peace of mind when the picture is vague. Believe me, those manuals don’t gather dust. That is for sure.
Correct interpretation of the manuals is a matter of extreme importance. This may surprise you as it does me, but there has actually been a time or two that I interpreted incorrectly! Thankfully, I have colleagues who help me navigate those times before I have made a mess of things. In other words, I know that I don’t know it all and having a teamwork attitude among colleagues is reassuring too.
As I look at those manuals each day, I have a manual containing 66 books helping me live the most fulfilling life that I can ever dream of. I will never be able to sail along without referring to that book to review the “procedures” being provided to achieve my goal. The policies never change and yet I still have to make reference. I don’t know if I will ever get the whole thing committed to working memory, but I have people in my life who are on my team. These folks can help me navigate confusing pages and keep me on task when I miss the mark.
It seems so simple that this one grouping of books we know as the Bible can have such a profound effect on every circumstance whether it is planned or we just stumble into it. It is equally profound that while it does not change, we do. Every day is a new piece of the journey, so the “manual” has to be consulted and applied to the segment of the journey we are on at any given moment.
I knew a man one time who said, “I’ve read the Bible and studied it many times. I have quit because I now know more than I can ever use.” I think he was joking, but I wonder if we sometimes live that way. I wonder if sometimes I live that way. A story is told about one German concentration camp where one Jewish Bible was hidden. They divided it into books and memorized it’s pages in case the one book was found and destroyed. This way, the book would be preserved. They knew each other by names of the book. One man was Songs of Solomon, another was Ecclesiasters and so on.
Have we become so comfortable with what we know that we don’t realize how sacred and valuable are the words in this book? It seems that people (generally speaking) are not using it as a daily guide by which to live. As our world seems to be changing so rapidly I am concerned that there may come a time again when having it committed to memory may be essential. It concerns me, because I am so dependent on having it as a reference and don’t memorize very well any more. I am trying to improve my memorization of scripture, but have a long way to go. It is more difficult at 48 than it was at 8. I just pray it is enough for whatever lies ahead. It needs to be part of any disaster plan.
