Eating Apples in the Dark, by Dr. Thomas Lane Butts

AN ENCOURAGING WORD written for January 7, 2010, by Dr. Thomas Lane Butts.

There is an interesting story of a mountaineer who came home hungry one night. He lit a candle and began to eat an apple from a bowl of four apples. He soon discovered that the apple was inhabited by a lively worm. He threw it away and selected another, which he soon discovered to be wormy. He tried the third apple, but again found a worm. Whereupon, he blew out the candle and ate the fourth apple in the dark.

Sometimes it is easier to live in the dark than to face uncertain realities of life in the light. Some call it 'putting one's head in the sand'. Others call it 'looking the other way'. Psychologists call it 'denial'. Whatever you call it, it is dangerous. It can lead to eating a lot of bad apples without knowing it.

Several years ago I was a delegate to a law-making conference of the church. The dynamics of the procedure were not much different from the sessions of the Alabama State Legislature, which I have observed many times. I found myself ill-disposed to come home and tell the people who had sent me what really went on. It would shatter too many illusions and create too much anxiety.

I was reminded of the old German adage: "It is better not to know how sausages and laws are made". I had never really understood that adage before, but my experience made it painfully clear. To know how sausages and laws are made tends to make you lose your taste for sausage and your respect for laws.

We are living in complex and potentially dangerous times. Even a democracy can be an ineffective and sometimes dangerous form of government in the absence of the studied attention of an informed citizenry. We take great pride and sometimes exaggerated comfort in the fact that we live in a democratic society. [I use the term "democracy" because that is how we commonly think of our form of government. Technically, we live in a constitutional republic.] It is easy to forget that whatever you call our form of government, it needs "tending to". It cannot be put on auto-pilot and left to function unobserved and unattended.

Speaking to the House of Commons in 1947 Winston Churchill made an astute "tongue in cheek" observation regarding democracy. He said: "Many forms of government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Any student of history and any observer of the rise and fall of governments over time would agree with that "Churchillian" observation. Our enthusiasm about our form of government has sometimes led us to mistakenly think that we could export it, unaltered, to other countries whose culture is complicated and radically different from our own, and that such a change would be received with universal appreciation and function with great success. We have had occasion to experience great disappointment in the practical application of that philosophy. We tend to forget, if we ever knew, Churchill's caveat regarding the universal and immediate application of democracy as we know it. In a conversation with President Eisenhower in August of 1954, Churchill opined: "I am a bit skeptical about universal suffrage for undeveloped nations [actually, he used the word 'Hottentots' which I am hesitant to use] even if refined by proportional representation..The British and American Democracies were slowly and painfully forged, and even they are not perfect yet."

Our form of government is a "work in progress" and is dangerously fragile when left to float unattended. When 'the people' do not know, or do not care, what is happening at city hall or in the state legislature or in Washington, our democratic society (constitutional republic) can not only become ineffective, it can fail. When we blindly elect officials who become increasingly beholden to the army of self-interested lobbyists who prowl the halls of our law-making bodies, looking for law-makers who are morally weak, financially needy and fearful of not being re-elected, our government is in mortal danger. An informed and vigilant populace is an essential ingredient of our democracy. Ignorance and indifference are the greatest enemies of good government..

The fabric of integrity in our social and political life is kept intact by the people who keep the lights on while eating apples; and who are willing to watch diligently to see how sausages and laws are made. Ignorance may momentarily soothe our anxieties and accommodate our laziness when we have to take a bite of something about which we are not sure, but it will cause us to end up swallowing wormy apples, bad sausage and equally unpalatable laws. Blissfully blind ignorance can cause illness and lawlessness and the loss of our most precious possession - freedom.

Keep the candle burning bright when you eat apples. Keep an eye on how your sausages and laws are made. It is the key to the survival of our form of government and our way of life.

Speaking on the right of the election of Lord Mayor of Dublin over 200 years ago, John P. Curran said: " The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance, which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.."

Don't blow out the candle!!!

 

 

Never Shoot an Iguana

In her book Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen has a section called "From an Immigrant's Notebook", which is a collection of inimitable vignettes.

In one of the stories she tells of shooting an Iguana in the hope of making something from its beautiful skin. She describes the big lizard as having such colorful skin as to appear like a pane cut from an old church window. A strange thing happened when she shot the Iguana, which created for her a memory that she never forgot. As she was walking up toward the dead lizard, it faded, grew pale and all the color died out as in one long sigh. It was the life of the Iguana that radiated all of the glow and splendor, and now that the flame of life was put out, the beauty and soul of the Iguana was also gone.

She wrote a brief commentary on her memory of the experience. Ever since that time when she 'shot an Iguana,' the memory came back to haunt her each time she tried to capture some part of nature's beauty and take it for her private use. She recalled a line from the hero of a book she read as a child: "I have conquered them all, but I am standing amongst graves." She concluded: "For the sake of your own eyes and heart, never shoot an Iguana."

This pensive little story spoke volumes to me. I recalled the many sad experiences that I have had in trying to snatch natural beauty from its living source so that I could have it for myself. I remembered crushed butterflies, dead fireflies in a jar, cut flowers, dead song birds (killed with a slingshot) which could no longer sing, and treasured relationships killed by possessiveness.

Perhaps we have all, at some time in our lives, tried to capture for our own private use something of beauty which really did not belong exclusively to us, only to discover that it slowly (or quickly) died in our selfish grasp. Maybe it was more than a cut flower found dead the next day or a crushed butterfly. Perhaps you have smothered a person in the process of trying to possess them for yourself in a way in which one human being can never belong to another. Perhaps it was a child you did not allow to grow up because you loved them just like they were - dependent. It could be a husband or wife or an employee whose beauty, usefulness, and love died when you held them too close.

Possessiveness is a dangerous characteristic. The desire to take for ourselves that which does not rightly belong to us is the source of so much human suffering. It is the cause of destructiveness at so many levels. It is a primary ingredient of wars. It is most destructive when it is exercised in the small kingdom of the family. A powerful, possessive and controlling parent or spouse can wreak havoc in a family and cause emotional problems in individuals that infect subsequent generations.

In his novel, "The Sleeping Doll," Jeffery Deaver has one of his characters explain why she ran away from home and joined a cult when she was a teenager. "When I was growing up they (parents) were very authoritarian. I had to do everything the way they insisted. How I made my room, what I wore, what I was taking in school, what my grades were going to be. I got spanked until I was fourteen and I think he only stopped because my mother told my father it wasn't a good idea with a girl that age....They claimed it was because they loved me, and so on. But they were just control freaks. They were trying to turn me into a little doll for them to dress up and play with."

This is a story I have heard, in one form or another, hundreds of times. It often comes from young women who left home as soon as they could escape a possessive, controlling and/or abusive situation. Ironically, these women often subconsciously decide to marry a controlling husband and/or join a church or some other group with a controlling leader. They do so without realizing how, or understanding why, they are putting themselves right back into a possessive, controlling and potentially abusive situation. Thus the debilitating impediment moves from one generation to the next, leaving the landscape littered with victims.

Beware of over-weening possessiveness at any level. It is often expressed under the guise of love. Many insecure young women who are starved for love and attention misread possessiveness for love and learn one or two children too late that they have made a terrible mistake. When you kill the spirit of a person with over-weening possessiveness and control, the beauty of the person and the relationship is lost.

In a 'cut flower' civilization such as our own, where we are tempted to separate beauty from its source for fear it will fly away, or for fear someone else will take it, we would be wise to remember Isak Dinesen's experience.

Hold beauty and your beloved with a loose hand. Do not shoot the Iguana.

All Saints Day

COMMUNITY........ All Saints Day…Affirmation:   We need our ancestors, guides, and fellow travelers in this work of the Spirit.....a Community of Faith ……………………MARK 12:28-34…Many think of religion, with all its Commandments, as a burdensome straitjacket.  This may have been true, in some sense, of the Judaism in Jesus' day, and it is sometimes true today among people who claim to belong to God. Jesus wanted to correct this false understanding of True Faith.  He summed up the numerous Jewish Laws in two simple but profound Commandments:  Love God totally and love others as much as we love ourself.  If these two thoughts rule our heart and mind, we will be well along the Path of Spiritual Transformation.   (The Life Recovery Bible)

 REFLECTION:  Circle of Faith.

If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors.  All of them are alive in this moment.  Each is present in your body.  You are the continuation of each of these people.  (Thich Nhat Hanh)

 The spiritual practice of love builds community, as do kindness and gratitude and prayer.

 Community is created and renewed when individuals act in love and serve each other.

 Prayer is the rippling tide of love which flows secretly from God into the soul and draws it mightily back to its source.  (Mechthild of Magdeburg)

 
 

"Life is like a bottle of wine. Some are content to just read the label. Some drink the wine."  (Tony DeMello)

Which are we?  Do we participate fully in life and share God's love with others? Are we inebriated with Redemption?

The challenge is to stop reading the labels----or labeling one another----and to drink deeply of each experience, each day, and each one's stories.  This affords us the opportunity to see each of those with whom we are in relationship as a lifeline to the deeper mysteries of life where all are connected.

God draws us together to embrace eternal possibilities that God has in store for us:   a place where all are welcome and all find a home.  Each day offers us a new beginning to set our feet as pilgrims on the path to find again this place.  It is the Spirit of God, the very breath of God that leads us to this place.

The path depends more on Enlivening the Web of Connection that will allow the Everlasting Source to sustain Itself and us, the way blood circulates through the body.   ("Making Connections" Joseph Nassal, Fall, 2009)

As Jesus' disciples, our love of others needs to be not just within the community of disciples but outward to all humanity.  This embrace of our human family leads to greater knowledge and acceptance of ourselves.  As Jesus instructs this embrace of the family calls for us to love our neighbor as ourselves. To do this authentically, we need to set aside or transcend our own selfish interests and delusions of self-importance.

The command to "love your neighbor as yourself" is a very simple concept. One does not need a degree in philosophy or theology to realize that if all of us would follow it consistently, virtually all violence, war, racial prejudice, and political and economic injustice would disappear from our planet overnight.  The perfection of God's reign would just that suddenly appear in our midst.  The concept may be simple enough, but the headlines in our daily papers and our nightly newscasts make it obvious we humans "don't get it."

To love is "to will the good of another."  The definition implies that we need to make the effort to actively seek the good of the other as the circumstances dictate.  It is not enough simply to think nice thoughts or have warm feelings toward another. (James 2:15-16)   Nor is it enough to "will the good of another" only when it is convenient or does not involve any sacrifice of personal interests.  Jesus taught that "no one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friend." (John 15:13)

 Dear God, help us to see our true Spiritual condition. The key is Your first commandment. And we do know it.  All our good works, all our prayers, all our righteous words can mask a barren love-relationship with You.  We know to love You with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength.  Help us to love with all that is in us. Help us then to love others the way that Jesus taught. Come, Holy Spirit, renew our willingness to participate in life this very day. Thank You, Three-in-One God.  Amen.

 "By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."  (John 13:35) …Jim Savage

 
 

When to Ask for Help, By Dr. Jim Savage

How far do you go, or how long do you wait before you ask for help?

My sense of direction when driving leaves something to be desired. I even have difficulty finding places where I have been before if I have not been there in the last six months. I hate to stop and ask for directions. I have spent much time 'wandering' rather than getting where I wanted to go because of my pride.

Last year my children gave me a GPS for my birthday. Thank God for that unseen satellite in the sky which beams directions to my GPS, which talks to me, telling me in advance on which street I should turn. I punch in the specific address of my destination and proceed with great confidence without having to stop and ask.

One of my esteemed colleagues in the ministry is retired Baptist minister, Dr. Gerry Gunnells, erstwhile pastor of Spring Hill Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama. Several years ago he wrote a column about a notice posted in a textile mill. The notice read: 'If your thread gets tangled, call the foreman'. "If you have ever seen the complicated operation of one of these giant carpet mills," said Dr. Gunnells, "you can understand the wisdom of the notice." To wait too long to call for help is to court catastrophe.

Since we usually feel that most of our lost conditions and tangled situations are of our own making, we tend to keep struggling unproductively on our own so that no one will see our failure. If we felt that the problem had been caused by someone else, or even by forces over which we had no control, we would be less apprehensive about calling for help. The wish to protect our 'image,' the illusion of 'independence,' as well as other unspoken reasons, keep us from making a legitimate request for help. It makes little difference who or what caused the tangled threads; it is imperative to call for help before the situation spreads beyond your own life and begins to entangle the lives of other people in your tapestry of relationships. The truth of the matter is most of the people who can help us care little who or what caused the tangle. It is the loss of our image of adequacy that makes us reticent to ask for help.

Where do you go for help? Go to those who have reason (by training and experience) to know how to help you. It is always good for us to be willing to 'call upon the Lord' for help, as long as we remember that more often than not God sends help to people through people. It is okay to pray when you are lost on the way somewhere, if you will remember to stop at the nearest gasoline station and ask for the information for which you have prayed. Many people think God operates like the Lone Ranger, sans Tonto. Not so. Angels come in the form of strange people, strange ways, and at strange times in answer to our prayers.

I love the story of a man who was in a flood zone during a hurricane. The sheriff's department sent a car to take him to higher ground. He refused to offer saying that he was a religious man and that God had promised to take care of him. The rising water was ankle deep in his living room when a boat came by and offered to take him to safety. He declined the help on the grounds that God had promised to take care of him. The rising water finally forced him to climb on the roof of his house. The rescue squad sent a helicopter and offered to take him to safety. Once again he refused help because God had promised to take care of him. The man was swept away in the flood and drowned.

The scene changes. The man arrives in heaven and demands to speak with God. He tells God how disappointed he is that after such a life of faith and trust that God did not take care of him. God said: "I sent a car, a boat, and a helicopter to rescue you and you refused my help".

More often than not angels come in human form.

If your thread gets tangled, or the water is rising, or if you get lost on the way, ask for help. You would be surprised how many people there are in the world who not only can help, but who want to help.

Things You Can’t Change and Things You Can

AN ENCOURAGING WORD written for October 1, 2009, by Dr. Thomas Lane Butts, Pastor Emeritus, Monroeville First United Methodist Church

We live in a frustrating world where there are nagging problems we cannot change - certainly not in the short term - maybe not in a lifetime - maybe never. Nothing frustrates us more than nagging personal problems. Frustration leads to resentment - and resentment to anger. Chronically angry people do strange and uncreative things to themselves and others, none of which resolves or even lessens the nagging problems.

There are problems in life that are beyond our power to fix. These are almost always problems outside ourselves. We have all worked on age-old social problems we wanted to fix only to discover that in spite of our best efforts, solutions would not likely take place in our lifetime, and maybe never.

There are problems in and between people we know and love that are beyond our power to fix. Sometimes there are problems in members of our immediate family that are beyond our power to fix no matter how hard we work and pray.

I have an old friend who, when he writes me, ends every letter with a well-known Latin idiom: "Amor vincit omni" - love conquers all. It is a lovely and hopeful thought, but its practical application has notable exceptions. Christians tend to extol the virtues of love as the immediate and final cure for everything. It pains me to tell you that this is not true, certainly not in the simplistic way in which we usually think and speak of love. Nothing is the cure for everything.

The only nagging problems we have the power to fix are our personal problems. Even then, there is no 'silver bullet'. If we have deep-seated unresolved anger, frustration, hatred or any other negative feeling that is burning us, it lies within our power to do something about it. No one else can do it for us. It will take intentional effort, or prayer or counseling or all of the above, but it is within our power.

As I write this column, I have just come from a meeting where I listened to one of my heroes speak, Col. Glenn Frazier. He is a World War II veteran and a survivor of the Bataan Death March. His suffering in that experience was beyond words. He hated the Japanese. Col. Frazier said that his hatred of the enemy was a useful, if not an essential attitude as a soldier at war. But, when the war was over and the enemy was defeated, the hatred did not go away. It intensified and became generalized. He hated Japanese automobiles, electronics and everything made in Japan. He came to hate people who bought anything made in Japan. The war was over, but not for Col. Frazier. In his heart there was no peace treaty. Twenty-five years of hatred rewarded him with nightmares every night. He dreaded going to sleep and finally could not sleep. His pastor counseled him that forgiveness was the only solution. He did not see how this was possible. But, after 25 years of suffering after the war, he decided he had to do something, and forgiveness was about the only thing he had not tried. So, with the tools of his faith and help of God he set out to forgive the Japanese. The process took two and one-half years. Probably the most difficult thing he ever did, but he did it. He finally threw down that weapon that was so useful to him as a soldier at war, but which was so self-destructive for him as a civilian in peace time. He said that after the process of forgiveness was complete, he has never had another nightmare!

In James Lee Burke's novel, A Stained White Radiance, there is an interesting and insightful encounter between Detective Dave Robicheaux and his AA sponsor, Tee Neg, an uneducated Cajun who could barely read and write. Before Tee Neg bought a bar and poolroom, he was a pipeline and an oil-field roughneck. Three fingers on his right hand were snipped off by a drilling chain.

It is obvious to Tee Neg that Robicheaux is chronically worried and frustrated, so he decides to do some 'Cajun counseling'. This is what he said:

"You're studying this case all the time. You t'ink that's it, but it ain't. You bothered by the way t'ings are, the way we got trouble with the colored peoples all the time, you bothered 'cause it ain't like it used to be. You want sout' Lou'sana to be like it used to be. You want sout' Lou'sana to be like it was when you and me and yo' daddy went all day and went everywhere and never spoke one word of English. You walk away when you hear white people talking bad about them Negro, like that bad feeling ain't in their hearts. But you keep pretend it's like it used to be, Dave, that these bad t'ings ain't in white people's hearts, then you gonna be walking away the rest of yo' life.

"I had seven years sobriety, me. Then I started studying on them fingers I left on that drill pipe. I'd get up with it in the morning, just like you wake up with an ugly, mean woman. I'd drag it around with me all day. I'd look at them pink stumps till they'd start throbbing. Then I went fishing one afternoon, went into a colored man's bait store to buy some shiners, told that man I was gonna catch me a hunnerd fish befo' the sun get behind them willow tree. Then I told him I changed my mind, just give me a quart of whiskey and don't bother about no shiners. I got drunk five years. Then I spent one in the penitentiary. Get mad about what you can't change and maybe you'll get to do just what Tee Neg done".

Do you understand that?! (Email for Dr. Butts: tolabu2@frontiernet.net )

Why People Give

Why People Give

This is the time of year when churches are in the process of planning their projected budget. This essential procedure lacks exactitude, but when done correctly and published to the membership everyone gets a birds-eye view of the scope of the mission of the church.

The next step taken by most churches is to conduct a campaign for pledges to that budget. Many ministers and church leaders do not look forward to this annual task. We are reluctant to ask people to give, even to so worthy a project as the church. For the most part I have always found this exercise to be potentially spiritually enriching. I believe most people want to give to causes which represent the betterment of society in general and individuals in particular.

There are at least 3 essential ingredients to a stewardship campaign with integrity. The first is a clear understanding of the sacred nature of the cause for which money is being raised. This is God’s money. It is to be used only for promoting the Gospel and helping people. These are two things to which Jesus called his followers when he was here in the flesh. "Go ye unto all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation" (Mark 16:15). After a laundry list of ways we are called to minister to the poor and oppressed, Jesus said: "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren (and sisters) you did it unto me" (Matthew 25:40). Having established the holy nature of the effort we go to step two.

People tend to give generously when they know their leaders are giving generously. I recall a phrase from a stewardship campaign many years ago which I find to be true: "Financial influence runs downhill." No minister or church leader should ask others to do something they are not doing. One of my friends was asked by a local church to direct the annual stewardship campaign. Early on he was told that the pastor of the church had never pledged, and had no record of giving. He went to the pastor and asked if this was true. After some stuttering and fancy footwork the pastor admitted this to be true, but said he gave to other undocumented causes. My friend said to him: "You will either make a pledge worthy of your means right now or I will pack my bags and go home. I will not ask people to do something their pastor is not doing."

The third important element: "Do not be afraid to ask people to give." When the cause is beyond our own interest – when it is for the highest purpose, be bold.

Robert Macauley, founder of AmeriCares Foundation, a humanitarian group that provides relief efforts at home and around the world, recalled an experience he and Mother Teresa had on an airplane flying to Mexico. As box dinners were being passed out, Mother Teresa asked how much the airline would donate to her charity if she returned her dinner. When she found out, she soon had everyone, including the crew, returning their dinners.
But it didn’t stop there. When the plane arrived at its destination, Mother Teresa asked the crew if she could have the dinners to donate to the poor. And, when the airline provided the dinners, she asked to borrow one of their maintenance trucks to deliver them.

If your cause is just and you can speak with the moral authority of one who has already set an example, boldness is appropriate.


AN ENCOURAGING WORD for September 27, 2007 - written by Dr. Thomas Lane Butts, Pastor Emeritus, Monroeville First United Methodist Church

The Tyranny of Absolute Certainty

AN ENCOURAGING WORD written for August 20, 2009, by Dr. Thomas Lane Butts, Pastor Emeritus, Monroeville First United Methodist Church

The Tyranny of Absolute Certainty

What we see and understand in and about life so often fails to correspond with what others see and understand. For those for whom unanimity of understanding is essential to emotional security and mental comfort, this universal fact is a source of considerable frustration and anxiety.

In the opening chapter of his classic book, The Immense Journey, anthropologist and naturalist, Loren Eiseley, offers an insightful caveat concerning his view of reality which he gives in the remainder of his book. He says: "On the world island we are all castaways, so that what is seen by one may often be dark, obscure (or hidden) to another". (Eiseley, Loren. "The Immense Journey". Vintage Books, 1959. 14)

There are so many things which conspire to keep us from seeing things alike. Our views are conditioned by our experiences, our ignorance (or education), our prejudices, and our deep (and often unconscious) personal needs. 

How futile it is for us to expect others to share our perceptions of reality with uniform exactitude. We may learn from each other, but we will never be alike. Those who nurture serious expectations of uniformity are doomed to disappointment; and those who are obsessed by expectations of uniformity are the budding tyrants of our time who would extinguish the human mind, which is the primary light by which God has traditionally rescued us from darkness and ignorance, chaos and fear.

We are never in greater danger of error than when we are absolutely certain that we are absolutely right. The most destructive and inhumane times in history have been those in which some person or group of persons have been so absolutely sure they were absolutely right that they used the power at their disposal to impose their views of reality on all who were under their domain. Some of the most unpleasant people I have ever met have been people who were absolutely sure they were absolutely right, and whose mission in life was to impose their views on everyone else by whatever means necessary.

To be a little uncertain, or at least only moderately sure, is to be human - and humane. The encouraging word for today is that you do not have to be absolutely sure in order to be right. 

It is quite possible to have strong convictions and still be open to those with countervailing strong convictions. Our understanding of reality changes as we grow older, and hopefully, wiser. My children ask me questions to which I sometimes have to reply: "You should have asked me that question thirty years ago when I knew the answer!" I suspect that all of you who are over thirty-nine have had same or similar experiences. 

The people with whom Jesus had his most serious problems were those who had no doubt whatsoever that they were absolutely right. In order to prove their point and eliminate any doubt about how wrong he was, they killed him. 

Think about that the next time you are absolutely sure that you are absolutely right.

(You may email Dr. Butts at tolabu2@frontiernet.net )