“A true hero enshrines his individual identity by surrendering it . . .”

Thus wrote historian David A. Smith, in the Dallas Morning News, May 27, 2013.

Cook Third Class Doris Miller, a mess attendant on the battleship U.S.S. West Virginia at Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941 became the first black man awarded the Navy Cross for heroism in combat. 

With his ship under attack, burning and holed by two torpedoes, Miller moved wounded sailors to safety and manned a machine gun against enemy planes. A year later he died when a Japanese submarine sank another ship in which he served. 

Citizens in Waco, Texas, have designed a memorial to Miller on the banks of the Brazos River.

Author Smith concluded, 

“Memorializing someone isn’t merely an act of remembering them. To memorialize is to allow the memory of a person to adjust the way we live our lives.” 

“. . . the future is here. It just doesn’t go real fast.

Dallas Morning News, Staff Photo by Robert Wilonsky, used with Permission

The SolarImpulse, a sun powered plane landed at DFW Airport, Texas yesterday morning at 1 a.m. after an 18-hour flight from Phoenix, Arizona, traveling about 26 miles per hour. The flight set a distance record for solar powered flight says Robert Wilonsky writing for the Dallas Morning News.

On the progress of solar powered transportation Wilonsky commented, “the future is here. It just doesn’t go real fast.”

His words recall to me the promise of Christ: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Present tense. Matthew 10, verse 7.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Present tense. Matthew 5, verse 3.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5, verse 10. Again, Jesus uses the present tense.

Jesus offers His followers present encouragement – not just pie in the sky in the sweet by and by - and this in the midst of trouble.

Of course, the kingdom of heaven is coming fully in the future. Jesus also made this plain: “. . . Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Matthew 25, verse 34.

As history moves to that wonderful conclusion, I pray that the people devastated by natural disasters receive strength and comfort both from Jesus’ present and future promises of the kingdom. I am thinking of the people who have been through tornadoes in Joplin, Missouri, Granbury, Texas and Moore, Oklahoma.

Also, I pray that  Christians persecuted unmercifully at many places in the world receive strength and comfort from the same present and future promises of the kingdom.

As the Dallas Morning News writer said, “. . . the future is here. It just doesn’t go real fast.”

The principle he stated applies not only to air travel, but also to the unfolding of history.  When the future promised by Christ arrives, and Him with it, I know the awful wait will prove to have been worthwhile.

Life in perspective . . .

Belief in Jesus Christ brings the capacity to live in this world appreciating its moments of joy, 

 
looking forward to the next world and life unfolding as God always intended it to be.



For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 KJV

Tradition

The word “tradition” brings to my thoughts people performing archaic rituals in dusty settings. Being a creature of modern times, I tend not to give old traditions their due; I tend to find many new traditions fascinating and older ones comparatively dull because of their familiarity.

Is tradition obsolete? Modern life is full of tradition. People hatch new traditions daily. Consider one example, the line of electronics fans that assembles at the “Apple Store” long before doors open to introduce a new product. I can affirm that this is a tradition because I see it happen over and over.

The habit of assigning importance to tradition therefore is not out of date. If tradition has importance, should we modern beings not consider the value of the old ones along with the new?

The tradition that has come to have first importance to me is, the tradition of believing in a God who created me and saved me from paying for my sin with an eternity of separation from Him. Belief in this tradition has saved me from feeling desperate many times, and will do so again.

When I see the way that desperate people live and die and inflict harm on other people in the process, as in the Newtown school shooting, I feel very sad that many in America would curtain from public view the tradition of belief in a Savior God who keeps feelings of desperation from swallowing me. If the tradition of Jesus Christ heartened  a few desperate people, wouldn’t it be worth the irritation it caused some others?

More deeply than I believe in the superiority of the MacBook computer on which I record these thoughts, I believe in the supreme compassion of the God who stooped to make His Son Jesus Christ a man and bring an end to the sin that can give birth to desperation.

I pray that the people who strive to hide news of Christ behind a curtain, while pushing forward news of new digital products, will reconsider. Shouldn’t digital miracles and spiritual ones both be freely available to Americans? As much as I love my MacBook, I don’t know of any lives it has saved. I know many lives that have been saved and renewed by Jesus Christ. I say, let people freely choose among traditions. I think that’s the American way.

What is it to be disabled?

What is it to be disabled?

Is there a difference between a disabled person, and a person who has a disability?

A person who has a disability is a person who has gained the ability to support other people with increased interest and compassion, along with the ability to accept support graciously from others. 

On the other hand, a disabled person is one who can neither support other people nor willingly accept support from others.

I had an aunt who in her old age was constrained by rheumatoid arthritis from doing much of anything when she had a flare-up. Yet she unfailingly took an interest in members of our family and stayed involved with us. 

We occasionally received little notes, gifts and clippings in the mail from Aunt Dorothy, and when we visited her she would always be making a gift for someone. She always treated you as the most important and brilliant person she knew.

In addition, Aunt Dorothy accepted support from others with grace. Her younger brother took care of her housekeeping and provided companionship. He was loving and faithful and she was happy and grateful. She had a collection of lifelong friends, young and old, near and far, who also took an interest in her.

Aunt Dorothy got out and enjoyed the sunshine with us when she could, and when she could not get out she brought sunshine to us in other ways. 

Aunt Dorothy was "out of commission" physically much of the time, but she was not disabled. 

Aunt Dorothy showed me that a person may choose between becoming disabled, or becoming a person with a disability. May I remember this as age and circumstances limit me. As impairments arrive, may I be a person who has them, and not a person who is them.

Man Overboard?

Biblically literate Christians can have a seething gripe against other Christians, and yet quickly side-step Christ's instruction "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” (Mt. 18:15)

The gut impulse to attack or flee seems to summarily overrule obeying Christ’s command or heeding the principle it teaches.

“We’re talking about a business matter; not a sin” we argue. Then follows a decision to punish, retaliate or quit, without giving the offender an opportunity of input.

There is wisdom in hearing the private response of the one who has given offense. Failing to grant the opportunity of response is to throw away a learning opportunity for both sides.

The sooner Christians take heed and steer the boat the way Jesus instructs, or according to the principles he illustrates in His commands, the sooner our ship will arrive at the destination he intends - with no crew members thrown overboard.

The Affordable Care Act - Our New “Spruce Goose?”

In World War Two enemy submarines were sending thousands of ships to the bottom of the ocean - ships carrying people, food, medicines, materials, and weapons that the Allied Nations needed to survive and prevail.

Of American merchantmen, we lost 2742 ships in 6 years.

America wondered, “Is there a way to cut these losses and deliver more necessities to embattled people and troops?”

A brilliant man named Howard Hughes decided to try building a huge plane, a "flying boat", to carry fighting men, weapons and supplies above the oceans that the submarines ruled.  He and Henry J. Kaiser got a government contract to develop it. Hughes, a multi-talented aircraft designer and flyer, and Kaiser, an exceedingly successful industrialist, were among the best brains America had.

Hughes called the plane the H-4, but it became better known as the "Spruce Goose" because it was built of wood - metal being too scarce in wartime.You can view it online.

The Spruce Goose was brilliantly conceived and built by the finest American craftsmen in wood - furniture makers from Grand Rapids, Michigan, among them.

I have seen the Spruce Goose. My family and I saw the huge flying boat when it rested at Long Beach, CA (it now resides at McMinnville, OR).  It is grand, graceful, and beautifully put together. It made me wish that I had a heaven-sized house in which to put this wonderful piece of "flying" furniture.

I say "flying," but in fact the Spruce Goose never really flew.  It flew once, in 1947, for just over one mile at an altitude of seventy feet for one minute. It was later taken to McMinnville on a barge. It never carried a payload.

Inadequate power was the limitation. The most powerful engines of the day lacked the energy to get it above 70 feet.

This government financed wonder - and it is a wonder - got 70 feet in the air and flew one mile. How many "Spruce Geese" has our government created since!

Will our nation have the horsepower to lift our expanding portfolio of social improvement schemes off the ground and keep them flying? Hughes proved it's not enough to be brilliant, served by the best craftsmen, and have federal government backing.

Like the developers of the Spruce Goose, do we lack the essential power to lift our government’s new social programs and keep them flying?

I am thinking of our grandest political scheme of recent years: the Affordable Care Act, which the Supreme Court affirmed yesterday.

Here's my question: In the Affordable Care Act, will we Americans have a brilliant and valuable new resource that satisfies our health care needs - or only a huge piece of furniture that rises to seventy feet for a minute and then plops down and becomes a museum piece?

_________

           

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ (Luke 14:28-30 ESV)