My friend Judy Liautaud is a finalist in the 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Awards contest for her book Sunlight on My Shadow. I’m always pleased to see other authors do well, especially since I loved her book. (Hint: go to Amazon.com and buy the book right now.)
Sunlight on My Shadow – available at Amazon.com
If you’d like to know more about Judy, click on this link to an interview I did with her in 2013.
Now get back to work all of you. I’ve got editing to do on another project!
I am one of those people who fell away from God and church for a long time as a younger adult. The reasons don’t matter – it’s stupid to ignore God. I found out He’s totally in charge, real, and important. But I missed seeing that for some years.
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When I found my way back I had a good experience that then turned bad. Again, details don’t matter, except that unlike many baby Christians who wander into a toxic church, my faith survived. I knew in my heart that I was doing the right thing, but in the wrong place.
I searched for over a year before joining a new church. At times I was attending two Sunday services and a couple of Bible studies in different churches each week. That way I wasn’t a “traitor” to my then current church, but I could start to break the shackles that it had put on me.
I found, or God guided me to, Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church. I promised my wife that I’d be low key for a change. No offices sought, no great deeds done, “just a member, honey.” And I was true to my word for a couple of years.
Last year I took up a few little tasks for the church. I suggested some changes to social media and then butted out. I came in and helped mow the lawn and sprayed for weeds. No biggie, but it felt pretty good to do something helpful. I liked looking at the dead weeds and thinking how it was a little something I actually was good at in this life. (I used to do it professionally – then again, what haven’t I done?)
Recently the church asked me to participate on a committee. With my crazy work schedule, blogging, writing novels, being a husband, voice over, acting, dog ownership, gardening, and general chaos, this presented a challenge. I agreed to help, but not attend meetings. I couldn’t spread myself that thinly and still do justice to the other stuff. Until Saturday.
I attended a meeting and loved it. I had good stuff to contribute and didn’t get a ton of tasks to do in return. They respected my time and my request to just kibbitz. Annette, the chairwoman, is so organized and so wonderful to deal with (she’s made of steel and I respect that) that it was actually fun.
But that’s just a little thing. What I’m really enjoying is my weekly picture at the service. I have a great application on my Android phone called Paper Artist. Each week I take a picture of something going on up on the podium and post it to various social media that I use. I try to use a different filter each time, a different topic, a different message. It’s working – people are sharing the pictures. One from this week is below this paragraph.
Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church on Mother’s Day
So, what’s the point? In most of our church lives we’re spectators. We’ve been wounded, or are afraid to be wounded, and so we sit back and do nothing. I was for a long time. But now I’m participating. A big part of that is sharing my joy and witnessing to others about my faith. Facebook isn’t just for pictures of your cat. It can be about your faith and your love of God. I’d like to challenge each of you to take that step of faith and spread the Gospel via instagram, facebook, twitter, or some other medium. And join a committee – even if it’s just the clean up group for the next church social. Your help is what makes it all work. You can be the hands and feet of Christ without having to go to the rainforest. You can do it right in your town this very week. Now, get on with it!
Traditionally the Jewish Sabbath begins at sundown on Friday, extending for 24 hours. I fear that a sundown of sorts is coming once again for the Jewish peoples of the world, especially in light of the recent events in Ukraine. A new Shoa seems to be in the making.
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I am a student of history. One of the most disturbing aspects of life today is the rise of casual antisemitism. The influx of Islamic extremists in Europe has led to large no-go zones for Jews in cities such as Paris. Jewish schools, businesses, and synagogues are under attack once again. Europe is seeing the largest exodus of Jews since the formation of the state of Israel. To many in Europe, it’s time to get out while the getting is good.
How could it be that we’re back to where we were a mere 70 years ago? How can the world accept this horror once again? Largely because we’ve allowed the pinheads who deny the Holocaust a platform to spew their hate. We say stupid things like, “You’re entitled to your opinion” when they allow their black little souls exit into our world and spread their vile lies. We allow things like a homework assignment questioning the Holocaust into our schools as an exercise in thought. We close our eyes and hope that once again it won’t sweep us up in it’s wake.
No problem is so great that it can’t be countered with “But Israel is an apartheid state.” Really. Dig a little deeper folks and look at the reality of a state where Jews and Arabs have citizenship of equal value. “But the Israelis worked with South Africa on nuclear weapons. They are the same!” Nice argument. Holds no water. We’ve worked (as a nation) with many other nations that we aren’t too crazy about on a moral level, but it didn’t mean we held all the same views.
The rise of the current wave of antisemitism is linked to those who deny the Shoa (Holocaust) ever took place. There is an excellent show running on the Smithsonian Channel right now entitled Treblinka: Hitler’s Killing Machine. Click on the link and watch it when it runs next. You’ll be amazed that we have to produce artifacts to prove that it happened.
I know it happened. I’ll tell you my story and let you be the judge of its veracity. A small item first: I’ve seen the tattoos on the arms of the survivors. I’ve gone to the homes of the survivors. They are real. The camps were real. I’ve been to the most famous one in Germany, Dachau.
In 1988 my wife and I toured Europe by train. We’d taken 30 days leave from the military and just wandered from place to place. By coincidence, or God’s hand, we wound up not very far from Dachau. Only 25 minutes via train from Munich it was too close not to visit. So on a dark November day we traveled to this small place which plays such a large part in history.
I had often wondered what it would be like to visit one of the camps. Dachau wasn’t a Vernischstslager, extermination camp. Instead it was a Konzentrationslager. That would be small comfort to any of the 41,000 people who died there, for them it was a death camp. I also wondered, as we drew closer to the town, how one could send a Christmas card with Dachau as a return address. Didn’t it cry out to the soul to abandon this place, the beginning of the network of camps that riddled Europe before the end of the war?
We walked from the station to the camp. With each step the presence of evil became more tangible. Mocking, dark, fetid, and oppressive beyond comprehension, it was there in the atmosphere. As we entered the gate I knew in my heart that Satan walked the earth – this ground was still his kingdom. I could feel the souls in anguish around me – truly a haunting in progress. The grounds conveyed the past and what it meant – exhibits of the barracks, the torture implements, the sense of hopelessness that must have crushed the inmates. But the ghosts wandering the ground stayed just out of sight – shadows casting their wavering presence under the snowy skies.
The Holocaust took place. It could happen again tomorrow. I sense, and I imagine many of you have sensed it as well, the roar of the mob rushing us headlong toward fascism once again. The urge to strike down your opponent by ruining him financially, terrorizing his family, driving him from his home. It’s not just Jews, but anyone the mob opposes. We’re drifting back in time toward that last day of June, 1934.
I hope we never see another Shoa. I hope people wake up and say, “No. It will not happen on my watch.” But I fear it may be too late for Ukraine. France. Great Britian. No need to erect the camps this time, the lack of government support for the rights of individuals will do just as well. Will we see it here as well?
That, gentle reader, is up to each and every one of us.
The Obama administration has taken to #hashtagdiplomacy of late. Instead of having serious statements come from the campaigner in chief’s own mouth, or that of a credible senior official (no such thing in this administration) they’ve taken to people taking pictures of “leaders” holding up Twitter signs – a hashtag where real work should be done. I’m tired of it, I pay good money for my government and this isn’t enough.
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So, here’s a hashtag for the White House and a credible spokesperson to bring the message:
#nomorepatheticnonsensefromthewhitehouseandadminsitrationgrow
upandactlikeithashtagsarenotleadershipanddiplomacyevenstormy
knowsthis&shesadog
Even Stormy knows better.
No more pictures of a sad faced Michelle asking for “our girls back.” Really? I didn’t know Sasha was missing. You’d think the Secret Service would be all over that deal.
Seriously?
I’m also quite sure that Vladimir Putin was stunned by the photo that chastised his Crimea adventure. Boy, that taught him a lesson.
Kids Rule!
Real leaders do real things. Twitter is not a diplomatic tool. Boko Haram doesn’t give a fig about Michelle and her hashtag. They are the true face of radical Islam. Is the White House really so stupid as to believe that social media will impact these guys? I can hear it now, “Oooooh. We’d better release those slaves and apologize, Michelle has a pouty face.”
I may have come to the end of my trying to even pretend to be civil about the incompetent liars in the White House. I’m ashamed of their approach to diplomacy. It’s a bad joke and it’s getting worse every day.
#2017cantcomesoonenough.
Many years ago a friend of mine brought a solar powered Walkman with him on a submarine trip. For those of you not familiar with submarines, it’s a window-free environment. The sleeping areas are dark 24 hours a day. Other parts of the sub are dark during night-time hours. None of the light was full spectrum, and it didn’t seem very strong – it didn’t need to be for our purposes.
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To say that we abused our friend over his choice of electronic devices would be an understatement. That thing was meant to be used on the beach with lots of bright sunshine, and that would only power the radio – not the tape. Submarines have an appalling lack of radio reception within the hull. After a few days Art had to cave in and admit he’d made a poor choice.
For the last two years I’ve used a solar powered watch. That little gem is the product of the current technology, not the 30 year old stuff that Sony used for the Walkman. It has kept going with fairly minimal exposure to the lights on my desk and the sun during my forays into the outside world (rare in Minnesota from October to May that your bare wrist sees the sun.)
In January I did a photo shoot where the watch didn’t fit the wardrobe. It went into my wardrobe bag and didn’t come out for over a month. Dead. Very dead. I’ve tried charging it but it fails after a few hours under my sleeve and in the darkness of my bedroom. Max two days before it clonks out and the hands quit moving.
I think our spiritual lives closely resemble that watch. We’ve become such creatures of modern technology that we think our iPad Bible study, our video of Joel Osteen, and the twice daily scripture verse of the day that is texted to our phone does the same thing as the brilliant sunshine of going to church and spending time in His house. It doesn’t.
It has been my observation that many of us are not attending services because we’re spiritual, not religious. I just want to scream when I hear that one. The other one is that “I’m doing a heavy Bible study on my own, I don’t need to go to the church once a week with everyone else.”
Uh-huh. You’re like that watch that sits under the sleeve and spends the daylight hours in a bedroom blocked from the sun. You don’t even come out unless it’s in the darkness, and that battery isn’t getting any sunshine. You might function for a while, but eventually you’ll run down. Once you hit low voltage of the soul, depression and despair set in as the second hand quits ticking every second and instead shows a beat every two seconds.
We were not meant to worship God in solitude. The Bible’s pretty specific about gathering together to do that task. No matter how loud Toby Mac or Jamie Grace are playing in my headphones, it’s a different experience than standing in the Target center with 20,000 other worship crazed fans and singing out for God.
Are you alone in the darkness hoping that the lamp you turned on equals the sun?
