"I Hate Your Nasty Stinking Guts"

Ever been in the same room when something suddenly blows up and two people in a relationship decide to have a fight?

Things get uncomfortable in a hurry, and only get worse once both participants decides it's gloves-off and start addressing each other as though no one else is within earshot to hear the vitriol and name-calling that comes flying out of their mouths.

I can't stand the sight of you!

You make me sick!

I must be crazy to think I ever loved you!

You'll never change!

Of course the reality is that people say much, much uglier things than that.

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Do those folks really mean what they say? Even if they know they'll be forgiven, why intentionally antagonize the other person by saying them in the first place? To emphasize their feelings? To express hurt and anger? At some point maybe screaming, name-calling and finger pointing simply becomes a habit.

Or in a relationship (or marriage), is that kind of insulting ugliness and antagonism only "natural"?

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No matter what's happened that makes a person feel like screaming I Hate Your Guts, that sentiment can't come close to describing how God feels about sin. Yet God doesn't start insulting us in his wrath, and he doesn't call us ugly names and then ask us for forgiveness. So why do we think it's OK for us to rant and rave any time we feel provoked?

People who feel self-important in their faith, who look down on sinners, should consider that.

None of us live completely without sin. None of us has reason to praise ourselves for our righteousness, and we should always remember our humbleness before the Father when we ask his forgiveness before confronting others for their sins. God is perfect and holy, but we fall short every time.

We should remember too that God's never come to any of us asking for our forgiveness.

"Hey Ref, whose TEAM are you on???"

Ever noticed how we treat God as though he's either a spectator watching the game of our lives from his Heavenly sky box, or else folks believe The Father's beside them on the playing field as the game's referee ... which sometimes sounds like fun, because we think it's great having our Father as our game's referee.

Even though he's our Father, some believers treat God's on-field presence as an irritating but necessary part of the game's structure while secretly hoping our Father The Ref pays more attention to our opponents and how they play than he does watching to see if we're staying in bounds or lining up in an illegal formation.

During the game we tell our opponents The Ref is always impartial, unerring and perfect, while at the same time expecting every judgement call will go our way, just as we expect a great spot after every play.

Because The Ref's our Father, we get frustrated when he rules our passes out of bounds or calls us for being offsides or penalizes us by moving life's ball backwards.

If we think God's missed a call we feel it's perfectly OK to gripe, complain and throw our helmets on the ground, and that it's our right to throw a red flag on the field and demand that God stop the game and take a timeout so he can review the action on Instant Replay and see where he made a mistake and blew the call.

That's pretty arrogant, but what's most wrong with all those perspectives?

What's wrong is that God's not a spectator watching our game from the bleachers, God's not on the field as a referee to make sure life's always fair and God doesn't show up on game day to play on our team. And we certainly don't have any right to question The Creator's calls.

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God doesn't show up once a week to watch or referee our game; God's there 24x7x365 because he owns the team, because he created the game and because the rules and the playing field and the stadium all belong to him.

As believers we're on the field for him and belong to his team. Not vice versa.

Looking forward

With our faith in Christ we know that no matter what happens ... no matter what ... everything's ultimately gonna be OK.

Retro Reversal: ZeRo iNpuT

Been down with bronchitis and feeling horribly weak all week ... probably the result of ripping out the boat's 28 year old fabric headliner and installing foam board insulation in its place (without using a respirator). Well, lesson learned.

What I originally thought would be a two-day job is already well past its second week. But the good news is I'm finally almost halfway done. And Yes, insulation already makes a BIG difference.

Nobody likes having other people making decisions on their behalf. Especially when we perceive the issue as being vital, personal and non-negotiable. It's even more aggravating when other folks make decisions without bothering to consult us to see what we think or when they show little concern about how we'll be affected.

But what's most aggravating is when people make decisions in complete defiance of what we've expressed as being of permanent importance ... because then we're left feeling ignored, used and betrayed. And maybe even wondering how much importance the other guy places on our relationship.

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Several weeks ago a friend learned his girlfriend was five weeks pregnant.

My friend is staunchly and unashamedly Pro Life; his girlfriend was also Pro Life until she found out she was pregnant. Now she has less than four weeks to make up her mind how she feels.

My friend doesn't much relish the reality that according to our nation's laws, his girlfriend can pretty much do whatever she chooses ... whether that means terminating their unborn child or carrying her pregnancy full-term; whether that means keeping the child as a single mom or putting the child up for adoption ... he's got absolutely no legal say-so.

In fact, she's not even legally obligated to inform him of her decision after she's made it. Ever.

To him, his girlfriend's pregnancy means it's only common sense that the unborn child has 50% of his DNA, and that means the unborn life belongs equally to him. To her, pregnancy means an unwanted crisis with severely complicated life-altering consequences and the fetus is just the thing causing the problem.

What preoccupies my friend's thoughts and keeps him up nights is that ultimately he has zero input on his girlfriend's decision.. All he can do is stand on life's sidelines and wait to find out her choice.

Of course, even the most rabid Pro Choice advocates have no way of knowing the fetus's choice ... since "Pro Choice" supporters are too impatient to wait long enough to ask first hand. So the "right to choose" argument has less to do with being "Pro Choice" than it does with Me and Putting My Choice First.

Me me me me and whatever's easiest for me, you see.

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Yessir we sure don't like other folks making decisions on our behalf and yet we seldom stop to think how often we make decisions ignoring the Father and slap God in the face. We'll feel it's perfectly OK to ignore scripture and defy God's commandments simply because our eyes have become focused on the thing we want instead of remaining riveted upon what God intended.

We get hopping mad and start acting crazy upset when folks make decisions or treat us as though our existence doesn't matter. Think about it: whether it's the husband getting upset because his wife persists in running up credit card debt despite his warnings that their income can't support her spending habits, whether it's the husband who cheats with his wife's best friend or whether it's the co-worker who decides to take that extra week of vacation even though his or her absence leaves you facing a 60-hour week to take up the slack: being ignored at decision-making time makes us angry, doesn't it?

It makes me wonder what happens when we make choices that ignore God's will. It makes me wonder how things will turn out when we ignore His commandments and choose to pursue that thing we've got to have right now or the thing we've got to do right away.

And it makes me wonder how believers can be so persistently stubborn and rebellious against the Father.

#52 Ray Lewis

Three years ago, I'd never even heard of Ray Lewis. But I've been hearing about the Baltimore Ravens' linebacker a lot lately.

"So why do some people in this town hate Ray Lewis?

-“The chest-thumping Christianity aspect of his personality.”

- Alex Tomas's blog

35-year old Lewis, a native of Bartow Florida, isn't ashamed of being a Christian. And he's not scared of sharing his faith with others either.

Ray Lewis discusses Christian men and Leadership.

Ray Lewis speaks about his faith and love for God

• April 1st, 2010 3:56 pm -www.examiner.com

Ray Lewis, the future hall of fame Middle Linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, has earned a lot of respect around our wonderful city. When fans see the number 52 anywhere, whether it be on a license plate or on a lottery ticket, they immediately link it to the number that Ray wears when he is smashing Halfbacks into the turf. (Speaking of which, enjoy this video where Ray makes one of the best plays in Ravens history.)

Not just in Baltimore, but across the US, Ray is synonymous with terms like "champion", or "play maker". However, did you know that you can also think of the term "Christian" when you think of Ray?

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes radio show, Sharing the Victory, had a chance to sit down with Ray Lewis and talk to him about his Christian faith.

"To get to God, you gotta go through things. Don't look at my yesterday, look at my tomorrow," explained Ray during the interview. "I've said it before, God never changes. The relationship was there all along."

Psalm 91 is a personal favorite scripture reference for Ray, who states that God is everything.

-www.examiner.com

- Ray Lewis highlights on youtube

Did we forget again already?

I have to admit that it came as a shock several years ago when I first heard Pastor Perry Noble explain (and I'm paraphrasing) that it was the religious people of Jesus' day, not the sinners, who persecuted Christ and demanded His crucifixion ... because Jesus' message was contrary to their religious beliefs.

Wow.

It came as a shock because until then (and until re-reading the Gospel accounts of the temple guards arresting Christ, of the Sanhedrin accusing Jesus and of the Pharisees and the religious leaders demanding that Pilate crucify the Messiah), it just seemed to fit better that Christ had been accused and then crucified to satisfy the evil outbursts of an angry mob of sinners.

But for "The sinners did it" explanation to be true, then you've got to ignore Christ's triumphant entry and welcome into Jerusalem ("Palm Sunday") and believe instead that the same crowd of people who placed palms fronds at Jesus' feet after having heard of the miracles He's performed and who'd worshipfully praised Him as the Messiah then somehow, just a few days later and two thousand years before CNN and Fox News, somehow all woke up together in the same identical enraged state of mind, climbed out of bed before dawn and together skipped their morning coffee to rush across town and arrive at Pilate's court just in time to demand Christ's crucifixion.

It doesn't make sense, because that's not what happened. What happened was that Christ was accused, tried, flogged and turned over to be crucified before most folks in the city heard a whisper about it.

Even if we accept that Christ was hounded and persecuted by the Pharisees, we like to think of the Pharisees as a kind of secret police who kept tabs on Jesus' whereabouts and preaching through spies and informers.

But it wasn't like that at all. According to scripture, here's several examples contradicting popular impressions:

Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table.

- Luke 7:36

When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table.

- Luke 11:37

Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, "What? Are we blind too?"

- John 9:40 [emphasis added]

Sounds like in addition to being more in love with their religion than with God, the Pharisees were outright opportunists as well. They were self important ladder-climbers willing to invite Jesus over for dinner (who sometimes even took time to travel with Jesus), and paid attention so long as Christ and his message were curiosities that offered the chance of serving and profiting the Pharisees' ambitions and purposes.

But then Christ started rocking the legalistic boat and threatening the religious order by calling the givers of the law (both Pharisees and Sadducees) the offspring of snakes, accusing the Pharisees of being hypocrites and identifying them as sons of hell.

Uh oh suddenly the Pharisees ... and the temple chiefs ... became indignant and turned their wrath on the God (through His son, The Prince of Peace) they self-righteously claimed to worship and honor in every way.

Two thousand years later, how on earth did we forget that?

God's Scratch-Off Game?

Owings Mills, August 9, 2010 -- A returning star to the football roster was revealed today by Ravens President Dick Cass and Maryland Lottery Director Stephen Martino. The twosome was onsite at Ravens Training Camp at McDaniel College in Westminster to unveil the new Ravens Cash Fantasy scratch-off, which went sale today at Lottery retailers across Maryland. “The original Ravens Cash Fantasy was the best-selling $5 scratch-off in Maryland Lottery history,” said Martino. “We are thrilled to renew our partnership with the Baltimore Ravens.”

The Maryland Lottery was one of the first lotteries in the country to partner with an NFL team, following League approval of such partnerships in 2009. “This is a natural alliance,” said Cass. “These are two iconic Maryland entities coming together to offer great fun and winning experiences.”

This year’s Ravens Cash Fantasy ticket offers more than $11 million in instant prizes – including three $1 million instant top prizes.

- Baltimoreravens.com

More than 116,000 people played the inaugural version of the game last year, making it the best-selling $5 scratch-off in the lottery's history,

Tickets for the game feature a perforated portion called "Extra Yards." That area contains a code. Players who enter the code on the Maryland Lottery's website can win prizes valued at up to $1 million, including season tickets for life, sideline access to games, framed autographed jerseys and away trips with the team.

- The Baltimore Sun

That's interesting.

Apparently folks were so excited about the chance of winning free football jerseys, free sideline passes and free lifetime season tickets that they willingly wagered enough hard-earned money to make that scratch-off ticket the best-selling game in state history.

Is buying a lottery ticket that offers the chance of winning lifetime football tickets (instead of cash) really the same thing as gambling? Or is risking five bucks in hopes of being rewarded with an authentic pro football jersey or traveling to away games with the home team no more sinful than buying a raffle or drawing ticket? I don't know.

Would you call it gambling? Or does risking a little money each week in hopes of being rewarded with a big prize sound a little bit like the way some folks treat tithing?

You know, the sometimes-habit of dropping a few bucks in the offering plate (or bucket) and hoping (praying) your numbers show up big in God's Mega Millions drawing?

This next sentence may sound like swearing or profanity or even seem to some people with pew-thumping knee-jerk reactions that I'm taking the Lord's name in vain. But I'm not, so turn off your ears and see:

For Christ's sake, as believers shouldn't we celebrate His resurrection and give thanks for God's gift of eternal life every single minute of our lives, without for one second ever begrudging the joy of giving back to God the 10% that's already His?

Tithing isn't a tax or an installment on Heaven's membership dues. Neither is tithing a punishment nor a weekly assessment on the cost of salvation, because Jesus already paid the price in full. And tithing is definitely not a lottery ticket to be purchased in hopes of winning even bigger rewards from our Father.

Putting things another way, so you want free lifetimes football tickets and eternal life, too?

Wasn't Christ's sacrifice for our sins and God's promise of eternal life better than sitting on the sidelines?

7 Days and 7 More

BALTIMORE -- Baltimore City spent another weekend contending with an outbreak of violence. Three people were killed and two others were injured in a seven hour span, according to police.

- www.baltv.com

That's seven more homicides over the past 7 days ... not counting the number of non-fatal stabbings, beatings, GSWs and drug overdoses over the same period of time.

The latest homicide victim was an unidentified 25 year old man who was shot and killed at about 3PM this afternoon (Sunday afternoon) in Northeast Baltimore. Police said the killers fled in a vehicle.

Decreasing the activity in your anterior cingulate cortex

Thanks to my friend Ken M. for passing this along ...

Brain study shows that thinking about God reduces distress -- but only for believers

August 4th, 2010 in Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry

Thinking about God may make you less upset about making errors, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The researchers measured brain waves for a particular kind of distress-response while participants made mistakes on a test. Those who had been prepared with religious thoughts had a less prominent response to mistakes than those who hadn't.

"Eighty-five percent of the world has some sort of religious beliefs," says Michael Inzlicht, who cowrote the study with Alexa Tullett, both at the University of Toronto Scarborough. "I think it behooves us as psychologists to study why people have these beliefs; exploring what functions, if any, they may serve."

With two experiments, the researchers showed that when people think about religion and God, their brains respond differently—in a way that lets them take setbacks in stride and react with less distress to anxiety-provoking mistakes. Participants either wrote about religion or did a scrambled word task that included religion and God-related words. Then the researchers recorded their brain activity as they completed a computerized task—one that was chosen because it has a high rate of errors. The results showed that when people were primed to think about religion and God, either consciously or unconsciously, brain activity decreases in areas consistent with the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), an area associated with a number of things, including regulating bodily states of arousal and serving an alerting function when things are going wrong, including when we make mistakes.

Interestingly, atheists reacted differently; when they were unconsciously primed with God-related ideas, their ACC increased its activity. The researchers suggest that for religious people, thinking about God may provide a way of ordering the world and explaining apparently random events and thus reduce their feelings of distress. In contrast, for atheists, thoughts of God may contradict the meaning systems they embrace and thus cause them more distress.

"Thinking about religion makes you calm under fire. It makes you less distressed when you've made an error," says Inzlicht. "We think this can help us understand some of the really interesting findings about people who are religious.

Although not unequivocal, there is some evidence that religious people live longer and they tend to be happier and healthier." Atheists shouldn't despair, though. "We think this can occur with any meaning system that provides structure and helps people understand their world." Maybe atheists would do better if they were primed to think about their own beliefs, he says.

Provided by Association for Psychological Science

Silly Safety (updated)

Update: Please see Reverend Hilliard's tribute to Stephen Pitcairn, in green below.

Notes from Bodymore, Murdaland


When you walk through the garden, you gotta watch your back
Well, I beg your pardon, walk the straight and narrow track
When you walk with Jesus, he’s gonna save your soul
You got to keep the Devil down in the hole

He’s got the fire, people he’s got the fury at his command
Oh, you don’t have to worry, hold on to, hold on to Jesus’ hand
We’ll all be safe from Satan, when the thunder, when the thunder starts to roll
We got to keep the Devil, keep him on down, down in the hole

-theme from "The Wire" *
song by Tom Waits


Last weeks' posts included the recent murders of Stephen Pitcairn** and Milton Hill. One victim was white, the other victim was black. One victim was two days shy of his 24th birthday, the other victim was 70. One man had applied to Med School at the University of Florida, the other man was retired.

One man was Presbyterian, the other belonged to The Ark Church.


One man died from a stab wound after surrendering his iPhone, backpack and wallet. The other was shot to death for his scooter. One man wanted to find a cure for breast cancer. The other man volunteered at his church.

Nothing at all indicates the two men ever met in life.


Of course, in a city where the most popular underground video is called "Stop $%#!ing Snitching, Vol. 1," the murder rate can be tough to control. - www.Murder-Ink



Especially for Baltimorgue, a city infamous for logging a murder a day throughout the year, public outrage was surprising. The outcry for "Something to be done" was measured daily on the local nightly news for over a week ... at least until both victims were buried and laid to rest. Although superficially opposites, each man represented our best hopes and our highest aspirations. Yet somehow everything basic and fool-proof went irrevocably wrong. And it happened twice in less than a week.

Both men apparently complied with their assailant(s). Both men handed over their material possessions. Neither man resisted, called for help or tried fighting back. Nonetheless, despite having literally surrendered everything, each man died needlessly, suddenly and violently, without reason, without mercy and without explanation. One man was found in the street and the other in an alley, both left to die alone, amounting to nothing more to their assailants than bleeding piles of flesh for someone else to find and report as police statistics.

In each case it was on the next day that neighbors heard the news and faced an awareness of individual vulnerability ... and heard an inner voice whispering "Maybe next time me, too" ... that caused folks to lock their doors and voice their collective helplessness as a neighborhood outrage that was loudly accompanied by urgent demands for action and for a swift remedy to guarantee their safety.

But it's been like that for a long time here. Anyway, by now the local politicians are gone and the news teams are busy juggling the latest news for tomorrow's news.

That's two more numbers out of 300 or so for the year.

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- Baltimore graffiti

Around 10:30pm tonight I got a craving for Thai and called in my order to a restaurant just down the street. That meant walking four or five blocks by myself along the waterfront and getting back to the marina's locked gate just after 11pm.

What in the world is wrong with you? Why on earth would you take chances like that? For crying out loud! Why are you even living in Bulletmore?

I got back to my boat without incident and tore open my chop sticks soon as I sat down. That food tasted awful good, it sure did. But it didn't stop me from thinking how many people might die between the time I started writing this post and the time you started reading it. [I'm not picking nits or looking for an argument, I'm simply stating a fact: I feel far, far safer here than I did for the 8400 nights I spent where I used to live. No joke. No kidding. Walking the waterfront here, in the second most dangerous city in America, is nothing compared to the 23 years I spent literally afraid to go outside in my own yard after dark, despite being armed and having a 6-foot fence prowled by five Rhodesian Ridgebacks.]

Nor did it stop me from thinking about why people behave, do things and treat others like they do.

In denying both Christ and the enemy's existence, our culture's loftiest visions and greatest social experiments let the devil out of the hole.

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As believers I don't know where the point lies between being safe and being un-safe. You might be at home right now, locked behind a security fence in a house wired with 24-hour alarms in a gated neighborhood patrolled by security guards. Maybe all those things make you feel safe.

But even as you're reading this, feeling relaxed and ready for bed, could be that the first cell at the end of a sequence of a hundred million other DNA replications before it just separated from the cell that was its progenitor ... except that this one new cell mutated during the process and will be diagnosed in another 20 years as cancer.

Or it could be that a sparkling new airliner, complete with the latest electronic innovations and representing the safest technology available, just rolled out the door of an assembly plant on the other side of the world. Yet a $5 dollar nut securing a turbine engine inside its nacelle was over-torqued during assembly because the guy behind the air wrench was thinking about his retirement package and got distracted, meaning that five years from now that nut will suffer stress fatigue and crack in mid-flight at 29,000 feet, severing the aircraft's hydraulic control lines ... and you'll happen to be on board.

Then also there's the chance that right now, 900 million miles away from earth somewhere deep inside the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, a football field-sized rock just collided with an even bigger object ... with the result that a multi-megaton projectile is now zipping along a celestial flight plan scheduled to arrive in your backyard at 8:12PM on February 3 2013 just as you're flipping the burgers on your bar-b-que while you're in the middle of enjoying The Big Game on TV with your friends.

In all three scenarios there's not a thing you can do to know, postpone or prevent the outcome.

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Unless Christ returns to earth in the meantime, death is inevitable ... for me and for thee and for everyone in between. We can look back over the course of human events and realize each and every one of us is going to die. Because we know death is inevitable, none of us should be surprised or worry about when or where, because despite our elaborate measures and precautions, physical death is already on its way to claim us.

So it doesn't matter how carefully we plan to protect and save our lives. Folks with more money and more power than we can imagine have tried ... and every one of them failed miserably. Christ told us that whoever wants to save his life will lose it.

What does matter is how we serve, honor and live for Christ.




* Set in Baltimore, "The Wire" centers around the city's inner-city drug scene. The show depicts the lives of every part of the drug "food chain", from junkies to dealers, and from cops to politicians. - imdb.com

** During [Stephen Pitcairn's] 90-minute [funeral] service, [Reverend Ronald] Hilliard urged the family not to focus on the tragic circumstances surrounding Pitcairn's death. He suggested that the family may be wondering what would have happened if circumstances had been different.

"We may be sad about the book ending before we were ready," said Hilliard, but that sadness should not overshadow the value and impact that Pitcairn's life had.

"The reality is that in God's eyes, Stephen's life was complete," he said.

Speakers largely avoided discussing the tragic circumstances surrounding Pitcairn's death, instead paying tribute to his Christian faith.

Pitcairn, a researcher at a cell engineering laboratory on the Johns Hopkins medical campus, was on the phone with his mother, Gwen Pitcairn, around 11 p.m. Sunday when he was confronted by a man and a woman in the 2600 block of St. Paul St., police say. His mother listened as he pleaded with the robbers and was stabbed in the chest.

- source "The Baltimore Sun"

We got to keep the devil down in the hole.

Making way, or following God's will?

The other night I bookmarked these two passages:

We made slow headway for many days and had difficulty arriving off Cnidus. When the wind did not allow us to hold our course, we sailed to the lee of Crete, opposite Salmone. We moved along the coast with difficulty and came to a place called Fair Havens, near the town of Lasea.

Much time had been lost, and sailing had already become dangerous because by now it was after the Fast. So Paul warned them, "Men, I can see that our voyage is going to be disastrous and bring great loss to ship and cargo, and to our own lives also." Acts 27:7-10

Before very long, a wind of hurricane force, called the "northeaster," swept down from the island. The ship was caught by the storm and could not head into the wind; so we gave way to it and were driven along.

As we passed to the lee of a small island called Cauda, we were hardly able to make the lifeboat secure. When the men had hoisted it aboard, they passed ropes under the ship itself to hold it together. Fearing that they would run aground on the sandbars of Syrtis, they lowered the sea anchor and let the ship be driven along.

We took such a violent battering from the storm that the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard. On the third day, they threw the ship's tackle overboard with their own hands.

When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved. Act 27:14-20

Sounds a little bit different than "God's plan for your life promises to take you straight to your destination so you can enjoy honey and rose petal rewards along the way to being rich, respected and happy in every way" theology, doesn't it.