Chris Cree

Whatever I find interesting

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Crazy Week

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It has been a crazy week for me (and it’s only Tuesday morning!) We are short handed at work.

Corporate sent one of our guys to help out in the New Orleans office, which puts us 25% down on our staffing here in Savannah.

And then yesterday we had one guy in Jacksonville, and another in Brunswick which left me to cover everything going on in the port of Savannah all alone. (Whew!)

Oh, and today is the last day of the month and since we work on a monthly billing cycle I have a ton of paperwork to do.

Bundle all that with my shift in focus over to SuccessCREEations and posting here will be a little less than what y’all have become accustomed to.

That’s OK. There’ll be plenty to see over at SC until I can get back on a more regular schedule.

Enjoy!

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Happy Birthday Successful-Blog

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Liz Strauss over at Successful-Blog is having a blog birthday tomorrow. In light of that she is having a little contest where entrants must describe her blog in 25 words or less.

Birthday CakeSince I’ve started hanging out at the Open Comment Night that Liz hosts every Tuesday night I’ve gotten to know her and have come to consider her a friend. I nearly had the opportunity to meet her when my work sent me to her home town of Chicago, but an unfortunate change of flights by my company got in the way.

Liz is a passionate advocate for Net Neutrality and her Net Neutrality pages (page1 and page 2) are an invaluable resource where anyone can learn more about the controversy.

The Tuesday night Open Comment Nights are often a highlight of my week. There bloggers from all around the world hang out for a while, bounce ideas around, build friendships, and sometimes even get a little silly. The only real rule that Liz strictly enforces is that everyone must be nice.

Liz is a master at building community. We could all learn a thing or two from her example (especially us church folks!)

So without further ado, here is my entry for the contest:

Successful-Blog is a fun community where you can rub elbows and learn from successful business professionals, writers, bloggers, and even a code writing donkey.

You’ll have to check out Open Comment Night yourself some Tuesday to find out about the code writing donkey! 😉

Happy Birthday Successful-Blog! May you have many more Successful-Years!

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Cooler Weather and Raccoons

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Here in Savannah we are entering that absolutely wonderful time of the year when we can turn of the air conditioning and open the windows. Knowing that weather like this will get here eventually is what makes those six months in the blast furnace that they call “summer” down here bearable.

Of course having the windows open is leading to some interesting challenges. For starters some mornings I find it is a bit harder on my allergies, Savannah being the Allergy Capital of the Southeast and all. But hey, better living through chemistry, eh? I just keep taking my little allergy pill every morning and let it ride.

These days Fat Boy and Low Rider get an added dimension to their kitty TV. They can actually smell what they see through the windows. Since the boys are indoor cats, our resident cat whisperer, Gorgeous says this is added enrichment. And I can’t see how she’s wrong. Because sometimes it drives them absolutely bug-nuts. One or the other of them will start tearing from window to window, obviously frustrated because they can’t get at whatever is out there.

And then when we look it is usually just some birds at the feeder, or our neighborhood rabbit that comes in to eat whatever plants have sprouted from the uneaten bird seed under the feeder. Occasionally it is some other cat that isn’t sequestered like our boys are.

Raccoon at nightAnd then, every once in a while they go absolutely buggy because of a raccoon in the back yard. It is usually after dark since raccoons are nocturnal animals. And that makes them hard for us humans to see for sure. But we’ve caught enough glimpses that we’ve figured it out.

I’m thinking that the raccoons must be having a good year and the population is up somewhat. We’ve never had any in our yard before. I mean we live in a subdivision. It’s not like we are out in the country somewhere with lots of land around. And it seems there are more of them dead along the side of the road than in years past. There’s even a piece of road I travel every day that I’ve started to call Raccoon Alley because it isn’t unusual to see 6 or more carcases in a 2 mile stretch.

We think it is our backyard raccoon that caused another problem for us. The boys are still banished every evening because Low Rider refuses to let us sleep much past 3 or 4 AM on any given morning if he’s got roam of the house. We’d been closing them in Gorgeous’ office each night. Then this week she found about a 3 inch hole in the corner of the screen in her office window.

Eye on the PrizeNow the way our house is built, we have big windows. Most of them go down to only about a foot off the ground level. They let in lots of light during the day and are at the perfect height for the boys to look out.

But apparently they are the perfect height for a raccoon to try to get in too. We know it wasn’t the boys because neither of them have their front claws so they couldn’t have gotten the tear started.

So, as a result of the attempted raccoon incursion we have moved the boy’s room of banishment from Gorgeous’ office to my study, litter pan and all. It’s on the front of the house, not the back so we figure that maybe the raccoon will be less likely to hassle them here. And Low Rider was kind enough to remind me the litter pan is in here as I’m typing this. Whew! Stinky!

But the whole thing begs a question. How do you keep a raccoon from tearing through the screen to get at your cats? And why would the raccoon want in at the cats anyway?

So now I have yet another minor home improvement project waiting for me. (And if you’ve read my post on Stupid Questions you’ll know that HIP’s are really not my thing.) And I’ll have to get on it soon because the hole may not be big enough for a raccoon to get in, but I bet Low Rider could wiggle through if he decided to. (No way Fat Boy could make it!)

Oh, and if you were looking for some deep spiritual insight from all of this, I’m sorry to disappoint. I just figured we could stand for a bit of a breather from all the heavy “what is truth?” talk. 😉

Enjoy!

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Talk About The Truth!

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The recent discussions with Marcus highlight an interesting challenge for Christians. How do we discuss the things Jesus said about truth when talking to folks who have a fundamentally different understanding of what truth is?

Folks like Markus don’t believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth and even if there was, there is really no way we could ever know it anyway. Because Christians belong to another school of thought that says that truth is absolute, fixed and can be known, we can come off appearing intolerant, judgmental, and even bigoted.

Now some of those labels have definitely been earned by some folks on our side of the discussion. But the question remains how do we have meaningful discussions when we don’t even agree on the terms we are discussing?

Many folks seem to think that this shift by many away from the idea of absolute truth is something new because it is part of postmodern philosophy. But differing understandings of truth have been around at least since Jesus’ day.

There is an interesting exchange recorded in the Bible between Pilate and Jesus during his trial. Take a look.

Pilate said, “So you are a king?”

Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.”

“What is truth?” Pilate asked. Then he went out again to the people and told them, “He is not guilty of any crime.

Pilate asks Jesus what truth is. But it doesn’t appear to be a sincere question. He certainly doesn’t put any effort into getting it answered. It is almost dismissive, like Pilate is saying, “Look, Bub. All this blah, blah, blah you keep spouting about truth is a waste of time. We all know truth not something fixed that we can actually know. Besides truth isn’t important here anyway.”

Jesus took a different view of truth. In the four gospel accounts, Jesus is recorded saying the word “truth” over 100 times. Most often he says it in the phrase, “I tell you the truth” when he prefaced some particularly important point, for example when he says, “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life.”

Jesus also said, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

To him the subject of truth was fundamentally important to those who would follow after him. He said that not only was truth knowable, but when we found it, truth would be the very source of freedom for us.

And here’s the kicker. Jesus said that truth wasn’t some abstract set of thoughts or ideas that we had to hunt for and try to assemble. He rocks our understanding of the whole concept of truth by claiming that he himself is that truth. Jesus said of himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

Philosophers go around hunting for truth as though it is a collection of ideas, when in actuality the thing they are looking for is a person. Is it any wonder so many miss it?

When you read through the gospel accounts with an understanding that when Jesus speaks of the truth he is really speaking of himself, statements like the one he made to Pilate above take on a whole different level of meaning.

And that also may explain why folks like Marcus may be offended when we quote scriptures such as the one I mentioned in The Source of Wisdom, which says, “Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools.”

From the perspective that truth is relative and unknowable, than any statement that claims to state truth in absolute terms must be offensive.

But that still doesn’t answer the question of how to have a meaningful dialogue with someone whose understanding of truth is fundamentally different from our own. Is it even possible?

It doesn’t appear Jesus made too much headway with Pilate. Should we even try?

Or should we simply state the truth, allow others to take it or leave it, and move on?

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The Real Problem With Port Security

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There is a very disturbing, yet very accurate piece in the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page this morning about Port Security. The article is titled On the Waterfront — Still after the 1950’s Marlon Brando movie which tells a story about corrupt union activity on the docks.

Now I am on and off various terminals here in the Southeast every day as I have been for over 10 years. My maritime related background goes back nearly 20 years. And the WSJ has hit a nerve. Go ahead and read the article if you want a better understanding of one of the biggest reasons our ports security is still so very lax.

It has been common knowledge that there are some very unsavory folks with felonious records filling out the Longshoremen ranks. Don’t get me wrong, there are a great many Longshore union members who are hard working, above board, contentious, ethical patriots. (Yes some of them actually do work hard.)

Over the years I’ve heard tons of stories about stabbings, shootings perpetrated by the labor force both on the docks and out in town. The most memorable was the story about the longshoremen who supposedly carried a duffel bag on the job that he wouldn’t let anyone look in. Finally it turned out that he’d been carrying around his ex-wife’s head in the bag for days. Don’t know if it was true or not, but at least that story ended with the guy getting escorted off the port by the police. And I could see it happening.

Working a Container ShipSome operations I’ve seen were notorious for their pilferage, which is a fancy word for stealing. Usually is it is rationalized with the phrase, “Well, everyone is doing it.” No everyone isn’t.

And it is not unusual for a regular worker to disappear for several months, or maybe a few years while he takes a break at the county or state facilities because of drugs, or an assault, or robbery, or shooting (whatever) only to be right back on the docks when he’s served his time.

Now some will argue that a man shouldn’t be double punished by losing his livelihood just because he made a mistake. I am not unsympathetic to their point. However when it comes to security, past behavior is a pretty strong indicator of future risk. And I’m not so sure the WSJ gets the risk exactly right. I don’t think that even a felonious Longshoreman would knowingly agree to turn a blind eye to a cargo of plutonium. However I could see one taking a cash payment to “not ask any questions” about the particular cargo being smuggled in and do it unknowingly as a result.

The WSJ article points to a huge problem with the security of our ports: the power of the unions. The unions are actively lobbying against common sense security measures because they know it would create problems for large portions of their membership keeping their jobs. These felonious members pay their union dues compliantly and therefore their union bosses lobby hard and effectively to protect their jobs.

It is unconscionable that, more than 5 years after 9-11 we still do not have a national transit worker ID card. The government truly has no idea who is really working at our ports. For all we know, someone on the terrorist watch list may be at one of our ports today. And the only reason we don’t have an ID card system in place is because the unions don’t want the government doing background checks on their membership and bringing to light how large a percentage of their membership, the people actually present in the daily handling of our nation’s cargo, are actually convicted felons.

Trucks in PortInstead we have a bizarre system where every individual terminal is responsible for creating their own security system. Some terminals have decent security. But more often it is a joke with the protection of our country being assigned to a $7 an hour “security guard” who often times is either too old, or too obese to actually offer any protection more strenuous than writing a name on a list of paper.

As a result of the current non-system, those of us who routinely go to multiple terminals (and I can think of 11 different terminals off the top of my head on the Savannah River alone) are forced to carry a stack of different ID cards for each of the different terminals. And the problem is even worse for the truck drivers who haul the containers around the country. For them, it’s like shuffling through a deck of cards in their truck to find the right ID each time they pull a container up to a different terminal.

Meanwhile the politicians keep passing bills with fancy sounding names to pacify the uninformed public into believing that port security is actually being improved. It sounds like they are actually doing something to help keep our nation safe. But really they are trying to convince us that naked emperor is really wearing beautiful clothes while they handicap the very folks they are bringing into the Department of Homeland Security to protect us by caving to the pressure of the unions.

Ship ExplosionUnfortunately, absent of any political leadership with the fortitude to stand up to the unions on this issue, it is going to take a 9-11 level event at our ports to shake our government into any action to seriously protect our ports.

And when the big one finally happens they will respond in their typical close-the-barn-door-behind-the-horse fashion by shutting down all port activity for days while they scramble to figure out what to do. If you think there was a recession and it was hard on our economy after 9-11 when passenger airline traffic was halted for a few days I have something to tell you.

You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Update: Michelle Malkin also notes the problem of Felons in Our Ports and how the problem is damaging to Homeland Security.

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Power Struggle

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Gorgeous got home the other day and found the air conditioner had quit. Not a good thing to happen down here in Georgia. Fortunately for us the nights are starting to get a little cooler.

The other good thing is that we called our home warranty folks to arrange for a technician to come out to look at our A/C. No problem, they said, and arranged to have a technician head over to take a look see the next day some time.

We had a house guest who fortunately was a good sport about the whole thing. So we just opened the windows, got some fans working and made the best of it.

But then when I got up the next morning I realized the problem might be a little bigger than just a faulty a/c unit.

I got up at my customarily early hour, shuffled out to the kitchen, clicked on the light over the microwave (no bright lights first thing in the morning for me) and got started on my morning coffee making ritual. When I turned the coffee pot on I immediately noticed a couple things.

First the nice, not so bright light over the stove dimmed down to about half as bright. And I heard the box fan we had going in our bedroom stop. I poked my head back in the bedroom and saw that our alarm clock was also off.

Back in the kitchen I turned the pot off again. The light went back to normal and I heard the fan again. Yep. The alarm clock was back on, blinking 12:00.

Hmmm…. Ver-r-r-y Inteh-rehs-tink.

I decided maybe I better not make any coffee if the process was going to stress out the rest of the house like that.

Our house guest had also had to get up early to catch an early flight back home. Fortunately her alarm clock was battery operated and went off in good order. She had a fun time getting ready until we worked out that every time we turned on a light somewhere in the house it seemed to make the lights in the guest bathroom dim a little more. When we turned them back off, the brightened a touch.

ElectricityNothing like getting ready for the dawn patrol in a disco bathroom!

I decided a call to the power company was in order.

After a frustrating couple of runs through the voice recognizing automated menu (technically our power wasn’t “out”. It just wasn’t all on.) I was put through to an incredibly helpful and nice lady who took down all my weird symptoms and assured me they’d send someone out right away.

And she wasn’t kidding.

Right about 30 minutes later a Georgia Power truck drove up. Actually the side of the truck still said Savannah Electric, but they were just bought out this summer. The repair man did his electrical voodoo and said, “Yep. You’ve got a problem.”

Fortunately for us the problem was on his side of the meter.

Unfortunately he didn’t have the equipment needed to fix the problem. He said another truck was heading our way and they would take care of it.

A couple hours later another, bigger truck pulled up towing a trailer with an excavator on it. I had visions of them digging up our entire lawn. But the guys told me they could probably get to the problem with shovels.

Sure enough they got our power fully restored. Total time from first dialing the phone to the power company: less than 4 hours.

When they were finished, the guys explained to me that sometimes other utility companies accidentally nick the main power line going into a house when they are burying their cabling. The damage causes the power line to fail slowly over time. It is not unusual to have a problem like ours rear its head years after the damage was originally done.

I’ve had some time to think about our little power struggle this week with all my time in the car (I think it can find Jacksonville without me at this point).

Our struggle this week is a strong analogy of the struggle that followers of Jesus face every day. Jesus himself promised that we’d be plugged into the power of God in one of his last recorded statements.

But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me everywhere–in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

All in all the New Testament contains well over 100 references to power. Most of them are talking about the power of God or of Jesus himself. But there are several that speak of the power of Jesus’ followers. For example check out these passages:

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. *

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. *

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. *

Yet somehow most of us believers operate as though we are only partially connected to our power source.

Power LinesSometimes things are like the air conditioning unit and simply just don’t work in our lives. Maybe we have some addiction or bad habit that we want to be free of, but can’t seem to shake no matter how hard we try. Maybe we are drawn to alcohol, smoke too much, have angry outbursts, eat way more than we should, spend time looking at pornography, whatever. Because we’re only partially connected to our source of power, we aren’t getting enough juice to overcome the bad thing which has control over us even though maybe we desperately want to.

Or maybe we seem to be tapped into our power source, but like turning on the coffee pot, we get unexpected results because we are not fully connected. Maybe we are very successful at work, but somehow our home relationships self destruct at the same time and we end up divorced. Maybe we pray though a big decision, feel we hear from God, step out and then, Kaplewie! Things blow up in our face. Not the result we expected.

Was God trying to trick us into making a mistake? Or is it more likely that somehow we were not fully connected to our power source?

Perhaps the reason so many see Christianity to be irrelevant to our society today is that we are so weakly connected to our power source that we don’t seem to be any different than anyone else. The only difference in many of our lives from those who don’t believe is that we get up early on Sunday morning while everyone else sleeps in. That’s not a great a selling point! Why would anyone want to follow Jesus if that is the only difference?

We were meant for more. More power. And more results.

Let me close out today with words that Paul wrote to one of the New Testament churches

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

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No Love for Love Bugs

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Attention: This post gets a little gross. Read further at your own risk.

You have been warned.

I discovered at least one thing I want yesterday. And it is a very petty, purely self serving sort of thing.

But I really do want it.

I want to have a decent looking lawn. Well, more to the point, I want to be able to afford to pay someone else to maintain a decent looking lawn.

I’ve written about my disdain for yard work in general several times before, so it’s no secret. But just in case you might need a “Chris Cree hates yard work” primer check out these posts: Start with Yard Work to see an example of why I don’t like it in the first place. Then move on to Resident Evil and The Lesson of the Dog Poop to read about some hazards of working in my yard. Of course there are some times when it is useful to have a yard to mow as you can see in A Fool and His Anger.

Yesterday was another one of those “hazards of yard” work days.

The first thing I had against me is that I really don’t like going to the doctor. It makes sense, really.

MowingI’ve run out of my allergy meds. And it has been over a year since I’ve been to my doctor because, fortunately, I haven’t been sick in a while. At least not sick enough to go see the doc. But they have a policy that they will only write out so many refills before they insist that you come into their office for a visit. Now I’m not apposed to going to the doc. I just don’t like to go in unless I’m sick. I don’t want to hear the “You’re in pretty good shape but you really should eat a little less and exercise more” speech. I know I should. I don’t want to pay for an office visit to hear it again.

The unfortunate result of my doctor visit hang up is that my sinuses are producing vast quantities of yuckiness. (Please remember I warned you this was going to get gross.)

It was tempting to let the yard go a bit longer. My neighbors have sure seen worse. However we’ve got some company inbound today and it is my job to make sure the outside of our place is presentable.

So, as is my custom, I waited until it got to about 88 degrees before I went out to cut the grass yesterday, just to make sure it was as unpleasant an experience as possible. I still haven’t figured out how I manage to do that almost every time. Or why.

Gorgeous had the presence of mind to head for the mall, smart lady that she is.

Love BugsDid I mention it is love bug season? I left that part out. Love bugs are weird things. They are mostly harmless. The good news is they don’t bite. They seem to come out here and in Florida in large swarms for only a week or two. They are called love bugs because you almost always see them in pairs like in the photo.

They aren’t normally much of a hazard, except for your car. They have this nasty tendency to smash themselves all over the front of your car and windshield. Then in the hot sun their guts bake on and are hard to get off as they eat away the paint or get smeared around by your wipers.

But they truly were swarming yesterday. And the mower seemed to stir them all up. Fortunately there weren’t any bities out because I kinda got numb to having insects crawl on me because the love bugs were everywhere.

So anyway there I was out in the heat walking back and forth behind the mower producing more snot than a tear gas victim at a Miami riot. Every now and then I’d take a break and go inside, both for a cool-down and a kleenex. I’d try to hold off as long as possible and just keep the snotting to a minimum with some serious sniffling. Snort. Snort. Snort. All around the yard. I’m sure the neighbors were digging that scene.

Do you see where this is going?

I was about halfway finished with the back yard, just at the point where I could catch a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel of yard work suffering, snorting my way through, when it happened.

I snorted just as a pair of love bugs flew by my nostril. And up they went.

Fortunately I didn’t feel them go down the back of my throat. But I could swear I felt them crawling around inside my head. It definitely was a kleenex emergency of the highest order. I abandoned the mower, quickly made my way to the kitchen and grabbed yet another kleenex. And I blew into it. Out came the bugs. Drowned in my snot.

Totally gross for me. Fatal for them.

Now you can spare me the lectures about how I brought this on myself. I know that. Regardless the experience didn’t do much to improve my total dislike for yard work.

But it did make me realize how much I want to be able to afford to pay someone else to do it for me.

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What Do You Want?

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Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”
—John 1:38

If you arrange the Gospels chronologically, this is one of the first things that Jesus was recorded saying to his disciples. It’s a very big question that encompasses a whole slew of other questions.

What do you want?

  • What is it you are looking for?
  • What do you want to see happen?
  • What do you want to achieve?
  • What do you want to be a part of?
  • Whom do you want to get to know?
  • Where do you want to go?
  • What do you want to possess?
  • What do you want to give?

The is an unbelievable depth to those four little words in that question. I’m just scratching the surface.

Just like the disciples Jesus first asked the question just scratched the surface. Their answer? “Where are you staying?” Very superficial. It was sort of like asking, “Can we hang out with you for a little while?” I’m not sure the disciples really knew what it was they truly wanted.

I’m not sure I know what I want either.

As usual, Jesus answered their question and a whole lot more at the same time. “Come and see,” was all he said. Basically Jesus was telling them to spend some time with him. Then they’d find what they really wanted, that thing they were looking for.

Most folks don’t see Christianity as very relevant to real, day-to-day life these days. Yet the first thing Jesus asks his would-be disciples goes right to the core of who they are. By extension he is asking us the same exact thing.

What do you want?

You may have your life’s plan all figured out. If you do, I’m genuinely happy for you.

But I’m not there with you, though. Even though I’m rapidly approaching 40, I still don’t really know what it is I want to be when I grow up. One thing I learned flying in the Navy: You’ll never hit your target if you don’t decide which target to aim at.

Therefore I am going to take some down time by lowering my priority for the blogging scene while I wrestle with the question. When I come out the back side of the process I fully expect some things will change. What, exactly, I have no idea at this point. Nor do I know how long it will take.

But I’m sure it will be an interesting process.

Do you know the answer to the question?

What do you want?

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A Reminder

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Gorgeous went out of town to a conference this weekend.

That is always a bit of a bummer. But I try to make the best of it. I took the opportunity to watch the movie Flight 93.

I knew Gorgeous didn’t want to watch it, “It’s too depressing.”

Flight 93And I understand where she’s coming from. But at the same time I think it is important that we remember what went on that day. So I watched it while she was out of town.

The moving was incredibly powerful. I’m not a weepy kind of guy, but even I found my self welling up at the way the movie depicted the resolve of those heroic passengers on that plane. Apparently they pretty much knew there was little hope of surviving the day. Yet they chose to take action to make the best of their horrible situation.

I thought the movie did a good job not going overboard into hype or patriotism. Because there were no survivors the movie creators obviously had to fill in some gaps. They may or may not have gotten things exactly the way they happened.

What they did do is focus on the phone conversations that the passengers had with others on the ground. The resulting effect of this approach is incredibly powerful. And it limits the amount of speculation that they had to delve into.

I highly recommend the movie if you ever get a chance to see it.

On another note, I found a must read article called One Arab’s Apology. Check out what the author has to say. I originally found it here at the New York Post.

I hope we see more of that sentiment well up from Muslims about what is going on.

In a related note, what about the hubbub surrounding the Pope?

Here is what he originally said.

Here is how Muslim’s are responding.

So, the Pope quotes some guy from back in 1391 who points out that the founder of the Muslim religion had some issues like the fact that he commanded that his religion be spread by killing and violence. And apparently today’s Muslims are so offended by the Pope quoting a guy from over 600 years ago that their response is killing and violence.

Um, doesn’t that pretty thoroughly illustrate the point of the comment in the first place?

And the best part is the Pope’s speech really wasn’t about slamming Muslims at all. (Not that the leader of a religion should have to apologize for attempting to explain why he feels his beliefs are superior to others anyway. That’s the business he’s in, for Pete’s sake!) He was really pointing out the problem we have today because reason has attempted to divest itself from the spiritual and philosophical.

Even the apparently offending quote was used to illustrate the difficulty between religion and violence in general.

I don’t get the how the response that is being generated is at all reasonable or acceptable.

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Changing Our Thinking

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Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.
—Romans 12:2

I have a confession to make. I struggle with destructive thought patterns.

ThinkingThere are times when I fool myself by rationalizing away behavior I know is wrong. My natural tendency is to be a “glass half empty” sort of guy. I instinctively see first the reasons why something won’t work before even looking for ways it might work. If something gets challenging or I run into obstacles it is not unusual for me to start questioning whether the idea is really “of God”. My track record is littered with things that I quit when things got a little difficult.

Don’t get me wrong. My reality is not all doom and gloom. But according to Paul, the author of the Book of Romans, it would appear that I often copy the behavior and patterns of this world with my thoughts. It is something he tells us we shouldn’t do. At least we shouldn’t if we want to know what it is that God wants for us.

There was a time when I really didn’t believe that it was really possible for me to have any sort of control over my thoughts. To me it seemed that my thoughts just happened. How was I going to control something that just happened all on its own?

I don’t buy into that anymore. I mean why would Paul tell us that we should change something if there was no possibility for us to have any control over it in the first place? Paul was a really smart guy. If it was impossible for us to have any control over our thoughts he wouldn’t have told us that we need to get a grip on them.

In another place, the same guy tells us some of the things that we should think about.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, let me say one more thing as I close this letter. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned from me and heard from me and saw me doing, and the God of peace will be with you.

Paul tells us the kinds of things we should be thinking about that have the ability to change our behavior for the better and ultimately put us into the very presence of God.

A Question

So here’s my question for you: How do you personally go about the process of changing your thoughts, or what other translations call “the renewing of your mind”?

I said at the beginning that this is an area where I struggle. I haven’t rolled over and given up here. This is one battle I want to win. I figure learning to conquer my destructive thought patterns is one of the keys that will unlock success in much of the rest of my life.

So go ahead and share some of the practical things you do that help you in this area.

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