Where Are Your Real Friends?

I was watching television today when I saw a commercial for some kind of automobile. I can't remember the brand but I do remember the content of the commercial. Seems a young woman had convinced her parents after much effort to join the Facebook Generation and they had finally achieved a handful of Facebook Friends. Not nearly as many as she had but in her mind a good start. So there she sat staring into a computer screen making postings on her "friends" Facebook pages and developing an electronic circle of friends. Then the commercial cuts away to the parents. Where are they? Not in front of a computer screen but actually interacting with a group of eight or ten real living and breathing people in the countryside somewhere laughing and apparently enjoining themselves. I thought, "That's about they way it is these days." Too many people making electronic connections and too few making connections with real living and breathing people.

Now don't misunderstand me. I am about as involved in the electronic social media as anyone as evidenced by the fact that I am writing this Blog or even know what a blog is. In fact, it has allowed me to reconnect with friends from long ago. It has brought people I went to public school with back into my life after 40 years or more and it has allowed me to keep up with friends around the globe. In fact, it is almost the perfect tool for that and I intend to use it to the maximum. What I don't intend to allow it to become is a substitute for "real" friends

I grant you that some of the people of my Facebook, Linkedin, , STIK, PLAXO , SKYPE and other social media sites are in fact my personal friends with whom I actually have a real life relationship and with whom interact regularly face to face. However, having said that, I must confess that most of the people on those sites are more of acquaintances and business connections than person friends

The truth is maintaining a personal relationship of any depth with another human being is not an easy thing to do. Electronic relationships are easy and require little or no effort. I can manage easily my large electronic family using my CRM software and Facebook. Face-to-face real life personal relationships can be a bit more challenging. However, they are worth the effort required to maintain them

If my car breaks down and I need someone to come and get me I call a real friend and they physically drive over and give me a free ride home during which we have interesting conversation and our relationship is strengthened (even when they remind me that I should have got the car repaired before in quit running). They also invite me to join them in a real place for a tailgate party where we interact in a non-electronic way. What I am trying to say and doing such a poor job of doing is that electronic media is a tool and not a relationship.

I saw on a science channel the other day that in the next 25 years we will have robots that think like people and will interact with people as equals. Well, news flash . . . I don't want to interact as an equal with a machine. I want to interact with people and I want the machine to remain a tool used by humans and not become a substitute for them.

So my electronic and actual friends, here's my point: Use social media as a tool that can bring some value to your real friendships and not as a substitute for real friendships. Interact with your friends electronically but also interact with your friends physically and emotionally as well. Used correctly social media can be a useful tool in holding families that are geographically scattered together.

However, it is time to get up from you computer, put down your smart phone, lay aside you i-pad and get out there . . . get into the action. Go fishing with your kids; take in a movie with your wife; have a group of friends over for dinner at your home; take a family vacation (give me a call on this one . . . I can help); try and old fashioned picnic or barbecue at a park somewhere: just find some things to do with real people in a real place. Oh yea, you can effectively USE social media to arrange some of this.

Case in point . . . last year my High School graduating class had it's 45th reunion. Much of the planing we did was done via social media. This was especially true for locating folks and keeping folks up-to-date as plans were developed. However, it also involved face-to-face meeting where we could interact directly as people. Between these the person-to-person meetings have become a part of my treasure trove of memories while I have pretty much forgotten all the electronic efforts.

The reunion, was a success but is now also assigned to my trove of memories and I now keep "in touch" with many of my high school classmates via electronic media. But I must confess that as much as I like keeping in touch, I believe it is more important to be able to reach out and actually touch. We need to hear each other's voices and see each other's faces and to share our lives. Maybe that's why I am already looking forward to our 50th reunion when I can see these people face-to-face and old acquaintances renew.

Besides, when I come to the end on my life's journey I don't want my funeral service attended via electronic media (i.e., SKYPE) nor do I want my wife and children comforted via their Facebook accounts. To be sure those are OK for my many casual acquaintances and business connections but I want a real person putting real arms around my family and saying, "I am here and I care." I have a notion these will be the people with whom I have had a real life face-to-face personal relationship.

What do you think?

Why Do We Have To Be So Disrespectful?

I just heard Congressman Joel Walsh (R) from Illinois announce that he is not going to attend the President's address to a joint session of Congress because it is nothing but politics as usual.The more I listened the fellow who reminds me of "The Fonz" from the old Happy Days sitcom the more I felt my blood pressure rise. I wish I could say this was the result of his rapid fire speech and high pitch vocal tone grating on me, but it was not.

It was his blatant disrespect for the Office of the President of the United States. My father, a WWII combat veteran told me again and again that when he saluted a superior officer that it had nothing to do with that individual personally. He insisted he was saluting the man's rank as revealed by the uniform he wore. The salute was returned as a recognition of that respect. In short he was respecting the officer's rank and honoring the uniform he wore. I believe that was the general feeling among people of his generation. I also believe it ought to be the case today.

He also believed that you do not publicly speak disrespectfully of the man wearing that uniform. Clearly you do not have to like him and you do not have to agree with him but out of respect for the rank he holds and the uniform he wears.you will show appropriate consideration to him. I also believe this principle applies as well.

Now that brings me to my point. Congressman Walsh obviously has no respect for Barack Obama and that is fine. However, he is unable or unwilling to differentiate between the Office of the President and the man who holds that office. By boycotting the joint session of Congress at which the President is to speaking he is not only disrespecting the Office of the President (his intention) but also the Congress (where he serves) and the people who elected them both. He is setting a low bar for how we should feel about all our elected officials.

I grant you that the President doesn't always act Presidential and Congressman do not always act with the dignity that their office commands. That mean that we are not to act toward those offices in ways that disrespect the office. We need to show respect for our institutions even when those who run them do not. Don't like the way the President or your Senator or Congressman acts then the Constitution gives you the power to replace him/her with someone you believe will conduct themselves appropriately. It also allows you to replace them with someone more in keeping with your thinking. It there a catch? Yep! . . . .You have to convince a whole lot of other people you are right.

So come-on Congressman Walsh, let's begin conducting ourselves like mature adults and not as street brawlers. Let's learn to differentiate between the Office and the office holder.

I was sitting at the computer with the small desk television on when Robert Wagner appeared and started peddling reverse mortgages. For some reason this caused me to think about an old house on Buchanan Street. That old house was my aunt's home located at 2011 Buchanan Street in Pasadena, Texas. It set me to wondering about who if anyone lived there now and what was the condition of the house. I wondered, are they building memories there as we did?

You see our extended family all lived close to each other all of my parent's life. From the farm in north east Texas . . . to the sojourn in in Orange (my birthplace) . . . to finally settling in Pasadena, Texas when I was about 9 or 10 years the Appleby's lived close together, went to church together, played together celebrated together and grieved together. There was a mystic and real bond that kept us centered as a family.

At any rate, Robert Wagner started me on a nostalgic and somewhat emotional journey. You see, that old house was the location of many of events that have become my childhood and adult memories. I remembered that it was there that Raymond (my uncle) showed me how to paint those cute little circles in the ceiling when I was about ten years old. I still see all his fishing rods and equipment on the left hand side of the garage.

Memories, boy do I have some. I still see my father, his brothers and sisters all squeezed on a small couch for a family photo; I can still see everyone gathered around the old out of tune upright piano as my mother played and everyone sang. Seemed every gathering required some family singing; then there was the all night camp out by cousins sleeping under tents in the house made up of sheets and blankets tied to chairs with a fan keeping them semi-inflated; the reading of the Christmas story. Yep if it involved the extended Appleby family then it happened in that house on Buchanan Street.

As I have thought about it that old house in a real way represented our extended Appleby family. It seem to me that as long as that house was there there was a sense or permanency about what we had as a family. That old house became significant not because of its size, its beauty or its condition but because over time it became the Appleby family gathering place. It was in that house that great extended family events transpired. From wedding and holiday celebrations to post funeral meals . . . that house new them all. Every new born in the family would pass through that house and it was the house where the matriarch of our family, my grandmother died. Come to think of it there was a crowd there that night as well.

That phrase "reverse mortgage" shook me back to the present reality. That bond that my grandparents started and their children perpetuated has been largely lost by my generation. The real world effects of that reverse mortgage had on my aunt's ownership of the house became a symbol of what has happened to that old Appleby family bond. The steady and consistent eating away of the value of the home until she no longer owned it proved to be a metaphor for the slow but apparently inevitable dissolving of that greater Appleby Family Bond. Slowly but most certainly as the generation that included my father and his siblings began to slip the surly bonds of earth that family bond began to loosen. Over time those of my generation began to drift apart and become scattered all across the country. Perhaps it was inevitable that we should thus drift. The Matriarch was no longer there to command our presence and our own careers and families took us away from the city where that old house was located.

O, to be sure when we do get together now, largely reduced to funerals, we still enjoy a brief rebirth of that family bond. I don't suppose that what was born in our youth will ever completely fade away but it sure isn't what it used to be. In fact, my children do not know my cousin's children the way I knew my cousins. They share a common heritage but in many instances don't even know each other's names and to me that's sad. Sometimes I feel sorry for them that we didn't give them what our families gave us. Blame it on the times or whatever but they have missed something very special and I suspect they don't even know it.

Perhaps the answer lies in regenerative nature of life. One generation first gives birth and then gives way to the next. Perhaps it was and is the responsibility of each generation to give birth to a new expression of that old family bond. If we do maybe just maybe somewhere down the line there will be an old house in our children and grand children's lives that they will look back upon with wonderful memories. But for now I'll just sit here and enjoy what the hymn writer described when he penned the words:

Precious memories how they linger

How they ever flood my soul;

In the stillness of the midnight

precious sacred scenes unfold.

If you don't have any then heed the advice of Trace Adkins in his song "Just Fishin" and start making some memories.

Not Equal Tax but Equal Sacrifice

Warren Buffett recently concluded off-ed piece in the New York Times by saying, "My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice."

In the article he reflected on his years an investment advisor going back to 1950 That is just five or so years after Henry Hazlett popularized the idea that taxing the wealthy would hurt job creation. In that same article he took on this theory and pointed to the fact that in his 60 years of working with investors it was when the wealthiest among us were taxed at the highest rates (39.9%) that jobs were created and when they we taxed at the lowest rate (21.5%) jobs were lost and he has the data to back it up. This by itself should tell us something

However, I want to focus on his notion of "shared sacrifice." That got me to thinking about my own life experience. Now I am not by any stretch of the imagination or even in my wildest dreams in the same income bracket as Warren Buffett and his friends . . . not even close. But this idea of "shared sacrifice" resonated with me

During my active ministry all but one of the churches where I served as senior pastor engaged in some sort of building program. In each and every one of those congregations that entered into these campus expansions there was a dual commitment. First, we wanted everyone, no mater what their financial ability, to participate financially in the project. Simply stated we want everyone to be invested in the new facilities. Second, we insisted that financial burden would be shared by everyone equally.

You see, I believed that everyone who would use the facility or his children and grandchildren would use the facility should have a financial investment in bringing those building projects to completion. It is only right that it you are to use it you should help pay for it. Did we succeed? Not completely. You always have people who want to ride on someone else's nickle. Not everyone who was a member of those churches choose to participate but most did.

We also believed that the burden of providing those facilities should be equally shared. Did we succeed it this? I think largely so! Now this did not mean that each member or family would give an equal amount to the project. What it meant was to equally sharing the burden. We recognized the biblical principle of, "to whom much is given much shall be required."

Equal giving in terms of amount would not be fair and it would make it impossible for some to participate. We did not even set a percentage of income that would be the same for everyone because that too would be unfair to those at the lowest levels of the income spectrum and force some not to participate.

That's why Warren Buffett's "shared sacrifice" resonates with me. What we asked the poorest and the wealthiest among us to do was to sit down as a family, examine their personal financial circumstance and arrive at an amount and method of giving level that would create a level of financial pain. Essentially we asked them to give until it actually cost them something to give the amount. And that is exactly what they did. From the widow living on Social Security and in HUD housing to the wealthiest among us living in their large opulent homes these commitments were made. In every case the end result was success.

I don't know what kind of tax code we need in terms of form. I do know what we need in terms of fair. It is fair, only when the burden in shared as evenly as is humanly possible. Rich man, poor man, beggar man are Americans all and to a person would just as soon not pay any taxes and some on both ends of the spectrum don't and that's not right. (BTW - I suspect that the combined incomes of all the people on the low end of the income spectrum that pay no taxes don't equal the income as one of the families on the top end of the spectrum who pay no taxes

But I digress and must come to the conclusion of this matter. Recognizing that they are necessary I contend that they should also be fair. I want to know that we are in this together and that we share the tax burden fairly. I don't even suggest that the tax burden hurt equally. Rather than having equal tax pain I would prefer it to be equally painless to the low income family as it is to the upper income family. I don't want my perot boat to sink while the fellow living on Easy Street sails away on his mega-yacht

It Really Is About "We The People."

Someone recently said to me, "I believe that our current political climate is so polarized that government cannot function." Now, don't give me that, sarcastic "when has government ever functioned."

First, let us understand that while government should follow accepted accounting principles as it handles the people's money and is accountable for how that money is spent. But let us be clear, the United States Government is not a business; it is a political body. It is not Constitutionally designed to turn a profit and from it's inception at the Continental Congress was running a deficit and borrowing money. The founding Fathers may not have particularly liked it but they recognized that the government they were forming (that more perfect union) was going to have to borrow money to become a reality and borrow they did.

For my Christian brothers I need to affirm that there is no sin in borrowing money regardless of what the Christian financial gurus might say. We may borrow when we shouldn't but there is no sin in borrowing money. A quick take on money and the Christian can be found in Luke 12:16-21. By the way, a balanced budget does not rule out having debt. A balanced budget is nothing more than a financial spreadsheet where the outlay and the income when combined equal zero. One might say that if you have a surplus of income you do not have a balanced budget just as easily as you would say it if your expenses exceeded you income. But I digress

Back to the the government. As I said, it is not a business and was never intended to turn a profit or carry large reserves. It was designed to meet the needs of the nation as defined by the actions of the people's elected representatives in both houses of Congress and consented to by the sitting President. These needs would be decided through debate and persuasion and strength of argument as our elected representatives seek to bring their colleagues to a particular point of view and action. Some of these needs are as specific as the "common defense" and as undefined as the "general welfare."

Ideally this would be done on the basis of careful thought and sound reasoning flowing from facts and not feelings and/or beliefs. Certainly we can feel and believe strongly but in our system these cannot be forced upon the conscience of others. Everyone is entitled to their own feelings and beliefs but NOT their own set of facts. When our beliefs and feelings on an issue are at variance with other's belief's and feelings on any issue our system of government demands compromise not obstruction.

The founding father's envisioned the Congress as a place of debate and persuasion were men of good will worked through issues and came to a consensus of opinion that allowed the government to function. Once this consensus was arrived at through a vote in each of the two houses it them had to meet the approval of the sitting President at the time. The "Tea Party Patriots" by holding the Congress and the whole United States government hostage as they have done in the recent debt ceiling legislation have acted more like terrorists than representatives of the people.

Why is it every time we can't get our elected officials to conduct themselves properly and vote the way we want we try to change the Constitution rather than follow it. We don't need a Constitutional amendment to force our elected officials to do what we want . . we simply need to replace them with someone else. Let's elect people who will do the right thing because it is the right thing to do not because some segment of the population demands we do it.

The answer to our unhappiness with what we perceive to be over-spending on the part of government is not to hamstring the Congress' through a Constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget but by going to the polls and voting. If your congressman is voting for every spending bill that comes along and you don't like it vote for someone else or run for office yourself.

However, once elected that representative of the people must be free to act upon the facts before him/her and not be held to the feelings and belief's of his/her constituency. To do otherwise is to make them puppets on a string and take away their ability to use the good sense and judgment we believed them to have when we elected them. (Don't tell me you voted for them knowing they didn't have good sense and judgement.)

If anyone in my district runs on a "Tea Party" endorsement I am going to interpret that to mean their position on every issue is "don't confuse me with the facts my mind is already made up" and I will vote for their opponent. If that's too harsh put the blame where it belongs on that segment in the U.S. House of Representatives known as the "Tea Party Patriots." As someone recently commented to me, "The idea of "e pluribus unum" is foreign to them." Men who cannot (better: will not)compromise can serve no useful purpose in a forum that by its very nature requires compromise. Their acts of extortion in the Debt Ceiling issue has just about blinded me to any merits their ideas may have and some of their ideas do have merit.

It is a Sad Day For Constitutional Democracy

Most people who know me know that I am a believer in balance in life. I believe that God is the only perfectly balanced being. We humans, who are "created in His image and after His likeness," are somewhat less balanced. Some of us more unbalanced than others. And, just for the record lest I forget to say it later, I have always defined a fanatic as someone who cannot change his mind and will not change the subject.

I am politically a centrist. I believe the center keeps one balanced. That's important because I want to be brought more perfectly into the image of my God, who as I stated at the first is perfectly balanced. Oh yea, before I forget. God is not a Democrat or a Republican; He is not a Capitalist or a Socialist; and He is not even an American . . . He is God and there is none equal to Him though we are encouraged to be like Him.

Now to what's on my mind and from the look of my Facebook wall, television, and computer news on everyone elses' mind as well . . . . the debacle in Washington.

Hence to say I am disgusted with what I am witnessing in Washington D.C. would be a gross understatement.

My disgusted is directed to elected officials in general for allowing things to reach the place where "We the people" are being held hostage by a handful of single issue men. But my real disgust is reserved for the so called "Tea Party Patriots" who claim they are only doing what they "were elected to do."and are at the heart of this stalemate. Don't forget that the Tea Party was an act of rebellion not a part of any democratic process. Add to that what they are doing to our economic welfare and they are not patriots either.

Let me suggest to them that they were not elected as dictators of the United States. They were not elected to bring financial ruin to the nation and the American people. They were elect to represent their constituents and persuade their colleagues through argument and debate. Unable to persuade, they hold the process hostage by making demands that they know will not be met. These extortionist (I see them as political terrorists) do not understand our Constitutional democratic process or maybe they just don't agree with it but they certainly don't respect it.

All they have succeeded in doing is making a mockery of our Constitutional democratic process and rendering Congress impotent. I don't know what can be done today to fix this but come election time changes should be made. In fact, some of these boneheads have even said that they don't care if they get re-elected. I hope their constituency is listening and replace them by an overwhelming vote.

As to the rest of Congress . . . shame on you. Shame on you for not taking this bull by the horns and throwing him to the ground. Where is the leadership? Somehow I just can't see Sam Rayburn, Tip O'Neil, Everet Dirkson, Jim Wright, John McCormick, Lyndon Johnson, or Mike Mansfield putting up with this nonsense! We have none and we don't have it because we have elected weak-minded people who apparently are relying on magic to solve our problems. It appears to me that the way out is for the President to invoke the 14th amendment and unilaterally raise the debt limit. Maybe not the best answer but it is an answer and would show real leadership

My friends, we are morally obligated to pay the bills we have already made. Once we do that we can have a meaningful discussion about reducing our national debt and reform our tax code. We cannot allow a this handful of psuedo-patriots to destroy what our neighbors, our fathers, and our ancestors fought and worked for over 200 years to build just because they can't win their arguement in the people's forum. God help us because we don't seem to be able to help ourselves.

What Went Wrong?

Back in the early 1960's then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sam Rayburn speaking at the opening of the 87th Congress observed that "Christian civilization is facing the greatest danger today it has ever faced in the past two centuries -- since Christ Himself walked upon the earth."

I wonder what he would say today. Maybe, "I told you so." Or, more than likely he'd be speechless. I'm not sure he could have imagined where we would be today when it comes to Christianity in America.

As I reflect back on my own experience as an evangelical Christian who was born in the mid-1940's and experience the evangelical revival of the 1950's as a youth and served as a Baptist pastor heavily involved in denominational life into the 21st century I wonder, "What went wrong?".

I lived through my own denomination's fight, the so called "Battle for the Bible," which in fact was really a battle for the denomination and control. Saw first hand a bloody civil war in our Southern Baptist religious life that set Christian brothers against one another. It was my first experience as a "full-time" Christian minister with the decline of Christian ethics not just in the pew but the pulpit as well.

It was in the mist of this that American Christianity decided that to preserve our Christian American heritage we had to become politically active. Soon religious leaders were forming packs with politicians who spouted the right words but whose personal lives were far from the words they spoke. In short, we decided that we had to become political if Christianity was to be saved in America. I want to say to those who lead us down that path what Dr. Phil often says, "How's that working for you."

It didn't work then and it is not working now. Why? Because in the process we lost our direction as the Body of Christ. We ceased attempting to be salt and light to our nation and became just one more large Political Action Group. We stopped depending on God to preserve us and started asking Him to bless our attempts at it.

I suggest that we do what has always worked . . . . Get our own house in order. "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Dr. A. C. Dixon, a fine expositor of the Word of God, once said, "that when we depend upon organization, we get what organization can do. When we depend upon education, we get what education can do. When we depend upon money, we get what money can do. When we depend upon singing and preaching, we get what singing and preaching can do. But when we depend upon prayer, we get what God can do."

We need to do now what we should have done then . . . "Repent and do the things you did at first." I suggest that the proper role for Christians is to get off their political soap boxes and down on their prayer rugs and pray in earnest. We need to sprinkle a goodly amount of confession and repentance in that praying as we ask God to heal our land. Remember, God's time honored order of things is that it is God's people who must swallow their pride and prostrate themselves before Him. "Judgement begins in the House of the Lord." It's high time we Christians stopped carping and complaining about those outside the house and as one who lives in the house follow God's directions if you really want God to heal the nation. Don't know if you noticed or not but it is the Christian's sin that prevents God's blessing on the nation and too many of us are playing the role of Achan and trying to keep our sins hidden. Is it possible that our national experience today is the product of all the hidden sins of Christian people.

Could it be that in our zeal to heal the nation we have actually told God, "Not to worry, we will get this done" in a way that doesn't involve humbling ourselves and confessing our sin. Well, you see what we have produced. Perhaps we should try something a little more novel, like, really doing what God commanded. He didn't suggest this he commanded it. If as a Christian you want the nation healed then you must take I Chronicles 7:14 serious.

I remember hearing the late Pastor Pepper Rogers as he talked about his experience as a child of riding in the rumble seat of the family car saying that, "God does not ride in the rumble seat. If He isn't driving then He isn't riding." Christian friends, lets move over and let God have the steering wheel.