Author Archives: vickitillman

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About vickitillman

I've finished homeschooling my 5 kids. I still have a life :)
Jun29

God, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and the U.S.

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Long ago, when I was a kid in college, I was a biology major. Back in those days, we had to prove our salt as budding scientists by being able to list and describe the five laws of thermodynamics (the physical laws that describe how the universe works).

I can’t remember the other four laws, but the second law of thermodynamics got under my skin and I’ve never been able to quit thinking about it. The second law of thermodynamics is the “law of entropy”. Basically, it says that “everything falls apart eventually”.

When we look around us, we can see that the second law is always at work: an acorn falls into the ground, grows into a tree, eventually dies and falls down, and becomes part of the earth again…

Even suns, solar systems, and galaxies eventually die.

Whether we attribute this to Adam’s fall or that God wanted things this side of eternity to have a shelf life is up to the scientists and theologians. All I know it that, in God’s universe, the second law of the universe is working.

HOWEVER, God gave us humans some limited ability to push back on that second law.

In my job as a counselor, I saw the second law of thermodynamics at work in marriages. Good marriages, over long periods, can fall apart. However, those who continually work at growth, creativity, and caring for themselves and others, tend to break that law. Instead of crumbling, their marriage strengthens over the years.

That doesn’t mean we have the power of eternity. We humans live in temporal bodies, which are eventually subject to the second law of thermodynamics. We will someday leave our bodies and enter eternity.

Western culture and the second law of thermodynamics

I attended a conference this weekend, which was attempting to address our national polarization by becoming focused on creating a loving community within the body of Christ and our national culture.

One of the speakers briefly reviewed the history of great empires. Each of these empires had a shelf life. Eventually, the second law of thermodynamics took over, creating chaos and ending each empire.

This speaker proposed that we are seeing the same empire-ending chaos in Western culture, particularly the U.S. He was not trying to spread despair. Instead, he was proposing that if each of us did the good that God gives us to do, that good is greater than evil (Romans 12:21).

It reminded me of the work I have done with couples. Those who are willing to work at growth, creativity, and caring for themselves and others, do well.

Nations that are willing to work at work at growth, creativity, and caring for themselves and others have a chance to survive.

I invite you to think about the second law of thermodynamics. Do you see it at work in your life? Do you feel it at work in our nation?

If so, I invite you first to pray and meditate on the instructions Jesus gave to us, starting with Mark 12: 30-31:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[a] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] There is no commandment greater than these.” (Biblegateway.com)

Then ask God what is yours to do that is creative or caring. Then start doing it. Daily.

Let’s do what we can to love God, our neighbor, and ourselves, and overcome evil with good. Maybe together we can hold back the second law of thermodynamics.

May1

Who is Profiting from Your Anger?

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These are tense times. Our nation is in a fractious and dangerous place.

Have you noticed that when you listen to some news services, or commentators, podcasters, or influencers, you feel angry?

Our American politicians, news services, podcasters, and influencers have become subject matter experts in making us angry. That may seem weird, but it is intentional.

Why would anyone try to make you angry? (I’m not kidding about this.)

Politicians want you to be angry so that you will give them money, viral-share their posts on social media, or storm capital buildings on their behalf.

News programs know that if you are angry, you’ll keep checking in for the latest updates. When you check in more often, they get more views, and more views sell more ads. You’re a money maker for them.

Podcasters, commentators, and influencers know that if you are angry, you’ll keep listening to their episodes and share them on social media. This helps them make more money by having more listeners thus selling more ads…and they feel more powerful having lots listeners that they know are feeling angry because of their words. (And sometimes, some “dark money” or other “foreign interest” is paying them to say what they are saying, so they need your continued listens in order to keep being paid.)

When politicians, news organizations, podcasters, or influencers willfully create anger for their profit, it is called “rage-baiting” or “angernomics”. It is addictive for you and wealth-making or behavior manipulation for them.

You are being manipulated into anger for the simple reason that someone wants money or motivation to do their will.

Don’t get me wrong. What these people may be saying may have some truth in it. However, when they are using anger as a tool, they are not trying to give you good information; they are trying to use you for their gain.

When we are flooded with anger, our logic turns off

The stress hormone, cortisol, floods your brain when you are angry. This prepares you to run from the lions that are about to eat you. If you are running from lions, you don’t need to waste time thinking things through.

That’s all well and good if you are running from lions. However, if you are simply being flooded with cortisol all day from one “news” source or politician, you lose the ability to think things through. When you can’t think logically, you are ripe for manipulation into doing things you would never do if you were thinking clearly.

Not only that, cortisol-flooding from anger causes you to lose your personality (because you don’t need to maintain good character if a lion is chasing you). Then, you are REALLY manipulable by those who want money from you, to sell ads, OR worse: for you to do their bidding.

For those of us who are Christians, it is difficult to listen to the Holy Spirit’s guidance and to hang onto the fruit of the Spirit when we are angry.

And while we are at it, in the long run, cortisol-flooding from lots of anger-producing news, influencers, and politicians can give us poor health, along with anxiety and panic disorders.

What do these people care?

Face it, if someone is trying to make you angry over and over again, they do not care about you. You are an object to bring them profit or to do their dirty work somewhere in society.

What do you do about this?

Remember who you are. You are a child of God. God calls you to be angry but sin not and not let the sun go down on your anger (Ephesians 4:26). That means that there are things in our nation to be angry about, but the anger is only a starting point to remind us to stop and pray and see what God wants us to do.

Remember, as a child of God, you are a good person. God calls us to overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21. We don’t win by being angry or against something or someone. We win by being good and being for what God wants us to be for.

Turn off the news, social media, and podcasts! Don’t let them sell ads or get paid by foreign influences because of you. Let them earn an honest living, giving information in a healthy way that brings healing to our nation.

Prayer is more important than you could possibly imagine. Remember I Timothy 2:1-2:

I exhort therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercession, and giving of thanks be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. KJV

Do good and overcome evil by:

-Doing good deeds

-Educating yourself with balanced news (I like to read GroundNews.com which presents both sides of a news story.)

-Being the kind of person that brings good into the world

-Exercising your constitutional right to free speech by contacting your elected officials about things that matter and writing things that lead others to goodness and truth

-Exercising your constitutional right to peacefully demonstrate, if God puts that on your heart

-Praying about what is truly yours to do

We can stop being tricked into anger for someone else’s profit. We can work together to heal our nation.

Mar23

Knowing a Tree by its Fruit

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15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. (Biblegateway.com NKJV)

Know any ravenous wolves attacking the federal government agencies these days? It felt like that recently when the Secretary of Social Security Administration Dudek made allusions to shutting down Social Security after starting the process of closing up to 47 local offices. He backed down on the threat and yesterday and sent an email to those of us who have a family member on Social Security (this is a screenshot from the email).

What kind of fruit is that? Can you imagine what it is like being elderly and depending on that monthly check and not knowing if the TRO will expire and Dudek will cut off that check?

To add insult to injury, Secretary of Commerce Lutnik, said that if elderly people expressed anger about not receiving their Social Security check, that was a sign that they were “fraudsters”. Is that simply mocking older citizens or is that a threat to them? Here’s the quote (from The Hill):

At one point in the wide-ranging, nearly two-hour conversation, Lutnick also said that if Social Security “didn’t send out their checks this month,” his “mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain.”

“She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining,” the billionaire businessman said.

“Anybody who’s been in the payment system and the processes, who knows the easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen, because whoever screams is the one stealing,” he said. “Because my mother-in-law’s not calling, come on, your mother, 80-year-olds, 90-year-olds, they trust the government.”

What kind of fruit is that? It certainly does not appear to be godly fruit.

This is the fruit that God wants to see growing (Galatians 5: 22,23):

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control.

Praying for my nation. God help us.

Mar10

VA and the Physical and Social Determinants of Health

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“There are lots of changes coming, so get used to it!” the new VA Secretary Doug Collins said with a smirk after he explained the VA will be cutting 80,000 civil servants. He promised that services to our veterans would be as good as ever… right before he said the “get used to it” part.

My husband is a Vietnam-era veteran. He served his country in the most thankless time in history for folks serving in the military. Now, he’s an ancient old veteran whose excellent medical care comes from the VA at Perrypoint, Maryland. His doctors and nurses there give him the highest level of care and they care for him with respect due a veteran. He experienced the same care and respect during a two-month stay in the Baltimore VA/University of Maryland hospital.

Just as important as the good quality care he receives is that respect he feels when he is at the VA for his appointments. He is always addressed as Veteran Tillman. Everyone from greeters, to receptionists, to doctors and nurses, talks to him as though he is a valued human. They laugh at his jokes. They treat him like he is an accepted member of the community. I have seen that this is vital to his health. In my training as a counselor, I know there is a name for this kind of health. It is called “the social determinants of health”. Without these social determinants, people do not do well medically.

And while I’m singing the praises of the VA system. Let me tell you about the Maryland VA’s caregiver program. Because I am my husband’s full-time caregiver, I need training and support. You simply cannot do caregiving without this. The VA provides caregiver courses online, caregiver coaching, plus weekly training and bi-weekly support groups. I have a stressful task as a caregiver, I really don’t know what I would do without the practical training I receive. AND the social determinants of health- the support groups.

Where I’m going with this is: how dare a couple of billionaires and their smirky VA Secretary threaten the well-being of my veteran and me? How dare they threaten the well-being of thousands of veterans who served their country while they did what…stayed home with bone spurs or avoided service because they were not born in the US?

I think this is a Constitutional issue. Veterans served their country with their lives and liberty. Their lives and “pursuit of happiness (well-being)”, depend on the nation keeping its promise of care. The Preamble of the Constitution, the Constitution’s enactment clause, promises this.

If you know a veteran or a veteran’s family member, or just care about the well-being of our nation, would you please write your elected officials and ask for intervention to stop the decimation of our VA system?

BTW- here’s an interview I did for the first caregiver training program after I completed it.

Feb28

What Happened to the Original-Intent Conservatives?

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When I homeschooled my kids in the 1980s-2000s, homeschool curriculum publishers, politicians, and popular speakers talked a lot about the US Constitution. In those days, many (or maybe, most) homeschoolers were politically conservative and we listened to politicians and speakers who were conservative. The textbooks we used with our homeschoolers leaned conservative.

So, when all these folks talked about interpreting and understanding the US Constitution, they talked about the conservatives’ way of thinking about interpreting it: the founding fathers’ “original intent”.

Original intent is a way of interpreting the Constitution.

Original intent says that decisions should be made by trying to discern what the founding fathers meant and wanted when creating the Constitution.

People who believed in original intent took the opposite stance from those who interpreted the Constitution as “a living document”.

Those who took the “living document” stance felt that the founding fathers could not have known what life would be like in the future, so they left some flexibility in Constitutional interpretation.

This played out in the court system; for example, Roe vs. Wade. Original intent folks said that the Constitution protects life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They stated that abortion ends a life, thus is unconstitutional. Living document folks stated that the founding fathers had not included women in the original “general Welfare” doctrine of the Preamble. However, today the 19th Amendment to the Constitution gave women the right to vote, implying that their general welfare mattered- and welfare included their right to make their own health decisions.

Original intent versus living document has been one of the foundational arguments between American ideologies for decades.

Now suddenly the story has changed. With the Dodd decision in 2022, pro-life Christians got what they wanted. With this decision, abortion laws were handed back to the states. At least 14 states have passed strict abortion regulations.

Christians got a taste of power and wanted more. Recently, I heard a popular television preacher who was celebrating Dodd exclaim, “President Trump is giving the nation back to us!” Drunk on the power they are feeling because of a president that gave them a Supreme Court that gave them Dodd, this branch of Christianity is thrilling over other changes. They want their hero president to place LBTQ folks under restrictions and get rid of DEI, among other things. They believe that the current president is the nation’s and their political savior.

So my Christian friends are willing to ignore power grabs by the president, unconstitutional power grabs. And the only way they can turn their backs on the Constitutionally-mandated separation of powers and checks and balances, is to pretend they do not remember “original intent” of these. But that appears to be okay because their hero-president has given them a new idea: we are suddenly, thanks to his leadership, in a “post-Constitutional” era.

You read that right: because the current president wants authoritarian-level power, what I am hearing these days from many of my Christian friends is that they are now, “post Constitutionalist”.

They say, “we don’t need a Constitution anymore, we need a powerful man who will give us the America WE want”. They don’t want the separation of powers with its checks and balances that are guaranteed by the Constitution. They want a powerful hero who gives my friends and these television preachers the America they want. SO, they do need to toss the Constitution.

I hope some of them will remember the way this works in history.

Give all the power to a strong man, he establishes his regime, and then all his supporters and underlings are pushed aside, imprisoned, forgotten, or worse. These dictators “use them and then abuse them”. Think: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Kim Il-Sung.

Remember with me, Christian friends, that Scripture has guidelines to help us figure how to save our country:

First, test the spirit of leaders, if they are not showing fruit of the Spirit by their words and actions, then they may be tricking you:

James 3: 9 With our tongue we give thanks to our Father in heaven. And with our tongue we speak bad words against men who are made like God. 10 Giving thanks and speaking bad words come from the same mouth. My Christian brothers, this is not right! 11 Does a well of water give good water and bad water from the same place? 12 Can a fig tree give olives or can a grape-vine give figs? A well does not give both good water and bad water. (Biblegateway.com NLV)

Then remember that there’s good news! We don’t need to have a “savior” in the form of a dictator. We, the believing people, have God’s instruction on how to save a nation. If we truly believe, it’s up to us to follow the instructions:

II Chronicles 7:14:

“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 will I hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.”

That’s right, we humble ourselves, we pray, we seek God’s face, we turn from our own wicked ways. Then God will hear and forgive…and heal our land!

The guardrails

In the meantime, we have the guardrails: our contract between “We the People” and our government. This contract lasts till “our posterity”, so as long as there are posterity, the Constitution is still in force. It is the supreme law of the land that any would-be dictator must submit to.

In other words, you can’t simply wish away the Constitution by inventing “post-Constitutionalism”.

I suggest we believers return to Original Intent.

What did our founding fathers intend about the Constitution? That it would last, that it would be the supreme law of the land (Article 6, section 2), and that the powers of the government are equally balanced between executive, legislative, judicial, and we the people.

We the people need to walk within that contract!

Feb19

Render Unto Caesar

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“This is our time!” I had the opportunity to listen to a television preacher and a talk show host, both of whom were excited about the current administration. They firmly believed that the current president was a gift of God to Christians.

They honestly believe that at any moment, the president will soon turn the power of the nation over to the Christians so that they can form a new, Christian nation. For evidence they point to the new White House Faith Office (headed by the television preacher, Paula White).

Can I just point out a little Scriptural corrective?

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was the most powerful human being who ever walked the face of the earth. If he had been following the Christian nationalist program, he could have cozied up to the Romans and then used his power to kick them all back to Rome, or rain fire down on their heads.

Wouldn’t it have been more efficient to take over Rome? And the Jewish temple?

Instead, what did the most powerful human who ever lived do when he was on earth?

-He fed thousands (Matthew 14)

-He healed the sick (such as Mark 1, Matthew 8, Luke 5)

-He taught people to love, serve, be humble (Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5-7)

While he had followers who were connected to religious and political entities, he himself refused to use his status as Son of God to insert himself into temple or governmental politics.

In fact, when the Pharisees tried to trick him into taking a political stand on paying taxes, he asked for a coin and pointed out Caesar’s inscription on it. Then he gave these instructions,

“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22)

He wasn’t asserting the ability to use his power to take over things- even though his power could have given him a quick takeover. He used his power differently.

He would use that power to preach the Gospel, show love and compassion, heal, and feed the multitudes.

My fellow Christians, could I encourage you that this is the time to exercise power, the power of Jesus’s way of doing things. You don’t need the power of a government, and you don’t need to lord power over anyone. In fact, those in power right now may NOT turn the power over to create a Christian nation. They may just use you and then abuse you. However, you have the power to change the nation through the way Jesus does things:

-He fed thousands, so now, you feed those in need

-He healed the sick, so now, you work to help people heal

-He taught people to love, serve, be humble, so now, you walk in love, serve, grow in humility so that someday you might hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

Jan26

Prayer in Nature

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This year, I am participating in the Renovare book club. In the book club, we just finished Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. This twentieth-century classic talks about various spiritual disciplines that aid Christians in their ability to connect with God. One practice that Foster discussed was the spiritual discipline of time in nature.

It got me thinking about long ago, when I was a young biology major at the University of Florida. I was helping a doctoral student with his field studies of chickadees and titmice. These sweet little birds would flock together and communicate in a complex language. The grad student was recording and deciphering their calls by watching their behavior patterns. It was fascinating work.

One early dawn, we were poised outside one titmouse’s tree hole, ready to record his first call of the morning. Soon, he awoke, perched himself on the edge of his hole, lifted his beak and began to sing and sing! The grad student asked me what I thought that call meant. I knew it was not a call that was setting his territory for the day, calling his mate or the flock. He looked so happy. I blurted out, “He’s praising God!”

That moment set me on a journey. If the birds praise God, maybe God is someone I should think about. To this day, I’m grateful for the birds pointing me toward the Lord!

It turns out that I am not the only person who has been drawn to God through nature. There are lots of blogs about listening to God in nature or praying in nature. Here’s a sweet guided nature prayer meditation from Roma Downey.

Not only is spending time in nature good for the spirit, it is good for the body and soul! Researchers have found that mindful walking in nature (or “forest bathing”) can reduce blood pressure, heart rate, and stress levels. It also can improve sleep and immune function. Walking in nature can produce a wonderful feeling of awe- that feeling in our soul of wonder, of transcendence, or feeling of being part of something larger that oneself.

How do you pray in nature?

That’s easy, just go for a walk. As you walk, notice. Notice the leaves on the trees (or in the winter, the shapes of the bare branches), and listen to the birds and the sounds of the wind. Feel the coolness of the air and the warmth of the sun on your face. Then, spend a few minutes in thankfulness for all these things…and for anything else that comes to mind. Listen. See if God touches your heart or gifts you with a moment of awe.

These are good times to keep our body, soul, and spirit in a good place. Give praying in nature a try, it will help.

Mar24

Five Ways to Deal with Anxiety about Current Events

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Our newsfeed is full of traumatic events that we cannot fix or change. How do we deal with anxiety about current events?

Here are five ways to deal with anxiety about current events

These tools give us things we can do. 

Pray

Of course! For we people of faith, this is the most necessary thing to do. We followers of Christ have instructions and I imagine that if we are able to follow the instructions, the prayer of the “righteous will avail much”…

Remember: 1 Timothy 2:1-2

“I exhort therefore, that, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and giving of thanks be made for all men; for kings and for all that in authority, so that we may lead quiet and peacable life in all godliness and honesty.” KJV

It is something you CAN do and you do have instructions to do so. When people actually pray about international and national events, they tend to feel a little better because they did something that is effective spiritually.

Limit your exposure to social media and the news 

Social media algorithms feed you more of anything you click on. So limit any clicks on dramatic photos, videos or posts. If you find your feed is mostly drama and trauma, willfully find happy memes and click on those only for a day or two.

Also, news organizations make their money by selling ads. They sell more ads when people have their noses clued to the screen because of anxiety-provoking events. 

Therefore, to keep you stuck on their medium, many news outlets will try to increase your anxiety by using clickbait headlines. Not only that but they will use anxiety-provoking nouns and verbs along with dramatic-sounding voices.

Try to limit your news consumption to once or twice a day. Take a media fast whenever you can. The news will happen whether or not you are watching. Your brain and soul will thank you for it.

Donate something small

Small things add up!

Find an honest organization that is feet on the ground supporting the people affected by the current event. A tiny donation from you adds up when lots of people are doing the same.

Write your elected officials

Send an email to one or all of your elected officials. Simply write a sentence or two about your opinion on that one current event. 

Elected officials have staff who note what is important to their constituents. Your email opinion matters to them because it helps the elected officials keep their priorities in line with folks who they hope be voting for them.

Notice where God is working in the world

Try not to let a day go by without stopping to notice the simple ways God is working in the world. A modified Ignatian Examen can help.

  • Something beautiful in God’s creation (a sunset, a daffodil, a tree budding)
  • A kind or helpful thing that someone else did. (Remember the story Mr. Rogers told: 

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”)

  • Something God has done for you today (even your daily breath is something to be grateful for)

Hang in there. There is still good yet to come, even if there are many anxiety-provoking current events.

Dec3

Recalibrating Spiritual Life for the New Year

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December is a busy time for many Americans- holidays and hard work. However, if you can take a moment or two, it is a good time to start thinking about recalibrating spiritual life. For us Christians, we can calibrate around Advent and think about the purpose of Christ’s coming. We can also think about how Christ in us can look in the coming new year.

Advent

In the weeks leading to Christmas, while we are busy trying to organize covid-safe family gatherings and events, we can also take a few minutes daily to think about why we have Christmas. We all know the Christmas story but we can get so over-it and jaded that we forget why Jesus actually came.

Let’s take a breath and a fresh look at John 3:16 which many of us learned in Sunday school or Awana: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Our goofy western culture has come to frame that eternal life that we are given as “going to heaven when we die”. Thus, it it something that happens in the future and has no relevance to our lives here on earth.

Therefore, it does not matter how we live and behave here on earth…although it does matter how others are living and behaving. Other folks, especially non-believers, need to be fixed in any way possible so that their lives do not cause us disequilibrium. And when others are not living lives we are comfortable with, we can behave in anyway we want to try to force them into behavioral compliance.

At least, that is how our culture looks to me. When I talk to health care workers and other professionals who have borne the brunt of this pandemic, they often tell me they have felt bullied by “Christians”. When I talk to folks who do not have a connection to the Christian faith and they are harassed about their lifestyle choices, they do not feel drawn to God’s love or our faith.

As a counselor, I often ask my clients, “Is that behavior getting you what you want?” So, for my angry fellow believers: Is bullying and judgementalism getting you want?

Where I’m going with this is: What if we believers take some time during Advent to check up on our Fruit of the Spirit:

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and self-control

What if we take a little time to ask God to calibrate our hearts to look like Christ: full of Fruit. That is an interesting Advent prayer.

BTW- If you would like to add a regular time to think about Advent and recalibrate towards God, have you ever practiced doing Advent wreath? There are lots of ways to add this tradition to your life. Here is one.

Recalibrating for the New Year

January is always a good time for a fresh start. It is a good time to build on the thoughts of Advent and set some intentions toward spiritual growth.

Why not set some simple spiritual intentions:

*Pray that God help you grow in the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5: 22-23)

*Pray that God help you notice His work daily (One way to do this is a simple Ignatian examen.)

*Pray that God help you be a light in the world through lovingkindness and grace towards those who are not like you

God bless and keep you. May you grow in grace.

Feb2

Why I’m Happy Black Lives Matter Got Nominated for Nobel Prize

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Why I'm Glad Black Lives Matter Got a Nobel Prize Nomination

I have young millennial friend on social media. Like many of his generation who were raised evangelical, he’s been asking a few questions about why (especially during the presidential election- and then the insurrection on January 6) so many Christians were behaving in such unChristlike ways. When he tries to discuss his feelings, the older generation becomes offended and says that everyone is fine except the trouble makers (radical/left-wing Democrats, Antifa, Black Lives Matter). So, when I expressed my appreciation on social media that BLM had been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, Jake asked me how I would explain being happy about “radicals taking charge”.

He was asking for a friend. So, here is what I shared. I decided to turn it into a post here so it is easier to read. Remember: as Christians, it is our #1 task to pray for our nation. However, our #2 task is to walk in love towards our neighbors.

Here is what I wrote for Jake:

Jake, could you pass this along to your friend.


Dear Jake’s Friend,

Thanks for your question. To answer it, please allow me to tell a little about me:

I have been a counselor for more than two decades now. I make my living trying to understand how and why people think and feel the way they do. 

In fact, a lot of my life has taught me to look at life through “both sides now” (as an old Joni Mitchell song said, but I’m betraying my age…)

I was raised in the old South, so deeply understand and lived in the culture of mandated segregation. I was also the daughter of civil rights activists in those MLK days.

As an adult have lived through times of deep poverty (in fact, lived in Chester, which will tell local folk a bit about the poverty). And I have enjoyed many years of middle class White American financial comfort.

And I have spent years as part of the support system for an urban ministry and hear the stories of staff and students from the world of the difficult-to-escape inner city.

So when I tried to understand Black Lives Matter, I did my best, with my knowledge and experience to figure out what made and drove the movement.

Here are my thoughts:

Any adult, however focused and mature, will devolve into a 2 year old temper, anxiety or despair if they are Hungry, Angry, Afraid, Lonely or Tired for too long. (You have probably noticed that in yourself, right, Jake’s Friend? We all get cranky at times like that.)

(BTW- I’m not saying any BLM action was devolved behavior- just trying to explain a protest to White folks who have rarely been really uncomfortable- a point of common experience.)

  • Can you imagine being a person who grows up feeling one or more of those things every day? 
  • When we lived in Chester for several years, there was not one single day that I did not feel afraid for our safety or that we would not have enough money to pay the bills or feed the kids. It was lonely knowing that most of the folks I knew had no idea what it was like to scrape together gas money to get the family to church. When we were finally able to move to better living situation, my anxiety and health improved, for sure. (But, I’m sure it had a lasting impact on my kids who were born during those days. Poverty is trauma.)
  • What if you were like many of my neighbors there? Because of the color of your skin, you could not live somewhere else. (This was not because of mandated segregation, but red-lining codes and traditions and credit requirements. Not only that, the rents or mortgage rates were SO high compared to what folks mostly White towns were paying, that it was impossible to get ahead with downpayment for a move.)
  • What if your kids attended the local school that was funded by property taxes from the neighborhood? In other words, schools had little funding to pay teachers, keep the building safe, buy curriculum and supplies. I watched this, right where I lived. While the White towns around us, with higher property taxes had decent schools- the local kids didn’t have a chance. The graduates of White town schools were able to get into college or vocational training that set them up for life. The graduates of our town, could not perform well on SATs or hold competitive transcripts, so had to accept minimum-wage jobs. (Let me tell you, you can never pay today’s bills with minimum wages- thus the need for federal supplemental programs.)

I learned that it could make you “suspect” if you have black or brown skin when I was attending the international conference for the American Association of Christian Counselors several years back. I attended a panel where several leaders in the Christian counseling profession shared about racial reconciliation. A couple of these leaders were Black psychiatrists, highly successful and revered in the psychological profession.

  • Both of these men shared that, if they stopped at at store and were not dressed in suit and tie, it was not unusual for them to be followed by store personnel. 
  • Even if they were professionally dressed, they were sometimes subject to random traffic stops. (That was where I first heard about “the talk” that every Black parent has to give their teens when they start to drive: WHEN you are stopped, hands on the steering wheel…) I never knew until that time that driving while Black can be a life threatening situation.
  • Even in America today, if you have Black skin or a non-white-sounding name, it is more difficult to get job interviews and move up the corporate or professional ladder. My Black friends tell me that they have to be prepared to outperform their White colleagues by at least 10%.

Now this one is difficult for any White person who wasn’t raised in the old South, but I was, so I watched it: Slavery never died.

  • When slavery was officially outlawed, the need for free and forced labor did not go away. In the South, Jim Crow and situational norms were enacted that kept Black people in enslaved lifestyles. Sharecroppers were trapped in rigged systems where they could never get out of debt to big farmers who controlled seed and county legislatures that enacted tax laws making success difficult for non-Whites. If anyone stood up to those with money or power, there were lynchings or arrests:
  • And when a man was arrested, he would be rented out to local farms, groves, chain gangs. 
  • Black people were kept in slavery in a system that is still alive and well today in for-profit prisons systems and a culture of power-by-terror. This culture migrated North and became embedded in our big cities as Black people fled north to TRY to escape the slavery of the South.
  • And when people tried to vote the systems out, they would face “reading tests” and “citizenship tests” that were impossible to pass. (White folk did not need to take these tests.) Or had to pay heavy “poll taxes”. When these were outlawed in the past few decades, politicians had creative but legal voter suppression ideas:
  • Randomly eliminate or move polling places 
  • Purge voter rolls randomly
  • Add extra voting requirements that were difficult for poor people (drivers licenses- for folks who don’t drive, photo ids that come from a motor vehicle administration office so far away folks can’t get to it, requirement of a steady address for folks who may move from family location to family location due to finances). 

I’ll stop with these, Jake’s Friend. I hope they help you understand, the way I have come to understand, that Black lives do matter but unfortunately they are not treated like they matter the same way that we White folks matter.

They’ve been working in the system since the Civil Rights Era when MLK and John Lewis and others were constantly being criticized for making trouble. 

Folks don’t need to be making trouble if they are not Hungry, Angry/Afraid, Lonely or Tired. It is our job as Christians or American citizens, to listen, try to understand and then do something to help. (Not looking for ways to be offended is a good place to start.)

The Nobel Prize nomination is that organization’s way of saying: See, there’s a problem and at least SOMEONE is trying to make a change.