Magazine Review: Mapping the Seven Deadly Sins

The latest issue of "Wired" magazine maps the Seven Deadly Sins. (Click here to see the article and accompanying maps.)

If you've never read this magazine, it is worth your time. And it's not just a magazine for geeks (although persons with less than perfect eyesight will need reading glasses). As you might have assumed, you can also find "Wired" on the Web.

I began subscribing to this magazine because I thought it would help me to better understand the technology that has become a part -- for better or worse -- of interpersonal communication. Preaching, if nothing else, is interpersonal communication on a large scale; and I thought that a better understanding of the communication technologies would help me to be a better preacher.

So, if you've wanted to learn about Craigslist, how to throw a knife, or discover what's really in a Slim Jim snack, "Wired" is your ticket. And, you'll also see where the big "sinners" live!

The Runner, the Motorist, and the Turtle

The story below actually happened to my wife Jay, and is re-told with her permission. (It's not like the story is copyrighted; or that my wife would sue me, or something, if I didn't obtain her permission. But if you like this story, and you know my wife, please tell her so.)

A few days ago, my wife was running through our neighborhood when she saw a box turtle in the street.

The turtle was half-way across the street as she passed.

Approaching, from the opposite direction, was a car that attracted my wife's attention because, as it approached, it began to slow. Then, several yards beyond my wife, the car stopped.

As she turned, she noticed that the car had stopped at the turtle. A man emerged from the driver's side. He picked-up the turtle, and headed to the grass beyond the curb -- limping.

A Funeral Homily for an Old Soldier

MSGT Freddie Lee Mahone, U. S. Army (Retired) died on August 12. He was 82 years old. The words below are my funeral sermon for my friend, who was also a friend to many others in his neighborhood, his extended family, and the U. S. Naval Academy Chapel community.

He was buried, with military honors, in the Maryland Veterans Cemetery, Crownsville.

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 12

This passage from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes may seem to be a strange text for a funeral sermon – particularly for a man who had lived for more than eight decades; a man who had fought in two wars; a man who had served our nation for 30 years as a soldier, and 30 additional years as a federal civilian employee.

However, the truth about the funeral sermon is that it is not for the person who has gone – as the folks in Freddy’s native Georgia might say – “from labor to reward.” It is for those of us who remain.

I first met Freddy – who insisted that I call him by his first name – one Sunday morning before services in the upstairs chapel. He was an usher and a cross-bearer in the procession. (He was one of the gentlemen who comprised our usher corps, and not all of them could easily carry the heavy processional cross the 80 yards or so from the Chapel entrance to the altar!)

But I got to know Freddy as I encountered him – at 70-plus years – running the perimeter of the Naval Academy grounds. Occasionally, we would run together.

I learned that he was devoted to his wife, who at the time was seriously ill. He had great affection for the Naval Academy, despite being an Army guy. He loved this Chapel community. This was his church!

He had seen a lot. He had done a lot. And he knew a lot, although he would be the last person to let-on, because he was a man of great humility.

The resonance of the final chapter of Ecclesiastes for we who remain is in the preacher’s admonition to remember our Creator while we are young.

You may be 100 years old, but you are younger today than you will be tomorrow.

Today: Are you living for God?

Today: Have you time for God?

Today: Are unalterably committed to the things that are always right; the things that never deceive; the things that transcend time and eternity?

The words of Ecclesiastes are as relevant today to persons who are “young at heart” as they were when first written 3,000 years ago to people who were “young in fact.” To those individuals – regardless of chronological age – for whom tomorrow is bright; and for whom life is as full and varied as a Sunday buffet, the preacher has three words: Remember your Creator!

Scripture tells us that there are three basic tactics employed by the devil to help us to forget God: (1) The lust of the flesh: What feels good to our senses; (2) The lust of the eyes: What looks good, either literally or figuratively; and (3) The pride of life: The sense that life is good, and that, for you, it always will be good.

Yet, the preacher says that if we live long enough, our life will change – and at the end of life, we each must stand before God.

When that day comes, and we each stand before God, what will be in our memory? Recollections of treasures reserved for us; or the reality of treasures laid up in heaven, where moth and rust cannot corrupt; and where thieves cannot break through and steal?

When that day comes, and we each stand before God, what will be in our memory? Recollections of our hobbies, pastimes, and occupations; or the assurance that God has remembered the visits to those whom others seem to have forgotten: The sick, the shut-in, the prisoner, and the elderly?

When that day comes, and we each stand before God, what will be in our memory? Will it be our Creator? Will we recognize Him as our Father? Will he recognize us as His children?

Our Hope – Jesus Christ – came to this earth; lived, was crucified, buried and resurrected, that you and I might become the Children of God by believing in Him. If the Spirit of God is speaking to you; urging you to remember your Creator, will you now come to Him?

Jesus says this: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3: 20) There is no better time than now. There is no better place than here.

As a disciple of Jesus, this was Freddie’s hope. It is my hope, too.

I envision that when I see Freddie in heaven, we will, again, go for a run; but not before we have added our voices to the heavenly assembly, gathered to remember in eternity our Creator, Redeemer, Lord, and God: “Holy, Holy, Holy! Amen!”

The Perceptions of the Professor, the Policeman, and the President

One of my least favorite popular phrases is, "Perception is reality." Nothing is farther from truth, as is definitively shown through the recent tempest surrounding the arrest of noted Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (pictured).

As you may remember, Gates -- who is black -- was arrested by a white police officer in front of his Cambridge, Massachusetts residence for disorderly conduct. Gates, it seems, was upset with the police officer for alleged "racial profiling" in his investigation of a 911 call from one of Gates' neighbors that two men were forcing the front door of Gates' house. Gates perceived that he was being investigated because of his race. He is a black man in a predominantly white neighborhood.

The officer, a police sergeant with an exemplary service record, says that he was just doing his job in ensuring that Gates was the rightful occupant of the house as the indignant professor vociferously questioned the sergeant's motives. The sergeant says that he told Gates that he was risking arrest because of his conduct, and when the professor persisted, he was arrested.

The President, who during his election campaign noted that he had sometimes found it difficult to hail a cab in some cities because of cab drivers' perception that they are at a greater risk of being robbed by a black passenger than one who is not black, weighed in by saying that the Cambridge police had "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates, and fanned the embers back into flames.

So, today, the President will host the professor and the policeman at a picnic table at the White House and, over beers, try to redeem the situation. Which brings me back to my least favorite popular phrase.

Yes, our perceptions do frame our own peculiar realities, but that is not Reality, as in the truth.
The professor, understandably perhaps, based on his research and experience, thought that what was happening was a textbook case of discrimination based on race. It was not. Gates' neighbor saw two strange men entering a house by force and did what any good neighbor should do: Call the police.

The policeman perceived Gates as an angry, abusive citizen, perhaps not unlike many other citizens he's encountered in his law enforcement career, and he had his own textbook response for the professor's behavior: Arrest. In retrospect, perhaps the sergeant would have rather talked-down the professor in Cambridge and saved the trip to Washington, D. C. for another time.

The President perceived that the policeman had not used his best judgment by arresting Gates. Not having been there, perhaps the President's perception was the worst of the three. But that did not stop him from offering an opinion framed by his own experiences and, perhaps his personal acquaintance with Professor Gates. He apologized for his public remarks, and hopes to do a little fence-mending of his own today at the picnic table.

Is perception reality? Clearly not. Perception is perception. Reality is reality. We all use what we have and what we know to make sense of our world and the situations in which we find ourselves. But we should resist the temptation to measure others with our limited -- and often inaccurate -- yardstick.

The antidote to erroneous judgments based on limited vision (remember: to "perceive" means to "see") is humility and an even-handed approach to all situations and all people -- particularly those whom we suspect are not our champions. If we acted in such a manner, we would be amazed at how pitifully limited our perceptions are, and how magnificently broad is Reality.

"On Love," and Newspapers

"On Love"

My Sunday newspaper contains a weekly article in its "Style" section that features a couple's "love story."

I normally don't read these articles, because the articles that I have read seem to be about the same kinds of love: Man meets woman; man and woman "fall in love"; man and woman are challenged in some way in their love for each other; through the challenge, man and woman come to realize that they are made for each other; man and woman get married; man and woman live happily ever after.

Yesterday's article was true to that formula -- click here to read the article -- and reading it gave me another reason not to read such articles in the future: These stories are only about the first chapter of that couple's life together (although in the case of yesterday's couple, they had known each other for more than ten years and had two children between them before they arrived at the altar -- but that is another story for another time).

My wife and I have been married for more than 27 years, and I have been in pastoral ministry for more than 30 years. Based on those experiences, I wish that my Sunday paper -- and all others newspapers with similar story ideas for "love stories" -- would write the love stories of couples who have been married for more than 40 years. Or the love story of a couple that has stayed together through the death of a child, a life-threatening illness, a disabling injury, or a shattered career.

Many marriages do not survive such stresses. The marriages that do are full of lessons about humility, transformation, self-sacrifice, faith, hope, and love. Precisely the lessons that couples completing the first chapter of their life together will need for each successive chapter; precisely the lessons that all couples need to make the transition from wedding day to married life.

Newspapers

Now, while I am on the subject of Sunday newspaper reading, I also noted an article on the recent purchases of small, local, newspapers by former Washington Redskins president John Kent Cooke, which is contrary to the current trend, where most folks with money are shunning old media, such as newspapers. (Click here to see article.)

Newspapers are dear to me. I studied journalism in college and, for a time, was a working journalist for three daily newspapers. The decline in newspaper readership saddens me.

Cooke is not buying newspapers out of sentiment. He sees small daily and weekly newspapers in locations that are outside the shadow of large, national, dailies -- such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times -- as strong for newsprint.

It seems that in this case, small is better -- and more profitable. As a former newspaper guy, I hope Cooke is right!

The Redeeming Power of Poverty

"I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is better," said Beatrice Kaufman more than 70 years ago.

In the decades since Kaufman -- and in the centuries before -- few have disagreed. Poverty is as limiting as it is humiliating. Most people, I think, would prefer to encounter poverty by a rare and fleeting accident, than by even the most carefully crafted design.

The "rich is better" axiom is challenged in today's selection from the devotional guide, "My Utmost for His Highest," which is a year's worth of daily readings excerpted from talks and sermons given by early 20th Century missionary Oswald Chambers (pictured).

"The underlying foundation of Jesus Christ's kingdom is poverty; not possessions; not making decisions for Jesus," Chambers says, "but having such a sense of absolute futility that we finally admit, 'Lord, I cannot even begin to do it.' Then Jesus says, 'Blessed are you. . .'" (Click here for the full reading.)

Regarding the power of poverty, the media are on a pendulum: Publishing the story of a man who finds purpose through poverty on one day; and the next day publishing another man's struggle to regain his lost prerogatives and financial status. From such even-handedness, it would seem that either state is equally preferable, equally sustainable, and equally moral. They are not.

It is said that of all subjects, Jesus talked most of the subject of money. (The same could be said, of course, about The Wall Street Journal newspaper.) However, Jesus' approach to the subject was different from what many of us might take, which is to regard money as a "necessary evil." Jesus did not say that money was necessary (something The Wall Street Journal might say); and He did not say that money was evil.

To quote St. Paul, money is not the root of all evil; rather, it is the love of money that is the root of all evil, and the source of much human misery. (Click here for Paul's quote.)

The doorway to the rule of God in one's life is poverty. It is there -- and there alone -- where one finds freedom from the tyranny of fear, competitiveness and selfishness.

NIMBY at Work in Proposed National Health Insurance Plan

The phrase, "Not in my back yard" (a. k. a. NIMBY), is commonly used to identify an attitude of individual benefit at the expense of someone else.

One need not wait long to see this attitude displayed. For example, while many folks are eager to close detention camps, such as the one in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, few are willing to have Guantanamo detainees imprisoned in their home state. NIMBY.

The financing of universal health care coverage for Americans is the latest example of NIMBY. According to recent news reports, a couple earning more than $350,000 a year would suffer a surcharge amounting to between 1 percent and 5.4 percent of their income to raise funds for the health care plan. It is estimated that this plan would affect approximately 1.2 percent of all households, and would raise one-half of what would be needed to fund the scheme, with the other half coming from savings in Medicare and other health care programs.

I don't think much of this idea, and it is not because my wife and I earn more than $350,000 a year. We don't. I resist this idea because it requires only 1.2 percent of the population to contribute to a benefit received by the remaining 98.8 percent of the nation.

One definition of fairness is whether -- all things being equal -- you would continue to like a particular idea if the roles were reversed. In this case, government proposes to take more from one, small, segment of the population for no apparent reason other than it has the political and legislative muscle to do so without a fight from its victim. On the street, that is called "strong-arm robbery," and it is as illegal as it is morally wrong.

I do not mind paying taxes, whether of the general variety, such as income taxes, which support a variety of programs for our corporate benefit; or the specific variety, such as gasoline taxes, which go toward road maintenance and are more or less tied to how much one uses the streets and highways. "Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. . ."

What I see in the proposed plan is an attempt to pass a greater share of the cost of of a general benefit -- in this case, universal health care -- on to a sliver of the citizenry presumed to be more able to carry the load. For the higher tariff, I don't think that those who pay more will receive a greater benefit or more generous amenities, such as a priority line for medical appointments or expedited prescription drug refills. Nope. They will receive the same level of service that 98.8 percent of their fellow-citizens receive, except they will pay more for it.

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talked about fairness in a maxim we today call "the Golden Rule": "Do unto others as you would have others do to you." (Matthew 7: 12a)

Selecting a burden for others that we ourselves would not willingly bear may, by act of the Congress, be legal, but it can never be right.