A Public Letter

Dear Sir,

I know that you do not know who I am and for that matter I am not naive enough to think that you might actually read this.  To let you know who I am, I was the fellow behind you in line entering the parking deck on Wilmington St. downtown Raleigh this past Saturday.  

As I understand from the parking attendant, you were angry because your usual parking spot on the street was occupied and thought you should be able to park in the deck without paying the posted charge.  When you figured out that you would not be able to park there you proceeded to back up without looking back or heeding the shouts of the attendant.  I was in the car you bumped.  

I sat there sir, waiting for you to exit your vehicle.  You did not.  After you pulled forward, I sat there and waited for you to exit your vehicle to express any sort of concern or remorse for bumping into me.  You did not.  After the attendant told me that there was no damage, I waited for you to exit your vehicle.  You did not.  When I got out to inspect for possible damage I thought at this point you may actually get out of your car and have a short civil, but apologetic conversation with me.  You did not.

Instead you continued to sit there while the car behind me and I backed into oncoming traffic to allow you to exit the parking deck.  When you exited the parking deck area you did not wave or offer any sort of gesture to show any sort of remorse.

I have a hope for you sir.  That you are not, or in the future, charged with rearing any male children.  What you displayed was a complete lack of understanding of what it is to be a man.  A true man recognizes when he makes a mistake and takes ownership of it.  He takes responsibility for his actions and accepts the consequences.  He acts in a way as to demonstrate that he is able to lead and provide an example of high standards and accountability to those around him, and especially any male offspring.

I feel true sorrow for any of your male offspring that have you as an example.  They are being taught to cower and shrink from confrontation.  If they wrong someone, they have no frame of reference to use to resolve their conflicts.  Your progeny sir, will be weak and powerless just like you.

I will pray for you sir.  That you see that you need to step up and present the proper example to your male children, or at least to society at large.  We are counting on you sir to continue to lead in your own way the cause of responsible living and accountability for one's own actions that are so sadly lacking in our society today.

Sincerely,

David

This is how NOT to pray...

Love or Fear?

A stage adaptation from one of my favorite movies, "A Bronx Tale"...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCPhnYYh8y8&feature=related .

I got an email from my friend "CC" who meets with several men on a weekly basis with the intention of discipling them.  One of the men he meets with emailed him with a very interesting query.  He wanted to know what your motivation is after you accept Christ into your life, after losing the fear of eternal damnation.  I love his analogy here...

"Never pick a fight with a man who has nothing to loose.  He has no fear.  He is willing to go farther, risk more than you are.  He doesn't care if you leave him bleeding in the street to die.  He sees the fight as win/win despite the outcome."

As non-Christians he is exactly right.  We really have nothing to lose.  Since we really have no hope, we can go all out in the world.  As mature Christians I say he is exactly right.  We move into a realm of acceptance.  We no longer need to be driven by fear.  We have already won.  I refer back to my theory of "catch-up Christianity".  Just because we don't hit all our marks doesn't mean that we are under closer scrutiny.  We already have the promise of heaven.  

Then what is the motivation?  What keeps us on the straight and narrow?  Something that God put in us from the beginning.  Greed.  We want more.

Colossians 3:23-24 (New King James Version)

23 And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for^[a] you serve the Lord Christ.

I think that we start our walk without a whole lot of enlightenment.  As the Spirit reveals more and more to us, our motivation changes.  Don't get me wrong.  I really want to be a part of that "forever sing-along-in-the-sky".  What I believe happens along the way is that we go from serving out of fear, to serving for reward, to serving out of love.  

The best example I can come up with for serving out of love is changing diapers.  I will tell you that I do NOT change the diapers of children who are not mine.  Quite honestly, I don't know what they put in so I don't know what's coming out.  Those of you who have or have had children are familiar with the "Six Wipe Diaper".  What is your motivation for changing that one?  Is it fear?  Most certainly not.  What can that little thing do to you?  Nothing really if you take out all the cutesy surface answers.  What is your reward for changing it?  A less smelly baby?  You could just go in the other room.  Not to hear it cry?  You could go outside.  You serve completely out of love.  You have such a feeling of devotion, connection, and love with this precious child that you just do the deed.  

And your love continues.  As you raise your child you continue to clean up those messes.  Sure they change form but still you serve.  And here is the difference.  You are not committed to "child rearing", rather you are devoted to helping your child become the best person you hope they could be.  You are serving them out of love.  That's all the motivation you need.

And that's what I believe happens in our Christian life.  We go from fearing God around the time of our salvation, to doing the deeds we know will earn us favor with God and get us past St. Peter.  (As an aside, I believe there is a sign as soon as you enter the gates of heaven that says either "The Chicken or "The Egg".  I think even God can get tired of answering the same question over and over again.)  And lastly, we come to serve out of love.  Hopefully we reach a place in our walk that our relationship with Christ has become so near and dear to us that is all the motivation we need to continue with daily Christian life.  

Braggin' on the Family

I don't know how common this is with other families, but with mine it is THE thing.  I'm talking about the "Q".  No, not that annoying guy from 'Star Trek, The Next Generation' who always seems to want to put the screws to Capt. Picard.  I'm talking about BBQ.  

With the Voelz's, BBQ is almost like the Holy Grail.  It seems that we are always going out of our way to find the newest (and that may also mean the oldest) spot.  No place is too far out of the way if the there is a semi-verifiable rumor that there is good pig.  I remember going to one place in Tennessee that was so far off the path I think if everyone in the place had been quiet (and it was packed) you might have heard that familiar sound of "Dueling Banjos".  

That said, when Dad retired a few years ago we all wondered what he would do with his time.  It surprised none of us that he took the BBQ judging class with the South Carolina BBQ Association.  http://www.scbarbeque.com/  Well that was a few years ago.  I am proud to report that the old man has made his way (and who would have doubted) all the way up the ladder to the esteemed rank of 'Master Judge'.  

Here he is on the right.

Way to go, Dad!

Had to Post It

For whatever reason this came up twice yesterday.  Seems to me that it came up for a reason so I thought I should post it.

Galatians 5

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

I don't know.  Just seemed important

I Am Excited?

One of the things that my son Matthew and I like to do is play guitars together.  I play passable rhythm guitar  and he has a little guitar that he just strums and dances with.  His favorite song is "Blessed Be the Name of the Lord" that we sing during praise and worship at church.  To curtail singing this one song endlessly I have found a site that has chords and words to a lot of Christian songs.  A few weeks ago I printed off a bunch of songs and we started to play through them to see which one might distract him from 20 rounds of "Blessed Be the Name of the Lord".

One of the ones that I ran off was "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus".  As I was picking through it Matthew started singing.  He knew this one already.  Sort of.  Instead of singing "I Have Decided..." he substituted "I Am Excited...".  I corrected him once.  He still insisted on singing his version.  I played it through a few more times and decided not to challenge his perception. 

That got me thinking...  

Do older Christians squelch the "excitement" of new believers?  Have we ever seen or experienced babes in Christ ready to evangelize the world only to be told by older saints that they need the proper tracts, the perfect words, and irrefutable Bible knowledge?  Why can't they just go out and tell everyone about the joy the feel from accepting Christ as their savior?  The new believer is always the best evangelist.  They are filled with an unadulterated view of faith.   They have not been pushed down by the mechanism of the church, the gossip of the members, or the trappings of "tradition".  Rather, it is the responsibility of more seasoned Christians to nurture the flame of the newbie.

The second option is one that I borrowed from Bishop Joey.  You can find him on www.oneplace.com.  Look under the House of the Lord ministry and you will find plenty of audio messages.  And if you listen enough you will find that he "can preach a lot better than you can shout"!  He has conjured a theological term called "cranktification".  This refers to the feeling you get when you hear a convicting message from the pulpit, an awesome testimony, or you attend revival.  You get all revved up about being SuperChristian and want to recapture that feeling you had at the moment of justification.   The problem with this form of "I Am Excited" is that it often winds down very quickly.  Just as rapidly as we cranked up, we decrescendo.  We make all those promises and decisions about getting back into the Word daily, praying like we should and making sure we make it to church AND Sunday school.    It never lasts.  

The reality of it all is that most of us will never be as excited now as we were when we first accepted Christ.  Sadly we fall into what I like to call "catch up Christianity".  We are so busy trying to make up for all of our spiritual shortcomings that we forget that we have already been granted our reward.  We can't make up for not reading our Bible daily, witnessing to two co-workers everyday and spending quality time in prayer.  God knew this a long time ago.  Ephesians 2 says "8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."  You see, faith is not a feeling.  It shouldn't go up and down like our emotions.  We should be committed to a constant and steady pursuit of a closer relationship with Christ.  Be excited about that.

Newest Form of "Gattica"

I commute about an hour to and from work every day.  This gives me A LOT of time to listen to the radio.  In the past few months, WPTF (yes, that's AM) has added a show on Saturday nights called the Allen Hunt show.  He is a former pastor and his show advertises that they are more about "right and wrong than right and left".  They still touch on political issues from time to time but take a moral view of whatever the topic may be.

This past Saturday he was reporting that a team of scientists had found that 40% of men carry a "cheating gene".  His question then to his listeners was this.  To the women, he wondered if they would want their potential mates screened.  And to the men, he asked if they would offer up their screening results as a qualifier of their worthiness.

As you would expect, the callers called in with all sorts of crazy stuff.  One guy even tried to tie it in to Usama Bin Laden.  They really came down all over the issue.  His take was that you should control your thought life and fill your mind with the Word.  That sounds like sound advice from a religious/moral standpoint.  

Here's where the movie "Gattica" comes back to haunt me.  How much does our genetic code really play into our life outcome?  Sure, they say that tall men make it further in their careers than shorter men.  But what happens when we start looking a little closer?  Does IQ replace aptitude?  I've known some really smart people I wouldn't trust to get me across the street.  I hear all the time from school teachers that kids are really smart and can succeed in their studies but they are just too lazy to do any work and end up failing.  

I went to high school with a guy in a wheelchair.  He was only 3 feet tall, his head was over sized and he had some different operation almost every year.  He started out life on this track.  What if he was determined from birth to be potentially ineffective at life?  Certainly on a daily basis he requires more care than he can give.  Or does he?

I peeked in on my friend a few months ago on his Facebook page.  It seems that he has a Master's Degree and is working as a social worker.  I wonder if he is in his own way trying to pay back to others for all the help he has received in his own life.  

Now obviously this gentleman is intelligent or he could not have achieved this level of education.  How did he make it with such a genetic flaw?  I think it's what people call the "X Factor".  Describe it as you will... motivation, will, soul, cajones, or mojo.  There is something in a person that drives them to overcome when all the cards are stacked against them.  It isn't always their education, upbringing, or social status.  How many "they overcame" stories have we heard?  

I guess the measure of a man is the measure of the whole man.  Just because one part may be deficient doesn't mean that the man is left unwhole.  There are so many times that there is more to a person than meets the eye.  I would hate to start handicapping people just because they don't measure up on some scientist's scale of success.  I hope that mankind grasps this because mankind will in turn be judged by the same unrealistic set of qualifications that it imposes.

Getting with the Times

Well, I guess it's about time to catch up with all these young folk and start putting in my 2 cents before I get drowned out by them.

I haven't really decided what I am going to post on here as of yet, but I am sure that one word should describe it... ESOTERIC. It has often been said that what oozes from my cerebral cortex is often times hard to understand and quite perplexing. Maybe this will give me a chance to expand on some of the madness and explain a little of what bounces around up there.

I would most certainly entertain any suggestions on what I should be expounding on. If you have any thoughts, please post them in the comment section. I don't think I will use this forum to argue with anyone. If you have such a compulsion, write your own blog.

Well, as my Mamaw would say, if you want see what is going on in my head..."hide and watch!".