Jack LaFountain's Blog, page 5

Know Jack #464 Tradition

“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” 

Gustav Mahler

I am not opposed to change. I am resistant to change. Before I make a change, I want to know who the change profits. By “profit” I don’t necessarily mean financial gain. When a software company takes an operation that involves a single step and updates it into an operation that takes three steps, who profits? Who profits when a company reduces the size of the product rather than increase the price? When told a change is “for the better”, I like to ask, better for whom?

 

Change, whether in the marketplace, workplace, education, philosophy, or government benefits someone in some way. That’s not cynicism, that’s fact. Profit is always the driving force behind innovation. However, we seem to have forgotten that innovation and change only create the possibility of improvement. Hitler’s rise to power was welcomed as an improvement over a powerless regime. Mussolini made the trains run on time.

 

The writer and the innovator are kindred spirits. They look at the world and think, “what if”, and then go out and try it at home. I’ve sallied forth on many a “what if” quest. I can testify that what looks like the sure means to defeat a giant at the outset leads to bruises rather than betterment. Ed Landry, Bryn Bou, and Kit Mann all agree. Altering worlds and situations is in my blood.

 

Nevertheless, I can rightfully be called a Traditionalist. Tradition is not about the way we’ve always done it. Tradition is about values. I’m no mathematician but I paid enough attention in class to know numbers and equations represent values. To the dismay of many, math doesn’t change. Two plus two has equaled four since Man has had fingers. It will continue to do so as long as numbers represent values.

 

The sculptor and the potter both work the medium to fit their vision. Though the potter has a more pliable medium with which to work, change is his goal. Yet, when the artist has finished his work, stone remains stone, clay remains clay. Which is better depends on whether aesthetics or utility is important to you.

 

Humanity is important to me. Philosophers of old sought to define our place in Nature (universe, creation, world). They had the idea that we occupied a niche in harmony with all that surrounds us. One called that place The Good. I know that place is real and will not surrender it.

 

Some people are no longer satisfied with such knowledge. They don’t want to fit into Nature. They desire to conquer Nature and bend it to their will, to be above and apart from Nature. I think in doing so they make themselves and all of us less human. The whispered, “You shall be as gods” is still powerful.

I’d rather feel the warm fire of values long held than sit in the ashes of hasty change.

Lost Crusader #242 Learning to Walk

And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.  2 Thessalonians 3:5

 

The church at Thessalonica faced opposition from without and heresies from within. Paul laid out for them the course of a genuine Christian walk to help steer them through those distractions. It sounds very simple and easy until you try it

 

A Christian walk will make you spiritually fit, but unlike walking for physical fitness, it is meant to take you somewhere other than back to the starting point. The destination is described, and the route is outlined, incompletely. Safely reaching the goal requires three things of the traveler.

 

First, you need a guide. The Lord, in the person of the Holy Spirit, is the only guide capable of steering you safely from start to finish. His leading, at times, seems very mysterious. He does not think like a man and where we may expect to go left, He tells us to go right. If we make a wrong turn, He waits there for us to come back and take the right path.

 

We know we’ve taken a wrong turn when we are no longer moving into the love of God. If our actions, words, and thoughts are not growing the love of God within us, we have veered from the Way. There are lists available to help identify evil fruit and good fruit, but nothing makes the differences clearer than the Spirit’s instruction in a “hands-on” situation.

 

But He doesn’t just shout out the proper direction as we go. Most of the time He speaks so softly you have to really pay attention to hear at all. There are many ways to figure out the right way. There is one sure-fire way to know you’ve gone astray and we’re all very familiar with it. It is called Guilt. If you’re feeling guilty you’ve either done something wrong or failed to do what is right.

 

Sin, and its accompanying feeling of guilt, are not to be lightly esteemed. However, in all likelihood it is not the end of the world, nor the end of your walk. It is a course correction that is made complete by sincere sorrow and repentance. It is a learning experience, and you will revisit it again and again until you succeed.

 

Being directed into the love of God will produce a patient reliance on God for all things pertaining to this life and beyond. This by no means just sitting around. It means engaging life to the fullest confident that you, through the Spirit, will experience all God has for you.

 

I will close on a cautionary note. Experiencing all God has for you is not a carefree adventure. You will learn to be abased and to abound, suffer and rejoice. We will learn to be content no matter the situation or the state you find yourself in at any given moment.

 

I told you it wasn’t easy.

Know Jack #463 Originality

“The thing that hath been, is it that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, ‘See, this is new?’ It hath been already of old time, which was before us.”        King Solomon

 

With Solomon’s words in mind, I’d like to tell you a story. The truth of it is eternal, but I’ll tell it without being everlasting.

 

Once upon a time, a homeless man dressed in worn, ragged layers against the cold wind wandered into a churchyard. Passing under the cross, he walked up to the place where a few cars were parked. There were people carrying things from the cars into the building. He made no request of anyone as he found a place out of the wind and lit a cigarette. One couple invited him inside where it was warm. Another man told him there was a dinner after church and he was welcome to stay.

 

He was given a cup of hot coffee. After peeling off several layers of clothes, he took a seat in the Sunday School class. He spoke up to comment during the lesson and followed those there into the church where he took a seat on the front row. At times he appeared to hold a conversation with someone no one else could see. After the last Amen, he went into dinner with everyone else and was seated among them.

 

He stepped outside to smoke and returned to say he was not staying in the area and would be going. He was given food to take with him and invited to come back anytime. The End.

 

To hear folks in conversation and on social media this little story seems a truly original fairy tale because everyone knows Christians don’t act that way. They are critical, standoffish, superior, and judgmental. This story is not original by any stretch of the imagination or a fairy tale. It has gone on since old times. Neither is this story a rare occurrence.

 

Writers are admonished to “write what you know”. I’ve done that here. Stories like this one are often missed for two reasons. First, they do not fit the popular narrative of the day. The other reason is that the “authors” of many modern tellings do not write what they know but simply parrot the tales they have heard.

 

The point I am trying to make is that a good story does not have to be “original” as long as it is the author’s own telling of it. Stories do not have to “fit” anywhere but in the mind’s eye of the author. Tell your story. It will sound new to someone and that someone is the one you want to reach.

Lost Crusader #241 Freed Slaves

And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness

Romans 6:18 (NKJV)

 

It seems that every time I publish a post from this blog my news feed has at least one story about people leaving the church or one of those pieces about Bible verses people misunderstand. Having been dubbed the least curious man in the world, I’ve never explored any of those articles. If they have any relevance at all for me, it is to point out my need to keep posting.

 

I understand that while Christianity is offered to everyone, it is not for everyone. Today’s verse provides sufficient proof of that. Our present society is acutely focused on guarding personal rights, celebrating a chosen identity, and eliminating personal affronts to our sensibilities. Who in such a society would ever want to become a slave?

 

Christians respect the rights and identity of others and seek to avoid giving offense whenever possible. Those things are fine for others. However, they have no personal relevance in the Kingdom of God. We are not Progressive, Marxist, Liberal, Fascist, or Conservative—we are slaves of our King.

 

We have no rights. When Christ says, “Go”, we go. Though there are times we don’t want to go; sometimes even fear to go; we go anyway. We go because we feel privileged to be His servants. Christ has liberated us from the chains of sin and graciously bound us to Him with love. We were not worthy of His love. We are still not worthy. He doesn’t seem to care about that as much as our neighbors. When we falter, He just keeps on loving us.

 

We seek no identity apart from Him. Read the salutation of Paul to the Romans, of that of James to the church everywhere. Their self-expressed identity is that of servants. They sought service, not exalted office or wealth.

 

Paul was beaten on multiple occasions for speaking “his truth” without crying about being offended. Like Peter and John, he thought suffering for Christ was a privilege. It remains our duty to be harmless as doves while fearlessly speaking the message we have been given.

 

Christ has given us the priceless gift of salvation. He followed that by pouring out yet more gifts and callings upon us. We received it freely, without merit. It is His command we share. As slaves, we cannot disobey it because the world is offended.

 

To give up our lives to become His servants holds no sorrow. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

 

Know Jack #462 Possessed Knowledge

“Mama may have, Papa may have, But God bless the child that's got his own, that's got his own…”    Billie Holiday

 

The worldwide web may indeed possess the collected knowledge of the world. Google, Siri, and Alexa are standing by to answer our questions, and now AI is there to write the answer for us. I’ve always professed to being something of a quixotic oddball. So, it comes as no surprise that all that accumulated knowledge is not enough for me.

 

The old admonition of math teachers everywhere that we wouldn’t always have a calculator in our pocket has become the stuff of jokes. But I’d rather possess a knowledge of math and have math skills of my own than carry a thousand calculators. Possessed knowledge belongs to me, not some device. It is as much a part of me as my arms and legs.

 

I remember reading of an era in human history when knowledge was reserved for the elite, for kings, and nobility. Knowledge being possessed by the masses was considered dangerous. Common people were deliberately kept ignorant and under control. Some call it the Dark Ages.

 

How dark would this age be if all the screens suddenly went dark? No worries, it could never happen, right? We have too much technology for that. Do we have the technology to stop it from happening if it’s not an accident? I’m not talking about machines taking over like in the Terminator movies. What if greedy, power-hungry people shut off the computer screens, rewrite history, collect the phones, and close the libraries?

 

Why would they do that? If you need to ask beware of being governed by organic living, documents, and proclamations of new world orders. Resist redefining words. Take arms against unchallengeable science, and battle change for the sake of change.

About a hundred years ago, we were told life, and the decisions life demands we make had become too complex. Ordinary people could not comprehend the workings of the world. Experts were needed to solve modern problems. Those experts should be unelected, free from politics, to serve the greater good. Agencies, commissions, and boards manned by experts came to make our decisions for us. We silently consented.

 

This century, we are learning that thinking, remembering, and human expression are too burdensome. We have conquered nature with a thinking machine and cannot be bothered to think for ourselves anymore. We are not silent this time. We are celebrating in a rush to embrace another loss of a bit of our humanity.

 

“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” Gustav Mahler

Lost Crusader #240 Of Motes and Beams

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

 

The verse above is woven into the fabric of the modern mind. You need not be a follower of Christ to recite it. In fact, no one recites it more often or with more fervor than those for whom this verse may be all they know of Him. That does not negate the truth it expresses. It highlights the lack of understanding of the speaker and a disregard for context. Moreover, when used as a defense mechanism, it serves only as the cloak of maliciousness Peter warns against.

 

The act of forming judgments is essential to human function and encouraged by Christ and His disciples. One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians Chapter 12 is the discerning of spirits. To discern means to see or understand the difference. When two, or more, things are different, we must judge how to interact with each one according to their peculiarities. Sometimes a revision of the original judgment is in order. This action requires the formation of yet another judgment.

 

When I look out the window in the morning, I judge the weather and decide how to dress. My day is made up of deciding (judging) the best course of action according to the situations I encounter. Some judgments are simple, almost unconscious. Should I have a cup of coffee? Others are more difficult. Should I change careers? Each requires an evaluation of the situation, applying what I know or believe to be true, choosing the course I judge to be best, right, or proper, then, following through with it.

 

At this point, someone will say, that I am not speaking about judging people or their actions. But I am. I’m a person and judgment begins at home. The verse immediately following our text says, “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” This is never quoted along with “judge not” though it is equally true. I expect judgment for the things I do, say, and think. I expect God to judge me. I also judge me and there are times I am the harsher more unrelenting judge.

 

If it is the truth, I have no problem saying a person is a liar. That is a judgment, not a condemnation. To condemn people for their sins is not my place. Yet there is only one person whom I condemn—me. If a person feels condemnation when called a liar, the reason, more often than not, is guilt.

 

I know that because I have lied and felt guilty when caught. I know Christ has found me guilty as have others. Other people may alter their relationship with me because I have lied, but that is about all they can do. Christ has the power, and the right, to condemn me. However, He offers grace instead of condemnation if I confess to Him my guilt and seek forgiveness.

 

Does that mean I can go on lying? Absolutely not. Can other people still call me a liar? Yes, but what wound have they inflicted upon me that I have not first inflicted upon myself? I admit that I do not measure myself with the same yardstick I use for others. The one I use on myself is much tougher

 

We spout, “judge not” more because we do not wish to admit guilt than because we’re falsely accused. Though modern usage seems to make the words synonymous, judgment is not condemnation. One may lead to the other, but judgment may as easily lead to uplifting another person. Condemnation of another while excusing oneself from guilt is what Christ forbids.

 

Know Jack #461 Need to Know

Massive Government Cover Up.  Here’s what you need to know. You’ve seen “news” stories that begin that way. My question is how does MSNBC et al, know what information I require? In my military days “need to know” was a device to withhold information from those not directly involved. I don’t think that changed when the media took up the motto.

So, what is the mass media withholding when they talk about my need to know? Current events seem to indicate the answer to that question is: almost everything. At least, almost everything needed to form an opinion that is different from the writer’s.

Need to know worked well in the military and even in the hospitals where I worked. That’s because, by and large, my job was to use my knowledge and skills to carry out the wishes of my employer.

I run into trouble with the concept when the context shifts to the government and individual rights. Contrary to what officials, elected and unelected, believe, they are not the populace’s employer. They are our employees, stand-ins for those who sent them to represent electorate’s wishes.

The keystone of the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution written upon the principles of that document, is that all power is derived from “We the People”. I remember in the dark ages we had to be able to recite the preamble of the Constitution. For those not so blessed it goes like this:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The people of the states sent men to confer. They wrote the present constitution. Then, they went home and tried to persuade the people where they lived to accept what they had written as law. Only after that was accomplished, and a Bill of Rights promised, did the Constitution take on the powers enumerated within it.

Take it from a writer of fiction, when someone tells you “this is what you need to know” there’s a world of information he’s not sharing with you. We writers call it backstory. We add it in bits (and never, never in total) so you can follow where we lead you and you get the only story we want to tell. Congresspersons, Senators, and their allies in the media do the same.

Know Jack #460 War and Peace

“Be at War with your Vices, at Peace with your Neighbours, and let every New Year find you a better Man.”  -Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s (1755)

 

I have often felt I was born 200 years too late, and the date on this piece of Ben Franklin’s advice only seems to strengthen that idea. I have been waging war on my vices most of my life. Learning to think about it as warfare has been a blessing. Seeing peace with my neighbor held in tension with my war on personal vice is likewise eye opening.

 

I am the judge that modern culture hates—and proud of it. Whatsoever I have not formed a judgment about, I will as soon as I encounter it. Willful ignorance and indifference infuriate me. They foster inaction, appeasement, and surrender. It is impossible to know right from wrong, truth from error, or vice from virtue without making a judgment. The decision to go to war rests squarely on personal judgment.

 

War is made up of battles. You may lose many battles on the way to winning the war. A disastrous defeat is cause for reflection, regrouping, and a new plan of attack. It is not the end. Neither is a brilliant victory the end. These are our vices we fight. Were they someone else’s vices, we would defeat them in a moment and be free. But they are ours. They are part of us.

 

Yes, we were born that way. Nevertheless, that is no reason to remain thus. We can be born again, a new creature. Even so, that creature is not without thorns in the flesh. Spiritual warfare is fought in the flesh and in the mind. It is not rhetorical or philosophical, it is blood and guts, do or die. I do not view the fact that I am still fighting after all these years as a failure. I see it as life in the flesh. War with my vices has an end. If I do not surrender, a relief column will come.

 

Only the particulars of my war are unique. War itself is common to every person and knowing this makes peace with my fellow warriors easier. Often times the peace is uneasy. There are times it would be easier on me to attack and fight. I admit sometimes I would rather fight. Nevertheless, peace is a duty we owe ourselves just as much as we owe it to others. We find it when we seek it in the things that make for peace.

 

Am I a better man? Better doesn’t cut it. Even the best among men is not without spot. It is enough for me that I’m still armed and marching to war.

Know Jack #459 Public Service Announcement

There is no blindness as debilitating as hypocrisy. It is an insidious disease. It causes the human body to produce a euphoria of innocence that encapsulates the affected area. Hypocrisy then feeds on the euphoria the body produces.

Contrary to the current literature, having an unfavorable viewpoint of people or their actions is not a sound basis for a diagnosis of hypocrisy. This is true even when those opinions deviate widely from those opinions generally accepted by the masses. Case studies have found that opinions widely disseminated through means of mass communication actually promote spread of this disease for which there is no natural immunity.

Signs and symptoms of hypocrisy include incongruent speech/behavior. For example, proclaiming universal inclusion while grouping people by identifying factors in which the factors themselves are assigned specific traits. Whether those traits are assigned positive or negative connotations is immaterial. It is the assigning of them that is a hallmark of hypocrisy.

Ideological macular degeneration, the blurring of focus on the periphery is a precursor to the selective deafness/vision often found in hypocrites. Most of the study in this area has been centered on people professing Christianity. This is unfortunate as the disease can afflict anyone who engages in any form of self-identification.

Paranoid labeling is also among the symptoms of hypocrisy. For these hypocrites it is not enough that those who criticize to be wrong, they must be evil. Thus, any disagreeable expression must be hate speech and the speaker a “hater”. The greater the latent paranoia, the more rapid is a person’s descent into hypocritical counterattack.

However, the gold standard for a definitive diagnosis remains the Anubis Test in which the afflicted person assigns a heavier weight to the imperfections of others than he does to the same or similar imperfections in himself. The test is named after the Egyptian god who weighed hearts and admitted only those found to be light as a feather.

Preventative treatment is the best course. The disease is more readily treatable when detected early. This is accomplished with regular self-examination utilizing the motes and beams method. Treating and evaluating others using the same scale as you use for yourself has shown real promise in preventing hypocrisy. As of this writing, it remains seldom used.

Lost Crusader #239 The Tear At 11:59

“…I fell, and tenantless my flesh remained.

 

Truth will I speak, repeat it to the living,

God’s angel took me up, and he of hell,

Shouted, ‘O thou from heaven, why dost thou robe me!

 

Thou bearest away the eternal part of him,

For one poor little tear, that takes him from me’…” 

 

These lines from Dante’s epic poem, though fiction, ring with the truth of the depth, breath, and height of God’s grace. Among Christians there are detractors as to the validity of “death bed” conversions. It should not be so, but it is nevertheless.

 

Grace does not become merited by time in service to God, nor by the ardor of our labor. Grace happens in a single moment of repentance, lasts eternally, and has one result—salvation. That God is so gracious as to accept our tears at 11:59 is testimony to His boundless love for His creation.

 

Salvation is not determined at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Salvation is granted on Earth to whosoever will receive it. Those who accept salvation at the eleventh hour receive the same salvation as those who accept at the break of day.

 

David once prayed for the Lord to restrain him from presumptuous sins. There is no sin more presumptuous than to delay repentance. God has life’s only reliable hourglass. To think we have time is to assume God’s sovereign role as timekeeper. To seek to “be as gods” has ever been the downfall of humanity.

 

Salvation is not without its earthly rewards. A long life lived for God is filled with blessings great and small. Victory snatched from the jaws of ruin has but one. In life beyond this mortal existence, we shall reap what we have sown here. The service of the saved will be justly rewarded by Christ.

 

Blessings in this life and the one to come or self-serving unrepentance. It seems a simple choice.

 

(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)