One Blogger’s Dilemma

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i noted this week how many of my tweet’s were technology related and specifically to do with programs of use only to blind people.  Maybe one percent of my online friends are blind.  Either I’m missing my audience or I need to find something else to talk about.  That got me thinking about the blog.  It too is rather scattered.  One week it’s a Bible study.  The next week it may be a rant about technology.  Following that might be a personal update only of interest to friends and family.  On and on it goes.  It’s one big ramble.  The categories may help a little, but I think I need to decide what this blog is for and adapt accordingly.

If it is nothing more than a place for me to practice my writing and to vent, then I suppose it’s OK just the way it is.  It’s an exercise in vanity, never likely to gain much of a following, but why blog at all unless people are going to read it?  If I want a following, I think I am going to have to be more purposeful about it.  Why do I want a following?  If it is for my own pride I should abandon the blog right now.  That will go nowhere good.  If I want to teach, encourage, or otherwise benefit my readers, that’s good, but they’ve got to wade through a lot of irrelevancy to find what they are looking for.  Which group is my focus?  If I’m writing for blind technology users, I’ve missed my audience by a mile.  If I’m writing for Christians and/or seekers, I need to be more centered on things they would be interested in.  If I’m going for the political people, I’m out of my league.  If I’m writing for friends and family, I’m probably boring them all.

Maybe the answer is to break the one blog into several more specific ones, but then I have the problem of keeping them all going.  I have a hard enough time with the one.  So, unless the lord gives me some specific direction, I’ll probably go right on being random and writing to myself.  🙂

The Choice to Rejoice

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We really can be in control of our emotions.  I think this is an important lesson for us to learn right now.  Our society urges us to go with our feelings.  If it feels good, do it.  If it stops feeling good, stop doing it.  Right and wrong are subjected to the fickle fate of feeling.

We are more than what we feel.  If our initial reaction may be considered somewhat beyond our control, certainly how we choose to proceed from there is not.  Experience and observation have brought me to this conclusion, but any doubt I may have is alleviated when I see that the Bible teaches the same thing.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! (Philippians 4:4)

BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger, (Ephesians 4:26)

I’m focusing on the first verse today, but I include the second to illustrate that we are to control all of our emotions.  If we are told to rejoice, then it must be within our power to do so, regardless of our circumstances.  “Always” doesn’t leave any room for alternatives.  This is not to say other feelings are not appropriate.  Jesus displayed them all.  We were made to feel, but we were also given the means to decide how we will feel.

When I researched the words that are translated “rejoice” for a sermon a while back, the common vernacular words that seemed appropriate to me were to celebrate or party.  To rejoice in the Lord is to openly and ecstatically celebrate Him.

Do I do that ?  Anyone who knows me can answer that.  I do not.  So, how can we change?  It begins with how we think.  When we learn first of all to be mindful of what He has done for us, how can we not rejoice?  We must then train ourselves to see our circumstances differently.  When something happens, how will we interpret it?  Will we see the evil in it or will we see the good?  Sometimes the only good may be that Yahweh is still Lord and He will bring us through, but that’s quite good enough!  Will we se potential hardship and danger around every corner, or will we see the potential for blessing?  In the same chapter where Paul tells us to rejoice always, he gives us the tools to do it.  He says,

6  Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.  (Philippians 4:6-8)

I whish I had time to share the whole of what I learned when I set out to study this, but I have other things to do.  So in an effort to practice what I preach, I will say “thank You, Lord.”  I’m off to get ready for church.  He worked everything together for my good, just as He said he would.  I can look at my long list of to-dos and lament that I will again leave most of them undone, or I can praise God that I get to go to church, which has meant so much to me and been such a part of God’s fulfillment of his promises to me.  That truly is a reason to rejoice, and my whole attitude is changed just by thinking about it that way.  Try it yourself.  It works!

Our Mission Hasn’t Changed

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I suppose you’ve all heard the news, Jesus is supposed to be coming back today!  There are some problems with that.  I’ll list just a couple.  First of all, Jesus said that no one knows exactly when he will come back.  Secondly God said false prophets will be identified when their predictions don’t come true.  The man behind this latest proclamation said the same thing back in 1994.  So, given that the majority of Christians know these things and aren’t expecting to be raptured today, I suppose He could still show up.  If so, it won’t be a moment too soon.  I look forward eagerly to that day.

Don’t pack your bags just yet.  If He comes you won’t need them where we’re going anyway.  In truth we should be living every day like He’s coming any minute.  As Christians we have the hope of His return, but there are people all around us who do not.  Make good use of the fact that everyone’s talking about this right now to share the Good News that no one needs to fear the end of the world, so long as he has a relationship with the creator of this world.

Accessibility Milestone

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Yesterday was a first.  I walked into a retail store and walked out with a piece of modern technology that was blind friendly out of the box.  It is a Samsung Epic 4G, otherwise known as the Galaxy S.  The phone runs Android.  Yes, the iPhone was first, but for various reasons both personal and practical I didn’t buy an iPhone.

I do need to qualify my claim.  It was necessary for me to ask the salesperson to activate Talkback for me, which involved offering up my Google account credentials.  After that, I was off and running.  Android definitely has some accessibility issues, but it is useable.  Add in Mobile Accessibility from Code Factory and you have a device that is easily capable of doing the things you expect your smart phone to be able to do.  I should state for the record that you can manage the phone without the $97 app, but it will definitely improve your experience if you can afford it.  Here’s a link that will help.

A couple of up-front tips will help the new Android user who is blind.  Most importantly, you need a phone with some kind of physical navigation aid.  A touch pad would do, though I imagine that would be difficult to use precisely.  Physical buttons, whether on the body of the phone or as part of a slide-out keyboard, would be better.  The problem is that Android does not provide a way for screen readers to implement alternative touch navigation to applications that are not specifically designed for it. The applications within Mobile Accessibility do allow for touch only navigation.  Once you have it talking, another thing you will need to know is that the controls in apps are accessed by moving directionally to where they are located on the screen.  In other words, moving just up and down may not bring you to all of the available controls.  Also be aware that the application may not present everything in a grid pattern.  It will take some trial and error to figure out how to navigate to some controls, and then you can only hope they are labeled.  Android leaves it up to developers to design their apps properly.  There are a few accessible applications out there.  A growing collection of accessibility reviews can be found at Android Access, a site run by A T Guys, which markets Mobile Accessibility in the U.S.  Their vendor site appears to be under a hack attack at the time of this writing so I won’t link to it.

My conclusion is this.  Accessibility is not perfect but we have better options now than ever before.  I am delighted to have walked out of a retail establishment actually using the device they sold me.  The future looks bright.  I’m expecting future developments to make things even better, and I’m crying no tears over the loss of my ever-crashing Windows Mobile phone.

Thoughts on Ordination

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It has taken eight months for me to get around to writing about this, but now feels like the right time. On August 1 of last year, I was officially ordained as associate pastor of our church, Bartimaeus Baptist Temple. God is fulfilling the word He gave to me before I even knew enough to accept Him as Lord of my life. I could never have imagined the path that brought me here. I thought it likely that I had gone too far astray to be brought back, but God’s will is not so easily thwarted. Just thinking about it brings me joy. God’s mercy and grace seem indeed to be boundless.

I am still not sure I understand what has happened and what it means. If you’ve been following me you know that I’ve spoken highly of the book Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna. I am in full agreement with most of what they have to say. I believe the traditional church model, drawn from pagan practice, does not serve the body well. Where we part ways is on the teaching of church authority. (By the way, I came to this conclusion before being ordained.) Even so, I did feel a bit of cognitive dissonance on accepting my ordination.

In the end, the decision was made because I have not come to any definite conclusions about how things should be done, but I do know that God has called me to be where I am. It became apparent to me that ordination best facilitated the roll God has given me at the church. It sounds rather calculating written that way, but that is in my nature. I did spend time in prayer and I believe that God intended it to be so.

I am amazed all over again every time I think about the circumstances that brought me to this place in my life. The childhood calling never left my mind, but I doubted its reality more times and in more ways than I can count. As a teenager in a pastor’s home I began to think that I wanted no part of what my father did, watching the trials that ministry brought to him. Yet when called upon to preach my first sermon on a youth Sunday at our church I took on the assignment with fervor. That didn’t end well. I dropped my notes and my confidence fell to the floor among the scattered paper.  Maybe I was not meant to be a preacher after all.

I don’t remember giving any serious consideration to a career in ministry. Even if I had wanted to go to a Bible college, my parents couldn’t send me. Because of the extra effort required to get through school with a visual impairment, working my way through wasn’t a reasonable option, and there would be no government assistance for a private religious institution. I suppose that if I had really wanted that we could have found a way, but I don’t think I gave it much thought. I headed back to Arkansas, and thus began what I imagined to be the death of any clerical aspirations I might have retained.

I could wish that God had chosen another way, but God’s choice wasn’t the problem. I certainly did not surprise Him with my choice, but the very pride that He would soon address led me to make the wrong one. The divorce was a humbling experience, if I do not forfeit said humility by the mention of it. I’ve written in somewhat more detail in other posts about the circumstances, so here I will only say it nearly destroyed me. Only when I confessed my sin did I begin to heal. This wasn’t supposed to happen to good little preacher’s kids. It was a strong dose of reality and it showed me who I really was. It is still painful to think about. Surely this meant I could never be a preacher. Some denominations explicitly refuse to ordain someone who is divorced and the rest generally frown on it. At least they did in that time and place.

I recovered, eventually getting myself together and starting a career as a computer programmer. To this day there remains a part of me that wonders if I missed what God really intended me to do with my life, but I worry about that far less than I used to after seeing what God did through it. It was all part of His plan, all my missteps included. Because I got a job in Dallas and moved to an apartment a couple of miles away from Hillcrest Church, I started attending. I began to understand love. I met my wife Linda there. Because of Linda, I came to Bartimaeus. Because of what I found there, I am now walking in the calling God gave to me.

While I was at Hillcrest, I became involved in small group ministry and led one for a while. I thought maybe that is what God meant. After all, wasn’t I doing essentially the same thing a pastor does? I liked that idea. I still had no desire to lead an entire congregation. The only problem is that’s not what God said. It is reasonable to suppose that He spoke in terms that I would understand as a child and that I might learn later the true meaning of what He said. That’s true however one interprets His words, but He said I would be a preacher. I believe He communicated exactly what He meant to my young mind. The only notion of a preacher that I had was the man standing in front of the Church on Sunday morning.

Eventually we all moved on, and I found new grounds for doubt. I didn’t feel that I did a very good job as a small group leader. Maybe I had sabotaged God’s plan for my life. This thinking was only reinforced after I got married. I might be treading dangerous ground here, but I do not think I’m saying anything that Linda and I have not discussed. Especially in the first couple of years, I thought maybe I was going to be punished for the rest of my life for marrying Linda. After all, we were both divorced and one can reasonably conclude from scripture that we should not remarry. At first she had no interest in the kind of ministry I was drawn to and absolutely did not want to be a preacher’s wife. Did I go against the will of God and finally destroy all hope of fulfilling my calling? Honest students of scripture may disagree on the rightness of what we did, but regardless of that I have no more doubt in His mercy in moving beyond it. Linda went through her own transformation, and she is the one who is responsible for bringing us to our current church home. She is the one who founded the ministry to the disabled that I only talked about. She wholeheartedly supported my decision to be ordained, knowing where it leads. She has embraced our calling and lives it daily. While I’m still caught up in my work, she is out making a difference in the lives of real people. I could not ask for a better wife.

I continue to be plagued by doubts about my calling. I seem so unequipped for the job a pastor must do. I do not speak well, though I am earning. I do not relate to others all that well, especially people I don’t know. I have been consumed with the desire to understand and experience God’s love, but I think I am a poor example of it. I am not able to drop everything and come running when needed unless Linda or someone else is available to help me do it. I have so much to learn. I still can’t fathom that God is willing to use me in this roll, but here I am. I am not and do not wish to be the senior pastor where we are now. Pastor David Whitmore is the man for that job. It may not be Sunday morning when I get to speak, but I am confident that God is bringing about exactly what He said. The when and how is in His hands. I marvel at what He has done and can hardly wait to see what He will do next. If he has made so much good out of my error, how much more when we give our whole harts to serving Him? I’m sure I’m not done making mistakes, but I no longer live in fear of them. He’s bigger than my mistakes, and He will accomplish His purposes.

Thoughts on Representative Government

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That is what we have, right?  We even call the lower house the House of Representatives.  The people whom we put in office are supposed to act as our representatives in making government decisions.  What does that mean?  What is a representative to do if what the people want runs contrary to the law of the land?  What if it conflicts with morality and justice, or his perceptions thereof?  I’ve never given any serious consideration to running for office, but I have at times asked myself what I would do in a particular instance. 

When one examines the various oaths of office from the presidential to the local, a common thread runs through them all.  It is the support and defense of the Constitution.  At the state level it will include the constitution of that state.  It may further include the laws of the particular jurisdiction for which the oath is taken.  Even in the cases where an official’s job may involve making law, the sustenance and defense of the existing law is the foundation on which his office stands.

It seems to me then, that an official of government is not bound primarily by the will of the people, but by the laws which have been made.  Our Constitution gives us the power indirectly to change those laws through our representatives, but until such changes are made, we are bound by those which are already in force.  What does one do if these laws run contrary to morality?

Herein lies the flaw in any form of government, which our founders did the best they could to minimize.  The law remains good only as long as the law makers remain so.  John Adams said of our Constitution,

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.  We have no government armed with power capable of contending
with passions unbridled by morality and religion."
When people begin to prefer evil over good, this finely crafted document in which we have place so much hope can just as easily facilitate our destruction.  it is for this reason, though I continue to do what I can by the means available to me in this nation to influence our government to do what is right, I know that we have a far more daunting task before us, to return our country to the God it once knew.  Only through change in our hearts can we expect to see real change in our nation.

Opportunity Lost

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I had a dream in shades of gray
When absent was the light of day
I walked an unfamiliar road
And gazed upon a strange abode

Came there from a voice I knew
Pleasant for there are so few
I thought to knock upon the door
And find a friendship to explore

Doubts and questions fill my mind
Is this joy for me to find?
At road’s end there is seclusion
Isolation and delusion

Among the trees I seek for peace
But cannot find the sweet release
Would not my friend be glad to know
That I had come to say hello?

I turn again to face the street
But there is water ‘round my feet
Gone the shelter of the trees
The water rises to my knees

The voice a distant memory
I am drowning in the sea
“Lord, I don’t know what to do!”
“Can’t You hear me calling you?”

Only a dream, but is it so?
So close it is to the life I know
Past, present, or yet to be
I do not know, I cannot see

I Promised Myself I would…

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I once had a roommate who made a promise to himself to abstain from a particular vice for a period of time and then actually kept that promise.  I remember thinking that was really odd.  I respected him for it, but the way I saw it a promise to oneself never had to be kept because there was no second party to offend. 

It would not have occurred to me to make a promise to myself.  Is that even possible?  Isn’t a promise defined by commitment to another?  New Year’s resolutions are rather like promises to ourselves.  How many of us keep those?  If I make a promise to myself it’s just as easy to release myself from that promise. 

So now I’m wondering.  Do you make promises to yourself?  Do you keep them?

Is Our Government Making War On Us?

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I had a thought a few days ago as yet another bad bill was passed by Congress.  When nations are at war, we expect them to do things to each other in order to win.  As I go through the ways in which one nation might attack another, I can point to actions taken by our own government that amount to the same thing.  No, for the most part I do not believe our leaders are intentionally trying to harm us, though in some cases I have to wonder.  Here in no particular order are the things that come to mind.

Attack the troops directly

Where would I begin?  The last few years have brought us a series of ill-considered or outright treasonous statements and decisions that have harmed our military.  The repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is only the latest offense, though one of the worst.

Attack the supply lines

They have robbed us of our own natural resources by preventing oil drilling.  They have increased the price of food by subsidizing and mandating the use of ethanol.  That also makes gas more expensive and can damage engines.  They just passed a food safety bill that will further increase the price of food by the necessity of compliance with new regulations and put small producers out of business.

Aid the enemy

Make sure terrorist have an easy time getting across our boarder.  make sure if we catch them that we give them the same treatment we would our own citizenry instead of treating them like the enemy.  Be sure and look the other way when you see evidence that they are already opperating on our soil.  Make nice with the front groups like CAIR who support them.

Disrupt communication

The FCC’s latest power grab sets the stage for more control than we ever thought possible in America, and based on statements from officials they would gladly do much more.

Covert operations

If you can get away with it, do all of this under the guise of making peace.  Tell your enemy that you really want to help and convince him to invite you in and cheer you on while you destroy him from within.

I’m glad for the gains we made in the last election, but I still wonder what will have become of us by 2012.  Will we have an election, or will the forces bent on remaking our nation turn real guns on us and drop any pretense of representative government?  I don’t think we’ve come that far, though if the economy collapses completely that may change in a hurry.  I heard someone mention that one only needs to watch what happens every so often during black Friday sales where people are trampled over trinkets to imagine what things will be like in a real crisis.  We need to change our hearts if we are to have any real hope of changing our government.

The Things We Cannot Say

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The things we cannot say become the lies that eat away at what we have, what we want, and who we are.

The fear that we must hide grows stronger inside feeding on life, killing hope, strangling love.

A silent, killing rage is kept within a cage biding its time, waiting for chance, destroying all good.

A love afraid to show, for if they know, there is pain; there is loss; there is despair.

The things we cannot say define our way; words our misdirection; they require correction; cloaking our dismay.