I am still drunk – I stay drunk

As I walked down a street in San Francisco this morning at 8:30 A.M., I was about to pass by what appeared to be a homeless person.

It seems that homeless people don’t tend to just walk by, they slow as you are about to pass, and they try to read your demeanor to determine if you might be inclined to give them some money or even talk to them. It also seems that most people ignore the homeless by looking straight ahead and quickening their pace.

So today as I was about to pass this person, I could feel his eyes looking straight at me … and when I looked at him, he said, “I am still drunk. I stay drunk.” He even said it with something of a smile on his face.

I felt sad for him. Sad because he probably does spend most of his waking hours inebriated. He probably starts the day (or night) with some alcohol, and continues drinking until he falls asleep. What a sad, foggy, unfruitful life. Alcohol abuse can really paralyze and impoverish someone.

It seems that there are lots of homeless people in San Francisco, everywhere you turn there is someone with their hand out, or calling out to you asking for some change. When I shared this observation with one of the locals, it was explained to me that toward the end of the Reagan Administration a federal program was cut which funded a local social service facility that assisted poor folks diagnosed with mental sickness. When the funding was cut, all of these people were turned loose on the street with no access to the medication they need, and many became homeless.

I was also told that residents of San Francisco are sympathetic to the plight of the homeless. And feeling that sympathy, combined with the temperate climate here, the homeless have chosen to stay here … in large numbers.

Thinking about the gravity and prevalence of homelessness still has me in a stupor … and I stay in a stupor.

Control

We have very little control over how any other human being behaves. And the older another person is, the less control we have.

Why do we spend so much time trying to control the behavior of others? And why do we spend so much time being bothered by the behavior of others? Allowing ourselves to be bothered by others means that we are letting ourselves be controlled by others.

Detach.

Detach from the need to impose your control on another person’s behavior. Do yourself a favor, and detach. If genuinely pure motives prompt you to attempt to influence others, be wise in how you apply your influence … and detach from the outcome.

Letting ourselves be bothered by the mal behavior of others is way too common, and mostly unfruitful. Notwithstanding righteous indignation, we would do well to detach as much as possible from the mal behavior of others … and certainly not let ourselves be bothered by it.

But the self is sometimes very fragile, and easily bothered or offended or threatened.

As if on queue, God just allowed me to feel offended. Perhaps even more than allowed it, perhaps God even orchestrated the scenario which offended me to let me experience it firsthand so that I can write about it now.

I’m sitting on an airplane bound for San Francisco, and the Flight Attendants just came through offering drinks and snacks. I got my drink, but the Flight Attendant who served me forgot to give me some peanuts. She said, “I have to wait until the other Flight Attendant gives me some peanuts to give you,” but the other Flight Attendant was busy processing a meal purchase. So I waited patiently, and suddenly I realized that the cart made its way further down the aisle and they forgot to bring me some peanuts.

I was offended.

I thought about getting up from my seat and walking up to the Flight Attendant to say, “Excuse me, but you forgot to give me some peanuts.” And for good measure, maybe I would give her the “I’m a little disappointed with you” look. Fortunately, common sense prevailed – I’m not going to starve … and common courtesy also prevailed – I’m by the window, and don’t want to disturb the two people sitting beside me.

Is it possible to live a perfect life and perfectly respond in all circumstances to all people? Is it possible to perfectly interact with others? Not a chance, and to think that we can live perfectly in relationship to others is to abandon the grace of God.

But what about the Bible verse that says, “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect”? Honestly, I am not sure what that means. I interpret it to mean that we should strive to be as godly as possible, but remember that we will never achieve Godhood.

God’s grace extends to all people. There has never been, and there never will be any sinner who can rise above sin and achieve perfection in this life.

I am 48 years old, and I can say with certainty that I have never met a sinner that now personifies complete godliness. Perhaps there are those around me who think that they have achieved perfect godliness or will achieve it, but I have not met any past-sinners who have achieved it.

Big World

I’m on an airplane that just lifted off from the Cincinnati airport en route to San Francisco.

As I look out the window at the houses sprinkled everywhere among the rich farmland below, I am once again reminded of what a big world we live in.

Who lives in the house below me at the edge of the woods by the curve in the road? Are they retired? Or, is it a family with small children? What type of jobs do they have? Where do they go to church? At this very moment, are they happy? Sad? Stressed? Content? Will I ever see them in my lifetime?

And what about the people in the house over there? Or in the village over yonder?

Of course, I’ll never get answers to these questions … unless God chooses to reveal them to me. Wouldn’t that be funny if one day God said to me, “I was watching you journal on the Delta flight over Kentucky wondering about the people below, and the folks in that specific house you eyed at the edge of the woods were Bob and Agnes Baker. Bob was a retired electrician, but Agnes was still working part-time in the cafeteria at Crestview Elementary. Their only child, Brenda, was happily married to Rick …

Wouldn’t that be funny?

And it’s awesome to think that God, at least as God is perceived by us, knows every human being completely at any given point and time in history. Who can contemplate the mind of God? Who can teach God anything? Who has more power than God?

It’s a big, big world … and I have looked out the airplane window at just a sliver of humankind. Various people of various cultures of various skin color speaking various languages, and each person living in their corner of the world.

Some people we cross paths with momentarily, like the person in the car beside us at the stop light … as soon as the light turns green, we likely will never see them again. Others we see periodically, such as members of the same fitness center. Some we see regularly for a season, fellow members of an adult education class, for instance. And still others will be in our lives for a lifetime.

How shall we interact with those around us? On most days there are dozens, if not hundreds, of people-contact moments. What shall we do with each moment? Be kind? Be stern? Be friendly? Be suspicious? Be prayerful? Be angry? Be instructive? Be playful? Be wary? Be attentive? Be helpful? Be loving? All of these things?

It can all be overwhelming to think about, but don’t let it overwhelm you. It seems to me that God has entrusted each one of us with the stewardship of our own life, and God wants us to be wise about how we treat others and teat our own self. Each one of us gets to figure that out for our own self. We can be wise, or we can be foolish toward others … we can be kind, or we can be mean … we can be selfish, or we can prefer others before our own self.

You and I get to choose — what will we do this very moment?

The Fight Over God

I often wonder what God thinks about the fight over Him we got going on in the world.

There is a long line of religions stretching back centuries, and no doubt continuing into the future, that think they have the truth, that think they have some special revelation from God, that think they have some special relationship with God.

And when you think that way, you are bound to be fighting with others who think differently … I don’t care how much ecumenical dialogue you participate in.

This will never change … there will never be one, universal religion, with a universally accepted doctrine.

We’ll just keep fighting over God.

He’s ours! No, he’s ours! You people are antichrists, he’s ours!
God’s not a he, God’s a she! There are many gods! We are all God!

Sometimes the fight is as simple as an argument, and other times the fight means decapitating someone who thinks differently. All in the name of devotion, and all for the sake of defending relationship with God.

For some strange reason I have never felt comfortable believing that my religion is the one, true, religion. It’s strange because it seems so unlike most people who are religious … the norm is to remain comfortable in your religion, to hold fast to your dogma. Oh, I realize that there is a lot of religious movement these days, but the norm remains to stick with what is comfortable and known to you.

But I have always been a strange bird in this regard. I used to play Little League baseball for our church team against other church teams of different denominations. As a small boy, I remember very clearly after a game asking a family member about the religion of the other team. The response was something like this, “Oh, you don’t want to know about them, they are not a member of our one, true, religion.” I don’t remember how old I was, maybe 9 or 10, but I distinctly remember thinking, “That does not sound right.”

I spent many years searching for the one, true, religion … only to discover that it does not exist.

Nonetheless, I do want to be a vessel through whom God works to bless others. Perhaps, the most effective agents of God are the ones serving devoid of all dogma.

Hamzat

I have never raised a child, and I’m pretty sure I never will. But my heart aches today as if my only child was killed before my very eyes.

Hamzat Alexandrov was born April 17, 1998, God knows where in Europe. It could have been Russia, it could have been in some nearby country. His mother was a travelling gypsy who does not know the identity of the father. After raising him for several years in the travelling gypsy clan, one day she decided that she no longer wanted to be a mother … and she dropped Hamzat off somewhere.

I don’t know where she left him.

Several months later the Russian Government tracked her down and asked her if she wanted Hamzat back.

She said no.

I hope she did not just abandon him because she wanted the freedom to party. I sincerely hope that in her heart-of-hearts she believed that he would be better off being raised by others.

He ended up at the Yurievets Boarding School in the Ivanova Region of Russia, about 8 years old at the time and with no formal education to that point. He was way behind in school, but fortunately landed in a place where people love him.

I met Hamzat through a picture of him on a table in the foyer of church. A Christian organization had established roots in Russian orphanages, and he was one of many Russian orphans who needed a sponsor.

My wife Sheri liked his salute in the picture, thought he looked like a real character, and suggested that we pick him. I agreed, and I am so thankful we picked Hamzat.

Last June we had the good fortunate to be able to travel to Russia with a group of others to spend a week in Yurievets, and it was one of the most difficult yet rewarding weeks of my life. Getting to know Hamzat and the other kids at the orphanage was a special blessing that I will always cherish.

Since returning from our trip, we have written to him regularly … and periodically we have received updates about all the benefits that the sponsorship program provides the kids, including a personal note from Hamzat.

Until now.

Incredulously, the Russian Government has decided to end this particular sponsorship program. This means that we can no longer sponsor Hamzat financially, we can no longer send letters to him, and we can no longer receive updates about him and from him.

I don’t know whether to sob or scream … I keep bouncing back and forth.

I feel like someone has killed my only child right before my very eyes.