The Key Question for Networking and Getting a Job

"How can I help?"

It's a simple concept that's hard to execute, especially if you're laid off. There's no money coming in. You don't know when money will come in. You're the one who needs help. You're the one who needs someone to give you a job. It's reasonable to think about your needs first, rather than worrying about how you can help someone else.

And yet, that simple question, how can I help? is the key to surviving your layoff. Find a way to help and you'll make it in the long run. Here's why:

1. If you aren't employed, helping someone else will help you keep from dwelling on your problems. Looking for a job is a job in itself, but the hours are flexible. Helping someone else will give you a sense of purpose and accomplishment that will keep your mood out of the gutter.
2. Helping can build your network. Whether you're helping a civil group or helping people online find places for jobs, people remember you when you help. Helping gives you the chance to let people know what you need.
3. Helping is worth money. People will pay for help, especially help that makes them money or make their lives easier. The statement that leads to employment is "Oh, I understand what you're saying. I can help you by..." Everything after the word by is your value proposition.

How can I help can seem like a scary question. You might feel like you're giving up power and providing an opportunity for someone without scruples to take advantage of you. But the question itself gives you control.

You can help me by doing everything I don't feel like doing for free while I bask in the sun over here.

You're always free to say "I can't do that." Or you can say, "I can do that, but I would need $40 an hour."

A great primer on the How can I help attitude is the How Can I Help Wednesdays tab on Irene Keohler's AlmostSavvy website. Irene's question about how she can help is aimed at Twitter users, but the question is a key for building your network and getting a job, if you're goes away.

Your key asset if you're laid off

"The economic outlook is bleak as corporations reported sharp earnings declines last quarter...President-elect Obama said he expects the unemployment rate to top out at more than 10 percent...All the major auto companies reported huge declines in sales over last year...More than 500,000 lost their jobs last month, with perhaps millions to join them in 2009."

You might lose your job this year. The thought tortures you, like an itch you can't reach.

Getting laid off is emotionally complicated. It's like experiencing the death of a loved one. You go through all the stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, with a healthy dose of fear as a side dish. Aside from the ego blow and the anger over the unfairness of it all, the structure that provided some safety is gone. No more paid benefits and vacation and sick time. Instead of just showing up and doing your job, you have to find the work, too. What if there's no next job?

When I got a captive job after a long layoff, my wife was thrilled. I had mixed feelings. Beside the relief was disappointment. I had taken on all those tasks and done well at them. We took on debt while I was out, but we made it through. And I had done it--with a lot of help, of course.

In a lot of ways, I never felt more alive than when I was laid off. The work I did mattered. Every single contract I worked on during my layoff was extended at least once. Some were extended for months. I collected a total of seven weeks of unemployment, in a Tampa job market that had almost no technology work.

If you have to run a gauntlet, you might as well decide you'll succeed. You might as well decide you'll come out the other side stronger than you went in. You might as well decide you can handle the challenges and that you aren't going to fail.

There's no appeals process when you're laid off. Accepting your fate and dealing with it--mentally and emotionally--is the first, most important key. From there, you'll have the freedom to find the next thing and run with it.

Your mental energy is your number one asset when you're on your own. And there's a limited amount of it. If you spend your mental energy angry at your former employer, or worried about inevitable failure, you won't notice that next opportunity, that next client, that next skill set.

Getting laid off sucks. Having a network to fall back on is key. But the bigger key is to decide you'll succeed, and then act on that decision. You'll be surprised how well you can do.

Readiness is all in building your network

Half a million people lost their jobs in this country in November. Our President-elect says that the unemployment rate may top out at 10 percent or more. And it seems every day some other company announces cutbacks.

It's a scary time, especially if you've never been laid off before.

It was a Friday when I laid off. May 25, 2001, the day before Memorial Day weekend. I next worked directly for a company nearly two years later. When it happened, I was stunned, but not surprised. The tech bubble had burst and there wasn't a lot around the greater Tampa Bay area.

Getting laid off is difficult. It hurts your pride and confidence. It makes you lay in bed late at night and wonder why, wonder what's next, and wonder if you'll ever get a job again. You can never be fully ready to get laid off. But if it happens again this time, I will have a better base to work from.

In 2001, the Internet had not yet become social. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Squidoo didn't exist. Blogging was in its infancy. Most job searching took place on job boards. Now, nearly eight years later, I feel more prepared, having gotten familiar with these tools.

LinkedIn is a professional networking site, your internet rolodex. Only your rolodex doesn't include job postings, hints at getting jobs, or lists of people who are friends of your friends. If you aren't on LinkedIn, you need to be. Now. If you want help, contact Irene Koehler at Almost Savvy. Her LinkedIn webinars will get you up to speed quickly.

Twitter is a microblogging site in which you get 140 characters to write your message, referred to as a Tweet. It works on a publish-subscribe basis, where you subscribe to, or follow, others who can then choose to follow you. Of the new-generation webtools, it is the most social, and provides the best opportunity to strike up discussions with people. It also takes a while to build a reasonable network, so start early.

You can use Facebook to build a network, but it is more suited to individuals working to build business and other relationships than building a job-assistance network. You would be better suited by starting a blog using one of any number of blogging tools, such as Blogger (home of this blog) or WordPress. Starting a blog is easy. Creating a blog that shows you have thoughts, opinions, and competencies about your work can provide a nice supplement to a resume.

Which brings me to a question you might be asking: if I haven't been laid off yet, then why am I working on all these things now? Isn't that just negative thinking?

Absolutely not.

If you get laid off, you want to have a functioning network and body of work you can leverage to gain employment. You want to know people to whom you can offer help. You want to be able to ask people to keep their eyes out for you, and be a known and trusted commodity.

So unless you're sure you're immortal in your job, start now. Maybe you'll never need it. If so, you can use your network to help others. But if you need it, you'll have a leg up on people who wait until the axe drops to build their network.

Dolores

Dolores smiled as she entered the book store. She always smiled. Twenty-seven years after escaping her parents' grasp, her mother's words echoed as if they'd just been spoken: No man will put up with a woman with a sour face.

After her father died when she was eleven, her mother had changed. And the man who became Dolores's step father had accelerated her mother's descent. The insanity of her parents became the air Dolores breathed for so long that she no longer recognized their effect.

So Dolores smiled in spite of her losses. The house was empty now. Jeff, the man she'd fallen in love with that first summer out of the house, had left her for a sports car and a personal trainer who looked amazing in Spandex. The kids had left to build their own lives in California and Michigan. Dolores was stripped naked of her life's framework and purpose.

But she still smiled. No man will put up with a woman with a sour face. Or, as it turned out, a smiling one.

After her shower this morning, she'd stopped in front of the mirror and studied her body. Gravity and forty-five years of being a mother and a wife had left their mark. Things that used to be firm now sagged. The battle with gray hair progressed each day toward inevitable defeat and the box of Clarol that went with it. And the face that had once been smooth and innocent now bared the creases of time and disappointment.

But she was forty-five, and maybe she looked good for her age. She was a little thicker around the middle, but she wasn't fat by any means. And the kid at the deli counter almost seemed to be hitting on her yesterday.

So she smiled as she entered the book store, in spite of the internal battle between the part of her that viewed herself as a sagging old maid in waiting, and the part who dared to hope about her new-found freedom.

The first part of the writers' group meeting buzzed by like a drunken, muddled dream. She felt as if she were naked and she waited for people to notice. These people, the ones she'd met with since before Jeff left, seemed to like her well enough. But wait until they got to see the real her, the sagging failed housewife who couldn't keep her husband.

Who cared if she'd been promoted three times in two years. Her Lexus didn't mean anything about her personally. Your value as a woman is based on your value as a wife. That's what her mother had said.

And so she waited and smiled. And when her name was called and she stood up, she smiled in spite of feeling she'd either pee her pants or vomit. She wore the loose-fitting tan khakis that clung just enough to show off her butt, and an oversized white blouse with a light blue t-shirt underneath. Her friend Kerri told her it was her best outfit. She'd spent an extra twenty minutes on her make-up and hair this morning. At the last minute, she decided to wear the pearls Jeff bought her for their twentieth anniversary.

"Now," said Henry, the venerable writers' group leader said, "Dolores will honor us by reading from her novel. I've gotten a sneak peak, and I think you're all in for a treat."

She stepped forward encouraged by Henry's gentle smile. He reminded her of her father, the one whose death had pushed her life off course. But when she turned from him to face the others in attendance, she felt for all the world like her carefully selected clothes didn't exist. Still, she smiled.

When she opened her mouth, the only sound that escaped was "Uhhh."

Count to ten, she thought. You gave birth to two kids; you can do this.

Then she heard herself speak and time snapped forward. She read and finished and received the applause everyone got when they read. Then she sat down and noticed the man watching her. He was younger by about ten years and rail thin. She must have something on her teeth because he kept looking at her. Maybe her lipstick. She died inside and cursed herself for not checking the mirror one last time before she left.

After the meeting, after all the compliments from fellow group members, he approached.

"Dolores?" he said. His voice was deeper than it should have been, but his eyes were a breath-taking light blue.

"Uhh, hi," she said. Without thinking, she tucked her hair behind her right ear.

"That was fantastic, what you read." He wore a wedding ring.

"Gee, umm, thanks." Idiot, she thought, you sound like a moron.

"I'm Glenn Hurley. Henry said I should come and listen to your work. He said that you're a very talented woman with a beautiful soul," he said. "I'd say he's right."

When he held his hand out, it contained a card with the word agency on it.

"If you can e-mail me the first fifty pages, I'd love to read them."

She put her hand to her chest and fingered the pearls. "Uhh, sure." The smile, her phony one, fell away. And still she smiled. Her heart fluttered and then caught, like the lawn mower the day before, when she mowed the lawn for the first time in her life.

She talked with Glenn for the next twenty minutes. When he said he had to go, the rest of the group had left, except Henry. He sat at one of the tables and read something by Dean Koontz. As she approached, he looked up.

"So?" His voice was like warm chocolate.

She sat across the table from him, touched his hand, and told him everything. When she finished, he patted her hand.

"In all the time I've known you, this is the first time I've seen you really smile."

She blushed.

"And if you want my opinion, Jeff is an ass. You're better off free of him."

They talked and sipped coffee until he said he had to go. Later that night when she looked at herself in the mirror, she still sagged and the creases were still there. But the smile extended from her mouth clear to her heart.

Assignments

We all have assigned roles in life. Child, leader, follower, husband, father, genius, guide, schmuck. The only trick is figuring out which role is the right one, who's the appropriate assigner of roles, and how much of each role you have to accept.

The Hidden Cost of Living in Florida

When I first moved to Florida, I saw all these signs about Deed Restricted Communities. More than once, I wondered aloud what they were. Ten years later, having moved into one, I know what they are: developments with homeowners associations. HOAs, as we call them, are necessary evils. They prevent your across-the-street neighbor from replacing the shrubs in front of his house with old appliances, a car on blocks, and live poultry. They also leave notes in your mailbox telling you to fix things.

This year, I worked at home as the lady from the property management company--the HOA cops--wrote us up. I watched through the window as she sat in the car and noted something, then drove to the next house. This week, I got the anticipated nasty-gram. We had too much mildew on the driveway and sidewalk. Previously, I borrowed the next door neighbor's pressure washer to take care of that. Unfortunately, he moved. So I cleaned the driveway the cheap way: with bleach.

In a related topic, cheap sandals hurt my feet. So earlier this year, I dropped thirty-five bucks on a pair of Tevas. As a result, I didn't want to wear sandals to clean the driveway. And I hate wet sneakers, so I eschewed footwear and set to work.

Unless you're as stupid as I am, you know the rest of the story. I didn't finish the driveway, and I spent much of Saturday in bed, off my feet. And yesterday, too. My wife got to do the universal wifely activity of shaking her head in awe at the lack of neural activity between my ears.

I've had to do a number of irritating things because of where I've lived. I've shoveled snow just so I could shovel it again when the second foot fell. I've raked leaves to no significant gain (my dad had a talent for picking the windiest day of the fall for leaf-raking). And I've used the ice chopper to carve a canal in a sheet of ice so the rainstorm wouldn't flood my grandmother's basement. But I've never burnt my feet with bleach. And I've never queued up plywood next to the windows. Not until I moved to Florida.

Winter is optional. Driving in it is irritating. But so is bleaching the driveway.

Saving Grace, Religion with sex, guns, and rock and roll

The first episode of Saving Grace opens with Holly Hunter's character straddling her partner on the Oklahoma City Police Department on the edge of her bed, writhing in ecstasy. It's not the opening you would expect from a show arranged around religion and redemption.

The scene vividly establishes that Hunter's Grace Hanadarko is careening out of control toward a bad end. And it looks like she's found that end when she hits a black man while driving drunk after a long drinking session at a local bar. As she squats over him and tries to apply first aid, she says "Dear God, please help me." Suddenly, there appears a disheveled man in unkempt clothes who tells her that God sent her. He turns out to be an angel named Earl and he tells Grace that she's headed for hell and that he's there to help her avoid it.

But instead of the typical "goody two-shoes" approach to salvation where the condemned decides to be nice and everyone lives happily ever after, Saving Grace goes far deeper than that. Grace is a complex character, deeply noble and good, but deeply flawed. She has a self-destructive streak that runs as deep as her commitment as a cop and a hard-boiled sweetness that manifests itself more often than you'd guess.

As the series unfolds, Grace lies, drinks, and screws practically every man in the state of Oklahoma. And the layers are slowly peeled back to reveal that Grace, has good reason to be messed up. She was raped as a child by her priest. That set her on a course of rebellion and slow-motion self-destruction, and with each step, her guilt rose and her self-worth fell. When her sister asked her to help out on morning, Grace was too hungover. As a result, her sister wound up in the Murrah Building when it was attacked and her nephew, whom Grace adores, has no mother.

It's not Grace's actions that condemn her, it's her view of herself as beyond redemption. She engages in high-risk behaviors, living on the edge, because she's running from her past and the pain of her decisions. God's not choosing to condemn Grace; Grace is choosing it for herself. God is just obliging.

Earl's counsel to Grace is softly judgemental, but rarely condemning. And at the end of the day, Earl is more concerned with healing Grace's soul than listing her sins. It's a slow tedious process, and Grace's choices aren't likely to endear the show to those who loved Highway to Heaven. Many would view it as profane and blasphemous, combining the vulgar with God's goodness.

But if I didn't find myself in the profane and the blasphemous, I wouldn't find myself needing God. If I were good, Jesus wouldn't need to have died on the cross. The coarseness of the show is required to provide a counterpoint to the grace. Grace isn't grace if it exists everywhere.

God is always knocking at the door, but we have to answer it. This is a basic premise of redemptive religion. Augustine was a party boy before he found God. Grace is a contemporary version of that story.

Jesus in the media

It's become fashionable among Christians to complain that popular society is antagonistic to Christianity. Actually, it's been fashionable to register this complaint since before the Beatles proclaimed that they were more popular than God.

And in fairness, it might have been true then, but it's certainly not true any more. A number of instances make the anti-Christian argument difficult to defend, including, but not limited to:

• The ongoing success of U2, one of the most prolific and resilient bands in the rock and post-rock eras. U2 has been charting singles since 1980, and the themes of their songs, and sometimes the content itself, is blatantly Christian. Many of its biggest hits, including In the Name of Love, One, and Vertigo have Christian references. Another well-known U2 song, 40, is based on Psalm 40. The bands members, Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen, Jr., have all publicly opined on their religious beliefs.
• Saving Grace, starring Holly Hunter is about a hard-living female cop in Oklahoma City who's been given one last chance to avoid hell: assistance from an angel named Earl. Grace is a gritty character whose life is dominated by sex, drugs, booze, and more sex. But she's also a very good cop and a caring person who can't quite accept the grace to leave behind the emotional scars of her past.
• In the late 1980s, a band called Depeche Mode charged a hit called Personal Jesus. Included in the lyrics: Your own personal Jesus, someone to hear your prayers, someone who cares. The song has been covered by Johnny Cash and--irony of ironies--Marilyn Manson.
• The Passion of the Christ, in spite of its graphically blood climax, is one of the top-grossing movies of all time.
• The Chronicles of Narnia have been released in a series of mainstream movies with good actors and advanced special effects.

In short, while there is resistance to Jesus and Christianity in current American culture, there's also a set of contemporary efforts to treat religious--often Christian questions with honor and care. It's my intent to investigate some of those efforts, expound on their meaning, and let you decide.

Saturday Morning in Florida

This past Saturday morning was cold, by Florida standards. Friday night had been clear and the cold front that had passed through blew out the clouds and humidity that had been with us last week. We woke to temperatures in the low 30s and a light wind that made things feel a lot colder.

We woke in tents. More than two miles from the next house. Burrowing out of the toasty comfort of the sleeping bag seemed like lunacy. And yet, within fifteen minutes, I'd gotten dressed and was heating the coffee I'd made before on our Coleman stove.

Seven o'clock dawned earlier than anyone wanted and when I shook tents, a chorus of groans greeted me.

Our dining hall had no walls. It was a slab of concrete with a metal roof and picnic tables that may have been built by the Seminole Indians. The pancakes and sausage on a stick (like a corn dog, only with sausage wrapped by a pancake) was surprisingly good. The boys liked it.

They played football while we sipped coffee and waited for the flag ceremony. Then we went off to fish for mousetraps off the back of one of the camp buildings.

Such is life at the December Cub World. Because it falls two weeks before Christmas, there's always other work that should be done, but can't because we're camping. And it always seems to be the coldest weekend of the year.

And though I could be home sleeping on a bed in a heated house and getting things done, I'm always glad that we went.

The kids who went don't realize that a lot of kids never get to go camping, even if it's cold. They didn't complain about the cold. They just put on clothes and had fun. And they might have learned something along the way.

Nice way to spend a weekend, sleeping out in the cold.

It's so simple

For all the intellectualism I like to think I bring to things, it is all really very simple. We have a choice. We can accept God's love and our limitations and stop beating ourselves for not being perfect. And then we can know peace and produce fruit--not as an extra effort, but as a result of what we've become.

Or, we can refuse forgiveness and keep blaming ourselves and others and focus on our hurts and flaws. And we will miss peace and we cannot produce fruit.

It gets all wrapped up in the details, when it's really all quite simple. In the quiet predawn when I wake and lie there so I don't have to get up quite yet, I know what is right. I know what I need to do so I can see and grab hold of that forgiveness. The rest is my own creation.

On the Nature of Bullcrap

It has been said by people far more eloquent than I that politics is the residue of human interaction. I think that bullcrap is the residue of human interaction. More correctly, certain people or situations lend themselves to the production of immense amounts of bullcrap.

Bullcrap, at least in my definition, is the art of making difficult what ought to be easy. I've produced more than my share of bullcrap in 42 years, so I'm not holding myself up as bullcrap-free. But I understand the nature of bullcrap and I try not to produce it. And when I do produce it, I try to at least be humble about it.

Bullcrap is getting to me right now. These things go in phases, I know. It's like your bullcrap biorhythm. Mine is low right now. Other times, it seems, I possess a Moses-like gift to part the sea of bullcrap (often so I can blunder around the desert for an awfully long time).

But bullcrap, like anything else, is subject to one's own power. One can allow it to get under one's skin, then one needs immense amounts of first-aid cream to deal with the infection.

I guess the point is, the bullcrap tide seems to be in right now. One can either build a bulwarks, hold one's breath, or get up and move back on the beach far enough that the tide won't come that far.

Stewards of our own lives

Steve Irwin died this morning. He was 44. A lot of people are really sad about his death, and that's reasonable. He has an eight-year-old daughter who will never get to have Daddy dance with her again, or admire her prom dress, or walk her down the aisle. His son is two. He won't remember his dad, except on the reruns. And his wife will have a wound in her heart that will never fully heal.

And yet, in this case more than most, there is so much to celebrate. I truly believe that when we die and stand before God, we will be held accountable, but in a different way than most people think. Lust, envy, all of that's going to be part of the equation. But the bigger part is going to be an accounting of what we did with the tools and experiences He gave us. Were we good stewards of the gift of our lives. In his life, Steve Irwin was given a great deal. He was given a zeal for animals and the situation in which to use that zeal to fill his life's purpose.

I have no idea what kind of person Steve Irwin was. But based on the public part, and based on the fact that his wife seemed to love him and stayed with him, I think when he's asked if he took advantage of the gift of his life and produced something of value with it, he can truthfully answer that he did.

We're given passions for a reason. It's not a sign of virtue to purposely turn away from what makes us feel most alive. It's a sign of foolishness. It's a sign that we lack the faith that God knew what He was doing when He gave us those passions. In short, we are wired the way we are for a reason.

And at the end, if we look back and see that we didn't get it all our lives, I don't think that God will have to punish us. I think the awareness that we were given this fantastic gift and pissed it away will be more punishment than God needs to dish out.

Our lives--our own lives--are precious. If the mass of men live lives of quiet desparation, they they're missing it, and they'll know regret like no other when they die.

This and That

• I posted with passion about fasting for peace, and immediately forgot to do so that past two Fridays. It may make me complacent, but such is life. I've been praying a lot for peace, but I'm not perfect.
• I may be ripping off a guy named Steve Brown, but I've decided that I'm not going to get any better. I am where I am and what I am. I will die that way. Maybe by not concentrating on getting better, I will do better at the things I want to change. Sometimes with God, less is more.
• I'm pretty good where I am. I'm not saying that if I died today, I wouldn't have any regrets, but if I died today, I think God would be more or less pleased with where I am.
• I read in The Purpose-Driven Life that mature Christian prayer should not be centered on what I want, but on molding me and others to what God wants. I'm not sure I agree with that, but it gives me sometime to consider in my prayer ratio.
• God loves me and that makes all the difference. It is also the source of incredible freedom when I am in tune with that central fact.

Safety is Overrated

I've been home sick the last two days, which gives ample opportunity for watching daytime TV. One of the programs I watched was a Star Trek episode in which Captain Picard dies and meets a character named Q in the afterlife. Q is kind of an omnipotent pain in the butt, a member of a race that studies humanity and includes members more omnipotent than he.

Q talks to Picard about his life and regrets. Picard says that he does, indeed, regret his impetuousness as a youth and that if he had it to do over again, he'd do it differently. Q allows him the opportunity and Picard takes it. At the end of the exercise, Picard is whisked back to the present, only instead of being a Captain, self-confident and bold, he is a meek junior lieutenant, solid and steady and completely unremarkable.

When tells Q he wants it put back the other way, Q says Picard should be happy because he has set his past right and can now live in safety.

Safety. I'm a parent and a mortgage holder. I'm a Cubmaster and a mid-level functionary with a passionless job that pays the bills, all while I long for something more meaningful. I think I am capable of more, but I have never really put it all together to do more. Along the way, I've started to believe that maybe I can't do more. Results, after all, are results.

I've got responsibilities. I can't stop what I'm doing right now and start over in radio. But I can pursue the things that will bring me closer, and I can do the things I need to do in order to stand out.

In short, I can stop being afraid and yearning for safety.

We don't often think of boldness and courage in talking about being a good steward of what God has given. We think more of meekness and compassion, love and tolerance.

Jesus didn't die so we could be nice. He didn't die so we wouldn't upset people and worry about our every move.

I'm halfway through life. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that safety is overrated. If only I can remember what I've learned and have the wisdom to apply it.

Fasting for Peace

Worrying about the way the world's going to be when your children grow up isn't new. Past generations have had legiitmate worries. Parents in the 1930s must have wondered if their children would ever know prosperity. Certainly, the parents of the 1940s had their own worries about whether their children would grow up in a Nazi world. From the 1950s to the late 80s, parents worried about whether there would be a world or just a nuclear wasteland.

And so here were are today. There's a man in Iran who may see nuclear weaponry as the key to the return of the hidden Imam. He has openly questioned the right of a nuclear country to exist. Weapons of mass destruction seem easier to get and disseminate every day. And Russia and China wait in the wings.

Odds are that we will navigate through all this. At least I think they are. Probably. Maybe.

My daughter is starting to think about colleges and her future. A growing part of me has joined the legion of parents through the ages who feel concern about what that future will be. I don't know what it was like to be a parent in the 30s, World War II, or the Cold War. But I know what it is to be a parent now. I see where we sit and wonder what things will be like in 15 years, and for the first time in my adult life, I see significant doubts.

I want my daughter's world to be at least what mine was, preferably more. Increasingly, I don't see that as being possible without some significant prayer.

I know this will sound stupid to some. I know it will sound like self-flagellation or alarmism or any number of other things, but I have felt a growing inclination to fast on Fridays for the world my daughter will inherit. So that's what I'm going to do. If you want to, please join me. If you don't, that's okay, too. There's nothing I can do to change what will happen in the Middle East, short of praying. So I might as well do that.

Not peace, but a sword

"Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's enemies will be the members of his household." -- Matthew 10:34-36 (NASB)

I've always struggled with this passage. I mean, God is love, right? And Jesus was the embodiment of love here on earth. He loved us so much that He died for us. He gave His very existence for us that we might have a shot at eternal bliss. So how can someone so loving, so willing to give it all, bring a sword?

Have a discussion some day with a diverse group of Christians about faith and works. Look at the history of the Catholic Church, or to a smaller degree, any other church. Look at what we do to ourselves over what we believe the Bible to say.

When I was laid off, one Scripture verse stuck with me: the one about how a believer who doesn't provide for his family being worse than a non-believer. I hanged myself on that verse. I didn't want to be worse than a non-believer. Of course, I did provide, and even if I hadn't, I did the best I could. I forgot the part about being worth more than sparrows.

The point is, if people can't even stop themselves from being conflicted, from having their selfish part battle with the part that wants to serve God, why should we expect to be different in reference to others.

Jesus didn't say that he wields the sword. We're good enough at doing that for Him.

Measuring Up

As I think back over the things I've written, I sense a level of smugness. After all, I assume that what I write is worth reading by someone. I assume my words carry enough meaning or wisdom that they are worth someone's time and attention. Having someone read and appreciate what I've written is a great complement.

Sometimes I wonder, though, about my supposed wisdom. I stand before a God who knows as well as I do what I've messed up and really have no standing to lift my head to Him. It is not so much that I am useless, as He is great. But I have some pretty big flaws. Can wisdom be gained from someone as imperfect as I am?

Or maybe it's imperfect that builds wisdom. Maybe it's the process of trying and failing and then trying again. And then repeating the process when you fail again.

I don't know. I guess the beginning of wisdom is that even though I fall short of what God wants of me, He lets me come to Him and continues to bless me more than I could ever deserve, not out of obligation, but out of love.

That's pretty cool.

Building Your Foundation

It's what we do when times are good that determines how we do when times are bad. Right now, things are good. My kids are healthy and wise and gaining a wealth of childhood experience that should serve them well when they grow older. My wife is as wonderful a partner and mate as I could expect. Work's a pain in the butt some days, but they keep sending money twice a month and it doesn't seem like they're going to stop any time soon.

But eventually, things will be less bright. Parents die. People get sick. Bad things happen from time to time. These things are as sure as the sun rising tomorrow. Life isn't life without them. So why am I thinking that maybe I'm not setting myself up well to weather the storm that will most certainly come some day?

The wise man built his house upon the Rock. It's more than a Bible verse or a song. It's Truth. I've recently watched Schindler's List and read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, a survivor of Auschwitz. I'm currently reading a book by Deitrich Bonnhoeffer, a brilliant theologian who was cut down in the prime of his life by Nazis.

Frankl could have escaped his rigorous journey through hell. He had a visa to the United States, but decided he couldn't leave his parents behind to face the monster alone. The Nazis murdered them. And his wife. His work, Man's Search for Meaning, describes how a person who sees a meaning in life, a worthy purpose, can weather almost anything. Those without a purpose gave up. It was actually a very clear progression, he wrong. One morning, the man didn't get up. No matter what, he refused to get up. Then, he decided to pull out the one hidden cigarette he had and smoke it, rather than save it or trade it. Within a few days, he was dead, a victim of the Nazi death machine, but of his own surrender to it, as well.

I don't know much about Bonnhoeffer, but it seems that he, too, could have escaped his fate, if only he'd played along. He didn't, and he died. But he died with dignity and a purpose.

Frankl's purpose, his determination to live, literally carried him through circumstances that should have killed him. Bonnhoeffer's cost him his life, but on his terms. In both cases, these men had built themselves an unshakeable foundation, and it weathered the storm.

My foundation is stonger than it was. But it should be stronger than it is. Instead of building it while times are good, I spend time on the frivolous and the suspect. I should be building for the storm that will most certainly come.

Never Again? A lie.

If it were to happen now, we would have a precedent that we could look out for, so it wouldn't happen again.

A woman, unnamed on the DVD, in the Voices of the List part of the Schindler's List DVD. If this were to happen now...

"Never again" has been said less and less my adult life. The people who lived through the Holocaust are nearly gone. And the people who they raised are dying. And soon, the Holocaust will be nothing more than something we covered once in Social Studies.

Imagine, if you will, being told that because of your religion or ethnicity, you have to wear a special tag so everyone will know where you are. Imagine that one day, by fiat, the government takes what you have the in the bank and your investments, then comes and rounds you up and takes you out of your house and herds you into rundown apartments, six to eight to a room. You can't go anywhere without permission. You can't buy or sell or own anything. People you know, friends and relatives, are herded into trucks to be forced to work at hard labor, then never returning.

Imagine the world turning upside down as if it were a nightmare and no one does anything. Imagine that there's no visible chance that it's going to end. Don't just read the words, but yourself in that position and feel it. Feel what it is to watch indiscriminate murder every single day and wondering when it's going to be your day.

In one of the extras on the DVD, they talk of the day they took the children from the camp and sent them to Auschwitz, never to return. Imagine watching as your children, your babies, are herded onto a truck and knowing that you will never see them again. Imagine being told to lie on the ground as you watch them leave or you will be killed.

One of the pictures was of a boy, eight or nine years old, with big ears and a crooked smile. In the picture, an old black-and-white, he looked happy and very pleased with himself. He was one of the children who never came back.

I can't imagine it. It's all bigger than I can think of.

But it happens. It still happens. Never again is a lie. Anti-Semitism is a on the rise in Europe, and we may turn into an anti-Muslim country. The murmurs are there. But they're faint and don't seem to be threatening. Maybe they didn't in the mid-1930s.

Never Again...As If That Were Likely

Apparently, I've had nothing to say lately. Part of that revolves around my new habit of waking up at 3 am (give or take) every morning. When you struggle just to stay awake, posting riveting, thought-provoking material on a website you don't get paid to maintain isn't a priority.

But, this morning, I actually slept until nearly five, though it took a long time to fall asleep last night.

You see, my daughter flies to visit a friend in Germany this week. As part of her time there, she will visit Dachau. So, to prepare her, we rented Schindler's List and watched the first half of it last night. I toddled off to bed around 10, but then wound up walking back out and hanging around until about twenty of eleven.

The last thing I watched was when Ralph Fiennes' character decided to pick off the Jews in his camp, randomly capping a couple from his balcony with a high-powered rifle, while his sex partner grew annoyed at him for boring her. Then, as they built a barracks, a Jewish woman engineer came to him and said that they needed to rebuild it because it would collapse. He had her executed and then had the barracks rebuilt.

I haven't seen Schindler's List since it came out in 1993. It's not the type of movie you watch to fritter away an afternoon. When I watched it the previous time, I remember being overwhelmed and sad. Last night, I was angry. I was angry at a movement that killed the beauty of a whole class of people simply because of their religious beliefs. Angry at a man who ended human life with less regard than most people give to swatting a fly. Angry at a human race that could become such a thing. And maybe a little angry at God for allowing it.

"Never again," was a refrain from survivors of the Holocaust, but it's happened again. It hasn't happened to European people as part of a World War, but in Rwanda, Serbia, and any number of any other places, it's happened.

And it will happen again. And maybe this time it will happen closer to home.

Happy Thursday.