Cwillz Spills

I recently read G.K. Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy”.  In it there is a line that states something like “we show we are grateful for beer and Burgundy is by not drinking too much of them.” I think this show a great way to have a correct attitude towards the freedoms given to believers in the Gospel.

This line also gives a path to becoming a grateful person or a person who exhibits the virtue of gratitude.  First, it begins with realizing that life itself, no matter what the quality of that life may be, is a gift from God.  God created us and loved us.  If we have learned anything about God as humans, it is that God does what he wants.  Evidently he wants us- which is crazy to think about in itself.  The path towards being a grateful person is first to realize that you did noting to deserve life at all, let alone to be judge of the one who gave it to you for making it either “good” or “bad”.  Then, we must not take anything as expected – we are not entitled to anything. At all.

After we have stripped ourselves of the fact that we were helpless in the matter of our own creation and that therefore we simply cannot deserve anything, we are free to see how worthy we are simply because God chooses us.  He chooses humanity and humans, even killing himself to do it.  So how do we thank him?

Chesterton said that we thank him for beer and (wine) by not drinking too much of it.  For some, that might mean not drinking them at all.  We can thank God for our blessings of abundance by not eating too much and by sharing with others that are going without.  We can be grateful for his faithfulness to us as his people by being faithful to our own commitments.  We are grateful for his forgiveness when we forgive others.  We are grateful for his discipline when we accept it ourselves or we learn how to properly correct each other.We are grateful for someone bringing us food by tipping. etc.

The list goes on and on.  If you would, please leave a comment about one way you have learned to show gratitude.

May the Lord’s will be done,

CWillZ

My dad and and I have very similar personalities.  We have pretty similar views about faith and I am contiually finding myself shaped by his wisdom and admire the way he does life.  There are, however, friendly points of dissention between us.  We see politics quite differently, although for the most part we come to different conclusions with similar motivations.

This past election, our votes canceled each other’s out.  He might not see why I don’t think fiscal de-regulation is a great idea and why the appalling stance of many the Democratic party are enough to make me vote towards the right.  I might not see why he doesn’t see that the free market has never really been free and consistently is controlled by people who take advantage of well-intentioned people and that the policies of the far right have most likely been an indirect cause of abortion and poverty, unproductive violence, and diminished quality of life for many.  Either way, we both have our points, and respectfully allow each other to continue find truth somewhere between, under, or beyond the arguments.  I even listen to Rush with him sometimes.  At the end of the day, our thoughts about government matter little because it is the Church’s task to declare and live out righteous and just living.  With us?

Sunday at lunch dad told me that he thought I really should read Ted Nugent’s “Ted, White, and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto.“  I had picked it up for a few minutes in a book store a few months ago and made a snap decision after about 5 pages or so that I thought it would have little productive to say.  Anyway, I like be challenged and enjoy challenging others, and really do appreciate my father’s wisdom, especially because he has had 21+ years of law enforcement experience, a lifetime of pursuing faith, and a sucessful business career that I have not. So, I proposed that we trade books.  I am reading “Ted, White, and Blue” and he is reading / listening to Rob Bell and Don Golden’s “Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile.”

I have found very good thoughts and points in both, and disagree sharply with some of both books.  Manifestos are statements of beliefs, so you can expect people to differ.  However, I want to highlight a great paragraph from “Ted, White, and Blue.”

God gave man a soul; a powerful, instinctual moral and intellectual True North compass that completely differenciates us from all other living creatures. Animals stomp, kill, and and eat each other, even thier own, in primal instinct to survive. Man has the power of reason, calculation, dreaming, and a thought process the choose to do good, not just for himself, but for the predictable benefit of family, fellow man, and the good earth. Respecting the the gift of life and the power of responsible choice, man can pursue happiness while being a positive force for all things When man seeks to benefit from wrong choices, at the expense of others and the environment, he has lost his soul. His misdeeds will eventually catch up with him.  (page 39 Chapter titled “If I Were Presdient”).

The political right and left should take a this paragraph and do an examination of conscience.  Ted won some respect points from me.

Anyway, please pray for the Spirit to be our teacher and guide as dad and I wade through these thoughful and incredibly nuanced books.

May the Lord’s will be done,

CWillZ

It’s time to pretty it up a bit, or something…

If you are reading this from Facebook or an RSS reader, please go to http://cwillz.wordpress.com - it won’t make sense otherwise.

The free wordpress thing(weird car-in-tunnel pic) has been great, but its not me. Those of you who know me, freely submit ideas/images that represent me. Those of you who don’t, be glad. Then, give me ideas.

I, of course, have some ideas but I don’t want to stifle the creativity.

The person whose idea/image is selected(by me) wins a free autographed copy of my next book and a $5 gift card to the place of your choosing within ethical bounds.

Don’t be a pirate

May the Lord’s will be done,

CWillZ

While in Montego Bay, Jamaica I met a man named Michael. The first time we interacted with him he was yelling at us something about how white missionaries come to the island, use the beach every day and never clean it up. He continued on his way spouting off something about colonization and how there can be no peace without justice.

I went back to where we saw him first and waited. Eventually he came back and we started a real conversation. That led to a few of our students becoming his friends and sharing time, clothes, and food with him.

Michael and I talked and sat along the Hip Strip during our short week on the island. One topic was violence and how the rasta fight with words instead of weapons. He reminded me over and over of the prophesy of weapons being pounded into plowshares.

“A knife is better than a gun because it can be used to peel fruit.”

Tonight I watched Lord of War starring Nicholas Cage. I would highly recommend this movie because of the moral choices that it presents. I won’t ruin the plot, but one of the biggest ideas of the movie is honesty and the difference between legal and right.

I am disturbed by the movie, because I know that it represents something true. Arms dealers or traffickers exist, but only because of war. Why does war exist?

I came back to my room and started praying. Something like this is what came out of me:

“I have seen innocent blood shed, even though it is a movie, this is my world. Why, God? Jesus, is this the “year of the Lord’s favor?”

Over the weekend I talked at our Spring Christian Ed retreat about the Exodus and the movement of God in the life of the individual and in societies. During that talk I presented the way Jesus began his ministry, which was by reading this in a synagogue in Capernum:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
Because He has anointed me
To Preach the Good News to the poor
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind,
To release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Over the summer, I was praying about hunger. I asked God why it existed, I dared to ask God why He would let it happen

It is hard to describe, but the answer to that prayer was sorrowful.
“My children go hungry because my other children let them.”
Mother Theresa must have listened to the same voice for she said, “As long as there are empty mouths in the world, the Eucharist is incomplete.”

God has and will give his family more than enough. We just wont share. We have our own peace, but will not share.

Why do I go through a day and not ask where the clothes that cover my flesh come from, who worked to make them? How can I drink my coffee without thinking of who picked it, and whether or not they can live off the wages they earned? Why do I believe the lie that it is not my responsibility to make sure those people are getting what they deserve?

When have we given enough? When can we feel good about ourselves? When we all have enough, when we all have peace, when God is feared.