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As I walked down the streets of Vancouver on a wet grey and windy afternoon, I could not help but to stop and stare at the old Cobalt Hotel and wonder…. How many young strong loggers gathered here in the 50’s? How many burly woollen coated fishermen celebrated a huge catch of salmon behind those pub doors with beer in hand and an exuberant hug for a long-time buddy off another boat?
How many Chilcotin or Cariboo cowboys, in town for their yearly de-bushing from the isolation of the range, wandered into the midst of all this only to find themselves with sore knuckles and empty wallets as they learned the ways of the big city bars?
I stood and stared a long time. I seemed the hear the sounds of the police cars coming to break up the brawls, the wailing of ambulances hauling away those who were brave enough but too drunk to fight, and the whispering of the hookers waiting outside ready to sell comfort those who were victorious.
I stood there a long time. I could see a parade of strong young healthy loggers, fisherman, cowboys, construction workers, trainmen, truck-drivers, and labourers, coming in one door and another stream of old and wrinkled, weak, and unsmiling old men coming out the other door in another time.
Age had gotten them all.
What stories the Cobalt Hotel could unveil to those who will stop and listen!
It is interesting to me tonight, to be sitting here in a warm room on the B.C. coast, listening to the rain pouring down and thinking of those cold cold nights by the campfire in the Yukon while out on the trapline. Sometimes I'd just sit, wrapped in a big parka, staring into the roaring flames, and recite Robert Service.
Some of those nights were awful long and cold, and I guess they all went into writing the story of Billy Simms above.
I now wonder , "How many times did Sam McGee get cremated in those years?" And so too, I wonder how many times Billy Simms is doomed to be chased and hunted down, only to be stabbed through the heart by his one-time Sweetheart?
We seem to go through life trying to please Him and do the things we know He would want us to do. (when I say WE I mean ME). We feel that we want to follow God, but we seem to not be able to make 'it' work for us. Why are we so tired? Broke? Relationship poor? Sad, depressed, sick?
I'm no wise guy on the top of the pyramid, but here's what I have found out.
I was raised to go to church (the Anglican Church) and was baptized and confirmed there. I got out in the world knowing God existed. And shamefully, that was about all I knew about Him. Oh, I knew I was supposed to do the things He wanted me to do, but nobody ever seemed to talk about just how I was supposed to do that. Mind you, 'they' were quick to inform me that if I did not do those things that God demanded I do, then my butt was going to get fried like a chicken on Col Sanders Ranch. The whole thing became so unworkable to me, and the world so inviting to me, that I just quit trying to do anything that I felt was required of me. Oh, I kept my moral values and all that because after all...right is right, right? I knew right from wrong, and didn't steal, lie, or murder anyone. Actually, I don't think I ever really intentionally tried to hurt anyone. But I sure was not doing anything I was doing because I was trying to please God.
God? he was just a big bossy guy in the sky who kept trying to stop me from having fun. If someone asked, I'd say I was a Christian - I had no problem with that - but I sure had a problem with living like one. I just ignored or 'chucked out' the whole idea of even trying.
Now I know why. I have really been studying this whole thing about 'being under the Law' and 'being under Grace'.
In the book of Romans, Paul lays it all out. The Law was never given for us to follow in the first place. It was given to condemn us! If you look at the whole law (not just the 10 commandments) in the book of Leviticus, you will see thousands of them. There is no way that man -any man- can live up to them all. It is impossible to do. That was the purpose of the Law--to show man just how vile he really became after the 'fall'. (Adam's deal with the devil). Look at it in this light:
If you were 20 yrs old, and just got a brand new mustang car with a big V-8 in it! Yahoo! Down the highway you bomb in it, top off, music blaring, and a laughing friend beside you! You are both having a ball! What could be better? You're doing 95 MPH down a great road, passing people left and right, waving and singing in your bright orange hot-rod! Yahooo! Now, you take in a small corner and suddenly there it is -- a sign put there by the authorities that says you can only legally drive at 55 MPH (not the 95 you are!). Speed zone? What's a speed zone? You have never heard of a speed zone in your life! Do you mean to say that if I drive over 55 MPH I am breaking the Law? Oh man! What a bummer!
So what is your first reaction? (after all..you're doing 95 here!)
Well, you will probably hit the brakes first of all..until you get this matter cleared up, because you are a good person and do like to do the 'right' thing, right?
You look ahead as your car slows and you see a police car ahead! How do you feel right at that moment?
probably fearful. apprehensive at the least wouldn't you say? After all, you are breaking the Law. Out of ignorance of the law maybe, but still you know you are/were in the wrong. The cop is not exactly your friend at the moment, is he?
So, you get slowed in time. You drive past the cop without getting a fine.
Now what? You are probably not going to enjoy the ride as much as you previously were, because of a couple of things;
you've lost the freedom you just had to drive as you please
you are now under condemnation...you were breaking the law!
You want to go fast now but can't. You feel almost resentful, but upset none the less.
You are upset with the police now. Instead of them being the helpful 'friends' you always saw them as before, they have now become the punishers. They control your actions. You want to go fast, they say go slow...
So then, the main result of the speed sign was condemnation. If you now drive at even a paltry 60 MPH, -not the 55 that the LAW allows -you do so feeling guilty all the while. And you really do not want to see a policeman either.
The sign is like the Law, and that policeman you are now NOT wanting to see, is like God in this little made up scenario. Before, we liked God and always said 'Hello' to Mr. Policeman because He was our friend. Now though, we avoid Him because we know that we are breaking the Law. or at least desire to! I don't like driving at 55 when I could be doing 95! dang!
That is sort of a good example of what the Law did, and what it is for.
But it also goes deeper than that. The law showed us our sinful nature. The Law said to us "This is how you should live." You who so piously think you're Holy. This Law is the standard that God says meets the criteria of being Holy. Live up to it then, all you who claim to be Holy!
And of course, no one ever could. It is just to rigid. And so we lived in condemnation, because the Law was all about OUR efforts in trying to meet the requirements, and our WORKS can never measure up to God's standard of Holiness.
So we tried, failed. Tried failed, tried failed, tried failed, for years! and all the while we wanted to do what was right and all the while we live under the fear of the policeman. Because condemnation brings fear, and we knew we could never fulfill the requirements of the LAW.
So some of us just gave up trying. In my own case I guess I just rationalized it into a thought process something like "If I live morally, and try my best, believe that God and His Son are up there somewhere, then I will still get to ride the bus to Heaven." Well, that is not what the book says...
One of the saddest things to my mind, is that this seems to be what the churches of today are saying also. And in the meantime they keep hitting me with the law and all that condemnation. It is all OLD TESTAMENT stuff! That is living by the LAW.
Skip to the day when Jesus was Resurrected. He gave us a whole new treaty. A new covenant. A New will and Testament. He told us that we no longer had to meet the requirements of the Law (unless we chose to). He defeated Satan for us and we no longer have to fear death and forms of death (like condemnation, poverty, sickness, fear and doubt, etc.) He has created a whole new species of man wherein we have Himself living inside of us to guide and help us. He gave us a whole book of instructions on how to do this. He gave us many teachers to learn from, the greatest of whom is Himself in the form of the Holy Spirit. And the Father told us that now we are forgiven of all our sins and live under His GRACE.
Grace is the state we are in when we are given unconditional love. We cannot earn God’s Grace. He gives it freely to us because he is a loving Father and we are his children. The Law requires you to earn your way to God’s favour; Grace says you are favoured no matter what ‘works’ you do – or don’t do. No matter how ‘Holy’ you live, you can never earn your way to God’s company through your own works as noted above. You may be ‘less of a sinner’ than others you know, but who wants to be the ‘best’ sinner in Hell?
John 3:16 says it all: "For God so loved the world, that He GAVE his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish, but everlasting life." God sent Jesus to save the world,not just Christians. Everyone and anyone, who would accept His Son.
But there is a 'catch' to it, if you will. Even though we were/are forgiven, we are still children of Adam and therefore of a sinful nature. God still had to deal with the issue of sin, because He -being Holy - cannot condone or commune with sin. Yet no one of us can live without sinning; so how then would God ever commune with us?
Jesus took care of that whole issue by becoming sin for us and paying the price of forgiveness for us. Redeemed us to the Father just like we would buy back so many precious jewels from the pawnbroker.
When you are reborn, you become a whole new 'creature'. A creature never before seen on this earth, because we reborn followers of Jesus (Christians), have a whole new spirit. This spirit is then sealed and 'translated into the Kingdom of His Dear Son.' (Col 1;10) So now, any time I find myself in sin, I can go to the Father and through my advocate (lawyer) Jesus Christ, I can be made clean or whole again. But the important thing here is that whenever I sin, the filth of it never touches my spirit! My spirit is sealed and is in the Heavenly Kingdom. Since we are Spirit, Soul, and Body, this leaves my body and my mind for me to deal with here on this earth. Our soul, is that part of us which is not body or spirit; this includes the conscious and subconscious mind, the emotions, and the will.
The wonderful thing about Grace -as I'm finding out to my joy!- is that I am not forced to do good works...I now do them because I want to please my Heavenly Father. I know I will fall short, but it brings no fear with it. There is no condemnation in it to me. I simply go before God and confess (state) what the problem is, ask for forgiveness and then it is forgiven and removed as far as the east is from the west. That's a long way away from me! It is as if it never happened in His sight. I know this because His Word promises me of it.
Who would not want to work hard for a guy like that, eh?
So the whole Christian life now becomes a joy instead of burden to carry around as if I was a mule with a huge load on his back.
Whew! That is a lot of typing going on there! haha But I can tell you this much --- when I started to understand this, when I started to really get this into my heart, it blessed me hugely! It just took all that old religious junk off of me and threw it away! Religion is all man made rules. Grace is life with Jesus.
Jesus said we are the 'Light of the World." We are the 'Salt of the Earth." Lights attract people from the darkness, and salt is a substance that forever changes whatever it is mixed with. Under Grace I feel like I am finally starting to understand what He meant by this. I desire to live closer to God now days, not because I should, but because I truly want to.
What a blessing that is!
Now having said all that, I sure find myself with a long trail ahead! lol Wanting to live right also brings the knowledge that I do not live right! I am still of the fallen nature, and easily captured by the 'lusts' of this world. Selfishness, gluttony, all the fleshly delights and pleasures -- how attractive those can be to our 'Flesh" (worldly selves). But the world's ways are enmity to God. So now I'm at Rom 12: 1,2 and the renewing of the mind. Not a chore anymore, not something I have to do, but something I choose to do. What a huge relief that brings to me.
There is Peace is in this.
I had an interesting discussion with someone the other day about Serenity. What it is and how it is achieved seemed to be the topic, but I realized quickly how much our own perception of the definition of the word played into our own views about serenity and our attempts to achieve it for ourselves.
The word tranquility kept coming up during the discussion. But that word threw me off for some reason. I think of tranquility as more of a short-term state of peace of mind. Tranquility and sereneness may go hand in hand, but serenity itself seems to my mind to imply long-term sereneness. In other words, serenity does not come from momentary sereneness and tranquility. It comes from being in harmony with a long-term belief in a right outcome. Faith, in other words.
Tranquility; sereneness: They sound like nice states of mind to be in – and I’m sure they are- but somehow to me, they do not imply anything lasting – as does the word ‘Happiness’, also. Short term peace of mind is not the goal. Finding a way to have peace of mind in all things, seems to be a much more valid goal. I believe serenity is the state of mind that you acquire, once having achieved that goal. To my mind, tranquility and sereneness are what you achieve while staring into a tank full of tropical fish, or sitting out in a well groomed English garden and watching the little birdies flutter about the rose bushes. Serenity, on the other hand, is what you have while waiting in the hospital for the test results, or being at the funeral of a close friend. Even though you may feel anxious for those results, or sad for your friend, you still retain your serenity because serenity is a mental state which is based on the long-term, and you know that you know that the long-term picture is taken care of. And you know that because of your Faith in God.
As a Christian, I cannot see how anyone could have serenity without Faith in God, because it is through this Faith that we understand and believe that the future is taken care of to our benefit – even to after death and beyond. It would seem to me, that without this Faith, I would not be able to believe in a future that was going to work to my benefit to any degree at all. But having Faith in a God of Love and Grace, gives me the ability to hand over my doubts, fears, worries, anxieties etc.. to a greater power than myself and therefore let go of them. Since my ‘Joy is in the Lord’, I can be joyful all the time- even in times of troubles. If you do not have faith in God, then your joy must be found in each situation, and since situations can quickly change, you will then have no real lasting joy. Without joy, you can not have peace of mind, nor any kind of lasting serenity. You can only have periods of tranquility or moments of sereneness.
Therefore,the definition of Serenity to me is a long-term harmonious state of mind. Harmonious with my surroundings, and harmonious with my Faith. Without one there is no other.
I used to take the view which I now find is more common, in that being in a position [mind-set] of serenity, meant the absence of problems or tribulations. Sort of skipping along in life with everything going along just fine, thank you. Although that may very well be the definition of tranquility, it does not fit with my view of what serenity is. To be harmonious with my surroundings is to recognize that this world is always going to present me with trials and tribulations. To expect anything different would only cause me to be anxious and upset every time I ran into a new challenge or situation which seemed to possibly have an outcome different from the one I desire. Life is not going to be without challenges. At least that is my humble opinion brother! Serenity comes with knowing that life is full of adversity and yet, despite these challenges, we can move on to higher ground. At the very least, they are learning experiences, at their best, they create a positive change to occur in our lives. Learning to view new trials not with fear, but with Faith that our Creator ultimately has good things planned for us, enables us to keep our serenity in spite of any challenging situation that arrives unexpectedly at our doorstep. They may not promote tranquility at the time of their arrival, but they should promote serenity in the space of our endurance of them.
The claim of authorship to the PopularSerenity Prayer is by the theologian Dr. Rheinhold Niebuhr, who wrote: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can change, And wisdom to know the difference."
The longer version of this prayer is as follows: "Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen."
I like the long version. It tells me to look for a longer lasting reward than mere tranquility or sereneness can give.
“Old men stepping timidly out to cross the stream on the slippery rocks.” I saw this line somewhere this morning, - or perhaps it was penned in my imagination- and it seemed to bring forth a gush of hidden treasures of thought. In my mind’s eye I could see a stooped old fellow in a tweed jacket, a bit anxious in his need to cross a narrow creek. He slowly walks up and down a short stretch of the bank, looking for that narrowest spot where the rocks he would have to jump to were the fewest. He finds it, but instead of the bold steps of a younger man, he timidly –even frightfully pushes his foot out to touch the first of the stepping stones. Can you see him? He is anxious and glad in one way – as if recognizing an adventure, but in another way he is frightened of a fall among the rocks. He is old and his bones are fragile now. Things hurt more now. But dang! There’s only four rocks between him and the opposite shore, and even though they are wet; after all! the stream is not that deep……
Like mighty warriors locked arm in arm around the city's gates, these Douglas Fir trees stand guarding the harbours and inlets of the Island, reminding man of his insignificance. Oh, we can mow them down with chainsaws, but who suffers most? It strikes me that humans cannot stand to be reminded of our own unimportance in the great march of time.
As a species, we do not like change. That is, unless we are controlling the changes. We reflect this thought process in our words. We speak fearfully of the natural forces which bring about change, when we should be speaking words of welcome. Change should be made welcome for it makes us grow and become wiser. But fear predominates instead. Look for example at the words spoken about global warming. So many words of fear, and yet we have no more idea of what is happening than a clam does of whether it is in the ocean or in someone’s aquarium in Fairbanks or perhaps Rome. We simply assume the worst instead of looking for the good in it.
It comes to my mind that it is this mindset that makes us war with our world. We resist the things that we cannot control. The endless march of time is one. We measure time, we label it, we regulate it, and we dread it’s passing. We dread it because we fear it, and we fear it because it takes us ever onward toward another uncontrollable event in our lives…our death.
So we war against it. Instead of accepting that it will keep marching on whether or not we permit it to, and yet knowing we can do nothing to ever begin to slow it, we then try to change it’s effect on ourselves. What I ask, is all this fear of aging? Aging is simply a process where we learn more of the lessons that life teaches us – or at least we should – by having had the time to experience more things. Knowing too, that we will not have enough time to experience all life has to offer, we can then gain even more knowledge by studying the lives and lessons of others. Since the one and only thing in this world that God has given us complete and utter control over is our own minds and thoughts, why do we spend so much energy fighting that over which we have no control? And in the process of resisting the passage of time, we waste even more of that which we are allotted in the first place.
I admire societies which honour those who have survived long in this world. Unfortunately I can not say this of my own. In my society we take our elders and lock them away as if there was shame to grey hair and wisdom. We act as if failing bodies are proof of dimming minds. We lock away our grey haired citizens at the height of their wisdom, and then farm our youngsters off into the arms of strangers instead. In some other societies –Native Indian for example – elders are revered and given the task of teaching the youngsters the history and wisdom of the people. I think one of the saddest things that stick in my mind from the years in the Yukon is the memory of in the dark and ice-fog of a frigid minus fifty degree morning, seeing crying young children being put into a still frozen car, while Mom and Dad argue about being late for their work because of having to ‘get the kids to daycare.’ How sad.
But through it all, the ever changing environment, and the wayward warring changes of man, the Douglas Fir trees stand. They pass no judgment, they hold no opinion that I know of. They just stand timeless as the centuries pass and watch the endless struggling procession of human beings pass beneath their towering limbs. With their roots intertwined one with the next, each individual tree gains even more security from the young and the old of It’s own species.
The lesson here is that no matter how big we are, or how long we’ve been around, we still need to work together – not stand alone.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Monday August 24th, 2009-08-24 The Law of Compensation
“I think it can truly be said that all men suffer all their lives, under the false impression that they can be cheated.” Napoleon Hill
I believe that is a true statement of us all. How many times have I found myself in a situation, or being treated in a certain way, and thought to myself, ‘this if unfair!’ or ‘I do not deserve this!’ And perhaps I was (or am) right. But where in times past, I would try and make the change happen myself, the passing of years has taught me that there is no need for my own personal retribution or loss of my own peace of mind in trying make the changes happen. Through my own observation, the readings of Scripture, and of men like Napoleon Hill, Emerson, Elwood Hubbard, and others, I have discovered the Law of Compensation.
I especially like the way Napoleon Hill phrases it:
Every Adversity carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.
How true! How profound a thought! Just as the acorn must produce an oak tree, and a corn seed must produce a stalk, so every act of adversity must carry with it the seeds of change. Whether you recognize those seeds or not, will depend on your own mind set. Are you open to teaching? Or is your mind closed to teaching?
I have always loved this quote from Herbert Spencer:
There is a principle, which is a bar against all information Which is proof against all argument And which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance— That principle is contempt prior to investigation.
I have been blessed in my life to have spent so much time in the wilderness—nature in the raw! The one thing I have observed repeatedly while out in God’s playground was the fact that change is one thing that is forced upon us in order to survive. Nothing stays the same. All things are constantly in a state of change –which lead to growth, or else it is a constant state of change –which leads to death. But change we must! Even the mountains change, although we may not readily observe it. But the storms, the winds, the ice and the snows, will all have their effect on those high solid rock formations. They will change. Slowly, over eons from erosion perhaps, or suddenly sliding to the valleys below from unexpected earthquakes, they will slide to a lower level. Sometimes this change creates many other needs to change also. The resulting landslide may block a river for example, creating the needs to change among the fish and wildlife and flora that lived there – and will now have to live in the new changed environment. But change they will! Or die. We are at present going through dramatic changes in our economy. Like a giant rake going through a garden and dislocating the weeds which have grown up there, so is the coming recession (read Depression) going to rake through our economy and uproot the bloat and dishonesty that has taken root there. And like the landslide blocking the rivers and streams in a valley, it is going to force change on those who may not want to change. Hence, some of us will adopt the attitude of ‘It is not fair!” or “ I did not deserve this!” And we would be right. It is not fair in our view, nor did we deserve this – in our view. But it is not ‘our view’ of things that controls our destiny. It is our thoughts – how we think – which controls our destiny. Accurate thoughts, bring accurate actions. Accurate actions, bring right (wanted) results. So my choice then, when faced with change because of any kind of adversity, is this: “Do I want to look for the benefit and move forward in life?” or “I don’t like this forced on me, so I will just balk and resist it all.” If I think the latter, then I will certainly give into the belief that I am being cheated – that something has been ‘taken’ from me against my will. If I continually give into this fear, my thinking will become that of a hoarder, and the circle will continue to spiral downward under the wrong thoughts it will produce in me. Smaller and smaller will my choices become as my dream disappears and my mind continues to convince me that the whole world is somehow out to punish me, and therefore I better ‘grab what I can.” God forbid!
I want to introduce what Emerson had to say on this subject. Surely the Sage of Concord has a lesson for me here!
“The changes which break up at short intervals the prosperity of men, are advertisements of a nature whose law is growth. Evermore it is the order of nature to grow, and every soul is by this intrinsic necessity quitting its whole system of things, its friends, its home, and laws, and faith, as the shellfish crawls out of its beautiful but stony case, because it no longer admits of its growth , and slowly forms a new house…And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The death of a dear friend, wife, brother , lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a house-hold, or a style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances, and the reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the next years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden flower, with no room for it’s roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and neglect of the gardener, is made the banyan of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighbourhoods of men.
Is Emerson speaking to you? He certainly is to me! I see it now: Every adversity carries within it, the seeds of a greater or equivalent benefit!
All I have to do to receive it, is to open my mind and look for it!
Well, since this is the first blog to ever come from my keyboard, and I'm still learning the ropes as it where, so I thought perhaps the best thing to do would be to share a short poem I wrote.
Time does go by fast. I hope to get here often and be able to keep some semblance of continuity going. If you are getting impatient for the next posting....well, don't be shy! email me. One way to do that is to go to my website, pick out something you like a lot, buy it and then email me! (May I suggest the XS energy drinks? no carbs, no sugar, lots of vitamins! :-)
