Loving, Learning, and Leading

"I really dont like sex, but I do it cause he wants it, even though he's nasty" 15 yr old young woman in Rochester Case after case presents in clinics and healthcare centers across the country.  Adolescents come and share their concerns regarding their reproductive health.  They have been taught by their schools and communities to recognize the symptoms of a variety of diseases and disorders of the private kind.  They come with concerns of chlamydia or herpes, and the dreaded HIV infections.  I am glad that they have been taught at some level to recognize disease, but I am saddened even more that they have never had health modeled. The young adults that I am coming in contact with are not only having physical maladies, but also disturbing and pathological relationships.  The introduction of sexual intimacy at an early age truly distorts any understanding of a healthy relationship.  In the Rochester, NY community, (and I would assume that Rochester d...

"This new story begins and ends with God and offers people of all races and ethnic backgrounds a plot worth living" Brenda Salter McNeil  There are a few things that properly raised people are not supposed to talk about in public, as they are simply to divisive.  Politics, religion, and race are topics that are essentially off limits.  So we have superficial encounters with one another in a variety of settings striving to get along, when the things that most separate us we dare not discuss.  Its this 800 lb gorilla in the room that keeps us in this quiet, but vicious cycle of distance and irrelevance.  Here's the cycle: We do not speak about our racial, political, or religious differences out of concern for offending the other.  Because we do not understand the racial (more accurately described as ethnic), political, and religious views of others, we speak and act in ways that are clearly offensive and hurtful.  We then react out of woundedness and devel...

"'When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:9-10) It has become the popular to bash the concept of community welfare programs such as aid to dependent children, housing subsidies, head start, food stamps, or medicaid.  I believe that many well meaning Christian even think that the removal of such programs are the Godly thing to do, but they are confused.   When we look at the patterns set forth in the Bible for His people, we see built in systems of compassion and generosity.  God knew, and He knows, that there will always be those who are poor, disabled, and disenfranchised among his people.   In the Leviticus verse above, we see that God commanded the Israelites to make provisions in their crops for those who were p...

"Did I live a good life" Question asked by Private Ryan at the gravesite of those who died for him Saving Private Ryan, 1998 Many of my readers know that I have been a outspoken critic of war as a public policy and that I strongly believe that Jesus calls us to be instruments of peace in a world that is often hostile and violent.  With that being said, I still deeply reasonate with the men and women who have sacrificed their lives, their health, their careers, their relationships, and their dreams to protect our country as well as others, from tyranny and destruction. On Good Friday, we take time to contemplate the meaning of Jesus' death on the cross.  As we reflect, I find that there is a natural tendency to spiritualize his death.  We sanitize the cross.  It is not a splintered, bloody, atrocious method of torture, but a golden emblem that we wear as jewelry or wear as a tattoo.  We spiritualize the death into theologically neat categories whereas we see...

"Pick it up and run it" was the official name of the game.  Down at the Field at the end of my street or at the playground of York school a few blocks away, we would gather.  Vince, Derek, Marcel, Gary, Todd, John, Paul, Charles, and whoever else we could get.  It was a simple game.  You throw the football up in the air, and someone catches and runs.  Everyone else had a simple mission: Tackle the ball carrier.  There were no official rules or an official league.  Parents knew of the game but did not attend, officiate, or in anyway influence the character of the game.  We simply played and loved it. Today, I mourn the loss of play in our children.  For a myriad of reasons, children no longer are given the creativity to innovate, experiment, and play with other children.  Children no longer go out and form pick-up basketball games, but join carefully orchestrated parent dominated basketball leagues.  Softball and baseball is no lon...

"God's Antidote for the scarcity mentality is a community radically dependent upon the generosity of God" Dr. Elizabeth Gerhardt, Northeastern Seminary There are basically two different paradigms in which influence how we use our resources.  These paradigms have been around for a long time, although most of us are not aware of their existence. The first paradigm is called the scarcity mindset.  This mindset states that resources (material and immaterial) are extremely limited.  Because they are limited, we must aggressively seize these resources, hold on to them, and protect them so that we can use them for our own purposes.  In the scarcity mindset, we assume that others share this mindset and are equally selfish in their approach to resources.  Due to this assumption, we feel justified in exclusively consuming resources as we are just doing what we need to do to survive (United States, although being 6% of the world's population, consumes over 60% of the wor...

"But it seems to me that sacrifice is only love put into action" Elizabeth of the Trinity, a 19th Century Nun One of the hardest things to understand regarding language, is the evolving and changing meanings of individual words.  Words in the English language may be used in significantly different ways today, than they were 200 years ago, even though we speak the same language.  Add into history, that words may have slight nuances or uses that were particular to a particular subculture of that time.  We think of the word "cat", and it may refer to a feline, or if said in the context of a 1960's urban subculture, we would be talking about a man.  Love is one of those words that we use so frequently today, that we often miss the richness of its original meaning.  We speak of love as an emotion that is experienced when we have significant affection for something or someone.  We say, "I love Pizza", and we are referring to the pleasure we experience whe...

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. Psalms 20:7 There is a real temptation to put our trust in things that are notoriously untrustworthy.  We trust that the Government will keep us safe and secure from everything: Terrorists, calamities of nature, dangerous products, unscrupulous business practices, taxation without representation, exploitive marketing, unsafe medications, and even high fuel costs.  Our trust is revealed in our complaining when the expectations are not met.  Yet, the reality is that government is not God, nor is it run by God. While it does present obstacles to the above list, it does not have omniscience; the ability to know all things, even before it develops.  It simply reacts to things as they develop for the common good of the nation.  The point is not to argue whether the government responds appropriately or not; that is why we have a multi-party system.  The point is t...