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Death and Faith

An old and dear friend of mine lost his boy this week.  It seemed brutal and senseless and mean.  In these times, it seems that most decisions are up for discussion.  Judges require an attempt at mediation before they will even hear a divorce case.  The majority of teenagers have been brought up to believe that they are on equal footing with their parents with regard to power, therefore, all topics with which they disagree are open to discussion and even argument.  As a lawyer I see what a litigious society we have become.  We want our day in court to tell our story.  In the bible, Matthew 18:15-17, even Jesus directs a careful back and forth exchange to resolve a perceived wrong.  "Instead i f your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.  But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses all facts may be confirmed. ...
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Simplifying for Lent

My goal for this Lenten season has been to listen more and simplify my life whenever possible, so that I have more room in my life for family, church and the sound of God's voice.  One of many things I've done has been to take a good, hard look at my Face Book account.  I started my Face Book account a long time ago.  At first I was amazed that I could reconnect with the lives of old friends, people I hadn't seen since as far back as grade school.  Up until then, I could only summon up old memories and speculate about where they were now and down what roads their lives had taken them. I remembered the sweet boy in fourth grade who jumped in to save me when I got my first pair of glasses in fourth grade.  I remember the first person I ever knew whose parents got a divorce.  After that, I was deathly afraid to be away from my parents for even five minutes, because I thought that when they got home they would be divorced.  Having gone to an almost complet...
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Not Afraid to Speak Up Anymore

Up until I turned 40, I don't think I ever stood up for anything important.  When I was young, I stood up for rock bands, my right to stay out past midnight, my right to not believe in God (this, thankfully, was a quickly passing phase), my right to dress and say what I wanted, the right to get my hair cut in a way I knew my parents despised, my right to drink and smoke as much as I wanted and the right to be very (sometimes inappropriately) politically outspoken.  At the time, "standing up" for those things made me feel powerful, as if I was in control and not just a kid living at home mooching off my parents.  My friends encouraged me in these things.  I was the "rebel," choosing a different way of acting, dressing, and speaking than most of the kids in my high school.  I was certainly different from everyone in the big fancy Methodist Church downtown where my family had attended since I was three.  Looking back, I can only imagine how embarrassed my pare...
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