tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19766492871860491422024-02-02T02:12:32.350-06:00Pastor Don's BlogThoughts about whatever comes up, day to dayDon Sensinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688914420363891757noreply@blogger.comBlogger570125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-13509082076688900642020-06-28T18:23:00.001-05:002020-06-28T18:46:14.331-05:00"I have finished the race..." - 2 Timothy 4.7<span style="font-family: inherit;">Today I conducted my final Sunday services under full-time appointment. The first was at Gideon UMC, the second at Greenbrier UMC, both in Greenbrier, Tennessee.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">After 23 years of full-time pastoring in the UMC, preceded by retiring as an artillery officer from the US Army, plus two years of employment in a BTB Information Technology compay, I will enter retired status for good this coming Wednesday. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here are some photos from this morning.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNkNyD-tFE0GOM-6vUnKngDoEXKdaTnUDvFHvZWeQroLbZjnaxIJkkjeYEOO8QOc79Hld0j1XZMXsm2dv4jrIDmRHM2NzNavaOnEwdwY82rkYz2Sp0IylcA8dNUNJT9TpULjSTlLKepAGT/s1600/02+Serving+Communion+Gideon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="778" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNkNyD-tFE0GOM-6vUnKngDoEXKdaTnUDvFHvZWeQroLbZjnaxIJkkjeYEOO8QOc79Hld0j1XZMXsm2dv4jrIDmRHM2NzNavaOnEwdwY82rkYz2Sp0IylcA8dNUNJT9TpULjSTlLKepAGT/s400/02+Serving+Communion+Gideon.jpg" width="193" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Serving Communion at Gideon. We used prepackaged, individual cups with the wafer and the wine (grape juice) wrapped together in one unit. I served with tongs so no one's hands ever touched the cups but the communicant's.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy508HNXRT0C_ZBQgTI2_1IPTksqB6HQhPVGNNZubgL6GPJOd4Q97jKAhEIGCJnlsrnI0VgvwYFQ3ILl-s2_8MEbGnA3h5BoSUM3ehdvTngPUpRr_QleWfHbBrRiUJOqiG19GkIetDvrGE/s1600/01+Gideon+benediction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1343" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy508HNXRT0C_ZBQgTI2_1IPTksqB6HQhPVGNNZubgL6GPJOd4Q97jKAhEIGCJnlsrnI0VgvwYFQ3ILl-s2_8MEbGnA3h5BoSUM3ehdvTngPUpRr_QleWfHbBrRiUJOqiG19GkIetDvrGE/s400/01+Gideon+benediction.jpg" width="335" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">My final benediction at Gideon UMC.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ9FTfalkMPXpFsIlqAvbUoQvJSjCK4lzBvVyyz18D5VBPtuX2q9eei1S03CfzNh1QQ7LuqbDAAsCjvoyP0jEYS1RqTm7_cEYEqGlB9KsXhcqw2QHHEVpl5gnE7OPIgaW9cEzwmf9eAPZr/s1600/03+20200628_103810.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="778" data-original-width="1600" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ9FTfalkMPXpFsIlqAvbUoQvJSjCK4lzBvVyyz18D5VBPtuX2q9eei1S03CfzNh1QQ7LuqbDAAsCjvoyP0jEYS1RqTm7_cEYEqGlB9KsXhcqw2QHHEVpl5gnE7OPIgaW9cEzwmf9eAPZr/s400/03+20200628_103810.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">When Cathy and I arrived at Greenbrier UMC, this sign awaited us near the front entrance.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaRvbvV8r-f8g0EdCXOnK5lY5Dp-c2_9oeOzICcc11f9dQqScWtoyPz7SdUgUaTKWq1MdFk0z8hrzhqVYunO2xG7mDr_mVHm3VKTZof7BXP1lPODV1IeO-GhDU4-D9Sunl7Mcow8MmOjUT/s1600/04+20200628_111622.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="974" data-original-width="1600" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaRvbvV8r-f8g0EdCXOnK5lY5Dp-c2_9oeOzICcc11f9dQqScWtoyPz7SdUgUaTKWq1MdFk0z8hrzhqVYunO2xG7mDr_mVHm3VKTZof7BXP1lPODV1IeO-GhDU4-D9Sunl7Mcow8MmOjUT/s400/04+20200628_111622.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Beginning my final service at Greenbrier UMC. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2IPGzQ7Wqn4O42dKwnJFGE6ezX1gBqirnwRRWV5zQKBSo7zwXfUA_eJsyifggS_WNnWTjHckKkOkjD-tnPrqe6_RQg1tLCJlsGv1Pfi8i5I0dSBX6umUwKCNcYe8HUntVpazy8iVh01KR/s1600/05+20200628_114401.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1289" data-original-width="1600" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2IPGzQ7Wqn4O42dKwnJFGE6ezX1gBqirnwRRWV5zQKBSo7zwXfUA_eJsyifggS_WNnWTjHckKkOkjD-tnPrqe6_RQg1tLCJlsGv1Pfi8i5I0dSBX6umUwKCNcYe8HUntVpazy8iVh01KR/s400/05+20200628_114401.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Consecrating the Communion elements.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9RVvrh2m8s4BRUdeA8p_H-jQC3Z8Ya7-fGkCuSVAP8iF7G_My5IJgQK_NTJw0teJ_VreEEpWMa5v8G7TLCfQ4E4XzY-7VCYFbYE3HfExpJdqF-ycewi56BqBl6Z_ToKNVZGk09JqjeKfa/s1600/06+20200628_114814.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1116" data-original-width="1600" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9RVvrh2m8s4BRUdeA8p_H-jQC3Z8Ya7-fGkCuSVAP8iF7G_My5IJgQK_NTJw0teJ_VreEEpWMa5v8G7TLCfQ4E4XzY-7VCYFbYE3HfExpJdqF-ycewi56BqBl6Z_ToKNVZGk09JqjeKfa/s400/06+20200628_114814.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">My successor pastor, beginning there July 1, is the Rev. Jason Wilkerson, whom I have known since I moved to Robertson County three years ago. He is a very fine Christian gentleman and minister. I invited him and his family to attend today to introduce him to the congregation. I also asked him to assist in serving Communion.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk5tBp9p8AGWjeG9Q8BrX9CG9wX6IS63d2gHDnKHu14pcmuC2AzsuYzIxiF6l8EtQXEiYiKVA-yu79Hq1mmQSoPFDQb_5WyDJ5mbU5mzOskUYXQkCAvdcJQPRazJJ0If7oUy2UhtsP8F4d/s1600/07+20200628_115356.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1383" data-original-width="1600" height="345" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk5tBp9p8AGWjeG9Q8BrX9CG9wX6IS63d2gHDnKHu14pcmuC2AzsuYzIxiF6l8EtQXEiYiKVA-yu79Hq1mmQSoPFDQb_5WyDJ5mbU5mzOskUYXQkCAvdcJQPRazJJ0If7oUy2UhtsP8F4d/s400/07+20200628_115356.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Our Communion steward, the wonderful Donna Watkins, prepared Communion with the bread (the "chiclet" style) in trays of cups and the wine in other trays. She prepared these entirely in keeping with proper C19 protocols so that neither the bread, the liquid, nor the cups were ever touched by anyone but the recipients.<br /><br />Rev. Wilkerson and I were both masked while serving and we donned new sterile nitrile gloves first. We removed each cup from the tray and handed it to the communicant so that no unprotected hands ever touched anything but their own serving.<br /><br />In the photo above, I am serving Rev. Wilkerson at the end, just after he served me. This was one part of our ritual of me passing the pastoral care of the congregation to him - leaving him with the place of honor in the Methodist tradition: last. Hopefully, this helped the people understand that there is an orderly, grace-filled and indeed sacramental continuity of pastoral care of the people of God. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNaEtIGjU3BN1skW8QTX9INvEy0fT9exXmNQ-eXlTNpLoyz7HQyPWGpjI_avbFIIXObKFvzF47iU6k8KlrXispceR7Qippano8nPtXW8wBrhxQyeA7VMhYaLsFhq-Q9gednt6SzWjz7GR4/s1600/20+20200628_121510.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1072" data-original-width="1600" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNaEtIGjU3BN1skW8QTX9INvEy0fT9exXmNQ-eXlTNpLoyz7HQyPWGpjI_avbFIIXObKFvzF47iU6k8KlrXispceR7Qippano8nPtXW8wBrhxQyeA7VMhYaLsFhq-Q9gednt6SzWjz7GR4/s400/20+20200628_121510.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Then we proceeded with a litany of passing of the pastoral ministry from myself to Jason. We each led the congregation is responses and prayers for one another and the church itself. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMdL_ifLoE-NBWbtmzhBuyt-oJNtJRZ4C6j-1xdCCMpoQvSG2SSvBU7ECYtyztMwaTWXzmPKSJFQUdAXkBdjB1Jyofpru6gM18_AG1WaNwL08EYsKtEpaYOc77ngQ76MutCnAZBBRV3ln6/s1600/09+20200628_121923.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1401" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMdL_ifLoE-NBWbtmzhBuyt-oJNtJRZ4C6j-1xdCCMpoQvSG2SSvBU7ECYtyztMwaTWXzmPKSJFQUdAXkBdjB1Jyofpru6gM18_AG1WaNwL08EYsKtEpaYOc77ngQ76MutCnAZBBRV3ln6/s400/09+20200628_121923.jpg" width="350" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Our closing hymn was, "Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore," number 344 in the UM Hymnal. This hymn was requested by a church member but coincidentally (or not!) it was also the thematic hymn of the service of Annual Conference in which I was ordained. So the hymn has always been deeply meaningful to both Cathy and me. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjRF1LzipEbC23VHNiPiNLB0Dka5wPNGdpD_Xe10pzgEObkNx3WCxgc8yz-wP4ENGAxXKXrl9I-Gfu5q7oujA-oCmtjwAOdBhjSmipAQfeKnjMIi7objlxLJYwy591tuqr2x8QW6OueO8U/s1600/10+20200628_122232.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1197" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjRF1LzipEbC23VHNiPiNLB0Dka5wPNGdpD_Xe10pzgEObkNx3WCxgc8yz-wP4ENGAxXKXrl9I-Gfu5q7oujA-oCmtjwAOdBhjSmipAQfeKnjMIi7objlxLJYwy591tuqr2x8QW6OueO8U/s400/10+20200628_122232.jpg" width="298" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">My final benediction to the people of Greenbrier UMC, which I basically ripped off from Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth, chapter 4. But I meant every word as if I had written them myself, although I could not have done so nearly as well as Paul did.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 119%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3in;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 119%;">To the church of
God that is Greenbrier UMC, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called
to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span></span></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 119%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3in;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 119%;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 119%;"><span style="font-size: small;">I give thanks to
God for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ
Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge
of every kind just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you.
He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day
of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the
fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.</span></span></span></i></blockquote>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The church hosted a "walk-thru" reception for Cathy and me after the service. It would have been outside had weather permitted. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK3GTk5wx9jaClmygnH3en5x4lFsuLNPw0dx6Ka6tyovvLjKTGVUMC08uZbUROqNYvjqvaZTk2T0ieFtY3Kn5P9Z9yRUzDVJQg5TQkMmxG_0mjcdPKm_DZ1he-DvOEmqdTCLNrl65To59T/s1600/12+20200628_122620.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1285" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK3GTk5wx9jaClmygnH3en5x4lFsuLNPw0dx6Ka6tyovvLjKTGVUMC08uZbUROqNYvjqvaZTk2T0ieFtY3Kn5P9Z9yRUzDVJQg5TQkMmxG_0mjcdPKm_DZ1he-DvOEmqdTCLNrl65To59T/s400/12+20200628_122620.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">A wonderful lady of the church made this for me - Wake Forest was my undergrad school. I already had a Vandy bottle. I earned my M.Div. there.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpm-pvucFwfJBKfgXYX2BTmLFwLYon93iXY2SMkHdqqmJRs9l4LSnoz9L0fzRQxClh1I-jMMZFvtZWTu_2TnpfJJvyhO5DDSxQ2SY7ekB-IXg_R1fe8P7qVrP7IhYr_PD2ACariRu7-E54/s1600/13+20200628_122632.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1529" data-original-width="1600" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpm-pvucFwfJBKfgXYX2BTmLFwLYon93iXY2SMkHdqqmJRs9l4LSnoz9L0fzRQxClh1I-jMMZFvtZWTu_2TnpfJJvyhO5DDSxQ2SY7ekB-IXg_R1fe8P7qVrP7IhYr_PD2ACariRu7-E54/s400/13+20200628_122632.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">That Cathy was also in ministry with me at the churches was a real fact and the people said so! This was given to her because everyone knows (I mean <i>really</i> knows!) that Cathy loves to cheer for Duke basketball.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This fine family of four are special to me for two reasons. One is that I baptized all four of them when they joined the church. The other is that he is also retired from the Army and is the only other person in the church who speaks the language of acronym as I do. So we could have whole conversations without anyone else understanding a word (except probably our wives)!</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The church gave us this laser-etched crystal plaque as a gift. We are deeply moved by this thoughtfulness!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The people of Greenbrier UMC very kindly made this video for Cathy and me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tHKX6Udcx1k" width="560"></iframe></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cathy and I are thankful beyond description to all the people of Greenbrier and Gideon UMCs for the past three years. A finer and more wonderful </span>group<span style="font-family: inherit;"> of people with whom to come to the finish line neither of us can imagine! What is next for us? Love God, love neighbor, and leave the rest up to the Lord. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">May the love of God, the mercy of Jesus Christ our Lord, and the strengthening presence of the Holy Spirit be with us all, now and always. Amen.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-25955086425807956492020-03-29T07:01:00.002-05:002020-03-29T07:01:21.427-05:00Online worship for March 29Just click on the right-arrow button to begin.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-87975467018399579222020-03-23T08:16:00.000-05:002020-03-24T10:31:37.528-05:00The coming crash and what it portendsIf we continue on the present course, we will enter a depression that might make the 1930s a distant competitor. The number of jobless Americans could reach tens of millions.<br />
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WSJ: <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/rethinking-the-coronavirus-shutdown-11584659154">Rethinking the Coronavirus Shutdown:</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yet the costs of this national shutdown are growing by the hour, and we don’t mean federal spending. We mean a tsunami of economic destruction that will cause tens of millions to lose their jobs as commerce and production simply cease. Many large companies can withstand a few weeks without revenue but that isn’t true of millions of small and mid-sized firms. ...<br />
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The deadweight loss in production will be profound and take years to rebuild. In a normal recession the U.S. loses about 5% of national output over the course of a year or so. In this case we may lose that much, or twice as much, in a month.<br />
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Our friend Ed Hyman, the Wall Street economist, on Thursday adjusted his estimate for the second quarter to an annual rate loss in GDP of minus-20%. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s assertion on Fox Business Thursday that the economy will power through all this is happy talk if this continues for much longer.</blockquote>
This is the first time ever that the US Government has deliberately shut the economy down, and the idea that it can just be turned back on like flipping a switch is delusional.<br />
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Consider: We will never be able to determine how many lives were saved from the virus. But we will easily know how many people died because of the economic crash to come - just count increased suicides and even some homicides, to say nothing of untold numbers of people thrown into permanent poverty.<br />
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The lockdowns and stay-at-home orders are saving lives now. But if they continue much longer, they will cost lives later and cause economic, literal suffering for years and years to come.<br />
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Also, The Atlantic, "<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/09/suicide-and-the-economy/279961/">Suicide and the Economy</a>."<br />
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On April 12, 1937, the express train to New York roared across the New Jersey countryside. The train, a Pennsy Railroad electric locomotive the color of bull’s blood, usually passed through the station at Elizabeth at about 50 miles per hour. On this particular morning, it came to an unanticipated stop. As the express rounded the curve, my great-grandfather jumped down from the platform, where witnesses reported he had been pacing for 10 minutes, and lay down across the tracks.<br />
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When the engineer was finally able to halt the train 100 feet past the platform, Roy Humphrey had disappeared beneath its wheels. His last act: raising his head to look at the oncoming train.<br />
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Roy was one of at least 40,000 Americans who took their own lives that year and the next, the two-year span that suicide rate spiked to its highest recorded level ever: more than 150 per 1 million annually. </blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://pastordonblog.blogspot.com/2020/03/cheap-gas-nowhere-to-drive-and-real.html">Why we cannot afford 99-cent gasoline</a>.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Update:<br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"</span><a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/unemployment-surge-to-30-percent-q2-gdp-50-percent-james-bullard-2020-3-1029022288" style="background-color: white; color: #940f04; text-decoration-line: none;">US unemployment could surge to 30% next quarter and GDP might plunge 50%, Fed's Bullard warns</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Also relevant: "</span><a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/03/17/the-luxury-of-apocalypticism/" style="background-color: white; color: #940f04; text-decoration-line: none;">The luxury of apocalypticism -- The elites want us to panic about Covid-19 – we must absolutely refuse to do so</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">."</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; margin: 1em 20px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The point is, there is such a thing as doing too little and also such a thing as doing too much. Doing too little against Covid-19 would be perverse and nihilistic. Society ought to devote a huge amount of resources, even if they must be commandeered from the private sector, to the protection of human life. But doing too much, or acting under the pressure to act rather than under the aim of coherently fighting disease and protecting people’s livelihoods, is potentially destructive, too. People need jobs, security, meaning, connection. They need a sense of worth, a sense of social solidarity, a sense of belonging. To threaten those things as part of a performative ‘war’ against what ought to be treated as a health challenge rather than as an End Times event would be self-defeating and utterly antithetical to the broader aim of protecting our societies from this novel new threat. To decimate the stuff of human life in the name of saving human life is a questionable moral approach.</span></blockquote>
And <a href="https://pastordonblog.blogspot.com/2020/03/cheap-gas-nowhere-to-drive-and-real.html">why cheap gasoline is unaffordable</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-7600975252796090752020-03-20T20:32:00.000-05:002020-03-22T08:45:33.788-05:00Sunday worship right here!<b>Worship for March 22, 2020, ready to view:</b><br />
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">"We are not blind, are we?"</span></i></b></div>
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<b>John 9.1-41</b><br />
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<i>Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind</i><br />
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9 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”<br />
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3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”<br />
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6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.<br />
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8 His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some claimed that he was.<br />
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Others said, “No, he only looks like him.”<br />
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But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”<br />
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10 “How then were your eyes opened?” they asked.<br />
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11 He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”<br />
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12 “Where is this man?” they asked him.<br />
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“I don’t know,” he said.<br />
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<i>The Pharisees Investigate the Healing</i><br />
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13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. 15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”<br />
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16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”<br />
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But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided.<br />
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17 Then they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.”<br />
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The man replied, “He is a prophet.”<br />
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18 They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. 19 “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”<br />
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20 “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. 21 But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. 23 That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”<br />
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24 A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”<br />
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25 He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”<br />
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26 Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”<br />
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27 He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?”<br />
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28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”<br />
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30 The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”<br />
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34 To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.<br />
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<i>Spiritual Blindness</i><br />
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35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”<br />
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36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”<br />
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37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”<br />
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38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.<br />
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39 Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”<br />
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40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”<br />
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41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-90731900599986598472020-03-20T18:03:00.001-05:002020-03-22T09:19:20.835-05:00Cheap gas, nowhere to drive, and the real pain it is causingIf you like the very low gasoline prices, even though we are not supposed to drive anywhere, get used to it. Oil's spot price may drop some more, yes (it plummeted today after Thursday's highest-rate increase ever in one day). But production is going to drop. Usually, that means gas prices rise. Not this time. And that is actually very bad news.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Cheap gas and nowhere to go. That's bad.</span></i></td></tr>
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American oil frackers operate at a loss much below $60 per barrel (depending where they are located). The largest such operation, the Permian Basin, needs about $65 per barrel to make a profit. It straddles Texas and New Mexico.<br />
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The drop in oil price was triggered by Russia's refusal to cut production at the Saudis' request. So the Saudis jacked production up to drive the price down and punish the Russians. Well, <a href="https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Russia-Can-Live-With-25-Oil-For-Years.html">good luck with that</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
After oil prices collapsed in the worst drop in nearly three decades—courtesy of the renewed Saudi-Russia rivalry on the oil market – Russia’s Finance Ministry said on Monday that Moscow had enough resources to cover budget shortfalls amid oil prices at $25-30 a barrel for six to ten years. </blockquote>
Not coincidentally, both the Saudis and the Russians would like to see America's frackers permanently closed and the United States to return to a major importer of oil, not net exporters as we are right now.<br />
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One way or another oil prices will rise - eventually. That seems a cloud but actually it is the silver lining. The cloud is cheap oil. Active-rig counts fell this week in the US by 160, year over year, to 722. On the other hand, US oil production remains near an all-time high at 13.1 million barrels per day. Go figure.<br />
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And next month may be <a href="https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/April-Could-Be-Worst-Month-Ever-For-Oil.html">even more dramatic</a>.<br />
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Analysts say that the month of April could see the largest supply overhang in the history of the oil market.<br />
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“We now expect the y/y demand loss to peak in April at 10.4 million barrels per day (mb/d), and annual demand to fall by a record 3.39mb/d in 2020,” Standard Chartered wrote in a note.<br />
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In the short run, the oil market surplus could reach a peak of 13.7 mb/d in April, Standard Chartered said, with an average surplus of 12.9 mb/d for the second quarter. The inventory buildup could reach a gargantuan 2.1 billion barrels by the end of the year, “stretching the midstream of the industry to its limits,” the bank wrote. That figure represents an upward revision of 50 percent from the 1.4-billion-barrel inventory surplus the bank predicted…just a week ago.<br />
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Other analysts have even more dramatic scenarios. Eurasia Group says demand could fall by as much as 25 mb/d in the next few weeks and months. The historic glut means that the world could run out of storage space. “The combination of weakening demand and excess supply is hardly going to be accommodated by onshore storage,” Giovanni Serio, head of analysis at Vitol, told the FT. “At a certain point…we will need to fill all the boats.”</blockquote>
So severe is the situation that for practically the first time in long memory, "<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-weighs-curtailing-oil-production-for-first-time-in-decades-11584646724?mod=djemalertNEWS">Texas Weighs Curtailing Oil Production for First Time in Decades</a>."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCVE8a2PmmJ5zTaas4p7vGy2gf7zl13G_hhyphenhyphen1HKwgdLxpC7ZO4lXWOIhzY2rk9_bDWsD8w7GXs4OuGdh7RqaGKJPV-419p3Gq56KEpa6ujezmi0oP4xsininGyxH9i3UzVcs2KKmWV2CCV/s1600/Oil+field+sunset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="1260" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCVE8a2PmmJ5zTaas4p7vGy2gf7zl13G_hhyphenhyphen1HKwgdLxpC7ZO4lXWOIhzY2rk9_bDWsD8w7GXs4OuGdh7RqaGKJPV-419p3Gq56KEpa6ujezmi0oP4xsininGyxH9i3UzVcs2KKmWV2CCV/s400/Oil+field+sunset.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Texas regulators are considering curtailing oil production in America’s largest oil-producing state, something they haven’t done in decades, people familiar with the matter said.<br />
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Several oil executives have reached out to members of the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the industry, requesting relief following an oil-price crash, the people said. U.S. benchmark oil closed around $25 a barrel Thursday.<br />
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Texas, which hasn’t limited production since the 1970s, was a model for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which has sought to control world-wide oil prices in recent decades. OPEC and Russia were unable to reach a deal on reducing output in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which helped trigger the current collapse in prices.<br />
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It is unclear whether regulators will ultimately act to curtail production, but staffers are examining what would be required in such an event, the people said.</blockquote>
Oil prices have always been manipulated by producers. Even so, at the end of the day, demand has always been in control. And now the worldwide demand has dropped like an anvil and will continue to do so. The largest users of petro products - shipping and aviation - are harboring vessels and canceling flights. That will likely accelerate.<br />
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That said, oil production is going to plummet because, as stated above, we are running out of places to put it. That does not mean that gas prices will suddenly rise. The huge over-supply will see to that. But cheap gas prices are not going to offset the real pain dropping demand will cause: higher unemployment not only of oil-industry workers, but businesses whose revenues depend on customers using oil just to buy or get to their products or locations, such as hotels, tourist attractions, airline workers, dock workers, gas station owners and workers, the list is very long.<br />
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I am not an economist by a long shot, but unless we stop our "<a href="https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/stop-the-insane-overreaction.php">insane over-reaction</a>," there is going to be a lot of pain to come that 99-cent gasoline will not pay for.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> How low can it go? "<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-19/how-low-can-oil-go-traders-see-crude-prices-heading-below-20">How Low Can Oil Go? One Forecast Sees $5 a Barrel</a>." Which means that gasoline will be not much higher than free - and yet it will be also more difficult to find because gas stations will be closing at accelerated rates as oil prices plummet.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-57354672440665501942020-03-17T12:14:00.004-05:002020-03-17T12:14:36.422-05:00Iran warns virus could kill ‘millions’ in Islamic Republic<b>Matthew 5:43-48</b><br />
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“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4zFVet-n_BLpSzCJRHTwpveXLE3h1wwK4pDDbq8jYao5aaoFDMHYNJF29LCkQZj5hAHxeC6X5PisGngux_hD6_Kj1o1HFU9L2ZuSBImI0hc4umwCzAeWDtLEbqaUzodmY-ffVTsLY5dgZ/s1600/Iran+warns+virus.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="419" data-original-width="627" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4zFVet-n_BLpSzCJRHTwpveXLE3h1wwK4pDDbq8jYao5aaoFDMHYNJF29LCkQZj5hAHxeC6X5PisGngux_hD6_Kj1o1HFU9L2ZuSBImI0hc4umwCzAeWDtLEbqaUzodmY-ffVTsLY5dgZ/s400/Iran+warns+virus.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://apnews.com/6e92d93551ee6c6ae51d0acaaad9eb32">Link</a>.<br />
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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran issued its most dire warning yet Tuesday about the outbreak of the new coronavirus ravaging the country, suggesting “millions” could die in the Islamic Republic if people keep traveling and ignoring health guidance.<br /><br />A state television journalist who also is a medical doctor gave the warning only hours after hard-line Shiite faithful on Monday night pushed their way into the courtyards of two major shrines that had finally been closed due to the virus. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a religious ruling prohibiting “unnecessary” travel in the country.<br /><br />Roughly 9 out of 10 of the over 18,000 confirmed cases of the virus in the Middle East come from Iran, where authorities denied for days the risk the outbreak posed. Officials have now implemented new checks for people trying to leave major cities ahead of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on Friday, but have hesitated to quarantine the areas.<br /><br />That’s even as the death toll in Iran saw another 13% increase Tuesday. Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said the virus had killed 135 more people to raise the total to 988 amid over 16,000 cases. </blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-13857116617677110262020-03-17T12:05:00.001-05:002020-03-17T12:21:47.165-05:00Notice to committee and ministry group chairpersonsI have registered GUMC for its own account at Free Conference Call (<a href="https://www.freeconferencecall.com/">https://www.freeconferencecall.com/</a>). This will enable you to hold meetings by telephone conference call. And it really is free. (I have had my own account for a few years.)<br />
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Here is how it works:<br />
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<li>Contact Malissa or me for the login and password.</li>
<li>Go to the web site above and login.</li>
<li>You will be presented with a page that states this info (I have removed the numbers from this image):</li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcF3npZldAqq2fiZ3EvcEySFM9JqhZoPSmo5E2czNS7geZFdfxK-LAIUgziyhlu8BthkS5lHiybi-D4zBIHe06YqdRbo7T_tP2OoWckY16PJdc2Fr7eFqinL4fJTs26wJs8Wq2DIbgK5HY/s1600/GUMC+Free+Conf+Call+info+-+with+deletes.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="669" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcF3npZldAqq2fiZ3EvcEySFM9JqhZoPSmo5E2czNS7geZFdfxK-LAIUgziyhlu8BthkS5lHiybi-D4zBIHe06YqdRbo7T_tP2OoWckY16PJdc2Fr7eFqinL4fJTs26wJs8Wq2DIbgK5HY/s400/GUMC+Free+Conf+Call+info+-+with+deletes.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Then send this Dial-in Number and Access Code to your members, along with what time they should dial in.</div>
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Shortly before the appointed time, call the dial-in number. Voice prompts will ask for the access code and then the Host PIN. Once you enter them, your call is live, and others may dial in, enter the access code, and you are connected. Once everyone is on the call, hold the meeting. Hopefully we won't need to do this a lot longer, but I have used Free Conference Call for more than a few meetings over time (usually for weather reasons) and it works.</div>
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="0px" src="chrome-extension://kcnhkahnjcbndmmehfkdnkjomaanaooo/widget.html#(425) 436-6333" style="display: none; left: 694.489px; position: absolute; top: 243.622px; visibility: hidden; z-index: -1000;" width="0px"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-88243979645075739442020-03-15T17:25:00.000-05:002020-03-15T17:28:03.664-05:00Covid-19 is not the zombie apocalypse!This is a zombie:
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeQw8iVQNdRmuwOqpTKf3vKn1ynChxQaTo-ypzPOL-EkNxLxVKo5KhhuL95PGnQMqynhPcq0ht2eqjZX7UcimRzIRbXIUxA5ZJTWw_AW-k_7tN8n5iwoRnl3RyRsQULKCACwNfTwAx9Ao/s1600/The_Walking_Dead_TV_502082_3840x2400.0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeQw8iVQNdRmuwOqpTKf3vKn1ynChxQaTo-ypzPOL-EkNxLxVKo5KhhuL95PGnQMqynhPcq0ht2eqjZX7UcimRzIRbXIUxA5ZJTWw_AW-k_7tN8n5iwoRnl3RyRsQULKCACwNfTwAx9Ao/s400/The_Walking_Dead_TV_502082_3840x2400.0.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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A zombie is actually dead, it is just too stupid to know it. And all it wants to do is find you, a non-zombie, and bite big chunks of flesh from your body. This turns you into a zombie, too.<br />
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<b>Key point</b>: <i>Zombies are very bad!</i> Avoid zombies, even if it means staying holed up in your house, never leaving, stocked with 500 rolls of toilet paper and all the hand sanitizer you can buy!<br />
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However, this is a Covid-19 sufferer:
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULYmsCiIDpAlwpXClqjIiC_4Ud5n_QMIup3zwdOxgnv9w6j-YHF89boXmFt-dA76vDPWtPl8zBw0vGCoS9FE4Vfv-6MbjzhACllLU_CFyJR4_6KnlXUtP_7ZTwlrLsf1IFLkL_uioKYw/s1600/25827262-0-image-a-3_1583922454139.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="962" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULYmsCiIDpAlwpXClqjIiC_4Ud5n_QMIup3zwdOxgnv9w6j-YHF89boXmFt-dA76vDPWtPl8zBw0vGCoS9FE4Vfv-6MbjzhACllLU_CFyJR4_6KnlXUtP_7ZTwlrLsf1IFLkL_uioKYw/s400/25827262-0-image-a-3_1583922454139.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Please note the difference. Covid-19 patients do not attack you. They do not eat your living tissue. They are not dead, like zombies are. The great majority of them recover and the ones who do not are too sick before death to track you down and infect you, even if they wanted to. Which they do not.<br />
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<b>Key point: </b><i>It's time to stop treating social distancing like prepping for a zombie apocalypse. </i>
Even as Covid worsens in America - and it will - it will not cause the collapse of our civilization. Workers will still work, although many businesses and industries will take a hit. Farmers will still farm. Ninety percent of the toilet paper we use is made right here in the USA. Almost all the other 10 percent comes from Canada and Mexico.<br />
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<i>Social distancing does not mean you can never leave your house</i>. It does not mean that you will become infected by walking down the street. Even if you are at high-risk for the infection, it does not mean you must now stockpile 500 rolls of toilet paper and all the hand sanitizer you can get.<br />
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<i>We are not going to run out of hand sanitizer or toilet paper</i>. Or food. And even if you do not want to risk going to a (potentially) crowded store to buy more, someone else will go for you. Ask a family member, neighbor, friend. Ask a local church or synagogue for help.<br />
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There was never a reason for this to have occurred across the country:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx5vPoJIh2NGeMbZGIXx3vXYyQyeAPPE_qx1_8pzYuWddMMBb_6Tsyb9W9U01xqyn5kO19EFgkXp9AeDDe205sC-DtjMLk7kddGrlvmurKBm6LmCL0x3GEfCNeSFFgqh6h1F8hTe0KUGg/s1600/virus+springfield+kroger+march+13+toilet+paper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1160" data-original-width="652" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx5vPoJIh2NGeMbZGIXx3vXYyQyeAPPE_qx1_8pzYuWddMMBb_6Tsyb9W9U01xqyn5kO19EFgkXp9AeDDe205sC-DtjMLk7kddGrlvmurKBm6LmCL0x3GEfCNeSFFgqh6h1F8hTe0KUGg/s400/virus+springfield+kroger+march+13+toilet+paper.jpg" width="223" /></a></div>
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In a week or so, those who did this are going to wonder why. And people who bought cases and cases of vegetables, two-dozen pounds of chicken or beef will wind up throwing a lot away, spoiled.<br />
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<b>Buying as if there is going to be a shortage is a self-fulfilling prophecy.</b> It is what creates the shortage.<br />
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So chill, Americans. Just chill. Take all the proper precautions against the virus. But nothing about this disease requires stockpiling. Face the future with confidence and planning, not panic. We simply are not at this point, not by a long shot:
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Don't let us get there for no reason other than we act like it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-86108785592261215892020-03-15T09:20:00.000-05:002020-03-15T09:20:04.779-05:00March 15, 2020 Online Worship!<b>Please click the play button to begin! </b><br />
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And a reminder, if I may: While our church can practice social distancing, we cannot practice financial distancing! The missions, ministries, and financial obligations of the church continue! </center>
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Please mail your regular tithe or offering to the church! </center>
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<i>Greenbrier UMC only</i> - online and smartphone giving can also be done. </center>
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<b>Online</b>, please browse to <a href="https://get.tithe.ly/">https://get.tithe.ly/</a></center>
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<b>Smart phone</b> - just scan this QR code:</center>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxLQpuNQsdpkCjngcI_2Bb4Fc-lx6wMwnRbcl-IAONv6a9U8gkmNv-MMfOMclnzw9oEHhZC3GuYQSmY6sH78yoJX7z7tUs9eUeMpV9R2Kftt8pk2K-7M5lbxwqzpeVRKE7JngTS4MGVJDy/s1600/QR+code+for+Tithely.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="309" data-original-width="309" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxLQpuNQsdpkCjngcI_2Bb4Fc-lx6wMwnRbcl-IAONv6a9U8gkmNv-MMfOMclnzw9oEHhZC3GuYQSmY6sH78yoJX7z7tUs9eUeMpV9R2Kftt8pk2K-7M5lbxwqzpeVRKE7JngTS4MGVJDy/s200/QR+code+for+Tithely.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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Thank you!</center>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-43840135832022191502020-03-14T19:33:00.000-05:002020-03-15T09:23:20.402-05:00Watch this space! We will worship online March 15!<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">We are online now! <a href="https://pastordonblog.blogspot.com/2020/03/march-15-2020-online-worship.html">Just click here!</a></span></b></div>
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This is an anxious time. At the request of medical professionals of Tennessee, many churches in the greater Nashville area are not gathering in person for worship for at least the next two Sundays. We very much regret doing this, but we agree with what our bishop published, "Social distancing may seem to be an unnecessary reaction to those of you who are not sick, but medical professionals are telling us that if we wait until the need is obvious – it will be too late."<br />
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Worship for Greenbrier and Gideon UMCs will be online only on March 15 and 22. So please return to this site at the regular worship hour and we will gather together - <i>virtually</i>!<br />
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Come learn about the "Rule of 4 Ps" for handling anxiety, worry, and concern. Anxiety is inevitable. It is how we respond to anxiety that makes it so. How we respond makes all the difference. Here is what Saint Paul had to say about anxiety in Philippians 4:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvTIcXo1IonktFOxXQ8VlG8AuhTEXcI0Eai3Cgb7U8zD1hbzQx3LSMQNa3sXjhg4LtIS68x4LX-cG37tJoNGeeN6iIAL2p929ImLmkiT4LQsHic3Und6IffygphR5fUV9Gc9lf5xhVHCbZ/s1600/14930387671259271460131350.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="776" data-original-width="776" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvTIcXo1IonktFOxXQ8VlG8AuhTEXcI0Eai3Cgb7U8zD1hbzQx3LSMQNa3sXjhg4LtIS68x4LX-cG37tJoNGeeN6iIAL2p929ImLmkiT4LQsHic3Und6IffygphR5fUV9Gc9lf5xhVHCbZ/s320/14930387671259271460131350.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. -- Philippians 4.4-7</i></blockquote>
<a href="https://pastordonblog.blogspot.com/">Come back here </a>tomorrow for a new and complete worship experience!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-63680456589274423842020-03-12T11:57:00.003-05:002020-03-12T20:46:48.267-05:00Going viral in faith and hopeThere is an old Army saying we would joke with one another in times of stress or danger, “When everyone around you is losing their heads, and you’ve kept yours – well, then, you simply do not understand the situation!”<br />
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Perhaps the most stressful word in our language today is “Coronavirus,” also called Covid-19 (<b>Co</b>rona<b>vi</b>rus <b>d</b>isease 20<b>19</b>). It seems to have come out of China so suddenly, and so apparently lethally, that we can almost understand how the ancient Egyptians might have felt coping with the plagues because they would not let the children of Israel go.<br />
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<i><b>Fear or faith? Or fear with faith?</b></i><br />
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There are many admonishments and teachings about fear in the Bible. Some examples:<br />
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•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Isaiah 41:10 – Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.<br />
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•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2 Timothy 1:7 – For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.<br />
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•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Psalm 34:4 – I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.<br />
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So, is fear a reasonable response by Christian people to the onset of this virus? Is fear of this virus something Christian people may experience while remaining faithful to God?<br />
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I say the answer to both questions is yes.<br />
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Fear is an emotional response to uncertainty or threat. And the virus is a threat, though to what degree is still uncertain. The cautions against fear in Scripture do not tell us never to experience such reactions. They do tell us not to be governed by fear but to be self-controlled and reliant on God to sustain us mentally and emotionally. “Perfect love,” says 1 John 4.18, “drives out fear.” That does not mean that because we love God and one another, we are magically immunized from the virus. It means that through love we will govern what we do far better than through fear. After all, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1.7).<br />
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But let me be clear about this, too: this virus has the real potential to be very serious in the United States. I will not repeat the estimates of possible infections that we have heard. They vary wildly and I have no credentials either to rebut or affirm them.<br />
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Instead, I want to say what I will do as your pastor regarding our life together, particularly when we gather for weekly worship.<br />
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<i><b>We Gather Together - wait, can we still do that?</b></i><br />
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First, whether there is coronavirus or not, persons who are ill for any reason should stay home and tend to themselves. In the present day, though, being ill from any cause heightens vulnerability to the virus.<br />
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The virus attacks the elderly more harshly than the young and is more serious for anyone already dealing with other conditions, such as heart issues, diabetes, and medical (not physical) disorders. So, if such persons elect to suspend attending worship for awhile, I cannot argue with them.<br />
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That said, I hope everyone will understand that there is no <i>special </i>threat from going to church that is not found anywhere else. So, suspending church attendance for a time will do no good if one keeps a full schedule of activities the rest of the week!<br />
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<i><b>At the church</b></i><br />
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Starting this Sunday, I will not shake hands with anyone at church (or, well, anywhere else). I will instead greet you with the centuries-old hand sign of Christian benediction, with the thumb and two fingers representing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.<br />
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Second, I will try to minimize us handling hymnals and other objects in the sanctuary as much as we have done until now. This will likely cause abbreviated congregational singing for a time. We may simply sing hymns by request – at least the first verse or so! But weekly cleansing of hymnals is not practical.<br />
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This Saturday, I will personally go to both sanctuaries and sanitize pew backs, doorknobs, and other surfaces that are “common touch” by worshipers. I will not refuse volunteers to help for the long term!<br />
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We will stop passing the offering plates and instead place them at both ends of the sanctuary so you may leave your offering there when you enter or exit.<br />
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We will use online media such as YouTube and our Facebook page to worship "virtually," though simulcasting is probably not in the cards.<br />
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<i><b>What about Communion?</b></i><br />
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We will continue to serve Communion exclusively with individual pieces of bread and separate cups, as is our usual practice. But no one will make physical contact with either the bread or the wine except you, when you consume them. Servers will use small tongs to place a Communion wafer in your hands and we will take similar precautions with the cups.<br />
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<i><b>What can we all do now?</b></i><br />
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Pray.<br />
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Serve one another in love. Persons who are in the elevated risk by age or condition – please call me if you do not want to take the risk of going to the store for groceries or other essentials and I will go for you.<br />
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Take precautions to protect yourself.<br />
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Rely on God for strength not to be governed by fear.<br />
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Worship in Spirit and in truth.<br />
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<i><b>Sorry, but this needs to be said, also</b></i><br />
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As I said, I will take no issue with persons not attending worship because of concerns over the virus. But there is no delicate way to put this: even if you stay home, your tithe or offering should not.<br />
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The missions, ministries, and financial obligations of the church are ongoing. You may mail your offerings to the church or use our online giving service at <a href="https://get.tithe.ly/">https://get.tithe.ly/</a>, or just scan this QR Code on your smart phone:<br />
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I close with a note from my colleague and friend, the Rev. Jeremy Squires:<br />
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Jesus’ message is unique because of its excessive amount of concern for the vulnerable. At its best, the Church has championed the cause of the “least of these”, as Matthew 25 has it. Christians are rarely more incarnational than when they say: society may consider you expendable, but we won’t.</blockquote>
No matter what the future brings, God is already there. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-49088069470257823612020-03-03T06:13:00.000-06:002020-03-06T08:33:39.660-06:00Is health care a human right? No.<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I first wrote this in 2009, but it seems relevant to today as well; I have updated it.</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Is health care a human right, as the </span><a href="http://www.umc-gbcs.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=frLJK2PKLqF&b=3631781&ct=3956183"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">United Methodist Church says</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">? I don't see how. Human rights, as Americans have always understood them (beginning with Thomas Jefferson and the other Founders) are a fact of nature that cannot be rescinded by human beings. Rights are immutable, indeed, unalienable ("Not to be separated, given away, or taken away" </span><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/unalienable"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Dictionary.com</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">, as Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence.) As a precursor to his Declaration theology that unalienable human rights are a endowment by God, Jefferson wrote in his </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">pre</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">-revolution essay, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Summary View of the Rights of British America,</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> " The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time. The hand of force may </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">disjoin</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">, but cannot destroy them."<br /><br />Since his day, and certainly preceding it, the historic American understanding of human rights is the </span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">exercise of individual freedom, especially in the political realm, for both public and personal good</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">. We have historically never understood our rights as encompassing access to services or commodities.<br /><br />Rights are inherent in each individual equally, they are not divisible. Take the Declaration's famous insistence that among human rights is "the pursuit of happiness." Note that it is the </span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">pursuit</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> of happiness that is a right, not the achievement of it. Nor is one person more entitled to pursue happiness than another, no matter one’s station in life. Besides, happiness (what Jefferson meant was not happiness as we use the word today, but a state of contentment in life and possessions) is not something that can be given us, it is something we have to create.<br /><br />It does sound all high-minded to say that, like rights, health care should be equal for everybody, which I suppose is why clergy are so susceptible to say so. It's more than obvious that no one in the Congress or the White House believed it in 2009 when Obamacare was enacted. If they had, the act would have required members of Congress and the rest of the federal government to fall under the "public option" along with the rest of us proles. But they’</span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">ve</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> protected their turf completely and much better turf is theirs than ours. I’ll believe that equal access and care for everyone is a moral imperative when the people who say it is a moral imperative place themselves under the same imperative.<br /><br />The presumption that health care is a right, and therefore must be equal for everyone, is founded on two critical errors of understanding. The first is that health care is a resource that is simply available for those who need it, or that can be made equally available through proper legislation and regulation. The second error is that medical care and access to it can be rationed by command more equally, economically and fairly than by demand.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Health care is not a resource to be exploited</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />Medical facilities and doctors are not phenomena of nature, like water or petroleum are. Hospitals don’t just appear. They are produced. Medical care is not a resource that can be "mined" through more regulation to be more plentiful. Medical care is a </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">service</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Specifically, it is a contracted service, in much the same way that legal assistance, automotive maintenance or pastoral care are services. Why? Because men and women choose of their own accord to get medical training. Once graduated, doctors, nurses, paramedics and technicians of various kinds reasonably expect that they will be compensated at a rate greater than their costs to enter the profession, greater than their extremely high overhead to run the practice, and enough to make their grueling hours materially worthwhile for themselves and their families.<br /><br />This fact has very direct consequences under the Medicare and Medicaid systems we have today. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">The Atlantic</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">'s business journalist </span><a href="http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/09/practical_philosophy_again.php"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Meg </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">McArdle</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> explains</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">:</span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">[W]e have a comprehensive national health care plan for seniors. Yet we have a shortage of geriatricians, the one specialty that you would think would be booming. Why? Because Medicare sets a single price for the services of geriatricians, and it is low. Since the field is not particularly enticing (though arguably it really should be, since geriatricians have extremely high job satisfaction compared to many more popular specialties), very few people go into it. It's one of relatively few specialties that consistently has most of its slots and fellowships unfilled.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Moreover, the skills and equipment a doctor or hospital possess are their individual property, not the property, even partially, of the state or public. (There are publicly-owned facilities such as VA hospitals, but in operation there is no difference to the general public between them and private facilities). No one has a natural </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">right</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> to someone </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">else's</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> property. To think we do directly violates the </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+20:17&version=NIV"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Tenth Commandment</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">. As </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">McArdle</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> says, "People have no obligation to perform labor for others. I may not [justly or legally] force a surgeon to save my mother at gunpoint."<br /><br />That means that to receive a doctor's services, the doctor and a patient must come to a mutually-agreeable arrangement of what medical care will be provided in exchange for a specified fee. This is a commercial transaction no different in type than hiring a plumber, cab driver or lawyer. That medical services may be life critical does not change the fundamental nature of the contract.<br /><br />We have access to medical care only as long as a doctor is willing to provide it. No one has to become a doctor or continue in medical practice. If any "reform" of the present health care system reduces the rewards of practicing medicine or complicates the practice, fewer men and women will so choose. Access will then go down for everyone and costs will inevitably rise, no matter what the rate-payment of the public option is, because access or its lack is itself a cost and also drives other costs.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Health care is a service</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />As </span><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/health_care_is_not_a_group_ser.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Michael </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Keehn</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> explains</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">, health care is a service but not a community service. Police and fire departments provide community services. That seems obvious enough, but consider: fire departments do not protect your home individually. The fire chief definitely will let it burn to the ground if firefighting needs are greater elsewhere in the town. Just look at what is happening near Los Angeles as of the date of this post. Police and fire protection are in fact </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">rationed</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> to protect the lives and property of the greatest number of people possible with the resources available. But when the resources (manpower, equipment or money) run out, individuals are exposed to greater danger or loss though the community at large may still be protected.<br /><br />Individual residents of a city do not contract for their community’s police or fire protection. When you call 9-1-1 because someone broke into your home while you were in bed, you don’t have to sign a contract with the police when they arrive, specifying the actions you want them to take and how much you are going to pay.<br /><br />In contrast, medical care is an individual service. Doctors do not provide their services to the community as a whole, but to individuals. Because of that, each patient enters into a contract with his/her doctor specifying the medical services to be received and how much it will cost. This is mostly mediated through insurance companies, of course, which greatly simplifies the contracting process. The result is that a patient 's health is protected in a way that their safety or homes are not protected by the police or fire departments.<br /><br />Interestingly, the Roman Catholic Church rejects the idea that health care is a human right. The Most Reverend R. Walker </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Nickless</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">, bishop of the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, </span><a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53356"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">explains</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">[T]he Catholic Church does not teach that “health care” as such, without distinction, is a natural right.<br /><br />The “natural right” of health care is the divine bounty of food, water, and air without which all of us quickly die. This bounty comes from God directly. None of us own it, and none of us can morally withhold it from others. The remainder of health care is a political, not a natural, right, because it comes from our human efforts, creativity, and compassion.</span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Like any human endeavor, health care is finite. It can be properly understood only as such. Any reform that treats medical care as if it can be made infinitely available is a product of cloud-cuckoo land. Medical care, like every other finite thing, must be allocated. The current buzzword for that is "rationed." That’s the foundation of the second critical mistake people are making about health care, that medical care and access to it can be rationed by the government more equally, economically and fairly than by consumers. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Philip Barlow, Consultant neurosurgeon at Southern General Hospital, Glasgow, explains why "</span></span><a href="http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1126951" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Health care is not a human right</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">." </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><b>Update, March 2020</b>: In 2009. Philip Niles wrote that the real question is not whether health care is a human right, but "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><i>How much</i> health care is a human right?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">" His essay is no no longer online. It is a good question because since medical care is finite. He says, </span></span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With all of the emotional and financial investment in health care, it is important to address the situation with an actionable approach - not an ideologic one. My suggestion is to quantify just HOW MUCH health care we believe is "right" to provide, recognize that we should cap public health care spending, and focus the moral/fiscal debate on how high that cap should be set. Let's achieve our ambitions of providing access for the uninsured with the most likely way of succeeding: by haggling about the price.</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There is </span><i>always</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> a price to be paid, one way or another. What politicians seeking votes seem to do is ignore that price (paid by the consumer) and cost (borne by the provider) are not the same. When a political candidate promises free health care for everyone, they conveniently ignore that free care is simply, literally impossible. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Look at it this way: as I write, we are in the midst of the coronavirus concerns, with a few thousand died from it worldwide and several in the US, where cases are rising. Now imagine you are a government-employee administrator for Medicare For All the next time such a potential pandemic arises -- and most assuredly there will be a next time. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">You have to choose between funding two heart-replacement surgeries plus rehab routines or funding the testing of 50,000 potential virus infectees for the illness. You do not have the funds to do both. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2009/07/14/magazine/19health.1-190.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="246" data-original-width="190" height="400" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2009/07/14/magazine/19health.1-190.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale" width="308" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Which do you choose? Why? And what do you respond when the untreated persons demand it anyway because it is a human right? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">There is always this question: Who pays and in what coin? One candidate this year had either the temerity (or carelessness) to tell his audience the day before the S.C. primary, "Your taxes are going to be raised" to pay for Medicare For All. How much will taxes be raised? He did not say, but presumably they will raised an amount corresponding to the cost of providing the medical care to the population. In other words, everyone will still pay an insurance premium now called taxes, and the tax rate will never go anywhere but up. Why? Because every other nation with "free" health care finds it over-utilized and under-resourced. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Take Canada, for example, which many politicos say can be a model for us. <a href="https://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/commentary/canadian-health-care-warning-not-beacon">In reality</a> ...</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">... </span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Canadians' out-of-pocket health costs are nearly identical to what Americans pay—a difference of roughly $15 per month. In return, Canadians pay up to 50% more in taxes than Americans, with government health costs alone accounting for $9,000 in additional taxes per year. This comes to roughly $50 in additional taxes per dollar saved in out-of-pocket costs. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Keep in mind these are only the beginning of the financial hit from "Medicare for All."</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Canada's public system does not cover many large health costs, from pharmaceuticals to nursing homes to dental and vision.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As a result, public health spending in Canada accounts for only 70% of total health spending. In contrast, Medicare for All proposals promise 100% coverage. This suggests the financial burdens on Americans, and distortions to care, would be far greater than what Canadians already suffer. ...</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">More serious than the financial burdens is what happens to quality of care in a government-run system. Canada's total health costs are about one-third cheaper than the U.S. as a percent of GDP, but this is achieved by undesirable cost-control practices. For example, care is ruthlessly rationed, with waiting lists running into months or years.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The system also cuts corners by using older and cheaper drugs and skimping on modern equipment. Canada today has fewer MRI units per capita than Turkey or Latvia.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Moreover, underinvestment in facilities and staff has reached the point where Canadians are being treated in hospital hallways.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Predictably, Canada's emergency rooms are packed. In the province of Quebec, wait-times average over four hours, leading many patients to just give up, go home and hope for the best.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The piper must always be paid. And so it shall be for us, but both in currency and in other than money. Medical care is </span><i style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">always</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> rationed. Always. And the rationing takes place within three areas:</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<ol>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Price to the consumer, presently mediated through </span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<ol>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">insurance premiums and co-pays, and</span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Medicare and co-pays and Medicaid.</span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Under MFA, those will be taxes and HHS.<br /> </span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
</ol>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Quality of the care provided, mediated through </span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<ol>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">the training of the physicians, nurses, and other medical staff</span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">the quality and availability of medical supplies and equipment.</span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">costs of the providers as related to price to the consumers.<br /> </span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
</ol>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Availability of the care, mediated </span></span></span></li>
<ol>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">always through the number of practitioners and where they work, and that is almost always mediated through compensation,</span></span></span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">and by what medical specialties they practice, noting that this is heavily related to compensation also (see Megan McArdles' observation above). </span></span></span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">by limiting or even eliminating medical for some demographics, say by age, as now-suspended presidential candidate <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/patriciagbarnes/2020/02/17/video-raises-questions-about-bloombergs-views-on-healthcare-for-older-americans/">Mike Bloomberg said explicitly</a>.</span></span></span></li>
</ol>
</ol>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What we are falling into in this debate is the "Do something!" fallacy: </span></span></span><br />
<ol>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The status quo is deficient, so <i>something</i> must be done!</span></span></span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>This</i> is something.</span></span></span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Therefore, <i>this</i> must be done. </span></span></span></li>
</ol>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Absolutely anything can be justified by that template - and is being justified. But remember: medical care is <i>always rationed</i>, either by price and cost, or by quality, or by availability. When we go to the polls in November, we will <i>not </i>be voting for free health care for everyone. We will be voting only for how we want health care rationed in the coming years, and we will be merely hoping <i>without any evidence anywhere in the world</i> that it will be better than what we have now. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tim_Ensor/publication/263446684/figure/fig7/AS:614091903221768@1523422327525/Rationing-in-health-care.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="760" data-original-width="800" height="378" src="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tim_Ensor/publication/263446684/figure/fig7/AS:614091903221768@1523422327525/Rationing-in-health-care.png" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Her is The New York Times in 2009: "<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19healthcare-t.html">Why We Must Ration Health Care</a>."</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another. In the United States, most health care is privately financed, and so most rationing is by price: you get what you, or your employer, can afford to insure you for. But our current system of employer-financed health insurance exists only because the federal government encouraged it by making the premiums tax deductible. That is, in effect, a more than $200 billion government subsidy for health care. In the public sector, primarily Medicare, Medicaid and hospital emergency rooms, health care is rationed by long waits, high patient copayment requirements, low payments to doctors that discourage some from serving public patients and limits on payments to hospitals.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The case for explicit health care rationing in the United States starts with the difficulty of thinking of any other way in which we can continue to provide adequate health care to people on Medicaid and Medicare, let alone extend coverage to those who do not now have it.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://politicalpartypooper.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/healthcarecrisis_lg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="481" height="276" src="https://politicalpartypooper.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/healthcarecrisis_lg.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is not where are now except for the VA. Which should tell us something.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Forbes covered the way health care works (well, doesn't work) in Britain: "<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2019/04/01/britains-version-of-medicare-for-all-is-collapsing/#28d1d41e36b8">Britain's Version Of 'Medicare For All' Is Struggling With Long Waits For Care</a>."</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4AJ4ne9VWi0MOFe4kMgpabBo2Px3qTm5vXB8DCN4OIMklHaqp9NXE7zZ-oQC5_I7D5ejBjsk9CnCAzA6iwSzvkyB_NsmpnnEMYbZV-0fqD9EtkDpdXNXVXyxL6u2ksE7Z8iPNV72ld38j/s1600/2020+Medicare+for+All+and+Britain+NHS.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="642" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4AJ4ne9VWi0MOFe4kMgpabBo2Px3qTm5vXB8DCN4OIMklHaqp9NXE7zZ-oQC5_I7D5ejBjsk9CnCAzA6iwSzvkyB_NsmpnnEMYbZV-0fqD9EtkDpdXNXVXyxL6u2ksE7Z8iPNV72ld38j/s400/2020+Medicare+for+All+and+Britain+NHS.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Consider how long it takes to get care at the emergency room in Britain. Government data show that hospitals in England only saw 84.2% of patients within four hours in February. That's well below the country's goal of treating 95% of patients within four hours -- a target the NHS hasn't hit since 2015.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, instead of cutting wait times, the NHS is looking to scrap the goal. ...</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The NHS also routinely denies patients access to treatment. More than half of NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups, which plan and commission health services within their local regions, are rationing cataract surgery. They call it a procedure of "limited clinical value."</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's hard to see how a surgery that can prevent blindness is of limited clinical value. Delaying surgery can cause patients' vision to worsen -- and thus put them at risk of falls or being unable to conduct basic daily activities.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"It's shocking that access to this life-changing surgery is being unnecessarily restricted," said Helen Lee, a health policy manager at the Royal National Institute of Blind People.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Many Clinical Commissioning Groups are also rationing hip and knee replacements, glucose monitors for diabetes patients, and hernia surgery by placing the same "limited clinical value" label on them.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Patients face long wait times and rationing of care in part because the NHS can't attract nearly enough medical professionals to meet demand. At the end of 2018, more than 39,000 nursing spots were unfilled. That's a vacancy rate of more than 10%. Among medical staff, nearly 9,000 posts were unoccupied.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But don't worry. We will be promised that it will different here. But there is zero reason to believe that American politicians and bureaucrats are magically more generous, more compassionate or smarter than Britain's. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Or for that matter, Canada's, where the government determines medical care, and so uses that power to favor selected constituencies. In Canada, rare but expensive medical treatments go grossly underfunded while the government spends enormous sums on cheap treatments and meds that vast numbers of voters use. <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3435131/Friends-girl-18-leukemia-sign-casket-loving-messages-final-goodbye-died-waiting-hospital-bed-shortage-Canada.html">Like this</a>:</span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A girl who died of leukemia was given a final send off after her friends signed her casket with loving messages on January 30.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">[…]Laura might have experienced a few more milestones if a Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, hospital had been able to accommodate a bone marrow transplant for the young woman.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Numerous donors were a match with Laura and ready to donate, but Hamilton’s Juravinski Hospital didn’t have enough beds in high-air-pressure rooms for the procedure.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hospital staff told her they had about 30 patients with potential donors, but the means to only do about five transplants a month.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">[…]Dr. Ralph Meyer, Juravinski’s vice-president of oncology and palliative care, told Ontario’s TheStar.com there are plenty of others facing the same situation as Laura in Canada.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Free birth control immediately? Check. Free needles to inject illegal narcotics? Check. Free condoms? Check. Free abortions on demand? Check. Life-saving operation for a single leukemia patient? Not a chance. Leukemia patients are too few to form a voting block, so let 'em die. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Then there is the Catholic-run hospice in Canada that the government is requiring closure because it <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/canadian-hospice-forced-to-close-after-refusing-to-offer-assisted-dying-44930">refuses to kill its patients</a>. </span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A hospice in Canada has lost its funding and is being forced to close after refusing to offer and perform medically assisted suicides.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Irene Thomas Hospice in Delta, British Columbia, will lose $1.5 million in funding and will no longer be permitted to operate as a hospice as of February 25, 2021.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Fraser Health Authority, one of the six public health care authorities in the province, announced on Tuesday that it would be ending its relationship with the hospice over its refusal to provide medically assisted deaths to its patients.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Anyone who thinks that none of this can happen under Medicare For All is living on a different planet than the rest of us. </span></div>
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Don Sensinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688914420363891757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-85433172280549200092020-02-27T17:29:00.002-06:002020-03-09T15:43:04.019-05:00Living in Lent - how and why<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin0kb3fLTtL8tfd_mKyeUw_8yaL9OOMP_aXlNYPcEDm5Ks1M0Zt7QoDIhBM0FNe5ZNewZsLamnrYk92vJpRDw7EPM25dK8uH_zdImtjc5yPYb1zXU6fQC3fQ7yvBqCIabEtli__63OcZU/s1600/Ash+Wednesday+logo+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin0kb3fLTtL8tfd_mKyeUw_8yaL9OOMP_aXlNYPcEDm5Ks1M0Zt7QoDIhBM0FNe5ZNewZsLamnrYk92vJpRDw7EPM25dK8uH_zdImtjc5yPYb1zXU6fQC3fQ7yvBqCIabEtli__63OcZU/s400/Ash+Wednesday+logo+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The story is told of Sean O'Flannery, a lad who moved to Boston from Dublin. Coming home from school one day he went into an ice cream shop and told the jerk behind the counter (the soda jerk) "One scoop of yer best chocolate ice cream in four dishes!"<br />
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Soda jerks get strange requests, so he set four dishes with one scoop each in front of Sean. Sean took a spoon of one, held it before his face and loudly announced, "This is me beloved cousin eating ice cream back in the old country!" He ate the ice cream and took a spoonful from another scoop, "This is me dear friend Kelly eating ice cream back in me homeland!" The third dish he said was his favorite uncle, Finian, eating ice cream back home.<br />
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Sean raised the last scoop and said, "And this dish is for me!"<br />
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This practice went on for several months until one evening as the soda jerk was filling the four dishes Sean stopped him and said quietly, "Only three dishes today, please."<br />
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The soda jerk asked, "Did you suffer a loss and that is why you only want three scoops?"<br />
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"Heaven's no!" protested Sean O'Flannery. "It's Lent now, and <i>I've </i>given up ice cream!"<br />
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The word “Lent” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word, “lencten,” meaning Spring, the season in which Easter occurs. The forty days before Easter constitute the Lenten season, but the forty-day count does not include Sundays. All Sundays celebrate the resurrection, and so are excluded from the forty days count. The forty days duration is drawn from the length of time Jesus spent in prayer and fasting in the wilderness before he set out on his three-year ministry.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Matthew 4.1-4:<br />
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1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”<br />
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.</blockquote>
As originally conceived by the church long ago, the Lenten sacrifice was instituted as a “means of penitential preparation and preparation for baptism, which in the early church customarily took place on Easter Sunday.”<br />
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The tradition of fasting during Lent is an early one, originally done between Good Friday and Easter morning, the forty hours that Jesus was in the tomb. Christians would partake of no food or drink at all during that time. The fast was extended to the forty days before Easter sometime between 300 and 325, and changed so that food could be eaten only when evening had come.<br />
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The idea behind the fast was to imitate Christ. In addition to fasting, Christians would devote themselves to making prayer a faithful habit. So “prayer and fasting” have been closely linked for a long time.<br />
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And that brings me, by a rather circuitous route, to chocolate.<br />
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Chocolate is an absolutely unessential food, nutritionally speaking. We eat chocolate for no reason other than it is pleasurable. Since denial of the flesh is a prominent theme of Lent, rejection of chocolate in Lent is often offered as the Lenten sacrifice, particularly by people who wish to diet anyway.<br />
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But the Lenten season is also a time we ponder and wonder about the love of God. God’s love knows no bounds or limits and was so strong that not even the prospect of cruel death could deter Jesus from his redemptive mission. While we deny the pleasures of life during Lent, Jesus denied his life itself for the sake of his love for us.<br />
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Perhaps that fact could put a different spin on our concepts of giving something up for Lent. The Lenten sacrifice is best oriented toward that which most blocks our spiritual growth. It is each to ask ourselves, “What is it that most keeps me from Christ-likeness?” If that thing is chocolate, then it is appropriate to give up chocolate for Lent. But if something else is your greatest obstacle in being more Christlike, then giving up chocolate is a spiritually pointless exercise.<br />
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The question is this: “What is the one thing that most hinders my Christian growth into the person whom God wants me to be?” The answer may not be easy, but it will always involve self-denial. We think that following Christ is hard because to obey Christ we must first disobey ourselves, and it is disobeying ourselves that makes us think following Christ is hard.<br />
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But Jesus said his yoke is easy, his burden is light. We just have to get over ourselves to do it.<br />
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As Robert Mulholland put it, “Jesus is not talking about giving up candy for Lent. He is calling for the abandonment of our entire, pervasive, deeply entrenched matrix of self-referenced being.”<br />
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If we focus on that between now and Easter Day, then we have a chance to become more mature in Christian faith and practice. It may be a habit that is out of true with Christian character that needs to be overcome for further growth. Or it may be a thing undone which must be done for deeper development to occur. The Lenten idea is for our habits to change enough in the next few weeks so that we can continue at a higher level of discipleship after Easter. The Lenten season and the Lenten sacrifice are not the points in and of themselves, the whole life of discipleship is.<br />
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Focusing on the one big thing is not the only Lenten discipline that would be helpful for spiritual development. Methodism’s founder, John Wesley, insisted that the only thing that distinguishes the Christian from the non-Christian are how we use our time and money. So, for the period of Lent I would suggest focusing on those two things in addition to whatever one big spiritual obstacle you might have. Some suggestions:<br />
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<li>Tithe all your income until Easter. </li>
<li>Devote yourself to prayer daily and attending worship every Sunday. If you are traveling, say on business or spring break, then worship wherever you are.</li>
<li>Read the Bible each day. </li>
<li>Call someone you love and let them know. </li>
<li>Ask people who live alone to join you for lunch or whether you can visit them. </li>
<li>Become involved in Christian ministries.</li>
<li>Re-establish or reinforce important relationships in your life.</li>
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Spiritually speaking, it is not enough to simply excise sin or personal vices from our lives. We have to replace vice with virtue. Thus, simply giving up something like chocolate for Lent is simply silly if we are only counting the days when we can start doing it again. That’s a game, not a spiritual discipline.<br />
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Lent should be a period of joyful, God-directed introspection into how we may be further united with Christ in godly love. If we make Lent into a severe, joyless, self-justifying exercise in self-denial, we have missed the point. Jesus sternly admonished teachers of the religious law and the Pharisees not to practice the letter of the law while neglecting “the <i>more important matters</i> of justice, mercy and faithfulness” (Matt 23:23).<br />
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When a lawyer asked Jesus, “which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”<br />
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That is the whole point of spiritual growth and spiritual discipline, and hence the whole point of Lent: love. We are to be living ambassadors from God to one another and the world at large in Christ’s name. Christ was crucified, buried and raised from the dead for our sake and the sake of the whole world. Let us rededicate ourselves to being Christ’s ambassadors. It’s Lent, after all; it’s all about love, you see, Lent is all about love.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-35813803907606836922020-02-10T09:25:00.001-06:002020-02-10T09:25:43.332-06:0050 Ways to Take Church to the CommunityThe Lewis Center is an agency of the Tennessee Conference. Here are its <a href="https://www.churchleadership.com/50-ways/50-ways-to-take-church-to-the-community/">50 Ways to Take Church to the Community</a>. Herte is the link to <a href="https://www.churchleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/50-Ways-to-Take-Church-to-The-Community.pdf">download the PDF version</a>.<br />
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Churches can no longer open their doors and expect that people will come in. Effective congregations go into the world to encounter those in need of the gospel. These 50 Ways provide tips on reaching beyond the walls of your church with worship, community events, ministries, and service.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Embrace an expansive concept of community</strong></h5>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Learn to regard your community as an extension of your congregation. A church’s mission field goes beyond its membership to include all the people God calls it to serve. You are connected to individuals who never set foot in your building.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Know that what’s happening within the church — preaching, worship, music, Bible study — is no longer enough to attract people in an age when church attendance is no longer a cultural expectation.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Don’t sit in your church building waiting for people to come. Be prepared to meet people where they are.</li>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Prepare spiritually</strong></h5>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Acknowledge the synergy between the Great Commandment in Matthew 22 (love your neighbor as yourself) and the Great Commission in Matthew 28 (go and make disciples). Evangelistic outreach expresses our love of others.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Remember that Jesus primarily engaged people through everyday encounters, rather than in the Temple or synagogues. He fed people, met their everyday needs, and enjoyed the fellowship of others.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Express love and compassion for your community in big and small ways. Avoid judgmentalism.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Pray regularly for your neighbors and lift up community concerns.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Attend to the faith formation of existing members. Willingness to share faith and reach out to others develops as one grows in faith and discipleship.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Prepare spiritually for the transformation that creative, risk-taking outreach will bring.</li>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Get to know the community surrounding your church</strong></h5>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Review demographic data from public, private, and denominational sources, but don’t assume that statistics alone will tell the whole story.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Get out in your neighborhood. Walk the streets. Map the area, and record your observations. Note how the community is changing.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Assess community needs and assets. What are the needs of your context? Who are your neighbors, and how can you serve them?</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Be attuned to where God is already at work in your community.</li>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Listen and learn</strong></h5>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Know that ministries that truly bless a community often arise out of conversations where you listen for the hopes and dreams of people in your community.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Interview residents of the community. Sit in a park, diner, or coffee house. Ask simply, “What are your challenges, hopes, longings and dreams?”</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Get to know the major public officials. They are people with tremendous influence. They need to know of your church’s commitment to the community.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Involve many people from your church in this work. Hold one another accountable to the tasks of engaging and learning from others.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Discern clusters of issues and concerns that arise from these conversations. Ask what issues, suffering, injustices, or brokenness might you address.</li>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Build authentic relationships</strong></h5>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Strive for meaningful engagement with others, not superficial gestures.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Make sure you are reaching out to people for the right reasons. If your motive is simply to get them to come to church, people will see right through to it.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Maintain appropriate boundaries, and respect all with whom you engage.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Collaborate with others who are also passionate about the community. Don’t reinvent the wheel if you can partner with someone else serving the community.</li>
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<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Turn your existing ministries outward</span></h5>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Challenge each church group with an inside focus to find a way to become involved with the community outside the church. A choir might sing at a nursing home, or trustees could sponsor a neighborhood clean-up.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Extend recruiting and advertising for church groups and events to audiences beyond your congregation. For example, recruit for choir members in a local paper or community list serve.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Build relationships with those taking part in existing programs that serve the community, such as ESL classes, food pantry or clothes bank users, daycare families, etc.</li>
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<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Reach out through community events</span></h5>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Plan “bridge events” designed explicitly to draw people from the community by providing for them something they need or enjoy — block parties, free concerts, seasonal events, parenting classes, sports camps, or school supply giveaways, etc. Source: Get Their Name by Bob Farr, Doug Anderson, and Kay Kotan (Abingdon Press, 2013)</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hold these events off church property or outside the church walls in venues where people feel comfortable and naturally congregate.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Get the word out through a well-planned publicity campaign.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Encourage church members to invite their friends and neighbors. It is less threatening for them to invite someone to a community event than to worship.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Avoid explicitly religious themes: no preaching, prayers, pressure, or financial appeals that might turn people off or reinforce negative stereotypes about church.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Remember, the event itself is not the purpose. The purpose is to meet people where they are and build relationships. Mingle. Get to know people.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Have a well-trained hospitality team. Make sure guests are enjoying themselves and know their attendance is appreciated.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Gathering people’s names and information about them will permit follow up to those for whom it is appropriate.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Invite those who attend community events to another event — sometimes called a “hand off event” — planned to draw them into a deeper relationship.</li>
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<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Extend your congregation’s spiritual presence beyond church walls</span></h5>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Recognize that many “unchurched” people are spiritually inclined but apprehensive about attending church because they feel unwelcome, distrust institutions, or have been hurt in the past.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Pay attention to the heightened receptiveness to spiritual engagement around religious holidays such as Easter and Christmas.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Offer offsite worship services on special days, such as Christmas Eve, Palm Sunday, and Easter. Select familiar venues where people feel comfortable — parks, restaurants, parking lots, coffee houses.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Offer imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday in public places.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Partner with other institutions (such as nursing homes, hospitals, or prisons) or commercial establishments (restaurants, bars, shopping centers, or sports facilities) to offer worship services to their constituents or clientele on special days.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Plan creative outdoor events, such as live nativities or “blessing of the animals” services, to help make your church visibly present to the community in creative ways.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hold your Vacation Bible School in a local park or recreation center. Canvas nearby neighborhoods to invite families.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Reach out to local media. Community outreach is often newsworthy, and reporters are often looking for religiously themed stories around the holidays.</li>
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<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Connect spiritual outreach to community service</span></h5>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Acknowledge that many served through feeding and clothing ministries, justice ministries, weekday children’s services, and other ministries of community service have no other connections with our churches.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ask if these ministries inadvertently convey an “us and them” attitude or communicate that “you are not worthy of joining us.”</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Identify aspects of church life, such as characteristics of the building or how people dress, that may make some feel unwelcome. Are there alternatives that may reduce barriers for some to enter?</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Treat everyone as a person of dignity who deserves respect.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Extend genuine hospitality to those you serve.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Focus first on building relationships of understanding and trust.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Consider adding a spiritual or discipleship element to community service activities but without any sense of expectation or requirement. For example, have a service or study following ESL classes for any interested.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Seek to conduct each activity in a way that connects people to God and the church.</li>
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<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Contributors: Robert Crossman, Ann A. Michel, Kim Mitchel, and Lovett H. Weems, Jr.</em></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-11755987478155626562020-01-28T11:10:00.002-06:002020-01-29T10:49:45.920-06:00A note to the congregationsGreetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn1eT0p-CKYVaWx4WzIIHnNp5UO56uQpdZErc6IDk6C_9EjjUpLmj7kmKdYjcaLPIkM_8JA49HvISFN3u0OIYfE5nRsR8Spff5cZldAJXbsSdH-vpajk0SKImPZKvnG_X61llNe6V23NpS/s1600/Logo+GUMC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="455" data-original-width="754" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn1eT0p-CKYVaWx4WzIIHnNp5UO56uQpdZErc6IDk6C_9EjjUpLmj7kmKdYjcaLPIkM_8JA49HvISFN3u0OIYfE5nRsR8Spff5cZldAJXbsSdH-vpajk0SKImPZKvnG_X61llNe6V23NpS/s200/Logo+GUMC.jpg" width="200" /></a>As I briefly explained to Gideon and Greenbrier UMCs on Jan. 26, every year at this time, pastors and the Staff-Parish Relations Committee (SPRC) of their churches enter into a time of consultation about pastors' appointments. Appointments begin each each year at the end of June. In the Tennessee Conference, every appointment is for one year at a time, basically from the beginning of July to the end of the next June.<br />
<br />
During the still-ongoing consultation process it became clear to the SPRC's of both Gideon and Greenbrier that I will not be returned to the Greenbrier-Gideon Charge as pastor. The two predominant reasons are:<br />
<ul>
<li>Retirement of pastors in the Conference this year will likely be higher than average, which causes more moves than usual.</li>
<li>The financial condition of both congregations, especially forecasting to January 2021. </li>
</ul>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiPAA8JDg5BSdB1OwWRuaS5g1YJEpd12iGs-Hk10iLUgwDvj02UBwvgPE0JWvDxRxN_KrUiC8mxCcrMoG4tN71wPHY1vq-kV-JnwQTXcRHbDg7KzqBFAZN1UD4I2IeNAW22sgI796Aao6O/s1600/Gideon+Letterhead+Logo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="385" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiPAA8JDg5BSdB1OwWRuaS5g1YJEpd12iGs-Hk10iLUgwDvj02UBwvgPE0JWvDxRxN_KrUiC8mxCcrMoG4tN71wPHY1vq-kV-JnwQTXcRHbDg7KzqBFAZN1UD4I2IeNAW22sgI796Aao6O/s200/Gideon+Letterhead+Logo.JPG" width="194" /></a><br />
Here is why January 2021 figures in. Starting this year, 2020, every church is fully responsible for paying all of its pastor(s)' health insurance premium and pension "match." For 2020 only, the Conference is paying half of the insurance premium and three-fourths of the pension match. Starting Jan. 1, 2021, both subsidies drop to zero. That means that in the middle of the appointment year, the direct-billing total rises very sharply -- for Greenbrier church alone more than $9,000 and for Gideon proportionately.<br />
<br />
Both churches have been faced this year with declining offering amounts chiefly because of deaths of members whose giving has not been significantly offset by other members, and by persons moving away, either literally by moving van, or figuratively by attending another church.<br />
<br />
(Almost every UM pastor either within our conference or outside it I have spoken with, and it has been a lot, have said their attendance has also dropped. That many, maybe most, of the departures have resulted from the ongoing turmoil in the UMC regarding actions of last February's General Conference, and the guaranteed continuation of it coming in this May's GC, there is little doubt. )<br />
<br />
With all of this as background, in my consultation meetings with both SPRCs, we all agreed that my continuation as pastor of this charge was not financially supportable. Frankly, had the SPRCs' members not already understood that, I would have put it on the table. But we all knew this. The main task now for each church's SPRC is preparing for their own consultations with our district superintendent, the Rev. Scott Aleridge. I continue to work with both committees on that.<br />
<br />
As for myself, Cathy and I had always planned on retiring in 2022. We frankly see little point, and have no desire, to move our home and begin new at another church, then retire after only two years there. I do not think it would be fair to that church. And, since Greenbrier is very north in the Conference, any move would almost certainly take us farther away from our new grandchild to be born in March. Add the hassle of selling our home and possibly having to buy a new one, or live in a parsonage for only two years, then move our household again, and other things like that. For these reasons, I informed Rev. Aleridge last weekend that I would retire this summer.<br />
<br />
As I said Sunday, Cathy and I are deeply grateful to the people of Greenbrier and Gideon churches for the time we have been here, and for the five months I still have to enjoy as your pastor. It is possible that I may be asked to take a part-time appointment somewhere within driving distance, but there is no way to know now. But today, you and I serve our Lord and one another in love, thanks be to God!<br />
<br />
Grace and peace,<br />
<br />
Pastor DonUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-62095592933823889052020-01-09T08:33:00.000-06:002020-01-09T15:01:05.337-06:00The Methodists' coming punishment of God<div style="text-align: right;">
<i>I wrote this with non-UMC readers in mind, so I do not dwell on the minutiae of the recently-released "Protocol" document. Besides, this is long enough without that.</i></div>
<br />
Just after New Year’s Day there was national and regional news coverage announcing, “United Methodist Church Announces Proposal to Split Over Gay Marriage” (NPR), or similar headlines.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJXi32t1cg4qlNiOjhe75XAzfiDNb3Tr3tUhGWWX9zs5ZYLfiKHm-GZ6P4rDpo8RwyxSTPKpEiMHeSWWJ54XyyoxLa3s7gnckGqX4zVObMxop07q5CKKmwVR7V92TghI0B2xcZLveOoxA/s1600/umc+frayed+rope+breaking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="311" data-original-width="450" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJXi32t1cg4qlNiOjhe75XAzfiDNb3Tr3tUhGWWX9zs5ZYLfiKHm-GZ6P4rDpo8RwyxSTPKpEiMHeSWWJ54XyyoxLa3s7gnckGqX4zVObMxop07q5CKKmwVR7V92TghI0B2xcZLveOoxA/s400/umc+frayed+rope+breaking.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Why did this become suddenly worthy of such large-scale coverage? That the church has been wrestling with homosexuality since at least 1972 is no secret. Accurate headlines would read, "United Methodist Church leaders agree to catch up to fact that the UMC is already splitting over gay rights."<br />
<br />
The UMC is the America’s second-largest Protestant denomination with about 7.5 million US members, and about that many around the world, with the largest foreign numbers in Africa.<br />
<br />
The massive coverage of the latest split proposal, called “<a href="https://www.unitedmethodistbishops.org/files/websites/www/pdfs/signed+umc+mediation+protocoal+statement+-2020.pdf">Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation</a>,” does not really break much new ground. There were already a few breakup plans proposed and on the table several months ago.<br />
<br />
So, what is the situation now, what comes next, and what after that?<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>“Status quo” is Latin for “the mess we’re in” </b></i></div>
<br />
In fact, nothing has been decided and no actual actions have been taken to split the UMC. That a split is nearly certain to come before this summer is not much in doubt. But what the details will be no one can predict.<br />
<br />
The UMC’s only body that can determine policy denomination-wide is the General Conference. Presided over by bishops, who can speak to issues but may not vote, the GC convenes once per four years and does not exist in between. It will convene again on May 5. The “gay issue” will certainly be the priority matter. Voting delegates come from the church’s conferences, which is what the UMC calls dioceses. The number of delegates is fixed; how many come from each conference is based on their membership number. Delegates per conference must be both laity and clergy.<br />
<br />
So, what will the fight be about?<br />
<br />
The present canon law of the UMC, called the <i>Book of Discipline</i>, <a href="https://www.umc.org/en/content/what-is-the-denominations-position-on-homosexuality">says this</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
• ¶ 304.3: The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church. <a href="https://ee.umc.org/what-we-believe/homosexuality-full-book-of-discipline-statements#qualifications">View full statement</a>.<br />
<br />
• ¶ 341.6: Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.</blockquote>
This has been the policy for many years. However, a special, called General Conference in February 2019 added mandatory penalties for violations and prohibited giving …<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
… United Methodist funds to any gay caucus or group, or otherwise use such funds to promote the acceptance of homosexuality or violate the expressed commitment of The UMC "not to reject or condemn lesbian and gay members and friends."</blockquote>
That GC also adopted means by which churches that could not abide by these provisions could withdraw from the UMC while retaining possession of their real estate and buildings. Some did, but not many.<br />
<br />
Instead, the vast majority of progressives remained in the UMC to continue the fight. This caused two major consequences:<br />
<ol>
<li>Traditionalists rebelled against the never-ending infighting and started to leave the UMC individually, causing a significant decline in attendance and collections. This was amplified by the relatively smaller number of progressive Methodists who made the same choice. Progressive churches (in aggregate) sharply dropped paying their apportionments (denominational dues) in protest. Only two months after the special GC, The Hill reported, "<a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/439889-liberal-methodist-churches-withholding-dues-after-denomination">Liberal Methodist churches withholding dues after denomination vote to ban LGBT-inclusive practices</a>." Presently, the denomination and its congregations are financially tenuous.<br /> </li>
<li>While traditionalists patted themselves on the back for winning, progressives redoubled to orient on the election of delegates to this May’s GC. As a result, it is generally acknowledged that the majority of American delegates elected are clearly progressive.</li>
</ol>
Long before the “Protocol” was released on Jan. 3, clergy from one end of the spectrum to the other had concluded that some sort of split of the UMC was not merely inevitable, it was desirable.<br />
<br />
That the new changes to the <i>Discipline </i>formally provided for churches to withdraw was simply dismissed by UM progressives. They were determined that the UMC itself would become fully progressive, not some church splintered from it. That determination has not lessened.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>The near horizon</b></i></div>
<br />
True, the Protocol is not even on the agenda for this May’s General Conference, although there are ways it can be added. Even so, that it was released by the COB in an obviously pre-planned, coordinated national media campaign for maximum coverage, compels pulpit pastors like me to understand a sobering fact: We may not be interested in the Protocol, but the Protocol is very interested in us.<br />
<br />
Dale M. Coulter, associate professor of historical theology at Regent University, <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/01/a-failed-experiment-in-methodist-unity">observed in First Things</a>, that<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
... the Protocol does not allow local churches or conferences to remain neutral any longer. In its current configuration, the Protocol requires that a choice be made—even if that choice is not to vote and thus remain in the post-separation UMC after the dust settles. The fight will now be taken to the local level.</blockquote>
The Protocol simply torpedoes whatever remained of the center. The center, or what was left of it, now no longer exists. When the president of the Council of Bishops is a Protocol signatory and its first appearance is on the COB's web site, the idea that there remains sort of centrist path is shredded. It is reasonable to assume that this is the outcome preferred by a clear majority, perhaps all, of the UM's bishops. On the date of this post the UM News Service announced that members of the team that developed the Protocol "will be interviewed in a live-streamed panel discussion on Monday, Jan. 13" for an hour at 9.30 a.m. EST on <a href="http://umnews.org/">umnews.org</a>. No other proposal for General Conference on this or any other topic has received such genuflection, which IMO speaks volumes.<br />
<br />
So even if some bishops think there should still be a middle way, their peers have shut them down. (Remember, though, that the Council of Bishops formally endorsed a centrist plan for the UMC at the February 2019 special General Conference, and it was promptly rejected by both left and right.)<br />
<br />
Pastors' shepherding of congregations through the coming schism will be challenging, to say the least. Each pastor will have to choose a side while still pastoring <i>all </i>the people of the church, and the people will be choosing their sides, too. Most congregations' members will not be unified with one another. I have known, for example, members who hold the traditionalist position but who also have homosexual close family members. For them, the issue is very personal. And that puts ministers right here:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAHrXQQv3ibQy8bSQm-Tm3asfdIvfk3kcLzFJqocw6LRExWtaMBKxX0Yi8vgKGMxvNPF5vAqJ2JM53qXX0J0kwbiTYzBFK5P49DZYBM9wVkUUO1fyL9RHdQC0ex0Rz4Rx4V9hGHiCt1Aw/s1600/Far+Side+Damned+if+You+Do+Dont.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="433" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAHrXQQv3ibQy8bSQm-Tm3asfdIvfk3kcLzFJqocw6LRExWtaMBKxX0Yi8vgKGMxvNPF5vAqJ2JM53qXX0J0kwbiTYzBFK5P49DZYBM9wVkUUO1fyL9RHdQC0ex0Rz4Rx4V9hGHiCt1Aw/s400/Far+Side+Damned+if+You+Do+Dont.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The reason is that congregants will fall into three basic groups of response:<br />
<ol>
<li>Those who will leave the church because the pastor chose the "wrong" position,<br /> </li>
<li>Those who will leave the church because the pastor would not announce his/her position,<br /> </li>
<li>And those who feel so deeply rooted that they are not going to leave their church no matter what, or who simply want this whole issue to just go away - at least until a very progressive or very traditionalist pastor takes the pulpit in their church. Then, to borrow Robert Heinlein's metaphor, they will hoist the Jolly Roger.</li>
</ol>
Which is to say, we ministers (but not only us) are being presented with a Star Trek <i>Kobayashi Maru </i>no-win scenario, for which this Forbes article is useful in understanding in <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetstemwedel/2015/08/23/the-philosophy-of-star-trek-the-kobayashi-maru-no-win-scenarios-and-ethical-leadership/#e67f9935f480">trying to maintain ethical leadership</a>. It explains, among other things,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A crucial feature of good ethical decision-making in the real world is understanding the limits of your powers. You try to make choices that bring lots of good consequences and minimal bad ones, that fulfill your obligations to everyone to whom you have obligations (including yourself) — but you’re doing it in a complicated world where you must make your choices on the basis of imperfect information, and where other people are doing things that may impose constraints on your options. Ethics cannot require us to be omniscient or omnipotent. This means that sometimes even the most creative and optimistic ethical decision-maker has to face a situation where none of the available choices or outcomes are very good.</blockquote>
Even allowing for all that, the Protocol's basic premise that traditionalists and progressives must divorce one another is hardly disputed within the UMC. The Protocol likely will be added to the handful of "split up" proposals already on the General Conference's agenda. For sure, no one expects “the mess we’re in” to continue post-GC.<br />
<br />
A safe assumption is that at least two Methodist denominations will arise from this May's GC. One will be progressive/liberal and the other orthodox/traditionalist/conservative. What the actual names will be who knows, but theologically and ideologically that’s how they will be. There could be other denominations, too.<br />
<br />
It must be recognized that individual churches will get to choose. If My Town UMC's conference votes to be in the progressive church but MTUMC's members are mostly traditionalist, then MTUMC's members will be able to vote to join another denomination. But they will still lose some members when they do. Likewise if a progressive congregation votes to leave a traditionalist conference. Not all the sheep will follow. Shrinkage, probably dramatic at that, is inevitable.<br />
<br />
<center>
<b><i>And then what? There will be no Promised Land for either faction.</i></b></center>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Both or all new denominations will be significantly down-funded from now. Staffs at the denominational, conference, and local-church level will diminish and there will be significant downward pressure on salaries from top to bottom. That means that most pastors and staff who can retire will do so and those who cannot yet retire but have other options will take them. The already-over bureaucratic structure of today's UMC will not collapse, exactly, but it will shrink a lot.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
Even assuming there is an amicable split, or at least not an angry one, the coming few years will not be unicorns and rainbows for either progressives of traditionalists. I think both denominations will have many difficulties getting organized (which is to be expected) but also fights over their respective purity codes will erupt also. That is, what is it that marks one as a True Traditionalist or a True Progressive? Neither side can answer that right now because any answer given now is mainly influenced by the "mess we're in" and not what will pertain then.<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">Both</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> denominations will find themselves bickering about a whole host of matters other than homosexuality, which as a topic will be off the table anyway. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">This will further cause church members to vote with their feet, accelerating the decline of Methodism in America. The Baptists or the MCC , however, will probably be very grateful. And then there was this posted by a friend I have known since before the internet:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; margin: 1em 20px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Went to a Catholic funeral. At the supper I mentioned how beautiful their church was.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The answer was, "Beautiful yes, but it takes a lot of money for upkeep. We couldn't afford it if it were not for all the Protestants that are converting."</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">That will continue.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>Where do we find God here?</b></i></div>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfi3D5CJCrQAIf1PCmFrjeLkS1ZWqYtQ-Aq6msK9bPhXnearKysAbvUlGDQmLnGs6s9cwWH_TWLuGQEQopknuGnr7FoM3urtJhjM3E0w8xM3jc_HEHrNRkeb0o7-Oo8Dm_LvD0LNStrIM/s1600/Judgment-In-The-House-Of-God.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfi3D5CJCrQAIf1PCmFrjeLkS1ZWqYtQ-Aq6msK9bPhXnearKysAbvUlGDQmLnGs6s9cwWH_TWLuGQEQopknuGnr7FoM3urtJhjM3E0w8xM3jc_HEHrNRkeb0o7-Oo8Dm_LvD0LNStrIM/s400/Judgment-In-The-House-Of-God.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
I hope for a far finer future than I envision. But as a very senior leader observed in my prior career, "Hope is not a method and wishes are not plans." In our history since our founding in the <a href="https://www.umc.org/en/content/methodist-history-the-christmas-conference">Christmas Conference of 1784</a>, there have been quite a number of splits. The only one approaching the scale of what is coming this year was a full-scale schism in 1844 over slavery. But slavery was ended and the two denominations finally reunited. The coming schism will be permanent. After all, homosexuality is not going to simply be ended like slavery was.<br />
<br />
I know that God never withdraws his grace and guidance. Jesus' resurrection never becomes less efficacious. But I also remember this:<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikfCNjTr6nmqMxt2HiBfQfJ0ThWMdCwir7FONK7WljDYehZSbeF9dTbh4_5XoA0CcyhPDXs-NfteuIjUmdHfO9oNasjrXHwGcno-3jKvsiMhXJIA6aVIf4aEt6wfanPVS4Apqt8wbERL8/s1600/Punishment+of+God+is+to+let+us+have+what+we+want.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="679" data-original-width="689" height="393" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikfCNjTr6nmqMxt2HiBfQfJ0ThWMdCwir7FONK7WljDYehZSbeF9dTbh4_5XoA0CcyhPDXs-NfteuIjUmdHfO9oNasjrXHwGcno-3jKvsiMhXJIA6aVIf4aEt6wfanPVS4Apqt8wbERL8/s400/Punishment+of+God+is+to+let+us+have+what+we+want.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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And we will get it good and hard.<br />
<br />
If you think I am overstating all of this I only reply, wait and see. Because you ain't seen nothing yet.<br />
<br />
The outcome will be like this, only it will not be funny.<br />
<br />
<center>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WboggjN_G-4" width="560"></iframe></center>
<br />
<a class="addthis_button" href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=xa-4bc669d4427a7bc7"><img alt="Bookmark and Share" height="16" src="https://s7.addthis.com/static/btn/v2/lg-share-en.gif" style="border: 0px;" width="125" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-35473791960009323012020-01-03T10:10:00.003-06:002020-01-06T12:22:25.106-06:00A formal plan for schism of the UMC<span style="font-family: inherit;">Today from the United Methodist Council of Bishops. I have pasted it in its entirely. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">---------------------</span><br />
<h1 class="titlewrap" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 30px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="pagetitle" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.unitedmethodistbishops.org/newsdetail/united-methodist-traditionalists-centrists-progressives-bishops-sign-agreement-aimed-at-separation-13133654"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">United Methodist Traditionalists, Centrists, Progressives & Bishops sign agreement aimed at separation</span></a></span></h1>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529;">
<small class="media-metadata text-muted" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(108, 117, 125) !important; margin-bottom: 30px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">1/2/2020</span> <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">- </span><span class="topic" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Bishop News</span><span class="topic" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Ministries</span></span></small><br />
<div class="primaryImg" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 30px; margin-top: 30px;">
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<figure class="figure figure-fullwidth" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img class="img-fluid" src="https://www.unitedmethodistbishops.org/files/tables/content/13133654/fields/primaryimage/fc994d7784ef43019225026134f268e1/mediation+team1.jpg?width=800&height=300" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" /></span><figcaption class="figure-caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #6c757d;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #999999; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"></em></span><div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Members of the Mediation Team.</span></div>
</figcaption></figure></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">January 3, 2020</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />(Washington, D.C.) - A diverse group of representatives from United Methodist advocacy groups with contrasting views and bishops from around the world has collaborated on a proposed agreement for the separation of The United Methodist Church (UMC) that has the unanimous support of all the parties involved.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The agreement, the <a href="https://www.unitedmethodistbishops.org/files/websites/www/pdfs/signed+umc+mediation+protocoal+statement+-2020.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation</a>, was achieved on December 17, 2019, and announced today.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The action comes amid heightened tensions in the church over conflicting views related to human sexuality after the 2019 Special Session of the General Conference failed to resolve differences among church members.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Legislation to implement <a href="https://www.unitedmethodistbishops.org/files/websites/www/pdfs/signed+umc+mediation+protocoal+statement+-2020.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">the Protocol statement</a> — an eight-page document detailing the terms of a split of the 13+ million-member denomination — is expected to come before the United Methodist General Conference for a vote at their legislative meeting in Minneapolis, Minn. in May 2020.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The 16-member group came together as an outgrowth of a consultation initiated by bishops from Central Conferences located outside the United States. The parties sought assistance from prominent attorney Kenneth Feinberg, who specializes in mediation and alternative dispute resolution. Feinberg, who served as Special Master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and administrator of the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster Victim Compensation Fund, along with a number of other complex matters, agreed to provide his services pro bono.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Meeting over several months, the unofficial group reached an agreement by signatories associated with all of the constituencies within the UMC for a mutually supported pathway for separation, bridging differences among other plans to be considered by the General Conference. “The undersigned propose restructuring The United Methodist Church by separation as the best means to resolve our differences, allowing each part of the Church to remain true to its theological understanding, while recognizing the dignity, equality, integrity, and respect of every person,” says the Protocol Statement.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The document’s signers include representatives from Europe, Africa, the Philippines, and the United States, and include persons representing UMCNext; Mainstream UMC; Uniting Methodists; The Confessing Movement; Good News; The Institute on Religion & Democracy; the Wesleyan Covenant Association; Affirmation; Methodist Federation for Social Action; Reconciling Ministries Network; and the United Methodist Queer Clergy Caucus; as well as bishops from the United States and across the world. The representatives have pledged to work together to support the proposal and develop legislation to implement it.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The Protocol anticipates the formation of a new traditionalist Methodist denomination. Once formed, the new church would receive $25 million over the next four years and give up further claim to the UMC’s assets. An additional $2 million would be allocated for potential additional new Methodist denominations which may emerge from the UMC. Acknowledging the historical role of the Methodist movement in systematic racial violence, exploitation and discrimination, the Protocol would allocate $39 million to ensure there is no disruption in supporting ministries for communities historically marginalized by racism.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Under the Protocol, conferences and local congregations could vote to separate from The United Methodist Church to affiliate with new Methodist denominations created under the agreement within a certain time frame. Churches wishing to stay within the UMC would not be required to conduct a vote. Provisions exist for entities that choose to separate to retain their assets and liabilities. All current clergy and lay employees would keep their pensions regardless of the Methodist denomination with which they affiliate.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Under the Protocol, all administrative or judicial processes addressing restrictions in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Book of Discipline</em> <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">of The United Methodist</em> related to self-avowed practicing homosexuals or same-sex weddings, as well as actions to close churches, would be held in abeyance until the separation is completed. The Protocol also references a plan which calls for a special general conference of the post-separation United Methodist Church. The purpose of the Special Session would be to create regional conferences, remove the current prohibitions against LGBTQ persons, and to repeal the Traditional Plan.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /> <br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Speaking on behalf of the group, Bishop John Yambasu (Sierra Leone) stated, “All of us are servants of the church and realize that we are not the primary decision makers on these matters. Instead, we humbly offer to the delegates of the 2020 General Conference the work which we have accomplished in the hopes that it will help heal the harms and conflicts within the body of Christ and free us to be more effective witnesses to God’s Kingdom.”<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The signatories to the Protocol have provided a <a href="https://www.unitedmethodistbishops.org/newsdetail/frequently-asked-questions-about-the-united-methodist-mediation-team-13133711" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">FAQ document </a> to provide additional information about the agreement. Comments and questions may be directed to the signatories at <a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=mediationprotocol@outlook.com" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">mediationprotocol@outlook.com</a>.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />A livestream event will take place on Monday, January 13, to provide further clarity and explanations of the plan by members of the Mediation Team. <br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /> <br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />This statement is being released by the Council of Bishops Office on behalf of the Mediation Team members.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />###<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Members of the Mediation Team</span></span><br />
<ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bishop Christian Alsted (<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=bishop@umc-ne.org" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">bishop@umc-ne.org</a>), Nordic-Baltic Episcopal Area</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rev. Thomas Berlin (<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=tberlin@florisumc.org" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">tberlin@florisumc.org</a>), representing UMCNext, Mainstream UMC, Uniting Methodists</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton (<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=bishop@nyac.com" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">bishop@nyac.com</a>), New York Episcopal Area</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rev. Keith Boyette (<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=president@wesleyancovenant.org" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">president@wesleyancovenant.org</a>), representing The Confessing Movement, Good News, IRD/UM Action, and the Wesleyan Covenant Association</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bishop Kenneth H. Carter (<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=bishop@flumc.org" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">bishop@flumc.org</a>), Florida Episcopal Area</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rev. Junius Dotson (<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=jdotson@umcdiscipleship.org" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">jdotson@umcdiscipleship.org</a>), representing UMCNext, Mainstream UMC, United Methodists</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bishop LaTrelle Easterling (<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=bishopeasterling@gmail.com" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">bishopeasterling@gmail.com</a>), Washington Episcopal Area</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rev. Egmedio “Jun” Equila, Jr. (<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=jun@brmc.org.sg" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">jun@brmc.org.sg</a>), Philippines Central Conference</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bishop Cynthia Fierro Harvey (<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=bishop@la-umc.org" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">bishop@la-umc.org</a>), Louisiana Episcopal Area</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bishop Rodolfo Rudy Juan (bishoprudyjuan@gmail.com), Davao Episcopal Area, Philippines</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Janet Lawrence (<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=jan@rmnetwork.org" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">jan@rmnetwork.org</a>), representing Affirmation, Methodist Federation for Social Action, and Reconciling Ministries Network</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rev. David Meredith (<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=dmeredith@cliftonumc.com" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">dmeredith@cliftonumc.com</a>), representing Affirmation, Methodist Federation for Social Action, and Reconciling Ministries Network, member of UM Queer Clergy Caucus</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Patricia Miller (<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=pmiller1224@gmail.com" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">pmiller1224@gmail.com</a>), representing The Confessing Movement, Good News, IRD/UM Action, and the Wesleyan Covenant Association</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dr. Randall Miller (<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=randall4015@hotmail.com" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">randall4015@hotmail.com</a>), representing Affirmation, Methodist Federation for Social Action, and Reconciling Ministries Network</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bishop Gregory Vaughn Palmer (<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=wocbishop@woc.org" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">wocbishop@woc.org</a>), Ohio West Episcopal Area</span></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bishop John K. Yambasu (<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=bishopyambasu@gmail.com" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7b1fbe; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">bishopyambasu@gmail.com</a>), Sierra Leone Episcopal Area</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.unitedmethodistbishops.org/newsdetail/frequently-asked-questions-about-the-united-methodist-mediation-team-13133711">https://www.unitedmethodistbishops.org/newsdetail/frequently-asked-questions-about-the-united-methodist-mediation-team-13133711</a></span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://youthworkercollective.com/did-the-umc-just-split-5-tips-on-talking-to-kids-and-adults-about-what-happened/">https://youthworkercollective.com/did-the-umc-just-split-5-tips-on-talking-to-kids-and-adults-about-what-happened/</a><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-57489553501746857812019-12-26T09:39:00.001-06:002019-12-28T19:52:12.277-06:00Facts are not important, politics is<a href="https://www.lex18.com/news/covering-kentucky/lexington-church-makes-statement-with-nativity">This was posted</a> by a very liberal long-time friend and fellow cleric of mine.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI67MHqOVJ43c6-gxcJ6Emnzk-WoWeQLM5XqEvP3zObxeUKtrdpv6VcVlZcIlopP-lR6pZCzlGK7riDlVGqouRvGEsDpd7eKtORvTvIdpkji8BWvETtWahCxL62k3VYZLm7wcuYqE7YjYm/s1600/Holy+family+behind+bars+political+point.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="418" data-original-width="625" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI67MHqOVJ43c6-gxcJ6Emnzk-WoWeQLM5XqEvP3zObxeUKtrdpv6VcVlZcIlopP-lR6pZCzlGK7riDlVGqouRvGEsDpd7eKtORvTvIdpkji8BWvETtWahCxL62k3VYZLm7wcuYqE7YjYm/s400/Holy+family+behind+bars+political+point.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I commented thus:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Holy Family were never refugees. They did not move to Egypt illegally. They moved from Roman-controlled Judea to Roman-controlled Egypt. It was literally like if you moved from Tennessee to Kentucky.</blockquote>
Why did the Holy Family need to move to Egypt in a hurry? The answer is one word: government. Yet to my friend and others of his leanings, government is always the solution, never the problem.<br />
<br />
But the facts don't matter when political hit jobs can be done even on pretense.<br />
<br />
<b>Update</b>: In response to another minister's query (who is a friend and not just on FB), I wrote this:<br />
<br />
Both Judea and Egypt were occupied and governed by Rome; of course you know this. Just as the Romans changed the name of the formerly independent country of Judah to Judea, they changed the name of Egypt to Aegyptus. But the key point is not really that they changed the name, but that they had the power (by force of arms, to be sure) to do so.<br />
<br />
To say that Egypt and Judea were "countries" under Roman rule is about as accurate as saying that Kazakhstan was a country under Stalin. Maybe it was once, and wanted to be again, but in 1948 it was not. It was a Soviet province and nothing more.<br />
<br />
Likewise Judea and Aegyptus. The Holy Family changed province of residence but it did not change who governed them.<br />
<br />
Now, whether the Holy Family were refugees. Yes, Matthew is clear that they made the trek to Aegyptus because of Herod's lethal plans. But again, while they changed provincial government, there was no political difference, just as if someone moved from Virginia to North Carolina.<br />
<br />
Which are states I use on purpose because, as I am sure you know, Virginia's Gov. Northam has publicly stated that he will call out the National Guard to enforce the state's new, draconian gun laws - laws that have caused 90 percent of the state's county commissions to declare that they will prohibit any local law officers to enforce or assist state authorities in enforcing.<br />
<br />
Which is to say, Gov. Northam is in fact directly threatening to use actual soldiers to kill people who have committed no offense against the peace or safety of anyone at all or even can be remotely considered such a threat.<br />
<br />
Think that cannot happen? In November of last year, Maryland police shot to death a 61-year-old man in his own home who had committed no crime but for whom a court had issued a "red flag" order.<br />
<br />
IMO, Gov. Northam is today's Herod. So when (not if, btw) some Virginia 2nd Amendment advocates decide to leave potentially-fatal Virginia to live in North Carolina, will they be refugees? If not, why would the Holy Family have that status?<br />
<br />
Tomorrow in my sermon I will quote the Rev. Joy Carol Wallis thus,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Herod represents the dark side of the gospel. He reminds us that Jesus didn't enter a world of sparkly Christmas cards or warm spiritual sentiment. Jesus enters a world of real pain, of serious dysfunction, a world of brokenness and political oppression.</blockquote>
So far, so good. Agree 100 percent. But then:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Jesus <i>was born an outcast, a homeless person, a refugee</i>, and finally he becomes a victim to the powers that be. Jesus is the perfect savior for outcasts, refugees, and nobodies.</blockquote>
I will omit the italicized part because it is simply incorrect.<br />
<ul>
<li>Jesus was not, in fact, born “born an outcast." He was born a Jew in a nearly-totally Jewish land to a solidly ordinary and righteous family.<br /> </li>
<li>He was not "a homeless person" because his parents owned a home in Nazareth. If a Nashville woman gave birth to a child in Knoxville, would that make the baby homeless?<br /> </li>
<li>And as I have said, he was never "a refugee” at all, much less born one in his father’s ancestral town.<br /> </li>
<li>That “Jesus is the perfect savior for outcasts, refugees, and nobodies” is true, but then, he is also the perfect savior for absolutely everyone else.</li>
</ul>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-85784203302485849312019-12-09T13:40:00.000-06:002020-01-05T06:56:33.215-06:0010 Tough Questions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2LLb_HhY8lB0-8Rir-NW9g3f3zgKbOnTD32aHJapbvovc96YFwJ9K98clZniS5ts73hai3TsJb_d2mbUKI-NMpcUN6Z4g3OlQf9pAl81OnH1lBAbk6cGhVJp8qXn24ja-L-CQ_374ew8m/s1600/10+Tough+Questions+for+GC.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="568" data-original-width="812" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2LLb_HhY8lB0-8Rir-NW9g3f3zgKbOnTD32aHJapbvovc96YFwJ9K98clZniS5ts73hai3TsJb_d2mbUKI-NMpcUN6Z4g3OlQf9pAl81OnH1lBAbk6cGhVJp8qXn24ja-L-CQ_374ew8m/s400/10+Tough+Questions+for+GC.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<a href="https://peopleneedjesus.net/2019/11/19/ten-tough-questions-for-general-conference-2020/">Link</a>.<br />
<br />
The 10th point is the toughest one:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">10. Remember, the ‘<a href="https://peopleneedjesus.net/2016/09/20/the-wicked-problem-of-the-united-methodist-church-points-to-ponder-for-a-church-in-crisis/">wicked problem</a>’ of the denomination far transcends sexuality </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This last point is not framed as a question because of its truth there is no question. No matter what the GC decides, decline and irrelevance will continue to accelerate unless larger issues are named and tamed. Examples are trust deficits, miscommunication, theological conflicts/contradictions, ineffective organization, inefficient structures, disjointed training and education of clergy or establishing coherent ministry career paths. Organizations facing a wicked problem either tend to ‘fail into collaboration’ among competing stakeholders…or they just fail (see above). Nurturing trust and affirming the claim of conscience for all parties sets the stage not for failure but new birth.</blockquote>
The author earlier posted an essay with a full explanation of what a wicked problem is, as distinguished from a simple problem or a complex one (<a href="https://peopleneedjesus.net/2016/09/20/the-wicked-problem-of-the-united-methodist-church-points-to-ponder-for-a-church-in-crisis/">click here)</a>. But briefly, a wicked problem is that which all parties agree exists but do not agree on how to describe it, nor on what a solution can be, nor even on how to implement a resolution or know when it has been accomplished.<br />
<br />
I have elsewhere explained that one such wicked problem, which I think underlies all those listed just above, is Pournelle's Law, formulated by the late, great science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle. It is:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHXhmZzLbxUV1-EDNZS6QIaRgVEjbCJxXyAgOPtx8qffdqvx-UhOPDvYZpy2L2KSHdbkqUJKg9x2Hzo3KNwDFGUfcSF_mRX0eiYlXIx3nFBdoUmNGVACHREqZsRyDnYfWjAlJffalkfZGF/s1600/Jerry+Pournelle+Iron+Law+of+bureaucracy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="850" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHXhmZzLbxUV1-EDNZS6QIaRgVEjbCJxXyAgOPtx8qffdqvx-UhOPDvYZpy2L2KSHdbkqUJKg9x2Hzo3KNwDFGUfcSF_mRX0eiYlXIx3nFBdoUmNGVACHREqZsRyDnYfWjAlJffalkfZGF/s400/Jerry+Pournelle+Iron+Law+of+bureaucracy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
And no, I do not have a solution to it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-44519643312067043162019-12-05T10:27:00.002-06:002019-12-05T10:27:59.557-06:00An Advent reflectionGrace and peace to all!<br />
<br />
I subscribe to a daily newsletter by a Canadian minister, the Rev. Carey Nieuwhof. He is one of only two or three such writers that I know who are always worthy of reading because the majority of his writing applies in some way to my ministry.
He does not write merely for other pastors, but also for the people of churches. I do recommend taking a look at his site, <a href="https://careynieuwhof.com/">https://careynieuwhof.com</a>/.<br />
<br />
Recently, his email included this nugget:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrSQ319OQVct3n6CgE1_fT4HgAh9QmlN6BtpwULmg4FbmX6iyJTj7cpGntPxAc04N_6OJKIweMzlcuMayoJdGJBM8xN_egfVphlMrcx1pJKoc6c6_yu61g4wNfAdXu0sgtsVBAT-bD_de_/s1600/Carey+Nieuwhof+strongly+held+opinions.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="825" data-original-width="1468" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrSQ319OQVct3n6CgE1_fT4HgAh9QmlN6BtpwULmg4FbmX6iyJTj7cpGntPxAc04N_6OJKIweMzlcuMayoJdGJBM8xN_egfVphlMrcx1pJKoc6c6_yu61g4wNfAdXu0sgtsVBAT-bD_de_/s400/Carey+Nieuwhof+strongly+held+opinions.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One of the most difficult things to do is self-challenge what we know. As someone once remarked, it is not what we do not know that is often the problem, it is that so much of what we think we know is not so.
The balance between retaining what have tested and found enduring, and discarding what serves us well no longer—well, that can be tough.<br />
<br />
Just imagine what the first followers of Jesus had to discard and adopt. Start with Peter, whom Jesus told to stop fishing for fish and start fishing for people. Or much earlier, the shepherds, who had to face that the Messiah was born in the humblest of settings to undistinguished parents. Or Mary, that she was being asked to face possible social disaster in being pregnant with a child that her fiancé could not say was his. And Joseph, who is described as a honorable man who elected to do what in his day was a dishonorable thing, marrying Mary anyway.<br />
<br />
The story of Jesus’ nativity and ministry is one of turning over tables, both literally in the Temple confronting the money changers, but also figuratively, for bringing people to confront that so much of what they knew simply was not so:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven" -- <i>Matthew 5.43-45</i></blockquote>
If we are truly blessed, we are seriously disturbed this Advent by the implications of Jesus’ coming and nativity. May the Holy Spirit lead us to think more deeply about what we think we know and what it means for the way we live and more importantly, <i>why </i>we live.<br />
<br />
The gifts of Advent and Christmas are twofold, at least:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>First, that “unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”<br /></li>
<li>Second, that in celebrating that Christ is born, we can embrace that we are born anew. May we discern the renewing revelation of God through our worship and giving this season!</li>
</ul>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-29340755041563460632019-10-31T17:36:00.001-05:002019-10-31T17:36:04.304-05:00 The last best hope for America<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;">I came across this post from 2017 by accident and am re-dating it to today. Today was the day that the US House of Representatives voted along strictly party lines to proceed with impeachment proceedings against the president. I make no comment here as to the merits or not of the proceedings. But as much as my colleague's words rang true two years ago, how much more compelling are they today.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i>From July 2017:</i></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBl1rM5qDdxgAxHLFPXel7oVj791hoDZ9f6ymMNZAX0eP5gBcRA6vOL3Iw4ALs3YzI4SbRAUNJP3FDi658zhrc3BimHl5IC5lp7_ccTr7VLW-UvdkS84C4Z7dVZUByXVkdqTW_82zYPB4/s1600/church-state+street+names.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #940f04; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="317" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBl1rM5qDdxgAxHLFPXel7oVj791hoDZ9f6ymMNZAX0eP5gBcRA6vOL3Iw4ALs3YzI4SbRAUNJP3FDi658zhrc3BimHl5IC5lp7_ccTr7VLW-UvdkS84C4Z7dVZUByXVkdqTW_82zYPB4/s320/church-state+street+names.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 4px;" width="281" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">From former district superintendent in the Memphis Conference of the United Methodist Church, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sky.mccracken/posts/10155695778496165" style="color: #940f04; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Sky McCracken</a>:</span><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin: 1em 20px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In my opinion, the most powerful force in Christianity - if it wants to be - is a local church who decides to be a community of faith and discipleship in the manner of Jesus for its neighborhood, instead of a chapel for members who like things "just the way they are." No law, no entity, no politician has any power against such a force. Regardless of the happenings, fear mongering, and media hype of the last few weeks, they pale against the total history of God's presence with His people - which has always been unrelenting and ever-pursuing. I'll quote Bill Hybels:</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin: 1em 20px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"For eight years...I went to Washington, D.C., every month to meet in the foremost centers of power with some of the highest elected officials in our country. What I discovered was not how powerful those people are, but how limited their power really is. All they can actually do is rearrange the yard markers on the playing field of life. They can't change a human heart. They can't heal a wounded soul. They can't turn hatred into love. They can't bring about repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, peace. They can't get to the core problem....I believe that only one power exists on this sorry planet that can do that. It's the power of the love of Jesus Christ, the love that conquers sin and wipes out shame and heals wounds and reconciles enemies and patches broken dreams and ultimately changes the world, one life at a time. And what grips my heart is the knowledge that the radical message of that transforming love has been given to the church. That means that in a very real way the future of the world rests in the hands of local congregations like yours and mine." - In his book, <i>Courageous Leadership</i>.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is no <i>political </i>solution to the severe dysfunctions of America today because our national illness is not really political. It is spiritual. There will not be a better America until there are better Americans. That is the task for the Church today: to bring more and more people into the fullness of reconciliation to God through Christ so that we can be reconciled to one another. Absent that, our congregations are just religious clubs. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-58471347811085474522019-10-29T09:47:00.003-05:002020-02-13T20:07:53.668-06:00The ground beneath our feet<span style="font-family: inherit;">The United Methodist Church is committing denominational hari-kiri, which will be nearly completed before the end of May, 2020. Recently, a long-term friend and law-enforcement officer posted an article from lawofficer.com: "<a href="https://lawofficer.com/leadership/the-end/">The End of Law Enforcement</a>, " written by a 20-plus year active LE officer and a trainer of LE officers around the country.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He says that this is the state of law enforcement today:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">1. Retirement eligible officers are retiring even though they have many years of useful service ahead of them.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">2. Mid-career officers are miserably trying to make it to retirement and are "are trying to get off the streets, afraid of the next 'viral' video showing them doing nothing wrong but ruining their reputation and ability to work forever." Some are leaving LE anyway.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">3. Less than 10-year officers "have now realized that they work in the only profession that can ruin you for doing nothing wrong. They have stopped working. Some call it the 'Ferguson Effect' but they just call it trying to save their [hind ends]. It’s not worth staying and the majority are looking to leave."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I responded thus:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is a French phrase from maritime history that was adopted by some other nations' services that is usually, though inaccurately, translated as, "every man for himself." The French is, "<i>Sauve qui peut</i>," and don't ask me how to pronounce it.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik2PnR_7bIU6NcG3lQ59MQpr9qRl9-FgEybdHNBqVIN4imWWoim8wSf7tG_HI_e5fNLW7XZ_uPE5eNUPTgfF2RfXPkaYTQTvL7TkI5h9-qrhXEBLZIa_r3niBa2emMaJIn2XxpqmvOU86p/s1600/Sauve+qui+peut.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="688" data-original-width="955" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik2PnR_7bIU6NcG3lQ59MQpr9qRl9-FgEybdHNBqVIN4imWWoim8wSf7tG_HI_e5fNLW7XZ_uPE5eNUPTgfF2RfXPkaYTQTvL7TkI5h9-qrhXEBLZIa_r3niBa2emMaJIn2XxpqmvOU86p/s400/Sauve+qui+peut.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was the command given when a vessel's captain decided the ship was lost and was going to sink no matter what. So he would order, "May he save himself, whoever can" (literal translation) or basically, "Stop trying to save the ship and save yourselves."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">ISTM that is what this writer has concluded about the profession of law enforcement.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Regarding the UMC, I had a conversation recently with a senior staffer of one the UMC's general councils. It became clear to me that <i>sauve qui peut</i> has already been adopted by large numbers of our laity. Both attendance and giving have plummeted at UM churches across the nation, including mine. The laity who have left because of all the intra-church fighting over the homosexuality question have absolutely abandoned ship and are not going to return.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I can only wonder how many serving clergy will decide the same between now and the end of General Conference in May 2020. Will we see a parallel with what is going on in law enforcement? Will we see retirement-eligible ministers with several more years of possible service just hang it up now? Will mid-career pastors try simply to hang on until retirement and younger ones make (covert) plans to move to another denomination or profession?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><b>Update, Dec. 10:</b> I attended a Mon-Wed. GCFA conference last month with pastors from across the nation present, although the majority from the southeast and eastern seaboard. Here is my takeaway summary:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Basically, retirement-eligible pastors are doing so, even if they have years left to 72. I met some who are younger than I who are retiring in 2020, including two who pastor mega-churches (neither in my conference).</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Several ministers from about age 50 openly told me that when they hit 62, they're gone. Very few were there much younger than that, but if I was 44 rather than 64, I almost certainly would be covertly making contingency plans.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">And the denomination <a href="https://juicyecumenism.com/2020/02/13/united-methodist-financial-decline/">is going broke</a>. Giving across America is way down. Way. Down. This is not going to be reversed and will, if anything, accelerate. At current trend, the GCFA's episcopal fund will be at zero dollars by the end of 2024. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">One minister told me that giving is down so much in his present appointment (not only because of people leaving a strife-torn denomination, also several major donors died) that his church can no longer afford his compensation. But he wonders what the point in a new appointment will be if it will probably run out of money also within a year. May as well retire, right?</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://images.forwardcdn.com/image/720x/center/images/cropped/foot-vote-1480523498.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #940f04; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="720" height="215" src="https://images.forwardcdn.com/image/720x/center/images/cropped/foot-vote-1480523498.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 4px;" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">BTW, even apart from people voting on the "issue" with their feet and checkbooks, the UMC will still be in accelerated rate of decline due to increasing deaths of an aging laity and our inability (and frankly, denominational unwillingness) to evangelize, especially evangelize unconnected to politics.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Just as law enforcement, the UMC still has many strengths and still is doing great work. But we are more and more resembling Centralia, Penn. Our foundation and "solid rock" on which we stand is being destroyed from underneath us.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<center>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NSIjB96H4Sc" width="560"></iframe><br /></span></center>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Centralia was a coal-mining town where the mine shafts caught fire in 1962 and </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;"><i>the town was destroyed from underneath. The fire is still burning. Estimates are that </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;"><i>it will burn at least 250 more years.</i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The ground burning beneath our feet applies to much more than the UMC or law enforcement. I would be hard-challenged to find any national-level institution not affected by this threat.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Wesley said that when we are on fire for Christ people will come for miles around to watch us burn. The UMC is on fire, all right. But decide for yourself for what we are burning.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-42506469230299764972019-10-21T09:37:00.001-05:002019-10-21T12:47:29.684-05:00Kurds, Turkey, Syria - and US forces<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="631" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijrB15j-RxChCEkSfjM6r5zgEBbBaBxH5QP2Y5QPMsAZ8WliCGkdiKCPcMzf4gOJVTkeeIX7u9vIsSAczHHbKtDoybJ_l1ldvUZNZ4rHkXlXzK3AuZHW_Yu36ppTl2ANtG2RfF2HkAETI/s400/NPR+on+Petreaus.JPG" width="400" /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><i><a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/10/19/771546293/kurdish-general-slams-u-s-syria-policy-gen-petraeus-calls-withdrawal-a-betrayal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Link to article</span></a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">I worked with Petraeus when we were both at the Pentagon. He was a major then, promoted to Lt. Col. not long after I came to know him. I respect him immensely. He and US Marine Gen. James Mattis were the key, essential players in redirecting US strategy in Iraq away from the disastrous Rumsfeld model. I have never met Mattis, but have nothing but greatest respect for him. Marines I have known who worked with him are in awe, and that says a lot. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">So when Petraeus and Mattis both sharply disagree with the administration's decision, I have no choice but to pay attention. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">But having said that, I would say their view is very solidly an establishment one. <span style="background-color: white;">S</span></span></span><span style="color: #1d2129;">enior military officers prosper very well. They gain their rank and status not only because of the military skills, but their political skills as well. They retire as comfortable members of the country's political class and often wind up with lucrative corporate consultancies and defense-related boards. I have seen this play out with three- and four-star generals I worked for. I do not blame them, actually, but we need to understand that they are far too invested in the status quo to try to change it. It what got them their rank and positions in the first place. Their incentives to change it are exactly zero. (This also applies to </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">senior diplomatic personnel.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I wrote a long essay in 2008 on</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><a href="https://pastordonblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/what-has-nato-done-for-us.html" style="font-family: inherit;">why the US should exit NATO</a>,<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">but of course, with both the outgoing Bush and incoming Obama administrations, there was so much Old Guardism at work that there was (and is) no chance. Petraeus and Mattis (and I, for that matter) were raised militarily and strategically with a Cold War, organizational mind-think that has not significantly subsided. They still think that what G. Washington warned against, "entangling alliances," should be normative and are simply the way things get done. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fifteen years ago Petraeus and Mattis and some others were the Young Turks. Now they are the Old Guard. And that should temper how we assess what they say. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">None of this is to say that all will turn out well today. In fact, it would be insane to say so. I mean, point to one time in the last several hundred years that things have worked out well in the Middle East! </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But it is also a real error to assume that had a mere 50 US troops been left in place, that everything would now be unicorns and rainbows. Turkey did not ask our permission to incur. They simply announced they were doing it. Turkey did not ask Trump to withdraw the troops; Trump just got them the heck out of the way. It would be nice for Petraeus and others to say how they would have responded to Turkey's announcement that it was coming, instead of just clutching their pearls in protest. They know better because they many times had to think through questions such those as I pose later in this essay. They know how to do it, but now they do not need to do it because the media will smile kindly upon them if they don't. And that is the problem.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>My take: </i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is no solution to the problem of the Kurds. The Kurds have been screwed, they are being screwed, and they will continue to be screwed, because only Iraq, Turkey, and Syria (and Iran, as if) can resolve the issue and all of them see the Kurds as tools to be used for their own purposes against the others. No Western nation can possibly have any effective role - not the USA, not Britain, not NATO, not nobody.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Kurdish PKK is Turkey's main target. The PKK, <i>Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan</i>, is a Marxist faction that has been <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/17/turkey-claim-syrian-kurds-terrorists-not-isis-ypg-pkk-sdf/">launching cross-border raids</a> into Turkey since 1984 - <a href="https://www.cfr.org/interactive/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/conflict-between-turkey-and-armed-kurdish-groups">as have other Kurdish factions</a>. The PKK is classified as a terrorist organization by the Turks -- and by the US, the European Union, NATO, and even Japan.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyone who is denouncing the withdrawal of a few dozen US troops from the affected area of Turkish operations, insisting they should not have been withdrawn, should first answer one basic question:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>If you were president, would you have ordered US troops </i><i>to stay in place and resist the Turkish incursion by force of arms? </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then proceed to these:</span></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you would have given that order:</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">What is your strategic goal?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">How many US troops are you are willing to have killed to attain that goal? </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Once US troops are killed, what would be your response? </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">How many Turks are you willing to kill to attain the strategic goal? </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Would you escalate the violence if the Turks do not withdraw? If so, would you restrict US combat strikes to only the incursion area, or would you strike Turkish forces still inside Turkey proper? For either answer, explain why.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">How will you ensure the safety of thousands of US Air Force personnel, aircraft, special weapons, and family members at the Turkish air base at Incirlik, Turkey? There are also large numbers British and Spanish military personnel there. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Would you ask for a congressional authorization of use of military force against Turkey? </span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">If yes, are you really willing to go to war with a decades-long, US-ally member of NATO? </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">If not, why not? Would you wage war against Turkey anyway?<br /> </span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you would not have given that order:</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">What is your strategic goal?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Why would you leave the troops in place rather than withdraw them, if they are not to fight?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">What would you have done specifically different from what the administration has done, and why?</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyone who will not address those topics <i>before</i> slamming the administration is not thinking about this seriously at all. And yes, that includes congressional members of both parties and, I regret, many of my ministry colleagues who have posted about this topic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Finally, here is a pretty well-balanced article that explains why <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/10/19/trump-didnt-sell-out-the-kurds-by-pulling-out-of-syria/">Trump did not sell out the Kurds</a> while also pointing out that Erdogan is pretty much a thug himself. (But we knew that.)</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-75475813126342782922019-09-24T09:32:00.000-05:002019-10-21T11:07:38.353-05:00Four ways the UMC may splitThe deadline for submitting resolutions and other action items for consideration to next May's General Conference was Sept. 18. This is not a UM site, but the summary of the proposals for the schism of the denomination seem to be fair summaries. As of the time I am posting this, I have not finished the article, but I did want <a href="https://churchleaders.com/news/359572-the-united-methodist-church-split-4-proposals-for-the-future.html">to "park" the link</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://peopleneedjesus.net/2019/09/26/gc2020-nine-plans-and-what-to-think-about-them/">See also</a>: <span style="color: #111111; font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: -1px;">GC2020: Nine Plans and What to Think about Them</span><br />
<br />
See also: <a href="https://planegrace.com/gc-2020-the-plain-grace-plan-is-a-flow-chart-worth-a-thousand-words/">https://planegrace.com/gc-2020-the-plain-grace-plan-is-a-flow-chart-worth-a-thousand-words/</a><br />
<br />
Rev. Shane Bishop: <a href="https://revshanebishop.com/2019/10/01/know-what-you-are-going-to-do-my-advice-to-umc-pastors-and-churches/">Know What You are Going to Do! (my advice to #UMC pastors and churches)</a><br />
<br />
The real issue splitting the UMC is not homosexuality, <a href="https://peopleneedjesus.net/2019/10/21/the-real-elephant-in-the-united-methodist-living-room/">it is the destruction of trust</a> on all sides.<br />
<br />
<header class="post-header" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f1f1f1; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 30px;">
</header><figure class="post-image clear-fix" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #f1f1f1; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #111111; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 40px; position: relative;"></figure>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1976649287186049142.post-49805230678493925532019-09-10T13:57:00.000-05:002019-09-10T13:57:02.083-05:00Esther - a dramatic telling<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Youth Sunday Esther Skit<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Sept. 15, 2019</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">We
begin by each character outlining who she is, in the order in which they first
appear in the book. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">Ahasuerus (A-ha-SWER-us)</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%; text-indent: .3in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">My name
is Ahasuerus. I am the great king of an eastern empire, where many Jews live.
My word is literally law. But I am not a very admirable character. As the story
opens, I am hosting an enormous drinking party in the capital city of Susa. I
decide I want my queen, named Vashti, to come in, wearing her crown, and parade
herself in front of the party-goers so they may see how beautiful she is. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%; text-indent: .3in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">But Vashti
refused. My court nobles were aghast. They said that from now on wives everywhere
would disobey their husbands. So I removed her royal title and exiled her for
life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%; text-indent: .3in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">That
tells you a lot about me, doesn’t it? I ordered the people of Susa to get
drunk, I tried to humiliate my queen, and then I threw her away like
yesterday’s news.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%; text-indent: .3in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">This
tells you a lot about the danger of the world in which the Jews live. I am the
Law, but I hold grudges and am prone to anger. So my law is the same way. My law
brings no assurance of stability or justice to those under its mandates. My law
is not fair, not reasoned, not impartial. But of course, neither am I.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am a man with no center. There is nothing I
stand for. I personify a Gentile society for the Jews: unpredictable, dangerous,
and potentially lethal, all wrapped up in me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">Mordecai (MOR-deh-kye)</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%; text-indent: .3in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">My name
is Mordecai. I am introduced as a “Jew in the citadel,” of the tribe of
Benjamin. I am the guardian of my orphaned cousin, Esther. I am the only character
whose Jewish identity is emphasized. In the story, I am a Jew who stands for
all Jews. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%; text-indent: .3in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">I am neither
stupid nor a fool. I learned of a plot to kill Ahasuerus and told Esther, who
had become the new queen. She told the king. So, I saved the king’s life but I also
made Esther a real player with the king and court. Already queen, then she
became the king’s protector. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%; text-indent: .3in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">Later I learned
of Haman’s plot to kill all the Jews, so I asked Esther again to go to Ahasuerus.
Her credibility would make it difficult for the king to fail to extend the
golden scepter when she approached uninvited.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%; text-indent: .3in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">I value
loyalty and constancy of purpose. But I am very private. I do not reveal my
inner thoughts. Everyone was mystified why I would never bow to Haman, even at
risk of my own life. But no matter: my character is one of total loyalty to the
Jews and I represent what the ideal Jew should be living outside Israel.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">Esther</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%; text-indent: .3in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">My name
is Esther. I am Mordecai’s cousin. It is true that I was acclaimed as a very beautiful
woman, which was the main reason the king selected me to replace Queen Vashti. I
contrast with her. Vashti refused to come when the king called, I went to the
king without being summoned. Vashti was exiled, I am favored. Vashti was rebellious
against the king, but I was humble before him – well, at least at first. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%; text-indent: .3in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">I am a
complex character in the story. I start off as an ideal woman of that time, obedient
to my providers. Even when I was drafted into the king’s harem I hardly reacted.
When I was told to go Ahasuerus, I simply followed instructions. I did and said
nothing on my own. I was like a pawn, never taking control of my life, always
being acted upon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%; text-indent: .3in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">However,
when I learned that only I could go to the king to beg him not to allow all us
Jews to be killed, my passive obedience and submissive nature dramatically
changed. I was no longer merely a pretty young thing who was always obedient. I
became truly <u>Queen</u> Esther, a strong leader of the Jewish community and in
fact, the real royal authority of the whole empire. I became assertive, politically
active, and full of self-confidence. By the end of the story, I am one who
commands and is obeyed. My beauty, it turned out, was matched by my brains. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<b><u><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">Haman</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%; text-indent: .3in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">My name
is Haman. I am the “bad guy” of the story. I am the source of everything that
Mordecai and Esther must defend against. I am a harsh, murderous enemy of the
Jews. All my energies are directed against Mordecai and the rest of the Jews in
Persia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%; text-indent: .3in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">I am
furious that Mordecai never bows to me. I want him to die. I embody power
without conscience, and I have no tolerance for the Jews’ obstinate devotion to
their God. But in the story, I am not just the symbol of evil. I am a buffoon,
a court fool whose every scheme backfires. I have a pompous faith in my
derivative authority. Not even my wife really believes in me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%; text-indent: .3in;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">I am a
small-minded man who is somehow the prime minister of the whole empire. I have wealth
and an exalted position, but they mean nothing to me whenever I see that Jew
Mordecai. Hence, I am irrational evil personified.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" />
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">The Skit</span></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;"><b>Scene 1 – Haman and Ahasuerus</b></span></i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">HAMAN: O mighty king, I beg you
to hear me! There is a terrible thing going on! Your throne itself is at risk!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">AHASUERUS: Wait, let me finish
this glass of wine. First things first, you know! Now, what is this terrible
threat?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">HAMAN: There are certain people
scattered among the people of your kingdom. They are called Jews. They follow
their own law and they do not keep the king’s laws. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">AHASUERUS: That is serious! It
must not be tolerated!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">HAMAN: Exactly, O great king! As
usual, you go straight to the point. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">AHASUERUS: What do you suggest? Should
we just remind them who’s in charge here?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">HAMAN: Well, yes, great king. I
counsel a permanent solution. You should issue a decree for their destruction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">AHASUERUS: That will be
expensive!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">HAMAN: I will pay a million
dollars to cover it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">AHASUERUS: Wow! Sounds like a
good deal! Here, you take my ring with my official seal and issue whatever
order you wish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">HAMAN: I will have the order
written in every language of the empire. I will seal it with your ring and send
copies to all the king’s provinces, giving orders to destroy, to kill, and to
annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the
thirteenth day of the month of Adar. Then O Great King, you and I will sit down
to drink! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">AHASUERUS: I am looking forward
to that! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;"><b>Scene 2 – Mordecai and Esther. Mordecai is pacing back and forth, very upset.
Esther enters.</b></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">ESTHER: Mordecai, dear cousin,
what upsets you so?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">MORDECAI: Here! Read this edict
from your husband, the king! Sealed with his ring! <i>He hands a document to
Esther, who takes it and looks it over.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">ESTHER: I never knew about this!
How could such an order be given? We Jews have never rebelled against the king!
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">MORDECAI: It must be Haman’s
doing! He hates all of us. The king is an empty suit and would never think of
this on his own. But he will sign anything that Haman places before him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">ESTHER: What do you want me to
do? I cannot go to the king unless he sends for me. Anyone who enters his court
uninvited is simply executed unless the king extends his golden scepter. And
the king has not sent for me for a month!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">MORDECAI: The king does not know
you are Jewish. He saw you only as a beautiful woman who struck his fancy. But
do you think that will save you? If you enter his court uninvited, he may order
you executed. But if you do not enter, you will still die on the thirteenth day
of the month of Adar along with all us other Jews! Even if deliverance of the
Jews comes from someone else, you and your father’s family will still perish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">ESTHER: I did not think of it
like that. Still, I am helpless in the court of the great king!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">MORDECAI: But Esther, listen.
There is no one but you! Who knows? Perhaps the real reason you have been made
queen is for just such a time as this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">Esther paces back and forth for
a moment, then:</span></i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">ESTHER: Here are my orders. Go,
gather all the Jews in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf. Neither eat nor
drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast. After that I
will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I am executed, well then, I am executed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">MORDECAI: Yes, Esther, it shall
be done as you say. I will do all that you command! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;"><b>Closing, all four characters</b></span></i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">AHASUERUS: Esther did come to
see me uninvited. Of course, I held out the golden scepter to welcome her. It
never occurred to me to withhold it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">ESTHER: But I did not tell him
then to withdraw his order to kill the Jews. Instead, I invited him and Haman
to a banquet, which they eagerly accepted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">HAMAN: I was flattered to be
included at a private dinner with only the king and his queen. That meant that
I was a very important person! I was happy! But later when I saw that Jew Mordecai
at the gate, the queen’s invitation turned sour. I decided to build an enormous
gallows and hang Mordecai on it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">MORDECAI: It did not help that
the king wanted to honor me for saving his life and so ordered Haman personally
to lead a procession in my honor through the city, announcing I was favored by
the king. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">ESTHER: As we reclined at the
banquet, I begged the king to spare my life and the lives of my people. I told
him that I and my people were to be annihilated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">AHASUERUS: I was stunned! I
demanded of Esther, “Who has presumed to do this?” She pointed at Haman and
said sharply, “Adversary, enemy, Haman!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><br />
HAMAN: I knew I was in big trouble. The king left the room. To beg for mercy, I
fell onto the couch where Esther reclined. At that moment the king came back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">AHASUERUS: I was already furious
that Haman had included my queen in his plot, but when I saw him climbing onto
her couch, my rage was unbounded. “You assault my queen as I stand here?” I shouted.
“Even in my own house?” I turned to my servants and told them, “Hang him on the
same gallows he has had built!” And they did. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">ESTHER: My king later awarded me
all of Haman’s property, including his servants. I begged him to write an order
that the Jews could defend themselves on the day in the month of Adar. And it
was done. I also ordered that all Haman’s ten sons be hanged as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">MORDECAI: The king made me prime
minister of the empire. When the day in Adar came, my power was so great that
all the governors and officials supported the Jews, who destroyed all their
enemies that day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 175%;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 175%;">ESTHER: I decreed among all the
Jews that their deliverance would be celebrated for all generations to come as
the Feast of Purim, and it was done. Now you know my story.</span></div>
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