Having a church home

I think the ninth most important thing in life is to have a church home.  The people in one’s church are extended family.  We take care of each other, and the things that go on in and because of churches, (which get absolutely no publicity outside the church), are the things that help people and communities survive.  However a lot of people will never know the help, encouragement and inspiration they could receive in a church.  They say “you will never catch me in a church, thats guaranteed!”

Here are the two main reasons I’ve heard why people don’t go to church.

 

1. The people in church are all hypocrites.

 

What is the definition of a hypocrite?  A hypocrite is someone who doesn’t live up to the standards he professes.  If that’s true, then there are hypocrites outside the church as well as inside.  Many people in the professions have a standard of excellence they can’t always attain.  They wouldn’t think of themselves as hypocrites for holding high standards, nor, would most of the world think so either.  That derogatory application of the term only seems to apply to people in church.  Would you want your doctor to lower his standards so as to avoid being called a hypocrite?  Would you want your lawyer, pharmacist, teachers, or any other professional to lower their standards because they can’t always keep them?  Nonsense!  But most folks jump all over church people for holding out high standards, when they can’t perfectly keep them.  What is the alternative?  You see the alternative all the time.  A lot of people set their own standards, and make sure they only set standards they can always meet.  Such a person might say, “I’m a good person.  I’ve never murdered anyone.  I don’t abuse children or animals.  I help people when I feel the urge to do so.”  Of course, there are many other moral standards such a person could have, but they don’t.  They could also do a quite a bit more good if they didn’t mind being put out or making some sacrifices, but they don’t feel that’s necessary either.  Of course, such a person couldn’t be accused of hypocrisy because they don’t violate their rather simple standards, but then their reach doesn’t extend very far either.

  

1. The preachers are all in it for the money, they disagree with one another, and the people in church are more troubled than the people outside the church.

 I decided it was foolish to go to the doctor anymore.  Most doctors are in it for the money, they disagree with one another, and the people in the doctor’s waiting room are sicker than the people out in the street.

Most people who complain about the people in church consider themselves to be better than “those church people”.  My prayer is that no one should refuse heaven because they can’t stand the people inside.

  Nonni 

    

“Why?” you should never stop learning

Have you ever listened to a preschool child, and noticed every third sentence is a question? They wear their parents out with “why, why, why?”.   My biggest “why” question is “Why did we stop asking why?”  At some point it happens.  It might be that we grow discouraged as our “why” questions get more and more unsatisfactory answers from tired parents.  I suspect its more complicated than that.  I suspect we get too proud to ask because it exposes to the world that we don’t know everything.  Maybe that has something to do with the reason Jesus said we should be like children.  Kids know how much they don’t know, but they want to know, and they press to find out.  I think we should be kids again in asking all kinds of questions, pressing to find the answer, and not being worried so much about what people think.  I would place continuing to learn as my number eight on the ten most important things in life.

What should we be learning?  I know people who know every bit of movie trivia, some who know every bit of celebrity gossip, and I think…who cares?  But on the other hand, how many times do we repeat what “they say” and not ask (1) who are they? and (2) why would they say a thing like that?  We accept things from our government and don’t ask “why are they doing it this way?”  We also need to ask “who” are our governing officials.  Do we know their names or anything about them?  Do we know the issues in an election, or do we just vote for the top office and leave all the other candidates and issues a blank?  Do we know where our money goes and why?  Personal money and tax money?  Do we know where our kids are, and even more important, what they are thinking?  Do we know the state of our own health and how we can optimize it?  Do we know how our car works, or do we just take it for granted?  Do we know how the systems in our houses work, and how to maintain our homes?  Do we know what God thinks about things?

I think if we develop the habit of asking questions and looking for the answers, we will have fuller, richer lives, be more helpful to others, and keep a young brain and a young attitude.  If you just asked why I said that, you are already on the right track.

Nonni

“Giving Back” or “giving back what?”

I think the seventh most important thing in life is “giving back”.  Now the “giving back” comment is one you hear so often it really sounds overworn and overdone.  Sounds like an advertisement for the United Way or some volunteer bureau.  I have actually heard people ask “giving back what?”  of “giving back to whom?”  So, I realize the saying might not adequately reflect what I am trying to convey.

I’ll just say there is joy in giving.  No matter how grateful you feel for the blessings you received, or how ungrateful you feel for the troubles you’ve had, there is still joy in giving.  Something about giving makes you feel richer, kinder, more powerful and more significant.  You couldn’t give if you were too poor, too weak, to mean or too invisible.  But no one is any of those things.  Everyone has something to give, and because we do, we are necessarily blessed. 

Have you ever noticed that when you act kindly, you feel good?  When you act generously, you feel powerful and rich?  When you act with compassion, you feel loving?  Whatever you act, the emotions follow.  There’s a whole biological theory built around this, but I’m no scientist.  I just know what I see and experience.

Have you ever felt so poor you felt you had nothing to give?  How about giving a smile?  Unless you’ve just had your face frozen at the dentist, you can smile.  Come on now, you don’t feel like it?  Smile anyway.  Nine times out of ten, the smile will be returned.  You have not only added a bit of sunshine to someone’s day, but now they have added some to yours.  Maybe someone needs a hand–a door held open, something dropped that they can’t pick up, being “let in” to a long line of traffic.  You might not see the smile or wave of the hand, but you made someone’s moment a little easier.  Doesn’t that make you feel powerful?

What about the gift of time?  I have heard it said that people would rather give their money than their time, because time seems in such short supply in this busy world.  But what would you rather do, watch television, surf the internet, or give an hour to someone who could really use the helping hand or the company.  We all have time, its just a matter of choice how we spend it.

We can give time to organized activity, and some of that can be really fun and uplifting.  I believe, that just as we should work within the circle of our “calling”, we should also volunteer where it makes us happy to do so.  When we get to the point where our volunteering stresses us or wears us out, we should do something else.  After all, we’re doing this for love, not pay, and therefore we ought to love what we are doing.  The more we love what we are doing and have fun doing it, the more we refill our “giving pot” so we can give some more.

Nonni

Finding your calling

The fifth most important thing in life is to find your calling.  I do really consider this to be one of the top 10 most important things in life, because its one that a lot of people miss, and I think they go through life with a low grade grief because of missing it.

How do you begin to find your calling?  Well, how come we named it a “calling” anyway?  Its something God made you to do, and in a sense He “calls” you to be doing it.  The word vocation comes from the latin word for “call”, because in those days life was more about God and less about “me” than it is today.  Still the “call”, even though it comes from God, is meant for you and is specifically for you.  God tailored you for it.  He gave you abilities, interests and passions, so you would fit the call.  Therefore, the three questions to ask yourself are:  “What am I good at?”  “What do I love to do?” and “What do I really care about?”  One of these days when our “best self” is driving, its good to think about the answers to these questions.  I say when our “best self” is on the job, because to get good answers you have to have somebody good doing the answering.  Days when I’m selfish, vain or otherwise full of myself are days when I am not going to get good answers to the three questions. 

If I ask myself “What am I good at?”, I’d better be brutally honest with myself.  Better yet, I should ask a few other people who may have a less biased and therefore more realistic answer.  I had thought myself quite good at music and art and fancied myself famous one day in one or both of those fields.  That was until an art professor told me I should buy a camera instead, and the music director told me I had no sense of rhythm and no voice either.  Quite a disappointment, to be sure, but then my motive was wrong.  I mostly wanted to be famous, and thats never a good motive.

The second question, “What do I love to do?” might be somewhat easier.  There are two pitfalls here, though.  The first is that a lot of people are martyrs at heart and think nothing worth doing is valuable unless you suffer in order to do it.  These people feel God’s will is always to be doing something very difficult and sacrificial.  What a pathetic view of God!  I’m sure He’s very disappointed!  In fact, a Christian author, J.I. Packer says that where our interest and delight collide with our duty, that is where we find our calling.  If God wants me to do something and He wants me to do it for more than a couple of weeks, and He would like to see a good job done, then He will make me with the ability to do it, interest in it and enjoyment in doing it.  He’s the smartest of us all, and we ought to give Him credit for it.

The other pitfall is we think we like to do a thing and actually we just very much admire the people who are doing it.  We think they are so wonderful and we want to be as wonderful as we think they are, so we want to do what they do.  As I said, I loved music, and I so admired good singers.  It wasn’t until the community choir director (not at all as nice as the choir director at church who put up with all sorts of things) told me I sounded like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, that I realized I didn’t actually like singing all that much–I just wanted to be like the singers I admired.  If you’re not sure of the difference, just try out the thing you think you would like doing and see what happens.  You will either love doing it and be good at it, or you won’t.  And, by the way, you’ll never love doing something you’re bad at, at least not for long.  Frustration is quite a joy killer.

Speaking of cats singing, we used to lie awake on summer nights listening to the cats singing through the open windows.  After awhile my father would yell out “Oh for crying out loud, she said no!”  Of course, this has nothing to do with our topic, but since it was cute and we did mention cats, I decided to include it.  Now we’ll go on to our third question.

What is your passion?  What do you really care about?  The answer to this might come out of your personal experience, something you have seen or something you have read about, but you will realize you care about it very, very much.  It might be needy children, or the sick, or seeing people succeed in business, or seeing a house constructed, or seeing a field harvested.  Whatever it is, you will care deeply, and it will be part of your package.

Whenever you find a place where the three answers intersect, you will be in the general vicinity of your calling.  For instance, if you love animals, you’re very good at science and you care very much about the welfare of animals, you might be a veteranarian.  If you also love the outdoors, you might be a park ranger.  In my case, I loved children and homemaking, I was good at homemaking, and I felt strongly about being a homemaker, so that is what I did and never outgrew it until my dear husband died after the boys had grown.  That is when I began writing.  I love writing, and I only write about things I feel passionate about.  Am I any good at writing, well you will have to answer that for yourself, won’t you?  The wonderful thing about writing is who can say when its good?  Its rather like beauty, in the eye of the beholder.

 Nonni

Children are worth it

The fourth most important thing in life is having children.  I believe its important for everyone to be a parent.  I realize this goes against the politically correct advice to avoid having children if you don’t like them, or if you don’t think you would be a good parent.  Everyone dislikes some other people’s children.  I can promise you its different when its your own children.  If they are your own children you won’t dislike them all the time, only some of the time, and you’ll get over it.  If you don’t think you would be a good parent, thats nonsense.  You can learn to be a good parent if you really want to.  Unless you have an addiction, a psychiatric problem or a hereditary condition, I think you should have children.  Having children will make you a better person.  Now it won’t do that easily.  There will be times when you are sure its making you a worse person.  Thats simply because parenthood will bring out all the selfish, ugly parts of your personality you wouldn’t have otherwise known were there.  Then you get to work on those things, and that will make you a better person, I promise.  Marriage will start you on that track.  At least it will if you stick to your marriage and work on it.  Thats one reason why its best to be married before you have children.  Not only will you have a committed parent to help you in raising your child, but you will have a head start on that process of becoming the person you were meant to be.  In other words, marriage is good practice for parenthood.

Parenthood does a couple other things.  It helps you come full circle with your own parents.  Most young people grow up with critical issues involving their own parents.  In other words they’re critical of a lot of things their parents did.  When you have children, you will understand your own parents a whole lot better.  You might not do everything the same way they did, but you will surely understand them a whole lot better–guaranteed!  Secondly, you will understand God a whole lot better.  Things just happen while parenting your kids that answer such theological questions as:  “Why can’t I understand what God is doing?  How come God isn’t always fair? and How come God sometimes lets bad things happen to me?”  Your kids will probably ask you every question you ever asked God in your life, but now you get to be on the other side of the question.  One of my kids asked me why I had allowed him to have a surgery.  He sure didn’t want it, and it caused him pain.  He even had the audacity to ask me how could I let that happen if I loved him.  I’d asked God the same things before.

Bill Cosby once said you weren’t fully qualified as a parent till you had two kids, because you had to have two before you could be put in the role of judge over the kids disputes and to try to be fair.  Well, once you get put in the “fair” chair, you will regret accusing God of being unfair.

Well, are their any rewards for having kids?  So far, it seems like its all about character building in you the parent.  Yes, you will have lots of fun moments, lots of laughs, incredibly proud moments, incredibly sweet moments, and the heart melting “I love yous”.  And because raising children, like marriage, is something you’re in for the long haul, some of the rewards come much later when you least expect them.  You get grandchildren, and thats a whole lot of fun!  I can’t even describe the joys of grandparenting to someone who isn’t a grandparent.  And you simply have to go through raising children first to ever get grandchildren.  The most unexpected reward of all is when you see your grandchild do something to their parent, exactly the same way that child did it to you. From the look on your child’s face, you know you have come full circle with your child the same way you came full circle with your parents.  There’s a new understanding with your child.  Now you have in common that you are both parents.  Its very special.

 Nonni

Two for One Special

The third most important thing in life is to have a good marriage.  Here are some of my random thoughts on the subject.

 I had a pretty happy marriage.  I certainly  hope my dear husband would have said so too.  I do so miss him.  I tell you ladies, even if your husband is mean as a snake, if he’s still alive, he isn’t hopeless.  Better a live one, I always say.  So if you have a live one–work on whatever he needs to sweeten him up, and then enjoy the socks off him!

I think there are a few things you ought to know going into the thing.  Pick one who treats his mother well.  If he hates his mother, he’s always going to see her in you somewhere, and he will rather hate you whenever he does.  So insist on meeting his mother as soon as you are reasonably sure he’s husband material, and watch very carefully, because you know, they all put on an act when they are courting–trying to impress you.

Make sure he’s even tempered.  You might even poke at this a bit.  Try disagreeing with him, and see how he takes it.  Heaven knows you will have to disagree with him now and again in your marriage, and if he’s ugly when he is crossed, he’s definitely not a keeper.

See if you agree on the essentials.  You don’t want to find out after you’ve tied the knot that he’s going to make you miserable every Sunday morning over going to church, if he’s going to balk at the idea of children, or if you are in total disagreement over finances, housekeeping or whatever.  See how he lives, and know him long enough to get a handle on how he thinks.  Watch how he acts around children.  If children like him, that is worth at least half the necessary total points right there.  Children just know things instinctively–like who’s honest and kind.  It also helps if dogs like him.  Their opinions are worth almost as many points as children’s.

Once you’re as sure as anyone can be that he’s the one, you can start working on catching him.  There are all sorts of ways to do that.  I won’t say to be manipulative or anything of that sort, but if you show him how kind and good and sweet you are, you will soon have him convinced he can’t live without you.  Of course, your character must be above reproach as well.

Once you have decided to get married, please, please keep the wedding as simple and fun as possible.  You two should plan it together–not your mothers.  Its difficult enough, it doesn’t need mothers to thoroughly complicate it.  I say this, having had no daughters, but a mum shouldn’t be trying to re-live her life through her daughter’s wedding.  No, its so much more important to have things relaxed so that you two should enjoy your day.  You don’t want to start your marriage with a wedding night from hell, because you are both sick, have headaches or are nervous wrecks.

Once you are married, treat your marriage like a hothouse plant.  Believe me, its worth the investment.  I had several relatives who raised orchids.  They are very temperamental, and require a great deal of attention, but they are worth every bit of the work and sacrifice when they bloom beautifully and provide you with years of pleasure.  The years of satisfaction and comfort in marriage don’t just happen–they have to be planned, worked and sacrificed for–but they are so very worthwhile.

Don’t give up.  Don’t ever, ever, ever, ever give up.  Remember passion in marriage is like the ebb and flow of the tides.  There will be times when the tide is out and you are left with a lot of debris–well, never mind.  Just know that everything in life has a rhythm, and if you always felt like you did on your wedding day, your body and nervous system couldn’t handle the load and you’d crash and burn.  You have mountaintop experiences, and then you have to rest from them.  You’re in this for the long haul.  If God lets you, you want to be married till you’re both very very old and helping each other get out of the chair and remember people’s names.  Be patient.  Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, a good marriage has to cook a long, long time.  If you get the seven year itch, just remember, at seven years, you haven’t even got it broken in yet.  The rewards come later, when you have fought all the battles you can ever think of, know all of each others buttons and how not to touch them, and have comfortable boundaries you both know well.  Then the respect, familiarity and affection pay off so well, and you have a very happy contentment.  Its so worth it.

Don’t forget your man is a man.  I’ve heard it said men are from Mars, women are from Venus.  I don’t know if thats true, but men are certainly from some other planet, thats a forgone conclusion!  Men and women aren’t interchangeable pieces, no matter what the modern thinking says.  Biology will never change in our lifetimes, and biology is powerful.  Being a woman, married to a man, gives you perspective you can get in no other way, I promise.  Men and women complete each other–the physical way is just a tangible expression of the mental and emotional ways they become one as well.  So don’t wish your husband were more like you–what would that do?  Can you dance with two left feet?  Can you do the tango with both people dancing the same part?  You get the idea.

Last of all remember, marriage is a stonewasher.  Its noisy and turbulent, but in the end you wear all the roughness off each other and become something beautiful together.  I think God meant it that way.

Dysfunctional families; everyone has one

I think the second most important thing in life after having a relationship with God is having family relationships.  Notice I don’t say, having a family.  Everyone has a family.  Some people are just disconnected from their family, and maybe not by choice.  Still, everyone has a family.  If you’re adopted, you have two families, and if you are a child of divorce you may have a number of families depending on how many times each of your parents were married and how many children of how many relationships they had.  Some of you may have so many step and shirttail family members, you could populate a small country.  But that’s a separate issue.  If you have a lot of family, obviously you can pick and choose which ones you’d like to have a close relationship with.  But you still need to try for harmonious relationships with all of them.

The issue is:  everyone needs family.  Family gives us a sense of a shared history, a sense of belonging to something bigger than ourselves, and some sort of a sense of permanence and rootedness that other relationships just can’t give.  Family is worth making sacrifices for, and making an effort to keep close ties. 

Nowadays families travel all over the world, and live all over the place.  In our family, we have members on both coasts and all over in between.  We’re not unique in that.  Americans are wanderers, our ancestors were wanderers.  If they were not, we would still be in the country they came from.  The bad part is we’re so far apart.  The good part is how much easier it is to stay in touch than ever before.  When my mother and us girls came here from Scotland, it was difficult to even get a letter overseas.  Now, with e-mail, its possible to maintain relationships all over the globe.

Its important to stay connected–to know whats going on in each other’s lives, and to give each other a sense of care and belonging.  Well Nonni, I’m sure you’ll say, you don’t know my family.  Its so dysfunctional, it puts the fun in dysfunctional!  Hey, whose family isn’t dysfunctional?  I’ve read statistics that every other family is now affected by addiction.  Every other family has someone with a personality disorder, and every other family is affected by divorce.  If those things don’t create challenges, what does?  There are people who are so mean, so bizarre, so manipulative they just plain wear us out.  Well, there are times, and there are people, and there are situations that just require us to take a break.  But we don’t write them off, either.  There are many, many more family members with whom we’ve had a spat, or a misunderstanding, or just a situation where we grew apart.  Those things need to be patched up, smoothed over, forgiven, and restored.  At the end of life, the only things we may see again are the people in our lives.  I used to wonder, if I got to heaven and there were a whole bunch of people there I couldn’t stand to be with on earth, how would I spend eternity with them?  Got me to thinking.  Would I pass up heaven to avoid all those people I didn’t like?  Maybe I’d better straighten out my relationships here while I have the time! 

Well, we could talk about forgiveness and what it costs, but this post is getting pretty long.  Maybe that should have its own post sometime.

How I like to read the bible

Here is Nonni’s next post.   Michelle

People have often asked me how to start reading scripture and where to begin.  I have always believed its best to start with the stories about Jesus.  I also believe its best to start with a translation that makes sense for you.  I loved the JB Phillips translation of the New Testament, but then I’m British, and I understand that style of writing.  If you’re American, then the Living Bible translation is very good.  There’s even an updated New Living Bible translation.  If you’re new to reading the Bible, and you aren’t familiar with chapters and verses, I really like “The Message”.  It reads so much more like a book.  The language is so familiar too.

 Anyway, I just start with the gospel of Matthew.  Then I like to go to the gospel of Luke, and finally to the gospel of John.  John’s gospel is much more poetic, and contains symbolism and allusions to prophecy that are somewhat harder to grasp for a beginner, although, don’t get me wrong, there’s very, very much in it that is beautifully understandable for a beginner as well.  Just don’t worry about what you don’t understand.  Enjoy, savor and cherish what you do understand.  There’s more than enough spiritual food for everyone at every stage.

After reading the three gospels I love most, I then enjoy reading the Acts of the Apostles.  These are the historical accounts of the very early church–the first 20 years or so.  Very exciting reading.  From there I read the epistles, which are simply letters the early apostles wrote to the early churches.  Since these were the very first generation of Christians and most of them knew Jesus when he walked the earth, you get an even more detailed version of the things Jesus taught. 

All through the New Testament you will see footnotes referring to Old Testament passages.  Read these passages for yourself, and you will get a bigger picture of what you are reading in the New Testament passage.  When you have done all of this, its time to get a study bible.  When you read the Old Testament, its really helpful to have a study bible to help you get the historical context of the writing.  Unless you know who the writing was for and what was going on, you miss a lot.  I like to just read the Old Testament straight through.  Your study bible will help you get it all into historical order.  I have always kind of skimmed over all the ceremonial laws since they don’t apply to Christians (you learn all about this when you read the New Testament), and I also skim over the lists of geneologies.  I know they are there for a reason, but I haven’t felt led to read them for my own inspiration.

Happy reading!  Read with a pen or marker and underline things that jump off the page at you.  These are verses that will mean a lot to you personally and be an inspiration and encouragement to you.

 God bless you!  He WILL bless you as you read the book He has put together for you.

 Till next time…  Nonni

How to talk to God

Nonni wants to write all the most important things first.  As I said before, she is older than dirt, and I guess she wants to write everything really quick in case she doesn’t live long enough to finish.  Anyway, guess at her age you have to prioritize your time.

 Michelle

I wrote yesterday about how to read the bible.  I think the absolutely most important thing in life is to know God.  You get to know somebody by listening to what they tell you about themselves.  You get to know Jesus by reading the New Testament.  In it he tells all about himself, what he thinks, knows and wants his followers to know. 

The other way to draw close to God is to begin talking to Him.  Lots of people think that when you talk to God you have to be all formal and serious.  I know there are times to be serious, but formal?  Jesus himself was known for having children climbing all over him.  And He didn’t seem to mind–in fact seemed to prefer it.  Thats hardly formal.  After reading all about Jesus in many translations over the years, I am convinced that what Jesus loved most of all about prayer was honesty.  You hardly get your value out of a prayer unless you are your true self–totally open and above board.  After all, He can read your thoughts anyhow!  I rather think of Jesus as the most trusted friend I could ever have.  You can tell him anything.  After all, who is He going to repeat it to?  He’s the one who hated gossip anyway!  I like to imagine he’s sitting in the chair next to mine by the window.  Of course, you can also imagine him in the passenger seat of the car, or seated next to your bed.  He IS in those places after all.  He’s EVERYWHERE!

What should I talk to Jesus about?  Well, I just tell Him whatever is on my mind.  I like to be a polite person, so I don’t just start out asking Him for a bunch of things.  I talk to Him about how He’s doing.  I tell Him everything I admire about Him, and I thank Him for everything nice He’s done for me lately–and that can take some time.  Then I just start talking to Him about everything I’ve been thinking about.  It may be my worries, a request for someone else, a relationship issue, a need I have…anything.  I ask Him questions too.  He answers me in all sorts of interesting ways.  Sometimes I am reading the bible and there in the passage I’m reading is the answer I was looking for.  Sometimes I am listening to a sermon or a class lecture and the answer is there.  Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and the answer is in my mind, and I’m wondering if I dreamed it.  I just know it didn’t come from me, because I never think things like that.

I like to pray out loud if I’m alone.  It just helps me focus my thoughts better.  But it also helps me to write down my prayers, just like writing Him a letter.  Then sometimes I go back later, and when I realize how He has answered my needs, I have many things to thank Him for.  Its rather like sending thank you notes after Christmas.  Its rude not to thank someone, and I don’t want to be rude and not thank Jesus for the times He has heard and answered my prayers to Him.

I have loved being a parent.  I think having kids yourself gives you some insight into the heart of God.  If I have a kid who never says thank you, I feel kind of hurt.  If I have a kid who never writes home except when they want money, that definitely hurts my feelings.  Why should I treat Jesus like that?

Enough for now

 Nonni