Would You Like Flies with That?

One of my first horror movies was "The Fly" starring Vincent Price.  I watched at an overnight birthday party when I was 8 years old on late night television.  It was followed by the Mummy's Hand.  It scared the crap out of me.  I was sure that, if there was a God, he was about to bring it.  This may surprise you, but according to a Public Religion Research Institute opinion poll, 38 percent of Americans believe that God uses nature to bring divine judgment upon humankind. Well, this past week, I became a believer.  The church office and entry way was sated with large black biting flies. It was something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Just saying "fly invasion" straight out like that may sound funny, but it's no joke. These guys were hungry and relentless (and after the Dollar Tree spray they were still breakdancing at 100 mph) .  It was an outbreak, yes, a plague, of biblical proportion. And the ODOR like a circus.  Let's see, there was water to blood, then frogs, lice, and YES, FLIES.  I'm not as stubborn or hard hearted as Pharaoh.  

I was repentant and ready for God to move...yet complained that those flies and that foul odor needed to get out of the church. We are rather sure these guys were blow flies.  Infestations of these guys are more disagreeable than those of other flies, and are associated with a terrible odor in the house (of God) of a decaying animal. But, as one person encouraged,  "consider that if it were not for the flies, the odor would last much longer."  So these blow flies (and other types that dispose of decay, obviously can serve a very useful purpose).  Not sure how encouraging as Sunday morning worship was just around the corner.

Since the late 1970s, more than 20 serious pathogens have emerged, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as "Mad Cow Disease," and three years ago, the Nipah virus appeared in Malaysia. It seems to have jumped from pigs to people, killing both pigs and people. "Some years," say experts, "we barely dodge a global flu pandemic." Rather suddenly, times have changed. Even plagues have changed, but one thing remains constant: We fear contagion, whether terrorists steal it, grow it and then spread it, or it rises out of nature. Pestilence plagues us.

The ancient Hebrews knew all about pestilence and plague. Their very freedom in the wilderness was occasioned by a series of 10 plagues brought upon the Egyptians. Now that they were wandering and wondering in the wilderness, however, they found themselves afflicted with a plague of a different sort, one just as contagious as the Asian flu. There was a germ in the air, a fly in their system, an epidemic among them. 

Like all bad bugs, their disease was hard to see, yet its symptoms were discernible but not desirable; detectable, but not delectable.  The disease? The Israelites had come down with a bad case of complaining. And it was driving God and Moses nuts.  For good reason. At the core, complaining cuts to the heart of one's relationship with God, not to speak of others. God says that complaining "tests" him, and it questions whether God is faithful: "Is the LORD among us or not?" . It also shifts away responsibility from ourselves to others more convenient to blame, and  fails to recognize who our True Provider is.

Complaining (like I did)  is a plague that's more destructive to a church community than spreading a cough at communion. Complaints tear at the soul; they pick apart people; they peel apart communities.  Complain, complain, complain. The Israelites were whining, ungrateful, disappointed and thankless.  And what was their complaint? That God was never good enough. That God never did enough. The pillar of fire, the column of cloud, the defeat of the entire army of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the salvation of the people -- not enough, they complained.

 "Why did you lead us out here? We'll die out here! We're thirsty. It's dry. It's hot. My feet hurt. I need a bath. I've got a blister. My sandals are too tight. Egypt was better. Egypt had water. Egypt had beds. Egypt had security. Our children need water. Even our cows are thirsty. It's not like home!"  So here's Moses, whom God had called to transform a climate of complaint into a culture of change: an overqualified nanny running about with binky at-the-ready for whoever needs to be pacified next -- a truth about which he complained from time to time.

Where does the common complaint come from? Does it fester? Is it catching?  It's catching all right. And it comes from real or imagined wrongs, or simply faulty expectations, or lack of courage, or lack of faith, or the inability to persevere in the face of daunting circumstances. 

The common complainer says, "I don't like it," then offers no solution.

The common complainer says, "It's your fault. You fix it. You change. You do something. I'll just sit here."

The common complainer says, "If you don't do it my way, I'll go home." Or worse, "If you don't do it my way, I'll stay until everyone is infected and miserable."

Complaint is like poison in the belly of a bitter soul that hates to be alone. So it spreads, it infects, it converts, it multiples ... until the community is one bitter belly, full of illness and sour in heart, leaving God little wiggle room.

Their complaining led them to consider murdering Moses. Yikes! Murder is admittedly an unreasonable extreme at one end of the complaint spectrum, yet unreasonableness is often symptomatic of the contagious complaint disease.

What's the prognosis for an uncured complaint epidemic? 

The Colossian Cure: "Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive" (Colossians 3:13). In other words, as leadership gurus Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey,  put it: Turn the language of complaint into the language of commitment. We should agree not to complain about out brothers and sisters, leaders or God, but instead make commitments to them that express our love, forgiveness, understanding and empathy. So don't start the gossip mill. That spreads the complaint disease faster than a sneeze flies. 

Don't spread the disease by word of mouth.  Don't create a SuperPlague in the church, home or community. If it gets strong enough it could wipe out the whole shootin' match. 

Rather than complain, let's turn to the ChristCure, knowing that those in Christ live and forgive like Christ, heal and lift up like Christ, welcome and affirm like Christ, love and forbear like Christ, suffer and endure like Christ, do acts of kindness and mercy like Christ.

Christ is our immunization against soul contagion.

Against him there is no complaint.

     

And...this is a cool fly song. - Enjoy and have a great week!

Google, Alexa, but mostly YouTube

In eight grade math class I was “schooled” on how to pick locks.  Mr. Walters was not the culprit but Ernie and Fred were.  Those two were the notorious duo who enlightened us on everything from picking locks to the “birds and the bees” (that’s another blog story – Ernie and Fred enlightened that after Coach Sorenson brought his goat to gym class to explain those same “birds and bees.”).  Back to the subject at hand.  

In 2018 Ernie and Fred are out of a job.  In a recent conversation with my future son-in-law he explained how he was able to “YouTube” how to pick his home lock safe when he had forgotten the combination.  Yep, we can Google and YouTube anything these days...or just ask Alexa. Take this case scenario for instance: most of us remember learning to drive a car as an arduous process involving swerving around a parking lot with mom , dad, or a grandparent or maybe driving in the hay baling field then heading to the DMV, taking a written test and nervously navigating the road with a state trooper or driving instructor tracking our every move. All of that practice and instruction was rewarded with a driver’s license and its accompanying sense of freedom.

But what if you could skip all that hassle and just “YouTube it” instead? That’s what an 8-year-old boy in Ohio did on one recent Sunday night. Our young innovator had a problem: mom and dad had fallen asleep early, and the boy and his 4-year-old sister were “jonesing” for some McDonald’s. The golden arches were a mile and a half away — too far for a walk in the dark. So the boy did what any self-respecting Gen-Z kid would do when confronted with a conundrum. He looked up “How to drive a car” on YouTube, emptied his piggy bank, then bundled his sister into the car and headed out for a cheeseburger.

 

Police said later that the boy obeyed all the traffic laws, didn’t hit a single thing, and drove “effortlessly” through town as though he had been driving for years — all because he watched a few minutes of video instruction and then did precisely what it said to do.

The pint-sized adventurer seems to have grasped early on what many of us grasped much later in life. That is that, on the internet, someone somewhere has created a video to show you how to do what you’re about to attempt. Whether it’s a repair for your home or your car, how to put on makeup, learning self-defense or making dinner, all you need to do is look it up on the world’s most popular video site and soon you’ll be an expert yourself — even if it’s expertise on the best way to massage your pet opossum (because, apparently, opossums need massages — something else you can only learn on YouTube! And here I am thinking all opossums do is play dead).

There are millions of these tutorial videos, most produced by average people who have learned a skill and simply want to share it. It’s the crowd sourcing of expertise that makes it possible for the most mechanically inept person to fix a faucet, or a maker of microwave mac and cheese to become a gourmet chef. Of course, all this instruction depends on the viewer’s willingness to experiment and put the information into practice. Without that, it’s just another internet time-waster.

Well, when I was growing up (I’m officially talking like my parents and grandparents)  we obviously didn’t have YouTube. Most of my learning was accomplished by watching someone in person teach and  model the activity in question face to face or, at times, receiving instructions my what we now call “snail mail” (which took way longer than even dial-up internet service! Anyone remember that?).  In person driver's ed I think still exists but the challenges are exponentially different.

 My thought for this week is not unlike that of the early church. The problem before the early church in times of uncertainty can be summed up something like this: “How do we remain a faithful Christian community in the midst of this time of trial and temptation?” The New Testament book of James wrote to encourage his brothers and sisters and to give them some instruction on how to navigate in difficult times. Faithfulness must be practiced. The letter reads like a series of random tutorial videos on the Christian life, but in this section James made clear that no amount of instruction matters unless it is put into practice. James wanted the church to become experts not only in hearing the instruction, but doing the instruction as well.

Faithfulness is rooted in the trustworthiness of God. In the Greco-Roman world, many people consulted astrology and the alignment of the stars as a kind of first-century YouTube to help determine their course of action.  Faithfulness puts God’s word (and that, for me, is first and foremost the Bible)  into demonstrable and visible action.  So how does that word get activated in our lives?

James says that you have to practice it. “But be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.". The purpose of receiving instruction, receiving the “word of truth,” is to put the information into practice. If, say, I watch a YouTube video on how to fix a leaky faucet but never pull out the tools and get to work putting what I’ve learned to good use, then I will still be stuck with a constant drip. If I really want to fix the problem, I need to set up my phone next to the sink and follow along step by step with the video.

On the other hand, if I just watch the video and say, “Yeah, I’ll get back to that sometime,” I’ll quickly forget everything I’ve learned. James says the same thing happens when we only hear the word of God and don’t put it into practice. It’s as though we looked at ourselves in a mirror briefly and then walked away, almost instantly forgetting what we looked like. If, on the other hand, we keep our focus on “the perfect law, the law of liberty,” and persevere in the midst of trial, being hearers and doers, we will be “blessed” in our doing. In fact, it’s the “doing” of the word that matters most for James.

Now, to be real, some YouTube tutorials don’t quite convey the information in a way that’s easy to follow. Try tying a tie while watching a video or looking at a chart, for example. It’s extremely difficult because that mirror image forces us to do everything backwards. To tie that bow tie effectively we need someone standing beside us to show you how, guiding our fingers and helping us develop the internal memory of the process until it becomes second nature. It’s one thing to conceptualize the process, and quite another to execute it.

The same is true for real “religion,” says James. It’s not simply about running at the mouth and declaring our faith as a matter of intellectual belief; nor is it about lashing out at those who might be challenging us. " Religion that is “pure and undefiled before God,” on the other hand, is religion that is demonstrated in practice — practice that comes as second nature to those who have internalized the word of truth. It’s religion that cares for the most vulnerable people and keeps oneself “unstained by the world."

It is real religion, in other words, that uses the model of Jesus for both its belief and its practice. Like tying that tie, there are some things YouTube just can’t teach. It can’t teach us how to be a follower of Jesus.  

Well, why not just ask Alexa? She, too,  can teach us the principles of discipleship, but to really learn it we have to have someone live it out in front of us and guide us along the way. Information alone won’t get it; it takes imitation as well.

That’s why we need a community of faith to guide us and give us examples for putting the word into practice. In a culture where there is plenty of social upheaval, we must see the opportunity to be shining stars that reflect God’s glory rather than lash out in fear or join in the culture’s calamity. We shine most brightly when we are doing the Word of God in a way that causes others to see us and want to be instructed in how to do the same.

An 8-year-old learned to drive perfectly by watching a tutorial video and then grabbing the keys. All the motivation he needed was found in the prospect of a Happy Meal.  May we be motivated to take the instruction we have been given by the word of truth, put it into practice and then head out to an even greater destination.

Have a great week.

Stop that Pigeon?

Saturday morning cartoons were as much a mainstay for me as Saturday Matinee Serials were to the silent generation.  Dick Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines was one of my favorites.  The show focused on the efforts of Dick Dastardly and his canine sidekick Muttley to catch Yankee Doodle Pigeon, a carrier pigeon who carries secret messages (hence the name of the show’s theme song "Stop the Pigeon"). The cartoon was a combination of Red Baron-era Snoopy, Wacky Races(which featured Dastardly and Muttley in a series of car races).

I have forever been one to tirelessly seek, find, and attempt to implement truth that transforms life and community. I was not (and am not) a 'dastardly' person seeking to stop the message from getting to its destination.  As a boy I just wanted to know what that pigeon's message was!  He was the "good guy" with "the message."  In my brief life many have professed to me to know "secrets" to life and existence yet kept me at bay as to where they found their truth.  "The Truth" was ultimately found in their obscure resources or they sent me on an "endless" quest to "find truth" and I seemed never to get there until I found the Truth that found me.

My last blog entry was on July, 26, 2013, yes - 5 years ago. But now, as then, this blog spot is committed to not only finding God's truth but letting people know where that truth can be found so that all might draw and drink for themselves. The thoughts are not perfect, nor is the grammar.  But it is from the center of my being.

 A Bible verse from the gospel of Mark 4:22 says, "For everything that is hidden will eventually be brought into the open, and every secret will be brought to light."  Also Luke 8:17 says, "There is nothing hidden that will not become evident nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light."

Where is your well of truth?  I want to go there with you?  I invite you to help me (not follow me) "stop that pigeon" each week to discover God's truth and apply that truth to daily living.  I invite you to follow the One who is "the way, the truth, and the life." (John 14:6).  Let's smile, laugh, cry, and share our questions, comments, and old war stories.

"But I also have a message for the rest of you in Thyatira who have not followed this false teaching ('deeper truths, as they call them - depths of Satan, actually)." Revelation 2:24

"But it was to us  that God revealed these things by His Spirit.  For His Spirit searches out everything and shows us God's deep secrets."  1 Corinthians 2:10

Have a great week!

my twitter feed is @stopthatpigeon too LOL

Would You Believe It or Not?

Would You Believe It or Not?

Either television writers have finally run out of ideas for bad situation comedies or the baby boomers' like me long for our twentieth century (60's and 70's) youth. Whatever. In our retro-chic craziness, there is now a resurgence of some of the corniest and kitsch-iest of 60's/70's programming. I am loving it! I watch it.  I paused to watch Get Smart with the residents while visiting a nursing home this week. I had forgotten how hilarious it was...is.  I'm not talking about the Get Smart with Steve Carell that boasts 2 and a half stars on rotten tomatoes.  Or the cheesy 1980 remake (even if it was with Don Adams).

I'm talking Maxwell Smart - the original series, the TV show. Don Adams "Maxwell Smart" was a spy at the height of the Cold War working for a CIA clone organization called Control to defeat the powers of evil as embodied in the sinister organization KAOS. He was a bumbling sort of an agent given to an odd grab bag of tricks to foil his enemies, be it the old secret-panel-in-the-bookcase trick, or the more popular old bulletproof-cummerbund-in-the-tuxedo trick.

 He was given to exaggeration, however. Many of his descriptions were unbelievable.

Remember this? "Sorry about that, Chief"; "Missed it by that much ... "; and most famously, "Would you believe ...?"

Secret agent Smart would inevitably come up against some brick wall of a bad guy from whom he had to escape. Smart would try to intimidate his foe by scaring him off with some hopelessly transparent exaggeration: "Right now, there are 50 armed police officers surrounding this place." When the adversary doubted him, Smart would counter with: "Would you believe 20 police and an angry dog?" With the crook still not impressed, Smart would finally suggest: "How about a troop of Girl Scouts on a cookie-sale drive?"

He continually had to revise his reports until his statements were believable.

For example, "You better drop that gun because this yacht happens to be surrounded by the Seventh Fleet .... Would you believe the Sixth Fleet? ... How about a school of angry flounder?"

 Or, "As soon as you're gone, by the use of sheer brute strength I shall be able to rip these chains from the wall in one minute. Two minutes? How about a week from Tuesday?"



I can remember reading my first Ripley’s Believe It or Not comic.  I was forced in every picture to make a faith decision: do I believe this or not? Can I believe in the Fiji mermaid? Is it a tall tale or fish tale? I wondered. And what about the "Chinese Shrunken Head," the size of a lemon? Or "Wadlow the Giant" at 8'11" tall, the human high-rise? 

I believed it all. I was no doubting Thomas. I hadn't learned to play the skeptic yet. If Maxwell Smart had asked me, "Would you believe a shrunken head the size of a lemon?" I would enthusiastically respond, "Yes, yes, I do!"



When the disciples came to Thomas with the fantastic news of a risen Savior, they asked him, "Would you believe ... that Jesus is risen? Would you believe ... that Jesus who was crucified between two thieves is alive? Would you believe ... that he has appeared to Mary and to all of us?"

 Thomas' response was that of doubt.  Thus forever Doubting Thomas. 



Thomas gets a bad rap. I think the time has come to rehabilitate the reputation of Thomas. Poor Thomas has had to walk the corridors of history known as "Doubting Thomas." There is now a Doubter’s Anonymous (dedicated to Thomas) for those who are not satisfied with blind faith. There is a rock band which travels internationally called Doubting Thomas.


It does not matter that Thomas was no better and no worse than the average disciple who would not believe either. It does not matter that tradition has him carrying the gospel to India, where there still exists an order known as Christians of St. Thomas of India. Nor does it seem to matter that this same tradition has Thomas suffering martyrdom for the faith. No-o-o-o-o, he will always be "Doubting Thomas." The disciple who opened his mouth only to change feet. Thomas, the patron saint of all of those who are the last to know. (And that would be me). 

Yes, Thomas has gotten a bad rap. His reputation as a skeptic is not only undeserved, but is also the result of a too casual reading about him.

Thomas speaks up and, addressing himself to his fellow disciples, says, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." 

(Pretty bold, not doubtful). Thomas admits that he, for one, doesn't have a clue about what Jesus is talking about. (Sounds like something I would say). "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" This, in turn, leads Jesus to speak in unambiguous terms that even we can understand, providing one of the most memorable passages in the New Testament: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." Personally I am glad he asked.  Remember your teacher telling you the only dumb question is the one you didn't ask? Gotta hand it to Thomas.

 Jesus appears among them fully aware of how incomprehensible his appearance is to the minds and experiences of these gathered ones. He takes the initiative and shows them in his hands and side the undeniable markings of the Crucifixion. 

Lest you miss the significance of this, let me put it another way. The incredulity of this group demanded proof no less than the disbelief of Thomas and what is more, it demanded the same kind of proof. They doubted just as Thomas doubted and just as I would doubt if I were in their place. 

All of which leads to a more interesting question, which is, "Why have I developed such a negative attitude toward doubt?" I too am a "doubting Thomas" and have a lack of faith too often.  I think our world needs to see my humanity. Yes I am a believer in Jesus - but human.  I come off too many times as so heavenly minded I'm no earthly good.

I have been reared in a religious environment in which doubt is posed as the antithesis of faith. And this story of Thomas is often used to reinforce that lesson. But isn't the "doubt vs. faith" dichotomy a false issue? Is not the real enemy of faith unbelief rather than doubt? I think so. And what is more, I think that doubt has a constructive and positive role to play in the exercise of faith.

 So what am I to do? I don't want to be a "Doubting Thomas," but I am frequently beset with unresolved questions of faith. 



The three least used words in my religious vocabulary are too often, "I don't know." And in this feasting under the tree of knowledge, I rob faith of its humanness.

 Could I not, however, respond more positively to these questionings and doubts by using them as teaching moments?  I can learn from Thomas that even though I don't know where our journey may lead, it is enough that our Lord makes the journey with me.  

I'm all about rehabilitating the reputation of Thomas as one who had the courage to admit his lack of understanding.  I know in saying that I run the risk of removing my mask and other's viewing my very human face. (no comments please).

Nevertheless, I am embracing the truth learned from Thomas that doubts may not always lead to answers, but they almost always lead to growth.  I doubt I missed it but if I missed it, it was only by "that much" believe it or not.

An Affair to Remember

They say that confession is good for the soul, so here goes.  I had an affair.  There I said it.  My affair?  With laundry. With my wife out of town I found myself staring down the stinky end of a clothes hamper for the entire weekend.

Confession #2:  On weekends I have been known to re-wear my apparel.   If it has weathered the previous week with only a smudge of peanut butter and a couple splashes of coffee, there's a pretty good chance I'll don it on Saturday.  I do however draw the line at clothing I happen to be wearing around sick people. 

I, like most men,  think my dirty clothes are capable of movement.  Regardless of where the hamper is placed, my dirty items are always found on top of it, in front of it, or hanging from a doorknob.  My Mom once said something like, "Your socks are so filthy, they could walk to the machine by themselves.", and I believed her.  Why not?  The next time I looked they were gone and had reappeared magically clean and Downy Fresh in my drawer.  When I got married over 30 years ago I found out very quickly that  David Copperfield does not walk in the house while I am at work and wave some magic wand that obliterates skid-marks and ring around the collar.  There is nothing magical about having grab a pair of balled up underwear and throw them in to the laundry.  I would rather stick my hand in a septic tank.

 

During my recent affair I discovered something. Chinese engineers have developed a cloth that cleans itself. This could have a revolutionary impact on the detergent or laundry industry. Soon, our everyday, ordinary clothes will have the capacity to clean themselves. (www.extremetech.com/extreme/109215-chinese-invent-self-cleaning-cotton-clothes).

How is this possible? According to one study, dunking cotton into a vat of specially-crafted nanoparticles creates a material that self-cleans when exposed to sunlight. In one test, Chinese engineers dyed materials for 30 minutes in an orange dye. They then hung the clothes beneath simulated sunlight. The dye's hold over the fabric broke, and, after a time, easily washed off with water.

Can you imagine?  (I suppose this could go well with the marketing philosophy of AX products).  College students will no longer need to peel off their clothes after a long night of ... studying. They now can awaken, splash a little water on their faces, and stroll to class, ready and prepared for the day. Or, no need to stuff a carry-on bag with extra T-shirts or blouses. I can take a couple changes of clothes for my vacation trip and call it good. 

 

Self-cleaning clothes, however, aren't an excuse for laziness. Something is still required if I really desire cleanliness. I can't rip off my clothes and lump them into a pile, only to don them afresh come dawn. I still need to, at the very least, both hang them and rinse them, which is, strangely, similar to God's demands.  In other words, to be restored -- to be washed clean -- some work is necessary.

Click Here 

People Patrol

The first time one of our children came home from school with a note proclaiming that the notorious head louse had once again made an appearance I became a "nit-picker." Each "nit," or tiny egg of the louse, must be meticulously combed, picked or pulled from the single strand of hair it is attached to. The fact that this procedure was carried out on our squealing, enraged, embarrassed six-year-old only made the task that much more unpleasant. I have a confession to make. Unfortunately, I am like the people in my life who have perfected the art of nit-picking.  I too often feel compelled to demonstrate my skill in too many situations in my life.  I have been on 'people patrol' for over 52 years now and I am not so sure that is a good thing.  I am a Pharisee - there - I said it.

My Nit-picking always involves noting what is wrong with something and someone rather than what is right. Too often I can't enjoy anything, especially anything that has a flaw in it. With little sense of humor I get to be a pickiness-person and look for a spiritual or theological or moral "gotchas" to flaunt at others. I too well remember the nit-pickers in the story of the blind man's healing? Instead of rejoicing with the man at the miracle of regained sight, they can only focus on the possible Torah infringements that might have made it possible. (See John 9).  Oh how the Bible interprets me more than I interpret it.

Have you noticed that an accomplished nit-picker can burst any celebratory balloon? "The wedding was so beautiful; such a shame the groom couldn't have lost a few pounds for the occasion." "Congratulations on your new promotion. But you've still got an awful lot of the ladder to climb, don't you?" "The new sanctuary looks wonderful. Of course, we'll probably never grow enough to fill it or pay for it!" Deflating joy, tarnishing triumphs - that's what nit-pickers do best. Ouch!

Wound-Lickers

I remember getting a mosquito bite or a small scratch when I was a kid and then having to listen to my parents' repeated, "now don't pick at it." Of course, they had to keep telling me because there is something self-destructively fascinating about an open wound. We are drawn to it, we want to mess with it, re-examine it, pull off he scab a little at a time to see how it is healing. But this fixation can easily lead to infection - even to death.

Veterinarians must go to ridiculous-looking extremes to discourage this self-destructive instinct in their patients. In dogs and cats repetitive, damaging wound-licking can undo in a matter of minutes all the work a vet has put in on a patient for days. We once had a cat named Mr. Rogers that lost his leg in a trap.  Three inches of infected leg and paw was amputated and the remainder carefully stitched up. A week later Mr. Rogers managed to get at the healing wound, licking and gnawing it open. More infection.  Now left with nothing but a four inch stump, Mr. Rogers began to convalesce once more. But again the wound-licking fixation drove the cat to try and get at the healing stump. His licking caused the bandaged stump to swell and a horrible infection set in that spread throughout his whole system. To the best of my memory a head-gear (a cone), tranquilizers and massive amounts of antibiotics managed to save our cat's life. A wound had nearly destroyed him.

When the Pharisees in John 9:18 recall the healed man's parents as possible witnesses against his previous condition of blindness, they are being wound-lickers. They cannot leave the situation alone, but return to it, trying to expose some imagined wrongfulness. These Pharisees do not even realize that the wound they are re-opening is the gaping hole of their own ignorance and spiritual bankruptcy. Double Ouch!

Goodness-sakers

Remember the old saw about the mother who had to leave her two young children alone in the house for a few minutes? Before leaving, she sternly ordered the children, "Now don't put beans up your noses while I'm gone!" Left to their own devices it probably would have taken an eternity before those kids would have come up with such a bizarre idea, but since their mother had singled it out as an especially obnoxious act, the children were inspired. Of course, when their mother returned home, she found two children rolling around in pain with beans firmly stuffed up their noses.

There is a distinct category of people who inspire similar kinds of contrary behavior in most of us.  "These" are the "goodness-sakers" - those self-appointed crusaders for the promotion of righteousness. "They" consider themselves - and let all the rest of us know it - to be super-spiritual.  These are people who stand around saying, "For goodness sake, why doesn't somebody do something." Or "For goodness sake, look at what they're doing."  Now - I would NEVER do that.  Truth is I have probably done more hindrance to the Good News than help over the years.  Truly thankful God is not finished with me yet - I hope.  I really do.

Few people can be as infuriating and sin-provoking as goodness-sakers. Smart-aleck remarks and visions of dirty tricks seem to float to the top of our minds all by themselves as we listen to the platitudes and puffed-up piety goodness-sakers blow at us. The Pharisees in John's story haughtily invoke their relationship to Moses as a sign of their spiritual superiority (v. 28).  

The healed man, who had shown great self-control up to this point, is at last driven to jab back at these upright, up-tight self-appointed guardians of do-gooding. As usual with goodness-sakers, however, they don't even get the point of the sarcasm directed their way.  Triple the Ouch!

Arm-Wavers

Thank heaven that besides the nit-pickers, wound-lickers and goodness-sakers there are also arm-wavers. These are the people that celebrate victories and lend support in times of defeat. Arm-wavers hoot and holler when their child's Little League team wins the big game - but they also give great hugs and "it's O.K." looks when the team loses 10 in a row. It's not that arm-wavers don't see all the imperfections in that hand-knit size 98 sweater or in life. It's just that they focus on all the beauty that surrounds the flaws instead of the flaws themselves.

It is amazing how arm-wavers are absent for so long from John's story of the healed blind man. Here is a stunning miracle - a man blind since birth suddenly given sight - and no one celebrates. His neighbors are doubtful, his parents are worried about the religious and legal ramifications, while the Pharisees find the whole episode threatening and foreboding. Not until the healed man himself finally realizes who Jesus is and what his presence means do we get the first sign of arm-waving. Indeed, when Jesus' identity finally sinks in, the man offers a full body-wave - he falls on his knees and worships the "Lord" (verse 38). I am not blind and have not seen nearly enough.  Back to people patrol duty.