Paula Deen, Nelson Mandela and God's Justice

The past few weeks two names in the news have been Paula Deen and Nelson Mandela, both who are  contrasting examples on racial justice, one in how justice has been sought and denied with no forgiveness, and the other with how justice was offered through actions of unspoken forgiveness.

Ms. Deen's open admission to using a racial slur many years ago in her past landed her in the hot seat with the racial justice activist who seek restitution in the form of destroying lives, with no mercy, of anyone of notoriety with indiscretions in their past.  Now let me say that No !! I do not know the truth or the extent of Ms. Deen's failures and short comings when it comes to her attitudes and actions towards persons of other races. There have been endless articles regarding additional claims of raciest comments or actions. However, this is not my point to prove or disprove, which I never could, but to say that these attacks on Ms. Deen have been in my opinion over zealous and to point out this underlying reason is in stark contrast to Mr. Mandela's example.

The attack on Ms. Deen by the racial justice purist calling her a bigoted racist because of her past use of the "N" word was quickly followed by many companies pulling their contacts and relationships with Ms. Deen thus hurting her income sources. No less, these private companies who cut their business relationship with Ms Deen are within their full right to choose who they do business.

The problem with these responses and actions by those who call for such is that those who thirst for justice seek it in way absolutely void of any forgiveness.  At the core of this justice seeking is a deeply rooted inability for those who are offended by Ms. Deen's omission's to find any justice acceptable short of inflicting pain and suffering on her to the point of destroying her livelihood. There has even been claims that she has made her fortune off the heritage of African-american cooking for which she has supposedly given little to no recognition to this fact. This type justice is not appeased by any heartfelt apologize but requires utter and total personal destruction.

The problem here is the type of justice that's sought will never satisfy these justice seekers, because the entire point here is that this type of justice is not for man to apply, but it is for God, where all ultimate justice resides. While bigotry and racism can be crimes of civil and criminal law, however in this case its a question regarding the heart and soul of a person. I'm not saying that we should be a society without justice as part of our civil society, we should apply justice when anyone breaks a criminal and civil law. However, this is not the nature of this case. No one knows the true heart of Ms. Deen as to what her heartfelt intentions were or if her admission and apologizes were genuine. The truth is we'll most likely never know, this is why justice seeking in this case is a troubled road and one that will leave the justice seekers unsatisfied by anything Ms. Deen says or does.

The connection with Nelson Mandela, who has been hospitalized in failing health, to Ms. Deen's story is that when Mr. Mandela came to power after the apartheid was dismantled he did not seek to destroy the former ruling white minority, he sought to incorporated them into the nation as they were. The world justice says that we must destroy our enemy, pay back what they paid us, but Mr. Mandela knew what the world does not know today, that this justice is a losing proposition.

The power of Mr. Mandela's type of justice in the early days of the new South African nation is portrayed in the 2009 movie Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. Invictus is about the South African national rugby team and its competition in the 1995 rugby world cup which were held in South Africa.  Mr. Mandela infused black players with the traditional all-white team, called the Springboks, together into a unified team, as well as his security detail which was a secondary story to the rugby team. In the movie there were those who wanted the white minority to have nothing to do with the new government and nation including fielding a mixed race rugby team. Mr. Mandela knew that the only way to move the nation forward was to allow through forgiveness, even when not asked for or spoken, to prevail. The nation would not come together and survive if justice and restitution required destroying the white minority while trying to establish a truly democratic nation. Mr. Mandela was a wise man, while I do not know every story regarding Mr. Mandela and South Africa I'm sure it has not been without its issues nor has it melded together as a nation without racial strife, but the man that was portrayed in this movie was someone who understood that nothing but forgiveness could fix the injustices of the past. Mr. Mandela did not have to speak it or ask for it, he just acted on it.

As to God, Jesus said the 2nd most important commandment was to love your neighbor as yourself, even the neighbor (and who is your neighbor?)  who hates you and to pray for your enemy. I think that Nelson Mandela is more like Jesus than the justice seekers on Ms. Deen. He treated those who wanted to destroy him in the past as his neighbor in the present despite what the world said was just.

What we need today are the Nelson Mandela's, Martin Luther King's and Abraham Lincoln's of the world who understand that destroying one for their past indiscretion is a losing proposition, unconditional forgiveness is the only path to real justice.

Things I learned from my Dad... and some I've not practiced !

Tomorrow being fathers day I was recently inspired to write this blog by watching the movie Life of Pi. While the movie itself was a bit slow and I did not see it in a theater where I'm sure the visuals were even  more magnificent on the big screen in 3D.  However, there was a very important message where at the end of the movie Pi tell's the young writer,to whom he had just told this magnificent story of surviving stranded at sea with a Bengal Tiger, that everything he learned to survive he learned from his father. Pi's father was a strict disciplinary and drove Pi to learn knowledge and life lessons sometimes with great difficulty and struggles.

So, what did I learn from my father?   While there is little correlation to my life and the fictional Pi's, however there are things that I learned from my father that have carried  with me in life, even if I've failed at times to practice them. Some of these are trivial and others not.  While I'm not surviving stranded at sea, but the life lessons that my dad taught through his life helped me to navigate the sea of life which is filled with its similar challenges. Below is a list of things that my dad taught me in no particular order of importance;

1. Family is important - More than anything Dad loved his family, he loved being with his siblings and when grand-children came along he loved being around them more than anything. When the first grand-child was born he arranged a move to get as close enough to visit.  He greatly looked forward to the times spending with family. 
2. "If you don't know the answer its okay, just sound like you do" - My dad was a story-teller extraordinaire, he had the gift for gab. He could make you believe that whatever he was saying was truth, even when the story was quite extraordinary.   Now this might seem like a condoning telling fibs, but this is not what I'm saying, I don't think.  If you've ever seen the movie Big Fish, well this was my dad portrayed on the big screen.  The bottom line is that you have to be confident in how you tell something, believe it, know its true and convey it. 
3. Love the Mamma - Dad always loved our mom and showed it, he always respected mom, even though yeah at times when caught being wrong he did not like being challenged. When they were apart he would call every evening (okay I've not practiced this consistently). 
4. To play Golf and Fish - Kind of trivial, but I learned to play golf and fish from my dad. He was an avid and good golfer and bass fisherman. I was always a much better golfer playing with my dad, than not. We had some interesting fishing stories, there was the one where the copperhead glanced off me and then landed in the boat wiggling, lunging at us and everything. The time we got pulled by a fish 100's of yards down the dam of a lake, it boiled the water once but we never knew what it was. There was the time we had to jump into the water flip the boat to survive a hail storm with hail stones the size of grapefruit (see #2 if you have problems believing this ). We played golf with the Gatlin brothers in Nashville, we had no idea who they were. 
5. Personal connections and relationships are everything - Dad loved meeting and interacting with people, he never met a stranger and was comfortable with just about everyone. Where ever we'd go dad would strike up a conversation with anyone he encountered.  He operated that there was always something to learn or to be gained by interacting with even complete strangers. He would find if the six degrees of separation rule applied. 
6. Don't let dreams get in the way -  My dad had some big dreams in his life. I know that he considered moving to Alaska prior to my being born and he always through his life talked about moving to Australia, I never did understand this.  However, dad did not live by big dreams or on the future possibilities, he also did not let business failures get him down too much (see more in #7). He just enjoyed life as it came focusing on the simple things, many of which I've listed in this blog. 
7. Even if you fail, try again, take risk- Dad was not very successful at business, he went bankrupt twice and both times he came out of bankruptcy. The point here is that he tried, he took risk to better his life and family, even when he failed once it did not prevent him from trying again.  
8. Laugh at yourself, and everything else- Dad along with telling stories could tell a few jokes as well, he was a person who could laugh at himself, and found the humor in life. 
9. Faith is important - While Dad was not a religious man, at least in my memory, but we as a family attend church on a regular basis and were active in church life. There were times when Dad would go fishing on Sunday and he would tell mom that he could commune with God just as good out on the lake as he could sitting in Church. I think there is some truth to that !  There are many Sunday's I wish I was communing with God in some other way than sitting in a church building..  

Happy fathers day to all you Dad's... remember what your father taught you! 

I know how I'm voting this year..

This declaration does not imply I’ve made up my mind specifically as to “who” I’m voting for, but I have decided on a voting strategy.  The method of selecting who to vote for will be based on a simple position that I will not vote for an incumbent in the upcoming elections both primary and general.  

One of the hot topics, among many, in the circles of political discussions is about congressional term limits. There are a number of movements with websites to boot that are pushing for amending the constitution, not that either party follows it to the letter anyhow, to limit the number of terms our congressional representatives can server.  However, fortunately we don’t need to amend the constitution to enforce term limits we the electorate can just vote long term career politicians out of office.   The reasons this does not happen, or why we have people serving 30 to 40 years in elected office are the following.

1.       Congressional districts have been gerrymandered to death to the point where they do not represent any type of homogenous cross section of society, but are highly segregated politically and demographically.

2.       Everyone believes their representative or senator is not the problem and that once in office for a length of time and obtain power in congress they can sway things in their favor. 

3.       A majority of the voting populace is entrenched on one side of the political spectrum and will not budge in voting for anyone from the other party.  I’ve read that the actual swing vote is about 10-15% of the vote.

4.       The internal party politics favor incumbents for preference and fund raising.

One way to invoke term limits is to simply vote them out of office. Could you image what the attitude would be in Washington if on the morning of November 7^th, 2012 the entire house and half the seats in the senate realized they had been voted out office and they thought there was a real earthquake in Washington earlier in the year.  I can assure you that if this happened shock waves would ripple all through halls of congress as a power shift of immeasurable magnitude would have taken place and for once “We The People” would have spoken in an way that would alter politics and the governance of our nation in a significant way.   

I find it highly ironic that we have term limits for one branch of the federal government, but not the other two and were suppose to have a balance of power in our government. 

It does not matter  the political view of those elected, at least not to me, the important thing is sending a message that failure of government to govern and career congressional representation is not acceptable any longer. This would in essence be “firing” congress and they need to be fired. A vast majority of Americans agree on this point, however as I know come election day the vast majority will go and pull the leaver or check the box base on how they have been programmed or conditioned to vote, sending the same people back in office but expecting different results….. hmmm they call this insanity.  So, I for one vow that I'll not vote for an incumbent in the coming elections, If you really want a better government you’ll do the same. 

Realities of War

I posted earlier this week on facebook.

Today on board my flight to Denver there was a young man on-board dressed in the full formal marine uniform (don't know what it’s called). As we approached our landing in Denver the pilot came on the intercom and announced that we had a special passenger, a marine who was escorting the remains home for his final resting place of a fallen compatriot from his platoon in Afghanistan. The pilot asked if everyone would remain seated until the marine exited the plane. As he got up and walked through the cabin to the exit you could feel uneasiness in the air, let me say with a lot of respect though, but an uneasiness.

Sitting next to me was a young mom with her two daughters 6 and 1 who were from Charleston S.C. where her husband is based in the Air Force and recently came back from a year tour in Afghanistan, you could see the emotion in her face hearing the reality of what that marine had come to do and that was lay to rest another young life who has made the ultimate sacrifice.

I pray that this is all worth it, that somehow all these persons who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan have truly given all for the protection and security of our nation. I will have to say I have my doubts and have believed from the beginning that both engagements were not worth the cost and this becomes more real in moments like this. It will take decades to make a real difference in these places where the terrorist look at their objectives from the perspective of a hundred or even thousands of years, were not that patient.

I believe the uneasiness that a number of people feel in these moments is that we have great respect for those who serve in the military and especially those who give the greatest sacrifice, but there is almost always this unspoken but… is it all really going to be worth it we ask ourselves. I think of the mom and the look on her face and it said I don’t ever want to be the recipient of that and I pray that she never is.

I do realize the reality and necessity of military conflict and believe as a nation it’s a priority to maintain a strong military capable of responding to threats around the world, I guess the question is and has been what is a threat to our security and when is it worth the cost. It’s days like today when we experience or see the reality of this cost first hand and not just another statistic that we ask this question from a different perspective.

Survivor - Redemption Island - comes to an end..

This past Sunday was the final of Survivor season # 22 and the end of Redemption Island season #1. While the game ended with somewhat of a dud, meaning no suspense with Rob the professional survivor player taking the prize as sole survivor after his 4th time playing the game in the last 10 years. I was actually pulling for Rob to some extent because he had played the game so well with the alliances he formed and how he positioned himself to not be the target, which seemed impossible at the beginning.

Matt the young Christian whom I've posted about previously, spent most of his time on Survivor at redemption Island fell one challenge short of getting back in the game. Matt continued to the end on the recap show giving glory to God for his time on Survivor and commented that during the airing of the season many of his friends and family indicated that redemption island was the place where Matt was intended to be all along. I agree with his family and friends.

As Mike testified on the recap show that Survivor had been life changing in that he had grown closer to God by having the opportunity to spend time on redemption island with Matt.

In the end Matt did not win the millions of dollars, but he won at lot of respect which was evident by him finishing second in the fan favorite voting to Rob. But bigger than that was how he was a witness for God to Mike and others in the game. In the end it is a game and it is television, but God is present everywhere and in all situations. I have yet to see a Survivor season where matters of personal faith were so overt and codo's to CBS for not avoiding the discussion.

Life lesson is to never under estimate where God can use you. At one point Matt did not see how he could be used for God being outside the game, but he did, but not without Matt being open and intentional for being used by God and in a graceful way.

The Gospel On Survivor Continues....

Wow.. This week was another amazing one on Survivor for portraying the Gospel. This week two others joined Matt and Mike on redemption island, Steve and Ralph. The four competed in a contest to see who would spend an afternoon with their loved one, this being the one who finished first with the 2nd and 3rd place finishers staying in the game. Before coming to the competition earlier in the day both those in the game and those at redemption island got video messages from their loved ones to build up their spirit and anticipation. As the four competed Mike quickly broke all four of his tiles to finish 1st with Matt and Ralph finishing 2nd and 3rd.

After Mike had won and Steve was eliminated, before Jeff offered Mike the afternoon with his loved one, his mom, he gave Mike an option to forgo his afternoon (literally said his love) so that others might share the afternoon with their loved one. First the offer was for his partners on redemption island, but then the second offer was for the 5 remaining in the game or the larger group. Mike commented that he had been reading the Gospel of Matthew or Mark where Jesus communicated the greatest commandment which is to love your neighbor as yourself, and that Mike felt giving the afternoon with their love one to the larger group was extending the greater good, thus living out this commandment.

Jeff commented that no way would he had ever seen this happening, about a zero percent chance.

Afterwards back at the redemption island camp Ralph was upset with Mike because he did not think he would win any point by doing this favor for the larger group and that he would have never done that after how they had treated them. Mike indicated he made that decision because he had asked God to let him win and that he thought this was the response God would want him to make, he indicated that he did not do it to win votes, but it was just the right thing to do, he seemed to be genuine in his intent and purpose.

Other interesting moments a couple of weeks ago when Matt was ready to cash it in, then at the redemption island contest Jeff asked Matt about where he was mentally, also asking how many day's he had been on Redemption Island Matt commented 20 something days, Jeff asked Matt how many days was Jesus in the wilderness, Matt smiled and commented a very long time 40 days. Matt indicated that he would be fine with being eliminated, but that he just wanted to continue doing God's will and if it was staying in the game then so be it. After Matt won the competition Jeff commented that God was not done with him yet.

We can see that God is not done with Matt, it appears that Matt has been an influence on Mike as in an earlier episode Mike was reading Matt's Bible and discussed scripture within him, almost in a way as though he had never read it before.

Again I think Matt has been a powerful influence on a number of his fellow competitors on redemption island. It may be that for some this is just playing the game at times things seem almost scripted, but I can't or don't believe that it is. Jeff's interaction on these topics and reactions is quite amazing as well as he's not avoid the discussion of faith and Christianity. It will be very interesting to see how this all turns out.

Survivor Life Lesson Part II

Tonight the saga with Matt continued with another interesting twist, you can't write this... Matt who has spent 21 of the 28 days on redemption island mostly alone. This week Matt struggled with the purpose of why he's on redemption island or even in the game and that he's ready to go home unless God desires for him to continue in the game for some purpose. At the challenge on redemption to see who stays a contestant named Julie lost out. Jeff the shows host asked Julie her reason for playing the game and she responded that she basically came for the money, not to make friends or the experience, that her house was in foreclosure and she wanted a better life for her family. However, she indicated that she gained something larger that seeing and witnessing Matt and his faith she couldn't wait to get home and find a church and get active.

It seems that Matt's cry out to God about his purpose there was answered, as I said in an earlier post on this subject that Matt has desired that God use him in the game and in Matt's separation from the game he has wondered how that could happen, but it has on redemption island.

Can't wait to see what happens next, even if Matt does not make off redemption he has influenced one person to seek their own journey of faith and that's bigger than a million dollars.