SECULARISTIC SCRIPTURES

Well, not exactly.  These scriptures (holy writings) come from the Bible but are not theological writings nor do they express dogma (a doctrine formally proclaimed by a church) of any kind. Any jaded, cynical, existential atheist non-believer (as well as a theist/or any religious believer) could well benefit from their application and not feel compromised in their unbelief.  The source of words of wisdom, or the person who is given credit for uttering them should make no difference to any honest person who is looking to make the world, or his or her own life a better place.

 Let’s look at a few:

·        “. . . all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so them . . . ” (Matthew 7:12).  In our vernacular we would say, ‘do unto others what you would have done to you.’ We call this the 'Golden Rule.'

·        “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7).  This truism is commonly called ‘the law of the harvest.’

·        “. . . do justly, love mercy, walk humbly. . .” (Micah 6:8)

·        “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. . . .” (John 7:24)

·        “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose . . . “ Ecclesiastes 3:1-8-11.

·        “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29::18)

·        “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18)

·        “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7)

·        “The love of money is the root of all evil.” (1 Timothy 6:10)

·         

Civil War general Robert E. Lee said:  “In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength.”   

IDENTITY and SELF DEFINITION

In making a new acquaintance it is customary in our culture to inquire of a person—or have them ask of you— “How are you?” (do you or they really want to know?), or “Where are you from” (does that really matter to you—or them?), or maybe, “What do you do for a living?” That is how most people identify themselves.  But is that going to make a difference to how you view them or how you want them to view you?  It is less common to ask them (or yourself) questions such as, “Who are you?”, or “What’s important to you?”, or “Why are you here?’ or “What do you value?” or, “Where are you going?” or, in short, “How do you define yourself?”

When we were kids we were asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  We probably replied that we would like ‘to be’ some occupation—an athlete of some kind, or a ‘star’ in something that brought celebrity or a job that would earn us a lot of money—maybe a singer, or an astronaut, or a doctor. But we really didn’t know what it would take to ‘be’ those occupations.  We didn’t know that it wasn’t even entirely up to us--being in the right place, at the right time, with the right opportunity and the right people there to help us or recognize us, or inspire us.  These things would play a big part in an ‘occupation-defined’ life. In fact we probably didn’t think much beyond what we would ‘be,’ occupation-wise. Somehow it would come, we thought,  but in the meantime all we wanted to do was have fun.

As a child we subconsciously defined ourselves as thinking we would be or could be competent to do whatever it was that we wanted to do and that we would, in fact, do it.  As we got a little bit older, say in our early adolescence, we found that things weren’t that easy.  We had to earn it.  We then sometimes did a 180 degree turn and discouragement set in and we viewed ourselves as worthless because things did not come to us automatically, or we bought into the social mirror (which is almost always distorted) and didn’t really realize that young people rarely look outward but focus on themselves as the center of the universe.  We were victims, we thought.

We were looking at the wrong issue and in the wrong direction.

We thought about what we would be but didn’t think about who we would be. Do we yet? That was the larger question.  How do you look at others, and how do you define yourself? 

I am reminded of the related statement made by Martin Luther King, Jr. who said “I have a dream that my . . . children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character!” 

An intelligent man or woman will always consider character far more important than skin color or physical appearance, or place of origin, or place of residence or size of bank account or, yes, occupation.  And character is developed.

I would suggest you do something really radical: consider your life as a moral drama.  Consider that a quality life is not only to do good or be prosperous but to be good.  Don’t just float along from day-to-day.   If you measure the success of your life at all (which I hope you do)—choose not to measure it against the false standards we so often see and hear around us, but against the principles and values upon which the best societies and cultures and people have been built.  And then choose from this day forward to change, to build your life around the principles, and people, and purposes that set you apart and promote peace, external and internal, and define you as a person of substance.  Be honest.  Be kind.  Be genuine.  Be of service.  Be a friend. Be good.  And remember, passivity is not necessarily good.  Get engaged.

You’ve got it in you—just bring it out and bring it on and then see how you define yourself—your changed self.   You might be amazed!

OH SAY WHAT IS TRUTH?

With just a minute or two spent in consulting your dictionary you can easily fathom what this 19^th Century British author was saying in his insightful poem Oh Say What is Truth?  It is especially relevant for our times (John Jaques, 1827-1900):

Oh say, what is truth? ‘Tis the fairest gem That the riches of worlds can produce,   And priceless the value of truth will be when The proud monarch’s costliest diadem Is counted but dross and refuse.

Yes, say, what is truth? ‘Tis the brightest prize To which mortals or Gods can aspire.  Go searching in the depths where it glittering lies, Or ascend in pursuit to the loftiest skies: ‘Tis an aim for the noblest desire.

The scepter may fall from the despot’s grasp When with winds of stern justice he copes.  But the pillar of truth will endure to the last, And its firm-rooted bulwarks outstand the rude blast And the wreck of the fell tyrant’s hopes.

Then say, what is truth?  ‘Tis the last and the first, For the limits of time it steps o’er.  Tho the heavens depart and the earth’s fountains burst, Truth, the sum of existence, will weather the worst, Eternal, unchanged, evermore. 

Interestingly, two millennia ago Pontius Pilate asked the same question, "what is truth," of Jesus but didn’t recognize that he was in the very presence of  the embodiment of The Truth or stay for the answer to his question (see John 18: 37-38; 14:6).  As Christ and His message was rejected by His people, and God’s prophets have been largely rejected (and thereby much of Truth rejected though it remains “Eternal, unchanged, evermore”), needful governance has been vested in what was left: to highly fallible men. 

  

Never in my lifetime (even in the schoolyard!) have I ever heard in the media such back-and-forth vitriol regarding truth and lies as it relates to the crises in our social and political life. The heart of this crises, though, is the corruption and failure of personal integrity of men in power, but not men in truth.  And it is the failure of those who put them in power or who allowed(s) them to stay.

In the 19^th Century, America was politically saved by a man of integrity, a great man, Abraham Lincoln, who didn’t purge God out of the equation or solution to America’s divisiveness. Likewise were the great men among our 18^th Century’s Founding Fathers who did not displace deity from their deliberations.  And likewise in the mid-20^th Century the Western world was saved by a great man, Winston Churchill, though not a stout Christian, but a stout believer that truth was the consummate weapon.  He used the power of truth and persuasion in his powerful radio messages to fortify his people and to move America to come in the nick of time to the rescue of  western Europe.  

Winston Churchill was able to save the West because he had truth on his side.  Truth—which includes the divine principles of honesty, of decency, of respect for life and for sovereignty and freedom.  And he had the guts and willingness to give his all--to stand against evil which was swallowing up the free world.  Churchill recognized eternal principles of truth which guided him and which transcended politics—and which enabled him with magisterial force to see when others could not, to speak when others would not, and to persuade a reluctant America with God’s imprimatur to do her duty.

Oh that the world had men today of that caliber today in Washington, in Moscow, in Pyongyang, in Damascus . . . .   

It cannot be said too often:  Come back to the foundational principles!  In the hurricane of words and lies today remains the eye of the hurricane, which is calm, which is The Truth—“an aim for the noblest desire.”

PREJUDICED

Prejudice (old definition): 'to prejudge or to discriminate among an action, a product, a person or an alternative or to evaluate before a full hearing or examination based on established criteria'. 
  

Using this definition I am clearly a prejudiced person. And so are most people who make judgments about almost every aspect of life.  Regarding people as they present themselves I am prejudiced in favor of a person who, though he or she may not have reached a level of perfection in whatever it is that is decent, laudable and worthwhile of doing, is pursuing it assiduously.  I am prejudiced in favor of one who is putting in the study, the time, the effort, the super-effort, the tedium, the discipline, the commitment and the sacrifice that is required for a level of relative perfection in a worthwhile pursuit.

But most of mankind does not do this; most people do not really put out.  They set their sights low or always attempt to duck under the lower threshold.  They don’t expect much of themselves perhaps because they don’t have a vision of what they really could become.  They give in to sloth, inertia, the ‘easy’ way out.  They don’t, as my Dad used to say with some scorn, “make much of themselves.”

For those whom I have prejudged to have the ability to do good things (most people), for them to simply rely on and demonstrate their natural (undeveloped) talent--and feel satisfied with that--is not enough to overcome my prejudice (though it might lessen it somewhat).  Those who I am prejudiced against could be better: they could be the athlete, or musician, or humanitarian, or mother or father, or husband or wife, or civil servant or employee that could raise the bar for others if they would but honor and magnify the native gifts they had been given. But they don’t. They often don't even discover those gifts. And sometimes I don’t, and when I don’t I think less of myself as well. 

Moreover, I think I will never overcome my prejudice against people who pursue non-worthwhile or exploitive goals—especially at the expense of others—such as getting rich, or gaining celebrity, or using other people to achieve their selfish desires and thus keeping those who are the detritus in the path of these ‘users’ of humanity from achieving their own more worthwhile goals or potential.

I am prejudiced against such people because my experience has shown me that when this class of person has let down in some important aspect of their lives they usually let down in some other important aspect--it carries over.  That is why many of these people can never get or hold a job or a spouse; they are unreliable; they are untrue to themselves. It doesn't take a degree in psychology to spot them.   

    

When I have seen an athlete like Olympic skier Mikaela Shiffrin or a political candidate like Ben Carson, MD,  or a humanitarian like Mother Teresa, or a recovering war casualty or a little boy or little girl who has an orthopedic handicap or a life-threatening illness or deprivation overcome it or try to overcome it by total faith in their father or mother or physician or God, then I gladly relinquish my prejudice for there should be none.

  

I am not prejudiced because of a person’s race or color, their heritage or religion or physical or mental handicap; I am prejudiced by the example of one’s repeatedly poor choices, or unworthy values chosen, or cruelty, or infidelity, or sloth, or abuse of body, mind or spirit.  And in my defense, if I need it, though I may continue to be ‘prejudiced’ against those in the last half of the above sentence, I certainly concede I would be wrong to ‘discriminate’ against them by depriving them of their inalienable human rights.  I would not want to do that.  Besides, that is out of my purview.  

UP-COUNTRY

I recently spent a few days in the Sierra Nevada of California.  The contrast to where I now live and have lived for almost all of my life brought me back to what conditions were like nearly a century ago in rural America—and still are when you get away from the cities and suburbs.

Here is what I observed . . .

People and the conditions in which they live in the unincorporated area I was in are markedly (and generally) ‘slower,’ less formal, poorer in terms of material possessions and appearances, and the focus of conversations more on the mundane. 

People I observed and overheard in the grocery store or plumbing store or at the gas station focused on simple things—their health, or the weather, or their family or things of nature.  For example, it was not uncommon to see little groups of three or four men (some of whom were clearly unemployed) standing around in their dirty blue jeans and boots wearing plaid or checkered shirts and a baseball cap staring under the hood of a truck, and talking about the displacement of the engine of their own dirty pickup trucks parked nearby, or looking at a stack of car tires, or talking of the weather and the depth of the snowpack or the upcoming fishing season.  Women, when you saw them, sadly and often looked more bedraggled or beaten down than women one might see in towns or in business establishments.  I guess the women were inside their homes, and I would guess watching television, for I saw few in yards or the small stores I visited.  And (I hate to say it) both men and women seemed to be very unattractive in terms of physical condition or grooming. Overfat and unhealthy-looking people were the norm.  Overheard public language (from both genders) also seemed more crude or unrefined. People, in general, seemed less well educated than those on the coast.

But, on the upside, these people seemed to have an independence of spirit and appeared to be proud of their freedoms and of living in America.  The old symbols of patriotism seemed more alive than in the more urbane area in which I live. I observed and sensed a distinct regional character—an old American character, but sadly one in which the old “American dream” seemed to burn less brightly.  

  

Yet for all of the differences between up-country living and that where I am from, I enjoyed being in the up-country—the beauty of it if one did not look to closely, the sounds and smells of nature and the smoke of a wood fire rising from a chimney, the inherent serenity of clouds, sunrise, sunset, and starlit night or hearing a dog or coyote barking in a distant canyon.  And the people, one-on-one, seemed decent and were courteous to one who was an obvious ‘outsider.’  Of that I was appreciative, and I tried to be likewise.

All of us—at least those of us who are citizens—are Americans in our own way.  We can all learn from each other.  

GETTING STRONGER

There are ‘product’ people and there are ‘process’ people.  A product person is one who basks in the end result—the product—of effort—like winning the contest or achieving top market share, or being judged # 1 in whatever they had set out to accomplish.  A process person, by contrast, is one who enjoys the struggle on the road to success maybe more than the victory itself.  For me, I enjoy the process; that is why I love to practice, to work out, to research and write the talk or the article, to take the hike sometimes even more than arriving at the destination—because destinations are not permanent—they are just stepping-stones to further growth.

Becoming Strong is a Process

I believe that every person has or once had a desire to be as fit or attractive or strong as was the person or the ideal they admired.  They soon learned, however, that they, themselves, had some limitations.  Money, time, anatomical structure or other circumstances would put limits on their aspirations. If not these, age eventually would. Or other interests would change their focus.  Or maybe their self-imposed limitation was their ignorance that the ‘product’ they desired (an improved self) was achieved by a process that needed to be understood and adhered to.

But assuming that most people would like to be strong as they could be, regardless of their age, I would like to suggest that many who actually do submit to a training regime leave out a key component of success. That component or ingredient is the need to take recovery as seriously as they do their training or the vision of their goal.

A person does not get stronger when they train; they get stronger when they recover from hard training. 

The Stress, Recovery, Adaptation Cycle

When the body is exposed to stress (physical or mental), it will begin a biological process to deal with that stress, recover from it, and then adapt and compensate so that it is better prepared to handle it if exposed to the same or similar stressors again.

When it comes to getting strong, your training is the stress.  And according to the Stress-Adaptation-Recovery Cycle, you’re not getting stronger while you’re exposed to the stress; in fact, when you lift weights (whether of iron or your own body weight) the stress it produces causes the microfibers of your muscles to tear and break down if your workout is of sufficient intensity.  Indeed, you are temporarily weaker.  The more fibers that are engaged—the harder you train—the stronger you become provided you allow the muscle to recover between exercise bouts.  And recovery itself is a process.  You get stronger when you rest and refuel—the day (at least) or two or three you need to recover and repair and rebuild your muscle fibers and supporting tissues. This process makes the person stronger than they were before.

Resting and Refueling

Besides intense workouts, there are two things you need to make your recovery effective: proper nutrition and sleep.

Food. To build itself back up and adapt to the stress of training, your body requires plenty of fuel.  You need to eat good food and lots of it, especially if you are desirous of putting on muscular body weight. Be especially meticulous about getting enough protein each day: at least one gram per pound of body weight. Egg whites and fish are especially good sources of protein. Non-sugary dairy products are also good. (Examples of sugary dairy products are milk shakes and ice cream.)  Avoid processed food!  Eat plenty of vegetables and fruits, grains and nuts.  And drink lots of water. The reason most men stall in their training is that they’re not eating enough food—they are worried about getting fat. But you get fat by eating fat—or by not exercising enough.  You get fat by taking in more calories than you burn.   If you’re looking to get stronger, you must not neglect your nutrition. If you want to get ‘shredded’ (a high definition muscular appearance) you’ve got to do everything I’ve said above but just take in a little less total volume of food and put in a few more reps or a little more time into your workout.

Sleep. Sleep plays a vital role in our recovery from exercise. When we enter the deep sleep state, our pituitary gland releases a pulse of human growth hormone to help with tissue repair and growth. When we enter REM sleep, testosterone levels increase, which also aids in tissue repair and growth. Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep per night.  As you get older you sleep less at night so try to get in a short nap during the day if, like me, you are over 50.  Avoid caffeine late in the day or—better yet—eliminate it altogether. Avoid screens (phone, tv, computer) at least a half an hour before bed. Sleep in a dark, cool room. Don’t do heavy workouts too late in the evening—it raises metabolism, sometimes for a couple of hours, which is good for fat burning, but it also keeps you awake until it slows down to your normal rate.

Remember, you don’t get stronger when you train. You get stronger when you recover. So take the time you spend in bed and at the table just as seriously as the time you spend in the gym!

OBEDIENCE TO THE UNENFORCEABLE

In sport, on the road, in business, in marriage, in your private moments, your integrity is based more on what can’t always be monitored, observed, judged, or refereed than what can be. Contrary to what one may think, “Western societies are not held together primarily by the overall enforcement of laws, which would be impractical, but most important by citizens who voluntarily obey the unenforceable because of their internal norms of correct behavior” (Dallin H. Oaks). Voluntary self-regulation among the majority is critical to a stable society and the institutions in it. I wonder if we stress this enough in our homes and schools today?

The value of understanding the principle of self-regulation has been noted by the wise among us for centuries.  I came upon the title to my comments today by reading a statement by Lord John Fletcher Moulton, the great English jurist who wrote that democracy will only flourish in a nation to “the extent of obedience to the unenforceable.”  Even the French concurred—Alexis de Tocqueville likewise observed this characteristic attitude of the early American nation.  As our nation gets closer to the brink I wonder how many people still subscribe to these fundamental norms guiding civil and personal behavior?

A well-educated Chinese visitor recently noted the following about America:

“In your past, most Americans attended a church or synagogue every week. These were institutions that people respected. At church, from their youngest years, Americans were taught to voluntarily obey the law; to respect other people’s property, and not steal it. Americans were taught never to lie. Americans followed these rules because they had come to believe that even if the police or court systems didn’t catch them when they broke a law, God would catch them and hold them accountable. Democracy works [in America] because most people most of the time voluntarily obey the laws.”  He went on to say, “democracy-enabling religions are those that support the sanctity of life, the equality of people, the importance of respecting others’ property, and of personal honesty and integrity” (Linkedin, 14 June 2016, “Religion is the Foundation of Democracy and Prosperity” by Clayton Christensen).

The best places to teach our children these principles and values are in the home, in our churches, and in our institutions such as in boy scouts and girl scouts, and yes, in the schools and in youth athletics.  These things are part of the life-long responsibilities of all adults—direct teaching and modeling.   Don’t leave it up to cartoon television shows and the morality of ‘friends’ on Facebook to be the teachers of those who most need direct teaching to establish responsible lives.