I love change! (As long as it is not happening to me.)

It is one of those things that as life goes on change happens. People get married, jobs change, people get older, graduations, births, anniversaries, going back to school; change happens because that is life. An odd thing about change is how much we all live with it everyday but many people are insistent that they do not like change. This just is a crazy thought. People like change otherwise there would be no growth in life.

There is that story that is told every year in the UMC about this time. There was a minister who asked a congregation who was in numeric decline, "how may of you love your grandchildren?" Every hand went up. "How many of you would give your money to ensure your grandchildren did could have what they needed." Again, hands raised. "How many of you would sacrifice everything you had for the sake of your children's life?" Hands up. Finally the minister asked, "How many of you would be willing to have different music in worship to ensure your grandchildren felt free to worship here on a Sunday morning?"

One hand went up...

So let us be honest with ourselves, we all love change, as long as it is happening to someone else.

This stands in direct conflict with the Gospel which says we are to die to ourselves, we are to be transformed and resurrected, we are to change so that it is not our will but God's will that be done on earth as it is in heaven. Again, Christianity is not about beliefs it is about living a way that being in this world that builds trust and that can only happen if we ourselves are willing to change.

It is not about taxes, it is about trust

Taxes are always a hot button issue. People believe that the money they earn is theirs and they do not want anyone putting their hands into their bank accounts. So every election season people protest when any talk of a tax raise might be needed. And when these talks happen, people sometimes look foolish.

For instance, here is this sign in protest:

You may be thinking - how can a government run program stay out of the government run program?

I don't know. This sort of thinking runs amok when taxes are discussed. All sort of people get irrational.

The bottom line in this post is that paying taxes is not the issue. It is that we have a growing distrust. We just do not trust others to take care of our money. We believe that we are better managers of our money than anyone else and, if given the opportunity, we could do what others do at a lower cost and faster.

It is not about taxes, it is about trust. When we do not trust our fellow persons, then we will rail against anything that forces us to trust them.

So we rail against taxes.
Members (and many times clergy) of the UMC rail against apportionments and the appointment process.
We rail against FOXNews or MSNBC.
We rail against God when things don't go a desired way.
We rail against other drivers while we ourselves are guilty of poor driving habits.
We rail against our bosses who "don't know what they are doing."

It really has very little to do with the issue(s) voiced, it has everything to do with trust. When we trust others then the level of angst goes way down.

The concern from this clergy person's stand point is that the more we are secularized the less trust is promoted between people. The more we rail against the machine of government the less trust there is. The more we think others are idiots and we are immune to irrationality the less trust there is.

Fort Worth Dish Out

Last night I participated in the 3rd Fort Worth Dish Out (facebook group). It was at 809 at Vickery and was themed around homelessness issues.  

There were three presenters:

Street Swags

The Net

Restorative Justice 

We had the feeling that only 75 people were going to attend and I was feeling a bit low on that as I think I could have done a better job at increasing our odds of hitting our average. The thing was though, there were over 100 people there last night and I am totally blown away by the response.

It is a prayer that while the Church does not need to do more Dish Outs we do need to learn to trust a bit more. Last night I was not doing well at trusting the idea of Fort Worth Dish Out and believed that the success and failure of such an idea is predicated on me.

That was just way wrong. 

The FwDo has an amazingly wonderful leadership team and one that truly can take this thing and make it their own. 

They embodied a trust in the idea of FwDo that I failed to embody. In more ways than I can count, this leadership team is well equipped to run with the FwDo.

If only I could get out of their way...

Thank you all who work so hard to make the Fort Worth Dish Out a success. Especially the design team of Jenny, Robin, Red and Van. 

Decisions without evidence

A comment some time ago stated the following in response to a question I asked about what we put trust in:

"Would you trust a friend with your secrets who you don't have evidence to believe they are trustworthy?

Would you trust a surgeon to operate on you who has a history of accidents and mistakes, or do you want the surgeon whose track record is clean? You are still required to trust in the surgeon, but you only do so with evidence that it would not be dangerous to do so.

Would you put your child in the hands of the Catholic Church when they have been proven to have a history of child abuse? 

You judge based on evidence every day. It's one of the most basic functions of the human mind, and we do it almost constantly."

I agree.  

But the fact of the matter to is that you and I, everyday, make decisions and put our faith in many things for which we do not have any evidence.  

When you drive down a street you have faith/trust the people in the other lane to not drive into your lane.


When we have work done on our cars, we trust people do not do harm to our car in hopes that we would return when the "fluid ran out".


When we park our cars in garages over long periods or when we board a plane, there is trust all around us.  Most of which there is no evidence for.  


And this is why, according to my theology, I do not understand why Christians are afraid of atheists.  We all trust.  We all have faith.  Atheists have faith.  


Attention my fellow Christians: There is no need to fear the Atheists.  
Attention self describing Atheists: There is no need to fear the Christian.  


Unless you put your faith in fear...