People, Goodness, Love—Us and the World
Here are a few more posts from what I’ve posted on Medium. If you missed the other posts on Medium since early May, check out Haiku for You! and Reaching Out
These were published in Publishous and cover a broad range of topics.
I hope you’ll enjoy the reads!
As a young believer, I had to learn how to trust God.
It wasn’t natural for me. It isn’t natural for any of us.
Just as toddlers exert their free will before they can say it clearly, we like to “do it by our self!” American culture only reinforces this innate self-willed resistance to trusting God.
My worry chair
When my wife and I started our life together, we had a wing-backed, turquoise chair in our living room. Read more…
A Humble Love
“What the world needs now — is love, sweet love…” was the recurring line in a popular song in the mid-sixties sung by Jackie DeShannon. It was and still is one of my favorite songs from the ‘60s. This YouTube video link of the song captures the innocent hope of the sixties for universal love.
Another favorite song of mine from that era became somewhat of an anthem for the peace movement of the sixties. Sung by the Youngbloods, the chorus of “Get Together” epitomized the search for a unifying love— “Come on people now — smile on your brother — everybody get together — try to love one another right now.”!
A naive hope seemed to die with the close of the decade and the beginning of the “Me Generation” of the ‘70s. Read more…
The Need to See Beyond Ourselves
Agrarian economies still dominate a good part of the world, so planting and harvesting are important times of the year.
They impact the livelihoods of many people. How good the harvest is or isn’t impacts everyone.
Our economy in America is more diverse. In years past, we were considered an industrial economy with an agrarian backbone. But technology and its counterparts created an industry of its own.
Most Americans only see the effect of a good or bad harvest when it affects food prices. Read more…
We Christians — genuine followers of Christ — need to stop moralizing the Christian faith. We need to quit portraying Christianity as a life of moral goodness.
Our effort at goodness is a weak facade for faith. It presents a false face like a veneer—an appearance of goodness as if it was faith. But this misrepresents genuine Christianity.
If you ask most people to describe Christianity, believer and non-believer alike, you’ll get a reply related to some form of moral goodness…
I try to be a good person, who does good things and is kind to others.