I’ve never liked Halloween.

And it has nothing to do with my religious affiliation. I think it was because the whole thing was so unpleasant for me as a kid.

First of all the whole costume thing was an ordeal. I mean I was into drama. The idea of wearing a costume wasn’t the problem. It was more a function of my propensity to procrastinate that caused problems with the costume. (Do you think I could have put a couple more “pro” words in that sentence?)

Because I never bothered to decide what I was going to wear very early, there was this build up of stress for weeks before the event where I had to endure the crushing weight of knowing that the whole costume ordeal was heading my way.

One strike against the holiday.

Then there was the trauma of knocking on strangers doors. Naturally I am an extreme introvert. I grew up an only child in a very rural area. (My public high school graduating class had 57 of us. It was a big year. Our house was on a dirt road. You get the idea.)

So then I had to pile in the car and get driven from house to house to go trick-or-treating. If I’d tried to do it walking, I’d probably end up with about three candy bars for the whole night’s effort. In the dark I’d have to walk up some long driveway, often by myself (did I mention I was an only child?) and do one of the scariest things on my list: go talk to someone I didn’t know.

And ask them for something. While wearing some goofy costume that I hated because it had been the source of so much stress. In the dark. In the middle of no where.

Is it any wonder that I’ve never been successful at sales? I mean Halloween caused some deep emotional scarring here when it came to the whole cold calling thing, don’t you think?

The only thing that could possibly motivate me to press on through that kind of fear – was chocolate.

Oh, how I hated going through all that and ending up with Sweet-Tarts or Smarties. Or toffee. Or, God forbid, an apple or an orange!

I wanted chocolate and chocolate only.

I guess that whole experience growing up is why I try to make sure I am working on Halloween. Last year I took Gorgeous out to dinner so I wouldn’t have to be home. This year we had over 40 kiddies come to the door. I stayed in my study on the computer.

Gorgeous doesn’t get it. She thinks I’m some sort of Scrooge towards the whole think.

The truth is I’m permanently scarred. (Or is that scared?)

Enjoy!

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It has been a crazy week for me (and it’s only Tuesday morning!) We are short handed at work.

Corporate sent one of our guys to help out in the New Orleans office, which puts us 25% down on our staffing here in Savannah.

And then yesterday we had one guy in Jacksonville, and another in Brunswick which left me to cover everything going on in the port of Savannah all alone. (Whew!)

Oh, and today is the last day of the month and since we work on a monthly billing cycle I have a ton of paperwork to do.

Bundle all that with my shift in focus over to SuccessCREEations and posting here will be a little less than what y’all have become accustomed to.

That’s OK. There’ll be plenty to see over at SC until I can get back on a more regular schedule.

Enjoy!

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Or is it Georgia – Florida day? I get confused.

Today is the a big day ’round these parts. One thing I learned after I moved down to the South was how seriously they take their college football.

Having grown up in the Northeast, it was a bit of a shock to my system. I mean sure, we had schools like Syracuse University, but there weren’t many folks who got passionate about them who didn’t actually attend the institution.

But down here some of the most rabid fans never even went to college, much less attended the home of their favorite team. I still don’t understand it.

When I lived in Jacksonville, and on Ameilia Island I was in that no-man’s land that was potentially dangerous to someone as naieve about the ways of Southern college football as me. If you look at a map of Ameilia Island you will see that it is the part of the state that swings up into Georgia on the coast. If they’d kept the line straight, by rights it would be north of the border.

Native: “Are you a Gator or are you a Seminole?”

Me: “Ummmm…”

Native: “Don’t tell me you’re a Bulldog!”

Me: “Ahhhhh….”

It wasn’t a very good recipie for much of a meaningful dialogue.

And in Jacksonville it seemed that the biggest of the rivalries was reserved for the Florida – Georgia game, which is played every year on neutral ground. The story I heard was that the emotions just got too much when they had the games in Gainesville or in Athens. And it was just my dumb luck that I happened to live on that “neutral” ground.

I even know mixed marriage families. That creates an interesting home dynamic!

Because of that I’ve learned over the years to be very careful about what I say in regards to the regional sports teams. I’ve watched a casual comment turn a seemingly normal civilized person into a crazed maniac spewing all kinds of horrible stuff so fast you’d think there was some sort of demon possession involved or something.

Anyway this particular game is a week long event in Jacksonville. Good for the economy. The unfortunate ones drive into town the day before the came and try to make up for the celebration time they lost during the week.

Driving down to Jax for a job yesterday I found myself in the midst of a caravan of orange and blue and red and black heading south on I-95.

At one point one of those pearly-white Cadillac Escalades went whizzing by me covered with Gator magnets and a parade of flags sticking up on plastic masts from each window. As the car blew by me I thought it was foolish of them to be going that fast. The last 15 miles north of the Florida state line are almost always manned by either local law enforcement or Georgia State Troopers looking to generate revenue from speeding tourists.

In fact, Camden County (the first county north of the border) has one of the highest narcotics arrest rates in the country because they patrol the interstate so heavily.

And I was thinking that Cadillac was emblazoned with the wrong colors for that side of the border.

I had to chuckle when I finally passed the Escalade on the side of the road parked in front of a patrol car. Ironically he didn’t get pulled over until about three miles South of the state line. He made it through the Georgia gauntlet somehow. But apparently the Florida Highway Patrol doesn’t cut slack for home team fans. Oops.

I’d say I don’t have a dog in this fight, but folks would construe that to mean I’m pulling for Florida. And the truth is it doesn’t matter much to me.

GO NAVY! BEAT ARMY!

And no. I didn’t attend Annapolis. But at least I did wear a Navy uniform for a while…

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Yesterday I was sent to a local distribution center for one of my wife’s favorite retailers to survey some furniture that was damaged during shipment. I actually had to put my jacket on for the first time this season.

It’s funny how the weather seems to go here in Savannah. The temperature has dropped almost 30 degrees since late last week. Last week I was on vacation and my sister came to visit. She and I drove down to Jacksonville to check out their zoo and it was nearly 90 degrees. We were dying walking around for the day. And then the other night (right after she left) we had to bring the plants in to keep them from getting frosted at night.

Life is like that. The one consistent thing that we can depend on in life is change.

When you think about it, change is almost one of the defining characteristics of life. Infants grow up. Aging is a part of life. In our society we move from place to place, change jobs frequently.

I was thinking about change and I ran across this passage in Ecclesiastes

I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose is that people should fear him.

It’s got me thinking.

What are the things that truly matter in this life?

People matter. There is no doubt about that.

And of course God matters. But he’s a person too so really God is already in that category even though he certainly deserves special mention.

As far as I can see it, all the rest is, “oh, by the way..”

What do you suppose the implications of that are?

Maybe all the stuff we chase as important in our lives really shouldn’t be such a priority. Hmmm….

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One of my favorite bloggers, Liz Strauss is having a special even today in honor of her blog’s birthday. Normally on Tuesday’s she has something called Open Comment Night.

But today she’s opened it up for a whole day long extended play event. Stop over and check it out and have some cake while you’re there!

Liz Strauss over at Successful-Blog is having a blog birthday tomorrow. In light of that she is having a little contest where entrants must describe her blog in 25 words or less.

Since I’ve started hanging out at the Open Comment Night that Liz hosts every Tuesday night I’ve gotten to know her and have come to consider her a friend. I nearly had the opportunity to meet her when my work sent me to her home town of Chicago, but an unfortunate change of flights by my company got in the way.

Liz is a passionate advocate for Net Neutrality and her Net Neutrality pages (page1 and page 2) are an invaluable resource where anyone can learn more about the controversy.

The Tuesday night Open Comment Nights are often a highlight of my week. There bloggers from all around the world hang out for a while, bounce ideas around, build friendships, and sometimes even get a little silly. The only real rule that Liz strictly enforces is that everyone must be nice.

Liz is a master at building community. We could all learn a thing or two from her example (especially us church folks!)

So without further ado, here is my entry for the contest:

Successful-Blog is a fun community where you can rub elbows and learn from successful business professionals, writers, bloggers, and even a code writing donkey.

You’ll have to check out Open Comment Night yourself some Tuesday to find out about the code writing donkey!

Happy Birthday Successful-Blog! May you have many more Successful-Years!

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Update: I changed the code per Scott’s suggestion in the comments below. Now the search box actually works. Oops!

Hey guys! I’ve added a new little feature to CREEations that I thought might be helpful for some folks.

Over in the right side bar is a little search box where you can search eBible.com to see what the Bible has to say about stuff without having to go off to some other site. And it’s a good double check for me!

Here’s what it looks like.

Enter a verse or keywords
(John 3:16, love, living water)

Enjoy!

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Here in Savannah we are entering that absolutely wonderful time of the year when we can turn of the air conditioning and open the windows. Knowing that weather like this will get here eventually is what makes those six months in the blast furnace that they call “summer” down here bearable.

Of course having the windows open is leading to some interesting challenges. For starters some mornings I find it is a bit harder on my allergies, Savannah being the Allergy Capital of the Southeast and all. But hey, better living through chemistry, eh? I just keep taking my little allergy pill every morning and let it ride.

These days Fat Boy and Low Rider get an added dimension to their kitty TV. They can actually smell what they see through the windows. Since the boys are indoor cats, our resident cat whisperer, Gorgeous says this is added enrichment. And I can’t see how she’s wrong. Because sometimes it drives them absolutely bug-nuts. One or the other of them will start tearing from window to window, obviously frustrated because they can’t get at whatever is out there.

And then when we look it is usually just some birds at the feeder, or our neighborhood rabbit that comes in to eat whatever plants have sprouted from the uneaten bird seed under the feeder. Occasionally it is some other cat that isn’t sequestered like our boys are.

And then, every once in a while they go absolutely buggy because of a raccoon in the back yard. It is usually after dark since raccoons are nocturnal animals. And that makes them hard for us humans to see for sure. But we’ve caught enough glimpses that we’ve figured it out.

I’m thinking that the raccoons must be having a good year and the population is up somewhat. We’ve never had any in our yard before. I mean we live in a subdivision. It’s not like we are out in the country somewhere with lots of land around. And it seems there are more of them dead along the side of the road than in years past. There’s even a piece of road I travel every day that I’ve started to call Raccoon Alley because it isn’t unusual to see 6 or more carcases in a 2 mile stretch.

We think it is our backyard raccoon that caused another problem for us. The boys are still banished every evening because Low Rider refuses to let us sleep much past 3 or 4 AM on any given morning if he’s got roam of the house. We’d been closing them in Gorgeous’ office each night. Then this week she found about a 3 inch hole in the corner of the screen in her office window.

Now the way our house is built, we have big windows. Most of them go down to only about a foot off the ground level. They let in lots of light during the day and are at the perfect height for the boys to look out.

But apparently they are the perfect height for a raccoon to try to get in too. We know it wasn’t the boys because neither of them have their front claws so they couldn’t have gotten the tear started.

So, as a result of the attempted raccoon incursion we have moved the boy’s room of banishment from Gorgeous’ office to my study, litter pan and all. It’s on the front of the house, not the back so we figure that maybe the raccoon will be less likely to hassle them here. And Low Rider was kind enough to remind me the litter pan is in here as I’m typing this. Whew! Stinky!

But the whole thing begs a question. How do you keep a raccoon from tearing through the screen to get at your cats? And why would the raccoon want in at the cats anyway?

So now I have yet another minor home improvement project waiting for me. (And if you’ve read my post on Stupid Questions you’ll know that HIP’s are really not my thing.) And I’ll have to get on it soon because the hole may not be big enough for a raccoon to get in, but I bet Low Rider could wiggle through if he decided to. (No way Fat Boy could make it!)

Oh, and if you were looking for some deep spiritual insight from all of this, I’m sorry to disappoint. I just figured we could stand for a bit of a breather from all the heavy “what is truth?” talk.

Enjoy!

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The recent discussions with Marcus highlight an interesting challenge for Christians. How do we discuss the things Jesus said about truth when talking to folks who have a fundamentally different understanding of what truth is?

Folks like Markus don’t believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth and even if there was, there is really no way we could ever know it anyway. Because Christians belong to another school of thought that says that truth is absolute, fixed and can be known, we can come off appearing intolerant, judgmental, and even bigoted.

Now some of those labels have definitely been earned by some folks on our side of the discussion. But the question remains how do we have meaningful discussions when we don’t even agree on the terms we are discussing?

Many folks seem to think that this shift by many away from the idea of absolute truth is something new because it is part of postmodern philosophy. But differing understandings of truth have been around at least since Jesus’ day.

There is an interesting exchange recorded in the Bible between Pilate and Jesus during his trial. Take a look.

Pilate said, “So you are a king?”

Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.”

“What is truth?” Pilate asked. Then he went out again to the people and told them, “He is not guilty of any crime.

Pilate asks Jesus what truth is. But it doesn’t appear to be a sincere question. He certainly doesn’t put any effort into getting it answered. It is almost dismissive, like Pilate is saying, “Look, Bub. All this blah, blah, blah you keep spouting about truth is a waste of time. We all know truth not something fixed that we can actually know. Besides truth isn’t important here anyway.”

Jesus took a different view of truth. In the four gospel accounts, Jesus is recorded saying the word “truth” over 100 times. Most often he says it in the phrase, “I tell you the truth” when he prefaced some particularly important point, for example when he says, “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life.”

Jesus also said, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

To him the subject of truth was fundamentally important to those who would follow after him. He said that not only was truth knowable, but when we found it, truth would be the very source of freedom for us.

And here’s the kicker. Jesus said that truth wasn’t some abstract set of thoughts or ideas that we had to hunt for and try to assemble. He rocks our understanding of the whole concept of truth by claiming that he himself is that truth. Jesus said of himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

Philosophers go around hunting for truth as though it is a collection of ideas, when in actuality the thing they are looking for is a person. Is it any wonder so many miss it?

When you read through the gospel accounts with an understanding that when Jesus speaks of the truth he is really speaking of himself, statements like the one he made to Pilate above take on a whole different level of meaning.

And that also may explain why folks like Marcus may be offended when we quote scriptures such as the one I mentioned in The Source of Wisdom, which says, “Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools.”

From the perspective that truth is relative and unknowable, than any statement that claims to state truth in absolute terms must be offensive.

But that still doesn’t answer the question of how to have a meaningful dialogue with someone whose understanding of truth is fundamentally different from our own. Is it even possible?

It doesn’t appear Jesus made too much headway with Pilate. Should we even try?

Or should we simply state the truth, allow others to take it or leave it, and move on?

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Update: Marcus has posted a very well thought and reasoned response over at his place, titled simply Truth, that deserves your attention. Head on over. Check it out. Maybe even drop him a comment giving your two cents.

Note: This post came out of a comment thread from the other day. Marcus took issue with what I had to say about the Source of Wisdom. Marcus has been a regular commenter here at CREEations and really challenges me to refine and better understand my own views. Yesterday he brought up some good points and, since my reply started to get rather long winded I decided to bring it out in a whole post. (I hope that’s OK, Marcus.)

Marcus,

If I sound pissed, I again apologize. It is definitely not the case, and I know it does nothing to detract from the stereotype of the “angry Christian”. I have a tendency to express my opinions strongly and can come across as angry when it is just the New York in me and the strength of my convictions coming out. My wife will attest that this phenomenon is much more pronounced in person! (”Its not so much what you say, Chris. It’s the tone.”) Really I’m not angry. I’m working on that. Sorry if I come across that way.

And I certainly agree as you mentioned that the followers of various religions all believe they have found the truth. And I really do respect differing beliefs, even though I disagree with them. It is one thing for various individuals or groups to believe they have found the truth. But there is no way we can stand on the outside, look at these different beliefs and say, “They are all true.”

Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Lao Tzu, Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and L. Ron Hubbard (to name only a few) all said different things from each other that they each claimed to be true and have adherents that also claim that what they said is true. They each have given vastly different “instructions” on what it takes to have a fulfilled life and to be prepared for the afterlife.

But, Marcus, you and I appear to have a fundamentally different understanding of what truth is. Either that or maybe we place an entirely different value on truth.

I look at a diverse declaration of truth like that and say, “Because they make differing claims, they can’t all be right. Let me do my best to find the one who actually has the truth.” For me, my path to religion was a rocky search for truth. I wanted to know God no matter how much it challenged my understanding. And I looked at a lot of options before I landed on Jesus.

I’m not sure whether you are coming from a place where you see that they could all be right or if you are trying to say that it doesn’t matter what folks believe, because if it works for them it must be true.

When you boil it down to their essence, most all belief systems out there at their core are some flavor of “do the best you can (or follow this code) and hope it works out OK in the end.”

Then there’s Jesus. What he said was radically different in part because he said there is no way your best can possibly be good enough. He said that the standard for pleasing God is simple: absolute perfection. In order to please God we have to be just as perfect as God himself. Because there is no way any of us could possibly measure up to that perfect standard we are all doomed.

But, just as in any great epic story, after he hits us hard with the idea that it is impossible for us to ever measure up, Jesus says there is another way.

And this is where it gets really nutty because Jesus says some totally outrageous stuff. Basically he says that we’re in luck because it just so happens that he himself is God incarnate and if we follow him we’ll be OK because his God perfection can substitute for our impossibly flawed imperfection.

I mean, Marcus, here’s a guy that looks just like you and me (only more Jewish) who flat out says that he is God and we should follow him. It is totally preposterous, goofy, insane, and not much different than the leaders of most cults. Downright evil, really.

Unless it is true.

So after years of dismissing Jesus’ claims (mostly because people I knew who were Christians were so messed up and treated me poorly) and looking at many other options, I eventually decided to take a closer look at him. The evidence I found was really surprising.

Jesus validated his claims by performing a variety of different miracles including changing the nature of matter (turning water into wine), controlling the weather (calming a storm at sea), healing people of numerous infirmities and even raising people from the dead.

Impressive for sure, but the written record of miracles performed two thousand years ago by some guy was not enough for me.

But then, after he says all those crazy things about being God, he dies in a way that is pretty much beyond his control and that is accurately predicted in Bible passages from the Old Testament hundreds of years before. Interesting. But maybe it was luck? Perhaps. But looking at his life I found there are several things about him that were accurately predicted which he could not possibly have controlled, even things like where and when he was born, who his parents were, and the circumstances of his birth.

That’s even more impressive, but it’s still not enough for me.

Then Jesus takes the whole “I’m God” thing to a whole other level by refusing to stay dead after he is horribly executed. Even his enemies acknowledged that he was no longer dead in their bumbling attempts to cover it up. If he really was still dead, all they had to do was produce his body and the whole thing ends right there.

But he wasn’t dead any more. Hundreds of folks saw him alive after thousands saw him executed. It was no clever parlor trick or deception on the part of his followers. He really was alive.

This one fact of history is what sets Jesus completely apart from all the others. There is no cult leader yet who has raised himself back to life after he’s died.

I used to think that, well his followers made the whole thing up and then wrote about it a hundred years or more later and put down the stories in such a way as to make it seem true. The trouble is that modern archeology has put some of the New Testament writings to within 30 years of Jesus’ death. That means there were still people alive at the time who lived through the events and would have refuted them if they were not true.

Then there’s the lives of his followers. Would they have all gone to gruesome deaths, almost to a man, and hold to something if they knew it not to be true? I mean we are talking about horrific things like crucifixion (even upside down), beheading, being boiled or burned alive – no “humane” lethal injections for that group. No way they’d all face that horrible an end for something they knew not to be true.

Anyway I bring all this up, simply to point out why Jesus’ claims are different than the claims of others, before and after him. I don’t expect to convince you that Jesus is right. I just felt I should explain where I am coming from and why I believe his outrageous claims about himself.

But that brings up another interesting question. Should a person share with someone else information that he understands will vastly improve that other persons life, even if it conflicts with what the other person is currently believing?

Let’s say I see that you have some problem. It doesn’t matter what that problem is, a cocaine addiction, you eat too much and are obese, you spend money like a drunken sailor and are drowning in debt, or maybe you just drive without a seatbelt and are at a higher risk for getting smeared on the highway. It doesn’t matter.

If I see that there is a simple solution to your problem (and yes even something as overpowering as addiction has a simple solution. Abstinence may not be easy, but it is simple.) am I a better friend if I point out the problem you are having and offer up a solution? Or am I a better friend if I just let you wallow in your issue and eventually cause serious harm to your own life?

I would say the better friend is the one who speaks up and offers to help his fellow man.

Now that offer of help may be rejected outright. And it might even make the fellow angry. “How dare you say that I have an addiction! I can quit any time I want.”

But the rejection of that help doesn’t make the helper any less caring. And it certainly doesn’t make him hurtful or judgmental of his friend heading for trouble.

That’s the same way followers of Jesus perceive the issue of truth. Only it is even more urgent than a life and death issue. We are talking not only about a better life here (along the lines of a life free from addiction) but we are talking about the hereafter, which goes on for all of eternity. And forever is a long time. Too long to be wrong.

So when I get a little passionate about sharing what I understand to be true, Marcus, please understand how urgent I see the issue to be. As a former military guy I understand the importance of life and death issues. Eternity is the one issue that make life and death stuff look like choosing what clothes to wear to a party by comparison. Compared to forever, to me, life and death is small potatoes.

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