My last three columns
Better to be insightful rather than incite-ful Apr 3, 2010
Frustrated at the numerous requests from my wife to stop procrastinating and write my second book, I made an astounding revelation.
"No Small Miracles" was my second book!"
"Really?" asked the woman who's known me for 35 years. "Why haven't I heard of this book?"
"Well," I stammered, "You . . . you . . . weren't around then."
Expecting an explanation something like Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story," she listened.
"Yeah, I was 13 when I wrote a book called '101 Insults -- Insults that Burn.' "
She gave me a teacher look. It's the look that says, "You're going to the principal's office for lying."
No matter, I've been there before, Walters Junior High, 1971. The book was the reason for my visit.
I had written it as a resource book of comebacks to the daily insults I heard from classmates about the lack of a button on the back of my collar, my short inseam and even shorter hair.
Unfamiliar with the pitfalls of plagiarism, I wrote such zingers as, "When they were handing out brains, you thought they said 'trains' and took the caboose."
The book provided an effective counter attack for the insults I received, especially from one particular girl who constantly commented about my lack of good deodorant. One day, when she whispered something particularly annoying, I responded by calling her "crater face."
She burst into tears and bolted from the classroom. Apparently distraught from the cumulative effect of insults hurled by classmates, she found her way to the principal's office to rat out her taunters, starting with Norris Burkes.
This past week, after writing a column about the media pundits who make a living hurling zingers, I heard from readers who reminded me of this girl.
Their e-mails were heart wrenching. They described the insulting loss of retirement savings, medical coverage, a home, job or simply a piece of Americana. Their insult came from a world that is changing at an exponential rate compared to that of their parents'.
Still, other readers took a page from my junior high insult book and called me a communist, a socialist and a pacifist. One reader wrote an Internet posting comparing my military service with that of the Fort Hood shooter.
Wow. They hurt. I wanted to run to the principal.
But fortunately, for every insulting e-mail I received, at least three other readers heard my column as a plea for balanced and unscripted dialogue from all sides.
I was particularly encouraged by reader Bill Bennett from Alpine, Utah, who calls himself "very conservative."
Bennett said he'd read my column as "an invitation to have an insightful conversation with another thinking adult to explore what other approaches might allow us to preserve our system of government.
"But finding that conversation is almost impossible," he added. "Insightful has become 'incite-ful.' We are making and winning arguments, not finding answers. I long for the tone of Isaiah 1:18: 'Come now and let us reason together.' "
At the end of the day, Bennett argued, "My duty is to God as his child, to my family as the patriarch in our home, to my beloved country as a citizen of America, and to all my fellow men and women of the world."
As for my original book of insults, I can only pray that it is not published posthumously. God does have a sense of humor, however. Four years after I wrote it, I became the one with a "crater face."
Burkes is a former civilian hospital chaplain and an Air National Guard chaplain. Write norris@thechaplain.net or visit thechaplain.net. You can also follow him on Twitter, username is "chaplain," or on Facebook at facebook.com/norrisburkes.
Editor's note: This is a special Easter column from Norris Burkes.
The real purpose of Easter is for you to find the Lord Apr 4, 2010
What does Easter mean?
My own pastor likes to say it's the biggest celebration of the year -- "the Christian Super Bowl."
He says that because most theologians will tell you the resurrection is the watershed of Christianity and believing it determines whether you are a Christian.
Church may not be your thing, nevertheless, it can be the day your spouse resurrects you from bed to go to church for the first time this year.
For kids, it's often a day of hunting eggs while their parents are searching for the desserts that follow a massive holiday brunch.
On the first Easter morning, two women went on a search of a different kind.
Their names were Mary and Mary Magdalene, and they went to the cemetery searching for the body of Jesus. After all, Jesus was dead, and cemeteries are the traditional place dead people reside.
The women carried burial spices with them so they could anoint Jesus' body. When they got to the tomb, they were astounded at what they saw and didn't see.
They didn't see the stone authorities had placed in front of the tomb so Jesus' supporters couldn't steal his body and claim he was resurrected. The stone was rolled aside like a ball of cotton.
The women quickly ventured inside, where Mary cried out, "They have taken my Lord away and I don't know where they have put him."
If seeing that Jesus' body was not there was scary, it was absolutely terrifying to see what was there: two men cascaded in light.
"Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery?" asked the shining men.
No answer from the women. They just fell to the ground.
Then, as if gently scolding the women for pointlessly searching for the living in a dead zone, they reminded the women of Jesus' promise to return three days after he was killed.
The story connects me with the present day in at least two ways.
First, I hear a concern expressed over the possible theft of Jesus.
These days, there are a lot of people looking to steal your Jesus. They'd like to transfer him to bumper stickers or protest placards. Others would like to grab his endorsement for political office.
And you always will find a church or two that would like to confiscate his backstage pass to heaven and become the exclusive gate guards.
But no worries. The real Jesus comes standard with OnStar, Lojack or whatever GPS (God Positioning System) you can think of. No one can steal him. The real Jesus is the one who was resurrected in us and lives within the people of faith.
And the second connection I have with the story is expressed in the question asked by the shiny men: "Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery?"
These days, after looking for Jesus in all the traditional places, people have become discouraged. People look to the priest, only to find he's flawed. People look to the smiling television evangelist, only to find he'll deliver Jesus for the right donation. They look into crystals, diets and all kinds of spiritual dives.
Looking for Jesus among these kinds of folks is like looking for the spiritual life among the dead.
So where should we look?
Simple. Go to the source: his words and his teachings. I recommend beginning your search by reading the Gospel of John.
Then, after you find Jesus in his words, James 1:22 leaves us with one last piece of advice.
"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."
Burkes is a former civilian hospital chaplain and an Air National Guard chaplain. Write norris@thechaplain.net or visit thechaplain.net. You can also follow him on Twitter, username is "chaplain," or on Facebook at facebook.com/norrisburkes.
Consider the source before you panic Apr 11, 2010
If you've ever had a day when it seemed like the sky might fall on you, you know how I felt one early morning in 1998 when I was gently awakened by a persistent creaking from our ceiling.
I groaned. This was the five-star resort in Kushadasi, Turkey, where tourists come by boatloads to see Mary's House and the New Testament City of Ephesus. Stationed an hour away, I'd come with my family to enjoy the grand accommodations of the Pine Bay Holiday Resort.
As I lay in bed, I started wondering whether the sound was creaking or crackling. Remembering my fifth-grade Junior Fire Chief training, I knew crackling usually accompanies fire. Standing slowly on our bed, I touched the ceiling to feel for heat. It was warm.
A choking panic filled my throat, and I woke my sleeping bride.
"Honey!" I called as she awakened in time to see me standing inches from her face. "I hear crackling upstairs and the ceiling feels warm."
She heard it too, so she asked me to double check.
I did, and I responded with laughter when I realized the ceiling was warmed by a heating vent. Since we didn't smell smoke, we agreed the noise surely was the early risers in the room above us.
Snuggled back in bed together, I mumbled something we'd both forgotten: "Our hotel wing is one story; there are no rooms upstairs."
At that, Becky reopened her eyes in time to spot a crack in the ceiling.
As she contemplated the predicament, the crack shot across the room to the percussion of an ever-loudening creak.
"Norris!" she screamed as she erupted from bed to snatch our youngest. I did the same with our son, and we bolted to the adjoining room where our eldest two were sleeping.
From the safety of their room, we heard a roaring crescendo
from inside ours. Nearly the entire ceiling had fallen.
And as if that wasn't horrible enough, the ceiling chards lying atop our pillows had the weight of stone and could have caused serious head injuries. Thankfully, Becky gave us the early warning we needed.
Of course, there is no shortage of people who warn of a falling sky. In our case, Becky's warning was correct and our "sky" fell, but most of the time when people tell you the sky is falling, it's not.
There always will be preachers who predict the coming apocalypse, media nay-sayers who warn of a Roman Empire-like fall, or an intelligence community warning of nuclear clouds.
They will issue these warnings because fear always is lucrative. But before you dig a shelter, build your panic room or convert your cash to gold, consider a few things.
First, consider the source of the warning. Do the nay-sayers have your best interest in mind?
I trusted my wife to tell me the sky was falling because I know she loves her family.
God always has our best interest in mind, so it's helpful to remind the fearful Chicken Littles of the power that holds the sky in place. That power is God.
Job 26:7 says: "God spreads the skies over unformed space and hangs the Earth out in empty space."
That tells me the sky has been precarious since creation. We're hanging in empty space held up only by our creator.
Finally, before heeding so much fearful testimony, consider the Apostle Paul's testimony to Timothy: "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."
Burkes is a former civilian hospital chaplain and an Air National Guard chaplain. Write norris@thechaplain.net or visit thechaplain.net. You can also follow him on Twitter, username is "chaplain," or on Facebook at facebook.com/norrisburkes.
posted by Chaplain Norris @ 9:47 AM
