New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
column for last week of April 2017


Column:

The Risk of an Upside-down World

"My world turned upside down" is an expression we use when things go wrong. It literally describes the feeling I had ten years ago when my SUV turned upside down.

My "world" wasn't so much defined by my SUV that was upside-down on a levee road. My world was the driver – my daughter suspended upside down from her seatbelt.

She crawled out of the car and called to assure me that she was fine; her passenger was fine. Well, not everyone. Dad's wallet suffered sprains and contusions.

You see, the SUV was totaled and I wasn't carrying collision insurance. I'd canceled the expensive coverage in favor of eating three meals a day. It was my attempt to balance the risk between paying exorbitant premiums and possibly paying out-of-pocket to replace our older vehicle.

My insurance agent had tried to persuade me otherwise, warning about the risk of dropping collision coverage. She'd urged caution, saying the car still had a lot of life left.

But alas, it gave that life to save my daughter.

While I'm eternally grateful she survived with minor injuries, even now I ask myself, "What was I thinking when I dropped that coverage?"

I'll tell you what I was thinking. I was scared by the word salespeople use so well: "risk." For instance, when we bought a washing machine, the salesman asked my wife, "Do you really want to take a risk not buying an extended warranty?"

Hey, she married me, didn't she? "Extended warranty" isn't even in her vocabulary.

But the whole experience started me thinking about our society's relationship with "risk." We want to insure it, prevent it, manage it, cure it, readjust it, reposition it, balance it and deny it. Risk shines a light on our vulnerabilities until, like a molting crustacean, we want to hide under a rock for protection.

The biggest chance we take in life is that of loving someone. It's risky because even when love is freely given, it still comes with no guarantees or extended warranties. And the people we love are under no obligation to return that love.

In loving my child, or anyone for that matter, I take risks. I put my heart on the line -- with no collision insurance -- and trust that God will conspire to keep us safe so neither of us ends up totaled on a dirt road.

Jesus knew something about the risk of relationships. He gambled everything while discipling a group of anglers. He knew it was futile to insure love. After all, he asked Peter three times. "Do you love me?" Despite the fact that Peter replied each time, "You know it," he had earlier refused to follow Jesus to the crucifixion.

I knew allowing my daughter access to a powerful SUV had its risks. Yet when I declined the collision insurance, I was rejecting those risks.

Fortunately, a few weeks later she walked – or more accurately — limped across the stage to get her high school diploma. At that point, it occurred to me that there is no limit to the love I am willing to invest in her. Every effort I make to love her is worth the risk.

In the ten years since the accident, she has given me two wonderful grandsons. And that has truly set my world right-side up.

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Read Norris' past columns at www.thechaplain.net. Write him at comment@thechaplain.net or P.O. Box 247, Elk Grove, Calif., 95759. Twitter @chaplain or call (843) 608-9715

 

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New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
Post easter column


Column:

Resurrection or Fake News?

On my first column after Easter, I ask, "Did Jesus really rise from the dead? How do you know it wasn't fake news?" Those are the questions Thomas had when told that Jesus rose from the dead.

Thomas, you'll recall, is the disciple the church bestowed with the moniker, "Doubting Thomas." He saw the resurrection as fake news in its basic form -- selling the gullible on the news they most wanted to hear.

As part journalist, part clergy, I identify best with the unconvinced Thomas. He showed the kind of healthy skepticism I was taught in my double major in Journalism and Religion at Baylor University.

Today, I want to share some skills from my journalism training. They are much the same skills the disciples used to cope.

And my hope is that they might help you navigate the world of fake news and conspiracy theories. These skills were recently highlighted in a poster printed by the library of the University of Delaware to "...ensure that the campus community is not duped by fake news...."

Here are few highlights from the poster:

First, "Consider the Source." My mom taught this long before journalism school. If I repeated a story from the known church gossip, my mom would say, "Well, you should really consider the source."

In the resurrection story, the chief priests instructed the tomb guards to circulate the fake news that the disciples stole Jesus' body during the night. Consider what the priests had to lose if Jesus rose from the dead and you know they couldn't be trusted.

Today, when people quote the ravings of talk radio or TV pundits, I consider the source and then search the quiet reflections of serious journalists.

Next, "Check your Biases." The disciples first heard the resurrection story from women, but they had a bias that women couldn't be trusted. Gospel writers later reported the story, but it reads differently as told by Luke the physician than it does from Mathew the tax collector or Mark the fisherman.

Now, as I retell the Easter story in this column, some of you will see a bias in my syntax or my use of the active or passive voice. Page editors will show their bias as they choose between placing it on the church page or the opinion page. Headline writers will interpret my meaning by labeling the column with a headline.

My favorite tool to expose the bias in stories is a news-aggregating app called News360. The app allows me to read the same story as written from the perspective of dozens of different news outlets like BBC, Gannett, FOX or even the San Francisco Chronicle, Politico or Daily Beast.

"Use Supporting Sources"

In writing my first college research paper, my professor required original sources to support our suppositions. For example, folks often quote John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, but the quotes don't actually support the points being made in association with their names.

The biblical Thomas said he'd not believe the resurrection reports until he spoke to the original source. When he found that source, Thomas proclaimed, "My Lord and my God!"

"Ask the Experts."
Occasionally, readers will forward to me an urban legend that explains why military chaplains can't say "in Jesus' name," or some such concoction. I patiently reply with a fact-based web site or send them to the library. We don't have to believe everything we are told. Ask an expert.

Finally, "Read Beyond the Headlines." Headlines are written to get your attention. They are short, biased interpretations of the story. If you're depending on headlines for your news, you're eating intellectual junk food. Easter would've become a very different story if Christians had stopped reading after the resurrection headline.

As you contemplate today's news, may your doubts be answered and your hope restored. And may you know the truth that will set you free.

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Read Norris' past columns at www.thechaplain.net. Write him at comment@thechaplain.net or P.O. Box 247, Elk Grove, Calif., 95759. Twitter @chaplain or call (843) 608-9715

 

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New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
third column in April 2017


Column:

Chaplain Assailed for Unassuming tattoo

Six months ago, I wrote a column about getting a tattoo to celebrate my completion of two marathons. The tattoo is in an unassuming place, high above my elbow, visible only to me as I shave, shirtless. The small running man figure inspires me to stay fit as I enter my sixties later this year.

Shortly after the column was published I received a few emails claiming that "...Scriptures make it clear that God forbids any person from having a tattoo imbedded in their flesh: 'Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print [tattoo] any marks upon you. (Leviticus 19:28).'"

The writer urged me to "… publish a recanting of what you have said in an attempt to rectify the harm which you have done…."

Prior to joining the tattooed generation, I tended to assume, as these readers did, that tattoos were a sign of gang affiliation or a prison record.

For instance, some years ago I met a fellow in our Neonatal ICU with tattoos all over his face and neck. The neck tattoos were some kind of inscription, but I didn't want to get close enough to read them. In fact, I didn't want to approach him at all.

Nevertheless, it was my job to visit parents in our NICU, so I swallowed hard and extended my usual offer for chaplain services. As I spoke, the man's expression softened, and his face began to welcome me.

He immediately told me how important prayer was to him. In fact, he said, he'd just spent the last thirty minutes whispering scriptures to his son, who weighed not much more than a pound.

I had assumed much about this man from his markings. In fact, if you'd told me he practiced ritualistic killings, I'd have quickly believed you. Yet he was a man with a very gentle faith and countenance.

The Apostle Paul encountered people in the early church who fiercely assumed that no man could be a true follower of God unless he was properly marked. By "marked," they meant the Hebraic tradition of circumcision.

These guys were teaching Gentile men to cut their privates. Yikes, I know you likely just spewed your Cheerios, but hang on for a minute.

Some of these leaders tried to merge Mosaic circumcision with the Sermon on the Mount in hopes they'd have the perfect hybrid faith. After all, if a convert was willing to undergo this surgery, he must have the right stuff to be a super-follower of God.

The Apostle Paul stood up to these surgical scoundrels and told them they were trying to out-god God. He accused them of "loading these new believers down with rules that crushed our ancestors."

Paul was saying we can't assume people have God or don't have God just because they don't look like us below the belt, or anywhere else for that matter.

"Don't you see?" Paul asks in Romans 2. "It's not the cut of a knife…It's the mark of God on your heart…."

If Paul were around today, I think he'd tell my critical readers that tattoos and purple hair – even earrings out the wazoo – don't define who people are. God makes his mark deep within a person's heart. If you want to see those marks, get close enough to people to drop your assumptions and read the writings, not on their arms, necks or other appendages, but on their hearts.

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Read Norris' past columns at www.thechaplain.net. Write him at comment@thechaplain.net or P.O. Box 247, Elk Grove, Calif., 95759. Twitter @chaplain or call (843) 608-9715

 

Attachment:

New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
first column of April 2017


Column:

REGRETS, I'VE HAD A FEW

"Do you have regrets?" I asked, leaning into the hospital bed of a 57-year-old woman.

I knew what her answer should be. I'd read her medical chart. This alcoholic had shared one too many needles and likely had plenty of regrets. I wanted to know if she knew what they were.

The question is one I put to nearly every patient I see in my role as a hospice chaplain, well aware that most of us carry a few regrets.

As I near retirement this summer, it's a question I've put to myself.

"You're too young to be asking yourself that question," said my much-older wife. OK, seven months older.

But am I? Regrets often start early in life and can stack up like a fortress of bricks.

For instance, I still regret bullying one of my seventh-grade classmates by calling her a "zit-face." She tore from the classroom in tears. A few minutes later, I was called to the principal's office where he helped me regret my comment much more in depth.

But even more deeply, I regret not standing up to the bullies in my life. One bully was the Air Force religious education director I supervised who threatened to kick my keister. I regret cowering in my office instead of calling the military police.

In recent years, I regret not accepting my commander's generous offer to waive the rule that mandates retirement for officers who've served 28 years. Her waiver would have extended my military service through October of this year.

Unfortunately, I can't go back and relive those moments. I can only fantasize about being the hero that I could have been.

However, there is one kind of regret that I've found to be repairable. Fixing this regret will allow you to turn back the clock to that moment you broke something. No fantasy, real stuff.

For years, I regretted leaving a work relationship with so many unsettled questions. For years I spun with fury and disappointment over the hurt I perceived given me by a chaplain colleague.

One day, I decided I'd had enough remorse in my life. The chaplain left active duty, so I tracked him down in his Florida church office. I fully intended to blast him with every piece of blame I'd been stockpiling.

Instead, my fury somehow became derailed and I heard myself, nearly accidently, say – "I regret the way we left things ten years ago."

Instantly, the lights turned on as we simultaneously blurted out a slew of apologies. We buried our mutual regrets and disagreements, and since that day, I have never once returned his name to my list of regrets.

There are a lot of things we can't undo. I can't reenlist in the military. I can no longer file charges against the threatening office bully. I can't undo the damage done through my anxious consumption of Oreos while writing this column.

However, it's rarely too late for apologies, for righting relationships, for seeking reconciliation. Twelve-step groups employ this strategy in Step 9. "Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."

I'm not saying that your apology will be accepted or that you'll obtain the satisfaction I found with my past adversary. Your mileage may vary, but as my friends in AA say, "It pays to keep your side of the street clean."

Regrets can pile up when not addressed early. I should know. Apparently, I added one more regret in writing this column. My wife says she'll make me regret the day I called her an "older woman" in print.

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Read Norris' past columns at www.thechaplain.net. Write him at comment@thechaplain.net or P.O. Box 247, Elk Grove, Calif., 95759. Twitter @chaplain or call (843) 608-9715

 

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