New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
Column for 28-30 June


Column:

Can you be Scared Straight to God?

Recently, a young woman explained her reasoning to me for converting to the Christian faith.

"It's real simple," she said. I realized that hell is real and if I didn't ask Jesus into my life, I'd burn for eternity!"

The whole conversation saddened me over faith reduced to a "scared straight" scenario.

If you recall, Scared Straight was a 1978 documentary filmed at Rahway State Prison. The movie employs life inmates to berate, scream at and terrify juvenile offenders in an attempt to "scare them straight" and avoid prison terms.

The tactic is also popular amongst religious folk like my new friend. I first noticed the technique with an evangelist named Hal Lindsey. If you were born before 1960, you'll likely remember that Lindsey co-authored a 1970 best seller with Carole C. Carlson titled "The Late, Great Planet Earth."

Reviews from the Christian church were mixed. Some of us laughed and some of us tried to ignore him.

However, when the Yom Kippur War of 1973 sent gas prices soaring, many of us wondered if the Lindsey scenario was creeping into the nonfiction section. Many began taking Lindsey so seriously that, like my young friend, they ran scared-straight into the baptismal waters.

Had we been a little smarter, I'm wondering if we might have seen how religious history was on a repeating track with Lindsey's approach. He was using the scared-straight technique used by centuries of religious thought.

It's a thought expressed on the old bumper sticker: "The good news is, Jesus is coming back. The bad news is, He's ticked." (OK, the sticker doesn't say "ticked" but this is a family newspaper.)

The real problem with Lindsey and people like him is that they characterize the Christian faith as a war between good and evil. Indeed, they demand that the faithful make a choice between spending eternity in a bottomless pit of eternal fire or going to church three times a week. Yes, the Baptists are still going to church on Wednesday night.

The fault in this thinking is that it forces faith into an all-or-nothing proposition. Faith isn't that way at all. Real faith is relation-based, not fear-based.

Faith is more like this: When I met my wife at a Southern Baptist Conference Center, I didn't introduce myself by saying, "Marry me or you'll burn." If I had, she would have dowsed me with the nearest fire extinguisher.

God doesn't use that approach either. He doesn't need to scare us into loving him. That's because God is not trying to save us from this world. After all, he created this world for us.

Jesus made the same point quite well, saying, "God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help" (John 3:17, The Message Paraphrase).

God is all about helping us make it through our times of hurt and pain. He's not about inventing painful situations just so he can play the super hero.

I suppose there'll always be fortunes to be made by capitalizing on demise, death and destruction, but I will continue to place my faith in my relationship with our creator.

The Lindsey star eventually faded. The counterculture of the 1960s never became the main culture, and Lindsey's predictions crumbled with the Berlin Wall.

These days, Lindsey is 89 years old, living in Tulsa. He's still doing video, but nowadays he's predicting the final jihad that will come any day now. Same scared straight program, just a different station.

—————————————————————

Contact Chaplain Norris through his website at thechaplain.net or email comment@thechaplain.net or 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or voicemail (843) 608-9715. Twitter @chaplain

 

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New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
Did you get this column?


Column:

Some editors are saying they did not get this column, so I'm sending it again. Same copy, no changes.

The Chaplain Tooteth!

Several times during my years in the Air National Guard, folks jokingly asked me how I became an officer without knowing how to play golf. Their questions finally challenged me to rectify my shortcoming with some lessons.

With only a few years before retirement I was on my Annual Training in San Luis Obispo, Calif., when I found an opportunity to play my first game with fellow chaplains.

Father John Love, Chaplain Mike Beyer and our chaplain assistant, Robert "Web" Webster reserved an after-duty tee time on the Morro Bay course, a breath-taking public course edged by the Pacific Ocean.

I'll not tell you about my first three shots, but somewhere off the fourth hole, I
sent a ball soaring so far and hard that I thought it might sink a passing dingy.

Amazingly, it plopped just 30 feet short of the hole.

To a new golfer, the shot felt like I'd just won the Master's Tournament. I jumped up and down, screaming like a lunatic.

"What happened to the meek inheriting the earth?" asked Web, my ever-helpful chaplain assistant.

"Hey," I said, "What's wrong with, 'He who tooteth not his own horn, the same shall not be tooted."

Beyer groaned at the tired old quote from the 20th century journalist, Damon Runyon.

I was ready to pop the champagne, but Father Love lassoed my big head and pulled me back down to the greens.

"Norris" he advised, "that was fantastic, but in golf, when you hit a superb shot, you must assume a humble, quiet stance."

"Like this," he said, bowing his head and joining his hands together below his belt. "Then you wait for it."


"Wait for what?" I asked.

"Wait for us to do our job." He said. "We're the cheering section. Not you."

I did as I was instructed, dropping my head in silence.

On cue, Love and Beyer raised their to the sky, raving over the beauty of the trajectory, speed and landing. Web, just folded at the waist, amused to see his chaplain humbled a bit.

Aside from teaching me golf etiquette, the guys were highlighting a tricky question we face in life when we reach a pinnacle of accomplishment. Do we toot our own horn, or do we wait, head bowed, to be showered with accolades?

The Apostle Paul seemed to think we could do no wrong electing the humble stance. Eugene Peterson astutely paraphrased Paul's words in the dynamic and highly idiomatic translation called "The Message."

"If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life… — then do me a favor: …. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand."

It was a lesson I humbly took to New York this week where the National Society of Newspaper Columnists presented me with the Will Rogers Humanitarian Award.

Now before you say I'm tooting my own horn, you should know that this award doesn't praise my writing ability as much as it applauds your reaction to my writing.

In this case, the award recognizes your response to the columns I wrote about the Chispa Project, a humanitarian effort directed by my daughter Sara to start libraries in Honduras.

When the Will Rogers Writers Foundation learned that your donations have started dozens of new libraries in Honduras and, moreover, that ten of you flew to Honduras last year to assemble a library, the Foundation thought it was time for a little PDA, Public Display of Appreciation.

That means the award is not so much my award — it's yours!

But don't get the big head. Just bow, please.

Let me do my job as I jump up and down and tooteth for you!

—————————————————————
Learn more about Chispa Project at www.chispaproject.org or sing up to come to Honduras next year, www.chispaproject.org/volunteertrip

Contact Chaplain Norris through his website at www.thechaplain.net or email comment@thechaplain.net or 10566 Combie Rd.
Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or voicemail (843) 608-9715. Twitter @chaplain

 

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New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
Column for 21-23 June 2019


Column:

The Chaplain Tooteth!

Several times during my years in the Air National Guard, folks jokingly asked me how I became an officer without knowing how to play golf. Their questions finally challenged me to rectify my shortcoming with some lessons.

With only a few years before retirement I was on my Annual Training in San Luis Obispo, Calif., when I found an opportunity to play my first game with fellow chaplains.

Father John Love, Chaplain Mike Beyer and our chaplain assistant, Robert "Web" Webster reserved an after-duty tee time on the Morro Bay course, a breath-taking public course edged by the Pacific Ocean.

I'll not tell you about my first three shots, but somewhere off the fourth hole, I
sent a ball soaring so far and hard that I thought it might sink a passing dingy.

Amazingly, it plopped just 30 feet short of the hole.

To a new golfer, the shot felt like I'd just won the Master's Tournament. I jumped up and down, screaming like a lunatic.

"What happened to the meek inheriting the earth?" asked Web, my ever-helpful chaplain assistant.

"Hey," I said, "What's wrong with, 'He who tooteth not his own horn, the same shall not be tooted."

Beyer groaned at the tired old quote from the 20th century journalist, Damon Runyon.

I was ready to pop the champagne, but Father Love lassoed my big head and pulled me back down to the greens.

"Norris" he advised, "that was fantastic, but in golf, when you hit a superb shot, you must assume a humble, quiet stance."

"Like this," he said, bowing his head and joining his hands together below his belt. "Then you wait for it."


"Wait for what?" I asked.

"Wait for us to do our job." He said. "We're the cheering section. Not you."

I did as I was instructed, dropping my head in silence.

On cue, Love and Beyer raised their to the sky, raving over the beauty of the trajectory, speed and landing. Web, just folded at the waist, amused to see his chaplain humbled a bit.

Aside from teaching me golf etiquette, the guys were highlighting a tricky question we face in life when we reach a pinnacle of accomplishment. Do we toot our own horn, or do we wait, head bowed, to be showered with accolades?

The Apostle Paul seemed to think we could do no wrong electing the humble stance. Eugene Peterson astutely paraphrased Paul's words in the dynamic and highly idiomatic translation called "The Message."

"If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life… — then do me a favor: …. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand."

It was a lesson I humbly took to New York this week where the National Society of Newspaper Columnists presented me with the Will Rogers Humanitarian Award.

Now before you say I'm tooting my own horn, you should know that this award doesn't praise my writing ability as much as it applauds your reaction to my writing.

In this case, the award recognizes your response to the columns I wrote about the Chispa Project, a humanitarian effort directed by my daughter Sara to start libraries in Honduras.

When the Will Rogers Writers Foundation learned that your donations have started dozens of new libraries in Honduras and, moreover, that ten of you flew to Honduras last year to assemble a library, the Foundation thought it was time for a little PDA, Public Display of Appreciation.

That means the award is not so much my award — it's yours!

But don't get the big head. Just bow, please.

Let me do my job as I jump up and down and tooteth for you!

—————————————————————
Learn more about Chispa Project at www.chispaproject.org or sing up to come to Honduras next year, www.chispaproject.org/volunteertrip

Contact Chaplain Norris through his website at www.thechaplain.net or email comment@thechaplain.net or 10566 Combie Rd.
Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or voicemail (843) 608-9715. Twitter @chaplain

 

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RE:

Hi

http://energiaznieba.pl/bright.php?cglzi=ISJ4401



Warmest
norris

New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
Column for June 14-16


Column:

Prayers Going to Voicemail?

"Don't you ever listen to your voicemail?" asked a 92-year-old hospice patient whose tone pronounced her assumption.

I returned a puzzled expression and she revved up her rant.

"I left you a message requesting a visit last week, but you never came."

"No, I'm sorry," I said, unsure how I'd missed the message.

"That's ok," she said, glancing at her diminishing body. "God's not returning my calls these days either."

The nonagenarian was expressing a sentiment familiar to all ages. "God isn't answering my prayers," or "God is ignoring me." Or, as another patient expressed earlier the same day, "I thought dying would feel more spiritual than this."

While I hear the hurt in these statements, I'm sometimes able to cajole them with this piece of advice: "Stop badmouthing God behind his back."

Prayer should express exactly what we are thinking. If you're mad at God, I encourage you to stand up and shake your fist at him. Tell him to his face, not behind his back. That's right, God overhears your complaints to friends about him not taking your calls.

A grandmother once told me that she's not been on speaking terms with God since her granddaughter died.

"I understand that." I paused then added, "And if I can relate, God will definitely understand."

I encourage people to cut out the middleman. Look toward the heavens. Speak to God face-to-face. Begin with, "Hey, God! This life stinks!"

I love Anne Lamott's observation that the two best prayers in existence are "Help me. Help me. Help me" and "Thank You. Thank You. Thank You."
I have a chaplain friend who sometimes expresses her frustration with an, "Oh-my-God!"

If she senses a disapproving look from me, she's quick to claim, "That was a prayer!"

"Not sure that counts," I tell her, "but I get it." God wants to hear about our frustrations in an authentic way.

My advice to speak your mind to God usually settles people's attention long enough to help them see how prayers can be like paintings – they needn't follow the formats of traditions, language or posture. Like art, prayers should reveal who we are and what we are feeling.

With that artistic analogy, I often challenge my patients to explore three questions.

How do I pray? Loose the greeting card language. Prayer should be conversational. God isn't swayed with our use of King James English or our command of iambic pentameter. (Yeah, I had to look that one up too.)

Where can I pray? Prayer may bring us to our knees or put us prostrate on an altar, but it needn't begin there. To paraphrase Seuss' "Green Eggs and Ham," we can pray "in a house, with a mouse … here or there, we can pray everywhere."

When do I pray? Any time. All the time. It doesn't matter if it's been forever since you said the Lord's Prayer or expressed anything remotely prayerful. Prayer doesn't have an expiration date.

Finally, when the anger recedes – and it will – sit down or lie back and begin speaking to God like a friend. Speak to him like you did to your best friend on one of those all-night, half-awake sleepovers. Tell him your secrets, tell him your fears.

Or maybe talk to God like you are talking with your spouse, emulating those kneecap-to-kneecap sessions you had while working out the trying moments of your relationship. Maybe you could picture your departed mother and pray like you're talking to your mom, late at night, over the kitchen bar, mapping out your life plan.

These are the best conversational guides I know that will help you articulate your thoughts to God.
Last of all, if you want to share your prayer requests with me, I'd be honored to pray them with you. Write to me at comment@thechaplain.net or 10566 Combie Rd.Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602.

And I promise, if you leave me a voicemail at (843) 608-9715 I'll now check them, religiously. Groaning pun intended.

 

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New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
D-Day column 2019


Column:

Honoring the Contribution of Faith on D-Day


This weekend, on the 75th anniversary of D-day, I'm reading "The Liberator" by Alex Kershaw.

It's a great book in many places, but I'm having a problem with the places where Kershaw negates the contribution of faith in the foxholes.

I'll admit that I appreciate Kershaw's efforts to expose the bonehead things said by organized religions, but, as a combat veteran myself, I believe it's a disservice to our veterans to deny their place their faith played in the battlefield.

I can only suggest that Kershaw will find a place in his future writings for at least three epic contributions from people of faith.

Starting from my obvious slant – Chaplains.

Father Francis Sampson or Father Sam as he was affectionately known was the real inspiration for the film Saving Private Ryan. It was he, and not the character played by Tom Hanks who found Fritz Niland, the real-life "Private Ryan," who had lost his three brothers on D-Day.

Along with the 501st paratroopers, Sampson landed at Saint-Come-du-Mont on D-Day, June 6, 1944. He gathered wounded in a nearby farmhouse but quickly found his farmhouse aid station overtaken by Germans.

The frightened padre was placed against a wall to be shot, but a Catholic German soldier saved him by convincing his comrades not to kill a priest. The soldiers returned the priest to an Allied medic station where he ministered to German and American wounded paratroopers.

Father Sam was recaptured during the Battle of the Bulge and imprisoned near Berlin. There the chaplain was granted permission to stay in the enlisted men's prison to conduct mass for the remainder of the war.

He would often discount his heroism by saying "no pair of knees shook more than my own, nor any heart ever beat faster in times of danger." Yet a grateful nation bestowed on the humble man the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second highest American military award, for his selfless help to the soldiers.

After the war, the never-quit-chaplain volunteered for Korea. He retired after that war, but his nation recalled him for the Vietnam war as head of the military chaplains in 1967.

Faith also guided Seventh-day Adventist, Desmond Doss. Portrayed in the movie Hacksaw Ridge, Doss was an American pacifist combat medic who refused to carry or use a weapon of any kind.

Although not a D-Day hero, he was twice awarded the Bronze Star Medal for action in Guam and the Philippines. Doss distinguished himself in the Battle of Okinawa by saving 75 soldiers and became the only conscientious objector in WW2 to receive the Medal of Honor.

Finally, no spiritual writing about WW2 should omit the theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And of course, there's a movie about him too, "Bonhoeffer – Pastor, Pacifist and Nazi Resistor." (2003)

His early 20th century writings chastised the church for avoiding their role in the secular world. Few serious seminarians graduated after WW2 without reading Bonhoeffer's influential book, "The Cost of Discipleship."

During the war, he took his faith to the mat with his vocal opposition to Hitler's genocidal persecution of the Jews. By April of 1943, he'd said too much. He left his liturgical vestments in the sacristy when the Gestapo imprisoned him at Tegel prison.

On April 9, 1945, days away from the collapse of the Nazi regime, the German pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident was hung for his part in the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

So, Mr. Kershaw I'm glad you wrote such a great story honoring those who took these beaches on such a decisive day. I only ask that in your future writings, you'll find a few paragraphs to honor those who felt the compulsion to follow the dictates of their faith which cost them their lives.
_____________________________________________

Contact Chaplain Norris at comment@thechaplain.net or 10566 Combie Rd.
Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or voicemail (843) 608-9715.

 

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