Thanksgiving weekend column

The Holiday Garbage Debacle

 

After this election season, I've heard more than one person suggest that our country is nearly trashed.

 

Well, I'm not usually one to talk trash, but I do have a trashy parable to tell.

 

The trashy tale is told every holiday season when our Waste Disposal company changes our pickup day.

 

Hysteria begins in our quiet lake neighborhood whenever we get the email informing us that our regular trash day will change to accommodate a holiday schedule. 

 

I call it – The Holiday Garbage Debacle. 

 

It begins Black Friday weekend when folks are too busy buying junk on sale to think about disposing of their junk.

 

But by New Year's our cans will be filled with the carcasses of turkeys and old dollies. No one will remember exactly what that email said because we deleted the message. 

 

With so many forgetful people, we all follow that one cocky soul who is confident he remembers the temporary trash day.  As he drags his cans curbside, doors creak for peeks, neighbors labor and phones buzz. More cans join the festive holiday parade.

 

Joggers and mommies pushing strollers spread the fear via cell phones urging spouses to make the last-minute push. That's when the dam breaks. 

 

Throngs of people dash outside in their robes praying it's not too late. It's that whole herd-to-the-curb mentality. 

 

I remember a few years ago, just after Thanksgiving Day, I woke up urging my wife to help me push the cans into the foggy dawn.

 

"Our cans are stuffed! Hurry or we'll miss the pickup," I warned in my repent-or-burn voice. 

 

"I think we're still on the regular schedule." 

 

"Then why are so many people putting their trash out?" I asked. 

 

"One person did, so they all did," she said, yelling her social commentary as I rattled the cans to the street. 

 

Determined to prove her wrong, I paused to listen for the monstrous garbage trucks.  Other neighbors joined my acoustical surveillance team as they cocked their ears out second-story windows. 

 

People ran across the street consulting neighbors — pulling out more cans — doors were opening and slamming in search of that truck.

 

Finally, when rumor found its saturation point, a hard-headed neighbor emerged brandishing the printed email she had dutifully posted on her refrigerator. 

 

As she circulated her epistle, converts found the truth and returned their cans to the hidden place where respectable neighborhood CC&R's demand they be placed.

 

Still some who were unwilling to demonstrate sinful shame kept their cans curbside all the while muttering, "They'll be sorry when the truck comes!" 

 

I don't mean to trivialize this political discord we find ourselves in, but lately I can't help but wonder if the new cycle has erupted with stories that inspire new levels of hysteric hyperbole. 

 

These days, I'm trying to stick with facts as I know them because, just as in the case of the garbage can debacle, facts remain our best ally against fear.

 

As a country, we are bigger than the fear-based concerns generated over which bathroom one uses, what library book is removed from a shelf and where one is allowed to pray.

 

There are more solid things that need our focus, like immigration reform, a fair tax base, common-sense gun regulation, and issues too many to name here. These issues come with a slew of problems yet to be worked out.

 

So, before we start acting on our fear, I have to remember the Biblical promise that "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." 

 

Trusting in this promise and keeping a sound mind gets my vote every time – no matter when the trash always gets picked up.

 

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Reminder that my family and I will be matching all reader donations to Chispa Project up to $5,000 postmarked between now and GivingTuesday on December 3. You can donate online at www.chispaproject.org/chaplain or send a check made to "Chispa Project" to 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602.  

 

For an autographed copy of "Tell It To The Chaplain," or any of my books, order from my website www.thechaplain.net or send a check for $20 (per book) to the address above.

 

 

22-24 Nov column

Fishy Story Suggests Catastrophic Ending

 

If you've been watching the news, then you know that the world is going to end soon.

 

No, I'm not talking about the recent election. I'm referring to the elusive deep-water oarfish.

 

Superstitious sailors have long considered the spotting of this rare fish a harbinger of bad news. And this past week, on the shores of Encinitas, California, it's been spotted again. This makes three times this year in California and only 22 times in the past century.

 

Japanese mythology recounts the doom fish as a precursor to earthquakes and tsunamis. More than a dozen were found on Japan's coastline just before Japan's 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, their largest recorded earthquake.

 

These kind of scarry indicators aren't new. Televangelists have been capitalizing on them for years as they expounded on their version of catastrophic and world-ending predictions.

 

If you were born before 1960, you'll likely remember that Hal Lindsey co-authored a 1970 best seller with Carole C. Carlson titled "The Late, Great Planet Earth." 

 

Some of us just laughed at him, while others tried to ignore him. 

 

However, when the Yom Kippur War of 1973 sent gas prices soaring, we wondered if the Lindsey scenario was creeping into the nonfiction section. Many began taking Lindsey so seriously that they ran scared 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 scare-the-hell-out-of-you 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.

 

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 relationship-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 might have hit me with a flame thrower. 

 

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 superhero. 

 

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 94 years old, living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He's still doing video, but now he's predicting the final jihad that will come any day now. Same scared-as-hell program, just a different station.

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Reminder that my family and I will be matching all reader donations to Chispa Project up to $5,000 postmarked between now and GivingTuesday on December 3. You can donate online at www.chispaproject.org/chaplain or send a check made to "Chispa Project" to 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602. 

 

For an autographed copy of "Tell It To The Chaplain," or any of my books, order from my website www.thechaplain.net or send a check for $20 (per book) to the address above.

 

 

15-17 Nov column

Retirement, Really?

 

"Do you think you'll ever fully retire?" my wife, Becky asks a few times a month.

 

"Definitely!

 

"Mostly.

 

"Maybe?" I say, adding an I-dunno-know for good measure.

 

She asks, because she knows I struggle sometimes to write this weekly syndicated column, travel to speak in different venues, and pastor a small church.

 

Trying to explain my reticence, I simply say, "I'm just not sure of the best timing."

 

In past years, you readers have sent me many emails with quick and sound responses to my writings. You've rolled out the red carpet for me during our dozen+ years together, hosting me for speeches in your colleges, hospitals, churches and civic organizations.

 

You've traveled with me to Honduras for Chispa Project, the charity my daughter Sara began for establishing libraries in Honduran elementary schools. Many of you are generous, regular donors.

 

When I think of full retirement, I'm struck with a sudden case of FOMO. "Fear of Missing Out." I don't want to miss out on more wonderful exchanges, meetings, and friendships this writing ministry has brought to me.

 

But alas, I've come up with a compromised writing retirement, that will give us at least two ways to stay in touch no matter when I fully retire.

 

First, I'd like you to sign up to get my weekly column by email.  You can do this by sending me a quick email to comment@thechaplain.net.

 

Or even easier, sign up for my weekly email at www.thechaplain.net/newsletter. The website also contains everything I've ever written or will write. Check out the audio versions of past columns too. Remember to spell chaplain correctly, not chaplin. We've talked about this.

 

Second, while you're on my website, consider ordering one or more of the four books I've written. These books are a compilation of my columns from the past twenty years. And of course, I'll autograph them.

 

Keep the book on your nightstand or reading rack so you can read one 700-word story each time you crack open the book. You can read the books in any order and jump around between stories.

"No Small Miracles" contain stories I wrote as a pediatric hospital chaplain. "Hero's Highway" recounts my deployment to a combat hospital in Iraq.

 

"Thriving Beyond Surviving" is a compilation book of the columns I wrote about faith, family, fun and forgivingness. And my most recent book, "Tell it to the Chaplain" recalls my chaplain experiences in the hospital, hospice, and the military.

 

The last section of "Tell it to the Chaplain" tells the story of Chispa Project, so I especially hope you'll read that one. Thanks to readers like you, we've reached over 22,000 kids in Honduras get their first books by creating school libraries with my daughter's charity. 

 

To say thank you, and "spark" you into action one more time, my family and I will be matching all reader donations up to $5,000 postmarked between now and Giving Tuesday on December 3. I hope you'll take up my challenge for this ambitious goal.  You can donate online at www.chispaproject.org/chaplain or send a check made to "Chispa Project" to 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602.

Every $100 gives 4 kids a school library, training their teachers and parents, and providing books, shelves and colorful, painted murals. There are no words that can completely describe the joy that fills a child's face when they hold their first picture book.  It's why I go back year after year to volunteer. (Details for 2025 volunteer trips at www.chispaproject.org/volunteer)

 

Finally, know that I'm not completely retired. I remain the pastor of Community Church, Nevada City, CA. It's a little country church of two dozen in California's Sierra Gold Country. They've been patient with me, but they miss me when I travel at least 8 Sundays a year as grandkids and foreign adventures keep calling.

 

Keep me in your prayers and thoughts, as I will for you. Thank you, for your faithful reading and support.

 

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For an autographed copy of "Tell It To The Chaplain," or any of my books, order from my website or send a check for $20 (per book) to 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602. Email comments to comment@thechaplain.net or by text or voicemail to (843) 608-9715. See past columns and other books at website www.thechaplain.net.

 

 

Vet Day weekend Column

Say More Than, "Thank for your service."

 

This Veterans Day, I want you to do more than just thank a veteran for his or her service.

 

As a veteran of 28 years, I want to challenge you to go beyond patriotic rhetoric by asking some specific questions of the veterans you encounter.

 

First, ask us what we did in military service. Don't worry – our stories aren't just about bombs and bullets and boats. 

 

For instance, most of us would love to tell you about how we deployed on more than a few humanitarian missions.

 

If you ask, we'll tell you about operations like "New Horizon," where we built schools, clinics and playgrounds all over South America.

 

Some of us can tell you about cleaning up New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, while others will tell you about flying into countries devastated by earthquakes or tsunamis. 

 

Ask us what we did, and we might recollect building runways in the desert, pitching tents in the jungle, setting up communications links in the Australian outback, hot-loading planes and launching satellites that give you the cable TV you enjoy. 

 

Get us talking and we'll tell you about fixing planes, loading planes, flying planes, jumping from planes, fueling planes in flight.

 

As a chaplain, I can tell you about the blessings I prayed over planes as well as the blessing I had of walking away from one that crashed. 

 

This generation of service members might lose you in their technical talk, but I assure you they are proud to mention the satellites they control, the drones they fly and the cyber warfare in which they engage. 

 

After you ask them about what they did, ask them where they've been.

 

They'll likely share their version of Johnny Cash's song, "I've Been Everywhere." 

 

They've filled passports doing temporary duty in places like Antigua, Ukraine and Djibouti on the Horn of Africa.

 

They've flown planes over the North Pole, landed them on the South Pole and navigated submarines under both.

 

And yes, they've even spent some time in "dark sites" that "don't exist." 

 

They've shivered with their families on assignment in Minot, N.D. and spent a few sweltering years in Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

 

My family loved the two years they spent in Izmir, Turkey, while other military families enjoyed the island seclusion of Guam or the Azores.

 

A few lucky ducks will regale you with stories of embassy duty in Paris, London or Madrid. 

 

But if you want to go deep, ask them what it means to have served.

 

If you listen well and they think you're interested, they just might tell you. 

 

But it's just as likely they won't be able to tell you. It's just as likely that their voice will hitch, their eyes will mist and they'll turn away from that question.

 

Don't get me wrong. They're proud of the things they've done and they want to share them with you.

 

But I caution you: There are some things they won't share.

 

Taking an oath to obey the legal orders of those appointed over them meant that they also did the unimaginable and for some the unspeakable.

 

I know because they told their chaplain.

 

They told me about the lives they couldn't save and the lives they had to take. They've shown me their physical wounds and they've bared their moral wounds. 

 

Thankfully, the stories of most servicemembers run the course of everyday life; albeit a life of transfers every two or three years, endless inspections and exercises, family separations and making ends meet on military pay. 

 

It was a life of long ago, but it was life from only yesterday.

 

Ask us and we'll tell you. 

 

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Please join my mailing list so we can stay in touch. Either sign up online at https://thechaplain.net/newsletter/ or send me a direct email at comment@thechaplain.net.

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My latest book is called, "Tell it to the Chaplain."  All of my books are available on my website or by sending a check for $20 (per book) to 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602. Email comments to comment@thechaplain.net or by text or voicemail to (843) 608-9715. See past columns and other books at website www.thechaplain.net.