The View from the West Mesa

As early as Genesis the narrator tells us that God told the serpent that eventually - sooner or later - a descendant of the woman would crush his head.  And then the story continues with rather little reference to this statement of future reality. The descendants of Adam seem to carry on their lives as people would. Eventually, being far enough removed from Adam's experience, the knowledge of God and his expectations for human life becomes muddled at best. Our next major player is Abram a son in a Mesopotamian family that worshiped their local gods. The story is told with anticipation but the major player is a Pagan, selected by God to bring blessing to the world.  This Abrahamic story has its own ups and downs and while God makes appearances, those appearances seem to not have the impact they might have had. Abraham and Sarah for instance, think that the promise might need a bit of help and so they decide that maybe Hagar could jump-start the fulfillment of the promise of an ...

I have written in one of my ordinary books this statement: “The purpose of “being saved” isn’t being saved. Rather, it is to be set aside, consecrated, sanctified, set apart and marked for the work of God.” Let’s break that down a bit, and get “behind the story” as it were. When Abram’s family was told to get up and move to a new land, they were anything but monotheists—they had and worshiped household idols of various gods. They weren’t originally devoted followers of YHWH. And yet God chose Abram and had him move to a completely different land; from what many have said is the cradle of humanity to a coastal hill country. As the story develops, God makes a promise to Abram. That promise included both a long and an extensive lineage for Abram—something of considerable value and prestige in ancient cultures. But that wasn't all. Those descendants we are told and Abraham is promised will bless the world. I suspect that Abraham didn’t know what that meant and neither do we if we r...

 It occurs to me that the reason we're told that God doesn't remember our sins is that He never really took note of them as specific events anyway. What He looks at - what He has always looked at is your heart, your direction, your desire. All he needs to know is what sort of person you are; not your specific litany of wrongs.  Now don’t get me wrong, God is capable of listing our sins if that’s what He wants to do. Clearly,  he has done that on a number of occasions when addressing Israel and her seemingly persistent intractability. A short perusal of the prophets and God’s complaints contained within them will quickly reveal that if God wants to recall what we’ve done, He is no slouch in that ability. What is interesting though is that God sent Israel into exile not because one or two—or several Jews stole some bread or cheated their neighbor. As long as the behaviors were not characteristic of the nation as a whole, making the correct sacrifices and worshiping YHWH was...

The past couple or three weeks have been interesting; for some scary; and for others, devastating. The world carries on as the world has always carried on, with callous disregard for others  in a variety of ways. Whether it is the negligent  death of a man in Minneapolis or the spreading  of the anger and frustration-fueled killing of others, burning buildings, and general destruction,  we see the results of a society and people who  know God less, and less. Violence and greater power are used to control,  to frighten, to coerce others so that we can express ourselves and achieve what we think we  want. We end up with neighborhoods destroyed  in the name of justice and we end up with  wounded and dead innocent people in protest of  abuse and brutality. Christianity at  its core values  humanity and  human life. Because of that,  the Christian is  called to live a  life that is giving, open, and  compass...

N ew Mexi cans were ordered to stay in their homes except for essential business. Curbside deliveries were not authorized exceptions. So the Governor's handlers are obfuscating and well, lying like politician's handlers do. We're told, that nothing in violation of an order occurred to get the governor some shiny object which she had time to shop for while buckling down to manage your staying put. The official story. The governor was web surfing over at Barrack's and spotted a bauble she wanted. So the governor "goes online" to order the bauble and arranges for two people to arrange a drop off and pick up at a residential address. Here's the problem. -picking up a jewelry order for the governor cannot in any sense be construed as conducting essential personal business. Whoever did that, violated the Executive Order. -they violated the Executive Order at the direction of the governor. -online orders are delivered by mail, FedEx, or UPS. They are not deliv...

It is a tragedy whenever a human dies. It is particularly distressing when their deaths are needless. The death of Mr. Floyd in Minneapolis was not acceptable. It may be that racism was involved, but regardless of whether it was or not, his death illustrates a number of issues with the ways in which police officers are trained, socialized, and protected not only by other police officers but by our legal system. Police officers live among violence or potential violence all the time. They are trained to control a situation and other people, to protect themselves first, and their buddies. This is all run of the mill and reasonable police training. No one is going to say that a police officer's first job isn't to go home at the end of their shift. Even so, police officers are human beings with a lot of authority and a lot of legal protections for almost anything they do. It is important then that we expect police officers to do their jobs with respect for the dignity of the people ...

I watched an initial training for the Nurtured Heart Approach today. It is a child development system that seeks not just to reduce "poor" behavior but to turn the energy of the caregivers toward "good" behavior. In one segment the observation is made that if you asked a bunch of kids to suggest behavior rules for their own group, they would begin to list things like no hitting, no yelling, no talking while the teacher is talking, no horseplay, and no throwing things. Pretty standard, uh?  Do you notice anything about that list? It's a list of "nos." The kids have been taught that rules are "don't do this and don't do that." This is so ingrained in them that when asked for their rules, they readily provide a stream of what not to do. The problem here is obvious - there are no expectations or rules for what you are  su pposed to be doing. There isn't even a mix of answers from the kids of positive and negative rules - they are...