Maybe surprised, maybe shocked, always saddened…

June 11, 2021

The front page headlines this morning screamed “Bo knew”. The story, which had already broken on the TV news shows was about testimony given by one of Bo’s sons – Matt – and several former U of M football players. In their testimony they recounted being sexually assaulted by former team doctor Robert Anderson. The most damning of course was that of Matt Schembechler, who recounted that he was only 10 yeas old when first assaulted by Anderson. When he told his dad what had happened, fully expecting that BO would go after the doctor and get hi fired, he was instead reprimanded and told to “toughen up” by Bo.

There was no satisfactory answer in the stories to the question of why Schembechler reacted this way and continued to fail to do anything about Anderson in the face of other accusations of sexual assaults made by other player on his teams. We will never know the answer to those questions.

I have posted here before about the baseless esteem in which we hold famous people, whether they are in athletics, entertainment, or politics. Whatever their fame or position is based upon we somehow give them a pass on things that we would otherwise be more apt to hold them accountable for. We believe that their fame somehow also makes them good people who make good life decisions. We are all to often proven wrong in those thoughts.

One has only to look back over the past few years to find case after case of fallen hero’s that we once held in great esteem, The sexual assault cases of Anderson and Larry Nassar leap immediately to mind; however, joining Bo in sex-oriented scandal there is also Joe Paterno at Penn State, Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby from the entertainment world and financier Jeffery Epstein. The list goes on and on.

The breach of trust that we place in people who have achieved great fame, wealth or power was also proven in the recent convictions of UAW Presidents – Gary Jones and Dennis Williams.  Of course, the unions have a storied history of corruption that took some of the surprise off those revelations.

So, what are we to make of all of this? Should we become hardened cynics who assume that anyone that appears to be successful must have somehow cheated or gamed the system? Are we to look askance at all in the professions of these mis-doers? Must we become always on guard and mistrusting of people?  I think not. For the most part I really believe that people are not all out to somehow do me harm or trick me into some mistake. I will make the exception that the lady who keeps calling me about extending the warranty on a car that I no longer own may not be working in my best interest and hanging up is an OK response to her calls.

There is nothing wrong with being cautious, but it would be wrong to start every interaction with someone else with the assumption that they are somehow bad or out to put something over on me. One can miss the opportunity to get to know a person who may turn out to be a good friend if they start with the assumption that the other person is a crook or a bad actor. That is also the roadblock that prejudices put in the way of interpersonal relationships. Starting out in fear or loathing is not the way to begin a relationship.

So, it’s OK to be surprised or shocked when we learn about the misdeeds of a person that you had admired. Better that you should be saddened, not for yourself, but for them. It is also OK to find forgiveness in your heart for them. Maybe you will not forget the disappointment that they have caused you, but you must find room for forgiveness and move on.

Recall the words of Pope Francis and ask yourself the question that he posed when asked about his position on gays seeking the Lord – “Who am I to judge?” The disgrace of the revelations that may have already come out about these famous people who have breached our trust is enough. There is nothing to be gained by piling on. Yes, be surprised and saddened, but then forgive and move on.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Imagine that…

June 10, 2021

The quote in the Jack’s Winning Words blog today is one that cannot be read without a mental image flashing to mind – “Don’t let people discourage you.  Just fluff out your tutu and prance away.”  (Sent by Virginia P)

If any readers have ever been to a dance recital and watched the youngest age group doing their ballet number in their little tutu’s, you know how cute and, at the same time, funny that performance can be. Jack’s advice that we fluff our tutus and prance away from unpleasant people and events is good advice. Rather than engaging in a no-win conflict situation, especially in the arenas of religion or politics, just fluff your tutu and prance away.

I would advise that you keep whatever mental image it is that comes to mind for you when you read that quote in the back of your mind and call it up as needed. It may be a confrontation at work or perhaps in a social setting where someone is obviously trying to provoke you or start and argument. Recall that mental image and just fluff your tutu and prance away.

Sometimes it may be easier (and funnier) to imagine the other person taking that action. It will bring a smile to your face that will probably perplex them, given their state of mind if you imagine that, instead of representing a threat to you or accepting their invitation to argue you, you imagine that they are about to just fluff your tutu and prance away.

Life throws many opportunities to use this advice at us, from disappointments at work, to conflicts in marriages, to the deaths of friends or family. While the gravity of some of these events might be huge, it is important that we find a way to put them behind us and move on with life. Don’t let life get you down. Perhaps you should say to yourself just fluff your tutu and prance away.

As Jack pointed out, life is too short to waste time on confrontation and arguments with others. Use the time that you have wisely to enjoy life. When things get dark or stormy in your life, just imagine that God has turned the spotlight on you and introduced you in a solo performance of your faith. Show the world that faith in action – just fluff your tutu and prance away.

Have a great day. Nice tutu, by the way.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Don’t lose hope…keep the faith…

June 7, 2021

“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”  (MLK Jr)

That was the quote used by Pastor Freed in today’s post to the blog, Jack’s Winning Words. It pairs nicely with a sign that I have in my yard right now – “Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future.”

Hope and faith are often paired, and one could argue forever about which one comes first or which supports which. Does faith give us hope or does hope lead us to faith? I think that they are so intertwined that the one cannot exist without the other.

Life is filled with small and large disappointments or setbacks, yet a person of faith never loses hope for better days ahead. When faced with disappointments, we search for answers to the question – Why? – but a person of faith learns to accept what has happened, trusting, and accepting that it was God’s will and moving on.

The key to never losing hope in the future is found in the King quote about living with an audacious faith in the future. How can we have that audacious faith? The answer is that we have already been promised a future of everlasting life by Jesus. The trials and tribulations that we suffer here on earth pale in comparison to the promised eternity with God after life here.

The dictionary definition of audacious is bold, daring or fearless. In the context of the events of his day, I suspect that King’s quote was using the fearless definition. That is also a good definition to use for people of faith. Certainly, faith will not prevent the disappointments in life from happening; however, when the fear of death is replaced by faith in life everlasting, one can step into the future with a confident stride. One can audaciously look life in the eye and say, “bring it on”, I’m ready for you. You have faith in God and an unshakable hope for the future.

So, start each day by praying that God recharge your faith and renew your hope. Remind yourself that your faith has already cemented for you an infinite future with God, and you will see the trials and tribulations that you might face today within the proper context, and they will melt away. Hope is a great thing, but your faith is the greatest thing of all.

Be audacious in faith today.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Don’t go there…

June 5, 2021

A quote I recently saw while searching for something else caught my attention, so I saved it as a possible future blog post topic.

“Conflict cannot exist without your participation.” – Wayne W. Dyer

There are many things in life that one can “get caught up in”, but conflicts are not one of them. One cannot claim to be an innocent bystander if one enters into a conflict with someone else. Judge Judy likes to use the word kerfuffle to describe a conflict that escalates beyond a difference of opinion and into actions from one or both sides. Life is full of mental conflicts, only a few of which turn into kerfuffle’s. Don’t go there.

Road rage incidents have been in the news lately when they have escalated into kerfuffle’s that involved guns. Usually yelling and a few choice gestures suffice in road rage incidents, but occasionally they go well beyond that and sometimes result in crashes or worse. Don’t go there.

Conflicts in marriages are inevitable, but usually are resolved without rage or kerfuffle. When things go beyond just disagreeing, it can result in the marriage turning into cases of domestic violence. It is a sure sign of immaturity and lack of self-control when one of the partners resorted to physical violence to deal with conflicts. I heard a shocking statistic on the news recently that more people (mostly the women) died last year due to domestic violence involving guns than died from all diseases combined, including COVID-19. Don’t go there.

Since it takes two to tango (or tangle as we are discussing here), it is easy to understand how you can avoid conflicts and kerfuffle’s – just don’t go there.  That is relatively easy to say; but for most of us, much harder to control. Much of our response to things that happen around or to us is a knee-jerk reaction. The initial reaction may be one of surprise or fear and we draw back; however, anger may quickly replace fear and then we lash out. One may have only a split-second between the initial surprise reaction and the action response of striking back. Don’t go there.

How does one prepare for the unexpected or unwanted, such that we do not allow ourselves to participate in conflicts and kerfuffle’s? I submit that it has to do with being in the right frame of mind and being at peace with yourself and the world around you. If your mindset is to forgive the person who cuts you off in traffic, rather than flip them the bird or try to speed up and get past them again, you will avoid conflict.  If you show pity for the person who is so enraged that they push their way past you at the door, rather than push them back, you will avoid conflict. If you refuse to ”rise to the bait” of an insult or a slight from someone that is obviously aimed at provoking a reaction, you will avoid conflict. Don’t go there.

But why should you be the one to give in and turn the other cheek? There is an obvious answer in the Bible about turning the other cheek; however, there are also these passages –

AND

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”  (Colossians 3:12-14 )

“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”  (2 Timothy 2:24-26)

Perhaps then, the way to get into the right frame of mind and avoid conflict and kerfuffle’s is to start each day with a prayer that asks God to stay with you during the day and to intercede in that spit second between action and reaction to keep you at peace. If you take that split-second to ask God for His advice before reacting to that incident, He will say – Don’t go there.

Have a peaceful and conflict free weekend!

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Posted by Norm Werner

See it…believe it…achieve it…

June 4, 2021

Pastor Freed used a quote from Yoda of Star Wars fame this morning in his blog, Jack’s Winning Words – “Difficult to see…Always in motion…Is the future.”  (Yoda) 

Freed talked about Yoda as a mentor, helping Luke Skywalker see and get to the future. He also discussed his own role mentoring others and about being mentored himself.

Do you have a mentor? Maybe you just have a role model – someone that you try to emulate because you see them as someone that you would like to be like.  In our society, lots of young boys and girls take sports heroes as role models. Some may take movie or TV stars as role models or perhaps the characters that they play.

One technique that many successful sports stars use to “see” the future is called visualization. Golfers especially will focus on “seeing” the shot that they are about to hit in their imagination. They visualize the trajectory and the landing of the shot. They can “see” (they hope) how the ball will role on the green, once it gets there.

Many business coaches also teach visualization as a method of rehearsing for an upcoming meeting or presentation. They help you “see” how to handle the objections that may come up and visualize your success in the event, thus building confidence.

Visualization is not a bad technique to use to turn a dream or wish into a plan for success. Trying to visualize that success and the road to achieve it forces one to also “see” the challenges that must be overcome along the way to the goal and formulate plans for dealing with them. Sometimes that is where having a mentor come in the handiest, because they often can point out the challenges and recommend solutions, based upon their own experiences.

Much of the time in golf, and in life, the future plays out differently that one might have visualized. That is understandable, since we can only imagine (see) so much, and life is full of variables that escape our view. The fact that it doesn’t quite play out as we thought (hoped) it would doesn’t mean that the time spent visualizing a desired outcome was wasted. In fact, that time probably saved us from making many mistakes that we could have made and did put us in the right frame of mind for both success and for dealing with any setbacks.

Though we may not think to call on Him when we are visualizing about things in our day-to-day lives, we always have a mentor at hand in God. Whether you stop to ask yourself the question “What would Jesus do?” or just pause and think “what is the right things to do?”, the fact is that God is there to answer those questions and help you “see” the right thing to do. It won’t always be the most convenient or easiest things to do, but it will be the thing that leaves you feeling good about yourself at the end of the day.

Use God as your mentor each day. Ask for His help and advice each morning before you start out and visualize the events of your day playing out with God at your side. Then review the events of the day each night with God, remembering to ask for forgiveness for those instances where you made mistakes in judgement or actions. I suspect that, if you start doing that every day, you will also start to “see” a much better future – one that you can believe and achieve.

Another quote from Yoda seems appropriate to use in closing this post – “You fail because you don’t believe.”

See it…believe it…achieve it…

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Posted by Norm Werner

Who am I to judge?

June 2, 2021

In the post to he blog, Jack’s Winning Words, to day Pastor Freed used this quote sent to him by a reader –“You’ll never look into the eyes of a person who God doesn’t love.”  (Sent by Pr Jennie) 

Freed went on to comment about God’s grace – forgiveness without recompense – and the fact that there is no sliding scale for sins or forgiveness. So, we don’t have big sins and little indiscretions, just sins. And God does not use a scale from 1 to 10 to measure out his grace.

As he usually does in his blog, Freed challenged the reader with a question – Paul, the one we call a saint, referred to himself as the “chief of sinners.”  Would you ever say such a thing about yourself?

I seldom stand in front of the mirror admonishing myself as a sinner; however, I realize the sins that I have committed in the eye of God and stop occasionally to ask for God’s forgiveness and His help in not committing them again. Sometimes it is hard to look that guy in the mirror in the eyes and forgive him his sins.

I used the line from Pope Francis as the headline today because I think it is important within the context of all of us being sinners that we stop and ask that question of ourselves when our tendency to judge the sins of others takes over. The phrase “rush to judgement” comes to mind. We rush to overlook our own sins and focus on the sins of others. And, our focus is not to forgive them, but to shame or condemn them for those sins. We place ourselves in the roles of judge and jury and sometimes of executioner.

I have posted here before about the most striking examples of people following the example of God’s grace and forgiveness. One of those examples was reported on the news shows when parishioners from Emanuel African Methodist Church were interviewed after the shooter was arrested and convicted. The Charleston church shooting (also known as the Charleston church massacre) was a mass shooting on June 17, 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina, in which nine African Americans were killed during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The surviving members of the Bible study group when interviewed all said that they had forgiven the shooter and were praying for him. That’s just hard to wrap one’s head around. Yet, that is the level of forgiveness that God shows all.

So, while we may have a sliding scale of sins from 1 to 10 in our minds, they are all sins in the mind of God and he loves us so much that he forgives them all. God’s love and forgiveness is always a 10. So, who am I to judge the sins of others? My role should be to find a way to forgive and love them, too; even that guy that I see in the mirror.

Let us all take this piece of advice from Luke – “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.” (Luke 6:37)

Have a great and forgiving day!

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Posted by Norm Werner

Learning from Spock…

June 1, 2021

In the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the character Spock, played by the late Leonard Nimoy, dies after sacrificing himself to save the Enterprise from certain destruction by going into the reactor room and taking a fatal dose of radiation while fixing the reactor. When Captain Kirk asked him why he did it, his simple and logical explanation is something that we can all earn from – “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.”

All of us get so wrapped up in trying to meet (or exceed) our own needs that we do not focus upon the needs of those around us. We call it being self-centered or sometimes being selfish. It is understandable that one must provide for the needs of his family .as well as him/herself; however most of us go well beyond just meeting those needs and the question becomes one of what do we do with our excess of wealth or time or ability.

The answer may be found in a simple, straightforward verse in the Bible – “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

And again –

“Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” – (Philippians 2:4)

We may never live in a utopian world of shared work and rewards where everyone has all that they need; but, we also do not need to live in a world where differences between the haves and the have-nots is as great as it is today. That difference is found in the pay at the top and bottom of companies. A recent report by the AFL-CIO on corporate pay found that the average pay ratio of CEO to median worker was 204-to-1. At the top of the list, four CEOs earn more than 1,000 times the salary of their median worker. There is something fundamentally wrong in that.

As in many categories of excess, the United State leads in this pay disparity. That same report on Executive Pay showed that in other countries this is not the case, often due to laws limiting the gap. “In Switzerland, where voters recently imposed new limits on executive pay, the CEO-to-worker pay gap is 148 times,” the AFL-CIO reported. “In the United Kingdom, the CEO-to-worker pay gap is one-quarter as large as ours. And in Japan, the gap is even smaller.”

I suspect that the really good CEOs in the United States would continue to make good business decisions and find enough reward in doing that to continue to lead successful companies, even at greatly reduced pay. There are certainly enough examples of great leaders at Swiss and Japanese companies to support that hypothesis.

Now before the conservatives start yelling Socialism, Socialism; I do believe that they should be paid more for taking on the greater decision making responsibilities, just not several hundred or a thousand times more. The fact that we have arrived at this situation is a reflection of the worship of greed in our society and our focus on score keeping using wealth as a measure. People seldom read about the strategic or even tactical decision that these CEOs are faced with. Instead, we focus on how much they made as a result.

Perhaps, if more of these highly paid people took to heart Spock’s advice that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one, we would not have such a pay gap between the many and the one. Alas, I don’t believe that I have ever seen a CEO turn down the large pay rewards held out to them by their boards. Wouldn’t that be something?

Just saying.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Canceling it doesn’t fix it…

May 31, 2021

In a recent post to his blog, Jack’s Winning Words, , Pastor Freed used this quote – “It’s always easier to cancel something than to fix it.”  (Nick Zano)

We have heard and seen the term “cancel culture” used to describe the era that we are in right now, an era where people are unfriended (canceled), shows and programs dropped and other actions taken to stop or cancel someone or something that we (or someone) find offensive. Yet, when one really thinks about it, canceling is just a form of avoiding the issues. It’s sort of the “Don’t see me” of adulthood. It doesn’t really confront and change the underlying issues; it just avoids having to see or hear of it again (for a while anyway).

Certainly, canceling is a way to show displeasure with the person or things that is displeasing, but what does it really accomplish against the real issues? Racism will continue to exist whether we cancel everyone, or every show, that uses the “N” word. Homophobia will continue to exist even if we successfully stamp out the terms like “queer” or “homo” from our vocabulary. Hate will continue to divide the country unless we fix the underlying misinformation and mistrust that drive them.

Fixing our society’s big issues is a complex thing, so just canceling and ignoring the parts that we don’t like seems to be easier. But, canceling doesn’t fix anything. Society needs to find a way to move away from an us vs. them view of the world to a “we” view of the world. In the past, when our society faced a common and serious threat from an external enemy, “we” united in our effort to fight that enemy. It wasn’t really that differences were forgotten; they were just put aside for a while.

We recently faced a common enemy in the Covid-19 virus and, as serious and deadly as the fight against it has been, even it could not unite the country. We still had the mask/no-mask confrontations and the politically divided views of the countermeasures that were put in place (depending upon the party of the governor of the state that you lived in), and the vaccinate-not vaccinate arguments. A common response to this external enemy could not be found (common sense was even in short supply).

I am convinced that the decline of the church in our society has greatly contributed to the current morass. Even with the differences between religious denominations, attending church used to provide us with a moral compass that provided a much needed common moral base for people of both political parties. We had a better sense of right and wrong, of justice and injustice and of what the common good looked like when we had a strong church presence in our lives. One does not get that out of attending Sunday morning soccer, hockey or baseball games and our children certainly don’t learn the same lessons on the playing field as they used to learn in Sunday School classes.

There is no going back to “the way it used to be”, but perhaps there is a way (and certainly a need) to rethink the priorities in our lives and find a way to put time for God back into them, be it at church or just taking time to stop and pray with family. You may still have to be out on the athletic field early on Sunday morning, instead of being in church, but you can show your children the importance of God by also setting aside some family time for prayer or bible reading – time to reconnect them with God. If you don’t teach them, they will never learn and respect the moral teachings that come along with religion. Perhaps the refresher that you might need to become the teacher would help you, too.

So rather than ignore (or cancel) the issues of society, commit to fix them by giving a priority to the principals found in your religious beliefs and committing to teach your children, too.  Canceling it doesn’t fix it; only you can fix it. Be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem. Building a better moral base within our society, one believer at a time, will not just cancel the evil that is all around us today, but will drive it out of society.

Let’s fix this!

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Posted by Norm Werner

To get the reward, you must take the risk…

May 28, 2021

Pastor Freed used this Mario Andretti quote today in his blog, Jack’s Winning Words – “If everything seems under control, you’re not driving fast enough.”

Mario was a winning driver in Formula 1 and IndyCar racing because he always drove fast enough and managed to stay in control at the same time. Mario’s advice is really about overcoming fears and taking risks to get ahead in racing and in life. When your life is too much “under control” it is usually because you have let fears stop you from exploring what is right beyond your comfort zone.

Here are some great quotes by an impressive array of people about getting beyond our fears –

“Always do what you are afraid to do.” (1841) —Popularized by Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Not to do what you are afraid to do is to guide your life by fear. How much better not to be afraid to do what you believe in doing!” (circa 1881) —Jane Addams

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” (1960) —Eleanor Roosevelt

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” (1997) —Mary Schmich

You might ask why you should follow this advice. To extend the Andretti thought just a little, if you are allowing your fears (and prejudices) to control and constrict your life, you are not living life to the fullest. It’s as if you never moved from black and white TV to color TV (I know many of my readers don’t even know what black and white TV was). It is as if you went to the Baskins Robbins ice cream store and ordered plain Vanilla every time. Life has more to offer than your fears allow you to experience.

Life offers many rewards in terms of new friendships, new experiences and new knowledge to those who are unafraid to reach out for those things – to take the risk of meeting someone new or trying something new, something that you may be afraid of trying. Sometimes those fears hide under the cloud of prejudice, but the real base of all prejudices is unfounded fear.

I like Mary Schmich’s quote because it is a simple pro-active challenge to think about something that you are not doing because you are afraid. There are many things that really are too dangerous to try and, in those cases, your fears are serving you well. At the same time, there are many instances in life where holding back because of some unfounded fear really is a missed opportunity to make a new friend or have a great new experience, one that you may even learn from.

If you do not take the opportunity to talk to a person who looks different from you, you have missed an opportunity. If you do not go to that sporting event or that show, because its venue is in a neighborhood that you fear going into, you have missed an opportunity.  If you turned away from the person who was dressed differently or spoke differently or perhaps had piercings or tattoos because of fear or prejudice, you may have missed the opportunity to meet the most interesting person in the room.

So, let go of your fears and allow yourself to get right to the edge of control in life. Take the risk of not being afraid and you will be richly rewarded with a life that is much more interesting and fulfilling.

Do something that scares you today.

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Posted by Norm Werner

What a coincidence…

May 27, 2021

Pastor Freed used this quote today in his blog, Jack’s Winning Words – “When I pray coincidences happen, and when I don’t, they don’t.”  (William Temple)

Much of the time we pray after the fact, thanking God for some fortuitous coincidence that has already happened or perhaps praying for help or rescue from some misfortune. When do you find yourself praying? Do you pray before or after some coincidence happens? Do you ask for guidance and help going in or forgiveness or help coming out of that coincidence?

Often it is the inability to forgive ourselves for some mistake that we’ve made that is the real driver behind our prayers. We need God’s help moving on and ask Him to take the burden of guilt from our shoulders. By praying to God and accepting the outcome as God’s will we can shift the outcome of the event from a guilt trip to a learning experience and move on. Yes, we coulda, woulda and shoulda, but we didn’t, didn’t, didn’t. So, what can we learn from it, so that we don’t make the same mistake again?

It is also important to pray thinking God for the fortuitous outcomes as it is to pray for help. The accident narrowly avoided, the imagined horror that didn’t happen, the reward for good service finally recognized or the new friend you met “by chance” are all coincidences that God needs to be thanked for in your prayers.

You can put yourself in the right mood for the day if you wake up with the short prayer in mind  – “Thank you God for giving me another day.”  Just that beginning will likely kick off a number of thoughts about coincidences that you are thankful did or didn’t happen yesterday and things you need God’s help with today.  

Praying about it won’t change what will happen today, but it will change how you react to what happens today. Pray for God’s peace and the ability to make good decisions as the coincidences of the day occur. Then you’ll have things to look back on and thank God for helping get you through them.

Start with a prayer and have a great, coincidence-filled day!

Maybe Temple could have said, “When I pray coincidences happen and I’m ready for them.”

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Posted by Norm Werner

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