Have your boomerangs come back?

July 15, 2021

Two recent quotes from the Jack’s Winning Words blog seemed to fit together this morning –

“The game of life is the game of boomerangs.  Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later…with astounding accuracy.”  (Florence Shinn)

-AND-

“The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.”  (George Eliot)

When I read the first quote I thought immediately of the 1961 song by Charlie Drake, “My Boomerang Won’t Comeback.” When looking up who sang the song, in almost every mention of it in the search results, it was labeled as a racist song. I never thought if it that way, but maybe that is one of my boomerangs returning to cause me compunction.

We see this boomerang effect quite often as we watch politicians or other “public figures” squirm and backpedal on TV as they are confronted by their past statements or actions. Some have developed compunction about those events and statements, but many still defend them. I recall the miraculous “conversion” of George Wallace from avid racist during his days as Governor of Alabama to the inclusive, anti-racist candidate for President. He could not duck fast enough to avoid those boomerangs.

I suspect that we all have boomerang moments in our lives when we said something or did something that later returned to us and perhaps some of them, we now have compunction about. We are becoming more and more aware of and perhaps having regrets for things that we might have said or done that contributed to what we now understand is systemic racism or homophobia. Most of it is because we allowed some of the bad “everybody knows” thinking and statements about those topics to seep into our thoughts and control our actions and reactions. We didn’t stop and think about who “everybody” is or to question or challenge the presumptions upon which the statements were based. We just accepted them and went on with life, thereby joining into the problem rather than seeking the truth.

The quote about compunction is the key to dealing with these boomerangs in our life. The fact is that we change over time. That change is usually driven by an increase in our knowledge of things that we may have just accepted without question earlier in our lives – the everybody knows things. We learn the truth behind some oof those assumptions and develop compunction about having been duped into a false conclusion. We regret having said things or done things that now seem unwise at best and hateful or harmful in many cases – we develop compunction.

How about you? Do you look back over your life and see things that you said or did that you are now regretful for having said or done? If you recognize them as such you are off to a good start at correcting them in the future. You can’t take back what you said or did 10-15-20 years ago, but you can recognize that they were wrong and have enough remorse and understanding of what would have been right to avoid a repeat of those mistakes in the future – you can have compunction.

One way to close the loop on the regrets that you might have is to lay them out to God in prayer and ask for His help to change you so that you do not do those things again. This is a form of “getting it off your chest”. You could seek out the person that you might have hurt with your remarks, but that is often impractical. You could stand on a street corner confessing your past misdeeds and statements, but that seems a bit dramatic. Just admitting it to the highest authority (God) out loud or in your thoughts as you pray has a cleansing effect. Then you can say, yes, your boomerangs came back, but you caught them and dealt with them the best way possible. You can accept God’s forgiveness and forgive yourself.

Now get out there and throw boomerangs that you will be proud of when they come back.

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Posted by Norm Werner

The mirror to our soul…

June 26, 2021

A quote that I saved some time back appealed to me this morning – “Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.” ― Samuel Butler

Indeed, the mirror that we may gaze admiringly in only shows us what others see of us – our external, physical appearance. Imagine if there was a magic mirror in which we could “see” our soul and view all of our character flaws, prejudices and mistakes in judgement as blemishes upon that person that you see the normal mirror. Would that be a pretty reflection or an ugly one?

Perhaps there is such a mirror. Our conscience is supposed to be that mirror to our soul. For some looking into their conscience is a delusion or at best a contorted view. For them fact and fantasy become confused, and they “see” what they want to see, rather than what is really there. For others that mirror is a dark and foreboding place in which to peer, a place of self-loathing and despair. What do you see when you examine your conscience in that mirror?

It is said that our consciences were given to us by God so that we could tell the difference between right and wrong. Many call the conscience the voice of God in the back of our mind. If that is true, it is also true that we must listen for that voice, for it is often tiny and soft in the background.

The world we live in is fast and loud, full of shiny and tempting things. Sometimes life comes at us as if we are swept up in a storm. We receive inputs and demands from all directions and would be well-served to remember the advice of Craig D. Lounsbough – “I have both the violent turbulence of the storm and the quiet promises of God in the storm. And what I must work to remember is that something is not necessarily stronger simply because it’s louder.”

That makes it all the more important to take the advice that I wrote about some time ago that I saw on a gift store plaque – Make time for the quiet moments as God whispers and the world is loud. Those are times of quiet prayer…times to listen for the voice of God speaking through your conscience.

Take time each day in prayer to shut out the loudness of the world and look deeply into the mirror of your soul – your conscience. Do you like what you see there? Listen in those moments for the whispers of God and heed his words. Then, when you look into your soul, you can watch those blemishes fade away…your conscience will clear.

Having a clear conscience allows us a view of ourselves in the mirror of our soul without distortions and blemishes. I think you’ll like what you see there then.

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Posted by Norm Werner

It’s all in how you see it…

June 12, 2021

Pastor Freed recently used this quote in his blog, Jack’s Winning Words – “Be thankful for closed doors, detours and roadblocks.  They protect you from paths and places not meant for you.”  (Sent by Kathy M)

Kathy’s view of things that might be in your way is one way to look at those things. Many people choose to see them merely as challenges to be overcome.  For them, Kathy’s view would need to be changed to read at the end, “not meant for you right now (or yet)”

Both views reach the same conclusion about what just may have occurred – it happened, let it go, move on. In Kathy’s view one just accepts what happened and moves on without worrying about it further. In the other view one accepts it, tries to learn something from it and then formulates a new plan to get to the goal that was just shut out by what happened.

Neither view is necessarily right or wrong. So long as the second view does not turn from persistence into an obsession, there is nothing wrong with trying again in the face of an initial failure.

When you think about it, we pray thanking God for preventing something from happening maybe as often as we pray to Him asking for help to make something happen. In those prayers of thankfulness, we are often thanking him for putting some roadblock in our way to prevent us from a making some horrible mistake.

Whichever view you take, in the end it comes down to accepting, “Thy will be done” when praying to God. If you can get to that mental state, you can remove fear and self-depreciation from your life.

So, stop beating yourself up or living in fear or doubt of your every move. Let God take control of things. For every door that he has closed, He opens another; perhaps to a much better choice for you.

You will never know the answer to the question “What if?”, so stop wasting time on it and start looking for “What’s next”. Trust in God’s plan for you, accept it and enjoy life.

Oh, look; there’s a roadblock ahead. I wonder what I’ll find on the detour that God has planned for me.

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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

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

God’s Twilight Zone…

May 11, 2021

In his blog post today, Pastor Freed used this quote, which was from the opening of a popular TV show of the late fifties and early sixties – “You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of the mind…your next stop, the Twilight Zone.”  (Rod Serling)

I remember watching the Twilight Zone. Each week it would be something new, different, and often bizarre. Serling took us out of the dimension of the physical that we all lived in and into the dimension of the mind where anything was possible. This was TV before all of today’s special effects were invented, so it looks quite tame by modern standards.

The idea that there exists dimensions beyond those in the physical world that we live in has been intriguing mankind, or at least fiction writers, for ages. We live and think about things in the physical world of three dimensions, plus time, that we are used to, with one large exception – God. The God that exists in our minds cannot be defined or even conceived of within the limitations of those dimensions. We are talking about a God that always was and always will be, so time is of little value as a frame of reference. We have a God who has no physical presence yet is nowhere and everywhere all at once.

The only people who have “seen” God in the flesh were those who saw Jesus while he was God on earth thousands of years ago. Recently archeologists have recreated what Jesus might have physically looked like, based upon what they know about the appearance of average man within the area that Jesus lived. Quite different than the images later conjured up by European artists that have become “standards” in most Bibles and churches.

So, today God exists in that Twilight Zone of our minds where all things ae possible, yet impossible to explain. Our minds are wonderful things. They allow us to interpret what the physical parts of us experience as sights and sound, smells and tastes, touch and more. But our minds also let us experience things that are not in the physical dimension, like emotions, love and sorrow, anxiety and elation and many other “feelings”. It is in that dimension of the mind where we get in touch with and experience God. Our minds invented the concept of prayer as a way of talking to a God who does not exist within the dimension of our physical world. Prayer allows us to give voice to our needs and desires; to talk to God about what is troubling us and the things with which we need His help within this physical world.

Serling used many different openings for the show during its run. One was this one – There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone. Maybe Serling was describing the dimension that one enters when praying.

When we pray, God does not answer with a big booming voice or from a burning bush (He did that a few times in stories in the Bible). Sometimes we don’t hear anything back from our prayers, but the “answer” washes over us as a peace that we don’t understand (that’s referenced in the Bible, too) and we know that things will be OK. In those times we have entered the Twilight Zone of being in the presence of God, another dimension of the mind.

So, as you pray today, let your mind wander into a dimension not of sight and sound, but of acceptance and belief. Once you are there, God’s peace, which is beyond understanding, will wash over you. Welcome to God’s Twilight Zone.

God’s Peace be with you.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Ask and you shall receive…

May 7, 2021

Paster Freed used this quote from an Indian philosopher today in his blog, Jack’s Winning Words – “Reach high, for stars lie hidden from you.  Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.”   (Rabindranath Tagore) 

Tagore might have added, “Pray fervently, for through prayer the hidden path to your dream is revealed.”

Prayer makes you stop and think, it also makes you formulate what it is that you want God to help you with. You don’t just ask God to make your dream come true. That’s not how it works.

Perhaps the path to your dream requires only the courage to try. You can find that courage through prayer.

Maybe the path is long and arduous. God will give you the patience, perseverance, and endurance to stay the course, if you but ask.

It could be that your dream is not realistically achievable. It that case, asking God for help letting go of that dream and finding another, more realistic, dream to pursue may be the best course of action. So, maybe God’s role is similar to that of Dr Phil on TV and he’s telling you to get real. Pray about it.

Ask God for the right help and then listen in your heart for His answers. Whatever you approach it is that last part that matters the most – listen to his answer in your heart and do the right thing. Sometimes you are not going to like the answer, but you must accept it and move on. Ask for God’s help in dealing with the disappointment. You might be surprised how fast a new dream, one that you can accomplish, pops into your life.

Indeed,  “God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to  perform” (from a poem by William Cowper)

So pray for God’s guidance and help with your dreams and the path will not be hidden from you.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Battling COVID fatigue…

April 17, 2021

We hear a lot these days about the so-called COVID fatigue – the failure of people to do what is right (and they know it) because they just give up trying. They are exhausted or tired of taking the health precautions that are required during a pandemic. They have Coved fatigue. They lack the willpower to carry on.

“Willpower is the basis of perseverance.” Napoleon Hill

We have been threatened, begged and cajoled to wear masks, social distance and wash our hands, all in the attempt to slow the spread of the virus. Yet, many have given up and given in to the virus by becomes complacent (or worse – combative) and deciding to “go on with life”, as if the virus doesn’t exist. We see some on the news telling us, “I’m young and healthy, I think I can beat the virus.” Yet these days the young and formerly healthy make up the biggest percentage of newly hospitalized COVID victims and a significant portion of those dying. 

“It’s not that some people have the willpower and some don’t. It’s that some people are ready to change and others are not.” James Gordon

Perhaps it is that resistance to change that is the culprit; yet, change is inevitable. Change just happens around us and we must make the choice to go along with that change or to fight it. The U.S. Marines have a famous motto – “Adapt, Improvise and Overcome”. That motto recognizes that change is inevitable and that we must be ready to adapt to it and improvise in order to overcome. The COVID pandemic has caused changes that no one wants and which cannot be ignored. The advice that we have been given by health experts is the improvising that s required to overcome the COVID virus.

“Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear.” Dan Millman

If willpower is the key to successful fighting this pandemic, the key to willpower is that it is not inherent in us, but a skill that must be developed through conscious effort.

“People don’t just find the strength and the willpower they need, they create it.” Anonymous

Perhaps a key to developing (creating) the willpower that you need to get through this crisis is recognizing that you are not in this fight alone. No, I don’t mean that you should look around to see others in this same boat – we see that every night on the news. What I mean is that you are not facing this crisis alone and without help – God is with you. You need only reach out to God for his support and strength to preserver.

We are told in 2nd  Timothy 1:7 – “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.”

So, tap into that strength and resolve every day through prayer. Don’t pray that God make the COVID virus go away. That’s not how it works. Pray instead that God give you the strength and perseverance to do what is right to get though this test of your will.

“But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” – Isaiah 40:31

Maybe you could add to the words of Isaiah that they will wear their masks, maintain social distance, wash their hands and not get sick. They will adapt and overcome.

Tap into the willpower that God gives you by renewing your resolve through prayer each day. Don’t view the things that you must do during this pandemic as “one more day of inconvenience”; but, rather, as one more way that you can demonstrate the power of God through your actions.  Let God give you the willpower to get through this.

Not your will but God’s will be done. Now that is willpower!

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Posted by Norm Werner

Make the best of what life gives you…

February 28, 2021

I was searching for inspiration this morning when I ran across this John Wooden quote – “Things Work Out Best For Those Who Make The Best Of How Things Work Out.”

I love how the words flow in that quote and the underlying psychological advice. None of us can really control the things that happen to us in life, but we can control how we react to those things. Accepting that reality is the first step to making the best of what happens to us in life.

Instead of sinking into despair at life’s setbacks, no matter how bad, one must continue to search for the best path forward from where one find’s oneself. It is the ability to accept setbacks in life as a learning experiences and to adjust your approach to resolving the problem at hand that, so that you can make progress, that separates the winners in life from those admit defeat and never achieve their goals.

Making the best of how things work out doesn’t mean accepting where you have temporarily ended up as your ”station in life”.  That is a defeatist attitude.

A setback may have involved taking the wrong path entirely towards that goal or it could have just been a poor execution of the correct approach to a solution. It is important to stop and consider that and make your adjustments based on what you can now see when wrong.  The worst thing that you can do is to continue to do the same wrong thing over and over and expect a different outcome.

Too often we focus too much attention on what happened yesterday. It is like trying to drive your car in a race by looking only in the rear view mirror. You will see the disasters that have already happened but no the one looming just ahead.

It makes little sense to pray that nothing bad ever happens to you; rather it makes good sense to pray for the patience, wisdom and perseverance to deal with whatever happens and to make good decisions.

So, perhaps you can include in your prayers the request that God help you accept what has already happened and better prepare you for what is ahead. There is a term for that in the bible  – be at peace. May you be at peace with what has already happened, so that you may be better prepared for what lies ahead.

Make the best of it. Things will work out.

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Posted by Norm Werner

You’ve got work to do…

February 4, 2021

In his blog, Jack’s Winning Words, today Pastor Freed used this quote –

“You can wake up every day and make today better than the last.”  (Tommy Lasorda)

He went on to write about having a positive attitude every day. One might ask how to make each day a better day and the answer may be found in another quote from Freed’s blog that I had saved –

“You can look anywhere and find inspiration.”  (Frank Gehry)

The fact is that there are always things all around us that need doing, in order to make it a better day for someone. And in recognizing those things and doing them, you will make a better day for yourself. Some of the things are very small and subtle – smiling at someone when they needed a smile today or opening a door for someone and letting them go ahead of you. Sometimes they are bigger, like stopping to help someone in distress or rushing into a burning building to recue a trapped occupant.

I think a key point is that you have to work at it. Lasorda didn’t just say everyday is going to be better than the last; he said that you can make it better. Better doesn’t just happen all be itself. You don’t just sit there all day, waiting for better to happen; you have to work at it. What Gehry was saying is that yo have to look for the opportunities to make things better and when you see them to be inspired to take action.

Perhaps you can start each day by getting help with that. Ask God in your prayers to help you see the opportunities to make things better and to not be satisfied with just seeing them, but to take action to make better happen. That can start with asking God to help you to make better decisions during the day and to help you to be more sensitive to the needs of others.

We often hear the phrase in the eulogies for those who have passed that, ”He/She made the world a better place.” Many times that is a reference to the love that was shared with family and friends, but often it is also a reflection of the actions that the departed took to make the lives of strangers better. Maybe it was the hours of toil to earn money so that a child could go to college. Perhaps it was volunteer charity work or work within the church or the community. Possibly it was some work of art or literature that they created that impacted the lives of others. The point is that they worked at it; it didn’t just happen.

So, as you start your day, look around for your inspiration. Ask yourself how can you make this a better day for yourself and others. Then get at it.

Make this a better day!

You’ve got work to do.

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Posted by Norm Werner

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