The Hey You Lady

This week's "Topical Blogger" assignment is to write something from the point of view of a character in the Gospel. My chosen character is one of the Roman soldiers who was in the garden of Gethsemane at the time of Jesus' arrest. So Judas came to the grove, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and Pharisees. - John 18:3 As a member of the Roman armed forces I have taken an oath of allegiance to Rome and to Caesar, to protect the Empire from all threats, foreign and domestic. For as long as I've can remember, there hasn't been any real threat that would require a whole detachment of soldiers to enter into any kind of combat, even that's what we're trained to be ready for.  I've heard of the Jew, the rabbi they call Jesus. He talks of another "kingdom," but that's all he's done - talk. They say that he's worked "miracles," had some interesting teaching, even brought back someone w...

I've been having quite the experience writing with the Topical Bloggers (see right). When I got the topic for this week, Physician Assisted Suicide, I thought, "Wow, what a deep topic!" I've never been really close to anyone being faced with that decision. I've never even really given the subject much thought. After all, it's not considered polite conversation while sipping a Starbuck's to discuss whether we'd rather be lying in a graveyard or lying in a hospital bed waiting to die. In thinking of what to write, I discovered I have many questions. On the surface, it "seems" ethical that if someone is in great pain from a lingering incurable disease, and the patient has the presence of mind to want to end their life, then he or she has the right, or entitlement, to do so. Once I started to look below the surface, it's not so simple. I thought about legal issues - how do we know the patient is making a rational, informed decision? What can ...

Why do we do the things we shouldn't do? Why do we engage in behavior that we know will in one way or another hurt someone else? While there seems to be as many reasons for doing what we know is wrong as there are wrong things to do, I believe that one thing that motivates us is loneliness. Loneliness is a feeling of separation anxiety that results when we sense disconnection from another person or group of people. We've all felt it at one time or another; it's part of our human condition. In and of itself, loneliness is not a sin. But if it is left unchecked , it can lead to sinful behavior. For example, our culture tells women and men that if they do not have "someone to love" they are incomplete. In order to try to fit in, they do whatever they can to meet -- singles groups at church, singles bars, online dating services, on the job romances, wherever. They fill their iPhones with phone numbers in order to try to fill the void of emptiness they feel. But too o...

Thursday afternoon is the day that the next week's work assignment is posted at my office. Like many worksites, there are certain tasks that nobody particularly enjoys doing but have to be done by somebody. And every week there is always at least one person who finds dissatisfaction in their assignment and will give their input to the manager after the schedule is posted. In my previous job, that scheduling manager was me. It seemed that no matter how fair I tried to be in task assignment there would be at least one person who cried "Unfair!" I would sit down with the employee and the two of us would review the schedule. If it was determined that an error was made or there was a legitimate issue, a correction or compromise would be worked out. But if it turned out to be just a complaint, I had to be the intransigent one ( look it up ) and the task assignment stayed as originally posted. I didn't look forward to the weekly conflict, and I endured my fair share of stink...