Jack Pelham

If they win,
They will not listen any more
To the interior concerns they’ve recently discussed.

If they win,
They will not purge
The corruption of their own incumbents.

Let’s face it:
Whatever level of stupid it takes
To make you cringe—
To make you want to walk away
From the one being stupid—

There are certainly some who
Are quite comfortable
Living and operating
At that level.

There is in this world a chance
That too few ever seem to realize.
It is the chance to make develop oneself
Into a fine human, well-versed in
The wisdom of the ages,
And a living blessing to those around us—
All in honor of the goodness of God,
Who designed and created us in his image.

There’s a wonderful treasure—
Beyond earthly measure—
In learning to want
What we should, but don’t.

A professional therapist told me once that most everybody’s got an emotional void inside, along with some level of drive to fill it. And I suppose this is probably true. At least, it seems consistent with my observations in this world. And people fill it—or try to fill it—with different things—some effective, some ineffective, and some that may temporarily seem effective, but that wear off in time.

Here’s one pitfall, though, that’s worth mentioning. It’s based on this question: Whose responsibility is it to fill up the emotional void that I have inside? The basic choices, of course, are these:

1. It’s your own responsibility
2. It’s somebody else’s responsibility

Here is a list of some paradigms that influence how people decide what to believe about things. The list that follows won’t describe any particular person, but a useful profile of a person could be built by observing which of these paradigms affect them, and in what measure, and regarding what types of beliefs.

Rather than to prolong the description, let me just get to the list, which will be somewhat instructive in its own right.

Some prefer to believe:

Perhaps the biggest difference between people
Is that one wants to do what is right
While the other does not.

Let me start off by saying that I have a very high regard for the Bible and its contents. I believe they were written by people who were under the careful and capable influence of God, and I believe that they have been delivered to our generation so that we can learn about what all happened in that ancient world—about what was said, done, taught, and believed. And I believe that the exploits of the faithful, as well as the acts of God and Jesus, shine a great light into this otherwise-dark world, such that we can see for ourselves (if we want to) what it means to be righteous and just and loving and gracious and godly and pure and so on—such that we might be like that ourselves, should we so choose.

I believe that God set the stage in those earlier times, knowing that one of the results of it all would be this collection of writings that could tell these stories to the world forevermore. And I believe that we should be reading it, studying it, reflecting on it, and discussing it as a part of our daily and weekly lives, so that we can be built up and instructed by it.

Now, I had to say all that to defend against the people who might want to attack me about what I’m going to say next:

I’m not sure we have enough information in those texts from which to figure out all the original doctrines and practices completely.

We all know that procrastination is bad—
Having been bitten by it ourselves
A hundred thousand times
In various ways.

But it strikes me that we don’t realize
That we were born into
A deep heritage of procrastination—
Into a culture that’s steeped in it.

The truth about myself—both good and bad—is true.
And it is true whether I see it or not—
Understand it or not—
Like it or not.

And it is true whether you see it or not—
Understand it or not—
Like it or not.