With my latest post, The Delinquent Miner seems to have found what he was looking for. While I don’t intend to close my little Mine, further writing here doesn’t seem appropriate at this time. I will leave it to posterity. Perhaps in the future I may re-open the Mine, if the yield will be profitable.

In the meantime, feel free to contact me at the DM email. Also, I will be making snarky comments and other postings at the DM Reader Page, which is my mini-blog, based in Google Reader. Check it out, and “follow” me, if you’re interested. Or, you can follow me on Twitter, @delinquentminer. You can also check out my athletic and other exploits at Running On Empty. All links are listed in my blogroll.

Thank you for your readership, and I think those that commented. I encourage you in your own prospecting.

When all has been heard, this is the end of the matter: fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.

A thousand years later, Jesus of Nazareth purportedly gave this answer to the question, What commandment is the greatest?

The first is… you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart… soul… mind, and… strength. The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.

Similarly, if not finally, Jesus made a similar statement to his followers:

By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

I’ve talked about love on this blog, but not completely. I have not been able to express what I’ve thought and felt about it, until now. Still, it isn’t me expressing it, but someone else stating exactly how it is congealed in my mind and heart.

On his blog, Experimental Theology, Dr. Richard Beck has posted on what love means. I recommend this post, and his blog in general. Love is almost universally misunderstood, in Dr. Beck’s opinion, and my opinion (not that I understand love perfectly, not even close). Even so–and I have stated this before–it is my opinion that the existence love is the single evidence there is for a personal, benevolent God. Thus, it is therefore logical that if God exists and if Jesus is in anyway close to what was written about him, love is at the bright center of what it is all about.

What I have gathered together in all of my mining is this: love is the nugget, vein, ore, and gem I have been looking for. It’s what I’ve been missing. What is frustrating is that I had missed it up until now. Like a gold-fever infected prospector, I ignored and set aside what looked dull and useless at first glance, chasing after the yellow-shiny stuff–which turned out to be pyrite. Turning back to that waste pile, and reprocessing it a little, turned up the gold I was looking for all along.

Love is now what colors my perception of everything. I have “gold” fever. If it isn’t concerning, sprinkled with, or infused by love, I’m no longer interested. Like Dr. Beck said, how we treat people matters–it matters in my business, my work, my family, my friendships, and most certainly my religion. I could further elaborate and detail all my thoughts on the matter, but that might not end any time soon, and I have a job to do.

I will close with this: I have come to the end of the matter.

With love,
Justin

While my eldest son was at summer camp, his mother and I took our remaining progeny to see Toy Story 3. We have been fans of the franchise since before we had children, so this was a natural activity. We always expect a great movie, and we were not disappointed.

What we did not expect was for the film to be as deeply moving and emotionally provocative as it was. This always happens to me at kids’ movies.

I won’t go into the plot or the story (in an attempt to prevent a complete ruination of the experience for those of you who have not seen the movie, but wish to in the future), but there is a scene which, among all the other significant scenes, which had a huge existential effect on me, which is no surprise, given my history with existential crises.

The Toys–Woody, Buzz, and the Gang–have, through their adventures, found themselves at the trash dump. In an epic setting of biblical and Dante-an proportions, the toys have found themselves on the cusp of annihilation at the mercies of the trash incinerator. Think Gehenna meets the Gaping Maw of Hell. The Gang has exhausted all of their wisdom, shrewdness, skills, uniqueness, and wherewithal to escape, but has come up short. They are past the event horizon and now face no future but certain death.

Understanding they have no way of escape, and realizing their common fate, the Toys surrender, look into one another’s eyes and hold each other’s hands in a final muster of strength to face the End, to die together as friends and with dignity.

It is at this point a married, 37 year-old man with four children breaks down in the theater watching a kids’ movie.

I’ve spoke of loneliness before. But isn’t that what we all want and need–a friend? To not face life, then death, alone?

After all the advances of humanity, after all the technology and all the burying of our heads, we all still die. As if life is not hard enough, you then die. Most of us will die alone. Of all the sufferings of humanity, it is made all the more horrible by enduring it alone. It ends up being that Hell is not in the fire or the darkness, but in being alone to face the fire and the darkness.

The question, then, is are we alone? Will someone come along side you in your suffering and hold your hand through it all? I don’t care what your beliefs are, this is the common human quandary. No one wants to be alone. Most of us are willing to suffer whatever may befall us, so long as we have a companion to go with us.

This brings up so many other questions of theology, philosophy, sociology, religion and life; far too many for this small space. No matter what you believe about god, I have only one suggestion:

Take someone’s hand, or offer your hand to another. It will make tomorrow easier to take than today.

Summer solstice is always a bit bittersweet, since the days will begin inching shorter and shorter. But, being the good heliocentrist I am, I celebrate the cycles and rhythms of my life.

Besides, I got a beer and a burger!

1) Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church represents the logical end to the concept of biblical inerrancy and a literal interpretation.

I don’t think I will go into any explanation over this. I’ll just let it stand on its own merit.

2) Today is the day of the big yard sale my wife is putting on.

(I hate yard sales. Not only do I get ignored–unless a Sherpa is required–for the better part of 4 days, it is much easier to me to just load up the pickup and make a trip to the free-store or to the dump. Reduce, reuse, and recycle your own old crap for the bottom-dwelling scum-suckers that mill around my yard for what otherwise would be a perfectly good Saturday… but I digress.)

I needed to run an errand in town, so I loaded up the kids and went at it. Along the way I decided to give them a treat by buying them a doughnut for breakfast-dessert. (Que Bill Cosby, Dad is great!) Not knowing the bounty that awaited them, they seemed more intent on complaining and resisting me about having to go to town, especially since they needed to keep an eye out for Mom selling their stuff. One child in particular was throwing a marginal fit about it, as the others grumbled and murmured in the background.

When I finished the errand, the cry of “What are we going to do nooowww?” rose from the rear of the vehicle. I answered by stating that I was going to let them pick out a doughnut, but because of all the whining, I was having second thoughts. The other three who were not fitting threw this one who was under the bus, in an instant.

“Well, I’m not whining. She is!”

“Yeah! Me, neither. Can we still get a doughnut?”

In an attempt to not be denied the doughnuts promised, three of my children united against the fourth, to scapegoat her.

Oh, my god!

After acting dumbfounded for a second or two, I defended my fitter and scolded the others for this. “We’re not going to blame her just so you guys get a treat! What has she done that you haven’t?” At that they fell quiet.

Since my promise of a doughnut was not based on their behaviors, we happily marched back home, booty in hand. All is well. But I’m left wondering, taken aback, really. The tendency toward scapegoating sacrifice really is ingrained in us. Either that or I’ve failed as a parent, already.

S. Mark Heim was right. Scapegoating is the essence of the Fall. Adam blamed Eve (and God). Eve blamed the Serpent. Cain blamed Abel. Esau blamed Jacob, Leah and Rachel blamed each other and Jacob’s ten older sons blamed Joseph. Moses blamed the Egyptian slave-driver and the Hebrew Slaves blamed Moses. Fred Phelps blames “fags”. Hitler blamed Jews. The Crusaders blamed Moslems. Israelis blame Palestinians. Osama bin Laden blames Americans. Evangelical Christians blame Atheists. On and on it goes, right down to my four kids, who would throw each other under the bus for a @#$%^&! doughnut.

If Jesus lived, if Jesus was who he said he was, if Jesus died, if Jesus was resurrected, then Jesus did it all to end this scapegoating. If not, if another explanation stands, then God is no different than all of us who would blame another, any other, just to gain an advantage or make ourselves look better.

If Jesus lived and died to continue the Divine scapegoating plan, then I want off the train. Such a god is simply a concept of ourselves, and doesn’t deserve anything from me.

But, if Jesus lived and died to save the scapegoats, and further to save the scapegoaters as well…

… nah, couldn’t be.

Here is one of the choicest nuggets. It is from S. Mark Heim in his book, Saved From Sacrifice. The context regards the [atheist] critique of the Gospels as condoning ritual human sacrifice:

We would not accuse the Gospels of victimization if we had not already been converted by them.

This is a pretty weighty bit. I will need to assay it further to determine its full value, or if it needs further milling and refining. Stay tuned…

I don’t know why, but I wept over this. Ernie Harwell left an indelible mark on me, and I never met the man.

Twelve years ago, I was alone in the surgical waiting room of Crittenton Hospital, in Rochester, Michigan. My wife had just been through surgery for an ectopic pregnancy, and my first child was no more. All of the visits from our friends were completed, and the phone calls were made. I sat on a chair in front of the television. The Tigers were playing in Minnesota, and the only voice in my head was Ernie Harwell’s (he was doing TV at that time). His voice was the only voice of calm in my life at that point. Interestingly enough, his quiet, kind, and deliberate way drowned out everything else.

A little over a year later, I was in Colorado, taking a new job. I was alone again, having left my pregnant-again wife back in Michigan to close out our affairs. The baseball playoffs had started, and I was only able to catch the games on a static-y, old AM radio. The Red Sox and the Indians were in the ALDS, and there he was… Ernie Harwell calling the games. Alone and my head spinning, there again was that calm voice, drowning out all of the rest.

That ALDS and ALCS were the last games during which I had the pleasure of listening to Ernie.

Calm in the storm from a fellow traveler. For that I will always remember him and be thankful for his impact on me.

Charlie Kimball.

Remember that name, if you like open-wheel racing in the U.S. Kimball is an Indy Lights driver who is having a measure of success in this minor-league to the IRL. In a year or two, this kid could be racing in the Indianapolis 500.

Oh, didn’t I mention? He was diagnosed a type-1-diabetic two and a half years ago, as an adult.

Now if only the IRL could get a decent TV deal.

Then there are the risks the miners’ families take on in watching their husbands, brothers, uncles, and fathers (and many times wives, sisters, aunts, and mothers) leave every morning. No one really knows if they will see them at dinnertime. They stay behind, worrying and hoping, learning to live with the uncertainty and fear. The vast majority of days, for the vast majority of families, the fears are never realized. But the fears do not subside and the worries do not fade. For a great many, the nightmare comes true, as it has this past two weeks, keeping the specter of death and tragedy hanging low over the mining towns, like the smoke from the coal fires.

As you go, today, consider these people, their lives, and their deaths. Then, ask not for whom the bell tolls. The miners’ lives are a mirror of your own. Take a good look and let any smugness fall away. Take time to consider who and what you live for, and what prioritizes your time and energy. If you change your heart, even a little, and love more, even a little, their deaths will not be in vain.

It’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
Where the dangers are double and the pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.

It was his loyalty and faith in Jesus, in the end, that was on display. To me, that was what made his words attractive, and what has had a great impact in me not throwing faith away completely.

He wrote a book which he will not see published and widely read. I have not read it, either, since it has not been released. I recommend it without qualification. Do yourself the favor.

Cancer sucks. Death is bullshit. Things like this make it very hard for me to understand what was really or actually accomplished with the Resurrection. All the pat answers are of little comfort to a grieving family and world of friends who now have a hole in their lives.

May Michael find the rest he so longed for.