Post #1 in the face of COVID 19

In the past week disruption due to the potential impact of COVID-19 has become part of our daily lives.   This is a situation that very few of us has ever seen anything like before.   For some of us the disruption is highly inconvenient.  For others the disruption is a threat to income.   For some it may become a threat to health and life.

It would be quite understandable if you are feeling a whole host of emotions right now.  Maybe you are angry that this is happening.  Weddings are being cancelled.  Folks are losing time at work.  Graduations are cancelled or postponed.  Children are out of school.  People are buying up all the toilet paper and other items.   I have a friend with health and income issues who travels about 100 miles to take his daughter to the doctor and do his shopping, only this past time to find that the stories are largely emptied of the basic items they normally buy.

Other folks are in denial.  We've seen the news reports of people continuing to party.  I've read the articles and blogs of folks who are claiming it is all "hype" and there is no real threat.   I've heard Pastors who say there is no need to follow guidance involving public worship because God will protect people.  I heard old myths bordering on superstition that the common cup for distribution of Holy Communion has the power to ward off disease (or at least prevent transmission of the virus from one communicant to another ) and conspiracy theories that this is just the government trying to gain more dictatorial power over the populace.   I've heard folks claiming it is no worse than a cold or the flu and there are far more deaths to the flu, without realizing the spread has not hit the US yet and hopefully won't if we follow social distancing guidelines.

Because it boils down to this.  We are in this together.  We always have been.   God created us that way.   We don't live in isolation.   God looked upon Adam and said it was not good for him to be alone.  When Adam and Eve fell into sin it effected not just them but all their children and that is us.  The world is broken.   That is why there is disease in the world in the first place.

We are in this together.  When God gave His commandments they were all predicated on the fact that we are not alone in this life.  We exist in relationship to God.  We exist in relationship to one another.  We need each other.  That is part of being human.  And the decisions we make often impact others.

I am a Lutheran pastor.  Now Martin Luther was not an infallible prophet of the church.   He taught us to rely upon Scripture alone as the source for our understanding of God.  (Lutherans will say that scripture alone is the source and norm for faith and life.)   But Luther did hear Scripture and he had a knack for explaining what it says.   In his Small Catechism (a small teaching book) he said of the commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill" in answering "what does this mean":


"We should fear and love God that we may not hurt nor harm our neighbor in his body, but help and befriend him in every bodily need [in every need and danger of life and body]."

The life we save might be our own.  The life we save might be someone we love.   The life we save might be someone we might not even know. God has always asked us to love our neighbor, to make sacrifices for our neighbor, not just to think about ourselves.  This is a time for us to do so.  The fruit may not be evident.   You might avoid that contact, that event, you might stay home and never get sick, never know if you would have gotten sick, never know if you would ever have transmitted the virus to someone else who got sick.   You might indeed be a person who can contract the disease and recover from it easily or have mild symptoms.   But we should all ask ourselves, if we are careless and thoughtless and become a carrier, whose life are we willing to put at risk because we want this or that.

In my state my Governor has required us to do some things and recommended and asked us to do some other things.  As a Senior Pastor of a moderately large congregation of pretty great folks who I care about dearly, these decisions have not come easily.  Only once in 25 years of ministry have I cancelled worship and that was because of a major blizzard/ice storm which made it quite unsafe for people to travel.  For Lutherans we understand worship as a place where we gather around the Word of God and the Sacraments (Lutherans believe God works through Baptism and Holy Communion) because God really does want to take care of His people. The same Christ who loved us so much that He came into the world as a human being to die for our sin loves us so much that He has promised that where two or three gather He will be present, that the Gospel is the power of God for salvation, that His body and blood are present in communion "for the forgiveness of sins".   Christ comes to care for us and as Lutherans it is hard for us to consider forgoing such treasures even for a short time.

But we know we are loved by God.   God baptized us into His very name (Father, Son and Holy Spirit).   Scripture says if we have been buried with Christ through Baptism so that we may also walk in newness of life. (Romans 6)  We yet have the Gospel which is the power of God for salvation.  (Romans 1)

And we know we are called to love our neighbor.  Ironically in this time it may be that the best way we can love our neighbor is physical distance from our neighbor.

So our congregation is forgoing in person public worship for the time being.   It is not an easy sacrifice but an important one.  We are fortunate enough to be able to live stream our services (http://mtcsa.org/worship/opportunities/  at 11am CST Sunday and 7pm CST Wed) for the time period.  And we are taking steps to continue pastoral care with responsible practices to help keep folks safe.

This is new for all of us.  The virus is new.   It's not the black plague but it is not the common cold or the flu virus either.  Yes, the known number of deaths in our country is higher from the flu, but that is part of the point.   At least with the flu strains our immune system has some sort of previous experience to contain it.   This virus is different enough from the coronovirus strains we have been exposed to that our immune systems have to attack it from scratch.   Studies that came out this week seem to indicate that for some people young and old our immune response goes into high gear creating a sort of autoimmune disorder that causes lung damage.   There are a lot of good sites out there (see the CDC) with information that convey a consistent message: the virus is a threat to many people and social distancing can help save the lives of people.

If churches take steps to implement ministry models based on social distancing (limiting or ceasing in person worship, limiting communion distribution, moving to individual cups vs. common cup and so forth) is that a lack of faith?   Lutherans understand Scripture is the sole rule and norm for all doctrine.   We understand that what Scripture says is solid, not to take away from it but also not to add to it.   No where in Scripture is there a promise to prevent the transmission of disease during worship, during communion,  or during any other holy rite if such is carried out in a way that does not responsibly address how a disease is transmitted.  For instance there is the old belief that a silver chalice of wine somehow sanitizes contaminates.   There is the "scientific" view that the silver and the alcohol somehow are effective.  A public health officer shared with me that silver does kill viruses if the virus ingests it, but there would almost certainly not be enough time for it to do so between one communicant and another.  Alcohol does kill viruses in enough concentration (60-70%) but wine doesn't come 140 or greater proof.  His assessment was that if someone had the virus and partook of the common cup there was a significant risk of passing it to people who commune after him/her.  There is also the belief that God wont' allow the common cup (or any other instrument of ministry) to transmit the disease.   This pastor can't find a single Word of Scripture to substantiate that belief.   So rather than being a lack of faith, perhaps churches are taking serious Christ's command to love the neighbor and being careful not to practice our faith based on beliefs that Scripture does not substantiate.

So out of love of neighbor we make sacrifices.  We forgo in person worship for a time.  When we come back together we may still forgo hugging and shaking one another's hands even though it will be so good to see one another again.  We may forgo the common cup though there is great symbolism in the unity of one cup.   But we are united in love and care and concern.  We are in this together.  We can make some personal sacrifices for the well-being of others.  The life you safe in the coming weeks -- you may never know.  It might be your own.  It might be someone in your family.  It might be someone you don't even know.  As for me, I'd rather not know  than engage in risky behavior to others and know and find out about the life I didn't safeguard.

This will pass.   Soon we shall be able to gather together again.  Soon we shall lift our voices together in God's house together and praise Him.  Soon we shall pray together and commune together.  Now we are asked to socially distance.   But God is not distant.  God is right here.  He is with you in your baptism.  He is with you in His Word.   And even if we are physically distant from one another for a time we are close in heart, in prayer, in love.  

I have not posted to this site is some time.  But I continue to meditate upon the events of a little over a week ago when a small Christian congregation was forever wounded in a community not very far from me.  This sermon I preached last Sunday in light of recent events but in the greater light of God's Holy Word.

Thank you Father in heaven for Jesus.

TEXT:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope… Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Dear friends in Christ,

Last Sunday as many of us were gathered together in worship a single man entered into a house of Christian worship and left an imprint in our memories that may haunt us for some time.  Our hearts are broken for the people of Sutherland Springs. 

Some fifty people had gathered in their small church to worship and pray

only to have a man enter and kill 27 of them, including an unborn child, and wound 20 others.  Only four escaped physical harm but their hearts are not unscathed.  Indeed the wounds extend beyond this small community. 

Where was God?  This is the question in the minds of some folks.  Why would he let this happen?

Was it a problem with our laws, with our keeping up with people who have indicated they have problems, with our mental health care system? 

What went wrong that this could happen?

But one thing we know.  Shattered are our illusions that evil is far away.   Shattered are our illusions that we are each of us completely safe and secure.  We read about the horrors of history like the holocaust but that is safely far away in distance and time,  Then evil comes knocking at our door and it isn’t just an idea anymore.  People just miles away are right now grieving the murder of their loved ones just a week ago.

We are left with questions.  How could this happen?  How could a human being point a rifle at innocent people in a church of all places and kill them?  How can anyone shoot and kill a child, or a pregnant woman?   That anyone could do this shatters our illusions. 

We wish we could help and change things.  There is no way that this can be undone.  Evil had made itself known at terrible unfathomable cost.  Why?  Scripture gives us one reason.  Sin infests this world and each and every person who inhabits it.  But by the grace of God this would be far more common.  The world is not as God created it to be. 

Last Sunday in Bible class I stressed that a key component to Luther’s theology is that life is not fair because this world has descended into sin.  Things happen to people that should not happen.  Luther wrestled with this because he loved his flock and he saw tragedy strike them for no apparent reason.  It is almost as if life itself rises up and says no, God does not exist or No God does not love you.  Luther says that over and above these “No’s” we experience, we hear God say Yes in His Word. 

This is what St. Paul is doing in his pastoral letter to a church.  Brothers do be uninformed.  We grieve but not as if we have no hope when we lose loved ones.  Jesus is Risen and He has promised that He will come for us.  And will shall rise again.  Paul tells us to encourage one another with these words. 

These are God’s “Yes” that cry out against the “NO” of life in this world. 

Sunday a man took the lives of Christians in prayer.  Some said, see God does not exist or God does God.  Against this NO the Word of God says Yes, God does care.  Jesus already died so that these who lost their lives to evil in this world are already with Him in a place where all things are as they should be. 

Sunday the world said to Christians you are nothing special, you are not safe.  But God says in His Word, Yes you are.  You are redeemed.  You are  loved.  You are adopted children of God.  And when the time comes not matter how it comes, God will bring you home to Himself.

Meanwhile, here we are.  Not quite the same.  A week later we are getting back into our normal routines and somewhat putting out of mind what transpired a week ago today.  We reminding ourselves that it was just one man out some 350 million who live in the nation and that chances of it happening to us are so very slim.  We tell ourselves we can go on and live assuming such things cannot happen to us. 

But… we know it could, unlikely, but possible.  Indeed we know evil is out there.  That’s why we lock our doors at night and why we are thankful for all those who stand to protect and serve, whether they be police and other first responders or those who wear the uniform of military service.  We are thankful for those who heard the call of God through vocation to serve others putting their own lives at risk.

I remember so many times that brothers and sisters in uniform put themselves into harms way to make a difference.  Perhaps because of last Sunday the memory that is most fresh in my mind is in the middle of the hot desert of Iraq in a small trauma center.  The call that casualties were coming had gone forth and we had gathered to wait.  The emergency bay was eerily quiet.  Everyone was already at their station. These men and women knew their jobs.  They stood waiting for the dam to burst, to go from stillness to fervent activity. And then we heard it.  The roar of a  humvee as it came flying in and the doors sprang open and we had our first wounded child.  A very small Iraqi boy with a beanie baby tucked into his shirt, probably placed there by a medic.  And they cut away his clothes and the gaping wound in his side was revealed.  And they went to work and they saved his life.  And I learned later how evil had lifted its head.  How an insurgent had deliberately thrown a grenade into a school to shake off his pursuers.    

I am no longer surprised by what this world throws at us.  But I am thankful for all those who stand to make a difference. 

What can you and I do in such a world to make a difference in such a world?

First, we can make a difference for one another.  We are here today, together.  WE are worshipping.  We are praying because we know God hears us.  There is not any “NO” that can counter God’s “Yes” in Jesus.  When we grieve we can comfort one another.  We grieve when a loved one dies.  We grieve when things like last Sunday happen. But we do not grieve as if there were no hope an no meaning. 

For Jesus is Risen.  Jesus is mighty and victorious.  Events like evil, tragedy and death do not change that.  That is why we encourage one another with the Word of God. 

Jesus is Risen.  Jesus is returning. This sad shadow of a world will not last.  A new heaven and near earth are coming.  Each day that passes it is closer.  Soon we shall be with Him.  Soon all shall be right with the world.  It’s going to happen because Christ has promised so.

Jesus is the only answer to a sinful world fallen into darkness. 

What can you and I do to make a difference in such a world? We can make a difference for others.   Bring the light.  Bright and clear and bold.  Proclaim Christ and Him crucified and risen to redeem the lost sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.  Proclaim the promise of forgiveness.  Proclaim the promise of everlasting life.  Proclaim the promise of a new heaven and near earth. 

Jesus said the enemy comes to kill, steal and destroy but He has come that we may have life and have it to the full. 

This is God’s Yes in world that screams NO.  But the world and the devil do not get the last Word.  The last Word is the only Word that matters.  Jesus says come to me all who are heavy laden and I will give you rest. 

The Lord is coming.  He will bring Him all those who have died in faith and together those who have died in faith and those who are alive shall experience all the promises of God come true.

In Christ’s name,

Amen.

Change and Presence

The future calls. One thing I learned a very long time ago, was change is a part of being human. Many years ago in a small room I would come to find as a safe comfortable space with a man I looked up to as a mentor; I learned, spoke and breathed philosophy. The stuff of meaning was honey dripping our fingers. I learned how we all exist in relationship with other people and make our lives together and I began to see just how important it is that we human beings have a story to write. We move through time. We have a past, exist in the present, but hear the call of tomorrow. Tomorrow beckons us with it potential creating excitement and it risks and threats creating fear if we let it.
Some things are in our span of control. Some things are shaped by the actions of others. And some are handed to us and change our storyline forever. Some of those things are great and wonderful. And some are not. My cancer is strangely enough... both.

I am blessed in that my form of cancer is controllable, at least with 90+% odds. But the future is now very uncertain and more unpredictable. I must anticipate two ending for my story.; One that is near and more sudden; the other far as hoped for. I am learning to live with uncertainty and that the fact that life is not all that ordered and reasonable in fallen sinful world. Removed from God, to some degree at war with God in rebellion demanding our way and our freedom to be god, how can it be otherwise. God is the source of all life and order. To reject God is to reject life and order. At least that's how I see it.

In the midst of my disorder I find God. I remember the story of the centurion looking at the dead Christ upon the cross and the words of a might Lutheran theologian Dr. Norman Nagel, "Jesus was never more God than when He hung dead on the cross." As the centurion proclaimed, "Surely this man was the Son of God." For myself, Jesus presented the clearest revelation of all that not only was He God in the flesh, but God is a God who suffers with us, cries with us, mourns and wraps His arms around us to be present because sometimes it is presence that we crave.

Entering the Shadowlands

“The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal.” -- CS Lewis

I have cancer. 

 

That damn, frightening, life changing word...  Truth can be very real sometimes.

 

 I will have it the rest of my life.  I've had a suspicion for over a month now since my first initial blood work came back.  I am surprised by what I have as are my doctors, because my initial symptoms didn't present.  And initial news is good.  For my type of cancer, there is a very effective life saving treatment with minimal side effects.  I should live a long time.  But the sickness is inside my chromosomes now and will be my traveling companion, my shadow for the rest of my life.

 

Part of the happiness now is the pain to come.  Happiness and pain are a chorus you see, dance partners, two sides of the same precious coin of life.

I am currently a resident in a military hospital doing Clinical Pastoral Education.  It is ironic that this particular unit of CPE is focused on suffering and started off with the movie Shadowlands about CS Lewis and his wife he fell in love with late in his life and how it was to discover she had a serious cancer that would shorten their time together.  Context changes meaning.  One's future story, even if it is only possible, shapes the present.  I find life is richer embracing all possibilities rather than hiding from any. 

 

CPE is a program where a key component is to have personal goals.  I love organization.  So I was challenged, and accepted the challenge, to examine the messingness of life, the uncontrollable, that which appear absurd and unmeaningful, that which unravels everything we try to put together.  That which makes us vulnerable and afraid.  So I made this my goal.  And I learned God may give what you ask for.

It is a paradox.  In so many ways this news, the new truth, the absurd, messy, companion that makes me vulnerable also blesses me.  

One day driving to work on my regular mundane route into San Antonio, not the most beautiful city in the world with flat, and concrete, pavements, and congestion... I noticed at one traffic light a flight of birds dancing off the powerlines. I watched the sun rise and felt blessed and alive.  Walking in McCallister Park I felt more in tune with creation and its Creator than in a long.  I felt as if I had developed a new level of awareness, a special seeing eye, that suddenly should the glorious mystery of life all around me and revel in it.  It was not something to be sought out.  It found.  Little things.  Hearing a little girl laugh in the neighborhood.  Just listening to my own children and the little happy noises they make as they go about living.  The love of my faithful wife.  The taste of good Korean food and tea, the sound of music... all treasures newly appropriated.  

 

If one had a choice of a cheap barrel of $3.00 a bottle wine or the chance for one glass of the most exquisite wine every made since the first day of creation, which would be the most incredible gift?  I know my answer, but I'll leave the question and your answer up to you.

I have for some time felt as if something were coming, almost stalking me.  I've been more conscious of mortality for some reason.  These past few years I have been more conscience that fewer years lay ahead than lay behind.  Erickson would say I am passing through a stage, and perhaps I am.  But labeling and quantifying does not diminish mystery.  One can analyze the greatest musical composition but does that mean one hears it?

I am blessed by God.  I have access to the best health care the world has ever known and it has literally saved my life, most likely (92% probability).  I have friends I love who are far sicker than I and I find myself feeling weak and powerless because want to reach out and given them a "magic pill".  

Its like a Lazarus moment.  Coming out of the tomb, knowing death is ultimately real, knowing others will die, the ones we love, and one day we ourselves.  There is no hiding from it.  No more pushing it away until later.  Death is real, a shadow, a presence.  "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." (ESV Psalm 23)    But there is life.  Eternal.  Blessed.  I find my Lutheran faith and framework holds up in the midst of such realities.  The world is a fallen creation filled with echoes of former glory that cry out in pain and suffering but finding joy in the hope in promise.  Christ is risen!  The greatest exception is not death... but that one day  I shall rise.

 

  

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe...

One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.  

John Donne - English Poet

Seasoning

I am growing older.  Last time I had my annual physical readiness review with medical, I told the Doc that I had been diagnosed with OAS and was told it was terminal. He looked up with a serious but puzzled look and said, "I'm not familiar with that".  I shared, "Old Age Syndrome".  His response, "ha, ha" and to go back scribbling notes as he now added an appointment to mental health.  (Just kidding on that last part). 

Old age.  Soon I turn 50.  But like the picture above, it matters in life how you "frame" the experience you are going through (or have or expect to go through).  Of course the picture makes a huge difference too.  How you see that depends on your personality type.  I am very focused on what is real and what is true. There are many types that are much more able to focus on the potential and creativity of the photo.  For example when I edit the photo I look to bring out what I saw.  Others may photoshop it and bring out the "what could have been".  But irregardless circumstances will have limiting factors.  Age is a limiting factor.  But there is a plethora of limiting factors we must deal with.

I was recently selected by the Air Force to apply for a full year of residency for Clinical Pastoral Education.  CPE is an intensive environment for critical examination of one's pastoral skills and interactions with those in need and with those who provide care.  In writing up my application package I began to realize that I have changed a great deal in these past 25 years of my adult life. 

Yep, I am growing older. My run times and recovery times are showing it as well as the wrinkles on my face, the few age spots on my hands, and my increasing population of gray rather than black hair.  But I am also seasoned. All that experience, all the people I have gotten to know, the many different situations I've engaged come together to make these final 20 years or so of my active working adult life to look very much like the picture above.  Full of potential, depth, richness, and possibility.  Yes, I draw nearer to the end with probably fewer days ahead than now lay behind, but they are days that may be richer.  Suddenly a minute, an hour, a day is an extraordinary valuable commodity as it will not come again. 

I'm not sure if I would want to be 20 again with most of my life ahead. 

So I think this time, as I go get my annual physical review I think I can say I'm feeling pretty good about where I am and what the future holds - even if I can't run a seven minute mile again.

Simply Paris

The spring has been busy.  Lot of the normal stuff related to chaplaincy - chapel services, visitation, counseling, and events targeting strengthening resiliency.  Last month was a real treat with the weather and my family was able to enjoy a nice warm week in Paris.  If not for family I probably would never have traveled to Paris. But I found some nice surprises there.  I have admired the grace and simplicity of ancient Greek culture and so enjoyed laying eyes on some ancient Greek sculpture that rests in Paris. 

 There is something about the ancient eternal beauty that communicates through the ages in the marble.  A civilization that laid the foundation for much of western civilization lays in the dust but signs remain of its ancient grandeur.  Signs continue to reside among us not only in marble but in our very values and ways of looking at the world around us and understanding who we are.

Long after the hands that carved these statues, long after people saw the beauty of the world around them and visioned it to recast it into stone, long after the minds that grasped and externalized such truths as "you can't step in the same river twice" have turned to dust - the echoes of truth and what is real remains.

In the white marble carved by ancient hands echoes a reminder, a song, that truth remains - something eternal, something beautiful there is about the world around us.

Notre Dame on the other hand felt dark and cold, hardly the warm welcoming hand of God that I had expected.  Instead it still felt grasped strong in the clutches of old superstition and dogma, a religion of terror and reward based on merit and work rather than of love and mercy.   Outside the cathedral had radiated an inviting pull calling one to come inside.  But so dark, almost oppressive.  The only hint of goodnews in the face of spiritual distress was in the cluster of Easter Lillies still blooming near the altar.

 

In contrast the Pantheon radiated light, but a light of a different kind.  A pro-reason, humanist light.  Monuments to philosophers long and recently dead towered above.  But observing the visitors, I found myself pondering how many can remember even one thing that Voltaire taught, one thing that Rousseau
 believed, or Victor Hugo.  Who can remember without turning to Wikipedia or some such resource?  The influence wanes and turns to dust and all that is left is the marble.

But even in this temple to humanism echoes an ancient simple wondrous truth.  God loves His creation.  God loves His children created in His image.  So much that He Himself took on human flesh and lived among us.  His name was Jesus.  And the simple clear truth that echoes across the age is still heard amongst the noise and confusion of the world.  In Christ there is mercy.  In Christ there is forgiveness.  In Christ there is love and eternal life.  Time does not win.  Decay does not win.  Death does not win.  Easter Lillies in the darkness of Notre Dame and an old painting remaining in the Pantheon remind us that He is risen and now reigns and He shall come again.

50 million dead

Estimated 50 million dead children.  39th Anniversary of Roe vs. Wade.     Is this really what we want?  Really?

Skyrim - metaphor for life

Dragons are invading the land.  People are dying.  Lives are being consumed.  What to do?


I received Skyrim for Christmas.   While I like fantasy literature, I've never been a big fan of fantasy role playing games, but I like this game because it is so much like life - it is open ended and not scripted; its progress depends on the choices you make.  Skyrim looks to be an interesting gaming experience.

Like life.


This is a game with a major crisis- dragons are invading the land.  And you find yourself in a politically divided environment and are asked to take sides.  You can choose the noble road and make ethical decisions.  You can play as a thief.  You can even play as an assassin and murder. There are skills and talents you are born with, some that you can learn, all that you can develop  but like life you must chose which ones to focus on.  You can play the game and become a great character, a hero, or you can avoid the main quest completely and only play the side line quests.  You can focus on becoming rich and buying lots of houses and you can focus on serving the need of the community by tackling the crisis.

Like life.

When we enter the world of adult life we find ourselves with lots of choices to consider.  We have a life to build, a character to develop.  We are all talented at something, usually more than one something.  Even those of us who have struggled through school, whose life experience as a teen was not that great, who people would describe as not having much going for us, do have something going for us.  Every human being is gifted.  We are not all good at everything, but everyone is good at something.  It may be mostly potential, but it is there.

As we stand on the landscape of our life looking at the world around us waiting to be discovered we realize that in the unknown there is an element of risk and danger.  Will we step forward into the world with courage or will we be timid?  Will we go out looking for the opportunities and the treasures for the world is full of them?  Or will we stick to the well traveled roads and the path of mediocrity?

As we progress through life, it won't take long to realize there are many problems and crises in the world around us that we can become involved in.  In Skyrim you can learn a spell that will heal others.  (And yourself).  It is a valuable lifeskill to learn how to heal from wounds both physical but more often of the heart and soul for life has a way of wounding us, sometimes at our core.  But there are those who develop the skills to reach out and heal the hurting around us both in body and in spirit.  That is a noble life road.

And like the game, you can choose to play as a very noble person, or you can become a very bad person or something in between.  It is one thing to be a thief and make your way sneaking, taking advantage of others, and stealing anything you can.  But in Skyrim, even the noble person can take advantage and pocket a stolen trinket or two when people aren't looking without getting in trouble with authorities.  Like life.  But unlike the game, when you steal or take advantage of another person it is not just an electronic avatar that will respawn fully whole later.  When we take from others we diminish them; we hurt them.  

Will we play the game of life in such a way that we add to life or diminish it?

And what shall we add?  Shall we focus on treasures and houses for one can ignore the greater quest of Skyrim and focus on looting ancient halls and accumulating gold to purchase houses and jewelry and clothing?  In our own lives which will dominate our time and energy, our focus?  Will we focus on personal riches or will we utilize the things of the world as tools to enrich life and not only our own?  Will we own the temporary things of the world and utilize them to enhance lives or will the things of the world own our temporary lives and consume our days upon this world?

And the world we find ourselves spawned into is a world in peril.  It is filled with glories to be discovered but some fairly rough places too.  It is filled with places where people are dangerous.  There are real life monsters waiting to consume other out there.  There are factions trying to buy your allegiance for their own gain.  Will you become a pawn in someone else's game of life or will you think for yourself and make your choices, choose your friends, and  determine your allegiances based on life enhancing values?  Even in my middle years, half-way through my game of life, I find these questions worth pondering and reviewing.  Perhaps I need some course corrections.

What sort of character will we become?  Have we become?  What course do we choose now?  


Will we dive into the deepest challenges of life where the greatest risk is, the greatest effort required, but where we are called to become the noble hero?  Or will we stick to the side games - the safe areas - but the mediocre parts.


But finally we realize too that a video game is unlike life in that in the game every person who plays can become "the hero", the savior of the world.  In Skyrim an ordinary person happens to be born with a talent that in the midst of this crisis can lead him or her to become such a savior.  


Some people are a bit more gifted in some areas than others.  Sometimes you see someone who is a master, who naturally gifted has developed that gift to extraordinary levels.  Most people are on similar skill levels to others.  And life situations impact our choices, the scope of our ability to make impact.  Some people find themselves due to forces beyond their control (and sometimes due to constructing a path) at the center of influence points in life and able to rise to positions of great influence. The story of President Obama is such an example.  Or Hillary Clinton or George Bush.  


Almost everyone will never be president.  But I believe that there are many people out there who are gifted and if given the opportunities could have been as good as or indeed better in their service than those who have come before.  We are limited to the choices the game of life hands us, but looking at great people we realize that there is an element for shaping our own path and destiny.  When we strike out with purpose, courage, and informed decisions we can shape our own destiny.  

And just maybe you will find yourself in a place where for another person, another group, who knows maybe a nation - you could be a hero for a danger has arisen for which you are gifted.  But to become the hero, to help others, will entail personal sacrifice, a choice to develop your character and your skills to tackle the problem, a choice to devote yourself to the service of others.  

The world is full of problems.  If we look we find that we have talents inside us waiting to be developed and applied to help make life better for ourselves and those we live with. 


But we don't have to be president to have a profound influence for the good or for the evil on the world around us.  Especially in our zone of play.  What we do, who we are, how we interact with others - it shapes not only our life but the lives of others.  




How shall we play? Will we play small or large?  Will we spectate?  Or will we take the risk, dedicate the effort, and for someone become the hero?