Peacock Feathers

Growing up my brother and I would at times do things we shouldn't. Well, maybe more often than sometime! This however was one of those incidents that bordered on being mean and cruel. However, out of our innocence of being elementary school boys it at the time was just a simple experiment.

When we lived on 21st street in Plano we knew pretty much all the neighbors on our street and those across the alley as well. One family with whom we went to Sunday services came over frequently for a cookout. It was at one of those cookouts that I was in the room when a certain conversation took place.

It seemed that their daughter who was my age was highly afraid of feathers. An incident had occurred when she was young where here grandmother had rung the neck of a chicken for dinner and the dead fowl had flopped around and onto her sending her into a panic. From that moment on she was terrified of feathers.

Well, I told my brother and we could not understand how anyone could be so scared of feathers. It just didn't seem logical to an 8 year old. Soooooooooo, we decided to put it to a scientific experiment. My mother had two long peacock feathers in her closet. The plan was that my brother then 6 when get her into my mother's bedroom and I'd tickle her with the feathers. It went just as planned, my brother lured her in and I took the feathers and lightly touched her face.

Guess what! She was deathly afraid of feathers and ran from the room in terror and tears. Our company went home and my brother and I received our just reward for our actions. There was no room for explanations. In addition we had to make a trip to the neighbors and give a personal apology for our actions. Fortunately, the incident did not hinder the continued friendship of the two families and the kids involved.

There are times in our life that we do things we know we're not suppose to do. So why do we do them anyway? Are we just stupid? Maybe. Do we not care? Sometimes perhaps. But Paul gives us the best answer as he wrote in Romans 7, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

Life is a struggle where we have both good and evil tugging at us. It's kind of like the old cartoons where we have an angel on one shoulder and and a devil on the other. What we have to decide is which one we are going to listen to. In the end we can only win the war by listening and acting on what God tells us and not what the world wants us to do.

Nope!

A long, long time ago in a town far, far away the congregation that I was working with decided to have a "gospel" meeting. The meeting was to last from Sunday night to Thursday night and everyone was expected to invite someone to the service. My youngest son was around three or four at the time and on the first night of the meeting sat with one of the elders and his wife while Kathy and I were working with the older children in a separate Bible Hour.

The crowd the first night was decent, but rather disappointing to the leadership. The speaker for the meeting began to encourage everyone to bring someone to the meeting the next night. He talked about asking your neighbors and those with whom you worked. He preached about how it's really not that hard to just ask. They could say yes and come or not come or at worst just say no.

All the time my son was looking down at some papers, drawing as he sat quietly between the elder and his wife. Then came the challenge. The preacher talked about the motivation we have to ask others to come. He ended with the mock challenge, "I'll bet if we gave you a hundred dollars for bringing a visitor to the meeting that every one of you would bring someone, wouldn't you!

My son, head down, drawing, without looking up spoke up loud enough for the preacher and those several rows around to hear, "NOPE!" The preacher was stopped dead in his words and there was a momentary pause before several around broke into laughter, including the preacher.

The preacher turned to the audience and said, "Well maybe not everyone, but I bet most of you would!"

What is it that motivates us to do good works? Does it take a challenge? Does it take a good talking too? Does it take money? Or is it something deeper? Is it something that grows within us and just makes us want to do good?

The answer is simple. We do good because that is what we were created to do! Ephesians 2:10 "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

That's really all the motivation we should need. Simply that God asks us to.

(Image courtesy of http://www.clipartheaven.com/)

I Owe 7-11 97 Cents

It was a hot summer night in 1964 when a group of my high schools friends and I were cruising around our hometown of Plano, Texas. Back then it was small and there wasn't really much to do. That's usually when a group of guys does something that they shouldn't and this night was no exception for our group.

Driving down 15th street we decided that a slice of watermelon sounded pretty good on this hot night. Unfortunately, cruising around after 10:00 in 1960's Plano meant that all the stores were closed. That's when we spotted the 7-11.

I really don't remember if it was a 7-11 for sure, but at any rate sitting in front of the store was a big pile of watermelons, unattended and unguarded with a sign stating "97 cents each" on the wall behind them. This is when the group in the car went into a "Mission Impossible" mode. Fortunately, I don't remember who was in the car so I cannot implicate them and besides the "statute of limitations" has probably run out. Anyway, the driver of the car pulled into the parking lot about 10 feet from the pile of melons. His job was to keep the motor running.

I was in the back seat driver's side. My job was to keep my eyes pointed west to warn the group if a car was coming. The front passenger stood by the door looking east for the same thing. The back right passenger,when the coast was clear sprinted to the pile of melons, grabbed the biggest he could see and raced back to the car, watermelon in hand. The melon was tossed in the back seat, the sprinter and two lookouts hopped back into the car and the driver quickly but quietly eased back onto the main thoroughfare heading West. It went off perfectly. It was a successful raid, unnoticed and unknown by anyone but those in the car.

The criminals headed west to the city park. We pulled up to a picnic area, took out the melon sliced and ate. It was the worst tasting watermelon that I had ever eaten. Not because it was a bad melon, but the guilt I felt for having done something I knew was wrong was so intense, I just didn't feel like eating the prize. I never did it again.

Paul wrote, in 2CO 1:12 "Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God's grace."
To live like Christ we must have a clear conscience, one that listens to God and not the world. God gives us a conscience to help remind us of what is right and wrong. Because of this it's important that we learn to listen to our inner being, which is constantly reminding us what we were taught.

Ninety-seven cents isn't much from a monetary standpoint, but it's a fortune from a Godly standpoint. You see, it's not the amount that made it wrong it was the action. My conscience was telling me this that night in the park over 40 years ago and it reminds me of it even today.

Piccalo

Growing up in the 50's and 60's segregation of races was something that was just a part of life. In the small town in which I lived black and white mixed very little. Part of town was designated as "colored" town. The schools were separate and the only time I can remember stepping into the black school building was when some of our science class were asked to judge the science fair contests. Not only was housing segregated but so were the theater, water fountains, restrooms, restaurants, and any other public facility.

At the local Gulf station there was a congenial black man who worked there whose name I recall was Piccalo. I don't know how he got the nickname but it may have been from eating Pickle Loaf sandwiches with Piccalo being the derivative. He was a nice guy as I remember, but most of all I remember one particular event. My dad and his friend were in the front seat of the car with his son and me in the back heading out of town for a football game. Piccalo came over to the car to greet us as he usually did. After greeting the dads up front he looked in the back window to talk to us boys. He happened to touch the other boy on the arm and the boy went berserk. Screaming for him not to touch him because he didn't want to turn black!

Needless to say this was embarrassing for everyone in the car. But who told him he'd turn black if touched by a black person? Chances are it was a relative, maybe his father, but certainly someone who he believed when it was told to him. Prejudice is like that. Prejudiced toward people for whatever reason is not something with which we are born. There are things that happen in our life or people who teach us certain things that cause us to develop these feelings.

In 1949 the song writing team of Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote a play entitled "South Pacific" based on James Michener's book "Tales of the South Pacific". The play deals with prejudice with one song, "You've Got to be Carefully Taught" being the central theme of the story. The song was the subject of widespread criticism and it was suggested that it be removed or the play would flop. One southern state even introduced a bill that would make it unlawful to have songs that promoted "communism". As to this song one lawmaker stated "a song justifying interracial marriage was implicitly a threat to the American Way of Life".

Lieutenant Cable introduces the song with the statement that racism is "not born in you! It happens after you’re born..."

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

Unfortunately, many of us have our prejudice feelings because of the time in which we grew up or due to the way we were reared. We too often carry on the feelings and views of our past instead of making an effort to change the world of today.

I wish we could say that this is not a problem in our society today, but we all know that is far from the truth. Every part of the country has some group that is the target of prejudice in one way or another. Within cities and towns we still see the divisions in communities, social events and even churches. You hear it in the language, in the stares and in the actions of people of all nationalities and races. It is certainly worse for some than others, but no one is immune from being either the target or the perpetrator of prejudicial actions and thinking.

Romans 2:11 tells us that God does not show favoritism. Looking a 1 Samuel 16:7, "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart".

There is only one way that prejudice and racism will ever be eliminated in the world in which we live. That is simply to teach ourselves and our children to look at people through the eyes of God.