“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”

- Damon Runyon

Former Minnesota governor and professional wrestler Jesse Ventura was once quoted as saying that religion was a sham and something for the weak minded. I think the best response to this statement came from Jay Leno who commented that it’s a good thing nobody ever said that about professional wrestling.

Da Guv later amended his words somewhat saying that the people he really thinks are weak-minded are the “wackos and fundamentalists,” not the "typical" religious folks. Of course, Jesse – like the Devil and the StarTribune – are most useful when you just take it for granted that the opposite of what he says is closer to the truth.

The truly weak-minded are the ones whose convictions are easily swayed or intimidated, or those who really don’t know what they believe in the first place. After all, which is harder – to go with the flow (or the latest poll on what’s right or wrong), or to hold fast to what you’ve seen and experienced to be true when to do so is said to be unpopular or controversial?

Sometimes I wonder how an ostensibly “Christian nation” can tolerate – or even embrace – thinking and actions that are clearly ungodly. A large part of this perception is probably due to the fact that – except in unusual or extreme cases – events that show there is an active and interested God don’t make it into the news, and even when they do they are twisted or incomplete.

I think the real problem, however — and the reason why ungodliness is unwittingly celebrated — is ignorance. In our society a high school education is considered to be the bare minimum necessary to succeed. Spiritually, much of our “Christian” nation seems to be Sunday School dropouts. They have poor study skills and even less comprehension. The knowledge many have about what is really in the Bible may even be dwarfed by the number of things they think are in the Bible but really aren’t. No surprise then when policy is based on poll rather than principle. And no wonder that the best that so many can do when they struggle to come up with a spiritual answer for something they don’t understand is to say “the Lord moves in mysterious ways.” It’s only mysterious when we don’t know what the Word says!

And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ… (Ephesians 1:9)

It’s when I take my eyes off of the big picture, however, and focus on my life and the lives of those around me that I see just how tangible an impact Jesus Christ really is having. I know what’s happened in my life, and I know the testimonies of others who have sought and discovered what God’s will is for them in many areas. Therein is the hope for our world, for no lasting large-scale change can happen without the hearts of individuals being changed first.

The breakthroughs I see come in the lives of those who have permitted themselves to be discipled and who have committed to disciple others. While there’s no downplaying the importance of evangelism (how will they know, unless you go?), I think discipleship is just as important (how will they grow, unless you show?). Christians have a joint obligation to both learn from others and to help others learn. It is important to “study to show yourself approved of God” [2 Tim 2:15], but the breakthroughs in my life in healing, finances, and relationships have occurred not just when I’ve read the Word, but when I’ve also had it explained and seen it lived out. Furthermore, I’ve seen my breakthroughs get turbo-charged when I’ve helped someone apply in his life what I’ve learned in my life.

No matter where we are spiritually, there’s always someone who knows more than us, and always someone who knows less – and we need both in our lives. Furthermore, our world needs it. I know there’s lot of prayer going up for our nation, our government and for God’s will to be manifested, and I believe these prayers are and will be effective. I also believe that some of the fruit of these prayers, however, occurs when we move ourselves away from our pride and/or our self-interest and admit, first of all, that we need help and then – perhaps even harder – admit we have what it takes to help someone else.

The issue of abortion and Roe v. Wade has been the elephant in the hearing room in every judicial hearing since President Bush came into office and is front and center in the Harriet Miers nomination. In my view, in fact, Roe v. Wade was the catalytic event that lit the slow-burning fuse that ultimately launched terms such as "strict constitutional originalist" into our awareness. The Miers brouhaha has led to several thought-provoking (well, provoking anyway) posts on abortion that I've read recently such as here, here and here. It has also led me to ponder the way my own thinking has changed over the years.

Some background: I was a lusty 14-year-old boy when Roe v. Wade overturned the law of the land and made abortion legal. Looking back now I can see it as an event that separated me from my innocence as I started to make my way into the adult world. Innocence was lost because this was the first time that I recall letting my head overrule my heart in determining how I was going to run my life.

Some more background: I was raised in a mainstream Christian denomination that taught salvation through grace rather than through decision. When I was seven, however, my parents let me go to a vacation bible school course with my best friend. There the teacher said that if anyone wanted to earn extra credit we should watch the Billy Graham crusade on television that night and then make a report to the class the next day. Extra credit was always encouraged at my house, so I raised my hand. That night when Reverend Graham invited anyone who wanted eternal life with Jesus to stand up and come down front, I scarcely hesitated. Sure I was in my own basement, with my mother ironing on the other side of the room, but I stood up, walked to the TV and repeated the prayer. I figured if God was God, he’d get the message, and I followed my heart.

When I was thirteen, my parents let me stay overnight with another friend and go to a Bill Glass crusade with my friend’s Webelo pack. I thought I was going because Bill Glass was a former football player, and I loved football. I’m not sure if I remembered my TV experience then or not, but I again answered the altar call and made my way backstage from the second tier of the arena. There I was surprised to see that Mr. Martindale from my church was one of the counselors. We prayed and he gave me a workbook and then came over to my house once a week for six weeks to go over the six chapters in the book. About all I remember of the book is that I usually waited until the last 15 min-utes before Mr. Martindale arrived to whip through that week’s lesson.

So there I was at 14, hearing that abortion was legal and thinking, “All right! There’s one less reason for a girl not to have sex with me!” (Ugly, callow and shallow, to be sure, but there you have it: portrait of the writer as a young man.) At the same time I was thinking that, my heart was going “Ewww! How could anyone do such a thing?” It took a lot of mental gymnastics to overcome my unsophisticated heart, but I managed. By God’s grace, I was thankfully never put in a position where I had to put my new belief into practice.

Flash forward to December, 1987. Newly restored to God, and newly married, I watched the monitor intently as the ultra-sound traced my wife's stomach, finally revealing a three-week old head, arms and hands, right where they were supposed to be (it was supposedly medically impossible for her to become pregnant). At once my heart soared while my mind plunged to its depths and pleaded, “My God, forgive me!”

Jump forward another decade or so and I was reading a StarTribune columnist (no longer with the paper) who also happened to be a pastor from the same denomination in which I grew up, relating how she was advising a member of her flock to have an abortion. I remember the writer described herself as someone “in the trenches” where there were no “hard and fast” rules when a woman’s life is concerned. Rather than anger, I felt a piercing sadness for her and for those under her care. It occured to me then that there’s a difference between a trench and a pit, and how important it is to know which one you’re standing in.

The unpleasant truth is that there are hard and fast rules for every situation, whether we choose to follow them or not. The struggle comes in trying to figure out a reason in our heads why the rules we know in our hearts don’t apply to us. Doing so, however, leads not to peace but to other, more desperate, situations that also have hard and fast rules — and even harder choices.

More painfully, I saw my former self in that columnist and realized that I didn’t have to ask how someone could be so deceived because I already knew. And then I had to ask the logical, but oh-so-difficult question: “God, what is the lie that I’m still believing? Where is it that I still let my head decide the way things really are as opposed to what’s in my heart and in your word?” I know the answers are there waiting, if I really dare to look.

In the final sifting of heart (what we believe) and mind (what we think), it’s not what we think that is going to matter.

Update:

Psycmeistr has succinct take on the Miers situation and the sentiment that conservatives must be loyal to the Party and the decisions of the leader:

Since the beginning of the Miers nomination debacle, we have been hearing from the "the elite Republican Priesthood" that our CIC, the head of our party, has made a decision, and that we need to be good little foot soldiers and fall in line. To that, I politely say BUNK!

...Folks, we live in the United States of America, under a government "by the People, of the People, and for the People", not "by the Party, of the Party, and for the Party." Ours is a bottom-up government, not top-down, and the rule is by the consent of the governed.

Further, while I would like Roe v. Wade overturned - and Ms. Miers may share my personal belief - the decision in this arena must be overturned because it is bad law and outside the intent of the Constitution, not because it is perceived to be immoral. That is why a constitutional originalist interpretation is more important than an evangelical one on the Supreme Court. If it comes down to the personal beliefs of whoever is on the court at any given time, then the judges become no more than bizarrely dressed politicians themselves.

18 years ago today I woke up alone. Even my dog, faithful companion of 11 years, was already encamped at someone else's house and I had the misty, overcast morning entirely to myself. I took a few moments to listen to the familiar sounds of my house that I knew could never again sound quite the same. I knew there was activity already set in motion in homes and hotel rooms around the city as those near and dear to me took on their assigned tasks or chosen activities. I had a list of my own, but took the time to reflect on what was also being set in motion in the spirit. In a few more short hours I would be married.

The past 18 months had been a time of constant changes for me in almost every area; emotionally, occupationally, spiritually. Some of these steps I had (I thought) initiated myself in deciding how I wanted to live. My noble selfishness wouldn't have taken me very far, however, and then this other person came into my life. I had a job where I could buy graphic design services. Unknown to me, a lovely woman was just getting started in her own graphic design business. Her pastor asked another member of their congregation, a man who sold high-end commercial printing, to give this young lady a list of names of prospective clients. Though I had never met this man, or even purchased printing from his company, my name was at the top of the list of ten people that he gave to the woman. Of those, I was the only person she called who agreed to meet with her. And my motive was more to pick the brain of someone starting a business since I was considering doing that myself. The rest, as they say, is history - and her story, too (which would make for some damn funny reading) - and the details of a very unlikely courtship which would take several postings to explain, but I'm not going to do that now.

That gray morning, however, I found it easy to imagine myself on a distant mountain top, standing under the interested eye of a watchful God, for the last time being scrutinized as an individual entity, my past packed lumpy and heavy into an ungainly backpack that constantly threatened my balance. By God's grace I had made it that far, in that moment realizing that my position was only a vantage point and not the end of a climb.

I breathed deep of the rarefied air, heady with the scent of the unknown. Did something, perhaps, stir in that backpack as I slowly lowered it from my shoulders? Did a plaintive voice mew a last appeal? I cannot say, for my spirit leapt away like a balloon no longer tethered as the pack crunched into the dirt behind me.

My spirit free, and of my free will, I left that place to go to where the people who loved me, and whom I loved, waited. The long drive down from the north to the church put miles between me and what once was.

In the last 18 years I have lived in the bounty of a loving God, manifested in a loving wife and every miracle of life supplied in abundance. Never has an hour passed that I have wished for it to be any other way.

Happy anniversary, my love.