September 2007

My wife accused me of lying to her the other day. While her accusation that time was unfounded I can’t say that it was unmerited. In the past I have lied to her. Nothing major of course, just a bit of an untruth here and there to try and keep myself in a favorable position.

Sadly, there are times when I am truthfulness impaired. Sure it doesn’t happen always, or even all that often, but is there any acceptable amount?

No! There is no acceptable amount of untruth.

It occurs to me that I’m not the only one with this problem. And, in fact, it isn’t a problem common both to those who are called “little Christ’s” and those who aren’t. Wouldn’t it be great if this problem of untruthiness was found only outside of the Church. Sadly, I’m proof that Christians lie.

How many people do you think have been lied to by Christians?

It’s been happening for centuries.

No wonder there are so many who are weary of the Church.

We find in James chapter 5 a warning that we don’t take seriously enough. James writes: “Let your ‘Yes’ be yes, and your ‘No’ or you will be condemned.

If that sounds familiar it’s because Jesus said the same thing in Matthew 5.

Does our “Yes” ever mean “maybe” or our “No” mean “most likely”? Or do we ever use those words just to fit in with a certain group of people then say something totally contradictory with another group? Do we use Yes and No to mean anything we want so that we can save face?

Why do we do this?

To save face? To gain popularity? To stay out of trouble? Does it ever really work? And are these things we should pursue at the cost of becoming liars?

And what happens when our “Yes” doesn’t mean yes, and our “No” means something other than no?

We become untrustworthy.

There is a serious problem when people trusted to share good news can’t be trusted. Isn’t this the risk we run when our words don’t mean anything?

Isn’t it time we work at becoming people whose words can be trusted by always saying what we mean, and always doing what we say we will do?

We need to make sure our “Yes” is always yes and our “No” is always no.

To the City of Port Alberni:

Allow me to begin by pointing out a few obvious things:

1) Your city gets a lot of rain
2) Paint may become slippery when wet
3) There are several thousand people in your town over the age of 65
4) Old hips may be brittle and easily broken

You’re probably wondering why I’m pointing this out to you. After all, these four things are commonly known phenomenon. I’m writing because after an event that happened to me on the Labour day weekend I’ve become even more concerned for the well-being of the seniors in your community.

On the Sunday of the Labour day weekend I was walking to a restaurant with my in-laws. As we were crossing the street my foot landed on the painted boundary of the crosswalk. It had been raining that day and the paint, unbeknownst to me, was slippery. My foot instantly slipped out from under me taking the other one with it. I landed hard on my left side.

Now, fortunately, I’m a young healthy 28 year old who’s not likely to break something with such a fall. However, if you add fifty years to my age and there could have been serious problems. I could have ended up in the hospital for a lengthy stay.

This could be the fifth obvious point: lengthy hospital stays are a drain on public funds. As a tax payer I feel it is imperative that I point this out to you. Perhaps if you used a textured paint we could avoid causing pain to seniors and clogging our hospitals with avoidable injuries.

Thanks for considering these things.

I’m sure we’ve all seen the scenes where a guy invites two friends over to watch the game, then those two friends each invite two friends, and they invite two friends and so on until there is a huge crowd that is out of control.

I’ve never been to such a party, but I know from what I’ve seen on television that house parties can get out of hand and it isn’t long before something of great value gets destroyed. The whole situation is usually quite comical for me the viewer who’s detached from the whole thing.

I don’t know that I’ll find such situations so comical anymore.

Now I fell like the homeowner who just wanted to watch the game.

On the weekend I went swimming in a pool. It turns out the pool was full of unruly party goers wanting a house to move into. I guess somehow my ear became that house.

Now I have what feels like a category 5 ear infection. My ear is full of unruly party goers bent on destruction, and I want them gone. The party went all night last night and I got very little sleep. It’s not that the pain is unbearable, although it’s intense and unrelenting, it’s the noise that gets to me. Have you ever been trying to sleep in a room that’s all quiet when, all of a sudden, you begin to notice the clock ticking. Regardless of your efforts, it’s just not stopping. Tick, tick, tick, it just keeps going in perfect beat. Tick, tick, tick, there is no shutting this clock off. I don’t know who brought a clock to the party, but I was so glad when they left.

Sadly though, when the clock like sound ended it was replaced with one I can only describe as a hefty man walking through knee deep snow. Crunch, crunch, crunch he had a destination to get to. Crunch, crunch, crunch, he was walking to the beat of that clock. Then I think the guy put on corduroys.

That was a truly horrible experience that I would never wish on anyone.