I was walking to work one day, and I noticed something on the sidewalk. I had actually seen it before, but never attached any significance to identifying it.
It was a stain left by some dark liquid that had splashed and dried. There was a trail of drops leading away from it back up the sidewalk for a few feet where it ended. It was interrupted by a footprint that cut across the trail. I had seen it for a few days prior to this, but in my hurry to get to my desk each morning I had given it almost no thought. Why today it caught my eye I have no idea, but as I passed it again this day I noticed the color of the substance. It was a deep, reddish brown.
I stopped in shocked realization that I was looking at blood!
How many people had walked past or over it every day and given it no notice? How and why had this that had passed through someone’s veins been so haphazardly spilled? It was no small amount. If I had a wound that allowed that great a loss I would surely seek help with it. There was no way to tell how this occurred, and yet my mind called up violent images that seemed unavoidable. How could blood be spilled after all without violence in such a public place without edge or forceful impact? And then I had to ask how having spilled could it be so easily ignored, as I had in fact done? How could I not have seen it for what it was?
It had to follow, of course, that my thoughts would lead me to Someone else’s blood, also shed with violence, but violence that ended in glorious purpose. And just as so many of us had walked over this splash on the sidewalk, how many have waded through rivers of the stuff that rage across our lives grasping for our attention only to be studiously ignored in an effort to maintain our self determined path at cross purposes to the Truth? What does it take for God to get my attention?
Just who am I living for anyway?
In the process of the Hebrew sacrificial rites that ended when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, one of the final acts was the pouring of the “drink offering”. Thus Paul, when he felt his death was near, wrote that he was being “poured out as a drink offering” (2Tim. 4:6). But just as Christ was the final sacrifice, so His blood is the final blood shed for our redemption, as He said at the last supper , “Drink from it all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matt. 26:27b-28) And yet as final as that act is the flow continues at whatever rate is necessary to cover the sins of this world, for where sin is grace abounds.
What all this means is that we must let go, dive in, “go with the flow”, drowning and dying to live again.
And it all started one night long ago in Jerusalem.
Satan called upon Death, his most powerful weapon, to finally put a stop to the machinations of grace which Christ had begun. Death was a warrior at whose feet everyone had ultimately fallen. Death took Christ up in his giant fist and began to squeeze the life out of Him.
This Blood, this stuff of eternal life began to flow one drop at a time.
The whip scourges the smooth skin of Christ’s back.
Drip.
Death is confused by this sudden pain he has never felt before, caused by the touch of the blood of this Lamb.
The crown of thorns is beaten down upon His brow.
Drip.
Death begins to squeeze harder and harder trying to stanch the flow.
The nails are driven through Christ’s wide open hands.
Drip. Drip.
His body is taken down from the cross.
Death has used up all his strength to vanquish the enemy of Hell.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The stone is rolled away.
Death collapses, defeated, destroyed, a useless and empty husk.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Death has himself died, and from his lifeless grasp Christ has risen!
“O death, where is your victory?”(1Cor. 15:55)
Thomas places his doubting fingers in Christ’s open wounds.
Dripdripdripdrip….
The apostles live and die for the life He gave them.
Dripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdrip…..
And as every river starts with just a trickle so this trickle becomes a torrent raging across time that no force of darkness can ever hope to stop, divert or slow.
“…this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many…”
He left a trail of blood that you can miss only after you have seen it first, and actively choose to turn away, but the Word was made flesh and He refuses to be ignored!
God could never again be relegated to the back of our minds as a mere “concept” anymore. He created a hallowed ground in every human heart; a holy of holies where only He can tread. His presence there suddenly made one thing obvious:
A choice must be made.
Always a choice.
Live or die.
You have a 50/50 chance of survival if you’re merely looking at the odds, but if you choose life it’s a 100% guarantee.
It seems a simple choice, but we make it difficult when we think we have a lot to lose. We try to hang on to what we have by shedding our own blood to pay the price for our freedom, but all I have is as nothing against the payment of this debt. And the only thing I have to show for my efforts are the scars left from where I’ve ironically slashed my own wrists trying to save myself.
Every year we celebrate Easter. Like many other things the true purpose of this occasion has been overshadowed by meaningless customs involving eggs, chocolate bunnies and new hats.
But some of us will remember.
I tend to look at it as two distinct events; His Passion and His resurrection. In reality I should see them as one. His death and resurrection were a single process that qualified Him as the complete sacrifice once and for all. Both events had to occur in order for His life to be enough to tip the scales in my favor.
Some only see the inside of a church at Christmas and Easter, and I suppose if you are only going to come twice a year those are the times for it. But I have to wonder if you aren’t hearing the same message both times.
At Christmas you hear the announcement of the angelic host:
He Lives!
Throughout Christ’s entire life on earth He prepares us for the show of strength that only He could perform. The one thing we take most for granted in Christ’s existence. For the Point of Easter, the Bottom Line, the Final Act is really the same that we hear at Christmas.
The inevitable conclusion of Christ is this same angelic message at Easter:
He Lives!
And as we come and sit on the banks of this never ending river of cleansing, bloody Grace, as we begin to comprehend that the supply never runs out we realize:
He Lives!
©Dan Bode 2005
Monday, March 21, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Ash Wednesday
The ashes of Your entry
Lie cold upon my brow.
The Sacrifice once made,
Is so quickly forgotten
Even as your glory burns before me.
Smoke by day and fire by night
I swear I will not forget and yet,
And yet as I walk the path
And see the charred remains of past ambitions
And tyrannical needs
I find myself walking on my own power,
And not on Yours.
My memory fails, and so
The sacrifice must be made once again.
My horror at the pain You feel as the consequence
Of my sin is suffered once again.
I stand in awe at Your resurrection, once again –
And I am reborn.
©Dan Bode 1999
Lie cold upon my brow.
The Sacrifice once made,
Is so quickly forgotten
Even as your glory burns before me.
Smoke by day and fire by night
I swear I will not forget and yet,
And yet as I walk the path
And see the charred remains of past ambitions
And tyrannical needs
I find myself walking on my own power,
And not on Yours.
My memory fails, and so
The sacrifice must be made once again.
My horror at the pain You feel as the consequence
Of my sin is suffered once again.
I stand in awe at Your resurrection, once again –
And I am reborn.
©Dan Bode 1999
Sunday, February 27, 2011
The Joy of Discovery
We started our little excursion with great expectations. We were eagerly anticipating the excited exclamations over all the new experiences to come.
My wife and I were given the opportunity to take our then 11 month old granddaughter Kaya to the zoo for the first time. We thought that the variety of the animals would consume all of her attention, and that she would thrill to the sites of all the exotic places represented in the confines of the zoo.
We were wrong.
At our house she is fascinated by the dog and the cat.
I think it’s probably fair to say the fascination is not necessarily mutual. While our dog seemingly can’t get enough of her, the cat tends to quietly walk (or run) the other way when she approaches her. There at the zoo she saw animals like the giraffe, the tiger, monkeys, snakes, flamingoes, and even the rear paw of a lion who was wisely lounging in the shade of a rock in the 103 degree heat. They used to have a hippo, which was kind of fun to watch when they fed it, but I think it died several years ago and they haven’t put anything else in its pen. How do you tell when a hippo is dead anyway? Does it actually go belly up like a goldfish, or does it just float there like it does when it’s alive? Something to ponder. Anyway, I suppose the heat had something to do with Kaya’s lack of appreciation as well; it certainly sapped a lot of our enthusiasm.
Instead, when she was given the opportunity to choose her own object of interest, she sat down on the ground and picked up a dried leaf. She stared at it in fascination for a few moments and then proceeded to bring it toward her mouth for a taste test. I’m relatively confident that she has a discerning enough palate that she would have grimaced and spit it out, but you never really know at that age so my wife deftly intercepted it before she reached her goal.
In retrospect I suppose we should have expected this. She was at a stage in her development where she was more acutely concerned with what was immediately within her reach. The dog and the cat are within her reach; the giraffe and the screaming monkey were not.
It seems as though we often have an appreciation of simple things only when we first discover them, or when know we are about to lose them forever.
The beginning or the end.
The first flush of passion in a relationship puts our entire life plan in a new light. By the same token, the end of that relationship will often cause us to make terribly unwise decisions that we only recognize as unwise in hindsight.
When we find ourselves in a situation that we dislike our tendency is to berate ourselves (or someone else depending on how well we accept personal responsibility) for the actions we took that put us there instead of dealing with the situation as it is.
Over the years as Kaya has grown I have watched her develop in ways that I knew would eventually happen, but astound me even though I expect them. When she was two she had a different point of view.
On a typical drive home for my daughter Jennifer, and Kaya they were just driving along talking about whatever came to Kaya’s mind. She was talking about some trees. Jennifer asked, “How big were they?”
Holding her hands up above her head as high as she could Kaya replied,
“They were THIS big!”
And then, with her hands still in the air, she looked to the side and asked,
“Do trees have armpits?”
Jennifer laughed, and I laughed when she told me about it. But then I started to think about it a little.
Do trees have armpits?
My immediate and automatic response is “no”, but how do I know this? Just because I never thought to ask the question doesn’t automatically mean it’s not so. I can’t recall anytime in my life in which I’ve heard the words “trees” and “armpits” in the same sentence.
So who am I to say “no” definitively?
So I did some research.
We have a sycamore tree in our front yard that I planted several years ago. It has grown well and quickly, but I’m going to have to cut it down and plant another one. I didn’t plant it correctly and now I have a lot of surface roots, and surface roots on a tree that can grow to 30-40 feet tall right in front of my house is not a good thing. Anyway, it has a lot of low branches that are perfect for just this kind of research. I went out to the front yard, at night, after looking around carefully to make sure no one was watching, and I sniffed the tree right where the branch joins the trunk. It smelled like I would expect a tree to smell; kind of green, and woody. Definitely woody.
I smelled another part of the tree at the trunk. It was the same.
Next I went to that source of information that everyone knows is absolutely ironclad in its accuracy: the internet.
I actually found several references to the armpits of trees, but they were used figuratively by artists in their description of a tree. No one really identified a tree armpit as an actual thing.
Regardless, I don’t think I will ever look at the point where the branch of a tree meets the trunk in the same way ever again.
Kaya is now three and a half, and her dialogue has taken another turn.
In another discussion with her mother she stated,
“I think when God made me it was like a puzzle for Him.”
“What do you mean?” asked her mother.
“I mean that when God put me together it was like putting a puzzle together.”
I’m pretty sure when I was three and a half I NEVER got philosophical about the process of my creation.
It occurs to me when she says something new that she is in the process of discovery. She sees it all with new eyes. No matter how many times she sees something, or how much she actually knows about it, she seems to sense that there is still something about it that is new to her. There is still some mystery left in everything, but I, in my adult “wisdom”, have chosen to focus only on what I know instead of pursuing what I don’t know. In doing so I have remained safely rooted on the “solid” ground of my own knowledge. I have effectively clipped my own wings. I have bound myself to man’s earth and denied myself the heavens.
Jesus said, “Behold I am making all things new.” (Rev. 21:5). This is the same line that we Christians only read occasionally and rarely ever apply. It takes a crisis of major proportion to bring us to the point where we see the old as new, and the sunrise as original as the sunset. My granddaughter is fascinated with dried leaves, and yet it takes space probes to Mars and beyond to hold my attention. I cannot make a leaf or a blade of grass, and yet the process of its growth only concerns me as far as my need to rake it up or mow it down. Even closer to home is my own body. I abuse it regularly, but I take little heed from my doctor when he tells me what I need to do to care for it properly, and it is such an incredible wonder of creation!
And I can’t be the only one to realize at moments like this that in the end I really have no ability to create anything at all. The only skill man has is to manipulate what has already been created. We certainly have the ability to warp and abuse this creation, and we do so regularly to our shame, but really create? No. The simple fact that we exist as created beings means that we cannot create something out of nothing, because we ourselves are created. The title of Creator can only be applied to the one who was there first, and that is God alone; the First and Last, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End.
We are only stewards of what is.
There are things to wonder at all around us, but our preoccupation with “progress” and “forward” thinking causes all of them to be ignored, left to lie haphazardly in our destructive wake, and leaves us in a related state of ignorance.
Once discovered, how can I ignore the reality of what He sets before me?
It may seem as though this indicates some special divine attention to my life, but that is not so. He gives the same attention to each of us, and I am loved by Him no more than anyone else, but just as certainly no less. He loves each of us with His whole being; for when we are told “God is Love” it means that He is Love. He is the only source of it. It is who He is.
It is when my pursuit of His presence takes an active note in my life that I begin to see things more clearly, because a relationship with Him requires my active participation, just as He has actively put me in this world. It is my responsibility to move in this life rather than sit and wait for my inevitable death. I cannot sit and do nothing while I am pinned beneath the boulder of my doubts. What holds me back must be let go, done away with, cut off. Amputation is never pretty whether it’s done in the wilderness or on the surgeon’s table, but it is often necessary for survival. The truth of the matter is that a relationship with Christ is a transaction: You give Him all of you, and He gives you more than you could ever be on your own, and more than you ever even thought to want.
The process of discovery, as I recognize all that He puts in front of me, is His method of showing me His active, daily presence.
This is where I discover the gap in my life.
This is a gap that even the love of God will not cross.
It is the gap of my own choice.
That choice is the most important thing that Christ has given me. It is the only thing that allows grace to save me from His wrath, for while God is love He is also just, and in His justice He demands that all debts be paid by me, or by Him.
And I myself am wholly incapable of settling that debt.
And so the process of discovery, while usually worked out at the beginning or the end, really should be a continuous practice that starts at the beginning and never has an end. It has eternal potential depending on our choice.
Christmas is the offer, Good Friday is the payment, Easter is the redemption, and His flowing blood is the currency of my survival.
My choice of Him seals the transaction in my favor.
The Choice, beloved (for you are His beloved), is yours.
©2008 Dan Bode
My wife and I were given the opportunity to take our then 11 month old granddaughter Kaya to the zoo for the first time. We thought that the variety of the animals would consume all of her attention, and that she would thrill to the sites of all the exotic places represented in the confines of the zoo.
We were wrong.
At our house she is fascinated by the dog and the cat.
I think it’s probably fair to say the fascination is not necessarily mutual. While our dog seemingly can’t get enough of her, the cat tends to quietly walk (or run) the other way when she approaches her. There at the zoo she saw animals like the giraffe, the tiger, monkeys, snakes, flamingoes, and even the rear paw of a lion who was wisely lounging in the shade of a rock in the 103 degree heat. They used to have a hippo, which was kind of fun to watch when they fed it, but I think it died several years ago and they haven’t put anything else in its pen. How do you tell when a hippo is dead anyway? Does it actually go belly up like a goldfish, or does it just float there like it does when it’s alive? Something to ponder. Anyway, I suppose the heat had something to do with Kaya’s lack of appreciation as well; it certainly sapped a lot of our enthusiasm.
Instead, when she was given the opportunity to choose her own object of interest, she sat down on the ground and picked up a dried leaf. She stared at it in fascination for a few moments and then proceeded to bring it toward her mouth for a taste test. I’m relatively confident that she has a discerning enough palate that she would have grimaced and spit it out, but you never really know at that age so my wife deftly intercepted it before she reached her goal.
In retrospect I suppose we should have expected this. She was at a stage in her development where she was more acutely concerned with what was immediately within her reach. The dog and the cat are within her reach; the giraffe and the screaming monkey were not.
It seems as though we often have an appreciation of simple things only when we first discover them, or when know we are about to lose them forever.
The beginning or the end.
The first flush of passion in a relationship puts our entire life plan in a new light. By the same token, the end of that relationship will often cause us to make terribly unwise decisions that we only recognize as unwise in hindsight.
When we find ourselves in a situation that we dislike our tendency is to berate ourselves (or someone else depending on how well we accept personal responsibility) for the actions we took that put us there instead of dealing with the situation as it is.
Over the years as Kaya has grown I have watched her develop in ways that I knew would eventually happen, but astound me even though I expect them. When she was two she had a different point of view.
On a typical drive home for my daughter Jennifer, and Kaya they were just driving along talking about whatever came to Kaya’s mind. She was talking about some trees. Jennifer asked, “How big were they?”
Holding her hands up above her head as high as she could Kaya replied,
“They were THIS big!”
And then, with her hands still in the air, she looked to the side and asked,
“Do trees have armpits?”
Jennifer laughed, and I laughed when she told me about it. But then I started to think about it a little.
Do trees have armpits?
My immediate and automatic response is “no”, but how do I know this? Just because I never thought to ask the question doesn’t automatically mean it’s not so. I can’t recall anytime in my life in which I’ve heard the words “trees” and “armpits” in the same sentence.
So who am I to say “no” definitively?
So I did some research.
We have a sycamore tree in our front yard that I planted several years ago. It has grown well and quickly, but I’m going to have to cut it down and plant another one. I didn’t plant it correctly and now I have a lot of surface roots, and surface roots on a tree that can grow to 30-40 feet tall right in front of my house is not a good thing. Anyway, it has a lot of low branches that are perfect for just this kind of research. I went out to the front yard, at night, after looking around carefully to make sure no one was watching, and I sniffed the tree right where the branch joins the trunk. It smelled like I would expect a tree to smell; kind of green, and woody. Definitely woody.
I smelled another part of the tree at the trunk. It was the same.
Next I went to that source of information that everyone knows is absolutely ironclad in its accuracy: the internet.
I actually found several references to the armpits of trees, but they were used figuratively by artists in their description of a tree. No one really identified a tree armpit as an actual thing.
Regardless, I don’t think I will ever look at the point where the branch of a tree meets the trunk in the same way ever again.
Kaya is now three and a half, and her dialogue has taken another turn.
In another discussion with her mother she stated,
“I think when God made me it was like a puzzle for Him.”
“What do you mean?” asked her mother.
“I mean that when God put me together it was like putting a puzzle together.”
I’m pretty sure when I was three and a half I NEVER got philosophical about the process of my creation.
It occurs to me when she says something new that she is in the process of discovery. She sees it all with new eyes. No matter how many times she sees something, or how much she actually knows about it, she seems to sense that there is still something about it that is new to her. There is still some mystery left in everything, but I, in my adult “wisdom”, have chosen to focus only on what I know instead of pursuing what I don’t know. In doing so I have remained safely rooted on the “solid” ground of my own knowledge. I have effectively clipped my own wings. I have bound myself to man’s earth and denied myself the heavens.
Jesus said, “Behold I am making all things new.” (Rev. 21:5). This is the same line that we Christians only read occasionally and rarely ever apply. It takes a crisis of major proportion to bring us to the point where we see the old as new, and the sunrise as original as the sunset. My granddaughter is fascinated with dried leaves, and yet it takes space probes to Mars and beyond to hold my attention. I cannot make a leaf or a blade of grass, and yet the process of its growth only concerns me as far as my need to rake it up or mow it down. Even closer to home is my own body. I abuse it regularly, but I take little heed from my doctor when he tells me what I need to do to care for it properly, and it is such an incredible wonder of creation!
And I can’t be the only one to realize at moments like this that in the end I really have no ability to create anything at all. The only skill man has is to manipulate what has already been created. We certainly have the ability to warp and abuse this creation, and we do so regularly to our shame, but really create? No. The simple fact that we exist as created beings means that we cannot create something out of nothing, because we ourselves are created. The title of Creator can only be applied to the one who was there first, and that is God alone; the First and Last, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End.
We are only stewards of what is.
There are things to wonder at all around us, but our preoccupation with “progress” and “forward” thinking causes all of them to be ignored, left to lie haphazardly in our destructive wake, and leaves us in a related state of ignorance.
Once discovered, how can I ignore the reality of what He sets before me?
It may seem as though this indicates some special divine attention to my life, but that is not so. He gives the same attention to each of us, and I am loved by Him no more than anyone else, but just as certainly no less. He loves each of us with His whole being; for when we are told “God is Love” it means that He is Love. He is the only source of it. It is who He is.
It is when my pursuit of His presence takes an active note in my life that I begin to see things more clearly, because a relationship with Him requires my active participation, just as He has actively put me in this world. It is my responsibility to move in this life rather than sit and wait for my inevitable death. I cannot sit and do nothing while I am pinned beneath the boulder of my doubts. What holds me back must be let go, done away with, cut off. Amputation is never pretty whether it’s done in the wilderness or on the surgeon’s table, but it is often necessary for survival. The truth of the matter is that a relationship with Christ is a transaction: You give Him all of you, and He gives you more than you could ever be on your own, and more than you ever even thought to want.
The process of discovery, as I recognize all that He puts in front of me, is His method of showing me His active, daily presence.
This is where I discover the gap in my life.
This is a gap that even the love of God will not cross.
It is the gap of my own choice.
That choice is the most important thing that Christ has given me. It is the only thing that allows grace to save me from His wrath, for while God is love He is also just, and in His justice He demands that all debts be paid by me, or by Him.
And I myself am wholly incapable of settling that debt.
And so the process of discovery, while usually worked out at the beginning or the end, really should be a continuous practice that starts at the beginning and never has an end. It has eternal potential depending on our choice.
Christmas is the offer, Good Friday is the payment, Easter is the redemption, and His flowing blood is the currency of my survival.
My choice of Him seals the transaction in my favor.
The Choice, beloved (for you are His beloved), is yours.
©2008 Dan Bode
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Wandering
When I was a kid I went wandering with a friend of mine. I was very young; probably only five or six, at the time when “wandering” was not as unsafe as it is today. Still, given my youth, it was probably one of my first Bad Ideas. My memory of the incident is somewhat hazy, so I don’t remember exactly what possessed us to go anywhere, but we did. Probably the monotony of being safe and well fed every day of our lives was getting to us.
My friend Carol lived across the street from us, and we were friends all the years that I lived in that neighborhood. We probably just told our parents we were going out to play and took off without a second thought. We started walking up our street and eventually, as one always does, we reached the corner. We had never been this far before so the view was different. We had been past it in our respective family cars of course, but the view from your feet is always different than behind the car window. It’s always been a wonderful experience for me when I wind up someplace new. The air is different, the sights are new, and everything has a refreshing look.
We chose a right turn at that corner, and as we came to the next corner turned right again. We walked about halfway down the street, and stopped in front of a house we did not know. The house was owned by an older couple who were enjoying the day in their front yard. They recognized that we did not live on their street, and that we were much too young to be off on our own as we were, so they invited us into their home and started gently pumping us for information. I vaguely remember being asked if we knew our phone numbers, and addresses. They were suitably impressed with our knowledge, and put it to good use. While one of them made a discreet phone call the other kept us occupied by showing us their television remote, which was quite a gadget back then.
To understand the impact of the remote control I should tell you the state of television technology of the times. Anyone under 30 probably takes the current technology for granted so I must give some background. I should also say here that I know those who are older than me (like all of my siblings since I am the youngest of six) will be quick to remind me that all they had were radios (just kidding!). Rest assured: I know.
It was around 1965 and most people still had to get up and actually touch the TV in order to change anything on it at all. If you wanted color and you couldn’t afford a color TV you got a glass screen that was strategically tinted. The top third was blue for the sky, the middle was clear, and the bottom was green for the grass. This worked well if everything you watched were panoramic outdoor scenes, but if you were watching anything with close-ups of people you thought they were either aliens or very, very ill. We didn’t have one, and I don’t recall missing it. Today it’s possible to get a system which receives 47,892 channels. Back then we had 7, maybe 8 if you were lucky and had a rooftop antenna. So you can understand that when the remote control made its debut people thought it was the biggest thing since Bisquick. I had never seen one before and was quite fascinated by it.
It consisted of a small box with two buttons. One button changed the channels forward and the other backward. There was a long wire connecting this box to another box fitted over the channel knob on the TV. That was the other thing about TV’s then: everything was controlled by a knob. It was called Knob Technology. The box over the knob had a small motor in it that was activated by the button on the remote box. I could not get enough of this technological wonder. Why is it that anything with a button seems to be irresistible to a child? If you want a child to do something that he or she doesn’t want to do, all you have to do is glue a fake button on it and that child will do whatever you want them to do as long as you tell them they have to press that button to do it. I really don’t know why the child psychologists haven’t caught on to this yet. They were probably remote control deprived as children. I pressed the button and the channel changed! I pressed it again and it changed again! When I held the button down it changed over and over again! I’m sure this gentleman must have been getting a little irritated with me because I’m pretty sure I remember seeing a football game on the screen when I first looked at it.
At any rate, this adventure eventually came to its inevitable end. I walked out of their house (apparently I got bored with the remote), and I looked up to see my sister Diane standing a few houses down with her hands on her hips and a very stern look on her face. Now everyone has had some experience with "The Look". "The Look" is a genetic code that is imprinted on every persons DNA. As children we have receptors in our brains that allow us to recognize and interpret the threat level related to "The Look" that we are getting. As we grow these receptors convert to what are probably best described as “generators” that give us the ability to actually perform "The Look" for our own children or any children under our care. I was obviously still in the receptor stage of development; because when I saw my sister with The Look on her face my immediate reaction was to run in the other direction. I didn’t get very far though. She easily caught up to me, and I was soon being walked back home along with Carol. I don’t remember the punishment I received for my wanderlust, but I suspect I was probably grounded for a while. Such was the end of my adventure that day. I have rarely thought of it since then, and as is usually the case I don’t know what made me think of it now.
But one thing that I never thought about before now was what everyone else went through when they realized I was gone. My family was looking for me, but I was oblivious to their concern.
One thing I know for sure is that I was missed. I was marked by my absence from someone else’s life. Each of us has a place, a spot that only each of us individually can fill in someone else’s life. God knows my place, and He’ll put me there if I allow Him to. I often try to determine my own fate, go my own way, but my feet are rarely pointed in a satisfying direction. I am never satisfied for very long, and I become again that child with the remote just watching the picture change and never settling on one channel.
Do you know what God’s first concern for you is? It is not that you become famous or rich or influential. It is not that you become an advisor to kings or presidents. It is not that you be a hero. God’s first concern for you is that you allow Him to show you how important you are to Him. It is that you let Him show you the mansion He has prepared for you. The place you are meant to be. The thing you are created to do; the “calling with which you have been called.” (Eph.4:1) Your worth is not in your work, nor in your looks. Your worth is wholly determined by God Himself. When the world ignores you, when you go missing, God is calling your name to the farthest reaches of heaven! He knows where you are, but He longs to hear you answer.
When I wandered off I never asked why I was doing it or why I wanted to. I never once thought about the impact my absence would have on someone else. When I walked away my whole family mobilized to find me, and when I wander spiritually all of heaven is moving to intercede for me. But the impact of the action of God on my life is determined by how, or if, I acknowledge His action on my behalf.
Do I acknowledge that He knows my needs better that I do? Do I make myself ready and willing to act on His desires before my own? Have I done what I can to make my need of Him match His desire for fellowship with me?
I will never know all of the people I have influenced for the good or bad. Not everyone tells me what they think of me, or what I’m worth to them. This is probably just as well because I’m sure there are many to whom I mean very little, but God has said, and I must believe Him that I am worth more than all of creation to Him. It is His devotion to me that needs to find my corresponding devotion to Him. I need to allow His presence in me to become so complete that I can love Him in myself.
The path I need to choose is one that most have long since abandoned. The path of faith is often overgrown and clogged by the weeds of my self indulgence. He finds me anyway, trapped in the thicket needing Him to free me once again. Hoisted onto His shoulders He carries me so I can replenish my strength to walk again. And later, when I am again distracted by something off the path, He once again comes in search of me, calling my name.
And I can tell you from personal experience that the sweetest sound the ears of this constant prodigal have ever heard is my own name on the lips of God!
©Dan Bode 2005
My friend Carol lived across the street from us, and we were friends all the years that I lived in that neighborhood. We probably just told our parents we were going out to play and took off without a second thought. We started walking up our street and eventually, as one always does, we reached the corner. We had never been this far before so the view was different. We had been past it in our respective family cars of course, but the view from your feet is always different than behind the car window. It’s always been a wonderful experience for me when I wind up someplace new. The air is different, the sights are new, and everything has a refreshing look.
We chose a right turn at that corner, and as we came to the next corner turned right again. We walked about halfway down the street, and stopped in front of a house we did not know. The house was owned by an older couple who were enjoying the day in their front yard. They recognized that we did not live on their street, and that we were much too young to be off on our own as we were, so they invited us into their home and started gently pumping us for information. I vaguely remember being asked if we knew our phone numbers, and addresses. They were suitably impressed with our knowledge, and put it to good use. While one of them made a discreet phone call the other kept us occupied by showing us their television remote, which was quite a gadget back then.
To understand the impact of the remote control I should tell you the state of television technology of the times. Anyone under 30 probably takes the current technology for granted so I must give some background. I should also say here that I know those who are older than me (like all of my siblings since I am the youngest of six) will be quick to remind me that all they had were radios (just kidding!). Rest assured: I know.
It was around 1965 and most people still had to get up and actually touch the TV in order to change anything on it at all. If you wanted color and you couldn’t afford a color TV you got a glass screen that was strategically tinted. The top third was blue for the sky, the middle was clear, and the bottom was green for the grass. This worked well if everything you watched were panoramic outdoor scenes, but if you were watching anything with close-ups of people you thought they were either aliens or very, very ill. We didn’t have one, and I don’t recall missing it. Today it’s possible to get a system which receives 47,892 channels. Back then we had 7, maybe 8 if you were lucky and had a rooftop antenna. So you can understand that when the remote control made its debut people thought it was the biggest thing since Bisquick. I had never seen one before and was quite fascinated by it.
It consisted of a small box with two buttons. One button changed the channels forward and the other backward. There was a long wire connecting this box to another box fitted over the channel knob on the TV. That was the other thing about TV’s then: everything was controlled by a knob. It was called Knob Technology. The box over the knob had a small motor in it that was activated by the button on the remote box. I could not get enough of this technological wonder. Why is it that anything with a button seems to be irresistible to a child? If you want a child to do something that he or she doesn’t want to do, all you have to do is glue a fake button on it and that child will do whatever you want them to do as long as you tell them they have to press that button to do it. I really don’t know why the child psychologists haven’t caught on to this yet. They were probably remote control deprived as children. I pressed the button and the channel changed! I pressed it again and it changed again! When I held the button down it changed over and over again! I’m sure this gentleman must have been getting a little irritated with me because I’m pretty sure I remember seeing a football game on the screen when I first looked at it.
At any rate, this adventure eventually came to its inevitable end. I walked out of their house (apparently I got bored with the remote), and I looked up to see my sister Diane standing a few houses down with her hands on her hips and a very stern look on her face. Now everyone has had some experience with "The Look". "The Look" is a genetic code that is imprinted on every persons DNA. As children we have receptors in our brains that allow us to recognize and interpret the threat level related to "The Look" that we are getting. As we grow these receptors convert to what are probably best described as “generators” that give us the ability to actually perform "The Look" for our own children or any children under our care. I was obviously still in the receptor stage of development; because when I saw my sister with The Look on her face my immediate reaction was to run in the other direction. I didn’t get very far though. She easily caught up to me, and I was soon being walked back home along with Carol. I don’t remember the punishment I received for my wanderlust, but I suspect I was probably grounded for a while. Such was the end of my adventure that day. I have rarely thought of it since then, and as is usually the case I don’t know what made me think of it now.
But one thing that I never thought about before now was what everyone else went through when they realized I was gone. My family was looking for me, but I was oblivious to their concern.
One thing I know for sure is that I was missed. I was marked by my absence from someone else’s life. Each of us has a place, a spot that only each of us individually can fill in someone else’s life. God knows my place, and He’ll put me there if I allow Him to. I often try to determine my own fate, go my own way, but my feet are rarely pointed in a satisfying direction. I am never satisfied for very long, and I become again that child with the remote just watching the picture change and never settling on one channel.
Do you know what God’s first concern for you is? It is not that you become famous or rich or influential. It is not that you become an advisor to kings or presidents. It is not that you be a hero. God’s first concern for you is that you allow Him to show you how important you are to Him. It is that you let Him show you the mansion He has prepared for you. The place you are meant to be. The thing you are created to do; the “calling with which you have been called.” (Eph.4:1) Your worth is not in your work, nor in your looks. Your worth is wholly determined by God Himself. When the world ignores you, when you go missing, God is calling your name to the farthest reaches of heaven! He knows where you are, but He longs to hear you answer.
When I wandered off I never asked why I was doing it or why I wanted to. I never once thought about the impact my absence would have on someone else. When I walked away my whole family mobilized to find me, and when I wander spiritually all of heaven is moving to intercede for me. But the impact of the action of God on my life is determined by how, or if, I acknowledge His action on my behalf.
Do I acknowledge that He knows my needs better that I do? Do I make myself ready and willing to act on His desires before my own? Have I done what I can to make my need of Him match His desire for fellowship with me?
I will never know all of the people I have influenced for the good or bad. Not everyone tells me what they think of me, or what I’m worth to them. This is probably just as well because I’m sure there are many to whom I mean very little, but God has said, and I must believe Him that I am worth more than all of creation to Him. It is His devotion to me that needs to find my corresponding devotion to Him. I need to allow His presence in me to become so complete that I can love Him in myself.
The path I need to choose is one that most have long since abandoned. The path of faith is often overgrown and clogged by the weeds of my self indulgence. He finds me anyway, trapped in the thicket needing Him to free me once again. Hoisted onto His shoulders He carries me so I can replenish my strength to walk again. And later, when I am again distracted by something off the path, He once again comes in search of me, calling my name.
And I can tell you from personal experience that the sweetest sound the ears of this constant prodigal have ever heard is my own name on the lips of God!
©Dan Bode 2005
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Patience
Looking back on the last year I have come to understand something about myself.
It is this:
God has made me into a patient man.
On the inside at least.
There are those who would disagree.
I know this because the year before I was a person who could have made very rash and stupid decisions. This last year I wasn’t that kind of man.
Patience is something I’m pretty sure I have never consciously asked for. Mainly because in asking for it I know that I will be faced with something that will cause me to have to be patient.
It is a very painful process.
And God made me a very patient man.
I know that I am patient because I did not make a lot of decisions that I wanted to. Decisions that would have changed my life, and maybe the lives of others, in a less than positive way. There were so many times when in the midst of my fear or anger I was so tempted to do something, and God would whisper, “Hush. I have given you another day to live. Tomorrow will be different from today, and better than it looks right now. You have another day to see the difference. Wait, and I will show you a better way.”
So I waited. And He did.
And God made me a very patient man.
I used up a lot of Grace. Boatloads, as a matter of fact. Supertankers even.
It is my abundant good fortune that God does not put a quota on it.
It was in making me patient that He allowed me to see that I was, in fact, extending His Grace to others through me. Because Grace is all about Christ bearing the consequences of our sin, is it not? And I am not in a position to extend the consequences of someone’s sin on to their shoulders am I?
Many things did not go according to my plans or expectations. Maybe someone didn’t do something the way I wanted, or circumstances turned against me. So, I made other plans to make up for it, and once again found that my ability to control anything is insufficient. So things went differently, and wound up being just as good, or better, in the end.
And He said, “Hush. I have given you another day to live…"
So I just moved forward and did what God needed me to do instead.
And God made me a very patient man.
I discovered that the only real things of any value I have to offer anyone, and that I have any control over, are my love and my own integrity. I realized this year that my patience kept these things intact.
Years ago a friend once told me, “The things God calls us to do are very often those things that are the exact opposite of what we are naturally inclined to do.”
Patience has never been an automatic, or natural, response for me. It is something I learn on a continuous basis. I think the difference now is that I expect to learn it. I already know that I will be “naturally inclined” to do something differently, and so I will wait and look at the opposite response.
In the coming year on those occasions when I find myself sitting in that room of unfulfilled desires and failed expectations, and I spread my tears upon the dusty floor, God will whisper once again that ever present refrain, “Hush. I have given you another day to live. Tomorrow will be different from today, and better than it looks right now. You have another day to see the difference. Wait, and I will show you a better way.”
And I will continue to be the very patient man God made me to be.
©Dan Bode 2011
It is this:
God has made me into a patient man.
On the inside at least.
There are those who would disagree.
I know this because the year before I was a person who could have made very rash and stupid decisions. This last year I wasn’t that kind of man.
Patience is something I’m pretty sure I have never consciously asked for. Mainly because in asking for it I know that I will be faced with something that will cause me to have to be patient.
It is a very painful process.
And God made me a very patient man.
I know that I am patient because I did not make a lot of decisions that I wanted to. Decisions that would have changed my life, and maybe the lives of others, in a less than positive way. There were so many times when in the midst of my fear or anger I was so tempted to do something, and God would whisper, “Hush. I have given you another day to live. Tomorrow will be different from today, and better than it looks right now. You have another day to see the difference. Wait, and I will show you a better way.”
So I waited. And He did.
And God made me a very patient man.
I used up a lot of Grace. Boatloads, as a matter of fact. Supertankers even.
It is my abundant good fortune that God does not put a quota on it.
It was in making me patient that He allowed me to see that I was, in fact, extending His Grace to others through me. Because Grace is all about Christ bearing the consequences of our sin, is it not? And I am not in a position to extend the consequences of someone’s sin on to their shoulders am I?
Many things did not go according to my plans or expectations. Maybe someone didn’t do something the way I wanted, or circumstances turned against me. So, I made other plans to make up for it, and once again found that my ability to control anything is insufficient. So things went differently, and wound up being just as good, or better, in the end.
And He said, “Hush. I have given you another day to live…"
So I just moved forward and did what God needed me to do instead.
And God made me a very patient man.
I discovered that the only real things of any value I have to offer anyone, and that I have any control over, are my love and my own integrity. I realized this year that my patience kept these things intact.
Years ago a friend once told me, “The things God calls us to do are very often those things that are the exact opposite of what we are naturally inclined to do.”
Patience has never been an automatic, or natural, response for me. It is something I learn on a continuous basis. I think the difference now is that I expect to learn it. I already know that I will be “naturally inclined” to do something differently, and so I will wait and look at the opposite response.
In the coming year on those occasions when I find myself sitting in that room of unfulfilled desires and failed expectations, and I spread my tears upon the dusty floor, God will whisper once again that ever present refrain, “Hush. I have given you another day to live. Tomorrow will be different from today, and better than it looks right now. You have another day to see the difference. Wait, and I will show you a better way.”
And I will continue to be the very patient man God made me to be.
©Dan Bode 2011
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Why I Joined the Mob
A few weeks ago I joined a mob.
It was not a game, nor was it organized crime. Although it was an organized mob.
We came together through a loosely connected network of Face book and Twitter announcements to meet at a specific time and place, and take a specific action for a specific amount of time, for a specific purpose.
There was no single leader, I know it had to have started with someone’s vision, but I don’t know whose, nor does it really matter.
As I was walking to the designated location I realized that I was nervous. I did not at first understand why. We weren’t going to be doing anything illegal or threatening in any way. After some thought I understood my nervousness.
Let me explain:
I was about to be a part of a flashmob.
A flashmob is a group of people who come together in a seemingly random fashion to one spot. At a designated time they all perform a specific action for a few minutes and then disperse. If you look up the term “flashmob” on YouTube you will see videos of huge pillow fights, or people swatting each other with folded newspapers or performing highly coordinated dance routines. All harmless, but all designed to attract attention and break the routine of those around you.
Sometimes it’s meant to inspire joy, sometimes serious thought, sometimes just to get you out of the rut you find yourself in.
At first I thought that I was simply uncomfortable with the attention it might bring to me, but I dismissed that because I generally don’t care if I am the subject of anyone’s attention, unless they happen to have a gun. I was nervous because I was about to become part of a cause.
I was about to take a public stand against something that I believe is one of the greatest offenses one human can inflict on another. It offends me so much that I find it very difficult to control the anger I feel against those who are guilty of perpetrating this crime against others.
The issue is Human Trafficking: The buying and selling of one human being to another.
Also known as slavery.
That’s right. That disgusting thing we thought ended with the Civil War in our sanitized histories. Alive and well in the United States of America, and incidentally, quite virulent in the rest of the world. It is an international disease.
It occurs all over the world, and it crosses socio-economic, racial, religious, and sexual lines without thought. It has happened in my town and yours. A young girl just a few miles from my home was kidnapped. She was claimed as “property” and taken from a happy home in a nice neighborhood then sold on Craigslist for sexual use.
She turned out to be a case of one who was rescued and returned to her family. She has the opportunity to recover, although that will be a long and difficult process that she should not have to go through. Sadly, she is still in the minority. And that’s just one of the ones we know about. Most of those forced into this life cannot escape. This is real. It’s not just something you see on a documentary that will only affect “someone else”.
It is currently estimated that 27 million people around the world are enslaved in some form. Between 14,500 and 17,500 people a year are brought in to the US from other countries as slaves. At least 100,000 American minors are sex slaves.
Human Trafficking wasn’t even a crime in the US until the year 2000!
Safe houses are being built by rescue organizations to help these victims get out. They give them a place to recover and rest in safety, but there are far too few.
These organizations need our help in every area: finances, manpower, administration, everything. I will post links to their sites at the end of this article.
This issue makes me angry as few other things do. The thought of what these victims go through sends me into a spiral of fury that, if left unchecked, would turn into white-hot, unadulterated RAGE!
If I were faced with one of the perpetrators of this crime I don’t know that I would be able to control anything I did to him.
The reason is this: I have a beautiful wife, and daughters, and grandchildren and nieces and nephews, and friends who could all be made victims of this crime, and the thought one of these sub-human perpetrators even coming close to any one of the people I care about and attempting to victimize them is absolutely horrifying to me. That, coupled with the idea that it is an absolutely credible threat in the real world that I live in, in my town, seems beyond comprehension.
But here it is, as real as breathing.
As our economy tanks and our governmental authorities claim a lack of funding and resources to adequately combat any number of problems, this is also given a lesser priority.
Why does it always come down to money?
One side makes money doing it, and the other side needs money to fight it.
It started by someone wanting to make a profit, and reducing human life to the status of a commodity, a thing, something to own and dispose of when used up.
There are those who would like to legalize it so the government could reap the benefit of the taxes levied on it. Might as well get something out of it since we all know it’s going to happen, right?
Oh yes, and when it’s legal all the abuse and kidnappings will stop because the kidnapers and pimps will suddenly see the benefits of actually filing tax returns and claiming their long deserved status as entrepreneurs.
Idiots!
And because those in authority lack the funds and the drive to respond adequately to this issue (although I have to give them credit for trying) we are left as a society to come up with our own solutions. And since it is unacceptable in our society to remove the perpetrators from the gene pool without the approval of our court system (because even though they obliterate the rights of one human they are somehow allowed to retain their own) we can instead pursue the victims of the crime to rescue them.
We can be there to help them pick up the pieces, and return to some semblance of a “normal” life.
And this brings me back to the mob.
I joined a group of people who quietly gathered at the steps of the California state Capitol building, put on shirts with a message stating that 27 million people were being trafficked, and…
stopped.
We simply froze in the process of whatever action we were in the midst of at that moment, and didn’t move for five minutes.
People would walk through the crowd and suddenly realize that they were in the middle of a group of people, all dressed similarly, who were not moving. At all.
It was weird.
No one does that.
And they noticed.
I don’t know how many people noticed enough to go out and do something about it, or get involved in any way. I don’t know if anyone even figured out what we were doing at all.
But we took a stand, and peacefully made our point, and if only one person asks a question as a result then that’s a good thing.
My anger was channeled to a higher purpose, and I was more effective doing this than I would have been following my own instincts and dragging a trafficker into a back alley, as is my preference.
I am not really a “cause” kind of guy, and I don’t recall ever really being this openly adamant about anything before. I don’t know that I have ever felt the combination of anger, sorrow, and fear at the same time before. Somehow I just find this one impossible to walk away from.
Most of you who read this will not feel the same passion as I do over this issue simply because you have other worthy causes you have chosen to devote yourself to, and I would not want to distract you from them. But I would ask this: Just take a look. See if there’s some area you can contribute to. Chances are that you know someone, who knows someone who has been affected by this thing.
For in the end you are not as far removed from it as you would like to think.
©Dan Bode 2010
ChabDai
www.chabdai.org/home.html
With More Than Purpose
www.morethanpurpose.org
California Against Slavery
www.californiaagainstslavery.org
Courage to Be You
www.couragetobeyou.org
It was not a game, nor was it organized crime. Although it was an organized mob.
We came together through a loosely connected network of Face book and Twitter announcements to meet at a specific time and place, and take a specific action for a specific amount of time, for a specific purpose.
There was no single leader, I know it had to have started with someone’s vision, but I don’t know whose, nor does it really matter.
As I was walking to the designated location I realized that I was nervous. I did not at first understand why. We weren’t going to be doing anything illegal or threatening in any way. After some thought I understood my nervousness.
Let me explain:
I was about to be a part of a flashmob.
A flashmob is a group of people who come together in a seemingly random fashion to one spot. At a designated time they all perform a specific action for a few minutes and then disperse. If you look up the term “flashmob” on YouTube you will see videos of huge pillow fights, or people swatting each other with folded newspapers or performing highly coordinated dance routines. All harmless, but all designed to attract attention and break the routine of those around you.
Sometimes it’s meant to inspire joy, sometimes serious thought, sometimes just to get you out of the rut you find yourself in.
At first I thought that I was simply uncomfortable with the attention it might bring to me, but I dismissed that because I generally don’t care if I am the subject of anyone’s attention, unless they happen to have a gun. I was nervous because I was about to become part of a cause.
I was about to take a public stand against something that I believe is one of the greatest offenses one human can inflict on another. It offends me so much that I find it very difficult to control the anger I feel against those who are guilty of perpetrating this crime against others.
The issue is Human Trafficking: The buying and selling of one human being to another.
Also known as slavery.
That’s right. That disgusting thing we thought ended with the Civil War in our sanitized histories. Alive and well in the United States of America, and incidentally, quite virulent in the rest of the world. It is an international disease.
It occurs all over the world, and it crosses socio-economic, racial, religious, and sexual lines without thought. It has happened in my town and yours. A young girl just a few miles from my home was kidnapped. She was claimed as “property” and taken from a happy home in a nice neighborhood then sold on Craigslist for sexual use.
She turned out to be a case of one who was rescued and returned to her family. She has the opportunity to recover, although that will be a long and difficult process that she should not have to go through. Sadly, she is still in the minority. And that’s just one of the ones we know about. Most of those forced into this life cannot escape. This is real. It’s not just something you see on a documentary that will only affect “someone else”.
It is currently estimated that 27 million people around the world are enslaved in some form. Between 14,500 and 17,500 people a year are brought in to the US from other countries as slaves. At least 100,000 American minors are sex slaves.
Human Trafficking wasn’t even a crime in the US until the year 2000!
Safe houses are being built by rescue organizations to help these victims get out. They give them a place to recover and rest in safety, but there are far too few.
These organizations need our help in every area: finances, manpower, administration, everything. I will post links to their sites at the end of this article.
This issue makes me angry as few other things do. The thought of what these victims go through sends me into a spiral of fury that, if left unchecked, would turn into white-hot, unadulterated RAGE!
If I were faced with one of the perpetrators of this crime I don’t know that I would be able to control anything I did to him.
The reason is this: I have a beautiful wife, and daughters, and grandchildren and nieces and nephews, and friends who could all be made victims of this crime, and the thought one of these sub-human perpetrators even coming close to any one of the people I care about and attempting to victimize them is absolutely horrifying to me. That, coupled with the idea that it is an absolutely credible threat in the real world that I live in, in my town, seems beyond comprehension.
But here it is, as real as breathing.
As our economy tanks and our governmental authorities claim a lack of funding and resources to adequately combat any number of problems, this is also given a lesser priority.
Why does it always come down to money?
One side makes money doing it, and the other side needs money to fight it.
It started by someone wanting to make a profit, and reducing human life to the status of a commodity, a thing, something to own and dispose of when used up.
There are those who would like to legalize it so the government could reap the benefit of the taxes levied on it. Might as well get something out of it since we all know it’s going to happen, right?
Oh yes, and when it’s legal all the abuse and kidnappings will stop because the kidnapers and pimps will suddenly see the benefits of actually filing tax returns and claiming their long deserved status as entrepreneurs.
Idiots!
And because those in authority lack the funds and the drive to respond adequately to this issue (although I have to give them credit for trying) we are left as a society to come up with our own solutions. And since it is unacceptable in our society to remove the perpetrators from the gene pool without the approval of our court system (because even though they obliterate the rights of one human they are somehow allowed to retain their own) we can instead pursue the victims of the crime to rescue them.
We can be there to help them pick up the pieces, and return to some semblance of a “normal” life.
And this brings me back to the mob.
I joined a group of people who quietly gathered at the steps of the California state Capitol building, put on shirts with a message stating that 27 million people were being trafficked, and…
stopped.
We simply froze in the process of whatever action we were in the midst of at that moment, and didn’t move for five minutes.
People would walk through the crowd and suddenly realize that they were in the middle of a group of people, all dressed similarly, who were not moving. At all.
It was weird.
No one does that.
And they noticed.
I don’t know how many people noticed enough to go out and do something about it, or get involved in any way. I don’t know if anyone even figured out what we were doing at all.
But we took a stand, and peacefully made our point, and if only one person asks a question as a result then that’s a good thing.
My anger was channeled to a higher purpose, and I was more effective doing this than I would have been following my own instincts and dragging a trafficker into a back alley, as is my preference.
I am not really a “cause” kind of guy, and I don’t recall ever really being this openly adamant about anything before. I don’t know that I have ever felt the combination of anger, sorrow, and fear at the same time before. Somehow I just find this one impossible to walk away from.
Most of you who read this will not feel the same passion as I do over this issue simply because you have other worthy causes you have chosen to devote yourself to, and I would not want to distract you from them. But I would ask this: Just take a look. See if there’s some area you can contribute to. Chances are that you know someone, who knows someone who has been affected by this thing.
For in the end you are not as far removed from it as you would like to think.
©Dan Bode 2010
ChabDai
www.chabdai.org/home.html
With More Than Purpose
www.morethanpurpose.org
California Against Slavery
www.californiaagainstslavery.org
Courage to Be You
www.couragetobeyou.org
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