How Voting Trump Defines America

It’s been an especially contentious election year, mostly because of Donald Trump. You either love him or hate him, but I’m not going to debate the merits of whether he should or should not be President (he shouldn’t).

The phenomenon of Donald Trump says two very interesting things about this country –

1. We’re Tired of Politics as Usual:  It’s true, people are seriously fed up with the government and entrenched politicians who don’t seem to really give a rat’s rump about the people they’ve sworn to serve.

This was very evident here in San Antonio during the mayoral race last year. Our old mayor, Julian Castro was called to Washington to become the Secretary of Housing and Urban development. To finish his current term, the city called upon a nice lady named Ivy Taylor. She wasn’t a well-known name and certainly wasn’t a career politician so it was a surprising move.

Fast forward to the election last year. Ivy decided to make it official and see if the people of San Antonio wanted her to continue as Mayor, so she threw her hat in the ring.

Enter Leticia Van de Putte, and longtime politician who had been in the House and Senate but was currently out of a political job, so she decided to make a run at Texas government and ran for Lt Governor. She lost, bad.

It was evident she had no desire to get a real job so she immediately ran for Mayor of San Antonio.

It seemed the outcome of the election was a foregone conclusion. Van de Putte was a political powerhouse with a lot of rich, powerful friends, plus she had every major endorsement you could get, like the police and fire departments.

She lost.

The people of this city made it known that they were tired of the old guard. Career politicians aren’t being effective and the rancor between the Democrats and Republicans has reached a point that nothing gets done, and San Antonio didn’t want someone who was part of that in their city.

This seems to be what is happening with the presidential election. People are tired of the same old politics, so they’re throwing their votes at a person who isn’t a politician and says things that a lot of people are thinking. Unfortunately, he’s also saying a lot of things people aren’t thinking, and shouldn’t be said out loud in any setting.

But the fact is, people are voting for him and if the Republicans were self-aware at all they’d realize they need to regroup, restructure and remake their party.

Oh, the Democrats don’t get a pass on this either. The fact that a Socialist is getting their parties votes should tell them some things about their party too.

2. America has no Manners: I’ve been noticing this for a few years now. I do a lot of blog reading and I’ve been alarmed how the content has slowly become vulgar. People have stopped caring about how they speak and the words they use. It’s rare that I read an online article without the author using a lot of blue words.

Personally, I start reading an article and if I run into a f**k I stop reading. The reason isn’t because I’m a prude, it’s because people who use those kinds of words are too stupid to know the real words, which means they’re too stupid to write an article of any real intelligence that I would benefit from.

“Vulgarity is no substitute for wit.” -Maggie Smith

Trump says things that are ugly, mean spirited, and downright vulgar at times; but for some reason people are eating it up. Why, because the U.S. has become a country with no couth. 

There are myriad problems with this, but the one that applies to this article is that the President of the United States is a world figure. A statesman. Someone who needs couth. 

Conducting world affairs and meetings with Kings and Prime Ministers and other Presidents requires a great deal of formality and respect. I don’t think Trump has any of those qualities, and the fact that people are voting for him shows that we don’t either.

What the phenomenon of Donald Trump defines about America is that it’s changing. People want something different, for better or worse, they just want something that isn’t the same as what they have now, and since this is a country of majority rule all I can say is that if this is what the people want then the rest of us will have to accept it.

"God, please let your gracious spirit fill this country and let us become a people who understand that words matter. Jesus knew this and chose His words carefully. Help us do the same."

A Book and Its Cover

During my 3 month stay in Ireland I met some interesting people and did some fun things. One of those things was making friends at a local pub called Bolg Bui, which is Irish for “yellow belly.” Don’t ask me why, it’s an Irish thing. I made it a point to visit this pub because it’s a very fertile place to meet people. The Irish pride themselves on their ability to make conversation, so it was a good place to talk about my faith.

The owner of the pub is a wonderful lady named Tina, and she comes up with fun things to do which the pub sponsors, and one of those events is a “Mystery Tour.” The concept is fun, you meet at the pub on a certain day and everyone piles into a bus. Where does it go you ask? Only Tina and the bus driver know, it’s a mystery!

I decided to take the tour to meet new people and see some interesting sites. So I got on the bus one night and we headed out to parts unknown. I started talking to everyone on the bus and was surprised to find a very eclectic group of people of different ages and backgrounds, and as the bus winded its way down the tiny back roads of Ireland we all joked about our chances of getting to our destination because the bus driver was a little old man who was in his 80’s! We all wondered if this guy should be driving his own car, let alone a passenger bus.

However, we reached each place safely, and they were all really interesting. We went in and stayed about 30 minutes, had a pint, talked to each other and the people in the pub, and then headed for the next place.

The last pub we stopped at was my favorite because I’m a musician and there was a bunch of people playing traditional Irish music. This is something that a lot of pubs do in Ireland. They love their traditional music, and they’re fun to sing, so on certain nights people show up with their instruments and jam. There were 3 accordion players, an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, a violin player, and a multipurpose musician who played percussive stuff, like the spoons.

We all had a good time, and since it was our last stop we stayed longer. After about 45 minutes I noticed our bus driver shuffle in. I remember thinking “thank God he came in, it’s freezing outside and the last thing we need is to go back to the bus for the trip home and find this little old man frozen to the steering wheel!”

The bus driver sat down at the bar and ordered a drink, and as the band finished the song they were playing something amazing happened. The violin player got up and walked over to the bus driver and handed him his violin. But it wasn’t just a hand off, the guy almost bowed to the driver as he handed the instrument to him. The guy next to me gave me an elbow and said “you’re privileged to be standing here right now.” My interest was, of course, very piqued, and I watched as this elderly gentleman raised the violin to his cheek, and suddenly the entire pub went silent. I mean totally, completely silent.

Have you ever been in a bar and had it suddenly go quiet. That happens, like, never. There are too many people in a bar and too many conversations going on for anyone to care what’s happening elsewhere in the bar, but this place came to a complete standstill.

The driver nestled the violin under his chin, raised the bow, and launched into the most amazing Irish song I've ever heard. This guy’s fingers flew over the neck of the violin faster than anything I've ever seen, and it was precise; every note perfectly played.

Everyone in the pub stood motionless while the song filled the place, and when it was over the pub erupted into raucous cheers and loud applause. The driver handed back the violin and continued to work on his drink.

The band went back to playing and the din of conversations swelled into the air again. I was amazed at the reverence shown to our bus driver, and it wasn't the only time. Several times throughout the night the violin was handed off and our driver played again, and each time the entire pub didn't make a sound. It was awe inspiring how this guy commanded the attention of everyone in the pub.

The next day I contacted Tina and asked who the driver was, and it turns out he is a legendary traditional Irish music composer named John Dwyer. Who, you say? Well take a look here for a brief bio on John at the Irish Tune Composers website. It only takes a minute to read it, so I’ll wait until you get back…

So yeah, John Dwyer is a really huge star in the Irish music scene. You can see him on YouTube at the 2012 Traditional Irish Festival here if you care to watch him play, it’s worth a few minutes if you like interesting music. He’s from a famous music family, he’s been composer of the year, he’s still touring… and he drove our bus!?

I asked Tina why this legendary musician was driving us around Ireland, and she said “because he loves me.” Wow, that’s sort of like having Van Cliburn drive the limo taking you to prom because he’s friends with your dad.

I learned a great lesson that night and what it means to be humble. John Dwyer didn't care about his fame, he just knew a friend needed someone to drive a busload of people around for a night, so he stepped up. He showed me that the cover of a book does not tell the real story inside, and I’ll endeavor to be worthy of this experience.

"God, teach me to be more like John Dwyer, and to never forget what true humbleness should look like."

Ireland Blog - Obstacles

I love to travel. It’s something my wife has nurtured in me over the past 10 years we’ve been married. I wasn’t like this before I met her, I was more of a home-body who would take car trips to different places. I didn’t really like air travel so I never really traveled very far.

But then I met and married my awesome wife who loves to jet off to destinations unknown. While my idea of a vacation was driving to Florida, her’s was going to Russia.  Seriously, she’s been to Russia, and she displayed her love of travel from the very beginning as she made all of our honeymoon arrangements and took us to Fiji. The only time I’ve ever traveled that far was on military business, so the travel arrangements were a bit different.

The past 10 years of being with this well-traveled woman has instilled the same love for going to new places in distant lands.  Last year we flew to Europe and spent two weeks traveling the Greek islands, Turkey, and Italy. I loved it and remember being very excited about going to the airport to start our journey.

So why am I so nervous today? I’m boarding a plane to travel to Ireland where I get to stay for almost three months. I should be jumping up and down because I love to travel! But over the past few days I’ve been pensive, even scared with thoughts of planes not arriving safely and being separated from my family.

This morning as I wait to go to the airport I’ve been more nervous than I’ve ever been about traveling. I can’t eat, I’m pacing, I’m restless and agitated. I don’t want to go.

And then it hit me… the reason I’ve been so out of sorts is because of the nature of the trip. I’m going to Ireland to tell people about Jesus.

Whether you want to believe it or not, the enemy has a very real presence in this world. He doesn’t just run around making tragedies happen, he also has the power to effect you personally. That’s right, he can push your emotional buttons and effect your moods.

A good example of this is looking at what happens in your life just before you go to church. Some of the best fights I’ve ever had with my wife have been on the way to church. That’s because the enemy doesn’t want us to go there. He knows we’ll be fed by the Word of God so he puts up obstacles to stop it. Think about that the next time something happens to steer you away from a Christian event, and don’t give in to it.

The evil in this world doesn’t want people to hear the redeeming message of Jesus, and right now they’re working overtime to push my emotional buttons to keep me from going to Ireland by instilling fear and doubt in my mind.

It won’t work.

Just identifying why I’ve been so nervous the past few days has helped to push those feelings aside this morning. I’m stepping forward to extend the ministry of Jesus Christ, and the enemy will not stand in my way.

Pray for me, my friends, and I’ll do my best to keep you informed of my adventures overseas.

In God’s space –
Bret L

Technology and why it matters to the Male Ego

As we age our bodies go through a lot of changes. Our metabolism starts to slow down, making it a bit more difficult to keep a thin physique. Eyesight diminishes so people end up in the supermarket holding food items at arm’s length trying to read the labels. We don’t have the stamina to walk or run as far, we turn up the heat a lot sooner in winter, and our short term memory seems to… what was I talking about?

Now, I can’t speak about the aging process for women, they have their own set of aging issues.  But for men there are things that happen that seem particular to men, like our hair falling off our heads and suddenly growing out our ears.

I’ll never forget the day I realized my hair was thinning.  I was in the Air Force and liked to keep my hair cut to perfect military specifications. To keep a clean cut I used a razor to swipe off the little hairs that grow on the back of my neck. Well, one day I decided to ensure my quick swipes were doing the job right, so I pulled out a small mirror.  Turning my back to the large bathroom mirror and gazing through the small one so I could get a good look at the back of my neck I suddenly saw the top of my head, and there it was. On the crown of my skull there was a bald spot.  A BALD SPOT!?!?!  I stood transfixed by the hairless hole on my head and screamed like I had just seen a spider.  What, I hate spiders.  They’re creepy.  Judge me.

Now, I’ve always thought it pretty heinous that so many women feel they have to slather themselves with makeup or shove big implants into their breasts or workout 80 hours a week to stay thin in order to look good for men. But as much as women think that’s what men want, men also think women want certain things in a man too.  Men believe women want tall, dark, handsome men with chiseled features who look like they could kill a Stegosaurus with their bare hands while singing like Justin Timberlake and saving a puppy from drowning. They like a full, thick head of hair and perfect features like they belong on the cover of GQ or in a Twilight movie. These guys exist, you know them, you try to talk to them and they say, “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.” Unfortunately the rest of us have to work at it, and when a normal man starts to blow his feathers it’s traumatizing.

I spent a lot of years working on Air Force flight lines. The thing about military flight lines is they’re full of military planes. Big, noisy military planes. The first part of my career was spent on the island of Okinawa working around F-15 fighter jets. Unless you’ve experienced it, you can’t imagine the high-pitched scream these things make when they taxi out of their revetments. You feel like you’re at a concert standing right in front of a couple bagillionwatt speakers with Aerosmith, Motely Crew, KISS, Mötorhead, AC/DC, and Led Zepplin all playing at the same time with the volume on 1,000. It’s loud.

So after years of this my hearing started to diminish. Not catastrophically, just the higher frequency range. It happened slowly and I didn’t realize it until I went to the doctor at the behest of my wife who said I couldn’t ever hear her. I told the doc that I had problems hearing people right in front of me if I was in a restaurant or bar with a large crowd of people generating a lot of background noise. He tested my hearing and informed me that I needed hearing aids. HEARING AIDS!?!?! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!  What, I saw a spider again.

So I was given a pair of hearing aids which were small and fit behind my ears. Practically invisible, right? But then my male ego kicked in and whispered in my ear “Pssst, what’s wrong with you?  You’re not 80, you’re 45!  You’re too young to be wearing hearing aids and people are going to laugh at you!” Well, that’s what he would have said if I could’ve heard him, but I didn’t because I need HEARING AIDS!!  AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!  Damn spiders.

So I never wore my hearing aids except when I knew I’d be in a loud environment. I’d decided I would rather take the chance of people seeing the hearing aids than sit there all night squinting at the person right in front me trying to read their lips.

But then something cool happened. I good friend brought his new girlfriend to a get-together one day and it turned out she is an Audiologist. I told her about my hearing aids, which I wasn’t wearing at the time, and she told me to make an appointment to see her. I did, and she gave me a thorough ear exam to confirm just how crappy my hearing was. She told me what the range of frequencies were that my hearing had lost and I responded “Funny, that’s the exact same range as my wife’s voice.”  Mystery solved.

Anyway, she ended up giving me new hearing aids. These aren’t just any hearing aids though, they’re magic hearing aids! They have cool technology that does cool stuff, like when I answer my iPhone the audio beams straight into both ears via a Bluetooth connection with my hearing aids! And when my wife goes to bed and tells me to turn down the TV, I simply mute the set and the audio streams directly into my ears in perfect stereo. And of course, it wouldn’t be modern technology without an app! So now as I walk into different sound environments I pull out my smartphone and adjust my hearing aids to suite the place I’m at, and I can also save the settings for where I’m at so when I return the app detects it and asks me if I would like for it to adjust the hearing aids to the settings I used the last time I was there.

Its nerd nirvana for the hearing impaired I tell you!

I was really blown away by how cool these things are, and now I wear them all the time just so I can show people how cool they are! I honestly don’t mind telling people I wear hearing aids now because I have “6 Million Dollar Man” ears and I want people to know about it.

It took technology to sooth my male ego, and that’s something that shouldn’t be overlooked. Technology changed me from an eye-squinting-because-I’m-trying-to-read-your-lips buffoon to a confident man who can hear the conversations around him.

Thank God for technology and what it’s doing for our lives, especially for men who are afraid their diminished capacities will undermine their inner Schwarzenegger, and they won’t be able to impress women by saving the planet from evil aliens.

So until my next post, good friends, the answer is yes… I can hear you now.

Let's Pray Real Quick

Prayer.  It’s a direct line to the All Mighty.  It’s used to petition and plead, as well as praise and thank God for His goodness towards us.  But so often it seems that Christians don’t give prayer the respect it deserves.  I sometimes see prayer treated as an annoyance, like it’s just something we have to get through so we can dig into our Bible study or other Christian event, so we begin by saying “Let’s pray real quick and we’ll get started.”
It’s a statement I hear often, and aside from being a grammatical tragedy it also leaves me wondering if the event may not go as well as it would if we had stopped and spent time truly communicating with God first.  What would our mindset be after 20 minutes of connecting with God instead of 20 seconds?

We have a model to follow in Jesus.  We find Him in the Bible withdrawing often to be alone and pray because that direct communication with His Father was vital to His wellbeing, and it should be treated the same way by all of us.

Prayer is powerful.  It not only revitalizes us, it’s a tool in our arsenal for fighting evil.  Mark shows this in his telling of a possessed boy.  Jesus commanded the evil spirit to come out, and afterward his disciples asked why they weren’t able to drive it out themselves.  Jesus’ reply was “This kind can come out only by prayer.” Mark 9:29.  Jesus is telling us that prayer is so powerful that it can drive out the most stubborn of evil spirits.

Peter urges us to be earnest and disciplined in our prayers. 1 Peter 4:7, and Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to pray ceaselessly. We’re reminded time after time in the Bible about the importance of prayer, so why do we sometimes give it such little notice.  Why do we sometimes treat it as a Christian checkbox just to say we did it before we start our Bible study, or VBS, or Life Group meeting, or even a worship band rehearsal? 

What would your event or meeting look like if prayer was the most important thing you did in it?

Let’s give prayer the respect it deserves and not be in such a hurry to begin our events. Don’t blow through a prayer just to get it out of the way.  Start your next event, whether it be a small gathering or a large group, with a time of truly connecting with God.  Spend time asking Him to join your event and let His Holy Spirit be felt by everyone there.  Prepare your event for God’s presence and see what happens.  Start your event by saying “Let’s ask Jesus to join us here,” instead of “Let’s pray real quick.”

God, thank you for the gift of prayer. Thanks for being a God that is available to us and for answering our prayers.  Help us to better use our prayers to prepare our daily lives for your presence in them. Amen.