Some of you may have noticed once again I’ve been blog AWOL lately. A couple of reasons I’m depressed because I have such a small following and I’m thinking why am I doing this? Then I have to remind myself that it’s my therapy for not going on a one trip to crazy town.

Since my wife is my editor, I don’t want to burden her with dealing with my drivel as she works two jobs takes care of her elderly parents who live in apartment in our house. We have our business failing with my older son trying to keep it together through a rough divorce.  Oh, and we just took in an 18-year-old kid from a household with an alcoholic dad and a mother barely keeping it together, they showed him door.  The kid has a big heart, is hard worker with anger issues.  My youngest is struggling with his faith and wrestling with being 18 where dad is stupid, and mom is a clear and present danger to his freedom.

Both my wife and I went through COVID aftereffects for me it includes balance problems (she got through it better). I’m still dealing with post stroke physical and mental depression issues.  I found out that I have a jellybean sized kidney stone and that I need a pacemaker and a Watchman. 

This is not a pity party, for I give thanks to God every day for my provision, my children my house and my little piece of paradise.  My home, my wife and my spirit that somehow still survives the onslaught of life.  What does one do when the multi-tasking of life becomes too much? 

For me, I seized the moment and got a good medication.  My wife went to the sporting goods dept at Walmart and got me an ample supply of live worms dug out my Tiger rod and reel and at 7:00 am on Sunday morning went fishing on our artesian pond and I got well needed relief. 

Fishing for bass and bluegill is an easier gig then what Jesus told them to be more than fishermen but be fishers of men.  As I fished alone, I also went trolling for souls and got my youngest son asking my wife to go to church for the first time in over a year and our quasi-adopted son to nibble on a little Jesus.  


The bottom line is just go fishing.  Fish don’t ask tough questions, don’t judge and just want to be thrown back to swim with their buddies.  They got a free meal of worm de jute..  Stress and depression is arrested for another brief period of time.

Until next time May God carry you all through another day/week. To top it off I’m going to order chicken wings delivered and watch the Green Bay Packers play and go off to sleep.

God cover you all and try to cheer up and when you can’t just take time to go fishing or on a clear night go outside sit and look up at the stars you and your problems and despair are not the center of the universe its infinity is centered in your heart guard it and share it agape.

I have undoubtedly upset or am getting ready to upset fellow Christians. I’m using this term mainly because the alliteration writing tool seems to work here, and most faiths have their counterfeits. Briefly, I’ll list them and a brief reason I include them.

I believe every faith has them to one degree or another. They have the self-righteous bullies to raise to leadership financially comfortable or power through the perversion of the original message to humanity and is barely visible as time and memory moves and fades from the original message intended to be conveyed or lived by.

Perhaps my Jewish Rabbi friend put it best in his definition of Truth – “Fidelity to the original.” I know very little of the world religions (I’ve read The World’s Religions by Huston Smith to get more understanding.) I barely comprehend my faith that is Christianity. I have a Hindu temple next door to me that espouses humbleness and respect for others. Still, I have to dodge rich kids driving their BMWs at 50 miles an hour out a very lavish temple, nearly running over anyone in their path after they feint worshiping a platoon of various gods to appease their wealthy parents.  Muslims who say they are in the name of peace while being founded by a very militant prophet and many refusing to condemn modern terrorists who do things in the name of their faith and allow them to defame the principles of tolerance they once had as a young religion. Taoists who lost control of the Chinese culture and peaceful faith of meditation in favor of brutal atheistic communism and persecution of others etc. Shinto by the Japanese to worship a human emperor instead of the higher calling. Allowed WW2 to happen German Christians to let the Nazis redirect their Martin Luther values into hate for the Jews and other “inferior” humankind. And the list could go on and on.

It is primarily counterfeiting noble and true values from a misconstrued concept of who God is.   My faith puts strong and exclusive reliance on trust and belief that God controls the universe.  That He loves his creation and came to earth much later to illustrate his love.  He let himself suffer an unimaginable death by human hands that refused to believe that Jesus (His human self) came to redeem all the hatred and suffering and show us all a better way.

We still don’t listen even when he gives us one way to quit making the world be our religion and counterfeiting them when we humans can’t lift ourselves to heaven by our thought and spirit but let God come to us.    We continue to counterfeit, like our government, printing fake spiritual currency and using it as the real thing, expecting long-term salvation or prosperity. When the original is not backed by genuine faith value of our founders, and for us Christians, not printed sometimes compromised, TV or financially protected, wealthy pastors that preach the Word of God from a worldly safe place.  That is a lot more comfortable than the early apostles who died and sacrificed for their preaching and teaching.   Leadership, sometimes in the church, is measured by statistics on how many souls got saved this week, how big our programs and buildings are, or how big our TV or social media platform is. 

I’d rather listen to the Word from a local pastor in a little country church who lived among the regular folks, who fixed cars on the side to feed his family. Then a high-powered, overpaid mega-church or TV evangelist.  It’s authentic rather than one of these guys that live in a comfortable, sometimes multimillion-dollar house.  As an illustration, our company did sitework for a considerable extension of a church in a growing town made up of local movers and shakers mixed with common agricultural folks and local contractors.  I had chats with the pastor in the afternoon under a shade tree.  We just talked, maybe because I was just a contractor from out of town.  He needed to talk; he mentioned that he was taking medication for his stress and clinical depression.  I went to one of his services and was impressed by his delivery of message and production, including a large choir, praise band, and liturgical dancing.  He told me in that candid moment, “you know Rick, I yearn to go back to that 18 member congregation that we started.  I could preach the Word, know everyone by first and last name. Grab a chain saw and help one of my parishioners’ clear brush for a garden he wanted to plant.  Or go over on a Saturday afternoon to help pick up and hold a new starter for a guy tighten the bolts because he couldn’t afford to have someone else fix it.” He closed and said, “oh, I miss being broke in that little church and doing that kind of “mission” work.” He has since retired from that large church, probably on a nice pension, and probably still finds happiness in chopping some wood and showing what Jesus meant when he said the last shall be first shall be last. 

Just as aside, if your church is asking for more tithes or thinks the pastor should get a raise, remember that their salary (except for FICA tax) is tax-free along with the income the church brings in. The tithers, in large part, don’t have that luxury).  Don’t get me wrong here that being a pastor has to be one of the most challenging jobs in the world. They spend countless hours meditating on the Word to touch hearts and souls every Sunday and presiding over funerals and weddings and knowing that many of them will fail or started without Jesus in the middle (no matter how the pastor counsels).   Sometimes, having people come to Christ on multiple occasions, only to fail in that commitment, counseling countless people going through soul-wrenching times feeling all that pain. There is not enough money anywhere to compensate for that, my friend. Also, don’t get me wrong, I have been counterfeit in my life in two out of three marriages.  The last one is far from always genuine, but a three-way deal with Christ is in the middle.
I was a worship leader, and the authentic part was the basic music (when I wasn’t counterfeiting it with showmanship) and prayer that was genuine and personal touched the congregation. I built the two large concrete crosses to last and last (it’s hard to counterfeit three mixer loads of concrete).

To close, I remember when I was a kid.  The US Government was and is just printing counterfeit money to fake productivity.  There was still circulating currency that looked and spent just like regular currency, except it was printed as a Silver Certificate.  The certificate was redeemable by the US Treasury in hard silver.  They were pulled from circulation and no longer redeemable in silver, and not that long ago.  So that we only have “the full faith of the US Government to back our currency. So I can’t help but wonder, my fellow Christians, are the old apostles and smaller growing congregations over the years still redeemable by the real treasures in heaven? Or are we just trading in counterfeit currency?”

Cut and paste and edited and electronically enhanced gospel to fast forward us into worldly pseudo-Christianity controlled by artful intelligence (I don’t mean the quantum computer kind, but human as well)  or faith-full simple followers of the original. My dear old Rabi friend and I rest our case.

I said in a previous post I was going off into a story vain. This is the story about two guys named Thomas. The first is Thomas the apostle a disciple of Jesus, and the second is Thomas Jefferson.  

Little is known of the first one and volumes have been written on the second. I wish I could have known more about the first one for there is scant information only slight scriptural references by the gospels of John and Mathew and traditional passages by others that may or may not be credible.  I would have liked to know both and walked beside them. However, only through the living years of the first one but he was killed by a king’s soldiers in India around 72 AD and the second died peacefully in his bed and the exact same day as his Christian rival and in later years one of his best friends, John Adams. 

The first died a horrible death by spear (not dissimilar than Jesus) preaching the gospel to pagan gentiles). The second wrote a document calling for Americans to be free of tyranny and as well as a participant in that struggle to be set free.

The first escaped Roman tyranny to set others free as he was to live the Gospel and taught that life is only temporary but will be everlasting with belief in his Lord Jesus Christ. The second at great risk to himself chose freedom and preached freedom across the land.

The first traveled to far off India to set people free with the gospel. The second was a planter, architect, musician and artist. The first was a builder and merchant.

The second was a slave owner to build his wealth and provision and probably based on his character treated his slaves like a prized piece of property not over working them and mistreat and take good care of. The first given the culture of the time used slaves as well.
The second had a favorite saying (probably fueled by the age of enlighten of which he grew up in) to “question everything even the very existence of God”. The first questioned after losing his wonderful friend Jesus and healer and teacher, thought that was the end of him and the great mission was lost.

The second, only later in life, “reasoned” there must be a resurrection and that if we could not be with our loved ones and our creator after death that life would essence be useless and pointless. He while thinking that Jesus was a wise man and a martyr that he died just like we do and was resurrected just like we do and was skeptical of secondhand accounts of Jesus). To illustrate read a disciple of The Jefferson Bible that he wrote, using only the firsthand sayings of Jesus and no miracles. He was probably led down this path of the resurrected Jesus by his staunch Christian companion John Adams.

The first was most remembered as “doubting Thomas” because he couldn’t believe that his best friend could serve such a gruesome death making the whole mission pointless. Jesus had to show him the wounds and have him touch them to believe.  He had done this very same thing to 10 other unbelievers, 10 disciples.  Poor ole Thomas got kind of got a bad rap in the Gospels.  He was ridiculed for having not believed that Jesus died and was risen and wanted proof. The other 10 guys (minus Judas) were in the room weeping because their best friend and so-called Messiah was just executed for the very thing, they were on a mission to proclaim. Don’t you think that they had a “give up hope” time until Jesus walked through (I mean REALLY WALKED THROUGH) the door and appeared to them and gave them hope and blessing? 

Was Thomas so full of grief that he just wanted to be by himself and grieve quietly the scripture only tells us that he wasn’t there and was told after the fact and Jesus appeared to him later. Don’t you think he was a bit surprised and couldn’t believe that his dearest friend was actually standing before his very eyes. Well, he showed up just like the others, but he just wanted to be sure after all the trauma he and others went through. THEN he was reassured by Jesus he was the Messiah and went on to spread the Gospel too far away others and suffered the fate Jesus suffered along with the fate like the other disciples.  We don’t hear much about many of the other disciples either because scripture doesn’t tell us much, but we should not forget or pass over all those courageous ground zero brothers (and sisters) who took up Jesus’s cross and took the gospel around the world. Changing the world, no matter how much man’s corruption has tried to destroy it even within the church itself.

On a more earthly bent the second wrote the Declaration of Independence and parts of the Constitution and must have thought my God men can be free of the tyranny of the crown and even worship freely and honor our creator. 

The first left behind his exclusive Jewish orthodoxy to preach the gospel.  The second insisted on the doctrine of freedom to worship as you wish, and he championed the persecuted Jews but didn’t subscribe to the mainstream teachings of Judaism of the time.

While these Thomas’s are very different and separated by some 1700 years, to me they have striking similarities.  The apostle Thomas was for the most part left out of the New Testament. Perhaps one of the greatest untold story not in the bible. Perhaps his account was left on the cutting floor of Nicaea and is blurred by so many unreliable Gnostic accounts. But there is credible accounts from Indian and other historical accounts that give credibility to his ministry. After that incident the seeing is believing moment he was perhaps as great of an apostle there travelling 3000 miles to preach the Gospel in the perhaps home of the Maharaja themselves. There are Christian communities that exist in India today that claim their origins back to Thomas’s mission to the country. There are churches and cathedrals in India that are named after him and traditions claiming that he is buried under one of them or even his remains were transported to Italy. All that can be researched, but who cares.  He really lived as a disciple of Jesus but sadly forgotten compared to my old friend the Apostle Paul. Maybe because Paul, Luke and Mathew were better writers and journalers. Maybe that Thomas is my un-discovered hero fellow builder like me but I all I’ve got to leave behind is this pitiful blog which is more than ole Thomas had.   Maybe I’ll see you up in heaven some day with Thomas Jefferson and Jesus sipping some wine with Jesus saying “well guys. I’ve been trying to tell you guys about this place and who I am, so relax and rest from your earthly but godly toil, my dad’s up there and IS in control.

Till Next time.

Rick

All,

Finally, at last you get a short post from me in this Easter season. For those who are believers or not in the Jesus Messiah thing, this one might ring home. Many of us depressants feel alone and abandoned. I feel that way not so much by general friends but my inner circle. It’s not that they don’t care, and one of the last standing is my devoted and steadfast wife who takes care of my physical needs, edits this drivel called my blog, and gives me the comfort of true loyal companionship. I/we (meaning maybe my fellow depressants) practice self-isolation because we feel irrelevant. Not belonging or thinking like most.

In my case, without being egotistical, but that same irrelevance and sometimes thinking deeper than most and losing so many in my thoughts.  I have this insatiable habit of text praying for others I don’t go down the list and check boxes, I just wake up or sometimes during twilight times and suddenly pray from my heart for certain individuals originating from my heart with no structured reason or method just an urge.  What’s amazing to me is on several occasions those that I text respond at how my timing was just what was needed at that time to be lifted no matter how strong their faith is.

At Last!  I’ve found a snippet of relevance in a broken world.  SOMEONE NOTICED!  Our Pastor preached from the Gospel according to Mathew on Palm Sunday, the hours before He surrendered to face His fate. Without exception his disciples went to sleep and really abandoned him when his human side needed them the most.  His friends couldn’t be bothered to stay awake, because they were weary from the ministry journey and abandoned Him when he needed THEM (not the other way around).  Then the early in the morning or late that same night he was subjected the most grueling and horrific death. By HIMSELF and his Father let Him go through it to show the world the ultimate act of love.  This is historical fact in the crucifixion and basic facts leading up to it. HE was abandoned really abandoned and he accepted the fate. No one, at least in these days, have a sense of betrayal like he did. 

For all of you who don’t believe that he is the Messiah, ponder this. Have you ever had a worse day than this? Just in earthly terms my fellow depressants if you think that you are going through trials, take comfort in knowing at the very least in the ultimate end you are relevant in a snippet that is your life. I still think I’m irrelevant but return to this story and take heart and that his act brings relief in knowing the gospel story as a Christian and that snippet of relevance when I take time to text that little message. God be with all reach inside and muster up hope. I’m in a mustering time myself and still cling to be relevant. God be with your vacillating spirit.