I’m really puzzled.
Two days ago I published a Catch about what I had learned from something Neil Young wrote in an open letter to President Trump. Now I knew I was stepping into a political minefield that I probably should have left alone, but I learned so much from what he expressed along the lines of what I had been talking about all last week, that I thought we could all benefit.
With the first games of spring training 2020 starting this week, I decided to mark it by going back to one of our most popular Catches which ended the baseball season in October two years ago. This Catch was first posted on October 1, 2018.
Who would have thought that after 162 major league baseball games with 30 teams there would be four teams with identical records who would have to play one more game to determine who is a division winner and who is a wild card team? It’s never happened before, but it happened this year; so today is game 163 for four teams: the Brewers and the Cubs, and the Dodgers and the Rockies. My Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, like the other 19 teams who are on their way home today, only played their allotted 162 games. Which is plenty.
We’ve got so many of these titles — the Gospel According to Peanuts, The Simpsons, Biff, Mary Magdalene, and of course, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But of all of them, aside from the actual Gospels in the scriptures, the greatest of them for each one of us is our gospel. Think of it as the Gospel According to Me (which for you would of course be the gospel according to you).
I don’t blame the people who voted for you. I support their right to express themselves, although they have been lied to, and in many cases believed the lies, they are true Americans. I have their back. – Neil Young, in an open letter to Donald Trump
Contrary to what it might look like, this is not a Catch about politics. It’s a Catch about attitude, and about what I wrote about all last week, and what I hope you’ve been talking over and seeking to do with your friends and neighbors — about loving our enemies.
So now that we have all of you with boots on the ground refusing to enter into gossip, rumors, and negative talk with friends about perceived enemies — now that there are so many of you, as Bob has suggested in his comments yesterday, being “loving, gracious, humble, and forgiving until the very end – whether we see results or not,” what do you think is going to happen? Now that many of you will be walking away or at least refusing to take part in conversations that are harmful to others even if they are your enemies, what difference might it make?
“We have to be the people we want everyone else to be.” (see yesterday’s Catch)
We could spend weeks on this, but given the current climate, at least a few days would be good. John sent us an arresting video of Michael Jackson’s song “Man in the Mirror,” a song that says the same thing. We are the only ones who can make the changes in the world that we want to live in, and it starts there. It starts with us.
Dr. Brooks and Mr. Trump
I had a splendid interview on BlogTalkRadio last night with Doug Stevens about loving our enemies. Tolerating our enemies is not a high enough standard. Jesus wants us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute (say evil against) us. This discussion was spurred on by a talk on loving our enemies that Dr. Arthur Brooks, a professor at Harvard and the president of a conservative think tank, gave at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., two weeks ago. Dr. Brooks is not a theologian, but in his own words is “a Catholic whose personal savior is Jesus.”
Proud Papa.
Guest writer for the Catch today is Doug Stevens. Doug served many years as Senior Pastor of Hillside Covenant Church in Walnut Creek, California. He was Executive Director of The Renewal Project and The Leadership Connection and has most recently served as Transitional Pastor to five different churches where he specializes in congregational healing and rebuilding. His latest book, Christ Incognito: Imagining, Encountering, Embracing and Embodying His Love, came out in December. Doug lives with his wife, Nancy, in Austin Texas. Doug will also be our guest on BlogTalkRadio tonight at 4:30-5:00 pm Pacific. You can listen live at that time, and call in if you wish, or listen any time thereafter as a podcast at the same address. We will be discussing more on the topic of loving our enemies.
President Trump and House Speaker Pelosi both spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast two weeks ago, but the keynote address was delivered by Dr. Arthur Brooks, a Harvard professor and best-selling author. With all the tension in the room and conflict in the country, his bold biblical message is worth taking in.
In honor of Presidents’ Day, I thought I would share a quote from one of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln, that might speak into the place we find ourselves today in this country. While searching, I found out that the principles drawn from the word of God were always relevant to today, only because they are relevant to every day, to every culture and to every person.
The following quote was taken from an address Lincoln gave in Lewiston, Illinois on August 17, 1858.
Don’t you love those little heart-shaped candies with the messages stamped on them? That’s truly Valentine’s Day to me. Remember going through them and trying to find the right message for someone special? If God dropped some candies on us, this is what you might find.
John Fischer The Catch 