GOOD WEDNESDAY MORNING ALL
DAD
EACH DAY
Each Day
Unorthodox Christianity can cover a lot of ground. When I first started Unorthodox Christianity I followed a typical Church driven idea to tell people what you need to know to follow the scriptures and analyze them and maybe even debate now and then. The more I moved forward with it the more questions I asked myself. What I have written below is a more common writing of today vs then.
The more people I talked with, the more people fell into the category of disenfranchised. The more I heard about their first visit, or return visit, to a church environment was followed by comments similar to “I did not feel welcome”. “I did not feel that I belonged there”. “It felt that I wasn’t ‘their’ type”.
Analyzing scripture left something out for them to grasp and get familiar with. I wondered just what was missing.
The most common desire among most seemed to be a relationship. Not necessarily with the people in that church setting, but the building of a relationship with GOD, and JESUS. A relationship that they could grasp. One day a week for a couple of hours simply was not creating the environment of a relationship that some people would truly find trust in a short term setting.
Most every day I wake up with a relationship. It may be with family, or my dogs and wagging tails that welcome me every day. Not just 2 hours a week. Just about everyday I cross paths with the neighbors. I say hello to, wave at, smile with, talk about the weather. A constant feeding of relationship that builds familiarity. It also builds conversation and a measure of trust.
I feel welcome. I feel like I belong. I feel comfortable. And when life happens, I find the neighbors who help shovel some snow, or help with a problem, or asks me to sit down and they ask how things are going.
When I was very young I did Sunday School and such. I went because my family took me. We finished church and went off to lunch. I forgot all about GOD or JESUS and I remember how good the lunch was. I had the stories about GOD and JESUS in the BIBLE that came with the SUNDAY SCHOOL. I started thinking about GOD. I started to read the books at home. I stared at the night sky and thought about the huge creations before me. I was curious who GOD was. I decided to just ask GOD about why all people weren’t good. And the relationship started. I was never afraid of GOD. A friend asked me what I thought about JESUS. I mentioned that my dad, a sales manger, once said that the secret to sales success is getting right to the man (or female) in charge. I felt that I could just as easily talk to the man at the top. It started small and finally we had built a relationship. We covered a lot of ground over all these years. If you wish to build a relationship with GOD, go for it. I could keep going on and on about the years we have already built. But it started with my questions and it developed before me. How did it work? It wasn’t magic. You will discover that GOD has ways to communicate with you that you may never understand how, but you will understand by taking it to GOD. You will discover it. GOD will find many ways to talk with you. Many times you will be surprised by it. As far as I am concerned that is the purpose of the relationship with GOD. It is not a weekly event. it happens EACH DAY.
The message below is something I do every day to the people who are most important to me. Sometimes it becomes part of the blog. This idea of relationship can not be built with rules, it is built with trust that comes from familiarity. GOD will establish the relationship with you. You my get mad at GOD. You may thank GOD for something that gets pointed out to you.
This blog today is called EACH DAY. Enjoy it.
GOOD MORNING ALL
Just trying to relax and enjoy a day off. One would think that the older you get and the less “Work” you have to do, the easier life becomes. So far the easier part has yet to appear very often. When I was a young man the idea of a vacation was the goal of life. Today life is the goal of life. Fortunately each day is an achievement. Thank you all for your help, prayers, and encouragement. You have made it all worthwhile. OUR CARES AND PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU.
Have a wonderful day.
ME, Mack and Jake
We hear a lot about when we get to Heaven and how our relationship with GOD is going to be something special. You are in Heaven each day right now. Heaven is not a new beginning. Birth was the new beginning. The relationship with GOD started years before your birthday. GOD appreciates you and encourages you. Not years from now but EACH DAY. As my Aunt Vera(my daughters namesake) said over and over again for years and years, “Isn’t that Wonderful”.
Enjoy EACH DAY. It starts that way, every day.
GOD BLESS.
OUR CARES AND PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU.
MEMORIES — 1-19-22
GOOD MORNING ALL
Today I keep my joy, joy, joy joy deep in my heart, deep in my heart today.
The world is surrounded by joyful music.
Whether it is freezing cold or summer heat, a smile comes to mind when the thought process comes to remind me of special days, events, people, friends and the dogs. When it is 9 degrees I remember knocking on doors and shouting Happy Halloween in Minnesota. When it is 90 degrees I remember jumping in a swimming pool in Billings Montana. Joy can not hide inside and life can not frown when memories are remembered. Remembering life isn’t buried in sadness, it is people I laughed with, people who made me smile. It is music that brings them back to life.
Life is a journey of challenges, and of gifts and do you remember when. I have had more smiles than frowns. I have had more opportunities than not. Enjoy the memories. When I sit down to write these little tidbits I think Thank You. Have a wonderful time despite the weather, grief, loss, or tears. Life is an adventure. Life is filled with memories. It is a time of throwing stones across a pond, and a time of gathering them up. (Eccesiasties- 3 vs 5). OUR CARES AND PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU ALWAYS.
ME, Mack and Jake
WHAT WORKS FOR YOU
What Works For You? 
I have been writing for many years now. The notes that have become Unorthodox Christianity. They go quite a ways back. Why did I even begin with the writing. It seems I need to remind myself to write more articles. Why?
It largely began with the conversation with a Sunday school teacher I have referenced before. In second grade Sunday School, in the midst of teaching about GOD creating the world and GOOD and EVIL, the teacher asked an open door, “Do you have any questions?”
“Yes”. I responded. “If GOD created everything, why didn’t GOD just make GOOD PEOPLE?”
That was the end of my religious question and answer period. I was embarking on a life where I asked questions and I looked for answers.
First question became IS GOD JUST A REALLY BIG GUY IN THE SKY? Then I touched on JESUS. Should I simply ask the questions to the BIG GUY AT THE TOP? Why Work around the middle man. My dad had worked with professional sales representatives. I guess I got it from him.
I looked up at the sky one evening when I was about 13-14 years old. I began asking GOD questions, with help from the middle man. I could not imagine a BIG GUY IN THE SKY. Too Big. Too many planets. Too many people, too many questions. Too fixed.
So here is God, a spirit that envelopes all created order, galaxies and universes we may never see. There are spiritual dimensions that we can’t even imagine and entities that even Hollywood can’t conjure up. Is GOD a celestial humanoid that only speaks one language and favors one race. A spirit (Whatever that is) that came before all physical creation, affects every single human on Earth to some extent. I have no problem believing in God (whatever a GOD is), but a God with limits on just what [HE] can or can not do?
Then you have the question of the power of Christianity, which is removed from the culture of the legend of Jesus a Messiah for what became a completely different culture that didn’t exist before Jesus? A Messiah that has yet to be accepted by the culture that refuses to accept Jesus as its own Messiah. The CHRIST of Christian is very much a separate entity from the culture Jesus came from and built around converts and Gentiles. In fact the Christian culture of early Christianity created power around an individual who preached LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
It is a wonder that a child in Bethlehem was chosen to carry the spirit and message of God to these people? When these people didn’t listen to Jesus, Jesus sent his insight for LOVE ONE ANOTHER through others who did believe in the life and story of Jesus into other cultures that didn’t speak Jesus’ language or have Jesus’ customs. Groups of other believers that translated Jesus story into their own and patterned their own beliefs along with Jesus. Could there be unconditional love in the midst of all religions without respect of culture, origin, skin tone? We have created racial preferences on EARTH which was created by a single entity to be made in “Our image”.
In the midst of it all GOD has already created that entity to be among us.
It comes in the framework of our pets, our animals, our disenfranchised friends that have a language of their own yet understand our emotions more than we understand our own. They understand our behavior and love us in spite of ourselves. They forgive us more quickly than we can respond. And there have been many millions and billions of followers that have moved forward into Jesus’ message of LOVE ONE ANOTHER, plain and simple.
GOD IS CAPABLE and HAS CREATED GOOD PEOPLE. The truth is that even the GOOD PEOPLE have been around since the beginning.
When we strip away the pious posturing and self beneficial exclusionary doctrines of certain elements of mankind that have made religious structures that make no sense in the in light of a loving GOD that created everyone to made in “HIS IMAGE”. A disciple of JESUS put it this way, GOD IS LOVE. GOD is a force of energy that too many people have refused to participate in. Look around you. Let us not forget an evil side of Succes AT Anothers Expense within the creation of the energy of LOVE that GOD has to compete with for individual attention.
And eventually UNORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY became a bit more than a question and answer period of a Second Grade United Methodist Sunday School student who asked a simple question. Why?
Because just CHRISTIANITY didn’t fit what I discovered. It didn’t fit the answers I heard of on TV. It didn’t match with JESUS.
LOVE ONE ANOTHER seemed much simpler than what I heard on Sunday mornings in church discussions. AND TOO MANY THREATS. If you do this, your off to hell. You will never go to heaven. Initially there was only HEAVEN in the first place. In the followers from different cultures who embraced the Jesus of LOVE ONE ANOTHER there was a different outlook. A LIFE IS OUTLOOK.
I discovered other things. They were shocking things. LIFE IS TEMPORARY.
Not only that, YOU CAN NOT CHANGE THAT. The opportunity you have been given ON EARTH comes with no time frame. GOOD, BAD, INDIFFERENT, a car accident, a war, a flood, a pandemic, a tornado, a world war. For many A diagnosis at birth, or in the middle of it. This life, with all of its challenges, is here and it is TEMPORARY in this format. We may follow the adherents from other cultures who believe in reincarnation, or do it over until you get it right. There are others who believe that you need to get it right and that is it. I, personally, have never imaged a day I do not get up to enjoy the journey over and over again.
UNORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY IS LIFE IS MEANT FOR LIVING, TAKE YOUR FAITH OFF OF THE SHELF.
LIVE IN THE DARK or LIVE IN THE LIGHT. YOU CHOOSE.
The variety of what you can choose is beyond my scope.
But I have always remembered one thing. “WHY DIDN’T GOD MAKE ALL PEOPLE GOOD ?”
BECAUSE THAT IS OUR JOB.
By the way we act, FORGIVE ME MY TRESPASSES (easy enough) AS I FORGIVE THOSE WHO HAVE TRESPASSED AGAINST ME (real tough).
LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU
(Way Complicated in it’s depth).
To me, the purpose of living is to participate in the adventure of life.
How you do that is what you choose. You do the best you can while you are here. I have always wanted UNORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY to give you a place where you can MAKE JESUS AND GOD WORK FOR YOU. If you so wish, have a conversation with an entity most of us call GOD. Or a carpenters son named JESUS. Wisdom is not exclusive to just these two. You will meet the wisest people at the most opportune times in your life. It will not happen by coincidence. It will happen for you by asking and recognizing it. It may be your lifelong adventure or at your last breath. You will be forgiven for what you know not what you do. And you may enjoy every moment of the journey. GOD has made all people good, it is just a matter of time.
GOD BLESS and I pray you can make your best life work for you.
It is your gift from GOD and a carpenters SON named JESUS.
THE MANUAL IS MISSING
THE MANUAL IS MISSING
There was a day, many years ago, when my daughter first entered my sphere. She was 5 months old and came via delivery on an airplane from Korea. There were many who gathered with us at the gateway entrance at the airport. The traveling companion stewardess brought her out and gave her to me. They also gave us a bag full of essentials to take with for a 5 month old girl. She had diapers, an extra set of clothes, a small hairbrush and wipes. As she was passed around among the crowd, I went off to a corner and began looking at just what the bag contained. I looked through it again. I couldn’t find it. I looked again.
THE MANUAL WAS MISSING
When I bought my first car I looked in the glove compartment and there I found a manual on how to figure out how the mechanicals worked. How to turn the lights on, the windshield wipers, the interior lights and how to work the radio. As well as dimensions and what kind of fuel to use. And so much more. Certainly a child must come with a Manual. How to be a dad, how to raise a little girl, how to teach. I was a bit overwhelmed.
I didn’t come with a Manual either, at least not at the beginning.
How many of us find ourselves lost, not prepared for the things of life as things happen? Today more than ever. What is a pandemic? Why can’t I just go get a vaccine and call it a day. Why is there politic, why don’t churches all believe the same thing. In Sunday school as a fourth grader I asked my teacher, “Why didn’t GOD just make good people?” I learned that that question was not discussed. Yet I wanted to know why. I have always wanted to know why. Why are things the way they are with an all knowing, all loving GOD?
When I was done with Sunday School I was given a concordance Bible. A Bible where what Jesus said was written in red. I sat down and read the Red Print. Then I read the Old and New Testament. I had found the Manual.
Certainly it was not that easy. When I was reading Proverbs, or Wisdom, or the Psalms, a parable from Jesus, or an apostle’s comment I recognized similar events or challenges that I had seen in the neighborhood, or a story on TV, or behavior that I recognized in my peer group. I read a simple set of rules that were put down by GOD.
- Thou shalt have no other gods before me
- Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image
- Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain
- Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy
- Honour thy father and thy mother
- Thou shalt not murder
- Thou shalt not commit adultery
- Thou shalt not steal
- Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour
- Thou shalt not covet
These are a good start. If you find life being challenging do not refuse the Bible because it is “religious”. Look at it as an owners manual. A touch of history where when certain people did this or that their actions caused reactions. There is a story in the books that are about your challenge, both causes and corrections. Too many have their Manual sitting on a shelf covered in dust when it can be the start of a knowledgeable life that can make more sense or make pre-planning a norm and not reaction.
Have a wonderful experience when you sit down with the Manual and the one who wrote it. dw
Memorial Day 2020
The Memorial Day remembrance is upon us already. The coming out party is also upon us. I pray for your safety, your good health as we all make choices about how the coming out party will affect us when the virus knows nothing of these events. I am grateful for the service my father, my uncles, and grand fathers and so many men and women and heroes and so many others served to protect us.
I also ask GOD to protect us now from those who do not seem to understand that it is not a day off for the virus. As we travel near or far, may GOD be with you this week end.
Cares and Prayers
dw
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HEAVEN OR HELL
Heaven or Hell
The Pandemic forges on. As the days grow longer and more of them with the same news, it seems our attitudes, probably rightfully so, take on a more negative turn in the background of our normal attitudes. There have been many positive news stories about the survivors, the heroes and the essentialers that are the core of the news. None of us asked for the Pandemic. It is here and we will deal with it the best that we can as we, as humans, have done since the beginning of time.
From GODLY retribution, to the onset of the “Revelations”. To: “who did it?”. To: what are we going to do about it? There are and will be enough books to read about it, movies to be made about it, and debates to fill all the hours of our lives for the rest our lives.
The Pandemic is making life a different environment for the world we are living in.
Or is it really different?
Many years ago, before the Pandemic, my father (on Earth) had made for himself a difficult life. I am sure I have made enough poor judgments in mine and perhaps you all have also, to make it as difficult as I have chosen to. On his dying days my dad said, “Dennis, this is Hell” It was his honest opinion. I have now outlived my father for some years now and many more I trust. The things of life just didn’t seem to go his way. His way was not as conducive to his own health as one has choices over. His attitude had developed into a “This is HELL mentality”.
He had run into the Success AT AN – other’s expense way of doing life and business that has permeated the human condition since the beginning of time. To this day this ‘SATANIC’ attitude has many followers. There have been enough people to take advantage of others for their own success or enjoyment forever. In the BIBLE the example could be ADAM and EVE, or Caine to Able. Most of the BIBLE has scrolls and stories about more people being taken advantage of than not. It is hardly a profound discovery. Who hasn’t been cheated out of money, or bullied out of ego, or destroyed by this attitude in the midst of their ordinary lives. They have been made slaves to plantation owners, or as one secretary mentioned to me years ago about upper management: Slave dies, buy another slave. This is not just an American concept but it is world wide and always has been. Billions have died from it.
Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth in the middle East a couple of thousand years ago succumbed to it. And He new about it going in. And why was He killed? For telling people that GOD was love and to Love One Another. And “To do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
Many of the wealthiest in the world claim to be followers of Christ. Jesus also mentioned for us to be careful of those who come in Jesus’ name for they shall lead even the elect astray. Be careful, the Anti-Christ of revelations may also utilize a professed following of Christ to suit it’s own success at the expense of others, For the Anti-Christ to come as an obvious enemy is forgetting the Trojan Horse. You may consider it to be a follower. Behavior will tell a different story. Much like the virus, the SATAN attitude exempts no one.
We have done more in a few months to combat a disease to save lives around the world than we have done to save the environment for thousands of years, let alone recently within a hundred. What the mysterious “They” are saying is that some entity manufactured the virus. Scientist say it is not man made for the things that man makes have human markings on it. Think of it as made in (pick a place to insert here).
Herbert Spencer, a contemporary of Charles Darwin coined the phrase “Survival of the Fittest” (1864). The phrase was adopted by Darwin to be utilized in a companion book to “The Origin of the Species’ (1859) called ‘The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication’ published in 1868.
In my generational discussions “Survival of the Fittest” has been taken to assign it to humans (animals). The bigger and stronger will survive. The world however, has much smaller species that also are living and functioning entities that also have to adapt to the ‘environment’. Their worst enemy is mankind. This is because mankind has altered the environment and poses much more of a threat to a little understood virus we call COVID-19 than any other animals. Over the centuries Mankind has altered the environment in untold ways. Altering the landscapes to build bridges, make roadways, to mine for ores or drill for oil to feed cars and trucks and motors. We have destroyed the land to make diamonds for rings and Mountains to go skiing. And Mankind has forced the ‘viruses” to adapt, and to mutate to survive and as once was mentioned many years ago that the day will come when there will become a super virus that will then prey on their biggest threat, mankind.
Welcome to today. We have been working hard to reach this point throughout history. This history is a story of Success AT AN -others expense and it has caught up with us. We will, no doubt, discover another vaccine, but survival of the fittest is not the measure of mankind, it is the measure of the planet and all the animals and creatures big and small that will mutate to survive. Mankind will not alter their SATAN embellishments. The environment will continue to change in response to our desire to be more profitable at anyone’s expense. The images from the virus events show how many people have chosen money over people time and time again.
The book REVELATIONS in the New Testament gives us an inkling of what is yet to come. It does not, and never has required of GOD to cease being a loving GOD. It has always been convenient to blame GOD for the wars and lives of mankind, rather themselves. Pick a name out of any news story of the coverage of the Pandemic to see this in action on any given day. Money over People.
If GOD wanted to get involved GOD is choosing to do it through all of those who are risking their lives everyday to save as many people as they can before a vaccine is formulated. From doctors and nurses and first responders to the manufacturing people to keep food moving down an assembly line, to a family knocking on the window of a grandparent to say “Hi, we still love you”.
Someday we may choose LIFE over MONEY. GOD’S (through JESUS) desire of “ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN” will be our new corporate manta. Hopefully we can embark on that ideology while there is still a chance. What the Virus does not harm, MONEY in the hands of SATAN’S followers and “LIKES” will.
We shall see what the next few months will bring.
IS the Pandemic making life a different environment for the world we are living in? OR IS IT?
Was my earthly father correct? The rest of the story is yet to be written.
Joseph’s Song
Joseph’s Song
We were talking at church about Joseph of Joseph, Mary and Jesus sometime ago and it resurfaced again this last weekend. The last time I discussed it was 11 years ago and I had been moved to write a song about it at that time.
Not in a position to record it today, but can post it.
Joseph’s Song
(words and music 2006 : dennis wheeler)
It is quite a task you’ve given, to be the father of your son
For it is only wood and nails I know, for teaching life to the holy one
It is quite task you’ve given, to raise your Jesus as my Son
I’m not a learned man of scriptures, I am as simple as they come.
Can I teach him how to love, when it is only wood I have
Can I teach him how to judge, by putting nails into his hands?
It is I that you have chosen, to send your son into the world
Just a carpenter with hands so rough, to shape the spirit of the Lord
I am a carpenter and as such, my life is working with my hands
What can I teach your son named Jesus, that he may understand.
Can I teach him how to love, when it is only wood I have
Can I teach how to judge, buy putting nails in his hands?
So far the path has not been easy, the soldiers come to find your son,
I have to move my family through the sands, because the truth scares everyone.
What lies ahead for the life of Jesus, that you’d entrust to this carpenter
I kneel in prayer for your help each evening, that you protect this child of yours.
Can I teach him how to love, when it is only wood I have
Can I teach how to judge, buy putting nails in his hands?
It isn’t that I am not grateful, that I am the one you chose to ask
I only feel that as a carpenter, I’m not equipped to perform the task.
May you give to me the wisdom, to teach beyond what I’ve explored
Just a carpenter with hands to rough, to shape the spirit of the lord.
Can I teach him how to love, when it is only wood I have
Can I teach how to judge, buy putting nails in his hands? (2X)
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Being a Dad has its differences from being a Mom. Being a Dad to a son also has special references. What have you talked to Jesus and GOD about your job as a parent today?
They are always hearing and always listening. Start your conversation today.