HAIR

My wife and I saw “Hair” last weekend at the Kauffman Center. We had seen it before about 40 years ago. For the uninitiated, Hair is a Broadway musical that was first produced in 1968. It was at the time a contemporary snapshot of the emerging counter-culture, sometimes called the hippies.

I was not an active participant in this movement, but more of an eye-witness, since I turned twenty in 1968. 

There was a pretty good size group of people around the world that actually thought we could build a better world around the values of peace, love, happiness, and freedom. Some of these people were Christians who desired to live a first-century Christian life-style of community, sharing, and working together. Most were not Christians, but aspired to these same ideals.

Even though this period was short, from about 1967 to maybe 1973, it inspired some of the greatest music and art of the twentieth century. The movement could have been more successful and long-lived but Satan realized he had to squelch it in the bud to keep this “Peace and Love” thing from taking off and brought out his biggest weapons.  He used drugs, and to a lesser degree unbridled sex, to take out the heroes and disgrace the counter-culture.

I often wonder how the world would have been different if drugs had not taken their toll. Would this country still have been involved in almost continuance warfare since Vietnam? Would the people of this generation still be so hedonistic and materialistic? It turns out that we are still human and working for the benefit of each other, living in peace, love, and community can only be accomplished through the faith and the grace of God.

Pawn Shops

Jerry Childers was a guitar picking friend who worked in a pawn shop. One day he decided to leave our band, quit the pawn business, move back to his home town, get married, and become a mailman. As far as I know, that was what he did because I never saw him again.

Before he left town, he sold his Gibson Trini Lopez and introduced me to the owner of the pawn shop and recommended that I take his place. That was the beginning of my pawnbroker career and a steep education curve. I became the local "expert" on musical instruments and cameras.

That is why I enjoy watching "Pawn Stars" and "Cajun Pawn" on the History Channel so much. Actually real life at Doug's Pawn Shop would have made a better TV show because of all of the bazaar things that happened there. I am also pretty sure that these "reality" shows are mellowed out a lot to make them palatable for TV viewers. A television show could never match the real life adventures that happen in places like auctions, pawn shops, and touring rock bands. Most people wouldn't believe it anyway. I know, I've done all those things.

Kansas Wind Turbines

If you think it is windy now....wait until they get things hooked up and turned on.

Actually, with the oil producers scrapping the bottom of the wells and the governor signing a tax bill that will most likely bankrupt the state, the answer may be blowing in the wind. Wind is the major natural resource in Kansas that will never run out or go away.

Some people think they are noisy or they kill birds. I presume that these people have never seen a strip mine or tried to figure out what to do with spent nuclear fuel.

What do you think? Iis wind a good source of energy, especially in wind rich places like Kansas?

The Lectern

In 1989 I was on the board of my church. Somebody suggested that we needed a powered lectern for one of the classrooms. The room was fairly large and the teachers were having trouble being heard. We agreed that that a lectern or podium with a built in sound system would solve the problem.

I volunteered to investigate the purchase. I decided that none of the commercially available units were just right. They were either too small or too expensive. I decided that I could build one myself that would be better than anything on the market. I had been involved designing and building sound systems before and also enjoyed wood-working. My shop was available and I wasn’t particularly busy. It was the perfect project.

I spent a few weeks studying speaker configurations, amplifiers, and microphone placement and came up with a great design. I built the cabinet out of solid oak and put on ten coats of hand-rubbed lacquer. I carefully selected a Shure microphone that had good isolation properties so that sound would not transfer when people tapped on the lectern or moved the microphone. The microphone was attached by a gooseneck with concealed wiring. The speakers were a stacked array of four eight-inch speakers.

It looked and sounded great. My wife was so impressed that she thought we should go into business making them. I wasn’t as excited because I knew that we would have to get the cost down to make it profitable. There was just too much hand work involved for the price we would be able to sell them for.

I proudly delivered the powered lectern to the church in March of 1989. It worked in the room as planned and I assumed that it was going to work out wonderfully. When I checked in on it a few months later, I found that one of the teachers and repeatedly bent the gooseneck over causing the wires to break inside. This was fine. It told me that I needed to reinforce the wiring through the gooseneck. I still considered this a prototype and learning the weaknesses was part of the process.

I made the changes, but when I checked on the lectern later I found that the high quality Shure microphone had been replaced by a cheap mike from a chain electronics store. The new microphone was noisy and susceptible to feedback reducing the overall quality considerably. I presumed that the original microphone was stolen, but I really don’t know what happened to it. By this time I was off the board and buying another Shure mike was not in my budget. I had donated all of my time and materials up to this point.

After awhile I went on to other projects and quit checking on the lectern and for several years didn’t know or think about its use or whereabouts.

About fifteen years later I noticed the lectern in a classroom. The gooseneck microphone was gone and the electronics had been stripped, but it still looked pretty good.

That lectern is still used every Sunday and several times during the week, but without the sound system. I am sure that the hundreds of people who see it each week never give it a second thought. Most would admit that it looks fine and serves it purpose. Almost nobody knows that it is not anywhere near living up to the purpose that its creator intended. I intended for the polished oak cabinet to contain a sound system allowing any speaker to be heard throughout a large room. Instead it is used only to hold notes and to give the teacher something to lean on. Not what I intended at all.

I believe that this lectern is a good metaphor for most of our lives. We are serving a useful purpose, we still look pretty good after all of these years, but our greater purpose, the reason God designed and created us in the first place, has been lost.

It could be that like the lectern, we were abused at a time when we were weak. Or it could be that somebody stole something critical like our education or a dream. Maybe somebody discouraged us from following our passion because of some misguided idea. Whatever the reason, we lost our purpose but continued to be available in some way, just not at the level God intended.

It also occured to me that if any time in the past twenty-three years, right up to now, if somebody would have come to me and asked me to restore the lectern to its original form and intent, I would have it done in a very short time, but nobody has asked.

I believe that God is the same way. If we would only turn to Him and ask Him to restore us to fulfill the mission He intended, I know He would get started right away. It may not be immediate. There may be something that needs to be done or undone. Like that lectern, it might involve some disassembly and seeing what is inside that can be used and what needs to be replaced. But God can certainly do it. After all, He created us in the first place and He doesn’t make mistakes.

Have a Wonderful Christmas

As a follower of Jesus, I celebrate the birthday of Jesus on December 25 just like most of the other billions of Christians. Of course we don't really know the date Jesus was born, but December 25 is as good a day as any.

The Bible tells us that wise men travelled from a long distance to bring gifts to the new born baby who would become the Savior of the World. Because of that, it has become a tradition to give gifts to each other as part of the celebration.

Giving and receiving gifts is one of the languages of love and is a nice way to show people that we care about them and want to make an emotional connection with them. Thinking about a person and taking the time to select something that we think they would enjoy is a very real part of any relationship.

It does seem that we have taken this custom to the extreme as more and more people seem to forget about honoring Jesus and put their energy into spending money they don't have for reasons that are less than obvious.

I like to go to white elephant gift parties. The original idea of the white elephant was to give your enemies a gift that they had to spend money to house and maintain without any real benefit. A white elephant is a useless gift that puts a hardship on the receiver. The modern version is usually taken as a joke, and is a lot of fun.

Several years ago my wife and got rid of 75% of our possessions, moved from a four bedroom house to a two bedroom apartment and pledged to live more simply and tread lighter on the earth. From that point of view, most gifts are white elephants, because it turns out that it is a lot harder to sell something or give it away than it is to buy it in the first place.

Maybe it is time we changed our Christmas emphasis from buying stuff to remembering some of the things Jesus taught us. He taught a lot of things, but his central message was love and forgiveness. He said that anybody can love their friends; the real test is loving your enemies and forgiving those that hate you.

I like the idea that Christmas is close to the new year. What better way to start the year fresh than to follow Jesus' teaching and forgive those who have wronged us and make reconciliation with anybody we have had tense relationships with?

This year let us: Spend Less, Love More, Forgive Everyone, Serve Others.

Let me know how it works out.

Beryl Harrell

How many of you have heard of Beryl Harrell?

There is a great story about her in the fall issue of The Fretboard Journal.

She was born in 1918 in Washington but grew up in Los Angeles. She took steel guitar lessons from steel guitar legend and pioneer Sol Ho’opi'i. By all accounts she was gorgeous and a phenomenal steel guitar player. She played in several all-girl Hawaiian bands in the 1930’s and ‘40’s.

After the war, country music, and particularly western swing, became huge in Southern California and she became a sensation playing in all the famous LA clubs such as The Palomino Club. She hung out with Merle Travis, Les Paul, Leo Fender, and Paul Bigsby around the Los Angeles music scene in the early 1950’s. When Las Vegas took off she started playing there as well.

In 1963 at the age of 45 she decided that she was too old for playing all the clubs and late hours, so she quit music and sold her steel guitar. She went to work as a telephone operator at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, but she missed playing music so much that she became very depressed.

In 1977, not yet 60 years old, she decided that life without music wasn’t worth living, and she took her own life.

To those of us past 60 and playing as good as ever, and nowhere near gorgeous, this is an amazing story.

Science

One of the great theological questions throughout the ages has been “Does God have a sense of humor?” Personally I think He does, but it may not be the same as ours. A lot of Jesus’ teachings use humor, though through language and culture changes, much of it is lost on us.

Proverb 25:2 in The Message version says, “God delights in concealing things; scientists delight in discovering things.” This is a remarkable insight into what we call “science.” It would seem that there is something like a big game of hide and seek, with God slowly disclosing nature’s secrets to us, to both His and our delight.

Of course we often get it wrong. Many of the things that were considered true just a few decades ago have been proven incorrect. In fact the joy of research is finding new things, disproving old theories, and forming new theories based on new discoveries. It is a moving target, which is the whole idea. That is why it is so amazing that we take everything that is thought to be scientific as fact.

When I was in school, science was defined as anything that is observable and repeatable. Since then that definition has expanded greatly and now includes many theories and ideas that have not been observed and aren’t repeatable.

God delights in us finding out how things work, but I doubt if He would find any delight in the current situation where science has been elevated to a god. Faithful people now find themselves defending God against science instead of the other way around.

One of the most obvious characteristics of current society is the high place given to science. If someone says something is scientific, it becomes hard to argue with it. Science has indeed become god to the majority of people.

Tool Time

When I was sixteen years old and working on my first car, I needed a Phillips screwdriver. The cheap ones my Dad had in his tool box were worn out and not too useful. So I took my freshly minted driver’s license, got in my Pontiac and drove to the hardware store.

The hardware guy directed me to some cheap screwdrivers not unlike the one’s my dad had. After I insisted that I wanted a good screwdriver, he showed me one that was equal to about 4 or 5 hours of minimum wage labor. I happily parted with my hard-earned money and finished the job.

I have used that same Phillips screwdriver almost every week of my life since – 47 years. My mantra since then has been “you have to have good tools.” That applies to musical instruments, cameras, as well as hammers and screwdrivers.

Most of the tools I have, I have owned for decades. I tend to buy the best stuff and keep it forever. That doesn’t work with digital things, but for about everything else, that has worked for me.

Today I decided to empty the contents of my six tool boxes onto my work table and have a big Tool Sort.

It turned out to be a trip down memory lane as I saw tools related to various projects and phases in my life. Specialty bicycle tools reminded me of my heavy cycling phase and some left over woodworking tools reminded me that it was ten years when I sold my woodworking shop and invested the money in musical instruments – a decision I have never regretted.

Somebody once said that the difference between people in poverty and the middle class is the people in the middle classes have tools and know how to use them. Upper class people know people who know how to use tools. I am glad I am solidly middle class.

5,000 to 5 and back to 5,000 in 100 years.

In 1900 there were about 5,000 coffee roasters in the US. By 1960 that number had shrunk to five. Now there are about 5,000 again.

Interestingly, this phenomenon has occurred in a number of industries with a number of products. In a relatively new industry there are a large number of players producing a wide variety of products. Eventually the weak die off and the strongest survive and buy up others and consolidate.

This monopoly or oligopoly can go on for years or decades as quality declines, before the quality and lack of choice becomes so bad that independents begin to spring up.

The public then recognizes that they no longer have to settle for the low quality of the mass producers as more and more small high quality producers spring up.

Everybody wins except the old oversized oligopoly who now must try to learn from the new smaller competitors. In many cases they never learn and die themselves.

In the past one hundred years this has happened not only to coffee, but beer, recorded music, the movie industry, television programming, musical instruments, to some degree automobiles, and I am sure many other products.

The bottom line: if you want to encourage quality products, buy from the independent companies; buy your music direct from the musicians; and drink locally roasted coffee and locally brewed beer.

An Argument for Higher Taxes

Every so often somebody will take a survey of the various nations to see who are the happiest people. They will then publish a list, ranking the world’s nations by how happy they are. I was looking at one of these list a few weeks ago and noticed that the USA was way down the list, perhaps close to the middle of the range along with many impoverished and third world countries.

A few days later, in another publication, I saw a list of countries, listing their rates of taxation. I was startled to see that it was almost exactly the same list. The higher the taxes, the happier the people. How could this be? I went on to discover that the happiest people, with the highest taxes, also had some of the highest rates of entrepreneurship and successful businesses. So much for the idea that high taxes hurt business.

Norway for example, has free education and free health care for everybody, meaning they have a very healthy, highly educated population, which leads to successful businesses, a healthy economy, and happy people. People are not hampered by student loans and businesses don’t have to pay out huge sums to provide health care for their employees. Sure, they have high taxes, but you get what you pay for.

In turns out that in countries such as Norway, Denmark, Sweden, etc. the people see taxes in much the same way as they see any other expenditure. The emphasis is not so much on how much it costs, but what do they get for their money. Instead of seeing taxes as something the government forces on us and that we should we resist as much as possible. The happiest countries see taxes as a way to buy the things they want. For example good education, health care, good highways, and public art are all things that are considered to be good value for public money. Politicians are held accountable for giving good value for the money spent, not just on keeping the taxes low.

The Governor of Kansas just dissolved the Kansas Arts Commission to save money. I never considered the Kansas Arts Commission a particular extravagant organization and certainly not a waste of money.

It is interesting that a report just came out in the US indicating that Federal taxes are at a 60 year low as a factor of the overall economy. In other words, taxes have not been lower since the Truman Administration, yet we seem unhappy about just about everything.

Could it have something to do with the fact that our schools are suffering, college costs, and medical care are outrageous, and arts organizations are begging for handouts, while the governments are in debt, refusing to tackle a tax code that taxes us at rates that are among the lowest and most inconsistent in the world.

Something to think about.

Our Brain Garden

I have always found it interesting how our brains work and how much different people are from one another. I recently came up with an analogy which helps me understand this a little better and is consistent with recent research.

Imagine our brains, or our minds if you will, as a garden. The garden can be anything. It can be beautiful with lots of flowers or rich with vegetables of all kinds. When we are born our brains are basically an empty lot. God has fertilized the soil and planted some seeds. Each person has received different amounts of fertilizer or intelligence, and a different variety of seeds. We might call the seeds gifts, or talents.

Soon there are little sprouts here and there and the seeds begin to grow in the fertile ground. It takes until about age five or six before the bare soil is covered with vegetation. That is when we are first able to do complex problem solving. That is why we generally start children in school and this age because this is when they are first able to understand more complex ideas such as math and spelling. Of course this varies from person to person because we are all different with varying amounts and varieties of “seeds” and “fertilizer” in our brain.

As we reach adolescence, the brain blossoms like a garden on a warm day after a spring rain. That is why teenagers think they know it all, because they know so much more than they did just a few years before. The truth is, at that point our brains are just an overgrown mess, with weeds and unruly growth everywhere you look, like a neglected garden. This goes a long way toward explaining teenage behavior.

We then start a life-long process of tending the garden. We can selectively pull up weeds, nurture the plants we like, and trim or prune to our heart’s desire; literally – what out heart desires.

We are still dealing with the seeds that God planted all those years ago, and we are limited to the richness of the soil, our basic intelligence. But for the most part, the amount of care and attention we put into tending the garden is what counts the most in the long term.

Tending the garden that is our brain looks like reading, education, the friends we have, the music we listen to, what television programs we watch, everything that goes into out head.

Because what we think about determines what we do and how we act; what we choose to nurture and what we choose to ignore or let die, determines our life. We can have a fruitful garden, a beautiful garden, a beautiful fruitful garden, or it can be a mess our whole lives.

Our lives will most likely be smoother if we identify the seeds that we have early on and work and tend them accordingly. In other words, understand our giftedness and follow up with education and work that best suits our giftedness. But no matter what, just paying attention to how we feed our head, how we tend the garden that is our mind, will decide the ultimate outcome of our lives.

On Poverty

There has been recent news about the poverty level in the US being at records highs. Of course they are talking about income level which is only one measure of poverty, and not a very good one.

I grew up in one of the poorest counties in the nation and now live in one of the richest, so I have thought about this a lot. How I got here is a bit of a mystery, but it boils down to an insatiable hunger for knowledge.

Reducing poverty to the notion of income or money is simplistic and leads us down rabbit trails in finding a solution. If that was the problem, just giving people more money would solve the problem. Lyndon Johnson tried that and it didn't work.

It seems to me that the dividing line between the classes in this country is education. Not the availability of education or the quality of the schools, but simply the desire to learn. Growing up in a very low income town, I got to see the kids get sorted out real fast. The dividing line was the desire to learn. That dividing line is even more prevalent today.

Some people are always learning, always reading, always going to seminars and continuing education classes. These are the successful people, regardless of their income level. Other people have no desire to learn anything new. They drop out of school, figure they already know it all, and if they get a job, never advance because they have no desire to learn. These are the people who live in poverty, regardless of their income level.

This is the culture issue that needs to be addressed immediately.

I have really been enjoying teaching seminars and classes lately, because I get to know people who have an honest desire to learn new things.

Physical Fitness

The Bible in I Corinthians 6:9 reminds us that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and that we are to honor God with our bodies. This has a number of implications and taking care of our health is certainly one of them.

I have not written about physical fitness before but this seems like a good time. As I see some of the evidence around me such as the huge amounts of money spent on health care related to obesity and poor eating habits, and even chubby folks passing themselves off as fitness coaches, I decided I should try to encourage some of you with a little of my story.

I bought a new car in 1984. When I reached under the car and pulled on a wrench on the oil drain plug at the first oil change, I sprang my shoulder. We were leaving for vacation and I spent the week skiing nursing a sore shoulder. I was 36 years old. That is when I realized that youth was no longer on my side.

When we returned home, I joined Gold’s Gym, enlisted a fitness coach for a short time to get the basics down, and set out on a disciplined routine. I began a diet high in fruits and vegetables and low in fat. I worked out with weights and on cardio equipment three times a week and got plenty of rest. I also subscribed to wellness and medical newsletters to learn about, and stay up on, the latest in fitness ideas. I have continued this routine faithfully through the years.

In the last 26 years, I have never missed a day of work due to illness, I have never been treated by a doctor or been in a hospital, and I take no medications. My weight has varied less than 10 pounds.

I realize that with a sample size of one and no control group, this is hardly a scientific study, but for an experiment of one in healthy living and consistent exercise, I believe that I have been successful.

I am sometimes accused of preaching the gospel of physical fitness, but now is the time to start encouraging my friends to take better care of themselves. I realize that it is very difficult to start improving your health if you are already over weight or in poor condition. The best thing to do is to start with good habits when you are young, so that you never have to spend the time and effort needed to break old habits and overcome years of neglect. But one can start anytime.

The best time to start living a healthy lifestyle was probably twenty or thirty years ago. The next best time is today.

If you are fifty pounds overweight and get winded climbing a flight of stairs, I am sorry, I don’t know what to tell you. I have never had that experience. If you are in good shape now, keep up the good work. My experience has been that it takes more effort to stay in top physical condition as our bodies’ age, but it is worth it.

How old will we be in heaven?

How old will we be in heaven? This is a question that has been around since the beginning of time. The only people who don’t ask it are the ones who don’t think they are going there. One possible answer is that we would be the age we were when we died. Some of us would be very old, while others would be babies, or unborn. I think the answer may be less obvious. It is possible that we have sort of a preset age in our brains.

When I was a child in the ‘50s, a lot of people called me “the little man.” I would have been perfectly happy to wear a suit and carry a briefcase to grade school if I could have. I am not sure I didn’t sometimes. When I was in college in the ‘60s, others were turning on and dropping out. I didn’t get it. I was starting businesses.

Eventually, I hit my stride and the world was a wonderful place. For years the world was in sync and I was as happy as a clam. Actually, I don’t really know if clams are happy or not, that is just an expression.

Now people who were born about the same time I was are getting old while I am not. I know this is delusional, but that is the way it seems to me.

One of my heroes, filmmaker, Warren Miller, asks the question, “If you didn’t know how old you are, how old do you think you are?” His answer is 14. He has always considered himself a wisecracking 14 year old, even though he is now in his eighties. I know a lot of people who are emotionally and intelligently in junior high their whole lives. I also know people who have been seventy-five their whole lives.

Personally, I know how old I will be in heaven. I will be the same age I have always been, no matter how old my body is, forty-two. How old are you?

Schools Kill Creativity

Here is an excellent video on creativity by Ken Robinson:

Types of Commitment

There are different kinds and different levels of commitment. My favorite analogy is about the bacon and eggs breakfast. The chicken was involved, but the hog was committed.

Some people seem to never commit to anything, while others are quick to commit and just as quickly, uncommit. Others are slow to commit, but once a decision is made they go all out. I’m in the last group.

A number of years ago my wife and I were involved with a weekly Bible Study group. We met every Thursday night for about seven years. We only missed once or twice during that time and only because we were gone on vacation. There were six couples and it was rare when all twelve of us were there. This was always a mystery to me why people couldn’t commit.

I eventually figured out that some people commit to people and some to the event. To us, the Bible study was only a little important but the relationships were extremely important. We were committed to the people, not the event. It was easy to blow-off the event, but we couldn’t let our friends down, even though they consistently showed us through their actions that we weren’t all that important to them.

In a business setting we try to commit to an event, a product, or a service, but more often than not, we are really committed to the people. That is why when a procedure is put ahead of relationships, there is friction. We do business with people we like. The best companies hire for personality and train for skill, not the other way around.

Some personality types do tend to commit more to events. Here is a little test. Assume that you and a friend are planning to do something together, say go to a movie, and that person has to cancel. Do you go anyway, find someone else to go with you, or reschedule a time to go with your friend? Of course situations vary, but there is probably a trend. You are probably either committed to an event or schedule, or to people.

A few years ago I was on the board of not-for profit organization and we made a conscience decision to stop being event driven and start being people driven. I am not sure we accomplished much more, we were a lot happier and left less bodies in our wake.

I am not sure that one way is best, but it helps to understand that there is a difference.

Sweet Tea is Heading North

The sweet tea line is encroaching on the north. Whether the armadillos are following the sweet tea or the sweetened tea comes with the armadillos is anybody’s guess.

Not too many years ago, we hardly ever saw an armadillo in Kansas, or even in Oklahoma for that matter; and if you wanted your iced tea sweet you put in a couple of teaspoons of sugar. Now days flat armadillos are a regular feature of highway driving in Kansas and Missouri and waitresses have taken to asking if you want sweetened or unsweetened tea.

The amazing thing about this question is, how do you unsweeten tea? Tea is not sweet to begin with; therefore, you have to not add sugar to make it unsweetened. Taking the sugar out is a major trick.

At any rate, the line between sweet tea drinkers and us regular unadulterated tea types used to be the Mason-Dixon line. Then it became I-44. According to my friend, world traveler, and observer of such things, Dave Smart, the sweet-tea-line is now I-70. The alarming thing about this observation is that I live south of I-70, as do many of my friends. That means that the sweet tea infestation is near. It is time to defend ourselves. Can ‘possom stew and grits be far behind? And we haven’t even talked about Krispy Kreme.

I am sure that this is all caused by global warming and it is Al Gore’s fault.

Friends, let’s start rounding up the armadillos (those that haven’t already tried to cross the road) and send them back to Texas. And then next time somebody says, “Honey, would ya’ll like some tea.” Just remember that it is going to be loaded with sugar, and that you heard it here first.

The Eye of a Needle

When Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, it was a joke, but He wasn’t kidding. In modern language He could have said that it would easier to sell refrigerators to Eskimos; or maybe the rich man has a snowball’s chance in hell. It was that sort of statement. He went on to add; but anything is possible with God. This camel story appears three times in the Bible, so it was no casual comment.

That passage has worried me all my life and I think it comes down to the definition of “rich.” By the world’s standards, all Americans are rich. By my standards, anyone with more money than me is rich. I once thought that rich meant running water and flush toilets. Now I’m more inclined to think that it means gold-plated faucets.

My favorite recent definition of “rich” is to demonstrate our ability to be wasteful.

Not too many decades ago, if we owned land we used it to graze livestock, plant crops, or build something on it. Somebody decided that they could flagrantly demonstrate their wealth by setting aside a piece of prime real estate in front of their house. They would not graze cattle, or grow food, but just grow grass and then cut it down and throw it away. Now, just about everybody has a lawn, but few remember the purpose was to demonstrate that we are so wealthy that we have land to waste.

When Jesus condemned the rich, I think He was referring to the flagrant waste of resources. Fast forward two thousand years. How do we flagrantly waste resources? Are we so rich that we never have to open a window but instead rely on heating and air conditioning to maintain an even temperature in our office buildings? Are we so rich that we can drive around in oversized vehicles that are too large for our purposes? Are we so rich that we not only set aside space to raise grass just to look at, but then use millions of gallons of water to keep it green, just to cut it down? Are we so rich that we can keep fifty gallons of water hot, just in case we need it, instead of heating water only when we want hot water? I could go on for a long time, but I think you get the idea.

In the Old Testament, in II Samuel 15:1 “Absalom provided for himself a chariot with horses and fifty men to run in front of him.” I laugh every time I read that because I know so many people who would do that if they could. I presume that in Absalom’s time that was the equivalent of as stretch limo. He used it to impress people and it apparently worked. If you haven’t heard of Absalom, it is because God was not nearly as impressed as the people were and he quickly met his demise.

King Solomon is depicted as one of the wisest and wealthiest men ever to have lived, but he died unhappy and dejected. His autobiographical poem, the “Book of Ecclesiastes,” often refers to the vanity of chasing after things.

Surveys indicate that if there is any correlation between wealth and happiness it is the opposite of what we might expect. The wealthiest people are often among the most unhappy. The lottery has destroyed more lives than it has ever brought happiness.

Is it possible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? Well, like Jesus said, “Anything is possible with God.”