“ . . . the Chinese symbol for crisis is the merging of two signs, one meaning ‘danger’ and the other meaning ‘opportunity.’ A crisis has the potential to transform or destroy. And what is the tipping point toward transformation in the face of crisis? The choice is either to cower in fear or to step forward with courage.”

— Dr. Dan B. Allender, American author, educator, therapist

A presentation by Barry Swartz at the TED conference struck a cord with me. In it, Dr. Swartz describes practical wisdom as defined by Aristotle as the “combination of moral will and moral skill.”

This message should ring true to Christians. Sadly, in many Christian religious traditions the basis for their beliefs is rooted in commandments and rules instead of the spirit of Christ. Colossian 2:20-23 reads:

Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. (NIV)

The church on Colossi was struggling with Gnosticism manifesting in part as a form of Jewish legalism to which Paul reminds them of the internal nature of Christ. In Jeremiah it was prophesied that when Christ comes the laws will be written on our minds and hearts.

“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel

after that time,” declares the LORD.

“I will put my law in their minds

and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God,

and they will be my people. (Jeremiah, NIV)”

God’s plan for us is to live with wisdom within the context of His will. Even the Bible, as perfect as it is, can not regulate every action of the human mind. My children are fond of justifying their actions by the phrase, “but the Bible doesn’t specifically say we can’t….”

That’s why Paul’s message and prayer to the church in Colossi was that “… we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. (NIV, Colossians 1:9)”

Practical Christian wisdom is a combination of Spiritual will and Biblical skill. As Christians we must continue to study the scriptures and let the spirit of God take control of our lives. Choosing a life filled with the Spirit instead emptied by sets of rules

James 3

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.

Proverbs 10:13-14

Wisdom is found on the lips of the discerning,

but a rod is for the back of him who lacks judgment.

Wise men store up knowledge,

but the mouth of a fool invites ruin.

“Your credibility suffers when you rely on rules and policies instead of being flexible enough to help others solve problems. It’s easy to say, ‘That’s against the rules!’. It’s better to say, ‘Let’s identify the problem and see if there is a way to solve it.’ People trust problem-solvers.” Sandy Allgeier, “Can You Be Trusted?, “ Personal Excellence, June 2009

Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.” – Julius Henry “Groucho” Marx, 1890-1977, American comedian and film star

If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet.
Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1905-1991, Polish-American author

Don’t confuse character with reputation. Abraham Lincoln said, ‘Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.’ Some people spend too much time worrying about the shadow and too little about the tree. Reputation is fragile; character endures.

Good character is ethics in action; it’s the ability to summon the moral strength to do the right thing even when it may cost more than we want to pay.

People of character do the right thing even if no one is looking; they live up to their values even when there is no advantage to do so.

Finally, no one is born with good character. It’s something we all have to build and protect day by day, decision by decision.”
- Michael Josephson

“Loneliness is the inescapable lot of a man holding such a job. Subordinates can advise, urge, help, and pray – but only one man in his own mind and heart can decide, “Do we or do we not?” The stakes are always high, and the penalties are expressed in terms of loss of life or major or minor disasters to the nation. No man can always be right. So the struggle is to do one’s best, to keep the brain and conscience clear; never to be swayed by unworthy motives or inconsequential reasons, but…to do one’s duty. It is not always easy.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower to his wife Mamie February 15, 1943.

Beware of your thoughts, they become your words.
Beware of your words, they become your actions.
Beware of your actions, they become your habits.
Beware of your habits, they become your character.
Beware of your character, it becomes your destiny.
- Unknown

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Here are the steps:

Step 1: Gather tools and ingredients

• Raw Turkey (Make sure it’s not smoked)
• Seasoning (Salt, Pepper, Poultry Seasoning, Garlic)
• Olive oil
• 20 gal metal trash can (new)
• 18# of charcoal
• Charcoal lighter fluid
• 2X2X24″ wooden stake (or anything that will hold the turkey roughly in the middle of the can)
• Heavy-duty aluminum foil
• Sledge Hammer
• Shovel
• Long handled tongs
• gloves

Step 2: Prep the turkey.

If frozen, thaw the turkey before seasoning and cooking.  Once thawed remove the giblets (heart, gizzard, liver, and other visceral organs) and set aside for giblet gravy.  Lightly coat the outside of the turkey with extra virgin olive oil then evenly coat with salt, pepper, garlic, and poultry seasoning (Thyme, Sage, Marjoram, Rosemary, Nutmeg).  Some recipes recommend seasoning hours before cooking but I rarely am that organized and can’t really tell the difference.  Discriminating palates won’t eat something cooked in a trashcan anyway.

Step 3:  Prepare the cooking site

Choose an outside location away from flammable structures and other material.  The cooking spot will kill any grass or plants underneath (and subject you to spouse ridicule for years to come) so a patch of dirt away from everything is best.  Use the shovel to flatten and smooth the ground underneath the cooking location.  Spread the heavy-duty foil over the cook site, extending the foil to about 18 inches outside the diameter of the trash can (about 4′ X 4′).  Lay foil for lighting the charcoal in a separate location but close enough to easily move the coals to the trash can.  Use the sledge hammer to drive the wooden stake into the ground leaving about 14 inches above the ground.  Wrap foil over the top of the stake (for the sensitive ones)

Step 4: Trash can preparation and charcoal

If you can find one and afford it, a stainless steel trash can is preferred.  The most readily available can is galvanized and there is a risk of contaminating the turkey with zinc used in the galvanization process.  To avoid contamination, burn the inside of a new Galvanized trash can prior to using.  I placed crumpled newspapers in the bottom of the can, coated the sides of the can with lighter fluid, and carefully lit the paper.  Once the can is prepared light the charcoal in a separate location according to directions.  Use a separate location to avoid lighter fluid contaminating the cooking area. Once the charcoal is mainly gray it’s time to cook the turkey.

Step 5:  Cook the turkey

Place the turkey onto the  stake and place the trash can upside down over the turkey.  Using a shovel transfer enough coals to the top (was the bottom) of the overturned can.  Wearing leather gloves and using long handled tongs spread the coals evenly.  Stack the remaining coals around the base of the can.  The higher you can stack the coals the more efficient the heat will be transferred into the cooking area.  Use the same glove/tong combination to stack the coals.  Cook the turkey about 7 minutes for every pound of bird weight ( mine was 13lbs X 7 = 91minutes).  Most turkeys come with a pop-up timer to indicate if it is done. Unless it’s extremely cold outside I doubt this will be a problem.

Step 6:  Finish and Serve

When the turkey finishes, carefully move the bottom coals away from the can in case (doubtful) the turkey needs to cook more.  What you are most likely to find is a turkey cooked so well and tender it has fallen apart onto the foil.  With leather gloves, carefully lift the can from the turkey.   When fully cooked place on a serving platter and take inside where (hopefully) someone else has prepared dressing/stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and pecan pie.  If this is not the case, enjoy your turkey sandwich.

Bad and mediocre people are tempted to sin by their own habitual weaknesses. The earlier lies or thefts or adulteries make the next one that much easier to contemplate. Having already cut so many corners, the thinking goes, what’s one more here or there? Why even aspire to virtues that you probably won’t achieve, when it’s easier to remain the sinner that you already know yourself to be?

But good, heroic people are led into temptation by their very goodness – by the illusion, common to those who have done important deeds, that they have higher responsibilities than the ordinary run of humankind. It’s precisely in the service to these supposed higher responsibilities that they often let more basic ones slip away. – Ross Douthat, New York Times, November 13, 2011

Now this man [Judas] purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. (Acts 1:18 KJV)

Even though the account of Judas death seems to be contrary to understanding Christian love, It is key to understanding a first century metaphor that John uses in a letter to an early Christian community. The passage is found in John 3:11-18:

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3:11-18 NIV)

1. Psyche vs Zoe. First, Christians who love each other understand what John meant when he wrote “we have passed from death to life.” This statement is confusing to non-Christians because it is opposite of what we understand as normal. Normally we live and pass through life into death. Jesus turned what the world thought as normal upside down, through him believers are dead to the imperfections of the physical world and pass into a perfect spiritual world. Echos of this statement are in John 12:25:

Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (John 12:25 NIV)

The Greek language makes it clear:

Anyone who loves their psyche (life) will lose it, while anyone who hates their psyche (life) will keep it…

…for aoinios Zoe (eternal life)

The different life’s are defined in Strongs as:

psyche: breath: the breath of life: the vital force which animates the body and shows itself in breathing of animals, of men; life: that in which there is life a living being, a living soul

aionios: without beginning and end, that which always has been and always will be without beginning without end, never to cease, everlasting

Zoe: life real and genuine, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed, in the portion even in this world of those who put their trust in Christ, but after the resurrection to be consummated by new accessions (among them a more perfect body), and to last for ever

Psyche to Zoe through Jesus Christ.

2. Pity is a pitiful translation. People who have eternal life in common act differently in this psyche world, and differently to each other. An evidence that we have passed from psyche to Zoe is that we love each other. And we love each other differently than others. So what does all of this have to do with Judas hanging himself? Look at the different translations of 1 John 3:17:

If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be that person? (1 John 3:17 NIV)

If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? (1 John 3:17 NLT)

But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? (1 John 3:17 ESV)

But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? (1 John 3:17 KJV)

3. Splagonon The Greek word the NIV translates as “has no pity” in 1 John 3:17 is the same word used to describe what happened to Judas, the word the KJV literally translates as “shutteth up his bowels”

splagchnon – Upper visera, bowels, intestines, (the heart, lungs, liver, etc.). the bowels were regarded as the seat of the more violent passions, such as anger and love; but by the Hebrews as the seat of the tenderer affections, esp. kindness, benevolence, compassion; hence our heart (tender mercies, affections, etc.); a heart in which mercy resides

Look at other scriptures that use this first century figure of speech:

For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:8 KJV)

If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. (Philippians 2:1, 2 KJV)

Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. (Colossians 3:12, 13 KJV)

For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother. (Philemon 1:7 KJV) Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels: (Philemon 1:12 KJV)Yea, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord: refresh my bowels in the Lord. (Philemon 1:20 KJV)

4. Being Human
Complexities on what it means to be human…
…Cognative Thought life intellect mind, assent and affirm, thoughts praise agree dimension of our being

…but splagchnon is the place we truly live from. Bowels may seem gross, but splagchnon part of out modern lexicon.
My daughter used it during the first week of practice to describe how she dealt with the first week of basketball conditioning…she gutted it out
We say, I hate that persons guts to mean there is something about their essence.
I knew it in my gut – Malcolm Gladwell.
Pit in my stomach

We can rationalize cognitively but still be unsetted in our being – splanchnon

Writer is saying that loving others either flows or does not flow based on the shutting or opening of the Splagchnon. Deeper understanding.

Compassion and pity is not something we can rationalize…it becomes part of our being in the Zoe life

We can cognitively rationalize we believe this and don’t believe that. We affirm this and not that but then live in a completely different way.

We can reason and discuss…but until there is a change in our gut not truly love. Only throughout the love of God and the Jesus the Word can we transfer from rationalization to the seat of our being.

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3:18 NIV)