Ground Rules
by Harry Banks
Hi, I'm Harry. Adventist Today has asked me to put some words down. Written words are not my natural media. I am more of a live interaction teacher-type communicator. Sometimes some wonderful, unexpected discoveries have come from those conversations. In this column I am going to try to learn how to communicate in this written format and see if we can enjoy some discoveries here as well.
But first, for those of you who care … (I got a bad class evaluation for saying that too much in the classroom. They said, "It makes it sound like some may not care." Hmmm … I sorta thought some people might actually not care.) Anyway, for those of you who care, here are some ground rules for my column …
What! Ground Rules?
Yeah … I'm gonna need some ground rules to be comfortable doing this because I plan to write like I'm telling a personal story about myself and my life. These are being offered "as is." You know when you buy some second-hand stuff it is sold "as is." Well these columns are going to be "free" and "as is" offerings. Which leads me to …
Rule Number 1.
Take the best and leave the rest.
I usually also add "and do not gossip," but since these are in print I don't expect anonymous readers to be careful with the free gift of a personal story. It would be nice, but it's a big world out there and not everyone has made a commitment to being considerate.
Rule Number 2.
No arguing.
If you choose to respond, please no arguing. If you reply with arguing, I will most likely not respond. I'm expert only on my own story and I expect you to be expert on your own story. If you feel like arguing it is likely because your story is different. That is OK. It's perfectly fine. So tell your story from your personal point of view! Just don't argue about it.
Rule Number 3.
No advice giving.
You gotta be kidding; No advice giving! Yep! I'll just tell my story. If you respond, you just tell your story … with no advice.
Rule Number 4.
Let's pray with and for each other.
I don't mean one of those I'm-going-to-preach-to-you-in-my-prayer kind of prayers but pray with a trusting heart that the Great God of Heaven and Earth can and will work miracles of faith, redemption and grace when we truly prayerfully intercede for each other.
Let me be the first to comment: This sounds wonderful! I am looking forward to reading more of your words!
Is this an invitation for everone to tell her own personal story? What to look for? Conversion story? Unconversion? Beliefs? Disillusionment? Delusions?
Expectations? Disappointments? Lessons learned?
This is the best, and perhaps only way to really get to know someone: listen, don't argue as a story cannot be argued, what is past is past; what is believed is very subjective and not open to disagreement.
O.K. Harry, you're first. Tell us about yourself that you want us to know.
Just noticed in you C.V. that you live in a very prominent town where a former VP nominee also lives! Next door neighbors?
Yes… OK… Let's get this out of the way… I have met her… Her sister drove a white pickup in front of my house in Wasilla. She was running for Mayor. She was in the passenger side of the truck. Rolled the window down and yelled… "I waaant youuuu! I'll bet you don't have many women tell you that!" I replied "Do I have to be honest?" With that she drove off.
Obviously it had a great influence on my vote since it had all the substance of "lipstick".
And I do drive past her house when ever I go to work — Well it's a block off the highway…
BTW I can see Denali (Mt. McKinley) from my house… but not Russia…
Welcome Harry!
Intercessory prayer is certainly one of the most underappreciated gifts we’re given. If it weren’t for intercessory prayers for me, I suspect that I would have been dead well before my 25th birthday.
Stephen,
How do you explain that to a skeptic?
It is somewhat difficult to explain things like this to those who are determined in their belief of non-belief; let’s say.
It they are somewhat open to belief I’d explain that since the long odds against my family surviving and thriving are self-evident; that we are beneficiaries Divine intervention.
(I’d also number the contemporaries of mine, Adventist and non-Adventist alike, who aren’t here.)
Admittedly, some things have to be experienced.
Welcome, and all the best with this new blog, Harry. "Finding fault" and "giving advice" are part of the Adventist curriculum from birth. Unleaning or at least checking those cultural habits at the blog's door will keep us on our toes….. Let's see, now, how many commandments have I broken already?…lol
Stephen,
Luck, happenstance, and prayer may all have the same attribution. If one believes in luck, the lottery is the perfect test of its efficacy. Anything else is in the eye of the beholder.
Skeptics aren't nearly so certain as believers; skeptics question and objective evidence is all that can be accepted; all else are subjective.
There are likely many similar situations who don't attribute surviving to prayer. Just last night, there was a 86-yr-old Jewish lady survivor of the Holocaust who told a most amazing story which has been duplicated numerous times. Few attribute their survival to God, but tremendous will-power, persistence and nothing divine.
For one who believes, it is comfortable to rely on prayer. But convincing others is not so simple unless they are prepared to accept all stories they've heard as due to prayer. I have known people who prayed about what they should wear to work; what they should eat that day, etc. Believers are covincing themselves; not so successful with others.
When I was about 12 years old, I developed a friendship with a then-young Israeli couple, Uri and Lea Arvel, he a captain in the army on assignment in Bolivia (where I was a missionary's kid) to help develop an agrarian/military program based on the Kibbutz system in Israel. The couple lived just a quarter mile from our home, so on Sundays I would often stop by their place to take a dip in their swimming pool or play a game of chess and, most of all, listen to lore and wisdom straight from the Holy Land. As with the biblical Leah, Mrs. Arvel talked about their desire to have kids, and that particular day she was feeling lethargic, tired and unspeakably hungry, so she declined the beer, just in case….
What was my surprise to discover that day that the Arvels were "cultural Jews" only, agnostic, but on the positive side highly informed about historical Judaism and by no means "anti-Bible," just skeptical of the divine explanation of biblical things. After a draught or two of brew (age and affiliation kept me from the cup!), Uri went on at some length about how the plagues of the Exodus were actually natural events that were later arranged into a morality narrative and attributed to Jehovah. The good captain assured me that it is not at all unusual for great winds to pile up the waters of the Reed Sea, or for blood-red algae to occasionally choke the waters of the Nile, before the days of the Aswan Dam. Frogs? Yes, infestations came; lice, the same. Pestilences of cattle, nothing new there. Darkness? Volcanoes spewing sulphuric gas into the sky off a Mediterranean island had an unpleasant habit of blocking out the sun for days, even weeks, etc.
Journalist at heart then, even before I knew what would become of me in later years, I asked Uri and Lea if their parents and grandparents held these liberal beliefs as well. They assured me that most Ashkenazy Jews (a new term I learned that afternoon) up to and during the Holocaust believed the divine elements of the Bible, but that the relentless genocide broke the faith of nearly all survivors. The attrocity was so unspeakable, the death toll so obscene, the carnage so inhuman, that the survivors concluded that NO God having the power to deliver His people, would EVER allow such psychopathic behavior to go on and on and on, year after year—that either God did not exist at all, or He was so unspeakably depraved, it would be a travesty to honor and worship Him one day longer. I had never heard that side of the Holocaust story, and I was troubled for many months. My faith in a Divine Being was not shaken by what Uri Arvel told me that afternoon as the sun filtered down on us through the leaves of the gnarled avocado tree. But my faith in my own ability to judge the merits and sinfulness, belief and cynicism of others, sank that day in the watery grave of that swimming pool. The faith I lost was in myself—in my own ability to understand good and evil at its core and to assess blame and penalties accordingly. I know remorseless evil when I see it—life has taught me it exists. But to trust myself as final arbiter of a person's right to be called a son or daughter of God, based on externals such as their ability to confess faith in God, or at a less cosmic level, to observe the Sabbath the way I believe it is kept best is something I no longer can do. We may all be created equal, but we all have life stories that CAN change us, sometimes wrenchingly "beyond belief."
Well, like I said Elaine, some “skeptics” are easier to talk to about these things than others. Those who are open to belief are obviously more likely to be receptive than those who are committed to unbelief. The latter really aren’t skeptics.
I'm a committed skeptic (maybe should be comitted 😉
Perhaps we should all be committed Elaine;-)
I’d say that even the most ardent and committed believers are not nearly as ardent and committed as was Elijah. He knew God could and would demonstrate His miraculous power one minute and was hiding and cowering in a cave soon thereafter, almost as if there was no God.
We are (or I am) somewhat/very similar. Sure, I know that Scripture reveals God to be loving and wise, yet I often do not trust Him as I should. Lord I believe. Help my unbelief.
Not argue? Pray for each other? This guy is already such an extreemist ..
I tend to prefer ground beef over ground rules – or at least to think that grinding is an excellent thing to do to rules.
Nonetheless, praying for one another in an authentic way sounds like an excellent place to start, and I look forward to hearing more (some) of Harry's story.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
No one believes everything he hears or reads. Children believe in fairy tales, Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. We enjoy childhood fantasies. Because someone tells me of an experience due to prayer or luck or coincidence, it is his experience and not mine to deny his explanation; but neither am I required to accept his explanation.
"Miracles" are often recounted for medical conditions. The patient may have one explanation and the physician another. Whose to believe?
Go figure, Harry …
You've appeard to have launched a discussion about what you do not intend ot discuss … situation normal here at AToday … you are obviously fitting right in!
It already sounds a bit like arguing when one responds that they don't believe what you say about answered prayer. It's not much of a motivation to share.