FOUNDATIONS OF INDEPENDENCE

I grew up in an inexpensive house.  I knew we were poor when we visited my Uncle Dave.  They lived in a beautiful two-story home with immaculate furnishings.  The style of our furniture was Early Goodwill.  My father and a friend built an addition onto the kitchen.  At the time, it looked big, but it didn’t look so big when I came back as an adult.    

Many of you may have seen the Canadian comedy show, “Red Green.”  Red fixed everything with duct tape.  My dad fixed everything with Liquid Nails.  It often didn’t look that pretty, but was sometimes functional.

The house had a forbidden corner.  It was where a water pump once stood, so the floor sagged in that corner.  It wasn’t good for anything except storing bathroom linens.  My dad would say, “You kids don’t get too close to that corner, you might fall in!”  We were scared to get near it, except to retrieve a bath towel and wash cloth.  I would stand at some distance and reach as far as I could without falling into that chasm where I would disappear for all eternity.  If you ever dropped any change in the kitchen, it would probably roll down there, and the rescue of that coin wasn’t worth the danger.

Fast forward to the present.  We bought a house that had problems we weren’t aware of.  The house is not level!  Our ground is clay near a drainage ditch.  When it rains, the clay acts like a sponge, expanding the foundation.  Now, if a friend falls indoors, we only have to go to the Northeast corner of the room to find where they rolled.  Well, it’s not that bad, but you get the point.

FOUNDATIONS ARE IMPORTANT for houses and for nations.  Friday is Independence Day in the U.S. Our nation has certain foundational principles and ideas.  Those principles came from four basic sources.   The four major influences were ancient thought, Enlightenment philosophy, the English tradition, and Protestant Christianity.  (1) Ancient world thinkers and their failures taught the Founders a lot when constructing the American republic.   (2) Enlightenment thinkers emphasized that the people should rule themselves through a limited government that would protect natural rights and secure the liberties of the people.  (3) The British protected basic rights, such as the right to trial by jury, property rights, and no taxation without consent. The government would be limited, especially the monarchy. (4) The writings associated with the Protestant Reformation emphasized individual liberty from civil and religious oppression. Protestant ideas, based on Scripture, of resistance against tyranny were generally consistent with the other three strains of republican thought. (For further reading on this, click here.)

If you start to erode any of these four building blocks of the foundation of America, it causes instability.  If enough is chipped away, the nation can fall.  The one area that has most eroded is the Biblical principles because they are the easiest to attack and misinterpret.  We have gone on a witch hunt for Christian teachings that were used to build our original foundation.  After all, it was Jesus who told the story about the foolish man who built his house on a foundation of sand.  The winds and rain came, and the house was destroyed.  The wise man built his house upon a rock, and it withstood all that came against it. (Matthew 7:24-27).  We know how we built our foundation.  If we let it erode, we only have ourselves to blame.

As we consider these things, let’s be thankful for the wisdom of our founding fathers.  They gave us a great start. It is our responsibility to preserve it. 

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

FYI

 It is true, you haven’t read any recent posts from me lately. I have been on a health journey. I won’t bore you with details, let’s just say I have been keeping the medical world busy. It is nothing serious, and I am back…mostly.

Look for a post in the near future.

Wally Johnston 

Many Forms of Mother

 

For many, the word Mom or Mother represents a term of endearment.  This probably explains why Mother’s Day gets top billing over Father’s Day. 

Americans spent $33.5 billion on Mother's Day-related gifts and activities in 2024. The numbers for Father's Day were $22.4 billion last year.  There are some reasons for this with guilt being a top motivator.  We’ll leave it at that. 

Mothers fulfill an important role in our lives, as do all women.  A woman doesn’t have to be a mom to be a mom.  My friend, Donna, has made a couple of trips to Nepal to help out the churches there, where Christians are persecuted.  The person in leadership of over 100 churches there calls Donna, “Mom.”  It would not be proper to call her by her first name, so she is given that title.  She has made a great impact on his life.

We have a friend from Tanzania, Africa.  His home language is Swahili.  We don’t speak Swahili. Our language is Hoosier (look it up).  In their country, they show respect to an older woman or man as “Mama” or “Papa.” Linda is Mama, and I am Papa. These are terms of endearment.

When Jesus was on the cross, he looked down at his mother and the Apostle John standing with her.

            ²⁵ Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶ When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” ²⁷ and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. (John 19:25-27 NIV)

Jesus was asking John to take care of his mother.  He was also asking his mom to take care of him.

Women who play a significant role in someone’s life can be a mom, mother, or mama.  They become our nurturers, cheerleaders, and inspirers in our lives.  They are there for us, love us, and guide us.  (Check out my story about Grandma Frye in the February 16, 2024 post, “Circle of Friends” to illustrate this).

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO YOU!

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Ignorant Misunderstandings

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Ignorance is a misunderstood word.  One might be called ignorant, but we somehow hear “stupid.” They are not identical twins or even distant cousins.  Ignorance does not mean a lack of intelligence, but of knowledge.  For example, what is hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia?  You don’t know?  You are not stupid, but ignorant.  You don’t have the information.

I have to remind myself that there are people around me that act unkindly or out of sorts.  My reaction might be, “What a selfish individual.”  How much do I know what that person is facing.  Perhaps they are ill, recently had some bad news, are hungry, or ate something that makes them nauseous. 

I have hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (known as HHT).  It is a genetic bleeding disorder. Over 95% of us have frequent severe nosebleeds. You would look at me and probably say, “I don’t see anything wrong.”  First of all, thank you for saying that.  There are plenty of disorders that people can see.  They get the attention.  That’s not to take away from the other ailments, it’s just a fact.  If I ask for a seat on a busy transit train, people might say, “What’s his problem?” If I were on crutches, they would understand. 

We never know what others are facing, so it’s important not to jump to judgement.  This is especially handy in traffic.  Avoiding road rage is a good thing.

Jesus was going through a tough Friday. The calendar calls it “Good Friday,” not because it was good for Jesus but because it was good for us. He took our burdens, mistakes, disorders, and imperfections on himself so we would not have to carry them around the rest of our lives. 

This was brilliantly portrayed in the movie, “Mission,” starring Robert De Niro as a priest who formerly enslaved the natives of Paraguay, but also killed his brother in a duel over a woman. I invite you to see the clip below. He carried a heavy weight in a net, up a mountain as penance.  It reminds me of what Jesus did for me while carrying his cross.  Because he took my load, I didn’t have that burden. Later, true forgiveness came amidst the wave of emotions and relief. (especially look at timestamps 146-259).

Suffering is difficult, but it can become our mentor regarding life, character, and relationship with others.

(c) Wally Johnston 2025

Language As Story

My new neighbor, Joel, owns a construction business.  He has a wife and three girls.  They are Hispanic.  All of his workers speak Spanish, with half being bilingual in English.  I am bilingual, and I speak Hoosier.  At the end of the workday, they huddle at his house to talk about the day and shoot the breeze.  I like to venture over to tell them a story or a joke.  They listen to me because I often give them some mint candy.  The great part is the punch line. At that point, the bilingual guys laugh. That’s the first wave.  Then they tell the others in Spanish.  That is the second wave. Not every comedian gets a two-wave laugh.

In college, I had a choice of taking Greek or Spanish.  I felt Spanish would be more practical.  What a year that was!  It was a struggle for me and at times it made me frustrated.  Do you know how far a Spanish-language book flies across a room?  It would have gone further if it hadn’t hit the wall.  It was probably at that time that I learned to cuss in Spanish!  I shouldn’t complain.  Most people say English is the most difficult to learn.  English doesn’t make sense.  They have different rules that contradict each other.  One word means many things and we have idioms. 

Language is a gift.  Without it, our stories could not be shared unless we used stick figures. That would leave much to be desired. Kind of like a Rorschach ink psychological test.  That’s the test where they show what looks like ink spilled on paper, then ask you what comes to your mind. People have different ideas as to its meaning.  Have you seen the movie, “What About Bob?,” starring Bill Murray. He is in a mental hospital, sitting on a cafeteria table with several patients and staff around him. 

“I saw a doctor who showed me an ink spot and asked me, “What comes to your mind?”

I said, “sex.”

He showed me another. “Sex.”

A third time, “sex.”

The Doc announced, “It seems you have a problem with sex?”

I told him, “You’re the one with the dirty pictures.” 

Some may think that God didn’t do any favors when he destroyed the tower of Babel and caused people to speak different languages, yet the nuance of the language brings such wonder and beauty to a story.

You can tell a story in a different language, but it doesn’t seem to have the same effect.

My wife and I are from different galaxies. We communicate differently. I’ve often thought we should try out Google Translate to get our ideas across, but I don’t think it works. “No comprenda.”

Language is important to storytelling.  I have gained an appreciation for stories through the ones that communicate, and translate them.

LEARNING FROM LIFE’S DETOURS

I try to embrace new technology.  I have found that sometimes new technology gets it wrong.

When traveling, we use GPS to get to our destination. Sometimes, we run into detours, taking us longer to get there. We were to meet another couple for dinner. We put the address in the GPS and headed out. We found ourselves in a sparsely populated area. While driving by an empty field, the voice said, “You have arrived.” 

Sometimes, detours lead to a street full of potholes, which is not the quality of the original highway. Had we stayed on the original road longer, we would have reached our destination earlier. Yogi Berra said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

That’s a metaphor for life. The roads we take make up the material of our stories.  Without journeys, we have no stories. 

I think God looks at detours differently.  It’s probably because of His viewpoint; His perspective is broader and more complete.  Have you walked through a junkyard?  Put that on your bucket list.  Bent metal, broken glass, rust.  It’s not exactly a scene you want to paint.  Now, fly over that junkyard on a sunny day.  You discover a mosaic of colors surrounded by sparkling flashes of light.  The yard hasn’t changed, your perspective has.

As younger people, we haven’t traveled long enough for many detours. When you reach my age, well let me say, I’ve seen more than I can count.  What are some of the detours of life? Detours of addiction, estrangement, betrayal, health, grief, loss.  Not all detours are bad.  I was working in a church when I was handed a detour.  The next thing I knew, I was a police chaplain.  I didn’t see that coming, and neither did the officers.  That department never had a chaplain before and I never worked with cops.  We cautiously looked at each other for a while, until I had opportunities to show my value.  As a result of that detour, I have had lifetime experiences that most people haven’t.

When reaching our destination, the detours don’t matter when destinations are places and people we love.  They are valuable installments to our stories.

Ultimately, heaven is my destination.  Until I get there, there is still a lot of material, and detours, to teach me about life.

CHRISTMAS WITH A PURPOSE

 

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Each Christmas time, we kids in the neighborhood would go caroling.  It was a fun and constructive time, and it got us out of our parents' hair.  We lived up in Indiana near Lake Michigan, so there was snow and cold.  Often, when we performed at a neighbor's house, they would give us candy, cookies, or hot cocoa.  We appreciated the cocoa. It kept us going to our next gig. 

One year, we heard about a family from France who moved into the neighborhood at Christmas time.  They were professionals in balancing and juggling.  They had recently appeared on the Bozo the Clown TV show.  We also heard they were on hard times.  The cost of moving and little work added up to a sparse Christmas.

We had an idea.  When we went caroling, we could ask for money for this family rather than the other treats.  We collected a big chunk of change and got the goodies anyway.

We planned our last stop at the French family's rental home.  They opened the door very cautiously.  As we began to sing, they opened the door wider.  They enjoyed the music and the very idea that we would come and sing to them made them smile.  After we finished with, “We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” we handed them the card with the gift funds.  They had smiles and tears.  Their gratitude was evident, even with the language barrier.

Somehow, it didn’t seem so cold outside as we made our way back home.  I’m sure it was the warmth we felt in our hearts as we gave to others in need.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

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