The race question many people are unwilling to ask . . .

Posted on May 29, 2020 by Steve Simms

To my white American friends who easily brush aside the concept of racism, try this: Find a black person and assure him/her that you don’t want to argue, but just want to listen and learn. Then ask: Will you tell me what it’s been like being black in America? Silently listen without being defensive and/or refuting anything he/she says. That’s how we begin to find the truth. (I’ve done this many times and it drastically changed my perspective.)

We are humanity. We all share in the human experience. When we identify as human, we admit our kinship to every other human on the planet.

I’m a human. All people are my people, my peers, my race. To think less of any group of people because of their God-given physical appearance is to be a traitor to the human race. To fear people (or to trust them) because of their skin color, is racism.

I love flowers with their various colors (and people with their various colors, too). Skin color is a totally illogical reason to think less of somebody. It makes no sense.

The idea that some people are them (not us) is a lie. All of us are part of humanity. The skin color hierarchy is one of the craziest and cruelest things people ever invented.

History is full of people with lighter skin claiming to be superior to those with darker skin, but it’s hard to find the opposite. Ignoring and/or denying the history of racism, isn’t the way to overcome it in the present, but honesty and humility are healing.

To say, “You’re not like me because you look different than I do,” is the foundation of racism and all its evils. Too often racism says, “If you look like the majority, you’re part of us, if not, you’re them.”

Abuse and retaliation (both verbal and physical) wreck humanity. Kindness, compassion, understanding, and forgiveness, heal it.

Even when racism is quiet, subdued, pleasant, paternal, played down, and clothed in kindness, it still separates and ranks people. Concealment isn’t the remedy for racism.

Racism is human divisiveness that is based on nothing other than God-given, physical appearance. Skin color differentiates people no more than eye color does. All skin color is a gift from God. To look down on anyone because of their skin color is to deny true Christianity. The Bible says, “Consider others better than yourself.” It doesn’t say, “Consider yourself better than others.”

Black and white,
Us and them,
Humans are supposed to,
Just be us?

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Making “race” an irrelevant matter

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Steve Simms

The lie that “black lives don’t matter equally,”
Permeated America and its institutions,
And was used to justify human trafficking,
And/or forced separation and isolation,
Supported by terror and threats of lynching,
Until it was legally refuted
Because of the Civil Rights Movement.
Unfortunately that lie still lingers
In some hearts, minds, and institutions,
Sometimes brought to public attention
When captured in action, by a cell phone.
Then we Americans are briefly reminded
That the lie of black inferiority
Which we prefer to publicly ignore,
Needs to be openly faced,
Boldly renounced and completely refuted.
We all need to proclaim and live out the truth
That all people are created equal
And that black lives matter
Every bit as much as white lives do.
Nothing short of that will make race
The irrelevant matter it should be.

If you like my poem, you’ll learn a lot from my book, Off the RACE Track–From Color-Blind to Color-Kind.

Run to make race an irrelevant matter.
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Pondering what it means to ponder . . .

Posted on May 27, 2020 by Steve Simms

Efficiency without meaning accomplishes much meaninglessness. However, for those who like mysteries, life is an ongoing one. The more I ponder it, the more I marvel that I can think and perceive at all.

To analyze is to attempt to figure things out. To ponder is to engage in observation and perception. Analysis establishes definition. Pondering flows with intuition and recognition. I think pondering takes place at a deeper level than the rational mind and often without words. It’s more of an inner stirring.

Whenever you think you have life figured out, you’ve stopped pondering what it’s all about. If you’re trapped in analysis paralysis, turn your heart to ponder wonder, and delight in the amazing realities around you.

Awe will make us pensive and open to the greatness of life. Without awe, it’s easy to “just do it”–to just go thru the motions.

If nothing makes you mindful of wonder and awe, you’re too confident that you have life figured out. (You don’t.) When your mind wanders away from analysis, perhaps it’s searching for the wonder of mindfulness. A ponderful life overflows with wonder, amazement, and delight.

What’s easily written off as a coincidence, when pondered, may be a miracle. Before reacting to a situation, pause and ponder. A little insight might make it right.

Observe your thoughts and emotions, like gazing at a painting in an art show. You’ll learn a lot. Tormenting thoughts don’t wait to be pondered. They harass from the get-go. Tormenting thoughts rattle along always trying to interrupt and unnerve people. Peaceful, pensive thoughts wait to be welcomed.

Negative thoughts and emotions barge in and take over, like weeds. Positive ones have to cultivated and grown like crops. My negative thoughts and feelings are plentiful, but I must be intentionally pensive and attentive to goodness, to find positive ones.

If you’re not happy with your current mood, it isn’t mandatory. You can learn to ponder how to train yourself to make your mood pleasant. Many people lack the boldness to examine their own thoughts and feelings, and instead go thru life being continually bullied by them.

Mental analysis can understand processes; pensive pondering can perceive wonder, awe, and meaning. It can intuitively perceive God’s glory in the astounding designs of nature. When it comes to God, hearing a man’s analysis is inadequate. Let your heart ponder and perceive His mind-boggling presence and power.

I love to go observing and pondering in the woods. I get a special sense of God’s presence when I do. I enjoy being pensive–scanning fields of thoughts within me, searching for hope and wisdom, and then following them into inspiration.

Analyzing God leads to theology; pondering God leads to awe. Prayer is much more than merely making intelligible request to God. It’s to be overawed by glimpses of His majesty and beauty.

If you feel stuck and analytical thinking isn’t helping, perhaps it’s time to be pensive and perceptive to fresh ideas.

To ponder is to think about with wonder and awe, not with just analysis. I love to ponder Jesus.

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Being pensive about racism & a knee used to kill

Posted on May 27, 2020 by Steve Simms

Perhaps it’s time to be pensive about racism–to openly ponder it–instead of either ignoring it, denying it, or reacting to it. If we Americans can’t talk about race without defensiveness or anger, we’ll never be able to have meaningful conversations about it.

The great sin of racism is the belief that people can be sorted by skin color. Color in our world is such a beautiful gift from God. Yet humans have used color as an excuse to demean and abuse people.

The knee Americans need to reject, isn’t the knee used to protest police killing black men, but the knee used to kill by a policeman in Minneapolis. Surely a death knee on a man’s neck calls for much more protests than a health-concern mask on a face during the Corona virus.

It’s time to open churches up to recruit and welcome people of all races into their congregations as equals. When someone disagrees with me, I try to be pensive rather than defensive (but I don’t always succeed).

Whites today aren’t responsible for white racial cruelty in the past, but we are responsible not to defend it and/or deny it. American slavery isn’t and wasn’t ever excusable. It should be openly exposed for the cruel human trafficking that

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Do you have an onion? (Oops, I mean an opinion.)

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Steve Simms

Arrogant opinions are like onions. They “reflavor” the truth and can make people cry. The fact that an opinion is popular, doesn’t make that opinion a fact. Opinions may align with truth, but frequently don’t.

Unverified opinions could be called “jumping to confusions.” When it comes to opinions, consensus is often better than conflict; cooperation better than collision. The person who disagrees with you may be right, but the person who insults you is always wrong!

Clarity of understanding is more important than confidence in your opinions. People full of confident confusion about their own opinions, often create chaos.

The human heart isn’t designed to be on continual lockdown to our own opinions. It’s designed to open up to God and to other people.

Too often we let people’s opinions stop us from getting to know their heart. It takes courage to respect other people’s right to disagree with you and to be kind to them anyway.

Opinions that are angrily spoken by us are often bias. Opinions that morph into accusations become acts of aggression. People who lack confidence in expressing their own opinion, often feel a need to attack other people and their opinions. However, if the way you say something is offensive, people won’t be able to stay focused on what you say.

Opinions kindly stated are underrated. They’re much more convincing than putdowns. However, if your approach is to be offensive, instead of kind, most people will be defensive and automatically resist or reject your words.

If you feel the need to be unkind when expressing your opinion, you’re not very secure in your beliefs. When opinions saddle up with anger and override kindness, logic runs out the door.

There’s a big difference between wanting your opinions to be thought true, and wanting truth to shape your opinions. Opinions based on information that isn’t verified are guesses.

Everybody is entitled to an opinion, but perhaps it’s best not to become embedded in an opinion. Some people’s view of truth is that if they like an opinion, it is.

An opinion is a poor substitute for insight, curiosity, compassion, and understanding. Opinions can be debated, but facts need to be discovered. We need fact finders, not slander spreaders.

To insult or demean someone for holding a different opinion than you do, is cruelty driven by insecurity. Sometimes people need your kindness and compassion instead of your opinion.

It’s better not to have opinion, than to convince yourself of an opinion that isn’t true. If your opinion is wrong and you don’t know it, you’re deceived. Everybody has some wrong opinions. Dare we find ours? When someone thinks your opinion is inaccurate, there’s a chance (however slight), that they could be correct.

Make your opinion count. Align it with truth as much as possible. If people tried to impress their conscience, as much as they try to impress their friends, the world would be a better place.

Only three opinions about you matter: 1) Your own; 2) The opinion of your conscience; and 3) God’s. When you begin to see into people’s hearts, you realize that, regardless of outward differences, we inwardly are very similar.

Here is one of my personal opinions: I think the happiest people are the honest ones, because they feel no need to hide or disguise their thoughts and feelings.

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As churches “reopen,” perhaps they need to “open up” to some things

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Steve Simms

I think that closed churches and open Bibles are more powerful than open churches and closed Bibles. I find daily Bible reading to be essential! Reopen the Bible!

Many Bibles have been shut for years. Where are the protesters? Again I say, reopen the Bibles!

There is zero danger of catching Covid 19 by reopening your Bible. However, your heart might catch on fire!

Personal salvation testimonies are essential to biblical Christianity. See: Revelation 12:11. Open up church to personal testimonies on Sunday mornings. The Bible says that testimonies “overcome” the devil.

Open up churches to “the priesthood of the believer,” as a Sunday morning reality, not just a dusty old doctrine. Let all Christians preach and demonstrate Jesus!

Open up churches to the gifts of the Spirit. For far to long, church has had them on lockdown. (See 1 Corinthians 12:7-10.) Open up churches to every member being free to speak in a worship meeting, according to 1 Corinthians 14:26.

Worship isn’t hearing information about God. It’s pouring out your heart in adoration of Him. Being taught about Jesus should progress to passionate worship and heart-moving interaction with Him. Reopen Spirit-prompted, heart-awakening worship.

The Bible says Christians should meet together. Why? To worship God and to minister to one another as led by the Spirit. When Christians meet without opening our hearts and interacting with each other, we miss out on the New Testament “one another” commands.

However, when we meet to humbly demonstrate the presence of the living Jesus, to one another, God’s glory fills the room. It’s wonderful when Christians come together to focus on, showcase, experience, and obey the risen Jesus.

What Jesus wants to directly say to you and to do thru you is essential to biblical Christianity. Don’t miss out. A heart, open to the living Jesus, is essential. Reopen your heart!

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Self-e (as in ego) — my thoughts on the subject of “self”

Posted on May 22, 2020 by Steve Simms

Self-focused eyes have limited vision. Perhaps finding love, joy, peace, and hope is more important than “finding yourself.” Everybody needs something to think about and focus on, other than self.

To think outside yourself, it helps to listen to someone who thinks differently than you and to try to see from their perspective. Selfless moments are joyful, not sacrificial. The blindfold of self-concern is set aside and dazzling light dances in the heart.

You can find
Peace of mind
When self interests
Are left behind.

Trying to find yourself is frustrating. Searching for a meaningful way to be of service to others is liberating!

If you improve your circumstances, but don’t change yourself, your situation may be better, but you won’t be. To lose yourself in a worthy cause is to find peace and joy that self-focus can never provide.

The bad things happening inside our heart are an even greater threat to our well being than the bad things going on around us.

Pride is self-deception, making us believe that we are better than we really are. Conscience calls us back to truth and humility. Self-focus causes us to be easily offended.

Self is an inner prison that keeps you from appreciating the beauty around you and the image of God in other people. Self-focus tends to ignore or resist God’s will. Humility and brokenness no longer trust self, but seek the will of God instead.

Self-pursuit is exhausting. Self-knowledge is discouraging. Moving on from self to pursue and get to know Christ, produces hope.

Promptings from self are usually a mixture of good and evil. Promptings from the living God are always good.

What you say about other people communicates more about yourself than it does about them. Humility faces reality. Pride replaces it with self-deception.

Focusing on our desires, feelings and opinions distracts us from giving our full attention to the internally empowering Jesus. The more I know myself, the more I realize my great need to continually follow the living Jesus Christ. To live my way is a far cry from living Christ’s way.

Christians aren’t called to follow and obey self. We are called to align with the risen Jesus. The inner voices of self, temptation, and God compete for your allegiance. Your lifestyle shows who you’re listening to. God loves you so much that He wants to free you from self-deception, self-torment, and self-destruction.

When I’m focused on the living Jesus, life is amazing! When I’m focused on myself, it’s frustrating. Since God created me, He does a far greater job of leading me than I do of leading myself, yet often, I still want to resist Him.

Few people doubt the existence of self — a conscious, nonmaterial, rational, emotive, choice making, strong willed, inner entity. Most of us have fought many battles with self. I believe in human consciousness because I experience it daily. I believe that Jesus is alive because I experience Him daily.

Perhaps its time to cut any unbiblical cord (that violates Scripture) in your life. When self leads one way and God leads another, our choice shows the true loyalty of our heart.

A nonfriction life is fiction. Something will always rub you the wrong way, but don’t let it ruin your day.

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The internally empowering Jesus needs no middleman

Posted on May 20, 2020 by Steve Simms

When we cut out the middleman and let the living Jesus directly empower us from within, Christianity rises to new levels of glory. What people say and do, shows the world whether or not they are surrendered to the internally empowering Jesus.

People follow invisible things, thoughts and feelings. The internally empowering Jesus is also invisible. I seek to follow Him.

The most effective empowerment is both internal and supernatural. That’s what the risen Jesus wants to do for you. The best reforms are the ones that He wants to make inside of you.

When you’re discouraged let the internally empowering Jesus shift your heart into Spirit-drive. When I feel weak and powerless, I humbly ask God for help and the internally empowering Jesus rises up within me. He causes me to see the image of God in all people and gives me supernatural love for everybody.

The internally empowering Jesus is limited if you make Him your passenger. However, if you let Him in the driver’s seat, you’ll cruise to freedom! Like a hand puppet in a puppet show, let the internally empowering Jesus animate you by living in and thru you. (If you let the living Jesus fully control what you say and do, would you still be saying and doing what you are now?)

The internally empowering Jesus can give you the amazing ability to freely forgive and bless everybody who’s ever done you wrong. He can break the chains of sin-crusted cravings, habits, and addictions.

I discovered that I can’t obey God in my own power. I need the internally empowering Jesus to live in and thru me. Self-empowerment is a myth. Self-focus exhausts power. It doesn’t enhance it. Focus on a purpose beyond yourself is empowering.

To be internally empowered, let the risen Jesus live inside and flow thru you. The internally empowering Jesus is “the hope of glory”! He can set you free from bondage that has buffeted you for years. Surrender to Him and see!

The formalized Jesus can hide the living Jesus from our eyes, but we can look beyond an institution and see Him with our intuition. Formalized Christianity tends to make people passive, but the internally empowering Jesus stirs people into action.

Formalized Christianity seems to encourage spiritual distancing, instead of encouraging open hearts passionately surrendering to the risen Jesus. Pentecost disrupted formalism and thrust the first Christians into ongoing mystical experiences with the internally empowering Jesus.

The “mystery” of Early Christianity is the internally empowering Jesus: “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.” Search for: The Joy Of Early Christianity book.

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Vietnam Veterans Memorial & remembering 3 short poems

Posted on May 20, 2020 by Steve Simms

The first week in March, I saw the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall with the names of 58,267 people of my generation who were killed or missing in that war. This morning I woke up remembering 3 short poems that I wrote about 50 years ago.

ROTC Drill at the University of Tennessee Martin

The thunder of 2,000 feet 
Shakes the surface of my mind. 
If we could only find, 
The key to love and brotherhood,
Instead of joining opposing teams,
And as it seems, 
Preparing to annihilate 
Each other.  
The Meeting 

Two soldiers thrust 
Their bloody bayonets, 
Baring their hearts 
And uncovering the mirror. 
Two frowning faces,
Four moist eyes, 
Meet the awaiting dust, 
With a single thud. 
Vietnam Field -- Green Was Made Red

Green was made red, 
In the middle of the summer, 
With the sun so bright in the sky. 
The field was so green; 
I think it was rice, 
Nourishment for the bodies 
That are scattered amongst it,
Red.

After posting this, I looked at my blog stats for today and saw that I have one reader from Vietnam. As far as I remember, that’s the first time I’ve seen a reader from Vietnam on my blog. The timing on that seems pretty amazing.

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Insults & accusations give birth to fake news

Posted on May 18, 2020 by Steve Simms

To pride, all insults matter, but humility hardly notices them. When people call you a name on social media, don’t answer to it.

Insults are seldom honest. Their goal isn’t truth, but pain. When people insult you, it reveals weakness in them. It shows that they are afraid of you or of your ideas.

Making unproven accusations is reckless and unkind. Shooting insults and disrespect back and forth like a tennis match, seems to me like a way to cause a lot of pointless pain.

Insulting someone is like spitting into the wind. Insults and accusations give birth to fake news To avoid getting caught up in false accusations and fake news, listen to your conscience, to God’s “still, small voice,” and read the Bible with a humble, open heart.

If an accusation is true, show mercy. If it’s false, renounce it and vindicate the accused. If it’s questionable, keep silent.

It’s often hard to see beyond people’s words and behaviors (and your desire to insult them) and to recognize the image of God in them, but life is better when you do.

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