From the Desk of Murray Lincoln

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Wednesday, October 23, 2013

A mauling at the Mall

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A mauling at the Mall

I mentioned in a Facebook posting recently that my Mom likes to sit in the local Mall and simply watch people. An old geezer across from us also just gazes at the sites.

The other day we were sitting not far from a group of buzzing teenagers. With both boys and girls mixed, the girls were definitely more aggressive. The passive boys who seemed to just be coming out of themselves, were grinning from ear to ear as the girls ‘mauled’ them. (Note: that isn’t ‘Malled’ them – although that could be another way to describe what was happening!)

The unique thing was the teens were, on this day, declaring their team spirit/school spirit. They all had on some identifying piece of clothing from their school. The name of the school was emblazoned on their shirts or caps. They had chosen colours to match the school colours as well.

From their size and attitudes they had to be about Grade 9, maybe with the odd Grade 10 mixed in.

All told there were about 14 teens at the long tables.

I had noticed two of the girls in a line up for food in front of me earlier. They were particularly wilder and noisier than the others in the larger group.

I had also noticed a boy their same age that was also wearing similar colours and clothing… same school for sure. This boy was behind the girls in the food line up but not talking with them as they kept their backs purposely turned to him as they agitated back and forth.

My gaze wondered from the noisy crowd of teens… to a table with that same boy sitting alone and eating his just purchased lunch. He was the same size, roughly the same age group and the same school… but he was not allowed to be one of them. They were apparently cool according to the girl’s standards but he was not allowed to join in the fun… or activities. Not cool maybe…

As we watched the table of noise, I noticed that the girls were dominant in almost everything they were doing. The boys sat grinning and doing nothing to react to the hitting, stealing of their cell phones, leaning over them with the full-breast rubbing by the girls… they just grinned. And the other boy that ate alone never looked at them… or if he did he never showed what his own reaction to the group might be.

The hormone problems at that table left me thinking that none of the kids were really good students. A passing mark maybe… but never too high of a mark so the rest of the group might reject you. But the kid sitting alone likely is an ace in school and above the idiots that jiggled, rubbed, giggled and mauled each other.

I could say it was a rush to sit and watch a scene being replayed from my own High School days – but I am sure that we never acted that way. Or maybe I was the single, lone guy eating alone. But it couldn’t be back then… there were no Malls to be mauled in. No cell Phones and no places to gather like this.

Truly as my Mom watches on I wonder what is going through her head. Her High School days took place in a very small town that was twice the size of her own town. She had been granted the privilege to go to High School by her dad, letting her out of the farm chores and helping her mom with all the other kids. Mom was the oldest girl and like a second mother to the other kids. It was a busy farm and house to tend to.

Mom moved in with her aunt and uncle. Her aunt was her mother’s sister. The uncle was a banker. They lived well and all by themselves – just the two of them. Mom loved High School and loved living with her aunt and uncle – away from her siblings and the chores of every day. To think about sitting in a Mall and acting silly with your friends, nagging on to boys and acting totally weird for the world to see – is not something she understands. I am certain of that fact.

The old geezer sitting not far away from us and watching the mauling at the Mall… shook his head. He was older than me and younger than my Mom. He got up and walked away shaking his head. Oh do I ever wonder what he was thinking.

I have been thinking a number of days of these young people… the Mall… the reactions of my Mom and the old geezer… and my own reactions to what happens with these youth.

The teens will have about three years more of High School. Then if they have actually buckled down with studies they may go to University. After four to seven more years at that school of higher learning, they will graduate and become experts on everything in my life.

Between seven to ten more years from now I will be in my late 70s and close to 80. I will walk into an office of Dr. White or Dr. Brown… and remember them as some of the teens from the Mall. Good Lord – what a thought!

No wonder my Mom just stares at them now… along with the old geezer at the next table. Oh boy!

~ Murray Lincoln ~

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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Blood Revenge – by Global Ambassador, The World Evangelical Alliance

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Blood Revenge – by Global Ambassador, The World Evangelical Alliance

This truly amazing story came to me by way of Brian Stiller, who is known as the Global Ambassador for The World Evangelical Alliance. Brian is an old friend of mine for many years. Brian is now crisscrossing the world as an Ambassador and in doing so comes across some amazing stories. One of these stories is copied and pasted into my Blog Post today.

~ Murray Lincoln ~

Blood Revenge

Tucked into southeast Europe, just across the Adriatic from Italy lies Albania, strung out along a mountainous coastline, unknown and unremarkable to most except for its post WWII declaration that it would be Atheistic: no religion allowed. Brutal. Harsh. Demanding. It was more than Communist in economic and social policy. Dictator Enver Hoxha prided himself on following Stalin. But he went further, declaring that anything religious would be outlawed. Churches, Mosques, Synagogues were demolished or turned into everything from barns to factories, making neighboring Communist dictator Tito of Yugoslavia seem like a saint. Few countries compared except North Korea.

Beyond persecution, belief in any religion was made illegal. That illegality ruled society. Creating within the culture a pragmatic, utilitarian, browbeaten people whose values rested uneasily on the quick sand of fear in being loyal to the state. The vacuum of its ideology held this historic community suspended between the absolute control of its president and a heartfelt desire to believe.

I sat with widow Elona Prroj in downtown Tirana’s Stephen café run by Christian entrepreneurs and listened to a story of which, in my initial meeting I had no warning. Blood chilling and bizarre, yet magisterial in its biblical vision.

Albania, occupied by the Turks (Ottoman Empire) from 1385 to 1912, its Muslim dominance chased Christians away from urban areas into the mountains. This was especially true in the north around the city of Shkodra, just south of Montenegro.

Families fleeing the Turks over time coalesced into tribes around family names and identity. An ancient set of oral laws dating more recently from the 15th Century but probably having evolved from the Bronze Age, were in the 1800’s codified in written form called The Kanun. These laws covered articles on all aspects of life and applied both to Christians and Muslims. During the communist reign the Kanun was abolished but in the 1990s, ironically with the fall of Hoxha, people distrusting the effectiveness of their police, especially in the north of Albania, reestablished the Kanun as a ruling part of life.

Embedded in these ancient tribal laws are rules regarding blood revenge: how a family deals with the murder of one of their members. As ancient as Cain and Abel, if a member of your family was killed, then it was your duty to insure that a person of the offending family is killed. And that will continue for four generations until the offence is repaid. Blood revenge is in its essence, payment for crimes once done.

It was into one of those families that Elona wed. Coming from the south where such practice was unknown, her life would soon be caught up, indeed trapped by the ancient custom of feuding. The family of her husband (a pastor of an Evangelical church) was caught in a blood feud in Shkodra. One of his uncles had killed a young man of another family. Within his family there were 24 families all linked into the family accused of being the offender.

What however twisted this into a community wide jungle of conspiracy, economic depravation and fear was that the husband of each family feared for their lives and thus would not ever leave their home, not for work, not for anything, unless cloaked in camouflage and hidden in the trunk of a car or under blankets. The implications are obvious: the man – and in this part of the world the male rules – is not able to work, confined to the house, protected by his cache of armaments, knowing any exposure might lead to death. Financially strapped, the wife would have to earn the family income, while the male, limited to the family house would stew, frustrated by his inability to work, and often aided by alcohol, abuse of every kind would be rife. One issue devolved into another.

Elona ‘s husband Dritan never left their house for four years so she took up the role as pastor of their congregation. Finally they fled to England. But after two years Dritan said no longer would he run and hide from the sin of his community. He would return, pastor the congregation, and trust God for his safety.

For 18 months he went about his work caring for his congregation and living openly invited the offended family (as the custom allowed) to meet and find a means of reconciliation other than by blood letting. They refused to meet. He knew his life was in constant danger, even though the Kanun forbids that a priest be killed for blood revenge.

Finally one day while leaving the church, seven bullets struck him down and he died. The police arrived along with media. Elona was asked by a television reporter for her response: “I forgive,” she said. Then when asked if they were going to lay charges she said, “Forgiveness doesn’t allow for that.”

While the impact on family and church was enormous, what surprised me was the freedom triggered by his death. The husbands and fathers of 24 families under the blood curse were now freed. The payment had been made in blood and now the offended family had exacted its price and no longer were the men of Dritan’s extended family forced to live in fear and self-confinement.

Yes, as the blood of sheep lifted the curse of sin for the wandering Israelites, pointing forward to the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins, freeing us out into eternity, Dritan knew his death would lift the curse from his extended family. He was willing to pay the price.

Elona continues to pastor the congregation while completing a PhD in psychology.

The literal giving of life for the freedom of others is not what most of us think of when we consider Christ’s call to discipleship!

Brian C Stiller (Brian Stiller bstiller@worldea.org )
Global Ambassador, The World Evangelical Alliance
October, 2013

~ Murray Lincoln ~

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Monday, October 21, 2013

“Grandpa and a Mexican” - From my friend Terry

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“Grandpa and a Mexican” - From my friend Terry

There are people that always brighten my life. Sometimes we are together and sometimes we are apart for long periods of time… like now. But today he brightened my life again with these two short stories.

Enjoy

IRS Audits Grandpa

The IRS decides to audit Grandpa, and summons him to the IRS office.

The IRS auditor was not surprised when Grandpa showed up with his attorney.

The auditor said, 'Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment, which you explain by saying that you win money gambling.

I'm not sure the IRS finds that believable.'

I'm a great gambler, and I can prove it,' says Grandpa. 'How about a demonstration?'

The auditor thinks for a moment and said, 'Okay. Go ahead.'

Grandpa says, 'I'll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye.'

The auditor thinks a moment and says, 'It's a bet....’

Grandpa removes his glass eye and bites it.

The auditor's jaw drops.

Grandpa says, 'Now, I'll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye.'

Now the auditor can tell Grandpa isn’t blind, so he takes the bet.

Grandpa removes his dentures and bites his good eye.

The stunned auditor now realizes he has wagered and lost three grand, with grandpa's attorney as a witness.

He starts to get nervous. 'Want to go double or nothing' Grandpa asks? 'I'll bet you six thousand dollars that I can stand on one side of your desk, and pee into that wastebasket on the other side, and never get a drop anywhere in between.'

The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully and decides there's no way this old guy could possibly manage that stunt, so he agrees again.

Grandpa stands beside the desk and unzips his pants, but although he strains mightily, he can't make the stream reach the wastebasket on the other side, so he pretty much urinates all over the auditor's desk.

The auditor leaps with joy, realizing that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win.
But Grandpa's own attorney moans and puts his head in his hands.

'Are you okay?' the auditor asks.

'Not really,' says the attorney. 'This morning, when Grandpa told me he'd been summoned for an audit, he bet me twenty-five thousand dollars that he could come in here and pee all over your desk and that you'd be happy about it!'

I keep telling you! Don't Mess with Old People!!

And also from my friend Terry…

As I was driving home this week worrying about all the crap going on in Washington and at how my life was falling apart, I saw a yard sign that said:

NEED HELP?
CALL JESUS
1-800-005-3787

Out of curiosity and desperation, I did.
A Mexican showed up with a lawnmower.

~ Murray Lincoln ~

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Saturday, October 19, 2013

“This is fun doing this together… thank you for coming along.”

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“This is fun doing this together… thank you for coming along.”

This past week on Wednesday I met a fellow retiree in the Mall. We had connected a number of times over the years in court. Each of us dealing with individuals that were in trouble. He is also from a ‘ministerial’ background – though not a minister now.

I asked the same question we all get in these first few years of retirement, “So how are doing now?”.

His answer is also some of us use to jokingly but honestly tell someone what the change has been like… and what we are doing now. He said, “Really busy, I don’t know how I used to have time to actually go to work!”

I asked him another question that some of us ask honestly of each other as well. We do it to see where we are in comparison to the person we are asking. I asked, “Do you miss what you were doing? Would you like to go back to do it again?”

Without hesitation he stated, “Absolutely not.” His forceful way to state what he felt was only given to me and not to others that might take it the wrong way.

I replied, “I know what you feel like. Today I do what I want to, not what I have to…”

We parted not long after that short exchange to leave me to my own thoughts.

“… I do what I want to, not what I have to…” my own words rang in my own ears… and thoughts. Is that really true Mr. Lincoln? Oh boy….

Looking after your 92 year old mother is not always easy – but it has to be done. And guess what, there are few breaks.

Looking after a house and all that goes with that… changing seasons… up keep… making it better… absolutely has to be done. There are few breaks.

Shopping and daily personal duties that never seem to end… has to be done… there are no breaks.

My wife and I were in a grocery store after having done some other shopping prior. She looked at me and said, “This is fun doing this together… thank you for coming along.” I grinned… with all that has taken place over the years she has taken care of business by herself… with me escaping to other things. Now we can do some things together.

But then since retiring I have been involved in more volunteer things than ever before… which takes more time. Like today I am off to do Prison work in Toronto for the full day… then next week I will attend the closing of Kingston Penitentiary (KP) – all of it requiring time… actually much more time than I have to give away.

And all of these things keep me hopping from place to place with still more coming along each and every day.

“I don’t know where I had the time to go to work?” was my friend’s wording.

Maybe it is just the age and stage of life when the value of what you are is actually seen by others and they really need help. Or maybe it is something that my wife said, “This is fun doing this together… thank you for coming along.”

My blogging has been sporadic as of late. Going from a daily posting to one that happens when I get time is unnerving. The change is hard to adjust to when you have too much to say… but no time to say it in.

Would I go back to what I did before? Who would ever have the time to do that? Who would ever want to change the things I am doing now for what was more difficult and at times horrible? Not me on all three parts. I am Free…

Oh boy I just heard shuffling from my Mother’s bedroom… gotta run. And I gotta be gone in 20 minutes – on the road again.

~ Murray Lincoln ~

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Tuesday, October 15, 2013

My Adventure with Scarification – not a good one

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My Adventure with Scarification – not a good one

I was about 4 years old when I entered the world of “Scarification”. I was scared for life and never really recovered I guess. I can remember the exact moment and the position I was in as well as the time of day when it happened… then everything went blank. I suppose it must have been the shock of what happened to me that blocked out the many weeks that followed of recovery.

That was 65 years ago and the memories are still the same… the quiet moment… sitting on my mother’s lap munching on a piece of toast and watching my dad get ready to go to the garage that he worked in each day. Dad brought the coffee pot over to the table to fill his cup… then my mom held her cup out to him needing more coffee in her cup as well. I remember him tipping the coffee pot carefully towards her cup which was in her right hand. The I saw the green glass cup crack around the bottom and then fall towards me… along with the steaming coffee… all landing on my bare right thigh. At that point the memory is gone completely.

I can only imagine what happened next… the screaming from the little 4 year old… the horror on the faces of his mom and dad… then the not knowing what to do as the skin peeled off with the touch of a wet cloth. The screaming continued – long and loud… in my imagination.

We lived in Milestone, Saskatchewan at the north end of town. The nearest Doctor was in Weyburn, Saskatchewan about 4 towns further south east along the train tracks. I think there was a hospital there as well as one in Regina – about 45 minutes by car… and longer if you had to wait for the train.

There was no Medicare in those days. Doctors cost money… and so did hospitals. And a poor family living with next to no wages in a very small town had to just deal with it.

The stories are sketchy at best. I think that there was a period of time that they thought I could have lost my right leg… but that didn’t happen. And when I think about the possibility that my face, my chest, my lower abdomen could have all been burnt I shuddered at times… and am thankful for the scar as it is… a perfectly round shape about the size of a coffee cup… with a small piece that wanders off to the side.

When I was little, going swimming with the other kids was hard because with little legs the scar was huge.

Going swimming anytime in the sunshine is something I pay for days afterwards as the scar burns in the sunshine very easily and does that every hurt… way more than the surrounding sunburn!! Way more.

Whoa! I shouldn’t reveal all my secrets specially when everyone thought I was almost perfect ;-)

Why mention a personal scar today.

Well I am so up to date with the world around me… in fact I am 65 years ahead of the world of nut cases who get scars on purpose.

That’s my topic to “beller about” today – “Scarification” the next step after or further than Tattooing all over.

Imagine – people actually cut themselves or pay someone to cut them in patterns to make scar patterns and pictures on their bodies.

Having had it done, as an accident, and then having lived with it for 65 years I cannot fathom the reasoning to have it done on purpose.

I have seen some of my African friends that have had it done to them as children as a kind of life passage. But to do this because we think it is “beautiful” is beyond reasoning of the normal life!

But here it is a brand new way to make yourself beautiful… to get attention… to place yourself just over the edge of sanity but not so far that you are dead.

There are other strange things that people do to themselves… like strangulation to the point of passing out – for a high. One of my friends was into that without anyone in his family or friends knowing about it. They found him dead – after he went just a little too long into his high. Needless to say the family will never recover from that shock.

What happens when the scarification dude or dudette arrives home with this massive new pattern on their body? What does the family think?

Their friends likely all love it… because they do it as well.

My scar is not something I show. But they do theirs to make sure it can show.

Take a look here for some examples of what and how far scarificationists will go to let the world know that they are not happy with the way that they were born…

Example photos of Scarification or just type in “Images for Scarification” into a Google search.

I feel very sorry for my mom… even this morning at 92 years old with a 65 year old memory that continues… and the very poor quality of glass that the coffee cup was made of… and how bad she felt for her little boy. When we talked about it her voice trailed off in bad memories.

Yep – I am so up to date and so far ahead of the world out there… no one can catch me now.

~ Murray Lincoln ~

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