Today is Thanksgiving Day in the USA, where I was born and gathered annually with my extended family to thank God for His Divine Providence. Today, I am some 3,000 miles away, but it is still fitting for me to thank God for His many blessings, for when I do this, I acknowledge He is the Source of all these blessings.

For example, America was founded on the Providence of God and Judeo-Christian principles, more than 400 years ago. After the Pilgrims settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, they established Harvard Divinity School in 1636 to honor the God:

“After God had carried us safe to New England and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and settled the civil government: One of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.” (http://www.hds.harvard.edu/about/history-and-mission)
Harvard Divinity School became America’s first university: Harvard University.

On Thanksgiving Day, I especially thank God for my Mom and Dad. I have done this countless other times. When I was a professor for 15 years, every time I was in a classroom observing student teachers, I also observed their students – and thanked God for my Mom and Dad, because my sisters and me never went to school hungry, or sleepy because we stayed up too late, or without our homework being done.
 
On Saturday, I will again thank God for my Mom and Dad while I’m facilitating an Assertiveness Training Workshop, where I will help parents stop acting submissively or reacting aggressively when their children misbehave, and begin interacting assertively with them – like Mom and Dad did with their three children.
 
In my Spiritual Memoir, I included poems I wrote to Mom and Dad, to thank them and to thank God for them.  And, acknowledge the significant impact they each had in my life.

I wrote the poem to Mom three days before she passed away:
 
In Memory of Cecilia Gray
(A farewell poem to our Mom -- from Bill, Sue & Vivian)
 
With you, we each felt equally important as a person.
Without you, there would have been sibling rivalry.
 
With you, we learned to love each other unconditionally.
Without you, we’d not be this loving as kids or adults.
 
With you, we have been sustained by your constant praying for us.
Without you, none of us would have made it here on our own.
 
With you, we looked forward to coming home to you.
Without you, our house would not have been a home.
 
With you, our needs were always met because you sacrificed for us.
Without you, we would not have received such high priority.
 
With you, we gained a firm and true foundation for life.
Without you, we’d be spinning our wheels on shifting sand.
 
With you, we learned patience and trust in the Lord.
Without you, we’d have trusted only in ourselves.
 
With you, we each learned right from wrong.
Without you, there is no telling where we might have fallen down.
 
With you, we learned to forgive and move forward with a positive spirit.
Without you, we would have clung to hurts and bitterness.
 
With you, we learned to dream, achieve and succeed.
Without you, life would be less passionate and worth living.
 
With you, we have renewed hope as your Savior takes you Home.
Without you, this last meeting would be depressing – not renewing.
 
 
I wrote the poem to my Dad to commemorate his 95th Birthday:
 
            Happy 95th Birthday, Dad
 
With you as provider for our family, our needs were always met.
Without your self-sacrificing for us, we would not have gotten a good start in life.
 
With you, we learned honesty and integrity, and developed these in our character.
Without your example, we would not have developed such good character.
 
With you, we learned to work hard and do our best in all we do.
Without your role model, who could we emulate?
 
With you, we learned to finish what we started.
Without you, our accomplishments would be fewer.
 
With you, we saw a consistent standard of right from wrong.
Without you, we would not know the difference.
 
With you, we learned “one’s word is his bond.”
Without you, we would not trust one another’s “word.”
 
With you, there was no favoritism towards any of your three children.
Without you, we would have always fought because of sibling rivalry.
 
With you, there was gentle enforcement of parental expectations and rules.
Without you, we would not know how to provide this for our children.
 
With you, we learned to pitch in and do household chores and duties.
Without you, our spouses would have to nag us to do these things.
 
With you, we learned the discipline needed to form good habits.
Without you, our lives would be much less successful.
 

While writing Why Become a Christian? A Spiritual Memoir, I reflected back on my life in many ways that enabled me to gain new understandings. Such as: Jesus came to set captives free from enslavement to practicing Religious Legalism (keeping man-made rules) and from the vain pursuit of Humanistic License (doing-my-own-thing) that ended up meaningless and futile. My wife (Marilynne) is teaching a Learn-Unlearn-Relearn Process to help individuals break free from unproductive habits and ruts. We have been discussing this. I realized that without knowing it, I went through this Process to eventually Become Born Again. So, I'll briefly describe it below in hopes it will also benefit you.

My Religious Legalism journey:
Learn: I was taught and thus learned the teachings and rules of the Roman Catholic Church, which I tried to obey for some 20 years to Be "good enough" and Behave "good enough" in order to Become a "good" Catholic. When I finally realized my best efforts would never be "good enough," I left the teachings and rules behind to go in the opposite direction – into the "far country" of humanistic psychology.

Unlearn: I had to unlearn certain man-made doctrines, such as: "The Roman Catholic Church is the only true church and religion." Especially this one: "If you leave the Catholic Church, you will go to hell."

Relearn: I replaced feelings of guilt from disobeying Church teachings with a new feeling: I'm OK and can Become better (i.e., Self-actualizing) by focusing on the positive promises of the Human Potential Movement.

My Humanistic journey:
Learn: I read humanistic psychologists (Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Arthur Coombs) and took courses to learn news ways of Being and Behaving so I could Become Self-actualizing: the master of my fate, the captain of my soul.

Unlearn: Some 10 years of Self-centered pursuits occurred before I finally realized I was not Self-sufficient, my Self-esteem went up and down in accordance with my feelings, my Self-image depended on what others thought about me, my life was not Self-satisfying and I would never gain Self-fulfillment no matter how arduously I tried. So, I unlearned all the Self-focused promises of the Human Potential Movement, and by God's Grace avoided those even more unrealistic promises promoted by the New Age Movement.

Relearn: I had been a seeker of learning as a youth, and later decided to become a professor so that my avocation (learning) and vocation (university professor of what I learned) were in alignment. When professing what I learned about humanistic psychology came to an end, I was still a seeker – but of what now?

Becoming Born Again:
Learn: During this part of my life journey I learned many things: I learned that every member of my family (Dad, Mom, two sisters and their husbands and five children) had Become Born Again, each in his or her own way. From books I read and discussions with Christians whom God brought into my life, I learned that even the worst Prodigal Son (like me) can return home from self-centered living in the "far country." From reading The Bible and books about the Bible, I learned that this is the Word of God – written over a 1,600 year period, in three languages, by 40 different Holy Spirit-inspired authors from all walks of life, with unmatched consistency of message, accurately transcribed from the original texts, preserved and passed down through many generations despite persecution, as relevant today as when it was written. This got my attention. So did reading books by atheists who became Christians, such as C.S. Lewis and Josh McDowell (while writing his book to refute Christianity, McDowell's book became Evidence that Demands a Verdict: Historical Evidences for the Christian Faith). This led to my learning that Christianity is Jesus Christ – having a personal relationship with Him because of saving faith in who He is and what He did. To prevent blind faith, I studied worldviews: James Sire's The Universe Next Door was especially helpful in gaining an intellectual faith that Christianity is more than a religion comprised of doctrines to believe and rules to obey – it is Faith in the faithfulness of a personal God who causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). I learned that Theism is the only worldview that satisfactorily answers questions about the origin of life and the universe, about the source for moral right and wrong, about living life in a satisfying manner. The "big picture" I learned is this: my story is part of history, which is really His Story about each of us because the Triune God of The Bible is the Creator of all Creation. God personally intervenes throughout His Story:
> by fulfilling His Will (that human beings choose to love Him and thus exercise their free will to please Him – instead of practicing Religious Legalism or pursuing Humanistic License),
> by fulfilling His Purpose (to redeem humans from their sinful ways, to become His children, to have a restored relationship with Him),
> by fulfilling His Plan (having His Son live as one of us, as the Way and the Truth and the Life, and then die to pay for our sins, and rise again so we also can have new birth).

Unlearn: The hardest thing I unlearned is this: I cannot Be or Behave in any manner to merit Becoming Born Again because Jesus' death and resurrection is what makes this possible. Being and Behaving to Become a "good" son, a "good" Catholic, and a "good" Self-actualizing person never achieved these goals during my life journey. Just as my Mom and Dad had always loved me and sacrificed their lives for me and my sisters, so had Our Father in heaven so loved us that he sent His only begotten Son Jesus Christ to live and die and rise again to redeem those who have faith in Him, and then sent the Holy Spirit to guide our Being and Behaving so this Becomes more Christ-like (how Jesus thought, spoke and acted).

Relearn:  Perhaps I'm a slow learner, because each day it seems I have to relearn some part of what I've said above. Perhaps, this adage is really true: "it is easier to take the boy out of the country than take the country out of the boy."  Most of my life I was taught to Be and Behave in certain ways to Become a "good" son, Catholic, and person. So, after Becoming Born Again I continued to do what I had been taught – trying to Be and Behave so as to warrant Becoming Born Again. It seems I must relearn each day that this new birth is a spiritual rebirth that is caught by Believers, and once caught, this spiritual rebirth then enables more mature and more complete Being and Behaving transformations – because of guidance from the Holy Spirit who indwells Believers who are truly Born Again. To unlearn prior learning, I continually remind myself that only a personal relationship with Jesus Christ (caught, not taught) sets me free from anxiety, guilt, unproductive habits and other enslavements so I can live life more abundantly. Jesus came to give Believers eternal salvation with Our Father, with Him and the Holy Spirit, in heaven. He also came to give Believers present salvation in this life (True Liberty in Him) once this is caught through a personal relationship with Jesus. I find I must keep relearning these truths I just described – because Christianity is Christ, Christianity is not a religion comprised of man-made teachings and rules but is faith in Jesus Christ, Christians are Christ's name-bearers. In gratitude, we want to please "Our Father who art in heaven" because of the spiritual rebirth we receive as an unearned free gift by having a saving faith in Jesus and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide our lives. No religion provides this. This is why I Became a Born Again Christian, as I describe in my Spiritual Memoir.

In my July 23 blog, I briefly described how King Solomon's life journey can be viewed as a descent from one Worldview to another (Theism > Deism > Naturalism/Humanism > Nihilism). My own life journey followed a similar descent to Nihilism (where life is meaningless and void). Until I Became Born Again because of renewed faith in a personal God.

As a youth, my parents taught me to pray to God and obey the teachings and rules of the Catholic Church. Between the ages of 12 to 18, I sensed God's presence each morning while delivering newspapers to my customers and viewing God's Creation in new ways as the seasons came and went over those six years. From all of this, I felt a personal closeness to the Creator of everything that exists. This might not exactly qualify as Theism in the way textbooks define it, but God seemed very personal back now.

But not personal enough. When I left home to attend the University of Virginia, I began to question the teachings and rules of the Catholic Church I had been taught and practiced. I began to sit in the back and observe others, who seemed to be "going through the motions" as the Mass was recited the same way each Sunday, in Latin, by a priest who was usually facing away. We sang no hymns to worship God nor read the Bible to better understand the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. After about a year, I left the teachings and rules of the Church (Religious Legalism) without any guilt or regret. If I had experienced a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I would have stayed – but Jesus was only taught to me, not caught by me. I still believed everything I recited in The Apostles Creed, but God was becoming more and more distant, until I became a Deist without knowing this at that time. I knew God was up there somewhere, but He was no longer present in my heart or life.

The next descent on my journey was towards Naturalism/Humanism – where there is no need for God, according to what I studied academically: Biology emphasized the evolution of all life from simple to complex life. Physics emphasized the universe suddenly bursting on the scene. Behavioral psychology studied stimulus-response connections in lower animals to understand higher evolved human beings, while humanistic psychology insisted human reason is the highest evolved condition and human potential can be Self-developed to become Self-actualizing. In my youth while practicing Religious Legalism, I had prayed on my knees to God each night, even as a university student. I did this in reverence for God. During my Self-development journey, I stopped praying. A Self-sufficient person does not feel the need to pray, a Self-satisfied person will not pray, and a Self-centered person cannot pray to Self. Vainly, I continued striving to Be and Behave in ways that would enable me to Become a liberated Self-actualizing person. But, this ultimately proved as futile and meaningless as practicing Religious Legalism.

My next descent was a brief experience with Nihilism when I decided it was time to settle down and asked "Miss Wonderful" to marry me and she said, "NO." This made me loose all hope for my future as I finally realized the Human Potential Movement would never help me Become Self-actualizing as it promised. After more than ten dedicated years of trying to Be and Behave in specific ways to Become Self-actualizing, I realized my life was vain, futile and meaningless – and there was nothing more I could Be or Do to change this. I considered suicide as the only option left, and phoned my Dad to tell him. For the first time in my life, he listened to me – for nearly two hours.

God used this to get my attention, so that I began considering returning to Him. I did not want to embrace "something else" because of blind faith. I needed to gain intellectual faith  to support my saving faith in Jesus Christ as I Became Born Again – as I describe in Why Become a Christian? A Spiritual Memoir.

In our senior men's group, we are studying Ecclesiastes. I consider this book of the Bible the last part of Solomon's spiritual memoir as he reflects back over his life and realizes that everything he did "under the sun" in the natural realm was vain, meaningless, and futile – because he abandoned the very God who had given him unmatched wisdom to rule His People. All the material possessions, all the wealth – everything Solomon did and acquired –  ended when he died, because he could not take any of it with him. And, his sons would squander what he left behind. In fact, after Solomon died, God's People divided into the Northern Kingdom (which eventually abandoned God and died) and the Southern Kingdom (which worshiped God and survived some 700 more years – until God's People rejected His Son Jesus, and the Romans crucified Him and destroyed The Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D.).

We discussed Solomon's life through the lens of Worldviews: How Solomon initially had a personal relationship with God who blessed him with wisdom, as recorded in the 1,000 Proverbs he wrote (Theism). How Solomon began to rely on his own earthly wisdom as he became more self-sufficient and self-reliant, because his personal relationship with God became impersonal and distant (Deism). How Solomon disobeyed God's command and married foreign women and encouraged worship of their gods, while doing-his-own-thing in the natural realm (Naturalism/Humanism). How Solomon ultimately experienced life as totally meaningless and void, preferring that he had not been born (Nihilism). How Solomon concluded: "Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad."  (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)

My own life journey, as discussed in my Spiritual Memoir, followed a similar descent: from Theism to Deism to Naturalism/Humanism to Nihilism. Until I Became Born Again because of my saving faith in Jesus and personal relationship with Him as my Lord and Savior! I'll discuss this in my next blog.

[Click on this sentence to read excerpts from Chapter 3 where I examine Worldviews.]

These words not only begin The Holy Bible, but proclaim that God was all that existed in the beginning – before He created everything that exists out of nothing. As a kid, I marveled at the Creator's Creation each morning during winter, spring, summer and fall as I delivered The Virginian Pilot newspaper, from the age of 12 to 18. I decided to attend the University of Virginia, which Thomas Jefferson designed, because he acknowledged the Creator when he wrote into the American Declaration of Independence these words:  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. At that time in my life journey, I did not know that Jefferson was a Deist, who believed the Creator designed everything and set it in motion to run on its own, without any personal intervention from Him thereafter in the lives of human beings whom He created. Indeed, I did not know the difference between this Theistic worldview of a personal Creator and Jefferson's Deistic worldview of an impersonal Creator. I had not been taught this as a young Roman Catholic, and thus entered U.Va. without having caught a personal relationship with the very personal God of love and grace described in the Bible. Like many university students, I began to question what I had been taught until I decided to leave the teachings and rituals of the Catholic Church. If I had caught what I was taught, and developed a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in my life, I would not have abandoned Him like I did back then when I left the Catholic Church. These reflections are discussed more fully in my Spiritual Memoir.