Rex M Rogers - Discerning What Is Best

Discerning What Is Best
with Dr. Rex M. Rogers

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 20 February 2012

History is not destiny, though much of the world believes it so. Past may be prologue but it's not predestination. The future, in particular one’s individual and personal future, need not be dictated by the past. Human beings can change.

Yet millions do not believe this; not really. Some are falsely misled by fear, superstition, or animism. They think “the fates” or some other force beyond us arbitrarily play with our lives and only the “lucky” make good.

Some are locked in family, clan, tribe, or culture influences they’ve inherited environmentally and to which they succumb mentally. Their learned attitudes and behaviors absorbed from their environment form mental cages from which they do not have the faith, reason, education, or inclination to break free.

Some are oppressed by religion or religious systems that demand obedience, subservience, and blind loyalty yet offer nothing but poverty of the soul and hopelessness in return. This is false religion based upon works and ritual that are never enough and leave adherents victims rather than victors.

But human beings are created in the image of God. They are vested with the capacity to reason, to think about tomorrow, to wish for something better, to learn, and to grow. They are vested with the ability to change, if not in their own strength than through the positive benefits of education, community, and the spiritual renewal of true faith.

The Scripture says human beings are born in sin. We are, at bottom, sinners even as babes who’ve not yet willfully sinned. But God does not leave us there. He offers first, love, then forgiveness, and finally hope in this life and the life to come. Through Jesus Christ and the indwelling and enabling work of the Holy Spirit God changes us. In Christ we go from sinner to sinful-but-forgiven and redeemed saint (Ephesians 4:22-24; Colossians 3:1-17). In God’s embrace we remain a saint even when we do not act saintly.

The Bible says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). For the Christian, the believer, the follower of Jesus, all things are become new. History is not destiny.

Your father was an alcoholic? You need not be. You were beaten or molested as a child? God can give you the ability to forgive and he can give you healing and peace.

You have an “anger management problem” as it’s called today? So? It may not be easy. It will not be easy. But God can give you victory over this emotional and spiritual behavior.

You’re the worst sinner that’s ever lived? Paul considered himself the same thing, yet God changed Saul the Christian killer to Paul the Apostle.

History may be influential. History may be powerful. Nature and Nurture may both be out of kilter in your past. But history is not destiny.

It’s never too late to become what we should and could become. It’s never too late to change. Our history is simply that, history. It’s past. Destiny awaits our choices.

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Rex or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 17 February 2012

Once in awhile I think, “Why don’t people Facebook?”

I recognize people have different interests and time-pressures in their lives, and I certainly recognize it’s a free country. I recognize that FBers don’t constitute “a better class of people” than non-FBers—that’s ridiculous if not self-righteous. But I still find it curious when from time to time I run into people who never connect on Facebook, much less other social media.

Facebook and other social media aren’t the end-all, be-all. In fact, I limit my engagement to Facebook and Twitter and have, thus, consistently turned down other social media invitations. Nothing wrong with the others, in fact, they’re typically competitors of the dominant FB. But I don’t want and can’t keep track of more friend lists.

And maybe that’s how people feel about Facebook. I don’t know.

I do know that with a few-minute scroll on FB I can keep track of what members in our extended family are doing. I’ve connected personally with at least seven high school friends that I have not seen in forty-one years. I’ve connected indirectly with a dozen others, people I never in a million years thought that I’d re-engage, and no doubt they thought the same of me.

I was never a picture-bug, snapping shots at every turn. But now, with an easy outlet available on FB, in the midst of my travels I pause briefly, even stopping the car alongside the road, to take pics of different, odd, or interesting things. And with cameras and smart phones ready-wired to pic software, which in turn connects easily to FB and others social media, who can resist taking a pic of a bigger-than-a-house bronze longhorn?

Anyway, mostly I think people who don’t FB miss a lot. In particular they miss continuing and pleasant interaction with family members, friends, and social media friends. I would wish that pleasantry for them.

But maybe I’m missing something. If you don’t FB and known exactly why, let me know.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 16 February 2012

Collect gorillas? I know. It’s weird. But it’s fun too.

When I was a kid I loved all things “animal” and all things “outdoors.” I read far more than the average kid, I later learned, but I spent a lot of time with my dog in the fields and woods around our home on the edge of town.

Later, I did some hunting but not really a lot and only for small game. I read, however, “Sports Afield,” “Field and Stream,” and “Outdoor Life” every month for years. Back then I could talk turkey about bullets, shells, calibers, and gun makers. I’ve forgotten a lot of this.

What I haven’t forgotten are the names, habits, and habitats of nearly every animal and bird in North America and a fair amount of the rest of the world. And I know trees. I love trees and seeing a new kind on a trip is a thrill my travel companions don’t always comprehend. I’m not bragging, just exalting in things nature.

Now the gorillas. When I was a kid I watched every black and white “Tarzan” movie ever made. I watch them now and see some silly plotlines and some not-so-silly racism, but the jungle is still the jungle, filled with exotic animals. Loved that then and now.

So after my stint in grad school at the University of Cincinnati, where I’d swallowed scholarly journal articles that could kill a horse, I had had about enough of academic “literature.” I remember walking into the house on Friday the 13^th, the day I’d defended my dissertation in political science, and noticing that Sarah had brought me three books from the public library—Edgar Rice Burroughs’s “Tarzan” trilogy. I’d watched all those films but never read the books.

Over the next maybe three years I read all Burroughs’s “Tarzan” books, all 24 of them. Still have the paperbacks. The books are also a product of their time, sometimes wanton killing of animals or people, racist attitudes and behaviors, paternalism. But there’s also good writing, an interesting and seminal character, loyalty, bravery, love, fiercely guarded freedom, and strength.

So the gorillas? Oh yes, the gorillas. When your children are little what do they get their Dad for birthdays and Christmas? In my case, it was often a gorilla. The kids had seen me read these books. They’d heard me tell the stories to them. They’d heard me do Tarzan yells to make them laugh. So they bought me gorillas. That’s how it got started. And by the way, not chimpanzees, not monkeys, not orangutans, gorillas.

I still have the first gorilla they gave to me—complete with the diaper they dressed him in for unknown reasons. Now I have a few dozen gorillas in my home office—warm and fuzzy, fierce, plastic, rubber, on a drinking glass or cup, made of candle wax or carved from a coconut, a gorilla who sings Christmas carols and one who sings “Wild things, I think I love you” while holding a Valentine’s heart, carved wood, porcelain, even pewter. I have huge black gorilla slippers I’ve never worn and a gorilla Halloween mask that’s scared each and every grandchild in their toddler years, candy in a stick with a gorilla on top, a puppet, and a gorilla in a snow globe. Not to mention gorilla pics. I once had a gorilla tie and shirt, but they went by the by.

Some other time I'll talk about the gorilla exhibits I've visited in zoos around the country. Or we'll talk about gorillas as an endangered species.

I still get gorillas from time to time. Why? Why do any hobbies become hobbies? Maybe it’s the gorilla in me.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 15 February 2012

Remember SALT? Not the recent movie called “Salt” featuring Angelina Jolie. No, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks of the 1960s-1980s. It’s when the US and USSSR decided it was better to talk than shoot at one another. Later we had the Summit Talks when Reagan and Gorbachev conducted a series of, “Well”—to use Ronald Reagan’s term, “talks.”

Maybe Gradparents and Grandkids should hold Summit Talks? I recently wrote about both sides’ views. For more, check these articles:

Five Things Grandparents Wish Their Grandkids Knew

Five Things Grandkids Wish Their Grandparents Knew

“Talk is cheap,” they say. But then again, who is this “They” that seems to influence our lives so often? Doesn’t matter much what “They” say. Matters what we, in this case Grandparents and Grandkids, say to each other.

Held any Summit Talks recently?

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 14 February 2012

Tonight in Dallas, Texas I finally did something I've wanted to do since I was a teenager. I bought a pair of cowboy boots. Not the high top "Western" kind but the shorter "Roper" (learned this tonight) kind.

My boots are brown with some light blue designs on the uppers. Rather than the traditional pointed or classic squared toe I opted for a rounded toe, so I could wear the boots Up North and not look like I’d escaped from a “Lonesome Dove” movie set.

I was born in Pasadena, Texas, a suburb of Houston when Dad was in the U.S. Air Force. He and Mom had gotten married in Biloxi, Mississippi in October 1951, and later they found themselves as young marrieds stationed at Ellington Air Force Base. I came along in October 1952. They remained in Texas, which meant I did, until Dad finished his hitch at the end of the Korean War. Then they headed home to southeastern Ohio.

Texas was a big time for my parents, and I grew up hearing Texas stories from their stint in the Lone Star State. It’s a big state, but it became even bigger for a kid.

And I grew up in the TV cowboy era, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Hopalong Cassidy, the Rifleman, later on “Rawhide,” and later still, “The High Chapparal.” And of course “Gunsmoke” and “Bonanza.” TV movies were dominated by Western themes too with characters played by Glenn Ford—my favorite, John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Gary Cooper to name a few.

As a little kid I had the boots, guns, and cowboy outfits. I even had the name. All my life people have commented on my name, like “Hey, Roy” or “Rex Rogers, that-a cowboy name?” It was like the name fit in a movie title, "Rex Rogers and Gabby Hayes in 'West of the Pecos.'" Even this week in Texas at a SAT-7 briefing a lady said, "What a great name." It's a Western thing.

And I read "Westerns," Zane Grey, Louis L'Amour, and their writing progeny. I still can get lost in a good Western, though fewer writers, at least good ones, are tackling the subject and the setting.

Having grown up with Texas being talked up to me, and having had cowboy boots and clothes as toys when I was a kid, I've had Texas on the brain my whole life. So once in awhile I’d think about buying boots.

But whenever I had occasion to consider boots I pushed the idea away due to cost or the fact I worked a profession where I had no place or opportunity to wear them. Seemed silly then, not so much now. I don't work that kind of job anymore, and I have plenty of time to wear casual clothes. And for a Michigan guy there's an added bonus: the boots can be worn in the winter.

So here I was in Dallas driving toward my hotel when I saw Cavender's (next door to Sheplers—even bigger), which I've seen on several previous visits. It might have been smarter to buy the boots at home in case I needed to go back. But there was something cool about the idea—one long in incubation whose time had come—of getting my first pair in Texas.

So, I may be nuts or just fulfilling a childhood psyche thing, but it was fun.

At last, Roy Rogers would be proud of me. Check buying cowboy boots off the bucket list.

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Rex or read more commentary on current issueand events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 13 February 2012

Cell phones have apparently convinced people it's their civil right to speak anywhere anytime around anyone as loud as they want. Since I travel a great deal I see this almost daily, or at least every time I enter an airport. It's not just that people talk loudly right next to others. It's that they talk loudly next to others about their business, personal life, and other used-to-be private matters.

I know I run the risk of being labeled an old curmudgeon on this one, but here's my analysis and a few recommendations...if they aren't drowned by cell phone conversations.

This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Rex or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.

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