The Bible on Trial~

Amen~

My uncle, Paul Campbell, was truly a Renaissance man. He was a business man, a Professor of Semantics in collage, a property investor, vocal coach, and a church Pastor, among many other things. At family dinners after church I loved to sit down in the living room at my house and listen to the discussions between the 'adults' over topics that were 'verboten' at the dinner table, most notably poltics and religion. Everyone was invited including the young people, although most of the time the kids would go outside to play. On the times that I did attend these discussion the one thing that I was most impressed with was the fact that most times these discussions were temperate in nature, where opinions could expressed without rancor. My have times changed.

I distinctly remember one such occasion when the discussion revolved aroound the sermon that Uncle Paul had preached that day, about prayer.  I was too young to be fully aware of what he had said in this sermon, as my siblings (two boys and two girks in total) and I were corraled by our parents in our regular pew and kept busy with coloring books and children's stories in the "Little Friend". But I do remember one thing that Uncle Paul said that has stuck with me ever after, and that I discussed with him later, when I started taking voice lessons from him. He said that prayer must be active, not passive, and when you finish a prayer with the word "Amen" you are actually making a wish, and then moving toward your wish. Amen is an active verb, not passive.

Our lives in this modern era are complicated with a myriad of issues that can distract us from accomplishing the things that need to be important to us, such as finding Truth. When we pray and say "Amen", and than don't actively move toward that which we prayed, then we have squandered and opportunity to allow God to move us toward a Truth that is singular and absolute.