George Burgin's blog

In 1957, Leave It To Beaver premiered on CBS portraying the ideal family to 171 million Americans glued to 47 million televisions in 39 million homes.  A few months later, American Bandstand, hosted by Dick Clark, goes national when it moved from Philadelphia to Los Angeles and Studio “B”.  Dwight D. Eisenhower was President.  The Pink Flamingo was created by Union Products worker, Don Featherstone.  The Gyrating rocker, Elvis Presley, emerges as one of the world’s first rock stars.  The most popular toys?  Slinkys, Hula Hoops and Frisbees. The children’s book, “Cat in the Hat” is written by Theodore Geisel as Dr. Suess and Mr. Whipple begins selling us Squeezably Soft Charmin.  Eveready markets the first AA alkaline batteries for use in portable transistor radios – cutting edge technology on both counts.

Prices were much different:  The average car sold for $2749 while the average production worker made $82.32 per week.  The cost of a first rate postage stamp was only 3 cents.  The average cost of a new house was $12,200 while the cost of renting a like home was $90 a month.  Gasoline was 24 cents a gallon.  Bacon was 60 cents a pound.  Eggs 28 cents a dozen.

A decade before my birth, 1957 was also the last year a child born in America was permitted to openly pray at the beginning of a school day in the nation’s public school system.

Hard Heart.  Two words I never want to read or hear as next-door neighbors in the description of my life.  It’s not that Hard or Heart are bad words, it’s just that when they sit next to each other, they’re a sorry pair.  They poke at each other, antagonize, stir-up, rile; they become something together that individually would never be. 

Any wise person knows the damage those two can cause when they’re together.  They steal your silence, your sleep and your sanity.  And, rarely do they just affect one person; their effects show up in texts, emails, and conversations.  They’re collective influence is seen in grocery stores, malls and roadways.  They keep doctors and nurses busy all night and hospitals filled to capacity; lawyers and judges occupied.  I’m tellin’ you, they’re a sorry pair.  

The closing thought of Genesis chapter two is this: “The man and his wife were both naked, but they were not ashamed.”  These words remind us that the Garden of Eden was a place of beauty, a place free from poverty and a place completely unmarred by sin and it’s polluting, crippling and heartbreaking effects.  The Garden was the birthplace of intimacy with God, self, creation and marital harmony.  Adam and Eve’s world was a paradise.

There’s an undisclosed amount of time that elapsed between Genesis chapters two and three, when the serene habitat turned ugly; when poverty began.

“Happy birthday, son”, words from a June phone conversation I had with my father for my twelfth birthday; my birthday is in April.  He never took the time to get to know me as my parents separated and divorced while I was still in diapers.  An absent father has been one of the many events that have shaped my life.

I remember standing in the hospital on March 31st, 1992 and holding a five-pound baby boy, my first child, promising to always know him.  I promised to be ever-present in his life.  I promised not to treat him as my father had treated me.  I was going to provide for him, teach him to become an honorable man and model an authentic relationship with God before him.  On February 26th, 1993, I made a similar resolve as I spoke over my second son and promised him the same proactivity as my first son.  These are promises I have kept now for nearly twenty years.

The “S” curves along Interstate 405 South to State Route 167 were usually slow at this time of day.  Beginning about 2pm, traffic on any major roadways in and around Seattle are equivalent to the cholesterol clogged arteries of anyone on a steady diet of biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast, McDonald’s quarter pounder with cheese and fries for lunch, and Pizza Hut for dinner.  Within a half mile of pulling onto 167, I was bound the shoulder because I could no longer see the road through my tears.

It was one of those sleeps that when you wake up it takes a few minutes for everything to come into focus.  God had caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep, removed a rib from his side and used it to fashion Eve.  It’s uncertain what first caught Adam’s eye but one thing is certain, Eve was striking.  “This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called ‘woman’, for she was taken out of man.”  The Genesis account teaches us about the nature of man and the nature of the marriage relationship. 

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a Gatorade bottle being placed on the ground through the cracked driver’s door of a running Honda Passport.  I witnessed the sequence of a pulled back hand, a closed-door and the appearance of backup lights indicating the exit of an individual apparently ignorant of what it means to be a proper steward of the earth.

Without a doubt, the story of Job is one of the most mesmerizing, puzzling and unpopular narratives in the Bible. Job was a godly, moral and blameless man whose life personifies a bad movie script. In Scene One, everything he owns is stripped from him. Then, some freak desert tornado incises the house where his kids are having a shindig, collapsing the roof and smothering everyone inside except one courier. As if that isn’t enough, Scene Two leaves Job scraping his carcass with glass just to relieve pain left by head to toe lesions. Torture, agony and despair are inferior words that pale in comparison to the reality of the situation.