Eric Bergeson of the Crookston Daily Times (a small town Minnesota newspaper) recently wrote an opinion column lamenting that talented young people leave small towns. Because of a recent personal experience, I was left thinking, “There may not be many opportunities in small towns, but the people are so nice. Why leave?” I have no scientific proof to substantiate this claim but it seems that small-town folk are more genuine than city folk. After living in New York City now for a couple years—where people simply don’t have time to be nice—I have been trying figure out why it seems that people seem to be more personable in small-town America.

For example, in my recent travels I was having breakfast at the Three Squares Restaurant in Waupaca, Wisc. (population 5,887) when I noticed that patrons not only said “hello” as they walked by my table but they also asked, “How are you?” At first glance, this may sound like no big deal, but there was something different about the way people asked me that I’ve only experienced in small towns. I could be wrong but I felt like people really wanted to know. It was as if I had permission to ask one of them to pull up a chair so I could tell the details of how I was doing that day. It seemed so genuine. I say this having grown up in the South (Atlanta) where people would say, “Hey, how are you,” give you a hug, and 20 minutes later will slander you at church to your friends. The Waupaca “how are you?” made my pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, and home fries taste even better.

When I pulled my rental car into the parking lot of Burgertown Dairy Freeze in Bigfork, Mont., (population 1,658) I was rendered speechless by a guy who parked just as I did and nearly walked over to me to say, “Hey there, how are you?” I stuttered back in a confused tone, “I’m fine, how are you?” As I sat down to eat the one of the best hamburgers I’ve ever had in my life, with a fantastic huckleberry milkshake, a family of three approached my table with their 5-year-old son waving enthusiastically and saying, “Hi, hi.” I felt like I was in a movie or something. Where I’m from kids do not say “Hi” to strangers even when they are with their parents.

I’ve been trying to put my finger on why I was engaged so genuinely is these towns. I’m not sure if I could live in a small town, but they are certainly now my preferred destination when I need a break from the city. Is there anything better than down-to-earth, genuine people and good food? Three cheers for small towns!

“Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men to entreat the favor of the LORD, saying. … ‘Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have for so many years?’” (Zechariah 7:2-3)

The Jews were perhaps a bit fed up with the two self-imposed fasts they had observed during their 70 years of exile in Babylon—one in the 10th month to remember the siege of Jerusalem, and one in the fourth month to remember the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. They wanted to know: Do we need to keep doing this?

Or maybe not. Maybe they were fishing for compliments, expecting a pat on the back for their spiritual earnestness in asking the Lord if they should keep up the fasts. Did they expect Him to say, “Oh, I really need to commend you for fasting so diligently for decades”?

Whichever motive it was that prompted the little trip to the house of the Lord that day, we know there was something wrong with it because it garnered them a rebuke from God:

“Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me. Say to all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh month for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?’” (Verses 4-6)

God would get around to their question about fasting rituals, but not till chapter 8. There was more important business to deal with first: attitude and heart. Warning: There is a tendency for all Christian works to degenerate into empty ritual. God uses the occasion of their question to remind them: I want reality, not ritual (Isaiah 1:11-17; Hosea 6:6).

I love that about God, that He knows how to take our prayers to a deeper level than we had in mind. I remember when I first became a Christian and prayed to win the lottery, promising God 10 percent. An older brother in the Lord took me aside and we had a little chat about motive.

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What will you do with your Wednesday?

Have you been surprised by the acts of vandalism during the Occupy Wall Street “events” across the country? Perhaps you will remember the many occasions when President Obama reaped political dividends by posing as a modern day Robin Hood, and the fact that all rotten ideas have rotten consequences. Or perhaps the following story will teach us something.

My paternal grandfather was a Cossack officer who fought against the Red Army in Russia’s civil wars of 1917-1923. He ended his life in poverty as an exile in Bulgaria. When the Soviet Union invaded Bulgaria at the end of World War II and imposed a Stalinist regime, my father faced two choices: joining the Communist youth organization and getting access to food, housing, education, and a job, or being harassed for the rest of his life as a son of a “class enemy.” He chose the former so that he could provide a better life for his mother.

In those days, the government had launched a Marxist campaign to eradicate the inequalities between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, between the village and the city. The property of the big industrialists and landlords was confiscated and managed by appointed commissars in the hope that this would elevate the conditions of the poor masses. Instead, it brought severe shortages of food and manufactured goods.

My teenage father and his friends in a small-town Communist cell were ordered to raid the neighboring villages and take by force any food they could find. In this, as in many other policies, the Bulgarian puppet dictator was replicating his Russian master’s class warfare from the late 1920s.

When nationalization of the property of the super rich did not result in prosperity, the government found new scapegoats for its failures: the rural middle class who hoarded their surpluses in a time of economic hardship. In the Soviet Union, these enemies of the revolution were known as “kulaks.” The result of Stalin’s “dekulakization” was the worst famine brought about by man in history and it should give me pause before I decide to support a policy that punishes people for being more successful than me.

Instead of submerging my worries, I want to let them bubble to the surface, where I can get a good look at them. I realize that this is the very stuff the Spirit who lives in me wants to deal with. This will be my sanctification:

“Do not quench the Spirit. … Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely …” (1 Thessalonians 5:19, 23).

Instead of wishing away the people in my life who bring the worst out of me—either my insecurities or my annoyance—let me see them as the change agents God wants to use to bring my issues to the surface, where He can burn off the dross.

I thought I had nearly “arrived” spiritually till Sally moved in next door. She pressed all my buttons. It wasn’t her; it was me. (She didn’t have that affect on other people.) It was that peculiar combustible mixture of personalities that made it very clear that this fixer-upper still needs work.

The Lord says, “Be perfect.” This is what He means. I am not to resist His grace for polishing the rough edges, nor His promptings to confess and to turn from things that are displeasing to Him. I am not to settle for “managing” relationships when the commandment is to love “earnestly” (1 Peter 4:8). I do not want to hobble into heaven trailing hay and stubble behind me (1 Corinthians 3:12-16) when I can be substantially purified before I get there:

“Since we have these promises beloved, let us cleans ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1).

I note with interest that the Lord says, “His Bride has made herself ready” (Revelation 19:7). Surely it was by grace that “it was granted to her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure” (verse 8). But it was she who availed herself of that grace.

Lord, show me my blemishes so that I may yield myself to your purification.

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Have a great Tuesday.

“Man dies shopping on Black Friday. Unfazed shoppers walk around, step over body.” That was a Drudge Report headline on Friday, and other media headlined stories of customers fighting over items, with one using pepper spray (see “Black-and-blue Friday,” by Sarah Padbury). But in a Houston suburb hit hard by NASA layoffs, I saw something very different from the stereotypical sensationalism.

My research began with bargain hunters camped around a Best Buy store on Gulf Freeway. The first in line, Mark Dickey, owner of NASA Flowers, arrived Tuesday evening to claim this coveted spot. He took turns holding his place in line with his mother, wife, and daughter. On Thanksgiving evening, all three were present, with Mark’s wife, Jeannie, sitting behind a portable banqueting table with two laptops and store ads, masterminding the family operation. As they waited, the Dickeys, veterans of five Black Fridays, generously offered tips to others in line.

Their shopping list included televisions, laptops, cameras, and Blu-ray players. Some of their purchases would be for personal use, while others would be gifts. But they also planned to advertise most of their purchases on eBay and Craigslist to sell at a profit and fund all of the family’s Christmas expenditures. They had a NASA Flowers company van and two cars backed up and ready to be loaded in front parking spots.

At 8 p.m., the Best Buy general manager and several employees handed out Coke Zero, energy drinks, and packaged popcorn. At 9, the store projected onto a large moving-truck Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. After the movie, store employees handed out product vouchers. At midnight, 75 customers at a time walked into the store to redeem their vouchers.

“I’ve never spent the night on the sidewalk before,” said Cheryl Ford, 28th in line, “but a couple of days out of the year to make my family happy is worth it.” Several in line said they were already looking forward to a reunion with new shopping friends next year, and planned to bring a turkey fryer.

Meanwhile, at a nearby Walmart, Jenny Toups, mother of three children under age 10, was leading a team of five friends in shopping not only for Christmas presents but also next year’s birthdays. She stood, No. 20 in line, in a Walmart aisle between the Sports and Leisure and Auto Care departments. The main thoroughfare aisle held large pallets of shrink-wrapped product, each with a posted, staggered time at which items could be scanned by cash registers. Shoppers with carts crowded around the pallets, waiting.

Toups’ line waited for one of the 42 in-stock Compaq computers available at midnight, a gift for her mother. Toups was once a stay-at-home mom, but economic pressures had sent her back into the workforce teaching first grade. A black-inked “20” on her left hand meant she must remain in line until midnight or lose out on the computer, but the other team members had more flexibility: Taking store ads out of her backpack, they went to work bringing not-so-sought-after items to the team’s shopping cart. Circling ads with a pen, Toups mentioned school cutbacks that pushed her to provide her own study aids for her class.

At 10 p.m., a Toups team member left to stand in line at Target. The same process continued through the night and into the next day at Toys R Us, Radio Shack, Macy’s, and J.C. Penny.

Some observers might question their priorities, but the Black Friday shoppers I met were not lunatics. They were smart marketplace analysts who had planned ahead to get the most out of their dollars.

“Save Money. Live Better.” That’s the promise of Walmart. But you might live better—and longer—if you didn’t visit the mega retailer on Black Friday.

Thanks to most employers, Americans traditionally have the fourth Thursday and Friday in November off to celebrate Thanksgiving. Thursday people stuff themselves with turkey and Friday they shop ’til they drop for the next holiday: Christmas.

Friday evening’s news and Saturday’s newspapers were filled with stories about customers acting like animals on America’s favorite shopping day. Walmart, with almost 4,000 stores in the United States (and perhaps statistically bound to have the most problems on Black Friday), opened its doors on Thursday, ahead of most other retailers, but the earlier opening didn’t keep incidents from happening at locations across the country:

On Thanksgiving night, Walmart employees in Los Angeles brought out a crate of discounted Xbox video game consoles, and as a crowd waited for the popular item to be unwrapped, a woman fired pepper spray at the other shoppers “in order to get an advantage,” according to police.

Ten people suffered cuts and bruises in the chaos, and 10 others had minor injuries from the spray, authorities said. The woman got away in the confusion, and it was not immediately clear whether she got an Xbox or not.

Meanwhile, police in suburban Phoenix came under fire when a video was posted online showing a 54-year-old grandfather on the floor of a Walmart store with a bloody face. According to police, the man was subdued Thursday night trying to shoplift during a chaotic rush for discounted video games.

On Friday morning, police reported that two women were injured and a man was charged with assault after a fight broke out at an upstate New York Walmart. Meanwhile, at a Walmart in Kissimmee, Fla., a man was arrested in a scuffle at a jewelry counter.

Near Muskegon, Mich., a teenage girl was knocked down and stepped on several times after getting caught in the rush to a sale in the electronics department at the local Walmart. She suffered minor injuries.

A Walmart shopper in San Leandro, Calif., was shot when he resisted a group of armed robbers trying to steal his family’s purchases in the store’s parking lot, authorities said. He was hospitalized in critical but stable condition.

Christians have long complained that Christ’s birth has lost its place as the “reason for the season,” with Christmas being more and more about buying “stuff.” And Black Friday intensifies that mindset, offering shoppers not just one-day-only deals, but also one-hour-only offers, bargains that many shoppers are willing to fight—if not kill—for.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Those of us who are older may remember infrequent visits to state institutions, where we saw some frightening specimens of humanity: people with huge heads or spastic muscles, immobile or too mobile. Among them might have been children and adults with distinctive facial features: almond eyes, large tongues, uniform slack expressions except when smiling. And personal attention could usually coax a smile.

When I was a kid, they were called “Mongoloid,” after the vaguely Asian slant of their eyes. Now we refer to the proper term for the condition: Down syndrome. It may be a little more awkward to say but much less insulting, and rightly so. With better therapies and surgeries and preventive screening, most Down syndrome children stand an excellent chance of living productive, fulfilling lives in society. But at the same time, they’re much more likely to miss their chance at life altogether.

Women over age 35 are at much higher risk of giving birth to Down syndrome babies, and many women who have put off motherhood until their 30s will opt for invasive procedures like amniocentesis or CVS (placenta tissue sampling). Since these procedures always carry a small risk of miscarriage, there’s a demand for safer forms of testing. A new blood test developed by Sequenom, a San Diego-based company, claims to be more accurate than previous tests, and safer than tissue or fluid sampling.

But safer for whom? Not for the unborn baby, who, if he or she tests positive for Down syndrome, stands a 90 percent chance of never seeing the light of day. Since the disorder is built into the baby’s genetic makeup, it can’t be cured, only eliminated—by eliminating the baby. Sometimes mothers are counseled to do so, and sometimes fear or ignorance compels them. With widespread use of MaterniT21 (named for Trisomy 21, the genetic defect that causes Down syndrome) that number is likely to go even higher.

Sequenom justifies its product as merely a way to offer prospective parents more information. But all MaterniT21 provides is a naked diagnosis (which may or may not be entirely accurate). What it does not provide is a context for evaluating that diagnosis. The National Down Syndrome Congress has prepared a booklet titled Understanding a Down Syndrome Diagnosis, but so far it’s not available at testing facilities. Will the mother hear that the life expectancy of Down syndrome children has risen from 25 to 55? Will she hear about surgeries that have been developed to correct the typical heart, gastrointestinal, and thyroid problems, and medications that can help improve brain functions? Most of all, does she know that the overwhelming majority of parents with Down syndrome children report a positive experience, while the grown children themselves are generally happy and fulfilled? “If everyone was as happy as me,” one of them responded to a survey, “that would be great.”

A family in our church has a 3-year-old Down syndrome daughter, whose life is further complicated by leukemia. A few weeks ago, her mother told me her daughter was dancing to music in the living room, spinning around and around to the beat and chanting, “I love this.” She loves life and possesses the same capacity to enjoy it as any other child. But as more Down syndrome children are eliminated, the resources going toward improving their lives will dry up also.

I can’t say much more about these children without sounding patronizing. So I’ll leave the last word to the world’s most famous mother of a Down syndrome child in a Thanksgiving message she sent CBN News’ David Brody:

“To me, when individuals reflect the greater societal acceptance of someone facing challenges, they show the best of humanity—even by offering a simple pat on Trig’s head or a knowing smile shot our way. Conversely, when a society works to eliminate the ‘weakest links’ (as some would callously consider the disabled) or ‘the unproductive’ (as some would callously consider the very young and the very old), it eliminates the very best of itself. When a society seeks to destroy them, it also destroys any ability or need for sincere compassion, empathy, improvement, and even goodwill. And those are the very best qualities of humanity! Those are the characteristics of a country that understands and embraces true hope! America can be compassionate and strong enough as a nation to be entrusted with those who some see as an “inconvenience,” but who are really our greatest blessings. Through Trig, I see firsthand that there is man’s standard of perfection, and then there is God’s. Man’s standard is flawed, temporary, and shallow. God’s standard lasts an eternity. At the end of the day, His is what matters.”

My friend Marjorie (I will call her that) has never been married but estimates she has had 800 children over the last 35 years. She told us through tears at a diner recently that school teaching is much harder now than when she started, and partly because children’s home lives are so broken. Did I mention that Marjorie teaches at a Christian school?

Christian books on marriage abound, but I’m afraid the books will not help much. When a marriage is full of strife, it is because someone needs to die and isn’t doing it. Nothing short of that will help. I know from personal experience that if you try to give God 95 percent of your life and to keep for yourself only 5 percent, the 5 will eat up the 95.

Why is the Church so spiritually poor today? Why are the parents of Marjorie’s students “yelling and slamming doors,” as one child told her? South African pastor Andrew Murray (1828-1917) offers an insight in Humility and Absolute Surrender:

“In Scotland once I was in a company where we were talking about the condition of Christ’s Church, and what the great need of the Church and of believers is; and there was in our company a godly worker who has much to do in training workers, and I asked him what he would say the great need of the Church, and the message that ought to be preached. He answered very quietly and simply and determinedly: ‘Absolute surrender is the one thing.’ The words struck me as never before. And that man began to tell how, in the workers with whom he had to deal, he finds that if they are sound on that point, even though they be backward, they are willing to be taught and helped, and they always improve. …”

In Corinth, Paul confronted the issue of a Christian going to court against a Christian (as we do in the case of divorce). Paul’s take on it was this:

“To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?” (1 Corinthians 6:7).

So then, it is good and not foolish to suck up the wrong done to you. It is a legitimate choice to let yourself be defrauded rather than pressing for your rights. That would take dying, wouldn’t it? That would take absolute surrender of all earthly desires for the greater good of the glory of God. Are we prepared to do that?