Press "zero" for more options

    I am continually amazed at the time-wasting stupidity of modern technology – as if, since there’s nothing useful anymore to invent to better the life of the average person, they have to keep “improving” what already exists, even if improvement makes it worse.  For instance, calling a cell phone.  If the person I’m calling is not there, a simple message and a beep to begin recording would suffice.  Most people with an over-40 IQ could handle that.   But to make it “better!” the cell phone companies have given you “options,” via the ubiquitous electronic female who, from her tone of voice, must hold the key to life and happiness: “When you are finished recording, you may hang up” – (!) – “or press ‘one’ for more options.  To leave a callback number, press ‘five.’  To send a numeric page” – (a what?) – please press ‘seven.’” 

    Unfortunately, with the desk job that pays my bills, I have to endure this idiocy numerous times in a day.  So, while the few people left in the world still deprived of the “benefit” of these merry instructions stand there through the lunch hour with their mouths open, not knowing they can hang up now, I head for the cemetery.  Death is less insulting.

    I mention this because, one day, on my customary afternoon walk through the graveyard in the town where I work, I happened to notice an interesting epitaph.  It was on a small metal marker of the kind you can buy in the over-priced yuppie garden catalogs to insert wise or cute sayings among the geraniums.  This one, to mark the grave, had the name of the dead person, her years of birth and death, and this intriguing sentiment: “Living Eternally in the Hearts of Loved Ones.” 

    There was an empty concrete planter behind the sign, crusted on the inside bottom with previous years’ maple seeds and decomposing leaves.  The sign itself was tilted and skewed as if it had heaved with the freeze and thaw of seasons, and clumps of onion grass had sprouted up around it:  in a matter of days, I guessed, it would be high enough to obliterate the message, were it not for the fastidious cemetery groundskeeper, whose mower sounded in the distance even as I pondered the oxymoron before me. 

    How does one live eternally in the hearts of other mortals? 

    Well, what do you say, exactly – what can you say –  when someone dies without Christ, without hope of resurrection?  To an atheist, or a “spiritual” person, that sounds like a sappy question, something to get the eyeballs rolling (see post, November 21, 2010) –  but this little grave-sign begs a coherent answer.  It certainly doesn’t give one. 

    If you don’t believe in Christ – in other words, if you don’t believe that through his blood, your sin (which brings death) is not imputed to you – how do you go about “living eternally?”  Are there other options?  Can you just float around?  Does the faulty memory of another sinful mortal keep you “alive?”  Are you somehow conscious of that while you’re rotting in the ground?

    These seem to be questions most people avoid, until someone dies and they’re left with needing to say something comforting.  What would a truthful atheist epitaph be?  “Damned to the memory of forgetful loved ones,” or, “Living in the hearts of loved ones until they die, too.”  That would be the truth, but atheists have a real dilemma when truth meets death, and so something deceptive becomes necessary – something warm and vague, some lie to divert them from the hopelessness of death without God.  After all, their turn is coming.  “Living Eternally in the Hearts of Loved Ones.”

    I felt sorry for the woman in the grave, whose eternal life had apparently run out in the seven short years since her demise, when her loved ones got busy with other things.   Having recovered from the sweet deception they enjoyed in the days immediately after her departure, what did they leave this woman with now, whose eternity had apparently depended entirely upon them?

    As I headed back to the office, I reflected that this woman probably led a “good” life, in terms of all the usual measurements – friends that had enjoyed her company, probably a family, a useful occupation that helped people, or whatever.  She probably believed in the modern concept of “choice” as a well-meaning virtue, willfully oblivious to its moral pitfalls.  Choice itself has become a god, and the notion (as with technology) of there always being more “options” has filtered down into the minutiae of our daily lives and culture, making difficult the simple, clouding what was once clear, and forcing us to navigate a maze for which there is no apparent solution.   

    Technology can get away with this because there’s money in it – that’s the aim – but when it comes to questions of eternity, the proliferation of options is, frankly, a falsehood.  You have one choice for entrance into eternal life – the blood of Christ – and it runs out at your last heartbeat.

    Press “zero” for more options:  that’s how many there are.

What I would say at the bonfire

A headline in today’s Yahoo! News, weekend edition:

            5 die in Quran burning protest. 

The article tells us that “at least” 5 civilians in Afghanistan were killed and “scores more” wounded, in a protest over a Quran burning in Florida.  The demonstrators attacked cars and shops in (so far) two days of rioting, “outraged” -- as they seem always to be -- over the desecration of their holy book.

Now, I’m all for being respectful of religious sensitivities.  But let’s put this in perspective:  Muslims burn Bibles in Afghanistan (and the whole Muslim world) all the time, and I’ve never attacked a car.  Like, what’s the connection?

The article says, “The desecration of the Quran has outraged millions of Muslims and others worldwide…  On Friday, Afghans protesting the Quran burning “stormed” a U.N. compound in Northern Afghanistan, leaving seven foreigners dead… Less than  24 hours later, two suicide bombers disguised as women blew themselves up and a third was gunned down when they tried to enter a NATO base on the outskirts of Kabul…”

Florida is roughly 7,700 miles from Afghanistan.  That’s about 15 hours by plane (not counting stopovers, delays and cancellations).   So, a pastor burns a book in Gainesville, and “millions worldwide” go on marathon looting sprees, attacking people and businesses that have nothing whatsoever to do with the guy oceans away in Florida -- their families have nothing to do with him, friends, nothing. 

All because(!) the book is, in Muslim circles, “holy,” meaning --- I’m not sure what, in this context.  It seems a holy book would be, among other things, a guide to living as “God” would have one live.  Continent lives, charitable works, peace with one’s neighbor.  The effort, at least.

Although we could dwell on the true identity of a “God” whose writings inspire his followers to a seemingly perpetual state of outrage, who equates “holiness” with indiscriminate murder, rioting and arson, I think that identification is easily made by anyone with an IQ of 50 or more, so I’ll move on.

Getting back to the frequent, mass Bible-burnings we never hear about in the press:  Why, if Christians believe the Bible is a holy book, do we not throw beer bottles through the shop windows of fellow citizens in, say, Flemington, New Jersey, when Bibles are desecrated in Afghanistan, or in any of the numerous places Jews and Christians are hated? 

I understand that some Christians do get upset by this, at least among themselves, expressing mostly impotent verbal outrage over coffee in the church basement, or whatever.  But my own take on it is this:  I don’t care.

In fact, what I would say to the yipping hooligans at the bonfire is: Knock yourselves out.  If the Bible is true -- if it really is the word of God, meaning YHWH -- then you can burn it till the goats come home, and it will still be true.  Truth cannot be destroyed by your silly fire. 

On the other hand, if the Bible is false, and there is no YHWH, and if Yeshua is still dead in his grave, then you might as well angrily burn leaves, or office paper.   Yes, I get the intended insult to my faith, but really, you’re wasting precious outrage -- probably better spent stoning rape victims. 

As for the Florida pastor, I am with him all the way in the spirit of American freedom, which allows (at least until the lynch mob gets there) him and his congregation to protest the intrusion of Islam into our country by the peaceful burning of a Quran, a book that has become a world-wide symbol of Islamic mob-hatred.   

But the truth is, he may as well burn leaves. 

Lisa

Read the article at: 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110402/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan

Suffer! (round two)

I Samuel 2:6-7   “YHWH killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.  YHWH maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and he lifteth up.” (KJV)

Isaiah 45:7   “’I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I, YHWH, do all these things.’” (KJV)

            Surprise!  According to the Bible, God creates both good and evil.  Granted, evil is not all from him directly – most of it is from man, and to some extent, Satan – but he certainly has the power to stop both man and Satan in their tracks, or to prevent tragedy altogether.  Why he does not is the taunting question of unbelievers to believers, the one that makes us squirm and want to run, because we think – no, we fear – there is no sufficient answer.  We shrug, apologetically, offering some lame non-response:  “It’s a mystery!”  

            Guess who wins that argument?

            The better answer is a question, or several.  Turn it around.  If God stopped every evil thought and deed of man, every contrivance of Satan, every lightning strike and storm, kept us cozy and warm and prosperous, kept us from suffering and injustice,

1)  Would we seek him? 

            We look to him, mostly, in need and in pain; when we praise and thank him for prosperity and happy turns of events, it is because we remember our experiences of lack. 

 2)  Would we ever mature in spirit if we lived pain-free lives of coziness and prosperity? 

            For that matter, as human beings, could we ever have outgrown infancy if we never experienced the tension between good and evil, danger and safety, and never had the opportunity to learn from the fallout of our choices?  Gold is refined in the fire. 

3)  Is it not necessary that we have evil in order to desire good? 

            Desire for good is different than simply basking in it as a usual state.  Desire is active; it nags at the spirit.  It is the emotional force, incited by evil events, that compels us to turn to him, consciously, as the one from whom ultimate good comes.  Even when, in anger, we accuse him and demand, “Why?!,” we’re still directing the question to him, in recognition of his power for goodness.  

            In the midst of disaster, witnessing terror and destruction – earthquakes, tidal waves, the holocaust, 9/11, cancer – knowing his sovereignty, I react:  “How is this love, if we are his children?  I would never treat my children like this!”  But that is to bring him down  to human terms.  It is precisely because I wouldn’t bring terror and disaster to my children, even if it were to effect heaven for them, that he keeps this power of decision from my hands.  My love is imperfect, selfish – I could not bear to see them suffer – “leave them alone, take me!”  My best intentions as a human being can not see the ultimate end of anything – I can see only within the timeline of my own life, the small parameters of my own experience, and even that not very well.  Thank YHWH that he does not think like me, but knows the end from the beginning. 

False Light

Removed.

What's in a name?

Temporarily removed for revision.