Preachers say the darndest things don’t they? What I’ve noticed, at least here in America, as long as a preacher doesn’t say anything too negative about God or Jesus or especially another religion, why they can get away with spouting just about anything, and nobody will ever call them on it. Of course it’s better when they don’t try to incite an international event like the fellow down in Florida who wanted to burn the Koran last summer. Symbolism pure and simple, but you got to be careful. A lot of these Muslims he’s insulting like to carry knives. And even though most of them still herd sheep and live in the desert, I’m sure there’s a soft copy of the Koran somewhere that somebody could download and crank out millions of new copies in no time just in case he did. So burning a few dozen books in the backyard, I’d say go ahead if it makes you feel better. It won’t make that much difference; just don’t tell anybody.
And you may remember a few years ago, before he died, Jerry Falwell, amidst all the post 9-11 terrorism anxieties, the Iranian nuclear buildup, the African genocides, and the Brittany Spears breakdown, ole Jerry takes his clerical aim at the most sinister threats of them all, Spongebob Squarepaints. Kind of like listening to the Beatles records backwards, Jerry somehow interpreted this cartoon character’s sexual orientation as being too questionable for four and five year olds. In my mind, that’s four words that don’t seem like they would be used in the same sentence, but I know how riled up some parents can get about anything. Seems the hottest character I recall from my growing up days was Fred’s wife Wilma. I guess Spongebob was more of a man than ole Jerry was expecting, because just like Fidel Castro and unlike Jerry, he’s still standing.
Well there’s another one I heard about just the other day. He’s a black preacher from up north, the Reverend Cedric Miller of the Living Word Christian Fellowship Church in Neptune Township, NJ. With the national divorce rate hovering just north of 52%, this cat has decided the number one modern day enemy of the marriage covenant is none other than the web site Facebook. I’ve read where, in the old days, Christian preachers used to stand up against real enemies; Indians and what-not. It seems like preachers today try to draw their line in the sand against some pop cultural phenomenon. I guess you do what you gotta do.
Now I’m semi-new to Facebook having started my own page about a year ago so I’m still trying to get used to it. It is odd how hard it is to find all my friends once I do add them to my site, but that’s another matter. It seems to me that Facebook is just one real long conversation. It never ends, kind of a cross between the old timey chain letters we used to send as kids but without all the stamps and those “brag letters” we used to get at Christmas time. You know the cards you used to get in the mail, right before Christmas when you were broke, or just getting over the crud, or getting your transmission replaced. That extra glitzy Christmas card with the perfect white suburban family of four all decked out at their summer home in Vail or wherever, with the longwinded typewritten personal annual update on the inside. And how the dad got his big promotion, and the mom got in the ladies auxiliary, and junior got into Harvard and little Jenny won homecoming queen. I couldn’t have asked for more self-abuse if I had signed up for Jackass III. That’s a lot of what Facebook is it seems. That or a lot of folks sending instant electronic well wishes when something bad happens. I know their hearts in the right place, but you just can’t beat a good old hand written card sent postal when you really want to express your true feelings.
Anyway, this preacher claims that Facebook is destroying thousands of marriages because, as he has observed, “it can reignite old flames”. I don’t think he’s offering prize money, coupons, or even a logical alternative if they do, but he has challenged his flock to get off of it and shut down their Facebook accounts. If it’s temptations we ought to worry about, I’d be more concerned with new flames rather than old flames, especially some of those hot young blonde headed flames I see everywhere in my travels out to Beverly Hills. I’m 54 and I don’t think I ever once went out with someone I used to date, though it probably could have saved me a little money and a whole lot of mundane conversation if I had. I mean how many times in life can you really ask “So what was your major?!%$^”
I will admit I have been totally taken off guard by so many of the folks I have befriended on FB. Not the ones I live near or see on a weekly basis back home; no I’m talking about all the people I’ve rediscovered that I went to high school and even grammar school with, way back from the 60s. Man o’ man, I don’t know about the friends you’re digging up these days but all mine have gotten old, and some of ‘em real old. It’s almost scary; talk about a time-warp. My last recollection of Susie so n’ so; it was the summer of ’69. She was 14, had a great figure, gorgeous smile, lovely complexion and then whamoo and almost overnight, she’s on Facebook and looks more like one of my great aunts on my dad’s side.
But back to this preacher’s point. I’m sure he has only the best of intentions, doing his best to keep the family unit together. But is logging off Facebook for good really the best answer? Is that how you truly solve infidelity? Heck fire, if you really want to keep the circle unbroken, let’s just get rid of the whole dang Internet while we’re at it. After all, Facebook’s not the only place you might run into an old flame. Ever heard of Linked In? It’s primarily a business site, for professionals at that. That’s why I’m pretty sure you won’t find my first wife on there. But there’s plenty of other successful ex’s on there I’ll bet. There’s hundreds and hundreds of sites that have been set up for the pure purpose of meeting somebody. So you better block these while you’re at it Reverend Miller.
Yep Rev we can do better than that. We ought to take down the entire Internet, give Al Gore his money back, and get life back like it used to be. Then again, was the divorce rate that much better? Back in the good old days, before Facebook, the Internet, and all these modern diversions, there were a lot of old fashioned devices to help you be unfaithful if you felt so inclined. One thing in particular, it was called the telephone. Of course sometimes you might have had to go through the operator, or the phonebook, especially if you had moved, or they had moved. But you could find just about anybody you needed to, and anybody who answered always knew where everybody else was. And there didn’t seem to be all these secret recordings or phone call logs like they have now. Yep the black rotary phone. What a gem.
But we had other methods as well. We had cheap motels, cb radios, happy hours, double dates, ladies nights, playing footsies, sticky notes, weekend trips, late nights at the office, the back row in the movie house, and class reunions. If you were suppose to be in love but still looking for love, why there was no end to the opportunities to make that happen.
You see Cedric, it seems to me that man’s heart hasn’t really changed through the years, only his means. If people are unfulfilled, unhappy, or whatever in a relationship then they are going to wander. I guess that’s one of the downfalls of the modern mobile society we live in. Just imagine, today you can communicate with anybody in the world in a matter of seconds, or minutes if you’re on dial up. And you can literally be anywhere in the world in a matter of hours thanks to the Concorde. So even with six degrees of separation between us, in a wink and for a few bucks you can be wherever with whoever you really want to.
I know a lot of old fogy’s like to put the morals of the good old days on a big high horse pedestal. Then again it was hard to do too much extra- marital socializing when you lived ten miles from your neighbor and had to get around by mule. I’m not sure everybody was so content back then anyway. Just because you’re forced to stay under the same roof all weekend with somebody don’t mean you necessarily like it. No I’m thinking there was probably a whole lot more abuse, and frustration, and discontent going on back in great grandpa’s era than most folks are willing to discuss. Hard to prove for sure, but that’s just my guess.
What I want to know is where is God in all of this? And how come it’s always the guy, or the girl, that gets all the blame? One of the few civil ceremonies we ever perform with God as our witness and still the best we three can pull off is a 48% success rate. That’s not much of a divine partner we got there if you ask me. Most of the time, when somebody is getting ready to stray God is nowhere to be found. But by golly when you get caught, you can’t get Him out of the house.
No, it’s really no surprise how human beings are. If you’ve ever read Freud, he tells us that sex is a mighty strong urge. So even if an otherwise copasetic couple’s romantical side is off just the slightest hair, then that’s grounds for somebody to start looking for replacement parts. I can say first hand especially from my younger days; well having sex was a whole lot like eating out on the road. You didn’t care where you ate; you just needed to grab a bite before you went to sleep.
Of course relationships and marriages are a lot more than just sex; well the ones that last that is. I’m on my third and pretty sure it will be my last. Truly couldn’t be happier, and am flattered at just how many folks back home think my Tina and I are the perfect couple. We really do get along, both giving 110% around the house. She lets me do my thing, and I let her do hers, but we genuinely enjoy all the time we are together and for that I am truly thankful. I feel like I stole the heart of the most beautiful woman in Washington County and me being an outsider to boot. There’s lots of reasons I suppose this one has worked so well. I think age has a lot to do with it, age and maturity. And it wasn’t till my fourth decade on the planet that I finally figured out two valuable lessons in life that have made a whole lot of difference.
1. The only person I can truly control in this world is myself
2. The only person I can truly control in this world is myself
I’ll never know just where I got the notion, but for the longest time, in my twenties and thirties, somehow I thought that I alone could make a wife, my parents, my brother, my sister, not to mention all my customers and my friends; I thought could make them all happy if I could just get them to do what I thought they ought to be doing. That somehow I had life so well figured out, heck I was a college graduate and 29 years old. Anyway I was going to be the real successful one; more than anyone else I was going to parlay that private high school education with that Bachelor of Arts education, a nice head of hair and a good work ethic and be extra-extra, really successful. Of course I needed a little more time on account that I wasn’t anywhere near being successful, though I sure was miserable. But just as soon as I got successful, and rich, why then I would be happy and just like that, ole Kirk was going to make everybody happy. Life was going to be grand.
Well I can say finally that life really is grand, but it’s sure not on account of everybody doing what I think they ought to be doing. In fact, it’s completely opposite of that. Yep I learned a lot of great lessons on the way down and digging myself back out again. One of the true secrets to a great relationship I discovered was not so much finding Mrs. Right but Being Mr. Right.
Oh and by the way, if you do look for me on Facebook, I’m the real young looking guy with the gray beard.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
The Big O
I am grandfather now, have been for a little over a year. Somehow both of my identical twins decided in their own identical twin like way to settle down and start a family just as soon as they could after high school. And my hats off to them I suppose, well to getting married anyway. That saved them, at least from my own personal experience, two decades of drinking beer and chasing women trying to find the one Mrs. Right. So good for them I say. Though this proverbial grandpa hat is one thing I’ve had a mighty time adjusting to. I mean gray hair is one thing I can handle, but having gray hair plus a three foot family offspring with my same surname 53 years younger than I me; well that’s a whole different story. But thankfully I’ve got three healthy, beautiful little grand daughters.
The youngest one will be turning one this summer, same birthday as my little brother’s. But between all the diaper changing, and baby shots, learning to walk, and talk and teething, I’m just wondering when I ought to break the news to her, have that heart to heart, you know be the one to tell her, tell her about the Big O. And no I don’t mean that Big O. I’m sure, if she’s anything at all like her grand-pappy, she’ll find out all about that one in due time. I just hope she’s married, and he’s got a good job. No I’m talking about the other Big O; you know Original Sin.
Like the 800 pound gorilla in the room, Original Sin has been the bedrock of pulpit diatribes and personal assessment for western civilization for almost two thousand years. Somebody, and I’ve studied up on it, somebody, but it wasn’t Jesus, said that all men, and I’m sure he meant women too; anyway all people are born in Original Sin. Eve eats one freaking apple 6570 years ago, and we’re still paying the price. That’s some mighty pricey fruit we’re talking. Must have come from Whole Foods.
Isn’t that a sight? I mean there’s nine months of a mother’s weight gain, morning sickness, contractions, labor pains, all-nighters, lamaz classes, water breaking, financial anxieties, the in-laws getting involved and usually in the way; all the needles and tests, possible deformities, getting laid off from work, all these real life issues and then to top it off there is still Original Sin to worry about? Good Lord can’t we have a break.
That sure is a mighty heavy burden to dump off on a little one year old. Then again I don’t make the rules. I’m just trying to follow them.
Just like learning the truth about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, this isn’t the sort of subject matter that a darling sweet little southern belle ought to hear about from some bully in school or out on the playground. But I’m sure the Sunday school teacher or at least the church pastor will be the one, you know to tell her; tell her that by the mere fact that she somehow was the miraculous offspring of two previously unknown human beings that she is still damned to hell ever-after by her mere birth and that she had damn sure better get her butt into Sunday school and church, if not a convent, and spend the rest of her mortal days showing penance and pleading mercy from God almighty that her precious little soul might be spared from fire and brimstone. If I had had any notion at all when I was that little that this was the way it was, I might have just had my little pee-pee cut off to save all my future bloodline such an eternal burden.
Yea the preacher could be the one, but I think, being family, and now just one heart beat away from being the patriarch at that, I ought to be the one to inform my grand-daughter of her fatal though non-causative error.
Seriously, I know the modern church, especially those great big mega-churches with the orchestras and surround sound, the 24 hour fitness centers, they’ve toned down their hellfire mentality and sermons that lit up many a one-room church house back in the 1700s, but mostly to increase attendance I’m guessing. Heck, I can appreciate that. We’ve all got to pay the mortgage. But the idea of Original Sin is still around. How do you even bring this up in discussion? Haven’t we got too much on our plate to talk about with the youngins anyway? Sweetie, you are a smart, great, loving little kid, and those tap dancing classes are starting to pay off, but you can still spend eternity in hell if you don’t get your act together. It don’t matter how much Mac and cheese and beaney babies you give this kid, that’s just a hard notion to swallow.
Then again, maybe it’s not reality. I’m not sure but when was the last time, I mean when was the last time that somebody, anybody went in and checked the status or asked a few questions or renegotiated or changed the terms or something. They’re doing stuff like this in California all the time with all those Proposition 18s or 32s on the ballot. I’m reminded of the Mayberry episode about the two families feuding- the Carters and the Wakefields. Andy got to studying and realized that neither family had hit the other shooting for eighty seven years. So he drove up and asked Mr. Carter “Why are you shooting at him?” “Cause he’s a Wakefield.” “But why are you shooting at the Wakefields? “Cause we’re a feuding.” Sometimes it’s hard to get a straight answer.
I do believe if I were born on a flat rock, and lived on that same flat rock my entire days the idea of being born in Original Sin is not one I would come up in forty seven lifetimes. I would probably learn hunger, and pain, cold, sexual urges, heat, loneliness, and anxiety, and joy, and sorrow, all the basic temperaments, but being born in sin? Where the heck would you ever get an idea like that, unless, well unless you went to a church and heard it preached. It’s moments like this when I am reminded of what the late comedian Richard Prior said; “you know God didn’t write anything down”. So true Richard, so true.
Nope it seems the people we got on our side, or at least the ones that always act like they’re own our side, the preachers that is, they want to just keep this ole feud a going and going as long as they can. Again, even though they’re preachers, they still got bills to pay. After all we do live in a real world. My guess, and its just a guess, but the longer a fellow can keep a man feeling a bit guilty about something, then the longer he can keep him under his thumb and coming back for more. Heck fire, a man who’s got a good strong self image, and a little confidence, why he don’t need to cow tow to trash talk like that. Come to think of it, the best message a preacher could ever share would be “Brothers and sisters, you are all ok, just the way you are. Go out and be free.” I know it doesn’t come from Scripture, but there is one school of thought going around that suggests that as thinking rational beings, we have all the tools necessary to handle any problem life throws our way, and without all the baggage. Check this out:
1. Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.
2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
3. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church
A belief like this, well it won’t have near as many followers as say, Baptists, and it probably doesn’t lend itself to any children’s plays, especially around the holidays. But it sure can clear off the calendar on the weekends, and think of the money you’ll save on dry cleaning. Philosophers refer to this as Objectivism; I call it plain ole common sense; common sense as opposed to just wishful thinking.
I know some ideas are hard to change, but the notion of Original Sin is ridiculous. I mean how do you even prove something like that? Do a 360 exam, or how about a Rorschach test, or maybe a DNA sample, a blood test, or just a simple true and false. You suppose any of those could prove such? I think about my late grandmother, on my dad’s side. In all my days there has never ever been a sweeter person. Worked hard around the farm, always had a smile on her face, a great cook, and I only saw her mad one time. She did love her Bible, but I’d say she was just good folk to begin with.
I know some people get off on the wrong foot and get into all sorts of meanness. My guess is that’s a lot of it is environmental, maybe if they had had a little better upbringing, structure of some sort, or at least a dad around the house, things might have turned out different.
When I think back on it, seem like the times I’ve done the most wrong was either when I was drunk or broke. Though there was a situation once, back when I was in the 7th grade. The school I went to, we had an honor code and had to sign every exam and paper with “On my honor as a gentleman, I have neither given nor received aid on this examination.” One time in English class I turned my paper in but did not sign it. My teacher, Mrs. Bowen, what a fine educator she was; anyway she called me up to her desk the next day and said “Kirk, you forgot to sign your paper.” “But I can’t sign that paper Mrs. Bowen” I replied, “My dad helped me.”
Dad, well my dad is a very smart man, and I know he was toting a pretty big bill just sending me to this particular school. So at times it was a team effort getting me through there. Anyway, he got involved in reviewing my work the night before I turned it in, and let’s just say he got a little over zealous doing it. But in my mind, and back to the honor code, to me the worst thing I could do would be to get help and still sign that paper. Now that would be wrong.
From her reaction, I don’t think Mrs. Bowen had ever had a situation quite like this one, a sort of ethical pickle I could see Opie getting into with Miss Crump. Well, she asked me to do another paper so I did. I don’t remember showing this one to my dad. Still I wonder, is this when sin reared its ugly head?
And then, there was a time during my first marriage when things were mighty, mighty tough, though it was nobody’s fault but my own; well me and this woman I was engaged in premarital intercourse with. I’m guessing even Bill Gates would have had a hard time going from taking care of one to four and almost over night. Remember I had twins.
It wasn’t a ten commandment I broke that day, but it still left me feeling pretty bad about myself. I was broke; my straight commission sales job just wasn’t panning out in the least. I had to drive up to Kentucky for a job interview; somebody my dad had lined up for me. I’m just lucky it wasn’t an overnighter. Anyway I was heading back home to Knoxville down I-75, and the gas tank in the big brown Buick station-wagon said EMPTY in big orange lights. Anymore keeping gas in the vehicle isn’t that a big deal, knock on wood, but on this particular day I was flat broke. I didn’t have a single dime on me. Couldn’t call my wife; heck she was no help either when it came to contributing to the family finance.
It’s funny how creative a body can get when they’re in that kind of circumstance. Survival is a mighty strong instinct. I thought about hitting a Stop and Go real quick, pumping a few gallons and driving off; but that’s all I needed, to be the butt-end of an all points bulletin somewhere for a ten dollar misdemeanor.
Anyway I remember it was around Labor Day, and it struck me, just like the people that had come knocking at our house, I could go door to door and ask people if they wanted to contribute to the Jerry Lewis telethon. All I had to do was ask them a question. This wasn’t no strong armed robbery b-s, something a lot less dangerous with a feel good kicker. I just wanted to get home. It so happened that there was little can in my backseat, so that’s what I did. Pulled off the big road, found a neighborhood, grabbed my can and started knocking on doors. In no time at all, I had eight bucks, just enough cash on hand to get back to the Knoxville city limits.
I felt bad about that, slowly driving south down the interstate, a lot of a lot nicer cars zooming by; still do to this day. Oh, I’ve paid it back and ten fold in contributions to the MD Telethon. Pride and desperation can be a tough thing to reconcile at times, especially for a young person.
And there was this other time, it also involved money. I got a great idea about putting travel information in an audio format, so I started a company called Travel Tapes. A one-man show, I did everything; did the research, wrote the scripts, did the narration, interviewed folks, even handled all the distribution and marketing. My tapes were mentioned in the New York Times, Southern Living; and even the Journal of American Culture regarded them as “Highly recommended”. So much for good press, the bottom line after three years was that I could not achieve a self sustaining level of income. I don’t think it was a sin, but it sure made me feel bad, telling my friend at the printing company that I couldn’t pay the $1500 bill I owed him.
In my experiences, life can be hard enough, even when you’re trying to do the right thing to worry about something as abstract, as old fashioned, and irrelevant as Original Sin. I didn’t wake up worrying about killing somebody, bearing false witness, or making idols; I was just trying to make it to the next payday and take care of my family.
Like a lot of faiths, and it can be a bit hard to pinpoint just where a specific belief comes from. Though I’ve done my research. The idea of Original Sin, first of all, is only carried by Christians. Jews, Hindus and Muslims don’t cotton to it too much. They seem a lot more easy going on their membership, at least when it comes to the blame game. While Original Sin is not mentioned in the Bible per-se, Charles Ryrie, the Ryrie of the study Bible by the same name, suggests “we are not just the offspring of Adam, but we were also a part of Adam and participated in his sin”. To which I say “huh?” Your honor, not only was I not in the same room as the defendant, I wasn't even in the same millenium! You know what that sounds like, that sounds a whole lot like black people wanting us to pay financial retributions for slavery or Barrack Obama apologizing to every nation on his global tour for America’s prosperity. No wonder so many people can’t take responsibility for their own actions. They’ve been programmed since day 1 they don’t have to.
Ryrie goes on to say that “I did not say that original sin is biblical. I said that it is based upon the decision of an official Church Council”; there we go again, sounds like something our Federal Government would get into and mandate.
Two thousand years of processing that we’re doomed from the get-go may have taken its toll on our collective human psyche; could go a long way to explaining our country’s affinity for drugs, alcohol, sex, sports, laptops, lap dances, cell phones, television and every other which away you can temporarily distract yourself from the human condition. Polls show our feelings of hope about the future are hitting all time lows; but even though I didn’t vote for him, I refuse to blame Obama for everything. I say it’s time the Church and its message get’s her fair share of the blame game.
I say it’s time for some real hope and change. I don’t think we as a nation are handling this spiritual beat-down well at all. Recent studies show that people in Luxembourg are not only the happiest people in the world, but they also consume the most alcohol per capita. Heck we came in 17th and could probably learn a lot from a country like that. But there is hope. I say we need to ditch this Original Sin notion and “papa get a brand new bag”, come up with something a little more encouraging but in a practical way. How about this- try to make good decisions and do what you say your going to do, or bad things do happen in life but not because we are born bad people.
Yep, this idea of sin isn’t too original. We all make mistakes, but my guess is that they don’t come with the eternal implication that so many would have you believe. I guess the best thing to do is to try to learn from them, don’t repeat ‘em if you can, don’t beat yourself up about it, and try to make right to anybody you did wrong. And if you need help, ask for help. There are plenty of good people willing to give it.
Yep, I think that’s what I’m going to try and teach my little grand daughter.
Ps- Thirteen years after my Travel Tapes went defunct, I paid off the $1500 debt to that printing company. They sent me one of the nicest letters I’ve ever received………..
The youngest one will be turning one this summer, same birthday as my little brother’s. But between all the diaper changing, and baby shots, learning to walk, and talk and teething, I’m just wondering when I ought to break the news to her, have that heart to heart, you know be the one to tell her, tell her about the Big O. And no I don’t mean that Big O. I’m sure, if she’s anything at all like her grand-pappy, she’ll find out all about that one in due time. I just hope she’s married, and he’s got a good job. No I’m talking about the other Big O; you know Original Sin.
Like the 800 pound gorilla in the room, Original Sin has been the bedrock of pulpit diatribes and personal assessment for western civilization for almost two thousand years. Somebody, and I’ve studied up on it, somebody, but it wasn’t Jesus, said that all men, and I’m sure he meant women too; anyway all people are born in Original Sin. Eve eats one freaking apple 6570 years ago, and we’re still paying the price. That’s some mighty pricey fruit we’re talking. Must have come from Whole Foods.
Isn’t that a sight? I mean there’s nine months of a mother’s weight gain, morning sickness, contractions, labor pains, all-nighters, lamaz classes, water breaking, financial anxieties, the in-laws getting involved and usually in the way; all the needles and tests, possible deformities, getting laid off from work, all these real life issues and then to top it off there is still Original Sin to worry about? Good Lord can’t we have a break.
That sure is a mighty heavy burden to dump off on a little one year old. Then again I don’t make the rules. I’m just trying to follow them.
Just like learning the truth about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, this isn’t the sort of subject matter that a darling sweet little southern belle ought to hear about from some bully in school or out on the playground. But I’m sure the Sunday school teacher or at least the church pastor will be the one, you know to tell her; tell her that by the mere fact that she somehow was the miraculous offspring of two previously unknown human beings that she is still damned to hell ever-after by her mere birth and that she had damn sure better get her butt into Sunday school and church, if not a convent, and spend the rest of her mortal days showing penance and pleading mercy from God almighty that her precious little soul might be spared from fire and brimstone. If I had had any notion at all when I was that little that this was the way it was, I might have just had my little pee-pee cut off to save all my future bloodline such an eternal burden.
Yea the preacher could be the one, but I think, being family, and now just one heart beat away from being the patriarch at that, I ought to be the one to inform my grand-daughter of her fatal though non-causative error.
Seriously, I know the modern church, especially those great big mega-churches with the orchestras and surround sound, the 24 hour fitness centers, they’ve toned down their hellfire mentality and sermons that lit up many a one-room church house back in the 1700s, but mostly to increase attendance I’m guessing. Heck, I can appreciate that. We’ve all got to pay the mortgage. But the idea of Original Sin is still around. How do you even bring this up in discussion? Haven’t we got too much on our plate to talk about with the youngins anyway? Sweetie, you are a smart, great, loving little kid, and those tap dancing classes are starting to pay off, but you can still spend eternity in hell if you don’t get your act together. It don’t matter how much Mac and cheese and beaney babies you give this kid, that’s just a hard notion to swallow.
Then again, maybe it’s not reality. I’m not sure but when was the last time, I mean when was the last time that somebody, anybody went in and checked the status or asked a few questions or renegotiated or changed the terms or something. They’re doing stuff like this in California all the time with all those Proposition 18s or 32s on the ballot. I’m reminded of the Mayberry episode about the two families feuding- the Carters and the Wakefields. Andy got to studying and realized that neither family had hit the other shooting for eighty seven years. So he drove up and asked Mr. Carter “Why are you shooting at him?” “Cause he’s a Wakefield.” “But why are you shooting at the Wakefields? “Cause we’re a feuding.” Sometimes it’s hard to get a straight answer.
I do believe if I were born on a flat rock, and lived on that same flat rock my entire days the idea of being born in Original Sin is not one I would come up in forty seven lifetimes. I would probably learn hunger, and pain, cold, sexual urges, heat, loneliness, and anxiety, and joy, and sorrow, all the basic temperaments, but being born in sin? Where the heck would you ever get an idea like that, unless, well unless you went to a church and heard it preached. It’s moments like this when I am reminded of what the late comedian Richard Prior said; “you know God didn’t write anything down”. So true Richard, so true.
Nope it seems the people we got on our side, or at least the ones that always act like they’re own our side, the preachers that is, they want to just keep this ole feud a going and going as long as they can. Again, even though they’re preachers, they still got bills to pay. After all we do live in a real world. My guess, and its just a guess, but the longer a fellow can keep a man feeling a bit guilty about something, then the longer he can keep him under his thumb and coming back for more. Heck fire, a man who’s got a good strong self image, and a little confidence, why he don’t need to cow tow to trash talk like that. Come to think of it, the best message a preacher could ever share would be “Brothers and sisters, you are all ok, just the way you are. Go out and be free.” I know it doesn’t come from Scripture, but there is one school of thought going around that suggests that as thinking rational beings, we have all the tools necessary to handle any problem life throws our way, and without all the baggage. Check this out:
1. Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.
2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
3. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church
A belief like this, well it won’t have near as many followers as say, Baptists, and it probably doesn’t lend itself to any children’s plays, especially around the holidays. But it sure can clear off the calendar on the weekends, and think of the money you’ll save on dry cleaning. Philosophers refer to this as Objectivism; I call it plain ole common sense; common sense as opposed to just wishful thinking.
I know some ideas are hard to change, but the notion of Original Sin is ridiculous. I mean how do you even prove something like that? Do a 360 exam, or how about a Rorschach test, or maybe a DNA sample, a blood test, or just a simple true and false. You suppose any of those could prove such? I think about my late grandmother, on my dad’s side. In all my days there has never ever been a sweeter person. Worked hard around the farm, always had a smile on her face, a great cook, and I only saw her mad one time. She did love her Bible, but I’d say she was just good folk to begin with.
I know some people get off on the wrong foot and get into all sorts of meanness. My guess is that’s a lot of it is environmental, maybe if they had had a little better upbringing, structure of some sort, or at least a dad around the house, things might have turned out different.
When I think back on it, seem like the times I’ve done the most wrong was either when I was drunk or broke. Though there was a situation once, back when I was in the 7th grade. The school I went to, we had an honor code and had to sign every exam and paper with “On my honor as a gentleman, I have neither given nor received aid on this examination.” One time in English class I turned my paper in but did not sign it. My teacher, Mrs. Bowen, what a fine educator she was; anyway she called me up to her desk the next day and said “Kirk, you forgot to sign your paper.” “But I can’t sign that paper Mrs. Bowen” I replied, “My dad helped me.”
Dad, well my dad is a very smart man, and I know he was toting a pretty big bill just sending me to this particular school. So at times it was a team effort getting me through there. Anyway, he got involved in reviewing my work the night before I turned it in, and let’s just say he got a little over zealous doing it. But in my mind, and back to the honor code, to me the worst thing I could do would be to get help and still sign that paper. Now that would be wrong.
From her reaction, I don’t think Mrs. Bowen had ever had a situation quite like this one, a sort of ethical pickle I could see Opie getting into with Miss Crump. Well, she asked me to do another paper so I did. I don’t remember showing this one to my dad. Still I wonder, is this when sin reared its ugly head?
And then, there was a time during my first marriage when things were mighty, mighty tough, though it was nobody’s fault but my own; well me and this woman I was engaged in premarital intercourse with. I’m guessing even Bill Gates would have had a hard time going from taking care of one to four and almost over night. Remember I had twins.
It wasn’t a ten commandment I broke that day, but it still left me feeling pretty bad about myself. I was broke; my straight commission sales job just wasn’t panning out in the least. I had to drive up to Kentucky for a job interview; somebody my dad had lined up for me. I’m just lucky it wasn’t an overnighter. Anyway I was heading back home to Knoxville down I-75, and the gas tank in the big brown Buick station-wagon said EMPTY in big orange lights. Anymore keeping gas in the vehicle isn’t that a big deal, knock on wood, but on this particular day I was flat broke. I didn’t have a single dime on me. Couldn’t call my wife; heck she was no help either when it came to contributing to the family finance.
It’s funny how creative a body can get when they’re in that kind of circumstance. Survival is a mighty strong instinct. I thought about hitting a Stop and Go real quick, pumping a few gallons and driving off; but that’s all I needed, to be the butt-end of an all points bulletin somewhere for a ten dollar misdemeanor.
Anyway I remember it was around Labor Day, and it struck me, just like the people that had come knocking at our house, I could go door to door and ask people if they wanted to contribute to the Jerry Lewis telethon. All I had to do was ask them a question. This wasn’t no strong armed robbery b-s, something a lot less dangerous with a feel good kicker. I just wanted to get home. It so happened that there was little can in my backseat, so that’s what I did. Pulled off the big road, found a neighborhood, grabbed my can and started knocking on doors. In no time at all, I had eight bucks, just enough cash on hand to get back to the Knoxville city limits.
I felt bad about that, slowly driving south down the interstate, a lot of a lot nicer cars zooming by; still do to this day. Oh, I’ve paid it back and ten fold in contributions to the MD Telethon. Pride and desperation can be a tough thing to reconcile at times, especially for a young person.
And there was this other time, it also involved money. I got a great idea about putting travel information in an audio format, so I started a company called Travel Tapes. A one-man show, I did everything; did the research, wrote the scripts, did the narration, interviewed folks, even handled all the distribution and marketing. My tapes were mentioned in the New York Times, Southern Living; and even the Journal of American Culture regarded them as “Highly recommended”. So much for good press, the bottom line after three years was that I could not achieve a self sustaining level of income. I don’t think it was a sin, but it sure made me feel bad, telling my friend at the printing company that I couldn’t pay the $1500 bill I owed him.
In my experiences, life can be hard enough, even when you’re trying to do the right thing to worry about something as abstract, as old fashioned, and irrelevant as Original Sin. I didn’t wake up worrying about killing somebody, bearing false witness, or making idols; I was just trying to make it to the next payday and take care of my family.
Like a lot of faiths, and it can be a bit hard to pinpoint just where a specific belief comes from. Though I’ve done my research. The idea of Original Sin, first of all, is only carried by Christians. Jews, Hindus and Muslims don’t cotton to it too much. They seem a lot more easy going on their membership, at least when it comes to the blame game. While Original Sin is not mentioned in the Bible per-se, Charles Ryrie, the Ryrie of the study Bible by the same name, suggests “we are not just the offspring of Adam, but we were also a part of Adam and participated in his sin”. To which I say “huh?” Your honor, not only was I not in the same room as the defendant, I wasn't even in the same millenium! You know what that sounds like, that sounds a whole lot like black people wanting us to pay financial retributions for slavery or Barrack Obama apologizing to every nation on his global tour for America’s prosperity. No wonder so many people can’t take responsibility for their own actions. They’ve been programmed since day 1 they don’t have to.
Ryrie goes on to say that “I did not say that original sin is biblical. I said that it is based upon the decision of an official Church Council”; there we go again, sounds like something our Federal Government would get into and mandate.
Two thousand years of processing that we’re doomed from the get-go may have taken its toll on our collective human psyche; could go a long way to explaining our country’s affinity for drugs, alcohol, sex, sports, laptops, lap dances, cell phones, television and every other which away you can temporarily distract yourself from the human condition. Polls show our feelings of hope about the future are hitting all time lows; but even though I didn’t vote for him, I refuse to blame Obama for everything. I say it’s time the Church and its message get’s her fair share of the blame game.
I say it’s time for some real hope and change. I don’t think we as a nation are handling this spiritual beat-down well at all. Recent studies show that people in Luxembourg are not only the happiest people in the world, but they also consume the most alcohol per capita. Heck we came in 17th and could probably learn a lot from a country like that. But there is hope. I say we need to ditch this Original Sin notion and “papa get a brand new bag”, come up with something a little more encouraging but in a practical way. How about this- try to make good decisions and do what you say your going to do, or bad things do happen in life but not because we are born bad people.
Yep, this idea of sin isn’t too original. We all make mistakes, but my guess is that they don’t come with the eternal implication that so many would have you believe. I guess the best thing to do is to try to learn from them, don’t repeat ‘em if you can, don’t beat yourself up about it, and try to make right to anybody you did wrong. And if you need help, ask for help. There are plenty of good people willing to give it.
Yep, I think that’s what I’m going to try and teach my little grand daughter.
Ps- Thirteen years after my Travel Tapes went defunct, I paid off the $1500 debt to that printing company. They sent me one of the nicest letters I’ve ever received………..
Monday, February 8, 2010
God How Could You
I live in the Southwestern part of Virginia, but I work in Washington DC. What that means is that every Sunday afternoon about 3:00 I get in my pickup truck and drive six hours and twenty minutes for my week’s stay. Then on Fridays I get back in the truck and drive home for the weekend. I wouldn’t recommend it for everybody, but it does help pay the bills and serves my latent ADD pretty well, not to mention my in-bred rambling fever.
Sometimes, when I’m lucky, I get to take my wife’s 4 Wheel Drive 2009 Coal Black Jeep Wrangler with the built-in Sirius radio. The 150 plus channels sure make a three hundred and sixty mile trip go by fast. When I don’t get the jeep, then I’m left with my 97 Dodge. It’s a great truck, 160,000 miles, but the cassette deck hasn’t worked for a few years. So for entertainment purposes, I listen to the best that the AM/FM dial has to offer whenever and wherever I can pick it up.
A few weeks ago I was zipping down I-81 about two hours out of DC when I picked up a religious station. It was coming in clear so I decided to give my search finger a rest. Some preacher was going on, sounded like a white guy about my age, probably from a small church somewhere in the Midwest. The subject matter wasn’t too different than anything I’d heard before; how our lives can be in the pits sometimes and on and on. But what really caught my attention that particular moment was how hard this fellow was straining just to get a word out. I mean he sounded awful, worse than Rocky’s boxing manager after an all-night karaoke. But he just kept going, kept plugging away. I remember thinking “well this guy will not be denied”. No he’s not mailing it in tonight, not with this sermon, not this day. He’s going to talk and talk until he blows something, or gets somebody to take his place, or Jesus returns, or they turn off the lights, something. Well all of a sudden, he startled himself, paused a bit, people started clapping and he got to sounding a whole lot better, just like that and right there on the radio. He got all choked up, went completely speechless for what seemed an eternity. He started thanking God and giving glory hallelujahs and then it went silent.
What I would soon learn was that this was not an actual live sermon. It was taped. The preacher was a guest on another program and wanted to share the pre-recorded tape in order to show the world how God in His miraculous glory had cured this non end-stage though chronic bout of laryngitis. Well the program host couldn’t control himself either. He was taking it all in. Two grown men, falling all over each other, giddy jabbering about the love of God and mercy and grace and wonder, and just for fixing this one guy’s throat. I’m just glad it wasn’t on television.
But it did catch my attention; a miracle of sorts and captured right there on audio tape. Reminded me of the time when I was a kid and all my warts went away. But before I started buying into the notion, I decided to do a quick assessment. For one thing, the human body is an amazing thing. Thousands of different systems, 23000 human protein coding genes, around 75 trillion, that’s trillion with a T, cells running 5 billion process every minute. Frankly, I am surprised we don’t break down more often than we do. We’ve got more moving parts than a whole show room full of Saabs, and you know how much time they spend in the shop. No, this body we’ve got is quite a machine to say the least.
What happened next truly put me in a moral conflict. The program closed with the preacher projecting wall to wall, loud and clear, and giving out a web address where you could buy his soon to be released book on that throat miracle of his. The show ended and immediately, like radio broadcasts are apt to do, the news break came up at the top of the hour. The reporter, the lead story was Haiti, and that some 75,000 people were feared dead, dead as in doornails, in the horrific earthquake.
Let’s weigh this out. In one instance, one man, cured of a three year bout with sore throat, versus seventy five thousand men, women, and children all presumed dead due to being crushed by building concrete and other debris, decapitated, bled out, gorged, trampled, suffocation; every which way a person can die from being in an 7.5 Richter scale grade earthquake. All this on this same God’s watch that in just the segment before had gloriously cured one man’s throat and was so highly praised for it. I was stunned by both the turn of events and the seeming paradox.
Is it possible that this same all powerful, omniscient, loving God, one who can cure a white’s man’s ailment in a flash can in yet another flash and different part of the globe bring the immediate and sufferable demise to thousands upon thousands upon thousands of innocent people? This was as spontaneous, but apparently already much worse, as the Tsunami that hit on Christmas day a few years ago in the South Pacific. Though if I had my druthers, I would take drowning over being crushed by a forty foot steel girder any day.
This is horrible plain and simple. There’s no way in the world, given the facts, that any conscientious, genuine, thinking person could lay blame or glory on an all powerful Christian God.
Then again maybe it’s not the Pauline model Christian God that’s running the show these days. I’m thinking Aristotle’s idea of God the Prime Mover could be more appropriate in these circumstances. You know the God who kicks starts existence, linear time, the universe, etc then sort of takes a back seat to everything that follows. Now this version of God, the one without the personal intervention, I can see Him being in charge in times like this.
Of course it could be the Hindu version of the God of karma; you know what goes around comes around. But my guess is that Haiti’s biggest problems weren’t so much the citizens as much as the dudes in charge of the government. So that wouldn’t make sense either considering it was mostly the citizens who bought the farm in the earthquake.
Maybe it was the Deist God who’s at the top now, the One that Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin believed in. The one that “created the universe but is no longer active in it.”
From the looks of things, the total devastation, it was probably the work of one of those mean Roman Gods, like Neptune, we studied in Ancient History. These guys always sounded like serious business to me. I don’t think they ever played favorites and sure seemed to do a lot of maiming in their day.
I don’t know. Trying to reconcile everything that happens in this old world with a Christian God at the helm just doesn’t compute in my mind. Leaves way too many questions unanswered. And I have trouble buying all the conventional one-liners or clichés that most church folks come up with in times like this. In fact, I guess that’s what gets me the most, is the reaction that so many of faith come up with; almost like they are programmed to say the same ole thing. I know Rush Limbaugh talks all the time about the talking points the Democratic libs have. Do you suppose Christians have the same talking points? I wonder if I could get a minor bird to say “God loves you” every time something good or bad happens, could I get that bird into heaven?
Something good happens- “awwwwk God loves you God loves you God loves you”. Something bad happens- “awwwwk God loves you God loves you God loves you”
Is this honestly the best, most sincere and appropriate response that thinking human beings can have when it comes to horrific incidents in this world of ours? Where’s the compassion? To be honest, I’m perfectly fine with the notion that it’s all a part of nature and things just happen, whether it’s with our bodies or an entire island. Things do happen, but surely to goodness events like these are not part of some divine premeditated plan. This ain’t science fiction, and its not cartoons either. Like the farmer once said “Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining”. Some of us really are trying to get to the truth.
It’s no big surprise why earthquakes happen. I’m pretty sure that our failure to launch at the Copenhagen Global Warming Summit like Danny Glover suggests or the Haitian Witchcraft like Pat Robinson claims had nothing to do with it, or at least I hope not. The geologic explanation and I quote, is that an earthquake “is caused by an abrupt shift of rock along a fracture in the Earth, called a fault”. Now this makes sense. Why don’t we just leave it at that? Face it. This ole planet is pretty big and in many ways still forming or settling down. This is a big place we live on.
Earthquakes like that, well I’m just glad they don’t happen here where we live. Then again, like I tell folks when I’m traveling, the only two natural disasters we have in SW Virginia are in-breeding and tooth decay.
Church folks love to use parables a lot in their message. Ole Job seems to be the go-to man when a lot of hard times hit, no matter what point they’re trying to get across; even when it comes to rationalizing a natural disaster that has killed 75,000people. OK here’s one. Let’s pretend that you are one of ten kids. Your dad comes home from work, gives you a nice piece of bubble gum. Yep he gives you a piece of bubble gum and then with deliberation and full foresight commences to killing your nine brothers and sisters. Cuts their heads off, shoots them, whatever. He kills everybody else in your family. What would you say about good old dad then? Would he still be your loving dad? Sure you got the gum but what about all the others? How about “that sombitch is damned crazy and needs to be locked up, even if he is my father”; that would seem more like it. What would motivate a person to stay with a dad like that? Would it be love or would it be down-right fear? Would it be based on something he gives you today or are you waiting on some sort of extra special inheritance? How could you stick with a guy like that? Better yet, why would you?
There’s a book out Why Bad Things Happens to Good People. I’m pretty sure is a Biblically based, another feel good sort of rationalization. I haven’t read it, but I can just imagine the punch line; He’s trying to teach us something, trying to teach somebody else something, trying to make you stronger, trying to make you weaker. Hells bells; reminds me of trying to make sense out of my first wife.
It’s a fact that things happen all the time in our lives, good and bad. Not just with our lives, our friends, our families; but mostly to people we don’t even know in places we’ve never been. If I read one more time about a ferry boat flipping over off the coast of India or a bus running off a cliff in the Philippines it will be once too many. Stuff is happening all the time. And my guess is that there probably just about as many tragedies happen as there are joys. I’m just not so sure it’s fact that God’s behind any of it at all.
Sometimes, when I’m lucky, I get to take my wife’s 4 Wheel Drive 2009 Coal Black Jeep Wrangler with the built-in Sirius radio. The 150 plus channels sure make a three hundred and sixty mile trip go by fast. When I don’t get the jeep, then I’m left with my 97 Dodge. It’s a great truck, 160,000 miles, but the cassette deck hasn’t worked for a few years. So for entertainment purposes, I listen to the best that the AM/FM dial has to offer whenever and wherever I can pick it up.
A few weeks ago I was zipping down I-81 about two hours out of DC when I picked up a religious station. It was coming in clear so I decided to give my search finger a rest. Some preacher was going on, sounded like a white guy about my age, probably from a small church somewhere in the Midwest. The subject matter wasn’t too different than anything I’d heard before; how our lives can be in the pits sometimes and on and on. But what really caught my attention that particular moment was how hard this fellow was straining just to get a word out. I mean he sounded awful, worse than Rocky’s boxing manager after an all-night karaoke. But he just kept going, kept plugging away. I remember thinking “well this guy will not be denied”. No he’s not mailing it in tonight, not with this sermon, not this day. He’s going to talk and talk until he blows something, or gets somebody to take his place, or Jesus returns, or they turn off the lights, something. Well all of a sudden, he startled himself, paused a bit, people started clapping and he got to sounding a whole lot better, just like that and right there on the radio. He got all choked up, went completely speechless for what seemed an eternity. He started thanking God and giving glory hallelujahs and then it went silent.
What I would soon learn was that this was not an actual live sermon. It was taped. The preacher was a guest on another program and wanted to share the pre-recorded tape in order to show the world how God in His miraculous glory had cured this non end-stage though chronic bout of laryngitis. Well the program host couldn’t control himself either. He was taking it all in. Two grown men, falling all over each other, giddy jabbering about the love of God and mercy and grace and wonder, and just for fixing this one guy’s throat. I’m just glad it wasn’t on television.
But it did catch my attention; a miracle of sorts and captured right there on audio tape. Reminded me of the time when I was a kid and all my warts went away. But before I started buying into the notion, I decided to do a quick assessment. For one thing, the human body is an amazing thing. Thousands of different systems, 23000 human protein coding genes, around 75 trillion, that’s trillion with a T, cells running 5 billion process every minute. Frankly, I am surprised we don’t break down more often than we do. We’ve got more moving parts than a whole show room full of Saabs, and you know how much time they spend in the shop. No, this body we’ve got is quite a machine to say the least.
What happened next truly put me in a moral conflict. The program closed with the preacher projecting wall to wall, loud and clear, and giving out a web address where you could buy his soon to be released book on that throat miracle of his. The show ended and immediately, like radio broadcasts are apt to do, the news break came up at the top of the hour. The reporter, the lead story was Haiti, and that some 75,000 people were feared dead, dead as in doornails, in the horrific earthquake.
Let’s weigh this out. In one instance, one man, cured of a three year bout with sore throat, versus seventy five thousand men, women, and children all presumed dead due to being crushed by building concrete and other debris, decapitated, bled out, gorged, trampled, suffocation; every which way a person can die from being in an 7.5 Richter scale grade earthquake. All this on this same God’s watch that in just the segment before had gloriously cured one man’s throat and was so highly praised for it. I was stunned by both the turn of events and the seeming paradox.
Is it possible that this same all powerful, omniscient, loving God, one who can cure a white’s man’s ailment in a flash can in yet another flash and different part of the globe bring the immediate and sufferable demise to thousands upon thousands upon thousands of innocent people? This was as spontaneous, but apparently already much worse, as the Tsunami that hit on Christmas day a few years ago in the South Pacific. Though if I had my druthers, I would take drowning over being crushed by a forty foot steel girder any day.
This is horrible plain and simple. There’s no way in the world, given the facts, that any conscientious, genuine, thinking person could lay blame or glory on an all powerful Christian God.
Then again maybe it’s not the Pauline model Christian God that’s running the show these days. I’m thinking Aristotle’s idea of God the Prime Mover could be more appropriate in these circumstances. You know the God who kicks starts existence, linear time, the universe, etc then sort of takes a back seat to everything that follows. Now this version of God, the one without the personal intervention, I can see Him being in charge in times like this.
Of course it could be the Hindu version of the God of karma; you know what goes around comes around. But my guess is that Haiti’s biggest problems weren’t so much the citizens as much as the dudes in charge of the government. So that wouldn’t make sense either considering it was mostly the citizens who bought the farm in the earthquake.
Maybe it was the Deist God who’s at the top now, the One that Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin believed in. The one that “created the universe but is no longer active in it.”
From the looks of things, the total devastation, it was probably the work of one of those mean Roman Gods, like Neptune, we studied in Ancient History. These guys always sounded like serious business to me. I don’t think they ever played favorites and sure seemed to do a lot of maiming in their day.
I don’t know. Trying to reconcile everything that happens in this old world with a Christian God at the helm just doesn’t compute in my mind. Leaves way too many questions unanswered. And I have trouble buying all the conventional one-liners or clichés that most church folks come up with in times like this. In fact, I guess that’s what gets me the most, is the reaction that so many of faith come up with; almost like they are programmed to say the same ole thing. I know Rush Limbaugh talks all the time about the talking points the Democratic libs have. Do you suppose Christians have the same talking points? I wonder if I could get a minor bird to say “God loves you” every time something good or bad happens, could I get that bird into heaven?
Something good happens- “awwwwk God loves you God loves you God loves you”. Something bad happens- “awwwwk God loves you God loves you God loves you”
Is this honestly the best, most sincere and appropriate response that thinking human beings can have when it comes to horrific incidents in this world of ours? Where’s the compassion? To be honest, I’m perfectly fine with the notion that it’s all a part of nature and things just happen, whether it’s with our bodies or an entire island. Things do happen, but surely to goodness events like these are not part of some divine premeditated plan. This ain’t science fiction, and its not cartoons either. Like the farmer once said “Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining”. Some of us really are trying to get to the truth.
It’s no big surprise why earthquakes happen. I’m pretty sure that our failure to launch at the Copenhagen Global Warming Summit like Danny Glover suggests or the Haitian Witchcraft like Pat Robinson claims had nothing to do with it, or at least I hope not. The geologic explanation and I quote, is that an earthquake “is caused by an abrupt shift of rock along a fracture in the Earth, called a fault”. Now this makes sense. Why don’t we just leave it at that? Face it. This ole planet is pretty big and in many ways still forming or settling down. This is a big place we live on.
Earthquakes like that, well I’m just glad they don’t happen here where we live. Then again, like I tell folks when I’m traveling, the only two natural disasters we have in SW Virginia are in-breeding and tooth decay.
Church folks love to use parables a lot in their message. Ole Job seems to be the go-to man when a lot of hard times hit, no matter what point they’re trying to get across; even when it comes to rationalizing a natural disaster that has killed 75,000people. OK here’s one. Let’s pretend that you are one of ten kids. Your dad comes home from work, gives you a nice piece of bubble gum. Yep he gives you a piece of bubble gum and then with deliberation and full foresight commences to killing your nine brothers and sisters. Cuts their heads off, shoots them, whatever. He kills everybody else in your family. What would you say about good old dad then? Would he still be your loving dad? Sure you got the gum but what about all the others? How about “that sombitch is damned crazy and needs to be locked up, even if he is my father”; that would seem more like it. What would motivate a person to stay with a dad like that? Would it be love or would it be down-right fear? Would it be based on something he gives you today or are you waiting on some sort of extra special inheritance? How could you stick with a guy like that? Better yet, why would you?
There’s a book out Why Bad Things Happens to Good People. I’m pretty sure is a Biblically based, another feel good sort of rationalization. I haven’t read it, but I can just imagine the punch line; He’s trying to teach us something, trying to teach somebody else something, trying to make you stronger, trying to make you weaker. Hells bells; reminds me of trying to make sense out of my first wife.
It’s a fact that things happen all the time in our lives, good and bad. Not just with our lives, our friends, our families; but mostly to people we don’t even know in places we’ve never been. If I read one more time about a ferry boat flipping over off the coast of India or a bus running off a cliff in the Philippines it will be once too many. Stuff is happening all the time. And my guess is that there probably just about as many tragedies happen as there are joys. I’m just not so sure it’s fact that God’s behind any of it at all.
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