What has happened to people?
The waiting area is all but empty. A mother (middle-aged) and her skinny teenage son (with appropriately baggy clothes) sit near the desk. A grubby-looking college student occupies a corner, laptop open. Late-twenties red-head (business woman?) on far side. I come, do the calculations, and sit far enough away from everyone to eliminate all potential for conversation, even in the case of accidental eye-contact. The next six people do the same. Nearly everyone on a cell phone, or eating, or texting.
Real people are scary inconveniences . . . we already know too many.
"I don't have time or energy for you, unless you can prove you have something to offer.
Are you funny? Sexy? Friendly? Impressive? Will you make a good story?"
Has it always been this way? 'Cause I imagine the old days, a station wagon waiting platform-place, gap-toothed, plaid, bearded men exchanging hardy handshakes and "nice-to-meet-yous".
Am I too cool to be excited to meet you, stranger? What can you do to harm me? Any injury to my pride would be a help.
Do any of you think of me? What half-formed ideas about the somber kid with his legs crossed, writing, momentarily distract your brain from its dominant preoccupation?
What are your stories? I'd love to care about you...know that I'm trying--and if that counts for anything, I do care in that small way.
As a child of God, I ought to bring joy to this place. Forgive me stranger--I'm not yet what I should be. I have no real cause to be uneasy, in the grand scheme of things...and certainly I'm of no account, so I don't know why I'm so prone to self-induced social paralysis.
But in another way, there is legitimate cause--the air is thick with fear and sin, the wrecks of mediocrity or malice...hatred sits there, to my left deception. Across against the wall is laziness. But are they happy--generally--or sad?
Are you empty? Or is your void filled with bubbles that make your walls feel like its full?
I do know the Truth. Will you listen if I tell you?
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
How I Feel About My Lack of Feeling
Brazen. Do you feel you ought to be angry?
Seared beyond disturbance--are you confused?
" 'Trials' are for hypocrites. Life longs to be explained
In terms more universal and less problematic--"
Because--I don't know about you--but
Regardless of possibility, I want to be upset
By pain.
When my own pain subsides,
My nerves take a break.
In the intellectual corners of experience
I rage against injustice -- but the heat
Is trapped there. My fire-pit
Is cold with other emotions
More suited to personal comfort.
"It's unfair! It's unfair!"
Dies down and settles into smug
Self-content in perceiving the convenient Wrong of the world;
It means we're not to blame.
Seared beyond disturbance--are you confused?
" 'Trials' are for hypocrites. Life longs to be explained
In terms more universal and less problematic--"
Because--I don't know about you--but
Regardless of possibility, I want to be upset
By pain.
When my own pain subsides,
My nerves take a break.
In the intellectual corners of experience
I rage against injustice -- but the heat
Is trapped there. My fire-pit
Is cold with other emotions
More suited to personal comfort.
"It's unfair! It's unfair!"
Dies down and settles into smug
Self-content in perceiving the convenient Wrong of the world;
It means we're not to blame.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wholesale on Life
To my peers, friends, brothers and sisters:
On November 4th, just four days from this time, we will all hopefully cast our vote for the next President. This is unarguably a historic election, and would go as far as to say the gravity of this election makes it the most serious since our grandparents generation. It has become clear that the youth of America, the young voters, will essentially decided who will this country for at least the next four years. We have a heavy load upon us. The Christian youth should especially feel this burden. For months now we have heard what the candidates have to say; their policies have been laid before us and we have had a good amount of time to procure glimpses of their character and to examine the positions they stand for and why. As we mull over all the information we have acquired and determine what hole to punch, I pray that there is one issue on the forefront of all our minds and hearts – the issue of life.
Are we, self-proclaiming disciples of Christ, concerned with the moral eternal issues that will not go away? Apparently the evidence proclaims we are not. It is nauseating. Please, please, please read what I humbly, yet unapologetically, have to say.
On August 17, presidential hopeful Barrack Obama told America what he considered to be this nation’s greatest sin. He stated that the lack of caring for the weak and oppressed has been America’s most significant shortcoming. According to Obama “America’s greatest moral failure is that [this country]…does not spend enough time thinking about ‘the least of these.’” This sounds wonderful. In fact he was applauded by the Saddleback audience when Obama used this quote from Matthew 25. You know, I think Obama is right. I do not know if would say this is America’s “greatest moral failure,” but it is up there. However, the problem come in Obama’s definition of “least of these.” Apparently Obama’s grouping of the weak and oppressed does not include within in it the largest persecuted demographic in history: the unborn child.
Theodore Roosevelt, a great man and great President, once said:
“The most dangerous form of sentimental debauch is to giveexpression to good wishes on behalf of virtue while you do nothingabout it. Justice is not merely words. It is to be translated intoliving acts.”
Obama speaks of virtue, speaks of relieving the persecuted, caring for “the least of these.” Yet this same man blatantly and unrepentantly pro-abortion. He is not simply pro-abortion, he is a man who wants to make it legal to kill babies who survive failed abortions. Did you read that? Babies who survive. The facts are overwhelming. Obama wants to keep the killing of unborn children legal. But he does not stop there, he wants to expand abortion.
Right now there is a bill before Congress called the Freedom of Choice Act. This bill will do away with all limitations on abortion (look it up, read it). It is a bill that is meant to expand the practice of abortion. Do you know what Obama said concerning this bill? This is what Obama said just a year ago:
“The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing I’d
do.”
Those are his words. If you think this is not an important issue you better realize that it is important to Obama. Protecting the legalization of killing defenseless humans is so important to Obama that his first act of president will remove the little protection unborn children have. His first act will not be to lower taxes, end the war, find Bin Laden, push for clean energy, or even help resolve what he considers America’s greatest failure: the care for the unprivileged. No, on the top of Obama’s list is to make sure it is possible to legally kill a child. Can you believe a man like this had the audacity to quote Christ the Messiah; The One.
Francis Schaeffer, an amazing man, who I honestly believe was what we would call a prophet, wrote thirty years ago:
“In our day, quite rightly, there has been a hue and cry againstSome of our ancestors’ cruel viewing of the black slaves as a non-person. This was horrible indeed – an act of hypocrisy as well as cruelty. But now, by an arbitrary absolute brought in on the humanist flow, millions of unborn babies of every color of skins [and gender] are equally by law declared non-persons. Surely this, too, must be seen as an act of hypocrisy.”
For too long Christians have stood by as Postmodernism has taken over every area of life from government to the arts. Not only have we been idle, but those who have been active (the liberal church) have adopted the postmodern doctrine and no longer hold on to the Truth as the one and only standard and absolute. God will judge those who have watered down and manipulated His word in order to go with the flow and not step on any toes. Those who have separated the material life they lead from the spiritual life they claim are fooling themselves.
Roosevelt once said in reference to abortion:
“Never will I sit motionless while directly or indirectlyapology is made for the murder of the helpless.”
We are not only standing by, we are actively promoting the slaughtering of approximately 4,000 humans in the United States daily, close to 1.5 million yearly, by promoting Obama. A well known supporter of Obama, Oprah Winfrey, was talking on her show one day about the horrors of slavery and how wonderful it must have been for the freed slave to finally wake up and make decisions for himself. Has she ever thought of how the pro-abortion stance she and Obama share makes it impossible for millions of babies to ever make a decision? Those babies are not even given the option of waking up.
In the movie Swing Kids, which is set during the beginning of World War Two, there is a quote that I believe is appropriate to share with the self-proclaiming Christian youth of today:
“We must all take responsibility for what is happeningto our country. If those of us who have a voice do notraise it in outrage at the treatment of our fellow human beings we will have collaborated in their doom. It is notgood enough to raise these voices in our homes…”
The unborn child is as much my “fellow human being” as is the Jew. We all have voices, and we can all raise them this election. Raise your voice in outcry! Why are we sitting by nodding our heads in agreement as Obama talks of green energy while brushing under the rug statements like “the first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice act”! I know our nation, our world, has forgotten that there is such a thing as moral absolutes; a Truth above all else. But have we forgotten that as well? Have we accepted the death of helpless children as the way things are? Polls this year have shown that issues such as abortion and homosexual marriage are not even in the top five issues young voters are concerned with. What is more important than the moral law God has given us?! What issue or policy is more important than a precious life made in his image? Apparently the young American voter considers issues such as taxes and energy more important than protecting the lives’ of millions of weak, oppressed, persecuted babies. It is definitely not a priority of Obama’s.
Christians should be weeping over this wholesale on life. We should be praying for God’s forgiveness. And may God judge the churches that have abandoned the Truth, putting man at the center. This election is serious. If you have looked past Obama’s Marxist doctrine, please do not also look past his total disregard for the life of the unborn.
God have mercy on us.
The foes of our own household are our worst enemies; andwe can oppose them, not only by exposing them and denouncingthem, but by constructive work in planning and building reformswhich shall take into account both the economic and the moralfactors in human advance. We in America can attain our greatdestiny only by service; not by rhetoric, and that dreadful mentaldouble-dealing and verbal juggling which makes promises and repudiates them, and says one thing at one time, and the directly opposite thing at another time. Our service must be the service of deeds. – Theodore Roosevelt
On November 4th, just four days from this time, we will all hopefully cast our vote for the next President. This is unarguably a historic election, and would go as far as to say the gravity of this election makes it the most serious since our grandparents generation. It has become clear that the youth of America, the young voters, will essentially decided who will this country for at least the next four years. We have a heavy load upon us. The Christian youth should especially feel this burden. For months now we have heard what the candidates have to say; their policies have been laid before us and we have had a good amount of time to procure glimpses of their character and to examine the positions they stand for and why. As we mull over all the information we have acquired and determine what hole to punch, I pray that there is one issue on the forefront of all our minds and hearts – the issue of life.
Are we, self-proclaiming disciples of Christ, concerned with the moral eternal issues that will not go away? Apparently the evidence proclaims we are not. It is nauseating. Please, please, please read what I humbly, yet unapologetically, have to say.
On August 17, presidential hopeful Barrack Obama told America what he considered to be this nation’s greatest sin. He stated that the lack of caring for the weak and oppressed has been America’s most significant shortcoming. According to Obama “America’s greatest moral failure is that [this country]…does not spend enough time thinking about ‘the least of these.’” This sounds wonderful. In fact he was applauded by the Saddleback audience when Obama used this quote from Matthew 25. You know, I think Obama is right. I do not know if would say this is America’s “greatest moral failure,” but it is up there. However, the problem come in Obama’s definition of “least of these.” Apparently Obama’s grouping of the weak and oppressed does not include within in it the largest persecuted demographic in history: the unborn child.
Theodore Roosevelt, a great man and great President, once said:
“The most dangerous form of sentimental debauch is to giveexpression to good wishes on behalf of virtue while you do nothingabout it. Justice is not merely words. It is to be translated intoliving acts.”
Obama speaks of virtue, speaks of relieving the persecuted, caring for “the least of these.” Yet this same man blatantly and unrepentantly pro-abortion. He is not simply pro-abortion, he is a man who wants to make it legal to kill babies who survive failed abortions. Did you read that? Babies who survive. The facts are overwhelming. Obama wants to keep the killing of unborn children legal. But he does not stop there, he wants to expand abortion.
Right now there is a bill before Congress called the Freedom of Choice Act. This bill will do away with all limitations on abortion (look it up, read it). It is a bill that is meant to expand the practice of abortion. Do you know what Obama said concerning this bill? This is what Obama said just a year ago:
“The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing I’d
do.”
Those are his words. If you think this is not an important issue you better realize that it is important to Obama. Protecting the legalization of killing defenseless humans is so important to Obama that his first act of president will remove the little protection unborn children have. His first act will not be to lower taxes, end the war, find Bin Laden, push for clean energy, or even help resolve what he considers America’s greatest failure: the care for the unprivileged. No, on the top of Obama’s list is to make sure it is possible to legally kill a child. Can you believe a man like this had the audacity to quote Christ the Messiah; The One.
Francis Schaeffer, an amazing man, who I honestly believe was what we would call a prophet, wrote thirty years ago:
“In our day, quite rightly, there has been a hue and cry againstSome of our ancestors’ cruel viewing of the black slaves as a non-person. This was horrible indeed – an act of hypocrisy as well as cruelty. But now, by an arbitrary absolute brought in on the humanist flow, millions of unborn babies of every color of skins [and gender] are equally by law declared non-persons. Surely this, too, must be seen as an act of hypocrisy.”
For too long Christians have stood by as Postmodernism has taken over every area of life from government to the arts. Not only have we been idle, but those who have been active (the liberal church) have adopted the postmodern doctrine and no longer hold on to the Truth as the one and only standard and absolute. God will judge those who have watered down and manipulated His word in order to go with the flow and not step on any toes. Those who have separated the material life they lead from the spiritual life they claim are fooling themselves.
Roosevelt once said in reference to abortion:
“Never will I sit motionless while directly or indirectlyapology is made for the murder of the helpless.”
We are not only standing by, we are actively promoting the slaughtering of approximately 4,000 humans in the United States daily, close to 1.5 million yearly, by promoting Obama. A well known supporter of Obama, Oprah Winfrey, was talking on her show one day about the horrors of slavery and how wonderful it must have been for the freed slave to finally wake up and make decisions for himself. Has she ever thought of how the pro-abortion stance she and Obama share makes it impossible for millions of babies to ever make a decision? Those babies are not even given the option of waking up.
In the movie Swing Kids, which is set during the beginning of World War Two, there is a quote that I believe is appropriate to share with the self-proclaiming Christian youth of today:
“We must all take responsibility for what is happeningto our country. If those of us who have a voice do notraise it in outrage at the treatment of our fellow human beings we will have collaborated in their doom. It is notgood enough to raise these voices in our homes…”
The unborn child is as much my “fellow human being” as is the Jew. We all have voices, and we can all raise them this election. Raise your voice in outcry! Why are we sitting by nodding our heads in agreement as Obama talks of green energy while brushing under the rug statements like “the first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice act”! I know our nation, our world, has forgotten that there is such a thing as moral absolutes; a Truth above all else. But have we forgotten that as well? Have we accepted the death of helpless children as the way things are? Polls this year have shown that issues such as abortion and homosexual marriage are not even in the top five issues young voters are concerned with. What is more important than the moral law God has given us?! What issue or policy is more important than a precious life made in his image? Apparently the young American voter considers issues such as taxes and energy more important than protecting the lives’ of millions of weak, oppressed, persecuted babies. It is definitely not a priority of Obama’s.
Christians should be weeping over this wholesale on life. We should be praying for God’s forgiveness. And may God judge the churches that have abandoned the Truth, putting man at the center. This election is serious. If you have looked past Obama’s Marxist doctrine, please do not also look past his total disregard for the life of the unborn.
God have mercy on us.
The foes of our own household are our worst enemies; andwe can oppose them, not only by exposing them and denouncingthem, but by constructive work in planning and building reformswhich shall take into account both the economic and the moralfactors in human advance. We in America can attain our greatdestiny only by service; not by rhetoric, and that dreadful mentaldouble-dealing and verbal juggling which makes promises and repudiates them, and says one thing at one time, and the directly opposite thing at another time. Our service must be the service of deeds. – Theodore Roosevelt
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Meditations on the The Matrix
There's a thrill that accompanies the observation of super-human powers. The instinct to worship is fanned into flame by fairy tales of flying men with lightning-fast reflexes.
"If only it were true--if only we had a Neo to follow who could rescue us from bondage into . . . " into what?
We rejoice to see "good" defeat evil with a combination of flare and fury that resembles our abilities enough to fuel day-dreams of achieving such greatness ourselves. But we are sick and twisted fools. Jesus Christ spoke and stilled the storm, commanded and cast out demons. Jesus Christ willed and walked on water.
He didn't need to know kung fu, or how to fly, or how to load a gun (though if He'd wanted to He could've learned without a computer program).
The real hero understood greatness and glory. He didn't come to destroy life to save. He came to sacrifice His own life to save. The Son of God cannot be contained by the tiny longings of men or be compared to the god-men they've invented. Jesus Christ is the infinite source of awe-inspiring power, the ultimate object worthy of complete and child-like and radical devotion.
But men pretend to be bored by Him, and make another movie filled with the glorification of sinful autonomy, faithless sex and dressed-up moral rebellion. They pretend to be bored by the sandaled Jew who talked a lot. They deliberately and desperately try and try to forget that the real God-man didn't stay dead either. And his resurrection was not the illogical result of a weak and human crush-kiss, but the outworking of the eternal plan of the infinite Father who loves his son with the infinite love that the natural man can only weep and wish to taste.
They fear this peaceful man, because there IS a fight between good and evil. And they know, deep down they know, that unlike their self-portraits that they've pasted into fairy-tales, they are the evil ones. And everyone knows the bad guys lose. Christ will return in glory to judge the living and the dead. There will be no contest. He needs no guns--he speaks and it comes to pass.
There is no fear in love though. and there IS a real world--an escape from the darkness into the glorious freedom of the children of God, not into the gloomy dungeons of man-made misery.
Long before someone dreamed-up Neo, the God who is love sent us a savior. Those who have met him know what is real. Those who have not have a choice. But there are no secrets--only the mystery of a God revealed. You can take the red pill, or the blue pill, but there is no uncertainty. This is sure: then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Jesus says "I am the Truth". Forget the red pill. Christ's crimson blood flows for you.
"If only it were true--if only we had a Neo to follow who could rescue us from bondage into . . . " into what?
We rejoice to see "good" defeat evil with a combination of flare and fury that resembles our abilities enough to fuel day-dreams of achieving such greatness ourselves. But we are sick and twisted fools. Jesus Christ spoke and stilled the storm, commanded and cast out demons. Jesus Christ willed and walked on water.
He didn't need to know kung fu, or how to fly, or how to load a gun (though if He'd wanted to He could've learned without a computer program).
The real hero understood greatness and glory. He didn't come to destroy life to save. He came to sacrifice His own life to save. The Son of God cannot be contained by the tiny longings of men or be compared to the god-men they've invented. Jesus Christ is the infinite source of awe-inspiring power, the ultimate object worthy of complete and child-like and radical devotion.
But men pretend to be bored by Him, and make another movie filled with the glorification of sinful autonomy, faithless sex and dressed-up moral rebellion. They pretend to be bored by the sandaled Jew who talked a lot. They deliberately and desperately try and try to forget that the real God-man didn't stay dead either. And his resurrection was not the illogical result of a weak and human crush-kiss, but the outworking of the eternal plan of the infinite Father who loves his son with the infinite love that the natural man can only weep and wish to taste.
They fear this peaceful man, because there IS a fight between good and evil. And they know, deep down they know, that unlike their self-portraits that they've pasted into fairy-tales, they are the evil ones. And everyone knows the bad guys lose. Christ will return in glory to judge the living and the dead. There will be no contest. He needs no guns--he speaks and it comes to pass.
There is no fear in love though. and there IS a real world--an escape from the darkness into the glorious freedom of the children of God, not into the gloomy dungeons of man-made misery.
Long before someone dreamed-up Neo, the God who is love sent us a savior. Those who have met him know what is real. Those who have not have a choice. But there are no secrets--only the mystery of a God revealed. You can take the red pill, or the blue pill, but there is no uncertainty. This is sure: then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Jesus says "I am the Truth". Forget the red pill. Christ's crimson blood flows for you.
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