FWIW…

I was watching a little of ESPN this morning and the stories were all about athletes with multi-million dollar contracts holding out for a “better deal”.  Perhaps it would be good for them to consider that in these times such hold outs, an irritation before, are appearing more and more obscene.

Tower of Babel…

One of the curses of this time, this post modern era, is the idea that the definition of a word, or a thing, or an idea is entirely the possession of the one who uses it. In rejecting the idea of any common truth, or even a standard whereby truth may be discerned, we live in a post tower of Babel world of our own creating, speaking multiple languages and living in mutual incomprehensibility.

I wonder about the day when the ordinary business of human affairs becomes clouded by all of this, when people decide to ignore the normal courtesies that help us get from point A to point B because they don’t fit within their current construct. Will what has happened to art, already in the throes of its deconstruction, become life? Perhaps it already has.

I wonder, as well, what will become of the world when we start to realize, again, that nature in itself has its own truth, its own limits and definitions beyond which even the most technological cultures cannot proceed. How painful will it be to rediscover what we have ignored, that there is a cadence, principals, and laws worked into the very cells of the universe that can be pushed and redefined in some false hope but never overcome. What terrible agony will proceed the coming sanity?

It seems in these days we have each chosen not to join together to build one tower to heaven but rather for each of us to build our own in the belief that God either doesn’t notice or perhaps even affirms the project. The results, though, will be the same.

The world is weird…

and its probably going to get weirder for a while. We’ve walked away from God and the gods we’re running towards have no power to save us so this part of the world might go dark for a while. I’m not sure about the details but the big picture will be all about clinging to Jesus with the grip of a man one hand away from the abyss.

Changing the heart…

is difficult. This is why there are millions, even of the Church, enamored of politics, power, and acquisition and only a few who are pious. Yet the world will one day be inherited not by the politicians, generals, academics, or captains of industry but rather by the meek.

LeBron…

I presume I may be one of the many Americans who couldn’t care less about where Lebron James plays basketball. Yet I suppose its a sign of the times when the sports media is breathlessly on his trail reporting every meeting and analyzing every statement for some hidden clue.

Now if he was the person who developed a cure for cancer…

Voltaire…

“So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.” – Voltaire

John Donne…

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou’rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ; why swell’st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die.