Thoughts on Thoughts.

There is enough light to enlighten the elect and enough obscurity to humiliate them.  There is enough obscurity to blind the reprobate and enough light to condemn them and deprive them of excuse...Blaise Pascal, Pensees (236/578)

When we are accustomed to use the wrong  reasons to prove natural phenomena, we are no longer ready to accept the right ones when they are discovered...ibid. (736/96)

Truth is so obscured nowadays and lies so well established that unless we love the truth we shall never recognize it. ibid. (739/864)

We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us.  By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. 1 John 4:6

Life After People

This past Monday, the History Channel premiered a documentary entitled Life After People. Using computer graphics, the show displayed what would happen to the world if every person suddenly disappeared. While of course it cannot be said to be 100% accurate, it was an educated guess at what would happen. This much, however, is clear: Our earthly legacy is frighteningly fragile. Within a few hundred years, most of what we have accomplished would be gone without a trace. Houses would collapse and be covered by vegetation, bridges would fall, media of all types would be eaten away by the elements. A traveler to such an earth might find Mt. Rushmore, or the pyramids, and wonder who made them and why (but after a few million years, even these too would be gone). The traveler would not find my car, my house, my bank account. This is my earthly legacy: A few hundred years of evidence that I existed, if I am lucky.

This is what the world tell us is valuable: Money, power, possessions. Money, the show did not mention, will disappear as soon as we do. Power saves no one from the grave. Possessions are just as useless and temporal.

God tells us that doing His will is valuable. He tells us that our true treasures are stored in Heaven; they are eternal. Caring for widows and orphans. Making disciples of all men and women. Serving the timeless God. The world doesn't understand, but the effects of these actions will last long after all else is gone.

"Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell--and great was its fall." Matthew 7:24-27

Media Reality.

"Remember: they make the rules. And the game's got nothing to do with accuracy, or the facts, or reality. It's just a circus."

She wasn't going to argue with him. She petted the dog.

"Fact is," Amos said, "everything's changing. Used to be--in the old days--the media image roughly corresponded to reality. But now it's all reversed. The media image is the reality, and by comparison day-to-day life seems to lack excitement. So now day-to-day life is false, and the media image is true. Sometimes I look around my living room, and the most real thing in the room is the television. It's bright and vivid, and the rest of my life looks drab. So I turn the damn thing off. That does it every time. Get my life back."

Taken from Airframe by Michael Crichton, p. 341.

The Tiger's Playground.

If one blog is good, two must be better, right?  Right.  So I started a second blog, The Tiger's Playground.  As the name suggests, this is a site where I can write about, well, whatever comes into my head.  I will still definitely maintain TGMB as my primary blog, but every so often I get an idea in my head that doesn't deal with theology, philosophy, culture or music (yes, I am surprised, too), and I wanted an avenue of expression for such ideas.  

Who knows what will end up on the Playground.  I sure don't.  So if you want to read something serious and thought-provoking, check out TGMB.  If you are in the mood from something of the genre "weird", try the Playground.

Conversion.

I am currently reading a book on Christian conversion for a class that I will be taking in the Spring.  This books highlights nicely what I have come to believe over the course of my life: Conversion is, for many people, not a simple, one-time event.  Though there are certain things that all conversions have in common, the timeframe can be an instant or a decade.  Furthermore, for those of us who had a gradual conversion, we may not be able to say with certainty the moment in time we "switched sides" (perhaps it was not even a temporal event at all?).  

I illustrate this with a common occurrence at the church I attended as a youth.  Immediately after opening announcements and a song or two, we were instructed to greet those sitting near us.  This was a tall order for us introverts.  Sometimes, in an attempt to help generate conversation, we were asked to tell one another when our "spiritual birthday" was.  This rather cheesy term referred to the moment in time we were "saved" (never mind that in addition to the past tense [we were saved], there are present tense [we are being saved] and future tense [we will be saved] descriptions of salvation in the Bible).  Many people spouted off the date in question instantly.  March 21, 1974.  September 4, 1992.  I always responded with, "I don't know."  I always felt a little guilty about this.  After all, If I don't know my spiritual birthday, how can I know I'm saved?  

As a five- or-six-year-old, I made a decision to accept Jesus and got baptized.  Of course, I was a small child, so I didn't fully understand the implications behind this act.  Over the next ten years,  there were several important events in my life that were relevant to my spiritual condition.  Even as a veteran seminary student, there was a particular series of events that perhaps has had the most impact on me spiritually.  My relationship with God changed drastically (for the better).  

So when was I saved?  When did I cross over?  When I was five?  When I was 25?  I can't really answer that question, and I'm not even sure that it has an answer.  The only thing I can say with certainty is 

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

Weddings and Divorces.

Today is Jessica's and my second wedding anniversary.  As I was driving home to pick up a card for my wife, I was alerted by the radio that today is also National Divorce Day, although I have not been able to verify this claim.  Regardless, I listened to several callers talk with a divorce specialist about why they wanted a divorce.  One woman was cheated on by her husband, but still loved him dearly.  He loved her with "98%" of his heart.  On the other end of the spectrum, another woman, as far as I could tell, just didn't want to be married anymore (and she seemed pretty nonchalant about the whole thing).  She guessed that maybe her husband knew this,  but she hadn't bothered to tell him yet.

These two cases angered and saddened me, especially today.  When I stood at the altar of the church two years ago, I made a commitment before our God, our families and our friends to my wife that I would honor, respect and love her forever.  Though I am not perfect, that is what I attempt to do every day.  It angers and saddens me to see people tearing down what I am attempting to build up.  I understand that there are certainly times when one should pursue a divorce (even Jesus said as much), but that doesn't mean it is any less damaging to its participants.  I also understand that being divorced doesn't make one a bad person, but it does make one a hurt person.

Well, my wife just got home from work, so I must end this post.  And honey, I'm looking forward to at least 58 more years!

Mainstream Media - Jon LaJoie

Sometimes other people express ideas much better than I can, although those people are still usually named Jon.