Things I Think…
1. Every Reformation Day we hear the calls to reaffirm or restate the need for theological reformation. We don’t need another theological reformation, but an ethical and moral one. We need that one as much as the one Luther headed…
2. Political power was needed to enable the first Reformation…cleansing the church of the lust for it will be necessary for the next one…
3. If the baseball is juiced, they should keep it that way…
4. I write #1 every Reformation Day and will probably keep having to do so…
5. Luther is the most fascinating person in church history…a picture of what God can do with a man full of conviction and how a man full of conviction can be one that is horribly flawed…
6. It will always seem to me that the efficacy of prayer should be quantifiable in some way…
7. Every Reformation Day I join with others in pretending that the day matters and that people care about their history…
8. The new iPhone software update has 70 new emoji. I read somewhere today that soon we’ll do without words and be back to hieroglyphics…no wonder kids can’t write…
9. I got tired of complaining about what the church wasn’t doing in town and just decided to work with people that are doing important stuff…and there’s not enough time in the day to keep up…
10. I said this on Facebook,but it bears repeating here…the “opioid crisis’ is a symptom of the greater “misery crisis”. Until we discern why we’re all so damned unhappy any solutions will be temporary and futile…
“It will always seem to me that the efficacy of prayer should be quantifiable in some way…”
I think it is, not in God or even in circumstances, but in us… or at least it should be.
Yes to 10. And there are other symptoms too.
Duane,
I wrestle with this, probably more than I should.
If all that prayer accomplished was transformation of a person, then Scripture shouldn’t advise us to ask for anything else.
It just seems to me that most prayer is about need…according to promises made in Scripture.
#10 – at this stage in life i find a lot of now and then comparisons 🙂
we used to say that there were no atheists in foxholes (you know those things that the infantry carried shovels to dig when the shooting started)… now it’s just take a pill – or whatever – and all the fears and the anxieties will disappear… we don’t need God, we have medications-so-called for all the bad things in life… and when those don’t work? and there is no God? … very, very sad … how can one repent if the Bible is fiction and there is no God? if one runs out of pills?
lately i’ve been thinking that all Christendom needs to obey Rev 3:22 in these times…
read and decide for themselves the answer to the question, does my church obey God?
“…He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”
just another pontification coming from half way up a cold mountain
I blame all of the unhappiness and dissatisfaction on Apple :-). They cause distress as people who have perfectly good devices are chided and shamed to get rid of the good and stress how to get the next $1,000 to by the new shiny dime.
My assessment may not make Psychology Today but I don’t think I am too far off.
MLD,
I think consumerism is part of it…but we were self medicating badly before the iPhone.
I think a loss of standards is part of the issue as well.
I think the “misery crisis” is the loss of hope. Because I’m not taking strictly about theology or the church, I think there is widespread loss of hope in America over the future.
There is a loss of the virtues of personal responsibility and service to others; an increase in the sense of entitlement; tremendous cynicism that the economic, tax, educational and political systems are rigged (i.e., cronyism and corruption); tremendous loss of trust and confidence in institutions, and a dearth of competent, principled, and honest leadership.
I understand that the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
I think the opioid crisis is complex and unhappiness is part of it. Consumerism is a facet. So is addiction to ‘feeling good’ and resistance to feeling pain. The greed of drug companies to flood the market with pain meds and the complicity of doctors overprescribing them contributes as well. The war on drugs has never adequately addressed the demand side of the equation.
If the baseball is juiced, it’s likely tabaccy juice…at least the players aren’t juiced like they used to be.
#3 Michael
I struggled with it for years. For me, and I can only speak for myself here, I used to think of prayer as an exchange… I ask, God says yes or no, but essentially an exchange. These days I view it as a conversation that includes self-examination of motives, desires, etc. If as a result of the conversation I see an “answer to prayer”, thank God. If I see no result the conversation remains valuable, with the recognition that God is God and much must be left in the category of “mystery”. I still struggle to understand…
Duane,
Some days I handle it better than others, but even on the good days it’s a scar hidden with clothes.
Today is not one of my good days…
#10 Michael
As you know from this last weekend… I hear you.
As long as I’m thinking out loud…
I think this is reprehensible and a disgrace to this country.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/us/girl-cerebral-palsy-detained-immigration.html
I’m sorry you are having a bad day big brother. ((Hugs))
I have been lucky, over my lifetime I have had to take practically no medications. A statin for cholesterol and eye drops for glaucoma. I don’t think I have ever been prescribed pain medication.
I had to change health / medical groups when I came to Arizona. When I called 2 weeks ago to make an appointment with my new primary, the first words from the lady on the phone – “are you on pain medication? because if you are we cannot prescribe any to you and would send you to pain management.”
I thought,crap, she is a tough gatekeeper.
“I think this is reprehensible and a disgrace to this country.” taken a face value and we must do so, i agree…
but what is more reprehensible is that Mexico won’t take care of their own… (many folk i know without health insurance in the U.S. go down there for health care, BTW – they say it is every bit as good as what they receive here and costs just a fraction of what we pay here – ironic to say the least)
Em,
The Mexican government on every level is corrupt and wicked.
Thanks, Dusty. 🙂
Michael, yes, corrupt, wicked and arrogant and i think it has been so going way back to the conquistadores and the Spanish land grants…
is it just me or do many of the common folk south of the border see us all as simple Americans who’ve been divided by wars? the whole point of national boundaries don’t seem real to them -or so it seems to me – dunno
our government really did start as a government of by and for the people (not all people, but non-the-less headed in the right direction)… sadly, tho, since people are people and power is a prize to be desired by the reprobate minds of the world, it looks like we are fast becoming as corrupted as any other country and we the people don’t really know where the roots of our corruption are buried… hope i’m wrong about that as there is a point at which national boundaries only serve power
praying for you as you cope with so many challenges now and for others here who have recently expressed some terrible griefs and confusions, too… praying that God can use filbertz in his community and i know that Bob S. can and will be used by God (he probably has been over the years more than he realizes)
“is it just me or do many of the common folk south of the border see us all as simple Americans who’ve been divided by wars? the whole point of national boundaries don’t seem real to them -or so it seems to me – dunno”
This is the case on the border…it’s almost like a third country.
Unfortunately, Trump is turning Mexico into an anti-American country and the leftists and Chinese are very appreciative…
When was Mexico a pro-American country?
For the most part the two countries have been decent neighbors.
I for one, have no desire for a Chinese satellite sitting on the border behind a leftist regime.
#8 – I used to be a pretty good writing teacher, even if I say so myself. Now, I’m fortunate if I can get even some of my best students to write a paragraph made of complete sentences all on the same topic.
#1 & 2 – Amen!!!!
#5 – I’m very much like Luther in one way…horribly flawed. Thank God for His grace and mercy.
The Mexican school system used to educate the people to be wary of northern gringos. That changed, which is why younger people have a more positive view of the USA. Keep in mind that the PRI controlled the nation for a century since the last revolution. Having broken from one party rule, it’s gotten worse. I’m not going to offer a “benevolent dictator” hypothesis, but murders and crime are off the charts now.
My ex bemoaned the corruption. Similarly, my Indian and Vietnamese coworkers complained about the corruption in their countries. My boss years ago stopped visiting Vietnam. Other Vietnamese told me that they had no problem bringing thousands of dollars back to cover the bribes. All in all I can thank God I was born here, and try to educate my kids (half Mexican), that they should not take our lifestyle for granted.
S7 is old enough that I’ve started taking him to volunteer with me to do our homeless outreaches. I don’t want to scare him, but I think it’s important to stress “but for the grace of God there go us.”
speaking of China they’ve have been big players south of the border and on down to the canal for some years, have they not? what is our government hiding from us? just about everything i think…
we do need more parents who think like New Victor… it seems Christians try to convince their children that Santa Claus is real and that his name is God, so don’t be naughty or your goodies won’t come and as for history and civics and such… we are so cowed by political fads (correctness) that we’re afraid to tell the children anything… or so it seems to me…
Michael
That case in the NY Times just goes to show there are, to borrow your colorful term, @$$hats in every dept of the government. Not every border agent wants to wait around to deport a ten year old girl with CP. I bet those guys didn’t want to either. But maybe there’s an @$$ hat in command who’s been reading too much Breitbart.
the strange case of the little girl in question just proves the knee jerk bureaucratic mess that we’ve created as i suspect this happened due to the young woman who just came across the border, found she was pregnant and requested an abortion… there was hearing scheduled the next day to determine her right to said procedure and in the middle of night to circumvent that hearing she was provided with the abortion
not right or logical? of course not
#9. Yay!!