Taking Sides

As I get older, something claiming to be wisdom keeps intruding into parts of my life where opinions are born black and white, demanding that the gray of discerning grace settle over outrage in a calming insistence that I wait.

So often, we hear of some horrible event, and it demands that we root for the victim and curse the perpetrator, as portrayed by the one relating the awful occurrence. We want to rush to seek out cause and blame, that punishment and retribution may be parsed out.

More often than I’d like to admit, the moment I close my mouth after its issuing of my ‘considered’ opinion, more information comes out that either reverses who was really the victim and perp or that both were one or the other. The egg on my face tastes vaguely of some monstrous prehistoric ostrich. My personal opinion is that it goes rather well with the boiled sock lint left over from having my foot in my mouth.

A Better Word for Tragedy

When we hear of a natural disaster with hundreds or thousands dead, or a suicide, or other cause of ‘unnatural' death, destruction, or mayhem, we label it a tragedy. But what do we call it when it strikes closer to home, directly affecting us or someone we know personally and are watching go through the hell of unexpected grief, dealing with the aftermath, and trying to regain one’s bearings?

Honestly, I can’t think of any word to call it then. It is too raw and real to even put it to words.

We read about Job and all of the evils that befell him and call it a tragedy. But it wasn’t a tragedy to him. It was far, far worse.

Words for his situation were so insufficient, that when his friends joined him, they said nothing…for seven days. In fact, the first words at the end of that week were his intonations of a curse upon his own birth.

There are times in life that are beyond the reach of any words, and we do well to let silence have its eloquence.

SDG

Evil on Christmas

An acquaintance was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. In spite of aggressive treatments, she was steadily declining, but still able to get around and live life somewhat. Saturday was her son’s birthday and they had a party for him, but she was kind of out of it. Her husband gave her morphine for the first time ever that night. In the morning she was worse, so they took her to the hospital. After examining her, the doctors gave her 2-24 hours. She died that afternoon, Christmas day.

Another family that many of my friends know had a 17 year old son with a congenital heart problem and several close calls and near death experiences, which he shared on YouTube one week before Christmas. He also died Christmas day.

Christmas night, I watched the news with my folks to see three homes destroyed by fire, several robberies of some of the few businesses open on Christmas, and various shootings. And on it went.

And on it goes. Day after day.

In Memoriam: Alexis

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”                         Psalm116:15

Last week, our department lost a graduate student to an eating disorder. Alexis was a cheerful, bright and attractive Christian. She successfully defended her dissertation in June.

I first met her in 2008 and she was dreadfully thin and obviously suffering from an eating disorder then. She only got worse over the last three years. I had a student in her research group as a TA, also a Christian, and we discussed what could be done for her. I contacted the uni’s hotline for her, but she only got thinner.

Who's In Control?

In our modern, highly technologically advanced age, it is easy to assume self sufficiency and the ability to make our wishes come true. There is an attitude in this age that if an idea sounds good or works on paper, then it should work in real life.

While some humans have always been tempted by such thoughts throughout history (mostly the young, the powerful, the rich), in today’s America and the developed world, it is easier for more people to think this more successfully more of the time, and all the more so as we have moved into climate controlled urban areas that provide readymade food, water, sanitation and other creature comforts.

There’s just one problem.