When Lightning Strikes

Forgive me.  I’m on a rant today. Farm tractors and many other types of power equipment have a device on them called a governor.  The operator sets the speed of the machine and the governor does the job of keeping it constant even though the load varies.  The cruise control on a car is really a type of governor.  This is all fine and good until lightning strikes. I don’t know if this story is accurate but it’s been the subject of legend for decades now.  A man was driving on a rural highway on a day when thunderstorms threatened.  He was looking out at a field where a farmer on an old tractor was pulling an implement that swept straw into neat rows to be picked up later and baled.  To his horror, the driver saw lightning strike the moving tractor.  It knocked the farmer off the tractor seat and onto the ground behind the tractor, then the tractor, controlled by its governor, pulled the implement over the poor guy who had just been struck by lightning. He lived.  He survived electric shock, burns, and broken bones and was back to work in a couple of months.  His tractor and implement were found a quarter mile away, turned over in a ditch.  The governor just kept it going, albeit not in a straight line. Lightning has struck the environment of our planet, and the human race seems to be running on a governor, mindless that something drastic and energetic must be done, and soon, before a more serious catastrophe happens.  This is God’s creation and our home and, believe it or not, some religious people don’t care and they don’t care for “theological reasons.” It is the weak and sad side of Christianity that says Jesus is returning (Soon!) and will execute (take that literally) judgment on all people who have rejected him, and will take everyone else to heaven, which is somewhere else.  The earth we know will be destroyed.  This is all wrong. But some people maintain that if God is going to burn the earth up anyway, what’s the point in trying to save it?  In fact, some of these folks hold to the unbelievable notion that we’re doing our part to hasten the day of judgment when we pollute and smother the planet! This ancient belief, which may date as far back as the second or third century, has developed into the destructive, egotistical, self-righteous preaching we sometimes hear today.  I’m putting this in strong terms because I oppose it in strong terms.  I don’t believe in a God who intervenes and punishes people and destroys God’s own work.  And isn’t it interesting that the people to be judged are people who I dislike, and the planet to be burned is a place of consequences for my own greed and ignorance. This heresy flies in the face of a God of creativeness, and in the face of Jesus of Nazareth, who worshipped this God.  It is irresponsible toward God’s creation, a creation that the human race is biblically commissioned to steward. If we can’t learn, over a period of two thousand years, from God’s steadfast nurture of creation, then humanity has indeed become hopeless and is bound to die off, not from God’s judgment, but from the natural consequences of its own inability to adapt.  The human race needs to accept responsibility for its own actions.  We’ve lost our moral compass if we’re calling on God to destroy the planet because we’re offended by a majority of its population. The call today is not to direct our energies against each other or against Mother Earth.  We need to see with open eyes what is really going on, and take action to curb our own excesses. Ego-based Christianity must be once and for all rejected as the worst heresy of the faith, a heresy that is not just theologically wrong, but in fact, literally threatens our physical existence.  Jesus doesn’t need to come again.  He’s already been here and his spirit lives in the hearts of those who bind themselves to the creator, and to creation. 

Technology

My hand paused with the stylus in it.  I was staring at the touch screen at the hardware store checkout.  The screen read, “Thank you…,” displaying my whole name.  This was a first and I didn’t like it.  I didn’t like it one bit. I know.  My life is embedded in that technology out there.  My name, my social, credit card accounts, bank accounts, personal information, all are available for someone.  It has to be this way to conduct business, at least conveniently.  But if the wrong person gets ahold of any of this my life can become a living hell. We’re new in town, only known by a few dozen people so far.  I’m certain that not one person in that retail store knew my name.  The clerk in front of me was a complete stranger.  But there is my name on the screen and nobody needed to ask me.  Someone in a corporate office somewhere in that organization decided that it would be a nice touch to thank a customer personally when in fact it’s not personal in any sense of the word, it’s invasive. My name is a part of my self, even if I don’t like my name.  A lot of people think they know how to spell my first name without asking, and as for my surname, it’s shock and awe on my part for the person who gets it right the first time.  In fact, I have seriously thought about dropping the use of my clumsy German last name and using my middle name instead, but my wife won’t let me. Name has again entered culture as a source of power.  It’s technological power now, rather than the superstitious power of ancient times.  In both ages, knowing someone’s name, one knows the person and has power over them, and to know a person one can…  well, you know.  The only one I can trust with my name is the entity I sometimes call God, although that’s not a name.  It’s a title.  This entity, this higher power, I believe has a hold on me for purposes that, unlike some people, I can trust.  I know this is shaky ground at times because it’s a call to faith and my faith is uncertain often as not.  Interestingly, when faith is weakest, so often it seems like something, or someone, from outside my own self grasps on to me and pulls me back into sanity. Maybe that’s what it really means to have a relationship with God. 

Can God learn?

If God knows all, and can do anything, then can God learn? If God can learn, that means that God didn’t know something. So then, do we have to give up on one or the other of these descriptions of God?  It would seem that we can’t have it both ways. (We can go further into this but I’m going to stop here before it gets out of hand.)I subscribe to the notion that language is inadequate to describe absolutes, and that the human mind has severe limitations in grasping the whole of a picture. Then, when we ask the question, “How can a loving God allow (here fill in the blank) to happen to good people?” we are asking a question that has some baggage behind it. Is a loving God a God who only gives me security, pleasure, satisfaction, stability in my life?  Does a loving God always let me have my way? Upon what part of a tragedy do I focus, the pain or loss of it over and over again, or the ultimate outcome? In my case, the answer to this last question will be different as time passes.  I will experience shock, disbelief, denial, anger, resolution, or perhaps some other kind of closure and perhaps not.  I will blame God, question God, vent on God, and perhaps finally trust God and hope for myself and the world. Or I may get stuck somewhere in all that.  I may walk into a spiritual dead-end, unable to move. Whatever happens, there is an element of the Gospel that says God is present in all this.  If something has to be infallible, this is it, whether in my pain or despair I believe it or not.  God walks with me, whether I see it or not, and God walks with those who I love.