Every Heathen's Dream

Ad for a book seen recently - "Learn the secrets of effective prayer! Read this book, and be assured that God will hear and respond to your prayers!"

Oh, Lordy, I hope not. That would be the worst news I think we could ever get.

Everyone, even the most committed atheists, would love for their pryaers to be heard. But if you could really learn how to pray effectively, to make sure God heard you, it would mean one thing:

That we have a "little g god". It would reduce got to the status of a favor-dispensing genie, an idol whom we have only to approach with the correct incantations to get what we want.

Every heathen's dream - a clockwork god that works! We found the secret, the key! Quick, sacrifice some more virgins to keep it happy!

Modern Christianity, in the Americas in the early 21st century, already approaches that. We use quite a bit of mumbo-jumbo, without really knowing what we're doing.

Take "speaking in tongues". Even though I don't hold with it myself, I can accept that some people have their own "prayer language". All well and good, but when a preacher begins using his prayer language from the pulpit, it gets scary. Not because it sounds like gibberish...well, yes, because it does sound like gibberish, and it's being used in exactly the same way that a witch doctor might chant to the crocodile god. It's not scary because I think "bad things may happen"; it's scary because people actually think that this is the way to reach God.

Another bit of mumbo-jumbo is the use of language consistent with that used in the King James Bible. No one would deny its beauty and spare elegance; likewise, no one would use this language in a business meeting. It's only used in church.

When it's used in the church of Jesus Christ, it goes directly against what Jesus said - "Say what you mean". If speaking plainly is what Our Savor told us to do, why are we using language that we would never use in public, and over which we don't have full control?

If you're thinking, hey, English is English...I have control over that, here's a simple test. If this sentence correct?

"I lift my eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh Thy help."

If you said yes, you're in the vast majority, and you're also quite wrong. "Whence" means "from where". The "where" is redundant.

I believe that we have a God who wants us to talk to him, and who has gone to some pretty great lengths - including letting His own Son go through some painful experiences - to get our attention.

He tore the veil.

Don't you dare put it back up.

Easy Targets

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It's fun to throw rocks at people. It's even more fun when they can't throw rocks back at you.

The picture is a comic that's been making the Facebook rounds recently. It's one of several that is used to make the point that women are far tougher than men; that men will take to their beds and demand service at the slightest sign of the sniffles, while a woman will still be shopping, cooking for the family, and walking the dog while wearing a full-body cast.

Maybe that's true; childbirth, after all, is supposed to be the most painful thing a human being can experience, and it's reserved for women - some of whom endure it without drugs, for their babies' sake.

And certainly women have been treated poorly by our male-dominated society. For centuries they were little better than chattel, and even today no one will seriously debate the continued existence of the glass ceiling.

Unfortunately, Christianity has been used to enforce this arrangement; Paul said that women should be sure to dress modestly and not speak in church. A lot of preachers have tried to weasel out of those words, and re-interpret them. But they're there. Some other religions are much worse; some, like Buddhism, are rather better, in this regard.

So maybe there is a right to throw rocks, using comics like this one. But what makes this case a bit singular is the use of breast cancer as the defining condition for the woman. It's a woman's disease, and to say, "Hey, that's really not fair" puts one in the position of being unsympathetic to those who suffer from the disease.

So...I guess I'll go back out tomorrow, keep working, and make sure you don't see the blood I've been vomiting, from the illness that's tearing through my guts. After all, I'm only a guy.

Yeah, Right.

I know a number of people who are proud of their use of sarcasm.

I wonder why.'

Sarcasm is the mean brother of irony. Where irony points out incongruities in a situation, sarcasm inflates them and then pricks them with a pin to watch the intended target jump - or wince - at the explosion.

And sarcasm always needs a target - or, perhaps more accurately, victim. It's a sneak attack that is at its most effective when it hammers something the victim holds dear. The greater the hurt, the greater the effect.

In the long term, it has a corrosive effect on character, because it seems to be kind of addictive. The more "zingers" a sarcastic person can throw out there, the more he wants to throw. It becomes a part of his habitual speech pattern, and eventually a part of how he looks at the world. The sarcastic person becomes the embodiment of the jaded, world-weary soul, fed up with mankinds excesses.

Too bad it's a pose. There are excesses to oppose, certainly, but taking refuge in this kind of humor does nothing to fight them. It merely makes the speaker look wise and detatched, or so he hopes.

At its heart, sarcasm is also dishonest - the words used gain their impact as their distance from the truth is increased. Which, for those of you who care, put it rather at odds with the Bible, in a formal sense.

In an informal sense, it's on the other side of the river from Jesus. It's not "saying yes when you mean yes, and no when you mean no". And it's not turning the other cheek, or doing unto others as you'd have them do unto you.

Like the old T-shirt slogan from the 60s said..."Do unto others, then split".

That may be the best advice for dealing with a sarcastic person.

Split.

Genocide Is Where You Find It

Over the past few years I've butted heads with several people (pastors included) in several churches over the appropriateness of using Saul's incomplete eradication of the Amalakytes as a demonstration of the consequences of disobedience to God.

(For those who may not remember, the prophet Samuel told Saul that he was to kill all of the Amalakytes, and their livestock. Saul spared the best of the animals, as well as King Agag and his queen. Samuel was not pleased, and killed Agag himself. Saul lost his kingdom, and 500 years later Agag's descendant Haman tried to wipe out the Jews living in exile in Persia.)

This is a difficult story on many levels, because, baldly, it's divinely-ordained genocide. The Amalakytes are to be wiped out - completely. No survivors. This is completely at odds with our modern sensibilities; a president who would have deliberately targeted Osama bin Laden's entire family would have found himself on the receiving end of a lot of criticism, not to mention possible legal sanctions.

But if you look at it in an historical context, the picture's a bit different. Bronze-Age war was unimaginably brutal, and genocide was considered a valid aim.

The heart of the problem with teaching this story is that we are not living in the Bronze Age; indeed, most people would be hard-pressed to identify what the Bronze Age was, let alone its time frame or characteristics.

We therefore have almost no idea of what the order Samuel passed on to Saul actually meant. It's easy to sit in a comfortable auditorium-style seat and nod while the preacher says that Saul was rightly punished for disobedience.

But what you're nodding about is the killing of a large number of captives, men, women, and children. They will likely have been tied with ropes so they can't escape or fight back.

They will be "put to the sword". Clean words that describe a messy death. Messy, and painful. Two methods were typically used - decapitation, and stabbing under the ribs.

Decapitation, done properly, is quick and probably as merciful as any killing with a blade can be. However, given a limited number of executioners and a large number of "customers", fatigue would make the stroke less powerful and exact as time went on, leading to incomplete decapitation. I leave the horror of this to your imagination.

Stabbing, or "running through", puts the blade through several large organs, major blood vessels, and the nerve bundle called the solar plexus. It's incredibly painful, and death comes through bleeding out. It's quick, if the aorta is severed, but nowhere near quick enough.

This is difficult enough, but consider those who are waiting, bound, to be killed. Consider what they see, hear, and smell.

Do you see the problem? Nodding in satisfied agreement recognizes none of the realities of the operation. Put it this way - could you have done this, as one of Saul's soldiers? Certainly not the "you" sitting in church...at least, I hope not.

The end of Saul's reign, as the price of disobedience, is a story that simply can't be taught. We don't have the slightest means to understand the actions that are at its heart.

And for that we should be grateful.

(I've heard a lot of justification for the extermination of the Alamakytes...from the chilling "they were like a cancer" to the somewhat goofy "the Holy Spirit was only in the world part-time", whatever that may have meant. An apologist on the Internet wrote that being killed by the sword was actually a "good death", which is hogwash. Another suggestion was that this is a morality tale, and never actually happened. Whatever. Probably the most logical argument, providing justification and admitting historicity, is that this is the way wars were fought at the time. Deal with it.)

Raising Good Kids

Take away their cell phones. Turn off their computers. Kick 'em out in the woods. DOn't let them back in the house for a few hours.

When did childhood suddenly become an indoor activity? Drive through any "family neighborhood" on a Saturday and you'll be struck by one thing - the absence of children. They're all inside, playing with their xBoxes and Playstaions, and texting one another.

These are the children of the first generation of people whose childhood gave access to the Internet. It was a crude and somewhat clunky Internet back then, just a few years after Al Gore invented it (remember that one...oh, sorry, shouldn't have reminded you...).

The Internet, and digital "devices", have become all that was dreamed and more, and now the swingsets and slides, the forts in the woods and creek banks, sit silently under the lonely summer sun. The kids are gone, lured inside by the Brave New World that places all the world's knowledge, and much of its technological capability, in their hands.

The defense is that growing up this way is better preparation for the world in which they'll live. Undoubtedly true, but also a cheap and sneaky selfishness. They'll be better prepared to help maintain the world in which we live, through the beginnings of their careers...and we don't have to put the energy into teaching them the outdoor skills we may never have learned.

But something is lost when a child does not know how to whittle.

The Swimsuit Issue

It's almost time for that yearly rite of passage...the Sports Illustrated "Swimsuit Issue".

It's a rite of passage because it's the traditional first step for young men into the world of pronography. (The Swimsuit Issue had a more prominent role before the Day of the Internet...now it's not nearly so much a defining object, but until something replaces the glossy, dog-eared, loose-paged magazine-in-use, it'll still be something of a cultural icon.)

Yes, pornography. The pictures in question are specifically designed and posed to encourage sexual excitement in young (and not-so-young) men.

The swimsuits themselves are designed to enhance and reinforce the imagination by emphasizing that which they don't expicitly show. This is an effective "hook", in that it follows the old show-business dictum, "leave 'em wanting more".

At this point there's still a balance in many boys. They're titillated, but there's a sense of right and wrong still operating. They want more, but deep down they recognize that "more" is a Rubicon they find themselves hesitant to cross. Most cross, though, egged on by their hormones, or their peers.

And where will they find more? The next step used to be the soft-core pornographic magazines like Playboy. Appetite whetted, hook set, and the next step to a magazine kept in a rack behind the cashier's counter was easier to take.

Today, for many young men, the next step is the Internet...but for those whose access isn't as free as they might like, the magazines are still there.

From there, the road descends further and further. What are the limits of low? I don't know, and I don't want to.

The result of this path, whose first few feet are set before our sons' feet by a "reputable" magazine, is disappointment in relationships, and marriages that could have been a lot stronger than they are. Pornographic images stay with the male mind for a long time, and how demeaning is it for a wife to feel the hidden blade of comparison, the comparison with a woman whose only existence for the viewer is in print, or digital.

Boys will be boys, you might say.

Yes. And one day they'll be husbands.

Marriage...Get What You Can, Give What You Must?

Negotiation is a great way to avoid wars, get back hostages, and deal with business issues.

But what is its place in a marriage?

At its simplest, the functionality of negotiation is "If you'll do this for me, I'll do this for you."

Something like, "I'll go to the tractor pull with you if you'll come see The Barber Of Seville with me. And I'll even enjoy it (or pretend to)."

I guess the question is, is anything worth putting your spouse into the position of being an unwilling participant (or spectator)? Can you really enjoy the tractor pull, knowing your wife would rather be cleaning the kids' bathroom, or doing anything else?

Oh, sorry. Yes, I know, it was the wife who wanted to go to the tractor pull. I stand corrected.

Is this really what you want in your closest relationship? Trying to get what you want in exchange for doing something you'd prefer to avoid?

Is this what St. Paul was saying, when he said we should put our spouses' interests first?

And, if it comes down to enduring The Barber of Seville, counting all tribulation as joy? Are you counting it as joy if you're waiting for it to end, so you can change the tux for a greasy ballcap and whack the love of your life on the rump while yelling "YEE-HA" over the sound of an unmuffled V-8?

Or are you just keeping score? I did this much, and got this much back?

And when you're looking death in the face, are you going to count up what you 'got', or what you freely gave, without expectation of a reward?