My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me. -Matthew 26:38, NIV
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“Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? -Colossians 2:21, NIV Of course we’ve seen them on the streets. With their long hair and battered-down robes in 90-degree weather, strutting like a peacock while trying to look penitent and worried for the rest of the world. I ask myself, “If they’re not doing this for fun, when why are they doing this? I mean, isn’t it a bit masochistic to carry the flames of an already-carried pain?” No; I’m not talking about the nuns. They’re OK in my book. I’m talking about the puritans- not the historically accurate ones, but of those that take things way too far. …their foot shall slide in due time. When I first read Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” in 11th Grade, I was interested to explore the obscene (as in excessive) amount of loaded, emotional language in his sermon. No wonder the already-divisive social fabric almost went haywire in those times! I kept Googling my way into the topic and I kept observing how everybody tried to incarnate that voice with fire and brimstone and holy anger. In reality, he read the sermon in a calm and natural voice. But the people still went haywire-and with good reasons! In my town, we’d call that a palo –just as you heard it, it was a spiritual smack of the spiritual stick in the head. Some of it is necessary, some of it we can live without. I have no problems with living right-we all have that duty. What I can’t conceive is the hypocrisy of things…the legalism. When we say, “You can’t eat of this”, or “You can’t drink of that” with no legal backup, we’re imposing senseless and needless limits to the power of God. As we treat man with stupid limits, we are treating God with more and more imperial dispositions to our little black books (and I’m not talking about the obsolete Blackberries!) Need to wash yourself every time before you eat an apple? That would be good hygiene –God would appreciate that-, but be careful with what you say before you eat that apple. Wanna tithe ten percent of your income? Amen to that, but please be mindful of giving God your all. He likes everything, not some. Dressing good every time you go out to dinner? Go for it, but try to do the same with your Father’s house. There’s no need to use whips and chains and cilice with ash to mortify your body. What about a clean and thankful heart in every waking moment? We need to be clean, pure, right and holy everywhere we go- but isn’t a bit of balance certainly enough? There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. -1 John 4:18 Then the Lord God took dust from the ground and formed a man from it. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nose, and the man became a living person. –Genesis 2:7, NCV Can life be formed from nothing? Like dry bones? Or ponds? Or even the ground we walk on?
Scientifically, that cannot happen, for abiogenesis was disproved ages ago! They would dismiss the theory as childish, naïve and inane- a myth and preconception of early Greek scientific thought. It became an entry point, they would admit, but it wouldn’t be enough to shed the living world some light. Or…can it? Admittedly, I am no scientist. Nor am I a philosopher. I can only ponder these truths for so much, and I can be exact (or at least conclusive) for so long. I don’t know if I am right, I don’t know if I am wrong. Every word of mine is certainly fallible and debatable. Words are spontaneous; they burst on their own with multiple shreds and colors and shades. They can only last so long; so long they can only last… Pardon my metaphorical digression. Even if we engage in mindless hours, there are things that are left unanswered. We know that life comes from life, and death takes away life, but can life take away life? Even worse: can death give birth to life? The dead is dead, the inorganic cannot be easily converted to organic-and that fairs beyond mere carbon. This is the unknown that our minds are never prepared to understand. Because our minds can’t render that possible. I’ve heard of Someone that gives life to the dust. I’ve heard of Someone that gives life to the dry bones. I’ve heard of Someone that Sheol couldn’t handle him from its bowels. Maybe life can spring from the dust. Maybe it will. When I learned that Jersey Shore, MTV’s vicious gold mine, was soon to end after its sixth season, I wanted to praise break like David on the Temple! Nothing personal, people-I just can’t understand the money-making logic of pitting seven overtly-tanned strangers á la Real World spend a summer in a share house in the Jersey Shore (sorry!) and spread some fist-pumping, fist-punching, pickle-eating, and drama-making trouble. I never liked the show; I could only digest it for about fifteen minutes. Every time I heard Snooki coif her hair and utter some words in her thick, Brooklyn accent, I felt compelled to ask the God of the Heavens, “Why?” “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” –John 16:33, NIV 2011 This was on my “to-write” list on the back of my mind… *sigh* There is no other thing that defines “senior year” quite better than a good, old-fashioned senior prom (or “class night”). This dance really is the last chance one has to enjoy their new-found adulthood, dance a little bit, laugh out old rivalries, and um…make some babies (hehe!). But I have a dillema: should I go to prom, or not? |
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