Balancing Hope and Cynicism
Who would I kid to pretend I would read the Bible in a year? (I hate new year's resolutions anyway.) So I got this idea to download an audio version and make it what I listen to as I drive around. Usually I am listening to the political station and music on commercial breaks. First off, I only have the Pentateuch lined up, and it's already ten CDs. I want to be open-minded as I "read" it. I want to see whether it is saying something more radical than contemporary Christianity would attribute to it. I also have skepticism in my wondering, what if I don't like what I encounter? What if it just seems like a mythology like any other? What if it presents a brutal or illogical God? Of course, God could be real and be unlikeable, but then I have to weed out what is the culture of the time of writing.
Anyway, the central topic here is the despair that I feel when I look at the modern world, and that is not primarily for the same reasons that fellow Christians might feel despair. The worst characterization of them is that they might sympathize with Fred Phelps more than they would admit. No, I despair more for the snookered, who keep handing things over in the widening gap between the classes. They proudly shifted the balance in the House of Representatives to those who are chiefly concerned with undoing anything that could be deemed burdensome to corporations (health care reform, financial reform, environmental protections). As I heard on the radio today, if corporations' primary goal is profit, then cutting payroll is their central means to achieve that. So it is a race to the bottom, and there isn't a strong enough voice to turn it around. What is one to do when he/she doesn't see this situation improving?
I'm always just curious enough to see what will happen next. My mother has been battling cancer now for nearly two years. It had come to the point where she had been through about four types of chemotherapy, and none was working much. For some reason that I still haven't exactly figured out, her case is regarded as special. The surgeon at the first university where she was treated was documenting her case for publication, as was the most recent. The first didn't feel comfortable with performing a second surgery, but the second did. The family was gathered in a room before the surgery, and the surgeon said, "I want you to hear me," as he detailed the potential dangers of the operation. We got it--it was risky, and my mother is not in the greatest shape to begin with. It felt as though we all stopped breathing for the three hours that the surgery took. Needless to say, leading up to it, I prayed multiple times daily and sought to rally as many others as I could to pray as well. It worked. One of the doctors sort of laughed and shook his head afterward, saying something to the effect of, "Someone must have been with you."
Who knows where things can go from here? I can clearly see as I approach middle age that I (and everyone) must endure sad but unavoidable events, maybe sooner than later. I can certainly tell you that my family and I felt the possibility of losing my mother about a week before Christmas but were mercifully spared that. Usually hope is something I experience in smaller-scale events, or even across certain periods. For example, the other day I had my car problems diagnosed as something simple, received a call from a potential employer, and read an e-mail securing my current position. Things looking up. But in that situation described herein, I felt something bigger.
Anyway, the central topic here is the despair that I feel when I look at the modern world, and that is not primarily for the same reasons that fellow Christians might feel despair. The worst characterization of them is that they might sympathize with Fred Phelps more than they would admit. No, I despair more for the snookered, who keep handing things over in the widening gap between the classes. They proudly shifted the balance in the House of Representatives to those who are chiefly concerned with undoing anything that could be deemed burdensome to corporations (health care reform, financial reform, environmental protections). As I heard on the radio today, if corporations' primary goal is profit, then cutting payroll is their central means to achieve that. So it is a race to the bottom, and there isn't a strong enough voice to turn it around. What is one to do when he/she doesn't see this situation improving?
I'm always just curious enough to see what will happen next. My mother has been battling cancer now for nearly two years. It had come to the point where she had been through about four types of chemotherapy, and none was working much. For some reason that I still haven't exactly figured out, her case is regarded as special. The surgeon at the first university where she was treated was documenting her case for publication, as was the most recent. The first didn't feel comfortable with performing a second surgery, but the second did. The family was gathered in a room before the surgery, and the surgeon said, "I want you to hear me," as he detailed the potential dangers of the operation. We got it--it was risky, and my mother is not in the greatest shape to begin with. It felt as though we all stopped breathing for the three hours that the surgery took. Needless to say, leading up to it, I prayed multiple times daily and sought to rally as many others as I could to pray as well. It worked. One of the doctors sort of laughed and shook his head afterward, saying something to the effect of, "Someone must have been with you."
Who knows where things can go from here? I can clearly see as I approach middle age that I (and everyone) must endure sad but unavoidable events, maybe sooner than later. I can certainly tell you that my family and I felt the possibility of losing my mother about a week before Christmas but were mercifully spared that. Usually hope is something I experience in smaller-scale events, or even across certain periods. For example, the other day I had my car problems diagnosed as something simple, received a call from a potential employer, and read an e-mail securing my current position. Things looking up. But in that situation described herein, I felt something bigger.
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