Who Is To Say?

My job requires me to occasionally take long trips to distant work sites.

Not long ago I was riding in the back seat listening to two coworkers discuss life, death, and Jesus.

The driver, we'll call him Ned, had previously worked as an environmental clean up employee of the US government in the Marshall islands. The man siting next to him was a programmer, we'll call him James.

The drive was a long one, so we took a shortcut by the dump.

The dump was this very large, six story mountain of trash. Birds flew all over, and there was debris everywhere and in the trees. Ned was talking about how awful it was that humans waste so much, how the trash affected the water table, and how people don't dispose of things correctly.

James didn't say anything for a bit and then said, "You see all that trash out there? There is far less trash in that landfill than there is inside most human hearts."

The conversation began to take on a more of a 'historical' perspective. Ned brought up the topic of the great fire of Rome -the ecological damage and so forth. James made a passing reference to the historian Tacitus (although he couldn't remember his name until we got back home).

Ned asked about Tacitus, when he wrote. James mentioned that Tacitus had commented in part on the beginning of Christianity (which was just happening in his time), so he was probably writing around 65 A.D. or so.

Ned wanted to know more about what the Romans had to say about the Christians. So James talked all about how Tacitus considered the claims about Christ's ressurection to be totally fabricated whereas other historians of the time, such as Josephus, seemed to find the claims believable.

This was enough to get Ned going about his own views on religion, his view on ethics, and death. Sitting in the back, I was astounded at how verbose Ned was on this topic.

Ned talked about how you could blow off religion and then die one day and discover that you made a great mistake. Or, he claimed, you could devote yourself to religion and then meet a different god after death, or, perhaps nothing.

James refered to Pascal, how the choice toward Christianity was a gamble with no way of knowing for sure. Agnosticism claims some things cannot be seen, whereas faith is certain of the unseen.

At that point James and Ned agreed that the religious choice -who to believe and who to doubt- had far more to do with what a person wanted to believe rather than the evidence, which is always inconclusive.

Then Ned mentioned that he had read a report the other day about how anthropologists had discovered that there are more than forty thousand religions out there. Ned then asked, "Who is to say which religion is 'right'?".

James didn't answer Ned's question directly but only said, "That can't be true. There have got to be at least forty thousand religions in San Francisco alone!"

Ned agreed with that, but James and I had a hearty laugh.

I suppose James' point was that the vast number of religions only shows that there are a lot of 'made-up' religious dead-ends.

The same thing could probably be said of marriage. If someone where to say, 'There are so many women out there ... who is to say which one I should marry?' And then they just went from woman to woman without having any kind of lasting, committed relationship.

Or they could say it differently: that most marriages end in divorce, so it is better to know the shallow happiness of the Las Vegas lifestyle than the deep sorrows of marriage.

I wish I spent more time telling people about Jesus. This encounter reminded me that God does arrange meetings like this with opportunities to tell others about His Son.

I am saddened to see that many people refuse to decide about Jesus because they think there are just so many 'fish in the sea' of religions. It seems like I'm always hearing people ask, 'Who is to say?'

Jesus answered, "Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?"
John 18:34

Soren Kierkegaard in his book The Sickness Unto Death noted that when it comes to a person making choices about their life, Christianity is very clear when it says:

YOU are the one.
YOU must choose.
YOU are the one authorizing your beliefs,
and YOU must live by them.

But few people live by their beliefs.

Thanksgiving Wish

May your thanksgiving be full of unexplainable gladness.

May the God who dwells inside His chosen ones in all circumstances be praised by His chosen ones in all circumstances.

May His unsearchable love guide those who love to follow His guidance.

May the tongues of His people freely praise the One who has set them free.

Providence of the Sparrow

In the final scene of the play, Hamlet has just accepted an invitation to challenge Laertes in an ill-fated match of swords. Horatio warns Hamlet to change plans if he senses something is wrong.

The passage is worth close scrutiny. Shakespeare wastes no words.

Horatio:

If your mind dislike any thing, obey it: I will
forestall their repair hither, and say you are not
fit.

Hamlet:

Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he
leaves, what is't to leave betimes?

Here we see two very different people weighing their options.

Horatio examines the signs to predict what will happen, while Hamlet examines himself to decide who he will be.

Horatio makes an explicit appeal to the mind as the authority, which may tell him to turn back. Hamlet appeals to providence as the authority to change one's attitude.

Horatio suggests delaying the activities where Hamlet claims they are inevitable.


Hamlet's contention is that we often have 'no choice' over what happens to us. Ultimately we will all be dead one day. If we are all to share the same fate, our only choice is the way it will happen.

Hamlet speaks like someone who has considered Christ's words: 'Everyone who seeks to save his own life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.'

The outcome is the same for both people: they will die. One person dies after attempting to delay his death. Another person dies accepting death for the sake of his beloved, Christ.

"no man has aught of what he / leaves, what is't to leave betimes?"

Hamlet, the tragic hero of the play, is the master of letting go. His melancholy has left him dead to the glittering prizes of the world, and his indifference has prepared him for accepting death.

But here in this passage we see Hamlet entertaining the gladness of providence. He considers that God watches over the sparrow -that the sparrow need not fear if he only believes.

To consider the probability of good is augery.
To accept the certainty of hope is faith.

Often times the joy of God is like that small bit of light breaking through the clouds, but even the smallest bit of hope can illuminate the heart of the hopeless. This is the possibility Hamlet entertains, and it is the possibility available to everyone.

The human mind does not delay in burdening itself with many things, and it is easy for deliverance to seem like a distant possibility.

Does your mind tell you stories of suffering and despair?

Consider the unfailing love of God, which is close to believers in the time of their affliction.

Consider the way He did not spare even His own Son on your behalf, and how He will also extend all good things to His chosen ones.

Consider the sparrows, for there are none that can depart without God noticing them.

On A Bench At The Mall

I sit on a bench at the mall,
Between two stores there stands a wall.
Before the wall the people pass,
And in my brain the forms let dance.
Looks to concept, a distant jump
The self still weeps in a clump.
As I watch them pass the store,
Who watches me? Behind my door?
Thickened veils and painted masks,
Still closed if they had the chance.
So quick to visit distant shores,
What blood escapes their pores?
I sit still here upon the bench,
It has become a wretched stench.
A perfect place above the trees,
Yet the angels all watch me.
A massive stairway to the clouds,
But up itself is coming down.
My eyes will search to watch it fall
Down to a bench at the mall.


To err is human, to forgive divine.
Pope

The 'I Love You' Birds

Does a fountain send out from the same opening
both fresh and bitter water?
James 3:11

I was recently shocked and troubled by a documentary on the Discovery Channel.

Although there are many animals in nature that eat their own kind, perhaps the hardest species to observe is the verbosis rexus, also known as the 'I love you' bird.

The animal has not received much attention from the common animal media, Animal Planet and so forth. And it is easy to see why.

The birds derive their colloquial name from the sound of their call, which sounds like the phrase 'I love you'. It is not currently known by biologists what the birds use the call to communicate -only that they use their call at all times -when they are looking for a mate, looking for food, and, yes, looking to devour each other.

The creature has a history of being quite prolific, often making their calls more than other species of birds. This is thought to be the origin of their binomial name, verbosis rex which can be loosely translated as 'very wordy' or more literally 'king of words'.

The expert on the documentary had further details.

The birds seem to get along just fine -and make their calls often- when they are in a group. When they are alone, they still cry out, 'I love you! I love you!' While they are -at the same time- trying to tear each other apart.

The expert claimed that many amateurs believed their behavior was environmentally-induced, or characteristic of a certain age among their species, but the expert said the species behave this way wherever they live.

And apparently their practices are not limited to a given age either. The parents often try to eat their young, and the young try to eat their parents. There are also many documented cases where some birds also try to eat themselves.

And still they chant, almost as an Eastern mantra: 'I love you! I love you!'

Perhaps the hardest aspect to endure -even more than their seeming duplicity- is the feeling that their practices could end at any moment. When I watched the footage I kept thinking to myself, 'You don't have to make that call! You could just go on eating. It would vulgar and disgusting but more stomachable than watching this!'

He who hates disguises it with his lips,
But he lays up deceit in his heart.
Proverbs 26:24