God in the Nighttime Sky

The heavens declare the glory of God…

The sky speaks to the glory of God, provided you’re willing to read it that way. During the daytime, the beautiful textures of various types of clouds show God as the Master Artist, and as the sun is tracked across the sky the world around us takes a different shape as shadows disappear at high noon and then reappear at dusk.

But the daytime sky is nothing compared to the nighttime panorama of stars, galaxies, comets, and of course our very first satellite, the moon.

The problem is seeing them. The term “light pollution” describes the challenges we face — especially in urban environments — of seeing everything God has placed there. This is a major loss, as the great questions the vastness of space begs (such as, if some of those stars are light years away, determining when the light left there to be seen on this particular night) is less part of our conscious observance, as are the constellations which so captured the imagination of mankind throughout past centuries.

Why this particular topic?

On Saturday (6/9) The Toronto Star had an interesting story by Charles Wilkins about the Torrance Barrens Dark Sky Reserve — described in the entrance sign as “the world’s first permanently designated dark sky reserve” — located in an area outside Gravenhurst, Ontario, a town about 90 minutes north of Toronto. Despite an arrangement with the nearby municipality, parking lot lighting at a big box store complex and illuminated signage from a popular fast food restaurant are spoiling the view.

…At its founding, environmentalists hailed the reserve as a radical initiative in ecological preservation. No one had yet thought to include darkness and the clarity of the night sky among inviolable ecological legacies, such as uncontaminated soil, breathable air and clean water. “The pathetic truth,” says [Mike] Silver, “is that nobody had even thought of the visible heavens as something that could be lost. Forever. And yet here we are today, clearly losing this magnificent resource.”

By the time the Torrance Barrens Dark Sky Reserve was officially dedicated in 2000, the Royal Astronomical Society had endorsed it, as had astronomers and ecologists in half a dozen countries. And Silver, as much as any amateur stargazer, had emerged as a kind of avatar of public access to the epic natural laboratory in which Copernicus, Galileo and others had sorted out the cosmos…

…Pythagoras realized in 500 BC that the mathematics of Earth and the mathematics of the galaxies are one. David Thompson’s first map of North America during the early 1800s was devised from the particulars of the heavens. Van Gogh’s Starry Night, one of the dreamiest and most disturbing of paintings, is said to convey the mysteries of the human heart as the artist perceived them while locked in the asylum in Saint-Rémy during the days before his suicide…

It turns out the towns own welcome sign is equally guilty. “Your own sign! Your own regulations!” he told them. When he was angered by McDonald’s sign, he was told it was applied for before the bylaw came into effect, something he feels his negated by the fast food chain’s application for an exemption.

…[I]n 2009, the town passed its multi-part dark-sky bylaw. “The problem with it,” says Silver, “is that there’s never been adequate enforcement. When there’s a violation, the town often just looks the other way. So we’re still getting all sorts of light pollution.” …

…When it was suggested to Silver that certain Gravenhurst council members might benefit from an evening under the stars, he says, “We should all be getting out there. When you’re up on those rocks in the dark, gazing at the immensity of the night sky, a lot of what bothers us on Earth can suddenly seem pretty small, pretty solvable.”

Read the full article at The Toronto Star

If you live in a major urban center, this affects you as well. God is putting on an amazing show, but it’s like trying to watch a play or a concert when the people in the row in front insist on standing the whole time.

I hope you can find that special place, away from everything, to catch the display this summer. Admission is free.

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Whenever I mention the constellations, there’s always a very small element who think we’re referring to astrology rather than astronomy. They’re different.

For more on the Biblical meaning of the constellations, check out a review we did a few years back on the DVD The Story in the Stars by Joe Amaral. Or the article about this recently published book for young adults, Sky Scrapers.

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My favorite line in the above story:

No one had yet thought to include darkness and the clarity of the night sky among inviolable ecological legacies, such as uncontaminated soil, breathable air and clean water

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image: Torrance Barrens Facebook page; click image to link

Creation Care and the Gospel

I grew up in an Evangelical world that tended to look down their noses at Christian groups which stressed environmentalism. The thinking was that these once-focused denominations had been somewhat hijacked by their move toward an environmental emphasis and that doing so meant that the proclamation of the gospel of the Kingdom taught by Jesus was pushed to the background or sacrificed altogether.

While I still believe that the teaching on the atonement provided by the cross, and the resurrection of Jesus must be our central themes, I am now more open to a Christianity that leaves room for some environmental concern. Three things contributed to this.

The first was a reexamination of Genesis and a greater awareness of it giving us a mandate to be stewards of the earth. Creation care is scriptural.

The second was a reexamination of the prophetic passages in scripture that made me realize that we’re not necessarily told about a heaven that’s up there somewhere, as we are told about new earth. Randy Alcorn’s Heaven is an excellent primer on this theme, but if you find a 530 book intimidating, consider the bite-sized portions he offers in 50 Days of Heaven. I don’t know if was him or someone else who said, “God has too much invested in this real estate to simply walk away from it.” Whether the renewal of the earth will take place as a simple reversal of what happened at the fall or whether human-initiated nuclear destruction will bring about the reset, I don’t know. But God seems to have more in mind for this particular planet, and while not throwing your litter out the window while you’re on the freeway may not help matters much in the grand scheme of things, we could at least show some respect.

The third thing was a quote I read in a copy of The Plain Truth. I think I was a student on a bus heading home from university classes — I was a commuter student who therefore never had the residence experience — and furthermore I can’t tell you if this was before or after Armstrong’s group’s crossing the line from cult to something more orthodox. I just know that I was a periodical junkie, so anything in a free rack got picked up by me.

The author — I don’t know if it was Armstrong himself or a staff writer — quoted Deuteronomy 23:12-13

You shall also have a place outside the camp and go out there, and you shall have a spade among your tools, and it shall be that when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn to cover up your excrement. (NAS)

Interestingly enough, when I Googled the verse just now to find it, one of the first pages to show was titled “The Old Testamentary Latrine.” I checked some more modern translations, but nothing more is gained; the text above is rather plain on this.

I realize we don’t follow a lot of the guidance given in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, but I felt the wisdom of the Bible on this particular, practical topic has been lost. At least it has where I live.

Here’s the thing: I live in the Great Lakes region. Furthermore, I live on the Canadian side which is teeming with fresh water lakes of various sizes besides great. Where do you think our sewage goes? Not in the ground, as prescribed in the above passage. Into the lakes. Sure it’s treated beforehand, except on days where there are major rainstorms and then the raw sewage has to be released into the lakes. Yes, it’s treated before it returns to our kitchen tap.

But think about that for a moment.

Thomas Lynch praised the thing. “The flush toilet,” he wrote, “more than any single invention, has ‘civilized’ us in a way that religion and law could never accomplish.”

But not everyone agrees. I have two quotations here that I need readers to help me source. By helping me you’ll not only get your name at the bottom of this article, but a wing in our university will be named after you.

• The flush toilet is the worst invention ever foisted on civilization.
• It is inconceivable that any society would think to flush its waste into lakes and rivers and then attempt to render that same water drinkable.

Searching did not produce a name to attach to either quote, but I think the truth of the first statement comes through in the second…

…Together, these various factors combined to make me more inclined to think it’s okay to be a Christian and be an environmentalist. I’m sure Thomas Lynch was a wise man, but I think he got this one wrong.

I think Deuteronomy 23 has the right idea.

I’d spend more time on this, but right now I have to go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Should Christians Speak of “Mother Nature?”

“Everybody talks about the weather but nobody ever does anything about it.”

“Whether it’s cold
Or whether it’s hot
We’re going to have weather
Whether or not”

We plough the fields, and scatter
the good seed on the land;
But it is fed and watered
by God’s almighty hand.
He sends the snow in winter,
The warmth to swell the grain,
The breezes and the sunshine,
And soft, refreshing rain. ¹

… He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matt 5:45)

In North America in terms of weather, this has been a rough winter, and possibly also where you live, but for different reasons. So it’s not surprising that many conversations over the past six months have been meteorology-related.

In Christian circles though, I’m always surprised to hear people speak of what “Mother Nature” has wrought. It seems contradictory that we would be monotheistic and yet invoke the possibility of a weather god, or weather goddess, even if in jest.

So what do I believe about the weather?

I do think that much if not all of the weather phenomena we experience is the natural consequence of living in a fallen world. When we speak questions like, “How could a loving God allow so much evil to exist?” we are usually talking about genuine evil, and not snow or drought; but it all comes under the same category. This world is broken, and we are continually adding to that brokenness through our disregard for the environment.

Is God powerless in all this? Not for a moment. I believe that God is positively disposed and favorably inclined to intervene each time someone prays, but that sometimes he holds back his hand and allows things to proceed naturally. A miracle is a miracle because it doesn’t happen every day. I don’t know if Pat Robertson really “prayed a hurricane back” from the Virginia coast in the ’70s, but I do believe that God is intervening in our planet more times than we realize. I don’t subscribe to the “clockmaker” theory that God simply “wound up” the planet and left it “ticking.”

So back to our subject.

The personification or anthropomorphizing of someone else or something else being in charge of the environment simply grates on my spiritual conscience. Sure, it’s said almost randomly when said by Christ-followers, but is it any different than the Greeks ascribing natural forces to a series of gods and goddesses each dealing with winds, and rains and heavenly signs?

In scripture this was Israel’s great failing. Their neighbors believed in gods that were specific to various aspects of life (but not all) and had power over a certain geographic area (but not all areas); and then they found themselves sometimes falling into the mindset of the dominant culture. (Thus the Shema, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one.”)

So how do we speak of the fury of natural forces unleashing tornadoes, hurricanes, ice-storms, great heat or other manifestations of extreme weather? I have no answer. I simply don’t want to confuse things — especially among those who have not crossed the line of faith but know that I have — by invoking either Mother Nature or Father Nature or Jupiter or anyone else.

What do you think?

Do you use this phrase in conversation?

On New Year’s Day 2009, Ippswich in Australia was expecting a high of +38C, which is about 100F. Meanwhile, back at home, my Weather Network indicator on my computer was showing that we were heading to a low of -18C, which is about -1F. Their high temperature on a summer mid-afternoon Thursday would be occurring at the same time as my Wednesday mid-winter night. That’s 101 degrees F difference. That day I was asking, “Are we even on the same planet?” (The left picture was actually Bondi Beach.) Where I live, houses, cars and our collection of clothing has to withstand wind chill factors as low as -50 C (which was reached in Winnipeg several times this year, almost not needing the chill factor) and humidity index temps higher than +40 C.

¹Classic hymn based on a poem published in 1782 and set to music in 1800; also the basis of the song All Good Gifts from the musical Godspell; section cited based on Psalm 147:16.

Surely, if Mother Nature had been consulted, she would never have consented to building a city in New Orleans. ~Mortimer Zuckerman

Wednesday Link List

So, is Pope Francis a revivalist?

Now, on to the links…

Some very, very high profile Christian sites and at least one radio show get their news stories here. We know who you are…

• Jamie, The Very Worst Suburbanite reflects on life in the ‘burbs here vs. life in the ‘burbs in Honduras in The Color of Greige. 
• With help from a Gordon College professor, the classic handicapped icon/logo/thing is getting an entirely new vitality. 
• Knowing Nik Wallenda made it safely doesn’t make it any easier to watch, even in this 90 second summary video.
• Its been one year since Saeed Abedini said goodbye to his family to build orphanages in Iran. Help us bring him home.
• Got a son or daughter entering high school? It might be time to buy them a necklace.
• Publisher Thomas Nelson reports on Twitter that already six colleges have signed on to use Ken Wytsma’s Pursuing Justice as a textbook. But then, we predicted that.
  
• Find your pastor: Phillip Wilson invites you to play Top Twelve Preacher Styles. Hopefully your minister isn’t in this list at all. 
• Critics have accused the Scottish Government of following the same failed approach of ever-more sex education at ever-younger ages to lower the teen pregnancy rate. Now they’re talking preschool.
  
• Essay of the week: Go deeper with Michah Murray on the concept of Love The Sinner Hate The Sin.
• Photo essay of the week: A visit to the abandoned Holy Land theme park in Connecticut, closed since ’84.   
• This 2-minute video is the reason I part company with John MacArthur’s dispensationalism and anti-Charismatic rhetoric.
• The Dictionary of Christianese defines traveling mercies and the many variations on cradle Christian. Be sure to also see, bookmark and use their full index of terms defined so far.
  
• World awareness: Here are five quick facts on the problems caused by lack of access to safe drinking water.
  
• Author Max Lucado has formed a partnership with Thomas Nelson and The Salvation Army (SA), to produce a special SA edition of You’ll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Your Turbulent Times
  
• Have you or someone you know been hurt by a local church? Here are things to remember and steps to take. 
• Ever feel like God is ticked off with you right now? Here’s a take on the question, Does God get disappointed with us? 
• Warning: You may disagree with this 3 1/2 minute video on debunking rapture doctrine.
  
• Jen Hatmaker’s end of school year parent confessional went viral and is closing in on 4,400 comments. 
• The website of the Smithsonian Institute profiles the unique and often controversial ministry of Aimee Semple McPherson.
  
• A Baptist church in Georgia (the European country, not the US state) finds middle ground with its high orthodox neighbors by using robes and incense. 
• With a new album ready to release, Andrew Schwab talks to Matt Greiner of the band August Burns Red. 
• In other CCM news, usually the people who lead Holy Land tours are somewhat older authors, pastors or musicians. So… an Audio Adrenaline tour of Israel? 
• After at least four years, Paul Baloche is releasing another worship album in French. 
• Lamentable blog discovery of the week: Pimp Preacher, a collection of con artistry by minsters, from the Preacher Bureau of Investigation.
  
• Steven Furtick with a short piece on The Real Test of Worship, reblogged from 2010 for a new audience.
• Please note that if you have a blog and about 15 seconds after it opens it starts playing very loud music that you like but maybe nobody else likes, we will not link to it.
• That’s it for this link list; stay ‘linked’ during the week here and on Twitter.
  

The Wednesday List Lynx might be getting a new home as early as next week.

Stop the presses! Is this the last link list?

We’re cooking up a partnership that could mean more people than ever would get to share in what we’ve been doing here for five years. Just think of the larger number of people who would get saved just clicking on these same stories. They might not even have to click; conviction might come just by reading the teasers. 

Really, why are we considering this? It’s about power and the ability to take bribes to promote various blogs and websites.

So stay tuned. Same bat time. Same bat channel. But maybe not actually same bat channel.

Wednesday Link List

Some weeks the link list is more a collection of bizarre news stories and other weeks it’s more a collection of solid items promoting deeper Christian thought and growth. This week is one of the latter; more than dozen excellent pieces which all could have landed here as their own blog post and discussion. Get a coffee and come back to the computer for a longer stay.

• Because the wearing of crosses isn’t a requirement of the Christian faith, the European Court of Human Rights will be asked to rule that no Christian has a religious right to do so. It’s that position versus two British women who want to argue for the right in a case with wide ranging consequences.
• Not related, but this week I happened on a January blog post by John Voelz explaining why his church forgoes having a cross in exchange for a variety of other Christian symbols.
• Ed Young cites Willie George Ministries’ article 18 Lessons in 20 Years. A must read for pastors, executive pastors and church board members.
• Relevant Magazine reports that the sexual revolution is hitting singles in the church just as hard as those outside the faith circle. Whatever happened to True Love Waits?
• Also at Relevant, Jim Henderson shares an excerpt from his new book, Resignation of Eve: What if Adam’s Rib Is No Longer Willing to be the Church’s Backbone? The chapter asserts that women are the church’s most wasted resource.
• Michael Lawrence revisits the issue of “belonging before believing” that is popular today in many faith communities. He says the concept is just creating confusion on both sides of the equation.
• How well do you know that person who sat next to you last Sunday? Russell D. Moore says that “imposters love the church.” This begs the question, “But why, when there is so much opportunity for debauchery out there in the world around us, do such people choose the church?” Sample answer: “..I think it’s because deception can look a lot like discipleship…”  Take some time working through this one.
• At Church Central Leadership Community, Mitch Todd challenges the whole notion of creating comfortable environments for those who attend. He suggests that it simply isn’t working, and you would do better to hold your next worship service in a sewer. Well, he almost says that.
• A well known sect that began alongside the Jesus Movement of the ’70s is slowly moving from a cultic to more orthodox profile. Canadian cult-watcher James Beverley reports on the Children of God.
• In a major in-depth piece, CNN’s Belief Blog reports on the Mormon crackdown on proxy baptisms, the practice wherein a young person is baptized in place of a deceased person. Certainly, they want to stop the attention currently being drawn to this peculiar rite in the wake of media reports of proxy immersions on behalf of confirmed Jews.
  
• Cate MacDonald writes at World Magazine that Bear Grylls and Justin Bieber both say they are Christians but don’t go to church: “The contemporary aversion to church membership is a common response to secular criticisms, but these high-profile Christians might be doing more harm than good. …America’s youth need examples of people who live vibrant Christian lives in the public eye, and encourage them to do the same.”
  
• Henry M. Imler hauls out a 2007 study on how heading off to college affects a student’s faith. If you’ve got kids heading off this fall — or there already — this is a must read.
  
• Rev. Bob Larson, where have you been? Well, he turns up on Anderson Cooper last week with three teenage girls in tow, who have been trained by Larson to perform exorcisms by the thousands. But Cooper thinks their answers are far too rehearsed, and it’s hard not to agree with him.
  
• Two vastly different links from author Karen Spears Zacharias. The first, rather mundane, finds her and husband Tim cleaning up after Wal-Mart…
  
• …The second one — a book excerpt — is much more sobering. Karen visits a family where a young single mother, now wheelchair-bound, returns to her son and parents after eight months of therapy following being struck by train. Her father sees it all as an answer to prayer. You’ll need to read this twice, and with a box of tissue. You’ll also think of someone to forward this to, I’m sure.
  
• Can you stand one more article about ABC-TV’s GCB? This one is worth checking. Are we upset about what the show says about us, or upset about what it says about God? Pastor Jeff has met all kinds of Christians, but says the people in the show are strangers to him.
• Finally, on the lighter side, Tim Stafford has decided, in the interest of balance I’m sure, to list ten reasons why men should not be ordained. Yes, it says men.

A younger Robert H. Schuller preaches on the roof of the snack bar of the drive-in theater on the site that years later would house the Crystal Cathedral. This Orange County Register photo appeared marking the announcement last week of Schuller's resignation from ministry. Click the image to read the whole story at OC Register.

The Glass is Half Full: Upside by Bradley Wright, PhD

I have to admit it’s getting better,
A little better all the time
~The Beatles

Last year, Bradley Wright’s Christians are Hate-Filled Hypocrites and Other Lies You’ve Been Taught was seen as an appropriate rebuttal to David Kinnaman’s unChristian.  Two different approaches to the faith life of Americans; two different approaches; and often two very different sets of data.  I reviewed Wright’s first book in two parts, here and here.

This summer, Wright is back with the second in his series of The-Sky-Is-Not-Falling books, Upside: Surprising Good News About The State of Our World, also published by Bethany House. 

“Is there another period in history when people were better off? I don’t see one.” (p. 205)

But is there an upside to everything in Upside? When discussing things like the number of Americans incarcerated in state and federal prisons or the obesity epidemic in the U.S., Wright takes a realistic, honest and balanced approach to the data.   This is a not an author who is euphoric about everything but one who feels another voice needs to be added to the dominantly pessimistic mix.

For this reader, there are two rather disappointing aspects to the book.  First of all Upside is very Ameri-centric.  In an increasingly global world, this is a book about U.S. life written for a U.S. audience.  Yes, it does mention my own country, Canada, a half dozen or so times, but most of the U.S. data comparisons are made to other countries.  It was easy to feel left out. 

Second, this is a very “secular” social science analysis.  Whereas …Hate Filled Hypocrites… dealt with faith, belief, church and religion issues, this book does not, though it is written in the same style with extensive graphs and charts.  To make the book more relevant to a Christian audience, Wright inserts a number of sidebar articles called “Christians making a difference” which illustrate the way in which the Church of Jesus Christ is informing the issues dealt here — finances, education, health, quality of life, crime, war, marriage, family and the environment — but readers may not find themselves engaged on the topics of Wright’s sophomore title as they were the first time around.

Still it’s nice to know the sky isn’t falling.  At least not today.  And the final chapter’s title, “The Counting of Blessings” really puts things in perspective.

A copy of  Updside was provided to Thinking Out Loud by Bethany House via its Canadian distributor, David C. Cook Canada.

When is a Distraction a Distraction?

II Timothy 2:4 is an interesting verse.    It says,

No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer.  (NIV)

Soldiers don’t get tied up in the affairs of civilian life, for then they cannot please the officer who enlisted them.  (NLT)

A soldier wants to please the enlisting officer, so no one serving in the army wastes time with everyday matters.   (NCV)

A soldier on duty doesn’t get caught up in making deals at the marketplace. He concentrates on carrying out orders.  (Message)

No soldier when in service gets entangled in the enterprises of [civilian] life; his aim is to satisfy and please the one who enlisted him.  (Amplified)

I think the intent of this verse is rather clear.

In some of the advertising for this blog, I’ve used the phrase “faith focused.”   I don’t spend a lot of time talking about my family, or cute things the cat does, or some new technology breakthrough, or my affection for a particular sports team.   (The latter, in my case, being next to impossible.)

But sometimes the oddest things come to mind as possible blog topics.   Today it was when one of the compact fluorescent bulbs in our dining room stopped working.    This happens with great regularity, while the old-school incandescent bulbs seem to — like the Energizer bunny — keep on going.

The problem is that in the jurisdiction where we live, incandescent bulbs are being outlawed.    The compact fluourescents are to become the standard at some point over the next two years because they are better for the environment.     But they aren’t.

• As we’re clearly seeing, they simply don’t last nearly as long as advertised, and this at something like ten times the price of their predecessors.
• They cannot be disposed of in normal garbage.

I won’t even begin to mention the headaches they cause, the allegations of skin problems, and the fact that you can’t allow young children to stare directly at them without risk of partial blindness.

So for me, this is a justice issue.   It’s a moral issue.  People are being hoodwinked into buying a product they can’t afford in order to gain a benefit that isn’t there.   (Perhaps I should have added, “…by a government whose motives are suspect.”)   And aren’t we as Christians supposed to “do justice and love mercy?”   Aren’t we supposed to take a stand against oppression in particular and wrong in general?

I wrestled with this years ago concerning the issue of chemical weed spray treatment of lawns and gardens.   I wasn’t a rabid environmentalist, but I soon became one when I looked at the impact on health when allowing the pesticide and herbicide industry to operate unbridled.

I’ve known other Christians who got involved in the issue of non-smokers rights.    I know it doesn’t rank way up there with the pro-life movement, but I can see it as a kind of  “justice” or “fairness” issue that some believers would want to grapple with.   A non-smoker can’t walk into a smoker’s den and “interfere” by filling the room with fresh air, but the smoker can eradicate everyone else’s breathable air in just seconds.

Or are these things all distractions?   Should religious people in general retreat to the sacred hills and not engage discussions of secular interest?  Should I write only about the verses in last night’s Bible study, the latest praise and worship chorus, and challenges facing the modern church, and just not weigh in at all on other subjects?

Andy Davey – At The Dying of the Light

To Engage or Not To Engage

Christ-followers are expected to walk to the beat of a different drummer.   We’re reminded that “A soldier does not entangle himself in civilian affairs.”  (II Tim 2:4; my paraphrase.)    There may be people in your community who are embedded in civic causes for the purpose of building relationships and sharing “the hope that lies within” from that context, but supposedly we’re not supposed get too attached to this world purely on its own merit.

But what about justice issues?   Who better to speak out in cases of injustice than those who believe, as Micah (and Amos) remind us, that we are to do justice and love mercy?

What about environmental issues?   Who better to speak out in cases where the planet is being abused than those who believe we are stewards of creation?

What about compassion  issues?   Who better to feed the poor and clothe the naked than those who believe that when we do it to the least we are doing it unto Jesus?

Is there not a part of any activity or any cause where we can shine the light of Christ into that situation?

So what line in the sand is II Tim 2:4 drawing?

Economics Without Consequences

A couple of days ago I wrote about General Motors and suggested that if the government is stepping in to take over the operations of GM to save it from bankruptcy, surely it sets a precedent for other iconic companies. A comment posted wondered why the U.S. government didn’t do what it did with Bell, where it broke the company up into several Baby Bells. I also mentioned WalMart in passing.

What if something did happen to WalMart? Would the government simply let it die? Not if GM is any indication. But what if GM, and WalMart, and Mircosoft, and Coca Cola, and Major League Baseball, and Starbucks, and MacDonalds; what if they all were teetering on the edge and the government was having to step in to save them all? And what do you call it when the government owns a sizable portion of the industry taking place? Not capitalism, that’s for sure.

The problem is — as I stated already — we want to live in a world without consequences. The next generation to take over the world of business and commerce had its earliest interaction with the world of consequences around the topic of sex. Don’t want disease or pregnancy? Just use a condom. Already pregnant? Just have an abortion. In debt over your head? Declare bankruptcy. Don’t like your spouse? Get a divorce. Don’t like your job? Just quit, you can always go on welfare. Did something less than honest? Just get a good lawyer.

A world without consequences. But what if everything we ever did could come back to haunt us? Apparently this isn’t a new thought for me. Here’s what I posted on this blog exactly one year ago.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The part of the world where I live has finally got around to banning the use of cosmetic pesticides and herbicides on commercial and residential lawns. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take effect until the current season of chemicalization ends. Anyway, you’d think that as an environmentalist I would be thrilled, but I’m not for two reasons.

First, there’s the phone call I got tonight from a telemarketer telling me what a terrible thing the government did, and hoping that I will join the people who are getting as much chemical spraying done in this, the final season.

Second, and more important, I think it could take twenty years before the true impact is known. This stuff is not filtered out in our drinking water (as it’s fully dissolved) and there are obviously going to be some — hopefully not many — long-term effects that are going to show up in today’s children; aside from the short-term effects (such as environmentally triggered asthma) that we’re already seeing.

Even if you never sprayed your own lawn, if you ever hung your sheets outside to dry, some experts say you possibly absorbed the same amount of toxic chemicals through your skin as you slept as though you had sprayed your own lawn.

What I’m wondering is, if twenty years down the road, the people who perpetrated these crimes against our air and water might be tried for their actions in a manner that some were tried for war crimes years after the war. I mean, who’s to say that as the “green” agenda moves forward, the things that were done in the last fifty years by the weed spray companies and their allies are not regarded as truly criminal? And would such an action be limited to those who actually applied the products, or could the aforementioned telemarketers be found as complicit in their actions?

I hope it doesn’t come to that. But if it does, I hope the guilty are appropriately punished. Because they did not act in ignorance… they knew the truth all along.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Well, that was a year ago.   Consequences.   They’ll catch up to ya.   What did Jesus say about sowing and reaping?

Thanksgiving Flashback in February

This post is breaking three rules.   First of all, I have no reason to believe that the originators of this comic, The Joy of Tech, are Christians*, though I think in this case they got it right on.   Secondly, this is totally off-season and relates to Thanksgiving (or even Christmas to a lesser degree) but I figured this was as good a time as any… truth is truth, right?   Thirdly, I’m not sure about the ‘reprint’ policy on this one; I looked around the site and couldn’t find it; so this may be here for a short time only.

It’s strange how holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas have become so dysfunctional in some families.   In this case, giving thanks before the meal can’t be done with a straight face, because all the things for which we in the west are “thankful,” are often things we have gained through excessive consumption.    If you’re into tech generally or gadgets in particular, you can scroll through a vast library of Joy of Tech comics at Geek Culture.

*If you joined us through a WordPress, Google or Technorati tag; this is a Christian blog; but you’re here now, so feel free to look around.