God and Religion
A Word of Encouragement
| You know it gets to a point where you don’t really want to turn on the news. Shootings, robberies and other violent crimes seem to be a daily occurrence. Financial markets are a mess, people who thought they would retire are having to stay in the work force for extra years waiting for their nest egg to rebuild after a market plunge. Because it’s an election year, we are reminded every day about all the things that are wrong with the country and several plans that aren’t thought out very well and won’t solve them. Yesterday a friend called 911 to report a robbery in progress and got an answering machine and no one ever even called back. About now, you’re thinking - ‘this is some encouragement! I feel better already.’
But here’s the thing. I have a daughter with down’s syndrome and sometimes it’s scary to think about all the struggles she faces. She has a teacher that comes 3 times a month to help us with techniques that will help her to do everyday things like crawling and eating. She suggested a heavy ball like a bowling ball would be good for strengthening her arms (she does a lot with her legs) So I went on our local freecycle and asked if anyone had a bowling ball that was gathering dust for her physical therapy and I added that a pretty color would be a bonus. Only 30 minutes passed before we had our first offer. A red, white and blue swirl just minutes from our house. Second was a pink, purple and green ball a little further down the road. In all, we received offers for bunches of bowling balls. People emailed and apologized for having plain black balls instead of brightly colored ones and offered them anyway in case we hadn’t another offer. Then this morning I opened my email to find this offer:
This person of course had no way of knowing she’s only a year old at this point. In fact, she doesn’t know anything about my daughter…which is my point. All these people are willing to help total strangers with no expectation of compensation. Doesn’t it feel like maybe there’s still hope? It’s unlikely that any of the people who offered to help in this case will read this blog, but I’d still like to say Thank You - for being willing to give and for restoring our faith in our fellow man. |
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bgood |
Hope for the best, Prepare for the worst
So - hope for the best, prepare for the worst…This makes a lot of sense to me. It’s kind of like having a plan B in case the duct tape doesn’t hold. A similar sentiment is don’t expect anything and you won’t be disappointed. I’m cynical by nature so I can see right where they are coming from.
Here’s my question then: Does “Hope for the best, Prepare for the worst” show a lack of faith? If we truly have hope doesn’t that mean we are trusting that God is going to help us and provide a way?
I’m not giving the answer here. Just questions, but I think maybe it’s not so much trusting that God will do what we feel is best but instead trusting that He knows what is best for us and will do that if we ask. Notice that providing a way doesn’t mean saying yes to what we want to happen.
I read a quote from Vaclav Havel that says, “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.” Maybe this means a certainty that God will do what’s best even if it doesn’t meet with our approval. So maybe we can trust that “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.“ (Romans 8:28) So let’s throw in another common expression here for good measure - “Every cloud has a silver lining.” Most people take this to mean take hope because difficult times always lead to better days or even a bad situation has something positive in it if you look.
Don’t get me started on how can bad things happen to good people - that’s a whole other post. (although it relates)
Interestingly, another common quote, “it’s always darkest right before the dawn” parallels another of Havels. “Isn’t it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity. . .” Many times I’ve heard that we grow most when things are bad and this certainly seems true.
I invite the thoughts of others and bonus points to the first person who can tell me who Vaclav Havel is without looking him up.
bgood
now for something completely different
since yesterday i have cooled down about prisoners, illegal immigrants, and taxes. instead i am now fired up about heretic writers. liq. (btw, i use “liq” as a substitute for lol. it means “laughing inside quietly” and yes, it is a texting acronym which has taken over my life to such a point that i feel i must now use it on my blog.) If any of you were looking forward to hearing my thoughts on it, i’m sorry - but don’t worry, i’m sure that soon i shall be motivated once again to speak my mind on our wacky nation.
For now, i’d just like to talk about Niccolo Machiavelli (no default accent marks on a blog, rats) and how incredibly twisted his writing is, namely “Of New Dominions” from his piece The Prince, because that’s half of what i had to read in literature today. (Buckle your seatbelts and get some caffeine in whatever form you prefer, because literature from the Italian Renaissance doesn’t really have an energizing quality.) For those who haven’t read it, it’s Machiavelli’s observations on life, mostly politics. This section in particular is about what’s necessary for someone to become a ruler - or prince - in the first place. It starts out rather reasonable:
“…Men walk almost always in the paths trodden by others, proceeding in their actions by imitation. Not being always able to follow others exactly, nor attain to the excellence of those he imitates, a prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it. He will do as prudent archers, who when the place they wish to hit is too far off, knowing how far their bow will carry, aim at a spot much higher than the one they wish to hit, not in order to reach this height with their arrow, but by help of this high aim to hit the spot they wish to.”
Now, so far, i like his style. he uses a nice illustration for his point which i think is relatively true. My only problem at this point is that he presents his super duper high-aiming inspiration in worldly terms, when i would rather aim higher than following plain old humans and follow Jesus instead. But, to his credit, most people really do prefer to follow great people, instead of the one true God. this seems especially true of people who want to go far in life - they all have idols or people they look up to as great examples and as someone they want to someday become. Even believers, after all, have people they look up to - i know i have more than one person on my list of admired peoples. So, i have to give the man some points in his favor; he’s at least pretty accurate so far, if not doctrinally correct by my standards.
However, big problems can arise quickly in literature! Here is just a sampling of the rest of New Dominions:
“But to come to those who have become princes through their own merits and not by fortune, I regard as the greatest, Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and their like. And although one should not speak of Moses, he having merely carried out what was ordered him by God, still he deserves admiration, if only for that grace which made him worthy to speak with God… And in examining their life and deeds it will be seen that they owed nothing to fortune but the opportunity which gave them matter to be shaped into what form they thought fit; and without that opportunity their powers would have been wasted, and without their powers the opportunity would have come in vain.”
Did you catch that?!? okay, reality check. In no sense of the word was Moses “worthy” to speak with God, neither did the great things he was involved in start because of him and his “powers!” Good grief. And it gets worse from there, when he gives the example of Heiro of Syracuse to finish up:
“He abolished the old militia, raised a new one, abandoned his old friendships and formed others; and as he had thus friends and soldiers of his own choosing, he was able on this foundation to build securely, so that while he had great trouble in acquiring his position he had little in maintaining it.”
So that’s it then. If i ever become a major ruler, i’ll have to remember that ditching my friends and rearranging everyone else’s lives will make it easier, lol. Also in my literature book was a short paragraph by John Wesley, written in 1737 about Machiavelli’s writings. I hope you guys can take a little bit more hardcore lit, because i’m quoting one more time:
“In my passage home [from Scotland], having procured a celebrated book, (the Works of Nicholas Machiavel,) I set myself carefully to read and consider it. I began with a prejudice in his favour, having been informed, he had often been misunderstood, and greatly misrepresented. I weighed the sentiments that were less common; transcribed the passages wherein they were contained; compared one passage with another, and endeavoured to form a cool, impartial judgment. And my cool judgment is, that if all the other doctrines of devils which have been committed to writing since letters were in the world were collected together in one volume, it would fall short of this; and, that should a Prince form himself by this book, so calmly recommending hypocrisy, treachery, lying, robbery, oppression, adultery, whoredom, and murder of all kinds, Domitian or Nero would be an angel of light, compared to that man.”
I’ve only read part of it and yet still i agree. i don’t think i’ll be pursuing the rest of his works anytime soon, lol.
Alicia <3
fare thee well
I thought i’d just say rather abruptly that i am getting more and more fed up with government. The more i think about the way our country is run, the more i want it to be run differently. lol. the problem with this is, that in comparison to alot of people, i know NOTHING about politics so i’m not really in a place to write to governors and such telling them what I think they should do. I definitely think somewhere there is a line between being involved in your country’s government and just voicing your opinion because you want to have things your way… and i am honestly not sure which category i fit into.
Take my feelings towards welfare, for example. Some people honestly do need to be on welfare. They seriously cannot make a living for themselves or can’t provide for their family completely for whatever reason, and since no one steps up to take care of them, the government’s compensation is a pretty honest living for them if you ask me. However, it bothers me ALOT that tons of people on welfare today don’t need it… They are capable of doing work, they are capable of supporting their lifestyle and/or family, and if they can’t get a job, they at least know where to get enough education so they CAN get one. The only reason they are on welfare is because it costs them more money to get a job and be responsible than it does to stay home and not work. Once someone on welfare starts bringing in their own income, the amount of compensation the government provides goes down, and they end up with less money from working than when they were just staying home. If i were in that situation, i know for a fact i’d quit my job and live on welfare to save money - why would i work if it got me less income?
Because of the vicious nature of being on welfare in the first place, the government is expanding the lower classes. People are now dependent on welfare not because they can’t survive by themselves, but because if they try to do it themselves, the welfare system comes back at them and depletes their personal resources. I think it’s smart for the government to help with things like medicaid, or disability benefits, and stuff like that, but i don’t think the government should make a living for people. As long as the government is doing it for them, low income citizens will never be able to do it themselves, and the gap between classes will just get bigger and bigger. Part of America’s foundation in the first place is a Puritan work ethic, and welfare for all no matter what doesn’t encourage hard work, discipline or any of the things the founding fathers intended be a part of this country. I understand there are those who actually need help making a living, but surely there is a way to make it “fair” so that people who don’t really need it can’t take advantage of it (at least not as much as they are right now).
My dad and i were talking about this and he thinks maybe the welfare system would work better if welfare only applied for a certain amount of time (with exceptions). For example, someone could only rely on government funding for 3 years, and then they would have to go out and do it themselves for a period of time - unless they were recieving welfare long term, like for disability. This would also help out the problem of illegal immigrants taking advantage of government dollars at the taxpayers’ expense… Which i might write about tomorrow (that and why prisons should not have cable tv). [:
Alicia <3
just the right amount?
Isn’t it a funny thing how many things there are in our world that have to be just the right amount?
If the earth were closer to the sun, the oceans would boil away. Any farther, and they would freeze. We have to have cholesterol to survive, but too much of the wrong cholesterol and we risk heart disease, strokes, and death.
Brazil nuts provide the highest natural source of selenium, an essential nutrient, But - You can get more selenium than is good for you by shelling and eating just 2 a day. ( Preshelled ones have much less selenium )
For reasons known to those who love us, we know that thyroxine and triiodothyronine (T3 and T4) are produced in the thyroid. The production of these two is controlled by thyroid stimulating hormone. When these get out of whack it causes all sorts of things from losing your hair to a rapidly pounding heart.
It’s a topsy turvy world! I’m comforted to know then, that there are some things you just can’t have too much of.
try
bgood
“But why do they flee?”
The other day my government book was talking about different forms of government - monarchy, oligarchy, etc. there are certain things i’m supposed to take notes on in government, and my notes were relatively straightforward and brief until i got to the section on communism. Naturally once i started reading i got interested and kind of dove into a mess of spiritual parallels, the most exciting and bearable of which i will try to share with you. sorry if it’s confusing [:
There were a few main things i thought were interesting. The first one is that most forms of government have some sort of standard or code of laws which the chief ruler and/or the legislature for the people must abide by - communism doesn’t seem to have the same thing. i haven’t really researched this to be sure, but to me it resembles literal lawlessness, which is at least interesting to think about. Also, one of the main differences between communism and a traditional dictatorship is that a tyrannical dictator eventually dies, being replaced by someone else (who has a significant chance of being better/fairer, since dictatorships aren’t decided by blood relations but by popular vote or some other un-hereditary means), but communism does not die along with a communist leader. it is a system, not just a man, and so an instrumental communist dying does not positively affect the people being oppressed.
Also worth noting is the fact that a communist ruler is never satisfied with the power that he has. He keeps reaching for more and more, throwing away his country and his people, to achieve his own insatiable wishes and desires. This is why Communism is so far “over the line” of typical morality - because the ruler has gone after power so recklessly that nothing else matters anymore. The idea is to give absolutely no freedom to anyone in any circumstances, so that the ruler feels capable and in control of the situation.
This is very much like how Satan imprisons people every day. People want to have control over their lives and do their own thing. After a while nothing and no one else really matters. Pretty soon they have gone past so many lines in their lives that others start getting hurt because of their actions. The irony of it is that even though people think they are controlling their own life, Satan is actually controlling it for them. The person becomes imprisoned in their own lifestyle until there is no freedom left in any area of their life, not even in thought or personality. the ultimate goal of communism is similar: “the extinction of human personality as the individual becomes thoroughly subject to the state.”
God, on the other hand, has a plan for every believer to use his or her personality for God’s glory. Under God, people are developed, not depressed.
Also, i was pretty surprised to learn that Socialism is much like Communism in several ways. it is not looked down on quite as harshly as Red movements are, but people have admitted in the past that if you ever needed to convert a nation to communism, slowly integrate socialism first. it opens the door for a Communistic society. When i read about this i immediately thought of how much easier sin is to overlook when it creeps into your life slowly than when it just jumps right out in front of you. Deceit is careful and calculated in both cases, and can cause deterioration of a life or a just legal system if it is slowly eased in unnoticed.
My government book used a quote from Whattaker Chambers: “The Communist vision is the vision of men without God. It is the vision of man’s mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world.” The scary thing is, with America the way it is today, that statement could be true about us. i’m not saying the U.S. will be a communist country anytime soon or anything like that, but i do think that there are so many parallels between a nightmare government and a nightmare spiritual life that we need to consider where we are at with God to preserve our nation.
so, there’s my thoughts for today. Don’t get me started on how America is gradually becoming more of a democracy to prepare the way for the Antichrist - that’s another day’s post [:
Alicia <3
P.S. all the thinking about suppressed personality and controlling thinking and everything reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron. The fact that all the people in the story were burdened to be made equal makes me think it tends toward a depiction of socialism (where all are expected to be equal and place their society as a whole as first priority). Yet, i haven’t heard of socialism that harsh before and it was not just one man enforcing laws, like a dictatorship would be - many were in on the deal. Also many methods of control were used - psychological, physical, and the whole nine yards. That makes me think it was showing a form of Communism instead. Maybe it is something else entirely, i do not know. Comments anyone? (if you haven’t read Harrison Bergeron, look it up online or something. it’s short and intriguing.)
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