Former CEO of Enron Ken Lay was pictured in The Oklahoman coming out of a Housten church beside another man and holding some book in hand. Perhaps it was a Bible, the way Bill Clinton also carried one. The holy Book tells all about the Savior and also of the wicked one from whom we must be rescued. But both men are claiming ignorance of wholesale wickedness and deception that took place under their aegis. To be entrusted with such oversight just demands an accounting for what has taken place on their watch. They should have read "the whole story" that includes both Jesus and Satan. There's still that conflict raging between good and evil in all that happens. Most of us have awareness only of our particular field of battle, but the higher one's "rank" in affairs, the larger their battlefield. Jesus said about the ruler of the ancient world, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's." By this He didn't mean that the emperor's authority was equal in some areas to what GOD's was in other matters; but that even Caesar would have to face the Almighty for the demands made on his subjects. It would seem that both of the Bible carriers have brought doubt and uncertainty to their fellow Americans, not faith and confidence. We know that even the devil can quote Scripture, as he did to Jesus in the wilderness temptations. But our Lord refuted his deceptions with yet a better knowledge of the Word. Though havng a Bible in hand may look Godly, knowing what's within it is a much truer measure.
Down in Noble GA there's been a Tri-State Crematory that gave wood ashes to the families and just stuffed bodies of the deceased into vaults that were buried nearby. Now the owner, Brent Marsh, in jail faced with eleven counts of crime. He took over his father's busines six years ago, but the sheriff says it may have gone on for 20 years. Georia and two admoining states have experts trying to identify the decomposed bodies, over 200 thus far. It's hard to imagine the emotional impact on the families thus defrawded. And it causes me to ponder the value of embalming and interrment over cremation. The latter is most common in India where Hinduism devalues the body. It's ashes are sprinkled on their sacred Ganges river as the soul becomes reincarnate in some other creature, animal or human. Cremation has beome popular in Australia, so near to India, because land is too precious to be used up for cemeteries. And that may be a global trend if the world populaton keeps increasing. Cremation costs less with no need of a lot, grave, casket or marker. But it ignores the New Testament view that these mortal bodies will be resurrected when Christ returns. In Biblical understanding, a Christian's body sleeps until then, and is raised as glorified, never to die again. But we know that so many even embalmed have finally turned to dust in the grave the same as cremation, and neither can block us from a glorified rising to meet Him in the air. In the past, cremation has suggested hell fire, but since the 20th century it can be a tie to those six million Jews whose Holocaust gave birth to the Israeli nation. So either method's ok in my opinion. You might even donate your remains for research at OU to teach medical students by calling 405-271-2424 for proper forms to fill out. Far more important than having your name on a tombstone is getting it written in the Lamb's book of life, in my opinion.
Though Mondlay was President's Day, Friday is the birthday of our very first one. And what a string of doubles it will be: 2-22-02 for George Washington. And now we have another GW. I'll bet he's glad to live in our capitol named for the first one instead of still down in Texas; what with all the troubles in Housten lately. Enron, of course, and also the trial of that mother who killed her five children. It must be a relief having some distance fromall that. But then he's over seeing Asian leaders instead of being in D.C. anyhow. And coping with global terrorism may make the troubles in Texas seem trivial. They call that county down there "the death penalty capitol" because so many juries choose it. I'm sure it will be asked for the mother who did such a terrible crime, but just hope she gets something less; though she may want to die considering what she'll always remember. On the subject of balance, I'm going to write a heavy column next, just for Internet readers. It will be posted on the Angelfire page by Sunday morning.
The past week was really into doubles. In fact Wednesday night saw a moment on the calendar that will never be repeated. It was from 8:01pm to 8:02 oclock. The measure of it on the calendar was a long string of twos (or doubles) that was awesome to behold. So I have thought of it as "the existential moment" that became so important to me back in seminary when existentialism was just hitting US schools of theology. Living in the NOW was our whole focus, much as that song "One day at a time" would later express it: "yesterday's gone sweet Jesus, and tomorrow may never be mine. Help me today, teach me to take one day at a time." In fact, I became so infatuated with the great Dane, Soren Kierkegaard, that I though I had hold of absolute truth. My song was "Oh sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you." Of course there weren't very many that I could tell about it, but beatnics understood because they sat around coffee houses discussing the absurdity of existence, the ontological shock, taking the leap of faith lest one plunge into the abyss of meaninglessness. LSD had not yet appeared in the world, so this kind of living on the brink of maddness was intellectually exciting. And "the beat generation" wasn't about musical cadence as "the big beat" would later become. It was that despair following WW II that viewed everything as futility. Instead of a great victory, WW II had all be in vain to the beat generation. And the Korean Conflict was even more so. Thus the widespread interest in existentialsim, the most radical revolt in the long history of western philosophy. It's creed was "existence preceeds essence." Such an extreme individualism saw life as a series of moments, each being utterly and uniquely a world in it's self. Thus the world ended with the passing of each one and each could be forever the very last. "Do it now" was the push of such a world view. That was the ground out of which the "now generation" emerged a decade later, though drugs so corrupted the later development. And atheism took over existentialism, though it's father, Kierkegaard, was a devout and pious son of the church. Strongly influenced by Geo.Wm.Fredrick Hegel, his "encounter" theology was not with mere absurdity, but the living Creator and Sustainer of everything. Kierkegaard's definition of faith has come back to my mind since "double Wednesday" last week. He said that faith is appropriation of the paradoxical along with expulsion of the absurd, held together by the passion of inwardness. He aslo said it was not for children, which seems to depart from what the Lord Jesus said about having it as a child. Of course the difference is between "childlikeness" and "childishness." It was the latter that Kierkegaard disowned. And the dialectical theology that Karl Barth would articulate two generations later in Germany was based on that "appropriation of the paradoxical." What had seemed so contradictory about Calvinistic theology, could be reconciled in "neo-orthodoxy:" absolute soverignty of God, total depravity of man, limited atonement in Christ, final perseverance of the saints and infallible authority of Scripture. Those five tenants had split Protestants into theists and deists. But Barth brought them back to at least shouting distance of each other as the 20th century began. Dialectical theology left room for the tension to be absorbed, though the philosophy of Karl Marx repudiated it in "dialectical materialism" (Hegel perverted into haggle). Marx had taken the "thesis, anthesis and synthensis" from German idealism and made it into crass political ideology instead i.e. Communism. By the time we had fought that monster, dialectical theology was nearly forgotten. So here in the 21st century it's an attack on that 20th century consensus called modernism. The attack is called "post-modernism." It's all negative, but that leaves the moment again as paramount. As we've watched modernism, the USSR, the WTC and Enron collapse, we're faced with a new absolutism coming out of fundamentalist Islam. So perhaps our post-modern energy will be turned now toward Allah instead of Yahweh (the God of Jews & Christians). And the question will be not which philosophy, but which faith will prevail. Absolutism is always scarry stuff, because it's slogan is that "the end justifies any means." Yet there are voices in Islam crying out against that atrocity of 9/11. One is at
For some reason unknown to me, I sang the aforementioned song about taking one day at a time for the prison service last Sunday. Then I told them it really referrs to Jacob's dream in Genesis, where he say a stairway (or ladder) stretching clear up to heaven. Then I recited the words slightly ammended to show that: "I'm only human. I'm just a woman. Help me to see all I can be and all that I am. Show me tha stairway I'll have to climb. Help me today, teach me to take one STEP at a time. One step at a time, sweet Jesus, is all I'm asking of You. Yesterday's gone sweet Jesus, and tomorrow may never be mine. Teach me today, show me the way one STEP at a time." I said it was the favorite sone of Alcohalics Anonymous where the twelve step program is basic. And days are also steps in recovery just as Jesus taught us in His sermon on the mount: "be not axious about tomorrow, for sufficient unto the day are the evils thereof." I'll close this with a poem by G.Studdard Kennedy that I memorized years ago. I call it "Stairway to the Sky." Sometimes I wish that I might do just one grand deed and die
And by that one grand deed reach up to meet God in the sky.
But such is not Thy way O Lord, nor such is Thy decree
But deed by deed and round by round our souls must climb to Thee.
As climbed the only son of God from manger onto Cross
Who learned through tears and bloody sweat to count all gain but loss
Who left the Virgin mother's arms to seek those arms of shame
Outstreached upon a lonely hill to which the darkness came.
So grand us Lord the patient heart to climb that upward way
Until we stand upon the height and see the perfect Day.