Five pretty simple words really. We can label all we want—elevate our position, rank and righteousness, but it's all spitting in the wind. All dust. Right and wrong aren't people. Right and wrong aren't you and me. They're a moral filter: an analysis of behaviour based on codes established and evolving—within families, within churches and within communities.
All of us are capable of profound good and profound evil—sometimes in the same day. In fact, I reckon at the heart of all men lies a desire to do good and a struggle with evil. And, in some ways, that's us at our purest. Because absolute truth bears little resemblance to our evolving and established codes. In time, perhaps consciously, perhaps subsonsciously, we descend into a moral relativism where we reflect those codes rather than shine a light on them.
Trite as it sounds, we're called to add flavour in a pluralistic culture where the handles that once could be grasped hold of in all the noise are drowned out by that relativism. And every word of this post drifts way from the ultimate point: right and wrong aren't people, but Absolute Truth is. Absolute Truth can be known. Related to. Not in some esoteric, philosophical way, but in a rootsy, homely, life-changing and relational way.
Our deepest longings aren't our ability to tell right from wrong or even to grasp from the tree that will help us tell the difference. Our deepest longing is to be loved and validated by someone we rate. Someone believable and trustworthy. Someone who perhaps knows us well enough to know we're not really that lovable but buys in all the same. Part of the problem with our longing is that it's difficult to comprehend. Can perfection have anything to do with imperfection without being stained or allowing some of the mud to stick? "And then a hero comes along..." It'd take a supernatural hero to navigate both our hardheartedness and not be frustrated by the forays of unrequited love, the unction of unconditional love and the unreceived gifts of grace without questioning the worth of initiating. And yet 'kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall and Absolute Truth goes on'.
I guess Absolute Truth isn't dissuaded by our clumsy responses or complete obliviousness. Heart-broken, but not dissuaded. Absolute Truth keeps knocking on the door like one with a crush on a girl who's just found her name in the White Pages. Except that he doesn't give up. And his love isn't immature. And it's not ignorant. It's completely informed by matters of love, life and death.
There's time for seeing in him a perfection that inspires us to change our temperature. But that has little to do with a knock on the door. He wants to come in. Into the mess, into the noise, and into our messed up notions of right and wrong. And he wants to go for a long walk along a sun-drenched, pot-hole ridden beach.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Right and wrong aren't people
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
You really shouldn't drink so much
I was in a café last week and overheard some people on a nearby table talking about a radio contest that went awry. Seems that the listeners were challenged to take on board the most water without weeing in order to win a Nintendo Wii. Turns out you can have too much of a good thing.
I had first-hand experience of this a few years back when I took on a challenge to down 13 litres (when I'd already racked up 2 litres for the day). 15 litres in an 8 hour period is not altogether good. Didn't strike me at the time that it could be dangerous. 
Strange in a way; generally speaking people talk up slaking back deep drafts of the clear stuff but rarely talk about water intoxication. Reportedly, a bunch of folk go down each year (including distance runners) not so much because they take accept challenges or enter competitions but because they're over-cautious. They take the warning to 'drink plenty of water' a little to seriously.
I don't think a couple of litres a day is going to send you to an early grave, but if you're a small rodent and you're sinking that much good gear each day, the writing's probably on the wall (and the floor).
Hank shops for a church service
King of the Hill is, in my humble estimation, a pretty tidy show. Check out what happens when Hank and his family go shopping for a new church service to consume, I mean... attend.
I'm trying to figure out if it's easy entertainment, prophetic utterance, sad inditement, a combination of all of them or something else. What say ye?