Emptiness and the Longing for God

       Remember those times in your life when you've felt emptiness?  No, don't lay claim to them---they might indicate some psychological disorder or they might suggest you are too emotionally inclined.  Just keep busy, instead . . . and quiet. There have been times when with all the activity and people and blessings of life, even I have felt empty.  

     Right now, for example.  In my older age. I have more time, occasionally, to reflect.  My discovery is that life has its tangible, palpable moments, but life also has its unfathomable holes. Sometimes, I'm "waiting for death"---the erasure of oneself from this temporal world---albeit, with a very real Christian faith and hope of a joy and reward in the spiritual world. Other times I'm occupying myself somewhat intensely with physical and material, earthly actions and reactions. But, eventually, though not overly often, the emptiness will return---I believe that it is an integral part of the human experience [the longing for God] and all people encounter it at different levels and respond to it in various ways.
       One of those ways has always irritated me.  It becomes most visible in our pretenses . . . our veneers, our charades, our cloaks.   Affectation is everywhere about us today; you can't be alive without  having to deal with it.  The whole "political correctness" concept perfectly displays it---not being able to call things what they actually are or to use certain words in our communication. Matthew 23:5-7 catches the gist of the trend:  "But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men." Yeah, I know, overlook the tassels.  Hypocrisy rules---some believe it hides them somehow from those moments of emptiness.
       Another way some people deal with emptiness is hate.  But, that's a topic for another day.  I'd leave you with this:  Embrace the emptiness; it just might bring you closer to God !  Hey, read that sentence one more time before you leave me.
  
       

   

Privacy: 21st Century Drop-Out

     My wife says that after several stopovers in the hospital and giving birth to four children, privacy has a different meaning for her than it did before. I can't say; I've never had those experiences. But, I know that you, and TV cameras, are not welcome in my bathroom or bedroom---probably several other places. However, if my goal in life were to destroy as many people as I possibly could, I suppose society and government could justify their need to enter into any and almost all aspects of my life. Therein lies the perplexity.  I don't know. Go talk to Orwell, Huxley, or Kafka.

     Delineating what is private and what is public is not at all clear-cut. Surveillance cameras follow great portions of our activities; our telephone calls may be audited; our internet activity serves to provide data for various persons and agencies. So, where are we? Some of the snooping seems simply dirty and malevolent; some of it makes perfect sense. I'm presuming that millions of records, including calls, emails, downloads, texts, retail receipts, bank balances, credit card numbers, medical records, even our travel plans, are being monitored on any given day. I certainly hope and pray that the possessors of this knowledge are not tyrannically inclined.

     I have no solutions to this difficulty we face, but I still know a few things certainly: You're not welcome in my bathroom with me, you're not welcome in my bedroom with me, you're not welcome to scrutinize any of my other actions without absolutely convincing reasons. And even with such stringent guides, the ones doing that tracking must be honorable and worthy humans. Anything less is entirely unacceptable.

     I would like to conclude with this:  I am the boss of my house (life, etc.) and I have my wife's permission to say this. Get it? Nobody, nor nothing else, could give me such privilege, well, except God, who I believe is really the Boss.
      
         
          

       

Pure, Sweet Water and Feculence

       Recently, one of my sons bought a rental house in a small town here in Southeast Missouri.  My wife and I have been helping him in any way we can to get it ready to rent out.  The price was necessarily low; so the product was small and in disrepair . . . but most notably, absolutely filthy with a gagging odor of dog urine saturating everything.  I spent large parts of two days on my hands and knees scouring the commode and bathtub.  We have since been told by neighbors that the lady who lived there had three kids and fourteen dogs living with her.

         I have at times in the past proclaimed that "people just do the best they can" (usually in my most pious voice and suggesting a certain latent forgiveness on my part for their failures and one's need to overlook their weaknesses).  I don't consider myself somehow a candidate for a blue ribbon in cleanliness; I'm often a bit lazy I suppose in that category---but, good grief, the feculence (sweet word) of this place was horrendous.

          How could someone live in these conditions?  I'm sure socio-economic and psychological explanations abound in answer to that question---at least, explaining  a possible necessity on the part of many people to so live.  However, in this case, there was running water---pure, sweet water!   And, you know, after dealing with this mess, I just don't feel very forgiving.  (Don't know if you can tell or not, but I'm trying diligently to be politically correct here.)  Perhaps, our current culture spends too much time forgiving people's failures and not enough time encouraging them to have higher expectations of themselves.
          As an educator, I spent many hours quietly influencing students to have higher and higher goals for themselves--one of the greater accomplishments I had (many of my fellow teachers likewise sought that outcome).  Many of those students  have gone on to success, it seems to me, in almost every area of their lives because they accepted that summons as teenagers.  I certainly pray that none of them are living in filthy, smelly little houses unwilling to "clean up" their act!  That would be a mighty sorrow for me.