The prayer isn't necessary, but the message is worth thinking about
I rarely pass along emails, but this is an exception, especially given where it appeared: a mailing list for trauma surgery and intensive care. Remember, it's the trauma surgeons and their teams that see the aftermath of a lack of wisdom, especially in a holiday season or just on Saturday night. It's fire/EMS that get the unwise out of the wreckage, hopefully in time for the surgeons to be able to do some good.
Jack took a long look at his speedometer before
slowing down: 73 in a 55 zone. Fourth time in as many months. How could a guy get caught so often?
When his car had slowed to 10 miles an hour, Jack pulled over, but only partially. Let the cop worry about the potential traffic hazard. Maybe some other car will tweak his backside with a mirror. The cop was stepping out of his car, the big pad in hand.
Bob? Bob from Church? Jack sunk farther into his
trench coat. This was worse than the coming ticket. A cop catching a guy from his own church. A guy who happened to be a little eager to get home after a long day at the office. A guy he was about to play golf with tomorrow.
Jumping out of the car, he approached a man he saw every Sunday, a man he'd never seen in uniform.
"Hi, Bob. Fancy meeting you like this."
"Hello, Jack." No smile.
"Guess you caught me red-handed in a rush to see my wife and kids."
"Yeah, I guess." Bob seemed uncertain. Good.
"I've seen some long days at the office lately. I'm afraid I bent the rules a bit -just this once."
Jack toed at a pebble on the pavement. "Diane said something about roast beef and potatoes tonight. Know what I mean?" "I know what you mean. I also know that you have a reputation in our precinct ." Ouch. This was not going in the right direction. Time to change tactics.
"What'd you clock me at?"
"Seventy. Would you sit back in your car please?"
"Now wait a minute here, Bob. I checked as soon as I saw you. I was barely nudging 65." The lie seemed to come easier with every ticket.
"Please, Jack, in the car"
Flustered, Jack hunched himself through the still-open door. Slamming it shut, he stared at the dashboard. He was in no rush to open the window.
The minutes ticked by. Bob scribbled away on the pad.
Why hadn't he asked for a driver's license?
Whatever the reason, it would be a month of Sundays before Jack ever sat near this cop again. A tap on the door jerked his head to the left. There was Bob, a folded paper in hand Jack rolled down the window a mere two inches, just enough room for Bob to pass him the slip.
"Thanks." Jack could not quite keep the sneer out of his voice.
Bob returned to his police car without a word. Jack watched his retreat in the mirror. Jack unfolded the sheet of paper. How much was this one going to cost?
Wait a minute. What was this? Some kind of joke?
Certainly not a ticket. Jack began to read:
"Dear Jack, Once upon a time I had a daughter. She was six when killed by a car. You guessed it- a speeding driver. A fine and three months in jail, and the man was free. Free to hug his daughters, all three of them. I only had one, and I'm going to have to wait until Heaven before I can ever hug her again.
A thousand times I've tried to forgive that man. A thousand times I thought I had. Maybe I did, but I need to do it again. Even now. Pray for me. And be careful, Jack, my son is all I have left."
"Bob"
Jack turned around in time to see Bob's car pull away and head down the road. Jack watched until it disappeared. A full 15 minutes later, he too, pulled away and drove slowly home, praying for forgiveness and hugging a surprised wife and kids when he arrived.
Life is precious. Handle with care. This is an
important message; please pass it along to your
friends. Drive safely and carefully. Remember, cars are not the only things recalled by their maker.
Funny how you can send a thousand jokes through
e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the sanctity of life, people think twice about sharing.
Funny how when you go to forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it to them.
Pass this on, you may save a life. Maybe not, but we'll never know if we don't try.
Thank you, Howard. That is so beautiful. Definitely worth a post... especially at this time of year. Brings a tear to the eye.
December 11, 2007 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great message in the body of your post, Howard. Thanks for it.
The title comment on prayer is baseless verbal imperium in supposition mode, but alright.
December 12, 2007 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, the reference to prayer is to make the message more, not less, inclusive. There are good people that do not pray, or, indeed, may be turned away by an admonition that suggests they must pray, or that they are inferior to those who do.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 12, 2007 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
If your title had been "The Message Isn't Necessary, But the Prayer Is Worth Thinking About," would that have been designed to be more inclusive of those who pray? That seems to be the logical result of what you're saying.
The assumption in what you're putting down there is that if someone doesn't pray, that they are such willows, they will melt and soak into the soil if they don't see some kind of disclaimer as to the spiritual act of prayer. That's unlikely among serious folks like yourself. And so what I see is a political requirement in the headline.
I simply don't see the necessary implication anywhere in that story that people who don't pray are inferior. All I see is a guy who prays after participating in a major-league lesson we so easily forget.
I can tell you this much: the craziness of hurrying drivers who cause life-changing wrecks isn't caused by a prayerful state of being.
Happy and safe winter anyway, H.
December 12, 2007 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, Mike, I selected my title carefully. Ever thought about how the constant barrage of this season comes across to non-Christians? It isn't pleasant.
I'm not worried about being inclusive to those who pray in Approved Fashion. They seem to do pretty well on their own.
Call it political if you will, but maybe you're hearing some of the bitterness that comes from being a non-Christian in this society, especially with the self-appointed Representative of God at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Hear some of the reaction from someone like me, who doesn't really want someone's faith shared with me.
Just for once, listen. Don't tell me about your views about religion. While I don't think Congress should use invocations at all, think about how little fuss was made about the screamers at the Hindu cleric who gave an invocation. Think about how little fuss was made when Bob Barr tried to ban Wiccans from military bases, and the battle it took to put a Wiccan symbol on a headstone in a national cemetery.
CNN has an ironic example. Just to fit in, there's been a strange emphasis on a very minor Jewish holiday, Hanukah. Very few people running around referring to it, in today's charged propaganda, realize that to Romans, it celebrates a successful insurgency. Nevertheless, in this incident on the New York subway, an apparently friendly response of "Happy Hanukah" to a "Merry Christmas" caused an ugly response by presumed Christians to presumed Jews. The dog-bites-man aspect to this incident is a Bangladeshi Muslim stepped between the groups, trying to defend the Jews from an increasingly hostile group.
Whether you intend it or not, in virtually every interaction I have had with you, I get a message, sometimes explicit and sometimes not, about Christian principles.
No, I don't think you would see that implication. I quoted the message. What if he had said "meditated"?
The story says a lot about people who save lives. It says a lot about caring about people close to you. It says a lot about responsibility.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 12, 2007 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm listening Howard, but let's be fair. You've told me your religious views about the season and how unpleasant it is because of Christian religious overtones that you see. That's a view about a religion and hence a religious view. I hope you can see the double standard. I'm to check my views at the door, but you can bring yours in the coffee house? Those are bogus rules.
The constant barrage of Yule tide, happy holidays (not holy days), fat Santa with toys instead of St. Nicholas with wonders of love and faith, and commercialism ad nauseum could be complained about as unpleasant to a great many Christians. However, such Christians aren't the ones chosen to represent Christianity by CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, Fox or anyone else for that matter. It's always the crazy minority Phelps-types, transparently mercenary "prosperity" gospelers and of course, the sex-ensnared...all of which are an extreme minority of Christians puffed up by those adverse to the actual faith as a weapon against what they are really saying and why.
So if you are tired of it as a minority, join the majority.
Regarding the bitterness at the onslaught of Christian themes during the season in which Christmas is celebrated by the majority faith in this country: I am sorry that is the experience of some non-Christians. But I don't think it is Christians or Christianity that should be blamed for the old snake-oiler trick (picture John Goodman in "Brother Where Art Thou" as the Bible selling KKK guy who symbolized the Cyclops in the intended play on the Odyssey that the movie was). In his character, I see those responsible for the mercenary aspect of the Iraq occupation.
On historical bitterness: I think that unfair, unethical, evil and or unhospitable politicians who name themselves Christians but then about-face from Christ and abuse those non-Christians over whom they have power (such as the European Jewry well before Hitler and for eons prior in many places) are responsible for misusing the non-Christians and the Christian faith (that teaches good treatment of non-Christians and Christians alike).
And most mainstream Christians would likely expect such a politician who apologized for unChristian conduct and asked to be forgiven to face the fullest extent of legal consequences for their actions with everyone else, nor more no less.
Your example of hostility on a New York subway between people of presumed Jewish and Christian ethnicities probably says more about New York than anywhere else, because I've never in all my years in the West or Southwest seen such an exchange. So the anectdotal bias of CNN is noted.
Whether you intend it or not, in virtually every interaction I have with you on topics involving religion, I have picked up on the bitterness that you speak of above, and seek to dispel some of it. It is what leads to those with a lack of self-examination to get hostile towards their fellow Americans in a Subway because they said Happy Hannukah or Merry Christmas or Allah Akbar. Such conduct isn't about protecting Jehovah, Christ or Allah, it's about acting out of fear. What can we do about fear? That's the solution -- not religion bashing.
You wouldn't by chance imply, would you, that the ill-treatment among ethnicities of differing religions in New York, does not go all ways, or that you knew where it all started?
December 12, 2007 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since you made the point that in a blog post of yours, you felt free to put out your position but objected to my trying to impose rules on you, perhaps this is a bit of turnabout being fair play.
Exactly what is that supposed to mean? It certainly sounds like "well, be a Christian as Mike defines it."
Accept that you will not dispel it in this sort of venue. Pray privately for me if that turns you on, but I'm simply going start ignoring you completely if you keep trying to defend your idea of religion to me, in a forum where I have repeatedly asked for the courtesy of respecting my beliefs -- and your prating about fear just reinforces my distrust of an evangelical attitude, which continues to tell me I'm wrong and you're right.
For me, it's not about fear. It's about respect. I don't think you are able to respect someone's choice not to be religious in a way similar to yours. If you can respect such a choice, you'll stop trying to share your beliefs with me. Shall I start sharing my masturbatory fantasies with you, or can you accept there are certain things that are private?
Well, the misusers seem to be in the lead these days. Let me know when the "mainstream Christians" take their power from them, and then I might trust "mainstream Christians". I know people of Christian denominations that live the principles of religion -- and deal with me by example, not preaching.
I am completely unable to parse the above quote and have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 12, 2007 11:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
You mean the blog that was about people sharing their belief in God and your coming to the blog to try to impose the rule that no one may speak with you from their perspective about God? Yes I remember you doing that and trying to figure out why you were participating in a blog with a theme you defined as "not respectful" of your beliefs merely because those who differ with yours speak from their own perspectives. As I recall, no one attacked your religion, but you made some prejudicial remarks about others' faiths.
Anyone reading the comment in context can tell that isn't the point. The point was that both the majority and minority have their reasons to be weary of the abuse of the season from their own perspectives. I contrast that fact with your implied majoritarian conspiracy to impose Christmas and Christ on the minority. And I think you are bitter about that because ... you are too emotional and oversensitive about symmetries that don't support your world religious view.
Dispelling your bitterness was not necessarily to dispel it as to you alone, however good a thing that would be. In this thread, I did not defend my idea of religion, I defended against your de minimus attack on prayer in your title (itself unnecessary) by defending prayer without focusing on one or another praying religion or people.
I've respected your beliefs. It's your desire to attack others' and then expect your attacks to be left alone that I don't respect.
You repeatedly impute a Crusades like conversion motive to me when my chief responses to your religious oriented comments have been to check your attacks on my faith. If you don't want to hear advocacy for faith, prayer, Christianity and so on, then don't attack them. It appears that you want to play games with people's faith and then be free of challenge after doing so.
Sorry Howard, I don't respect your expectation of a double standard in which you sometimes attack Christians and expect me not to dispel or counter.
Are there none who misuse your religion, Howard? Just because it tends to happen in secrecy and no one may know about it in a politician doesn't mean it isn't in a public official here or there, or doesn't motivate their public policy.
William James was right.
December 13, 2007 12:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
You keep assuming I have a religion, at least one that you would recognize as such. You put up a blog requesting, IIRC, comments about the nature and desirability of God. You didn't like my definition of the concept of a personal deity.
In other words, you respond not with humility, but as if I named my teddy bear Jesus.
But you don't actually dispel or counter. You complain about how your poor majority beliefs are set upon by this terrible secular society.
I doubt you know enough about my spiritual beliefs -- I do not use the term religion -- to comment coherently if it is abused or not. Whatever my specific beliefs may be, they are private.
Go do whatever it is you do. If you have argued successfully for any point, it is that there are those who believe in a jealous and insecure deity that is too weak to protect its own adherents. Of Christian concepts, the one you make most plausible to me is the idea of the Adversary.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 13, 2007 3:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
It wasn't your definition of the concept of personal deity I didn't like. I invited you to share it. What I responded to that you did not like, was that you chose to define your concept in terms of a criticism of Christians and Christianity rather than having an independent concept. I called you on it because it was a disingenuine response to the blog, showing an agenda to dig at Christianity rather than stay on the topic in good faith. The following will show that while I solicited open sharing and disclosed my own bias up front, you turned your "sharing" into an opportunity to attack the Christian faith, its Holy Scriptures and in this last comment, me. No fear of that here; just a desire to check your false allegations, where made.
Here are some examples:
Here is what I wrote in my blog post:
http://houseoflabor.tpmcafe.com/blog/mike7woodson/2007/nov/07/preliminary_question_existence_and_nature_of_god
And here is the angle of your first comment to misdirect the thread along a tangent that creates an issue I didn't write, frame or set-up:
I didn't say that, and the pitch of my post wasn't that. After your first comment, which had me responding to your criticisms of my faith, you labeled the responses I gave you in various ways as prosyletizing. Here is your first criticism from your first comment if you'd like to be honest about your projection of adversarialness:
By now it is clear to me that your purpose for coming onto the thread quoted above was to use it as an opportunity to attack the Christian faith for the audience of mostly like-minded folks. Enjoy the ratings, because they mean little if they are rooted in disingenuineness.
Thanks for the insult, Howard. No doubt I deserve worse. As for my humility, what humility? I have none. If you find some, please send it to me for Christmas. Here, I'm writing in the context of TPMCafe: politics and ideas. I'm trying to participate and seek common ground. The quoted barbs above are your welcome. It seems you are trying to silence my ideas by insulting my faith. When I respond per the forum custom, you use that as a chance to discredit me personally and use irreverent references to Christ because I am a Christian.
Didn't you complain that the poor minority is beset by the majority celebration of Christmas at this season, and how unpleasant it is? I merely said Christians might find common ground with the onslaught of commercialism. And you used an attempt at finding common ground as reason to divide. That is your work.
Actually, you shared a number of aspects of your religion, whether you call it that or not, as you are attached to a number of practices that are what you define as spiritual. If only you would have had the courtesy to leave it at that rather than start the thread off with barbs, attacks and prejudices against Christians and Christianity, we might not be having this discussion about your behavior. Then I saw the dig at prayer in your title above. You are a provoker, then you claim victim. It isn't adversarial to point that out. Maybe it could lend you some insight.
Your saying that I or other Christians believe in a jealous and insecure deity too weak to protect its own adherents is a basic smear at a spiritual religion you do not understand. And at attempts to communicate that understanding on a blog set up for the possibility, you accused me of one-sided evangelism. Where? You've set up a contrarian impossibility for common ground in your techniques of "handling" a Christian for your audience.
When asked to read a text you criticize for a better understanding in conversing about your criticisms, you admitted you did not go beyond a few pages because you claim it made no sense to you. To that I can only shrug, since so many people, simple to sophisticated, and luminaries such as Shakespeare, Dante, Bunyan, Pascal and many, many others did not have that problem. If you are going to minimize or argue reductio of the Bible, you ought to have read it. It seems implicit to intellectual honesty.
Howard, your approach has taken me some time to figure out, but now I think I have it. You are convinced you are correct and someone who has faith in Christ runs against the grain of your correctness. Your response is to go on the attack which you did at my blog quoted above and in the title of this blog. Whatever that is, it is. I've not criticized your beliefs, but I have challenged your criticism of my own. And I do not get any straight answers, but more misdirection about what you have done.
December 13, 2007 7:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Speaking of thinking of others, I am saddened to hear this from Terry Pratchett---he has early-onset Alzheiner's. Story on BBC.
He finishes the article with this statement:
December 12, 2007 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of the bravest people I know is Tom de Baggio, a DC-area character, who I've known, on and off, for at least 30-40 years. While he was very visible as an political activist during Vietnam, he turned to becoming an urban herb farmer, and, over the years, a distinguished self-taught botanist. His specialty is in rosemary variants, and there are quite a few new cultivars with scientific names reflecting his family and friends.
A few years back, he also was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. His response was to call upon friends and colleagues, to help him as he desperately tried to write down a lifetime's experience before it was lost. Sometimes, a colleague could remind him of a bit of knowledge that was slipping away, or they could fill in for what he had lost.
Ever read about Evariste Galois, who essentially invented mathematical group theory? At 21, he was to fight a duel the next day, but, rather than resting, stayed up through the night, writing down incredible mathematical insights, but every so often writing in the margin that he did not have enough time.
He was killed the next day.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 12, 2007 9:23 PM | Reply | Permalink