019 Easter 5: God Speaks and It Is
"The Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love." Psalm 147
God speaks, and it is.
We speak, and then argue, and finally make it our way by force if need be.
Satan, in Milton’s Paradise Lost, considers God a tyrant who by wrath and vigor forces his so-called “goodness” upon the cosmos. The reality is that “goodness” is what the cosmos simply is.
God speaks, and “So be it,” is already too late a response.
Further, not unlike the great pagan kings of antiquity, it would appear that once God has spoken, it is not in his nature to take it back. Once a thing is created, it cannot be uncreated. There is no “uncreator” with the power to contend against the one and only Creator.
Instead, there are only rebels, liars and salesmen who intend to close the deal on your soul. By force, if need be. The pitch? This world is not upside down. Everything here always has the potential to be the way it was supposed to.
If your first reaction is to rush in and fix what I’m laying down, rather than figure out how to pick it up with me, recall that active is always the preferred stance of our fallen nature.
See the need. Rush in. Dash around. Be invigorating!
Until you collapse from exhaustion with nothing at all fixed quite the way you intended. This is because at the same time everyone else is doing the exact same thing as you, only with their own opinions, ideals and gods, which means that every third, fifth and thirteenth stone you set up is one someone else is bound to come along and put right back.
Why even bother?
Don’t.
Stop trying to make the world a better place. Doing so is a tacit statement that you think it is a bad place. The reason you do think it is a bad place is because it keeps putting itself back in order according to the design of a God who is not you, often right in the way of all your best plans.
So remember that the Valley of the Shadow is still a very good place. That’s the way its God made it, and even our dastardly arrogance can’t change that.
And then don’t forget to believe that you are that same good doubly over, first in the creation of your self in Adam, and from above in the redemption of that same self in resurrection of all men as the one man Jesus Christ.
Fixing everyone else’s world is a bad life-goal.
You’re not cut out to be your own Messiah, let alone anyone else’s.
You instead are made for Karpos, the “fruit” of Christian worship.
I plan to write a lot more about Karpos. I am increasingly convinced that the Christian threefold life of oratio, meditatio, and tentatio is dynamite in need of a pinch of grammarian/marketer’s discipline.
Suffice for today: the temple of Christian enlightenment, unlike all other paths, is raised one stone at a time.
There are no cathedrals.
There is only one Master.
His Karpos is your legacy.
Christianity is a promise you wake up to live. The entire point start to finish is that God has a plan to take care of you. He built this plan in eternity, so it’s a bit unlikely he’ll be changing his mind any time soon.
Once God has spoken, it is not in his nature to take it back.
--
Be strong, and let your heart know courage.
Rev. Fisk
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I wept, for no man was found worthy
A death in the family of our MM editor last week, together with the very surreal experience of a livestreamed, socially-distanced funeral, have sparked some thoughts that seemed worth sharing. Dying and the fear of it have been an unnerving presence during this time of pandemic, with ubiquitous maps and tallies displaying the cost in human lives. This is a struggle for many, perhaps even for you, dear Mad Christian, and so we hope this little consideration brings you comfort.
An article from a secular publication last week suggested our culture might need to recover a more sober acceptance of the fact of death. The writer observes the way technologically-advanced societies, where reminders of our mortality are often out of sight and mind, struggle to process something that seems so foreign to our existence, when it all hits home:
“…almost without exception we remain crouched in lockdown, a frozen state that addresses our terror of death by banning nearly everything that makes life worth living...if we are to begin living again, we may need to re-learn some forgotten lessons about how to walk in the valley of the shadow of death.”
Recovering our determination to ‘do life’ will help a little, but ultimately, it can only be a distraction from really dealing with the problem of death that plagues the muck-dwellers who have no hope. St. Paul described it as the "last enemy to be defeated" and we Mad Christians know Jesus did just that on the cross. More than that, we have been buried with him in our baptism and have been raised to life again, meaning we can take each day as a good gift from the Father who loves us.
As the Easter season draws to an end and we look forward to Christ’s ascension, it gives great comfort to remember: the new creation has already begun. It is breaking in on this decaying age, through the church, scattered embassies of Christ’s kingdom, declaring Good News and distributing the forgiveness of sins through water, bread and wine.
This animation, an artist’s take on Jesus’ harrowing of hell, captures the hope of Easter Saturday, when the Light of Light "conquered the devil, destroyed hell’s power, and took from the devil all his might”, remaking creation in Himself, so that "neither hell nor the devil can take captive or injure us,” (Solid Declaration IX). As Rev. Fisk is fond of saying, “You are immortal.”
And now, returning to the regularly scheduled program....
Everyone has a plan 'til they get punched in the face
To free or not to free seems to be the question and yet there are signs all around us that lockdown is quietly ending, in spite of what leaders and experts want. Unherd pondered whether lockdown is helping or harming and concluded that it all depends on how hard the economy is crunched and how quickly it recovers. Sort of "how long is a piece of string." The Federalist pointed out that there is a worrying divide between those who work from home and the many jobs needed to facilitate this.
If you know any carnivores, let them know rumors abound that beef could be in short supply. Wendy’s have reportedly run out of burgers and Costco have implemented purchasing limits. Hopefully, steak won’t be the next item to suffer the dreaded effects of panic-buying.
How’s my walking?
Inspired by a Monty Python sketch, a family in Michigan have spread some cheer by instituting a silly walking zone outside their house and filming the passers by. Less silly, but definitely something to smile about is a recent Twitter post about a friendly little boy who’s had to improvise on his daily walks around the neighborhood. With no one there to greet him, he uses his imagination.
After weeks of getting used to standing on red circles, yellow crosses, or in white boxes, life at times feels a little like being inside an oversized game of Tic Tac Toe, which means this socially-distanced picnic blanket doesn’t seem so strange.
Fans of Nike Airs will no doubt fondly remember the USA Olympic men's basketball “Dream Team” of 1992 and now you can go back to where the sneaker game began. There’s also some pics of some guys playing basketball, if that’s your thing...
How slow can you go?
📷 You may remember the dog food advertisement shot on a Phantom camera at 1000 frames per second. A camera capable of filming at 70 trillion FPS has been developed and has the capacity to capture light waves in motion.
🇫🇷 A newly developed app means you can cut and paste from real life.
🇬🇧 The British Library has digitized rare globes.
🚀 Scientists have successfully made a detonation engine which sounds way scarier than regular combustion, but it might just work.
☎️ Physical distancing has come to the lofty arm of the law, with the Supreme Court of the USA hearing cases via teleconference.
🚌 Parked buses are being used as wi-fi hotspots for poorer neighborhoods.
World Wide Weird
🥃 Did you know that dried droplets of whiskey leave behind beautiful patterns?
🇶🇦 Parked planes in Qatar were blown into each other during a storm.
🇯🇵 Eels in a Japanese aquarium have gotten so used to their own company during lockdown that the facility has urged the public to chat to them on video calls.
😷The Hustle predicts the market for plexiglass will explode on account of precautions against future pandemics.
👶 And finally, the maverick entrepreneur, Elon Musk recently became a father again, revealing that his son’s name is "X Æ A-12”. It is undecided how it will be pronounced, but his state of California may not allow the name anyway, as it contains numbers and symbols. Fun fact: many countries have restrictions on baby names.
Only Illuminati Need Apply: Your Reaction Highlights
What have our MM readers been doing this quarantine?
Going for a socially-distanced ice cream trip to support our local shop and enjoying it out the roof of our car.
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Sweetness You May Have Missed...
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Alleluia.
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Allure of the Unknown by Seb McKinnon
Let us pray: Almighty God, merciful Father, since You have wakened from death the Shepherd of Your sheep, grant us Your Holy Spirit that when we hear the voice of our Shepherd we may know Him who calls us each by name and follow where He leads; through the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.