Walking around on Resurrection ground
October 16, 2016 Leave a comment
The Origin of the Habitable Zone
the exoplanet Proxima Centauri b. Credit: ESO, M. KORNMESSER
Behold and look attentively upon…
Ten years. That is what it takes. It takes ten years to travel to Alpha Centauri’s Proxima b at 45% light speed in a Bema Nano StarCraft.
Of course, one goes to an exoplanet to get away. And that is what my father did twenty years ago after my mother passed. For the last ten years Proxima b’s Decider Colony – the settlement was named Decider Colony by my dad after he declared, “Once you have decided to come you don’t look back” – has provided research data and food and shelter for those who are completing their “bucket list”.
Dad joined the first eXoCrew to Alpha Centauri AB as a researcher. The crew, deployed with detectors specifically tuned to wavelengths corresponding to molecules found in earth’s atmosphere such as water, methane, oxygen and ozone, found these elements in comparable amounts on Proxima b, a planet slightly larger than earth and which orbits in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri. When the crew also found nothing that would disrupt the equilibrium of the habitable zone they set about terraforming.
When dad said his goodbyes I asked him if he would be lonely on Proxima. He answered, “I have my research and my smokes. Maybe, when I am happy again, I’ll be lonely. Finish your doctorate, Penny, and then join me.” Dad hugged me, kissed my forehead and then drove off.
After submitting my dissertation, “The 21st Century Religion of Climate Change: Oracles, Inquisition, Denier Extirpation and Crusades,” I needed to get away, far away, as I was no longer welcome at home. A tenure-track faculty position would not be in the offing and I could not see myself teaching anyway. So, I applied to the Interplanetary Research and Terraforming Inaugurating Consortium (IRTIC) for the position of Lead Argo-Chemist on the Centauri Project Team. My application was processed overnight.
I received my commission to go to Proxima b the next day. I was told that I would go as a settler-researcher, just as my father had done ten years earlier with IRTIC. I was glad. Now I could go where I would feel welcome. In Chicago, I was all alone. My mom died when I was six. Dad was the only family I had left. Friends, you ask? There is Ruth of Ruth’s Restaurant and Refinery. She knew my mother. Ruth met mom when Ruth came to Chicago on a business trip. So, my journey to Proxima will be a sort of coming home.
When you travel for ten years you have plenty of time to study. I studied Proxima b and found out that the exoplanet is about seven million kilometers from its star, Proxima Centauri. Its orbit is twenty-one times smaller than earth’s orbit. This has Proxima sitting on its star’s doorstep. Any solar hiccups, flares, or coronal mass ejections are likely to hit Proxima b head on. Settler beware!
I also exercised every day for ten years. Living in a micro-g environment impacts the body in three ways: loss of position-movement sensation – you don’t know what your limbs are up to, changes in fluid distribution, and deterioration of the musculoskeletal system. Space traveler beware!
On Proxima b one has to get used to the fact there is no night and day. Light and dark are locational. So, you must to travel back and forth, light side, dark side, light side, dark side… to simulate earth’s 24-hour cycle. And, get ready for this: The planet is so close to its red dwarf host star that it is tidally locked into an orbital eccentricity of 0. This means that one side of Proxima constantly faces the host star, a red dwarf sun, a blazing orb that looks huge in the sky and is exceedingly hot. The other side – the star side – is dark and cold to the other extreme. Along the terminator line, between light and dark, hot and cold, lies a moderate zone where Decider Colony is. One good thing: under the zone’s constant cloud cover, Proxima b retains water. One bad thing: I do too.
Once on Alpha Centauri’s Proxima b I headed to my dad’s cabin near the Tuomi Ocean. Tuomi is just three clicks off of Limbo Line Highway and only 1.295762111 parsecs from my home on the west side of Chicago, in case you wanted to know. Not far from my dad’s cabin is Charis City the home of Ruth’s flagship restaurant.
The colony and the cabin are just over on the dark side of Proxima b since no one could handle the extreme light or heat on the star side. For our light and power, wind turbines provide electrical energy. Fierce stellar winds blowing across the ubiquitous mountain ranges propel the turbines.
Proxima is a jagged, rocky place. The kind of place you read about in science fiction or see in space movies. I brought my repelling gear for climbing when I’m not walking on star dust at the beach. The cabin is within a narrow cove surrounded by the Nearing Cliffs. It is protected from the ferocious winds, which howl across the tops of the cliffs a mile above sounding like a thousand wolves in chorus.
Dad, a hobby fisherman, uses VR goggles to go fishing on Tuomi Ocean. When he wrote to me years ago he told me that he has a hologram of a fish he caught in his library. He also told me that he had plenty cans of reconstituted fish in the kitchen. I made it clear to dad that I would prefer to eat at Ruth’s Restaurant and Refinery where the food is superb and fresh.
How is it possible on Proxima b to offer fresh meals? Only Ruth knows and she will only say that she is thankful that she can. And, another thing I wonder about. Some say that Ruth has been here forever. When asked about this she tells them, “I’ve been here as long as I can remember.” All I know is that if her restaurant here on Proxima b is like the one at home in Chicago, then there will be a sign above her cash register which offers, “Ask about our daily special.”
When I arrived at the cabin Dad was very happy to see me but above his smile was a look of sadness in his eyes. A couple of nights later I looked out the front door and saw dad sitting on the front porch step. He was staring at the burning point of his cigarette.
“Penny, come out on the porch and join me.”
I sat down next to dad.
“Wow, look at those stars, dad. They talk about light pollution on earth. Chicago has so many lights you can’t see stars.”
“Yeah, I remember.” This”, dad pointed to the sky, “is one of eleven panoramas. One year on Proxima is eleven days, so the night sky changes every day.”
“Whoa, age before beauty, here.”
I could see dad smile.
“What were you thinking about just now, dad?”
Dad flicked his cigarette and took a deep breath, “Well, when I was younger I would look at the night sky just like tonight. I would imagine myself as a meteor, blazing across the sky, every atom in me a magnificent glow and that would someday I burn out in a ball of fire. I did not want to be snuffed out by dry-rot existence. I wanted my end to ashes and not accumulated dust. That’s one reason why I came to Proxima. But, there is something I haven’t told you that I’m not proud of.
Back home I was asked to change some data – climate data. I was told that I was a rising star in the scientific community and that I would receive tenure if I papers concurred with my university peers. I saw no harm in doing it. I figured the change would just make people concerned about the environment. And, with tenure I could afford your education at the university.
Well, about a six months later, I was asked again to change another set of numbers. I did and then I received tenure just like they said I would. I was young. My attitude was “Either you are virtuous or you enjoy yourself but you can’t be both.”
But then the bribes started coming. I said no and kept saying no but the pressure was incredible. They showed up at the house. They threatened to hurt your mother if I didn’t agree. Then…I don’t if I should call it fate or bad luck or…It was during that time your mother came down with cancer. So I saw my chance to leave the university and the whole mess. I stayed home with her till the end. After that I joined IRTIC hoping for a chance to leave all this behind.”
“Wow. I don’t know what to say. I could have used your experience in my dissertation. Anyway, I’m glad we are together and all that is behind you.
“When you get piled on, you just shrug it off and move on,” Dad put out his cigarette, thought for a second and then turned to Penny
“When I die, Penny, I hope to go to a better place–whatever that is–and I want to be able to afford the price of admission.”
“What you need right now, dad, is a piece of cherry pie. C’mon dad, let’s go to Ruth’s for lunch.”
“No thanks. Not interested.”
“Why? The food is good.”
“Meh. My parents took me to one of Ruth’s restaurants a long time ago. I didn’t like the food and the place gave me the creeps. Later, your mother took me there once. I found out I couldn’t smoke inside – the manager told me to go outside. After that everything I tasted there was bland. And, what’s with that sign she has hanging everywhere –“Spreading life and beauty throughout the universe? There is no beauty ‘cept these stars and I see tooth and claw in them too.”
“I’ve wondered about that sign myself. Let’s go ask about it.”
“No thanks. I’d rather eat my own food then go and pay for something I don’t like.”
“I’ll buy dad.”
“No thanks kid. I’m old and set in my ways. You go and have fun. I have some fish to catch.”
I poked my head inside the restaurant door. “Hi Ruth, how’s things at Ruth’s Restaurant?”
“Come in and see, Penny. Would you like some Black Tea?”
“Yes. And, I’ll have the salad with Green Pastures Dressing.”
“Coming right up.”
Ruth returned and placed the tea cup in front of me. She poured the fragrant tea.
I looked up, “I am still getting used to the idea that plant life on Proxima is black and not green.”
“All my customers say that but they come back for more. The dressing helps them get it down.”
“I’m going to bring some home to my father.”
“Do you think he’ll like it? I haven’t seen him around here.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve tried to get him to come. Oh, and he wanted to know what that meant.” Penny pointed to the sign over the kitchen.
“Spreading life and beauty throughout the universe? Why that means exactly what it says. You see, I am not only a chef and a restaurateur. I am an artist, too. I create collages out of things which had former value. I reclaim broken and discarded things, rework them and make them into works of art. And, I have my refinery. I refine rare precious metals found on the seven exoplanets. Those seven planet ores are not found on earth. When refined they make the most excellent necklaces, rings, bracelets and even crowns. “
“Crowns?”
“Why yes. I have seven planets and I have appointed seven kings. I made a crown for each one.”
I looked around. “I don’t see any collages or crowns.”
“Wait one second.” Ruth left and returned with a bottle of red wine and a glass. “Here, this is my house red. Take a sip.” Ruth poured the wine.
I held the wine glass up to the light. The dark ruby-red wine had a mineral aroma that reminded me not of a flavor but of a time. What was that memory? I drank it down. It was warm in my throat.
“What do you see now?”
“I…I see collages, of people… made of collages and their eyes are like jeweled sunlight!”
I saw that all the faces in the restaurant were turned towards Ruth.
I looked up at Ruth. “I need to sit down.”
“Penny, you are sitting. Now, I’ve also been known to refine people’s taste buds.” Ruth smiled. “So, eat up.”
I came home not sure what I had just seen and desperately wanting to tell my father about it. But dad was not around. His bedroom was empty. I checked the kitchen. Empty fish tins lay in the sink. The fish smell was so pungent that I threw the tins in the garbage, put the lid on and lit a candle. It was confirmed. Dad doesn’t smell things anymore.
Dad’s library door was always closed. I had never been in there. I knocked and there was no answer. So I entered. What I saw could be described as a “Hemmingway hangout.” On a credenza was a hologram of dad’s favorite fish – the walleye. On the lamp table next to his reading chair was a worn copy of Jack London’s Call of the Wild and an open copy of Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species. A half-gone bottle of thirty-year-old scotch was on a shelf behind the desk along with a framed picture of mom and a mug from Last Ounce Bar and Grill. On his desk were an ash tray, several photographs of Ana Nill, dad’ girlfriend on Proxima and his VR goggles. Dad wouldn’t have gone fishing without his VR goggles.
I turned around. On the wall above the shelf was a framed quote.
“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it’s yours.” ― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
I left the library not sure what I had just seen and desperately wanting to ask my father about it.
The front door banged open. In stumbled Ana with dad under her arm. Dad was shivering uncontrollably.
“What happened?
“The boat capsized. It shouldn’t have happened.” Dad’s teeth chattered as he spoke.
“You could have gotten hypothermia, dad.”
“I’m good at this. It shouldn’t have happened.” Dad fell to the floor.
After dad’s accident, the day finally came, two weeks later in fact, when dad relented and agreed to come to Ruth’s restaurant. Dad, angrier over the accident than concerned for his own safety came to see that something had to change…. with a lot of my pleading.
Ruth’s Restaurant and Refinery on Proxima b is unlike anything else in the universe. When you arrive the first thing you notice is a large cornerstone made of Substantium, an element found in only one place in the universe – you can guess where. It sits at the right hand corner foundation of the restaurant. Emitted out of its four sides and at right angles are red lasers – coherent light beams. The four perpendicular lasers provide direction plots of the universe like four surveyor’s transit theodolites. And when those on a space quest comes across one of the four laser beams he or she will know how to find the Origin of the Habitable Zone, so I’m told.
And I am also told that at the opposite corner of the square building are several more laser lights. Three beams are directed toward the night sky. The color of the three beams change within a visible spectrum as if in rhythm to some ancient song. The beams, though infinite in their trajectory, also appear to hover in an ever-widening circle. The corner’s other stream of monochromatic coherent light is directed toward Ruth’s metal working refinery directly behind the restaurant. There, the refocused light is used to work precious metals.
“Welcome. I have a booth for you over here.” Ruth led us over to a sky booth.
There are no windows in the walls of Ruth’s Restaurant but there is a vast skywindow above the booths and tables. The candlelit room feels like it is slowly moving but that feeling is due to Proxima’s eleven-day-year rotation of constellations. Three lights, those three lights, dance in front of the stellar panorama. We are eating in an observatory.
I asked, for my dad, “Ruth, did you know my mom?’
“Yes. She came to my Chicago restaurant often. She spoke of both of you.” Ruth sat down across from dad and poured him some wine.
I was soon surprised. I heard dad tell Ruth what he had told me on the porch one night.
“I was wrong to fudge those numbers. I didn’t have 4.6 billion years of data to review. And I wasn’t sure where the supplied temperature data came from, if it was reliable. I was told to use the data and that it would likely fit the profile of adverse climate change due to CO2.”
“Then I’d come home every night feeling like more and more of me was being negated. I couldn’t tell your mother, Penny, out of fear of government reprisals. But later I had to.” Dad dropped his head. “Your mom, waiting for me to come home every night, watched TV. I would come in the door and find her very agitated and concerned about what she was seeing. I soon found why when I was forced to attend the Interfaith Theosophist Climate Conference in Paris.”
“There I learned that the state controlled Climate Channel ran ITCC approved videos of weather catastrophes in order to frighten people into embracing environmental justice. The conference speakers, of course, never used the words “frighten or alarm.” They used “motivate and encourage.” The 24/7 programming ran Viral Weather –special effects video of ice melting and seas rising, floods destroying homes, displaced-looking polar bears, erosion and mud slides, on and on. And all the disasters would be connected to anthropological causation. Viral Weather never showed pastoral scenes or farmland with crops or any of the life-sustaining effects of CO2. And Global Cable never showed on any channel the hellish wars on earth that were started over global climate control.”
Ruth lifted dad’s head. “Following the Time of Enlightenment men began to put function before form, utilitarianism over being. The objective “what” was given preeminence over the subjective “why.” Later, many people rejected life expressed without significance. Some looked to nature and the protection of the environment for the “why” of their lives, to fulfill their need for meaning. Soon, though, their well-intentioned drive to reclaim what was lost converted into a religion with a “save the planet” mission and a Malthusian dogma when impassioned demands for certain outcomes were met with resistance. In turn, any dis-belief in climate change was met with hostility by the environmentalists.”
“A coordinated global crusade was begun by the environmentalists, who became collectively known as New Age Dominionists. The Dominionists campaigned to have the environment legally protected from mankind. Under their influence nation states passed laws and the UN passed resolutions that made humans – their methods, their mechanisms and their manufacturing – subject to nature. Of course this meant that humans would become subject to data and again to the “what” in order to stop Global Climate Change.”
“The situation on earth is now dire. In the last ten years meaningless climate data had been fed into quantum computers. The quantum computers fed AI into Malthus Qubots and Malthus Qubot AI became a singularity. After that the Malthus Qubots unleashed themselves to destroy mankind in order to save the planet.”
Ruth put her hand on dad’s. “Now, my Proximinian ears perk up when I hear the truth and I heard you tell the truth just now. Yes, you were wrong. The people of Earth need truth. Worthless data will always be behind man’s desire to reduce everything to an interplay of power and resources. When the Qubots with their AI singularity took over earth they only saw matter to be mastered. Man had relinquished everything of value to obtain control of air or vanity, as we say here on Proxima b. Nothingness will destroy everything in its path if you let it. And now, not for nothing, I forgive you.”
At that moment two guys from the next booth came over to our booth. They wore dark suits with cardinal red SSICCA insignias. They were from the Secular See Interstellar Climate Control Authority.
The taller man with a patch over one eye started. “We heard what you said. You are coming with us. You will face trial on your way back to earth. A special Qubot tribunal has been appointed to punish deniers and flagrant violators of Environmental Justice.”
“I…I left earth and came to Proxima b so that I wouldn’t li…so that I wouldn’t say what I couldn’t.”
The sweaty and squat bald agent pulled on dad’s arm. “Get up. You have some papers we need you to write.”
Ruth placed herself head-on between the agents and dad.
“This is my place. You have no jurisdiction in here. You’ve had your meal now go.”
“We’ll be waiting right outside.” The two men sneered at dad and then walked out the door.
“I guess this is goodbye Penny.”
“Hold on.” Ruth turned and walked over to another table.
Dad turned to me. “Sorry kid. My past has caught up with me. It looks like the meteor has become a wad of paper.”
Ruth returned to the table. Dad looked up.
“Penny says that your food is the best. I should have come here sooner.”
“Well, come back tomorrow then.”
“You know I can’t. Those two goons are going to cart me off forever.”
“No they won’t. I talked to the seven princes of the seven planets.” Ruth pointed to a table where seven men were sitting. “They are the Society Against Nihilistic Causation Terrestrial Authority (SANCTA). They will escort those two to the East-West Mining Company’s automated starship, the Tierra del Fuego, where they will be put to work feeding coal into a blast furnace. The mining barge goes back and forth throughout an alternate universe smelting ore deposits it finds. They will be busy for a long time.”
“Oh, thank you Ruth.” My dad fell to his knees. He clung to Ruth crying.
Ruth lifted him up, gave him a hug and then handed him a signet ring. “Here is your new identity. Safeguard it.”
Dad looked at the ring. Engraved on its face was a name in Proximanian, one he couldn’t pronounce.
“And, I want you to join SANCTA. Here, you will need these goggles.”
“What is this? I have VR goggles.”
“These are UR goggles – Ultimate Reality goggles. You’ll see better when you go fishing.”
Dad fell back into the booth limp.
“You look exhausted.” Ruth motioned to a waiter, “Bring them some warm bread. I will bring the wine. It’s time to celebrate. You two won’t need these menus.” Ruth picked them up. “ You’d like the special of the day.”
“Ruth, what is the special of the day?” dad asked.
“I’ve already paid for your meal.”
©Jennifer A. Johnson, 2018, All Rights Reserved
August 27, 2016 Leave a comment
Saturday morning and the wet putty-looking sky appeared ready to ooze. The drive to Urbana from Chicago would take Daniel about three hours, three monotonous hours, he decided. Driving Fear and Trembling, his ’74 Toyota Corolla past the 200,000-mile odometer reading might provide an unwanted distraction. But then again, Daniel pushed himself and everything around him.
An automation engineer for a major utility, Daniel spent his week days programming relays and SCADA systems. Today’s trip would be a welcome break from the uncompromising detail of parameters and protocols. The Preacher would be speaking at three that afternoon. If all went well, Daniel would make Kankakee, the halfway point between Chicago and Urbana for a quick lunch and then head out to find the location of the tent meeting. He hoped there would be some signs along the way.
Heading south on I-57 the FM reception became intermittent and garbled after several miles. Daniel poked the AM button. The AM reception offered farm reports – corn, soybeans, wheat and livestock futures. He rolled up the window. The smell of hog farms was overpowering. “No wonder the prodigal son came to his senses,” Daniel chuckled trying not to gag.
Daniel recalled his early church years. They seemed no different from driving in this morning’s grey sanctuary. Every service was a font of recycled baptismal water. Sing a hymn. Listen to the choir or a soloist. Sing another hymn. Welcome and announcements. Then, pass the offering to the organ’s melodramatic droning. Sing another hymn and then settle in on a hardwood pew for evangelistic preaching. At the coda of the sermon there would be the invitation from the pulpit to come forward. You were told your options beforehand: one could receive Jesus; one could rededicate their life to Jesus or; one could choose missionary service in the name of Jesus. A trifecta of submission was sure to put smiles on the faces of those still sitting in the pews. Not unlike those folks Daniel had imagined who, at the end of a prescription commercial on TV, had received their medicine and were now brimming with wellness. It seemed to Daniel that placebos were being doled out by the Great Physician’s assistants.
Daniel cringed at the thought of the same words, the same preaching and the same altar calls week after week – a stagnant pond that never saw fresh water. Wash, rinse and repeat with the same water, the same people, Sunday after Sunday. Come thou Fount of Every Blessing!
But in the Bible Church the Lord’s Supper, a Remembrance only, was thrown in at monthly intervals. The hiatuses were necessary, as Daniel was admonished from the pulpit by Rev. W.E. Staputis, so as to not make the congregation too familiar with the Lord’s Body and Blood. But it must have been OK that the rest of the hidebound dog-eared script would be acted out week after week until “we all get to heaven.”
Later, when Daniel began to attend an Anglican church, the irony of attendance to ritual wasn’t lost on Daniel. But inside the liturgical tradition he found sacred beauty, a beauty that had been stripped from the Free Church. And he found at its center the Eucharistic Feast.
Multiple times each week the Eucharist was provided. The rector had told him that he could meet the Real Presence of the Lord in the Body and Blood. This resonated with Daniel like nothing else had. The search for the Real Presence was how Daniel had begun his pilgrimage to wholeness. The journey would end at the feet of Jesus.
When Daniel told his family about his new church, they wondered about his Christianity. “Just so long as they preach the gospel and sola scriptura,” Daniel’s father said.
Daniel told his father that there were Scripture readings. He told his mother that he benefitted greatly from The Book of Common Prayer. And he told everyone who would listen that The Great Feast was the pinnacle of the service and not the sermon. And he told them about the altar call – Christians who wanted to meet the Lord in the Body and Blood.
Rain splattered in waves onto the windshield. The wipers were squeaked into service with a twist of the steering column arm. Bored, Daniel turned the AM dial. He tuned in a commercial.
“Today, the Covenant Faithfulness of God Church will hold a tent meeting near the Urbana campus at 3:00. The Preacher will be speaking: “Many of you have been raised under a nuts-and-bolts systematic post-enlightenment dispensational theology or Classical Mechanics. And with those Mechanics your theologians have built a large palace surrounded by high walls. But they live in the guard house! They want you to live in the guard house, too! The church’s Classical Mechanics are ever vigilant against non-rational elements, against non-mechanical elements. But you, if all you are under the microscope is DNA, then you are of all men most pitiable!
Mystery and paradox have been turned away from the gates of your theologian’s Rational Mansions. Newtonian preaching does not allow for uncertainty and mystery in such a clockwork universe. Wonder and beauty have been scrapped. Instead, canned Post-Enlightenment theology feeds the church’s ennui and anti-intellectualism. And did God create the world in seven days? No! Was creation recorded in seven cartoon strip panels so as to satisfy idle Sunday minds? No!
Now many of you who are world-weary have made a leap toward Epicureanism. You avoid pain of thought and persecution of the sensate by seeking pleasure and positive reinforcement from mega-church preachers who demand nothing of you but your time and dollars. My work among you is to be a corrective to your loss of passion and the subjective, to help you discover something thought cannot think – a Quantum Theology, if you will. I will be making difficulties everywhere. I will not be talking theological niceties!”
Daniel tried to make sense of The Preacher’s words. Daniel tried to make sense of The Preacher – Mary Nard, formerly Mark Climacus. What was a woman like Mary doing in the same man space as Jesus?
By now, though, such absurdities were welcomed by Daniel. They posed a mystery outside of the color-inside-the-lines Bible Church. And, the radio sound bites of The Preacher had pinged his very soul. This presented another mystery that Daniel hadn’t made sense of: the fact that he felt like crying at odd times.
It wasn’t the aloneness. Daniel had lived alone for many years. He had come to see this peculiarity as a blessing. Why, even some of his best friends had once talked of living as ascetics and becoming monks. And, in the solitude Daniel’s imagination had come alive and with it a desire to seek revelation.
Daniel thought of his past church life as having been served within the cinder blocks of reason and the mortar of sentimentality. Beauty and extra-Biblical anything had been “Calvanized” for fear of idol worship, of worshipping the creature and not the Creator. Worship of the Bible was considered OK, though, as were the Sunday School’s coloring pages of Jesus. And how could he forget the huge sign above the choir loft: “The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.” Maybe that was why he felt like crying at odd times.
Or, was his sadness due to anticipating getting what he deserved or the dread of what he desired? He was convinced there was something to his inopportune melancholy. It had him dragging his feet but never to work.
Daniel embraced the complexity of automation engineering. He had coded SCADA systems which captured and controlled information. The system’s end process would conduct electricity from place to place. It was honest and rewarding work. Still, something had found his soul’s cyberspace address and was pinging.
Daniel pushed the radio buttons looking for another AM station. Finding a signal, he tuned the station and out came Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. It had been years since he had played trumpet in the university orchestra. He pursed his lips and began to buzz them. Then suddenly the steering felt light and loose. He tightened his grip on the wheel, eased off the gas and muttered, “God help me.” The car came under control but the pavement’s accumulated rain continued to slosh up under his car. The force created a loud “scrusssh” that every few seconds wheezed up through the passenger side floor board sounding like cardboard tearing. He had been divorced because of his snoring.
And since the divorce it seemed to Daniel that his life had been remanded over to purgatory, his ex-wife signing the decree. His children had weathered the excommunication trial but held their judgment inside parsed sentiments to their father who was to remain in exile.
“Classical hour’s programming has been brought to by Illinois Generational Farming. See their website for more on centennial and sesquicentennial farms, agriculture and Illinois family farm history.”
“I screwed up, God. I know. You needed to remind me today?”
“Today, the Covenant Faithfulness of God Church will hold a tent meeting near the Urbana campus at 3:00. Here is The Preacher: “And if your right hand trips you up, cut it off and throw it away. Yes: it’s better for you to have one part of your body destroyed than your whole body to go into Gehenna. And there are some of us who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. If anyone can receive this, let them do so.”
“Hear The Preacher today at three. Now back to our program.”
“Well, that will be an interesting. Now back to the classics. Here for you now is Dmitri Shostakovich’s Festive Overture led by Dmitri Shostakovich.”
“Ah, something I played in high school. Daniel wiped off the fog from the windshield. The Toyota’s defogger wasn’t keeping up.
“Kankakee” the sign read. “Gas and Guzzlin’” the next sign read. Daniel pulled into the service station. While the gas tank was filling Daniel checked the dipstick. It was down a quart. He looked under the Toyota to see if there was any oil on the wet pavement. There was an oil and water mix that reflected a spectrum of colors. A promise? Of what? Daniel walked into Gas and Guzzlin’, paid for gas and bought a quart of 30W. Outside he pulled some paper towels from the holder, removed the oil cap and poured the oil. Daniel figured that at 200,00 miles his old friend had a right to be incontinent. Rain began to pound the canopy over his car.
Inside the Guzzlin’ part of the service station Daniel pulled a bottle of water from the cooler and paid the cashier. He reckoned that he didn’t have time for a sit-down lunch. The rain wasn’t letting up. And now there was wind. The rain was slashing through the air sideways. Reports coming out of the TV above the counter warned of a hail storm in the next county. “Swell.” Daniel wasn’t worried about the Toyota other than more rusted parts detaching. But he was worried that he would miss the tent meeting.
He opened the station door and looked around. To his left folks were scurrying from their cars toward the door. To his right was a row of potted Petunia’s. The rain was pummeling the blossoms. At the end of the row and next to the door was a pot of defiant-looking cigarette butts. He ran under the pump canopy and then got into his car. Once inside he noticed a sharp smell that reminded him of the time he spent working near a paper mill. He looked over to the passenger side floor. The red placemat from Lom’s Garden restaurant had become stuck to the cardboard. The cardboard covered the softball size hole in the floor where the floor board had rusted through. The placemat’s red ink had leached onto the cardboard creating a blood-red mishmash of running words and figures. The semi-pulp smelled like rotten eggs.
Daniel carefully lifted the cardboard. He took one last look at the placemat before tossing it. He read out loud: “1952. You are a Dragon: You are eccentric and your life complex. You have a very passionate nature and abundant health. Marry a Monkey or a Rat late in life. Avoid the Dog.”
The torrential rain meant he had to drive slowly. He turned the headlights on and the AM station and began driving.
“Today, the Covenant Faithfulness of God Church will hold a tent meeting near the Urbana campus at three o’clock. The Preacher will be speaking. Here is a short clip of The Preacher from yesterday’s meeting: “Wonder and beauty have been sieved from the living waters of the church. Many of you have joined the Church of the Four Newtonian Spiritual Laws and the Church of the Distant Shore. Many of you have joined the Church of Cheap Grace. What of your lampstands?
There are those in the church today who are mirroring and abetting a deist, an agnostic and an atheistic culture. They offer nothing of the Kingdom of God and the New Creation. The Kingdom of God is here and now. This is the age to come.
The threadbare intellect of many Christian is alarming! And where are the Christian artists, the composers, the writers, the playwrights and poets? God’s recreation of his cosmos is taking place here and now.
Forget the “We’re-Gonna-leave-this-screwed-up-world-behind” Manichaeism of the paperback novels. The world must know that we are here as God’s recreated recreators. We are to bring God’s restorative justice to His cosmos here and now! As it says, “God has created us in King Jesus for the good works that he prepared, ahead of time, as the road we must travel.”
Now, someone once told me that I would never be beautiful. But it was God who looked at my heart. And it was God who created me in his image and is now recreating me to conform to the image of his Son, to fit into His vestments, since I have clothed myself in Christ. So, how could I not be beautiful? Or, accepted by God?
And it was in the law courts of God where I was declared righteous. This was not because I was assigned or imputed righteousness. Rather, I was declared righteous when I trusted in God’s covenant faithfulness! God keeping His word from ages past is all the predestination you need to know about. God’s covenant faithfulness has been recorded in Scripture for all to see. Yet many theologians today have systemically parsed Scripture imputing Post-Enlightenment meaning onto Scripture. The whole of Scripture must be read in its context to begin to see the whole plan of God for renewing his cosmos.
Now, we must learn to be Kingdom people who walk in synchronicity with the Spirit. The flesh must not have its way. That is how all of us used to behave, conditioned by physical desires. We used to do what our flesh and our minds were urging us to do. What was the result? We were subject to wrath in our natural state just like everyone else.
We are to put off the flesh and become whole. And the church – the body of Christ – is to be the composite of each individual’s wholeness in Christ. With our differences and backgrounds, we must come together to glorify God with one mind and one mouth and tell all creatures the good news.
The church is not for itself. It is for the mission of bringing God’s Kingdom restoration to His creation. The church is not a supper club or a country club or a club of positivism thinkers. It is for equipping the saints to do this mission. It is to send us unto all creation to proclaim that “Jesus is Lord.” That is the gospel.
“Today, The Preacher will be holding a churchyard tent meeting at the Covenant Faithfulness of God Church, Urbana, at three o’clock.” The AM station then returned to music.
The rain never let up until Daniel crossed Urbana’s city limits.
It was past 4 o’clock. Daniel asked for directions to the tent meeting. Within minutes he was on the church grounds looking for The Preacher. The meeting had ended. The assembly was dispersing, heading to their cars. A woman holding a young child noticed Daniel craning his neck outside the car window. “If you are looking for her, she’s over there,” pointing to The Preacher standing in the far corner of the church yard.
Before he had a chance to shut it off the car’s engine shuttered to a stop. Then the car produced what sounded like a gassy sigh. Daniel bolted out of the car and had to leap over a large puddle outside the car door. As he did there was a loud popping noise under the hood and then a hissing sound. Turning toward The Preacher he began taking long zigzagging strides over the slick ground. He reached The Preacher.
““Hi, I’m Daniel. From Chicago.”
“You have been listening to me on your way down here, Daniel.”
“How did you know that?”
The Preacher laughed, “I paid for a ton of air time on the AM stations and you are late. What can I do for you?”
“Well, yeah, I missed the meeting so I just wanted to give you thanks and a hug. You seem so down to earth now that I see you in paradox. I mean… in person.”
“Come here.” The Preacher and Daniel hugged.
“Have you found what you were looking for? The Preacher asked.
“Well, I need to find another car.” Daniel pointed across the yard to a cloud of steam and the onlookers.
©Sally Paradise, 2016, All Rights Reserved
July 28, 2016 Leave a comment
Ezra grabbed his pipe and headed out the door. He walked behind the garage and out of the wind. Holding the bowl of the briar pipe, he filled it with Cavendish from a pouch. The flame of his lighter bent into the bowl as he inhaled in short gasps. The glowing tobacco soon released a familiar otherworld aroma that pleased Ezra at times like this.
Only moments before Delores had been yelling, nose to nose, at Ezra, her white spittle flecking his face. “You’re a mealy-mouth pea brain,” she told him.
Now no matter how he figured, Ezra was never sure about what it was that added up to make Delores so furious almost every night. She did find him once looking at a woman posed in a two-piece bathing suit on the internet. And that night she accused him of adultery. And after that night Ezra wouldn’t be allowed to ever to forget the error of his way. Delores’ slurred ‘reminders’ of that day were so often and so vivid that Ezra became a serial “adulterer” by proxy.
But Ezra was sure that the Margaritas and wine Delores had been drinking before he came home from work had taken possession of her. There would be no reasoning with Delores that night. Time and a safe distance would be required to maintain Ezra’s sanity, but face to face rebukes and then a full-throated rejection would have to come first.
Burning with alcohol fueled anger Delores would declare, on more than one occasion, “I am going to my mother’s house for the night!”
And so off she went. And each time she did Ezra wanted to call the police and tell them that Delores had been drinking and shouldn’t be driving. But he did not call. What if she accused Ezra of abuse or something else just as crazy as what he was hearing night after night? Her amplified “righteous” indignation seemed to know no bounds. And though he hated himself for not calling the police he also wanted to be rid of the madness for a few hours. In the still house Ezra thought of his kids, asleep in the car, and cried.
Though Ezra couldn’t define what ignited Delores’ anger for days on end, he did know what irked him. When asked by a marriage counselor what each of them wanted from the other, Delores said “words of affirmation.” Ezra took this to mean “show Delores that he loved her.” And though he awoke early and had taken her coffee and chocolates to her bed in the morning before going to work and had often given her flowers, he wasn’t verbal to the extent Delores was. He had to work out the words of love.
In the same counseling session, Ezra had asked Delores to have coffee with him in the morning before he left for work. The afternoon return home would be filled with the kids and Delores wanting attention from him. But time spent with Ezra in the morning would never happen. Delores’ late night wine drinking and movie habit had her sleeping in past the time Ezra went off to work. Ezra never did work out the words to say what bothered him, though each day came and went as before. But Ezra didn’t need words for a pipe in his hand and the smell of pipe tobacco in the air. On his fiftieth birthday he had bought a pipe.
Reflecting night after night with pipe and a briar of glowing Cavendish and at a distance from the incendiary, Ezra soon came to realize that his fallible existence was Delores’ problem. Delores had come into the marriage hoping that Ezra would make all things new. She wanted someone to take her in, to cover her mortality with a cloak of look-the-other-way love and be the transcendent one – a kinsman redeemer. But the Fallible One turned out to be a “mealy-mouth pea brain” that could do no right. The Fallible was to be put out, the embers dumped and scattered. After a year of paralyzing quarrels and unrelenting verbal abuse, Delores told Ezra that she wanted a separation. “Get out or I will force you out!”
Upon hearing these words, Ezra grabbed his pipe and headed out the door. He walked behind the garage and out of the wind. Holding the bowl of the briar pipe, he filled it with Cavendish from a pouch. The flame of his lighter bent into the bowl as he inhaled in short gasps. The glowing tobacco soon released a familiar otherworld aroma that pleased Ezra at times like this.
© Sally Paradise, 2016, All Rights Reserved
June 19, 2016 Leave a comment
a vignette 
Laurel moved into a two-bedroom apartment on Joy St. with her children. The divorce meant selling the house and saying goodbye to the neighborhood where her kids played and where their skittish sheltie nervously barked at passers-by.
Now living in an apartment with young kids and no support money– Laurel’s ex could not work – Laurel composed her resume. She began to seek out work wherever she could. But the economy was hobbling along. The positions she could fill were limited and usually far from home. When an employment agency finally found job openings Laurel was told that employers were afraid to hire long term employees. So, Laurel became a temp.
Temping, as Laurel would find out, meant that she would likely hear on a Friday afternoon that the manager didn’t need her anymore. And so on Mondays, as had become her routine over several years, Laurel would call the temp agency and see what else they had for her.
Outside of work Laurel took care of her kids and paid the bills. And when there was a small amount of extra cash Laurel purchased cut flowers. She would put them in vase for the center of the kitchen table. And when there was extra time Laurel composed poems, short stories and articles. The ones she liked she would post on her blog. Her motivation for her writing came from what she took in. She also read when time allowed.
As such, Laurel never called herself a writer. That was unthinkable to her. Besides, her time reading and writing had become for her a home away from home that her former church friends used to provide when she was married. Since the divorce, though, those friends no longer came around. She felt being single kept her from being invited to the couple’s gatherings. But after the move new friends came along.
Laurel attended a different church after the divorce, a church closer to her apartment. One friend, Margaret, helped Laurel when she needed to go in for a medical procedure. The anesthesiologist required Laurel to have someone drive her home after the procedure. Margaret was happy to do so. Once the procedure was completed and Laurel was awake, Margaret drove Laurel home and brought her lunch. Laurel was grateful. She wrote a thank you note to Margaret.
As was her habit, Laurel would bath and dress her kids and take them to church each Sunday. And each Sunday morning, as was her habit, Laurel would write a check. In the memo field she’d pen “of Thine own have we given Thee.” It was her way. And she thought God had His. One time she heard the rector say that “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away.” Laurel couldn’t argue with that.
It was only a few years before that Laurel had learned that her 18-year-old son had been killed in a freak car accident. His car had flipped over on a dry frontage road in Texas. There would be no answer as to why. Laurel took in the crushing news. And when she did she felt as if the ground she had been standing on all her life also collapsed. But her grief did not give way. Sorrow was added onto sorrow.
Years before Laurel’s college roommate had died in a car accident on the way to her roommate’s wedding rehearsal dinner. Laurel was shaken by the news. The loss of her close friend and roommate was devastating. Nothing before had so affected Laurel. As such, Laurel wrote a note of consolation to her roommate’s parents, recalling her roommate’s friendship and kindness. But the loss of her son would affect her like nothing before.
It wasn’t long after Laurel’s son’s death that her marriage fell apart. Their son’s death was more than each could handle. The loss compounded the problems in the marriage. The marriage gave way to divorce. Laurel had to take this in and move on.
One day in her new life something happened. Laurel would hear about that day later from her rector.
As her rector recounted, Laurel had been in a car accident. She had been stopped at red light when a large truck plowed into the rear of her car. Laurel went unconscious after her head hit the steering wheel and then whipped back to the headrest.
Laurel could recall little of that day. As ER nurses pumped fluids into Laurel she would go in and out of consciousness: “my kids? …how…? … there is so much pressure inside my head! … I feel sick to my stomach… my neck hurts so bad …How am I paying for this? …Death? …Ohhh…I just want to sleep forever.”
After that day and months of excruciating pain that Laurel could never begin to describe to her doctors, Laurel would receive several steroid shots. She wanted to stop the stabbing nerve pain that shot down from her neck and down her right arm and created tingling in her index finger. And when the shots didn’t relieve the acute pain she chose surgery. It would take two surgeries to fuse vertebra in her neck. Then finally the severe nerve pain had been stopped. But, chronic neck pain and relentless headaches continued. And when someone she loved declared himself, at that time, to be an atheist she thought the stabbing pain had now reached her soul. “Life, you’re killing me!” she would say to herself.
Now the thought of her death had never occurred to Laurel until those wavering sentient moments in the ER. She later told the rector what had gone through her mind that day. And she also told him, “there is such a deep well of pain inside me that if I ever were to draw from that well I may not make it.” The rector winced and nodded and remained silent. Then Laurel laughed, “At least with pain, I know I am alive. And I can’t write when I am dead. Oh life, you are killing me!”
© Cindy Wity, 2016, All Rights Reserved
January 31, 2016 Leave a comment
~~~
A brief history of your universe, Hamlets Moderne:
Modern man, what a piece of work. Wired framed with thick strands of Epicureanism, a 3rd century BC philosophy that sees God as remote, man now considers himself the centerpiece of the universe and without need for a Potter’s hands. So what if the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old and you are an of late attendee!
The Roman poet Lucretius, a disciple of Epicurus’s teachings and someone who lived about 70 years before Jesus, promoted the “god is angry” meme along with Epicurean atomism, the original theory of evolution. And so today, even when a person finally comes to believe in God, they do so through Epicurus’ eyes and ears. What then do we mean when we say God is silent? Perhaps, “Why, God must be angry.” “God must be off somewhere.” “God is just like us and not easy to get along with.”
Plastered onto modern man’s Epicurean wire frame is chewed-paper papier-mâché reason. The paper, formed into the shape of the Thinker, became The Enlightenment. And, with man in a newly acquired coat of shellac – solipsistic authority – God was no longer deemed incommunicado but rather God was deemed dead. As such modern man would soon decide that truth-seeking should be divided up into natural science and natural science. Faith was sent to purgatory to wait its turn.
“Indeed, the Enlightenment was, as a whole, one long determination to get rid of the big, bad boss upstairs. That is why one of the main drivers was the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Had there been a god who was running the show, he certainly wouldn’t have allowed such a thing, on All saint’s Day in particular, when everyone was inside the collapsing churches. So, with Voltaire and others, Europe pushed God upstairs out of sight, and many in America followed suit.” N.T. Wright, Surprised by Scripture.
Then came German psychology: “God must be like your father and you hated your father ergo you will likely trend lesbian.”
And French intellectuals: Michel Foucault (1926-84) “was driven by an intense desire to find a substitute for communion with God.” Foucalt saw truth as a “regime” of beliefs and values linked to systems of political and economic power, a scientific, non-universal apparatus feeding into majority opinions.” For Foucalt truth was never objective and eternal but rather truth was seen as subjective and based on regimes of power (what my friends let me get away with saying) and changeable over time.
Democracy and your mind on self: “Freedom of thought and freedom of speech were proposed in theory, and in the practice of serious political reformers, in order encourage the still small voice of reason in a world that had always been dominated by fanaticism and special interests. How freedom of thought and speech came to mean the special encouragement and protection of fanaticism and interests is another of those miracles connected with the decay of the rational political order. Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind
Then, there’s Deconstructionism in all its chewed-paper on-the-floor glory: Interpreted truth with its suppression of reason through ‘creative means’ has replaced objective truth – more papier-mâché thinking. Subjectivity has become prominent, removing true context or history – and redefines knowing as “I thought it therefore it must be true.”
Speaking of subjectivity: Moral relativism deconstructs truth to form a synthesis of good and evil. Subjectivism now rules. The only thing allowed to be absolute are no absolutes, except as science dictates absolutes.
In bed with the American Dream: Academia has morphed from being a generator of intellectual pursuit into an assembly line for vocation. Student loans have been taken out with the expectation that a job will be handed out (for any area of study) along with a diploma at graduation. But, with no job forthcoming one is ‘left’ with no recourse other than to make others pay for my education. “I was promised one thing and didn’t get it. And, God, if there was a God, would be just like the system.”
Take me to the American Dream on time: Evangelical churches have pushed the gospel of the American dream (education, marriage, children, house, family, success in life, freedom, etc.) and not the Kingdom of God. “Didn’t God promise me success if I played by the rules I voted for?”
That, my friends is a very brief (and not all-inclusive) history of your universe. Hopefully you have begun to see why your modern thoughts might be projected onto God as doubts. Your brain’s debit card has been preloaded with many debits.
“They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.” Emily Dickinson
Is God silent? I do not think so. I believe that man has tuned out God on his every channel. Mankind has stopped looking for bread crumbs under the table. The bombarded hints are there. Or, as Oswald Chamber posited:
“Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him. The way to make room for Him is to expect Him to come, but not in a certain way. No matter how well we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that He may break in at any minute. We tend to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way. Suddenly—God meets our life “…when it pleased God….”’
“Keep your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point. Live in a constant state of expectancy, and leave room for God to come in as He decides.” Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, Leave Room for God
~~~
Is this true? I wonder: the only time, the only time that God has been utterly silent towards a member of the human race was in reply to Jesus when he cried, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me.”
~~~
Upcoming post: Quantum Theology and The Dispensation of Synchronicity
January 3, 2016 Leave a comment
August 5, 1971, 316
Soldiers under fire in a trench near An Thi. 1966
So, no man is an…but you’re living in no man’s land. You owned your loneliness for four years and you named it Army…your universe is now expanding and your social capital is diminishing. Your universe has become dense, clammy and regulated.
As above. ‘Nam looks the same in every direction, down range left and down range right. Soldering under a blazing dying star I’m So Lonely pangs your gut. “Who knows I’m alive within the uniformity of this f*cked up universe?”
Lonely, I’m Mr. Lonely I have nobody for my own I am so lonely, I’m Mr. Lonely Wish I had someone to call on the phone
Now I’m a soldier, a lonely soldier Away from home through no wish of my own That’s why I’m lonely, I’m Mr. Lonely I wish that I could go back home.
You gasp in nostalgia while taking your sights. But the green, green grass of home recedes into jungle cover not yet deforested by Agent Orange.
The rules of nightmares begin. You aim your M16 and focus on anything that brings peace inside… and then maybe to the world.
Original Caption: Emergency Transfusion. Dak To, South Vietnam: During a bloody battle, when a soldier is wounded and needs a transfusion, it takes place there on the spot, in the battle zone. Here, a G.I. gets a transfusion near infamous Hill 875, captured by American forces after some of the most violent fighting of the war in Vietnam. North Vietnamese troops poured heavy mortar fire on an artillery base near Dak To and the Special Forces camp in Kontum, 40 miles to the South.
To home and beyond you will go…but not before tomorrow and not before you meet your only True Friend…
316, Don’t Let Me be Misunderstood:
December 12, 2015 Leave a comment
…”let earth receive ….” the Light of the World. 
~~~
“People sometimes say that science deals with facts but religion simply trades in opinion. In other words, science’s concern is with truth, understood as correspondence with reality, but the best that can be said of religion is that it might be ‘true’ for an individual, but only in the weak sense that it was helpful for that particular person to look at life in that particular way, without necessarily implying anything about the way reality actually is. Two bad mistakes lie behind this claim…” John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth
Mistake #1: When it comes down to it any scientific fact is interpreted fact, a well-motivated opinion about one-dimensional information. Scientific phenomena are comprehended within other interpreted facts and within a personal cosmology. Any discovered fact is unique to an individual until in the process of truth-seeking it is corroborated by others seeking truth. A well-motivated belief then begins to grow that what you have found is consonant with an elegant and repeatable universality. Yet,
“Belief in scientific realism is well-motivated, but one cannot claim that it is logically proved to be true beyond any possibility of question, as if it would be willfully stupid for anyone to deny….the progress of science, with the changes of understanding that can result from this, make it clear that scientific achievement cannot be claimed to constitute the attainment of complete and absolute truth. Instead, science’s exploration of reality must be seen as resulting in the creation of ‘maps’ of the physical world which are indeed reliable, but only on a particular scale.” John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth (emphasis added)
Science ‘maps’ reality in terms of how, how much, how often, and of what terrain – matter and space-time. But a scientist’s impersonal encounter with ‘hard data’ generated from experimentation is self-limiting…
“Science’s declining to engage with the personal dimension of experience implies the limited character that it can give of reality. A scientist, speaking as a scientist, can say no more about music than it is vibrations in the air, but speaking as a person there would be much more to say about the mysterious way in which a temporal succession of sounds can give us access to a timeless realm of beauty.” -John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth
Beyond the wonderfully apparent discoveries of science, science certainly has ongoing areas of mystery. Consider that today we have a better understanding of quanta (small packets of energy) and yet scientists cannot readily explain the oxymoronic wave and particle theory of light. To unlock such mysteries inquisitive scientists as truth seekers will test their postulates using experimentation. Their theory will employ a certain amount of belief in and expectation of a supposed outcome. The final experimental data is then evaluated against theory. Science’s truth seeking process goes on in this fashion, seeking truth about a physical reality….except when ideology becomes its handler…
“environmentalism is school prayer for liberals.” Harvey Mansfield, Professor of Government at Harvard University
“Settled science” happens. Though science seeks to understand and map the physical world, science can easily be channeled into populist scientism ‘maps’ where fact is rerouted with ideology meant to produce a certain political outcome. The misconstrued and falsified data behind Global Warming Alarmism is pure scientism. In fact something of religious cult has now formed around a metaphysical belief in Global Warming. And, ‘outsiders’ who do accept such a far-fetched and unverifiable belief are called “deniers”.
The Global Warming cult leaders (Al Gore, Barack Obama, John Kerry, UNFCCC) preach their scientism as “settled science” in order to discharge any further truth-seeking. The light of day was not meant to shine on their furtive agenda – their ends, world-wide redistribution of wealth, justify their means of environmental alarmism and population control (a la John Holdren).
Science can be used to deny other means of truth-seeking. The New Atheists came onto the scene after the horrific 9/11 attacks. The New Atheists love to use scientific reasoning, not for truth-seeking, but for their dismissal of belief in God, a God who would allow 9/11. As such the science they comport is piecemeal and typically not readily provable, such as the (preexisting!) Quantum Foam messaged by Quantum Fluctuation equals Universe theory (Alexander Vilenkin). Then there is their use of the multiple universes theory that says that our universe is one of infinite possibilities wrought out of chaos and therefore (even so!) a Creator is not warranted.
The New Atheists, in scientific tone, try but cannot reasonably tell us how humans received a self-consciousness (Who am I? Why am I here? What about life after death?). Nor can they tell how we became intelligent, language based, moral agents and altruistic. Science cannot tell us how. Strict logical analysis fails to tell us how.
But strict logical analysis can tell us about the extreme fine-tuning found in the universe, a fine-tuning that makes earth inhabitable for life. Yet, The New Atheists, again in scientific tone and avoiding a Creator outside of themselves, will serve up the Anthropic Principle as the reason for fine-tuning – – the universe just happened to be because of us, we needed the universe to fit our needs.
“The odds against a universe such as we have are fantastically great, and so are the odds against the emergence of life and the advent of intelligence.” –Dr. Amir D. Aczel, mathematician and author of Why Science Does Not Disprove God
Something to ponder: “If Albert Einstein had not discovered general relativity, no doubt it would eventually have come to light through the labor of others, but if J.S. Bach had not composed the Mass in B Minor, that great work of art would have been lost to us forever.” John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth
Now consider a perfect circle and perfect square, Plato’s ideal forms. Consider that mathematicians accept that numbers, equations and geometry exist on their own and outside our physical universe. One would have to then ask, How do we know what is perfect? And, how do we know that an equation is simple and beautiful?
For now, in the interest of brevity, see one-dimensional interpreted science as only one of two addends in the following equation. An insufficiency of either one will cause a lower sum: 
Science + religion = truth-seeking
~~~
“I am the Light of the World.” -Jesus
“Why is it that when we talk to God we’re said to be praying, but when God talks to us we’re schizophrenic?” Lily Tomlin
Mistake #2: Religion isn’t concerned about fact and therefore requires no reason.
True Christianity is truth-seeking. I perceive Christianity as using a microscope (natural theology), eyeglasses (systematic theology) and a telescope (philosophical theology) to seek out and record what is true. Central to true Christianity’s claim on a person is, not unlike science, a focus on truth, a truth ultimate and unchanging, an ‘atomic’ truth that you can set your soul’s machinations to. Truth, scientific truth and Christianity, is freedom.
It was Jesus who said, “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Now I don’t think Jesus was talking about the Big Bang at the start of this manifest Creation, but He certainly let fly freely both matter and a ‘hair less’ antimatter and then the requisite bosons to form elements and to later compose you and me.
Christianity seeks to know the truth about why and who and from that derived knowledge goes on to the phenomenology of altruistic behavior, something evolutionary science cannot explain or ever reproduce.
Christianity is a personal “come and see”. Science is also a personal “come and see”. And whereas a scientist’s impersonal observations becomes a universally accepted theory through experimentation and corroboration, so too a Christian’s personal observations are corroborated by Scripture and by a chorus of others singing the same tune.
Christianity is centered on the facts of a person. This person, Jesus Christ, claimed to be God, very God, the Creator. Now, imagine very God limiting himself and taking on the form of a servant in evolved flesh – once a single cell amoeba later into ape-hood and then prehistoric man and then to mankind! I cannot fathom this emptying of God but it is true.
Consider the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus is a historical fact witnessed by hundreds of people.
We find a record of Jesus’ life and his death and resurrection in the four Gospels. The Gospels are written by close friends and followers who would die for Jesus based on their own eye-witness testimony. Would a scientist die for any discovered truth?
Keep in mind that Pontius Pilate found no fault with Jesus and yet found no reason to keep him alive, either. He asked “What is truth?” but Truth would be put to death in order to save his reputation
Like science religion can be perverted by powerful figures or groups into false religions and death cults with a phenomenology of terrorism. Acknowledging that no one group has all truth would be a major step toward abandoning the ‘settled theology’ of Islamic terrorism and the ‘settled science’ of global warming.
How should science and Christianity relate?
“Fundamentally, the two disciplines of enquiry should be thought of as cousins under the skin because of their shared truthful intent. Both operate under the rubric of critical realism, claiming the attainment of well-motivated beliefs, but not asserting the achievement of absolute certainty. The religious recognition of this fact is expressed in the understanding that believers walk by faith and not by sight…Religious faith dos not demand irrational submission to some unquestionable authority, but it does involve rational commitment to well-motivated belief.” – John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth
There is simply too much information about both science and religion to fit this post and to do justice to both truth-seeking disciplines. Besides you need to get ready for Christmas.
The wisest of men still seek Him…Study hard.
~~~
Now for something completely relevant: you could buy a book about soccer and read about the game as it is delineated (the scientific approach) or you could watch Men in Blazers for a ‘metaphysical’ explanation of the game (the religious soccer zealot approach). Actually, both approaches play the whole field and score goals.
November 20, 2015 Leave a comment
Charlie Sheen: ‘I’m here to admit that I am HIV-positive’
Tiger Blood – The elixir of no limits
This headline caught everyone’s eye this past week. Sheen’s admission reminded me of a visit to a LGBT support group several years ago.
Back then I was doing research for a blog. As a Christian I wanted to know what topics were being discussed among LGBT members and how I could address them as a Christian. I began to see that many churches were becoming rainbow ‘inclusive’. And being a person of discernment and a defender of the faith I knew that sheep were going badly astray in name of Christ.
Love knows No Boundaries and No Boundaries is HIV positive.
I meant to publish the results at the time but I was repulsed by what I learned. I felt unclean and in need of cleansing. Honestly, I didn’t want to even think about that day.
I publish the story now because people need to know the truth about the LGBT community and about the sex addicts, like Charlie Sheen with his “psychological escapism.”
Prior to this visit I had visited two other LGBT support groups in Chicago’s Oak Park area. So, this report is not a one-off.
I had decided to attend a LGBT support group meeting in a town not far from me. The meeting time and place were published online. The meeting was described as a “Transgender Support Group Meeting”. It took place on a Sunday afternoon. So after church I made my way to the northwestern suburb of Chicago and the community building.
As I entered the building I knew that I would stand out. I couldn’t say that I was gay or relate to their ‘issues’ or experiences. And my being there as observer might affect my observation, much like someone in a quantum mechanics setting trying to accurately specify position and momentum at the same time: the more precisely one property is known, the less precisely the other can be known (aka, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle).
I found the meeting room and the leader. Rosie (not ‘her’ real name) greeted me. Rosie approached me in a floral dress with long hair shrouding guy features. She was the “T” of LGBT.
Rosie introduced me to the thirteen attendees. Looking about me I saw various older men in women’s attire, many with beards and facial hair. “OK” I thought, are they transgender or transvestite? I waited for the answer to reveal itself.
Rosie brought the meeting to order. After going over the minutes of the last meeting Rosie went on to new business.
New business: the next meeting date and time; meeting men in a nearby forest preserve; introducing the speaker.
The speaker: Rosie introduced Jim (a pseudonym he used) as “someone who will teach us about AIDS.” “We are required to talk about public health related issues once a year since we are federally funded.”
Hearing that, I perked up hopeful that some good would come out of his talk. But, as the Uncertainty Principle would have it, an HIV ‘donor’ stepped up front and center instead.
Jim told his story: abandoned by his father he was raised by his mother – a pattern all too common in the LGBT individual’s history. (The loss is of a parent whether of abandonment or divorce or by verbal denigration by the other parent is usually never dealt with adequately by children alone. It is brushed under the ‘I love mom” rug. And soon an ad hoc ‘parent’ is sought to fill the emotional need. In doing so the person moves into homosexuality and the group experience of the LGBT community, which supports emotional and sexual co-dependence.)
Jim proceeded to talk about his homosexual experience. He had been with so many men that he didn’t know the count. He talked about going to Boy’s Town on the north side of city of Chicago and the bath houses he visited. He then mentioned that he had contracted AIDS from someone there. At this point he gave no warning or advice. He simply, unabashedly, stated that he continued to have sex with men in these places. His words of defense: “These guys know what they are getting into.” That was the end of his talk about AIDS.
Two of us out of the dozen or so listeners sat stunned. No questions were asked of Jim. As a newbie I shamefully kept my mouth shut until I could voice my concern to the leader of the group. And I did. I said that “this man should be put in jail.”
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Here is a slightly dated news story that accurately depicts the “New Business” discussed above. Note the criminality of AIDS transmission:
[Kane County Forest Preserve District Chief Charles] “Budde told the Courier News that the sting didn’t target gay men, though he did tell WCT, “We’ve never arrested a woman for that. It’s always been males.””(emphasis added)…
“In addition to the public indecency charges, one man was also charged with three counts of solicitation of a sex act and attempted criminal transmission of HIV. Hogle told WCT that the latter charge came after both the man and his wife independently told officers that he is HIV positive.”
“Criminal transmission of HIV is a Class 2 felony, according to a 1989 law, punishable by three to four years in jail or a $25,000 fine. Under state law, a person is guilty of the offense if he or she, knowing that they are HIV positive, “engages in intimate contact with another,” transfers potentially infectious bodily fluids or sells and/or exchanges non-sterile intravenous drug paraphernalia.” (emphasis added)
SEX STING IN KANE COUNTY; NAMES REPORTED
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Now comes …
Charlie Sheen: ‘I’m here to admit that I am HIV-positive’
The safe place- within bounds
Tiger’s Blood does not make one invincible, nor does a Supreme Court ruling. What you let into your life is what you have to live with. Boundaries (and borders) are life and death important.
Cindy Wity 