Have you heard the latest “health” news? It seems that going to church—I mean really going, so regularly that folks notice when you’re absent—not just going at Christmas and Easter and whenever completely convenient and the barometric pressure is right and none of the kids are kicking balls and no relatives are visiting and the dog feels okay and your athlete’s foot isn’t acting up . . . Well, it seems that going to church regularly can make you fat.
According to an 18-year-long study presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association, “people with a high frequency of religious participation in young adulthood were 50 percent more likely to become obese by middle age than those with no religious participation in young adulthood.”
The cutesy question posed by msnbc.com contributor Diana Maples in her article about the study, is this: “Are church attendees praising the lard along with the Lord?”
I’m not sure if the study pointed the finger directly at potluck dinners, but the msnbc.com article certainly pointed in that direction. Come to think of it, although I’ve been to a bunch of potluck dinners (and many about as close to heaven as we’re likely to get here), I’ve never been to one where bean sprouts or rice cakes occupied a very prominent place.
But such a study does bring up some other questions.
I wonder how long it will be before the food Nazis lobby for laws requiring a nutritionist be posted at the doors of church fellowship halls, or that dishes for potlucks carry nutrition labels? Lockstep legalists are always very religious about making more laws and are even more scared of freedom than of fat, whether they’re religious otherwise or not.
Of course, I’m not completely convinced yet that never drinking milk that a cow would actually claim, swearing off cheesecake henceforth now and forevermore, and carefully trimming off some of the finest parts of every cut of meat will necessarily make you live all that much longer anyway. I am absolutely convinced that it will certainly make life seem a lot longer.
I’ve got another suspicion, too. I’m guessing that religious people are much more likely to get fat if they attend relatively small rural churches. I’ve been to a few of what pass for church dinners in big city mega-churches, and let’s just say, as charitably as possible, that I can’t imagine anyone getting fat there. If you want a potluck dinner that’s a religious experience, you better shop elsewhere.
According to the article, the study’s lead investigator did say that while obesity may be an “issue” for religious people, “previous studies have shown that the faithful tend to live longer, be less likely to smoke, and to have better mental health.”
In any case, if you happen to come across any manna from heaven, I guess you better look for a nutrition label. You look. I’ll go get the butter.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
The Sins of the Spirit Are Always the Deadliest
A few years ago, I did something I’d never done before. Along with two writing partners, I tried my hand at penning some short pieces for what we hoped might become a series of gift books.
We had in mind some little volumes entitled something like, “Dear Mom,” “Dear Dad,” “Dear Teacher,” etc. I even pitched a name for the series: “Endearables.” The writers were named Barnett, Shelburne, and Shelburne. (I christened us BS-squared.)
Alas, most small publishers aren’t interested in gift books and the big boys already have plenty of folks writing plenty of that kind of stuff, so our efforts will likely never turn into ink. But it was a lot of fun lining up words with my brother and our dear friend Joe Barnett.
Thinking of Joe recently, I remembered another piece he wrote. Joe’s one of those athletic insomniacs who gets up way too early to run way too far, and has for years. I expect him to live to be 120.
In his essay, Joe talked about the kinds of dangers a runner worries might mess up a good run: dogs, big trucks, SUV’s, etc. But one day he realized that those obvious threats are less truly dangerous than the ones a runner barely thinks about. Runners worry about dog bites but rarely think much at all about mosquito bites, West Nile virus, encephalitis, etc. Joe made the excellent point that in our lives we tend to worry about the big and obvious sins—theft, drunkenness, murder—when in fact the less obvious threats to our souls such as bitterness, resentment, an unforgiving spirit, and so on, may be far more deadly. In fact, the sins of the spirit are always the deadliest of all.
Consider self-righteousness, for example. All self-righteousness is religious but religion is not the object of all self-righteousness. Whenever our noses go up—at work, at play, or at worship—and we play the snob, it’s just like the little skunk raising its tail. Things are about to get stinky. People learn to recognize the signs and usually have enough sense to back away if they can.
Self-righteousness is, of course, a form of pride, and pride is by its nature competitive. It’s not enough to be good at what we do, we must consider ourselves better at it than those around us. We take what’s good and twist it. It is good, for example, to be conscientious in our work, but it is not good to think that we are more conscientious than, well, almost anyone else. If we beat the daylights out of the people around us, we needn’t be surprised when we end up friendless and alone. Fellow strugglers make excellent friends. Folks we’ve put down and think we’ve bested in almost every area? Not so much.
So, don’t you just hate being around self-righteous people? Careful now. It’s possible to be self-righteous about not being self-righteous.
See what I mean? The sins of the spirit are always chasing us, ready to bite us on the backside.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
We had in mind some little volumes entitled something like, “Dear Mom,” “Dear Dad,” “Dear Teacher,” etc. I even pitched a name for the series: “Endearables.” The writers were named Barnett, Shelburne, and Shelburne. (I christened us BS-squared.)
Alas, most small publishers aren’t interested in gift books and the big boys already have plenty of folks writing plenty of that kind of stuff, so our efforts will likely never turn into ink. But it was a lot of fun lining up words with my brother and our dear friend Joe Barnett.
Thinking of Joe recently, I remembered another piece he wrote. Joe’s one of those athletic insomniacs who gets up way too early to run way too far, and has for years. I expect him to live to be 120.
In his essay, Joe talked about the kinds of dangers a runner worries might mess up a good run: dogs, big trucks, SUV’s, etc. But one day he realized that those obvious threats are less truly dangerous than the ones a runner barely thinks about. Runners worry about dog bites but rarely think much at all about mosquito bites, West Nile virus, encephalitis, etc. Joe made the excellent point that in our lives we tend to worry about the big and obvious sins—theft, drunkenness, murder—when in fact the less obvious threats to our souls such as bitterness, resentment, an unforgiving spirit, and so on, may be far more deadly. In fact, the sins of the spirit are always the deadliest of all.
Consider self-righteousness, for example. All self-righteousness is religious but religion is not the object of all self-righteousness. Whenever our noses go up—at work, at play, or at worship—and we play the snob, it’s just like the little skunk raising its tail. Things are about to get stinky. People learn to recognize the signs and usually have enough sense to back away if they can.
Self-righteousness is, of course, a form of pride, and pride is by its nature competitive. It’s not enough to be good at what we do, we must consider ourselves better at it than those around us. We take what’s good and twist it. It is good, for example, to be conscientious in our work, but it is not good to think that we are more conscientious than, well, almost anyone else. If we beat the daylights out of the people around us, we needn’t be surprised when we end up friendless and alone. Fellow strugglers make excellent friends. Folks we’ve put down and think we’ve bested in almost every area? Not so much.
So, don’t you just hate being around self-righteous people? Careful now. It’s possible to be self-righteous about not being self-righteous.
See what I mean? The sins of the spirit are always chasing us, ready to bite us on the backside.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
What We Need Is a 24-hour Courage Cycle
I’m increasingly convinced that the modern 24-hour news cycle blesses almost no one.
With nothing really new to report, even in the midst of the kind of crises the talking heads love to talk about, and talk about, and talk about, the never-pausing news organizations become a kind of TV Twitter assailing those of us who would almost be willing to pay NOT to receive moment by moment updates on our friends’ tying their shoes, eating an exceptionally moist bran muffin, or de-clawing their cat. I’m tired of the twitter-pation. Makes you want to throttle the canary and cease the tweets.
In the midst of the incessant news downpour, one thing is amazing: how quickly a real news story displaces pseudo-news. No doubt about it—when last Friday the terrible earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster hit Japan, actor Charlie Sheen’s on-going meltdown was finally relegated to the back page where it belonged all along.
What’s going on in Japan is real and heartbreaking news, news that the world needs to know about. And, as is always the case in crisis and tragedy, some heartwarming cases of courage and self-sacrifice rise to the surface and inspire us all.
This morning on the news I watched one Japanese couple in their 70’s digging through the ruins of their home and already beginning to clean up and rebuild. They didn’t seem to be waiting for or blaming their government; they just worked with the kind of quiet courage that seems to be characteristic of so many of Japan’s people. That kind of non-glitzy bravery is inspiring. And inspiring on another level is the courage of fifty self-sacrificing workers who have chosen to stay at work in their damaged nuclear plants to try to stave off further disaster.
While those folks are dealing with disaster, our talking heads are, of course, handwringing and searching out all sorts of talking head experts.
On the networks this morning I saw experts of two different types. One was from MIT; he makes his living figuring out how to make things work. Another was of the “Concerned Scientist” variety; he makes his living being scared and scaring others.
Of course, we want our nuclear plants to be as safe as possible, and I’m sure we have much to learn from what’s happening right now. But I suspect we need more and safer nuclear power and not less. If Ben Franklin flying his famous kite had been fritzed by lightning, we’d likely all still be using candles. But perception always trumps reality and the fraternity of the furrowed brow often paralyzes progress. Flying really is safer than driving, but one picture of a crashed jetliner . . .
In any case, 24-hour news is, it seems to me, probably 23 hours too much. What successfully living this life does seem to require, though, is 24-hour courage, and that’s found only in trusting the right Source of power.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
With nothing really new to report, even in the midst of the kind of crises the talking heads love to talk about, and talk about, and talk about, the never-pausing news organizations become a kind of TV Twitter assailing those of us who would almost be willing to pay NOT to receive moment by moment updates on our friends’ tying their shoes, eating an exceptionally moist bran muffin, or de-clawing their cat. I’m tired of the twitter-pation. Makes you want to throttle the canary and cease the tweets.
In the midst of the incessant news downpour, one thing is amazing: how quickly a real news story displaces pseudo-news. No doubt about it—when last Friday the terrible earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster hit Japan, actor Charlie Sheen’s on-going meltdown was finally relegated to the back page where it belonged all along.
What’s going on in Japan is real and heartbreaking news, news that the world needs to know about. And, as is always the case in crisis and tragedy, some heartwarming cases of courage and self-sacrifice rise to the surface and inspire us all.
This morning on the news I watched one Japanese couple in their 70’s digging through the ruins of their home and already beginning to clean up and rebuild. They didn’t seem to be waiting for or blaming their government; they just worked with the kind of quiet courage that seems to be characteristic of so many of Japan’s people. That kind of non-glitzy bravery is inspiring. And inspiring on another level is the courage of fifty self-sacrificing workers who have chosen to stay at work in their damaged nuclear plants to try to stave off further disaster.
While those folks are dealing with disaster, our talking heads are, of course, handwringing and searching out all sorts of talking head experts.
On the networks this morning I saw experts of two different types. One was from MIT; he makes his living figuring out how to make things work. Another was of the “Concerned Scientist” variety; he makes his living being scared and scaring others.
Of course, we want our nuclear plants to be as safe as possible, and I’m sure we have much to learn from what’s happening right now. But I suspect we need more and safer nuclear power and not less. If Ben Franklin flying his famous kite had been fritzed by lightning, we’d likely all still be using candles. But perception always trumps reality and the fraternity of the furrowed brow often paralyzes progress. Flying really is safer than driving, but one picture of a crashed jetliner . . .
In any case, 24-hour news is, it seems to me, probably 23 hours too much. What successfully living this life does seem to require, though, is 24-hour courage, and that’s found only in trusting the right Source of power.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
This Eulogy Is a Little Unusual, But . . .
I’ve never done a eulogy like the one now forming in my head.
The little old fellow whose death I heard about this afternoon was quite a character, and I hardly know how to put my impressions of him into words. Anyway, I won’t get to speak at his service. It’s already happened. He passed away around noon, and the burial took place this afternoon with just a few very dear friends in attendance.
But I’ve been thinking about the ol’ boy ever since my four-year-old granddaughter called to tell me that he’d died. We’re really gonna miss him.
A little perspective is called for here. The Bible tells us that God sees when even a sparrow falls. A crashed sparrow, on the whole scale of world tragedies, hardly tips the scales much. But God says that he sees. I’m guessing that means God also saw today when his world suddenly became one pug short of a full load of dogs.
Yes, the deceased was a dog, an old pug named Zig.
For this to be a really good eulogy, I should firm up some of the early details of Zig’s life. None of us know much about his early years. What we do know is that Randy Hall, the other favorite grandfather of my granddaughter, rescued him from the dog pound and brought him home years ago to his kids, Amy & Tyler. When Amy married my son Jeff, Zig came along.
Among his other hobbies, fishing was, in earlier days, a passion. Randy had a pond in the yard, and Zig loved to jump in and chase the fish. Zig actually ended up at the vet’s because too much fishing was causing fungus to grow between his toes.
When Jeff & Amy were expecting Brylan and were fixing up the house, you could see Zig’s mental wheels turning. He was sure the renovation was for him! “Oh, you shouldn’t have, but this is so thoughtful of you!” Then here came the baby. Oops!
But Zig soon fell in love with Brylan and she with him. She’d climb all over him, pull his ears, pet him, hug him, and he was fine with it all. As she got older, she’d grab his collar and lead him to the bedroom where she’d “read” him stories from her books. She’d dress him up in her Disney princess clothes, and he just strove pugfully onward and handled it fine.
As he got older, he began to cough and splutter and behave just like a little old man. I fully expected him to come around the corner Churchill-like with a smoking cigar in his mouth and holding a glass of Scotch.
Yes, he was a character, and I liked him a lot. After all, we both loved the same little girl. He was her “Ziggy-boy” and had personality to spare! And if you think it’s silly for a guy to eulogize a dog, well, sorry, but I don’t much care (and you’ve never had a really good dog).
I’m still thinking about God and sparrows. I’ve never been really close to any sparrows. But I sure thought a lot of a pug named Zig.
The little old fellow whose death I heard about this afternoon was quite a character, and I hardly know how to put my impressions of him into words. Anyway, I won’t get to speak at his service. It’s already happened. He passed away around noon, and the burial took place this afternoon with just a few very dear friends in attendance.
But I’ve been thinking about the ol’ boy ever since my four-year-old granddaughter called to tell me that he’d died. We’re really gonna miss him.
A little perspective is called for here. The Bible tells us that God sees when even a sparrow falls. A crashed sparrow, on the whole scale of world tragedies, hardly tips the scales much. But God says that he sees. I’m guessing that means God also saw today when his world suddenly became one pug short of a full load of dogs.
Yes, the deceased was a dog, an old pug named Zig.
For this to be a really good eulogy, I should firm up some of the early details of Zig’s life. None of us know much about his early years. What we do know is that Randy Hall, the other favorite grandfather of my granddaughter, rescued him from the dog pound and brought him home years ago to his kids, Amy & Tyler. When Amy married my son Jeff, Zig came along.
Among his other hobbies, fishing was, in earlier days, a passion. Randy had a pond in the yard, and Zig loved to jump in and chase the fish. Zig actually ended up at the vet’s because too much fishing was causing fungus to grow between his toes.
When Jeff & Amy were expecting Brylan and were fixing up the house, you could see Zig’s mental wheels turning. He was sure the renovation was for him! “Oh, you shouldn’t have, but this is so thoughtful of you!” Then here came the baby. Oops!
But Zig soon fell in love with Brylan and she with him. She’d climb all over him, pull his ears, pet him, hug him, and he was fine with it all. As she got older, she’d grab his collar and lead him to the bedroom where she’d “read” him stories from her books. She’d dress him up in her Disney princess clothes, and he just strove pugfully onward and handled it fine.
As he got older, he began to cough and splutter and behave just like a little old man. I fully expected him to come around the corner Churchill-like with a smoking cigar in his mouth and holding a glass of Scotch.
Yes, he was a character, and I liked him a lot. After all, we both loved the same little girl. He was her “Ziggy-boy” and had personality to spare! And if you think it’s silly for a guy to eulogize a dog, well, sorry, but I don’t much care (and you’ve never had a really good dog).
I’m still thinking about God and sparrows. I’ve never been really close to any sparrows. But I sure thought a lot of a pug named Zig.
Monday, March 7, 2011
One Day on a Mountain Changed the Disciples' View Forever
Metamorphosis. It’s a cool-sounding word. I like the way it rolls off the tongue.
It’s one of those words that we’ve just trucked in completely “as is” from one language—in this case, Greek—right over into English. You see, “metamorphosis” comes from the Greek word—wait for it!—“metamorphosis.”
“Meta” has to do with “change,” and “morphe” has to do with “form,” so metamorphosis has to do with a change of form, a transformation. It’s a great word for what happens when, for example, a caterpillar changes into a butterfly—a wonderful metamorphosis.
Franz Kafka once wrote a short story dealing with a not-so-wonderful metamorphosis. He wrote about a guy who woke up one morning and discovered that he’d turned into a cockroach. Sounds weird, I know, but I’m afraid it happens more often than we’d like to think. It seems to be pretty much what Charlie Sheen is experiencing right now.
Four-year-old granddaughter Brylan was breathless last week as she was telling me some Bible stories she’d just learned, and, come to think of it, a metamorphosis was involved. She told me about Moses’ staff being changed into a snake! She told me about a river in Egypt being changed into blood. Metamorphosis! (She also told me of how God’s people painted blood on the doors of their houses and that if you stayed outside your house, you’d die, and so people went inside their houses and watched TV.)
When we come to Chapter 17 in Matthew’s Gospel, we come to the story of a very important change that three of the disciples witnessed. Up on a high mountain, they witnessed that amazing transformation as Jesus’ face suddenly “shone like the sun” and his clothes became as “white as light.” Moses, the great lawgiver, and Elijah, the great prophet, appeared and began to talk to Jesus, the real Sacrifice for sin the law could only point toward, the greatest of all prophets. Then the voice of God boomed from heaven: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
Before long, Jesus would suffer and die, and the disciples would endure great perplexity before the Resurrection and Pentecost. But they had seen the glorified Lord. They’d heard the benediction of Heaven. They’d seen Jesus “transfigured” before their very eyes, and they would never forget.
Jesus was still their friend, their teacher, their companion. But he was also, as Peter had famously confessed, the very Son of God. They saw more clearly than ever before what the Church has for centuries now affirmed as central to our faith: Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. Yes, it is a great mystery, but no belief which affirms anything less than the miracle of both of those great truths is good enough.
He is our Lord and our God, fully human and fully divine, full of grace and truth, full of love and glory.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
It’s one of those words that we’ve just trucked in completely “as is” from one language—in this case, Greek—right over into English. You see, “metamorphosis” comes from the Greek word—wait for it!—“metamorphosis.”
“Meta” has to do with “change,” and “morphe” has to do with “form,” so metamorphosis has to do with a change of form, a transformation. It’s a great word for what happens when, for example, a caterpillar changes into a butterfly—a wonderful metamorphosis.
Franz Kafka once wrote a short story dealing with a not-so-wonderful metamorphosis. He wrote about a guy who woke up one morning and discovered that he’d turned into a cockroach. Sounds weird, I know, but I’m afraid it happens more often than we’d like to think. It seems to be pretty much what Charlie Sheen is experiencing right now.
Four-year-old granddaughter Brylan was breathless last week as she was telling me some Bible stories she’d just learned, and, come to think of it, a metamorphosis was involved. She told me about Moses’ staff being changed into a snake! She told me about a river in Egypt being changed into blood. Metamorphosis! (She also told me of how God’s people painted blood on the doors of their houses and that if you stayed outside your house, you’d die, and so people went inside their houses and watched TV.)
When we come to Chapter 17 in Matthew’s Gospel, we come to the story of a very important change that three of the disciples witnessed. Up on a high mountain, they witnessed that amazing transformation as Jesus’ face suddenly “shone like the sun” and his clothes became as “white as light.” Moses, the great lawgiver, and Elijah, the great prophet, appeared and began to talk to Jesus, the real Sacrifice for sin the law could only point toward, the greatest of all prophets. Then the voice of God boomed from heaven: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
Before long, Jesus would suffer and die, and the disciples would endure great perplexity before the Resurrection and Pentecost. But they had seen the glorified Lord. They’d heard the benediction of Heaven. They’d seen Jesus “transfigured” before their very eyes, and they would never forget.
Jesus was still their friend, their teacher, their companion. But he was also, as Peter had famously confessed, the very Son of God. They saw more clearly than ever before what the Church has for centuries now affirmed as central to our faith: Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. Yes, it is a great mystery, but no belief which affirms anything less than the miracle of both of those great truths is good enough.
He is our Lord and our God, fully human and fully divine, full of grace and truth, full of love and glory.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Morning "Blessings" Can Easily Turn Sour
One of my favorite bits of wisdom is Proverbs 27:14: “If anyone loudly blesses their neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse.” It comes right before another great one: “A quarrelsome wife is like the dripping of a leaky roof in a rainstorm” (27:15).
I take verse 14 to mean that on any given day before, say, 9:30, the most civilized and eloquent thing to say is nothing. Speech early in the day rarely improves on silence.
Back to verse 15. God has blessed me with a wife who is not at all quarrelsome, but this morning she pretty well flew in the face of the aforementioned verse 14. No quarrel ensued.
Of necessity, my wife, on several days a week, gets up earlier than I do. (She likes to have a devotional quiet time early, and that’s good.) I am the son of my mother and tend to do my best work in the peace and quiet of late evenings. I’ve never understood why folks get all gushy about early risers and are not nearly as teary about those of us who work long hours burning the midnight oil.
Most of the time, once my wife is up, I’m already approaching consciousness, but the real wake-up call comes when she bangs on the TV and the obnoxiously perky and loud morning show anchors start spewing out their verbal drivel.
This morning was worse than usual. First, she assaulted me by loudly singing a medley of the “Good Morning to You/Rise and Shine!” sort of stuff. Then she turned up the volume on a morning show, and good grief!
The TV folks are all atwitter about an unbelievably spoiled and self-destructing TV star. The guy’s face and voice are on every channel, and you could not possibly find a better (worse!) example of what happens when we become our own gods and abandon ourselves to our own worst appetites. He’s completely out of control and spiraling toward despair, effectively dead already. Not fun to watch.
Then, right after that heartwarming piece of pseudo-journalistic voyeurism comes another. Regarding homosexuality, Canadian journalist Robert Davies wrote, “The love that dare not speak its name has become the love that won’t shut up.” The next “news” interview was with a gal I used to think was kinda cute who has now decided to “come out” and write a lucrative tell-all book. Great.
Maybe I do need to get up earlier, before the drivel starts. The quiet of the morning really is a good time to read God’s word, something I’m afraid we Christians talk about a whole lot more than we do. It’s a good time also to devote to reading some truly good books by, say, folks who have walked with the Lord down through the ages. Some good ones are being written even today. It’s strange. Living in a supposedly literate land with so many good books and the Good Book itself never more available, we so often choose to be basically illiterate. We stand knee deep in spring water and die of thirst rather than drink.
I could be in a bad mood. I blame the morning shows.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
I take verse 14 to mean that on any given day before, say, 9:30, the most civilized and eloquent thing to say is nothing. Speech early in the day rarely improves on silence.
Back to verse 15. God has blessed me with a wife who is not at all quarrelsome, but this morning she pretty well flew in the face of the aforementioned verse 14. No quarrel ensued.
Of necessity, my wife, on several days a week, gets up earlier than I do. (She likes to have a devotional quiet time early, and that’s good.) I am the son of my mother and tend to do my best work in the peace and quiet of late evenings. I’ve never understood why folks get all gushy about early risers and are not nearly as teary about those of us who work long hours burning the midnight oil.
Most of the time, once my wife is up, I’m already approaching consciousness, but the real wake-up call comes when she bangs on the TV and the obnoxiously perky and loud morning show anchors start spewing out their verbal drivel.
This morning was worse than usual. First, she assaulted me by loudly singing a medley of the “Good Morning to You/Rise and Shine!” sort of stuff. Then she turned up the volume on a morning show, and good grief!
The TV folks are all atwitter about an unbelievably spoiled and self-destructing TV star. The guy’s face and voice are on every channel, and you could not possibly find a better (worse!) example of what happens when we become our own gods and abandon ourselves to our own worst appetites. He’s completely out of control and spiraling toward despair, effectively dead already. Not fun to watch.
Then, right after that heartwarming piece of pseudo-journalistic voyeurism comes another. Regarding homosexuality, Canadian journalist Robert Davies wrote, “The love that dare not speak its name has become the love that won’t shut up.” The next “news” interview was with a gal I used to think was kinda cute who has now decided to “come out” and write a lucrative tell-all book. Great.
Maybe I do need to get up earlier, before the drivel starts. The quiet of the morning really is a good time to read God’s word, something I’m afraid we Christians talk about a whole lot more than we do. It’s a good time also to devote to reading some truly good books by, say, folks who have walked with the Lord down through the ages. Some good ones are being written even today. It’s strange. Living in a supposedly literate land with so many good books and the Good Book itself never more available, we so often choose to be basically illiterate. We stand knee deep in spring water and die of thirst rather than drink.
I could be in a bad mood. I blame the morning shows.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
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