Got To Admit It's Not Getting Better
How about this for a theory of life? "Nothing will get better and there's nothing you can do about it". It's what you might call 'the cynical approach'.It's a true statement of course. No one can dispute it.
Well, actually I can dispute it. Technology gets better. Although it would be fun to own a wind-up Victrola, I would probably put a house plant in it. I can watch Charlie Chaplin movies at home in my pigsty and, because of digital restoration, they look as fresh and clean as they did in 1925.
Oh. And I'm not dead yet! (you may find this hard to believe). I had rheumatic fever when I was a kid and if Penicillin hadn't been invented, I would have died. But it was, and I lived. Yippee! But I got a severe heart murmur out of the deal and by the time I was thirty I needed open heart surgery to fix it. But, guess what? Somebody had figured out how to do it.
So I got to keep living and beget and raise my beautiful dear daughters. So medicine got better.
What about poverty? To quote Jesus out of context like everybody else does, "The poor will always be with us." And, guess what? He was right. I will even go out on a limb and suggest the human race as a whole is poorer and needier than it was two hundred years ago. Check it out in the Department of Boring Statistics.
What about child murderers? Well, who can know? People never talked about horror in the old days. But I read a theory once that the werewolf legend evolved from actual medieval child killers in the peasant villages of France. Or what about that count in medieval times who lured little kids to his castle so he could do unspeakable things to them?
What about me? How come I have to have a moral struggle with myself every time I hand out the pie? How about you? How come you still want to sneak off with the biggest bowl of chocolate pudding? You're a grownup! You should know better! Even if you don't actually sneak off with it.When I was six I didn't have a moral struggle about it. I just lined up all the chocolate pudding bowls on the counter, decided which one had the most pudding in it, and served that one to ME.
I have been reading Evil and the Justice of God. Author N.T. Wright suggests there is at least one thing postmodernism and Christian theology have in common. Both agree there is something wrong with humans and it isn't going to change.
Postmoderns say we're not going to change for the better because we can't. We have no moral center, and we can't have one. Hey babe, you just a bag of swirling emotions. "I" is an illusion. So you're not around to take responsibility for your actions, and you grab for what you want. Maybe ALL the chocolate pudding! (Somebody who has studied postmodern thought please write in and improve this.)
Christians call it "The Fall". The idea that there is a deep and fatal flaw in us all that will prevent our world from ever really getting better. Because we have a deep desire to grab what we want and never think what it's like to go to bed without any chocolate pudding. Who cares? Get out of here, kid, before I take your strawberry Jello too! Hah! Little shit!
Here's what the Pondering Pig thinks: Thomas Jefferson was right. The price of anything ever getting better for more than a minute is eternal vigilance. Do I have to spell it out?
Photo credits - Alienation girl: UMBC Arts & Culture Calendar,
Evil Medieval: GameSpy Archive,
Pudding box: Amazon
Labels: Simple Justice
posted by Christopher Newton at 8:20 AM
5 Comments:
Personally, I prefer tapioca.
I think I'll hang out with Jesus, thank you. He's pretty much in agreement with you about the state of the world, but he shares the pudding and suggests we do the same.
I have to share???
My family knows, if I have a special piece of chocolate...I don't share it. Maybe I should, but I get all "BACK OFF, IT'S MINE!!!"
I share everything else. Just not chocolate.
I've been considering this post for the better part of a day. It's a real conundrum.
See, it appears things have gotten better. Sweatshops have been consistently disappearing only to be replaced by last-ditch, one notch above poverty jobs. No one goes hungry, generally speaking, and pretty much everyone goes to school and has a place to get out of the weather.
AH, you say. But what about the rest of the world? What about all those places where people just need that little $650.00 loan to buy some seeds or a cow? What about the countries where despots subjugate and even kill their own people? What about the prevalence of violence, murder, addictions in our own country? The list never ends does it?
The world keeps turning whether we do anything about it or not. We have the illusion, most of us, that what we say and do matters and matters big time. We think we have something to offer, and maybe we do. Most likely, though, we won't do anything much with it. We're lazy, most of us. Much easier to sit home and grouse and complain than to go out and say something or do something.
Sometimes we go to war to straighten out all those wrong thinking evil people somewhere else. The verdict is still out, for me anyways, whether that answer is all that productive.
I recall reading an interview with Mother Theresa shortly before her death. The interviewer asked how she could minister to the dying, the disease ridden, the unbelievers for so many years and keep going back for more? Her answer? She tried always to see the face of Jesus in every person she encountered, Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem...
I'm sure she had her moments of frustration and disappointment, but when your goal, your passion, is to serve God rather than yourself, there is consolation and peace even when you fail.
It's hard to explain in a way that non-christians understand, I think, because it sounds so absurd. Why not take care of number one first? How can selfless activities possibly please anyone?
In that respect, things aren't getting better either, but nor are they getting any worse. It's sometimes just a matter of statistics. Number people have said that the total number of people that have lived on the earth since the beginning of people is around 12 billion. Of that 12 billion, half of them are alive right now. Kinda staggering, isn't it.
It always comes back to that old notion which some consider quaint and wacky, to think globally and act locally.
"Surrender your crown on this blood-stained ground, take off your mask,
He sees your deeds, He knows your needs even before you ask.
How long can you falsify and deny what is real?
How long can you hate yourself for the weakness you conceal?
Of every earthly plan that be known to man, He is unconcerned,
He's got plans of His own to set up His throne
When He returns."
-Bob Dylan, "When He Returns"1979
I don't have to share my pudding because I am a selfish little pig! Ha ha!
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