Demons of Stupidity

Scott Adams writes “Dilbert.” It is some funny stuff. Last week he did a series in which there is a new worker named “Jesus” which is pronounced as “hay-soos.” Like clockwork, several Christians wrote in to complain. Below is one of the emails Scott Adams received. Please pay attention to the response.

Hello! Mr. Adams,
Mr. Adams I just want to tell you that I don’t really appreciate you making a mockery of my faith. I used to think that your comic strip was funny, now I think it is very disgusting and not funny at all. I have found your last comics strips in reference to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ very offensive. There is a place for everything and there is a place for humor and humor has its limits, especially when it comes to those things and issues that some of us hold as sacred. I will pray for you and that some day you may come to know Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Otherwise you will find Him some day as your judge, and He will justly judge you for your sins and whether or not you believe in Hell that day you will believe and you will repent when you see Him face to face, but then it will be too late. Repent from your wicked ways and stop making fun of my Savior.
Thanks for your time.
Pastor (name deleted),
California

The Response from Scott Adams:
Thank you for taking time out from feeding the poor to complain about comic strips. I know Jesus would have played it the same way.
Scott

Steady

Last night some friends and I watched a movie about the holocaust. It traced a young boy's trek from freedom to captivity to freedom in about two hours. The wonder of cinema was able to condense several years into several minutes. Similarly, on my bookshelves I have a number of biographies. In just several hundred pages, they condense decades of life. Television, too, routinely summarizes hours, days, weeks, months and years into bite size segments.

Life is more like a river than a waterfall. It can meander from place to place. In some places it deepens and in other places it is shallow. There are rapids here and calm pools there. No matter what its momentary course, no matter what its state, it flows. It moves steadily in one direction. Like a well-lived life, it moves steadily, day by day, in one good direction.

Faith

Faith is not always believing that the Father will do something for us if we "believe enough." It is not some sort of cosmic positive thinking.

Very often faith is believing that the Father is present and engaged when circumstances and events give every indication that he is absent.

Wisdom to See

You cannot help someone who doesn't want help.
You cannot change a mind that is not open to the truth.
You cannot move someone who is determined to stay.
You cannot give sight to someone who will not open their eyes.

But, there are many here among us who want help. There are many who seek the truth. We know people that want to move to a better place. We will meet people today who are squinting because their eyes are still adjusting to newfound light.

We cannot help those who do not want help. But, there are so many, many who do.

Follow the Light

This morning, as she was getting ready to go to work, I could tell where my wife had been because the lights were on wherever she went. In each room where she had stepped, the light was on. In the bathroom, the bedroom, the closet and in the kitchen, she left a trail of light. (To her credit, she did turn them all off before she left...Kathy is environmentally friendly.)

I wonder if I will leave a trail of light wherever I go today. Will I leave reminders of hope, grace, truth and love? Will I leave the people I meet better off than when I encountered them? Will the Father's light which shines on me shine from out of me? Will I leave a trail of light?

Out of Sight...

I was visiting the hospital recently and I began to think about the ways we like to separate ourselves from suffering. We place sick people in hospitals, we ship older folks to rest homes, we institutionalize the severely mentally and physically challenged and we confine the poor to certain areas of the city. Out of sight = out of mind.

Now, the point of these thoughts is not to question the necessity or value of hospitals, nursing homes or special care facilities. Nor am I trying to solve the problem of poverty. However, the point I am trying to make is how easy it is to avoid the inconvenient and the unpleasant. It is infinitely easier to ignore the difficult than it is to engage the difficult. Not seeing a problem helps me to ignore any attempt to solve it.

Life, as it really is meant to be lived, is messy, difficult, unpredictable, beautiful, joyous, painful, crushing, exhilarating, bitter and sweet. To miss the difficult is to miss part of the experience.

What? Huh? Oh yeah....

“Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.” - Karl Menninger

“You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time." - M. Scott Peck