“It isn’t that I don’t like current events, there have just been so many of them lately.”
-Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage
This little saying appears as the caption to a cartoon, and I couldn’t have put it any better. John Piper says ‘don’t waste your life.’ I say don’t waste your life watching 24 hour news channels.
I recently listened to several talks given by Martyn Lloyd-Jones to the Christian Medical Fellowship in the 1970’s. These talks are pure gold for a number of reasons. First, even as one who took a full semester on pastoral counseling in seminary, and as a student of psychology, his talk on the subject of counseling is far more thought-out, rational, spiritual, and balanced than anything I’ve ever heard. Second, his precise method of diagnosing the spiritual, physical, and psychological problems is clear and helpful. I will never forget it. Third, his take on demon possession is intriguing and helpful. Fourth, his handling of questions from his listeners is masterful. I do not think I have ever heard someone handle a question and answer session so logically and thoroughly. I will re-listen to the Q and A just to soak up how he answers questions. Finally, as someone who works in the pharmacy industry, his take on medicine is tremendously helpful and it is amazing to note how many of his predictions in the ‘medicine in modern society’ talk have come true.
These talks are worth a listen just to hear such logic in action, not to mention that they are tremendously helpful for someone in any sort of pastoral or medical field. I am of the opinion that, at least in America, the role of medicine is going to be a central area of pastoral concern in the years to come. We are often concerned about technology as the main thrust of the issues coming down the pike, but we must consider that medicine is a big part of modern technology. From ADHD meds to anti-anxiety drugs, we need to be aware of what is going on in our pews and how it effects our people. These talks are extremely helpful for the principles they set forth concerning such issues.
Links:
The Supernatural in Religion and Medicine
Q & A on Healing and Demon Possession
In the past, only a few professions – doctors, plumbers perhaps, emergency service technicians, prime ministers – required this kind of state of being constantly on call. Now almost all of us live this way.
– John Freeman, The Tyranny of Email, p. 7
I have been one of the dinosaurs who have refused to buy a smart phone. I already feel like I’m ‘on call’ enough as it is. I see men and women, boys and girls, living as if their phones are surgically attached to their hands, and it makes me wonder just where we’re headed. I recently met a little girl, probably about 9 or 10 years old, who told me she couldn’t live without her iPhone. I assured her that she could. She doesn’t know what she’s signing up for, or what it might cause her to miss.
I do not think that there is anything intrinsically bad or wrong with texting, or email, or social media of course. Like most things, it comes down to how we use them, and if we can live without them. If you can’t live without it, it has effectively become an idol. And, as I’ve heard Tim Keller say, referring to Elijah’s showdown with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, your God will either bleed for you or demand that you bleed for him. Only one God bleeds for you, but many demand that you give your life to them.
As I post quotes from this book, and as I post reflections on the state of modern communication technology, my only intention is to store up insights from the book and offer reflections on how we might make our own bleeding stop. How can we use such technology as a good gift from God without allowing it to effectively take his place in our priorities and use of time?
You can see my little poetic take on the matter HERE.
My wife and kids are out of town tonight, so I took up one of my favorite hobbies -playing the guitar. After playing a few songs I started roaming the interwebs looking for new material to learn. I happened across THIS acoustic rendition of Sweet Child O’Mine performed by Slash.
So, as I sat in my living room floor watching this man work wonders with an acoustic guitar, I would glance from time to time at my own guitar and think to myself, ‘imagine the potential of this instrument.’ I cannot bend strings like this man. I don’t have the coordination of this man. I don’t have the years of experience this man has. This man has a wonderful talent. And, perhaps, his guitar is nicer and more expensive than mine. Yet, if he were to pick up my guitar he could do things with it that I cannot imagine myself doing. My guitar has tremendous potential that has not been brought out because of my own limitations.
They say that they great sculptors can look at a piece of rock or clay and see images in them waiting to be carved, or molded, out. It is their imagination and skill that brings these images into reality.
Coal can become a diamond if we don’t burn it up first. The potential is there.
As I followed this line of thought an argument I had heard from Leon Kass came to life in an instant. Kass, the former Chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics under George W. Bush, was recently interviewed concerning the Kermit Gosnell trial. In the interview, he briefly mentions his argument from human possibility:
“Nascent life prior to birth,” Dr. Kass says, “does not yet display any of the grand and glorious things for which we applaud humanity in its flowering. And yet it is the dignity of human possibility to be found in nascent life that should lead us treat it not less well than it deserves.” He admits to being “agnostic” on the question of whether the embryo “is a human being equal to your grandchildren.” Even so, Dr. Kass says, “in the face of our ignorance about its status, the embryo does have a certain claim on us. It is the bearer of human possibility, and we owe it not to mistreat it.
Some may look at a guitar and see wood and metal. Tonight, I looked at mine and saw the possibility of beautiful music. Some may look at a rock and see, well, a rock. The sculptor looks at it and sees potential. Some think of an embryo as nothing special, as a potential hindrance to a liberated woman who isn’t ready, or has no desire, to be a mother. Those who love life look at it and see possibility – glorious possibility. I see the potential for beautiful music, for tears, for laughter, for joy, for sorrow. I see clay with which a potter can mold something glorious. Indeed, he has already molded something glorious – life in his own image, even in the womb.
Someone may say, ‘this argument does not prove that embryos must be protected.’ After all, the fact that something has potential doesn’t make it inherently valuable. The rock may be valuable to the sculptor, but not valuable to someone else who is not a sculptor. But what if there is a great Sculptor who values all rocks? What if there is a great guitar player who values all instruments? He does.
