Slaking one's thirst

13Jesus answered, "Those who drink this water will get thirsty again, 14but those who drink the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give them will become in them a spring which will provide them with life-giving water and give them eternal life." (John 4)

In this case it's important to know what the symbol for water is. It will be a spring within us so that we would never be thirsty. Understanding Jesus makes us never feel that something is missing. Understanding Jesus gives us a handle to live here temporarily. Christians are satiated people who confidently move through the timeline to something after the timeline ends. Satiation here and life after here are what the drinkers of Jesus' water get from him. It's the complete package - nothing is missing.

Magnanimosity

I received an email two days ago about something Eisenhower did. The email was in direct response to what the president of Iran had said about the Holocaust never happening. Someone had carefully put together a series of pictures of Jewish death camps under Hitler. The power point slides one after the other showed the horror of all the gased or dead bodies in the different camps across Germany. The slide show began with Eisenhower authorizing all those pictures to be taken because he feared that someone in the future would say that the Holocaust never happened. He wanted to leave to posterity the visual proof that a horror of that magnitude did exist.

I remember 2000 years ago the Son of God coming to the grave of a man who had been dead 4 days. The whole point of the episode was in the Son's prayer saying that he knew that the people needed to see the dead rise so that they could believe that he was the Son of God. Although the story takes up only a little space, a visual was left for succeeding generations. If that happened in modern times one would think that something of that magnitude would have received an immense amount of attention and lasted for generations to come. But if a person can say some magic words to erase the Holocaust, then I don't know.

Even in our own short lives, we tend to forget some pretty important details of how we were helped from time to time in our lives. If we need to look around our lives for an example of some supernatural intervention, and we can't seem to latch on to that visual, actually that experienced event, then I don't know.

If you ask someone over 40 to identify some of those times in their lives when something of great magnitude happened, and you get the response that they can't really think of anything, then I don't know.

Life is a bit slippery sometimes. But, to forget the details that gut an experience of its magnitude is a terrible capacity to have. That capacity can relegate anything to oblivion. Heaven forbid!

Life after 50 is called the "Golden Years" because the ability to learn from life's visuals and actual experiences replaces repeating the same mistakes. Replacing the crusty mud of bad judgment with the gold of learning to do better is a 50-year experience and more. That's why I know there was a holocaust and believe that a dead man did come to life once because the Son of God said, "Come forth!" Those are events of magnitude. The Golden Years teach us to believe rather than dismiss things of magnitude.

Families and scatter plots

I've been trying to get a handle on how families interact with each other for a while now. I have very often wondered how someone like Dobson could gather data on what "strong" families do. I'm still looking for the "strong" family.

It seems there is a general principle in life that says that the longer something stays on the earth, the more it weakens or unravels. As I observe all kinds of families I would say that I could chart the characteristics, all right, but that those charactersitics would be plotted on a scatter graph, not in a closed set called "strong." The families I see in my world are all so very different, even the ones who share common beliefs. I see people in a church for instance, who have great individual faith, but have few common interests with their spouses. I see people at work who believe in spending time developing the ideals of the "company" but who never mention their spouses at work, or they mention them in negative contexts. I see pillars of the community who spend a waking hour, maybe 2, at home with their families during the week. I see religious teachers who go to a meal out with their families and say about 50 words the whole time they are in the restaurant.

Then I look at the families in which the parents' children are old enough to have their own young children and who have their own adult lives going on. Where are the joyful times with grandchildren? I see few of them. Where are the visits when fathers and sons-in-law sit and talk about life in general or interests they have whether or not the interests are in common? When are the visits taking place between mothers and daughters-in-law that create the familial bonds? Where are the grandchildren who see their grandparents willingly? I'm thinking life has a way of unraveling.

A coworker of mine recently had several calls from her family on a given day at the end of which (and repeated a week later) the statement was made, "I've had it with my dysfunctional family!" Of course, that's why we all have an empty spot to fill with the Great Teacher's values, one of which is the need to be rescued from the general principles of life. But at least I know better than to look around for families that have "strong" characteristics. I just know how to interact within the family bonds I was born into and within the family bonds I established or that were born to me and invite the Good Master in for the rescue if life goes long enough for the family bonds to unravel.

When the season calls for it

A creek rippled by at the foot of 30' drop from the balcony of the cabin I stayed in. You could hear it in the quiet moments of the day and during the night. Not far from the cabin a dry tributary joined with the creek. It was about 15' across where it connected. It looked inviting, so I decided to take a walk up the dry creek bed to see where it would lead. The bed wandered uphill in a winding fashion, but it was fairly flat so walking was easy. The tributary narrowed the farther uphill I walked. About 100 yards up, the bed was only a small jump across. It suddenly bent almost 90 degrees and went curvingly up the side of mountain. It was dry there too all the way till it vanished out of sight. The width up the mountain could not have been more than 2' across.

I stopped to muse what the vision might mean. It was just a dry creek bed, but I could not help but think that the scene had a deeper meaning for me. I stared back down the mountain at the path I had taken to come uphill this far trying to see a message, but to no avail. I retraced my steps continuing in thought. Thoughts began trickling into my conscious awareness, "Tributaries bring reinforcement water to the stream below it. Tributaries help drain the mountain of unnecessary water. Tributaries are seasonal, swelling for use when they are needed."

It was this last point that my mind stuck on. There was my message. I don't know that my life is as dry as the stream bed, but the scene begged for the meaning of the tributary's seasonal nature. Finally, the thought formed. In due time, when the season calls for it, once again you will be able to offer something of value to the greater whole or to someone who needs it.

My message was clear. I could leave the scene behind. I had a tip for living from nature itself for which I was thankful.

A definite occasion for mouthwash

I suppose I have some opinions of what should happen in a class whether it be an English class, a linguistics class, a foreign language class, or a Bible class. Here's the list: start with a premise or principle, capsule the direction of the next # of minutes, put in place the ideas that form the direction, back up the ideas with experience or research or facts, elaborate on the ideas with stories (anecdotal data) or experimental data to match. If conjecture is made, then know where the areas of the conjecture are weak and allow for some debate since the conjecture is not completely fleshed out.

A month ago I was invited to go to a class because "it allowed for discussion, and it contained ideas that were not orthodox." The person who invited me is a good friend and really believed I would enjoy it. So, I went. Nearly everything that happened in the class did not fit the list created above. Naturally, I felt that it had been a waste of time. But out of deference to my friend, I went a second time. This time it was worse.

Anyone can moderate a class if all the person does is spew one notion after another. We all have notions, sometimes well founded, sometimes ill founded. Name a subject, people have opinions or notions. But, if I go to a "class," I have this expectation that it should be for learning, not for listening to someone spew notions. I won't go back. This class is not for learning. As good a listener as I want to be for others, the circumstance for my listening is not going to be in a "class" in which learning should take place.

I realize that others have different ideas of what a "class" should entail. So, I will let the experience of the last couple of classes fall under that category - a difference in definition of terms. The "teacher's" definition for a "class" was just different from mine. His list of characteristics would not match the list I gave in the first paragraph at all. I'll just chalk it up to a misjudgment on my part for choosing to attend. But it sure leaves a bad taste in the mouth. That's what mouthwash is for.

Not enough tears

I heard a speaker recently speak on a subject that was painful to listen to. He spoke eloquently of this subject, so eloquently that many cried in the audience. But, the points he was trying to make caused many to go to the emotional core of their being to hear of the injustice being perpetrated by one person on another. It was P-A-I-N-F-U-L to hear. People filled with selfish interests abusing others or betraying trusts with others.

Then I thought of all the behaviors in life that cause pain. Children who ignore their parents' careful upbringing turning to lifestyles that lead them astray and into places of correction to their behavior cause endless streams of tears and grief. Spouses who call their mates and declare that love is over, nevermind that 4 children will be affected, stun the listening mate at first, but very soon tears follow by the gallon. Grandparents adopt grandchildren because their own children bottom out under the strain of society and are washed away to sea, and the grand parents will be 78 when the youngest grandchild graduates from high school.

Sadness, badness, cruelty and injustice everywhere. I say EVERYWHERE - every corner of the world. Tears are falling every moment of the day and night. One would think, judging from the sheer amount of pain inflicted by one person on another, that tears would run dry. They don't. And, when I think of the sadness and pain, I think more people should cry. There are enough tears being shed in one sense because people weep as a result of their pain. But, in a sense, not enough people cry.

Why are we such a cruel lot, we humans? WAKE UP PEOPLE! Cry for somebody. And then, act loudly against all that person's cruelty and injustice. One person at a time. One tear at a time.

A drain or necessary step?

Group dynamics are interesting to say the least. This morning a person was adamant about diagreeing with someone in a setting of about 15 people. The leader of the group was very polite to the person who voiced disagreement. We had to spend about 10 minutes of time trying to find ground on which some agreement could be found. It didn't happen, so it was a waste of 10 minutes. The group leader, as a consequence, didn't get to end at a place he wanted to. The people in the class could feel the crunch of time, so they didn't discuss as much.

One perspective is that one person decided he would rob everyone of a needed 10 minutes. Another, kinder perspective is that the person needed to be able to say something so that he could benefit from the rest of the group's time together. Groups are always energy-sucking events. It sometimes makes one wonder if the energy drain is worth it. In a country in which individual freedom is valued, I guess position-taking is a ritual that doesn't have so many ethical rules governing it.

Patchwork strangeness

In studying the ideas about the Son of Man, I have run across some very interesting material. It's found in the pseudipigraphical books of the Old Testament. Some call this period of time the intertestamental period. There seems to have been an evolution for the Son of Man.

In Ezekiel, for example, the son of man refers to humans. In Daniel, the son of man seems to be a heavenly creature. That image appears to be the same in 1 Enoch as well a 2 Esdras. When Jesus uses the term, he uses it to refer to himself. If not, then he is referring to some other being to follow him, even another messiah. Most people interpret Jesus' words to mean that he is referring to himself.

Then, there is the use in Revelation. One would think that John, who is a believer and follower of Jesus, would take the term to mean Jesus. Instead, it seems to follow the Daniel, 1 Enoch, 2 Esdras usage. Now that's passing strange. Unless, of course, the apostle John did not write the Revelation, which I tend to be leaning toward the more I read the book.

A pixel in the big picture

The Great Teacher said we shouldn't worry about what may happen tomorrow. Each day has its own set of problems. We can't add an inch to the height we are given in life. Our father clothes the birds and flowers in more splendor than King Solomon could clothe himself with all his riches, so we shouldn't be asking what we are going to eat, drink , and wear.

OK. Well and good. I guess I need to gauge my trust level here. It might not register so high. But, this year will definitely put this frame of sayings to the test. In a way I do worry about how the place that I work during the day will consider the kind of work I do after-hours. One could construe them to be in conflict with each other. I prefer to consider the after-hours work as an investment in future return rather than a conflict of interest. It's all in perception. I think this will come to a head on September 26th. That's when the intersection of the two work places will occur. Do I worry about it? According to the above, the Maker of situations can work out people's perceptions as well as feeding birds and clothing flowers. I just need to approach the date in September with an understanding that the big picture can easily be handled if I merely trust that it will be.

Ying and Yang

Sometimes I look at the mountains and see sheer, unadulterated beauty and truth. At other times I see the result of the collision of earth's plates causing one plate to pleat, the other to be lost beneath the earth. I guess that represents the two sides of me. One side very analytical, rather detached, objective.

The other side realizes what is breath-taking, splendid, ethereal.

One side doesn't rob the other side. If anything, one side enhances the other. That should be true of all humans - having two sides. Spending time with someone else helps us not just to notice the two sides of an individual, but to see how the two sides enhance a fuller character.

Musing about what I don't know anything about

Last night I was putting together a module for a class and had to deal with the Sumerian culture. Anytime I deal with a culture before the scientific revolution, I am taken aback by the sheer amount of ignorance that was in the people's lives and how much of their belief in the unknown was notional and fabricated. Of course, they didn't know better.

I know that someday, the people of another future time will look on us the same way. What we call science today will be taken for granted as known fact for centuries and as commonly known as our knowledge about the sun around which we rotate. They will look at us and wonder how we existed in such ignorance.

Yesterday I was studying a part of the New Testament that few people read anymore. I was struck by its coherence and parallelism, but I also knew that many just dip in and read a stretch of verses once in a while and miss the coherence and parallelism. Yet, they persist in some belief that the stretch of verses "taught" them even though the larger context and historical context might lead to a different understanding.

All of the above makes me know that the amount of knowledge I may have is small, temporary, and foundational for people living in some future society. That leads me away from feeling smug. It leads me right into feeling humble, sometimes insignificant. It makes me want to live forever so that I can keep up with the knowledge curve, keep up with the leading edge of discovery.

But, I know that I will not live forever in the environment I want to stay in. But, that does show my ignorance. I will live forever in an environment I have no knowledge of, but trust that it is so much different, so much more splendid, so much more filled with knowledge that I might as well die now because it may be another 5000 years before people on earth attain to the knowledge of an inkling available in the eternal world. I think I just talked myself out of staying around here forever.

Battles are fought ahead of the field of battle

It's nice to look up and see friends all around. Often the journey in life is rough or lifeless. It's those echoes of friendliness that rocket out of the darkness when life does get rough or lifeless that make one know that Someone Else knew the you needed the smile, the prayer, the call, the note, the ironic play of events.

Tonight I just need to recognize that the Creator can come from deep in the cosmos to my little life with just the right sequence of friends' encouragement to carry on. When's the last time someone who hasn't called in 6 months rings your number just to say hi. When's the last time a meal with someone you haven't seen in about a year wants to pray blessings over you after dinner. When's the last time you were driving down the road and an out-of-town friend calls out of the blue and is traveling the opposite direction just 15 minutes away. So, you stop on the road and visit. All that happened in a span of 24 hours.

But, the Maker of coincidences knew that needed to happen because just a short 72 hours later the dark clouds gathered to rain. But, the rain didn't drown you or make you lose your way because you had had friends that lifted your spirits so serendipitously just hours before.

The beast with the number 666 can't paint the picture bad enough when the One who arrays himself against the number, who also wears a victor's crown, has already bolstered your spirits 3 1/2 days ahead of time.

A bit of a sad scene

Last week I was in an upscale restaurant in a city of at least 300,000. I was eating alone because I was traveling, but I decided to notice the groups around me and their interaction. I was in the restaurant about an hour, so I go to see most of the conversations of the people around me. Directly in front of me was a table of 4 young women who appeared to be from a nearby university. One table over to my right was a couple in their mid-30s I would say. Close to them was another couple probably in their 50s. Behind them was a table of 3 couples. To my left was a table of two men sitting across from each other. Behind them was a table of 4 women. And near to them was another couple. I switched on my observation mode.

The three young university women talked without interruption the whole time I was there as did the two men who were engaged in lively conversation between friends. The table of 3 couples had at least one conversation going, sometimes two at all times. The table of 4 women didn't seem to have any pauses in their conversations either. Well, you noticed. What about the tables of the couples. They were pretty quiet tables. Conversation was intermittent, even sporadic at the 50s couple table. They found it hard, it seemed, to keep conversation sustained. The couple closest to the two men seemed to have the least trouble. But, their tones and gestures seemed serious most of the time.

This illustration bears out another point of opposites in cross-gender conversation. When men talk, they seem to talk of events surrounding them in the outside world. The topic of weather in many men's conversations is a point in case. They talk about their relation to their work or career, their ambitions, their analysis of politics or religion or any other issue that is common between the participants. Women, on the other hand, seem to talk about lives of the people around them. What happens in an event takes second place to how something happens or the after-effect of an event on people's lives. What people say and feel about something is important. With men, what people do is important. It bears analysis. Some people say the difference in conversational topics revolves around the internal, the personal, the notional for women, while for men, conversational topics revolve around the external, the competitive, the analytical.

Now back to the tables around me in the restaurant. The all-men, all-women tables had no trouble talking because they are all operating from the same norms. The multiple couples table had no trouble because the couples could splinter at any time between men and women to 3 men and 3 women if the topic selected was of lesser interest to one of the groups. But, the couples tables had trouble. The topic brought up by the men bore the stamp of male conversational rules: the external, the analytical, which is of less interest to the woman who brought topics of things personal, internally connected to people in the topics. Partners appeared bored out their skulls when the other was talking. Couples left in silence. Mixed or same-sex groups left chattering away.

I was a bit saddened by the scene. Are people not willing to notice others' norms and make that adaptation? It's enough to make a person regurgitate.

Scrambled intetentions

A second difference in the codes of gender speaking is that when men speak, they expect to have the floor. Thus, if a man begins to speak and someone else talks over him and prevails, he loses face among the participants in the conversation. If a man interrupts another man, he had better become the speaker to hold the floor, or again, he loses face. So, usually men are quiet unless it is clearly his turn to speak or unless he knows he can wrest the floor and win it.

Women have a totally different norm going on. Because of the minimal response, women feel as if they can speak simultaneously with other women. It is a way of aligning themselves so as to not to be overtly hostile. In fact, women who do not engage in the minimal response are perceived as hostile or antagonistic. So, it is important to align themselves with the speaker. If for some reason, a woman is silent during another speaker's turn, she shows her alignment by building on the last woman's utterance. She might begin her turn by saying, "To add to ____'s idea," ....

So, woman talks to man. He listens like he is supposed to. No minimal response. When he speaks, he takes the floor. In the woman's view, there is no alignment taking place. That means hostility or antagonism. Now, whatever gets said is perceived as a remark that in unaligned with the woman's utterance. The woman may try to respond minimally while the man is talking. He sees the gesture as a woman trying to interrupt, to take the floor from him. According to his rules, that is losing face. According to a woman's rules it is showing alignment. The conversation turns for the worse.

One can better determine how cross-gender conversations become scrambled in a hurry. The codes, norms, or rules are different, even opposite. So the participants in the conversation don't get caught up in the content of the conversation, but let the unspoken rules dictate the underlying meaning of the conversation. That's when the automatic rules learned in our peer groups take over. But, the rules are different and misunderstandings run rampant. That's when the "You said this, but meant that," conversation takes over. Ah, the end is near.

Norms, codes, and discontent

Turn-taking is one of those rules that differs in interpretation by the gender you are. "Rules" are really the norms established by socialization with your peers. So, when learning conversational norms, socialization happens. When people violate established societal norms for conversation, then stigmas are assigned to that person, such as "Oh no, here comes the guy that never shuts up," or "you don't want to talk with him - he never says more than two words." Somewhere in the middle is the norm. We all learn the norm when we socialize through the years. This also means that the peer group teaches us the norm, not the adult population. If you're a deep adult, you have probably noticed that the norms are slightly different for you than they are for people 20 or more years younger than you.

Since socialization occurs from peers, then another observation needs to be made. Girls are socialized by girls, boys by boys. As young people approach puberty, socialization takes on greater importance. One reason is that young people begin striving for independence from parents, even in the way they talk. However, boys hang around boys and girls around girls until mid-to-late adolescence. The socialization process, then, is left to the same sex peer group.

Therein lies the rub. The norms, or rules, for girls differ from the norms for boys. These norms are not easily shaken and continue into adulthood. These norms actually reach codified status for many adults because norms from childhood tend to become codes in nearly all areas of life, like religious values or beliefs, work ethic, role-orientation of culture. So, when a boy meets a girl or a girl meets a boy, the norms for engaging in conversation are different.

Building off of the previous blog, a great illustration can be seen. Turn-taking among girls requires that another girl show her interest in the conversation by giving minimal responses as the conversation continues. Words such as uh-huh, yes, right are sprinkled throughout the turn of the speaker by the listener. Boys, on the other hand, say nothing while another speaker has the floor because one of the norms in boys' conversations is not to take the floor away from the speaker. The minimal response is considered an attempt to take the floor away since it is a way to agree with someone and to then continue building on the conversation. Imagine what happens when boy meets girl. Girls would come away from the conversation saying, "he's not a good conversatinalist because he just sits there." Boys would come away from the conversation saying, "I hate talking with her because she interrupts all the time." This continues into adulthood. Women say, "He just sits there. It's like talking to a brick wall." Men say, "Talking with her is useless. She won't listen and tries to take the floor constantly." Different norms have been mentioned even as a cause for divorce by some.

Norms become codes. Codes become expectations. Expectations breed discontent. Discontent leads to separation or warfare. Thus we have language as a part of the greater "Gender Wars." One would think that understanding the other gender's point of view would uncomplicate matters. But the truth is stated in the first 4 sentences of this paragraph for most, so understanding gets nowhere. I'll write more on this matter in three blogs from this one.

Rules for (word) engagement

Turn-taking is one of the rules of conversation. When a conversation is a purely friendly, casual conversation. The turn-taking is fairly equal in two areas: number of turns for each conversant and number of words by each conversant. What happens when the balance is broken? If one conversant asks for something to be elaborated, then the conversation is still a friendly one, but even the elaboration would have its limits in number of words. Then the conversation returns to the balance it had before the elaboration happened. If one person is taking a dominant position in either the number of turns or the number of words, then the conversation is not friendly any longer. The person on the short end of the stick has tuned out. Interest lags, and if a convenient way of escape lies at hand, the person takes the way of escape. If not, then the person "appears" to listen, but in reality the mind's wheels are turning to get out of the conversation.

Once in a while, one comes across another who is asocialized in turn-taking. The asocialized person misses all the cues of the other conversant tuning out and really has no concept of the "rules" of turn-taking. Asocialized people are avoided like the plague. Word gets around about them. Causes for asocialization in conversation abound, but the next time you get stuck talking with such an asocialized person, just interrupt (you don't have to worry about being rude. They're asocialized remember. They wouldn't recognize rude if it bit them.) and make the way of escape for yourself. Don't wait for the person to draw breath. It is not going to happen.

I hear that women sometimes say that talking to a mate is like talking to a brick wall. That's another subject altogether. Men and women have different rules to converse by and cross-gender speech is a special field (ignored largely by psychologists). When you add intimacy to the cross-gender equation for happy talking, then it's like Einstein's theories of relativity. There's the general theory of relativity, then there's the special theory of relativity. That's a whole blog by itself. Which might be next if I can find the time.

Looking through layers in time

There is nothing like a little drive time through the rolling foothills to notice that the earth has been around a long time. A really long, long, long time. Roads cut throught the sides of these hills expose the ages of the rocks showing layer upon layer. I don't have the layers memorized, but I can appreciate how long the layers have to be on the surface, then undergo some atmospheric change, then get buried for a new surface to be layered on top, then that surface gets buried with time, and so on. It takes my mind a little while to go back in time with each of the layers. It would take thousands of years for the what's on the surface, maybe tens of thousands of years. If I look at the lowest layer it could represent hundreds of thousands, maybe a million years.

Then I look at my own few decades of life here on the earth. It seems that If the earth could sneeze for the same one second that I sneeze, my life would be over. The ancients on the earth liked to use the analogy of life being a vapor and then gone. When I'm gone, my bones return to dust, get buried with the rest of the surface for that ten thousand year era, then continue to compress with each ensuing surface of the crust and get further down in the layers. If people did go extinct somewhere in thefuture, then whoever might see the earth after that would never know that billions and billions of the species of humans filled this teeming earth.

There's a great poem called Ozymandias that expresses the sentiment I just mused about in prose form. Its text is below.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
'Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
(Percy Shelley, 1818)

Thoughts like these don't argue well for a creator. Why should someone care when years from now, my remains will not really speak from the dust. They'll be part of a layer of earth buried 100,000 years down. Then again, that could be why there is an after-life. We don't have to remain buried 100,000 years down. Some part of us lives on past the sands revealing a colossal wreck. And that appeals to my thirsty soul.

Slaking the unseen thirst

But those who drink the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give them will become in them a spring which will provide them with life-giving water and give them eternal life.

(John 4.14)

I mentioned at the first of the year that I would be revisiting this verse from time to time throughout the year. So, it's time for a visit.

The Great Teacher gave a great kernel of truth in this saying. Many say the life-giving water is his message. Some say it is the Comforter he said would stand beside us in life. But there might be something a little more. The "water" from the Teacher would become a spring providing a never-ending life. It seems implied to me that the spring is a never-ending source. It might be important, then, because the never-ending life comes from the never-ending source.

A sort of dilemma arises since there is nothing "never-ending" about us humans' lives on the earth. What would be never-ending in such a world in which everything ends? Something invisible, like the soul, is a usual answer here. That is something we cannot see. So is the never-ending source. The line of logic is that our soul, which is unseen, is fed by a never-ending source, also unseen, which gives a never-ending life, which no one has ever seen. Talk about a leap of faith!

This mysterious water is supposedly more than a symbol in this passage, but you wouldn't call it something tangible. It would, however, allow someone never to be thirsty again, that is, fully satisfied. I don't know if that is true or not by observation. Are followers of the Teacher fully satisfied people? Has their invisible thirst been slaked? I think I should see satisfied followers. His water is enough. The restlessness in the soul should come to an end. I still see a lot of searching by followers. I still see that they shift about for fulfillment on the earth.

I think that if people can handle being satisfied about the unseen, what they should be the most restless about, then I should very definitely see satisfied people handling the tangible matters of life. There is not a thirst.

Used

Going... going... go-o-o-ne!

The auctioneer loudly proclaimed.

Sold all right, but

The piece of furniture

was merely

a used piece of furniture.

And that's how it is.

Life as auctioneer

trades us around, and after

the first sale we

are only

a relic, a shape of what we've been used for.

by David Singleton

I can see the future from here

We're going somewhere. I'm trying hard to put my finger on it. It's about to come clear. I'm trying to figure out why I'm so tortured lately about the way religion is organized. Something is out of kelter. I see books with titles such as "Why Men Hate Church." I hear on the radio about "why youth are opting out [of church]." I go to a church service and see many, many people leave without uttering a word to anyone on the way out. I see new churches of all kinds experiementing with various ways to organize. Some try the stip center approach. Some try the mega church approach. Some try the satelllite campus approach. Some try the TV approach.

Here's the deal. If I had grown up in 1930, I would have lived in a much more rural, isolated setting than today. I would have probably not driven to a gathering place, but walked or ridden a wagon or horse. I would have wanted to stay 3 or 4 hours with other believers and eaten a meal with them before returning to the house and my daily chores. I would have had only limited contact with those believers except on days like Wednesday and Sunday to interact with them. If I had a phone I would have more than likely been on a party line. People wrote letters to each other that the other parties would have received in about a week. Televsion? What television. Radio, yes, but very limited on how many stations were in the area. Iceboxes were big. Flying was experimentally done by the military mainly. Music was not "in a can" but remembered in the mind. People sang tunes actually from their lips, not just in mental assent.



Here's the other deal. If had grown up in the year 2008, I would have lived in an urban area, other people around me all the time. I would go to gathering places in my own car, probably not with parents, but by myself or with a friend or two. I can be anywhere I want to go probably in a 30 minute radius, and I have people to see, places to go, things to do, all of which can be accomplished in a matter of 30 minutes or less. I can see anyone, anytime in 30 minutes or lessor virtually on My Space or Facebook. I have a cell phone that also doubles as a camera and computer. I can text message, leave voicemail, or talk directly to a person. I can email if I want right from my phone. Handwritten letters are what I study in history class because I have 4 email accounts and a My Space account. Letters are boring. Television? That's old hat. The generation before me was known as the television generation. I don't have time to sit and watch boring serials. If I watch at all, it's to watch America's Next Top Model, Survivor, Deal or No deal, American Idol, or some reality show. Who needs the pie in the sky stuff or hypothetical TV. Satellite radio is much more efficient than regular radio and has a menu of more than 100 stations for whatever my mood is or whatever the occasion calls for. All my music is professionally sung and recorded. I can listen around the clock. Mostly I walk or jog with earbuds wired to an MP3 or MP4 player. Why sing when you can hear any kind of music sung professionally anytime, anywhere? Oh, and if I want to go outside a radius of 150 miles, I can hop on a commercial flight for about $100 one-way to most places in a 10-state area or anywhere in the world for about $1000.

Here's my deal. I go to work and get more emails than phone calls. I meet with vendors who have flown in from Austin or Albuquerque. I go to conferences over a weekend like the one I attended in Maryland just 3 weeks ago. I sometimes listen to satellite radio at home through my satellite TV. I am on the board of an online high school. I like to blog and put pictures of anywhere in the world on my blog that I capture from the internet. I can call from my cell phone anywhere in the world to anyone, anytime. I often make out-of town phone calls at while driving on trips and nearly always at work. I listen to the radio or MP3 player while I drive 35 minnutes to work in another town from where I live. I many times call people related to work from my car going either to or from home. I can make You Tube videos and send them to people who can watch them on their computers or phone. And I watch Numbers on TV every Friday night.

So, what kind of organizational structure am I really looking for when it comes to other believers. At least once a week I get some kind of devotional email. I can read the Bible in any translation or in the original tongues from internet site like studylight.org. I can see the most inspirational power points with embedded video clips when people send me those in my email. I listen to Christian music any time I want it no matter where I am. I can go to any church's website and download the sermon in audio or video. I listened the other day to a sermon on CD driving back from a friend's house in a town 150 miles away, which is only 2 hours and 15 minutes of my precious time going 72 MPH on an interstate highway. This is why I am tortured. The organizational structure I seek is not in a building with others that I have no contact with outside of that building. It's not in a place in which very little stimulus takes place outside of visiting with individuals that I could make a phone call to and get the same amount of visiting done without driving somewhere.



I say check out the two virtual worlds of 2nd Life and Active Worlds and you will see the church of the future. If I'm in Maryland or in flight to Austin or on the road to see my mother or staying at the lake or at work, anytime, anywhere, I can tap into one of these worlds, carry on conversation and be out. The future from here is anywhere, anytime. I think that is very much in keeping with what the message of Jesus is trying to accomplish. It's also not bound by time or space, so when we do get to the stage of colonizing the moon or terraforming Mars for habitation, the church is there anytime, anywhere.