If you know me at all, you know that I do not keep up on celebrity anything. I really couldn't care any less about the size of Kim's bottom or the colour of her hair, or who won the Oscars or who is dating whomever.
But this past week, Spock died. And I was a little taken aback at how much it bothered me. To borrow his phrase, it was . . . illogical. And fascinating. Because I know that Spock is a fictitious character in a hopelessly outdated and cheesy series that lived only three years, and was finished before I was even born. Still, it is so. I felt downright melancholy.
I discovered Star Trek in the reruns of the reruns. I was in my late teens. We had our very first ever TV. It was actually an Apple computer monitor which my brothers and I hooked up to bunny ears. Then we strung wires from the bunny ears and wove the wires through the wire mesh of the screen in my bedroom window. I don't know if there's any possibility that it made the picture clearer, but we thought it did. And then we would crowd into my bedroom and watch this cool show about Kirk and McCoy and Spock, exploring strange new worlds, going bravely where no man had gone before. We kept the volume down. We thought we'd get into trouble. We didn't want my mom to discover that we'd figured out a way to turn the monitor into a TV, let alone that we were watching this space show.
She discovered us one day. She stuck her head in, and stood and watched for about thirty seconds, and said, "Oh, Star Trek." And walked out. We stared at each other in outright astonishment. Mom knew about Star Trek? And she was ok with us watching it? No way! (I still don't know how that happened.) After that, we watched it openly. We still strung the wires up. It seemed we got the best reception from that upstairs bedroom facing Toronto.
Eventually, the monitor-comme-TV moved downstairs onto the dining room table. We got a real TV. We set up a tower antenna and could get more channels. When I moved out, I got cable. Now I could watch The Next Generation. It wasn't as good. Because Data wasn't Spock.
I haven't watched Star Trek in years. I haven't even thought about Star Trek in years. But when I read in the paper that Leonard Nimoy had died, I was shocked. Spock was dead. For good this time. There would be no Star Trek III to bring him back to life. He was gone. And I realised how much Spock had meant to me.
I was an awkward, angry, out-of-place kid at that time. I loved learning, especially about things I wanted to learn about. I read voraciously. I was known by first name at the public library, and signed out armloads of books at once. I would spend hours in the library, reading encyclopedias about whatever struck my interest at that time. These were the days before Google. I would hook onto a topic and learn as much as I could about it. While all the other girls my age were off studying how to put on make-up and fancy clothes, and how to flirt with boys, I was reading about the Monitor and the Merrimack, about the real mutiny on the Bounty, and about Grey Owl.
I was an introvert in a house full of extroverts. I wanted to be in my bedroom, reading, naturally. That made me anti-social and a loner. The younger me sat in the school playground, back against a wall, nose in a book. I was always being told to put my books away and play with the other kids. My desire, even my need, to be alone caused all kinds of problems. I didn't know about introversion or extroversion. I just knew that normal people liked being with other people, and people who wanted or needed to be alone were weird, anti-social misfits.
I loved fixing things. I didn't really see the point in crying about something if I could fix it. I made decisions logically, based on what was practical, pragmatic, or the right thing to do. In a large, extended family that "discussed" issues at top volume and heated passion, I quickly learned that logic and sense don't necessarily rule the day; passion and volume did.
I learned to blend in. I learned to be loud and passionate. I learned to put on a great extroverted face, which I could maintain for a while. I could never stifle my love for learning, but I did learn to not talk about it. I emotionally hung around on the fringes, talking sort of sensibly about the things that everyone else was talking about, but never talking about the things that really interested me. But the real me, the inside me, the me that longed for silence and solitude, conversations about big ideas, and the quiet and sensible solution to problems was dying behind my mask.
And then I met Spock.
He was brilliant. And a loner. And logical. And dispassionate in crisis. He still managed to care. I could see it. It showed in his actions. He was loyal to death. "I am, and always will be, your friend." Bones thought he was a freak. But anyone with half a brain could see that he was the anchor who held the Enterprise together. He didn't quite fit in, but he didn't care. He just was who he was, and when Bones went off, he cocked an eyebrow and carried on. He never changed who he was to placate the irrational and emotional doctor.
I didn't realise, all those years ago when I was watching Spock on TV, what I realised the moment I read the headline that Leonard Nimoy had died: the man from Vulcan was my first glimmer that the inside me was ok. It was ok to be an introvert. It was ok to love reading and research, and to have a headful of random facts, none of which involved makeup or fashion or interior design. It was ok to think through a decision rather than to feel through it. I was ok. It took many more years and a whole lot of real, live, flesh-and-red-blood people who love me and cheer me on for me to be comfortable with that, but Mr Spock opened my eyes to the idea that I could be ok. I think that if God can use a donkey to talk to someone, maybe he could use even a fictitious half-alien to reach one of his lost children who needed a glimmer of hope.
My hope is strong today. I hadn't thought of Spock in years. But I'm glad he was there when I was 16.
Goodbye, Spock.
Monday, 9 March 2015
Thursday, 5 February 2015
Privacy Issues
I saw something on Facebook the other day that shocked me.
I have seen an awful lot on Facebook. I have seen photos that verge on pornographic. Ok, they don't just verge on it. They are. I have seen people endorse movies and TV shows that I can't believe they can watch in good conscience. I have seen language that would blister paint. I have seen warnings for false computer viruses, poisoned food, and vaccines that cause your fingers and toes to rot off, ads for dogs who have been lost since 1991, and miracle foods that promise to allow me to live forever. I am cynical and suspicious. I don't believe much. And I'm not shocked by much.
But I was shocked.
I saw pictures by a professional photographer who had been hired to capture images of a child's birth. Oh, they were tastefully done, I suppose. Black and white, so no one had to be disturbed by the reality of blood and amniotic fluid and afterbirth. Photoshopped, I'm sure, to make it look like Mom had just been out for an afternoon stroll, rather than having just pushed out a baby. (Did she put on make-up before this photo op?) But I was shocked. And saddened.
Is nothing sacred anymore? Is nothing private?
I know what you ate for supper. I've seen your 600 wedding photos, your "after sex" photos, your ultrasound photos, your pregnancy belly photos. Now I'm seeing you with your bare legs spread open, giving birth, with what looks like the entire extended family looking on.
I get it. It's a precious moment. It's a miracle. It's wonderful. I might even understand why you would want to capture the moment on film (although the idea of hiring a professional photographer to do so is a little weird to me). I kind of might get why you'd want to have such photos. For yourself.
But you just completely cheapened it by sharing it with the entire world (well over 500 million people, to be exact.) You took something precious and miraculous and private, and you made it public. You invited us all in.
I wonder, would you willingly give birth in front of a stadium full of strangers? Even if you set your photo settings to just your friends, you invited around 150 people to watch you give birth. Would you ever do that in real life? Because you just did. I wonder, how will your child feel about this when he or she is old enough to realise what you did? And I wonder, What if something had gone terribly wrong? It happens, you know. In a matter of seconds, a moment of joy is turned to horrible tragedy, even in our modern Western world. It didn't happen this time. But it could have. It happens more than you'd think. And there would have been a professional photographer there to capture every tragic moment.
We whine and complain and post endless stupid posts about how to protect our privacy from Facebook (which, if the posts are to be believed, can read my mind). Have we not shown "them" over and again that we really don't care about our privacy? Why, then, are we surprised and indignant when "they" believe us? I can just hear Mark Zuckerburg: "Look, they post for the world to see their 600 wedding photos, their after-sex pictures, pictures of their (practically) naked bodies, pictures of their completely exposed pregnancy bellies, pictures of their in utero children, and pictures of themselves giving birth. Trust me, guys, they don't care if we track every single thing they look at on the Internet. Why would they? It's nothing compared to what they've volunteered to show us."
I just shake my head. Why do we do this? Are we so sickeningly narcissistic that we really think the whole world needs to share in our most sacred, most precious, most private moments? Are we really that selfish, that self-centred? It makes me sad. You know what? If you want all those pictures, great. No problem. I might even understand that - sort of. But keep them for yourself.
It says in Luke 1:24, "Zechariah's wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion.“The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.” She stayed in seclusion for 5 months. Because she was ashamed of her pregnancy? No, she knew this was a gift from God, a miracle, a sign of his favour. She stayed secluded for five months because she was NO LONGER ashamed. God had taken away her disgrace. She stayed secluded for five months to savour that truth. Some things are just too precious to share.
And later, of Mary, Luke tells us, "But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." She didn't post them to Facebook. She didn't put them on Instagram. She didn't even talk about them. She treasured them up and pondered them in her heart. Oh, I know. Different times. Different era. But both Mary and Elizabeth could have done the first-century equivalent of posting their news to Facebook. They didn't. They kept their treasures private. Some things are just too precious to share with the world.
I can't stop what people post on Facebook. But I pray, yes, I pray that God gives me wisdom to think and rethink every single thing I post.
Because I really do care about my privacy.
And some things are just too precious to share with the world.
I have seen an awful lot on Facebook. I have seen photos that verge on pornographic. Ok, they don't just verge on it. They are. I have seen people endorse movies and TV shows that I can't believe they can watch in good conscience. I have seen language that would blister paint. I have seen warnings for false computer viruses, poisoned food, and vaccines that cause your fingers and toes to rot off, ads for dogs who have been lost since 1991, and miracle foods that promise to allow me to live forever. I am cynical and suspicious. I don't believe much. And I'm not shocked by much.
But I was shocked.
I saw pictures by a professional photographer who had been hired to capture images of a child's birth. Oh, they were tastefully done, I suppose. Black and white, so no one had to be disturbed by the reality of blood and amniotic fluid and afterbirth. Photoshopped, I'm sure, to make it look like Mom had just been out for an afternoon stroll, rather than having just pushed out a baby. (Did she put on make-up before this photo op?) But I was shocked. And saddened.
Is nothing sacred anymore? Is nothing private?
I know what you ate for supper. I've seen your 600 wedding photos, your "after sex" photos, your ultrasound photos, your pregnancy belly photos. Now I'm seeing you with your bare legs spread open, giving birth, with what looks like the entire extended family looking on.
I get it. It's a precious moment. It's a miracle. It's wonderful. I might even understand why you would want to capture the moment on film (although the idea of hiring a professional photographer to do so is a little weird to me). I kind of might get why you'd want to have such photos. For yourself.
But you just completely cheapened it by sharing it with the entire world (well over 500 million people, to be exact.) You took something precious and miraculous and private, and you made it public. You invited us all in.
I wonder, would you willingly give birth in front of a stadium full of strangers? Even if you set your photo settings to just your friends, you invited around 150 people to watch you give birth. Would you ever do that in real life? Because you just did. I wonder, how will your child feel about this when he or she is old enough to realise what you did? And I wonder, What if something had gone terribly wrong? It happens, you know. In a matter of seconds, a moment of joy is turned to horrible tragedy, even in our modern Western world. It didn't happen this time. But it could have. It happens more than you'd think. And there would have been a professional photographer there to capture every tragic moment.
We whine and complain and post endless stupid posts about how to protect our privacy from Facebook (which, if the posts are to be believed, can read my mind). Have we not shown "them" over and again that we really don't care about our privacy? Why, then, are we surprised and indignant when "they" believe us? I can just hear Mark Zuckerburg: "Look, they post for the world to see their 600 wedding photos, their after-sex pictures, pictures of their (practically) naked bodies, pictures of their completely exposed pregnancy bellies, pictures of their in utero children, and pictures of themselves giving birth. Trust me, guys, they don't care if we track every single thing they look at on the Internet. Why would they? It's nothing compared to what they've volunteered to show us."
I just shake my head. Why do we do this? Are we so sickeningly narcissistic that we really think the whole world needs to share in our most sacred, most precious, most private moments? Are we really that selfish, that self-centred? It makes me sad. You know what? If you want all those pictures, great. No problem. I might even understand that - sort of. But keep them for yourself.
It says in Luke 1:24, "Zechariah's wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion.“The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.” She stayed in seclusion for 5 months. Because she was ashamed of her pregnancy? No, she knew this was a gift from God, a miracle, a sign of his favour. She stayed secluded for five months because she was NO LONGER ashamed. God had taken away her disgrace. She stayed secluded for five months to savour that truth. Some things are just too precious to share.
And later, of Mary, Luke tells us, "But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." She didn't post them to Facebook. She didn't put them on Instagram. She didn't even talk about them. She treasured them up and pondered them in her heart. Oh, I know. Different times. Different era. But both Mary and Elizabeth could have done the first-century equivalent of posting their news to Facebook. They didn't. They kept their treasures private. Some things are just too precious to share with the world.
I can't stop what people post on Facebook. But I pray, yes, I pray that God gives me wisdom to think and rethink every single thing I post.
Because I really do care about my privacy.
And some things are just too precious to share with the world.
Thursday, 29 January 2015
When Bad Things Happen
Have you ever wished you could wave a magic wand and change a situation?
Have you ever wished you had a supernatural ability to somehow bend the ear of God and cause him to act in the way you want?
Have you ever wished you could just lay your hands on someone and have them healed, the way Jesus did? The way his apostles did?
I do.
And, judging by the way I sometimes here others pray, they do to. I have heard people plead, beg, demand, insist. I have heard them declare, promise, and decree. I have heard them whimper and shout, pray in words I understood and in words no one could, pray with conviction and contrition and compassion. I've heard it.
And what I see is that sometimes God heals and answers and moves. And sometimes he doesn't.
I have no intention of talking about prayer and how it works, about faith or healing or giftings or anything like that. But I got to thinking the other day, What if God really did give me, say, the gift of healing? Awesome, right?
Or, maybe, not so awesome.
Because I started to think about my own life. I thought about how I have learned and grown and fallen more deeply in love with Jesus through the struggle. Every struggle has been one I resisted and prayed against. Who wants to go through pain? And some of it has been tremendous pain indeed. If I had had the power to change it at the beginning, I would have. I know I would have. I would have waved the prayer wand and made the hurt go away.
But here's the crazy thing: when I look back, I wouldn't change it. If my today-self could somehow travel back in time and stay or move the hand of God at the points of my greatest struggle, if God said to me, "Shall I do it differently?" knowing what I know today, and the good that has come from the struggle, and how the struggle has refined and strengthened my relationship with Him, I would go through it again. Because I would rather go through the pain and know my Jesus more than to be rescued from the pain and miss out on knowing him as fully.
So I think, What if I had the gift of healing, what if I could wave my wand and make God move, and in so doing, I somehow robbed someone of the blessing, yes, the blessing of their pain? What if someone had seen me struggle and had prayed, "Oh, Lord, don't let her have to go through that," and poof, he made it so, and in so doing, I never got to know him the way I do? What if I did that to someone else?
It strikes me that my wanting to be able to wave my prayer wand reveals at its heart a distrust of the heart and motives of God. I think I must know better. I think that this suffering another is going through can't possibly be turned to good. The suffering that I am going through can't possibly be redeemed. It has no value. It should simply stop. Clearly, I know this, but God missed the memo. I begin to think that maybe this evil in my life is something God has not willed. That's a tempting direction to go. It can't possibly be God's will, right? Well, it isn't God's will in the sense that it falls within his moral will. But if I am going to take seriously the sovereignty of God, I have to accept that the bad things that happen in my life aren't just things that he "allows" but that he "wills". To suggest that he simply "allows" them is to suggest that the evil is sort of a Plan B which he'll work around if he absolutely has to but he'd rather not. That's certainly not what Joseph believed. "What you (his brothers) intended for evil, God intended for good." God didn't allow it for good. He intended it for good. He intended for Joseph to be tossed into that well by his brothers. He intended for Joseph to be sold as a slave, thrown into prison, and locked up for years. Because he intended to use it to shape Joseph into the man who would save his family from starvation, ultimately preserving the nation of Israel, and our world's hope for a Saviour. That is what God intended all along. And that's how he intends to use the suffering in my life - to shape me into the person he wants me to be, who will more accurately reflect his image in the world.
But that leads back to trust, back to a heart of trust that is so profound I can rest quietly in the trouble. No, not without tears and anguish. Not without confusion, questions, and lament. But quietly. Without insisting on a magic wand to wave it all away. Without doing everything I can and a whole bunch of things I can't to try to escape from the pain. It leads me to a heart that holds on to God, through the struggle, through the pain, until he blesses me. It leads me to the place where I am willing to suffer because I believe that He is of greater good than temporal comfort and ease.
I don't know that I'm there yet. But I'm thinking about being there. And I think that's a start.
Have you ever wished you had a supernatural ability to somehow bend the ear of God and cause him to act in the way you want?
Have you ever wished you could just lay your hands on someone and have them healed, the way Jesus did? The way his apostles did?
I do.
And, judging by the way I sometimes here others pray, they do to. I have heard people plead, beg, demand, insist. I have heard them declare, promise, and decree. I have heard them whimper and shout, pray in words I understood and in words no one could, pray with conviction and contrition and compassion. I've heard it.
And what I see is that sometimes God heals and answers and moves. And sometimes he doesn't.
I have no intention of talking about prayer and how it works, about faith or healing or giftings or anything like that. But I got to thinking the other day, What if God really did give me, say, the gift of healing? Awesome, right?
Or, maybe, not so awesome.
Because I started to think about my own life. I thought about how I have learned and grown and fallen more deeply in love with Jesus through the struggle. Every struggle has been one I resisted and prayed against. Who wants to go through pain? And some of it has been tremendous pain indeed. If I had had the power to change it at the beginning, I would have. I know I would have. I would have waved the prayer wand and made the hurt go away.
But here's the crazy thing: when I look back, I wouldn't change it. If my today-self could somehow travel back in time and stay or move the hand of God at the points of my greatest struggle, if God said to me, "Shall I do it differently?" knowing what I know today, and the good that has come from the struggle, and how the struggle has refined and strengthened my relationship with Him, I would go through it again. Because I would rather go through the pain and know my Jesus more than to be rescued from the pain and miss out on knowing him as fully.
So I think, What if I had the gift of healing, what if I could wave my wand and make God move, and in so doing, I somehow robbed someone of the blessing, yes, the blessing of their pain? What if someone had seen me struggle and had prayed, "Oh, Lord, don't let her have to go through that," and poof, he made it so, and in so doing, I never got to know him the way I do? What if I did that to someone else?
It strikes me that my wanting to be able to wave my prayer wand reveals at its heart a distrust of the heart and motives of God. I think I must know better. I think that this suffering another is going through can't possibly be turned to good. The suffering that I am going through can't possibly be redeemed. It has no value. It should simply stop. Clearly, I know this, but God missed the memo. I begin to think that maybe this evil in my life is something God has not willed. That's a tempting direction to go. It can't possibly be God's will, right? Well, it isn't God's will in the sense that it falls within his moral will. But if I am going to take seriously the sovereignty of God, I have to accept that the bad things that happen in my life aren't just things that he "allows" but that he "wills". To suggest that he simply "allows" them is to suggest that the evil is sort of a Plan B which he'll work around if he absolutely has to but he'd rather not. That's certainly not what Joseph believed. "What you (his brothers) intended for evil, God intended for good." God didn't allow it for good. He intended it for good. He intended for Joseph to be tossed into that well by his brothers. He intended for Joseph to be sold as a slave, thrown into prison, and locked up for years. Because he intended to use it to shape Joseph into the man who would save his family from starvation, ultimately preserving the nation of Israel, and our world's hope for a Saviour. That is what God intended all along. And that's how he intends to use the suffering in my life - to shape me into the person he wants me to be, who will more accurately reflect his image in the world.
But that leads back to trust, back to a heart of trust that is so profound I can rest quietly in the trouble. No, not without tears and anguish. Not without confusion, questions, and lament. But quietly. Without insisting on a magic wand to wave it all away. Without doing everything I can and a whole bunch of things I can't to try to escape from the pain. It leads me to a heart that holds on to God, through the struggle, through the pain, until he blesses me. It leads me to the place where I am willing to suffer because I believe that He is of greater good than temporal comfort and ease.
I don't know that I'm there yet. But I'm thinking about being there. And I think that's a start.
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