PLENTY OFTEN AS A KID, I heard that the world would likely end at the second coming of Christ, even before I could finish school.

Back in those Happy Days 50s, the world was a vastly different place than it has now become. The imminence of the world’s end was more an article of faith than a conclusion based on much real evidence.

Ironically, even as my church—weary of waiting—seems focused on many other things than the second advent, the evidence, for those with eyes to see, is growing from a trickle to a tsunami.

Romans 8 talks about the entire creation, the whole earth, groaning as it waits for deliverance at the return of Jesus. And the groaning, for those with ears to hear, is growing from a whisper to a whirlwind.

Just this week, I’ve read two stories that should cause—no, not panic—but sober realization that our remaining days on this dying planet are truly numbered.

Consider the bees. At least one reason world food prices, according to the World Bank, have risen by 83 percent in the past three years (surely at least that has been noticed) is the rapidly accelerating die-out of honeybees worldwide in a malady called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

Without the pollination of the bees, no food can grow. In 2007, beekeepers lost 31 percent of their colonies. This year, it’s already up to 36 percent.

Albert Einstein once said that if the bees were to die out entirely, the human race would follow them to oblivion within four years.

Theorized causes for CCD range from pesticides and herbicides to cell phone waves, environmental contamination, and aggressive new parasites or pathogens.

But whatever the cause, no solution seems yet in sight, and as usual, nothing is likely to be done about it until, like our currently out-of-control gas prices, food prices too double, triple, and quadruple.

Consider too the polar ice cap. This week scientists predict that this year for the first time in the memory and records of those alive today, the ice cap at the north pole is likely to melt away entirely.

Polar bears are in danger of extinction. World sea levels are rising. Strange weather extremes and anomalies are becoming commonplace. Some scoff that Global Warming is a myth—that it’s a political invention. But for me at least, ignoring solid scientific evidence is not just denial, it’s self-destructive insanity.

Something IS happening to the planet to cause melting ice caps and rising seas. To deny that much is to join with the flat-earthers and those who believe the moon landings were filmed on a Hollywood back lot.

Bees. Ice. A groaning earth.

And all this leaves to be added—as signs of a world gasping its last—the raging violence and ethnic cleansing and terrorism of the world. It leaves to be added the steady abandonment of our Constitution and personal freedoms in the name of national security.

It leaves to be added the foul cesspool of societal norms and standards. It leaves to be added the increasing efforts of rigid religionists to legislate and compel from the outside rather than encourage transformation from the inside.

It would seem to me that we’re witnessing such a rapid convergence of pre-Advent signs that it’s no time to be apathetic, skeptical, or doubtful.

“In the last days scoffers will come . . . . They will say, ‘What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again?’” 2 Peter 3:3, 4, NLT.

Let’s just be sure that the scoffers don’t include US.

AS GREATLY TO BE DESIRED as Utopia might be, the fact is that before Utopia, we’re going to face Dystopia instead. In a Christian frame of reference, this means that before Heaven and an eternity of perfect happiness must come the rest of time here on Earth.

Beliefs in Christianity differ on the arriving Dystopia—the “time of trouble,” the “tribulation,” the last convulsions before the End of a planet that long ago became the playground of the forces of evil and their satanic leader.

Many maintain that before the worst of it, true believers will be spirited away in a “rapture” and be spared the final rage of the Roaring Lion who paces through Earth, “seeking whom he may devour.”

Others of us believe that even believers will stay put and live through the last horrific spasms of a dying world—the time the prophet Daniel foretold: “a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered.”

Bible prophecy envisions a time of unprecedented economic, social, and political turbulence—the arrival of Dystopia, which various dictionaries define as a place where—and a time when—“life is extremely bad because of deprivation or oppression or terror,” where “people lead dehumanized and fearful lives.”

A place such as George Orwell envisioned in his prescient 1984. A place of exponentially increasing violence, instability, danger, and yes, dry-mouthed fear. A place where everything seems in flux—and nothing seems solid anymore.

I’m not ready to commandeer a broadcast network and infuse alarm and panic into an already deteriorating situation. But friends and neighbors, at the very least, this is no time to be apathetic and sleepy. Because every indication is that the final drama has already begun. It’s time to be awake and aware—to NOTICE what’s happening around us and reference it to what the Bible has to say.

• When I see gas at $4 a gallon and many food prices doubling, I need to be awake to the possibility that the entire bottom could fall out of the economy we just take for granted.

• When I see the corruption of our own government, its abandonment of the Constitution, its stripping away of rights and freedoms, its willingness to be an aggressive and even torturing nation—well, I need to think carefully about where all that could lead.

• When I realize that the planet I live on is showing signs of the abuse we humans have inflicted on it, I need to stay awake to where this ends up, if we keep going without change.

• When I realize that some—even and perhaps especially Christians—wish to impose their legislated morality on everyone else, I can see how certain end-time prophecies could so easily come to pass.

• When I feel all the moorings coming loose, notice the ever-more-violent tremors of finance and society and politics and human relationships and international wars and genocides, it sometimes feels as if I’m standing on the rumbling slopes of a Mt. St. Helens about to blow.

Dystopia has begun. Reach out for something and Someone solid to brace yourself. Stay awake. This is no time for the fatal denial of the Ostrich Response.

But do not lose heart. On the other side of the Devil’s Last Dystopian Gasp IS Utopia!

Two videos on the Large Hadron Collider project

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EINSTEIN SAID THAT ENERGY equals Mass times the Speed of Light, squared (E=MC²). I don’t pretend to understand much of the Theory of Relativity. But I do “get” that in some way beyond me, energy can transmute into mass, and vice versa.

When I read in the Word that God spoke the universe into existence, my own suspicion is that as the Source of infinite energy, God translated some of His energy into mass, in the form of planets and suns, galaxies and constellations and nebulae.

I believe in a God big enough to easily create matter by His creative choice, through thought and words alone—and then to keep it all—quarks, black holes, pulsars, gluons, gravity, supernovae, dark matter and energy—the whole amazing lot of it, under His perfect control.

He’s big enough to keep the entire universe in perfect order, right down to the smallest atomic and sub-atomic particles.

In a few weeks, sometime this summer, scientists in Europe will throw the switch on the Large Hadron Collider—likely the most ambitious scientific experiment ever.

A massive underground loop 27 miles long straddling the French/Swiss border, the Collider will fire particles toward each other at near the speed of light, to crash into each other, recreating—scientists hope—the conditions a nanosecond after the Big Bang.

When that happens, scientists are hoping for Something Stupendously Amazing to happen. As Joel Achenbach, in the National Geographic of March 2008 put it, scientists are hoping “to crack the code of the physical world; to figure out what the universe is made of; in other words, to get to the very bottom of things.”

The door to the grand theory of everything. The holy grail of physics. The master key that unlocks all doors.

They are hoping to discover the Higgs boson—also called by some “The God Particle”—the suspected but never-yet-isolated particle that gives mass to all matter. In other words, what makes a table a table instead of a diffuse field of energy—what makes a car a car, or you you, and me me. Or a planet a planet. A universe a universe.

Science and religion often circle one another warily, if not getting into outright fisticuffs. Which to me seems strange, since my own view of it is that God is the Author of both—and that if they seem at odds, they ultimately are not.

Perhaps the apparent incompatibility is simply because we humans are not as knowledgeable as we’d like to think we are—that our view of life and faith and science is so limited, that we can’t see much of the Big Picture that God sees.

Even most scientists agree that 95 percent of the contents of the cosmos is invisible to our current methods of detection.

So in my book, 5 percent means we’re still in kindergarten. We’re hoping to find the “God Particle”—the key to how the universe works—to how it got here. How we got here.

So the Hadron project is now up past $8 billion and counting. It might have been far cheaper to just accept Genesis 1 and Psalm 33:6 and 9. But then, if the Hadron finds the God Particle, perhaps it will at least suggest that behind the particle is the God who created this glue of the cosmos.

Like a father watching his child’s early discoveries, I think maybe God looks on as we try to make sense of His Creation—and smiles.

But would that we here on Earth were as eager to find God—as to find His particles.

HERE’S A POSTSCRIPT TO the post below on Tim Russert. In this video clip, Tim’s son Luke shares memories of his dad and family.

I happen to believe that God is big on families and invented them. In a world today where families are under siege, it’s uplifting to see the obvious rewards that come from making family a priority.

Luke, “Big Russ,” and Tim Russert

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THIS WEEK, MY FAVORITE TV newsman—and in that, I’m only one of millions—suddenly passed away at age 58.

Tim was a great family man. He adored his dad—and wrote the book Big Russ & Me in his honor. For Tim, the sun also rose and set in his son, Luke. Here’s a story about Luke that Tim shared one time with Tom Brokaw:

Christmas Eve, 2004, we went to midnight mass, came home and Luke was getting ready for bed. And my wife, Maureen, came running in and said, “You won’t believe it. He’s got a tattoo.”

I said, “A tattoo? I talked to him about that, about the physical consequences. He promised he —

“Luke, get in here.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? Get in here. No? What — lift up your arm.”

Arms locked. “No.”

I said, “Lift up your arm.”

He lifts up his arm, and there in a little purple stencil print, the initials TJR. My dad’s name is Timothy Joseph Russert. My name is Timothy John Russert.

And he said, “After I read your book, I always wanted you and grandpa on my side.”

And, man, I fell in the chair, sobbed uncontrollably. My wife’s crying. Luke’s crying. I said, “You know, this is the nicest tattoo I’ve ever seen, but don’t get another one, you little rascal.”

THE YEAR WAS 2000. I was still working my way out of a long tunnel of cancer treatment: surgeries, chemo, and radiation.

A movie came out that year—one that inspired me enough I had to purchase it to view again—which by now, I’ve done many times.

One line in particular seemed to sum up a word that had helped me get through the worst of it. A word that has surfaced again in this election year. The word? Hope.

You can survive most anything as long as hope remains. When that runs out, all is lost. That’s why I bought “Cast Away”—the story of a man stranded on a desert island who survived with ingenuity and hope.

The line that I found so helpful that I printed it out to post on my office bulletin board?

“I know what I have to do now,” Hanks’ character said. “I have to keep breathing, because tomorrow the sun will rise. And you never know what the tide could bring.”

No matter how dark things look today, tomorrow is a new day. And as tomorrow’s tide rolls in, you just never know what it could bring to your feet. So hold tight to hope.

New chances. Healing of body or heart. A fresh start. New love. Success to offset a failure. A sweet serendipity. Unexpected blessings. A small miracle or a life-changing event.

With tomorrow’s rising sun, with tomorrow’s incoming tide, you just never know!

NOT A ONE OF US, AS WE journey through life, isn’t offended, wounded, betrayed, wronged, or targeted for vicious falsehoods by others. I’ve experienced my share too.

• I know first-hand how soul-deep the pain goes when others sow lies, attack one’s good name, spread false allegations, assume the worst, deny the benefit of the doubt, and see one’s truth as lies.

• I have known betrayal by those I thought were friends.

• I’ve felt the agony of wounds inflicted by those who said they loved me.

• I’ve known what it is to be utterly vulnerable to someone and feel safe with them, only to be savaged by their rejection or attacks.

From childhood on, like everyone else, I’ve been wounded physically, emotionally, and in the very core of my spirit, by those who deliberately or unwittingly brought against me their sharp words or hurtful actions.

But I’m not saying this to certify myself for victimhood. I am most assuredly not a victim. I only mention these things to certify myself as being in solidarity with every other living, breathing human being on the planet. For we each and all have been offended—and perhaps even worse, have also offended, just as much.

Forgiveness is that highest act of selflessness and grace of which we are capable. And as an editor, let me immediately revise that, for we are not capable of true forgiveness at all—not without divine help—and of that, I am certain. I acknowledge your freedom to see it otherwise, but this is my own conviction.

I’ve found my way, with God’s help, to forgive those who have offended me. Even those who have never admitted or acknowledged that they have hurt me. Even those who have hurt me the most. Even those who continue to inflict pain and are likely to go on doing so for as long as breath follows breath.

Just as I am no victim for having been offended, I am no saint for forgiving. It is only the grace of God that has made that possible.

But there is one person I can’t forgive—not yet. I haven’t yet forgiven the one who has brought me the greatest pain and offended me the most. I have a seminary degree and have spent some years of my career as a pastor. But I am not theologian enough to know how to forgive this person—or even whether God expects me to or can make it happen.

This person is the one who has savaged the relationships of my life. He is the one who has filled my own life with the letter D: disease and divorce and discouragement and doubt and depression and yes, death. He’s the one who took away my father….ultimately, everyone else’s father, and mother, and spouse, and child, until we’re all under the sod. He is the one who makes a wretched playground of misery and loss and war and suffering of Planet Earth.

Yes, you know who he is. I’ve forgiven many, of much. I have yet to forgive the one who has taken from me the most. At times, I feel waves of purest hatred for him. It’s not good for me. It seems to me that I need to find my way to this one last choice of forgiveness.

If that is to be, I’ll need all the outside help I can get.

IN THE MOVIE BASED ON the above character, Forrest Gump is given to sharing his guiding life philosophy, learned from his “Mama.” Hence, “My Mama always said, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates.’”

Another of his principles surfaced when people unkindly questioned his intelligence: “My Mama always said, ‘Stupid is as stupid does.’”

In other words, “Judge people by what they do, not by how they appear.”

Fair enough, Forrest.

But what are we to make of the growing tsunami of “stupid doing” sweeping the cultural landscape? What can we say of the elevation of “dumbness” to a place of pride and status? Should it be of concern that stupidity passes for high entertainment in the media? Do we have anything to say about the juvenile, scatological, foul-mouthed and sophomoric crudity; the sniggering, moronic, and utter brainless “humor” that—unless we retreat from civilization—floods our senses daily? And for that matter, can we any longer even legitimately use the word civilization with any credibility?

Where does one even start in citing examples? Beavis and Butthead. The Simpsons. Miss Teen South Carolina struggling to express a single coherent sentence. Rap music with its utterly inane, gutter-level, violent lyrics. Howard Stern and his grade-school-level obsession with all things crude and imbecilic. MTV’s “Jackass.” Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking,” in which people are clueless as to when the War of 1812 took place.

For that matter, the movie “Clueless” of a few years back. Or “Dumb and Dumber.” Actors such as Will Farrell, Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, and others who specialize in starring in a vacuous, obscene, and profanity-laced brand of “comedy” that bears no resemblance to the humor of such earlier-generation comedians as Lucile Ball, Dick Van Dyke, Carol Burnett, Don Knotts, and many others.

The crowd of vapid, directionless “party girls”: Paris, Britney, Lindsay—famous and envied for contributing absolutely nothing of any lasting value to the world in which they live.

We live in a society where real intelligence: “being smart,” knowing things, is considered by the young as a stigma. A high GPA is for eggheads and losers. Acceptance comes through winning at how much booze you can hold as it’s poured through a funnel.

We live in a society, far too many members of which prize the hedonistic, self-indulgent, and peer-pressure-driven pursuit of instant sensory gratification over cultivation of thought, maturation, and personal development.

It’s embarrassing to realize that my dad fought in World War II to provide the freedom for today’s generation to prize stupidity and cluelessness. It’s embarrassing that studies show a steady decline in I.Q.’s in each younger generation. It’s embarrassing for me as an editor to receive manuscripts from college-educated writers who struggle to express themselves on a third-grade level.

Many books survey this bleak landscape, among them The Dumbest Generation, by Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein, and The Age of American Unreason, by Susan Jacoby.

Religion, my frame of reference in this blog, has contributed its own share to the ascending anti-intellectualism—consider the “know nothing” authoritarianism and chauvinistic misogyny seen in secretive cults; the heavy-handed discouragement of open questioning and investigation of truth in many churches; or the macho-istic love of guns and war and strutting toughness, by those whose Leader is presumably the Prince of Peace.

Yes, I know that the Bible says that as we race to the final act in history’s sad drama, we’ll see a “time of trouble such as never was.” All the “straws in the wind” are flying in that direction: global warming, increasing religio-political devotion to coercive legislation of morality and behavior while steadily stripping away personal freedoms, an economy teetering on the raw edge of sudden collapse, a world running out of resources, the rich getting richer and the poor even poorer, and the deification of dumbness—the topic of this post.

The world we once knew, friends and neighbors, is no more and never will be again. It’s time to brace ourselves for the unraveling of social order, the disintegration of a tired and misery-racked world, even as it morphs into a reality beyond anything Orwell’s 1984 or Ellen White’s The Great Controversy could fully detail.

Convinced of this, I choose to give the cult of dumbness a wide berth. I’m dismayed that so many accept—even take a baseless pride in—ignorance and intellectual laziness as a perfectly fine way to live. I’ve seen and heard enough superficiality and mindless dreck to last me several lifetimes.

Death and depression and disease and divorce and discouragement and . . . dumbness. Anything in common here? A clue? Yet another word beginning with “d”. . .the name of the CEO of everything demonic and diabolical.

But please hold strong to your hope and courage. It may get worse before it gets better. But when it gets better, the positive will utterly eradicate the negative.

Check the final two verses of Revelation 22 now and then for the needed reminder of how the story ends.

IF THIS MONTH WERE A speedometer, for me it would have been pegged to the redline all month. A real tail-chaser. So busy that I’ve had to swear off crime and mischief and most of my repertoire of sins.

Not righteousness by works, maybe, but at least righteousness by working.

In a couple of days, this wee blog will be a year old. About 10,000 of you have stopped by during that time—and thanks for visiting and, some of you, for commenting.

This isn’t going to be long post—your blogger here is still busier than a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.

But…

Listening to the news a few minutes ago, one of the lofty talking heads, speaking of the presidential race, advanced his towering wisdom that the candidates are running for “the most important job in the universe.”

Uh….say what? Run that by me again?

Yes, I know that the media yakkers really do seem to think that the headquarters of the universe is in Washington, D.C., if not 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But last I heard, “the most important job in the universe” was already filled—and it’s not an elected position. And I haven’t heard that God has resigned.

In fact, if you agree with me that besides the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the jobs of about a gazillion angels are also more important than the president of one country on a tiny polluted planet in a remote outpost solar system far from heaven—well, if you agree with that, then the candidates are running for, at best, “the One-Gazillion-and-Fourth most important job in the universe.”

Human ego. Sometimes it’s so disconnected from reality that you don’t know whether to laugh or mourn.

THIS JUST IN…Tuesday afternoon, April 1 (and no, not an April Fool’s joke).

BENTONVILLE, Ark. (AP)—Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) is dropping a controversial effort to collect more than $400,000 in health-care reimbursement from a former employee who suffered brain damage in a traffic accident.

The world’s largest retailer said in a letter to the family of Deborah Shank it will not seek to collect money the Shanks won in an injury lawsuit against a trucking company for the accident.

Wal-Mart’s top executive for human resources, Pat Curran, wrote that Shank’s extraordinary situation had made the company re-examine the situation. Deborah’s husband Jim Shank welcomed the news.His lawyer said Wal-Mart deserves credit for doing the right thing.

Wal-Mart has been roundly criticized in newspaper editorials, on cable news shows and by union foes for its claim to the funds, which it made in a lawsuit upheld by a federal appeals court.

This AP report says that the company re-examined its stance because of the “Shank’s extraordinary situation.” Or could it be that they responded more to a full week of withering outrage from customers and the media?

Has the leopard changed its spots? Just yesterday, the U.S. Justice Department filed suit against Wal-Mart on behalf of former Air Force airman Sean Thornton, after Wal-Mart refused to give him his job back after his military service, as they are required to do by law.

It appears that Wal-Mart continues its established pattern of doing the right thing only when compelled to do so either by law or public pressure. But of course, for the Shanks’ sake, I’m delighted at this outcome.

In his own statement to the press, Jim Shank said:

“It wasn’t me who made this happen, it was the outcry of the people, and if there’s a lesson in this story it’s that ‘we the people’ still means something.”

Despite my own suspicion that Wal-Mart changed its position for the same reason it staked out its original one—protecting its profits—my own decision in light of the Debbie Shank case will not be changing. I suspect the same will be true of countless other former Wal-Mart customers.

I’m actually enjoying the process of expanding my shopping options—and discovering that other large discounters compare quite favorably with Wal-Mart in price—and win hands-down when it comes to better service and cleaner stores.

One thing I’m sure of, based on matters of faith: When the law is on the inside of us—”written on our hearts,” as the Bible says—we don’t need outside force to do the right thing.

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“Greed is good”—Gordon Gecko, in “Wall Street”

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“All the workers you’ve exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger”—James 5:4, The Message Bible

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I’M NO SAINT, AND SOME WHO know me best could provide plenty of confirming testimony. But despite my flaws and failings, I still have the power of choice God gave me from Day One. I can still choose which Leader to follow in the ongoing war between Christ and Satan. I can choose which side of the line between them on which I’ll stand.

And right now, to stand on what I’m convinced is the right side of that line, I’m choosing no longer ever again—for as long as my heart continues beating—to darken the door of Wal-Mart.

By now, you’ve undoubtedly heard the tragic recent story of 52-year-old Debbie Shank (see video clip above), the brain-damaged woman from Jackson, Missouri, who once worked stocking shelves at Wal-Mart to help care for her three sons.

When a semi truck broadsided her mini-van in May of 2000, Debbie’s brain took the brunt of the impact. Fortunately, Debbie’s Wal-Mart health insurance paid out about $470,000 for her care. Later, she was awarded a $900,000 settlement from the trucking company. After legal fees, about $417,000 of that (a percentage that deserves a blogpost all its own!) went into a trust for Debbie’s long-term care.

Unfortunately, neither Debbie nor her husband Jim had noticed a tiny fine-print clause in Wal-Mart’s health plan paperwork, that if Debbie were to settle with a third party for damages, Wal-Mart then had the right to recoup all money it spent on her care.

So Wal-Mart notified the Shanks that they wanted their money back. The couple appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. A few days ago, the Court—reinforcing its well-deserved reputation of coddling corporations at the expense of individual citizens—refused to hear the Shanks’ final appeal. That means Wal-Mart can now collect every penny left in the fund.

And the company has notified the Shanks that they intend to do just that—and that within days, they will drain the first $200,000 from the trust fund, which is now down to $277,000. That will leave the trust fund nearly $200,000 short of having enough to repay Wal-Mart. And of course, nothing will then remain for Debbie’s care.

Meanwhile, Jim is working two jobs to care for her, and since he can’t be at home enough, Debbie is in a nursing home. Jim even legally divorced Debbie recently because by doing so, she might get more in Medicaid.

Compounding the Shanks’ tragedy, their 18-year-old son Jeremy was recently killed while serving in Iraq. But since Debbie’s short-term memory was virtually destroyed in the accident, each time she asks about Jeremy and is told of his death, it’s as if she’s hearing it again for the first time.

Several days of public outrage were met with silence from Wal-Mart, until finally, they released a statement that said: “This is a very sad case and we understand that people will naturally have an emotional and sympathetic reaction [Though this sympathy apparently does not extend to Wal-Mart’s executives]. While the Shank case involves a tragic situation, the reality is that the health plan is required to protect its assets so that it can pay the future claims of other associates and their family members.”

Many legal experts contest Wal-Mart’s assertion that recovering funds is “required.” Wal-Mart clearly has the legal right—though not the legal compulsion—to do so. But is what’s legally right the only consideration here? Should not even big corporations also consider what is morally right?

“I will be a swift witness,” God says, “against . . . those who exploit wage earners” Malachi 3:5. Not only is Wal-Mart infamous for padding their bottom-line profits on the backs of its underpaid employees, it now in the Shanks’ case shows that even when it could do the morally right thing, it prefers to hide behind the letter of the law—the spirit of the law be hanged—in order to maximize its profits.

And this profit worship produces other evils, such as the wholesale export of American manufacturing jobs to places such as China, where exploited laborers turn out toxic toys and other products to sell in American Wal-Marts.

This, from a business with 2007 revenues of $351 billion. From a business that can’t find $470,000 for a woman who, in good faith, signed their health plan, never dreaming that the smallest print would take away all that the large print offered. From a business that earns $470,000 in revenue every 38 seconds and whose CEO, Lee Scott, takes home more than $470,000 every week.

In December, the website Wal-Mart Watch conducted an online fundraiser for the Shank family and appealed to the Wal-Mart Foundation, the Wal-Mart Employee Fund, and the Walton Foundation to match the donations raised. But Wal-Mart didn’t care enough even to respond.

Wal-Mart won’t go under without my patronage. That isn’t the intent of my choice to boycott them permanently. For me, it’s a matter of principle. A matter of which side of the line on which I’ll stand. A matter of choosing not to fund with one additional nickel an empire that so clearly demonstrates that it puts profits consistently above people and that embraces the letter of the law while trashing its spirit.

Rather than buy my food at Wal-Mart from here forward, I’ll use Smith’s (my local Kroger subsidiary). For other purchases, perhaps Target will be my new default haunt, supplemented by such places as the dollar stores, Big Lots, Costco, and—as a last and desperate resort—K Mart.

I’m not suggesting that anyone else join me in my decision—though from what I’ve read, I know that tens of thousands already have. You may see this entire sad episode differently. That is your right. I have no desire to persuade you otherwise. But we each have choices to make in life—times when we encounter an opportunity to stand on one side of the line or the other.

The tagline of my blog is “A few words pro-God.” As often as God will strengthen my chooser—and when to me the choice seems this clear—I want to stand on the “pro-God” side of the cosmic war.

FOR A SECOND THERE, I almost rubbed my eyes. “Natural Tastes Better,” promised the full-page ad. Against a background of sun-rays sat a box….of cigarettes. Natural American Spirit cigs, to be specific—a brand I hadn’t heard of before. But the real attention-grabber was the subheading: “100% Additive-Free Natural Tobacco.”

Ah, yes—cigarettes as part of your personal health program! No point in risking any of those lethal additives as you’re pumping your lungs full of your normal dose of tar and nicotine.

So I sez to myself, I sez: “How brain-damaged do these tobacco marketers think we are? Do they really think they can sell cancer sticks as somehow more healthful because now they’re ‘natural’? Whatever happened to common sense?”

And that’s where my thoughts headed next—to the apparent scarcity of common sense. Do the wizards who make TV commercials really think we’ll put our brains on Pause so they can crank up the volume, push all our knee-jerk impulsive buttons, and hide their warnings in print so fine a microscope can’t see it?

Apparently they do. And apparently we do.

It’s not just in commerce that too many of us abandon commom sense. It happens in the wild over-reactions of the stock market, in the fickle voter responses that cause constantly switching allegiances, in the spiritual choices people make.

Yes. Even in religion—even in church. Some of the most nonsensical, hare-brained, fruity ideas on earth show up in the arena of religion. Preachers who say God sends hurricanes to punish wrong votes on abortion. Members who accuse everybody else of heresy or apostasy, if other people don’t see things exactly as they do. Parents who let their kids die because their religious belief doesn’t include doctors and hospitals.

God gave each of us a good brain. We come with common sense built in. But God also gave us the power of choice. That means that our brains have an On-and-Off switch.

When we move our common sense—our reason—to the Off position, anything goes. We end up believing that it’s a sin to eat pork but OK to cannibalize the reputation of fellow church members. We end up thinking “natural” cigarettes are really a great leap forward in good health!

FOR A WHOLE LOT of years, I’ve enjoyed what American poet John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887) wrote about an old fable from the country of India. He called it “The Blind Men and the Elephant.”

In my book, nothing is a better caution against becoming too opinionated, too dogmatic, too utterly certain of one’s own inerrant rightness. And that can be true of organizations—even Churches—as well as of people:

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! What have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he,
“‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

So oft, in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

Each, partly in the right. Yet all—wrong. So . . . pastors, theologians, church members, editors, bloggers—all of us—we do well to dial down the absolute certainty that how we see truth is THE right way.

We do well to retain a healthy quantity of humility, knowing that our eyes our too blinded to see the wholeness of Truth—so there’s likely a lot more to this Elephant that God still has to show us, than what we’ve already “seen.”

SO HOW ARE YOU PLANNING to use your extra day today? Remember, you’re not going to get another bonus February 29 till 2012. So use it wisely, all ye who constantly bray that “If only I had an extra 24 hours…”

Yes, 2008 has 366 days—not 365. And today is the extra one. So stop the whining, put a sock in it, and do something so incredibly useful with your extra day today that you’ll go to bed tonight smugly smiling right out loud.

In considering the concept of Leap Year, I felt moved to see what my Bible has to say about “leap” or “leaping.” Here are the results I found most interesting, from BibleGateway.com. Your mileage may vary:

• “Yet these you may eat of every flying insect that creeps on all fours: those which have jointed legs above their feet with which to leap on the earth”—Leviticus 11:21. (I’ll pass, thanks all the same. I can’t get past okra and cilantro.)

• “For by You I can run against a troop; by my God I can leap over a wall”—2 Samuel 22:30; also Psalm 18:29. (Huh? David plagiarizes Samuel?)

• “The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills”—Song of Solomon 2:8. (The Tom Cruise couch-jumping effect, understood only by those in love—or at least what they perceive to be love.)

• “Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing. For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert”—Isaiah 35:6. (Even so, and verily, may it soon be, when God makes all things new.)

• “Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you, and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! For indeed your reward is great in heaven, for in like manner their fathers did to the prophets”—Luke 6:22, 23. (Leap for joy when I’m hated and reviled? Hmmmm. OK if I just nod my head a little instead?)

And with that, I leap to a conclusion—of this post, at least.

I ALREADY HAVE A PRETTY DECENT digital camera. Having about half a dozen of the planet’s most irresistible grandkids in my downline, I jolly well better have!

Now, some people have technophobia—a fear of all things hi-tech and gadget-like. I’m one of many plagued with the opposite: technophilia—which I define as a strong enthusiasm for technology, especially the latest—brimming with all kinds of must-have new and better features.

Thus, few days pass in which I don’t spend at least part of my daily thinking quota on all the good reasons I need a camcorder. More specifically, I need a Canon DC310 camcorder with 41x optical zoom, that records directly to DVDs—when it’s finally released this coming April Fool’s Day.

Obviously, the astonishingly fast change and growth rate of my grand-descendants seems a pressing and legitimate part of the argument.

As I’ve pondered (that too seems to be one of my enthusiasms—pondering stuff), it seems to me that truth is a lot more like a camcorder than a digital still camera. The latter freezes the action in its tracks, even if the action includes closed eyes or strange facial expressions. The former, on the other hand, “unfreezes” the action and shows a segment of life more as it actually happens: fluid, dynamic, ever-changing.

I happen to believe that such a thing as ultimate, objective truth exists. I don’t (for now, at least) believe that God has endless gazillions of variations on truth, any one of which is just peachy.

Of course, God has a challenge getting His truth through to us in ways we can understand. First of all, His mind is so far beyond ours that even to compare it with say, my earnestly trying to explain all I know about nuclear fission to a passing bug, is not an adequate comparison. The gap is far greater between my mind and God’s.

Not only is God’s mind so beyond ours that He truly must have expended some major energy just trying to find a way to communicate His truth in our language, but He had only sin-impaired people through whom to send it. The Bible writers were riddled with the sin virus and all that the selfishness disease has done to the human ability to reason accurately. Bible writers also came with the baggage of their own preconceptions, literary inadequacies, and cultural viewpoints.

Nonetheless, God did the best He could with what He had. And that was only in Phase I: getting the truth in print. Then came Phase II: the challenge of those who would read His messages. If anything, the readers were far worse off than had been the writers.

Even if you factor in that God through the Holy Spirit kept His hand closely over the whole process beginning to end, given the challenges already mentioned, the chances for misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and deliberate “wresting,” as the Word says, were—and are—high.

The result can be seen in the World Christian Encyclopedia’s research reporting at least 10,000 distinct religions world-wide, of which Christianity is only one. Within Christianity itself, a further division results in 33,830 denominations. And guess what? Do you think anyone belongs to any of those religions, groups, denominations, who does not believe that it has “the truth”?

I would not want to suggest or imply that because of all these various conceptions of it, truth therefore isn’t possible to know. I’m not ready to jump ship and sign on with agnosticism. In fact, I’d go even farther than the Encyclopedia and say that no two people on the planet see or understand truth exactly the same.

And maybe that’s not all a bad thing. Maybe that means that God does have ultimate, unchanging truth out there, but that He knows He made each of us to be unique. As such, not only are our brains uniquely wired, but our personalities, gender-influenced perspectives, temperaments, life experiences and environments, childhood upbringing, emotions, thought patterns, brain chemistry, hormone balances, DNA—and all else that makes each of us who we are—is as individual as the snowflakes that fall.

Maybe God knows what truth I need most to get straight—and I can count on Him to reveal that to me according to His priorities and time schedule. If so, then maybe He’s speaking truth to me that may not be on His calendar for you till years from now—if ever. Or the reverse may be true.

Now, what about this camcorder versus digi-cam business?

Well, just as, I suspect, God progressively reveals His truth to me on His own personalized schedule, I think He does the same in how He shares truth with His Church—His “body” on Earth. If so, that has implications. Such as:

While truth itself may have only one full and ultimate version, as God has set it up, our understanding of truth may well be—and I believe should be—progressive. If so, then we do well to be in a constant mode of open-mindedness—of eager readiness to revise our understanding as God brings us His steadily unfolding revelation of any given truth.

And if this is how God reveals truth, what happens when we make the mistake old Israel did and freeze truth into a systematized, dogmatic, set-in-cement creed that never changes? Does that not frustrate God’s purpose and plan? And does it not utterly truncate His “word” of truth in mid-sentence, risking erroneous conclusions and possibly tragic consequences?

I’m reminded of what happened at Napoleon’s final Battle of Waterloo in 1815, where an Anglo-allied force under the Duke of Wellington came against him. The message that came through in Britain on June 18, 1815, in a flashing light from Winchester Cathedral, spelled out in code, “W-E-L-L-I-N-G-T-O-N   D-E-F-E-A-T-E-D”—and at that point, the fog closed in and the message light could no longer be seen. Great despair followed the message, till the fog suddenly lifted, and the full message could now be seen: “W-E-L-L-I-N-G-T-O-N   D-E-F-E-A-T-E-D   T-H-E   E-N-E-M-Y.”

When we latch onto truth, then close ourselves to even the possibility that we might have interrupted God in mid-sentence—that He might not be done yet—we take a great risk. We make ourselves vulnerable to the same rigidity, authoritarianism, dogmatism, and self-righteous but unjustified certainty that befell ancient Israel. God may indeed have His end-time incarnation of His original chosen people—Israel II, if you will—but it too is at risk for repeating that same mistake.

Am I saying that because God’s revelation of truth—and our understanding of it—is progressive, that truth itself is constantly in flux, that indeed, there IS no ultimate truth? Not at all! No more than the reality of a scene from life changes simply because a camcorder reveals more of it with each minute recorded. If I’m using my future camcorder to record one of my “world’s most awesome” grandchildren, does the view ever stay the same? Not for a second! But does that mean there is no such thing, ultimately, as my grandchild? You’ll never sell me that!

Since my earliest exposure to spiritual truth, my understanding of any given facet of it has changed….sometimes only incrementally, sometimes dramatically. I don’t understand the truths of the Second Coming, the Sabbath, or how Salvation works, in just the way I did when I was a child—or a young man. That would be the case, of course, if I had taken my first understanding of truth, shot a still camera photo of it, and chosen to believe that it was now locked in, nevermore to change. Oh, were that only true of the photos of me from earlier in life!

No, I’ve found that by rejecting dogmatism and staying wide open to whatever God has to show me, my understanding of truth has shifted, changed, and expanded. And that process won’t end for as long as I draw breath.

Does that mean “ultimate, objective truth” does not exist? No, not as I see it, anyway. But again, both God’s revelation of truth—and especially my understanding of it—is progressive.

I look forward to arriving in Heaven not long hence, not to pick up my diploma, but to enter a never-ending grad school in which I’ll never finish learning more and more and more about God and His truth!

And just as a camcorder beats a still camera hands down, whatever way God has waiting by which to show me more, it will put even my fervently desired Canon DC310 in the shade!

IF THERE’S ONE WORD linked with the 2008 presidential campaign, it’s likely to be change. But it’s not just in politics that, as Bob Dylan once sang: “The Times, They Are a-Changin’.”

A newly released report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life underscores the great degree of change taking place in Christian churches across the United States. Among its findings:

• 44 percent of American adults have changed religious affiliation since childhood. That includes those raised outside a religious tradition who later joined a particular faith, and the 28 percent of people who either left their childhood faith and now don’t belong to any religious group—or who have switched from one denomination to another.

• 16 percent of Americans don’t identify with any religion, including 24 percent of those ages 18–29. This percentage is nonetheless far lower than in other industrialized countries, experts say, meaning that the United States remains by comparison a strongly religious country.

• 24 percent of the population is Roman Catholic, a percentage that hasn’t changed in recent decades. Almost one-third of those reared as Catholics have left the faith, but immigration—especially from Latin America—has kept the denomination’s numbers steady.

• 37 percent of married people are married outside their faith.

For a more complete breakdown of the report, check Pastor Bill Cork’s detailed summary over at Oak Leaves.

SHE’S A PHENOMENON. The wealthiest woman in entertainment. Her name is known world-wide. When she picks an entry for her Book Club, it rockets to the top of best seller lists. If she mentions a product on her show, it’s quickly out of stock in the stores. And it’s safe to say that her endorsement of Barack Obama hasn’t done him any lasting harm, either.

Along with millions of others, I admire Oprah for a lot of things: her rags-to-riches personal story, her school for girls in Africa, her philanthropy, the attention she focuses on worthy causes, and so much more.

So as a Christian, I’m saddened and concerned by her enthusiastic embrace of New Age philosophy.*

Oprah is a big fan of New Age teachings and on her show has boosted the visibility of her personal friend and one of the leading New Age teachers—Marianne Williamson—known for her New Age curriculum entitled “A Course in Miracles.” Williamson claims that the Course was “dictated” to channeler Helen Schucman in 1977 by her spirit guide, who claimed to be “Jesus.”

Beginning a few weeks ago on her XM Satellite Radio program “Oprah and Friends,” Oprah has begun offering Williamson’s course—a lesson a day for the entire year of 2008.

This New Age course turns Christianity upside down. Some examples:

• Lesson #29 asks you to go through your day affirming that “God is in everything I see.”

• Lesson #61 tells each person to repeat the affirmation “I am the light of the world.”
  

• Lesson #70 teaches the student to say and believe “My salvation comes from me.”

Other teachings of the Course include:

• There is no sin.

• There is no guilt in you. Your calling is to devote yourself to the denial of guilt.

• A slain Christ has no meaning.

• A journey to the Cross is a useless journey.

• Clinging to the Old Rugged Cross is a pathetic error.

• The name Jesus is simply a symbol of any of the many gods to whom you pray.

• The recognition of God is the recognition of yourself.

Matthew 24 contains clear, unequivocal warnings about false teachers, false teachings, and false Christs in the final days of Earth.

No sin. No guilt. You are your own God. Do I hear the echoes of a serpent’s words in Eden?

Yes, it’s sad, tragic, and alarming that Oprah seems eager to drink the devil’s lethal Kool-Aid^® and encourage millions of others to do the same.

It’s also sad to consider the unrealized, global power and influence she could have, were she to become as enthusiastic about biblical truth as she is about the humanistic philosophy that denies it.
_____________________________________

(*For more information, read this article by Warren Smith.)

IT WAS FUN BEING YOUNG. Full of zeal and idealism and energy. Ready to plunge into life and apply all those years of learning: grade school, high school, college, grad school. Ready to chase dreams and make them happen. Ready to do something important if not amazing.

But growing older also has its satisfactions. Experience. Perspective. Wisdom. Lessons learned, not in classrooms but through life’s pains and pleasures, its failures and successes, its deep valleys and high mountaintops.

And as I’m growing officially “old” now by some arbitrary measures, I’ve come to discover by hard-won experience life’s most important things. Love is king, of course. Family. Friends. Integrity. Perseverance.

But one of the most important virtues I’ve learned now to prize in life is….hope.

First Corinthians 13 speaks of “faith, hope, and love….these three.” And while love gets top billing, I’ve learned that hope is often equally indispensable.

The Bible says that “we are saved by hope.” I’ve learned how utterly true that is.

We simply can’t live without hope. Hope is what keeps you getting out of bed in the morning. Hope is what drives you to keep trying, even when it seems futile. Hope is the song you sing in the blackness of your personal midnight. Hope keeps the dying alive and the living energized.

Once we lose all hope, we’re finished. Hopelessness is lethal. The will goes home. Possibilities die. Dreams crumble to dust. No more reason to be can be found.

In “The Shawshank Redemption,” Andy Dufresne wrote to his friend Red: “Remember Red, hope is a good thing—maybe the best of things.” Later in the story, as Red goes searching for his friend Andy, he says to himself:

I hope I can make it across the border.
I hope to see my friend and shake his hand.
I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams.
I hope.

Even though I’m older now, I too still hope.

I hope I get to enjoy my children and grandchildren for many more years.
I hope I can give love as generously as I’ve received it.
I hope to make a positive difference while I’m here, to as many as possible.
I hope to become less flawed and selfish and more like Jesus.
I hope “The Blessed Hope” will be soon.
I hope to see all those I love on “the other side.”
I hope you are there too.
I hope.