Means to an end

An early episode of the long-running sci-fi TV series Star Trek was titled "The Menagerie" in which the Captain, Captain Pike suffered a hideous fate. Left terribly disabled and very much inability to do very much at all.   He was paralyzed as well as being hideously disfigured and the only movement left to him was blinking his eyes which he did to communicate. One blink for yes, two for no kind of thing.  Captain Pike was offered a choice on how to live the rest of his life. As he was, as a very unable, disabled man and a life time of paralysis and helplessness,  Or to live the rest of his life as an illusion.   The illusion would mean he would seem to himself to live a life of health and well being and a fully functioning member of his society as he had always been.  

The original story as written was to have him turn down the illusion and to live out his life in his real state of paralysis and inability. But the script writers eventually changed that so that the show that aired showed him choosing the illusion.  There was an important message in that episode. That man has a right to go to any means or lengths possible, to avoid suffering.  In some way it seemed to be vindicating the mess less popular than today choice of Euthanasia.  And I’ve thought of this today.  If given a choice would I go for the illusion or the reality as my life is. Some of my happiest times seem to be when asleep in a different world to my reality, and it can be quite shocking and shattering to wake up and break the illusion of the dream and face the reality that my life is.Yet I am alive, and as non-functional in many ways as I am, I am still able to take part in actual things of life and not things that are only make believe and a figment of my mind. Is that really any different to a Walter Mitty kind of existence? Does it have any foundation in how man was created and the purpose for which he was created? I don’t think so.

Last week on our news I saw a guy a few miles from me, in another part of the same city on the news. He is going to Switzerland, and has chosen the Euthanasia route, because he was the victim of a horrific racial attack that has left him paralyzed. He has a wife who loves him and tends to his needs. He’s not facing his existence alone or unloved in his world. Yet he can’t face life as it is, and so once some formalities have been dealt with, he will go to Switzerland to be euthanised. It made me very sad for him and his wife and what other family he has. As being paralyzed doesn’t leave anyone dead or not able to be a useufl member of society. He gave an interveiew on the news and was probably even more eloquent in his being able to express himself perfectly normally and without difficulty than I am. Yet he has no hope–at least in the existence he has now. His hope has run out. So he will go to Switzerland and kill himself and thinks it will answer all his problems. When in fact, they may only just be beginning.

Euthanasia is feely available in Switzerland which is easily reachable from the UK. It is illegal at the moment here, but because going to Switzerland is becoming so popular for people here with incurable diability or illness so it is making it more and more likely it will be legalized here as its only red tape that says its illegal here when it is so easy for people here to seek an alternative by going to Switzerland. If anyone assists him in going to Switzerland, technically they are breaking the law. But its not a law that is likely to be followed through or it will be kept hidden from the authorities just who helped this man on his way so that they are not able to be prosecuted anyway. Its far too easy.

I heard someone else on TV the other day who was desribing a depressive state simiarly to these words: "When I wake up, for a few minutes I feel fine; full of the joys of spring and the same as I have always been; and then reality hits; and I wish I’d never woken up." I’ve had similar to that in the past–probably the only time I will admit to actually being mentally ill–even though its obvious now the cause was porphyria rather than the causes it was given at the time. My stomach would sommersault each morning,l within minutes of waking, when reality of the thing that was haunting me at the time hit me anew. And I would spend hours into a forced sleep just to escape the pain of that reality.

Yet none of us can escape reality, if we want to live the lives God has given us. None of us can find the magic potion that makes reality something else. You will either find a way to deal with it, or you may as well stick your head in the gas oven from day one of your life changing. Reality isn’t always pleasant. Yet the alternative, is against the laws that God created. Do we really have a right to alter the order of things, and despise the reality God has given us, however poorly we may esteem it, and throw it back in his face in ingratitude rather than thanking Him, and blessing Him despite it, and accepting what we cannot change, but knowing its not outside the realms of possibility for God to heal us if He so chose to do, and resting in His sovereignty? We become our own gods. And do exactly as Adam and Eve did and set our own rules and defy and deny what God has imprinted on every mans heart whether believer or unbeliver. Yet if we take the way of escaping the reality God has given us, it will leave us naked much like it did Adam and Eve when they had to face God. And without a leg to stand on as far as explaining why we did what we did. Our days can seem long, arduous, hard, and excruciatingly difficult. Yet these days are short by comparison, to an eternity of torment for taking God’s Laws and throwing it in His face and setting oursleves up as our own gods, and taking matters into our own hands, rather than relying on God’s goodness, mercy and justice, and for the affliction of illness or disability to be the means to achieve the end any of us could ever hope for. One that we can never beging to imagine the joy of, in these bodies of sin, but that if we wait on Jehovah, will be realized, fully, and without question. Maybe instead of trying to find a way otu of our suffering, in whatever form that maybe, we should cry with the Psalmist: "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes." [Psalm 119:71]

The curse of having red hair in England

It has long been known that having red hair will cause you to be a target of fun and ridicule often. Because as hair colours go, even though in England we have more red heads than anywhere else, its still the minority of hair colours. So people with red hair stand out. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt really keen on how red hair looks to be honest. But wouldn’t be able to say why. But did anyone think Sarah Ferguson upon her marrying Prince Andrew looked anything less than beautiful? (personally I thought she was a HOOT too–but that’s for another time). We also have a young guy in one of our soap operas currently who has bright red or ginger hair. He also has equally bright red cheeks. And every time he blushes which is all the time with his girlfriend, he goes almost scarlet! It’s quite endearing. I’m trying to ponderize if having red hair if I was made fun of because of it, if it would overly bother me. The honest answer is , I don’t know. No one can ever answer a hypothetical question such as that. As a person of colour where racial discrimination is rife, and that has never overly bothered me, maybe it would not. And of course no one can help what colour hair they are born with anymore than anyone can help what colour skin they have. Yet, with red hair, if it really bothers us to the extent of being ridiculed is seriously affecting our lives, we can change the colour of it if we wish to (not that we should feel forced into it, unless its of our free choice, but there still is that choice) if you have skin colour of ethnic origina you cannot change that. (Unless your Michael Jackson of course!) You also will not get hate crimes committed against you because you have red hair. You will not be hunted down and chased like a rabid animal by the KKK and their ilk. So, there is a huge difference between the problem of red hair and that of racial prejudice. We have now become so immune though of hearing of racially motivated crimes we are probably immune and hardened to hear of it; and we would only likely notice it if it was not in the news!

So yes, having red hair will no doubt bring its own curse in life. But for me personally, where a double discrimination can exist, each of which I cannot cover one little bit, being of racial colour and disabled, I feel its rather, don’t make a drama, out of a crises.

To see what red heads or ginger nuts have to put up with, then watch this short video clip!

Call to diligence

What reason have you, why you should not presently embrace the Call of God, and thankfully lay hold on the first opportunity and season of salvation? Have you any greater matters in hand than the salvation of your precious souls? Is there anything in the world that more concerns you? If the affairs of this life be so indispensibly necessary, and those of the world to come to indfferent; if you think Meat and drink. Trade and business, wife and children, be so great things and Christ, soul and Eternity so little things; or you thnk Salvation of the greatst neccessity, yet it may safely enough be put off to an uncertain time, I may assure you, you will not long be of this mind,. How soon are all the mistakes of men in these matters rectified, in a few moments after death. Rectified, I say, but not remedied; your opinion will be cfhanged, but not your condition

Do you not every day, easily and readily obey the calls of satan and your lusts, whilst God and conscience are suffered to call and strive in vain? If satan or your lusts call you to the tavern, to the world, and sinful pleasures, you speedily comply with their call and yield a ready obedience; if pride, covetousness, or passion and revenge call, they need not cfall twice; Lord, what a creature man is become! If a vain companion call, you have no power to deny him; if God call you, you have no ear to hear him.

You cannot but observe the obedience and diligence of many others, how seriously, painfully and assiduously they ply and follow the work of their own salvation, and yet are no more concerned in the Events and Consequences of these things than you are. Doth it not trouble you when you compare yourselves with them? Do not such thoughts as these sometimes arise upon such observations? Lord what a difference is there like to be betwixt their end and mine, when there is no apparent difference in our course and conversation? Doth not God distinguish persons in this world by the frames of their hearts, and tenor of their lives, in order to the great distinction he will make betwixt one and another in the day of judgement? Have not I as precious a soul to save or lose as any of them? What is the matter that I sit with folded arms, whilst they are working out their salvation with fear and trembling? Why should any man or woman in the world be more careful for their souls than I for mine? Surely its capacity and excellency is equal with theirs, though my care and diligence be so unequal. [John Flavel]

 

O England!

O England full of sin, but most of sloth,
Thy gentry bleats, as if thy native cloth,
Transfused a sleepiness into thy story.
Not that they are all so, but that the most
Are gone to grass and in the pasture lost. [G. Herbert]

 

Let's call the whole thing off!

You say potato, we say potaaato but what do you and we say about cuts of beef?

Winston Churchill (amongst others) is credited as saying two people, divided by a common language when talking about England and the United States.  The proof is in the pudding! Or in this case beef!

America’s cuts of beef

And England’s!

Let's call the whole thing off!

You say potato, we say potaaato but what do you and we say about cuts of beef?

Winston Churchill (amongst others) is credited as saying two people, divided by a common language when talking about England and the United States.  The proof is in the pudding! Or in this case beef!

America’s cuts of beef

And England’s!

Strong vs Weak

Sometimes people think, because I am short of cognitive ability I am of no account or to be reckoned with; as if God is impotent towards people like me, and leaves them helpless and useless. The kind who will do this, are normally those who set themselves up as their own god in their own eyes, and make all kinds of judgements about others they can have no way to know–apart from pride and arrogance. Yet the Bible speaks much about the weak and the infirm over coming the strong.  And this verse is the most directly which speaks to that. So those who dismiss me as laughable, because I am sick, or weak or unable on some levels. You are laughing at and deriding the God the Bible too:  But then the latest to jump aboard this bandwagon of doing such, why doesn’t that surprise me, huh?

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; [1 Cor 1:27]

Manual on wheelchair driving 101

This may be  more of a don’t do as I do, for your own well being! As I’m a bit of a daredevil in my wheelchair. I think its majorly the reason I learned in such a short time to get around in it as well as I do. I amaze and confound everyone by my manueuverability techniques,  (generally everyone expects the worse from women in that way) from doctors to, people in the street.  I think it also has something to do with having a best friend who is a paraplegic for ten years just before I became disabled, as I got used to manuervering his chair.

I only have two real rules for getting about as best as I can.

1) Brute force and ignorance

2) Try it and see.

Around eight years ago, I decided to get a bicycle. I had never had one as a kid, and had given up smoking at the time so figured I would get myself into shape. I can’t drive owing to seizures so it seemed a simple thing to get me around on. However, it didn’t last long, as I had no idea I had this disease then, and often the vague symptoms I experienced which I dismissed was I now know  illness.  But five to six year old kids used to speed past me and leave me for dead, and I was going flat out, but the strength in my legs, plus my balance, meant I never got very far very fast.  EXCEPT, going downhill. I was going down the main busy road in my area one fine sunny day. And I always free wheeled downhill and it was the one time I actually enjoyed being on the flippin’ thing. And a copper, (policman) pulled up in his car, and told me I was going too fast!  If on the footpath/sidewalk I could have seen his point, not in the middle of the flippin’ road though! My dad had hysterics that I nearly got done for speeding on a bicycle! But,  I often in the fine weather wheel myself down to the local shops, which again is all downhill. I probably don’t go far off the speed I was on my bicycle when the copper stopped me. But there again, I AM on the sidewalk/footpath in  my w/chair, so maybe he would have a point.  But its a side road so not likely to have policmen patrolling it very often.  If I hit a hole I would no doubt go flying out of it, but generally I feel perfickly safe freewheeling down to the main road,  though in actual fact it probably could be quite dangerous.  But, I get down their in around four minutes, (its around half a  mile) and then get me a taxi back home as its all uphill.

Being afraid makes us often scared to take chances. Being disabled, can make you more reluctant to. After all–you don’t NEED any more damage or harm to ones body do you?  But, I am a daredevil in my wheelchair, and I admit it. I came a cropper a few years ago, right outside the door of my church at the time after evening worship. I went backwards and completely knackered my back for weeks pain wise, and was on morphine constantly till it started to die down a bit.  And it did make me cautious when going uphill  in case I tip backwards,  I never take unneccessary chances when doing  so.  But apart from that, I’m a daredevil and quite happy about it. Take a chance or become a statistic–of someone who couldn’t do, because they were disabled. No one is going to give you anything in this life–taking a chance is often the only way to get things done.   I think faith can be a bit like that sometimes. You dare to believe what doesn’t seem possible. Yet if you don’t dare to believe, where does that leave you?  Up the creek withotu a paddle, and more than disabled, but dead already.  And as I’ve told folks since I became sick like this. I may be disabled, I certainly ain’t dead yet!  This show ain’t over till the fat lady sings!  (Quiet please!)

 

Ever feel this way?

  I seem to almost every week for a day or two. Sometimes it goes away for longer, but it never goes away for very long.  I seem to be at a point I could get more light and understanding, and so bring real comfort into this affliction which I so often lack right now, of a spiritual nature.  I am sick unto death, coping with a terminal degree of illness year in and year out, while abandoned by most of God’s people. Its a hard lot, and it often makes little sense to me in light of God’s Word.  Yet, I know also the failing in large part in dealing with this, and not getting to that place of utter despair, lies in me. By not seeing things, or unbelief or, not understanding. For the first time in a very long time, perhaps forever as far as my spiritual pilgrimage goes, I see a chance to get more light that would bring great comfort with it, if there was less darkness and less mystery surrounding some thngs still. I may be the "know all of the world wide web"  as my old adversary Tom Mitchell names me. But sometimes, my ignorance and lack of of discernment appalls me in the context of my suffering.. Those who read my blog with any regularity and know a little of my life and circumstances and abject poverty in this world; please pray this is brought to fruition.  Lord, I believe, please help my unbelief.

Until such times, my online activity maybe a bit stinted. As I need to get these things settled.

God is not impotent

The most common question I find, when talking to unbelievers and also the question I used to struggle with also as an unbeliever was if God is good, why is there such horrendous acts of evil and such suffering in the world. The fact that most of the major wars seem to be rooted in religion I know fed my questions in this vane for many years. Trying to make sense of God, in the context of human catastrophe and extreme suffering.

I sometimes think the words I was most likely to utter first, would be "why" as it seems the age old human question to everything. And the why of almost everything is still the question I wrestle with most. If we stopped asking why, we would stop looking for answers to the mysteries of both God and mankind and the universe and humanity as a whole.

But without faith, if you look at the terrible catastrophes that have befallen our world, and the great suffering involved in both mass form and individual cases, its very easy to think of God as an impotent God. As if God is God why does evil seem to triumph so often in having its way, and such suffering ensue from it? The Second World War and the terror and tryanny of the Nazi regime come to mind. As does the Twin Towers of Sept 11th in more recent times. The starving in Africa. And everything in between whether individual or on a mass basis. I suffer terribly in my body. I doubt many folks could imagine the reality of living with such pain and other suffering day in day out for years. And it takes an emotional toll. Yet I know its come from the hand of the Sovereign God of creator. As a first cause. Nothing in life doesn’t. To try and reconcile this in my mind and feel peace about it, at times of extremity can be a real battle and in some instances can lead to what only feels mental torture because I cannot reconcile it. I know people, Christians, who don’t try the way I do, to grow in truth and faith, and yet by comparison they are living blessed lives. And they get the best of both worlds. An easy time of it here, and eternity in heaven. It can seem very unfair, unjust and nonsensical. You next lead to questioning God’s love towards you on a personal level. If God loves me, how can he leave me in such straits? And the questions go on and on, until you are more than confused, feel not a little lost, and more thoroughly afflicted than most people will think possible–as now you are not only in torture in ones body, you now have mental anguish that seems to have no solution that makes any sense. Yet God is God.

Christ didn’t want to suffer. He asked His Father to remove the cup from Him, BUT only if it was his Father’s Will. And that seems to be what it boils down to. Its not that God is impotent at all, and we may not know the purpose of His will for something happening, but His will makes Him anything BUT impotent, as its working out everything that will happen in the universe from here till the Second Coming. That’s anything but impotent, and very much omnipotent.

Trusting God when we are warm, safe and secure is easy to do. Its only when the rubber hits the road and you are chained to a sick bed, not just for a short time, with some vague possibility one may die, but for week after week or month after month or year after year, that trust can be so difficult. We all have to die some times, so facing death in itself means very little. I have watched unbelievers die, who were close to me, and they seemed to not face it with any fear. But to be in the valley of death and suffering all that goes along with that for an inordinate amount of time, will pick the men from the boys so to speak. God will either sustain us or He won’t. If we get through it, its not because we have any special ability or power only what God has give us, the grace to endure and persevere. But trusting when hope gets more and more distant for relief in this life, and it in fact becomes extinguished, and you know you will spend the rest of your days, suffering intensely, can make trust seem vague. But trust can’t really be a half way thing. If you only half trust someone, you won’t give them the key to your front door one day, and not trust them enough to do it the next. Yet we have our blinkers on when faith is not by sight. And we have to trust in a hope that is far removed from our reality in the here and now, where only a furnace seven times hotter exists for us. We want to understand as much about our suffering, as much as Adam wanted to eat from the tree in Eden. Its forbidden to enquire further than God reveals yet we still want to, and still do, in our desire to seek answers to hard questions. Without those answers, trust can be hard to our feeble minds to make sense of it enough to actually trust. Yet God’s will, will be done whatever. His purpose is being worked out. The Bible in umpteen places make it clear that suffering is for our good. (Rom 8:28 ;Gen 50:20) And even if we don’t understand why, then in part its because God is God and we are not. And we are still so very blind in understanding God as He has revealed Himself, so He always remains somewhat of a mystery to us, even as we get to know Him. His ways are past finding out, and as Is said:
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

If we trust in the power of God, then not understanding, shouldn’t be an issue. Yet it so very often is, for me, for you, and most any Christian. God is not impotent, but in our sufferings, and doubts and fears, we often make our faith impotent, and become terrors to ourselves.

When one looks on a clock, and sees the motion of the wheels, the striking of the hammer, the hanging of the plummets A Body of Divinity Thomas Watson he would say, some artificer made it; so, when we see the excellent order and harmony in the universe, the sun, that great luminary, dispensing its light and heat to the world, without which the world were but a grave or a prison; the rivers sending forth their silver streams to refresh the bodies of men, and prevent a drought; and every creature acting within its sphere, and keeping its due bounds; we must needs acknowledge there is a God, who wisely orders and governs all these things. Who could set this great army of the creatures in their several ranks and squadrons, and keep them in their constant march, but HE, whose name is THE LORD OF HOSTS? And as God does wisely dispose all things in the whole regiment of the creatures, so, by his power, he supports them. Did God suspend and withdraw his influence ever so little, the wheels of the creation would unpin, and the axletree break asunder. All motion, the philosophers say, is from something that is unmoveable. As for example, the elements are moved by the influence and motion of the heavenly bodies; the sun and moon, and these planets, are moved by the highest orb, called Primum Mobile; now, if one should ask, Who moves that highest orb, or is the first mover of the planets? It can be no other than God himself.[Thomas Watson]