paravanes:meditations

I watched this video and realized I have an answer to one of the "big"questions. One of the great criticisms of Christianity has been the statement that a loving, all-powerful God would not allow the atrocities that exist and have existed in human history. Yet, it is human history we are talking about. If we are as good as we would like to be and as good as some insist we inherently are, we would not allow these atrocities. Are the critics insisting God appear (physically) , smack us down for not doing the right thing, and then fix the messes we've made and allowed? Some believe that day will come. It's not here yet. If you think what's in this video isn't an atrocity, stop reading. I don't completely understand why these tragedies continue in the human story, but I have learned one thing while watching this video and others like it: left to our own devices, humans cannot make this world what it should be. We won't sacrifice and speak ...

A few weeks ago, I found free streams of one of my favorite 1960s sci-fi tv series, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, at hulu.com . The series ran from 1964 to 1968. Although I'm not old enough to have watched its original run, I remember watching syndicated reruns in the early 1970s. I loved the extensive underwater photography and although I didn't always follow the Cold War era espionage elements of the first season's episodes, I identified closely with the leading characters. Someone told me any good artistic creation (regardless of topic) contains elements of the gospel if you're willing to see them. I found these elements in an episode titled The Fear Makers . In this episode, an experimental submarine attempts to expand the limits of "crush depth", or the furthest depths a submarine can travel before experiencing structural failure and collapsing or exploding under the pressure of the deep ocean. As Christians, we're often called to go to the limi...