paravanes:meditations

Growing up, one of my favorite TV programs was "Lost in Space." During the first season of the program, there was a serious sci-fi edge to most of the storyline. An episode in the last season featured carrot monsters (!) During that first season, two of the major characters in the series (a sabataging stowaway, Dr. Smith, and an all too human Robot) have a discussion that runs like this: Dr. Smith : Would you like to try your hand at a game of chess? Robot : If you wish to play the game, I will join you. I am not programmed for free will (free choice). Dr. Smith : Don't worry about it, free will is vastly over-rated. Is free will "vastly over-rated"? Is free will responsible for all of the messes polluting our world? The world is truly filled with violence, not just in Tunisia, Congo, Afghanistan, or other places famous for their fierce environments. There are armed conflicts on every continent, except Antarctica, and there are no signs of abatement....

I am just old enough to remember where I was when the news reports mentioned (first) that Dr. Martin Luther King had been shot in Memphis. A quick follow up mentioned his death. I grew up in a household where King's speeches were listened to on vinyl records and his books lived on my father's bookshelves. My family often talked about King in those first years after his death. We marveled at his courage--both physical and moral. As a child, I wondered why there was so much anger and animosity at his dream of a race-barrier free society. Was there really a compelling reason why busses, water fountains, parks-playgrounds, and other spaces had to be segregated? Later, as an adult, I questioned the silence demonstrated by so many churches during the early years of the civil rights movement, particularly in the South. Why didn't pastors, Sunday School teachers, church officers, and others in the more traditional, conservative (Bible believing?) churches see something unjust, ...

During my last few months of grad school, I took extra time to read and reflect on the big transition ahead. That was over 25 years ago, and one book from that time continues to speak to me: Pilgrim's Progress , by John Bunyan. Yes, the language is not easy for those who don't enjoy challenging sentence formats and older English --there are modernized versions for the rest of you (ha! ha!)-- but there is something in this book that requires your attention if you want to hold a deeper vision of what the Christian life and direction is all about. Written while Bunyan was in prison for preaching without a state sanctioned license, the book is a fictional account of one man's journey from life to life. The book's subtitle, "from this world to that which is to come", is rarely used. I picked up a copy of the book because I knew it was a classic, and wondered why so many people owned it and so few actually read the book. The term "progress" intrigued m...