Monthly Archives: November 2005

A few years ago, I did an op-ed piece on the Korean researcher who, at the time, had announced that he had impregnated a woman with a cloned embryo. I remember being horrified at how we could have the audacity to try to meddle in creating human life.

About two years ago, I did another op-ed piece on the stem-cell controversy, and the ethical complications of it.

Tonight, I read on wired.com that this Korean researcher just received some big honor for his breakthrough work in the field of stem-cell research.

One man’s researcher is another’s mad scientist, I guess.

I think it was one of my theology professors that said that God has given us the beautiful privilege of joining with Him to create life. That’s part of what is incredible about the institution of marriage, and our ability to have children. Think about it, ’cause when he said that it rocked my world. God has given us that enormous privilege to join with Him in creating a new life! How amazing is that? As I look forward to (at some point in what is appearing to be the far-flung future) starting a family of my own, I cannot wait for that experience. What an honor! An honor we could not possibly deserve.

Leave it to us to abuse it.

A little knowledge, and suddenly the human race thinks we’re deities. Just because we’ve discovered the ability to duplicate human DNA, we think we’re cool. We think we can usurp the right to toy with life. My argument hasn’t changed over the years: we can duplicate DNA, even down to the fingerprints and retina, but we can’t make a soul. God is an Artist. One cannot duplicate a Picasso by reducing it to a mathematical equation. You get a cheap copy that lacks its fire, its inspiration. When we try to duplicate His masterpiece, that’s what we get. A cheap copy. How much of a nightmare would it be to realize what might be the truth of a cloned adult human being? Could it feel? Could it function at all? Only God can create a soul. Only God’s brush can paint this portrait. But, in the same pride that caused the Fall and tried to build the Tower of Babel, we for some reason think that we can duplicate what He has done. We assume that we can play God whenever we like.

I think we’re way underqualified.

This is gonna be such a butterfly…

It’s amazing how we put our comfort into material things, isn’t it? Maybe this comes on the coattails of me being concerned so much about finances lately, and certainly God could teach me a lot through this, so perhaps that’s the point. But permit me to digress for a minute…

I recently upgraded the operating system on my computer. As you know, I’m a writer and a grad student, so my computer is a pretty necessary tool in my life. And I have Mac. Now, like most Mac users you probably know, I tend to elevate the perfection of Apple computers almost to a religion. We tend to be that way.

So imagine my frustration when two important applications stopped working when I upgraded.

I get so completely frustrated with a computer when it doesn’t work. Always have. One little incident of it not working, and I’m done, fed up, irritated. Which is kind of stupid. But, being a technology geek, I tend to get pretty wrapped up in my toys, especially my computer, because it’s kind of my sidekick in life.

My friend just told me that his computer went down and had to be repaired this week. He’s beyond stressed. We’re going into finals, and it’s just not when you need a computer to have difficulties. I have another friend who’s a law student, and her computer totally crashed a few weeks ago, resulting in losing data that she really needed. It just doesn’t get more frustrating than that.

So, I’m a little irritated tonight, ’cause I’m gonna be on the line with tech support tomorrow morning. But I have it so much better than they do. And, at the risk of over-spiritualizing (again), it’s difficult to understand when the things that we put so much faith into let us down. Or the people. That’s the worst. To be betrayed, totally stabbed in the back by someone that you put your trust into. You just can’t understand it.

But it happens. Because there’s no such thing as a perfect person, and certainly no such thing as perfect technology. And the human beings and things will always let you down at some point. You always hurt the one you love. That is, unless you’re God.

So I guess the Spirit gently reminded me tonight that He’s so much more reliable than a computer, or any friend that we may have, or anything else that we count on. And the bottom line is that we count on this stuff far more than we count on Him.

Just a thought.

Thank you to all of you who have kept me in your prayers. God hasn’t revealed everything about my current situation to me yet, but He’s certainly given me a feeling of amazing peace about this week, at least. Sometimes, that’s enough.

So, I’m feeding my news addiction tonight, and the big news is that Michael Jackson (go ahead, roll your eyes and groan) is moving to some foreign country that I probably could pronounce if it was important enough to me, and that there’s no legal way that he could be exported back to the U.S. if there should ever be another child that comes forward with accusations again…

And, all the evidence is looking pretty strong against that guy who was seen in the surveillance video outside the car wash with the girl that got killed in Florida…

And a guy and girl in Pennsylvania got into an argument with her parents (’cause they had been out all night), and the guy shot both of her parents, while her younger sister watched! They just caught the guy this morning, and don’t know if the girl was an accomplice or not.

I’ve reported enough and worked in healthcare long enough to have encountered some pretty wild things and seen things that have made me stagger. But I literally feel sick at my stomach when I think about this. Seriously, it breaks my heart. I can’t understand how a human being could do that to another person, how we could be capable of something that horrific.

I mean, I know the academic reasons. Clinically, I understand that it’s classified as an antisocial personality disorder, or can be because of various mood or psychotic disorders, depending. Theologically, I understand that it’s all because of the Fall, and because we’re all infected by the original sin. But emotionally, I cannot understand it. I can’t wrap my brain around this. I almost want to ask, what have we become? But we’ve been this all along.

I guess when I think about how tainted and twisted we are as fallen humans, and the aweful, detestable things that any of us are capable of at any time, it makes it all the more astounding to me that Jesus didn’t change His mind and come down off the cross. Just say, bump it, wipe out the whole batch and start over. Because by rights, He should have.

My pastor spoke about the forgiving of 10,000 talents this past Sunday in Matthew, and that that many talents was an absurdly large number to make a point. He forgave us of a debt so enormous that we can’t comprehend it’s vastness. And if He never gave us anything else, He’s given us more than we could ask for.

See what I get for being a news junkie?

In other news, Monday is over! Thank goodness!!!!!!

I guess I’m trying to just get this stuff out somewhere so I can sound it out. Those of you who like to leave me comments, please, give me feedback!

I’ll preface this by saying that I’m running on sleep deprivation. I got like little to no sleep last night. Mostly because I couldn’t get stuff out of my mind. I just tossed and turned all night (even the jazz didn’t help). My brain wouldn’t shut off. When I’m working on a project, that tends to be a good thing. When I’m stressing over life, it doesn’t.

Specifically, I’m stressing over school, and over a pretty dramatic change that I’m considering making in the new year in regard to my ministry involvement. The two don’t add up. My scholarship arrangements could be lost, which worries me the most. My financial situation is bringing me down in a major way…I’m so tired of “poor student” status.

Well, it occurred to me last night that I was just worrying and worrying and worrying (obviously not sleeping), but not praying about it. It’s not that I haven’t prayed about it, it’s just that I tend to talk to God on a surface level about it. So at some wee hour this morning, I had the passage running through my head where Jacob wrestles with God, and refuses to let go until He blesses him. And I just got up, and started praying, “God, I’m not letting go of You about this. I don’t see any way around this. I need an intervention that I’m not getting. I need You to show up. I’m not letting go until You do.”

Eventually (graciously), I fell asleep. I had this strange dream about my family during the holidays. I’ve always had an extremely close family, and the dream was so vivid that I woke up missing them, really longing to be around them. That’s pretty uncommon for me…I’m a very independent guy. And here’s the screwed up part: in the background, I heard my friend’s band doing their rendition of “Blackbird singing in the dead of night” (the old Beatles song). And I was thinking about an old job I used to have…my first professional “office” job out of college. I remember really loving that job.

The only place that left me when I woke up is that I am so extremely thankful for the places God has allowed to be and the things He has allowed me to experience. I don’t have any idea what He’s trying to communicate to me through this dream or the things He’s bringing to my recollection of late, but I know it’s in response to my prayer.

I guess when I figure it out, I’ll let ya know.

Ok, so this must have been the most boring post ever. Sorry. I hope this finds you all blessed and happy.

OK, so I’m browsing some news sites this evening (I’m a news junkie) and two things catch my eye. The first is Paris. The story that is most consistent across all the news sites is that of the riots in France right now. Apparently (at least according to CNN), the riots started in response to the deaths of two Muslim teens who were hiding from police. I think it was the New York Times that said these riots have forced the French government to confront their inability to assimilate minorities. In any case, cars are being torched, two cops have been shot, and another has been burned in the face from a firebomb. Life isn’t good in France right now.

The second is the controversy over the Vatican’s announcement against permitting gay priests to enter the priesthood, and the myriad of complaints that have resulted from that (it’s in the LA Times, if you’re interested).

This is gonna seem disconnected, but I swear it’s not a butterfly…

One of my youth group students came up to me Wednesday night ’cause he was concerned about the lyrics of a song he had been listening to, and asked me what some of the words meant. One of the words was “minority.” We got into a lengthy discussion about the meaning of that word. One of the definitions he agreed on was, “the people who are less popular.”

That, at least in popular opinion, is what sparked the French riots. And people are going to accuse the Catholic Church of ostracizing minorities now because it’s made a (Scriptural) decision against permitting homosexuals into the priesthood (well, they’re compromising a little on that one). Christians catch it all the time. People are always down on us as being the intolerant bigots because we don’t endorse things, and therefore are accused of being racist, sexist, or, at worst, enciting hate speech. That’s a sad commentary on two things: how the lost view us, for certain, but also on what we’ve done to lead them to that view.

There are things we should never compromise on. Sin is sin. Let’s be honest, and call it what it is. But that doesn’t mean that we hate on the people that commit sin. Jesus loved them enough to die for them the same as He died for us. We’re no better than they are…the best case scenario for any human is to be forgiven. How dare we have the audacity to stand on our religious high ground and look down on, or refuse to associate with, people who look different from us, who commit the same sins in action that we do in thought, who have done something that we have decided is unpardonable, even though God never identified it as such?

The thing you say you’ll never do is something you’ve already done when no one was looking.

So it comes down to this: you’re forgiven, or you’re not. Because you’re not good, and neither am I. I’m just forgiven. And if we enounter someone who’s not, then what we’re supposed to do (instead of judging them), is tell them about the One who can forgive them.

Hate starts riots. Hate takes a lot of forms: racism, classicism, sexism, derogatory speech, refusing to associate with someone different…funny, isn’t it, that hate can look a lot like religion?

Love takes one form: God. It looks a lot like Jesus. He hung out with the people that we shy away from in order to show them love. That’s what the world is looking for. Love. Not melodrama. They have enough of that. Love. We have the one love that really matters and can really change their lives.

So let’s get over ourselves and show it to them.

Sounds like a plan.