LIFE ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE

Riding my exercise bike this morning I watched Jon Scott on Fox News report

”Fire under bridge halts Metro-North commuter trains in and out of Manhattan.”

How did they go about making this a big story? I guess they went back to If It Bleeds It Leads. Because what they were talking about was how taking a small bridge to the north of Manhattan of service would trap the hundred thousand commuters in the city. They went on to discuss how difficult it would be to leave Manhattan heading north if this bridge was out of service.

But Jon Scott, a private pilot[1] and the man who has commented on many news stories about terrorists should know better. By highlighting this important part of the Manhattan infrastructure as a bottleneck Jon was shouting fire in The Theater of Homeland Security.

In the years that I worked as a civil service I noticed that anytime the media highlighted an event which fell into the area of responsibility of one of my bosses, the boss felt the need to take action.

We hear every day that Islamic terrorists are looking for a way to strike at America. How much more information do they need beyond this newscast to find an easy vulnerable troublemaking target in New York City?

How much more of a shove do the bosses of Homeland security need in order to come up with some new regulation that invades the lives of commuters in New York City?

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[1] https://amsrvs.registry.faa.gov/airmeninquiry/Detail.aspx?uniqid=A4463243&certNum=

Sometimes life is like the lay of the land in California. On the mountain top you can see all the dimensions of your world.  From Death Valley you cannot see all the dimensions of your world. But the stars can be seen even from deep within a hole. In life impaired vision is dysfunction.

Only rarely have I been in a deep personal hole. At 77 I see my life from the high ground.  I see much good that had come unexpectedly into my life: wonderful children; wonderful wife Michelle; wonderful way of life beyond any reasonable expectation given my level of either professional or financial success.  There is no rational explanation that would satisfy my college classmates. They might chalk it up to random good luck. My mother, if she were still here, would ascribe it to God’s intervention.

And yes, from here as I look back, I agree with my mother and all those who are of like mind.  That puts me even farther from Stephen Hawking’s beliefs than from his accomplishments. When he wrote his book “A Brief History of Time” he is reputed to have said that he did not know if there is a God. More recently Professor Stephen Hawking told ABC News, “One can’t prove that God doesn’t exist, but science makes God unnecessary. The laws of physics can explain the universe without the need for a creator.”

This is a step away from pure atheism to something that I label as A Unidirectional Belief in God. That is to say “what I think about God’s existence is important but, There Is No Way God Thinks About Me!”

The parable of a good man stranded in a flood sheds light the unidirectional belief in God.  In the story, a man stranded on the roof of a house in a flood refuses several rescue offers saying, “God will save me”.  HE DIES. In heaven, he asks why God did not save him. The answer is that God sent many people to rescue him, all of whom he rejected! In the control of his ego, he expected to have a personal face-to-face rescue by God.

Because of ego we see “Through a glass darkly”  1 Cor. 13, 12. The keystone of unidirectional belief is substitution of ego for God.  If you have a unidirectional belief in God, your ego will claim that it is solely responsible for all of your good or lack of good. Your ego may even blame all of your failures on “George Bush”.

Let me propose a Multi-directional Belief in God. It is a belief in which we know that God exists and that he believes in us too! “Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows”. Matthew 10:31