Bees see the world differently. They will go to hell...
As you know, bats rely on ultrasonic waves in order to understand the world. In fact is is all they can use to understand the world. If you were to ask a bat about what they "see" they would describe it rather differently than the way you and I would "see" something as we use a small bit of ultraviolet light to "see".
Bees on the other hand use ultraviolet light, but they see differently than humans do.
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| What humans see and what bees see. |
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| Snakes use infrared light. |
A tick picks up on butyric acid and temperature, while ghost fish picks up on electrical fields.
We have this assumption that if human beings were given the "proper" information then they will "see" the correct and most logical conclusion. So people on different sides try to lay out arguments so that others can "see" where they are coming from in order to come to the same "logical" conclusion. When the other person does not come to the same conclusion, they are idiots, or wrong, or going to hell (the punishment is related to your level of religiosity it seems).
But no one thinks bees and bats and snakes are going to hell because they do not see the world like we do.
So just two things: 1) who is to say that there is more out there to be seen and we just cannot observe it yet (we did not even know that these animals "see" the world differently until very recently and with the use of technology) and 2) bees, bats, and snakes see the world differently - that does not mean they are idiots, wrong or going to hell.
What Little Miss Sunshine taught me about Church
Marcel Proust is someone I know nothing about. I feel like I should because he is acclaimed to be a rather well known author who wrote about memory in a seven part series, entitled Remembrance of Things Past.
In fact the extent of my knowledge of Proust is what I learned from Steve Carell's character in Little Miss Sunshine.
With that said, I encountered this line from Proust not too long ago about memory:
"(Memory) would come like a rope let down from heaven to draw me up out of the abyss of not-being".
Each week the Church gathers together for a number of things, but in part to remember.
When we remember the Story of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, we are given once again a rope to draw us up out the the abyss of not-being. Each week we come together to discover again, for the first time, what it means to be a "being".
While it is an interesting story, it would be hellish to never have a memory. Movies like 50 First Dates or Memento are great to watch but I would not wish my enemy into that state of memory limbo. Amnesia is a horrible thing to witness and if you do not believe me just ask anyone who has witnessed a loved one suffer from Alzheimer's disease. Or just ask Clive.
The Church comes together each week to stave off group amnesia or collective Alzheimer's. We remember and we are pulled from that abyss. We remember and we are once again home. We remember and we are no longer alone. We remember and we are found.
In fact the extent of my knowledge of Proust is what I learned from Steve Carell's character in Little Miss Sunshine.
With that said, I encountered this line from Proust not too long ago about memory:
"(Memory) would come like a rope let down from heaven to draw me up out of the abyss of not-being".
Each week the Church gathers together for a number of things, but in part to remember.
When we remember the Story of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, we are given once again a rope to draw us up out the the abyss of not-being. Each week we come together to discover again, for the first time, what it means to be a "being".
While it is an interesting story, it would be hellish to never have a memory. Movies like 50 First Dates or Memento are great to watch but I would not wish my enemy into that state of memory limbo. Amnesia is a horrible thing to witness and if you do not believe me just ask anyone who has witnessed a loved one suffer from Alzheimer's disease. Or just ask Clive.
The Church comes together each week to stave off group amnesia or collective Alzheimer's. We remember and we are pulled from that abyss. We remember and we are once again home. We remember and we are no longer alone. We remember and we are found.
IsItOld.com, Tom and Jerry and Christianity
There is this little site called is it old. What it does is you plug a link into the search bar, it will search for how long that link has been around and then give you a report of how old that link is. So while you may have just found this video of a tribe that has never had outside contact before (and it is still fascinating each time I watch it), according to is it old, this video is "really old".
What is nice about isitiold.com is that before I send a video out, I can sort of see if I am late to the party or not. It is like seeing a movie years after it has come out. No one wants to talk about Forrest Gump anymore. Even if you have just seen it for the first time.
Can you see where this is going with the way the Church proclaims the Gospel?
Each Sunday churches around the world have an opportunity to preach Good News to the world. And the problem is each week the Good News is presented in worship in such a way that, if it were plugged into isitold.com it would come back as "really old".
We tell the same story in the same ways that people can say "I get the gist of it" and walk away just fine without it. I do not need to see any more Tom and Jerry shows to "get the gist" of what is going on - Tom tries to capture the illusive Jerry.
People I encounter tell me that Christianity is nice because it teaches a good moral code or that it lays a good foundation for morality. Self-sacrifice, love, peace, reconciliation... I get the gist of what Christianity is about. I do not need to participate in a worshiping community to know what is being taught in the faith.
Christianity needs teachers and preachers who are willing and able to proclaim the Gospel in such a way that it captures the imagination of people once again. We need to stop preaching Tom and Jerry sermons, people get the gist of that rather quickly. No one tells their friends they need to see the new Tom and Jerry show because that way of telling the cat and mouse Story is really old. However, people told me that I needed to see the latest cat and mouse story out there.
What is nice about isitiold.com is that before I send a video out, I can sort of see if I am late to the party or not. It is like seeing a movie years after it has come out. No one wants to talk about Forrest Gump anymore. Even if you have just seen it for the first time.
Can you see where this is going with the way the Church proclaims the Gospel?
Each Sunday churches around the world have an opportunity to preach Good News to the world. And the problem is each week the Good News is presented in worship in such a way that, if it were plugged into isitold.com it would come back as "really old".
We tell the same story in the same ways that people can say "I get the gist of it" and walk away just fine without it. I do not need to see any more Tom and Jerry shows to "get the gist" of what is going on - Tom tries to capture the illusive Jerry.
People I encounter tell me that Christianity is nice because it teaches a good moral code or that it lays a good foundation for morality. Self-sacrifice, love, peace, reconciliation... I get the gist of what Christianity is about. I do not need to participate in a worshiping community to know what is being taught in the faith.
Christianity needs teachers and preachers who are willing and able to proclaim the Gospel in such a way that it captures the imagination of people once again. We need to stop preaching Tom and Jerry sermons, people get the gist of that rather quickly. No one tells their friends they need to see the new Tom and Jerry show because that way of telling the cat and mouse Story is really old. However, people told me that I needed to see the latest cat and mouse story out there.
Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.