Blindfolded

ByHal Hammons

I have not seen Bird Box, the Sandra Bullock film on Netflix everyone seems to be talking about.  And maybe it’s just as well.  Because there seems to be a trend of people trying to drive blindfolded.  After all, Sandra Bullock did it.  And she’s a movie star.  Surely that makes it a sensible thing to do.

To be fair, it’s reasonable to assume I have only heard of the blindfolded driving situations that went horribly wrong.  That said, I can’t imagine how “right” such things can go.  The best possible result is that nothing remarkable happens.  I do that every day.  Without a blindfold.

But that’s not really fair, is it?  “The best possible result” in the mind of the Bird-Boxers is to have an adrenaline rush unlike anything they have ever experienced.  There are too many safety measures on roller coasters, bungee jumps and every other thrill permitted by law.  We have to push the envelope.

When cars are engineered to do everything possible to save passengers’ lives, and especially when Daddy will spring for a new Beemer to replace the last one he bought the Bird-Boxer, the downside seems minimal.  So he trains himself to believe thrills are safe, and quickly he becomes inured to them and go seeking greater thrills.  Eventually he destroys himself.  There is no other possible result.

Is it any wonder we have trouble convincing the younger generation to fear hell?  They don’t fear anything else.  They buy merchandise that proudly preaches, “No Fear.”

But God is real.  You must fear God (Ecclesiastes 12:13).  And hell is real.  You must fear hell. 

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Unitaskers

ByHal Hammons

Alton Brown, my favorite foodie, has a real attitude about what he calls “unitaskers” — that is, kitchen implements that serve only one function.  Strawberry slicers, rice cookers, countertop rotisseries, basically anything sold on late-night television — scrap them all.  The only unitasker you should have in your kitchen, he says, is a fire extinguisher.

It is the exception to the unitasker rule that I would like to address here. 

The Parable of the Rock Climber

ByHal Hammons

She’s barely holding on.  She is losing feeling in her fingertips.  She became convinced a while back that starting this climb was a mistake in the first place, but by then she had no choice; it was continue upward or fall to certain death.  So she continued upward, on a journey she had already decided she could not finish. 

And then she stopped to take a rest.  It was never a long-term plan.  She just wanted to do anything but climb.  …

A few words about authority

ByHal Hammons

In this space last week, I made you aware of my brief exchange with Bro. Jesse Winn, whose website article entitled “The Church of Christ: Some Thoughts on Change” has gotten a bit of play lately.  The article features 30 statements, each of then beginning with “I believe.”  They represent his current thinking on a variety of subjects ranging from church music to congregational oversight to the resurrection.  I do not have the inclination to respond fully to any of these points, let alone all of them. But I would like to address the tone of the article as a whole, and perhaps touch on a few specific points along the way.

 

Know

ByHal Hammons

Mathematician David Hilbert had inscribed on his tombstone, “Wir mussen wissen. Wir warden wissen.”  He was German, in case you thought this was going to be a note about typographical errors made in granite.

“We must know.  We will know.”  That’s the translation, and a powerful commentary on mankind’s need — mandate, even — to advance the boundaries of knowledge. 

Puzzle

ByHal Hammons

A preaching mentor of mine recently compared the church to a jigsaw puzzle and its members to individual pieces — indented to receive other pieces, and protruding to be received by others.  As big a fan of puzzles, the church, and good gospel preaching, you would think I would have made better use of that word picture over the years.  Well, let me spend 300 words fixing that error of omission.