When Another Person’s Choice Becomes Personal

Richard Israel

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Time Flew

Last night wasn’t the best use of my time, and the host told me what the experience would be like before the party started: a bunch of millionaires giving gold statues to each other. He was right – that’s all Oscar's night was.

The film clips from the spectrum of movies honored suggested artists had been at work – the presenters and recipients’ words, no so much.  But I “taped” it so I could speed through the commercials or other boring portions. So, I pressed on.  The recording stopped itself, however, in the middle of one of the last speeches – Meryl Streep’s – almost as if the recorder were saying: “Enough!”

No wonder I make so little progress on my great American novel!

Unlike the time I have spent watching “America Idol,” she wrote defensively, and then realized she was without excuse for the management of her time.  

 Time is the coin of your life.  It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.  Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.  ~Carl Sandburg

“Nobody Expected the Spanish Inquisition” (Monty Python)

We are still hampered by ice and cold – as news reports detail riots in Egypt, demonstrations in Yemen, and a cyclone in Australia. I watch on TV in comfort and relative safety. The end of the world hardly seems probable – but we are twenty-four hours closer to it than we were yesterday.

I grew up amidst fears of a nuclear holocaust; “On the Beach” was a movie that haunted my imagination for decades – until all the players who had bombs seemed to learn how to play together. But now new players have joined the game – and I have begun to think a bit more about how quickly life could change – or end.

Have you considered from how much you have been shielded – just today? Each day I am stunned!

Over centuries, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and man-made cataclysms have destroyed millions upon millions of souls. Christ described two times that people were caught unaware – in the days of Noah and in the days of Lot when disasters destroyed them all. (Luke 17:26-29) Our hope is God, who knows how to rescue us! (2 Peter 2:6-7)

Some people lived through the holocaust, the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima; some survived the 2005 tsunami, and 9-11. But His plan of a rescue doesn’t mean my life won’t change, though my life is spared. In the 6th century BC, when the Babylonians marched the women of Zion into captivity they lived through a horrific siege – never to participate in Temple worship again.

When Isaiah saw the coming Babylonian exile, he urged the people to look away from disaster and consider God:

And He will be the stability of your times,
A wealth of salvation, wisdom and knowledge;
The fear of the LORD is his treasure.
(Isaiah 33:6)

Recent news has reminded me of “Fire and Ice” – a poem by Robert Frost, who pondering the end of the world, wondered whether it would be preferable to die by fire or ice – passion or hate?

When my world is upended, it doesn’t matter how I will die – how shall I then live?

Noah and Lot did not expect a flood or a firestorm; yet, in their own ways were preachers of righteousness in a world very much like our own – though our sin seems on steroids! The women who were marched to Babylon didn’t expect that would happen in their lifetime. But they kept their faith in the coming blood sacrifice.(Isaiah 53) And they trained up the generation who went back to Jerusalem, rebuilding the walls and eventually the Temple.

Tomorrow when I open the papers, the news may be as unexpected as street riots in Egypt, the 1933 hurricane that reshaped waterfront property in Annapolis, or the planes that hit the Towers and the Pentagon on 9-11. Or, I may get unwanted news about loved ones or my own health.

How shall I then live?

But how can people call for help if they don't know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven't heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it? (Romans 10:14-15 The Message)

Image Source

Home – Again.

Early in December we returned to our former home in Maryland to celebrate Christmas and the new year, leaving our current home in Texas. While there, we camped out in an apartment we had formerly used, and so felt quite at home. Time passed too fast – and we left before we could see so many dear friends and family. Oh! For the time to catch up with no interruptions.

Every trip reminds me a bigger trip home awaits – one my mind can’t fully comprehend. It’s a trip that scares me as much as it thrills me. No interruptions – and all the time in the world to be with God, and reconnect with those who went before me. I believe there is one way to get to that Home – many I know and love, do not. They have chosen their own paths.

But to everybody I love – I hope you will hear my heart’s song for you, expressed through Cindy Bauchspies' wonderful music, Peaceable Kingdom. 

Enjoy!

(Picture information: Sheep Going Home by Sue Campion)