Like Invisible Ink

Sometimes the mind can play tricks on us. We can look at something and think we know what we see, when in reality, there’s something else just under the surface. We are uncomfortably aware that something isn’t quite right about what we are seeing, but because our eyes can’t focus on two things at once, it’s hard to shift perspective and see the image within the image.

A double-exposure photo is a good analogy. An image developed overtop a more prominent image. Until your mind discerns the difference, you feel a distraction but can’t put your finger on it. The more subtle the image, the harder to discern between the two.

Remember the Invisible Marker Pads you got as a kid from the Dime Store back in the ’80s? A pad filled with blank pages and empty spaces until you touched it with the invisible ink marker and a number or word magically appeared where there was nothing.

COVID is like that invisible ink.

On the surface, the virus is an invisible organism sweeping the globe and causing panic, fear and economic disruptions. But behind the scientific description of what it is and its direct impact (an organism that is of the SARS-CoV-2 strain and which infects humans causing illness and possible death) its indirect impact is not so noticeable, but nevertheless highly potent.

Covid is indirectly drawing lines which before were invisible or at least easily ignorable to most. Entitlement of the rich, the self-indulgent greed of the powerful, a distastful arrogance within the church, the privilege of class, and the ultimate disregard for the poor and underprivileged. It’s bringing to the surface hard lines of who should be first and who isn’t worthy to be first but should wait their turn because they don’t have 1. the status 2. the wealth 3. the importance 4. the right 5. the understanding 6. the education, and the list goes on and on.

This disease drills down into temperaments, egos, greed, entitlement, compassion, empathy, sacrifice and basic rights verses basic ethics. The nature of humankind is being tested down to an individual’s personality which is being drawn upon by the invisible ink of an unseen organism, exposing what is just below the surface. It’s like humankind has been cornered and there’s no easy way out.

Need to get the economy going again? Well then you don’t care about human life.

Need to care more for human life? Well then, you don’t care about the living, because what if I lose my job, lose my home, lose my car or have no money to feed my family?

Doesn’t everyone have the right to live?

Doesn’t every law abiding American have the right to be free?

Where do we draw all the lines? How do we draw them?

No worries…the invisible ink is doing it for us….

We humans pride ourselves on finding solutions to difficult problems, taking action and solving those problems effectively. In fact, there’s plenty of money to be made if you have the skill and knowledge to perform a task that others can’t. We are rewarded and take pride in that. But then we can get prideful – “well if I can’t do it, I’ll make sure no one else does either. If it’s solvable, I’ll be sure I’m the only one who solves it, even if I have to sacrifice morals or undercut the competition in an unethical way or hinder progress at the expense of the greater good – I’ll be first and only! Even if I have to destroy others.”

Then suddenly something comes along and begins exacting a price for this behavior. That price is death and no one knows how to address the issue. And the pride we have developed only makes the effort to stop it worse – it’s as if the virus grows and morphs on the food of pride, arrogance, cheating, competitiveness and indignant behavior – the only attributes with which we’ve learned to succeed and win are the same ones that are causing us to lose. So now what?

Humility is perhaps the key – but who on Earth cares to understand how to humble oneself? It’s a spiritual word with modern connotations of defeat, powerlessness and ignorance. Higher educational systems don’t teach this word in classrooms…wait, do they? Who cares about humility anyway – kick that weak word to the curb! We need strong powerful women and men to show the world who’s really boss, take over governments and positions of authority and be obstinate — no pansies! Humility is for pansies, that’s it.

When someone takes control of their own inner self, these are the actions s/he may take:

Humble: having or showing a modest or low estimate of one’s own importance.

Humility: a modest or low view of one’s own importance; humbleness.

Those who choose not to take control of themselves usual have power exerted over them by those who are in positions of power (and this can be within family units, not just society at large) and this is the action that gets exerted over them:

To be Humbled: lower (someone) in dignity or importance.

Humiliation: the action of humiliating someone or the state of being humiliated

So then, we can either humble ourselves in any given circumstance, or we can be humbled by someone (or something) else who has the authority to do so. And for someone who has the ultimate uncontested power to humble others without being humbled? Well, one must look no further than a being once called Lucifer to see that there truly is only One who holds that position. Thinking he was above God, Lucifer rose up against Him in pride and like lightening, fell from the heavens to the earth in disgrace. Bad day right there.

Jesus, who is God in the flesh was described as meek and mild. And don’t confuse the word meek with weak. So then, the One who is the meekest and mildest is the only One who has supreme authority to humble without being humbled. Interesting I would say; beautifully ironic in fact.

Let me ask this question: What do you think about a tiny invisible organism so fragile that washing your hands for a mere 20 seconds destroys it, yet it is destroying trillion dollar economies and undermining the sense of safety and wellbeing of all humankind – stalking them even into their private homes?

Pride most certainly comes before a fall. In scripture, God beseeches His followers to humble themselves and pray. Why do you think He does this? To show them who’s boss? To make them feel terrible about themselves? Most certainly not the case. Humbleness is the key to changing a current circumstance, whatever that circumstance may be.

In 2020, its a pandemic.

So in this pandemic, it appears our pride and arrogance is being humbled by something so small we can’t even see it. Is it slightly bothersome that the only apparent way to approach this is to humble oneself? Or would a raucous rebellion here on Earth against our fellow neighbors and those in authority work better, you know, to kill something that a little dish soap can kill?

God is waiting.

It’s not about killing the virus. It’s not about showing the government we have the right or the privilege or the strength to do as we please. It’s not about shaming others when we have no idea what they are really going through. Instead, it’s considering what someone else may need and that what they need is important too. It’s about humbling ourselves and before God and asking Him to intervene on behalf of all people because no human arrogance, willfulness, power or entitlement is going to work against such a tiny, fragile, invisible marker.

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Featured photo by Elijah Hiett 

New Beginning; New Order; New Creation

The Billion Threshold

From the Dawn of Creation until 1805 the earth populated to 1 Billion people. That means, from as early as we have record (and I say might as well just count from Adam and Eve) until 1805, it took approximately six- to ten- thousand years to reach this number.

According to this study on LiveScience website, here’s how the numbers breakdown:

1805 – 1 Billion

1927 – 2 Billion

1959 – 3 Billion

1974 – 4 Billion

1987 – 5 Billion

1999 – 6 Billion

2011 – 7 Billion

2025 – 8 Billion???

The Fullness of the Gentiles

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.  Romans 11.25

So, here’s what I thought was so interesting.  It took almost 10,000 years to reach 1 Billion humans, but – and make much of this – it took only 200 years to add an additional 6 BILLION PEOPLE.

There is no doubt in my mind; if in any bygone era, there has ever been ‘the fullness of the gentiles’ the age is NOW.  This is the end of all ages.

Once the fullness of the gentiles has come in, the end of the age will be at hand. And right now we are in the number seven.  We are at the precipice. Seven Billion people currently inhabit the earth and the number is steadily rising towards 8, even as birth rates have begun to decline. Seven in Biblical terms means completion, God’s perfect number; it’s tied to the idea of all God’s creation and it being good.

Eight is the number signifying New Beginnings, New Order, and New Creation. There’s something in this. Something here that is significant; that number holds a new order within it.  Is it the One World Order that will precede, according to scripture, the Second Coming of Christ?  Is it the New Heavens and New Earth that God has promised after the end of the age? Perhaps all these events will come to fruition within those years when the human race hits 8 Billion signifying a New Beginning. Perhaps not. But one thing is for sure, time will ever flow into ALL of God’s prophecies, all of God’s words and all things will come to pass that He has spoken. Time will not erode His words.

The Next Move of God upon the Earth

All I know is that the door has swung open as wide as it’s going to swing and the harvest is ready; God is waiting for His workers to thresh, take the winnowing fan of Jesus and thoroughly clean out His threshing floor! Gather the wheat for the time is here, the separation has begun.  The Spirit of God is rising and His breath will blow mightily across the fields of the nations to separate the wheat from the tares, the sheep from the goats, so be ready servants of God – you harvesters! – to bundle up what belongs to God and gather the nations ill-gotten gain to consecrate it to the Lord, the God of all Creation.john-such-493478-unsplash

His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. ~Matthew 3. 12-14

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time’s Railcar

Time. It is the one thing that no human can stop.  The year 1906.  Was anyone thinking about the year 2000?  I find myself thinking only of 2040.  My mind doesn’t wander to the year 2100.

https://youtu.be/pEvB_ZIWtAg

 

This peek into 1906 was just 4 days prior to the great San Fransisco earthquake and fire that devastated the city which had broken every building code in the books and nearly every home built of wood was burned to the ground.

It’s a feeling I can’t put my finger on when I watch this footage.  The music; the fact that I am being transported in a rail car, in 1906, down Market Street as newspaper boys, carriages, trollies all dart and cross over in some unseen syncopated rhythm. Upper class, working class, all real life – no Hollywood stuff – just real people 111 years ago, now gone, and I get to share an ephemeral ride with them all because someone decided to click the ‘on’ button. And that’s just it…

I know.  I already know that in 4 days, it’s coming for them. But now, in this illuminated flicker of time, they carry on, eating, dining and being married as the ancient scripture reads. They are doing what they do everyday; criss-crossing the rails between carriages, trollies, cars, bicycles; hitching rides, waving hello, curious folks, busy folks, high society and working class folk doing their thing, carrying on with the day’s tasks, making money selling newspapers and making their way forward, ever forward, all unknowing, all unsuspecting and without a clue what’s waiting for them down the rail car of time.  And it’s moving, that rail car, it’s moving all of us along. Their was no stopping it, it kept moving steadily and unswervingly towards the end of those 3 days until the morning at 5am on the 4th day.  And then…

It kept going, time that is, it kept moving along those rails, through the earthquake, through the fires, through the heartache and the pain it kept right on moving without stopping to mourn or rejoice or reflect or congratulate.  Through the year of 1906 and into 1907, through the confetti and the resolutions, through the wars and the peace treaties, the good decisions and the bad ones, the new technologies the new ways to save people and the new ways to kill them, through catastophic floods, volcanos, storms, through dreams broken and fulfilled it moved, steady until finally it would stop in 2000 – but it did not stop – and here we are now in 2017 and time is flowing past me, over me and through my fingers, my skin my heart my thoughts it flows through and leaves its mark on my face, my mind and my life.

Who’s going to be watching us on a digital playback in the year 2117?  With whom will we share our ephemeral existence somewhere down the railcar’s tracks, careening out before us into the future – who will meet us on our planes, in our cars, crossing our busy intersections at midday and say “they didn’t know – look at them – that it was coming for them in just a few days, see how they go about their lives with their dreams, their hopes, spending, eating, celebrating, mourning, working and being distracted by the joys and trials of life, look at them – and they didn’t know.”

Where does that put us on the rails of time?