Bonus Item of the Day: Part III! Really?!

Yes folks, one more absurd item of the day, any more and I am going to be really jaded. From the Washington AP:

Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius recently corrected three years of tax returns and paid more than $7,000 in back taxes after finding "unintentional errors"—the latest tax troubles for an Obama administration nominee. The Kansas governor explained the changes to senators in a letter dated Tuesday that the administration released. She said they involved charitable contributions, the sale of a home and business expenses.

Another one bites the dust....

Absurd Item of the Day: Bonus Feature

It seems as if one post featuring an "absurd item of the day" will not quite do it. Today on NPR there was a report that the Obama Administration has released a webpage on mental health and the economic crisis. The Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration has recently published a site called "A Guide to Getting Through Tough Economic Times". While I am not a psychologist, I believe it was Albert Einstein who once said: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Based on how the Treasury and Fed have been handling the current economic crisis, perhaps they should read SAMHSA's nifty guide. The same Keynesian policies the federal government is trying now, have been tried countless times before to no avail (read up on Japan's "Lost Decade" if you don't believe me). The bottom line: the government cannot create wealth by increasing federal spending and attempting to internally "buy back" its own debt.

Absurd Item of the Day: China to release "Punishment Van"

Here's a little bit of gallows humor to start off our Tuesday morning. USA Today reports that China found a way to execute prisoners on-the-go with its new "death van". Faced with increased space demands in the country's overcrowded prisons, the Chinese government decided that portable execution vehicles would be cheaper and more efficient. According to Amnesty International, China executes around 8,000 prisoners each year, four times the amount of all the other nations in the world combined. For comparison, the United States executed 60 prisoners last year. Pretty chilling stuff....

British MEP gives Gordon Brown a piece of his mind

Daniel Hannan is a young British Tory who represents southeast England in the European Parliament; he also writes for the conservative Daily Telegraph in London. During a meeting of the MEP leading up to the G20 summit, Hannan gave a rebuttal to Prime Minister Gordon Brown speech on the global financial crisis. Hannan concluded the speech by stating:

You are the devalued Prime Minsister of a devalued government

Brilliant...If you have an additional minute, check out Daniel's blog here.

(TP: Drudge Report)

The Pitfall of Questioning

In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis sets up a story in which a busload of people come from Hell to take a ride through Heaven. Throughout the book, several of the "ghosts" (those who are on the bus tour) are met by individuals they had known on earth who are now in Heaven--referred to as "Spirits." These latter are bright and beautiful, and more real--as is the land in which the bus has now brought those from Hell--than any of the ghosts. As they talk, the Spirits are seeking to show the ghosts the way to life and Heaven, and as the readers we can listen in on their conversations.

Though the whole book is powerful (and well worth the read), one conversation/interchange stood out to me more than the others, especially in light of the postmodern fascination with questions. Before I quote the passage below, I will say that I do see some value in certain postmodern concepts, and I do believe that it can be harmful to never be able to hold any questions in tension in this life. We are fallible, and we do not possess all truth; however, God in His grace has revealed truth to us, and it is this that is especially relevant in the following interchange between a ghost and a Spirit. Here, the ghost is responding to the Spirit, who just intimated that Heaven is a place of answers:

(Ghost) ‘Ah, but…The free wind of inquiry must always continue to blow through the mind, must it not? “Prove all things”…to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.’
(Spirit) ‘If that were true, and known to be true, how could anyone travel hopefully? There would be nothing to hope for.’
(Ghost) ‘But you must feel yourself that there is something stifling about the idea of finality? Stagnation, my dear boy, what is more soul-destroying than stagnation?’
(Spirit) ‘You think that, because hitherto you have experienced truth only with the abstract intellect. I will bring you where you can taste it like honey and be embraced by it as by a bridegroom. Your thirst shall be quenched.’
(Ghost) ‘Well, really, you know, I am not aware of a thirst for some ready-made truth which puts an end to intellectual activity in the way you seem to be describing. Will it leave me the free play of the Mind…?’
(Spirit) ‘Free, as a man is free to drink while he is drinking. He is not free still to be dry…Listen!...once you knew what inquiry was for. There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you had found them. Become that child again: even now…Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth. What you now call the free play of inquiry has neither more nor less to do with the ends for which intelligence was given than masturbation has to do with marriage.’ (C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 40-41)

When are we--perhaps caught up in the intellectual challenge of argument and discussion--avoiding actually accepting truth? It is far easier (and I know this because I do it too) to discuss and debate than to live and truly believe the truth. In saying this, I am not denigrating debate or discussion: they are often necessary for us to better understand the truth as we are challenged by others and not simply left to form our own personal worldviews (that we too easily shape in the image of our own fallen selves or our own sin). However, discussion and debate, when rightly applied, should not only result in a better understanding of truth, but then a better application and living out of this truth. I may know every text in Scripture that reveals Jesus as the Messiah, Savior of the world, but unless I truly live this truth out by trusting in Him and what His death accomplished, I am a fool.

Questions are good, but they ought to lead towards truth...towards God.

Why Does Al Gore Refuse to Debate Climate Change?

At a recent economic summit featuring Danish scientist Bjorn Lomberg, Al Gore refused an offer to debate the premises of his worldview on climate change with Mr. Lomberg because:

The scientific community has gone through this chapter and verse.

Lomberg supports Gore's belief that global warming is real and man made, but disagrees that regulating and eliminating CO2 emissions is the best way to help the environment. If global climate change really constitutes a global emergency worse than the war on terrorism, why won't the former vice president debate the validity of his viewpoint?

A Challenge from Brother Lawrence

In a letter in The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence writes of someone's (who I believe may be himself) thoughts about seeking God:

He complains often of our blindness, constantly crying out that we are to be pitied for our willingness to be satisfied with so little. 'God,' he says 'has infinite treasures to give us and still we are satisfied with a brief passing moment of piety; that we are blind and by our blindness we restrain the hand of God and so stop the flow of the abundance of His graces. But when He finds a soul imbued with a living faith, He pours into it His graces in abundance. It is like a torrent forcibly diverted from its usual course which having found a passage pours through irresistibly in an overwhelming flood.'...Yes, often we restrain this torrent by ignoring it.

How true! All too often, I may find myself more truly worshipping God with joy, and yet I then consider that passing glimpse of relationship and fellowship with Him sufficient, and leave without seeking more. If "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4; see also Deuteronomy 8:3), then how can I deceive myself into thinking that these "brief passing moment(s) of piety" are sufficient? Ought we not to seek God more, and not stop when He blesses us with some such moment?