Showing Up

You embarrass yourself when you demonstrate that you have lived a hypocritical life. In my lifetime, hypocrisy has been shown by “just showing up”.

Just showing up for worship services, deliberate religious impoverishment. Who do they think that they are fooling: God? Family? Friends?

Just showing up for a job, insulting maturation in the work ethic. Uninterested workers, just clock-watching, more interested in time off than the opportunities afforded.

Just showing up for class, educational depravity. In many cases, the learning experience has just become a ladder for getting somewhere, a worthless piece of paper. Never before in the history of time have we had such a mountain of knowledge. Think of how much the ancient thinkers and developers could have done with today's research and learning tools!

Next to the creation of God is the magnificence of producing children. Yet some parents, especially the father, barely show up in the rearing of their most valuable possession: their own children. Anyone, even the sorriest among us, can biologically produce a child, but it takes more than just showing up to provide the nurturing they need for development. They are your bloodline, life is in the blood.

Several generations of Americans have never known a real drought. This is the time of sprinkling systems, “endless” water running through the faucet. Today's young people have never seen crops/pastures dry up; animals (cows, horses, mules, etc.) standing at dry watering troughs. How well I remember my father hauling barrels of drinking water from a nearby town for the animals in the farm. Traveling through Russia, India, during times of drought, the rivers were totally dried up, the fields littered by animals who had perished, wells and springs dried up, military water-carriers brought in just to keep the populations from perishing.

In olden times, less prolific and profitable generations, young people knew that rain fell on both the just and the unjust. (Matthew 5:45) Elijah was just one man against 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. The prophets had prayed for most of the day, self-mutilated themselves attempting to get Baal to devour the sacrificial offering; but Elijah, with a 26-word prayer...the fire devoured the offering, alter, water, everything. God showed up and ended a three-year drought. Droughts, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, disease and death show up in God's own time. HE DEALS WITH US. In spite of ourselves, He deals with us.

In spite of the insanity of our economics, He deals with us. If one dollar bills were stacked all the way to the moon and back twice, you would have an indication of our national debt ($14 trillion). In spite of the insanity of our sexual morays, He deals with us. The pink gay-pride flag flies above the Federal Reserve Building in Richmond, VA. Numbers were invented 10,000 years ago; a human can recognize at most seven objects at a given time. America has spent itself into a numbering system which only a computer can recognize.

Last week, Dr. Jack Kevorkian died. “Dr. Death” had assisted in 130 suicides. People who because of stress, or disability, did not want to continue living. With all the comforts of this age, there are more suicides than ever, 18 per day just among military veterans. I think I met Dr. Kevorkian one time, at Easter Island (in the Pacific, 500 miles west of Chile), while on a trip there. He was a fellow traveler, and we both were asked if we would like to see their hospital. A very nice facility, not one patient in the hospital, who knows why, but from diet, climate, exercise or something, the inhabitants of Easter Island were very healthy. Dr. Death would not have agreed with me, but I do not know if God had ever showed up in his life.

I am convinced that just the miraculous act of reading God's Word will heal. I told many patients in my time to go home and just read the Bible, particularly the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs. It was a healing experience for most of them, especially for those with beginnings of Alzheimer's.

Before 1850, before exotic chemicals used for treatment, before the chemical pollution of food and water, before the stress of technology, mankind was dependent on God showing up. Before modern day advertisement made sure you were dissatisfied with your life; before the most dangerous technology to health showed up (air conditioning); when children played outside, people sat on their front porches, took long walks in the heat or cool of the day, worked in their flowerbeds or gardens, allowed the particles of dirt to penetrate their skins, giving them the health salve. We could handle stress, which is nothing more than change, when God, in some way, shows up.

Showing up, fast-food drive-thru, airports, shopping malls. Have some reserves in your life...routine times of rest, relaxing times with hobbies, restorative/remembering times with children, family and friends. There is more to family life than just showing up to school activities, graduation, family activities, weddings and funerals, friends activities, ostentatious cocktail parties, obligated sick visit. Even in the hospital, the nursing home, the visited can tell if you are just showing up. So mired in knowledge, the philosophy of the world has been changed with lettering on t-shirts. Even Old Navy stores sell “gay pride” shirts.

A one time Christian nation...20% of all prisoners (total 2.2 million), about 340,000, convert to Islam before leaving prison. The Islamic goal in America is for every family to be approached with the Muslim religion. Middle East wealth (Saudi Arabia) pays $20 for the conversion of any American child. Every 24 hours, there is an addition 6,000 Muslims in the world. There are now 1.6 billion Muslims on earth. In Muslim countries such as the Sudan, if a Muslim becomes Christian, the person is wrapped in a white burial cloth and beheaded. A Muslim will not eat a watermelon because Muhammad never ate one. Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him. Add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. (Proverbs 30:5-6)