The Certain Among the Strange

There are times I think the entire world has disappeared down the rabbit hole into Alice in Wonderland territory.

The Pope reads a medieval poet's view that Islam breeds violence and evil. Muslims disagree with this so much they shoot a 60 year old nun who is helping the poor in a hospital (they cheer as she dies), they fire bomb several churches in Palestine (only two of which happen to be Catholic), jeer at worshippers at Catholic churches in London and Paris, holding up signs declaring the upcoming death of all Christians and Jews, and engage in violent marches and attacks worldwide. THAT'LL show the world the Pope was wrong to call Islam a violent faith!

Over one trillion dollars have been spent on the war on poverty. We have more poor people now. The solution, say the architects and supporters of the Great Society? Spend more money.

Huge sums of money are spent on public education. Our kids are failing and SAT scores are in free fall. The solution, says the educational monopoly, is spend more. Even when Bush doubles the amount of money given to education he is ridiculed for his parsimony.

Gore flunked out of divinity school. Bush's SAT scores were higher than Gore's and almost every one of the Democratic leadership. He has better degrees than many of them (but no law degree, so it doesn't count...) and has beaten them in two straight elections. But Bush is an idiot and his opponents are intellectual giants. Right.

Churches are dying as they guard their sacred bubble, their holy hour on Sunday. They see attendance falling and their children fleeing to other churches and their solution? Clamp down on any change! Stay the course!

Sigh.

I remember when my sweet wife and I were first married. She is now a well known interior designer and, frankly, I should have seen it coming. We were poor and rented an upper story one bedroom flat in an old, drafty house. The rooms were huge but we had only a few pieces of furniture. Kami would rearrange it all relentlessly. Everytime the phone rang at night, my shins were in for a bruising. This was back in the days before cordless phones so each phone (we had only one) was tethered by a short cord to a wall socket. Light switches were hard to locate at night so I would fall over and bang into all of our furniture as I tried to reach the phone.

How to stop this? I wondered. I didn't want to tell her to stop moving our stuff around because, well, I never have liked telling her what to do or seeming like I was correcting her. I needed something creative, something subtle. I came up with a solution at last...

I went into the bathroom and left the door open. I knew she would be walking down the hallway to the bedroom from the kitchen momentarily so I situated myself on my knees, hands folded in front of me as if I were in fervent prayer while facing the toilet. Eyes closed, I listened as she approached. She stopped just outside and said, "Patrick? What are you doing?"

I replied, "I'm just thanking the good Lord this thing's nailed down!"

In a down-the-rabbit-hole world, I am thrilled that there are some things nailed down. God loves us. There is a place prepared for us. We are saved by grace. He has promised to get us safely home.

"Jesus loves me, this I know..." That's nailed down. Yes!