Font Rants on Many Subjects

In the old days we marked men of the tribe with circumcision. now we just wax their unibrow and give them a makeover. Salvation used to be a place in the heavens; now it is the deluxe apartment but it's still in the sky. We went from 3 in 1, to 2 for a dollar. The way of the world I guess. Every sacrafice becomes a little less intolerable; until we give it up all together because it has no meaning. Material rewards replace spiritual as we gain the ability to produce more exicting things. Christ spoke to people in a time when you couldn't escape this world by simply signing onto Everquest. There was no 24x7 media beamed into your living room on a 65 inch plasma tv; talking about every world event from minute to minute but not saying anything. Christ fades away like Shane into the sunset. We are the child screaming "come back".

Can you connect with your own personal Jesus if everyone is watching.

I've really struggled with this post. I've written it three times and each time thrown it all out. I warn you it's a bit of a mess.

I've been pondering the contrast in my mind between 1984's Winston in his dark future against the bright equally "big brother is watching you" but radically different world of Las Vegas (Mondays on NBC). In Vegas, the malevolent eye of big brother is replaced by the beneficent character Ed Deline. The cameras are in place, the language is manipulated; but it is not the dark world of Orwell. Instead of sticking those who rebel against society into room 101; we send the fab 5 and give them a makeover. Instead of terror by rats; you get that nasty back hair waxed.

I've meditated on my generation's big contributions to the world of culture; blogs, reality TV and cam whores. We have become so public and immodest in the way we live. Every generation since writing started has kept journals. All those journals were private affairs; excerpted for ones memoirs; but otherwise kept locked away. Mine is the first generation to keep public diaries. We were raised on Gerry Springer and Geraldo; and then given technology where we could broadcast our own freakshow.

I think back to Sinai and Elijah hearing the still small voice. A private intimate moment where God is revealed. If we live in a world where private spaces are gone, and all our modesty is obliterated; can we make a private, personal connection to God.

All those folks asking me to have a personal relationship with Jesus. These same people want to overturn the right to privacy safeguarded by Roe V. Wade. The same people who vote in lockstep for people who cut down the forests; drill and develop the wilderness. Soon the only god you will be able to talk with is Mammon because your bank statement will be the only private place you have left. Then finally he too is lost when some hacker steals your pin number and empties out all those ones and zeroes.