Jul 21 10

What If…?

by Dale Andrews

The “What if…?” men­tal game can be fun. It can lead to new pos­si­bil­i­ties or become the key phrase lead­ing into your own cav­ernous neu­roti­cisms. I use it when I am brain­storm­ing. It can be an essen­tial part of cre­ativ­ity (or destruc­tive self-doubt). It is the phrase that intro­duces pos­si­bil­i­ties. I can almost hear Colum­bus in his pon­der­ings: “What if the world is round instead of flat?”

Tak­ing my cue from Jesus, I some­times pon­der life from an oppo­site per­spec­tive. What if we are here to find strength through our weak­nesses? What if we were given a planet with a clear atmos­phere so we could behold the immen­sity of space? What if this is all really the story of a lov­ing God instead of the blind evo­lu­tion of mere matter?

I have fun with the way the phrase opens up new pos­si­bil­i­ties. What if we could cre­ate an econ­omy that uses a min­i­mum of fos­sil fuels? What if we finally solved the rid­dles of cold fusion (and thus had end­less cheap elec­tric­ity with­out pol­lu­tion)? What if the next gen­er­a­tion dis­cov­ers that we are a bunch of idiots?

What if…” is a double-edged sword. It can open up pos­si­bil­i­ties and judg­ments at the same time. It is dan­ger­ous to start any sen­tence with it. We are also fool­ish if we do not. Surely we can improve on our stand­ing in life!

I do not waste my time in wish­ful think­ing, but I do call into ques­tion all the ways that things cur­rently run. Call me a dreamer, but also give me credit for hav­ing the courage to ques­tion the sta­tus quo. What if we had sev­eral vibrant polit­i­cal par­ties instead of the two bor­ing dom­i­nant ones we have now? Ever notice how offen­sive a “What if…” can be?

Despite the pop­u­lar touted views of life, I ask myself: “What if we live for­ever?” “What if this is just a prac­tice run for some­thing greater?” “What if the deci­sions I make today make an eter­nal difference?”

Never set­tle for the bland “what is” with­out ask­ing the grand: “What if…?” Chal­lenge all that has become estab­lished. Ques­tion the ques­tions. What if in doing so you rise above the sta­tus quo?

Jul 20 10

Worst Case Scenario

by Dale Andrews

Ever so often we have to face worst case sce­nar­ios. They come in many forms. Some econ­o­mists are talk­ing about a world-wide per­fect eco­nomic storm that is about to break (coun­tries already going into default). The med­ical com­mu­nity is fac­ing a form of restruc­tur­ing that has already sent doc­tors into early retire­ment. Unem­ploy­ment, immi­gra­tion, and an aging soci­ety are all part of the mix as well. What will all of this be a year from now or a decade from now? What if we have to face our own worst case sce­nario (and sooner or later we will)?

Jesus warned of the com­ing destruc­tion of Jerusalem as an inevitable worst case sce­nario. He also gave instruc­tions to his fol­low­ers on how to deal with it: flee the city. Those that took his advice lived. He made that a par­al­lel to the end of the world. The only dif­fer­ence is that in the last worst case sce­nario, there is no place to run. That solu­tion has to do with prepar­ing now for the ulti­mate escape — from phys­i­cal life itself.

If you drive a car or have a beat­ing heart, you can face a worst case sce­nario at any given moment. It is just part of life. Depend­ing on its form, you will find ways to tran­scend what­ever it is. Spir­i­tu­al­ity is the key. Los­ing every­thing you own? You are about to dis­cover a bet­ter life out­side of mate­r­ial well being — one that was dis­cov­ered inten­tion­ally by monks and desert her­mits for cen­turies. About to be mur­dered? Do what Jesus did: for­give all and cast your soul into the hands of the lov­ing God.

There is not a worst case sce­nario that you can­not face. It is not a bad idea to think about some of those ahead of time, but do not waste your time antic­i­pat­ing them. No mat­ter how care­fully you live, one of those can sneak up on you in a form you could never imag­ine. The good news is that your spirit and the Spirit of God live to kick into the gap. It might be a good idea to become famil­iar with them ahead of time. God seems to appre­ci­ate a famil­iar voice in prayer.

Jul 19 10

CQ

by Dale Andrews

So, how much chaos do you need? Do you like keep­ing every­thing on an even keel or are you the sort of per­son that upsets the apple cart? There is a need for both. Which one are you?

Per­son­ally, I need a lit­tle bit of chaos. I do not believe in chaos just for its own sake, and I have learned to avoid peo­ple that use it to try to con­trol oth­ers. There are chaos quo­tients (I have dubbed it CQ — a lit­tle like IQ). I am com­fort­able with some but not with oth­ers. The same is most likely true for you too.

We humans seek our pain; we are not con­tent sim­ply to sit and stare out of the win­dow all day. Life needs some stim­u­la­tion. With­out it, life atro­phies and dies. Cul­tures that exist in extreme weather areas seem to be much more cre­ative. The chaos on the out­side stirs a lit­tle on the inside. From the dis­tur­bance comes all sorts of novel things. (Cer­tain lat­i­tudes seem to cre­ate more entre­pre­neur­ial cultures.)

If you grew up in chaos, you may find your­self cre­at­ing a cer­tain level of it all of the time in order to feel secure. The mind seeks bal­ance; if there is a war on the inside there will be a cor­re­spond­ing list of cre­ated con­flicts on the out­side. The lev­els are dif­fer­ent for each indi­vid­ual. As we mature, we lower the lev­els because we no longer have the energy for them. That is good or bad — depend­ing on how you look at it. Some peo­ple drown in their own self-generated chaos. They lack a tran­scen­dent style that can keep them above it.

Peace is not the absence of chaos, it is still­ness within it. For those that have lived through a lot of tri­als, the calmest moment may be when a dozen things are hap­pen­ing at once. Chaos is no longer a threat — just an oppor­tu­nity to take its ener­gies and cre­ate some­thing totally unique. There is a knack for this — a sort of CQ style. Find yours and put it to work. Best of all, have some fun with it.

Jul 16 10

Says Who!

by Dale Andrews

We live in an era of per­va­sive pseudo-authority. There is an avalanche of petty rules writ­ten daily by face­less bureau­crats, designed to con­trol peo­ple they have never met. Most of these “require­ments” func­tion as but ulti­mately lack valid author­ity. For the most part, they work by intim­i­da­tion — which takes many forms. In the end, it is a smoke and mir­rors game of bul­ly­ing peo­ple into shift­ing forms of worldly conformity.

In sec­u­lar his­tory, Jesus was known as a revolutionary…and he was in more ways than one. More and more I find myself tak­ing that cue as a Chris­t­ian. Pre­tend author­i­ties of his day made all sorts of reli­gious and sec­u­lar rules. He acknowl­edged some of them and ridiculed oth­ers. One phrase he said still echoes in my head: “Their reli­gion is but rules made by men.” Jesus was a unique non-conformist that some­how knew what was of God and what was not. In the end, they exe­cuted him over petty claims and dis­torted spin on some of the things he had said (that later became true anyway…like the fall of Jerusalem).

Insti­tu­tions have their place and lend sta­bil­ity to a cul­ture, but they often serve as obsta­cles. Cre­ated for OUR good, we are bul­lied into serv­ing THEM instead. We do not erect stone gods like prim­i­tive peo­ple once did; we make paper ones and keep them in alpha­bet­i­cal order in file cab­i­nets. We are told to bow to titles — cre­ated by our own designs. In the Old Tes­ta­ment that was referred to as idolatry.

Do not give your real­ity away to actors or min­is­ters that pose as polit­i­cal or reli­gious author­i­ties. Just because some­thing is in print or on TV does not make it true. The “major­ity” is not the ulti­mate author­ity and never has been. As the early apos­tles said, “We must serve God rather than men.” I have a sim­i­lar expres­sion that I have used since high school: “Who died and made THEM God?” Peo­ple cre­ate their own pris­ons, because they are ter­ri­fied by the prospects of their free­dom. They pre­fer rules to spirit.

Says who! Is there a direct cor­re­la­tion between a state­ment and real­ity? Since when did uni­ver­sity chairs (of what­ever field of study) become thrones? No one can intim­i­date you with­out your allow­ing them to do so. Stop rolling over and play­ing dead! They are only people.