News

Monday my family was supposed to arrive here in Canada. They had bought tickets. I was thrilled. (My whole family has never come to visit since my wedding.) I had Janey’s house booked and the week planned. What could go wrong? Even if I ended up in ER, at least they could come see me there. But it wasn’t anything on my end that went wrong this time. My dad had a retinal stroke, and his doctor cancelled the trip. Sigh.

So this is what is supposed to happen next. Since I am determined (hmmm) to check on Dad, today, if all goes well with Monday’s treatment, Robert and I will take Tiny Tin across the border (uh huh, hopefully), exchange him for reportedly well-behaved Rejected Car, and drive to Chicago to see Philip and (other) friends. From there I will fly to Florida to see my parents. My sister will be flying in from Texas, so for the first time in thirty years, the four of us will be together without spouses and kids. We are all looking forward to it (the being together part, not the without spouses and kids part).

Oops. News flash. Angie is driving from Texas with my two nieces. Which is wonderful, too. Hopefully our trips are uneventful!

What I gave you there was news. News is different from scientific fact. Scientific fact you can verify for yourself (bodies go haywire when you poison them), but news you can’t verify like that. Your only choice is to react or not, depending on how much you trust the newscaster.  If your husband yells, “FIRE!” you jump out of your chair. If your teenage son says it with a smirk on April 1, you keep on reading. I love that Christianity is the kind of truth called news. You don’t work it on your own; you hear it and jump out of your chair.

After God’s creation of a good earth, he started giving news to people, starting with Adam and Eve, Noah, and Abraham. He told them things that they could not verify except by obeying, so they had to make decisions about the credentials of the newscaster (this voice insisting on Death, a Flood, a Destiny.) Adam and Eve did not believe. There were effects. The other two did. There were effects. Our story derives from how these four and others responded to God’s news, which always was about how to live with him, and then, about how to get back to him.

Other religions begin their stories in other ways. Hinduism tells the story that our particular universe (there are many out there, and we are only one in a series) was born when the sound “Ohm” awakened Vishnu, asleep in the coils of a cobra, making a giant lotus flower grow from his navel. Inside the flower was Vishnu’s servant Brahma, who broke off its petals to create the world. Eternal souls descend into this creation but are trying to return to the pure spirit from which they came. They are misled and trapped by the material world, and their ignorance causes much suffering, from which they must make every effort to escape.

All religions try to explain suffering. Hinduism teaches that people’s ignorance and selfishness in trying to hold onto the material world has consequences. Buddhism also teaches that suffering comes from selfishness, wanting material things for yourself. Both Hinduism and Buddhism then say (basically), “The material world is a trap. Escape! Try harder.” Stonehenge shows the ancients trying to work out solutions from the movements of the heavens. But Christianity adds something wonderful. Christianity, which agrees that suffering comes from selfishness, answers the problem not with “try harder” but with a news flash from God: “NEWS FLASH! The world is a good place gone wrong, but I’ve done something about it. React! Get out of your chair! Repent, and I will take care of both the urge to be selfish and its eternal consequences!” That is why we talk so much about faith. We can try to reason the thing out and fix it on our own, or we can trust the newscaster and jump out of our chair.

Me? I got a news flash. I and my sister are headed to Florida.