Don't Take Yourself Too Seriously

[Bathsheba]

* Bryan Patterson
* From: Sunday Herald Sun
* Sun Oct 04 00:00:00 EST 2009 Sun Oct 04 00:00:00 EST 2009


ON the eve of the 2005 Palestinian election, a TV message was delivered to the region by the actor best known for his role in Pretty Woman.

"Hi, I'm Richard Gere and I'm speaking for the entire world," the star said.

The vanity of the moment was matched only by its cluelessness.

Gere thinks he can speak for the world because he is a celebrity.

As the writer Samuel Butler said, vanity is the quicksand of reason.

Joan Rivers said she once attended a ?Botox Birthday party? at which several Beverly Hills socialites celebrated a friend?s birthday by having Botox injected into the muscles in their foreheads and around their eyes to remove crow?s feet and squint lines.

The party went well until the cake was brought in - no one could blow out the candles.

And poor deluded Michael Jackson commissioned a portrait for $300,000. It depicted George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, the Mona Lisa, ET and Jackson - all wearing sunglasses and a white sequined glove.

Nothing is so commonplace as the wish to be considered remarkable.

King Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes, said there was nothing new under the sun. It was all vanity, he said. An amplification of our hunger to live up to impossible social ideals.

It is vanity that tells us the lie that one day there will be no wars because our hearts and minds will naturally evolve into peace. It is vanity that tells us that medical science eventually will allow us to live forever. It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life.

More than that, vanity is expecting God to be subservient to our rules and demands.

Yet we humans cannot call even a blade of grass into existence.

Humility is allowing ourselves to be earthed in the truth that lets God be God.

Evangelist Peter Marshall said we had to get rid of the idea that the purpose of life was to enjoy ourselves - to have a good time, to be happy, to make money and to live in ease and comfort. That was not what life is all about.

You were put here for a purpose not related to superficial pleasures. No one owed you a living - not your parents, not your government, not life itself. You did not have a right to happiness. You had a right to nothing.

"I believe God wants us to be happy, but it is not a matter of our right, but of his love and mercy," Marshall said.

Writer David P. Gushee said he became depressed when he realised that some day he would die and, within a few years after his death, only a handful of people would know or care that he was ever here. And there was nothing he could do about it.

"I began to realise that much of what has occupied me has been an attempt to defeat insignificance, anonymity and death," Gushee said.

"If I work hard enough, I can live forever, I thought. I can be among the few who cheat death of its victory by gaining a reputation that outlives them. I now see this is unlikely. I will not become another C.S. Lewis or Augustine. Instead, I'll be a college professor. I will write a few books. But these efforts will not defeat death nor oblivion. I am powerless against them. The prospect is more than frustrating: it is terrifying."

Gushee recovered from depression when he realised this quest for immortality and lasting significance reflected the fact that God had put eternity in the human heart.

I want to live forever. So does almost everyone else. Yet none of us has the power to win our immortality. The Christian hope consists entirely in the promise of something that none of us can provide for ourselves. Eternal life comes only as a gift. If we try too hard to earn it, we can destroy ourselves.

We'll all make mistakes on this spiritual journey. But we are dealing with a loving and forgiving God. So take the journey seriously, but let's not take ourselves too seriously.

[Bathsheba]

Couple of things interest me about that article:

Firstly the confronting idea that the purpose of life isn't actually to seek comfort and happiness (assuming at the cost of everything else) and also the notion that humans have "eternity" in their hearts.

I was talking to my Dad (in his 60's) about death recently. Even though he has claimed in the past to be Catholic (he didn't attend my baptism because it was in a protestant church) he seems to believe that when you die the "lights are just switched off"... that's it... nothing else. When I said that I intuitively felt that the human soul had the potential to endure he looked at me strangely as if I was mad. But the notion of "eternity" certainly IS within my soul... and I don't think it's just wishful thinking. If death is total and complete that doesn't really bother me. So be it. I don't feel like I have been "duped" by believing in an afterlife.... I think that at least I have lived a better life... if I thought that death was it... then perhaps I might have been a bit more selfish about my time on earth... but maybe not... thinking aloud now.

Anyhow as things stand i do have this feeling that there is something more after bodily death... i can't shake it... so I guess this stops me feeling that i only have one life to acquire pure happiness.... which means I can get beyond the idea that the most important thing in life is seeking and fulfilling happiness.

[Fleur]

Ahhh! Another interesting thread...just as I am called by my baby. Will be back later after I have had a think about this one

[Nettie]

he seems to believe that when you die the "lights are just switched off"... that's it... nothing else.

Sorry Bath - but that baffles me! I can feel the divine spark in myself (and sometimes in others) - so I just can't fathom that someone can think that *this* is it!

However, I believe strongly in reincarnation and living multiple lives to achieve a higher state of being (by learning lessons and being a better soul).

Great thread!

[Bathsheba]

I try to accept that that is how my dad is feeling... but I just can't quite understand it. I know that he seems to fear death... on the same day my 3yo tried to hand an arum lily to him when were out in our garden and he stepped back away from it not wanting to even touch it... he said "haven't you heard that if you touch a Death Lily you will be touched by death itself?" meaning that you might not die but somebody you know will. This totally surprised me! I didn't think my dad was superstitous!!! I love arum lilies LOL I pick them all the time for the house. Seems my dad and I are on very different wave-lengths when it comes to death.

[rosehannah]

I am full of contadictions, I have prayed to god, but I'm not sure he is there. I judge myself harshly yet can make excuses for others, I think that there is way more to life and death then I will know about in this life time but sometimes think that like our dad said, that you live, you die, end of story. I like to treat this life as though I am on a journey, learning as I go. If there is more to come I guess it will.

[Bathsheba]

I try to "wear" the feeling that the lights do just switch off and that's it... but I get the same feeling as when I try to wear other things like "there is no such thing as ghosts". a nagging little voice says: "the reality is something you can't begin to concieve... but keep an open mind... you are closer to the truth in believing than not". If that makes any sense LOL

[Fleur]

I feel intuitively that there is more to 'life' than life itself, if that makes sense. I also think that the lives we lead are so short, there must be more, otherwise what is the point in all that feeling & emotion we experience? Why do we experience things the way we do if it's all just snuffed out in the blink of an eye? To me that is no more believable than anything else.

* Writer David P. Gushee said he became depressed when he realised that some day he would die and, within a few years after his death, only a handful of people would know or care that he was ever here. And there was nothing he could do about it.

"I began to realise that much of what has occupied me has been an attempt to defeat insignificance, anonymity and death," Gushee said.

"If I work hard enough, I can live forever, I thought. I can be among the few who cheat death of its victory by gaining a reputation that outlives them. I now see this is unlikely. I will not become another C.S. Lewis or Augustine. Instead, I'll be a college professor. I will write a few books. But these efforts will not defeat death nor oblivion. I am powerless against them. The prospect is more than frustrating: it is terrifying."

I can relate to that....

[paradise lost]

I don't know if the human soul exists or endures. But i find *this* could quite possibly "be it" because *this* is sufficiently amazing that i have no grander expectations. There's treasure everywhere.

As for all our struggles and emotions and the way we feel things...pehaps the beetles and the flies feel just the same. Do we concieve of a fly-heaven or a beetle hell? I have never thought about it. The struggles, emotions and experiences are only as serious as you take them to be. Just because it matters to ME, doesn't mean it ever really mattered in the grand sense.

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

he seems to believe that when you die the "lights are just switched off"... that's it... nothing else.

But the notion of "eternity" certainly IS within my soul... and I don't think it's just wishful thinking.

I was just reading back through this forum, must've missed this thread when it was 'happening'

Just thought I'd add my 2c as it were - Bath, according my my own beliefs, you're both right! Jehovah never created us to die, we were to live in Paradise eternally. It was only after Adam & Eve sinned that this outcome changed. Sin brought with it death, but humans still have the desire for eternal life in their hearts.

If you follow the Bible, Ecclesiastes 9:5 says, 'For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten.'

So according to the Bible the dead are simply sleeping, but awaiting resurrection. Again, followers of the Bible know the accounts of Jesus resurrecting people from the dead - Jairus' daughter, Lazarus, the widow's son. So if Jesus could do it then, while he was on earth, I think Jehovah can certainly fulfill his promise to do it when His time is right

John 5:28, 'Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out...'