Seldom I believe have I written quite so prophetically as I did last week, most assuredly without any such intention on my part. A young man of relatively close acquaintance took exception to comments I made elsewhere supporting the opinions expressed by the Reverend Franklin Graham concerning the current administration’s order for all schools across the country to allow students to choose the restrooms and locker rooms according to “their internal sense of gender.”
Socrates taught of a restless mind, a mind so restless that it would question and examine the self, thus laying the foundation for scientific and spiritual advancement. Saint Augustine went further saying, “If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing.”
Clotho, the youngest of the Three Fates in ancient Greek mythology, was responsible for spinning the thread of human life which included deciding when and who was born and when and who would die, thus controlling people’s lives.
What motivates us is often hidden deep within, so deep at times we find it difficult to know even for ourselves why we harbor certain desires, enjoy various activities, believe what we believe, or choose all manner of things that are oftentimes completely at odds with what others might choose. As much as we share in common the more we wish to differ.
Before Augustine became a priest, bishop, Church Doctor, and saint he was a pagan, heretic, thief, and according to his own confessions, a profligate scoundrel. At seventeen he fathered a son Adeodatus out of wedlock by a woman with whom he had a long-standing relationship.
Anyone who has lived for any significant amount of time can recall a time when someone they knew—or even their self –forgot to look before they leaped; a notion we often describe as jumping to conclusions, or to use a more legalistic phrase, assuming facts not in evidence. An amusing urban legend describes what can happen when we jump to conclusions:
Paradoxes are intriguing, perhaps this is so for the simplest of reasons: they seem to take one down the proverbial rabbit hole into a world filled with the illogical, the senseless, perhaps even a grin from a Cheshire cat. A paradox contradicts itself yet may in fact appear to be both true and not true at the same time.
Great literature never turns a bitter tongue but taunts the mind with its rich bouquet of thought, leaving the soul well and truly drunk from its sweet liqueur. What disappoints is how rare the occasion when the pages of aging greatness are laid bare, to be lovingly consumed, for fortune awaits those who would dare to travel among such leafy fodder, to discover oft forgotten truths buried there.
What is truth? Three words uttered by the prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, during the trial of Jesus Christ.[1] Pilate asked because he was honestly attempting to determine the truth surrounding the man who was brought before him for judgment and as reported in all four gospel accounts, could find no reason to convict Jesus of a capital offense.
Forty-five years ago television viewers were reminded that “a mind is a terrible thing to waste”[1] and although that public service announcement is no longer around, the message it conveyed and the sentiment it evoked remain as true today as it did at the time. There is nothing quite as tragic as when something as incredibly complex and capable as the mind is laid waste or obtunded through neglect, moral turpitude, intoxication, stupor, or indifference on the part of the one who lacks the will to use and care for that which God has so freely given.
