Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Eaten Alive!

In her recent book, Blackout, Sarah Hepola quotes David Foster Wallace, from a commencement address he gave at Kenyon College:

"In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship---be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles---is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive."
I cannot get this quote out of mind. And those of you who know me, know that four of these options are not on the table, for me, as objects of worship. But the idea of being "eaten alive" by any other object of worship has been resounding in my mind ever since I read this passage one night last week.

Seemingly, everyone I talk to, everyone I follow on the Twitter, every news story I see on the TV or the Internet.....this ENTIRE planet is being eaten alive!

For the most part, I could not give a popcorn fart about any of it. I've been accused of not "suffering fools." And if you are just THAT stupid, if you are just THAT ignorant, if you are just THAT unaware.....I have absolutely NOTHING for you.

But the calls still come in. My phone still rings. And very often, on the other end of the call, is someone who is being EATEN ALIVE, because the object of their worship is not God!

Wives, kids, jobs, exes, hobbies, coworkers, employers, churches, flags, governments, politicians, celebrities, sports figures......the list goes on and on and on and on.

I find myself getting caught up in it, too.  And I find it to be an empty, empty place. Our need to worship, being radically displaced in things and people other than God is eating us alive!

Maybe, I will offer a solution in the coming weeks. Or maybe, I'll just let you discover it on your own. But discovery is must! For I truly believe, that a RECKONING is near!

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