What does one do when you make a wager and lose everything? A number of years ago, I purchased ATA stock. ATA flew club members on vacation trips all over the world. It offered direct flights from Indianapolis and provided tremendous value for those who used its service and owned its stock. But something went wrong, the company over-extended, and finally went bankrupt. Those shareholders who held on to the end received nothing for their stock purchase. As an investor, you move on.
But what of investments in relationships? Suppose you invest five years, ten years, 25 years, of your life in a significant other. Then one day, they are gone. Bad enough if they die in a plane crash or fall to disease, but perhaps worse if they just announce they’ve found someone “nicer, and better looking.”
If taken by death or disease, you at least embrace the memories, and savor the good times. Yet, that doesn’t seem possible if in the end they reject you, tell you that you are like a pair favorite sneakers that no longer fit when the person returns home from camp. Rejection.
What does one do in the face of a dead loss, not of money, but of self-respect, self-worth, personhood?
If you are a person of faith, you say there is a greater plan, Jeremiah 29:13 says: “I have a plan for you, not to harm you, but to prosper you, to give you hope and a future.” Yet, such words easily ring hollow.
Perhaps you embrace the opportunity presented. Maybe they are right. Maybe you’re not all you should be. Take on a new hobby, a new focus, reassess and improve who you are.
Our world provides an abundance of circumstances where the mundane becomes the beautiful, no better example exists than the caterpillar who becomes a butterfly. Even if Nietzsche ended up in an asylum, many times that which does not destroy you does make you stronger.
Defy the dead loss; instead, fly. Soar above and beyond. Take the defeat. Own it; crush it; eat it for breakfast, defecate it out and start anew. Fly.

Copyright 2016—David J. Carr

Gold gets more attention than golf, but they share an important characteristic. You see gold offers the ultimate safe haven of value. The value of gold has not changed since the Roman Empire. Today you can buy the same amount of bread for the same amount of gold as you could in 30 A.D. You put your money in gold so that you neither lose nor gain. This makes it a terrible investment if you want to get rich, but a wonderful investment if you want to avoid being poor.

Just so, golf. However, instead of being a store of value, golf offers a storing of time.

Some say golf constitutes a terrible waste of time. Those same people might say purchasing gold constitutes a waste of resources. In truth, it depends.

Based on my own golfing experiences, some terrible, angry people play golf. In doing so, I am convinced they’ve found an outlet for their violence and hatred. Instead of committing some vile act against family, friends, or complete strangers, they play golf. In such circumstances, golf saves lives. It may be the greatest game ever invented for that reason. All of us should glory in the nature of golf.

On the other hand, if golf prevents you from feeding the poor, nurturing your children, or earning a living, it wastes your precious time on earth. It constitutes a curse on humanity.

So you see that golf, like gold, may prove either help or hindrance, depending on the alternative uses of your time. It holds the time in a neutral space, like gold.

Recently, I read where a young woman was abducted off a bike. Searchers discovered her lifeless body three days later. They arrested the villain responsible within 24 hours, based on excellent police work and a trail of evidence which included an arrest and conviction for attempting to kidnap a young woman twenty years ago. The barn on his farm had a secret room suggesting other victims suffered a similar fate.

I fervently wish the gentleman had played golf, loved it, and spent all his free time trying to improve his game.

Copyright 2016–David J. Carr

“The most inexplicable aspect of existence is its very explicability.”–Albert Einstein

“The kingdom of God will not come by your careful observation, nor will people say it is here or it is there. The kingdom of God is within you.” –Jesus (Luke 17: 20-21)

“What am I harmed by being a Christian? At worst, I will have lived a good life, at best, I will be in Heaven for Eternity. It seems a prudent bet.” Paraphrasing of Blaise Pascal’s Wager

Universal Design? A Master Craftsman in the sky who knew us before we were born, and created all the incredible complexity we see and can’t see. He/She designed all the complexity of the cosmos, and the astonishing puzzles of beyond microscopically small quantum space. Even more absurd, the notion that the Craftsman lives outside time, and can see all events, past, present, and future, for whom no cause and effect exists. We can no more understand our Creator than a power lawn mower can understand us.

To which respectable thinkers from Bertrand Russell to Gillette Penn to modern philosopher Erik Wielenberg cry “poppycock!” or “wishful thinking” or “children’s fables.” Bertrand Russell was once asked what he would say to God, if, after his death, he came before Him. Russell unblinkingly responded: “Why did you go to such lengths to hide your existence?” War, death, famine, abuse, torture, cruelty, sorrow, suicide, incurable childhood illness–nice work, God? Dan Barker, author of Godless, one of the current U.S. leaders of the atheist movement, and uniquely positioned as a former minister, plainly holds great bitterness at being misled into originally believing a God existed, and that Jesus was a real historical person.

Can we blame them? As one wag commented: “If God did not exist, we would have to event Him.” Did we? The idea of a personal God who knows each of us, loves each of us, wants a relationship with each of us 6 billion people on the planet, and all the other people on all the other planets on all the other millions of galaxies seems a bit much to handle. Does the word “absurd” seem like too much of a stretch?

And yet.

Let’s allow the scales to fall from our eyes and declare God dead. Nothing exists but the beauty of scientific empirical fact. Science tells us the Universe began about 15.3 billion years ago, e.g. a “beginning” occurred. Of course, science as recently as the 1950’s said that no beginning ever began, the Universe just “was.” That fact remain scientific “gospel” until the discovery of irrefutable scientific evidence of a “Big Bang” was picked up in the 1960’s by scientific equipment. Science and scientific “fact” evolve.

Science today, even our beloved atheist Stephen Hawking, fails to explain how very large objects appear to operate under a different set of physical rules than very small objects. Try as they might, no “Grand Unification Theory” explains this paradox.

Likewise, while Darwinism correctly remains scientific fact, and predicts the evolution of species, thus rendering the Old Testament of the Bible metaphorical at best, it fails to explain how inanimate matter becomes animate matter. How charged amino acids become some type of self-contained animate life. And once “evolved” in that fashion, why do the lower forms of life remain un-evolved right beside the evolved life? If we came from one cell organisms, why are there still one cell organisms?

Why does science accept as fact the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, that according to quantum mechanics, one out of a billion times you should be able to walk through a solid wall? It also remains a fact that matter can exist and not exist at the same time, and this is now being harnessed to create a new generation of supercomputers, using this quantum pulse of existence/non-existence.

Could it be that we remain at the beginning of knowledge? Perhaps scientific fact will lead us back to a Creator/God truly beyond imagining. Does this require more wild imagination than that needed to believe in 14 dimensions to reality, instead of the mere three dimensions plus time, that we humans perceive. Current scientific theory says there are 14 dimensions. How about the current conclusion that more than one universe exists? Indeed, it is argued that the paradox of the poisoning of Schrader’s Cat proves that the aforementioned quantum pulse reflects matter coming from and going to another universe, one of many multi-verses.

Regrettably, my intelligence leaves me unauthorized by the educational institutions to be paid to ponder such notions on a full time basis. We all will continue to let the really smart people be paid to think such big thoughts. But I’m not sure I feel any more comfortable believing in the scientific thought set forth above, and as to which I am admonished to “believe.” Am I any less compelled to shout: “poppycock,” “wishful thinking,” “children’s fables”?

So where do we find ourselves? Living a paradox. Neither path feels comfortable, nor complete, nor utterly satiating.

Consider this further absurdity. In the great Roman Empire, two thousand years ago, trouble-makers got crucified, and that took care of that. Spartacus, the leader of the great slave revolt, was crucified, as were his followers. (It took a lot of effort to defeat Spartacus. At one point, the Roman general was so angry at the repeated defeats at the hands of the Spartacus-led slaves, he pulled out every 10th soldier and had them executed. Our word “decimated” arises from that ancient incident. But I digress.) No great religion, or any religion, arose from brave Spartacus and his crucifixion. Of course, he did rate one fantastic MGM color movie. However, I know of a humble carpenter, in a miserable backwater of the Roman Empire, crucified about 30 A.D. who not only got more than one movie made about him, but inspired an entire religion that today boasts (and this is the only boast permitted by said religion) followers of God and Jesus of over one billion people all over the world. Science, logic, and reason tell us something special, even more special than Spartacus, happened.

Jesus’ pure teaching of love (“love those who hate you; pray for those who persecute you” Matthew 5:44) of thought (“be shrewd as a snake; innocent as a dove” Matthew 10:16-20), of fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22) continue to confound cynics and inspire extraordinary acts of betterment. (Time to let go of the Crusades, atheists, you only get to throw that at the Christians for 800 or so years; the statute of limitations has run.)

Offered for your consideration: we live inside the greatest paradox ever known. Accept apparently mad, fantastical, scientific theories, that end only in death, or take a chance on a humble carpenter, be his hands and feet in this three dimensional existence, deliver as much love as you can give to a fallen, awful world, and see if you find his Kingdom inside of you.

Game for a wager?

Copyright 2014–David J. Carr

I received an epiphany recently in the form of an apparently ordinary birthday present. The present? A friend of mine sent me the following: two Super Bowl t-shirts; a Super Bowl golf shirt; and, a Super Bowl cardigan sweater–all from Super Bowl XLI. Super Bowl XLI just happens to be the Super Bowl between my beloved Indianapolis Colts and beloved Chicago Bears; the Super Bowl, the only Super Bowl I ever attended. I went with my two sons on a memorable whirlwind adventure.

So far so good, but very ordinary, right? Oh no. Far from it. What made the gift special? The price tags. Both of them. You see the items still had their original “Super Bowl” price tags and their discount price tags found on the items at the discount house four years later. Original price tags? Respectively: two t-shirts–$20.00 a piece; golf shirt–$75.00; cardigan–$85.00. Discount price tags? Two t-shirts–75 cents a piece; golf shirt–$2.75; cardigan–$4.50. It may have helped that the items were on sale in Boston–hardly a Colt or Bear hotspot. Of course, they came free to me.

What made it all the more delightful? I still remembered the mad scramble at the Super Bowl itself to snap up these items at their original prices. But now? Relegated to the discount aisle. Time value of money? Maybe. But maybe something else.

I wanted some Super Bowl items at the game, and had to settle for a Super Bowl wind shirt (not my first choice-all they had), at top dollar. You see, I wanted it on my terms and my time.
Now I discover that I receive, free, even better items than I ever could have hoped to receive. Not on my time, but based on some other clock. Maybe a better clock, with a better sense of timing. Trust me, I will treasure these items more than that stupid wind shirt.

So you the see the epiphany. Don’t expect it on your time. But, sometimes, you get it based on some other time. A perfect time? A time we see not? A plan we see not? 2007–expensive. 2011–free. Hmm.

“Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come.” (Mark 13:33 NIVUK)

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11, 15 NIVUK)

Having just moderated a debate between an atheist, a rabbi, and a Methodist minister over the proposition: “You don’t need God to be good.” (You don’t.), I am still compelled to consider the question of faith. I took license to not only moderate the debate, but to serve as the Devil’s Advocate (“Why be good at all?”).

None of the speakers took the bait. But that leads to the question of faith. The best question of the night went to the atheist: “Since you can’t prove the non-existence of God, aren’t you still acting on faith?” Skilled debater that he was, the atheist filled the air with some clap-trap, but the question resonated.

Later in the debate, the atheist allowed that he might be wrong on his position, and upon meeting God, he would ask Him why all the bad events were permitted, and then the atheist might consider forgiving God. Hmmm. Does that suggest who the atheist’s God really is?

As the Devil’s Advocate, I might suggest that my “client” would readily approve of such a position. So it seems faith can’t be avoided. You either have faith in God, or you have faith in “no God” which may be a whole lot more convenient, but not more intellectually compelling. Stephen King, the horror writer, once had one of his protagonists, in the novel “IT”, utter this phrase: “Given all the wonders in this world, it takes a whole lot more effort to not believe God, than to believe in God.”

True? I lean toward both Pascal’s Wager, and the beliefs of Christian Mysterians, and now I also line up with Stephen King. In the sweet by, and by, we will know. “Now we see but through a glass dimly, now we know in part, then we shall know in full, just as we are fully known.” I Corinthians 13:12

Perhaps it all stands more perverse than that. Consider the words of Father Zossima in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov:

Never be frightened at your own faint-heartedness in attaining love. Don’t be too frightened even at your evil actions. I’m sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.

Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in sight of all. Men will even give their lives, if only the ordeal doesn’t last too long. But it’s soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on a stage.

But active love is labor and fortitude and for some people, too, perhaps a complete science. But I predict just when you see with horror, that in spite of all your efforts, you are getting further from your goal instead of nearer to it–at that very moment–I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has been all the time loving you and mysteriously guiding you.

Which brings me to the Super Bowl. My sons and I attended the 2007 Super Bowl won by the Indianapolis Colts. What enthusiasm! What excitement! Yet I found myself pierced by the religious protestors. Truly, what was I worshipping? “Where your treasure is, thereto is your heart.” (Luke 12:34) Glad the Colts won, but I’ll never worship at that alter again. How trivial and contrived!

Too much real work to be done before I rest.  In that conclusion, I have faith.

Copyright 2011–All rights reserved–David J. Carr

By David J. Carr

“to equal or offset in weight; to balance”

Proverbs 28:1—“The wicked flee though none pursue; the righteous are as bold as a lion.”

As a Christian, I often wonder if an invisible balance exists to life. Faced with sin and temptation in the past, I admit to sometimes taking the wrong path. The sin felt great for a while. Yet, then the anxiety started. A work assignment goes badly. Was this my retribution from God? Why not? I certainly deserved it for having strayed from the path.

My good friend snaps at me. Oh, so this is my retribution from God. He doesn’t know of my sin, but I certainly deserve his reproach because I have, you know, strayed from the path.

My favorite sports team loses; I miss a three foot put and lose a bet on the last hole of my golf game; I slip and fall while running in the snow and twist my knee. All these events stress me, make me anxious, bother me.

Even my successes haunt me. This can’t last. It will catch up with me. Winner today, but what about tomorrow? I flee though none pursue.

Sometimes, maybe more frequently these days, I eschew sin and the easy path it offers. I pass on the low hanging fruit that my talents might easily acquire, because the act involved plainly constitutes sinful behavior.

How do I feel? Perhaps frustration pokes at me. (I deserved that pleasure!) But now when that work assignment goes poorly, I just hunker down and aim to do better next time. My friend snaps at me; I snap back and cajole him out of his poor humor.

My team loses; the other team played better. I missed the putt; I aimed it incorrectly, and will do better next time. I twist my knee running; thank God I didn’t break anything!

Same events; the very same events—yet I feel no anxiety. In fact, I feel great. My food tastes great; the air smells fresh; tomorrow offers the chance of a better opportunity. America’s best days, and mine, lie in the future—despite my obscenely old age (52).

It almost feels like I am superhuman, as if an impenetrable shield surrounds me. I may not be bold as a lion, but I feel a power of enormous strength.

John 12:26 promises that whoever follows Jesus will be honored by His Father. Maybe that means in heaven, but I am not so sure. I find that following the path in this world already seems to pay powerful dividends, whatever may come in the next world. Try it, and see if you perhaps you suddenly develop “superhuman” happiness powers. I suspect if you find the equipoise I describe; you will not easily be knocked off balance.

Copyright 2011—David J. Carr—All rights reserved