This is the first in hopefully a series of quick coaching that I am directing toward priests of my faith, the Roman Catholics, but I also of course hope that not only any Christian pastor but also Jewish and Muslim spiritual leaders will find this helpful. The focus will be how priests need to understand and strengthen their own faith while thus at the same time strengthening the faith in the truth for not only their flock but the greater community. The concern being addressed is the way that modern society (both values and supposed "intellect") erode believers' faith, seeming to have "strong arguments," when they are simply wisps in the wind and totally fallacious.
How do I hope you use this material by the way?
1. Understand it yourself and read the scriptures that illuminate the points. I am structuring this series to be a "we believe in the Bible and the word of God" versus the "the Bible's not true and just made up stuff anyway" problem.
2. Discuss it with your friends, family and colleagues and watch for examples of what I speak of in the press.
3. Be more open to, in addition to your pastoral duties, seeking ways to communicate your faith and how you refute (gently but firmly) such arguments, not only in sermons but wherever you find an opportunity (get to know media people, ha).
4. But do not become a media hound. Allow your better understanding to simply permeate outwardly from you. As your faith is strengthened through better understanding of the truth, like osmosis other people will better understand the truth and thus their faith increases.
Here is the coaching point I am covering in this particular blog posting.
1. Recognize modern intellectual hypocrisy and point it out. Do not be intimidated by it because hypocrisy is, of course, the weakest of all foundations for either intellect or spirit. It is not by coincidence that Jesus focused on pointing out the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his time.
I have selected a very pertinent and popular topic for the hypocrisy example. There is a fascination in modern society, one that is increasingly perverse and warped, with "living forever" or at least extended life to be centuries or more in length. You may not think this is a "hot topic," but priests, you must recognize the undertow of what seems like disconnected interests of moderns. The undertow, this belief that humans can in and of themselves find a way to greatly extend life and even eliminate death, is exhibited in seemingly separate events such as these, which have been going on for decades by the way.
1. Paid for legitimate research into "special techniques" for extending life. Probably the most well known is by scientists who have linked a kind of starvation diet (very low calories) to long life spans of I think some sort of worm.
Now, I am not being critical of proper science that tries to correlate life style and genetics with those who tend to live longer, and then postulate some sort of potential beneficial advice for humans. I am simply pointing out that this is a hot topic for legitimate research.
2. Marginal "popular" research for extending life. This is more dodgy type of research, often fulfilling the researcher's (usually a book selling author with products) life philosophy that long life, even indefinitely long life, is possible.
The most common examples are those who advocate certain diets or food supplements.
3. The dark fascination in the media's science fiction and fantasy genre with life that is very long, both good life but more often a life of "superior oppressive beings" that live forever and oppress the dummies under them.
The Matrix series is an obvious example. While presented as drama and entertainment, two generations of young people have grown up with the thoughts that "maybe" some "eternal or long living evil alien force" is "manipulating humans." A normal person kind of wants to shoot themselves in the head with depression after watching some of this "entertainment." I'm bummed out to the max even thinking about it. But many kids have a constant diet of this type of paranoia and disconnect from reality, that eternity is "possible" but that right now "bad aliens" have it (or maybe "good aliens" can 'offer it.')
4. The vampire genre that is like a cancer among young people today.
Do not mistake that under the sex and drama and teenage angst of these films is the temptation to believe that by drinking blood one lives forever.
See, these are four modern secular examples of the same underlying temptation, which is to 1) seek to extend human life to eternity by totally human means and 2) disbelieve the Bible. Where does the Bible disbelief come into play here? I'm glad that you asked :-) because that is where the hypocrisy lies.
If one wants to truly and truthfully study how human life is extended, and how eternal life is obtained, one must believe the truth that is already documented, which is the Bible.
Point number one:
Genesis 6:3
Then the Lord said: "My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years."
Now, modern disbelievers (plus believers weak in faith) need to understand, as you need to understand, one simple point about this passage. The author of the Book of Genesis, Moses, knew what 'scientifically' no one knew yet at the time, which is indeed that the length of human life is capped at one hundred and twenty years (Wikipedia has a great tracking of the "oldest" human beings in various articles, such as the woman who lived to 122 years). This is a really simple example that you must remember yourself and share with others that thousands of years ago God told Moses something that neither Moses or anyone else could have known through scientific means or the power of observation, since people barely made it out of their thirties for most of their existence until the last one hundred years or so. (See my previous blogging about this topic).
So this is where a hypocrite who is fascinated with extending life must agree with a true believer that even if the hypocrite still denies the Bible and God "being real," that the Bible is accurate in this fact. Keep it simple: recognize that God in the Bible tells Moses that humans shall "comprise" (for the most part) be able to expect from within one hundred twenty years for their lifespan, and modern statistics demonstrate that that has been and continues to be true. Agree to agree there that the "Bible got that one right."
Ah, but now the hypocrite will say, "But who is to say that science and human 'genius' and 'development' cannot extend life? We will do it in the laboratory!" That's great, because you do not, as a true believer, disagree that very long life is indeed possible!
Point number two.
Genesis 5
5. The whole lifetime of Adam was nine hundred and thirty years; then he died.
8. The whole lifetime of Seth was nine hundred and twelve years; then he died.
11. The whole lifetime of Enosh was nine hundred and five years; then he died.
14. The whole lifetime of Kenan was nine hundred and ten years; then he died.
17. The whole lifetime of Mahalalel was eight hundred and ninety-five years; then he died.
20. The whole lifetime of Jared was nine hundred and sixty-two years; then he died.
23. The whole lifetime of Enoch was three hundred and sixty-five years.
27. The whole lifetime of Methuselah was nine hundred and sixty-nine years; then he died.
31. The whole lifetime of Lamech was seven hundred and seventy-seven years; then he died.
32. When Noah was five hundred years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.
This whole section of the Bible, Genesis, including Chapter 6 which comes after it is so misunderstood yet it is so simple to understand when one has faith AND logical reasoning. If the Bible were "fiction," then it would be filled with wondrous stories of what those long lived guys were up to during their nine hundred plus years of lifespan! Instead, Moses dutifully recorded what is basically the faith genealogy, such as... they were named this, they had these sons, and they lived this many years. That is hardly the stuff of riveting fictional adventure. If dry elderly Jewish men recorded that someone lived to be 777 years old, then that guy lived to be 777 years old!
So here is the hypocrite's problem. He or she believes that "someday" humans can "overcome death" and live very long lifespans, yet he or she does not want to believe the evidence that you present, in the Bible, that this has indeed already been done! Most scientists are happy when they have valuable data from a time in the past that supports their hypothesis. Hypocrites do not like data that supports even their own ideas, if that data comes from anything associated with God. They fear that if they believe that part of the Bible, then they have to believe the whole "package."
So you can attempt to get such a hypocrite to, like in point one, to agree with you that the very thing they argue is possible is documented in the Bible as having already happened. You'd think they'd be happy to know that some humans did indeed live to be almost one thousand years old, no? ;-)
The reason most hypocrites will resist agreeing that even having Biblical evidence that extremely long life is possible is that 1) they don't want to accept the whole God package, since they'd rather be free to sin, thank you very much and 2) they are looking ahead to disagreeing with you about the reasons for possible long life, so that will be point three.
Point three starts with repeating point one's passage, since that is why I quoted all the ages from Genesis 5, because God now says, basically, that the gift of some having these incredibly long lives is 1) provided by me, God, personally and 2) is going to be taken from you.
Point three:
Genesis 6:3
Then the Lord said: "My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years."
Thus God is explaining to human beings two things. One is that the reason that these select people have lived so long is that God's spirit was in them. Read carefully "since he is but flesh." What that means is that God has, like with all the other animals, a limit to how long humans can live because flesh can and will deteriorate and die. God's spirit within certain humans overcomes the falling apart of flesh and keeps the person vital and alive for those many centuries. Remember, the Bible does not say that everyone (such as the wives or all the relatives, or the rest of the community, or other human beings) lived those long lives! It does not say that all human beings lived long lives at all. Rather, specific people are listed, those who have the spirit of God in them and are essential links in the chain of faith history. In other words, God extended the lives of those who handed on the truth of faith and its authoritative knowledge of the one true God from generation to generation. These old guys had the spirit of God in them to provide oral continuity from generation to generation about God, his ways and his will. Remember there was no writing or cave painting or whatever in the generations after Adam and Eve. So God kept each link in the faith chain alive enormous lengths of time due to his Spirit within them so that they can keep the faith alive and well formed in each generation. Thus around the time of Noah is when God starts to warn that he will no longer do this routinely.
Now, I have to go off topic for a moment because anyone who is a hypocrite will force you off topic in Genesis 6 because of the "sons of heaven" who "appeared on earth" and were "heroes of old, the men of renown," sounding all like alien angels and super beings arriving on earth. Not exactly.
We are all adults here so let's try to wear long pants and think like adults. We all know that Adam and Eve were the first parents, but we also know that their kids went and married humans who were around. Every five year old asks in Bible school "If Adam and Eve were the first people, who did their children marry?" Generations of nuns have squirmed about that question, LOL. Adam and Eve were the first faith parents, the first to whom were raised up from the dust because God spoke to them. I know, I know, those of you who don't believe that one of God's tools for creation is evolution are unhappy with me, but you have to read the Bible and believe. Adam and Eve's kids did not marry lions, deer, giraffes or turtles. Adam and Eve's kids married other humans who were around.
Likewise, as the faith grew and generations had fruitful future generations being born, they started bumping into other humans, nonbelievers (since they did not yet know God), those who built early human empires and who had made up mythologies.
Genesis 6:1-3
When men began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of heaven saw how beautiful the daughters of the men were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. Then the Lord said: "My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise on hundred and twenty days."
What is happening here is clear if you just slow down and stay rooted in reality. People began to do pretty good, having many healthy children, and so they expanded, looking for husbands and wives for their growing brood (plus remember, not being in Eden they had to migrate and toil for their daily food). They bumped into marvelous people, calling them, as we do today, "heavenly." I mean, duh! The Bible does not say that flying saucers landed. If they had the Bible would say so, since God has nothing to hide. Notice that God immediately speaks in the now three times I've quoted line about the lifespan of mankind. Why does God explain to Moses (since this was all way before Moses' time, so he got all the information about Genesis directly from God) that the people started intermarrying "heavenly" people and that God was now going to withdraw his life extending spirit? Because now the people had to encounter and intermarry pagans and bring them into the faith. I mean, duh! It is what it is in the context of the times, not what fervid overactive modern imaginations make it to be. You'd understand it quite well if it read like this:
People began to have so many children, plus they had to migrate to find land and food, that they started bumping into some really tough and awesome people. They had some great treasures and incredible inventions! They thought our women were hot and so they eagerly intermarried. God then said, "Well, there you go, be fruitful and multiply. It's up to YOU to now educate the pagans about me, because I'm not going to make these old guys live to be nine hundred years old just to keep the faith alive from generation to generation." As soon as people started intermarrying these awesome heavenly people, other groups of new folks also came along ["the Nephilim appeared on earth" Genesis 4:6] and they explained that they came from the gods Bozo and Fifi who were filled with awesome sword swaggering deeds."
Um, duh, as the believers, the descendants of Adam and Eve, intermarried pagans, their kids eagerly picked up on all the local mythology and hero excitement of the new folks' histories (both real and imagined). So that's why when skeptics snicker that the Bible "includes mythology," well, duh, the people intermarried with people with mythology. Sometimes it just is what it is. And when "sons of heaven" "appeared on earth," that means some presumably God sent awesome dudes and chicks were bumped into that they had never met before around the next mountain range. When people say "appear on earth" they don't mean what moderns mean, which is to drop out of the sky, I mean, duh. People who had never traveled more than ten miles in their whole life consider anyone they met while migrating fifty miles or a few hundred miles away as "appearing" "on earth."
So point number three to make to hypocrites, which is usually a point of genuine confusion for many of the faithful, but also a great red herring for those who have an "alien believing" and "non all powerful God" agenda, is that there is an easily understandable progression of events that follows both what the Bible says and also human nature as we know it. God gave certain faith bearing humans really long lives, but as the human species got fruitful and on their way, God said, "You're on your own now, and you have to encounter nonbelievers and intermarry."
But see, how well did that turn out?
Genesis 6:5, 11-2
When the Lord saw how great was man's wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, he regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was grieved...In the eyes of God the earth was corrupt and full of lawlessness...all mortals led depraved lives on earth...
The Bible agrees with human history since it is human history. Believers fell astray all on their own (think of Cain, for example) plus they obviously fell down at bringing the faith to the pagans, and instead, adopted lives of depravity and lawlessness.
I'll leave this important, but a tangent, to our basic purpose of discussing the hypocrisy of the long life interest but denying Biblical evidence, and hope that you better understand that you have to read the Bible in context, how people were in those times and how God spoke to them accordingly. A modern thinks that "heavenly" means from the sky, while an ancient believes "heavenly" means sent by God (and that could be just some hairy pagan sent by God from across the street). "Appeared on earth" means to a modern that it wasn't on the entire globe terra before, and thus came from the sky, while "appeared on earth" to an ancient means "Wow, I just encountered something entirely new."
Point four:
Genesis 9:29
The whole lifetime of Noah was nine hundred fifty years; then he died.
God made clear that he was weaning the faithful away from having very long lived humans who acted as faith links across many generations, and so Noah becomes the last one mentioned in this way. If you read all of Genesis 10 and 11, notice two things. No longer is anyone mentioned as having long lives. Second, the geneologies start to mention the faith fathers having children at ages of twenties and thirties, not the very ancient ages of before.
Genesis 11:25-6
Nahor lived one hundred and nineteen years after the birth of Terah, and he had other sons and daughters. When Terah was seventy years old, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.
So now a life of 119 years is extraordinary, rather than the nine hundred plus years of life. Right on target of the expected maximum age, based on flesh, not God's spirit, for humans. Nahor is the grandfather of the man who became the Patriarch of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths, Abram (renamed Abraham by God).
Point four, then, to show to your hypocrite friend, is that just as humans are prospering, and presumably eating better and having better hygiene and medicine, the incredibly long lived examples disappear. This is the heart of where your disagreement with hypocrites will be exposed because they will resist knowing that what they want is "possible" but it has already been done, since it is not works of humans that result in incredibly long existences of individual lives, but only the firsthand occupation of that flesh by the Spirit of God, which overcomes while the Spirit is there the inevitability of the limits of human life. Remind them we are not discussing "spirituality" or "holiness," but the actual raw, full Spirit of God keeping them alive, something God has not only said but demonstrated that after Noah he will no longer do.
God promises Abram that his descendants shall be as numerous as stars (Genesis 15:4), not the years of his lifespan, or of anyone else's. But this man obviously was filled with so much grace from the Lord that his body could not help but respond accordingly:
Genesis 25:7-8
The whole span of Abraham's life was one hundred and seventy-five years. Then he breathed his last, dying at a ripe old age, grown old after a full life; and he was taken to his kinsmen. [That means both buried in the family place and also with those who had died before in heaven with God. Jesus confirmed that Abraham is in heaven with God in Luke 16.]
So you have to point out that if the Bible was just self glorifying made up stuff, why would not the longest "made up" life be assigned to the man who was the Patriarch of the three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam? I mean, why would the fictional authors of the fictional Bible assign really long made up ages to men whose names are mentioned only that one or two times and had no great deeds, while Abraham is expected to be characterized as the role model of the God given full life in his service and actual physical presence of "only" 175 years? Because it really is just as it is. Abraham is the example of how the Spirit of God filled this one man, after the others, when God would no longer do this to keep faith guardian continuity, and yet achieves indeed eternal life by being with God after a full life on earth.
As an aside, many Christians totally miss that Jesus in Luke 16 is mentioning by name how the Patriarch Abraham is alive in God in heaven, not asleep: "When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld where he was in torment, he raised his eyse and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side...Abraham replied, 'My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received only what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented..."
Here is the point, the crux of what you must testify to non-believers, but also understand for your own faith. What is the reward for the man who singularly was the great Patriarch, who walked with, served without question, dined with, and advocated on behalf of sinners to God? A full (but not extraordinary) life but eternal life in God, where is he is seen, active, speaking and very real in life in heaven's eternity. So yes, we agree that long life is biologically possible, but not through human deeds in the laboratory.
Point five:
We agree that it is possible to live forever, but not in the laboratory and not because of aliens, but because when the flesh passes believers who have served God will have eternal life with him in the Spirit in heaven.
Hypocrites imagine "storing one's memories and identity" in a computer and then "loading it into another body," and THEY view THAT as a real "possibility," but they think the Bible, which affirms the immortal soul that is "transfered" upon death out of body to either heaven or hell, the spiritual realm, as "fantasy." That is the heart of the hypocrisy. Which is the sound of truth, the believer who has evidence in the Bible of the eternal soul, or someone who wants to become a parts junk yard for people who want to cling to some sort of "life," yet thinks only of earthly memories, personalities and nutty theories of recycled souls to load into some manmade flesh, and what, then, of the real soul, the one and only one given to each person by God for their one and only life? It's just not going to happen, friends. Not only because God has promised that it will not happen, but because life just does not work that way. Eternal life in fake bodies and you can't deal with AIDs? Swine flu? Feeding the starving? Keep a vaccination record for your kids so they don't get diseases that were defeated decades ago? And how about a world of robot ADHD people, with their bipolar and whatever? They don't seem to handle three decades of life well, say nothing of be "ready" for theoretical manmade "eternal life." A society that does not consistently wash their hands for hygiene sure does not have to worry about having eternal life in a body on earth, LOL.
Do you see the fulness of validation and logic for all that is in the Bible? Just as those few patriarchs had actual Spirit of God in them to prolong their life and their witness to their children and the other generations, upon death the faithful enter into the Spirit of God in heaven. On earth God infused each of the long lived patriarchs with his Spirit. In heaven they are alive eternally because they are put into the Spirit. It is only the Spirit that is the source of either eternal life after death, or of extraordinary genuine life on earth, but God has said he will no longer do that and of course that is true. It is up to humans to do the best they can do with having full lives, and allowing their neighbors to have full lives too, and to witness to the faith while they await eternal life that is promised to them in heaven, or eternal punishment if they profane God's gift of human life and thus lose eternal life in bliss.
Kids need to understand that the reality is much more beautiful than the fiction. Why does blood drinking "eternal" vampires seem so romantic? Because they have lost access to the true joys of life, of the type of joy that a man like Abraham had, in true family and kinship and service to God, and yes, decent adventure too.
Dear priests and other friends reading this blog, I hope and pray that you have found this to be helpful in your faith and to support the true faith of those who need it in these modern times.
Showing posts with label length of life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label length of life. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
More about youth and life expectancy, Bible
So you have probably realized, young people, and other readers, that when one looks at the facts, just the facts of life expectancy, that humans have evolved physically, mentally and spiritually to be on the threshold of adulthood at early "teenager," which coincides for that reason with the concept of religious adulthood. In other words, when boys and girls become teenagers and reach puberty, they are supposed to be on the brink of adulthood. So what has happened? How have young people become stuck in such an extended period of being somewhat infantalized and condescended to, while at the same time shoved into adult vices at a far too young age?
First, let me repeat and summarize that when God speaks through the prophets and the written scriptures of the Bible (and the Qur'an), and when Jesus spoke to the crowds, ministering, preaching and curing the sick, they were speaking to the "young." The vast majority of people alive at any given time in history until the past hundred years or so were what we call today "teenagers" and people in their twenties. "Teenagers" were the heads of households, the new household they established when they married, started having children, and were able to apprentice or work in whatever (mostly agricultural) means of life that they possessed. So when the Bible gives admonitions, advice, and directions for parents, for example, those parents were not like parents today: they were young people who were in their teens and twenties who were already halfway through the best they could hope for regarding a life span. Making to the forties was really something. The "elders" that are referenced in the Bible are folks in the grand old ages of the thirties!
So God spoke to that majority of population since that's the way it was. Further, humans evolved biologically, socially and spiritually to be ready for entry into adulthood in their teen years. Children, of course, were raised from the cradle to know the reality of God's existence. By around the age of seven children knew the difference between good, righteous behavior and sinful behavior. Children knew about God and the difference between goodness and sin by around that age. That is why in many cultures there were arranged marriages starting around seven or eight years old, to be fulfilled when the children reach puberty. Children were recognized as being capable and mature enough to know about God, about life, and about good deeds or sin at around that time. When children reached puberty they are expected to be fully schooled in God. Why? Because they were about to become parents themselves, who have the responsibility for providing religious instruction to their own children! At the same time they have worked side by side with parents, and extended family, to learn the family agriculture and trade.
Back to that question, then. How did we get from "there" to "here?" There are two reasons things are so messed up today. Both resulted from "good intentions" with really warped results.
1. During the industrial revolution, when factories and so forth came into existence, children were terribly exploited. Instead of working with their families "in the fields" to provide traditional means of supporting the family, they became urbanized, impoverished, sent to cities, and forced to beg or work in factories. All you have to do is read some Dickens to understand what I mean. Thus a great movement started for child protection, and labor laws came into existence, plus mandates for state provided schooling during certain ages. It all seems obviously good: stop forcing children to work or to beg, and make "going to school" their "job" until the age of eighteen.
But you see the problem? Youth are not meant, either biologically/mentally or spiritually, to be "frozen" in some infantilized "job" of "going to school." Youth are meant to be on the brink of adulthood, in both philosophy and reality of skills, in their early teens! Thus modern youth are three generations downstream from the time when they were "adults in training," who were capable of heading families, who had real skills in addition to school learning. That's why a lot of youth are frustrated and act out, and get into "trouble..." they are biologically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually ready for MUCH more than they have, and instead they are stuck in a demographic of being consumers (they spend money) while in enforced infantalizing in years and years of schooling and nothing else.
My own father, born in 1903, is an example of how it used to be. He had a genius IQ yet dropped out of school in eighth grade because he was ready to get on with life. I'm not urging everyone to drop out, by the way, LOL. But I'm explaining why many of you have those instincts, and it's not laziness. My father was of the last generation that learned how to be ready as a head of household IN PARALLEL with "book schooling" as a child. His generation knew how to do things, how to earn a living and how to provide for a family, in parallel with going to school, not a painfully extended "before" and "after."
When life was much more agricultural and skilled trade (as in knowing a craft) oriented, children and youth learned those trades and participated in farming while at the same time getting "schooling" and "book learning." This was true of both the minority wealthy and the majority poor. People of only one hundred years ago (say nothing of Biblical times) would be stunned and unable to comprehend how youth are kept infantalized and stuck in a one hundred percent schooling "job" for the first two decades or MORE of their lives!
So the desire to protect children from abuse and the demands for certain types of laborers conspired to turn good intentions into really unfortunate outcomes. Youth got "protected" right out of their training and responsibility to be young adults when they are biologically and spiritually ready.
2. The second problem is another "good start but got lost along the way" development, which is that life expectancy was vastly improved with advances in health, technology, medicine, nutrition, and so forth. So instead of being fortunate to achieve 40 years old, as was most of human existence, in the past one hundred years people have good reason to expect an additional several decades at least, particularly in developed countries. So instead of this:
child...teenager...head of household...elder...maybe live until forty years old...
we now have:
school age child...graduate school or first job...maybe family maybe not...middle age crisis...maybe family maybe not and maybe financially secure and maybe not....retirement...the battle to stay alive in old age using medicine etc.
Do you see how weird that is if you look at it that way? Instead of being like winning the lotto and now everyone is living longer, but living the same way in the beginning, the whole definition of the cycles of life have become stunted.
What should have happened is that life should have still be "front loaded" toward youth, rather than diluted and deferred into the newly available space of supposedly extended life spans.
Humans are designed, biologically, honed in evolution in society, and spiritually prepared (and respected by God) to be ready for much more "brink of adulthood" in their youth. Youths should be much more a part of the actual working of the economy, be self sufficient in skill development, and ready for family leadership at the same time as receiving appropriate schooling.
And do you now see the dark side of this also? When one has infantalized two decades of youth, yet they are ready for more, two very bad things happen. One is that predator adults exploit youth who are "ready" for "adult experiences," but are not receiving them in the proper order of things, and so they are more tempted to "feel adult" in various vices and bad choices. Second, youth try to be adults on their own, but instead of being spiritual and skilled adults in training, they do dumb and dangerous things. Gangs are an incredibly obvious example of this. Counselors are only partly right when they say that gangs are attractive to those youth who have broken families, where the gang is compensation for the missing or dysfunction family. What is not discussed enough, if at all, is that gangs are the "answer" to the eternal student/consumer infantalizing of youth. Gangs are attractive when individuals feel the adult responsibility urges and desire apprenticeship, but society has eliminated and indeed forgotten totally that role. More "recreation facilities" is not the only answer. A role of consumer/recreating/student is entirely infantalizing, even though each of those three roles are in and of themselves very important and worthy.
So when humans received the gift of extending their life spans by better hygiene, nutrition, health, medicine, housing, etc in the matter of just a few generations this changed the whole successful "formula" of front loaded youth preparation for adulthood into a bizarre frozen holding pattern. And trust me, I don't mean that youth is no longer fun the "old way." Youth is much more fun if you are not in an infantalizing school gulag and consumer/recreation rat race. Youth wants responsibility and apprenticeship. Again, think of the gang example. How "fun" are gangs? They are not "fun," whatever else they might be. But all youth crave being part of the reality of life, and that is given through responsibility and apprenticeship, either the good kind or, by increasing default, the bad kind.
I suspect this is very helpful to many, so I'll do more on this subject as I give you time to think about and discuss each day's blogging on it.
First, let me repeat and summarize that when God speaks through the prophets and the written scriptures of the Bible (and the Qur'an), and when Jesus spoke to the crowds, ministering, preaching and curing the sick, they were speaking to the "young." The vast majority of people alive at any given time in history until the past hundred years or so were what we call today "teenagers" and people in their twenties. "Teenagers" were the heads of households, the new household they established when they married, started having children, and were able to apprentice or work in whatever (mostly agricultural) means of life that they possessed. So when the Bible gives admonitions, advice, and directions for parents, for example, those parents were not like parents today: they were young people who were in their teens and twenties who were already halfway through the best they could hope for regarding a life span. Making to the forties was really something. The "elders" that are referenced in the Bible are folks in the grand old ages of the thirties!
So God spoke to that majority of population since that's the way it was. Further, humans evolved biologically, socially and spiritually to be ready for entry into adulthood in their teen years. Children, of course, were raised from the cradle to know the reality of God's existence. By around the age of seven children knew the difference between good, righteous behavior and sinful behavior. Children knew about God and the difference between goodness and sin by around that age. That is why in many cultures there were arranged marriages starting around seven or eight years old, to be fulfilled when the children reach puberty. Children were recognized as being capable and mature enough to know about God, about life, and about good deeds or sin at around that time. When children reached puberty they are expected to be fully schooled in God. Why? Because they were about to become parents themselves, who have the responsibility for providing religious instruction to their own children! At the same time they have worked side by side with parents, and extended family, to learn the family agriculture and trade.
Back to that question, then. How did we get from "there" to "here?" There are two reasons things are so messed up today. Both resulted from "good intentions" with really warped results.
1. During the industrial revolution, when factories and so forth came into existence, children were terribly exploited. Instead of working with their families "in the fields" to provide traditional means of supporting the family, they became urbanized, impoverished, sent to cities, and forced to beg or work in factories. All you have to do is read some Dickens to understand what I mean. Thus a great movement started for child protection, and labor laws came into existence, plus mandates for state provided schooling during certain ages. It all seems obviously good: stop forcing children to work or to beg, and make "going to school" their "job" until the age of eighteen.
But you see the problem? Youth are not meant, either biologically/mentally or spiritually, to be "frozen" in some infantilized "job" of "going to school." Youth are meant to be on the brink of adulthood, in both philosophy and reality of skills, in their early teens! Thus modern youth are three generations downstream from the time when they were "adults in training," who were capable of heading families, who had real skills in addition to school learning. That's why a lot of youth are frustrated and act out, and get into "trouble..." they are biologically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually ready for MUCH more than they have, and instead they are stuck in a demographic of being consumers (they spend money) while in enforced infantalizing in years and years of schooling and nothing else.
My own father, born in 1903, is an example of how it used to be. He had a genius IQ yet dropped out of school in eighth grade because he was ready to get on with life. I'm not urging everyone to drop out, by the way, LOL. But I'm explaining why many of you have those instincts, and it's not laziness. My father was of the last generation that learned how to be ready as a head of household IN PARALLEL with "book schooling" as a child. His generation knew how to do things, how to earn a living and how to provide for a family, in parallel with going to school, not a painfully extended "before" and "after."
When life was much more agricultural and skilled trade (as in knowing a craft) oriented, children and youth learned those trades and participated in farming while at the same time getting "schooling" and "book learning." This was true of both the minority wealthy and the majority poor. People of only one hundred years ago (say nothing of Biblical times) would be stunned and unable to comprehend how youth are kept infantalized and stuck in a one hundred percent schooling "job" for the first two decades or MORE of their lives!
So the desire to protect children from abuse and the demands for certain types of laborers conspired to turn good intentions into really unfortunate outcomes. Youth got "protected" right out of their training and responsibility to be young adults when they are biologically and spiritually ready.
2. The second problem is another "good start but got lost along the way" development, which is that life expectancy was vastly improved with advances in health, technology, medicine, nutrition, and so forth. So instead of being fortunate to achieve 40 years old, as was most of human existence, in the past one hundred years people have good reason to expect an additional several decades at least, particularly in developed countries. So instead of this:
child...teenager...head of household...elder...maybe live until forty years old...
we now have:
school age child...graduate school or first job...maybe family maybe not...middle age crisis...maybe family maybe not and maybe financially secure and maybe not....retirement...the battle to stay alive in old age using medicine etc.
Do you see how weird that is if you look at it that way? Instead of being like winning the lotto and now everyone is living longer, but living the same way in the beginning, the whole definition of the cycles of life have become stunted.
What should have happened is that life should have still be "front loaded" toward youth, rather than diluted and deferred into the newly available space of supposedly extended life spans.
Humans are designed, biologically, honed in evolution in society, and spiritually prepared (and respected by God) to be ready for much more "brink of adulthood" in their youth. Youths should be much more a part of the actual working of the economy, be self sufficient in skill development, and ready for family leadership at the same time as receiving appropriate schooling.
And do you now see the dark side of this also? When one has infantalized two decades of youth, yet they are ready for more, two very bad things happen. One is that predator adults exploit youth who are "ready" for "adult experiences," but are not receiving them in the proper order of things, and so they are more tempted to "feel adult" in various vices and bad choices. Second, youth try to be adults on their own, but instead of being spiritual and skilled adults in training, they do dumb and dangerous things. Gangs are an incredibly obvious example of this. Counselors are only partly right when they say that gangs are attractive to those youth who have broken families, where the gang is compensation for the missing or dysfunction family. What is not discussed enough, if at all, is that gangs are the "answer" to the eternal student/consumer infantalizing of youth. Gangs are attractive when individuals feel the adult responsibility urges and desire apprenticeship, but society has eliminated and indeed forgotten totally that role. More "recreation facilities" is not the only answer. A role of consumer/recreating/student is entirely infantalizing, even though each of those three roles are in and of themselves very important and worthy.
So when humans received the gift of extending their life spans by better hygiene, nutrition, health, medicine, housing, etc in the matter of just a few generations this changed the whole successful "formula" of front loaded youth preparation for adulthood into a bizarre frozen holding pattern. And trust me, I don't mean that youth is no longer fun the "old way." Youth is much more fun if you are not in an infantalizing school gulag and consumer/recreation rat race. Youth wants responsibility and apprenticeship. Again, think of the gang example. How "fun" are gangs? They are not "fun," whatever else they might be. But all youth crave being part of the reality of life, and that is given through responsibility and apprenticeship, either the good kind or, by increasing default, the bad kind.
I suspect this is very helpful to many, so I'll do more on this subject as I give you time to think about and discuss each day's blogging on it.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
More about life expectancy, death, Bible times
Hi again, especially my young readers. I thought of an image related to the previous blog posting that I want to share with you. I know that this generation has grown up receiving much of their entertainment but also much of their knowledge (and the two are dangerously blurred) from electronic images, and I'm glad to work with you where it is useful by using movie and other analogies.
All right, you've now had time to think about what I wrote, which is that for the vast majority of human history the population alive at any time was capped in the vast majority at the MAX of people in their thirties, who would have been considered "elders." People just didn't live much beyond forty as recently as one hundred years ago. Teenagers were not "teenagers," but were expected to be living as adults and were looking forward to adult responsibilities and starting families. A "teenager" was most likely already halfway through his or her life expectancy.
Now, think back about two things. Think of how the Bible is slandered as being about and for "old men." Duh, wot? Just like some think that the book classics are just books written by and for "old white men," many think the Bible is likewise. Not so much! The Bible was written for and given to young people who were, well, the only ones who were alive, what we would consider teenagers, young adults and - at most - "entering middle age" today. So the Bible was not written "for" old people: it was written for YOU.
Second, now you can think of how inaccurate the central casting is for those old Bible Hollywood epics. Lots of middle age extras made up the crowds, but that was wrong. Moses would have been giving the Ten Commandments to lots of families with "teenage" parents, and the "crowds" of freed Israelite slaves who were the first Jews living under the Law of God would have been children (real children), teenagers (starting their own families), the bulk of people in their twenties, and the "elders" in their thirties, with a few in their forties. If you wanted to watch an accurate portrayal of those times, that would be the ages of the general population being portrayed.
Sure, the Bible books were written by older men, but that's for two reasons. Um, who lives long enough to know what happened over a period of thirty or forty years, and what God said and what the Israelites did? Yep, someone old enough to have lived that long. And the second reason why the Bible books were written by older men? Who knew how to read and write? It wasn't discrimination, but only those of the older priesthood and so forth had the time to be able to author the books, telling what had taken place, and two, only they had access to scribes (scribes being those who wrote on behalf of the vast population of people who could not read or write since they were busy scratching out survival through farming, hunting and herding animals).
Thus, you must realize that when Moses "addressed the people" and when God gave his Commandments and other laws, and when Jesus preached and performed miracles, this was all to populations the VAST majority of whom were in their teens, twenties and thirties.
It is a HUGE, but very necessary, change in your mental imagery to realize that in the olden days there were not the olden people, LOL. Far from being dismissive that the Bible (or the Qur'an) is for the old, remember that life expectancy chart and change your mental view of what people looked like then from being what you imagine lots of old folks to be like today with the correct image of teenagers who were head of households, parents many times over in their twenties, and "elders" in their thirties, not expecting to live much longer than forty at best.
Young friends, the Bible and the Qur'an were written for YOU, my friends, for you.
When God admonished parents to raise their children properly, he was addressing teenagers and those in their early twenties who were already parents... and that was everyone (except for a few who chose ascetic lives, often becoming religious single people). It would be the thirteen years old and over crowd who would have paid the most attention to what to do as they were on the brink of starting the adult phases of their lives.
This is another way of understanding that just because modern society seems to think that youth is somewhat moronic and unable to be adult (and then reinforces that through how you are educated and treated), yet wonders why teenagers are ready to be mature in ways that maybe they aren't yet, the Bible certainly does not trivialize youth and consider it a "waiting" and "growing up" period. Thirteen year olds were expected to have a mature relationship with God of many years already because THEY were about to become parents who would be passing this on to THEIR children.
God takes everyone very seriously and he addressed himself to everyone very seriously. This has not changed, just because people live longer. God has the same expectations at the same ages as he always has, and always will.
Here's something ironic. The very people who rant about teenage pregnancy and figure that God would disapprove are forgetting that it was mostly teenagers (and those in their twenties) who were alive and pregnant during Biblical times and for most of human history until the past one hundred years or so. Lots of reasons for why that societal mental shift occurred, but my point is that this shift has nothing to do with God. God considers a child of around seven or so to now be old enough to distinguish between righteous behavior and sin, and to have a knowing relationship with God and his doctrine. God considers a boy or girl of thirteen or so to be a religious adult. By that I mean that God considers entry into the teenage years as being the time that in religious law and custom (and thus knowledge and relationship with God), a boy or a girl is an adult.
Do you see again the problem I raised in the previous posting? Modern society may think it's OK to encourage children to goof around and not take religion seriously because they have "time" to make such a "decision," but it sure doesn't say that in the Bible or the Qur'an. How do we know that? Because, as I said, consistently for thousands of years of human existence you only HAD teens, twenties and thirties... that WAS the circle of life, and a serious one it was. Children were schooled in scripture as soon as they could understand it, so that they would know and understand God, his reality in their lives, and his expectations AND because a thirteen year old boy or girl is now considered an adult both religiously and biologically, on the brink of starting their own families.
It's society that has changed, not your human conditioning and timing, nor has God's expectations. In many ways this should be a relief to you to understand that God certainly does not intend to be a "mystery" to be "found" by browsing many goofy cult or agnostic menus, where you "wonder" if he is "real" until you make an "adult" choice after "years of questing." Hardly. God intends that every child be consecrated to him and to know him and understand his love (and expectations). So you should be relieved to know that God certainly does not intend and in fact it is against his will that he should be withheld, and most especially untruthfully, from any child. In another way this should be kind of annoying, not toward God, but toward your families and school systems who have totally dropped the ball about the reality of God. Those many of you who have grown up without God have a right to be peeved, and you should be more peeved about that than not having the latest iPhone or iPod, Blackberry or whatever.
As young people, you learn more about yourself, and are happier with yourself and others (that old self image and "why am I here" issue) when you know the truth and have grown up with the truth, rather than the half a**ed "perceptions" that your parents and often grandparents have given to you. That is their failing and also how they may have been deprived themselves, growing up. You can be sympathetic but time's a wasting, and you ought to be a bit peeved, and you ought to feel some sense of urgency.
I'm not being melodramatic in the old "hey, someone might die before being saved" focus. What I mean is that when someone doesn't know the truth of a huge chunk of reality, everything else that you do gets skewed, either deliberately or incidentally. If you don't know the truth about life, death, God and his control, God and his love and his wishes for people's grace, and the reality of eternal life with or without him (in that very bad place), then you make a whole slew of other really poorly informed decisions AND, unlike the young Biblical teenage adult, you are in no position to pass the truth on to your younger siblings, your friends and ultimately your own children. I totally cannot believe what a disaster this has become (not the behavior of young people but the nearly total severing of the knowledge of God from generation to generation, which, as you now realize, was continual despite harsh and short lives AND lack of reading or writing, previous to the past one hundred years or so).
As much as I was expecting it to be bad, I am still stunned, on a daily basis, of how each crop of children have been less and less knowing the truth and reality of life, and being totally severed from God himself, or, even if they've "heard of the possibility of God," an accurate scriptural knowledge (remember, scriptures are what God tells the people he is in his own words). Really, I find the rapidity by which the truth of God and of life in general decayed and has been totally warped to be astounding to me, and probably the only thing that I can say has actually surprised me about my time on earth thus far.
So remember.... central casting has it all wrong. Throughout human history it's not the "old white men," it's been children, teenagers, twenties, thirties (elders) and if folks were fortunate and prosperous, those real oldsters who made it over forty. I hope that you have found this helpful and maybe rocked your world some. It should, really, it should.
All right, you've now had time to think about what I wrote, which is that for the vast majority of human history the population alive at any time was capped in the vast majority at the MAX of people in their thirties, who would have been considered "elders." People just didn't live much beyond forty as recently as one hundred years ago. Teenagers were not "teenagers," but were expected to be living as adults and were looking forward to adult responsibilities and starting families. A "teenager" was most likely already halfway through his or her life expectancy.
Now, think back about two things. Think of how the Bible is slandered as being about and for "old men." Duh, wot? Just like some think that the book classics are just books written by and for "old white men," many think the Bible is likewise. Not so much! The Bible was written for and given to young people who were, well, the only ones who were alive, what we would consider teenagers, young adults and - at most - "entering middle age" today. So the Bible was not written "for" old people: it was written for YOU.
Second, now you can think of how inaccurate the central casting is for those old Bible Hollywood epics. Lots of middle age extras made up the crowds, but that was wrong. Moses would have been giving the Ten Commandments to lots of families with "teenage" parents, and the "crowds" of freed Israelite slaves who were the first Jews living under the Law of God would have been children (real children), teenagers (starting their own families), the bulk of people in their twenties, and the "elders" in their thirties, with a few in their forties. If you wanted to watch an accurate portrayal of those times, that would be the ages of the general population being portrayed.
Sure, the Bible books were written by older men, but that's for two reasons. Um, who lives long enough to know what happened over a period of thirty or forty years, and what God said and what the Israelites did? Yep, someone old enough to have lived that long. And the second reason why the Bible books were written by older men? Who knew how to read and write? It wasn't discrimination, but only those of the older priesthood and so forth had the time to be able to author the books, telling what had taken place, and two, only they had access to scribes (scribes being those who wrote on behalf of the vast population of people who could not read or write since they were busy scratching out survival through farming, hunting and herding animals).
Thus, you must realize that when Moses "addressed the people" and when God gave his Commandments and other laws, and when Jesus preached and performed miracles, this was all to populations the VAST majority of whom were in their teens, twenties and thirties.
It is a HUGE, but very necessary, change in your mental imagery to realize that in the olden days there were not the olden people, LOL. Far from being dismissive that the Bible (or the Qur'an) is for the old, remember that life expectancy chart and change your mental view of what people looked like then from being what you imagine lots of old folks to be like today with the correct image of teenagers who were head of households, parents many times over in their twenties, and "elders" in their thirties, not expecting to live much longer than forty at best.
Young friends, the Bible and the Qur'an were written for YOU, my friends, for you.
When God admonished parents to raise their children properly, he was addressing teenagers and those in their early twenties who were already parents... and that was everyone (except for a few who chose ascetic lives, often becoming religious single people). It would be the thirteen years old and over crowd who would have paid the most attention to what to do as they were on the brink of starting the adult phases of their lives.
This is another way of understanding that just because modern society seems to think that youth is somewhat moronic and unable to be adult (and then reinforces that through how you are educated and treated), yet wonders why teenagers are ready to be mature in ways that maybe they aren't yet, the Bible certainly does not trivialize youth and consider it a "waiting" and "growing up" period. Thirteen year olds were expected to have a mature relationship with God of many years already because THEY were about to become parents who would be passing this on to THEIR children.
God takes everyone very seriously and he addressed himself to everyone very seriously. This has not changed, just because people live longer. God has the same expectations at the same ages as he always has, and always will.
Here's something ironic. The very people who rant about teenage pregnancy and figure that God would disapprove are forgetting that it was mostly teenagers (and those in their twenties) who were alive and pregnant during Biblical times and for most of human history until the past one hundred years or so. Lots of reasons for why that societal mental shift occurred, but my point is that this shift has nothing to do with God. God considers a child of around seven or so to now be old enough to distinguish between righteous behavior and sin, and to have a knowing relationship with God and his doctrine. God considers a boy or girl of thirteen or so to be a religious adult. By that I mean that God considers entry into the teenage years as being the time that in religious law and custom (and thus knowledge and relationship with God), a boy or a girl is an adult.
Do you see again the problem I raised in the previous posting? Modern society may think it's OK to encourage children to goof around and not take religion seriously because they have "time" to make such a "decision," but it sure doesn't say that in the Bible or the Qur'an. How do we know that? Because, as I said, consistently for thousands of years of human existence you only HAD teens, twenties and thirties... that WAS the circle of life, and a serious one it was. Children were schooled in scripture as soon as they could understand it, so that they would know and understand God, his reality in their lives, and his expectations AND because a thirteen year old boy or girl is now considered an adult both religiously and biologically, on the brink of starting their own families.
It's society that has changed, not your human conditioning and timing, nor has God's expectations. In many ways this should be a relief to you to understand that God certainly does not intend to be a "mystery" to be "found" by browsing many goofy cult or agnostic menus, where you "wonder" if he is "real" until you make an "adult" choice after "years of questing." Hardly. God intends that every child be consecrated to him and to know him and understand his love (and expectations). So you should be relieved to know that God certainly does not intend and in fact it is against his will that he should be withheld, and most especially untruthfully, from any child. In another way this should be kind of annoying, not toward God, but toward your families and school systems who have totally dropped the ball about the reality of God. Those many of you who have grown up without God have a right to be peeved, and you should be more peeved about that than not having the latest iPhone or iPod, Blackberry or whatever.
As young people, you learn more about yourself, and are happier with yourself and others (that old self image and "why am I here" issue) when you know the truth and have grown up with the truth, rather than the half a**ed "perceptions" that your parents and often grandparents have given to you. That is their failing and also how they may have been deprived themselves, growing up. You can be sympathetic but time's a wasting, and you ought to be a bit peeved, and you ought to feel some sense of urgency.
I'm not being melodramatic in the old "hey, someone might die before being saved" focus. What I mean is that when someone doesn't know the truth of a huge chunk of reality, everything else that you do gets skewed, either deliberately or incidentally. If you don't know the truth about life, death, God and his control, God and his love and his wishes for people's grace, and the reality of eternal life with or without him (in that very bad place), then you make a whole slew of other really poorly informed decisions AND, unlike the young Biblical teenage adult, you are in no position to pass the truth on to your younger siblings, your friends and ultimately your own children. I totally cannot believe what a disaster this has become (not the behavior of young people but the nearly total severing of the knowledge of God from generation to generation, which, as you now realize, was continual despite harsh and short lives AND lack of reading or writing, previous to the past one hundred years or so).
As much as I was expecting it to be bad, I am still stunned, on a daily basis, of how each crop of children have been less and less knowing the truth and reality of life, and being totally severed from God himself, or, even if they've "heard of the possibility of God," an accurate scriptural knowledge (remember, scriptures are what God tells the people he is in his own words). Really, I find the rapidity by which the truth of God and of life in general decayed and has been totally warped to be astounding to me, and probably the only thing that I can say has actually surprised me about my time on earth thus far.
So remember.... central casting has it all wrong. Throughout human history it's not the "old white men," it's been children, teenagers, twenties, thirties (elders) and if folks were fortunate and prosperous, those real oldsters who made it over forty. I hope that you have found this helpful and maybe rocked your world some. It should, really, it should.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Candid talk about life expectancy and death
I am especially directing this particular blog posting to you young people, who I always have in mind. Be assured I am not trying to bum you out, because if you think about what I am writing here, you will see its purpose is the opposite, to make you more realistic and thus have more positivity about both life and what to expect after life.
Young people, the first thing you need to understand is that you were raised by a generation, perhaps even two generations, who have taken an "average" or a long lifespan for granted. They have thus passed on to you some legitimate, but also some very bogus, expectations. Those of us who are older, and, more importantly, had very sound scientific and anthropological subject material in school, have a different, more realistic view of not only the biological life and its priorities but also the spiritual life. Your parents, grandparents and your school systems have done you no favors in this regard. It is urgent that you rethink the unconscious assumptions that you have.
First, look at this article, but most especially the chart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
Here is the punch line. Do you realize that until the last century for ALL of human history that the average lifespan of humans was through the twenties, lower thirties, and sometimes the forties? That is what that chart shows you, that as recently as a few hundred years ago most people could not expect to life much past forty.
Let that sink in for a moment. For the hundreds of thousands of years that what is considered to be modern humans existed, until the last one hundred years or so, virtually all humans could only expect to live a MAX of forty years. Most were considered old and "elders" in their thirties.
This should make you realize a few things now about the scriptures. First, it is very significant and indeed a proof of God's existence that at the time when most humans lived only until their thirties, God told them that their maximum years would be one hundred and twenty. Even the wisest prehistoric scholars could not have figured that out and anticipated such an age limit which has been demonstrated to be precisely true.
Second, it means you have to take seriously the immense ages of some of the patriarchs mentioned in the Bible. People simply would not have made up that a FEW specific named people blessed by God in the times between Adam and Eve and Abraham lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. It is exactly the astonishment of such longevity that resulted in those life spans being recorded in the Bible. Think about it..... of all the things that we today think are "important events," during the times recorded in the Book of Genesis, what is the only "facts" that people recorded? Those several key blessed patriarchs and the ages to which they lived. Other than genealogies those are really the only "facts" of those times: not dates of founding of cities, not amount of wealth, not years of battle victories or other "historical" "facts" like we would record today, but the extraordinary statement by God that due to human disobedience and limitations they can only expect natural life to reach one hundred and twenty years AND the recording of very few people in history who, filled with the Spirit of God, lived remarkably extended lives.
Now, my point is not to focus on those few individuals, the likes of which humans will never see again, for they truly lived when God was present among his people in their early rising and faith history. My point is to get you to not take an "average" or a "long" lifespan for granted, and also to explain some cold and hard facts to belie sentimentality that has crept into the modern psyche.
I am very concerned, as I have for decades, about an assumption that has crept into modern thought, which is that somehow if one suffers a "tragic" or "early" loss of life, that somehow God "makes it alright." To be blunt, many young people have been raised to think that if someone dies young, or if someone of any age dies tragically, that somehow, even if they are the most godless person in their life, that a young or "sad" death gives them some sort of bonus brownie points to achieve heaven. Seriously, so many people think that someone who ignored God while they were alive and even worked against his will, living godless and totally selfish lives filled with pointless activities, that if he or she dies sadly, tragically, at a young age, or was "so nice" and "much loved" or "much admired," that he or she gets a free pass card to the heaven that they didn't even believe in or witness to, and that they are "now at peace."
Think about how illogical that is. For most of human existence virtually every human barely made it out of their twenties alive. Duh. God would certainly not have set up a "bonus point" system for sad and early deaths when obviously ALL FREAKING PEOPLE DIED YOUNG FOR MOST OF HUMAN EXISTENCE.
In Biblical times, boys and girls who reached puberty were eagerly looking forward to being adult enough to marry, have responsibility for some sort of household, and start to raise a family. This is why the age of thirteen is such a "coming of age" in many cultures, and of course very much in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions. Get real, people. At the age of thirteen people were already approaching their life expectancy halfway point.
Thus the Bible, and the Qur'an, were written when people who turned thirty were viewed as "old" or "elders." This is why Jesus Christ started his public ministry around that age, by the way. And at his age, around thirty-three, when he died, it was the greatest tragedy and injustice in human history, but to that reality one cannot say that "he died young." The life expectancy of everyone, in general, around the world was their thirties, perhaps to forty.
So you must drop the notion that because human prosperity, health, hygiene and technology have helped many humans reach the average age of seventy (more in developed countries, of course), doubling what humans had expected until then, that God has some particular special treatment for those who "die young" or "die tragically." Um, that actually has been the entire story and lot of all of human history to date, that life was a struggle to survive day to day, to raise a family, to thrive, and to make it to one's "elder" status years, which was one's thirties.
With that in mind, you must realize that God does not "allow" or "bake into the plan" decades of youthful denial and occult or other "experimentation." Again, modern people, being raised by parents who are spoiled by their recent longevity and prosperity, somehow assume that God "understands" if children are raised godless, if teenagers and young adults "experiment with exotic beliefs" and if people are "too busy" or "too artistic" in their twenties and thirties to care about believing in God. That is a total error and one that is dangerous to the extreme. It not only puts decent living and good choices in peril (the old "I've got lots of time to straighten out" myth) but it also is, frankly, delusional to think that God is going to allow into heaven generations that are more unbelieving and disrespectful of him than ever in human history.
God is one hundred percent truth and one hundred percent consistency. He is constant in his availability to love and forgive even the most egregious sinner. But he is also constant in allowing the consequences of the same behaviors throughout all of human history to determine if an individual is saved (achieves heaven) or not (is assigned to hell for all eternity).
I know that when someone dies young and/or tragically, no one wants (or should) look at the grieving family and say, "Wow, it's too late for him or her to be saved," even if that is most likely factually true. That's cold hearted and cruel, and it is also not recommended that one speaks for God. However, it is equally a disservice for these past two generations to think that someone young who has lived very un-Christian lives, disbelieving and flaunting God, but who was "bubbly" or "artistic" or "sad" and "tragic" gets some sort of bonus points to cancel out their having done NOTHING to merit salvation!
To put it in systems terms: heaven is NOT the default location.
There is advice that I would give to anyone who asks who has suffered a loss in their family of such a person, and maybe I would give it if asked, it's not something that can be easily blogged about, as my advice must tap and utilize the specific level and type of the faith of the persons who are asking. But I CAN tell all of you reading this to understand the facts and be more sane and realistic than your parents' generation (and even some grandparents'). God gave the Bible and the Qur'an to humans for specific reasons: so humans understand the truth, and what God expects from them. As I've blogged before, you must understand the cultural context of the times when the scriptures were articulated, in order to fully comprehend all the fullness and richness of meaning. Here, then, is another example where you cannot read the Bible with modern filters. You cannot be reading the Bible and thinking that an elder is someone in their sixties, seventies and eighties. You cannot read the Bible and think that God is cutting slack for youth. He is not. When God refers to children he means children, as in very young children... God is not even meaning teenagers when he refers to children. As I said, at thirteen most were getting ready to establish their own households. At thirty they were elders. There is no "slack" built in for "young people" to "experiment" and to "choose" "their spirituality" and "whether to 'believe or not.'"
I hope that you have found this helpful.
Young people, the first thing you need to understand is that you were raised by a generation, perhaps even two generations, who have taken an "average" or a long lifespan for granted. They have thus passed on to you some legitimate, but also some very bogus, expectations. Those of us who are older, and, more importantly, had very sound scientific and anthropological subject material in school, have a different, more realistic view of not only the biological life and its priorities but also the spiritual life. Your parents, grandparents and your school systems have done you no favors in this regard. It is urgent that you rethink the unconscious assumptions that you have.
First, look at this article, but most especially the chart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
Here is the punch line. Do you realize that until the last century for ALL of human history that the average lifespan of humans was through the twenties, lower thirties, and sometimes the forties? That is what that chart shows you, that as recently as a few hundred years ago most people could not expect to life much past forty.
Let that sink in for a moment. For the hundreds of thousands of years that what is considered to be modern humans existed, until the last one hundred years or so, virtually all humans could only expect to live a MAX of forty years. Most were considered old and "elders" in their thirties.
This should make you realize a few things now about the scriptures. First, it is very significant and indeed a proof of God's existence that at the time when most humans lived only until their thirties, God told them that their maximum years would be one hundred and twenty. Even the wisest prehistoric scholars could not have figured that out and anticipated such an age limit which has been demonstrated to be precisely true.
Second, it means you have to take seriously the immense ages of some of the patriarchs mentioned in the Bible. People simply would not have made up that a FEW specific named people blessed by God in the times between Adam and Eve and Abraham lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. It is exactly the astonishment of such longevity that resulted in those life spans being recorded in the Bible. Think about it..... of all the things that we today think are "important events," during the times recorded in the Book of Genesis, what is the only "facts" that people recorded? Those several key blessed patriarchs and the ages to which they lived. Other than genealogies those are really the only "facts" of those times: not dates of founding of cities, not amount of wealth, not years of battle victories or other "historical" "facts" like we would record today, but the extraordinary statement by God that due to human disobedience and limitations they can only expect natural life to reach one hundred and twenty years AND the recording of very few people in history who, filled with the Spirit of God, lived remarkably extended lives.
Now, my point is not to focus on those few individuals, the likes of which humans will never see again, for they truly lived when God was present among his people in their early rising and faith history. My point is to get you to not take an "average" or a "long" lifespan for granted, and also to explain some cold and hard facts to belie sentimentality that has crept into the modern psyche.
I am very concerned, as I have for decades, about an assumption that has crept into modern thought, which is that somehow if one suffers a "tragic" or "early" loss of life, that somehow God "makes it alright." To be blunt, many young people have been raised to think that if someone dies young, or if someone of any age dies tragically, that somehow, even if they are the most godless person in their life, that a young or "sad" death gives them some sort of bonus brownie points to achieve heaven. Seriously, so many people think that someone who ignored God while they were alive and even worked against his will, living godless and totally selfish lives filled with pointless activities, that if he or she dies sadly, tragically, at a young age, or was "so nice" and "much loved" or "much admired," that he or she gets a free pass card to the heaven that they didn't even believe in or witness to, and that they are "now at peace."
Think about how illogical that is. For most of human existence virtually every human barely made it out of their twenties alive. Duh. God would certainly not have set up a "bonus point" system for sad and early deaths when obviously ALL FREAKING PEOPLE DIED YOUNG FOR MOST OF HUMAN EXISTENCE.
In Biblical times, boys and girls who reached puberty were eagerly looking forward to being adult enough to marry, have responsibility for some sort of household, and start to raise a family. This is why the age of thirteen is such a "coming of age" in many cultures, and of course very much in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions. Get real, people. At the age of thirteen people were already approaching their life expectancy halfway point.
Thus the Bible, and the Qur'an, were written when people who turned thirty were viewed as "old" or "elders." This is why Jesus Christ started his public ministry around that age, by the way. And at his age, around thirty-three, when he died, it was the greatest tragedy and injustice in human history, but to that reality one cannot say that "he died young." The life expectancy of everyone, in general, around the world was their thirties, perhaps to forty.
So you must drop the notion that because human prosperity, health, hygiene and technology have helped many humans reach the average age of seventy (more in developed countries, of course), doubling what humans had expected until then, that God has some particular special treatment for those who "die young" or "die tragically." Um, that actually has been the entire story and lot of all of human history to date, that life was a struggle to survive day to day, to raise a family, to thrive, and to make it to one's "elder" status years, which was one's thirties.
With that in mind, you must realize that God does not "allow" or "bake into the plan" decades of youthful denial and occult or other "experimentation." Again, modern people, being raised by parents who are spoiled by their recent longevity and prosperity, somehow assume that God "understands" if children are raised godless, if teenagers and young adults "experiment with exotic beliefs" and if people are "too busy" or "too artistic" in their twenties and thirties to care about believing in God. That is a total error and one that is dangerous to the extreme. It not only puts decent living and good choices in peril (the old "I've got lots of time to straighten out" myth) but it also is, frankly, delusional to think that God is going to allow into heaven generations that are more unbelieving and disrespectful of him than ever in human history.
God is one hundred percent truth and one hundred percent consistency. He is constant in his availability to love and forgive even the most egregious sinner. But he is also constant in allowing the consequences of the same behaviors throughout all of human history to determine if an individual is saved (achieves heaven) or not (is assigned to hell for all eternity).
I know that when someone dies young and/or tragically, no one wants (or should) look at the grieving family and say, "Wow, it's too late for him or her to be saved," even if that is most likely factually true. That's cold hearted and cruel, and it is also not recommended that one speaks for God. However, it is equally a disservice for these past two generations to think that someone young who has lived very un-Christian lives, disbelieving and flaunting God, but who was "bubbly" or "artistic" or "sad" and "tragic" gets some sort of bonus points to cancel out their having done NOTHING to merit salvation!
To put it in systems terms: heaven is NOT the default location.
There is advice that I would give to anyone who asks who has suffered a loss in their family of such a person, and maybe I would give it if asked, it's not something that can be easily blogged about, as my advice must tap and utilize the specific level and type of the faith of the persons who are asking. But I CAN tell all of you reading this to understand the facts and be more sane and realistic than your parents' generation (and even some grandparents'). God gave the Bible and the Qur'an to humans for specific reasons: so humans understand the truth, and what God expects from them. As I've blogged before, you must understand the cultural context of the times when the scriptures were articulated, in order to fully comprehend all the fullness and richness of meaning. Here, then, is another example where you cannot read the Bible with modern filters. You cannot be reading the Bible and thinking that an elder is someone in their sixties, seventies and eighties. You cannot read the Bible and think that God is cutting slack for youth. He is not. When God refers to children he means children, as in very young children... God is not even meaning teenagers when he refers to children. As I said, at thirteen most were getting ready to establish their own households. At thirty they were elders. There is no "slack" built in for "young people" to "experiment" and to "choose" "their spirituality" and "whether to 'believe or not.'"
I hope that you have found this helpful.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Recent deaths in all faiths or no faiths
I hope that recent deaths of individuals who belong to the full spectrum of faiths (both those highly observant and not-so-observant) plus those who die of no faith and outright disbelieving is understood by all that as is repeatedly taught in the scripture (and through secular common sense) that "belonging to the right religion" is absolutely no "life insurance."
I continue to be astonished how people can claim to understand God, yet at the same time fall into the ancient pagan trap that if one "belongs" to the "right" faith that one is somehow "protected" from early death, mishap or sinful conduct. Never has any sort of guarantee been given to anyone of the monotheistic faiths, yet I am just amazed at how difficult it is to eradicate over the centuries that "belonging to the right club" mentality toward God. Genuine piety is worshipping and serving God without any delusion that somehow one is "buying" some sort of "insurance policy."
I continue to be astonished how people can claim to understand God, yet at the same time fall into the ancient pagan trap that if one "belongs" to the "right" faith that one is somehow "protected" from early death, mishap or sinful conduct. Never has any sort of guarantee been given to anyone of the monotheistic faiths, yet I am just amazed at how difficult it is to eradicate over the centuries that "belonging to the right club" mentality toward God. Genuine piety is worshipping and serving God without any delusion that somehow one is "buying" some sort of "insurance policy."
Thursday, January 8, 2009
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away
When one suffers a loss, the death of a family member, a friend, a loved one, a colleague, or someone who was a positive influence, one often listens then to tributes at the funeral or memorial about how having had this person in one's life was such a gift.
This is true, and when someone dies, it is very important to remember that the time that you have had with him or her, no matter how short, was a great gift and treasure.
Read sometimes the obituaries of average people, strangers, as I do, and think about what a gift he or she was to their family as they recite who passed before them, who survives and mourns them, and their accomplishments, including "homemaker," or their interests if they were just a child.
When you are thoughtful about what a gift that person was to you, this brings you on the threshold of understanding what is one of the great "mysteries" of life. Why do people die?
That is the wrong question. The thing to remember is that God has given everyone that gift of life in the first place. When you mourn your loved one it is then that those of faith are somewhat in awe of what a great gift every life is in the first place.
The great gift from God is life of an individual, each of whom is unique and having received the gift of life from God is, in his or her turn, a gift to his or her parents, family, loved ones, friends and colleagues.
Life, therefore, is a gift to the person but also the gift of that person to the world.
God does not "recycle" gifts. Each person's soul is born out of God's love, creating that new individual, giving him or her the gift of life and therefore a gift too to all who surround that person in life, no matter how humble. In fact, the greatest of all gifts, life, is given equally to rich or destitute, and often the much loved treasure of the poorest of the poor.
There is a string attached to each gift of life, and that string is to God's heart, so that when that person dies, they return to their creator. Thus, when someone dies, we often say, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Yes, he gives that immeasurable gift of a new life when a baby is conceived, and like every treasure of the finest, God does not "re-gift" or let that treasure of life go out in the trash. It takes a lot of effort to snap the cord to God and defy his wish for eternal salvation in his arms for each and every person. But too many do it, far too many. Yet God never closes the way, he is not the one to remove the string, but chronic sin and defiance "frays" the string until the persons themselves snap the cord, choosing then to spend eternity in the unbearable place without God.
So the question should not be "why do people die?"
The meditation should be about the goodness of God who makes from new a life, giving that life to the world, as a gift for however long or brief their span of mortal time. An immeasurable treasure, a loved one, is an unimaginable gift, whether of the infant who has such a short life due to illness or the person who lives many years to great old age, and all those in between. It's a gift that is not measured or compared by the length of time one has the gift. After all, even when the gift returns to God, you have the memories of your life shaped and shared by that person, and that never disappears. The gift IS life and the gift IS whatever the span of time of mortal being, and the two are one and the same. It's not a "better" gift because one has it longer. All and every life is a miraculous gift from God.
Believers and those of genuine good will can then live in the hope that they will see that person again, when their own gift of life returns to God.
This is true, and when someone dies, it is very important to remember that the time that you have had with him or her, no matter how short, was a great gift and treasure.
Read sometimes the obituaries of average people, strangers, as I do, and think about what a gift he or she was to their family as they recite who passed before them, who survives and mourns them, and their accomplishments, including "homemaker," or their interests if they were just a child.
When you are thoughtful about what a gift that person was to you, this brings you on the threshold of understanding what is one of the great "mysteries" of life. Why do people die?
That is the wrong question. The thing to remember is that God has given everyone that gift of life in the first place. When you mourn your loved one it is then that those of faith are somewhat in awe of what a great gift every life is in the first place.
The great gift from God is life of an individual, each of whom is unique and having received the gift of life from God is, in his or her turn, a gift to his or her parents, family, loved ones, friends and colleagues.
Life, therefore, is a gift to the person but also the gift of that person to the world.
God does not "recycle" gifts. Each person's soul is born out of God's love, creating that new individual, giving him or her the gift of life and therefore a gift too to all who surround that person in life, no matter how humble. In fact, the greatest of all gifts, life, is given equally to rich or destitute, and often the much loved treasure of the poorest of the poor.
There is a string attached to each gift of life, and that string is to God's heart, so that when that person dies, they return to their creator. Thus, when someone dies, we often say, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Yes, he gives that immeasurable gift of a new life when a baby is conceived, and like every treasure of the finest, God does not "re-gift" or let that treasure of life go out in the trash. It takes a lot of effort to snap the cord to God and defy his wish for eternal salvation in his arms for each and every person. But too many do it, far too many. Yet God never closes the way, he is not the one to remove the string, but chronic sin and defiance "frays" the string until the persons themselves snap the cord, choosing then to spend eternity in the unbearable place without God.
So the question should not be "why do people die?"
The meditation should be about the goodness of God who makes from new a life, giving that life to the world, as a gift for however long or brief their span of mortal time. An immeasurable treasure, a loved one, is an unimaginable gift, whether of the infant who has such a short life due to illness or the person who lives many years to great old age, and all those in between. It's a gift that is not measured or compared by the length of time one has the gift. After all, even when the gift returns to God, you have the memories of your life shaped and shared by that person, and that never disappears. The gift IS life and the gift IS whatever the span of time of mortal being, and the two are one and the same. It's not a "better" gift because one has it longer. All and every life is a miraculous gift from God.
Believers and those of genuine good will can then live in the hope that they will see that person again, when their own gift of life returns to God.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Bible Reading: Psalms 90 and commentary
You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, say to the Lord, "My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."
For he will rescue you from the snare of the fowler, from the destroying pestilence. With his pinions he will cover you, and under his wings you shall take refuge; his faithfulness is a buckler and a shield.
You shall not fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by day; not the pestilence that roams in darkness nor the devastating plague at noon.
Though a thousand fall at your side, ten thousand at your right side, near you it will not come. Rather with your eyes shall you behold and see the requital of the wicked, because you have the Lord for your refuge; you have made the Most High your stronghold.
No evil shall befall you, nor shall affliction come near your tent, for to his angels he has given command about you, that they guard you in all your ways. Upon their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the asp and the viper; you shall trample down the lion and the dragon.
Because he clings to me, I will deliver him; I will set him on high because he acknowledges my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in distress; I will deliver him and glorify him; with length of days I will gratify him and will show him my salvation.
***
I love all the psalms, so I won't say this is another favorite, as they are all favorites! However, I will say I recommend to you the frequent reading of this one. It is one of the finest testaments of faith and God's protection to be found anywhere in the Bible. One cannot read this psalm and not be heartened and encouraged, and have one's faith strengthened, nourished and fortified.
It speaks for itself but I will point out a few things. The author (this is not one of King David's psalms) explains the security of being under God's protection in his own voice, and then the last few lines (where I changed the color of the text to dark blue) are spoken in God's voice. So God is reinforcing the promises that the psalm author describes.
Angel fans! Notice this is one of the places in the Old Testament that the well established faith in guardian angels for every person is mentioned. Here the psalm author observes that for the chosen faithful God will instruct the guardian angels to specifically protect them from any harm, expressing the analogy that you won't even stumble or bump your foot against a stone! The entire psalm is of course analogy, but as one can see it is meant to be believed and practical too. Basically the psalmist is saying that faith in God will see people through even the most dire of situations, such as war, disease and violence, even when it is all around you.
By the way, do not read anything into the use of plural "angels" as if that is implication that each person has multiple angels. Rather, that is the humility of true Bible authors who "leave the details up to God," and are not making specific statements about "how" God does things. Because angels are by their nature extensions of God's will, there is not a material separateness among angels in the way that people like to envision.
Notice that God is imaged as the refuge, connoting a place of safety. But to make the point further, this is not a physical place of safety, as if one has to be in a temple or "holy place" but it is the refuge wherever you are. This is imaged as God being a great eagle who will snatch this faithful out from amidst danger. Also, God protects the faithful even from what they cannot see, this being the image of "the terror of the night."
In the part where God's voice confirms this protection, notice that God makes very clear that this is both earthly protection and the eternal protection of salvation after one's death. Again, it must not be viewed as a numbers game, where long life means God is satisfied with the person, while those who die young failed in some way. This is not at all what God means in this place or anywhere in the Bible. After the fall in the Garden of Eden, all humans have been limited to a span of life of about one hundred and twenty years at the most. So to understand God be careful to note he says "with length of days I will gratify him." God is not saying that one is gratified by having x number of years added to their life. God is saying that God will ensure that the person is gratified with the time, the length of days, that they do receive.
To help you to understand, there are fewer greater examples of courage and grace than in those children who suffer from a disease, like cancer, at a young age, often dying, yet they set remarkable examples of what can only be described as a spiritual maturity. These children who we all read about in the paper or see on the news are often smiling and unresentful through many medical procedures, and even when all fails and they die at a young age. This is an example of how as the psalmist explains that God will "with length of days I will gratify him." God provides the grace that even a shortened life in hard conditions is one that is gratified, and that at the end of it God "will show him my salvation."
Not to disrupt the flow or to start a rant, but because it is so instructive I need to point out that humans tend to ignore the obvious and look for the made-up and complicated "reasons." Thus, when children such as I've just described, time after time show such remarkable and graceful maturity, so many who are secularists do not see the obvious of God's grace being available without blockage to every young child. Ill children are fully within God's grace and the constant presence and support of their guardian angel. This is why we see just about every child with a life threatening illness exhibit remarkable and mature grace, regardless of their religious, cultural or household background. Jesus explained that the guardian angels of children constantly face God. What some find as rationale for bizarre beliefs (the old canard "she's an old soul") is actually the opposite. No, the child is a young soul, one who is still innocent and open to full infusion of grace and spiritual protection by God and the child's guardian angel, and it is that infusion in their time of crisis that looks and feels so "mature." The "old soul" quality of one's child is your perception of his or her young (one and only) soul being infused with the eternal grace of God through their time of crisis. So this psalm is another resource for those of you who are still detoxing from occult types of beliefs, who think things like "reincarnation," when it's just your child, your one life lived, one soul given, fully loved child being infused with the grace of God and the constancy of their guardian angel's active support in their crisis and illness.
You can see why I think this is one of the most remarkably helpful psalms in terms of not only worship of God, which is the highest priority, but also strengthening, love and comfort, which is also what God fully intends.
I hope you found this helpful!
For he will rescue you from the snare of the fowler, from the destroying pestilence. With his pinions he will cover you, and under his wings you shall take refuge; his faithfulness is a buckler and a shield.
You shall not fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by day; not the pestilence that roams in darkness nor the devastating plague at noon.
Though a thousand fall at your side, ten thousand at your right side, near you it will not come. Rather with your eyes shall you behold and see the requital of the wicked, because you have the Lord for your refuge; you have made the Most High your stronghold.
No evil shall befall you, nor shall affliction come near your tent, for to his angels he has given command about you, that they guard you in all your ways. Upon their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the asp and the viper; you shall trample down the lion and the dragon.
Because he clings to me, I will deliver him; I will set him on high because he acknowledges my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in distress; I will deliver him and glorify him; with length of days I will gratify him and will show him my salvation.
***
I love all the psalms, so I won't say this is another favorite, as they are all favorites! However, I will say I recommend to you the frequent reading of this one. It is one of the finest testaments of faith and God's protection to be found anywhere in the Bible. One cannot read this psalm and not be heartened and encouraged, and have one's faith strengthened, nourished and fortified.
It speaks for itself but I will point out a few things. The author (this is not one of King David's psalms) explains the security of being under God's protection in his own voice, and then the last few lines (where I changed the color of the text to dark blue) are spoken in God's voice. So God is reinforcing the promises that the psalm author describes.
Angel fans! Notice this is one of the places in the Old Testament that the well established faith in guardian angels for every person is mentioned. Here the psalm author observes that for the chosen faithful God will instruct the guardian angels to specifically protect them from any harm, expressing the analogy that you won't even stumble or bump your foot against a stone! The entire psalm is of course analogy, but as one can see it is meant to be believed and practical too. Basically the psalmist is saying that faith in God will see people through even the most dire of situations, such as war, disease and violence, even when it is all around you.
By the way, do not read anything into the use of plural "angels" as if that is implication that each person has multiple angels. Rather, that is the humility of true Bible authors who "leave the details up to God," and are not making specific statements about "how" God does things. Because angels are by their nature extensions of God's will, there is not a material separateness among angels in the way that people like to envision.
Notice that God is imaged as the refuge, connoting a place of safety. But to make the point further, this is not a physical place of safety, as if one has to be in a temple or "holy place" but it is the refuge wherever you are. This is imaged as God being a great eagle who will snatch this faithful out from amidst danger. Also, God protects the faithful even from what they cannot see, this being the image of "the terror of the night."
In the part where God's voice confirms this protection, notice that God makes very clear that this is both earthly protection and the eternal protection of salvation after one's death. Again, it must not be viewed as a numbers game, where long life means God is satisfied with the person, while those who die young failed in some way. This is not at all what God means in this place or anywhere in the Bible. After the fall in the Garden of Eden, all humans have been limited to a span of life of about one hundred and twenty years at the most. So to understand God be careful to note he says "with length of days I will gratify him." God is not saying that one is gratified by having x number of years added to their life. God is saying that God will ensure that the person is gratified with the time, the length of days, that they do receive.
To help you to understand, there are fewer greater examples of courage and grace than in those children who suffer from a disease, like cancer, at a young age, often dying, yet they set remarkable examples of what can only be described as a spiritual maturity. These children who we all read about in the paper or see on the news are often smiling and unresentful through many medical procedures, and even when all fails and they die at a young age. This is an example of how as the psalmist explains that God will "with length of days I will gratify him." God provides the grace that even a shortened life in hard conditions is one that is gratified, and that at the end of it God "will show him my salvation."
Not to disrupt the flow or to start a rant, but because it is so instructive I need to point out that humans tend to ignore the obvious and look for the made-up and complicated "reasons." Thus, when children such as I've just described, time after time show such remarkable and graceful maturity, so many who are secularists do not see the obvious of God's grace being available without blockage to every young child. Ill children are fully within God's grace and the constant presence and support of their guardian angel. This is why we see just about every child with a life threatening illness exhibit remarkable and mature grace, regardless of their religious, cultural or household background. Jesus explained that the guardian angels of children constantly face God. What some find as rationale for bizarre beliefs (the old canard "she's an old soul") is actually the opposite. No, the child is a young soul, one who is still innocent and open to full infusion of grace and spiritual protection by God and the child's guardian angel, and it is that infusion in their time of crisis that looks and feels so "mature." The "old soul" quality of one's child is your perception of his or her young (one and only) soul being infused with the eternal grace of God through their time of crisis. So this psalm is another resource for those of you who are still detoxing from occult types of beliefs, who think things like "reincarnation," when it's just your child, your one life lived, one soul given, fully loved child being infused with the grace of God and the constancy of their guardian angel's active support in their crisis and illness.
You can see why I think this is one of the most remarkably helpful psalms in terms of not only worship of God, which is the highest priority, but also strengthening, love and comfort, which is also what God fully intends.
I hope you found this helpful!
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