Green Oasis

Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR TB) is a multi-drug resistant form of tuberculosis that is a growing source of concern throughout the world. The Big Picture has photos of sufferers of XDR TB by James Nachtwey who wants to raise awareness of this disease.

Life and health seem so fragile.

I get the feeling that we’ve lost a real mensch in Paul Newman. When asked why he was a philanthropist, he answered:

Well, I think above all things I acknowledge luck. And I mean, if you think of that torrent of sperm out there…

And — and ours was lucky to fall where it did. That’s for starters. You can’t pick your own parents, but you may be lucky enough to have parents that give you the gift of induction and deduction and certain intelligence, certain way you look. I mean, it’s all — So I — I’ve been very lucky. And I — I try to acknowledge that by giving back something to those to whom luck has been brutal.

He seems like he would have been a good person to talk to.

(via The Situationist)

Update: I’m not the only one to be struck by a je ne sais quoi about Newman. Roger Ebert seems equally perplexed and admiring. I want to call him an Existential Man for no particularly good reason (or even a clear understanding of what it means).

By the way, this is my 400^th post. Yay me!

My oldest daughter has taken to asking God to “protect all the good people” and “make sure there are no hurricanes or tornadoes” and other similarly kindhearted, faithful wishes for the general welfare. Our world-wise adult reflex is to prompt her to water down her requests to something meaningless like “please watch over them”. Why?

Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, … if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. (Matthew 21:21–22)

For with God nothing shall be impossible. (Luke 1:37)

If nothing is impossible for God, why can’t he seem to muster the same benevolence as my child? Have adult believers learned to be less compassionate in their prayers in order to cover for God’s lack of compassion?

I last read The Old Man and the Sea for seventh grade reading class. What a difference twenty years make! While I’m not yet old, some lessons come only with time: they can’t be rushed. The consciously futile struggle against mortality enriches our stark, youthful views into compassionate, full color vistas.

It’s hard to sort out the reasons and the sequence of my loss of faith. In the afterimage of my memory, it looks like a single explosion rather than an evolving realignment of ideas. The epicenter of that explosion is God’s silence. In my darkest hours, prayer produced no succor. I was left alone to struggle in pain and doubt.

Some may excuse God’s absence by saying that I shouldn’t expect answers exactly when I want them, that they arrive in the Lord’s own time. That’s not good enough some times. If I’m on the verge of forever losing my faith in God, then getting back to me tomorrow isn’t soon enough.

Others may say that God sometimes answers prayers negatively. Answering “no” or offering only silence to the plaintive question “Are you there?” shows either a twisted sense of humor or a heartless disinterest.

Maybe God is trying to teach us something we might wonder. That might be reasonable when someone just wants to know that someone is watching out for them, but when a child on the brink of starvation in Africa cries out to God for food, or a sex slave loses all hope of escape from the endless rapes that have become her life, my heart tells me that no amount of learning can justify such gratuitous suffering. God will strike a man dead for violating the sanctity of the Ark of the Covenant with a well intentioned touch (2 Samuel 6:6–7), but he won’t lift a finger to protect the holiness in the heart of innocent children? I ask you to judge which is holier and more deserving of protection.

Wo to the God who offends these little ones (Matthew 18:6). May a millstone be hung from his neck, and may he drown in the depths of the sea.

If God wanted to teach me to have compassion, then his plans have gone slightly awry. Not only has my compassion for suffering increased, my hatred for any deity who would put us through such torture has caught flame. It has shown me that whether or not God exists, he can’t be bothered to help us. We are all we’ve got no matter how we answer to ourselves the question of whether God lives. In our darkest hours, we can only look to each other.

If I die and unexpectedly meet God, I’ll have a choice word or three for him, spit in his eye, and cheerfully go to Hell where all the compassionate folk take up residence far from that insufferable tyrant.

(music videos via mind on fire)