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All of us, at one time or another, have experienced
the strange physiological reaction of zygomatic
stimulation and subsequent larynx strain.
This strain upsets the respiratory system, which
results in deep, noisy gasps. The mouth opens
and closes as the lungs struggle for oxygen.
The struggle for oxygen causes the face to turn
various shades of red and strange, unique noises
emerge from deep within. What is this strange,
physiological reaction I am describing? It is laughter!
We normally associate laughter with humor. But,
gelotology, the study of laughter, suggests another
trigger for laughter called the incongruity theory.
This theory suggests that laughter arises when logic
and familiarity are replaced by things that don't normally
go together--when we expect one outcome and another
happens. Generally speaking, our minds and bodies
anticipate what's going to happen and how it's going
to end based on logical thought, emotion, and our past
experience. But, when circumstances go in unexpected
directions, our thoughts and emotions suddenly have
to switch gears and laughter emerges out of the tension
between what we expect--and what actually happens.
- - Margaret Manning
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"The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Shelton Gilliam, 1808
ReplyDeleteClass reunions are always enlightening, and one thing is obvious after 20 years - people change. Yeah! Oh, people remember me as being 210 pounds at about 5'9". I was like the Goodyear blimp then. And they freeze me in their minds as being the fat guy, you know? I'm sort of a fat memory in their mind. Well, I'm happy to say that I don't weight nearly that and I haven't been that heavy for a long time, and so, you know you go to the reunion and they're surprised to find 50 pounds less of you. I'm delighted that they do.
ReplyDeleteOf course, and then there are those changes that aren't as positive. You find that athletic hunk of high school has gone to seed, or that beautiful bombshell. Or that great head of hair is now just a great head. But it's often a pleasant surprise to see how people have grown in positive ways. People do change, and if we're not careful we'll still be thinking of them as they were - not as they are.
Now, our word for today from the Word of God is found in Acts chapter 9. It's verses 26-28 - a man that they almost froze in time. Saul of Tarsus has been, as you may remember, a violent persecutor of Christians. And then dramatically, in a blaze of light, he meets Christ on the road to Damascus. Well you can image how the early Christians must have greeted him when he showed up, because they figured he was the "hit man" coming for them.
Verse 26, "When he came to Jerusalem he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him." Well, I can understand that. "[N]ot believing," it says, "that he really was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the disciples. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord." Now, it looks like at the early part of this account that the Christians had Saul categorized. Saul is the enemy; he hates Christians. But much to their surprise, God has changed him.
I think this incident underscores a tendency that we all have - to freeze people in time. You know, to remember how they were and assume they're still that today. We sized up this man or woman some time ago; we know what they were like. And we don't allow them the privilege of having changed. "Oh yeah, he's lazy." "Oh yeah, she's always irresponsible. She never keeps her promises." "Oh yeah, you can't trust him. He's always deceitful." "She uses people." "He's got a real problem." See, the human mind categorizes a person and then closes the door on that category. But see, he's changing and we can't close the door.
Sometimes we won't see the changes, even in our families. We tend to see the weakness in our mate, or our child, or our parent. But we can't see the changes that they're trying to make. They're growing! Sometimes we even discourage them by expecting and noticing the worst all the time. They used to do, let's say, nine out of ten things wrong in a given area. Now they're only doing five out of ten wrong. But we only see the bad five, because we froze them in time. We underestimate the life-changing power of the grace of God. He is changing His children. We have to allow for it, give them a chance to change, encourage the change, notice the change.
The early Christians gave Saul a chance and I'm so glad they did. Let's expect the best of each other. Not because we trust each other so much, but because we trust the transforming power of our Father's grace. Stay up-to-date on what God is doing in the life of that person near you, and don't leave them frozen in time.
To find out how you can begin a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, please visit: Yours for Life or call 1-888-966-7325.
"A Word With You" by Ron Hutchcraft
"Please—Mr. Lion—Aslan, Sir?" said Digory working up the courage to ask. "Could you—may I—please, will you give me some magic fruit of this country to make my mother well?"
ReplyDeleteA child in one of the Narnia books, Digory, at this point in the story, had brought about much disaster for Aslan and his freshly created Narnia. But he had to ask. In fact, he thought for a second that he might attempt to make a deal with Aslan. But quickly Digory realized the Lion was not the sort of person with which one could try to make bargains.
C.S. Lewis then recounts, "Up till then the child had been looking at the lion's great front feet and the huge claws on them. Now in his despair he looked up at his face. And what he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and wonder of wonders great shining tears stood in the lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory's own that for a
moment he felt as if the lion must really be sorrier about his mother than he was himself."(1)
Charles Dickens often spoke of his characters as beloved and "real existences." I have often wondered if the "safe but never tame" Lion ministered to C.S. Lewis half as much as this Christ figure has comforted others. Lewis was a boy about the age of Digory when his mother lay dying of cancer and he was helpless to save her.
"My son, my son," said Aslan. "I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another..."
The tremendous figure that fills the gospels towers above all attempts we have made to describe him. Yet had we been in charge of writing the story of God becoming man, I doubt it would have been Christ we described: "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not" (Isaiah 53:3). He was not the stoic,
man of nerves we might have imagined. Nor was he the ever-at-peace teacher we often describe. He was, among other things, a man of sorrows.
There is, for me, immense comfort in a Christ who was not always smiling. As I picture his face set as flint toward Jerusalem, my fear is unfastened by his fortitude. As I imagine the urgency in his voice as he defended a guilty woman amidst a crowd holding rocks, my shame is freed by his mercy. And as I picture him weeping at the grave of Lazarus, crying out at injustice, sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane, my tears are given depth by his own cries. We do not grieve alone.
"But you, O God," cried the psalmist, "do see trouble and grief." Becoming man, the character of God was not compromised or misrepresented. As Jesus knew tears, so the heart of God is one that knows grief. The heart of the Father is one who has lost a Son. "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by
God, smitten by him, and afflicted," writes the prophet Isaiah. Matthew describes the extent of these words: "Then [Pilate] released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified" (Matthew 27:26). Indeed, grief is great; let us be good to one another.
Perhaps those who mourn are called blessed because they are at this point closest to the deepest wound of the heart of God. Until every tear shall be wiped dry, we have before us the hopeful figure of the Man of Sorrows, who bore on his shoulders our grief and his own. "My son, my daughter, I know."
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew, (New York: Harper Collins, 2001), 83.