Oh boy! The river of thoughts that hit me when I saw this. It came with a string of other cartoons, not all of them equally as funny, of course. This one got to me because I was in one of my more spiritual moments this morning. I'm always in the presence of God when I have to do Beelzebub's work by getting my stuff ready for the IRS. It's such a struggle that I have to keep talking to God, Mary, my Guardian Angel and all the saints so that I don't go off the deep end, where ever that may be. Anyway, then came this cartoon. A wave of spiritual cacophony invaded me. It was a spiritual cloud cloaking me but it was not calming. It was not peaceful. It was not truly loving, but I knew it was full of teaching and revelation. The main lesson that seeped its way into my soul was that God Himself is in charge of the length of our lives. I remembered Job saying that our days are numbered (chapter 14, verse 5). I remember psalm 90, that beautiful poem about the human condition. I remember Jesus' soliloquy in Mark 13 that ends with something like, " ... you don't know the hour, so stay awake". I, myself have repeated myself numerous times across the blogosphere saying that our lives are not ours to keep. They are God's to use and to govern according to His needs and wants. The corollary to the first lesson was that as much as we think we know about ourselves and as much as we like to believe that we and God are one and that we somehow can be a divine cause of our personal well being, we can't. We can't because we are not divine. Not even close. In truth, between the divine nature and the human nature there is a chasm of reality that cannot be bridged by us. We are told in the Gospel that every hair of our head is counted. That not a sparrow falls without God knowing it. Just who do we think we are that we can cause divine things to happen in us? Isn't the lengthening of life a divine exercise? Maybe. The Scripture says that our days are numbered. Doesn't that mean that when we reach the number, our days end? It would appear so.
So, then, why take care of ourselves if there is nothing we can do about the amount of time we have here on earth? We have the obligation to care for ourselves because God needs us to do His work. To do His work we have to be fit. We have to keep ourselves as fit as possible by using the powers of nature and science to make it so. It is sinful to abuse our bodies and the bodies of others. To stay awake, as in Mark, is to stay fit for the greater glory of God. Some are called to a longer number of days, some are called to a shorter one. I spoke to a man today who at 87 seems to be about my age. (i.e., young!) No glasses, no hearing aid, no cane. Clear and sharp voice and a spring in his step. He said to me something that is music to my ears, "each day I just try to figure out what God wants and I try to give it to Him." Then I came in and saw this cartoon.
I know that you are out there saying, That Paul. He is just so nuts! It's just a cartoon for crying out loud. Ya know what? Yer right. Even I have stopped drinking and a bunch of other stuff. Not to live longer, I don't believe in that. But like the old man said this morning, we have to live strongly for HIM. For HIM we strive to stay well so that He can get His things done.
That's what I believe. Now that you know it, I'm glad that it took away any temptation you might have had to cry at my funeral.
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