H. L. Mencken, the influential sage of Baltimore, was on point in saying that before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.
There is much to think about how much weight we invest upon our own thoughts. We live by maxims that somehow found their creep in our souls. And so we end up believing all our cogitation.
I am a thinker, but more often than not, I somehow discern dishonesty when I speak. I say a lot of things but these are mere migrated ideas I have purloined from someone. Nothing I think is original, yet I am quick to the copyright. There is such madness in the arrogance of pretending to know life's rivets. It makes for a truly sad masquerade.
The world we live in is protean. The incessant changes are too involved even to observe. And so at times, I find myself merely tolerating the cascading thrust of Mad Men. I am often lulled to the procession of naive victims duped by some calculating Pied Piper.
I am a pastor and so I listen to rumors of men. The plethora of scripts overwhelm but all carry a common line: the culprit is a lie.
The Psalmist locates our geographical struggle right where we live (Psalm 120). Our culture is wrong. The stories we read are stained with deep duplicity. Our attention is veered away from the true beginning. There is no hope of Shalom in this present land. Any promise of expectancy apart from the genesis of Eden will lead to a delusion nurtured by sadness. A cry for an egress is necessary.
I have written a book ( read Disconnect/ found in this site) on this matter as my way of hiking with each and every wanderer. There is no sense in pursuing a life promised by mere guess. A single step towards a thousand places is not required. All that is needed is a sincere thirst for the hilarity of gladness and the accompanying willingness to laugh with God alone.
In the peerless cinematography of Scriptural direction, I rediscover that I was never designed to live on sorrow's default.
I was uniquely crafted to demonstrate a certain resplendence unbeknownst even to the best minds of this exilic world.
Here then is where my life begins to speak: from the Gladness of Brightness.
