Aloneness

Much of society plays with and acts out caricatures of what God, working with mankind, formulates to the meaning and purpose for human life.  I repeat here a major point in these Pages and that is that God has provided a useful and effective pattern of what is practical in life context on earth, even without a perception of God.  Biblical values and formations are worth the attention of any people, no matter what their spiritual faith, or lack of it, may be.  A careful study of the motivations and programs of nations will verify relevant assertions.  In passage of years the original ideals may be modified or amended, as seen in the movement of same sex marriage from hetero-sexual marriage, but we know the beginnings of marriage as originated of God.  It was accepted by mankind, and made world standard, observed in all societies.  

God is not in the business of tormenting persons who have no religious faith or acknowledgment of him.  Being God he has love and concern for all of mankind in any context of life and culture.  By trial and error with the uses of personal and social discipline, values, logic and resources we can find a decent and fulfilling life, even though mortally limited, within the meaning of nature.  That life and benefit will end, unless it is teamed with the spiritual context that includes laws beyond and superior to nature. The problem in humanism is that even that is caricatured either deliberately or in ignorance and oversight.  We often find ourselves made fun of by our comics and humorists who detect the foibles and hypocrisies of our lives.  This is seen in the jokes and laughter related to conducts of drunks, drug addicts, naughtiness, even male/female relationships and dysfunctions.  Tragedies may be made funny unless they happen to us personally.  It is presumed that our ability to laugh at human dysfunction becomes a means for accepting life as we find it and as we make it.  We find some relief in the words of Scripture: He . . . knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.  (Psalm 103:14 NASB)  The Psalmist finds the analogy of the compassion of God in this as loving parents accept the foibles of their children.  A study of some passages of the Old Testament relating dust to human life and performance suggests that God is gracious in managing some of our follies.  Good people can be hypocritical, especially when the hypocrisy has been muted to them.  Most of the great personages of Scripture can be faulted even when God honors them in human context.  We find the weaknesses in Adam and Eve, through the Patriarchs, Moses and Joshua, onward through the Prophets and Kings – and including the citizenry.  When Jesus was encountered on the matter, his response was simply: From the beginning it was not so.  (Matthew 19:8)  Jesus was gracious to be truthful, but also granted understanding of the flaws (sins) of mankind for both earth and heaven.  Catholic doctrine recognizes some of this problem in identifying varied status for sins that may be overlooked by laity.

Our faults become serious and affect outcomes that can impact human life to lower levels of values, including integrity and affecting God’s blessing upon nature.  We may visit those who disagree with us with ferocity in attitudes, oaths, name-calling, selfishness, misunderstanding, misrepresentation and whatever we can find to whip others.  The objective (problem solving) is lost by accenting the foibles of human beings.  Life may stall.  If issues persist they may appear in life and death struggles – including warfare between nations.  From time to time, reports of fist-fights in parliaments and senates of the world, and television show the scandal of thoughtful persons flailing their arms and fists at each other.  (On one occasion a senator of the United States struck numerous times another senator from the floor of the senate – with his cane.  He was greeted in his home state with gifts of canes from some of his constituents.)  The event was a notch in the gun stocks of civil war.  What should be the consideration here?  We need better education about the emotional behavior of human beings, the uses of language, the building of values in the society, the need for respect of life, and the belief that we are responsible for the rights of others.  In the human context rights relate to righteousness in the spiritual.  Divine parallels, when understood and practiced, make decent people even in full secularism.  It all begins with the lonely individual, with integrity and commitment todo peacefully what’s right.  God calls us to compassion as standard respect.