Science As Dictatorship?

My nan used to enjoy a nip of brandy and a bit of Readers' Digest-if before bed, heart-warming stories for a peaceful night's rest. I know of others who turn pages of the Bible for their soporific nightcap. Reckoning the Scriptures far too mind-swirling, my preferences used to run to popular science rags: New Scientist, Popular Science, Nature, Scientific American, American Scientist, Technology Review, and Astronomy, for a nice tuck-in. (Flips on urban conjecture and architectural speculation make lovely graphic-rich bedtime stories as well, but more another time.)

Pop science mags are what a dish of warm milk might be to a cat (though probably not Schrodinger's): yummy, lappable, wholesome, comforting.

They are a celebration of the richness of life, the wealth of the known universe (whose boundaries keep expanding deliciously), the magnificence of the cosmos, the spot of light on the mysteries of the deep dark sea, the beauty of the quantum and infinity in a grain of sand, the spawning sprawling fields of astrobiology and nanotechnology.

They comfort their readers with the implication that life can only get better with the advance of science: breakthroughs in cures for cancer and Alzheimers', technological progress that'll make life cushier (and cars flashier and spiffier), conquering the wider universe for the benefit of the human race (especially the space tourism industry), achieving washboard stomachs in 12 easy steps in 2 weeks (just in time for beach volleyball in the summer).

They are lovely saucers of Jersey cream that purr,"Lap it up, lads! We humans are at the helm!" Given enough time, enough manpower, enough research dollars, enough perseverance, enough studies presented at conferences, we can understand most things and Stephen Hawking will have his Theory of Everything and his mobility (and I don't mean a bit of a flail-about in zero-G with nurses in attendance). With this greater knowledge we will be able to steer our own destiny: we will mod our genes to re-wire human beings, we will eliminate the causes of diseases, we will know which sensory/experiential buttons to push to obtain desired social behaviour; with GM crops we will eliminate poverty, with united effort and many conventions we will stop hurting the environment; we will ensure the survival of our life on earth by shooting down asteroids that threaten our extinction (remember them dinosaurs!); our children will inherit a cleaner world; we will know how to live longer by moderating our eating; we will harness singularities and master time; we will tame our inner life with psychology; and perhaps (although few expressly promise such a thing) one day, we may never have to die.

Like many fairytales however, one suspects that the conclusion to the story isn't quite the happily-ever-after we would like.

Aside from the slight-problem-of-technology-in-corrupt-hands dystopias prophesied by Aldous Huxley, George Orwell et al and practical concerns about regulating inter-stellar warp-drive traffic, it is the fundamental validity of science itself as final arbiter of objective truth that is of great concern.

We have come to assume that anything under the auspices of science must surely be a true explanation of reality. (Wherefrom emerge such statements as:"If in fact it is true - and I've asked doctors this - that you are genetically born a homosexual, because that's the nature of the genetic random transmission of genes, you can't help it.")

A Midge of Dawkins-bashing with my oyster mee sua, please

If as T.S. Eliot's Becket says, "humankind cannot bear very much reality", what is the reality that humans find intolerable? The bright illuminating light of science on the world that causes outdated superstitious religions to find solace by sticking their head in the sand? Or our fearful lack of understanding of and control over the sheer vastness and complexity of the universe that drives us to the blind worship of science?

How much have we mindlessly bought into the spin about the Enlightenment!, the Dawn of Knowledge!, the Age of Reason!, the Autonomy of Humankind!, the Epitome of True Knowledge!, the Eschatology of the Test-tube!?

• How much are scientific theories exact statements of fact and how much are they short stories about existing facts, romantic explanations of natural phenomena? How blinkered in explication are their propositions, say, of the wave-particle duality of light?
  
• What is the basis, for example, for the zeitgeist flavour of this decade: determinism? How valid is the fatalism that who we are has already been determined by nature and nurture, our genes and our early environment?
• Observer effect and Heisenberg uncertainty principle aside, how objective are researchers? How much are their interpretations influenced by existing presuppositions and political agenda?
  
• How far the purported omnicompetence of science? How valid the excursions of science to areas such as value, morality and meaning? Does science really undermine the theories of value, morality and meaning? If science cannot measure value, morality or meaning, do they not exist? If ears do not detect colour, do colours not exist?
  

The quarrel is not with science per se which has proven fairly decent for air-conditioning and cross-continent Skype-ing with loved ones, nor is it about taking the whip to the much-flogged horse of dark-minded Christianity fighting a desperate rear-guard battle against the blonde-haired blue-eyed juggernaut of Reason, nor is it some Keatian lament (according to popular (mis)interpretations of Lamia) about Newton unweaving the rainbow and destroying beauty in the universe.

It is that what is mere theory and hypothesis, mere world-picture and metanarrative myth, is taken as absolute truth. It is that its proponents tout it the sole source of rationality (read: reality) in this otherwise mindless world. It is about the arrogance of science worshippers, daydreaming of omniscience, presuming to extend the rule of Science solely and absolutely over all areas of life; it is about the tyrannical reductivism of scientific methods of thought upon unsuitable areas such as ultimate meaning; it is that we let ourselves, without so much as a whimper, be led by the nose and governed and have our lives mapped by something as unworthy as this.

PS:

Pop science does give you useful excuses tell you useful stuff, like how mixing lovely sweet red strawberries with your choice of leftover alcohol gives you a potent antioxidant slush. And antioxidants, as everyone knows, not only mod your insides to make you smell better to your cat, they also endow you with the ability to watch an entire episode (a whole episode! beginning to end!) of America's Next Top Model. Without getting hernia.

PPS: Clearly, ethanol does shrink brains.

PPPS:

...the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. (Romans 1:18-23)

Doing the Accounts

I fly again on Sunday to another harrowing week of negotiations in Saigon, so it was good today to have some quiet time with God. And as the grey rumbled forth and the wind rattled roof tiles and the rain beat against windows, alone-time also for a snifter of whiskey for sorting out finances and bills while folks hepped it up on digJazz, Jazz Corner, WBGO and jazzfm.

Good to discover, belatedly, the bank account looking fairly healthy, thanks to a decent-ish bonus. Am grateful that this means financial support for the evangelistic parties and ministry events planned for the rest of the year can be given without too much worried balancing of books.

Two things I ask of you, O LORD;
do not refuse me before I die:

Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.

Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say,"Who is the LORD?"
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonour the name of my God. (Proverbs 30:7-9)

Human Rights, Human Responsibilities or Just the Gospel?

Lunchtime on a weekday. We had our heads under the hood of my car, ties stuffed into shirt pockets, tooling around. My friend, who indulges his pretty little Bimmer 5-series far more patiently than his own long-suffering girlfriend was bemoaning the singular aloofness with which I had been treating my car. Where was the tender, loving care? Where was the radiator flush? Where was the engine oil check and coolant kiss? Oh, and let's not even talk about a regular wax job. Tsk. A higher class of car would have upped and left me a year ago.

Rights! He pleaded as he stroked the bonnet of my car sympathetically. Your car has rights!

And rights, of course, has been the watch-word of the last 2 decades.

Our recent gambol through 1 Corinthians 8 - 10 brought to mind my final year thesis which was to have been on human rights.

As is fashionable these days, I blame a surfeit of children's books of the knight-kills-dragon-and-saves-village variety for the proclivity for fighting for the underdog, whether in the classroom, playground and later, when there were global movements for these sorts of things, in starting environmental drives (earth as underdog!), protecting abandoned pets (dog as underdog!) and endangered species, petitioning for asylum seekers, preserving local businesses in the face of globalisation and Mardi Gras-ing for gay rights.

By the end of summer of my second year, there'd built up a tottering stack of material that would back my call for greater transnational legislation to prevent multinational corporations from abusing the human rights of inhabitants of developing countries. I'd helped out at human rights conferences where mealtimes were spent chatting with people from international aid and regulatory bodies, getting collectively angsty over stories of ill-treatment and injustice, and challenging very calm folk sent by certain oil conglomerates. I was also considering offers for internships in ILO and UN after graduation.

The body of the thesis was written by the first month of term. But upon commencing the introductory paragraph, I realised that the thesis could not, in good conscience, be submitted: there was a gaping lack of convincing bases for the importance of human rights.

Years later, a final year student asked for help in using the Bible as the foundation for the right to rights. Having become Christian in the meanwhile, I found nothing in the Bible that gave any basis for agitating for one's own rights to be recognised.

Rights are essentially me-centred. We fight for them because they give us ammo to hold other people at gunpoint and demand to be treated nicely and be given the things we want. But the Bible is first and foremost God-centred. In the face of God, we no rights but to be given what we deserve: condemnation to eternal death for our rebellion against God.

What place then of Deuteronomic neighbourliness and matehood-ness of the Gospels?

These are about other-people-centredness; about one's obligations and responsibilities to act correctly to fellow human being, not about demanding to be treated properly; about other people and their needs, not idolising me and my needs; about Human Responsibilities, not Human Rights.

But Human Responsibilities aren't just for their own sake. They aren't about getting ants in the pants over every perceived injustice (of which there are an infinite number in this fallen world), nor do they form some measurement of holiness or godliness - how much more of our rights we have sacrificed for someone else or how much more mercy we strong ones have shown our weaker brothers.

They are a response to the gospel - we live like that only because we know God. Other-person-centred as they may be, Human Responsibilities are ultimately God-centred. They are how God designed us: to know God our Creator and to live in submission to him in his world and amongst his other creatures according to his laws.

And if Human Responsibilities are the result of knowing God, then they are also about knowing God's will for his world. They are a reaction to knowing that God's judgement for the rebelliousness of men is sure to come and that the only way to be saved is through trusting in Christ. So they are all about the gospel, telling people the good news that there is a way to escape the coming judgement. They are about how much God means to us. They're about how much saving another human means to us.

And we will do anything that will further God's kingdom, anything that will make us useful to his purposes, anything that will help our fellowmen: whether it means giving up things we appear to be entitled to, whether it means curbing our "freedom", whether it means being all things to all men, whether pleasant or unpleasant, convenient or inconvenient. We will do everything for the glory of God that will one day shine forth throughout the earth knowing that we will have to give an accounting before him for our time on earth.

Triathlons and Races

Yummers.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:24-27)

Training for the vastly more wimpy OSIM Singapore International Triathlon already entails at least: training plans, training logs, route-familiarisation, progressive pacing, monitoring heart rates, weight-training, building endurance, warming-up, cooling-down, breathable attire, running shoes, right underwear, chaffing, correcting swimming technique, swim caps, goggles, building muscle, aerobic/anaerobic, timing work-outs, intervals, drills, recovery, maintenance, peaking, bike frames, cranks, bars, tubes, helmets, bike shoes, nutrition, energy packs, hydration devices, mounting techniques, riding tactics, staying aerodynamic, transitioning...

What more the Aviva Ironman?

What more the race for that most precious eternal prize?

An Encouraging Weekend

Despite the terrible overnighter on Saturday, immense thanks to God for the rest of the weekend which has been nothing but a series of booster shots of encouragement, at just the right time, to keep on keeping on in the truth: She-Of-The-Straight-Fringe who, living alone in a foreign land, braves steep slopes, crazy river-crossings and assorted exotic irritants like scabies to bring help to remote villagers; the new and sleep-deprived father who is happy to share the burden of nightly feeds and nappy-changing with his tired wife; the quiet chap who, for love and not just duty, visits his nan every week; fellow-travellers with whom one can discuss travel plans and who walk alongside for as far as God graciously permits; the old uni friend who is giving up his full-time job to tent-make and build bridges for the gospel; the ex-DG-mate who spoke of the chain of faithful men and women in her life who put her on the path of eternal life and is absolutely eager to point her flatmate to the same road; the pariah in certain social circles who is more concerned with the eternal welfare of others than wallowing in self-pity... And last week, the mate who, early-morning appointment notwithstanding, was willing, with great patience, to discuss into the wee hours the ways and means of responding biblically to a certain situation.

The encouragement is not that any these people make me feel better about myself, but that the way that their minds, hearts and lives are growing more and more to reflect the glory of Christ shouts of what a great God we have; it reminds me of the wonderful truth of the gospel, the urgency to keep at the work Christ entrusted to us, the frail human love whose beauty is but a pale shadow of the mind-blowingly more wonderful love of God, the real and demonstrable work of the Spirit in the lives of God's children and how worthwhile it is to run with perseverance and joy the race that is before us.

Totally thank God for them and for his work in them. :-)

Cuba Libre
Block B Clarke Quay
The Foundry #01-13
Tel: 6338 8982

Bontá Italian Restaurant & Bar
207 River Valley Road #01-61
UE Square River Wing
Tel: 6333 8875

Akashi

Akashi Japanese Restaurant
Tanglin Shopping Centre #B1-09-11
19 Tanglin Road
Tel: 6732 4438

Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries

For reasons not always to do with Strawberry Shortcake, males are uncommonly fond of strawberries. So a 1kg haul of macho-yumminess it was, for hand-churned strawberry ice-cream slathered with thick sticky strawberry ice-cream sauce and also for heaping in a great bowl and having very cold and very sweet while lying about watching Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället, 1957). Eating strawberries in the dark - the petulant Sei Shōnagon would have been disconcerted.

Beyond the vast mound of sweet juiciness, in full monochrome glory, there is the Professor, an old distinguished doctor making a journey to his hometown of Lund to receive an honorary doctorate for his life's work. His 400-mile car journey is parallelled by an interior journey of self-discovery because, you know, it is afterall an arthouse film (go, genre of road movies!).

And what self-respecting self-discovery arrives without a fistful of dreams enroute? So we get an early dream sequence that is all Expressionistic - clocks with no hands, balloony men who fall over and burst and spill dark liquid on the tarmac, and doppelgängers in coffins who (hey, what fun is it lying around all day in a coffin) reach out and grab their shuddering twin. Later dream sequences are Freudian - full of parental-approval-seeking and psychoanalytical childhood scenes that (literally) hold mirrors to the doctor's current state.
The general public adores the Professor. They think he has old-world charm. They think him kind. They think he is the best doctor in the world.

But, hullo, arthouse movie not Disney animation! So, obviously he ain't all white-toothy and benevolent.

What is the doctor really like? So's we can be sure to get his characterisation spot-on, Bergman names the good Professor "Isak Borg" ("ice fortress" in Swedish). His own daughter-in-law cheerfully describes him as utterly ruthless, selfish and cold as a corpse. And later, his own *ahem* unconscious accuses him of callousness, selfishness and ruthlessness.

Ingrid, the daughter-in-law, notices how this coldness runs in the family: Borg's ancient mom is "cold and forbidding as death" and his son, her husband Evald, "cold and dying".

Pre-filmtime, Ingrid left Evald to stay with Borg because of a dispute over her pregnancy. She wishes to keep the child but Evald is horrified at the thought of bringing a child into the world. He thinks it absurd to do so, having been an "unwanted child in a hellish marriage". He hates his life and wishes to be "dead, stone dead" and not feel anymore pain. Frigidity as a reaction to pain.

His father is no different. Although the good doctor states proudly at the start of the film that his withdrawal from human relations was a conscious decision made when he realised that "in our relations with other people, we mainly discuss and evaluate their character and behaviour", although he thinks he is in control of his own life and that he is an entirely self-made man, we see as the film goes on that just as Evald's horror at child-bearing is founded on his childhood pain, so Borg's coldness stems from the pain of being rejected by his beautiful childhood sweetheart and cuckolded by his wife.

Borg's dreams tell him that however distinguished a doctor he has been, he has been incompetent in living his own life. His first duty as a doctor should have been to ask for forgiveness. It is not the forgiveness of those he has hurt by his coldness that he should seek but the forgiveness of self.

If the movie had been a clarion-call for ice-melting, the fuzzy-wuzzies and touchy-feely-ness, it would have been the cooties. But Bergman isn't quite so binary and reductivist.

What Borg must learn is that his coldness is neither right nor wrong. Therefore, no forgiveness from others is called for. His guilt lies in feeling guilty for who he is. He needs to be able to look into the mirror without flinching, to honestly acknowledge the pain in his past, and forgive himself for feeling guilty for living as he needed to live. He needs to accept the person he is and how he became that person.

So Bergman's main thrust is akin to Borg's answer to the disputing young men (one - a modern man of science who only believes in himself and his own biological death, and the other - a would-be minister) as to whether science or God, rationalism or religion, was right:

Where is the friend I seek everywhere?
Dawn is the time of loneliness and care.
When twilight comes I am still yearning
Though my heart is burning, burning.
I see His trace of glory and power
In an ear of grain and the fragrance of a flower
In every sign and breath of air
His love is there.

(Neither, nor. How very Mary Midgley. But, later!)

Once, someone spoke of how it is a symptom of our sinfulness that we do not truly know ourselves, how we persist in thinking what nice, moral people we are, how we grow so used to our masks and become so skilled at this self-subterfuge that we are quite certain that we are good people; that we couldn't possibly be bad.

Perhaps a further symptom of our sinfulness is how we respond when we do, infact, see ourselves in full decomposing goriness and breath in the full stench of our callousness, ruthlessness, selfishness, greed, lasciviousness and hypocrisy. Do we grasp at that which we have no right to by attempting to forgive ourselves, however illusory the reconciliation? Or do we seek real forgiveness from the one whose laws and design we have actually transgressed and whose person we have offended to our eternal detriment?

Kushiyaki at Kuriya

Kuriya
Shaw Centre, #05-01
1 Scotts Road
Tel: (65) 6735 5300

Songs For Sunny Days

Lazy mornings brimming with sunshine. Slow long drives with the windows down and wind in the hair. Picnic baskets, mats and hammocks in the shade. Good friends and cold lemonade. Strawberries and cream. Blue skies and chatting. Dappled sunlight on lush grass. Pink petals floating down. Faroff birds, singing. Strumming guitars and humming. Praising the Maker Of All. Sleeping under strawhats. Being tickled by butterflies. Vast expense of green. A deaf girl in a pretty floaty summer dress, dancing. She loves a boy who lives in the Evil Empire. They are married in the summer.

(Eschatological in sentiment, not lyrics.)

There is something in heart-bursting-with-song sunny days that always seems to point forward to the marvellous Last Day where the City of God will be lit not by the sun nor the moon but by the glory of God himself with Christ as the lamp (Revelations 21:23). But that bright and happy day for the saved will be a terrible fiery one for the damned. Since there'll surely be time enough for rest then, back to work while God still allows the sun to rise on both the evil and the good (Matthew 5:45)!

Belle & Sebastian - Another Sunny Day
The Walls - To The Bright and Shining Sun
El Perro Del Mar - It's All Good
El Perro del Mar - God Knows (You've Got To Give To Get)
Thao Nguyen - Feet Asleep (Daytrotter session)
Wilco - Blue Sky Blue
Oh No! Oh My! - Walk In The Park
Suburban Kids With Biblical Names - Trees and Squirrels
The Billy Nayer Show - Rabbits and Bears
Cats On Fire - Praying On A Sunny Day
The Be Good Tanyas - Littlest Birds
Adem - These Are Your Friends
Apples In Stereo - Benefits of Lying (With Your Friend)
Dean & Britta - The Sun Is Still Sunny
The Butterfly Explosion - Sophia
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Face Like Summer
Cloud Cult - The Deaf Girl Song
Peter, Bjorn & John - Young Folks
Of Montreal - Du Og Meg
Lou Reed - Perfect Day

Did you honestly think Lily Allen would be let anywhere near this mix? Cheh.

PS: All mp3s up only for limited time. Must obey God-instituted authorities, therefore, copyright etc etc.

Spiderman 3

From http://spiderman.sonypictures.com/downloads/

Kenna cheated.

1. Spiderman 3 was actually 2 hours and 20 minutes of mediocre chick-flick in fancy dress.
   
2. Middle-age wattle and bulge and a frozen goofy grin does not say "ah! lovely innocent young man next door", it says "42-year-old simpleton" and "go for Harry Osbourne, hon!" (and possibly also, "women and children inside!").
3. Emo fashion as epitome of evil either demonstrates a very poor sense of the comic or defective understanding of evil. And black don't make it dark either, dearie!
   
4. Dear Lord, when I look back on my life may its narrative tune be nothing like Spiderman 3; may it not be drearily clogged with the pointless self-centred self-interested pursuit of the dully mortal and ephemeral.

PS: Life is all about making choices (Peter Parker slugging in an Oprah Winfrey-type truthsaying for good measure).
PPS: Fortunately, I have on hand Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta.

More Music To Scaff Cupcakes By

The thing to do when completely rained in is to conspire with friends to drink tea and scoff cupcakes.

Click through for credits

Some cheerful lolli-pop for a little Poptart in the cupcakery:
Bishop Allen Rain
Danielson Did I Step On Your Trumpet?
Page France Say Wolf in the Summertime
Hello Seahorse! Can Let You Go
Half Handed Cloud A Suit of Clouds to Ride the Skies
Oh No! Oh My! Walk In The Park
Jane Herships The Ballad of Clementine Jones
Bishop Allen Butterfly Nets
Gruff Rhys Candylion

And if it is still pouring outside:
Cocorosie Noah's Ark
Chin Up Chin Up I Need A Friend With A Boat
and Sesame Street jingles from post-9/11 indie kids who insist that they aren't making Christian music; they just happen, they say, to be Christian:

• John Ringhofer as Half-Handed Cloud on the same Asthmatic Kitty label as Sufjan Stevens; and
  
• Daniel Smith as (Brother) Danielson on Asthmatic Kitty's sister label Sounds Familyre.

Never have songs about blood, sin, death, being hoodwinked into accepting false solutions to God's punishment and eating one's children been accompanied by such playful quirky instrumentation.

Voltaire's Candide, 1 Corinthians 7 and Unwimpy Contentment

A stale-coffee bummer of a weekend spent mostly at work, with Arcade Fire's Neon Bible as office muzak. In the early hours of Monday morning, the howls of the storm and crashing of the thunder outside were easily folded into the rich instrumental layers of portentous pipe-organs, insistent strings and giggling glockenspiels.

Earlier this Labour Day morning, we rested from our labours. Straw-hats and sunshine. Blue skies, fresh air, a quick breakfast and some tending to the garden before getting nicely stuck into 1 Corinthians 7.

The after-rain morning was for a juicy earthworm and scattered seed buffet for the feathered ones; baby spotted-neck pigeons and orioles picking their way through the grass with scarcely a peep amongst them. We've lost a few plants to the recent spate of schizophrenic weather (having been alternately flooded and scorched) but the curry, lime and basil are holding their own remarkably. The weeds, however, have gone one better and proliferated profoundly. Clearly we need some sort of scavenging goat or Japanese poodle (woolly they be) to pop round for a chaperoned nibble.

Voltaire's LOL Candide ends with the titular character saying (in response to the belligerent pontificating and endless arguing of Pangloss and Martin over The Best of Possible Worlds, The Problem of Evil and The Freedom of Will),"That is very well put, but we must cultivate our garden."; that is, the proper response to unfathomable universal misery, despair, pain and generally being dealt with the poor lot in life is not to go around theorising about origins and "metaphysico-theologico-cosmoloonigology" but to hunker down and do some honest work in one's allotment; enforced blinkeredness in face of the absurdity of the vast universe.

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God. (1 Corinthians 7:17-24)

Though appearing to deliver seemingly similar homilies of being content with one's station in life, the mindset of Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 is diametrically opposed to that of Voltaire. For the Christian, tending to one's proverbial garden is not done with a resigned shrug that working without useless speculation on the wide world is the best man can do with his un-understandable life; for the Christian, cultivating that garden is what life is really about and what man was created to do.

The Christian knows that the universe is intricately ordered and under the perfect direction of God. It is not the best possible world of Pangloss because sin has rendered it fallen and under a curse. But there will come a time when God will redeem this broken world just as he has redeemed from death and destruction those who have trusted in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:13, Titus 2:14, Hebrews 9:15). In the meanwhile, the redeemed, having been bought at the price of Jesus' very life, understand that their life is not their own: by the blood of Christ, they have been adopted as God's own sons (Galatians 3:13), they are now God's possessions zealous for doing his work (Titus 2:14).

The contentment Paul repeatedly advocates (1 Corinthians 7:17, 20 and 24) is far from boring suburban mundanity or cud-chewing passivity or dull doormattery. It is embedded-agent-on-a-mission-ly exciting. The redeemed have been called by God himself (1 Corinthians 7:17, 18, 21, 22, 24). He has called them out of darkness into the light, into salvation by trusting in Christ Jesus. It is a call to be part of God's people, not a call to levitating self-improvement nor to leap like gazelles with tambourines up a holy mountain nor to move up in a hierarchy of money-making monkeys.

God called us while we were decomposing in our little lead boxes. We did not, of our own accord and intelligence, break out to find him but he broke through to find us. He engaged us in whatever unworthy condition and dastardly individual situation we were in. He did not need hastily transplanted sunflowers lining our roads before deigning to turn our hearts and minds to him.

Now that we are his people, then, we ought to realise that just as we were called in whatever condition and situation we were in, so our condition in life is really unimportant. Uncircumcised or circumcised? Mate, God doesn't care. Doesn't count for anything. But be careful to obey God whever you are (1 Corinthians 7:18-19). Slave or free? Well, it might be a little bit more comfy to be free but don't be concerned about it. Freedom from human slavery is ultimately an irrelevance. Regardless, we are slaves of Christ and what's really important, what really counts, is doing his work (1 Corinthians 7:20-23).

We are not to devote our thoughts and energies to changing our circumstances. Instead, we are to obsess about living under God's word and doing his work wherever we are. No, "oh if only I were smarter/a better speaker/a high-flyer/a yacht-owner/on Forbes' list/looked better, if only I could go to an overseas missionfield, if only my personal life was better, I would be more effective for God". We are responsible to God in the life he has assigned to us. Bite the bullet and bloom where we are planted. (Secret agent plus gardening analogy. Score.)

1 Corinthians 7:17-24 is the key the rest of the chapter. Paul applies the principles to marrieds in 1 Corinthians 7:1-16 (with a taster on unmarrieds and widows) and unmarrieds and widows in 1 Corinthians 7:25-40. Lonely and unmarried or married to a naggy, poor, depressed spouse who sneers at your beliefs? Do not get into a hot bother about changing your circumstances. Get hepped up instead on working God's garden in your situation, being devoted to the Lord and being concerned for the salvation of those around you.*

The big problem is not guidance but obedience.

So no small-minded navel-gazing here please. Don't just think about temporal puny renovation on circumstances that will pass away in time. Think big! Think macro! Think eternal! Open your eyes to opportunities for faithfulness no matter what the situation! Get jiggy wid being part of God's plan in transforming the world for all time!

Fierce.

*that is not to say that it is a sin to change one's situation in life: unmarrieds and widows may marry (1 Corinthians 7:9), marrieds may separate if it is the wish of the unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15). But changing one's status quo should never be the overarching passion of life.