Thoughts about pain

            As I have written a few times, part of the reason why I started this blog back in December, 2010 was that I had the time to do so, due to not having the physical stamina to do a normal job.  Further, over the past three months or so, I haven’t felt sufficiently well to think enough to even blog.  Strangely, the past week or so, I have begun to feel better with regard to the latter, but there wasn’t a specific subject on my mind.

            On Friday, I was eating lunch, and I cracked a tooth down to the nerve.  It was a little painful at first, and increased over the weekend such as to realize that I needed to have it dealt with first thing Monday morning.  I did exactly that, calling my dentist about 8:15 am.  By 9:15, I had been asked to come in, had it x-rayed, had it confirmed that it was broken, given anesthetic, had it pulled, and was paying the dentist.  About 12:30 pm, the anesthetic began to wear away.  I have had teeth pulled before, and had been given warnings about pain staying around for a while, but there had never been a problem.  This time, pain was a real problem—one whole side of my head hurt.  Soon thereafter, it was off to the pharmacy to get a prescription of acetaminophen with codene filled.  Even with that, there still was some pain.  Today (Tuesday) at about 2:30 pm, I could finally say to myself that I don’t need to take the next acetaminophen with codene pill.

            Strangely enough, I feel like thinking.  One particular thought occurred to me over the past day and a half.  It is about the significance of pain.  I have never gotten around to reading C S Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, although I have certainly heard speakers and read authors make reference to major points that appear in that book, and understand that it is generally considered the major work on the subject.  This thought is really basic:  it couldn’t have been produced while experiencing significant pain.  Over the past day and a half, much of the time, I didn’t feel like doing anything other than holding my hands on my head.  On the converse, if one’s not going through significant pain, there is a degree of thinking about it as a memory, or something that is, to some degree, disconnected from one’s current state.  In other words, even as a believer in Jesus, when I was in significant pain, I was not particularly waxing thoughtful over its role in reminding me of the sinfulness of man and the all-powerfulness of God.  In fact, I couldn’t think of much else than wanting the pain to go away, and not knowing what else to do about it, or, if I had an idea about what to do about it, doing it.

Simple Church Minute 8--church is not a business

8—church is not a business    

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            C. S. Lewis wrote “…love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion.  It is a state, not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people.”

            As I desire to live to glorify Jesus, how do I do that?  Maybe this is a function of my age, but I am actually aware that, at this time in western society, executives of major public corporations within their company wish to enforce a worship of maximizing short term profitability, without regards to whether it hurts customers, vendors, employees, or the world at large.  That’s why businesses do advertising, not apologetics.  If they had to do any dialogue why they treat people as they do, it would be publicly embarrassing.       

            The church is not to look like the world.  Jesus isn’t a medicine to package and market.  He is God, come to earth, who died for those of us who believe and will believe on him.  One of the problems that we, in this culture have in living for Him is that, when most of those who do not believe hear the word “church”, the first thought in their minds are of aspects connected with the traditional church, which are at least unscriptural, at the worst demonic deception, and possibly both simultaneously.  Buildings and corporations, according to law and common use, are called churches, and some have human leaders who do not hold the historical faith in Jesus.  The Bible teaches that the church is people, a group of believers.  If I say Christian ethics, anyone, whether they believe the historic Christian faith or not, whether they agree or not, can know what that entails.  If I say business ethics, have I said a phrase George Carlin failed to get into his famous monologue on oxymorons?  We believers are responsible to not get the two confused, for God’s glory.

            In fairness, today’s blip I will label as my opinion, and not necessarily that of anyone else connected with house church.  To email me, send it to simplechurchminute@gmail.com. For more info on organic simple church*, go to http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94.