A Little Look at the Big Picture

Normally, I'd have another post about "Caritas in Veritate" today:

• "Featured Topics "
  • Currently: "Caritas in Veritate"
    (Charity in Truth)

That didn't happen. Partly because I spent the time I'd set aside for that post to write about a particularly looney - and downright bad - stunt that America's government is pulling:

• "HHS Mandate, Catholic Bishops, and Foster Auditorium"
  (February 12, 2012)
• "My Take on the News: Reliquary Found; 'Kill or Close' Order From Washington; the Value of Silence"
  (January 27, 2012)
  Particularly
  • 'Kill or Close'

I'll get back to that particular instance of conscience vs. the Federal government again.

If you're not entirely satisfied with what that lot in Washington have been up to: there's an election coming up in November. Just a thought.

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You Think You've had a Bad Day?

Maybe this sort of thing sounds familiar:

• 'Everybody except me has turned away from God!'
• 'They've silenced all the other believers!'
• 'And now they're after me!!'

That's not an exact paraphrase of 1 Kings 19:14, but you get the idea. I've been over the run-in between worshipers of Baal and folks who didn't sacrifice infants¹ before. (January 16, 2011)

God gave Elijah a to-do list; and reassurance that he wasn't alone, not even close. Things turned out okay. For Elijah. (2 Kings 2:11) For the political leader who had tried to stamp out allegiance to God? Not so much. (2 Kings 9:32-37)

Distressed, Not Depressed

Elijah's bad day came to mind today when I heard my wife talking on the telephone with one of our kids. The family member at the other end of the line was distressed about current events. Understandably, I think: so am I.

I'm probably not as distressed, though. I think that's partly because I'm learning to look beyond what's close at the moment. Also because I know a very little bit about the immensity of God's creation.

It's not that what's happening here and now is unimportant. Just that it may not be quite as important as it seems.

I'm distressed - but not depressed - by efforts to force Catholic doctors to abandon either their beliefs or their profession. Which is remarkable, since I've been diagnosed with major depression. Among other things, and that's yet another topic. Topics. (January 8, 2012, September 14, 2011, March 4, 2010)

Living With Immensity

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the sky proclaims its builder's craft."
(Psalms 19:2)

Approaching the other end of the size scale, matter and energy act in fascinating and unfamiliar ways. (Apathetic Lemming of the North (February 7, 2011))

Then there's the matter of time. There's a lot of it. Around 13,750,000,000 years, give or take. I doubt that I'd have the patience to work with time on that scale. But like I've said before: God's God, I'm not.

I'm not bothered by the idea that God made something that's a tad larger than some folks thought, and that's yet again another topic:

• "Dinosaurs, Mutant Chickens, Evolution, and Faith in God"
  (June 29, 2009)
• "Faith and Reason, Religion and Science"
  (March 20, 2009)
  Particularly
  • Darwin and Huxley vs. Ussher and Carlyle
  • What If Darwin Had Been an Astronomer?

I'll put more links near the end of this post, as usual.

America, Time, and Perspective

I don't go along with the fashionable disdain of American culture: but folks in this country do have some quirks. One of them is what strikes me as an oddly distorted sense of time.

It's hard to shake the impression that many of us see anything that happened more than five or 10 years ago as 'long ago.' Thinking of Henry VIII of England, vikings, and Roman emperors as roughly contemporaneous probably wouldn't interfere with most folks' daily lives.

I think, though, that it's a good idea now and then to step back and and look at the little slice of time that we call "history." I put together a table showing which millennium some notable folks lived in. I also put in Abram's move out of Ur, and one of the earliest law codes: and information technology milestones, from cuneiform to the Internet.

"Recent" Events

Unlike most timelines, this one includes three millennia that haven't happened yet.

No, I'm not positive that humanity will have three more millennia in which to repent, reform, and build a better world. But I wouldn't be surprised if we've got a whole lot more time than what's elapsed since the the birth of David.

As for the notion that we're living in a specially awful period? I'm not so sure about that. Folks living on the north shore of Crete when Thera exploded might have an alternative view. Then there were bothersome times like the Antonine plague, and the administration Elijah tangled with.

To be announced	Final Judgment
+3,000 years
+2,000 years
+1,000 years
Today	Internet, searchable text developed Kangxi/K'ang-hsi/Kāngxīdì/康熙帝 Movable type developed Henry VIII
-1,000 years	Abu Kasim, Leif Ericsson Oleg the Wise Attila Chandra Gupta II
-2,000 years	Jesus, son of God Ying Zheng (嬴政) Alexander the Great
-3,000 years	David, son of Jesse Moses Code of Hammurabi Joseph, son of Israel Abram leaves Ur
-4,000 years	Yu the Great (大禹) Abjads (phonetic symbols) developed by Semitic workers in Egypt Cuneiform adapted to record Sumerian language Large pyramids
-5,000 years	Cuneiform developed (for business records)
Previously	Creation of time, space, energy, matter, stars, planets, and life: followed by fall of man

I think God's not finished with us yet. 2 Peter 3:8-9 and all that.

I also think we've got a lot of work to do. And that's still another topic.

Related posts:

• Getting a grip
  • "Hope, Joy, and Working for a Better World"
    (September 13, 2011)
  • "Horses, Gothic Cathedrals, and a Faith That Matters"
    (July 9, 2011)
  • "God, Genesis, the Catholic Church, and Getting a Grip"
    (June 22, 2011)
  • "You think You had a Bad Day? Elijah, Jezebel, and a Reality Check"
    (January 16, 2011)
  • " Oh, For the 'Good Old Days?' "
    (November 28, 2010)
    • I remember the 'good old days'
    • They weren't
• A sense of scale
  • "Clay, Elementary Particles, Photons, and God"
    (January 25, 2012)
  • "Science isn't a Four-Letter Word"
    (January 29, 2012)
    Particularly
    • God's God, I'm Not
  • "7,000,000,000 People, More or Less: Why I'm Not Alarmed"
    (October 31, 2011)
  • "God's Creation: He Seems to Think Big"
    (September 23, 2010)
  • "Really Old Dust Grains, a Galactic Collision, and a Lively Interest in God's Creation"
    (August 10, 2009)
• Last things
  • "An Eternal Life I can Live With"
    (August 27, 2011)
  • "Apocalypse Whenever"
    (June 14, 2011)
  • "Living as if God Matters"
    (June 12, 2011)
  • "Last Judgment: Attendance Mandatory"
    (May 21, 2011)
  • "Oh, Rapture! Here Come the End Times - Again"
    (May 20, 2011)

Background:

• HyperHistory Online
• "World History Timeline"
  Fincher.org

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¹ Arguably, the chief distinctions between what Jezebel and company did, and current American habits, is that worshipers of Baal burned infants for overtly spiritual reasons. (Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5, 32:35; 2 Chronicles 28:3) People in America, and other up-to-date countries, kill babies before they're born: for overtly secular reasons. If only out of enlightened self-interest, I really think we should stop.