Mrs. Simpson

While Young Billy went outside to play with his friends in the neighborhood, he entrusted Mrs. Simpson with his prized Ohtani baseball card. When dark ceased their play, Billy went to Mrs. Simpson to retrieve his card. Now in hand, he turned to go home. Then, he heard her voice. “Billy, did you forget something?” He returned the words with a blank stare. “Billy, you must always say ‘thank you’ when someone has done something for you.”

Perhaps we have traveled too far for gratitude. Our present concerns carry with them such a sense, an ever-present foreboding about where society and culture are heading. To some, this may be an exaggeration because they wish to experience the journey forward as an adventure to be had as did Odysseus after the Trojan War, perils be damned. What remains dissimilar is that Odysseus was traveling toward home, and in this present time, home seems so far away.

The other thought is this could be an overreaction to what we see and hear. In other times, there existed concerns and dilemmas dealt to each generation. Each felt compelled to take on those burdens in a manner pointing to the “log in their eye.” Martin Luther comes to mind. Christ did the same. Add Mrs. Simpson. The “against” mentality of those great thinkers toward mankind’s lost-in-the-wilderness journey manifests in our present day awareness as against “The Machine,” a euphemistic way of describing man’s bent to embrace technology.

In other times, the battle was between what Scripture said and what the church said. The industrial revolution aroused within a drive for an egalitarian society. No matter the opinion, these moments had man as the object for improvement looking to God as the source of those efforts.

Then came science, which attempted both directly and indirectly to make God irrelevant. What creates today’s angst is that technology, the “Machine,” will make mankind irrelevant. This, of course, creates a fear in our backyard.

The clock ticks in all ages. What appeared in earlier ages to be slow and thoughtful, the present concern is that the train is traveling at great speed. This is the fear—that we will lose control. But the real enemy is falsity, not just in some untruth, but in ourselves. At some point there must come a reckoning with the mirror, and what we see in it is not what we image to the world but what is actually there. Pride enters all egalitarianism. Either we believe to be better than or as good as. This is the falsity with which we must come to terms. The problem in every age is not what mankind is doing but what is inside him that makes him do it. What resides in him often acts without God. In truth, we have shed all shame and guilt.

If we are to atone for our sin and be redeemed, we should tell Mrs. Simpson, “thank you.” Gratitude gets us on the road to home. Grace gets us there. Home may be closer than we think.