New and Improved
I saw a meme yesterday that had a woman complaining that she didn’t want AI (artificial intelligence - a new buzz word) to write or create art for her. She wanted AI to cook and clean for her so that she’d have more time to write and create art.
I looked around my house and saw evidence of that mindset everywhere. We have a packed space under our sink with cleaning supplies that one of us bought hoping to clean easier and faster. We have multiple mop type apparatus that promised to make cleaning easier. The latest one has a disposable cleaning pad and a button spray for cleaning solution. We have brooms, dusters, a vacuum and even a robot vacuum. None of them matched their expectation.
In fact, one day a nice dressed young man came to our door selling a cleaning product. For whatever reason, I patiently listened to his spiel. Near our front door is a stain from spilled wood stain on the concrete. I never bothered with it thinking eventually the weather would fade it and if it didn’t, it wasn’t very noticeable and was out of the way. Anyway, this young man used his cleaning product on the stain to show me how powerful it was. It didn’t dent it. It wasn’t until the guy told me that he was a recovering drug addict and selling this stuff door to door was his way of breaking out of the economic shackles he had gotten himself in, did I decide to buy his stuff from him anyway.
I remember being worried, as I told my wife about my purchase, that she’d yell at me for wasting money. As I told her the story, she surprised me by commenting that maybe the product would work better than others we had. I think she was just being supportive.
“Did not I weep for him whose day was hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy? But when I hoped for good, evil came, and when I waited for light, darkness came.” - Job 30:25-26 ESV
“In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him. In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.” - Ecclesiastes 7:14-18
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” - Matthew 7:13-14
Our faith walk is similar in that there is no magic product that you can pursue to make it easier. As I’ve heard Patrick say that the Holy Spirit will help you but you have to meet him part way. That part way is your struggle to pursue and maintain. People may differ but, for me, my walk has been more like a roller coaster than a gradual increase over time.
Candidate (at the time) Ben Carson, was describing his background. Dr. Carson described how he grew up in a very poor family and struggled through school to become a pediatric neurosurgeon specialist and, recently, was the secretary of HUD. Every time I have heard him speak, I have walked away thinking that he is a very intelligent and contemplative person. But the significant part of his story was the perseverance in going from being a poor child to a noted neurosurgeon.
Now how do I apply this lesson to stop me from pursuing cleaning quick fixes?
