The world spins faster than it used to. Know becomes known, is translates to was. To quote Bright Eyes, the love I sell you in the evening by the morning won’t exist. Yeah, and neither will the VD or the clock radio.

Like you, I have a closet housing items that no longer cut it--a perfectly good but out of date printer, a decade-old camcorder that everyone under 20 considers and antique, a 1999 then state-of-the-art TV, and an entire drawer filled with obsolete phone chargers, music players, cassette tapes, miles of wires that plug into nothing and gizmos that won’t play in Right Now, America. Makes one wonder if we ourselves are past the expiration date.
Anyone else feel the downer in discovering that the Boulevard of Broken Dreams is paved with Madison Avenue slogans chanted by cane-totting hucksters getting wealthy trading our souls for green energy?

Last night I dreamed I was on top of a tall building. The world was laid out before me in its entire electronic splendor. I was light headed as I stood, grasping my new cell phone giddily. Suddenly, the weight of that device become so great that it pulling me toward the edge. Unable to part with the electronic leash, I allowed it to take me down, tumbling forever passed windows filled with electronic junk that I reached for but could not quite take hold of. Don’t need Sigmund for that one.

As pretty, prolific and popular as Knowledge is, her first cousin, Wisdom, continues to sit alone in the corner, lonely for a partner wise enough to see past her plain exterior into the heart of true beauty. A graceful hand is extended and all you have to do is take it and follow the wise leader.

As the earth shakes and its foundations crack, take hope and take hold—there is fortress unmovable, a foundation that never fails and a Rock that endures through all ages. Once balanced on shifting sand himself, the Apostle Paul learned, through great joy and pain, about the words he would write eternally in the hearts of those spinning out of control, captured on the carrousel of time-a demonic machine from which there is no escape, and one that speeds up with every revolution, until life becomes a meaningless blur. Take a deep breath, relax and repeat words of lasting comfort given Paul before the Creator breathed your name: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Forever! You can get off the ride anytime you like.

Lucas Parable
-Notes from a cultural wasteland