Shock and Fatigue

“…and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed

by the filthy conduct of the wicked…”

1 Peter 2:7

Culture shock. Nicole and I had been warned many times that we would encounter it when we moved to Mongolia. Predictions varied, but they generally ran like this: “After six months or so, the novelty of living there will rub off, and you’ll suddenly find yourself irritated by the people and events around you. You’ll get over it, but it will take time. So just be ready for it.”

The predictions proved true, and I remember the first time I realized that. I was at the bank.

Transactions at the bank were conducted on the second floor, and that meant an elevator ride. You never knew how long you’d be there until the elevator doors opened and you stepped into the hall and saw the people. On that day, I thought it would be a quick visit, as I was alone in the elevator. But when the doors opened, I saw that I’d be there a while. The lines were at least ten people deep at each teller’s window. I sighed and took my place.

Now, usually, I brought something to do – a book to read or a recording to listen to. But this day I had forgotten. So I stood there, and stood there, and waited.

Finally, it was almost my turn. I was next in line and just waiting for the guy in front of me to finish counting his money and move on. And, then, just then, a young woman exited from the elevator, walked past me, and pushed aside the guy counting his money. She pulled some papers and money from her purse and thrust them through the window to the teller.

The lady behind the window looked past the woman at the line and said something to the woman and pointed. The woman glanced behind her and then turned back to the teller, pointing at the papers she was carrying and pushing the money across the counter. The lady looked once more at the line and then shrugged, took the woman’s papers and starting processing her transaction.

It took me a moment to realize that the woman had just budged past me and the rest of the line, and then it hit me. And it hit me hard! Anger bubbled up within me, and suddenly I was furious. I couldn’t believe that this had just happened. And I looked behind me at the other people in the line and saw them standing there like sheep, mutely resigned. And that made me angry too! Was everyone crazy? Didn’t anyone see how stupid and unfair this was?

I managed to control myself and I didn’t go ballistic on anyone. But on the inside, I felt like I had exploded. I concluded at that moment that everything about Mongolia was stupid; the way people drove, the way they talked, the way they walked. Everything.

I left the bank and started walking home. The sub-zero temperatures cooled my head, and I realized that culture shock had finally hit. Yeah, sure, the woman shouldn’t have budged, but that wasn’t really why I was angry. I was just finally feeling all the pent-up frustration over the cultural differences between me and my new home. And it was bubbling up as anger.

In the following months, that anger dissipated. I gradually came to accept those differences, and though I sometimes felt annoyed, I was able to recognize that the problem was mostly mine, that my cultural background was prompting in me stronger reactions than the situations warranted.

After three years in Mongolia, I thought I had culture shock licked. What I didn’t know was that something equally difficult and sinister was lurking in the shadows – culture fatigue, and I was not prepared for it.

Culture fatigue is to culture shock what congestive heart failure is to a heart attack. It involves the psychical accumulation of innumerable annoyances prompted by cultural differences, and it results in chronic feelings of resentment and emotional exhaustion. Culture shock hits suddenly, but culture fatigue builds slowly. Culture shock can prove fatal to a missionary’s career, as he or she may feel forced to abandon the new culture to escape it. Culture fatigue, on the hand, rarely proves fatal, though the nationals may wish it had, since it leaves its victims cynical and depressed.

I can’t identify the starting point of my cultural fatigue, and I think that’s the sinister side of it. It’s subtle in its approach. I just know that I was really struggling with it by the time we concluded our first term in Mongolia.

Fatigue

Over the years, I’ve talked to missionaries from other fields, many of whom shared similar experiences. So I guess it’s fairly common. But, beyond that, since returning to the States, I have realized that this shock and fatigue can be experienced within one’s country as well. It is not necessary to travel to the other side of the globe to encounter a different culture. The culture of my childhood in Seattle is as different in some ways from Geneva’s as my American culture was from Mongolia’s. Anyone can experience shock and fatigue when leaving one culture and entering another.

I was thinking about this yesterday, and I started to wonder whether there was a spiritual application to these observations. Do people ever experience culture shock and fatigue in their spiritual lives?

When I think of the spiritual universe, I think of its inhabitants as belonging to one of two sides, either of good or evil. (I’m not suggesting these are equal in size or power, or anything like that, just that there are only two possibilities.) Humans are either “sons of God” or “sons of the devil”; they are either regenerate or unregenerate.

We are all born within the realm of evil as “children of the devil.” The Bible refers to this as being born “dead” in our sins and trespasses. (Eph. 2:1) That is the culture of which we are a part and in which we begin our pilgrimage through this earthly life. It comes with certain traditions and inclinations that are common to those who share that culture.

Then, for some, a moment comes when, by God’s grace, they are granted new spiritual life. These are the ones who become known as Christians. They are the ones whose spiritual eyes have been opened to see the truths of God’s Word, whose spiritual ears have been enabled to hear the proclamation of the Gospel. With hearing comes faith, and they receive Jesus as Lord, becoming children of God. Paul refers to this process in his letter to the Colossians, saying, “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” (Col. 1:13)

We, who are Christians, have been delivered by God from the culture of darkness and placed into the culture of light. What a wonderful truth! But what has happened spiritually has not yet happened physically. Our cultural relocation has occurred in the spiritual realm, but it awaits its full realization – our glorification. And in the meantime, we are left in a foreign culture, members of a heavenly culture.

It seems to me this is the point where culture shock and fatigue can occur in the spiritual realm. A new Christian may go through a ‘honeymoon period’ during which he is able to resist the other culture’s temptations easily. There may be little inner struggle as he experiences the first bloom of love for God. But then, inevitably, he experiences spiritual dissonance. His flesh rises up and begins to respond to the siren call of the other culture. He experiences temptation, and, as he does, he realizes that he is in the midst of a spiritual battle. He becomes suddenly and brutally aware that he is living as a foreigner in an evil culture. And this moment seems analogous culture shock.

In time, the Christian becomes more fully aware of his spiritual state, and he, to a greater or lesser degree, puts on the armor of God and engages in spiritual battle. The shock of the culture clash dissipates.

I think we all sense this conflict, and what I have said so far concerning a spiritual culture shock does not seem unexpected. But what struck me yesterday, and what does seem unexpected to me, is the danger of spiritual cultural fatigue. Is it possible that those Christians who have been in the battle a long time could grow weary, that they could grow fatigued by the ongoing clash of cultures?

The obvious answer is, yes, they can. I suspect it is possible for Christians to fall into a grudging, plodding devotional life, one that despondently (and cynically) awaits release to the heavenly realms as an escape from the emotional hardships of a long stay in foreign territory. Perhaps an example of this can be found in Lot, who endured the hardships of Sodom and Gomorrah only to suffer an unenviable end in a cave above Zoar. And perhaps this is why the apostles exhorted the believers to press on, encouraging them not to grow weary in doing good (i.e. Gal. 6:9).

But what is the solution to all this? What are the options? Can Christians abandon their foreign culture to return to their home one? – Well, yes, I guess they can, but it’s not right to do so, and it’s surely nothing we would call victory in Christ. So, how can one experience true victory in Christ and freedom from culture shock and fatigue? And why should we?

Well, first, I suggest we can live within this foreign spiritual culture and cope effectively with the differences. It may be hard, but we can do it. Beyond that, we should do it. Jesus prayed specifically for this. He prayed, “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.” (John 17:14-15) His prayer is that we would remain in the world but transcend its culture.

Second, I suggest the necessity of our stay is seen in the missional nature of our pilgrimage. We are not here for a vacation; we are here for on a divine mission. Jesus has sent us into this culture. In the same prayer mentioned above, Jesus prayed, “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” (Jn. 17:18) Indeed, we have been called out from among those languishing in the culture of darkness in order to be lights, pointing the way to the Truth, and serving as ambassadors of the ministry of reconciliation. (2 Cor. 5:18) In other words, we’ve been sent into this world to proclaim Jesus Christ and make disciples.

Third, I suggest we can conquer cultural fatigue by finding our joy and hope in Jesus Christ. Yes, we are in a foreign culture, but we have not been abandoned to it. Jesus is with us, even here, even now, (Matt. 28:19-20) and we can refresh ourselves daily in Him.

Bottom line, if you’re struggling with spiritual cultural fatigue, let me encourage you to focus your attentions once again on Jesus Christ. (Heb. 12:2) Spend some special time with Him in prayer and meditate on His Word. Ponder all you have in Him and pray for those who have not yet trusted Him. Rejoice in Him, and you will be refreshed. As the hymn says…

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

Breaking Teeth

Break their teeth in their mouth, O God!

Break out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!

Psalm 58:6

Imprecatory psalms (those that pray for curses) aren’t the sort of psalms we turn into praise choruses. That is probably just as well, as a visitor to a church service might wonder about a congregation that harmonizes, “Wash Your feet in the blood of the wicked.” Still…

Psalm 58 is one of those psalms. In it David ask the Lord deal with the wicked by “breaking their teeth in their mouth,” and he adds an enigmatic parallel thought, “Break out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord!” Hmm, as Christians, what are we to make of such statements?

I pondered this yesterday as I waited for my first root canal to get started. And since the dentist was running late, I waited a while, prepped in the dental chair with a bib dangling from my neck. This permitted his assistant the opportunity to explain in excruciating detail the procedure. “These are the drills we use,” she said, holding up a tray of needle-like steel bits. “They have spirals on them so they can bring the nerve up and out.” She held them close so I could see. “There are several of them because they come in differing sizes.” Some of those needles looked an inch long, and I started to wonder how far into my tooth they would go.

Just then the dentist walked into the room, clutching the x-ray of my tooth. “It’s a long one, isn’t he?” he said to his assistant, pointing at the picture. “Really goes up there.” (“There” was a reference to the bone above the tooth.) “So,” he said, turning to me, “you have these three roots on this tooth, and I will drill into them and excavate the pulp and nerve from each of them. Then, once I’ve removed all that, I’ll pack it with filling, starting down at the bottom and working my way up.”

Ouch.

All joking aside, though, it wasn’t that bad. The dentist numbed the side of my face, and apart from the uncomfortable feeling of having his entire fist in my mouth, I was fine. And as I sat and listened to the drill, I thought how blessed I was to live in this century and not in previous ones.

Until recently, the ‘cure’ for most dental ailments was extraction, even though an effective treatment for cavities was known as early as the tenth century. And this had a lot to do with the methods for clearing out decay. The drilling out of a cavity from the tenth century until the eighteenth century required a superhuman fortitude in the patient and a high degree of dexterity in the dentist. The major drawback of those drills was the slow rotation of the bit. The dentist, holding the metal spike between his thumb and index finger, manually worked it back and forth, all the while forcefully bearing downward.

Not until the eighteenth century was there a mechanical drill, about the size of a hand-held clock and with a clock’s inner rotary mechanism. And not until George Washington’s personal dentist, John Greenwood, adapted his mother’s spinning wheel to rotate a bit was there an even moderately rapid, foot-pedaled dental drill. Unfortunately, the intense heat generated by its quick rotation was itself a drawback; although this was compensated for by a shorter period of discomfort.

As I sat in the chair listening to my dentist’s modern high-tech drill, I was thankful that his water-cooled model spins in excess of a half-million turns a minute. Quicker, and I suspect, less painful.

But let’s go back to Psalm 58. What is it, exactly, David is asking? Well, I think my current state provides some helpful insight.

As I left the doctor’s office, still numb, I received these instructions: “Be careful, your tooth (or what’s left of it) is fragile, and you’ll want to avoid chewing anything hard until your other dentist puts the crown on. So, eat soft foods, and, until the anesthetic wears off, be careful not to chew the side of your cheek.” And, then, “You’ll want to start taking Ibuprofen, as you’ll probably start to feel some pain when the numbness goes away.”

This prediction proved true. By evening, the side of my face had settled into a dull ache that has persisted through to this morning. So, pain and difficultly with eating. Pretty humbling.

This points at one of David’s desires. He desires God’s enemies, the wicked, to be humbled. He wants them to come face-to-face with their mortality and their inability to perpetuate their health. Broken teeth are humbling. They limit your regular activities and cause you to act and react like an invalid.

The parallelism included in the verse points at another one of David’s desires. He asks that the fangs of the young lions be broken. In this, he likens the wicked to young lions, those who are able to hunt with the full vitality of youth. And what do these lions use to triumph in the hunt? Their fangs, of course. So, by asking God to break the ‘fangs’ of the wicked, David is asking God to take away their ability to exact pain and death.

One other interesting thing to consider here is that David, that great man of war, turns to the Lord with his request. He recognizes his dependency on God, and he does not seek, on his own, to ‘break the teeth’ of the wicked. Rather, he asks the Sovereign Lord to do so, using whatever means He considers appropriate. In doing so, I believe, David recognizes and affirms that vengeance and judgment, ultimately, are the Lord’s.

There is more that could be said, but I think we can deduce this, that, at least, David is asking the Sovereign Lord to humble and disempower the wicked.

While the dentist was working on my tooth, I watched the television on the wall behind him. It was set to a news channel, and I could see continuing coverage of the Boston bombings. This seemed appropriate, in light of the things I had been considering. The wicked had acted and we were witnessing the pain and grief they had caused. And now the questions were being raised: To whom can we turn? Who will bring justice?

The answer today is the same as it was in David’s day -- the Lord. We should turn to the Lord. We should ask Him to bring justice.

As we seek to cope with these horrific events, let’s remember the admonition of scripture: “Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19) And let’s go to Him in prayer and ask Him to “break the teeth” of the wicked.

Lumps in Faeryland

Fairy tales are more than true – not because they tell us dragons exist,

but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.”

G. K. Chesterton

Nicole and I have been attending Geneva Library’s adult book club once a month, and one of the books to be discussed this month is Michael Gruber’s The Witch’s Boy. It is a marvelous book, and this is the second reading of it for both Nicole and me.

In one scene of that book, the protagonist, a young man named Lump, and his mother travel through Faeryland and are confronted with a dance by the Faery Folk. Lump’s mother, experienced in these matters, warns her son to take precautions against hearing the music or seeing the dance. She says, “Now, as for you, you must not on any account see it. Go now into the wagon, and on my shelf of simples you will find a red clay jar, and in it you will find soft beeswax. Use bits of it to stop up your ears.”

Lump answers, “But why? Why must I not see the dance nor hear the music of the fay?”

And she explains, “Oh, child,… should you but once see this dance, no sight of common earth would ever again give you pleasure – not the face of a beloved, nor that of your own dear child, but you would lust after a lost perfection. And as for the music: once in a rare while a person of the common earth hears, as from a great distance, the horns of Faery, and then they run mad or become great poets or both together. To hear them at this slight remove and so clear would be the end of you, from the pure deadly joy of it.”

Now, it’s the nature of such things, in our fallen world and in this version of Faeryland, that protagonists are susceptible to temptation. Lump scurries into the wagon and stops his ears and sits on his cot. But as he sits there, the thought of being denied even one look at the dance grows intolerable to him. And he creeps to the front of the wagon and pulls aside the leather curtain that separates the cabin from the driving seat. And…

 “He saw the fay dancing. Their wings were spread wide as they trod a measure in the air. As he was not a great musician, he was never able to describe what he saw, for no human words can comprehend that concentrated essence of loveliness – beauty as terrible as a bomb. All we know of beauty on earth is but its muddy shadow; music alone can remind us of its glory. And his heart twisted in his bosom, and he fell back in a faint, as if shot by a poisoned arrow.”

The tale continues, and Lump and his mother return to the ‘real’ world. But the vision of the Faeries’ dance and music lingers in Lump. He is unable to shake away the memories, and all earthly joys are now tainted by the inevitable comparisons he makes to the real joys of Faeryland. Dissatisfaction is now Lump’s constant companion.

Gruber’s book is not meant to be an allegory of the Christian life, but I see reflected in this story vivid realities we Christians experience.

The temptation Lump encounters is reminiscent of the temptation to which Adam and Eve succumbed and to which you and I have fallen prey. A clear command is issued, a command given for the well-being of the one receiving it, but the urge to transgress its boundaries and sample some forbidden ‘delights’ proves overwhelming, and the command is disobeyed. Lump gave in, and, similarly, Adam and Eve did, and we did also. This transgression occasions a penalty, the natural outgrowth of the violation. This is what the Bible refers to as “the wages.” For Adam, Eve, you and me, this meant death, both spiritual and physical.

In the story, Lump is forced out of Faeryland and must return to a world that proves, at best, a sad shadow of what he had glimpsed. In a similar way, Adam and Eve were forced from Eden into a fallen world, a world characterized by struggles and sufferings, a mere shadow of the ‘good’ world which God had created.

But there is more. The inner ache Lump experiences is similar to the ache we humans experience from birth. Our consciences bear witness from infancy that there is more to this life than we see. We sense that we were created for greater, nobler things, and we experience an inner frustration as we realize that, even at its best, this life’s joys are incomplete and temporal.

Now, I’m not trying to posit a one-to-one correlation, so, I’ll go ahead and mix the metaphor.

There is another way to think of this picture. When we first came to Christ, we received a glimpse of glory. We were given a foretaste of ‘glory divine.’ It’s as if we had a chance, for just a moment, to watch the heavenly dance. And then, immediately, we were forced to reckon with the reality that we were not in heaven yet, dancing in the dance, but were still consigned physically to a fallen world. We had glimpsed the heavenly and returned to the earthly. We became aware that our citizenship had transferred from the latter to the former, but we were compelled to wait for the moment of physical relocation.

And how hard that was! When we came to Christ, we realized the reality of Paul’s words, that to depart and be with Christ is far better than to live on in the flesh. But, of course, we recognized also that God had a purpose for us here, and so we determined to please Him by pressing on in the flesh. And, accordingly, we look forward eagerly to the day when He will call us home. And, in this, we have become like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, dwelling as in a foreign country, waiting for the city which has foundations, “whose builder and maker is God.” As we look forward to our inheritance in heaven, we affirm that we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth, a people who desire a better, heavenly country.

These thoughts have been helpful to me as I have tried to understand the constant ache of my heart, that ‘almost, but not yet’ desire that lurks deep within me. That ache is my spirit’s craving to realize full reconciliation with its Creator, spiritually and physically. It is my spirit’s desire to join fully in the heavenly dance. It is my spirit’s yearning to be transformed from a lump of clay into a vessel for honor.

What literary tales speak to your spiritual realities?

Mermaids and the Origins of Man

IXTHUS

One of the earliest creedal statement of the church is summarized by the Greek word for ‘fish’, IXTHUS. Each letter in the Greek word has significance: “I” – “Jesus”; “X” – “Christ”; “TH” – “of God”; “U” – “Son”; “S” – “Savior”. Put into proper English, the acronym means this: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.

This word IXTHUS came to mind the other night when I awoke at 3 AM. And, no, it had nothing to do with my bladder. Since I was up, I decided to check out the headlines. I scanned a few stories and clicked on some related links, and before I knew what had happened, I had left reality. I had entered the world of mermaids, a world populated by people obsessed with becoming mermaids and mermen. What? Yeah, really. And, yes, it’s weird. But let me give you a fictionalized example of a typical thread from this internet world…

Mermaid (probably a pseudonym for some creepy old guy): Wow, I finally found the way to be a REAL mermaid, with a fin and everything! I had almost given up, but then, I found these instructions online, and since then I’ve been spending my nights deep in the sea with the rest of the merpeople.

DesperateToChange: I KNEW there was a way to become a real mermaid! I’ve been trying for two years, ever since I was twelve, but nothing has worked yet. Most of the instructions on the internet seem fake. Please tell me what you did, so I can become a real mermaid. I know that’s what I really am. I’m such a misfit in the human world.

TriedToo: Me too! I SO want to be a mermaid and be free. I’m so tired of school and everything, and I look at the ocean, and I just KNOW that’s where I’m supposed to be. I followed the instructions on another website, and I stayed in the shower all day, just like it said I was supposed to, but nothing happened. I’m so depressed. I don’t know what I will do if I can’t find the real way to change.

Mermaid: Oh, sorry, I should have put up the instructions. Here they are – pretty simple really: find some sea salts and mix them with fresh sand from the beach, add some dirt (this has to be taken from the sea bottom), and make mud. Then, smear the mud all over you legs, and lie by the beach on a moonlit night. Make sure the moonlight hits your legs. Then go swimming to get rid of the mud. The change won’t happen right then, but over the next month you will have more and more cravings to be in the water, and then, suddenly, your legs will become a fin, and you’ll be a mermaid.

DesperateToChange: THANK YOU. Thank you. I’ll try it as soon as possible.

          

 TriedToo: I tried it, and I think it worked! I’ve really been craving the water more and more. I haven’t seen any hint of my fin yet, but I know it’s coming. Thanks!

[a few months later]

DesperateToChange: It didn’t work. Why didn’t it work for me? Please, please, get back to me. I can’t take it anymore. I have to get away from here, and this is my last hope. Please respond.

I read several of these sorts of threads, and, then, with my mind blown, I returned to bed, wondering what in the world I had just read.

So what’s going on? Let’s see if we can make any sense of this stuff and determine whether it has any significance for our own lives:

Stories involving mermaids date back at least to 1,000 B.C. The first known story involves an Assyrian goddess Atargatis. According to the story, she loved a mortal shepherd but accidentally killed him. Overwhelmed by regret, she jumped into a lake and took the form of a fish. But, being a goddess and all, the water could not hide her great beauty, and she transformed into a mermaid, human from the waist up and a fish from the waist down.

From that point on, stories of mermaids, and their counterparts (i.e. the Greek sirens and naiads) appeared periodically in literature and myth. Sirens appear in the Greek epic The Odyssey. Several stories about ‘sea people’ appear in The One Thousand and One Nights, and a mermaid-ish character appears in European folklore during the middle ages. And, of course, there is The Little Mermaid, the story Hans Christian Andersen published in 1837. This latter work became the basis for Disney’s The Little Mermaid.

The mermaids of literature have not always been the fun, friendly, singing creatures of Disney’s movie. They were often depicted as deceptive, dangerous, and deadly. Neither were they always considered beautiful. Sailors, mistaking manatee-like creatures for mermaids, described them as blobbish and ugly.

Okay, so that’s a brief history of mermaids. But what’s the significance, and why are some young girls desperate to become mermaids?

It seems to me that the myths around mermaids emerge partly from humanity’s desire to understand itself, its origin and purpose. These myths, at some level, address our collective awareness that something is missing or lacking in our lives. They tap our yearning for a different world, and they may even attempt a crude explanation of our current position in this world.

Let’s start with the latter thought. Around 600 B.C., a philosopher named Anaximander proposed that mankind had sprung from an aquatic species of animal. He thought that humans, with their extended infancy, could not have survived otherwise. Ponder this for a moment. What he was suggesting was that humanity had evolved from the fish. In other words, he was proposing both a mer-person ancestry for humanity and an evolutionary cosmology. So, you see? The evolutionary theory isn’t all that new, is it?

Anaximander’s theory would account for both humanity’s oral traditions concerning mer-people and for the desire of some people to become mer-people. They are merely yearning to return to their genealogical roots. And, I would think a similar thing could be said concerning the theory of evolution. Though, if so, you would have to wonder why some folks don’t yearn to return to their roots as single-cell organisms. (Please, no couch potato jokes.)

But, of course, this is only one possible cosmology, and a far-fetched one too, if you ask me.

A better cosmology is stated in the book of Genesis. There, we learn that man was initially created in a sinless state, fellowshipping with Almighty God. We learn that sin entered the race through that man, the earth was cursed, and a separation between God and humanity erupted. In addition, we discover that each of us was born in that separated condition, tormented by our fallen nature and yearning for a better world. And, of course, the Bible tells that, ultimately, we can be freed from our sinful nature and know that better world through Jesus Christ.

This biblical cosmology offers a clearer perspective on what is going on in the weird Internet world of “I-want-to-be-a-mermaid.”

The young people posting comments uniformly express an awareness of worldly dysfunction. They lament the injustices they see in their families, schools and communities. “I hate it here. My parents are so abusive. I just want to escape.” Or, “I just want to be free. Free from people looking at me and thinking I’m ugly.” They also express an awareness of inner dysfunction. They recognize that they are not all they were meant to be. The thought, “I just want to be more than I am,” emerges in post after post.

But these thoughts and feelings are not unique to those wanting to join the mer-people. They are shared by all people everywhere. We all want to be freed from the injustices of our societies. We all want freedom from dysfunctional relationships and unfair work loads. More than that, we all want freedom from ourselves, from our weaknesses and failings. We want to be freed to become the amazing people we know we were meant to be.

As is often the case, the yearning is not the problem; it is the proposed solution that is the problem. The desire to be a mer-person is simply impractical. Even if it were possible to become one, there is no reason to suppose that one would be freed from the fallen nature of the world. In ‘Neptune’s Kingdom,’ one would still find court intrigues and strife. I would suspect that mermaid teenagers would be just as likely to be catty as human teenaged girls.

The solution for these yearnings is found, ultimately, only in Jesus Christ. In Jesus, we can become so much more than mer-people. We can be freed to become fully human. We can become humans who walk in true fellowship with God, humans who know they will one day receive glorified bodies that look a whole lot better than a fish-man hybrid.

Bottom line? Through reading those threads I realized again that people are desperate to find the real, lasting change that brings freedom. And I realized there are an awful lot of people who do not yet know that the only way to find true freedom is in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. This makes me want to redouble my efforts to proclaim the Gospel, to tell them IXTHUS.

How about you?