"HOW SHALL WE THEN LIVE?" Francis Schaeffer

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

LIFE? IT IS NOT SAFE

PYROMANIACS by Centurion

You know: deaths by medical error outnumber firearm fatalities by a factor of 17:1; deaths by medical error outnumber auto fatalities by a factor of 5:1.  You think you're safe in the hospital, but I would suggest that you're in one of the most dangerous places in the world for two reasons: both you and the care providers are, in all real respect for their years of hard work and real intention to be doing no harm, overconfident.

My point is not to minimize the death of these children, or make you fear the hospital: it is to open your eyes to the fact that the natural state of the world is not safe and secure.  The natural state of the world -- the way it really is all around us every day and we simply overlook it -- is that it is a deadly and dangerous place.   

See: the natural state of things is that people die all the time due to no direct fault of their own.  Families are left fatherless or motherless -- or both.  The oldest child, or only child, is safe on the rainy night driving home from work and is killed the next night when she went to the convenience store for milk and a drunk ignored the red light.  The fellow in the locker next to you at work doesn't realize the safety on the overhead crane is broken, and you have to explain it to the OSHA investigator because you pulled him out from under it, too late. 

But here's the thing: this does not spoil Christmas.  It in no way denigrates Christmas, or makes Christmas a joke.  This fact makes Christmas necessary.



[We have always, and we continue to need a transcendent God who can save us from ourselves.]