Failure to Communicate

What I said:
"Do any of you know where Pam is?"

What she heard:
"Do any of you wear panties?"

Can't Erase It

Follow the crowd and love everybody now
'Cause love is the best thing for you now
But you changed your mind, you let everybody down
But down is the best place for you
It's easier that way, you know it's

So wrong, can't embrace it
wish sometimes for any other you
But you can't erase it, and you won't escape it

Don't waste your time
Your words only confine you
To all of the things you've buried now
Don't ask them why
Their wisdom will leave you blind
But blind is the best thing for you
It's easier I know, you know it's

So wrong, can't embrace it
Wish sometimes for any other you
But you can't erase it, and you won't escape it

How long will you face it
Till the wait comes crashing down on you
'Cause you can't erase it, and you won't escape it

--Can't Erase It by Jars of Clay

Miracles (updated)

One day some teachers of religious law and Pharisees came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, we want you to show us a miraculous sign to prove your authority.”

But Jesus replied, “Only an evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign; but the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights."
--Matthew 12:38-40 (NLT)

The subject today is miracles. I'm not talking about things like the "miracle of childbirth" or other things that can be explained reasonably well by science, amazing though they may be. I'm talking about events that blatantly violate the laws of this universe.

I haven't personally seen or experienced a miracle like this, but I've met a few people who claim they have. In a couple of cases, they talked about almost dying of some vague childhood disease, people prayed for them, and they recovered. Whether this qualifies under the definition of "miracle" that I'm using, I'm not sure. In one case, a guy I met claimed a badly broken bone had been instantly healed leaving no sign that it was ever injured. I've also met some people who claim they know people who've experienced miracles, such as cancerous tumours disappearing without a trace.

Could there be a "natural" (as opposed to supernatural) explanation for these things? I find it hard to come up with one for the broken bone or the cancer. Were these people exaggerating, or even telling blatant lies? Christians generally seem pretty honest to me (although some like to point out evidence for God's existence that they haven't even tried to verify), so I don't think these stories would be blatant lies. Am I a fool for thinking these people might be telling the truth? (They do seem a lot more credible than Peter Popoff anyway.)

If we don't have evidence of some kind of miracle that couldn't have happened without God (whether the creation of the universe, the resurrection of Jesus, or something in our own time), what right do we have to claim that God is real, has expectations of us, and that Jesus has made the only way for us to come to God? But as you read at the start of this post, Jesus didn't want people demanding miracles to prove he was sent by God. But then he did promise a miracle--his resurrection. Even so, even Jesus' words get me to question the authenticity of modern-day miracles.

If these miracles are real, they could really convince the people involved that God is real, but the miracles would elude scientists because there wouldn't be a repeatable cause-and-effect relationship to experiment with. Usually this notion that "God has given us just enough evidence of his existence that we'll find it if we're really looking for it" seems like a cop-out to me because so much of the evidence seems so subjective, but with miracles, maybe that notion would work.

I think every good thing, whether it fits this definition of miracle or not, is ultimately a gift from God, so I don't mean to sound ungrateful to God here. But blatant miracles would make it easier to be confident that God is real.

[Update #2: I got invited to contribute to another blog a while ago called Godtalk Uncensored. I posted this thing there too, so go have a look and see what others have written.)

We're Number 24! We're Number 24!

As I mentioned last week, Sherritt participated in the Corporate Challenge. Kind of like in basketball, things did not go so hot in most of the other sports. Early in the Challenge, not enough people showed up for one sport that they were registered for, so we lost ten points for that. But by the end of the Challenge, we worked our way back up to zero! By the time you add in blood donor points and "Minimum Sport" points (whatever those are), we finished with 10 points! That puts us in 24th place out of 32 in the White division. So I think we should all feel good for overcoming the adversity of the ten-point penalty. (Cue the inspirational music.)

Check out the official standings
Point totals for each company in each event

But we had fun

"It's important to be able to enjoy being horrible at stuff."
--my brother

Today I played in one of the Corporate Challenge events--basketball. Team Sherritt lost the first game 24-4. Then we lost the second game 24-6 or 8. And finally we lost the third game 24-4. (The games end when one team gets 24 points or we play for 20 minutes, whichever comes first.) Congratulations to Enbridge, Cosyn, and ATCO Gas for being worthy opponents.

Such is the life of a Sherritt employee in the Corporate Challenge. Our team may not be very good, but that means there's room for me on the team.

Follow Sherritt's results in other sports over the next few days by clicking here and selecting "Sherritt" from the list.