{"id":22978,"date":"2021-11-02T20:54:22","date_gmt":"2021-11-03T01:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/?p=22978"},"modified":"2021-11-02T20:54:45","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T01:54:45","slug":"people-do-love-their-illusions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/people-do-love-their-illusions\/","title":{"rendered":"People do love their illusions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cFor He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust\u201d (Psalm 103:14).<\/strong><\/p>\n

God is under no illusion about us. He knows we are made of humble stuff.\u00a0 He knew He was getting no bargain when He saved us. When we sin, the only one surprised is us.<\/p>\n

Whether we are under false conceptions, i.e.,\u00a0illusions, about God is another question.<\/p>\n

One thing is sure. We sure do love our illusions, our pipe dreams, our false ideas and wrong impressions.<\/p>\n

No one should see how sausage or their laws are made<\/em>.\u00a0 The internet traces that quote to Otto von Bismarck, German chancellor of the late 1800s, who is supposed to have said it more like \u201cLaws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leave us with our illusions.<\/p>\n

I grew up on Southern Gospel music<\/strong> and my family frequently attended their concerts.\u00a0 In adulthood seeing some of the groups up close and off stage, the profanity and carnal lifestyles forever ruined me.\u00a0 In time, I was able to enjoy some of their music, but without attending a concert or becoming a groupie.\u00a0 I had lost my illusion about these people.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lovers of the old Andy Griffith Show<\/strong> are sometimes saddened to learn, after a little research, that their beloved Aunt Bee, played by actress Frances Bavier, was just that, playing a role.\u00a0 In a score of books on that show, cast members have said that Miss Bavier was often demanding, high maintenance, and hard to get along with.\u00a0 Not at all the sweet loveable Aunt Bea character she played in the show. And yet, we love the show and cherish the image\u2013the illusion, if you will\u2013she left us.<\/p>\n

Trekkies are fans of the Star Trek<\/strong> series of televisions shows and movies.\u00a0 They flock to conventions and pay big money to see the stars, read their memoirs, and purchase the mementoes.\u00a0 Many of them can spout the philosophies of Spock\u2019s character and know the nationalities of all kinds of forces that have shown up in the show.<\/p>\n

One thing is sure and I can vouch for this:\u00a0 People who write these shows think the Trekkies are nuts.\u00a0 Sure, they\u2019ll take their money and play the game. But as they board the plane and return home, they\u2019re shaking their collective heads at the ridiculous way these people fill their lives with such foolishness.\u00a0 \u201cThey should get a life,\u201d they\u2019re thinking.<\/p>\n

That, incidentally, is what Coach Bob Devaney once said of fans of his Nebraska Cornhuskers<\/strong> team who took their devotion to absurd heights.\u00a0\u00a0Asked what he thought about the fan who bought a casket with the university\u2019s logo emblazoned in red across the top and left instructions about doing his funeral in a similar fashion, the coach said, \u201cI think he should should get a life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five years back, I met the grandmother of the young man who had just married my oldest granddaughter.\u00a0 Daisy hails from Mansfield, Missouri.\u00a0 I said, \u201cLaura Ingalls Wilder\u2019<\/strong>s hometown.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYes,\u201d she smiled, and added, \u201cI knew her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou knew her?\u201d\u00a0 That was unexpected.<\/p>\n

This author of a still-popular series of children\u2019s books lived from 1867 to 1957.\u00a0 Her writings supported her family through the Depression and in more recent decades, a well-loved television series was based loosely on her books. A controversy continues to this day over how much Mrs. Wilder\u2019s daughter Rose participated in the writings of the \u201cLittle House on the Prairie\u201d books.\u00a0 Nevertheless\u2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a crabby little old lady,\u201d said Mrs. Daisy.\u00a0 I laughed.\u00a0 \u201cReally?\u201d<\/p>\n

I love gossip of this kind. That is to say, it\u2019s historical (and history is my subject) and since the subject is no longer living, our idle chatter is not going to do her any harm. No one is hurt by our conversation and so we are free to range far and wide.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked in a bakery shop,\u201d said Daisy, \u201cand she would come in.\u00a0 None of us wanted to wait on her, and would run to the back when we spotted her coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe wore a hat and gloves year round, even in the heat of summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u00a0mentioned that\u00a0Mrs. Wilder\u00a0had written\u00a0some subsequent stuff about her daughter\u2019s mistreatment when they\u00a0first moved to Mansfield, something about how the school children\u00a0rejected her and were snooty because she was not dressed as well as they.\u00a0 Daisy said, \u201cThe truth was the opposite.\u00a0 They were the snooty ones, too good for the townspeople.\u201d<\/p>\n

I laughed. To me this was a harmless little jest of no consequence.\u00a0 I have never read the \u201cLittle House\u201d books and have no intention of doing so. I repeat the conversation here just to make a point.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s perfectly fine with me if Mrs. Wilder\u2019s daughter Rose helped her write the books and if she herself turns out to have been crabby or snooty or to have embellished her stories.\u00a0 They were novels, for goodness\u2019 sake, and not autobiographies. She wasn’t writing scripture.<\/p>\n

When I posted a note on Facebook about how the elderly Laura Ingalls Wilder was said to be \u201ca crabby old lady,\u201d a FB friend rebuked me.\u00a0 I should not be destroying people\u2019s illusions, she said.<\/p>\n

People do love their illusions, don\u2019t they?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to end with a little story which speaks to the absurdity of people cherishing their illusions, no matter how flimsy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leonard Mlodinow was a writer for the original Star Trek<\/strong> series.\u00a0 Once at a cocktail party, he came upon a man and woman who were handsome, articulate, and doubtless well-educated.\u00a0 In the midst of a conversation about their love for that show, one was quoting a lengthy passage of Vulcan philosophy to the other who was loving it.\u00a0 As Mlodinow listened, something occurred to him<\/p>\n

I wrote that stuff.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote so much of it,\u201d he later said, \u201cthat I tended to forget it.\u00a0 And yet here these people were believing it, quoting it as gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was stunned and walked away shaking his head.<\/p>\n

You find yourself amazed sometimes at the foolish things people believe.\u00a0 I just finished reading Leah Remini’s autobiography Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology.<\/em>\u00a0 It may have been the most depressing thing I’ve read since…well, since\u00a0 Educated<\/em> by Tara Westover, about growing up in a dysfunctional Mormon sect.\u00a0 Ever since, I have prayed for Tara and Leah to do one thing: to open the Gospels and see the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ.\u00a0 I do not pray for them to become Baptists–smile please–but it will be sufficient, for the time being at least, for them to discover Jesus. He alone never disappoints.<\/p>\n

There is Truth and His name is Jesus.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let no one make the shallow assertion that since some religious views and teachings are nuts and are founded on the wild speculations of their founders, that every religious faith is equally false.\u00a0 That would be like saying since medical quacks abound, all medicine is fake.<\/p>\n

There is a true Way. There is a solid Faith.\u00a0 There is One who commands our respect and deserves our trust.<\/p>\n

His name is Jesus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it were not so, I would have told you,\u201d said the Lord Jesus (John 14:2) as He made some amazing claims. He added, \u201cI am the Way, the Truth, and the Life\u201d (John 14:6).<\/p>\n

One of the apostles said, \u201cWe did not follow cunningly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty\u201d (2 Peter 1:16).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lord is upright; He is my Rock; and there is no unrighteousness in Him,\u201d declares the great song-writer of Israel (Psalm 92:15).<\/p>\n

You can have illusions, or you can\u00a0know the\u00a0Truth.<\/p>\n

You cannot have it both ways.<\/p>\n

We have to choose.<\/p>\n

Looking at the way people had turned away from Him to chase their illusions, the Lord God said, \u201cMy people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and they have dug out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water\u201d (Jeremiah 2:13).<\/p>\n

God or a hole in the ground.\u00a0 Truth or our illusions.<\/p>\n

Such a simple choice; such a hard decision for so many.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFor He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust\u201d (Psalm 103:14). God is under no illusion about us. He knows we are made of humble stuff.\u00a0 He knew He was getting no bargain when He … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lord-jesus","category-truth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22978"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22982,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22978\/revisions\/22982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}