First World Problems

Yesterday I spent most of my day sitting on a wooden stool reading a book about Captain Scott’s catastrophic 1910 expedition to Antarctica.  I sat down on the stool at around 9:30 AM and got up at about 2 PM with many breaks between spent talking to Josh, getting water, changing diapers, replacing the dressing on a wound, and serving lunch.  To other people.  Most of my thoughts not taken captive by icebergs, penguins, and impossible turn-of-the-century British phrases revolved around my stomach.  I could easily have eaten my weight in rice and dal from about 10:30 AM on.  I could have also given a fair fighting chance to a similar weight of Chipotle spicy steak burritos dipped in guacamole or Lola’s chicken and waffles smothered in real grade-B maple syrup and hot sauce.  Come to think of it, I probably could have eaten a pile of fingernail clippings and been happy.  Even the frozen seal blubber being fed to the dog teams on page 209 was making me hungry. 

The person sitting (actually it was more of a lying position) next to me was undoubtedly having different thoughts.  We were both in the Kolkata public hospital but for different reasons.  He was there because his femur had been snapped in two by a train and the two giant wounds on his posterior were deep and infected.  He was in constant agonizing pain as he had been for the last two weeks since the accident.  If his thoughts were rational despite his raging fever and emaciated body, he was probably hoping with any hope left in him that his wait for surgery wasn’t in vain.  As it was, the only audible sounds that came out of his mouth were faint, somewhat forced Muslim prayers.  I was there to feed him his lunch, change his diaper and catheter bag, replace the dressing on his wounds, and wait for the big moment when it would be announced whether he had been selected for surgery or not.  Mostly though I just read my book and dreamed about Mom’s sausage and egg breakfast braid.  She wraps it in those flaky Pillsbury croissants so the outside is crispy and buttery but soft and light at the same time.  Heavenly. 

Now to me, sitting on a stool reading a book all day interspersed with a few small tasks doesn’t feel even a little bit important.  It doesn’t feel like mission work and it certainly doesn’t feel like love.  To the young man referred to by me as “the new patient” though, it’s quite literally the difference between life and death.  Without family, friends, or an MC volunteer to fight for his admittance into the hospital, he would already have died on the street.  If he had somehow been admitted but didn’t have anyone to keep the diarrhea out of his wounds, refill his water bottle, and pay his miniscule hospital fees, he would have already died on his public hospital cot.  His short life would have had a lonely and desperate ending.  To him, the bearded white man sitting on the stool reading his digital book might as well be Jesus himself. 

I mostly write this blog to myself.  When you do this kind of thing every day you sometimes forget its significance.  When you spend a morning thinking only of your own stomach and forget to put yourself in the people’s shoes around you it can get a bit discouraging when you are processing your day later on.  Unless you remind yourself that the person you are sitting next to probably feels more loved than they have ever been in their entire life, regardless of how engrossed you are in the study of emperor penguins and how many piping hot, grease dripping, bacon-wrapped lil’ smokies go through your mind.  

Perspective

Yesterday I was reading through a journal entry from 2010.  I was transported back in time to a different world.  A world in which I drove a green motorcycle to work each day, tended a garden, and gasped at the thought of a friend leaving her job to travel the world for a year.  The entry ended and as I closed Microsoft Word I saw my reflection in Josh’s laptop screen, the same reflection I look at now as I write this journal entry.  My hair is an odd variation of a greasy afro which my patchy beard is trying to replicate on the lower half of my face, my thinning shoulders are bare to allow for efficient evaporation of the sweat that drips down my neck, and in the background is the poor excuse for a bed I am leaning against as I sit on the bare floor.  Mixed smells of curry, feces, and baked goods waft in through the glassless windows and though I normally tune everything out, for a moment I listened to the background noises of continuous honking, bartering, and barking coming from the streets below my room.  It is nearly inconceivable how one person can live two such dissimilar lives, laid out side by side in neat rectangles on a time-line. 

I used to get mad at the societal norms and implied obligations within American culture that disagreed with me; now I get mad at taxi drivers who try to double my fare to 100 rupees because I’m white.  I used to read books about adventurers and controversial theological topics; now I slowly sound out Bangla words on shop fronts as I ride the bus.  I used to carefully match my evening clothes so as not to appear overly hipster or borderline hippy; now I remind myself to stop and cover up men sleeping on the sidewalk who have let their longgee get a little too loose.  I prefer tandoori roti to paratha, but a well-made nan can be better than either.  I know the exact metro car to get on at Jatin Das Park so that when the train arrives at the Park Street stop I am the first one through the turnstiles.  Every person I pass sleeping on the street I consciously analyze as to whether or not they have family members, if they are sick or wounded, and if I should stop to check on them without slowing my pace or turning my head.  I used to live the American dream, now I just live. 

I had this afternoon free.  I decided to devote it to a long neglected task: buy a pack of 3x5 notecards.  I spent three hours wandering around a market slightly smaller than the state of Alaska and with 7000 times the amount of people before finally compromising on the closest thing Kolkata had to offer at the only paper product stall I could find.  It was a tiny pad of paper about the size of a cell phone and it cost 2 rupees (0.03 USD).  I bought two of them.  Today was a productive day; I sang aloud to myself as I walked back to Afridi Guest House in high spirits and swung my miniature grocery bag to the beat, unaware of a world in which a productive day consisted of pushing through the FAA approval of a turbine engine for the new Gulfstream private jet, running 6 miles, leading a Bible study, and cooking myself a delicious dinner of pork loin and home-grown summer squash.  I suppose I’ve changed the world.  

NOTE:  Thank you to my readers for reading, you would hardly be a reader without it!  Just to tie everything up from two weeks ago, I am long over my illness and feeling 100% now.  I spent a week in Thailand recovering with some good friends and have gained back probably half of the weight I lost.  Welp, I'm off to a World Cup party at the German embassy, ttyl!

Can God Microwave a Hot-Pocket So Hot He Can't Eat It?

Can God microwave a hot-pocket so hot that He can’t eat it?  Maybe you have been asked this question in your Philosophy 101 class, or its cousin, “Can God make a rock so big that He can’t move it?”It’s called the “Omnipotence Paradox” and is used by atheists to ‘prove’ an omnipotent being cannot exist.  This is a “yes or no” question, so there are only two possible answers.  Try to answer it yourself first.  If you say “Yes” then you are admitting God cannot move the rock and so He is not omnipotent; if you answer “No” than you are admitting there is something God cannot do.  So either way God is not omnipotent/an omnipotent being cannot exist. 

Today I am going to point out the flaws in this question and its implications.  In order to really understand the two answers I will write them out as full sentences. 

1.       Yes, God can make a rock so big that He cannot move it.

a.       Implication: God cannot move rocks if they are too big

2.       No, God cannot make a rock so big that He cannot move it

a.       Implication: There is something God cannot do. 

These are full sentences but there is still a little bit of flushing out we need to do.  There is a tricky pronoun hiding in answer #2.  “There is something God cannot do.”  What is the word“something” representing?  God cannot do something; God cannot make a rock so big that He cannot move it.  The word cannot is used twice; there is a double negative here.  Basically, by answering No, you are stating “God cannot can’t”.  To put it another way, there is nothing an omnipotent being can’t do.  So actually there is a logical answer and it poses no problem to the idea of omnipotence.  God cannot microwave a hot-pocket so hot that He cannot eat it, because an omnipotent being can eat any hot-pocket no matter how hot and move any rock no matter how big, the apparent problem not being that God can’t build really big rocks but that it’s not possible for such a big rock to exist.

This question, though used by philosophers, is actually poorly worded and indirect.  A more direct question would be to ask, “Is God capable of being incapable?”  If He is truly omnipotent then the obvious answer is “no”.  By definition, an omnipotent being can’t be non-omnipotent. 

In reality the word “omnipotent” is never even used in the Bible.  In fact, some theologians argue that God purposefully chooses not to be omnipotent.  The issue here isn’t really whether or not an omnipotent being exists, the issue is who do you trust?  I, like atheists, tend to put a lot of trust in my own logic and reasoning skills.  When I learn something about God that I can’t reason out with my own logic, I tend to disregard it altogether which ends up leading to a lot of doubts.  I can’t just accept what God says to be true, I have to check it thoroughly and approve it with my own logic first because I trust myself more than I trust God.  It seems really silly when I think about it though.  Who would you rather trust, the God of the whole universe who created everything, understands everything, and controls everything; the God who knows you better than you know yourself, or your own tiny limited knowledge and understanding?  Do you really want to rely only on your own reasoning skills?  You will end up basing life-altering beliefs on silly philosophy questions about hot-pockets. 

Over time I’ve found that I can justify just about anything.  You can use logic to prove a point right or to prove it wrong.  Any argument you come up with to defend any of your deepest help beliefs someone else has already thought of and formed a counter argument that makes much more sense.  You are not the smartest person who has ever lived.  I am not the smartest person who has ever lived.  We are not God.  Obviously.  I’m ok with that though, I don’t need to be right about everything and I don’t need to have the answers because God is right about everything and He does have all the answers and I can trust Him.  So whenever an apparent discrepancy arises between what appears to you to be true and what God says to be true, put your trust in God.

Now, just in case anyone points out the contradiction of my use of logic to point out that logic is overrated, let me say that’s not really the point. I am not claiming that logic is bad, or that truth is relative or unattainable, I am only saying that it is possible to put too much trust in our own logic and understanding. Obviously using your logic is a good thing and I even believe God trusts us to make our own decisions with the brains He gave us without running to Him every time we need to choose between Wendy’s and Subway. However, if there is ever even an appearance of a contradiction with God we have to be humble enough to admit we don’t understand everything and just trust that God knows what He is talking about. Now, go ask your friend the hot-pocket question and you will seem really smart when his face starts to contort from the acrobatics his brain is doing.