Global Warming

Well I swear, if we get any more of this global warming here in Oregon, we're all going to freeze to death. Or did I miss a month? Has my mentation gotten that bad? I was thinking it was March, but here it is snowing like January outside.

This sort of event, more evocative of global freezing, seems a stroke of particularly bad luck for Al Gore's theory of melting ice caps, parched dust bowls, the earth turning upside down, and such-like. Frankly, I'm so tired of snow and sleet, bone chilling winds and frigid nights, that I say bring it on, Al, and get a move on! Even though we might end up extinct, at least we'd be warm along the way.

What's better--a short life in the tropics, or a long life in an igloo?

It so happens in life that we often appreciate the face of the moment and miss the aspect of the eon. Catastrophe wears the mask of illusion right up to the moment of revelation. Poor Al finds himself in the place of Noah, a modern day visionary turned laughingstock by the overwhelming illusion of the moment.

For when they say, "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman.

In this same manner, I sometimes decide that I do not have multiple sclerosis at all. For I feel just fine, you see--especially since going off Avonex, the treatment having been worse than the disease. I mean, sure, something happened a couple of times over the last couple of years. The evidence resides in my legs, in my stumbling gait, in a permanent confusion of thought and a stubborn companionship of baseline fatigue. But maybe that's it, that's all she wrote. Why go back on medication, why bear the burden of those excessive costs, why presume the worst case scenario for the future rather than the best?

And yet the apostle Paul, as quoted above, spoke of the persuasiveness of illusion in the face of the inevitable reality. Shall I believe in what seems most convenient. Is the man of faith wise, or merely callow?

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