OT -- 2nds Kings 13:1-14:29 and NT -- Acts 18:23-19:12
kings vs.20 "Now Elisha died and was buried. Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring. Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man's body into Elisha's tomb. When the body touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life and stood up to his feet."
Acts 19:11 "God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them."
This is such a bummer. We have no Elisha's bones and we have no aprons touched by Paul. Just sick, dying and death folks.
Today, I worked a farmer's market in Dunwoody and after I had set up my tent and all the cheese stuff, one of the farmers walked over to test my new Chipotle aged goat cheese.
He wanted to know about the cows that produce our milk and whether or not they are organic. They are not because it costs about $10,000 to get certified. They do everything that a certified farm does -- no growth hormones, grass fed, pasture raised, etc. Then he wanted to know about the grain feed. The cows get a small amt of grain when they are being milked. It's small. But it keeps them quiet, it keeps them waiting at the shed to be milked at milking time.
What's in the grain the farmer wanted to know and then he proceeded to regale me with all the GMO (genetically modified organisms)grains and what they do and how they make people sick especially with cancers.
I have no answer for that. I have no answer for the conspiracy theories floating around about the genetic modification of wheat causing the huge outbreak of gluten intolerance. Or the virus that supposedly infects peanuts to render them unusable as a food and perfect to take over the world as a bio-fuel.
Are people sicker than they were 100, 500, 1000 years ago? Or do we just live long enough to where the icky stuff catches up with us and our bodies can't deal with it any longer?
In a recent article on Alzheimer's, there was an autopsy performed on an 80 year old nun who was suspected of having the disease but because of her rituals, routines and her vow of silence, was unable to be assessed. When they did the autopsy, it was discovered that she not only had Alzheimer's, but also several kinds of cancers, all of which were yet to be symptomatic.
Live longer, be sicker?
Maybe we should be like Maude of Harold and Maude and decide on an end date, (but 70 is too young...), have an enormous party and then THE END?
Or does sick teach us things that we wouldn't learn any other way? Or lead us down paths that we CERTAINLY would not have gone otherwise?
What does it say about us that we want a Paul-touched apron?
Since I have the problem with wheat and the son with a problem with peanuts and the threat of cancer has been my fear since losing my brother to it when I was 5, I sure wish I had the answers. What I am sure of is that people make really poor decisions in order to make a buck and that the answer probably lies there. What I pray for is that if not in my lifetime, in my children's lifetime, people will think of cancer like we think of polio. There is a cure and what caused the health problems we face will be evident. My fear is that cancer is too big a cash cow to cure. Just like in Kings we continue to do what is evil in God's sight and He continues to be gracious and merciful.
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