August 9, 2003

The most dominant form of pastoral contact in my congregation is e-mail. I love it. And I hate it. I love it more than hate it, but the contest is not over. In fact, it has just begun.

Dear Derek: It’s awfully quiet around the house now that you’re gone. In fact, hardly a day goes by that Mom and I don’t remark on it. I suppose we’ll gradually get more accustomed to it, of course, but I’m not sure we’ll ever really like it.

Living in Alabama, I encounter a lot of intuitive spelling. I am no spelling snob. In fact, a roadside sign for “Bowled Peanuts” can brighten my whole day, as can a hand-painted billboard exhorting me to “Give Your Loved One A Missage For Christmas.” Never, though, have I taken so much pleasure from a spelling exception as the sign at a local health food store. “WE NOW HAVE ST. JOHN’S WART” proclaimed the movable-type sign out front. I imagined dusty all-terrain vehicles screeching up to the curb, relic collectors jostling to be the first through the door.

In the biblical story, God tests his faithful servant Job to see whether Job will stay devoted to God even if God takes everything away from him. Now you don’t lose your family, health and possessions, as Job did, without falling into a terrible funk. It’s possible, then, to understand Job’s story as being about remaining true to God through a devastating depression. Suppose that Job had had a prescription for Prozac to help lessen his pain. Would it have been cheating to take a couple of tablets a day while God was tossing all manner of pestilence at him?

What if science could demonstrate that original sin is something we inherit from our families either through the genes or our upbringing or both? And if science could show us how we inherit a predisposition toward sin, might science also show us how to heal the soul and harvest fruits of the Spirit? For instance, could the laboratory produce a drug that would do the work of the Holy Spirit?

Some movies like to stick their toe in the stream of allegory. Northfork jumps right in. Set in 1955, this film by brothers Michael and Mark Polish (Twin Falls, Idaho, and Jackpot) is about a small Montana town about to be flooded to make way for a hydroelectric plant. (Northfork is a fictitious burg, but in that era many towns were eliminated just this way.) As the story begins, Northfork is already deserted save for a few stragglers.