Perspectives. We all have them. We all see life the way it should be, the right way, our way, right? Perhaps yours is making sure the dishwasher is loaded perrrrrfectly to maximize cleaning space and members of your family don’t share how important that can be. Or perhaps, a neighbor may feel that his barking dog is cute. You may not quite agree and secretly wish that the dog would develop laryngitis. For my mom…it was pesky squirrels.
My mom, the squirrel hunter
My mom was convinced that in her battle with the squirrels to keep them off the birdfeeder, she would prevail!
And the squirrels in their conniving, tenacity were obviously and equally of the mind that they too would prevail!
But it wasn’t until my mom hit upon her own ingenious, and as the squirrels must have later thought maniacal plan, that success was in the palm of her hand. Purchasing the best squirrel-proof bird feeder that money could buy, hanging it from a pole, she added the “pièce de résistance, ”—she greased the pole with Crisco! Sitting at her kitchen window, she would watch as the squirrels attempted their Kamikaze launch from the near-by tree, only to, time after time, slide down the feeder and pole, to the ground in utter defeat. From my mom’s perspective, victory! From the squirrels—devastating shame.
But isn’t that the way it is…and has been…and always will be? Now I may sound cynical, but isn’t that the way of history and from whose perspective it is written? What I mean is—for example, look at life with your spouse. You see things through your eyes. Your spouse may see things very differently.
On another level, candidates running for an election see life from very different and often strongly opposing views. Zooming further out, looking at our nation, different states often don’t agree on pivotal points. And then, worldwide, as we all know, that doesn’t need any explanation. Country is pitted against country with more often than not, abhorrent consequences of much bloodshed.
And so the swirl seems to continue. But even more so, is that history is often rewritten. When I was a little girl, I was taught that in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America. Not so anymore. What is taught now is that the Vikings, 500 years earlier discovered America. In 1987, a German tour guide told my friends on their honeymoon in Europe, that Hitler was a wonderful chancellor who invented the autobahn, and also the people’s car, the Volkswagen. No mention made of the atrocities committed against the Jewish people. And even on this minuscule point, what we know as the Vietnam War is known to the Vietnamese as the American War. What is somewhat shocking to my historical perspective is reality to theirs.
Everything seems to change. The slush that is time continues to muddy the waters of reality…except for one. Jesus, the Messiah, says that He is the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. As a child, I was taught that B.C. meant, “before the crucifixion of Jesus,” A.D., “in the year of our Lord.” Even if you argue that the Catholic Church reset time with the Greco-Roman calendar, and that B.C. means, “before the common era,” you can’t argue that the years counted backward to zero and then from the time of Jesus, began the count forward. This is something man couldn’t possibly orchestrate. The magnitude of that is astounding.
If you would like to discover more about Jesus, look into the Book of Hebrews. Read it in a translation, one that’s easy to digest, such as the New Living Translation.
With love,
Kimberly
