Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.

• Genesis 40:23

Hezekiah rested with his ancestors and was buried on the hill where the tombs of David’s descendants are. All Judah and the people of Jerusalem honored him when he died. And Manasseh his son succeeded him as king.

• 2 Chronicles 32:33

“After Jacob entered Egypt, they cried to the Lord for help, and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your ancestors out of Egypt and settled them in this place.
“But they forgot the Lord their God; so he sold them into the hand of Sisera, the commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hands of the Philistines and the king of Moab, who fought against them. They cried out to the Lord and said, ‘We have sinned; we have forsaken the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtoreths. But now deliver us from the hands of our enemies, and we will serve you.’ Then the Lord sent Jerub-Baal, Barak, Jephthah and Samuel, and he delivered you from the hands of your enemies all around you, so that you lived in safety.

• 1 Samuel 12:8-11

Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. They quickly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s commands. Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the Lord relented because of their groaning under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their ancestors, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.

• Judges 2:16-19

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.  Since she was a doll that had come to life, we came up with the term ‘other living.’  She was not a human, an animal, or even a plant, but she was definitely living, and very vibrant.  Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs.  After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.

This Week’s Question

In the last episode, Babs got frustrated with the political discussion at a party I took her to.  She came to the conclusion that “None of the above” would win the election.  But what she really learned is that only God can be trusted.

But this week, she got even more frustrated in the breakfast area while I made a sales call.

I had another great sales call, no big ten-million-dollar order, but the overall average this year was near last year’s total, and that was with the four ten-million-dollar orders that Babs had promised.  I thought a nice dinner at an out-of-the-way place on Lake Huron was in order.  We could have fresh-caught fish.

Babs started the conversation after we ordered.  “Harold, why do people lose their attention so rapidly?”

I smiled as I replied, “I’m sorry, could you repeat that.  I was distracted.”

Babs looked like she was going to throw the peppermill in my general direction.  “See!  You could not care enough to pay attention to a conversation starter!  Harold, at times, I wonder why I put up with you.  You are a nice travel buddy, but at least listen to a simple question.”

I asked, “Are you done?  I was joking, Babs.  But I was also illustrating how quickly the human attention span can change.”

Babs huffed, “I already know that!  That is why I asked the question.  This morning, I asked the breakfast lady for some butter.  She returned from the back with bananas.  So, I asked again for butter, and she came back with veggie omelets.  And the warmer was nearly full of them already.  Each time she said that she got distracted.  Then there were these children watching a news program.  Their parents told them four or five times to throw their trash away because they had to leave on the next leg of their trip.  They finally got the breakfast lady to change the channel and then the kids snapped out of it and did what their parents suggested.”

I interrupted, “You just showed the opposite.  The children were simply ignoring their parents to watch television instead.  They had a great attention span, just for the wrong stuff.”

Babs growled, “Harold, you know what I mean.  I keep hearing that all these electronic devices are making the attention span shorter.  Do we need to constantly be texting?”

I smiled, “No, Babs, and if we are driving at the time, it can be very dangerous.  Do not text while driving, no matter how good of a driver you think you are.  And life went on before we had cellphones.  We might actually do more face-to-face communication, like we are doing right now.  But it is not electronic devices that are shortening the attention span as much as it is our sin nature.  Electronic devices are the method of the moment.  There were other methods in the past.  If you went to sleep hearing the crickets sing, a frog croaking could send your sleep patterns into a tailspin.  We like what we like.  We ignore the rest, even when part of that ‘rest’ is our parents talking to us, or we are supposed to be working, or we are driving down the road when our phone chimes that we have a new text.  We satisfy ourselves with whatever we enjoy doing at that moment, even if it is dangerous.”

Babs asked, “Did the ancient Israelites have bad attention spans?  Who was the first person to say, ‘I forgot.’ In the Bible?”

I shrugged, “It probably is not recorded, but I think Adam and Eve forgot one thing or another.  But the first person in the Bible to “forget”, at least the first time ‘forgot’ is mentioned is Pharoah’s cupbearer.  Joseph interpreted his dream.  He was restored to his position three days later, but he forgot to mention that Joseph was a good interpreter of dreams.  Then, when Pharoah had his dream and no one could interpret it, the cupbearer suddenly remembered.  Yes, the Holy Spirit could have reminded him at the moment, but the cupbearer had brownie points that he could make with Pharoah, and the memory returned.  See, a short attention span in ancient Egypt.  In less than three days, he forgot.  The cupbearer’s inner question was, ‘What is it worth to me?’  If the value is low, umm, wait!  What was I saying?”

Babs giggled, “You better be joking, or I am going to sock you.  You’ll have to wait until we get back to the hotel.  I don’t have a spare sock.”

I looked very serious.  “I was joking, but if I were not and you were human, you would probably forget about this conversation by the time we got back to the hotel.  And if you think you need a sock to ‘sock’ me, we’ll have to have another discussion when we get back to the hotel.  Besides, I do not think your socking me will hurt that bad.”

I suddenly felt a sharp kick from across the table against my shin.  “Ow!  That hurt, Babs!”

Babs smiled, “Oops!  I was just joking, so I socked you.  Only problem was my sock was inside my shoe at the time.”

I reached down to rub my shin.  I stared at her, and she stared at me.  We squinted our eyes and looked as tough as we could.  Then in a deadpan voice she said, “You know I always win these staring contests.  Just give up, Harold.”

I blinked a few times.  “I was just trying to illustrate that my attention span is not as good as yours, and our sin nature is to blame.  At least I think so.  When we are in heaven with Jesus, if we get to sit and stare into the eyes of Jesus for a thousand years, although time is done differently there, we will not notice that it was that long.  We’ll have an infinite time to do all that stuff anyway.  But here, our time is limited.”

Babs groaned, “But what about ancient Israel?  You did not answer that question yet.”

I asked, “Who was a good king that had the first national Passover after the reign of Solomon?”

Babs said, “That was Hezekiah.”

I asked, “And who followed him as king and what did he do in the valley of Ben Hinnom?”

Babs replied, “Please, Harold, you are going to make me cry.  Manasseh sacrificed some of his own children and did other despicable things there.”

I nodded, “And Manasseh grew up in a country that obeyed God’s Laws and the times were very good as long as he did so, but he did not.  One generation.  Good parents can have rotten kids, but praise the Lord, bad parents can have good kids if the Holy Spirit reaches them and they come to the Lord.  What did Samuel say in his farewell speech that caused the people to turn from God?”

Babs asked, “Can we do the 1, 2, 3 thing?”

I sighed, “Okay, you are tired.  You had a rough day people watching.  He said the people forgot, repeatedly.  Samuel rattled off several of the judges, but his list was not exhaustive.  And each generation seemed to try to outdo their ancestors in how bad they got.  With that last part, I kind of jumped back to Judges 2.  Humans have great potential, but then we see something shiny, and oh, the waiter is coming with our food…”

Babs scrunched her nose.  “Is that you joking with me again?”

I cleared my throat, “No, Babs, the waiter is right behind you, and he has our food!”

Babs smiled, “Goodie!  Let’s eat, but you can’t count this as a Bible study.  You owe me another one when we get back to the hotel.”

I shook my head and laughed.  But then, again, if she were not ‘other living’ she would forget before we got back to the hotel.

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

I wrote a post several years ago about turning off the television.  Our granddaughter had been asked a question and she supposedly was ignoring her parents, but without the distraction, she gave a very detailed answer to the question without being asked again.  For her, the television show was more important.

My wife and I have both had periods of short attention span.  I guess we all do.  Hers was near the end of her life and health related.  Clear-minded days were rare, but they were wonderful days when they happened.  We rejoiced when we had them.

I had a six-year period when I went from reading one hundred books each year to being unable to read one page and remembering what the gist of the story was.  My writing of textbooks for customers around the world had so much of my attention span, that I had a meltdown for a while, not ever having a problem with the stuff at work.

When it becomes a health issue, it is a very hard thing for that person and for the caregiver.  I had to learn to answer with a straight voice, not showing frustration.  My wife looked for those cues and then became anxious because she knew she had forgotten something again.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.