Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

• Romans 12:3-8

“Let us imagine a body full of thinking members.”

• Blaise Pascal, Thoughts (thought number 473)

Blaise Pascal, in his book, Thoughts (Pensées), is not saying that strength is not needed.  He is not saying that the body should be nothing but a large brain, but we all should think.

The words at the top of the home page for this site start with “Thoughts from.”  I submit to you my thoughts.  If my thoughts are not about the bedrock foundation of Christianity, you can take them or leave them behind.  My goal in many cases is to get people to think.

Sadly, people who are not accustomed to thinking will probably get past one paragraph and then close the post and never return.

“I fancy that most people who think at all have done a great deal of their thinking in the first fourteen years.”

• C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy

C.S. Lewis was speaking of his time.  The age may be lower now.  The quoted book was published in 1955.  I know an eleven-year-old that decided he had already learned all he needed to know a couple of years ago.  He can eat.  Mom and Dad provide a roof over his head.  Within those first nine years, he learned how to artfully dodge chores.  And he can play video games without the need of thinking.  It is all instinctive reaction.

Instinctive reactions are good in their own way. In industrial training, procedures and protocols are used and trained so that the proper reaction is made during abnormal circumstances. That concept of reacting before thinking it through is vital if safety to personnel is involved, but that emergency might have been avoided if someone thought it through and determined a safe course before the alarm went off.

The more modern conveniences that we get: cars that drive themselves, cars that have collision alarms, smart thermostats, virtual assistants like Siri that remind us, give us advice, suggest where to go to dinner, etc.  These things are good.  Okay, maybe when invented, there were good intentions.  But each in their turn cause us to rely on technology rather than thinking.

I remember the days when you had to get up and walk to the television to change the channel and adjust the volume.  Does anyone remember the vertical and horizontal hold adjustments?  My parents had remote control.  I did not.  My parents would tell me to get up and change the channel or fix the vertical hold, since the little rectangles rolling up the screen were making them seasick. Oh, and while you were up, they’d ask you to fix popcorn – meaning put popcorn kernels into a large pot with a little oil. Turn on the stove eye. Put a lid on the pot and once they start popping, shake the pot back and forth. No wonder we were in better physical shape in those days.

Now, I have one television remote that turns the television on and adjusts the volume.  But I have another television remote that refuses to adjust the volume, turns the fan on instead of the television, but it is great at selecting the proper television channel, something that the other remote cannot do.  Ahhh!  Technology at its best!

I did a variety of searches on the dangers of not thinking, and all I got in reply were quotes about overthinking, the dangers of thinking at all, nothing about the need to think.  Was I overthinking when I thought that an Artificial Intelligence search engine would know quotes regarding the importance of thinking or is AI trying to convince me that AI can do the thinking for me and I can become a vegetable?

With that thought in mind, since technology wants us to become vegetables, what vegetable would you hate to become?  If you are not yet a vegetable, use your thoughts to envisage being that vegetable, the one that you would never touch if your life depended upon it.  Mine is squash.  My son’s would be butter beans.  We are both allergic to certain vegetables, but that does not count.

Now that your stomach is churning, read a book.  Learn something new before it is too late.

Since I could not find a quote…  Keep learning, for when learning stops, vegetation begins.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.