{"id":2560,"date":"2023-04-25T09:11:51","date_gmt":"2023-04-25T13:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2560"},"modified":"2023-04-25T09:11:51","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T13:11:51","slug":"400-pm-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/25\/400-pm-today\/","title":{"rendered":"4:00 pm Today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.
\u00a0
Jerks definitely make the world a more interesting place.
\u00a0
Gary Larson likewise made the world far more interesting during the 15 years that his Far Side <\/em>cartoons ran in syndication in more than 1,900 newspapers.
\u00a0
Larson is now 72 years old and retired from the craft that made him globally famous.\u00a0 He put down his pen long before he had run out of off-kilter ideas, figuring it was best to quit while he was still at the top of his game.\u00a0 The good news for his multitudes of fans is that in 2020 he released some \u201cnew stuff\u201d on a Far Side<\/em>-dedicated website.\u00a0 Stay tuned.\u00a0 \u00a0
\u00a0
As a child Larson was often terrorized by his older brother Dan, who enjoyed hiding in his bedroom at night and springing on him without warning.\u00a0 That helps explain the number of Far Side <\/em>cartoons in which creepy monsters are hiding just around the corner.
\u00a0
Larson took so much joy in portraying assorted vermin that he is without doubt the only cartoonist for whom a beetle and a butterfly are named, as well as Strigiphilus garylarsoni<\/em>, a chewing louse found only on owls.\u00a0 \u201cI consider this an extreme honor,\u201d he said, acknowledging his namesake louse.
\u00a0
And then there are his theological cartoons.
\u00a0
Larson raises a great question:\u00a0 Is the world seasoned with jerks because that\u2019s how God decided to cook things up in his cosmic kitchen?\u00a0 Or is jerkiness a condition that we have brought upon ourselves?
\u00a0
Every philosophy and religion has to account for the fact that the world is a less-than-perfect place.\u00a0 Why do people cut us off in traffic, double dip their tortilla chips in the queso, act like know-it-alls while being perfectly ignorant, break their promises, and break our hearts?\u00a0
\u00a0
Why does every local news broadcast begin with accounts of conflict and chaos, and every national news program reinforce the reality of global suffering and terror?
\u00a0
It\u2019s called the problem of evil.\u00a0 Or the problem of pain.\u00a0 It is hands down the most vexing issue of human existence.\u00a0
\u00a0
The Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity don\u2019t point the finger at God for the presence of jerks.\u00a0 But how can we reconcile a supposedly all-powerful God tolerating so much human misbehavior?\u00a0
\u00a0
Despite literally millions of books, sermons, homilies, and doctoral theses over the centuries, it\u2019s genuinely hard to put our condition into perspective \u2013 to describe in just a few words how the world is simultaneously a place of beauty, brokenness, hope, and despair.
\u00a0
But Will Campbell came pretty close.
\u00a0
The civil rights activist and author was once cornered by his skeptical friend P.D. East, who challenged him to put the good news of Jesus into ten words or less.
\u00a0
Campbell did it in just eight:\u00a0We\u2019re all bastards, but God loves us anyways.<\/em>
\u00a0
Or to put it another way:\u00a0 If God were to solve the problem of pain by removing all the jerks at 4:00 pm today, not one of us would be here at 4:01.
\u00a0
Which calls us to grapple with another good question:
\u00a0
In light of God\u2019s mercy in allowing us to make it all the way to 4:02 pm today, what do you plan to do this week to help redeem and remake our broken world?

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here.\u00a0Jerks definitely make the world a more interesting place.\u00a0Gary Larson likewise made the world far more interesting during the 15 years that his Far Side cartoons ran in syndication in more than 1,900 newspapers.\u00a0Larson is now 72 years old and retired from the craft that made him globally famous.\u00a0 He put down… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2561,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[520,78,220],"class_list":["post-2560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-evil","tag-gods-love","tag-pain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2562,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2560\/revisions\/2562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}