Choose your diversion

My family and I took a realignment cruise from LA to Vancouver last year. We had high expectations of a fun, relaxing and er...well, cheap 3 day sail. We boarded our vessel shortly after the Swine flu hysteria had begun. And one of my least favourite memories of this trip was standing on the deck waiting for and then having a safety briefing. At the end of it I actually felt less safe, I felt if there was a real emergency that we would all drown before we could get organized and into our lifeboats. I did learn a valuable lesson though. I learned how to make a group of kindly-looking senior citzens turn militant.

It's actually pretty simple, here's what you do:

1. Have all 2,000 passengers try to board the ship at exactly the same time so they have to wait in line for hours. Ensure there are only a few seats in the waiting area. This is actually better than no seats because invariably some 30 something couples and their annoying children will be the first to grab these seats. This will be like the first breath over the dark coals of rage.

2. As they board the vessel spritz each person's hands with a bleach solution. This will actually accomplish two things; It will frustrate them that the whole delay appears to be due to a mix of poor organization and your ineffectual "enhanced" hygiene. It will also irritate their sensative skin. If you're lucky they will rub their eyes.

3. If they don't smoke make sure their room smells like a wet ash tray.

4. Force them to take part in a mandatory safety briefing on an outside deck. Make sure it's difficult to find and get to their muster station. Don't start the briefing until every single person has arrived. Make sure there is nowhere to sit down comfortably.

5. The captain can do part of the briefing using the intercom but large parts should be spoken by the individual cruise attendant and this part is important... he or she should not have a microphone.

6. When it comes to the attendant's directions, there are two schools of thought. One is to have the attendant speak quietly the whole time. The other, which I prefer, is to have the attendant alternate speaking loudly with long sequences of intelligble speech interspersed. This can prove particularly effective if you start with the quiet part and then in a loud and clear voice end with "... and if you don't do it precisely this way you will die"

7. At some point you will reach the tipping point. Previously friendly and optimistic elderly ladies and gentlemen will begin to yell, "We can't HEAR YOU!". You must ignore their cries until their malevolent discontent turns to jeers. When that happens you're done. Quickly dismiss everyone.

This experience will prove so uncomfortable and frustrating that for the rest of the trip your poor service and hidden costs will seem insignificant in the stark light of this first experience.

Of course I didn't actually enjoy seeing the elderly people suffer like this. At the time if there was anything I could do (other than giving up our seats in the waiting room) I would've done it in a heartbeat. Ok, I'm kidding about the seats too. I respect my elders but I see it as a picture of how I sometimes view my Christian life.

Sometimes I feel like I'm somehow entitled to a certain life. The world constantly tells us that life is all about getting an education, becoming sucessful, getting married (or not), having children (or not), entertaining ourselves, retiring early. It's almost as if we're on a cruise where we get to choose our diversions and if the ship breaks out with Norwalk or the steak is overcooked I want my money back. I'm like the little sunburnt kid stamping my feet on the deck. I'm hungry and bored and someone put too much chlorine in the pool.

So many people are itching to hear from "prophets" who preach prosperity. "God wants you to have that (promotion/success/new car/etc.)" They quote proofs from the Old Testament while ignoring the experience of the early church in the New.

Now I'm not saying everyone is like that, I see people working hard at their faith, helping their brothers and sisters. And I'm not saying its wrong to enjoy life but to pray for God's will to be done as Jesus taught us. I think the idolatry of hedonism has crept into the church.

I've been reading 1 John this week and it's a powerful message of how children of God ought to live, here's a sample.

This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. - 1 John 1:5

He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. - 1 John 2:10-11

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. - 1 John 2:15

But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. - 1 John 3:17-18

Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. - 1 John 5:14-15

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. - 1 John 5:21