Right to Live and Die

"He who is pregnant with evil and conceives trouble gives birth to disillusionment." Psalm 7:14

"When history looks back, it will prove what I'll die knowing. " Jack Kevorkian

Mouth a raging fire from Mamoun's $2.50 Falafel sandwich as I watch New York's finest pull on my block and take the slow walk up a brownstone's steps. Guns thankfully still holstered...

Today is a day when I think just how important time is and exactly how much of it I conceivably could be wasting chasing these neon lights.

Casted as a mid-Western trial lawyer in a Sears suit for a movie about Jack Kevorkian played by the legendary Al Pacino.

Hoping I was on the defense, I arrived in minimal makeup, wool jacket and gloves (think Detroit winter) and headed to set (Brooklyn courthouse) donning a smart briefcase and ready to act. The Assistant Director had other plans for me.

I stood. I leaned. I reclined. I ate. But mostly I sat on a court bench for hours discussing my adamant belief in the Lord to a wildly intelligent, culturally sound, South African born oil painter atheist.

Amidst a heated debate about empirical evidence and if God would only stop child hunger and mass genocide... he pulled out a folded piece of paper from his wallet and read me the following....

The Epicurean Riddle

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

This silly willy argument only proves to me that we have a just God who keeps his promises to His children. He is not the puppeteer and we His puppets. The sheer evil that runs loose in our world is because God granted us free will and we are the ones that choose between good and sin. His will is for us to seek him first in praise and love. To put him before all others. Why would he reward all of us for being continuing disobedient to His word? If our powerful God stepped in to relieve us and abolished evil with one fell swoop than it would be the end of mankind as we know it. He is omnipotent, he knows our mind's thoughts and heart's desires. These please and pain him. When God created us in his image he created us righteous and holy with the tendency to do right. He's willing and able. But turns out we are too! We just choose another path.

We looked up, mouth's parched from attempting to prove our points. And just like that we were wrapped. Didn't work. Didn't feast eyes on Scarface. But we evangelized and antagonized, challenging our choices all the while.

And for the record, I do not with any fiber of my being believe Doctor Jack Kevorkian committed criminal evil.

Who should save us from our own misery?