Sunday 27 March 2005
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Pic of the day: A resurrection in City of Heroes. Even there, where rezzes are fairly widely available, the preferred course of action is to stay alive. This seems the prudent approach, if you ask me. (Unless there are really, really compelling reasons, I suppose, like saving people you love. Not that I have tried that.) Life as I know itEven though I had five days off from work, my clock radio was still on. This is because I appreciate being woken up in the morning, in case I sleep in, so I can clear my throat. It is usually full of goo after a few hours, and breathing improves after I clear it. Then I can decide whether or not to go back to sleep. This is why I was woken up in the morning by my favorite Easter morning hymn. In Norwegian it's called "Deg være ære" which would in English be "Thine be the glory", although I have no idea whether it exists in England. These things can be surprisingly local, I've found. Anyway, it is beautiful and, well, powerful. For a Christian, it is a very good way indeed to wake up. Even if it was not from the dead. I wouldn't mind if they played it in my resurrection as well, actually. But while immortality by resurrection would be nice, I even more prefer not dying. In the long run, not dying is probably not feasible. I resent this. I do not however despair myself into thinking that science will make us immortal or even give us a nifty 5000 years lifespan, as proposed by Aubrey de Grey. Although I fully and unconditionally agree to his motives: "At root, the reason I'm not in favor of aging is because I like life as I know it." ***Yes, life is good. Even though I currently don't eat, which I also used to enjoy (but I do drink some juice and even some yogurt so it's not all bad). Strange that after just two weeks, I barely even think about it anymore. I'm like "of course I don't eat, eating makes me sick" so I don't really dwell upon it in my mind. I will probably do if I can only drink water and start to really really starve. It's safe to say that I'm not there yet, although I keep losing volume at a measured pace. The trousers that are now starting to feel kinda loose (but still stay up) are ones I did not quite fit into a month ago. This is hardly any loss and would bother me none at all if I knew what's wrong with me. I should probably find out, but since Good Friday I have not had one single attack of the deep scary nausea with shaking and spasms. Perhaps this signifies that the body is healing from whatever first caused the illness. It could be a virus, for instance - I've mentioned that when I saw the doctor about my supposed strep throat, he claimed it must be a virus. Also my liver and gall bladder are now secreting the usual stuff again (you don't really want to know how I know that), which they seemed not to do for the first days. So I intend to wait some days and see if I fully recover on my own. And anyway, tomorrow is still a holy day here in Norway. Which means there are certainly no doctors available for maladies that don't involve bleeding and/or high fever. I'd rather not have any of these even if it got me attention. As a Christian, I am supposed to be able to pray to God for healing. I do that, too. But I don't get upset and demand my money back if it doesn't happen immediately. Also, history shows us that most Christians die eventually. I have no reason to believe that they liked it any more than I do. For all us who never met the risen Lord in the flesh, as it were, resurrection is only a hope, not a certainty. Actually probably even for them, but it must surely have helped. I wish there were more resurrections these days. No seriously, wouldn't it be cool to gather for a resurrection for once instead of a funeral? We could dress up in our best clothes (which I finally fit into again, incidentally) and gather around singing happy Easter hymns. And there would be small ads in the paper saying "Our dearly beloved mother (etc) was hastily brought back by the Lord today." Now that would be cool. Actually I expect that when the time comes for resurrections, it will take some perfectly natural form, just like flying or walking on the moon or all the other things that were impossible when Jesus was young. Then again, who knows? Perhaps it will be like magic. But I think any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology. We'll just have to wait and see. And if I can live for 5000 years here first, I'll take that too, with gratitude. But I frankly don't think so. More's the pity, because I like life as I know it. |
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