The scale of our excitements

It was many years ago -- well, about a half century ago. I was only a few years old and living in Taiwan, my native country.

My sister and I would wait eargerly all day for a 15-minute radio program. It was a story told in installments; I've long forgotten what it was about.

But I remember the anticipation. When the time came, we'd sit on the tatami floor, tune the radio as best we can to reduce the static, and listen intently.

It was the high point of our day.

In 1950s rural Taiwan, rice paddies were just down the unpaved road from our house. Chickens clucked around outside. Inside, if you wanted a bath, you went to the kitchen and got out a metal tub, and filled it with buckets of water ...

Going to school was when Lao Shan picked us up in a rickshaw and pulled us, like a mule, to the school in town. There'd be several of us kids sitting in that thing, and he'd be huffing and puffing uphill. How I wish I could pull with Lao Shan now to relieve him!

Nowadays the remote control for my color TV hasn't worked for weeks and I can't be bothered to go out and buy another one.

Between the two of us, Valerie and I have three laptops within 20 feet of each other, all streaming news, games, email. No doubt I can get a few stories too at the click of a mouse.

Even books -- books that a young kid named Abe Lincoln living in the woods of Illinois would walk miles to borrow, read, and return -- books are everywhere in our house. You name it we've got it. Or we'll just order it on line from Amazon.

I'm reading a dozen books at once these days, and each night I can't make up my mind which one to read for five minutes to fall asleep by.

Up in my attic sit two radios (that I know of), collecting dust because they don't fit with our current decor.

Increasing secularism may or may not be a threat to Christian faith. But abundance surely is.

Abundance that reduces the scale of our excitements.

When angels get more excited than we do, something's awry.

Logos2Go

1 Peter 1.10-13 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.