I have a friend who has a useless gift. Rather, it could be useful at times, but just not always. If the Osmonds would put it into song it’d be titled: “She’s a little bit psychic and I’m a little bit rock n’ roll”.
So I’m hanging out with my friend when all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, my friend shouts out: “Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!” in unison to a car that begins to beep the horn. The minute the horn stopped, so did my friend. We looked at each other and laughed our butts off.
It got me to thinking…why did the Lord give gifts that are useless? I’m not saying all gifts are…just some. What is the purpose of having psychic power if you can’t steadily predict a future catastrophic event or win the lottery? Why can’t Carrie use her telekinetic power to say, export her mother to a mental institution instead of imploding her house? What good is seeing the dead if they can’t show you where grandpa buried money long-ago or where grandma’s long-lost heirlooms lie? Most of the messages that the dead give are so mundane: they are in a better place, grudges don’t matter, everyone loves each other equally on the other side. Can’t there be something more interesting that the dead can share like the secrets behind the pyramids of Egypt or a recipe to cure cancer? Seriously.
And what’s with the Discovery and History channels being so obsessed lately with airing UFO documentaries and Ancient Mysteries? Does it benefit us in any way to know that some scroll was discovered that may or may not be authentic and that a handful of people reported strange lights hovering in the sky above their homes? What does all of this really mean? Will it affect my day-to-day life at all? Does it serve as only a means to entertain or as a clever diversion from real topics? I think to some extent, it may. I haven’t seen any Live from Baghdad reports recently that get as much press as some of these Alien Abduction series do. Does anybody really care about Iraq anymore? I mean anyone other than the families of the soldiers that are over there, serving out their time as if they were in prison! Most Americans are upset that we’re even still in this thing with no end in sight. We’re all hoping against hope that the next President will be the one to help plan our safe removal of troops even though it may seem extremely dangerous to do so.
I wish there were some wonderful Gift of Peace that could end all of the suffering of the world. It’s gotta be ten-times more necessary than hearing static and checking EVP readings for anomolous spikes in temperature. So the next time you’re praying to the Almighty or whatever higher power, can you just let He / She / It know that this would be much more useful? Also, put in a good word for second-runner-up: Stopwatch for Time so I can get an extra couple hours sleep. We could all use that, don’t ya think??
