Walking the corridors of the Cleveland Clinic, you see many interesting sights.
This is amazing because generally speaking, hospitals, nursing homes, doctor's offices and health care facilities don't usually breed an overall sense of hope.
Generally, they are fairly depressing and the longer you are in one, the more depressing they become for everyone.
One of the things that still amazes me about the Clinic is that there is a McDonald's built right in the cafeteria.
The one restaurant franchise, in my opinion, which has caused more health problems than any other is located in one of the greatest healing centers in the world.
I also find it interesting that there are chapels for various religions located right next to each other on the same floor.
In the minds of many, everybody is headed to the same place in the end, so this is normal.
To me, its very abnormal because somebody has to be right; which means the others are wrong.
What is more amazing to me is the fact that the vast majority of people simply don't care.
Millions upon millions of people worldwide don't really have much concern about spirituality; their concern is about themselves and what affects them from day to day.
The vast majority of people do not worship in a church, temple, synagogue or mosque anyway; they worship in the mirror, or in a bar, or in a sports facility.
Though a person would look at you as if you are from another planet if you asked them what idol to which they paid homage, the truth is most people are idolaters.
The difference between Biblical times and now is the fact we are far too sophisticated to worship a piece of wood or a stone.
C.S. Lewis called idolatry the 'Sweet poison of the false infinite.'
And he was absolutely right.
Humans allow substitutes for the sacred; yet the vacuum in our hearts remain and we try to fill it with something, anything - it is a false infinite.
It can be anything, anything in the place of God, that is.
For example, in 1961 Nikita Khrushchev proclaimed communism as sacred.
He had in fact dethroned God and put man in His place.
When this thought spread throughout the old Iron Curtain of Eastern Europe, it didn't elevate man nor society; it led to levels of death and cruelty among those nations that are nearly unspeakable and certainly unexplainable.
I wonder how many suicides and manic depressants came to light after the fall of the Soviet Union; for their god was dead.
But in the United States, the government is not the god of most; nor is the military like the old Prussian and Germanic States. It certainly isn't a party like the Communists and it isn't an earthly king.
The great god of most Americans is Sex.
Sex is extremely blatant today; raised to a Divine Status with the glorification of self the chief method of daily devotion.
It touches everything in society; it sells everything, even children's animated television shows.
Sports Illustrated calls its models of the swimsuit issue, "goddesses," while Victoria Secret calls its models 'Angels.'And men and women alike spend billions of dollars each year on themselves, trying to make themselves more attractive.
In the old days, we would have called it decorating an idol.
Previous generations honored virginity and monogamy in marriage; today, this seems to be a practice of a by-gone era.
Sex is now presented as the highest good; as a result, it doesn't bind marriages together any more but with the glorification of self and seeking the highest pleasure in our selfishness, sex quickly becomes the method by which many marriages end.
Shouldn't something that we have given such a high power to in our lives have a longer lasting effect when it is prevalent among those whom we love?
Not so long ago, in our circle of friends and acquaintances, my wife and I watched marriages begin to fall one at a time.
Amazingly, the scenario that was playing out in each of those couples lives were remarkably the same; it did not matter if the couple was military, church, or just people we knew from our children's school - all of them had two things in common: they were all within the same age group, and it was the women, not the men, who had 'stepped out' with another person and committed adultery against their husbands.
The great god of Sex had claimed sacrifice after sacrifice as marriage after marriage fell.
Well, what was the reason?
It was actually quite simple and none of them had anything to do with any type of abuse or 'payback' or anything of that nature.
What had happen and continues to happen is a physiological fact.
Each of the women had hit their mid-30's and physiologically came alive; their husbands had already been through this a few years before, but when their wives went through this process, they actually did not know what to do with themselves.
Some of them began to lose massive amounts of weight, some began to hit the gym more and become involved in yoga; others began widening their circle of friends.
Various things happened in their lives, but when it came right down to it - they all wanted to fill the vacuum in their heart with somebody who made them feel young and beautiful.
And without the foundation of Christian morality and practice being taught when they were younger in their homes, when the time came and their faith was greatly tested, they failed.
So, the god of Sex claimed them and the marriages were destroyed.
But let me say this before I continue, some of the men immediately ended the relationship; but most of them tried to restore their marriage and were willing to do whatever it took to make it happen.
Sometimes they succeeded; sometimes they didn't.
And there were a precious few, who persevered in their commitment and made it.
A man who was in the middle of this type of situation once asked me, 'What is it with all these women having affairs? Do they hit 40 and just go nuts?'
The short answer is 'no.'How this happens is that we choose something that is good and then grant it a status and a power it was were never meant to have.
Whether it is Sex or drugs or whatever - we use to call it idolatry; today we call it an 'addiction.'
If we'd quit calling sin something that sounds acceptable - that would be a good start to solving the problem.
Westerners are not alone in this.
I recently read that in Melanesia (Pacific islands northeast of Australia) that there is a "Cargo Cult" who pray for airplanes to soar through the skies, descending on them and dropping containers of Spam as they did in World War II.
As a side note, I have to wonder how bad your life has to be that you would seek to worship that which brings Spam to your life.
But I digress.
All idols, whether they are stone images of the first century, Spam in the 1940's or Sex in the 21st Century, all of them reveal so much about the person and society who worships at its altar.
Along with Sex, there are millions who also worship at the altar of Sports.
Why else would ESPN be so dominant in cable ratings while at the same time being chased by every major network for viewers in the same venue?
In fact, the second time Michael Jordan retired, he earned more from endorsements than twice of what all the U.S. Presidents combined had earned.
That simply tells me that our society is totally out of balance.
But do you know what is interesting about ourselves?
You and I can determine anything, but we cannot abstain from worshiping something.
Humans have never stopped seeking a god of some type; every society of every era and culture has worshiped at an altar of some type.
We cannot stop ourselves - even if that altar is a mirror in which we sing, 'How Great Thou Art' every morning when we awake.
We can't stop worshiping; instead, what we tend to do is swallow the poison of a false infinite.
We will substitute a lesser god.
The apostle Paul described it as forsaking the Creator while at the same time worshiping the creation.
While God is always near us, many - even Christians - will look for God in all the wrong places and in all the wrong things.
In doing so, we run the risk in temptation of giving them a higher status and power than what they are to have in our lives.
We must seek God and abstain from the false alternatives.
Yet, God is best seen like we would see the sun during a solar eclipse.
The best way to see it is not by staring straight at the sun; instead is is seen through something on which the sun is projected.
Christians ought to be that one thing on which the Son is projected; therefore, others will be able to better see God of the Ages among this age of the gods.
Earth and our longings are little but advanced echoes of another world.
What we experience here is good; don't make it a god in your life because in the next world there is something infinitely better.
Until next time, win one for the good guys.
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