Reading yet another article about Michael Jackson, I noticed this:

Jackson hired Ed Alonzo– a concert magician-comedian known as “the Misfit of Magic,” who also worked on Britney Spears’ “Circus” tour — to create two set-piece illusions for his London shows. One illusion set to the opening number involved an illuminated sphere that would have floated around the singer’s body, flown out above the audience and then landed back in Jackson’s hand before immolating in a blaze of light.

Magic. We tend to associate it with Las Vegas shows, kids’ birthday parties and other relatively innocuous, entertaining contexts that for all their glitter and glitz remain subject to our rational, modern minds. Or so we tell ourselves. Knowing them to be elaborate but entirely temporal demonstrations of skill, we draw a firm line between these kinds of things and the supernatural.

God, on the other hands, knows our minds to be relatively feeble and prone to more subjective credulity than we assign to ourselves. In other words, for our own protection, God may not draw as firm a line. Leaving aside the problem of religious sects so severe that their doctrines crowd out the love and freedom that is in Christ, the Bible warns us over and over again of the dangers of magic and sorcery, of mediums and commands strict punishment for anyone practicing wizardry. Our God is a jealous God, we are told. I take that to mean our putting faith in anything other than his power. Full stop.

Yeah, I know, in an age where we take it for granted that Harry Potter and Twilight and hundreds of other books and films (including old classics like the Wizard of Oz) as well as video games and rock music represent good, wholesome, family entertainment (more or less), we pretty much take it for granted, (even the God-fearing among us) that the occult in pop culture is entirely imaginary and that our scientific minds can tell very well where the edge of the cliff is between that which is merely fun and that which is dangerous to our eternal souls.

I’m no longer sure we can or should be so confident.

Since I began the blogging day with youthful confessions, I’ll add two more on this theme: one mundane and one (perhaps) not. I was once a metal-head. (Yawn). I also dabbled, with a few friends, in witchcraft. We were twelve. We never actually managed to conjure anything (thank G-d!!). We were over it before we entered junior high. Yet we thought it ‘cool’ to read books of spells and try out a few things here and there and it all seemed to fit in with the music and culture of the time. I look back and see God’s protection, putting me, perhaps in a spiritual glass jar so I couldn’t hurt myself at an age when I didn’t know any better.

So I read the thing above about MJ’s tour and thought: interesting. Here’s where the hair on the back of my neck stood up once again. MJ’s concert tour was about to start…

Michael Jackson is performing his final London Concerts at O2 Arena from 8th July 2009. Ten Concert dates of O2 Arena Michael Jackson concert tour London 2009 have been published and concert starts from Wednesday 8 July 09.

Not that God needs to eliminate the competition (He doesn’t have any), but might it be possible, maybe, that some fans have been saved from potential idolatry? That on a day when, for the sake of their souls, they’d be better off reflective, un-distracted, perhaps even broken with grief, he kept them from a damnable sin? I don’t know. That’s sheer speculation on my part. But it’s interesting.

How else might God get through to an idolatrous generation that has roundly rejected him for the world? How else might he send the message to so many with willfully closed ears and eyes that, individually and perhaps collectively, our time here is short… that we are but grass… that there is so much more if we would but look to the maker of all of it and submit in prayer and worship? I don’t know.

Another reader raised the idea that Farah Fawcett + Ed McMahon + Michael Jackson all dying in a short span of time puts a kind of exclamation point on all of that. They may all three be in heaven. I don’t know. I hope they are. I write this not to condemn them, but to observe that in terms of how our society used each of them as idols, they together represent a kind of perfect storm of deadly sin. E.g., lust, greed, licentiousness, idolatry, etc. I’ll just leave that one there.

In related news, I got a copy of David Wilkerson’s 1962 classic ‘The Cross and the Switchblade’ in the mail the other day. (We give to one of his ministries — Teen Challenge; amazing group; they send folks to our church each year to witness; sitting across the table having lunch with former heroin/meth/crack addicts who know their bibles better than I do and whose lives are now on fire for Christ is an amazing experience).

Wilkerson is the guy who made the “many fires burning” prophecy about New York, which I wrote about here. In that book, he describes an astounding series of “God-incidences” that set up his ministry in New York in the first place. Truly amazing, smack-upside-the-head, way-beyond-chance, direct responses to prayer. It’s even clearer to me after reading the first several chapters that he’s the real deal and not some (ahem) mega-church slick-haired best-selling preacher-buffoon trying to make headlines to get attention. Highly recommended.

Also on the theme of early July being a ‘pregnant’ time, a reader who hasn’t jumped the end-times-imminent shark (yet) got curious enough to check out the Catholic Mass readings scheduled for July 8th, noting:

The First reading: Genesis 41:55-57; 42:5-7a, 17-24a

“When hunger came to the belt throughout the land of Egypt and the people cried to Pharaoh for bread…”

Then Psalm 33: (Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you…) all about the plans of nations and yes, the famine theme again

Gospel: Matt 10:1-7

Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. The names of the apostles were…Jesus sent out these Twelve after instructing them thus, “Do not go into pagan territory or renter a Samaritan town. Go, rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.’“

Moving on, the July 11th readings: Genesis 49:29-32: 50:15-26a, Psalm 105,
Gospel: Matt 10:24-33

“Jesus said t his apostles, “No disciple is above his teacher, no slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, for the slave that he become like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more those of his household! Therefore, do not be afraid of them. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly father.”

None of which will make a whole lotta sense unless you’ve read this and traced back through the links to previous, perhaps useful posts. (Only time will tell.)

Two final items (see note below): 1) speaking of jumping the shark: the WaPo on a de facto Catholic-Muslim coalition, and 2) July 10th, 2009? John Calvin’s 500th birthday… is enough finally enough?

NOTE before flaming: If you’re offended by either one of those items (and very few will be offended by both), please note that we strive to do so like one of those circular lawn sprinklers — a little bit in every direction with the water of what I take to be truth — something which can’t possible hurt you unless you decide to take offense.  

UPDATE: Other interesting July happenings include:

A new Papal encyclical entitled Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth) being released July 7th, the same day as… the next lunar eclipse, described by NASA as ‘anemic’ (blood? See Joel 2:31, among other references).

Take a close look at where it can be seen (albeit subtly; only for those watching carefully) — only in the U.S. and where it can be seen only at moon-set (the U.S. Northeast).

Also of interest is the “major”, total solar eclipse two weeks later (July 22), which “extends across India, China, a handful of Japanese islands and the South Pacific Ocean… a partial eclipse… includes most of eastern Asia [including Russia/Siberia], Indonesia, and the Pacific Ocean [except Australia or New Zealand]“ before ending just shy of Pakistan and Iran to the West. Perhaps of no consequence… unless they are…