A BOTTOM-LINE MESSAGE: LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

There is a poplar advertising campaign called "He Gets Us," sponsored by a certain religious foundation. The ads have sparked widespread attention through billboards, commercials, and YouTube videos. 

Despite its aim to raise Gospel awareness, the campaign has faced considerable pushback from critics who question the-non-profit organization's lack of transparency. Some question the appropriateness of using advertisements to spread the faith and whether genuine spiritual growth can be achieved through large-scale advertising.

A similar effort was launched back in the late 1990s. Some will remember the "God Speaks from Above" initiative -- a national public service campaign in which messages from "God" were displayed on billboards and bus shelters in various cities. The series was sponsored by an anonymous donor who contributed a substantial amount of his own funds. In the donor's words, "I wanted to remind people of God, especially people who used to go to Church and for some reason don't go anymore, which is a good-sized group."

Among the billboard and bus shelter messages from "God" that appeared were the following:

"I don't question your existence!"

"Loved the wedding, invite me to the marriage."

"Have you read My Number 1 bestseller? There will be a test."

"Will the road you're on get you to My place?"

"That 'Love Thy Neighbor' thing, I mean it!"

On one American city street, where commuter traffic was heaviest, passing motorists were admonished, "Keep using My Name in vain, and I'll make rush hours longer." These four words also appeared on one huge billboard in plain white letters on a stark, black background: "We need to talk!" The message is signed, "God."

Word has it that we can expect to see more of the same in broadcasts of this year's football Super Bowl broadcasts.

Whether you accept the premise that large-scale advertising results in genuine spiritual growth or not, I suspect many today welcome and long for more inspirational and confirming messages from above.

While marketing professionals will tell you there is usually a monetary compo to analyzing effective branding, the bottom line can be summed up not in material value but in eternal values. And there is no better free-for-nothing bottom-line message to convey than this: "Love one another!"

I know...I know, this all involves so much idealistic thinking! And finding love for others is not always easy in some instances.

Love has to come from the heart! Just think about it...Then search for it, if you have to...You are sure to find it!

And by designating that new-found love from deep within you, in one minuscule moment at least, the world will be a better place.

Others will get the message intuitively...high-cost ad campaigns aside.

We can be our own virtual billboards in every day life!

IN PASSING:

THINGS YOU THINK ABOUT NEAR THE END

My first late wife Anne was a call-it-like-it-is sort of girl. In fact she was known to be brutally frank at times.

"When I am gone you can marry a 'winnie minnie' who will bow and scrape to your every whim," she once offered rather sarcastically near the end of her life. Later, in a more soft and permissive frame of mind, she ammended her unforgettable sick bed statement to the effect "When I die you will still be young enough (62) to remarry and that will be alright because you deserve to be happy."

Anne was no doubt, and undstandably, thinking ahead to my life after she was gone and it was her way of dealing with it.

Discretion dictated that I not respond verbally to either one of her rather unsettling and unforgetable remarks.

Long story made short and as fate would have it, I did remarry, but wife No. 2 (Rosanne, now also deseased) was by no means a minnie winnie but conversly as her primary caregiver for the better part of 10 years I did respond to most of her health-need  "whims" that went with the territory.

I do not know about others who live into their upper 80s and have been married more than once, but I have devoted considerable time to thinking about this issue.

"Is a person eligible for remarriage after he/she is widowed?" Not only does the Bible not speak against remarriage after a spouse dies, in some cases, it actually encourages it (1 Corinthians 7:8-9; 1 Timothy 5:14). The Jewish culture in biblical times also encouraged it for different reasons. 

In most cases, the Bible addresses the issue of widows rather than widowers. However, there is nothing within the context of any of these passages leading us to believe that the standard was gender-specific.

Primarily addressing widows was likely to have been for three reasons. The first was that men usually worked outside the home, sometimes doing dangerous jobs. Men in biblical times, just as now, had shorter life spans on average than their wives. Thus, widows were far more common than widowers.

The second reason was the fact that women rarely had any means of supporting themselves and their children in biblical times (2 Kings 4:1-7). Remarriage was the primary way in which a widow would regain protection and provision for the needs of herself and her children.  

The third issue was that continuing the husband’s family line and name was a concern in Jewish culture. As a result, if a husband died without leaving any children to carry on his name, his brother was encouraged to marry the widow and provide her with children. Other men in the family had the option also, but there was a proper order in which each man had the opportunity to fulfill or pass on this responsibility (see the book of Ruth for an example of this).

Even among priests (who had to follow a higher standard), remarriage after the death of a spouse was permitted. In the case of priests, it was under the stipulation that they only marry the widow of another priest (Ezekiel 44:22). 

So, based on all biblical instruction on the subject, remarriage after the death of a spouse IS permitted by God.

Phew! What a relief!!

The only question remaining in my mind now is, how am I ever going to manage with two wives waiting to greet me in the after-life? I wonder if anyone else ever concerns themself with that possible and potentially uncomfortable eventuality.

There are some things the Bible does not talk about. God only knows!

THE HIDDEN DEVINITY WITHIN HUMAN BEINGS

According to an ancient Hindu legend, there was a time when all human beings were gods. However, they treated their divinity with such disrespect that Brahma, the chief god, decided that their deity (Godliness) should be taken from them and hidden in a place where they would never again find it. 

Brahma is usually depicted as having
four faces, symbolic of a wide-ranging
four-square capacity, as expressed in
the four Vedas (collections of poems
and hymns), the four yugas (ages), the
four varnas (social classes), the four
directions, and the four stages of life
(ashramas). He is usually shown with
four arms, holding an alms bowl, a bow,
prayer beads, and a book.

The question was, “Where to hide it?” Brahma consulted with all the lesser gods on the problem. The lesser gods said, “Let us bury man’s divinity deep in the earth.” But Brahma said, “That will not do. Man will dig into the earth and find it.”

Then the lesser gods said, “Let us sink man’s divinity in the deepest sea.” But Brahma replied, “That will not do. Man will learn to penetrate the deepest waters and will find it on the ocean bed.” 

Then the lesser gods said, “Let us hide man’s divinity on the highest mountain peak.” But Brahma again disagreed. “Man will surely climb to the top of all the earth’s mountains and someday find it.” 

The lesser gods were discouraged. “It seems there is no place on land or sea that man will not eventually reach,” they agreed. Then Brahma said, "We will hide man’s divinity deep in man himself. He will never look for it there." And ever since then, the legend concludes, man has been climbing, digging, diving, exploring — searching for that which is already within himself.

It has been said that two thousand years ago, a man named Jesus found it, but in the Movement that sprang up in His name, the Divinity in man has been the best-kept secret of the ages.

A RELATEABLE QUOTE: When I look upon the faces of intelligent beings I look upon the image of the God I serve. There are none but what have a certain portion of divinity within them; and though we are clothed with bodies which are in the image of our God, yet this mortality shrinks before that portion of divinity which we inherit from our Father." (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [1941], 168). "Being aware of our divine heritage will help men young and old to grow and magnify the divinity which is within them and within all of us.”