Phrenology, a pseudo science quite popular in the 19th Century, attempts to do diagnostics and forecasting by examining the bumps on a person’s head. I have an old encyclopedia which contains a quite detailed Phrenologist’s diagram of a human head portioned out like a map of the Balkans. Phrenology may be a pseudo-science, but it is an involved one. If there are any Phrenologists still out there, I think my head would be a good study, as it is as lumpy as a bowl of bad oatmeal – a fact that prevents me from shaving my head.
I always thought that phrenology was a great way to tell the future, because, unlike palmistry, it can be adjusted. I always thought that if you were going to have your scalp read, you should carry a ball-pine hammer with you. Then if you didn’t like your fortune, you could take a few whacks at you own noggin and change your fate. I imagine saying to disagreeable phrenologist: “There are a few more lumps, so what does my head say now, smart guy?” I guess if you did that a few times too many, of a few times too vigorously you wouldn’t be saying anything.
Diagnostic and forecasting tools today are more sophisticated, but not much more accurate. The five day forecast is still less accurate than the Old Farmer’s Almanac. There is a simple reason for this, of course. Humans are flawed. The more sophisticated a forecasting system – the greater amount of human involvement – thus the greater likelihood of flaws (both in number and severity).
Still, we want that five day forecast, and make plans based upon it. I’m flying out to Arkansas later today, and have been scanning the weather channel daily – hoping and praying that the weather patterns in D.C, Little Rock, and Charlotte, North Carolina will align in such a way that my flight and connection will not be adversely affected by inclement weather. So far, so good – although there were pods of tornadoes in both Virginia, and Arkansas last week. The weather seems fine now, and I am only at the mercy of USAir, the FAA, and the Department of Homeland Security. I am fairly sure that at least one of those institutions does use phrenology in conducting its business. So I will wait and see, and hope for the best.
In Bible class last Sunday we studied that great passage from James 4.13-16:
Come now you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, spend a year there, engage in business, and make a profit.” Yet you will not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a while then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills we shall live and also do this or that.” But as it is you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.
James is not arguing that we should neglect to plan ahead – only that we understand three things as we make our plans: the fragility of life, our own ignorance of the future, and God’s absolute control. He says that to forget is to become arrogant, and to become arrogant is to become evil.
And so let us never forget to think, and even to say “Lord willing,” as we have been instructed to think and say. Let us never forget that life is brief, that we are ignorant of the future, and that the God we serve is omnipotent.
