The Landing Strip

 The Late Richard Feynman produced a very telling paper which highlighted the plight of the South sea islander "Cargo" cult.

Here's the essential facts...

During the second world war build-up of American Pacific Forces in the operation to rout the Japanese, a group of islands were annexed that were inhabited by people that had never seen an aircraft before.

Over the build-up period for the campaign, flights would regularly arrive into their world to bring all manner of items that they could barely comprehend, all apparently 'gifted' to them by these astonishing wonders from the sky, which descended upon the "field" these other men had constructed for them. Their lives were changed entirely.

Then, one morning, just as suddenly as it had commenced, it was over.

The strangers had gone. The 'sky birds' stopped coming, and so did the benefits.

Years later, other visitors arrived by sea and were amazed at what was discovered - the islanders had reconstructed the entire airstrip from bamboo and other materials, clearly thinking that if they did so well enough, the prior conditions could be renewed, and they could once again benefit from this.

It's a scenario that is often employed today in situations where people want to provoke with respect to a moral dilemma - think the ever present "non-interference" policy (hardly ever followed, of course) in Star Trek.

The reason I raise it is because it suddenly dawned on me this week that we're equally living in such a 'cargo-cult' culture. Our 'airstrips' may be virtual, and our oft-insatiable needs far more extensive than coca-cola and chocolate, but the consequences and impact upon each of us is almost identical to those islanders. We expect the infrastructure of our day to quite literally 'drop' into our laps the solutions we need, as and when we need them, and when they apparently do, we merely imbibe these 'goodies' with very few questions asked.

Some of us, of course, are old enough to recall some of those dystopian movies of the seventies that sought to show that this wasn't necessarily a good thing. Movies the likes of Soylent Green, Rollerball, and Demon seed asked if there were very real dangers to giving people what they want, when they want it.

The answer in such scenarios, and today, of course, is yes.

The health secretary 'lost it' on camera on Wednesday when a reporter rattled him with the fact that there was a known 37% chance of passing along the virus after full vaccination. A few days ago, the PM of New Zealand terminated a press event when a reporter dared to try and ask her about the disturbing data from Israel regarding falling vaccine efficacy. The head of the NHS lied on camera about the actual numbers of hospital admissions this month. All of this happened in "mainstream" media coverage.

The mask has slipped. The 'deliveries' may have been packaged to look satisfactory, but the contents are clearly below standard, and some of the 'islanders' are aware that things were actually better before all this became the only imperative.

It's rare for most us, even when things get a little 'tight', to really have to struggle, at least until something takes hold that won't be denied, and we discover our confidence in 'the norm' (whatever form that may currently take) was misplaced or even very misguided. The day is going to arrive when everything around us will begin to fail, and we're left facing a far greater truth about what we are.

Laying any resources here has to be temporary at best. The treasure we should be genuinely focused upon, Jesus shows, is going to endure for so very much longer.