The Future of One Wallet

What a difference a week makes … such is the premise of Jay Asher & Carolyn Macker's young adult novel The Future of Us (ISBN 9781595145161), where lifetime friends, neighbors, and fellow high school juniors Josh and Emma alternate telling the story of how when they inserted an American Online CD-ROM in a computer in 1996 they got to glimpse their Facebook pages in 2011. (Facebook was launched in 2004, two years earlier than I thought.) Pure and simple, how would YOU handle knowing how the course of your life turns out when you're seventeen? Josh and Emma have been best friends forever, but both of them – even after an aborted attempt to take the relationship to another level six months before the story begins – deal with this differently. And it influences how they act and interact with some of their peers, until … like I'm going to tell you how the story ends? Read it.

I wonder what would happen if I showed her Facebook. She said she wouldn't want to time travel, but how would she feel about reading her future … reading about Lindsay? Would her future self want her to know? And what would my future self want me to know? And Josh's?

See, this is where I get into probably the most famous vision of one man's future (yes, Christians, even surpassing Bible prophecies because you're miles more likely to have read this in school than Daniel or Revelation, and even most churches don't go super-deep into them), Ebenezer Scrooge as he's shown it in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. You remember, or have had it drilled into you by the endless remakes, that Scrooge who's stingy and miserly gets a visit from the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and then the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future (I've also heard Yet To Come) … Scrooge's “yet to come” if he keeps to his ways include death (“Here Lies Ebenezer Scrooge”, but all of us die) with no one in attendance and what he held onto in life being divvied up among thieves and the death of Tim Cratchit because he never got treated for his limp.

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!"

Translated from early Victorian, is this what will be, or what might be? Although I agree with my Facebook friend Dana Halliday that “God has told us what the future holds in His Word....So, although there are some missing pieces, we still know the conclusion, or the big picture. What it takes to get there is often what we're missing and speculating on.” And sometimes I will confess the speculation gets to blows – perhaps not physical, but we have to beware of Facebook or indeed ANY social media where the potential to drag a person through the electronic mud is ever-present. Especially when said person cannot really defend themselves; of course … now where did I read this, when (he hated George) Bernard Shaw sent a letter to C.S. Lewis criticizing one of his recent works, Jack chose not to reply to his letter, for that was the worst insult he believed he could give the man.

The future … is like a puzzle, with missing pieces. Difficult to read and never, NEVER, what you think.

Rumpelstiltskin's explanation to Henry who is revealed to be his grandson in the most recent episode of “Once Upon A Time” of why he can't just know his own son will come back to him – and so far he doesn't – might be the best I've heard in a while. Certainly if I'd had access to my Facebook profile in 1998 I'd have a lot of questions (Why would I move to Minot, North Dakota from Crescent City, Florida? Who is this Martha Alvin that I'm married to? And those two blonds must be our kids …) But it's better that I don't have all the answers, I don't think I could handle that. Whether or not the NOOK tablet we bought goes back to Barnes & Noble … likely not, but as far as I'm concerned Martha is welcome to it – our kids are off computers at home for the week due to tantrums and talking back – because I tried to use it last night … and let me confess, I got impatient with it very quickly. Give me our laptop any day!
“I visited the zoo where I saw a penny get squished flat. I hope Mr. Lincoln is okay,” said George.

Friday on my way from bringing Sarah and Jeffrey, I gave in and bought a few books at Scholastic's Book Fair that I thought would interest the kids. Jeffrey and I read one of them this morning, Two Dollars One Wallet written and illustrated by third graders at McKinley Elementary School in Burbank, California. (Hey, there's a McKinley Elementary here in Minot … I wonder if they would …) Anyhoo, this story told from the point of view of George Washington on the one dollar bill and Sacagawea on the one dollar coin – do you even SEE those anymore – is sort of a mini “Where's George?” It's a fun tale and you get to see the eight authors at the end. And this reminds me I've got a couple of children's books tucked away I need to get printed before my own untimely demise. This weekend (there's no school Friday or Monday) they get to go with Grandma and Grandpa.

That will not totally leave Martha and me at our ease; a few weeks ago, in addition to her courier job with Trinity Health she took on some hours at a newly-built McDonald's by Dakota Square Mall (but when I'm there I'm reminded of Jesus' parable of the rich fool, Luke 12:13-21, the man who tore down his barn and built a bigger one – still don't get how McD's decided to tear down the restaurant there and build another one in the same spot; it lacks the other's character, greeting people coming off the interstate and treating them to some of the Scandinavian “heritage” of this area) Friday nights and Saturday mornings. This Saturday I'LL be at a local vendor show with another person representing Shaklee and Sunday afternoon at a Shaklee 180 Turnaround Party being held at a local hotel! I'll link you to our business website in case it's majorly out of town for you – it'll be awesome, but I'm going to make today that way too!

www.dmsjalvin4.myshaklee180.com

A bug gotta do what a bug gotta do, David