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Wal-mart

Sandi’s Sundry Questions

by Rick on April 12, 2008

One of the benefits of working at Wal-Mart — over and above the obvious things like making a living, having health insurance, and getting to watch with ill-behaved children & teens with no sense of social responsibility run amok while their parents are nowhere to be seen… *ahem*, sorry — is that one of my coworkers often provides me not only good ideas to blog about, but she also is not shy about asking questions regarding my faith, such as how I know I’m right in what I believe. (Hi, Sandi!)

I’ve never been a big fan of “confrontational conversation” — conversation in which I’d have to be defending what I believe and be thinking of evidence or reasons within just a few seconds. I much rather preferred to do such conversation on the Internet where I would have time to think out a response and even edit it later if it turned out to be worded poorly.

Thanks to Sandi’s curiosity, I am improving in that area. Still, I’m rarely satisfied with the answers I give her, and the past two days has seen several questions asked of me, which I’ll attempt to satisfactorily (at least for Sandi & I) answer here. Anyone is welcome to leave feedback on these, and Sandi, if you have any more questions — especially if I’ve neglected to answer one you’ve already asked — just let me know!

What about deathbed conversions?

Does how you live your life affect where you will spend eternity, or can you spend your entire life willfully sinning with the intention of converting on your deathbed, thereby going to Heaven despite your life? (Phew!)

That’s a very good question. At least one person has told me that he plans to live however he wants and when he is close to drawing his last breath, he will convert. When I was told this, I didn’t have much to say to that, for I was still very ignorant & naive. Today, on the other hand, I’d like to point out a few problems with the deathbed conversion scenario:

How do you know you will have a deathbed? You could die due to any number of reasons prior to even finishing this post. Quite frankly, tomorrow is not guaranteed to anyone, and God has declared that today is the day of salvation for all who will believe.
How do you know that if you do realize you are close to death that you will desire to be saved? If you choose to live your entire life in opposition to God, He is certainly under no obligation to grant you faith when you think the time is right.
God is not like life insurance. You can be close to death and still be genuine about taking out a life insurance policy. If you’ve spent your entire life in opposition to God, do you think God is naive enough to believe you are genuine in your professed belief that you’ve reserved just for your deathbed?

I think deathbed conversions are a very dangerous idea which nobody should be counting on. People should be getting serious about their standing before God now and not later.

However, I want to clarify that I do not think that if someone lived their entire lives wickedly that they couldn’t convert on their deathbed. A true conversion is a true conversion, but they come only in God’s good timing.

We have a biblical example of this, actually, in that one of the criminals crucified alongside Jesus expressed belief in Him right there as he was dying, and what happened? Jesus did not tell him that because of his life of crime, a last-minute conversion wasn’t going to do him any good; actually, Jesus assured the believing criminal that that very day he would be with Jesus in Paradise.

Deathbed conversions work, provided it is God doing the converting. A “conversion” conceived out of a desire to live a life apart from God for as long as possible is no conversion at all.

But aren’t deathbed conversions unfair?

I was converted to Jesus when I was eighteen years old (quite possibly when I was seven or eight, but that’s another blog post altogether); assuming I live to be 82, I would have spent well over half a century as a Christian.

Isn’t it unfair that I put in so much time in going to Heaven, but someone who is converted just prior to death also gets to go to Heaven? Surely their lifetime of bad deeds would weigh too heavily against them, right?

Two things regarding this question:

First, I would have to point out that whatever good I may accomplish over the course of my Christian life, it is God who is credited with the works for they are His works through me, and He must receive the glory from them. Apart from those deeds, I am not so different from the person who spends their lives apart from God — all of our self-accomplished righteousnesses are worth nothing more than used menstrual rags¹ in God’s sight, so you can imagine how worthless and despicable our unrighteousnesses are!

It’s important to understand what it is that places both the lifetime Christian and the deathbed Christian on level ground for admittance to Heaven and the presence of God: grace through faith. Jesus made it abundantly clear that it is a believer which is saved and an unbeliever which is condemned. The Apostle Paul emphasized that salvation is only by way of God’s grace, and that He extends this salvific grace only through faith in Jesus Christ.

The Scriptures place no time limit, trial period, or probationary period upon faith — you either have it or you don’t. If I spend my entire life as a Christian and someone else is converted moments prior to their deaths, what can I do except rejoice exceedingly for another soul saved from the guilt of their sins?

My second point I wish to draw from a parable Jesus told. Go ahead and read the passage and you’ll likely see right where I’m going with this:

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ²After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. ³And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, ⁴and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ ⁵So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. ⁶And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to th em, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ ⁷They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ ⁸And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ ⁹And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. ¹⁰Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. ¹¹And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, ¹²saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ ¹³But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? ¹⁴Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. ¹⁵Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ ¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first last.” Matthew 20-16, ESV

Jesus is the “master of [the] house”; He is the generous employer. Just as the employer promised a denarius in exchange for working in the vineyard, so too does Jesus extend salvation from sins to all who place their faith in Him.

And it doesn’t matter whether He “hired” you early in the morning or late in the evening, the terms of employment were the same: Whoever believes on the Son of God will not perish but have everlasting life.

I like how Jesus wraps up the parable: What right is it for the employed to question the employer for keeping his word? Salvation is of the Lord — it is the same for everyone who believes, and while a lifetime believer may very well expect more than a deathbed believer, who is the lifetime believer to begrudge the generosity of God for extending saving grace to the deathbed believer, granting him the same salvation the lifetime believer has known so long?

Why wait so long, though?

Assuming the possible validity of certain deathbed conversions, why would God have waited until the end of someone’s life to convert them? Actually, what’s the point of the pre-Christian life at all?

Trying to find an answer to this question has proven difficult, but the best answer I have to “What’s the point?” is that God has decreed it so.

We can look at the Apostle Paul’s life, for instance; prior to his conversion, he was one of Christianity’s greatest mortal enemies — he persecuted and murdered Christians for their belief in Jesus Christ. The Pharisees conspired to have the Romans kill Jesus, but the Pharisee Saul (who we know as Paul) took matters into his own hands and sought to end the spread of this Christianity.

Why would God allow that to go on for so long, if He was planning to miraculously transform Paul anyway?

The answer, my friends,² is that the pre-belief life of a Christian shows forth that God is in control. He is capable of turning even the worst human life into a believer in His Son.

It shows that no matter how things may have been before believing in Christ, God was still capable of loving, redeeming, adopting, and ultimately saving that person. In that, the pre-Christian life becomes a great comfort — “even a sinner as I…”

Paul was able to testify of his wickedness after he became a believer, and the change in his life became a witness to the power of the Gospel.

The pre-Christian life also grants the believer the opportunity to appreciate his salvation all the more; they know first hand the “broad path which leadeth to destruction,” and can testify from their own lives the power of the Gospel.

Given all of the above, I prefer to simply sum up the answer to the question thus:

It shows that God is in control.

I cannot remember where I read this, but I’ve heard God’s sovereignty explained thusly: If God was in control of everything in the Universe except for one single atom, then that one rogue atom would be capable of undermining God’s plans. Either God is sovereign over everything, or He is sovereign over nothing.

The End

Unfortunately at this point I cannot recall any other questions that were raised Thursday at work, but this post is sufficiently long without them. Follow-ups, additional questions, and whatever else are more than welcome, from Sandi or just about anyone else.

The familiar translation of “filthy rags” doesn’t even come close to conveying God’s displeasure in the works of man! [↩]
…is blowing in the winds… [↩]

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Wal-Mart & Earth Hour 2008

by Rick on January 30, 2008

A few days ago, I posted about Wal-Mart and Earth Hour 2008. I encouraged you to write in to Wal-Mart to encourage their participation in this event.

Today, I received a response to my initial letter to Wal-Mart; this is what it says:

Thank you for your message.

Dear Rick ,

Sam Walton built Wal-Mart on a very simple belief–the
customer is the boss. That means we are always looking for better ways to serve
the people who shop at Wal-Mart. Each comment, concern and suggestion is very
important because it gives us the opportunity to improve our overall service.

Rest assured that your message has been forwarded to the proper division where it
will be reviewed and carefully considered.

Thank you for your observations. It is customers like you who help us continue
to offer everyday low prices and friendly service.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

I hate to say it, but that doesn’t appear very personal to me; I’m most struck by the fact that they spoke to me as if I were simply a customer writing in, despite the fact I did mention my position within the company in my letter to them. Hmm, I’m going to have to get more creative. Tomorrow, I’m going to email various higher-ups from work. I’m technically the “Personal Sustainability Project captain” of my store, so this whole Earth Hour thing could get some attention in my area, but I have a feeling it’s going to have to be a national thing or nothing at all.

If you haven’t already, please write in to Wal-Mart (for details, see my earlier post) and encourage them to participate. This one thing could cause such a huge ripple affect across not only the industry but the nation as well. One of the biggest obstacles I’ve seen to living environmentally conscience lives is that far too few people and companies are living responsibly in a visible way. If no one seems to be making a difference, the attitude of “Well, what good can I do?” easily creeps up.

Write Wal-Mart. Tell them to turn off their lights for one hour. If they truly believe in what they’ve been saying about wanting to help the environment, they should jump at this chance to make such a huge impact!

If the city of Sydney, Australia, can do it; so can Wal-Mart… so can America!

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Earth Hour 2008

by Rick on January 27, 2008

Almost one year ago, the city of Sydney, Australia, did something unprecedented: thousands of businesses and individuals flipped the off switch — lights, televisions, and more were switched off for sixty minutes.

And for one hour, Sydney’s power consumption was cut by just over 10%, the equivalent of taking 48,000 cars off of the road for one hour.

This year, Earth Hour is going global, with corporations and individuals from all around the world joining in.

The goal of this, of course, is to cause a dramatic decrease in the amount of energy expended and in the amount of pollutants released. That in itself is great, but if you don’t buy into environmentalism, there are other reasons to flip the off switches in your home.

Instead of watching television, break out the board games and bring your family together for a game of Sorry! or Clue. Instead of surfing the Internet, read a novel by candlelight, perhaps rediscovering an old favorite.

By participating, you will be doing A Good Thing; I promise you that.

All of that said, the reason why I’m writing here isn’t so much to encourage you to participate — although, that would be great! No, instead I want to encourage you to encourage Wal-Mart to participate!

Over the past year especially, Wal-Mart has been making much of its environmental policies, with goals as lofty as producing zero waste.

Is Wal-Mart doing everything it can? I won’t pass that judgment here, but I will say that Earth Hour would give Wal-Mart the chance to put its environmental ethics where its wallet is. Can this retail goliath shut down for one hour? With well over 3,000 stores in the United States alone, Wal-Mart would be able to set a national example which would be extremely difficult to ignore.

In the hour they’re shut down (or at the very least running on half [nighttime] lighting on a limited number of registers, but that wouldn’t be nearly as impressive)? It would provide the perfect opportunity to educate those who show up — sharing with them environmental facts as well as simple ways that they too can make a positive impact on the environment.

So if you would, let Wal-Mart know what you think about this! Here’s an example of what you could write to them:

I know that the company wants to “lead the way,” so to speak, concerning our environment going into the future, setting the standard for other companies to follow.

In light of that, I am encouraging Wal-Mart Stores to endorse and participate in Earth Hour 2008 (earthhour.org).

In the evening of March 29, 2008, the Earth Hour initiative is calling on businesses, individuals, organizations, and schools to turn it off.

Everything possible — turned off for one hour.

If Wal-Mart were to do this at all of its stores, the impact would be huge. If other companies followed suit, the effect multiplies quickly!

This is a perfect opportunity for Wal-Mart to show that it is willing to do what it can to encourage environmental awareness and stewardship.

Thank you for your time.

Chief Executive Lee Scott of Wal-Mart has said, “As one of the largest companies in the world, with an expanding global presence, environmental problems are our problems.”

By participating in Earth Hour, Wal-Mart will be able to make a huge impact while setting a global example for others to follow.

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A Wireless Tale

by Rick on January 5, 2008

Alicia received a nice Dell Inspiron Notebook for Christmas, but since bringing it home, it has been a bit of an outcast on our home network.

You see, the poor little computer, which Alicia has christened Enid-Eugenia, has a wireless adapter; however, our home network was entirely wired. I know, there are some of you out there who can’t even imagine a network as archaic as ours must have been. Wires? I mean, who the heck uses those nowadays?

An interim solution was to add li’l Enid-Eugenia to the network via her wired network adapter; unfortunately, this entailed having the notebook in quite an inconvenient location in order for the only spare wire we own to reach our router.

So Alicia has had a spiffy, new computer, but for the most part, she’s been forced to use it in a perpetually offline state, excepting brief moments to download various things via the inconvenient location that befit our wired network’s reach and the even rarer moments that she was able to hop on a publicly Wi-Fi network.

All that changed today when a valiant DHL deliveryman hand-delivered a wonderfully futuristic looking Linkys WRT300N Wireless-N Broadband Router. Oh, sweet, sweet future!¹

I wasn’t sure how long the setup procedure would take; I haven’t toyed around with wireless networking in a couple years, and back then, my computer was but a client on the family network. Configuring a wireless router² and setting up a mixed³ network was unexplored territory for me.

So all of that said, I’m very pleased with how easily the setup process went. Actually, the only part of the process which ever knocked on the door of Mr. Frustration was dealing with all of the networking cables and finally placing both cable modem and router in a place which made much more sense than where they have resided for the past year.

I do admit that the WRT300N is a bit more advanced of a model than we actually need; indeed, I passed on the model available at Wal-Mart after I saw the WRT300N mentioned on the back of its box. At least I’m ready on the off chance we ever come into possession of an Internet-ready game system!⁴

Regardless, at least I didn’t completely geek out by splurging on a WRT600N.

Okay, I admit, I didn’t find out about that one until after purchasing our router; kinda takes an edge off of that restraint I showed, no?

Well, that’s the story of how Alicia can now blog from anyplace in our house.

And I’m here stuck like glue to our home office.

Dang.

Or would that be present? Or even past at this point? Oy! [↩]
If your wireless router required no set up, you might want to go back and check that! Make sure it’s password protected and that you’re utilizing any available security features, lest you leave your home network open to anyone within range who happens to have a wireless adapter. [↩]
Wired + wireless. [↩]
I am holding out hopes for a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 for a variety of reasons, notably Guitar Hero 3, the upcoming LEGO Batman, and the also upcoming Ghostbusters… [↩]

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Pythagoras, GI*Joe, Coca-Cola, and the Flu

by Rick on December 12, 2007

I’ve been sick since Saturday evening, and I’m only just now feeling a tiny bit better. My voice has come close to vanishing due to the soreness of my throat, and I think I’ve a year’s worth of congestion fighting to get out of me.

Despite all of that, though, I’ve not had to miss work, and I’ve managed to get most of my Christmas shopping completed yesterday after clocking out for the day. Yes, I both work at Wal-mart and I do most of my shopping there. That’s just how I roll.

My amount of disposable income doesn’t really give me much choice anyway.

During my down time these past few days, I’ve been reading an interesting little book called Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife. So far, Genesis 1-2 has been referred to as the “Hebrew creation myth,” and John 1:1 has been translated, “In the beginning, there was the ratio, and the ratio was with God, and the ratio was God”; in a footnote, that translation is said to be “even more rational than the traditional one.”

More rational, perhaps, because it contains the word “ratio” once; however, for it to make sense, the God referenced would be nothing more than a, well, mathematical or logical construct, yet in the context God is far from that — He is an active, living person who is the Beginning and the Ending, the Alpha and the Omega.

Okay, that was a bit of a rabbit’s trail, but it bugged me so I had to say it. Regardless, Zero is proving to be an enjoyable read. Did you know that Pythagoras, despite being brilliant, was also a bit, hmm, strange? In fact, he died because he would sooner be murdered by those who would oppose him rather than flee from them by running through a bean field. Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart, but across them you shall never dart. Or something like that. Beans were taboo, and Pythagoras was very prideful.

Pythagoras Doin’ His Thang
(Sanzio, Rafaello. The School of Athens (detail). 1509. Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican.)

Yet what we know him best for — the Pythagorean Theorem — has actually been known for centuries if not millennia before Pythagoras came along. I’m very disappointed I’m finding about this now rather than in 8^th grade geometry.

I guess what I’ve sometimes heard is true: you learn that which is truly interesting not through organized curriculum but through independent study.

Okay, I’ve not actually heard that; it’s an axiom I’ve come up with to justify my independent learning of the Scriptures over against going off to seminary. Call that a cleverly disguised lack of ambition if you want, but if the Word of God was meant to be arranged into a curriculum, you would think somewhere in its 66 books there would be some evidence of such an intention. The concept of mentoring seems far more biblical (see the relationship between Christ and the disciples or between Paul and Timothy, for examples).

Speaking of Paul, who instructed Timothy to add some wine to his diet to aid his ailing stomach, Alicia brought home a bottle of red wine today. Apparently it is for some spaghetti sauce she was preparing. A sip of it marks the second drink of an alcoholic beverage I’ve ever had.

I think that makes me an addict.

Actually, that makes me a double-addict; caffeine will always be my first and most beloved chemical dependency. Granted, I’ve not fallen into that miry cesspool as far as, say, espresso drinkers have, but I took a small tumble further in when, the other day, I purchased a tin of Ice Breakers^® Energy™ Peppermint Mints with Caffeine. Ten milligrams of caffeine per mint, actually. By comparison, the twelve ounce can of Coca-Cola^® to my right contains 34 milligrams.

What I find interesting is that the mints contain a warning that they are “Not recommended for children, pregnant women or people sensitive to caffeine.” I wonder why soda, which is consumed far more often than these mints are and in higher quantities, does not bear the warning?

The Hershey Company, maker of the mints, must care more than the Coca-Cola Company. Yep, that’s the only possible explanation.

And if you’ve ever wondered what the word “REXAM” refers to on a Coke can — it’s located near the bar code — they are a consumer packaging company.

And now you know.