Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Thomas the Verifier

When I started a download that was guaranteed to take a while, I clicked "OK" and went to take a nap (Being part cat, I never miss a chance for a nap) while it did its thing. I didn't have a moment of qualm about the whole thing. i do remember hearing the little noise the computer makes when rebooting, but i didn't really think anything about it until I got up and found it was one of those "Update 3 of 3. 0% Completed. Do not turn off your computer" messages. The meter never went above 0% and the computer rebooted every few minutes but never advanced a single kilobyte. Something was clearly wrong.




The upshot? Something was irretrievably broken and the only solution was running a recovery program that effectively erased whatever was there. So I bit the bullet, put in the disk and figured I would lose a little data but I'd set my all-in-one Norton to back up specific files and the same with my Windows security program. I had them on automatic backup so I had nothing to worry about ------- or did I? They both told me they'd been backing things up regularly so I trusted what I was told. Duh.




Well, they weren't doing what I thought they were. In the two external hard drives where I'd assumed (yes, ass-u-me) my stuff was being stored things were missing. The annotated bibliography that I'd just updated and which had 182 entries now only showed 150-something when I retrieved it from storage. All of the EfM stuff I'd accumulated through the past two years was kaput except for the bits and pieces I'd stored on my laptop. Thank God I'd backed up Ginger's book in at least 4 places including two thumb drives so I didn't lose that! But everywhere else I looked, stuff was gone, needed to be replaced, repaired, rebuilt, recovered or I would have to become resigned to its permanent loss. I'd trusted my programs would do what I intended; I should have checked.




The world, part of it anyway, wants photos of Osama bin Laden's body to verify that the SEALS really did get him after ten years of hunting. Was it really him or was it just another body? Or maybe it was a big hoax to encourage a higher approval rating for the president whose last name is so uncomfortably close to bin Laden's first name that often even professional newscasters and commentators use the wrong one in the wrong context. Most trust that what we are told is true but others want undeniable proof.




As this train of thought was going through my mind I thought of Thomas, the disciple who wasn't really convinced when the others told him that Jesus had risen and appeared to them right in that very room, on that very spot right THERE. You gotta admit, it was rather a preposterous story, especially for people who weren't really believers in resurrection, even after heard of/and seen Lazarus's coming out of the grave or Jarius' daughter's miraculous resuscitation. I think about any of us could slip into Thomas' place with hardly more than a blink or two of the eye. Sure, in these days of modern medicine, people declared dead have been resuscitated, some of them anyway. It's true, but it's still enough to make you question and want to make undeniably sure it really happened.




That was Thomas, the original "Trust but verify" guy. In a way, Thomas is the guy I can most identify with because when something seems impossible or even too good to be true, I want to make undeniably sure it really is. I've been bitten too often by impossible, improbable or even highly dubious things that promised they were real, true and guaranteed to work for me to trust lightly until I know for sure. Occasionally something proves right no matter how impossible, but those are very few and very far between. So with Thomas. "I'm not gonna believe anything until I see it for myself."




Well, Thomas had his chance. I love this Caravaggio painting of Thomas putting his finger in Jesus' side and peering closely as if to check to make sure it wasn't really just an illusion or photoshopped image. "Hmmm. It appears okay but....." While I'm sure he trusted Jesus, this took a bit more convincing before he could make an authentic confession of total belief.




Good ol' Thomas. He articulates his doubts in much the same way I would like to now and again, no matter how strong I think my faith is. He's skeptical but also willing to be convinced, even if it required something more than someone's word or even a personal appearance.




When it comes to my computer, I'm not trusting the programs to save what I believe they should save. Rather, I'm going to verify by manually backing up files where I know I can find them again.




I trust Jesus but backup programs ain't him. I trust Thomas has answered my question even if I didn't already believe it was true. I trust, he verified.

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