Adult ADHD

I have come to the conclusion that all of us have ADHD - it's not just the children, it's humanity in general. My point has less to do with the hyperactivity than the attention deficit. And it's been around for a really long time. "Israel served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had experienced everything the LORD had done for Israel." Joshua 24:31. I read this interesting sentence this morning and it jumpstarted some neurons in my brain. First, knowing the history of Israel and how the nation kept shifting back and forth, now following, now not following, I think it is interesting that the writer puts this sentence in the passage. The sentence implies that as soon as these elders were in the ground, Israel turned her back on the Lord (now, this may or may not be true, I am merely commenting on what it seems to indicate to me). Second, and probably more importantly, is the importance of experience in the passage. The sentence does not merely describe the elders as those who outlived Joshua, but describes them as those who had experienced everything the LORD had done for Israel. Now, that is an interesting designation. It indicates to me that people have always had this need for experiential knowledge and if we can't see it, taste it, touch it, or hear it, it isn't worth our time. I am not denigrating the experiential aspect of our lives, but there is such a thing as faith. When we find ourselves constantly asking for a bigger and better sign, we find it increasingly difficult to believe the signs we have been given already. Reminds me of Luke 16:31 - "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead." I think it is great that the Bible constantly reminds us of the fact that God has done all these things (not the only reason, but a very good reason to keep reading the Old Testament even though we live under the covenant of the New) - we have a very short memory and seemingly an even shorter attention span. I used to think that the shorter attention spans were a product of the modern age, with its constantly shifting television and increasingly shorter political soundbites (and I'm not entirely convinced I'm wrong), but maybe I have it backwards. Maybe the increasingly shorter soundbites, etc. are a result of the fact that we have always had a fairly short attention span. Then again, maybe it is a vicious cycle with the cause being the result and vice versa. Who knows? The point is, life goes on, and without someone constantly reminding us of where we have come from and what has happened, we are doomed to forget, if not repeat history. The problem with forgetting history is that we forget the reasons it happened or the consequences of our actions in the past. The child who forgets that the last time he touched the stove he got burned is relegated to touching the stove over and over again, each time with painful consequences. That, if you ask me, is one of the real dangers of comparing Guantanamo to a gulag - we have forgotten what the gulag is, what it stands for, and what happened there, and we have relegated ourselves to relearning the lesson taught in the USSR death camps. That, and the more pressing concern (at least for how this post started!), once we forget what God has done in the past, we are tempted to say that He has never done anything and that we should never expect anything from Him, and that conclusion essentially leads to turning our backs on Him while paying lip service to His existence.