On the subject of the solo satisfaction of biological and psychological drives (e.g., eating, masturbating, sightseeing): As long as they are not harmful and they are undertaken with thanksgiving, they are done in love, and are thus good.
“[A] Christian sexual ethic is a process of transforming eros into agape.”
Shame and guilt can be healthy, life-giving emotions. There’s a reason we have them. Sure, shame and guilt can become toxic and debilitating. But let’s not think that there’s something unhealthy about feeling shame or guilt when you do something that violates your conscience. That’s called being a human being.
Love is hardly love if it is lazy.
“…[w]ith humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves…” (Paul). This is a crucial verse for me if I’m going to bear the fruit of love. It’s this regard of others as more important than myself that is going to turn up my inner hearth of love for others. Without that phrase, my love risks being too mechanical, too principled. If I can honestly regard others as more important than myself, I will fulfill the second Great Commandment.
But consider what Rabbi Abraham Heschel said to the members of his synagogue who complained that the words of the liturgy did not express what they felt. He told them that it was not that the liturgy should express what they feel, but that they should learn to feel what the liturgy expressed.
— Ben Patterson, as cited in Philip Yancey’s Prayer
At the level of the individual, there is wisdom in my friend’s aversion to marriage, which she stated the other day as “I don’t know why people would want to get married.” I prefer to reword it as: “Don’t make a commitment you don’t think you can keep.” But at the level of society, there needs to be a complementary wisdom: Cultivate people who are capable of making lifelong commitments.
My new motto is: “Live every day like it’s your last.” And no, that does not mean find a hospital, go there, find a room and lay down, eyes twitching…
— Sullivan
You’re more helpful than a rabid dog!
— Sullivan, thanking a friend who was helping clean up
Matt Poehner has the following quotation on his Facebook profile:
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that…will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid.
— Marcus Aurelius
I can get behind that.
If, in my old age, you asked me to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you it was the day I metaphorically threw my hands up in the air about whether I have a principled reason for supporting Friends & Farmers Food Co-op: I don’t. I support the co-op because I enjoy hanging out with those kinds of people at the kinds of functions they hold.
I could go into my reasons for suspecting that “buy local” is a slogan with slippery ethical foundations (hint: for a start, it smacks of egogeocentrism), but I think I’ll leave it at this: I buy local for the pleasure of it. That’s all. It is a luxury. It makes my community a smilier, more human place.
Completism is not a fruit of the spirit.
On God
#Personifying the highest good is very motivating, even if it’s false (which I don’t think it is, but it might be).
If you asked me in my old age to tell you one thing about my life as it was today, I predict I’d tell you that it was the day we learned that Tom Fisch’s grandfather—Blair Murray, or “Pap,” as Tom called him—died last night in a crash of his ultralight aircraft.
What a way to go! I hope it wasn’t painful. Carla and I wondered half-seriously whether it might have been purposeful.
I don’t know whether I’d like to be killed in a dramatic accident, but I’ll certainly take the metaphor: Die doing what you love. I’ll go further: Die loving the heavens and living like it.
“Don’t worry about the parts of the Bible you don’t understand. Obey the parts you do.”
— a Red Letter Wake Up email newsletter
Q: How do you account for evil?
A: I don’t. I fight it.
Understanding creation as a war zone, with God having delegated to us the authority to fight, helps greatly to steel one’s faith and motivate one toward good works.
And you could always say: Well, I could have given that money to the missionary. And that is true. Every ice cream cone you buy you could have been sent to somewhere else. But I am thinking: Would you have? Has it gotten in the way of heartfelt calling to do a good thing?
— John Piper, “What Luxuries in My Life Are Sinful?”
“The Lord gave me sixty-two years of joy and prosperity; will I curse him if the last five years are hard?”
— Eileen Anderson, Harps Unhung, xvii, as [quoted by John Piper]((https://twitter.com/johnpiper/status/519895769592393728)
“Whatever you are, be a good one.”
— William Makepeace Thackeray, as quoted by Laurence Hutton as quoted by The Boston Herald, cited here in my journal with some emphasis on the “whatever” part
“And He made no distinction between us and them” (Acts 15:9a). May we who claim to follow Him follow suit.
When did hardship and decay become reason to blame God rather than to turn to Him?
“Who is there among you who is wise and intelligent? Then let him by his noble living show forth his [good] works with the [unobtrusive] humility [which is the proper attribute] of true wisdom…But the wisdom from above is first of all pure (undefiled); then it is peace-loving, courteous (considerate, gentle). [It is willing to] yield to reason, full of compassion and good fruits; it is wholehearted and straightforward, impartial and unfeigned (free from doubts, wavering, and insincerity). And the harvest of righteousness (of conformity to God’s will in thought and deed) is [the fruit of the seed] sown in peace by those who work for and make peace [in themselves and in others, that peace which means concord, agreement, and harmony between individuals, with undisturbedness, in a peaceful mind free from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts]” (James 3:13,17-18, AMP).
Thank You, God, for reinforcing the lesson: If you think you’re wise, you’d better be able to prove it with deeds.
It’s exult in our tribulations, not despite them (Romans 5:3). There’s a big difference. And it can, I think, make or break your faith.
Current interpretation of the bits in James 1 and Romans 5 about persevering through trials: Perseverance through trials, even those that come in the form of intellectual challenges to the faith, breeds perseverance.