I have wrestled on and off over the past several years with the harshness of Jesus’ words to some folks. In some cases, I have been able comprehend the loving meaning behind His words by understanding cultural differences or cultural milieux (e.g., the word about the dead burying their own dead in Matthew). But in a general sense, it still bothered me.
Until today.
There I was, walking up Enterprise Drive midday today, kvetching to You about this, asking you for an understanding—when, boom, it hit me: Carla often cannot evoke the change she wishes to see in me, Sullivan, or Éa without yelling, cursing, or calling us names. Now, to journal this is to make Carla sound like a monster, which she is demonstrably not. She only deploys this strategy when we are apparently refusing to respond to any other approach of hers.
And it works.
Case closed. Jesus wins. He knew what His hearers needed. He spoke harshly because He loved the Pharisees, et al.
Sometimes, behavior change only happens with harsh, hyperbolic epithets.
Life is people. Bored? Be with people. Feel like nothing’s happening? Sidle up next to someone. Conversation will come up if simply put yourself next to someone and apply yourself.
I think I’d like to organize all the thoughts that go into my approval of same-sex marriage and its preludes so that when conversations like this evening’s at Elliott and Megan’s house, I am better prepared to make my case.
I want to make this case as an evangelical, that is, without doing any violence to the text of the Bible or my high regard for it.
New spiritual discipline if I haven’t mentioned it yet: When I think of someone, I shall find a way to demonstrate to them that I give a damn about them.
If the delay of the parousia ever becomes a problem again for me, I remind myself that N.T. Wright has written a solid article on the subject with one solution, Andrew Perriman has written a book with a different, more thoroughly preterist account of it, and Christopher Hays has written an entirely different book account of it.
I am newly resolved: I will not work past 5 PM except to finish up for the day, discharge my daily email duties, and fulfill requests that are specifically to work after hours.
“And so climate politics has become the art of the impossible: a cycle of increasingly desperate exhortations to impracticable action, presumably in hopes of inspiring at least some half-measures.”
“[R]ecent sex research suggests, the sex drive is as much about the desire to be desired and to be close as it is about sexual release, for men and women alike."
It shall be unlawful for a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or… [an] expressed or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election.
U.S. Code Title 52, section 30121, line a2. President Trump is in violation of that law. Additionally:
[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
What I really want in this instance, as George MacDonald taught me, isn’t the forgiveness for the consequences of my sins (e.g., the wrath of God) but freedom from my actual sins. I’d like to become the father that doesn’t snap at his son. I don’t want an imputed purity. I actually want to be, myself, pure.
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.
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.
