No wonder, then, that it is so hard to be Christian–it is not hard it is impossible. No one can knowingly accept a way of life which, the more truly it is lived, leads more surely to one’s own destruction. And that is why we constantly rebel, try to make life easier, try to be half-Christian, try to make the best of both worlds. We must ultimately choose–our felicity lies in one world or the other, not in both.
On Politics…
Politics becomes fierce and divisive precisely when people trust in it as a kind of transcendence, a structure that gives overarching meaning and direction to their lives and their world. As politics replaces God its ebbs and flows gain a significance well beyond the normal transitory flow of life. There is a kind of transcendent, even eternal, aspect to it so that wins and losses are not just things that can be changed in time but rather reflect on the core of the personhood of the people who hold the political opinions. For Christians politics is always about lesser kingdoms, temporary kingdoms, and when it achieves the substance in the Christians mind of the Kingdom of God it has warped itself into something dark and even unholy no matter how good the motives may appear to be.
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Wisdom…
What do I need? There is nothing on earth that I need, except that which is most essential. What do I need, what is most essential? I need the Lord, I need His grace, His kingdom within me. On earth, which is the place of my wanderings, my temporary being, there is nothing that is truly mine, everything belongs to God and is temporal, everything serves my needs temporarily. What do I need? I need true and active Christian love; I need a loving heart which takes compassion on its neighbors; I need joy over their prosperity and well-being, and sorrow over their sorrows and illnesses, their sins, failings, disorders, woes, poverty; I need warm and sincere compassion for all the circumstances of their lives, joy for those who are joyous and tears for those who are in tears. Enough of selfishness, egoism, living only for oneself and acquiring everything only for oneself: riches, pleasures, the glory of this world; enough of spiritual dying instead of living, grieving instead of rejoicing, and carrying within oneself the poison of selfishness, for selfishness is a poison that is continuously poured into our hearts by Satan. O, let me cry out with King David: Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart. Grant me, O Lord, true life, dispel the darkness of my passions, disperse their power with Thy strength, for with Thee all things are possible!
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A Voice Worth Hearing…
and a blog worth reading. I live, by choice, in a racially mixed urban neighborhood and we need more voices like this for blacks to hear and whites to listen.
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There is a Time for Everything…
and apparently the iconic “Love Boat” of TV fame is being sold for scrap. Alas, no facelift, botox, or a new agent to resurrect the career of this old star.
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What Your Kids…
might be listening to today. One woman’s experience with listening to her 14 year old family member’s IPod. Warning- offensive and vulgar language presented only because its part of what you need to understand.
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Truth…
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I Want to Be in This Band…
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Worth Reading…
God does not matter practically—in the practices of everyday life—because the chief end of man in modernity is the maintenance of control over reality, and we can adequately achieve such dominance through science and technology (and through social and cultural institutions that are scientific and technically ordered). As Gay puts it, “a modern society is one in which the prevailing conception of the human task in the world is that of mastery by way of systematic manipulation.”
Read more here.
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On Affirmation…
Christianity affirms you but not in the way affirmation is generally presented in this culture. In fact Christianity may not affirm your present emotions, state of being, practices, or relationships. It’s very possible that Christianity will say to you, to me, to us all “No, that’s not acceptable.” So if you’re looking for a religion to simply embrace you wherever you are at any given moment Christianity is not for you. Christianity does, however, affirm the person you can become in God and it understands that it is this person, and not the person dancing with thoughts, feelings, and ever-changing desires in any given moment that is actually the “real” you. The path that Christ lays out is not about simply baptizing whatever it is you desire to be but rather to make you what you were designed to be, a human in communion with God. It would be easier, of course, especially in the short run for Christianity to just baptize anything we want, but that would be settling for less, and always having to settle for less is a kind of hell in the midst of life.
The Beautiful Path 