Ryan,
Grace to you! I’m sure in Christ’s time, part of the ritual of going to bed was first putting the donkey back in the stall BEFORE you brush your teeth, so all IS well… I think you’ve been quite literal with your hermeneutics. LOL!
Todd

Yes, Todd, that IS EXACTLY what I meant.  It’s all about context, people.

About every-third-day I do something as a parent that is out of character.  And if you do something every-third-day, I suppose it is not fair to describe it as out of character; it’s more like a demi-habit.

My collection of faux-pas is extraordinary; but here’s the deal: the ideal of the Christian faith is forgiveness, not perfection.  WHY DO PEOPLE NOT UNDERSTAND THIS?  (WHY DID I JUST TYPE IN CAPS-LOCK?)  I could expound from scripture, but why?  We should get this by now, because it is absolutely elementary.

You’ve been forgiven so that you might forgive.  Being committed to “training up a child in the way he/she should go” is all about forgiveness.  Sure, you instill your moral values, but when you break those same values or when your children do, will they know how to forgive you?  How to receive forgiveness from you?

Your thoughts, please…

P.S. If you have blogged on this subject go ahead and post a link!

Grace.

(For this to make sense, you’ll have to read last week’s post, a simple quote from The Grapes of Wrath.)

“That terrible action is why I perform this terrible action.”  That’s what you tell yourself.  You might be right; not excused, just correct.  When it comes to pain, anger, hatred or any other negative life experience we all look for reasons that will explain why we are the way we are or do the things we do.  We all have some pretty unsettling corners of our lives; the dark, quiet ones.

There has to be a reason why:

I drink too much.  I tell lies.  I work too much.  I don’t work.  I over-eat.  I make myself throw up.  I visit certain websites.  I’m addicted to facebook.  I sleep around.  I withhold myself from my spouse.  I judge everyone around me.  I’m greedy.  Whatever… Read the rest of this entry »

The road was busy, and I had been tailgated for seven miles.  I know this because I had been counting.  There was a line of cars in front of me.  We weren’t in a hurry; it was Saturday and the to-do list was mostly done.  That’s when it all began.  Tailgator crossed the double yellow into oncoming traffic in order to get one car ahead of me in the line up.  I slammed on the brakes and moved as far as I could to the right so that the poor fellow in the opposite lane could live to see Sunday.

this is not a photo from actual events described in this blog post.

What an idiot.  Then she does it again.  Double yellow, motor cycle in the oncoming lane and she pulls out right in front of him and passes one car in order to be next in line.  Read the rest of this entry »

Language and Epistemology of Grace

There is this woman in the Bible, if I were talking about her behind her back I might be inclined to call her “that filthy whore!”  This woman was caught in the act!  “We have laws for this kind of behavior,” cried the behaviorists.  So the behaviorists, doing what moral theorists should do, appealed to Jesus.  To whom else would you turn?  Certainly Jesus, filled with the Spirit and moral clarity with settle this one.  The moral lawyers cited Moses vs. the People of Israel Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Thursday.  Maundy Thursday.  Maundy is from a Latin word meaning “mandate.”  Something about the celebration of this particular day is mandatory.

The footwashing.  what else is mandatory?

This post is pretty darn long, but it is SO worth the 7 minutes you’ll spend reading it.  It was sent to me by my good friend Steve, a drummer, pianist, husband and tattooed piece of work, who hails from the good old SLC.  He plans on blogging at squinkwerks.com at some point in the future.

For me, it seems like all my good, worthwhile, spiritually enriched and enriching stories involve sex.  It’s an odd realization to see that you might be a lecher when for the past decade or so you thought you were a pretty stand-up dude.

I guess that’s not really fair to say, exactly.  I don’t know that I’ve ever really thought I was a “stand-up dude” because for the past decade or so I’ve been feeding myself the harsh pill of Scripture, and, while it’s definitely the cure for what ails me, it can be a spiny one to swallow, and the side effects painful please continue reading…

Imagine a church that plays Rainy Day Women (#12 and 35) as the benediction.  You know, the Dylan song, “Everybody must get stoned.”  And not for the “getting stoned” part, as I have plenty of friends who have gone to that church for far too long.  I appreciate the list of things for which people will stone you.  “They’ll stone you when you’re tryin’ to be so good (process of sanctification?)…  They’ll stone you when you’re walking down the street (justification?)… They’ll stone you and say that its the end (eschatological views?)…” etc.   

Seriously.  If there is a group of people out there committed to the notion that left to their own devices they blow it nearly as much or more often than they succeed, I am in.  And I’m giving 12.5% instead of 10. 

What if there was a church who threw down her glossy pamphlets and mutated “5 core purposes” mission statements stolen from a successful church in California in favor of something that sounded more like this:  ”We’re probably going to brutalize you, and if you should be chosen to sit on God’s right or on his left for 15 minutes, we’re going to throw a holy fit until you come down.  But we hope that by ackowledging our shortcomings there is hope that you’ll forgive us, and we’ll try to do the same when you return the favor.  We don’t mean to stone you, and we understand that you don’t mean to stone us back.  We’re just disgustingly human at times.  Last week we stoned 15 people, but this week we’re down to 13.5.  We’re trying to follow Jesus!”

I’m not saying this from a “holy” perspective.  I’ve stoned my share of friends as well.  At the end of the day, I hope I am in a position to ask for forgiveness rather than defend the rocks I’ve thrown.  So, try forgiveness.  Next time you find yourself with a couple handfuls of rocks, build an altar to remind you of the forgiveness you’ve received, instead of choosing a target for your ammo. 

(They’ll stone you and then say) Good luck.