Reason Breeds Insanity

Church on Sunday was really interesting. Andrea spoke and her message was about how we perceive each other and the community we share. She used post-it notes to describe the type of sin she carries with her, struggles with, and wants to share with our community Agape. Interestingly, I find that Agape is so much better at this type of community than most churches I’ve been to, that I struggle to understand why someone wouldn’t want to share their hurts and pain with the people that attend there: no the people who are the church there. From my perspective as a former outsider, I have to say that I don’t really see many people going there who remain as Casting Crowns sings: “shiny plastic people.” I see people genuinely attempting to struggle with their Christian faith, or their faith in general. Linguistically, I guess I should write “faiths” because more than one person goes to church at Agape, but communally we all profess one faith (as diverse as our understandings of that faith may be). All this said, I thought Andrea’s message was an excellent one because even the best biblical communities could stand to be more open with each other.

I only wanted Andrea to go further with her analogy. When we practice grace, we not only label ourselves instead of each other with our little sin-laden post-it notes, we also recognize who we are before our post-its. By this I mean, that in a community, if we are truly practicing grace, we not only label ourselves with our own sin (recognizing that once we confess the sin the post-it is irrelevant anyway) but we see our friends wearing all those post-its, and one by one we pull the post-its from them and begin to wear them ourselves. I can’t get past this concept of grace. It isn’t enough to recognize someone and forgive them, but we are to recognize, forgive, and help them carry that sin. If we all went around pulling post-its from each other, then eventually we wouldn’t know whose sin was whose to start with and we’d all be carrying each other’s sin. There can be no shame, when we all carry the consequences. And whether we want to admit it or not, we all carry the consequences either way.

For example, a teenage couple in our church gets pregnant. We can either shame them and permanently scar them for their sin, as if they won’t be anyway, or we can help them shoulder the burden of their decision and give them a living example of grace. The consequence here is that as a church we were Christ to this young couple (whatever the outcome of their relationship), and we absorbed their public shame by supporting them through their private consequences. I am pretty sure this is what Christ did for the woman accused of adultery. I think he might have written in the sand: “I took all of her post-it notes and I am wearing them, so go ahead and throw the rocks at me.” Yeah, I wouldn’t either.

For my thoughts about winter, click here.

I am definitely giving thanks today. I am mostly over the bauble with the friends. Fuck ’em! I do have to say that I don’t deal well with petty B.S. and I think that is part of my problem. I need to learn the skills of small, meaningless talk, subtle manipulation, and evasive responsibility strategies. Then, and only, then, will I make it as a graduate student. I need to brush up on my middle school skills.

With all that said, I had wonderful Thanksgiving Day. I will spare you tirade I have in my back pocket about Thanks giving and let it suffice to say that I gave thanks not once but twice. Bec and I were able to spend last weekend with my family having Greek food and fellowship, but we were also able to spend all of yesterday in Dayton with most of her family, sans Ann and Jack, sadly. I suppose you could say we had a Scottish-ish day as the majority of the good conversation came after a few beers were had by all. Once again someone spilled beer/wine while reaching for the gravy, and the giblets were left in the turkey, but the day was a major success completed as always by a short jaunt about the neighborhood on foot. It has taken five years, but I finally remembered to wear my tennis shoes for the occasion. It has been a beautiful two weeks.

The beauty of the two weeks has only been slightly dulled by the wonderfully thin layer of white on the ground this morning, so I am trying to convince Bec that we should move to say Arizona or maybe even Georgia or Tennessee? I loathe snow. I despise it so much that I called Merideth on the way home last night to tell her that she sucked, and that there will be no snow for Christmas! She loves the stuff, but living in Florida I don’t suppose she sees much of it. I would gladly box some up and ship it to her if it meant I no longer had to deal with it. I figure at least I love three out of the four seasons, and I would love winter if cold didn’t equal snow or ice. Since Merideth does get to come home for Christmas, though, I suppose I can soften my heart a bit and hope for snow for her. She gets one week of snow while she is here and then NO MORE of it. Last night she said that there would be snow for Christmas because God loves her more. I suppose it is possible.

I think I have seen it all now. I was just waiting at the printer in Bracken behind a guy who was sporting a Louis Vuitton Murse. you know a man purse made by Louis Vuitton. I never thought I would see the day when one, Louis Vuitton made a Murse, or to that I would see someone at BSU carrying one!

The other thing that I am thinking about right now is that I am way too trusting. I trust people more than I should and I give my emotions to people who can’t or don’t hold them tenderly enough. My friends mostly suck. Have you ever wondered why you invest so much in people only to have them let you down when the going gets tough? Have you ever held all of your friends’ needs out and above your own, simply to have your needs remain at the bottom of their lists. I would say that I am through with this whole kit and kaboodle, but there is this concept called grace. And it fucks me up every time!