IMHO

We made it back from San Angelo safely (and in only 6 hours!). Aaron, Kelly Rose and I listened to the Modesty Basement Tape from the people at the Highlands Study Center.

So, of course, Kelly and I chatted and chatted about all the possible implications, situations, sins, misunderstandings, possibilities, hopes, habits and fears concerning this issue. It was fun.

Modesty is a bigger issue than I'd thought and (after hearing this tape for the fourth time or so) it was a blessing to be able to connect love and modesty. I am called to love God and love others. How can I do that when I'm so self-absorbed that I don't care about pretty much anyone but myself (which is a tendency true to my nature as a corrupted creature whose loyalty and worship, without outside intervention from Christ, is limited to myself)?

This swarm of thoughts cleared when Aaron pointed out (with his characteristic economy of words) that we are sinners and hopelessly selfish without Christ's bountiful grace. I need more of that.

The Sidewalk of God

I really like grass. Especially the thick, soft kind that reminds you of the way that you imagine lush carpet feels.

Why is it, then, that in so many places you're not allowed to walk on it? Doesn't it seem very natural to walk on grass? Isn't that its purpose? Kelly M. and I were walking to campus today and talked about the absurdity of forbidding people to walk on grass. It's what God made us to walk on! It struck us both as ridiculous to the point of comical.

Is it because nowadays we don't walk on grass, we trample it? Or is it because we've confused beauty and utility?

Polka!

It's been a very interesting time since coming back from a trip to Colorado and settling into my temporary schedule as faux intern for Doug. My head is full of thoughts, but none in particular. I'm very busy, but not exhaustingly so. I've spent the entire week with people, and I think that I might be able to relate to Kelly M. now. So, although I've wanted to blog about so many things on my mind, it seems that none have developed enough to even pursue.

This morning, though, I was thinking about the upcoming weekend and all that is to be done or needs to be done. With that, I thought of polka dancing (yes, we love to polka 'round here!). A picture popped into my head of men and women polka dancing and for some reason it dawned on me that for the two sexes it will always be a completely different experience. The woman will always be moving backwards and waiting for signals; while the man will always be moving forward and constantly thinking of what it is he wants to do next. Then I wondered how it is that egalitarian feminists (or wimps) could ever believe what they do about the nature of men and women. If something as natural as dancing demands an equal but very different role from the two partners, then why does it seem like such a social injustice when this obviously applies to even more important and natural things like marriage?

What I thought even better was the picture that dancing paints of this biblical understanding of roles. The pair looks absolutely beautiful when they dance. There's a harmony involved in the leading and following. But, as I've been blessed to experience more and more these two years I've been at Christ the King Church, this harmony of roles is even more beautiful when you see it lived out in the marriages and families of those around you.

Carmon's book meme
(Because I so admire Mrs. Cumbee and books!)

Here’s how it works. Copy the list, then remove from it the names of any authors not in your home library, replacing them with names of authors you have. Boldface the ones you’ve added.

1. St. Augustine
2. Immanuel Kant
3. Roland H. Bainton
4. Doug Wilson
5. Sir Walter Scott
6. Tacitus
7. George Eliot
8. Susan Hunt
9. P.G. Wodehouse
10. William Shakespeare

(This is assuming I'm allowed to combine Miss Kelly M.'s library along with mine. :) )

Boxes

I'm a skeptical person in general; or perhaps cynical is a more accurate description. If I were being very honest, it all goes back to the box thing. My world is a box. Within the box is all that is right and safe and true. To find out something in my box is incorrect means that I might need to reconfigure my box to create a new box, but it is still a box. So, anything outside of my box deserves whole-hearted disapproval, or at the very least suspicious glances.

But the last several months I've been very frightened to realize that the box mentality is a denial and rejection of God's Word, and, moreover, that the box is a figment of my imagination. I can't simply jump from box to box, attempting to determine which one it is that I (and everyone else) am supposed to be in. To be a Christian in the Kingdom of God is to live in grace and mercy and to joyfully recognize God's goodness in His creation, to attempt to see the distortions in that creation from the fall and to go out and victoriously sanctify this world through Christ. Christians are "not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another."

Living my life is so much simpler and yet so much deeper than I can imagine. My life is to be a process of change and growth marked only by the Spirit. It's much more organic and dynamic than a box, that's for sure.