Reflections

Truth without love has no decency; it's just brutality. On the other hand, love without truth has no character; it's just hypocrisy ~ John F. MacArthur It's been one of those weeks! If I wasn't being confronted, I was the one doing the confronting; either getting hurt, or doing the hurting.  I have yet to learn that , just because something's true, it doesn't mean I have to say it. Conversely, just because I love you, it doesn't mean I have to protect you from a painful truth. T ruth and love, head and heart, need to be in balance!   And I need to consider your head and heart as well; the state you are in to receive the truth I want to share (or withhold).  Finally, there's the productive factor. I can offer a painful truth lovingly but, g enerally speaking, for it to be kind and constructive to you , it also needs to be something you (or I) can do something about. Otherwise, it's just a criticism.  So much to consider before opening my m...

~ And after the earthquake a fire; but the  Lord  was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. I'm not a Christian but I have struggled my whole life to understand the meaning of "sacrifice", the mystery of the cross, and the human obsession with offering blood (goats, lamb, body parts or whole persons) to atone for our human condition. Raised by hard-working parents who loved us well but, like many of their generation, reminded us daily that they bore the cost of our privilege and good fortune, I rejected and was unwilling to pass that burden on to my own children.  So in my twenties, I completed a Master's thesis entitled "Le Sacrifice et la Générosité; Réflexion sur Autrui" that skewered the notion of sacrifice in favour of generosity as an act of giving from the feeling of abundance rather than from the pinch of obligation. If this was not love for another, I thought, at least it was not a need for personal atonement. Still I ...

No wonder, then, if these waters be so deep, that we hover over them with a religious regard. ~Emerson There is a gloom in deep love as in deep water; there is a silence in it which suspends the foot; and the folded arms, and the dejected head are the images it reflects. No voice shakes its surface; the Muses themselves approach it with a tardy and a timid step, and with a low and tremulous and melancholy song. ~Landor Today my friend George told me about something that had happened to him when he was a boy swimming at the beach many years ago...   He and his friends were getting ready to go home when one of his friends started calling “Help!   Help!”   George thought he was joking- he was always teasing like that- and kept heading for the shore.   But the cries persisted and soon they sounded more like gurgling as his friend went under water.   George started swimming out toward his friend.   The sands were shifting underfoot and s...