Safe Haven

Apparently, I make people cry. In the good way, and the bad way. Sorry, everyone. I make myself cry. Both ways, too. "Sensitive" doesn't get it; it's like touching souls. Sensitive people get itchy when the mold gets high; Soul-Touchers can either change your life, or rip your guts out, and make you wonder if it's worth it. Like sketchy preacher-types. And whoever made 'Armageddon'. I don't care what you say; that movie gets me every time. It's the Dad thing; has to be. It recasts the whole movie for me. When I see Gracie Stamper, I think, I get you. I know who you are. So let me just remind everyone that I am an emotionally dangerous person. Or something. I really didn't know this. I was not aware of this at all. Please forgive me if I have destroyed any of you emotionally or otherwise. It probably wasn't intentional. I am sitting here reflecting, and I realize that no one gets such a powerful gift for no reason. It means that as we ...

It's no secret that I'm struggling to forgive someone and something. It's not even that I have no warm thoughts or prayers, because I do. It's just that the thing I most fear and hate has come true: to feel alone and isolated from a person who matters. I never wanted that. And I think, "To be misunderstood and even unloved! What could be worse?" But then I listened to the priest. He said to meditate on those words of Jesus. It's true that my pain in its depth is not understood; it's true that I am hurt that I cannot redress it, that I have no one to talk to besides God, and His strange servants who don't really understand it. But it is also true that I do not understand the depth of the pain I caused. I tried, but it's not always easy to do. It's harder when hurtful things come back at you. I'm a proud man; I am jealous of my reputation. So there was a curious tension between the opinion and hurt feelings of someone I value, and the...

I had a dream two nights ago. All of my friends were in a house. It was the Lord's house; I know that part. It's a very nice house. Anyway, I sat down right in front of the friend from whom I am estranged. I looked right at her. She kept reading her book, as if I were not there. It was very hard. It was more than a bit like those scenes in The Christmas Carol and It's A Wonderful Life, where no one can see the main character. We're desensitized to this now, because we've seen it so much. But can you imagine how terrible that would actually be? [Shudder] I wonder if the Judgment will be like this; you see what would have happened without you either way. I don't know why I'm thinking about this so much. Well, I do. But I wish I were not. I feel pretty much like I did at the time: that the silence is unwarranted, un-Christian, unforgiving, and unfair. And no amount of lecturing or guilt-trips will change that. I have taken not only this personally, but al...

"God does not love us because we are valuable. We are valuable because God loves us." - Martin Luther Bovine feces. I wouldn't even fertilize my garden with that. [You don't have a garden.--ed.] The thing that irritates me most is that people think this is 'the gospel.' The gospel is this: God is Love. God loves us because he loves us. The fact that God loves proves that we are inherently valuable. There is absolutely no warrant for the self-hatred suggested by this dualistic man-hating excuse for 'the gospel.' God sounds like an abusive father. In fairness, everything ultimately gets its value from God. But we are valuable AND God loves us. If humans were not inherently valuable, there would be no Hell, because the judgment comes by the rejection of God who made us. And it means that sin is a kind of self-hatred. God loves us more than we can possibly love ourselves. Pride does prevent us from loving God, but there are two kinds: the "God i...

This is good, as far as it goes. We could lob bombs at various "fundamentalists" until the cows come home. But it only brings the question into sharp relief: "Was the Reformation at its core anti-sacramental?" In a word, yes. It will not do to see all the ill effects of denying the sacramental reality of Holy Orders centuries later, and then try to smuggle the benefits in, without grappling with the question of authority that give this issue its real salience in the first place. I do not deny or minimize all that is held in common by Christians. But the challenge is precisely this: If you don't have a real sacramental succession from the apostles, you vainly presume to carry the signs of grace to the people for whom Christ died.

It is an offering that must be made. These are the best gifts they say, and that may be. But it came to me unwanted, and it pulls me down into a place of no thought, no reason, only tears. Were it death, that is one thing. I mock death, and I know its defeat. No, this is much worse, and I am powerless. I do not know how to offer what I have been given. I cannot see how it is good. You want my bitterness and despair? Perhaps Wisdom will come and say, "This is the way." On my behalf, she says, "Accept it, for he is The Young One." My portion is regret and anger is my friend. The choicest parts It seems have been taken.