Jack Pelham

Some people are so desperate
To get what they want
That they are even willing
To resort to the truth on occasion.

It will happen sometime that life throws you
The surprisingest struggle, unlike your normal trials.
It will blindside you with its difficulty and perplex you
With the severity of the moods it casts upon you—
Even to the point where you begin to wonder
How much longer you can endure it.

First it tried to kill him in the slaughter of the innocents.
And though that failed, things were tolerable for a time—
Until he started preaching and doing mighty works
That proved he was really something.

Some get so busy with loving
That they never take the time
To make sure they have got it just right
And are doing it as Jesus would have done.

Life’s big events happen on one timeline
And the reckoning of them on another—
The latter being often the more important,
For I do believe we were put here
Both to learn and to decide.

It’s easy to underestimate the difference between the person who tries to do what’s right and the person who always tries to do it! Here are some brief observations from my time on Planet Earth so far:

One huge divide in Christianity is over the question of whether Jesus died so that believers could overcome in their struggle against sin, or so that they wouldn’t have to. The way that people answer that question seems to have a lot to do with what kind of people they are. The ones who are most intent on wanting to be like Jesus, and to be accountable and submissive to him seem to be the most apt to want to overcome their sins. And those who don’t like accountability seem more apt to want to interpret the story of Jesus’ sacrifice as something that absolves them from responsibility for themselves.

I had gathered that he wasn’t the eloquent sort, but it seemed that he had something he wanted to express throughout our conversation. And I think I managed to piece it together at length. It was something like this:

“I don’t have to keep up with principles and precepts and passages and beliefs and doctrines and all that; I joined a church, and they keep up with all that stuff for me!”

We’re all different from each other—to some degree. And we’re all like one another—to some degree.

OK, I get that.

And special attention is being paid to this in cognitive science these days, the idea being that most of us are somewhat “neurotypical”, while others of us are “neurodiverse”—the particular idea of which being that we are somehow, to put it in everyday language, “wired differently.”

Him: “You always have to be right!”
Me: “Thanks for noticing. I wish we both suffered from that virtue.”