Jack Pelham

Beloved soul,
Locked up in your fortress,
Where little love can get in
And less can get out—

Where we must talk through the walls—
You within and me without—
Catching what we can of the muffled conversation,
And simply having
To do without the rest—

There is some sad irony
In one’s failing to act
For fear of losing
What he doesn’t really have, anyway.

In many ways, God is not like us. So it’s easy for us to misunderstand him. And yet in some ways, he is quite like us. So some of his character is easy for us to understand.

I want to write briefly about just one thing in God’s character that seems to throw a lot of us off: He is both kind and stern.

Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.

NIV Romans 11:22

This Earth does have its troubles—
Some we could fix, and some we must surely endure.
And sometimes we err in trying to endure what should be fixed,
Or in trying to fix what must be endured.
It’s our own call, and we swim at our own risk, it seems—
Figuring out later (or not!) when we mess up.

When politicians want to be elected, they need the support of the majority, generally speaking. But what’s the average cognitive state of the majority? Are they all highly-diligent thinkers with enough time on their hands to vet all the facts?

No!

The majority are busy, distracted people who don’t spend much time in reflection or in problem solving. They are given to biases, memes, and hearsay as their method of gathering information. And when they use logic, it’s not always sound logic, because they don’t put much thought into that, either.

I listened to a group discussion on a Bible podcast, regarding this or that controversial doctrine that the group is studying. And as they were each talking about whether they find the doctrine convincing, it was very instructive to notice their methods of thinking. I’m writing this short post now just to point out one of those methods, and what I see that’s wrong with it.

One of the participants said that she can see that the doctrine in question maybe has some merit, but that she was going to be darn sure to see it proven completely before she ever adopts such a controversial thing for herself.

You can tell when someone’s physically fit
Just by looking at them and watching them move—
Provided you know what physical fitness looks like.
Otherwise, you might think everybody’s doing fine.

And you can tell when someone’s cognitively fit
By watching how they talk, deliberate, and decide,
And how they navigate themselves in this real world.
But again, you’d have to know what good thinking looks like.
Otherwise, you might think everybody’s doing fine.

The way I see it,
He came to start a fire
In people’s hearts—
Even though he knew
That that sort of thing
Would only ever really
Interest a few.

When a person is the giving sort,
But not the forgiving sort,
He can only enjoy giving to those
Of whom he approves.

But when he learns to forgive,
He can give to anybody.

What the Party simply cannot seem to understand is that its own failures and errors are a substantial obstacle to the progress of whatever good is in its own platform. Let me repeat that: It’s own failures and errors are a substantial obstacle to the progress of whatever good things are in its own platform. They expend their energies in focusing on the failures and errors of the opposition party, but when has the sum total of all that griping ever resulted in a one iota of reform of the other party?