DaveTown

It isn’t very often that I dive into the treacherous waters of biblical exposition (The Good Lord knows there are enough idiots out there butchering the scriptures), but something caught my eye today, and so, because, as you know, I’m all about the helpful, I share.

So, the Apostle Paul (like me, a late convert to the church, though that’s about where the similarity ends), is writing to the good folks in Ephesus, and he tells them two things in this passage:

Let us then, be children no longer, tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine that originates in human trickery and skill in proposing error.

Rather, let us profess the truth in love, and grow to the full maturity of Christ the head.

So many professing Christians love the first part of that verse, yet entirely forget the second part. It isn’t enough to be doctrinally correct, unless you are, at the same time, not just telling the truth, but telling the truth in love.

That’s where we all fall short, most of the time, whenever we discuss the truth of Christianity. If you’re not sure what “telling the truth in love” means, there’s a pretty stout definition of love in the 13th chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Church at Corinth. You can go read it, or, you can just go to a wedding at any random Church this weekend, because it will invariably be read aloud sometime during the ceremony (If you’ve ever seen “Four Weddings and a Funeral”, you know what I mean).

The point I’m making is this: If you don’t have the ability to convey the truth of the Christian faith in a manner that shows love for the other party in the conversation, you are both better served if you just go ahead and shut up.

Now, if someone will please go ahead and pass around the collection plate; I’m done here.

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The news that God has become man strikes at the very heart of an age in which both the good and the wicked regard either scorn for man or the idolization of man as the highest attainable wisdom.

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer

According to Alexa.com, this blog is the 2,751,588th most popular website in the internet.

Sweeeeeeeeeet…….

Bob Waldrop is running for mayor of Oklahoma City.

He’s not going to win. I know this because he has all the qualities that disqualify a person from holding public office in this country: common sense, integrity, and an heart for the poor.

Bob is one of the few people I’ve ever met who I am convinced is a saint. By that, I don’t mean he’s sweet and loveable (though he is) or that he loves bunnies and puppies and rainbows and daisies (though he may), or that he has the patience of Job (though I suspect, given his vocation, that he does). I mean he is a walking, talking example of the spirit of St. Francis, St. Augustine, Mother Teresa, and so many other real saints.

So, go read his campaign site, and while you’re at it, go check out justpeace.org as well. It’s a wellspring of good information. And if you have way too much money for your own good, send some of it to the Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House in Oklahoma City, which is where you can find Bob most days of the week, working for the poor and doing what he can to proclaim the good news.

I haven’t done this in a while, but it is time to enroll another member in the DaveTown 1% Club.

As I’m sure you remember, the 1% Club is made up of that very exclusive group of pubic figures who are, categorically and unequivocally, not full of bovine excrement.

If you keep up with current events, you know as well as I do that it is becoming a more exclusive club every day.

Today’s honoree is a man I’d never heard of before I read his recent article in Wired concerning privacy.  Here’s a snippet:

Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we’re doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.

We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need.

A future in which privacy would face constant assault was so alien to the framers of the Constitution that it never occurred to them to call out privacy as an explicit right. Privacy was inherent to the nobility of their being and their cause. Of course being watched in your own home was unreasonable. Watching at all was an act so unseemly as to be inconceivable among gentlemen in their day. You watched convicted criminals, not free citizens. You ruled your own home. It’s intrinsic to the concept of liberty.

For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that — either now or in the uncertain future — patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything we do is observable and recordable.

How many of us have paused during conversation in the past four-and-a-half years, suddenly aware that we might be eavesdropped on? Probably it was a phone conversation, although maybe it was an e-mail or instant-message exchange or a conversation in a public place. Maybe the topic was terrorism, or politics, or Islam. We stop suddenly, momentarily afraid that our words might be taken out of context, then we laugh at our paranoia and go on. But our demeanor has changed, and our words are subtly altered.

Do go read the whole thing, and welcome, Mr. Bruce Schneier, because you are the newest member of the DaveTown 1% Club.