Does it comfort you to know you fought the good fight?
The year is nearly finished.
I wish I had something profound to write.
Ok, here's a little piece of something... I was just thinking about the essay I'm supposed to be writing about Derek Webb's song "A King and a Kingdom" and how much I like it. And then I found this paper I wrote two years ago and there's a line in it that sounds exactly like that song! It may be arrogant of me, but I like to know that I don't just latch on to other's ideas like a parasite. I can come up with opinions all by myself...
"We have to remember that the community is not the ultimate good. Like sex, food, adventure, romance, and anything else comforting and appealing, community can only claim goodness as long as its existence points us to God. Whatever is not of faith is of sin, as we know from Paul’s letter to the Romans. The Nazis worked devotedly for a supreme race, right? I do not serve the community, I serve the Lord. Of course, my service usually entails serving the community, following right from the second greatest commandment (according to Jesus Christ, rather an authority on the whole thing): "Love your neighbor as yourself." But what trumps loving others? "Love the Lord your God with all your heart." Love is an action, and acting in love for the Lord does not serve the self alone. If I choose to love God through my actions, it truly becomes loving others. One way that I must force myself, faithfully, to love, is through spreading community. How can others decide to make a family or townhouse or city or country a healthy, growing place, if they haven’t ever thought beyond themselves? We should be asking what people think and why they think it, to promote real discussion on real issues. We cannot simply become cynical about “Bethel
But I don't think anymore that we have to delineate loving God and loving others. Aren't the two, put together, a description of living out agape love? They should never be mutually exclusive. Ever. I think. Is that right? Hm.
I wish I had something profound to write.
Ok, here's a little piece of something... I was just thinking about the essay I'm supposed to be writing about Derek Webb's song "A King and a Kingdom" and how much I like it. And then I found this paper I wrote two years ago and there's a line in it that sounds exactly like that song! It may be arrogant of me, but I like to know that I don't just latch on to other's ideas like a parasite. I can come up with opinions all by myself...
"We have to remember that the community is not the ultimate good. Like sex, food, adventure, romance, and anything else comforting and appealing, community can only claim goodness as long as its existence points us to God. Whatever is not of faith is of sin, as we know from Paul’s letter to the Romans. The Nazis worked devotedly for a supreme race, right? I do not serve the community, I serve the Lord. Of course, my service usually entails serving the community, following right from the second greatest commandment (according to Jesus Christ, rather an authority on the whole thing): "Love your neighbor as yourself." But what trumps loving others? "Love the Lord your God with all your heart." Love is an action, and acting in love for the Lord does not serve the self alone. If I choose to love God through my actions, it truly becomes loving others. One way that I must force myself, faithfully, to love, is through spreading community. How can others decide to make a family or townhouse or city or country a healthy, growing place, if they haven’t ever thought beyond themselves? We should be asking what people think and why they think it, to promote real discussion on real issues. We cannot simply become cynical about “
But I don't think anymore that we have to delineate loving God and loving others. Aren't the two, put together, a description of living out agape love? They should never be mutually exclusive. Ever. I think. Is that right? Hm.
posted by Cara at
3:40 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home