offline thoughts

[barbara wolf <lupa@biddeford.com>]

Having been helplessly offline (not altogether by my own fault) for more
than three days, I had to face an enormous number of messages.  Thank God
for the dele button, and mea culpa for anything I dumped that I should have
read and saved.

Apropos what I've been reading:

1.  The economics, politics, and sociology of the Kingdom of Heaven are not
like ours.  E.g., the obvious *lunacy* of hiring people for the last hour of
a project and then paying them the same amount as workers who"ve been at it
all day; the irony of expecting us to distinguish between Caesar's power and
God's, when we are asked to be obedient to both; the impossible promises
that the poor and hungry are to be happy in the Kingdom and that the Kingdom
is now.

2.  Christians are expected to live in the world and in the Kingdom at the
same time, and this is very difficult.  Paying attention to the rules and
regs of the world is hard anough, but trying to perceive *at the same time*
the motions and the power of the Spirit is downright mind-boggling.  Still,
as our Lord lived in both, and as we are baptized into him, it seems to me
that we can't evade our position--not if we are seeking any kind of strength
and serenity in the Spirit.

3.  I honestly think that Macquarrie is absolutely on target re idolatry.
We're all to one degree or another idolators, as we fall into the trap of
constructing gods out of the little that we know of God.  And then we wonder
why it's so hard to understand the ways of the Kingdom, particularly the q.
of atheists and the Kingdom.  Heavenly days!  Are we still so hooked on the
Kingdom as equallying "life after death"???

Incidentally, just when I figured I"d had it with snow, it's begun to melt.
My sympathy to all the brothers and sisters south of the ME/NH border.  At
least people in ME are more or less used to winter surprises.