day no. 15,926: a different kind of corner office

Proverbs 3:35
The wise shall inherit glory:
but shame shall be the promotion of fools.

The wise interpret life through death and resurrection. Inheritances are gained by living and given by dying. 

The foolish interpret life through advancement and progression. Promotions are gained by living but surrendered by dying.

So the wise lives presently for future glory and the fool lives only for the present. The wise sets his sights on leavning a legacy while the fools sets his on self promotion.

The wise gain glory, the fool gains shame.

The wise die and gain glory from their descendants by becoming a noble ancestor. They gain favor and glory from God above and are rewarded with a godly reputation among the faithful and a plot in the promised land.

The fool dies and loses whatever glory he acquired -- the greater the achievement, the greater the shame in having placed all his eggs in that broken basket. All his promotion gained him was a corner office in the cemetery with a perfect view of endless shame.

day no. 15,925: recognized, but renewed

Proverbs 2:21-22
For the upright will inhabit the land,
and those with integrity will remain in it, 
but the wicked will be cut off from the land,
and the treacherous will be rooted out of it

The meek shall inherit the earth. They will live in the land. They won't be removed from it, but will stay in it to live on it. But the wicked will be cut off from where they are. They won't be allowed to keep any of it. They can't dig anchors deep enough to hold on. They will be rooted out and removed.

Proverbs 10:30

The righteous shall never be removed:

but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth.

The old creation will pass away and behold, the new will come. Like us, it will not be utterly obliterated, but transformed; not annihilated, but refined and purified. The new earth will be like the old one, only better. Just like the new man is like the old one, only redeemed.

When someone meets a Christian on the street, they still recognize them as the unbeliever they knew from high school. They look similar enough, yet upon five minutes of discussion, they soon discover that this is not the same person they once knew. So it will be with the new earth. It will be recognizable, but five minutes of exploration there will reveal how different it is from the old creation.

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

day no. 15,924: cursed twice over

"'When one tries to rise above Nature one is liable to fall below it. The highest type of man may revert to the animal if he leaves the straight road of destiny.' He sat musing for a little with the phial in his hand, looking at the clear liquid within. 'When I have written to this man and told him I hold him criminally responsible for the poisons which he circulates, we will have no more trouble. But it may recur. Others may find a better way. There is danger there–a very real danger to humanity. Consider, Watson, the material, the sensual, the worldly would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual would not avoid the call to something higher. It would be the survival of the least fit. What sort of cesspool may not our poor world become?'" -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Creeping Man

Natural attempts to arrive at the supernatural only produce the unnatural. A man attempting to reverse his own curse only curses himself twice over. Nature does not merely take everything from us, it provides us with everything in the first place. We gain wisdom as we lose our hair, by growing older. We gain muscle as we lose our vigor, by hard work. We gain perspective as we lose our eye sight, by hindsight.

Those who survive by resisting nature will be the worst specimens the world produces. They won't be the creme of the crop rising to the top, but the stain at the bottom of the cup that is hard to remove.

Those who accept the world as God made it move on to a better world, while those who reject the world God made have their best days behind them.

Luke 9:24
For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.

day no. 15,923: the sound of sawing somewhere else

Howl, fir tree, for the cedar is fallen. -- Zechariah 11:2

"When in the forest there is heard the crash of a falling oak, it is a sign that the woodman is abroad, and every tree in the whole company may tremble lest to-morrow the sharp edge of the axe should find it out. We are all like trees marked for the axe, and the fall of one should remind us that for every one, whether great as the cedar, or humble as the fir, the appointed hour is stealing on apace." -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

The sound of sawing somewhere else should lead a tree to prepare to be felled. The sight of fallen trees should preach repentance to those still standing. Everyone will one day die and hearing about the death of others should remind us that we are no exception.

Ecclesiastes 7:2

It is better to go to the house of mourning,

than to go to the house of feasting:

for that is the end of all men;

and the living will lay it to his heart.

Do not be a fir tree assuaging your fears by pointing out that the fallen tree was a cedar. The woodsman is no respecter of kinds or types. All trees will come down. Some will be left for last and some will be sought at first, but all will eventually fall. And once they are felled, where they fall is where they will remain and they all fall just the once.

Ecclesiastes 11:3b

If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north,

in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.

Fallen trees preach repentance to the forest.

Hebrews 9:27

It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.

day no. 15,922: outside interference

"He's dead--- his mother has had a nervous breakdown. They spoiled him rotten. I mean, most parents would be proud of a kid like that--- good-lookin' and smart and everything, but they gave in to him all the time. He kept trying to make someone say 'No' and they never did. They never did. That was what he wanted. For somebody to tell him 'No.' To have somebody lay down the law, set the limits, give him something solid to stand on. That's what we all want, really. One time...'--- Randy tried to grin, but I could tell he was close to tears--- ' one time he came home drunker than anything. He thought sure they were gonna raise the roof. You know what they did? They thought it was something they'd done. They thought it was their fault--- that they'd failed him and driven him to it or something. They took all the blame and didn't do anything to him. If his old man had just belted him--- just once, he might still be alive." -- S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

Bob needed something solid to stand on. He knew it. His friends knew it. His parents did not. He was dead because he could not depend on them to ground him. He needed something to come from outside of himself to restrain him. He needed someone else to set limits upon him and provide him with a foundation. A man cannot be self-made because he does not bring himself into existence. He cannot dig their own foundation without ending up in a pit. He cannot pull himself up by the bucket he's stuck in.

Proverbs 23:13-14

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.

God holds the world in His hands. It hangs in His balances. He is the arche -- the orienting, unifying, underlying principle behind, underneath, and over every other thing. When we are left to ourselves, we drift away. Without the gravity of outside interference, we float away. 

We are saved by outside interference. We are sustained by outside forces. We are secured by outside strength. 

Without something else to stand on, we sink.

Proverbs 14:12, 16:25

There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

Love interferes.

day no. 15,921: wisdom and weapons

Ecclesiastes 9:18a

Wisdom is better than weapons of war.

The proposition presupposes warfare. Wisdom is better than weapons, but make no mistake, we are at war. This observation is meaningless outside of a context of battle. There is no other scenario where comparing the two would be fair. Warfare is the space they share and each play their part there. To say that know-how is better than a howitzer while on a holiday at the beach is irrelevant, because better is comparative. It is better to have wisdom than to have weapons of war if hard-pressed between the two, but a grenade launcher at a birthday party is never a good idea, whereas it makes sense to take one with you to war. So, the comparison assumes both are of some use in the context of warfare where they happen to overlap, but if you can only have one, you're better off having wisdom. That said, if you are wise, you won't go out to war without your weapons.

Wisdom is always valuable whether at war or not, whereas weapons are valuable only for warring. A switch blade may be of benefit in hand-to-hand combat, but it can't help you with your Latin lessons. 

Wisdom can help avoid war altogether sometimes and in war, wisdom is more dangerous than weapons. Knowing how or when to use what you have is more potent than having something you know to be potent, but no wisdom to wield it.

So, it is better to have wisdom than weapons, but the wise will have both. If you're at war, you're a fool if you forget to bring your weapons or neglect your need for them there.

day no. 15,920: ...and justice for all

“If God be just, I, a sinner, alone and without a substitute, must be punished; but Jesus stands in my stead and is punished for me; and now, if God be just, I, a sinner, standing in Christ, can never be punished.” -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

Everyone will get justice. There is no injustice with God. No one will get short-changed. No one will receive less than what they deserve. And if we get what we deserve, we get more than we can handle; but because Jesus handled everything we deserve, we get more than we can imagine. Those who want their wages will be paid in full. Those who want God's mercy will have their debts paid in full.

“My hope lives not because I am not a sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; my trust is not that I am holy, but that being unholy, he is my righteousness. My faith rests not upon what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, in what he has done, and in what he is now doing for me.” -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

If it were not for Christ, God being just would be bad news for the unjust. And since by His standards, all have fallen short, everyone would have reason to mourn the fact of God's immutable justice. But because of Christ, God's justice is satisfied, His unchanging commitment to justice is our confidence. I can live in boldness knowing that Jesus has paid my fine and will reward me according to His wages, not mine. My confidence is Christ's accomplishments and His Father's commitment to honoring His promises to keep His Word that never, ever changes.

Romans 3:21-26
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—  the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,  whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

day no. 15,919: not quite quiet

“No one speaks more confidently than the one who gladly remains silent.” — Thomas a’ Kempis

The one who cheerfully waits his turn to speak while choosing his words wisely has the confidence of someone hearing his thoughts for the second time. If you, like your listeners, are only hearing your thoughts for the first time out loud, they will either lack authority or lap over with arrogance.

Proverbs 17:28

Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise;

when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.

Few things inspire less confidence than someone who cannot or will not control their tongue. You cannot trust someone who cannot be trusted to shut up. 

day no. 15,918: deserts and deserted places

Isaiah 58:10-12

If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry,

and satisfy the afflicted soul;

then shall thy light rise in obscurity,

and thy darkness be as the noonday:

and the Lord shall guide thee continually,

and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones:

and thou shalt be like a watered garden,

and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places:

thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations;

and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach,

The restorer of paths to dwell in.

Deserts and other deserted places can become sources of life when submitted to God. The old wasted places and crumbling foundations can become homes inhabited by generations. Breaches can be repaired. Paths can be restored. And those who trust in the Lord are entrusted with the responsibility of their rebuilding and blessed by the fruits of their labors. Trust in Him leads them to rebuild. Trust inspires and informs the work. Those who turn their face to the plow will reap the harvest of seeing faith made sight and devastation made divine.

May we be so blessed as to be considered among those honored as repairers and restorers by future generations.

1 Corinthians 15:58

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord

day no. 15,917: don't sleep on the small things

Zechariah 4:10
For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice

Don't despise the little things like Naaman did. Don't be so prepared to do any big thing that God may ask you to do that you despise any small thing He brings to your attention. 

“Everybody wants to save the Earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.”
 ― P.J. O'Rourke

Don't sleep on the small things. Rest assured, the Kingdom is more than dirty dishes, but it isn't less. Feasts are not made any better for not having plates. Pots and pans make for great spreads and cups and silverware make for fine dining. The small things often are not the main point, but the main point would be much duller without the finer details.

day no. 15,916: problems welcomed

"As Elbert Hubbard said of it, 'The only way to get away from opportunity is to lie down and die.'" -- The Armed Forces Officer, U.S. Department of Defense (1950)

God has given us a world of opportunity. He has hidden gold in the earth and eggs inside chickens. He has placed honey inside combs and milk inside cows. He has hidden salt inside the water and water inside the clouds. Everywhere opportunity abounds. The only way to be outside the reach of opportunity is to lie down and die.

Ecclesiastes 9:4
A living dog is better than a dead lion.

To be full of potential, but dead on the floor, is to be of no benefit to anyone. Burying your talents instead of turning a profit on them profits no one.

Opportunity is what we call a problem when it is welcomed. A problem is what we call it the rest of the time. All opportunities are problems; however, they're the kind of problems we should want to have more of.

Ecclesiastes 11:3
In the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.

The fallen tree has escaped the problems of opportunity. It has no more problems... except for the one obvious one.

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” — G.K. Chesterton

day no. 15,915: the plot thickens in the kitchen

"The best way that a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random, and get on as well as possible with the people inside. And that is essentially what each one of us did on the day that he was born."-- G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

Few things are more shocking than the habits of those people with whom we share a last name. Who are these people and where did they come from? How could so many with so much in common be so different? How could so many with the same nose prefer such different smells? How could so many with the same teeth pick such different dinners to chew? Variety is forced upon us at home. We leave to escape diversity, not to find it. We seek uniformity. We prefer entitled egalitarianism to sovereign synthesis. We like where our one note is sung instead of the harmony of different voices.

"Of all these great limitations and frameworks which fashion and create the poetry and variety of life, the family is the most definite and important... When we step into a family, we step into a world that we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family we step into a fairy tale."-- G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

Life is more like a story than an equation. When there is math involved, it is always a story problem. The digits must add up and end a certain way, but life isn't like that. It could go any direction. It could be a tragedy or a comedy. It could end on a crescendo or a fade to black. The plot thickens in the kitchen. The pot boiling at home on mom's stove is magical. Poetry is in your own kitchen, not in the drive-thru. Anything might come out of your pantry, but a number six no pickles is always the same at the chain wherever you go.

day no. 15,914: relentlessly diverse

"We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbor... Precisely because he may be anybody he is everybody." -- G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

The world down the street and up the block is larger and more varied than the big, wide world we imagine is outside of our neighborhood. There may be more geographical space and square footage outside our city block, but what we would seek out there are those of a similar mind or station to ourselves. We would select from society those with whom we would commune and would find a smaller world, not a larger one. We don't flee from our families or our neighborhoods in search of more variety, but less. What could be less diverse the Coachella?

We don't leave home because it is too oppressively stale, but because it is so relentlessly diverse. It won't stop insisting on things we don't care about. It won't stop bringing up topics we're not interested in. We are too weak for family and neighborhoods, so we seek the comfort of clubs and mutual congratulation societies and refer to them as being outside and open-minded when in reality they are a retreat into a gated community of closed-mindedness.

"It is a good thing for a man to live in a family for the same reason it is a good thing for a man to be besieged in a city.... They all force him to realize that life is not a thing from outside, but a thing from inside."  -- G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

day no. 15,913: the fastidious and the furious

"Fastidiousness is the most pardonable of vices; but it is the most unpardonable of virtues."

-- G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

Paying close attention to detail and desiring everything to be in its right place is the most understandable of character flaws as long as it is confessed as such. The one who wants everything to be just right, but knows enough to apologize for it when it becomes overbearing or inconvenient to others is readily forgiven. It's easy to give a pass to someone doing their best to see that details are not dropped or duties left undone.

However, this same attention to detail when worn as a badge of honor is intolerable. Few things are less pardonable than being looked down upon by someone who is upset at you for not looking up to them. Fastidiousness in this form is high pride and rubs everyone wrong. Few can find it in themselves to overlook or forgive the audacity that requires an apology from them.

Fastidiousness then, as Chesterton points out, is forgivable as a vice, but intolerable as a virtue. We forgive the one who agrees with its flaws, but resist the one who sees only ours.

day no. 15,912: blood-education levels

In reading Rebekah Merkle's Eve in Exile, I came across the following quote...

A little learning is a dang’rous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.

-- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism

In this respect, alcohol has an inverse relationship to education. A little alcohol keeps one sober whereas too much intoxicates, but too little education intoxicates whereas more will sober you up. To be drunk on education is to merely sip at it. To be sober is to polish off the bottle. It is only safe to operate a household with a blood-education level of 1.00 or more whereas a meager 0.02 level is too be black out drunk. In other words, a little wisdom makes things blurry, but more will clear them up.

day no. 15,911: we still to conquer go

On earth the usurpers reign,

Exert their baneful power,

O’er the poor fallen sons of men

They tyrannize their hour:

But shall believers fear?

But shall believers fly?

Or see the bloody cross appear,

And all their power defy?

Jesus' tremendous name

Puts all our foes to flight: 

Jesus, the meek, the angry Lamb,

A Lion is in fight.

By all hell's host withstood;

We all hell's host o'erthrow;

And conquering them, through Jesus' blood

We still to conquer go.

— Charles Wesley, Angels Your March Oppose

quoted in Charles Haddon Spurgeon's Morning and Evening

Christianity is nothing short of the conquest of the entire world by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.

Revelation 12:11

And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

The meek inherit the earth. The buried seeds are reborn to brighter skies. Those whose blood is poured out upon the ground will inherit the dirt as their very own forever. 

Habakkuk 2:14

For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

The world will be overcome by resurrection and the dead in Christ will cover the land as the water covers the sea.

1 Peter 1:24-25

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

The grass may wither and the flowers for now may fall, but the word of the Lord is forever and those who place their trust in it will be evergreen and in full bloom and eternal sunshine where no frost or winter can wither ever again.

day no. 15,910: lilith and eve

“To desire the desiring of her own beauty is the vanity of Lilith, but to desire the enjoying of her own beauty is the obedience of Eve.” -- C.S Lewis, That Hideous Strength

Lilith is satisfied by inspiring desire, whereas Eve insists on satisfying the desires she inspires. Eve wants to create want in order to satiate it, whereas Lilith wants to be wanted in order to withhold it. Eve wants to empower, whereas Lilith wants to be empowered. Eve uses her beauty to adorn her king, but Lilith uses her beauty to usurp the throne.

day no. 15,909: wealth control

“Life is so brief that no man can afford to lose a day. It has been well said that if a great king should bring us a great heap of gold, and bid us take as much as we could count in a day, we should make a long day of it.” — Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

While we are not obligated to pursue as much blessing as possible, some blessings require this caveat more than others. 

For example: Children are a blessing. The Bible tells me so.

Psalm 127:3

Behold, children are a gift of the LORD,

The fruit of the womb is a reward.

But children are the kind of blessing people are happy to have at a minimum. They use birth control and family planning to limit how much blessing they have to put up with. They postpone marriage in order to pursue other things. They then pick marital partners based on how many children the other wants to have. They can't imagine what they would even do with 5, 6, 7 kids. That would be too many.

It's a good conversation and one well worth having.

But riches are a blessing as well. The Bible tells me that too.

Proverbs 10:22

It is the blessing of the LORD that makes rich.

But money is the kind of blessing people are happy to see maximized. Few have invested much if any thought into how much money would be too much for them. No one uses wealth control to keep themselves from becoming too well off. No one uses upward mobility management to keep from getting promoted too quickly. No one goes into marriage with a ceiling of how much money they are comfortable making or picks their partners for their insistence on making no more than a particular dollar amount per year. No one takes measures to make sure they only have so much money. And no one lacks ideas for what they would do if they had more of it. Creativity abounds and wish lists accumulate when it comes to considering MORE money.

It's a conversation worth having, but few are contemplating or considering it.

Time is a blessing from God. We tend to want less of it, like children, when we think of it in terms of responsibilities and we tend to want more of it, like money, when we think of it in terms of personal fulfillment. We want our work to be short and our leisure to be long. We want our obligations to be quicker and our play to be extended.

day no. 15,908: a prey to emotion rather than a master of intellect

"Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that to-day, when the proportion of literacy throughout Western Europe is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisement and mass-propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard-of and unimagined?" -- Dorothy L. Sayers, The Lost Tools of Learning

Literacy without logic is more dangerous than illiteracy. The illiterate may be taken advantage of by the learned, but the illogical literate may be taught to thank the learned for taking advantage of them.

"It has been the great tragedy of our time that people were taught to read and not taught to reason." -- G. K. Chesterton 

Knowing how to read without knowing how to reason only produces fodder for propaganda, but knowing how to reason what you read reduces the utility of propaganda.

"For we let our young men and women go out unarmed, in a day when armour was never so necessary. By teaching them all to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean; they do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are a prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects. We who were scandalized in 1940 when men were sent to fight armoured tanks with rifles, are not scandalised when young men and women are sent into the world to fight massed propaganda with a smattering of 'subjects'; and when whole classes and whole nations become hypnotised by the arts of the spellbinder, we have the impudence to be astonished. We dole out lip-service to the importance of education— lip-service and, just occasionally, a little grant of money; we postpone the school leaving-age, and plan to build bigger and better schools; the teachers slave conscientiously in and out of school-hours, till responsibility becomes a burden and a nightmare; and yet, as I believe, all this devoted effort is largely frustrated, because we have lost the tools of learning, and in their absence can only make a botched and piecemeal job of it."  -- Dorothy L. Sayers, The Lost Tools of Learning

The brain is a battlefield. As C.S. Lewis once noted, "the head rules the belly through the chest." In other words, our thoughts lead our instincts through our desires. Our brains must lead us into battle. Education is not merely being taught what to think, but being trained how to think. It is not learning a lot about something, it is learning how to see everything in anything.

1 Peter 1:13

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind.

Get your head in the game.

Ephesians 6:4

And, you fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

"In this passage, Paul requires Christian fathers to provide their children with a 'paideia of the Lord.' To the ancient world, the boundaries of paideia were much wider than the boundaries of what we understand as education. Far more is involved in paideia than taking the kids to church, having an occasional time of devotions in the home, or even providing the kids with a Christian curriculum." -- Douglas Wilson, The Paideia of God

God has given parents, and fathers in particular, the charge to ensure that their offspring are raised in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. We cannot fail them in this without being held accountable. We must dedicate ourselves and discipline ourselves to discipline and instruct them.

The word "education" is derived from the Latin word ēducātiō (a breeding, a bringing up, a rearing) from ēducō (I educate, I train) which is related to the homonym ēdūcō (I lead forth, I take out; I raise up, I erect) composed from ē- (from, out of) + dūcō (I lead, I conduct).

Education is about leading someone somewhere, It is leading them out of something and into something else. All education is therefore, religious. It all believes and begins with a doctrine of origins and ends with a doctrine of eschatology. There is no neutrality because everything has value. Everything is either complementing or competing with where you're trying to go or how you're trying to get there.

day no. 15,907: laudo

"Pride is passive, desiring only the applause of one person, which it already has."

-- G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

Pride is self-satisfied or self-condemned. Either way, it's vote is final. It has the last word. No one can overrule the proud. If it sees itself as guilty, no one else can acquit them. If it sees itself as innocent, no one else can condemn. No one else's opinion matters. The only opinion that matters is the one already held. So, even when pride disparages itself, it congratulates itself for its high standards. Its assessment is always ultimate. It applauds itself even for its criticism of itself.

day no. 15,906: the new nuns... from convent to corporate

"Unless women are willing to sacrifice their sexuality in the pursuit of their career and become nuns in devout service to the corporation, they have to deal with the fact that they will get pregnant." -- Rebekah Merkle, Eve in Exile

Corporations and colleges have replaced convents.

Once upon a time, a woman could make a vow of celibacy for the sake of pursuing a life of service in the house of God in lieu of a life of serving a husband and children in a household of God. Today, women take vows of sterility for the sake of an advanced degree and upward mobility in the marketplace. These modern acolytes are no less devoted than their sister ancestors. They are equally as committed as the nuns of days gone by. However, the nuns of yesteryear at least knew full well that they were religious, whereas the modern sisters of sophisticatti do not. These new nuns are devoted to worshiping their gods and devoting themselves to their demands without realizing the sacrifices they are making. The offerings are so ubiquitous they are rarely noticed. They have so flooded the market that one rarely notices how damp everything is.

day no. 15,905: entitled egalitarianism

Deuteronomy 25:14–15
You shall not have in your house two kinds of measures, a large and a small. A full and fair weight you shall have, a full and fair measure you shall have, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

Equality is a virtue, except for when it isn't. It, like avocados, can go bad pretty quickly. Equality left on the counter spoils. Entitled Egalitarianism, as Doug Wilson calls it, is simply *Screwtape's "democracy" re-purposed for a post-Christian society.

Egalitarianism desires more than mere equality of access, it requires equality of outcome. It wants everything to end up equal -- not just guaranteeing a fair fight, but a draw.

By doing so, however, it is itself an unfair measure. It weighs a matter based entirely on its outcome. And because it is easier to cut a few inches off the tall than it is to produce a few inches in the short, those at the privileged end of any stick are the objects of their fair-mindedness. The tall throw the level off. The rich make the bell curve move. The handsome remind the ugly of their ugliness by the disparity. So, they all simply need to be taken down a few notches. It's easier  and more efficient to cut some people down than to lift everything else up.

As Margaret Thatcher once observed, "(they) would rather that the poor were poorer, provided that the rich were less rich."

As long as everything ends up equal. Even if that means equally bad. Egalitarianism prefers equally bad to unequally good. Equal is the goal. That is what becomes of pursuing equality as a virtue without considering it in the world that God has made. This is what comes of failing to measure equality by any other standard. When equality is the only standard you have, you have nothing to judge your equality. It makes equality untouchable and subject to nothing else. But equality is only good when in submission to God. Outside of His rule, it is merely a fashionable tyrant.

Egalitarianism isn't concerned with everyone being at the starting line at the same time. It isn't mainly concerned with a fair start. That is the fair and square kind of equality God gets behind. Egalitarianism is concerned with engineering and ensuring that everyone crosses the finish line at the exact same time. In order to accomplish this, the race must be rigged. In other words, egalitarianism embraces unfairness as a means of achieving what it calls "fair." Fair and square for them is not measured at the starting line, but at the finish.

God commands equality of standard, not of outcome. An ounce should be the same regardless of whose ounce it is. An inch should be the same regardless of what part of town its measuring. But the scale should not read 12 oz. regardless of what is placed upon it. A scale should not say ten pounds regardless of what is placed upon it. That is simply unfairness in another direction. It is equal, but it is wicked. Equality not always a virtue because lying never is. Equality is like the little girl that Longfellow knew who had the little curl right in the middle of her forehead... when it is good, it is very good indeed, but when it is bad, it is horrid.

*C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Proposes a Toast, postlude to The Screwtape Letters

day no. 15,904: running the wrong direction

1 Corinthians 13:11
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

Once upon a time, little boys wanted to be like their dads when they grew up. Nowadays, many dads wish they could get back to being boys again. The discontent has begun to run in the wrong direction. We have elevated the wrong end of the stick.

Boys wanting to be men is godly discontent producing maturity.
Men wanting to be boys is ungodly malcontent producing immaturity.

Hebrews 6:1
Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity.

day no. 15,903: ordo amoris

Colossians 3:1-7 (KJV)
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: for which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: in the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.

We were made to set our first and best affections on God above and to set what’s left on His green earth below. We were not made to despise the ground beneath our feet, but to praise the God above the heavens and to thank Him for the feeling of mud between our toes and dirt under our fingernails. The problem with our affections is not having them, but having them out of order. C.S. Lewis, in the Abolition of Man, agreed with Augustine who said that the aim of education is ordo amoris, or ordered affections.

The apostle Paul urges us to set our affections first and foremost where they belong first and foremost, on God above. He also exhorts us to kill our disordered affections. Better to die to desire than to live under disordered ones. When we place anything above God, we ruin whatever affections we have for it. Our first and best given to anything except Him ends in the worst at last. But when we love Him above and beyond any and every other thing, we are set free to love whatever He gives. We do not honor the Giver by rejecting His gifts, we love the Giver by receiving what He gives and appreciating it enough to keep it around, but not on the top shelf.

day no. 15,902: the guardians of heathen genius

Therefore your end is on you,
Is on you and your kings,
Not for a fire in Ely fen,
Not that your gods are nine or ten,
But because it is only Christian men
Guard even heathen things.

For our God hath blessed creation, 
Calling it good. I know
What spirit with whom you blindly band
Hath blessed destruction with his hand;
Yet by God's death the stars shall stand
And the small apples grow.
  -- G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

Only the meek will inherit the world; what worldliness seeks, it leaves to the meek. Those who worship the world won't get to keep it. All of their efforts are only done for the sake of those they despise. The heathen's best inventions will not be taken with them. Their best efforts will be left to those who gave their allegiance to God. Whatever genius God inspires in the heathen, He leaves to others. All their vanity and achievement are like the houses and vineyards the Israelites inherited when they entered Canaan.

The blood of the Son has purchased the world and He has left it to His faithful servants in His will. He has stored up the world and all its treasures, beauty, and goodness as an inheritance for those who love Him.

day no. 15,901: a quest and a dragon to kill

When God put man in a garden
He girt him with a sword,
And sent him forth a free knight
That might betray his lord;

He brake Him and betrayed Him,
And fast and far he fell,
Till you and I may stretch our necks
And burn our beards in hell.

But though I lie on the floor of the world,
With the seven sins for rods,
I would rather fall with Adam

Than rise with all your gods.
-- G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

God gave Adam the ability to fall. He made him a knight, gave him a mission, provided a quest, and a dragon to kill. But Adam fell short of the glory of God by reaching up for what was forbidden. Yet God forgave Adam and provided the promise of a Dragon-slayer Son who would reverse the curse and inhabit His people as they warred with the sons of serpents. I would rather fall with Adam than rise on the wings of fallen angels. The second Adam, the Son of Man and Son of God, rose from the dead and ascended to His throne where He rests His feet on the heads of His enemies. It is better to be resurrected from the dust with Adam than to ascend to the penthouse of Babel.

day no. 15,900: your stupid preference

"While the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid." -- G.K. Chesterton

Those who make it their habit to tear down old statues and statutes simply because they are old hand down an inheritance of hating history. But that merely means that any statues and statutes they erect are merely destined to be destroyed by their descendants. You don't fix someone else's stupid by asserting your own. Your issue, in that instance, is not their stupidity, but your preference. When one stupidity simply replaces another it becomes obvious that the issue was never a matter of eliminating stupidity, but of merely elevating your own.

day no. 15,899: what's left ain't right

"The politicians said the working-class was now strong enough to be allowed votes. It would be truer to say it was now weak enough to be allowed votes." -- G.K. Chesterton, A Short History of England

The right to vote is only given to those too weak to secure it for themselves. In this sense, then, the right does not belong to voter, but to the one allowing you to vote. What's left to you ain't right, but relegation.

The strong make their vote count. They aren't given the opportunity by anyone else, they create the opportunity for themselves. To be given a right is to be too weak to secure it; and if f it can be given, it can be taken away. If it isn't yours unless someone decides to give it to you, it won't be yours when they no longer feel like they want you to have it. This is why rights must come from God and not men.

John 14:27

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

The world gives in order to get. If someone is giving you the right to vote, you are the product they are purchasing. If they give you rights, you are theirs by right. But God gives differently. He doesn't need anything from you and whatever He demands from you is for your benefit, not His. When the world gives, you should be troubled by wondering what it is they want from you, but when God gives, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." (Luke 12:32)

day no. 15,898: camel hair and honey

“Nine times out of ten, the coarse word is the word that condemns an evil and the refined word the word that excuses it” -- G.K. Chesterton, The Victorian Age

Some of the words we disapprove of are words that would condemn our behavior because, as it turns out, we don't like be disapproved of. In those instances, the word considered coarse, is the only word that could condemn. Sometimes condemning sin is considered coarse across the board so that the very act of confronting it is itself considered a faux pas. And if it comes to that, the man covered in camel hair and honey may be the most civilized man in society, no matter what they say. Their vitriol may be approved by their dictionary of decorum, but in God's lexicon it's still considered slander and their peacekeeping may be considered proper by their standards, but by God's it's charged as treason.

day no. 15,897: good works... except when it doesn't

"We are not saved by our labors, but it is most certainly the case that our labors, along with us, are also saved (1 Cor. 15:58)." -- Douglas Wilson, Nancy Rust, RIP

Our labors cannot save us. They, like us, are damnable. They are filthy rags and refuse. They are unable to make pure because they are, themselves, defiled. But they, like us, can be redeemed. They can be saved and sanctified by the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ on our behalf. And if we are saved, our works must be as well. God doesn't save us in part. He doesn't leave anything left unsaved of that which is saved. If you are to be saved, all of you is to be saved: mind, body, soul, word, thought, and deed.

"The grace of God which saves Christians and the good works that Christians do are two things that exist in a necessary relationship. But it is crucial that we get that relationship right because it is the relationship of cart and horse. We must know which is the cause and which is the effect." -- Douglas Wilson, Nancy Rust, RIP

Our good works must follow our salvation by necessity and in that order. They must follow. They cannot lead. They must follow. They cannot be absent. They must be there, right behind, exactly where they belong. If there are not good works behind you, it calls into question what's ahead of you.

All that to say, we are saved from good works and saved unto good works. Our belief in our good works is something we need to be saved from. So, we don't need to be saved out of doing good works, but from trusting in them. And once we've been saved from them, we are safe to do as many of them as possible for the glory of our God and the good of our neighbor.

day no. 15,896: to be saved is to be saved out from

This Man receiveth sinners -- Luke 15:2

“‘This Man receiveth sinners;’ not, however, that they may remain sinners, but he receives them that he may pardon their sins, justify their persons, cleanse their hearts by his purifying word, preserve their souls by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, and enable them to serve him, to show forth his praise, and to have communion with him. Into his heart's love he receives sinners, takes them from the dunghill, and wears them as jewels in his crown; plucks them as brands from the burning, and preserves them as costly monuments of his mercy.... This fact is still most sure this evening, He is still receiving sinners: would to God sinners would receive Him.“ — C.H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

God does not save people by leaving them where they are. He welcomes all to come as they are, but suffers none to stay as they are. To be saved is to be saved out from. If you do not want to budge from where you feel like you belong, you cannot be surprised that you are not saved out from where you currently are. 

Jude 1:20-23
But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.

God does not snatch sinners from the fire by leaving them in the fire. God does not protect branches from burning by letting them burn. You cannot beg God to pull you from the flames and then complain that you can no longer smell the smoke. To be saved from sin is to plucked out from it and separated from it. Sin is separation. It separates people from God, from each other and from themselves. God desires us to be separate, therefore, from sin. There will be separation. It is inescapable. You will be separated from something. Will it be God, your neighbor and your reflection in the mirror or will it be from sin?