blink

just read the aforementioned book: written by the same man who wrote The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell. love thinking about thinking! a short book and well worth the read; also just read to the end of the Poisonwood Bible by B. Kingsolver...i think that gets most of her books read. i'll admit to getting tired of reading it after about 2/3s of the way...i already know those people; i lived with them, grew up with them, and perhaps am not as amused by them as another might be. well written as always, but perhaps it's a little too close to too many real folks i've known to be merely a humorous/tragic portrait of a missionary family; however, Fowles' comment to Leah that "There are Christians, and then there are Christians" is the theme of the story and well illustrated! i think of my own father and remember how his attempts to be that "other" kind of Christian were met with horror by his congregations: we don't want their kind mixing in, who cares about their eternal souls and the bodies that house them?
i remember the people whose kids came to church in jeans and tee shirts. they were clean, but this was before the Jesus people and frankly, there was a very detailed and unwritten dress code. The family lasted not more than a month, in spite of dad's attempt to bring them clothes and food in the drafty old house where they were holed up. even my mother (or perhaps especially my mother) was not at all comfortable with rescuing the perishing if they weren't already pretty well-dressed and well-socialized or able to pick up those all important social cues in a quick study. i think dad would have done a lot more of that if it weren't so blatantly obvious that you could bring em to Jesus but you couldn't bring em to church. Only Jesus would have them; certainly we can't expect the voting and giving members of this church to start supporting people who obviously will not become contributors. Identifying with the poor meant instead that you supported people in other countries who passed out your old clothes or toys to kids whose pictures flashed across church walls in slide shows. they had tees that declared "hot stuff" or "born to be wild" in broken scratchy faded letters...or better yet, a tee declaring loyalty to an american political candidate.
then there was the missionary who published the weekly newspaper for the communists and then the other days of the week could print christian literature and do the whole rescue the perishing deal with the cooperation of the local communists who apparently were glad to have a slice of the conceptual pie. and the missionary who i still am not sure is not completely out of his mind and who dragged his family through south america to do things that no one is sure he ever did...from a very delusional family and after while they just stopped communicating...makes mr poisonwood look pretty reasonable in ways.
and yet, the grace goes on. God still gets His way and far more often than not, real change and real joy and genuine peace is pursuant...it's never easy but it is excellent.